COVID-19: It’s Because I’m Black
posted by Law | April 24, 2020 | In News, OpinionWhile the global pandemic ravages countries across the world, here in the United States, some have turned their focus to an unsavory bedfellow—an enemy with roots over 400 years old, yet seemingly as strong and contentious as the earliest arrival of enslaved Africans in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619.
COVID-19 has been called “The Great Equalizer,” compromising the respiratory systems of over 2.5 million unwilling hosts, robbing them of sense and smell and taste. For some, fever and headache were just a prelude to a fourteen–day battle for life, as the death toll exceeds 50,000 in the U.S. without prejudice.
Many States continue to fight, tirelessly, to combat the effects of the pandemic. As COVID-19 threatens the economy, the health care system, and the people who inhabit our communities, we face another rift.
“The coronavirus is infecting and killing black Americans at an alarmingly high rate,” according to the Washington Post. Following this headline, several other news outlets began to echo the alarm. The conversation shifted from global effects and pre-existing conditions to systemic racism and cultural bias.
“It appears to be infecting and killing black Americans at a disproportionately high rate,” said Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams.
Only a few states are reporting coronavirus cases and deaths by race: Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina, and Louisiana among them.
Chicago reports nearly 70% of the city’s death toll was African American.
Louisiana reports 70% of its 500 deaths were African American.
In a webcast for Revolt TV, Mayor LaToya Cantrell of New Orleans commented that COVID-19 has exposed our “fragility,” referring to the remaining destruction of hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Pre-existing conditions lead to bad outcomes, according to Dr. Uche Blackstock, founder & CEO of Advancing Health Equity.
There may be a litany of pre-existing conditions, inclusive of health and economic key factors. The assumption is people of color are less likely to have white collar jobs which allow them to work from home. It is just as likely for White, Hispanic, or Asian people to be front-line workers who have to go to work, and those jobs are less likely to come with comprehensive health insurance.
What is to be done? If we don’t globally address the issue of community spread in every community, if the conversation reverts to something so debase and basic as race, how do we uniformly provide?
Make it plain. Disproportionate to whom? Are we going to overlook the overwhelming numbers of infections and death that are plaguing the world? A whole planet, fighting the same global pandemic with heartbreaking statistics of infection and death. Are we really looking at systemic racism and inequities or are we simply looking at what scientists would call a data sheet?
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