Racism contributes to Covid-19’s “double blow” impact on black community, says Fauci

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Fauci noted that some black adults may not be able to distance themselves socially if they are essential workers and there is a disproportionate prevalence of underlying conditions in the black community, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, chronic lung disease and kidney disease.

“So, unfortunately, we have a situation where it’s kind of double,” Fauci said.

But also, “obviously, the African-American community has suffered from racism for a very, very long time,” Fauci said. “I can’t imagine that this doesn’t contribute to the conditions they are in, economically or otherwise.”

It’s not the first time Fauci has talked about Covid-19, which has had an excessive impact on black Americans.

“African Americans have suffered disproportionately from coronavirus disease. They have suffered because their infection rate is higher due to the nature of the economic status in which many of them are out of work and unable to physically separate,” Fauci said. , director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on the podium of the US Department of Health and Human Services “Learning Curve”.

“And when they get infected, given the social determinants of health that make them … they have a higher incidence of diseases such as hypertension, obesity, diabetes,” said Fauci. “They present a much higher risk of suffering the harmful consequences, including death.”

Social determinants of health include the conditions in which people are born and live that can affect their health, as well as the complex social structures and economic systems that shape these conditions, including discrimination in access to and quality of care.

The coronavirus pandemic has made it clearer than ever that the United States needs to invest in communities – especially in ways that could reduce health disparities, a racial justice expert said last week.

The coronavirus pandemic strikes black and brown Americans, especially on all fronts
“I think we need to think about allocating more resources to address the issues that create disparities and the prevalence of coronavirus susceptibility,” said David Harris, director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School, Facebook Live Talk .

“It is the way in which institutional racism, for lack of a better word, infiltrates some very, very specific and particular differences in treatment,” he said.

Addressing racism and Covid-19 in a discussion of inequities and policing on Thursday, Harris highlighted issues that put black communities at a disadvantage as the pandemic continued.

“Coronavirus has revealed to us that we also need to invest massive amounts of resources in our communities,” Harris said.

“Even if we have a vaccine and are able to survive the virus, we cannot forget the lesson the virus has taught us,” he added. “We still have to insist on these resources.”

CNN’s Naomi Thomas contributed to this report.

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