The coronavirus can infect anybody, but African Americans are dying in disproportionate numbers, especially in certain big cities.
While New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo once called the coronavirus a “great equalizer,” data shows the virus has been anything but indiscriminate.
As the U.S. climbed to more than 10,000 coronavirus deaths on Monday, state health officials grappled with its disproportionate impact on black Americans. The disparity is especially stark in cities like New Orleans, Chicago and Detroit, where high concentrations of African Americans live.
Louisiana has the fourth largest number of Covid-19 cases in the country, and the majority of the Covid-19 deaths are in New Orleans, where black Americans constitute 60% of the population. “Slightly more than 70% of [coronavirus] deaths in Louisiana are African Americans,” the state’s governor, John Bel Edwards, said in a press conference on Monday. “That deserves more attention and we’re going to have to dig into that to see what we can do to slow that down…”
To read the entire article from The Guardian, click https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/08/its-a-racial-justice-issue-black-americans-are-dying-in-greater-numbers-from-covid-19