Data from COVID-19 cases show that African Americans are more likely to be affected by the coronavirus. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Kamala Harris called on the United States Department of Health and Human Services to expand testing throughout minority communities.
The CDC has not officially separated coronavirus cases by race. Still, there is local data from Milwaukee, Illinois, and Wisconsin that backs the senators’ argument for the CDC to address the racial differences in the health care system when it comes to coronavirus cases.
The demographics in Illinois is 60% white and 14% black, but 30% of the state’s 10,360 confirmed cases are African-American, while Caucasians make up 29%.
African-American Americans in Michigan make up 34% of confirmed coronavirus cases and 40% of coronavirus related deaths. Again, only 14% of the Michigan population is African-American.
Milwaukee coronavirus cases have plagued African-American men. Milwaukee made a serious jump from one confirmed case to 40 confirmed cases within a week. The following week that number jumped to 350 confirmed COVID-19 cases.
Congressional Democrats wrote a statement to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar March 27, stating,” How persistent inequities may exacerbate these disparities in the weeks and months to come as our nation responds to this global health pandemic. The CDC is currently failing to collect and publicly report on the racial and ethnic demographic information of patients tested for and affected by COVID-19.” The letter continues, saying.” Our concerns echo those from some physicians that decisions to test individuals for the novel coronavirus may be more vulnerable to the implicit biases that every patient and medical professional carry around with them, potentially causing black communities and other underserved groups to disproportionately miss out on getting tested for COVID-19. Although COVID-19 does not discriminate along racial or ethnic lines, existing racial disparities and inequities in health outcomes and health care access may mean that the nation’s response to preventing and mitigating its harms will not be felt equally in every community.”
Experts in healthcare believe that social-economic factors and the lack of trust and access to proper healthcare make African-Americans more likely to be exposed and die from the virus.
History has shown that African-Americans suffer more from asthma, diabetes, and maternal death than any other ethnic background. To make matters worse, the CDC recognizes respiratory illnesses, diabetes, and pregnancy as underlying health issues that increase the chances of being exposed to the coronavirus.
ProPublica noted that in cities like Detroit, where the majority population is African-American, are now considered a hotspot. Trump has also declared Louisiana as a hotspot, where 40% of the state’s deaths of COVID-19 have been African-American.
Dr. Camara Jones, a family physician, epidemiologist, told ProPublica,” The coronavirus is unmasking the deep disinvestment in our communities, the historical injustices and the impact of residential segregation.”
Jones has spent 13 years at the CDC, identifying, measuring, and addressing racial bias within the United States medical system. The CDC declined to comment when asked if they were keeping a record during the pandemic.
” This is the time to name racism as the cause of all of those things. The overrepresentation of people of color in poverty and white people in wealth is because we’re not valued,” Jones said.
Statistics from Milwaukee county show 1,122 confirmed cases with 34 deaths. The city’s resident population is 39% African-American, with the county being 26% African-American.
Eleven residents who’ve died had diabetes, 8 had hypertension, and 15 had other chronic health conditions, such as heart and lung disease.
” It will be unimaginable pretty soon,” Infectious disease physician and associate dean at Howard University College of Medicine, Dr. Celia J. Maxwell, told ProPublica.” Any virus that comes around is going to be worse in our patients. Many of our patients have so many problems, but this is kind of like the nail in the coffin.”
In Milwaukee, the average life expectancy for African-Americans is 14 years shorter than Caucasians.
Coronavirus cases across the U.S and the globe have mainly focused on the age of the victims. Still, in Milwaukee, where various ages have been exposed to the virus, half of the cases are African-American.
The main reason Milwaukee has been urging that race is a factor in the coronavirus pandemic, is because the city has” declared racism as a public health issue.”
Milwaukee Health Commissioner Jeanette Kowalik told ProPublica,” It frames not only how we do our work but how transparent we are about how things are going. It impacts how we manage an outbreak. What black folks are accustomed to in Milwaukee and anywhere in the country, really, is pain. Not being acknowledged and constant inequities that happen in health care delivery.”
To further show disappropriation, a ProPublica report used the example of a 25-year-old woman who was forced to leave a hospital because she couldn’t get immediate treatment for chest pains. She died shortly after.
The President of the Milwaukee NAACP, Fred Royal, said he knew three people who had died from coronavirus and one was his 38-year-old cousin who was told to self-medicate.
Royal said it was” alarming” that people were being told to go home and self-medicate during a pandemic, only to die.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
American Journal of Emergency Medicine in 2019 found that African-Americans were less likely than Caucasians to receive proper medication for acute pain because African-Americans are perceived to have a higher pain threshold. Plus, African-American are viewed to have less than adequate healthcare insurance.
African-Americans are more likely to be exposed to the virus due to other factors that make social distancing an issue. African-Americans are more likely to work a job that doesn’t allow them to work remotely.
African-Americans in Milwaukee County earn 50% less than Caucasians. ProPublica also reported that African Americans are also more likely to use public transportation, especially in New York, despite the city being the epicenter of the pandemic.
The congressional letter continued to state that many low-income residents have a chronic illness that the CDC and U.S health officials identified as underlying risk factors that increases the chances of death from COVID-19.
” For example, Black and Hispanic adults are more likely to suffer from obesity and diabetes than white people. Black people and immigrants lack insurance, and many minority communities see shortages of quality health care providers, making it difficult to access appropriate and timely care,” Congressional Democrats wrote.
” Furthermore, a history of discrimination and marginalization has left some people of color distrustful of the medical system, making them less likely to seek out timely care.” It also states that people of color have fewer financial resources to use in the event of a health crisis or economic downturn. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The letter to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services also warned of a devastating blow the CDC’s ‘subjective criteria’ for testing will have.
Linda Martinez, a Boston University community health researcher at Boston University, agreed that testing areas need a closer look.
” When COVID-19 pandemic is over, and we assessed the losses, it will be deeply tied to the story of post-World War II policies that left communities marginalized,” Martinez told ProPublica.” Its impact is going to be tied to our history and legacy of racial inequities. It’s going to be tied to the fact that we live in two very different worlds.”
A representative for Government Alliance on Race and Equity, Gordon Francis Goodwin, added,” This is a matter of taking a look at how our history kept people from actually being fully included.”
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