African Americans die from coronavirus at disproportionate rate, reports say
A civil rights group says it has “grave concern” that communities of color in the United States are seeing disproportionate death rates in the coronavirus pandemic.
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization created by President John F. Kennedy to combat discrimination against racial minorities, asked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Monday to release “daily racial and ethnic demographic data related to” coronavirus testing. The organization cited multiple news articles and local health data that indicated “African Americans in some cities and counties are being infected and dying from COVID-19 at higher rates than their white counterparts,” the letter reads.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards announced Monday that the state will soon release information detailing more in-depth demographic data on coronavirus cases, according to WWLTV.
“Slightly more than 70% of deaths in Louisiana are African Americans,” Edwards said in a press conference. “That deserves more attention and we’re going to have to dig into that and see what we can do to slow that down,” WWLTV reported.
The Illinois Department of Public Health released some racial data on Friday, The Atlantic reported. It revealed that while African Americans make up only 14.6% of the state’s population, they make up 28% of confirmed coronavirus cases, according to The Atlantic.
The population of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, is 26% black, but almost half of the county’s 945 cases are African Americans, according to ProPublica. African Americans also account for 81% of the county’s 27 deaths, ProPublica reported.
African Americans make up 14% of Michigan’s population, according to the Lawyers’ Committee’s letter to HHS. But 33% of the state’s confirmed cases and 41% of its coronavirus deaths are African Americans, according to data from Michigan.gov.
Why is there so little data on racial and ethnic demographics when it comes to coronavirus?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requests racial and ethnic demographic data from health departments through the COVID-19 Case Report Form, according to the Lawyers’ Committee letter. But the CDC “is not currently publicly reporting racial or ethnic demographic data for COVID-19 cases or tests performed across the country,” the letter says.
“The Administration’s alarming lack of transparency and data is preventing public health officials from understanding the full impact of this pandemic on Black communities and other communities of color,” the Lawyers’ Committee wrote.
The Committee argues that access to racial and ethnic data is “especially critical for Black Americans across socio-economic groups for several reasons.”
“First, systemic racism and bias in the healthcare system have resulted in chronically poor health outcomes for Black Americans, including higher rates of asthma, high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes,” the Lawyers’ Committee said.
Second, easy access to testing is especially important for Black communities, which are more vulnerable to exposure to the coronavirus, according to the Lawyers’ Committee.
“Only 20% of Black workers are able to work from home, while almost a third of their white counterparts can do so,” the committee wrote.
Third, “Black Americans face insurmountable barriers to testing and treatment for COVID-19,” the Lawyers’ Committee said. “These barriers are exacerbated by the fact that racial minorities are suddenly uninsured, as they are overrepresented in recently shuttered industries, such as travel, retail, restaurant and hospitality.”
This story was originally published April 6, 2020 at 10:48 PM with the headline "African Americans die from coronavirus at disproportionate rate, reports say."