WHY ARE MORE PEOPLE OF BLACK AND MINORITY ETHNIC COMMUNITIES DYING OF COVID-19?

By • On Current Issue

‘People of Banglade­shi, Pakistani, Indi­an, Chinese and mixed eth­ni­cit­ies are also at sig­ni­fic­antly great­er risk of dying from Cov­id-19 than white people’ — The Office for Nation­al Stat­ist­ics (ONS)

While the world is suf­fer­ing from the dev­ast­at­ing effects of the pan­dem­ic, we can­not help but notice the dis­pro­por­tion in num­bers between race and the death rate. Black and Asi­an minor­it­ies are three times more likely to die of COV­ID-19 com­pared to the rest of the pop­u­la­tion. This is also true for coun­tries with lower death rates.

Three of the Lon­don bor­oughs with the highest death rates also have the highest num­ber of eth­nic minor­it­ies, which is a sign of a deep­er rooted prob­lem. The dis­pro­por­tion in the USA is even more sig­ni­fic­ant due to the lack of uni­ver­sal health­care. So much so that it is spark­ing con­spir­acy the­or­ies that this is a ‘plandem­ic’ — a ‘planned pan­dem­ic’ to reduce the pop­u­la­tion of eth­nic minor­it­ies. Look­ing at the num­bers it is hard to argue wheth­er this is com­pletely false in terms of treat­ment, there is a massive divide. There has been an urgent call into more research into the effects of COV­ID-19 on black and minor­ity eth­nic (BAME) communities

It is too early to determ­ine wheth­er genet­ic factors are to blame, but either way the effects of racial inequal­it­ies clearly have a major role to play.

But why is this? As defined by the Lan­cet, ‘eth­ni­city is a com­plex entity com­posed of genet­ic make-up, social con­structs, cul­tur­al iden­tity, and beha­vi­our­al pat­terns’ so it can­not be down to the col­our of skin alone. Eth­nic minor­it­ies make up a vast major­ity of low-paid labour, which make up many of the key work­ers, there­fore more exposed to obtain­ing an infec­tion and con­tract­ing COV­ID-19. 70% of Pakistani men are more likely to be self-employed than the white Brit­ish major­ity, which means they would cur­rently be out of work. Minor­ity groups are more often low-income fam­il­ies may not be able to afford nutri­tious meals, spa­cious hous­ing or a high­er stand­ard of life. Cul­ture is also a factor. Many Asi­an fam­il­ies live with vari­ous gen­er­a­tions of their fam­il­ies includ­ing eld­erly par­ents or rel­at­ives which may con­trib­ute to the high infec­tion rate due to the dif­fi­culties in being able to self-isol­ate. They may also suf­fer far more greatly from under­ling health con­di­tions such as hyper­ten­sion, car­di­ovas­cu­lar dis­eases or dia­betes (for which they may have genet­ic pre­dis­pos­i­tion) and are more likely to die from Coronavir­us com­plic­a­tions. Those with oth­er health con­di­tions who can­not attend the hos­pit­al or a face-to-face doctor’s appoint­ment are also dir­ectly impacted by not receiv­ing the care that they need. If they do get to the hos­pit­al, there is evid­ence to show com­munit­ies of eth­nic minor­it­ies are often treated dif­fer­ently, there­fore racial dis­crim­in­a­tion with­in health­care should also be con­sidered as a factor con­trib­ut­ing to the high death rates.

The world will nev­er be the same as we once knew it but from all of this dark­ness we hope these tra­gic num­bers will force our gov­ern­ments to look at our socio-eco­nom­ic divides and provide a more equal dis­tri­bu­tion of wealth and oppor­tun­it­ies. In oth­er words, a fair chance of sur­viv­al for us all.

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