Black and brown communities across the United States are more likely to die from COVID-19, according to early data, which also highlights the longstanding disparities in health and inequalities in access to medical care. The numbers are particularly alarming in cities with large African American populations like Chicago, New Orleans, Detroit and Milwaukee, which are becoming hotspots for the coronavirus.
In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said that more than half of Chicagoans who have died from COVID-19 are African Americans. 'We are all in this crisis together but we are not all experiencing this crisis in the same way,' Lightfoot said Monday.
Black residents in Chicago accounted for 72 per cent of deaths from COVID-19 complications and 52 per cent of positive tests for the coronavirus, despite making up only 30 per cent of the city's population, according to the city's public health agency.
This graphic shows the COVID-19 case characteristics for Chicago residents. More than 50 per cent of cases are from the black community
Data shows that in the entire state of Illinois, black people make up about 30 per cent of the state's cases and about 40 per cent of its coronavirus-related deaths, according to statistics provided by the state's public health agency.
However, African Americans make up just 14.6 per cent of the state's population.
In Michigan, black people account for 40 per cent of the state's reported deaths, according to data released by the state, but its population is only 14 per cent African American.
Many US states, including hardest-hit New York, have not released demographic data showing the virus' toll on different racial groups. But according to an op-ed published in The Atlantic by Ibram X. Kendi, the director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University, there are some indications that communities of color may be particularly affected.
Kendi said he analyzed data released from The New York Times on the number of coronavirus cases per 1,000 people for every zip code in the Big Apple.
'Queens zip code 11370 has the city’s highest rate of confirmed infections, with 12 cases per 1,000 people; the neighborhoods it includes are 37 per cent Latino, 25 per cent white, 22 per cent Asian, and 14 per cent black,' Kendi wrote.
'In the adjacent zip code of 11369, which has the city’s second-highest rate of confirmed infections with 10 cases per 1,000 people, the population is 64 per cent Latino, 15 per cent black, 12 per cent Asian, and 8 per cent white.
According to census data, New York City is 32.1 per cent white, 29.1 per cent Latino, 24.3 per cent black, and 13.9 per cent Asian. 'But averaging out the racial composition of the five New York City zip codes with the highest coronavirus rates shows a significant overrepresentation of Latinos 45.8 per cent and Asians 23.4 per cent, and a significant underrepresentation of whites 21.2 per cent and blacks 8 per cent when compared with their citywide populations,' Kendi wrote.
Poster Comment:
THE VIRUS IMITATES LIFE. IT DISCRIMINATES AGAINST DUMB EFFERS.