The coronavirus pandemic has infected more Americans than any other nationals in the world. Covid-19 has also infected and killed more people from the black community than other races in the United States.
There was a belief at some point that the virus does not infect blacks people. These statistics may help in dispelling such unfounded myths.
African American death statistics
The following are the United States Covid-19 statistics:
| Confirmed 400,549 | Recovered 21,711 | Deaths 12,857 |
The statistics have been further broken down per race. It is reported 70% of the deaths in the United States are blacks. According to the Washington Post Covid-19 appears to be infecting and killing black Americans at a disproportionately high rate.
An analysis of available data and census demographics shows that counties that are majority-black have three times the rate of infections and almost six times the rate of deaths as counties where white residents are in the majority.
In Milwaukee County, African Americans deaths are at 70 percent of the dead despite them being 26% of the population. The anomaly is the same in in Louisiana, where African Americans account for 70% of the total deaths. African Americans are a minority in Louisiana at 32% of the population.
In New York’s and New Jersey’s, African Americans account for 40 percent of deaths, despite being only 14% of the total population in those cities. There are no statistics at the moment in Detroit, where African Americans make up 79 percent of the population.
In Chicago, black residents have died at a rate six times that of white residents in the city. In Illinois, of the city’s 118 reported deaths, nearly 70 percent were black.
The President of the United States Donald Trump admitted for the firs ttime that the black community was the most vulnerable during the crisis.
President Trump publicly acknowledged for the first time the racial disparity at the White House task force briefing Tuesday.
“Why is it three or four times more so for the black community as opposed to other people? It doesn’t make sense, and I don’t like it, and we are going to have statistics over the next probably two to three days,” Trump said before he assigned Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to ‘strongly’ look in to the issue.
What could be reasons for blacks’ vulnerability to Covid-19?
Why has this pandemic ignited the racism question? Whats the purpose of giving a race dimension to mere statistics? The topic has to be discussed if a solution has to be found. Yes the black community in the United States is vulnerable.
The socio-economic conditions of different racial groups may have a bearing on the infection rates. Certain demographics are more prone to certain underlying conditions like diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure.
Some reports are indicating that it’s not a secret that the pandemic has strained the heating capacities of USA. Some states have toyed with protocols dealing with delicate issues such as which life to save and which life to let go. If these hard decisions are being made in a society such as the USA minorities are most likely to suffer.
Those same underlying conditions affecting African American communities per the article are also present locally. We should be learning and adopting from their experiences to best establish a suitable response.
Overcrowding and lack of health support systems is another reason for the high death rate for blacks in USA. Trumps succeeded in removing Obamacare in his first couple of years. Another underlying condition is the use of public transport . The surviving black community believed maybe the Covid-19 pandemic will help people address the challenges faced by blacks in the United States.