COVID-19 disproportionately impacting Black and Latinx populations
CALLIE FRYE, DAILY MOTH REPORTER:
Hello. Did you know COVID-19 is killing a disproportionate number of Black and Latinx patients across the United States?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released data on Friday that revealed 30 percent of COVID-19 patients are African American, even though African Americans make up around 13 percent of the population of the United States.
Among the cities where black residents have been hard-hit include Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans and Milwaukee.
Last week on Tuesday, Oprah talked to CBS voicing her concerns on the disproportionate impacts of coronavirus on the African American community. Oprah urged African Americans to take the coronavirus pandemic seriously because it is “ravaging our community’ and ‘taking us out.
Now, the burning question is…why do we see high percentages of COVID-19 patients being brown and black people?
I asked Dr. Joseph Hill that question and check out his responses!
DR. JOSEPH HILL:
So, we see more and more cases of COVID-19 and we can see the high percentage of those cases are black and brown people. We have to wonder why that happens. Often, we can identify a factor that normally affects black and brown people. One is structural racism. Structural racism or more specifically environmental racism which is another factor affects those who are concentrated in certain areas where they are heavily polluted which causes illness and other health issues like asthma for example. There are factories that produce pollution that hurt the communities close to them, but in the other areas where there are no factories, the communities are healthier. So the affected communities suffer with health problems. And not only that, there is also stress to consider that someone as a black person or a brown person has to deal with daily such as racism or suspicions. It’s just the general stress on a daily basis. Stress also causes health issues.
For example, the health issues like high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, and more can be attributed to one main factor: racism. This is something that some people brush off as something that is made up, but this is the case. Compared to black people who live in the other countries where there is a lower number of cases related to racism that is unlike America, they are healthier in many ways than Americans. That’s just the reality in America.
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How do black and brown people easily get COVID-19? Why are there so many of them? It’s often related to jobs. It’s the economy. There are black people who have jobs that allow them to stay home, but for many others, they are involved in the service industry, the service workers in health, food, and sanitation. They are required to go to work everyone in person. That’s something that can’t be avoided. That’s the issue. Also, at their jobs, their employers may not provide the protection the workers need against COVID-19. That’s another issue. For example, a black woman was a grocery store employee. She felt obliged to go to work because people needed food. She had to stock up on groceries and pack them for the customers. Then she got sick with COVID-19 and died from the complications. The employer didn’t provide her with the mask and gloves to protect her from the virus. The employer didn’t protect their workers. It was the same in many other places, until recently with the number of cases going up, the employers were pressured to provide protection for the workers and force customers to comply with the rules and policies on physical distancing and approaching employees in a proper way. Those polices were just enforced recently.
There’s also transportation to consider. People who drive can be safe in their own cars. But for people who don’t drive, what are the options? There’s a taxi, Uber, Lyft, bus, and subway. That puts them in a situation where they can easily get infected. This is unavoidable. This is an issue. There are layers to this situation that affect how people can protect themselves from contracting the virus.
CALLIE FRYE:
Thank you.
Dr. Anthony Fauci told reporters that for the African American community, health disparities have always existed even before the coronavirus outbreak.” He said “… It’s not that they’re getting infected more often, it’s that when they do get infected, their underlying medical conditions, the diabetes, the hypertension, the obesity, the asthma, those are the kind of things that wind them up in the ICU and ultimately give them a higher death rate.”
Hundreds of years of racism has delivered poor health and economic outcomes for black people, making them more vulnerable in the pandemic. The US healthcare system has failed black and Latinx populations for decades. Now they are paying the price.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8220609/Oprah-Winfrey-warns-coronavirus-ravaging-black-community-reveals-concern-health.html
https://www.vox.com/2020/4/17/21225610/us-coronavirus-death-rates-blacks-latinos-whites
https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19/2020/4/18/21226225/coronavirus-black-cdc-infection
https://www.chronicle-tribune.com/news/lootcal/dr-moore-dr-fauci-say-covid-19-data-sheds-light-on-racial-disparities-in-health/article_00636c29-4fc6-5bff-b208-128abfaedd7c.html