Black Americans are dying of COVID-19 at a higher rate than anyone else. Why, and can anything be done?

The story of the coronavirus in the U.S. shows discrepancies by geography, age, sex and other factors, but one stands out above all: Black Americans are infected with the virus and die from it at disproportionately higher rates than any other group in the country. But it’s not enough to admit the problem. There are short-term and long-term solutions to level the field.

Video Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

JEROME ADAMS: We're taking steps now in the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic to reach, protect, and strengthen all communities impacted by this disease, and especially our communities of color.

ANTHONY FAUCI: We have a particularly difficult problem of an exacerbation of a health disparity. We've known literally forever that diseases like diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and asthma are disproportionately afflicting the minority populations, particularly the African-Americans.

JEROME ADAMS: Stay at home, if possible. If you must go out, maintain six feet of distance between you and everyone else, and wear a mask if you're going to be within six feet of others. Wash your hands more often than you ever dreamed possible. Avoid alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. And call your friends and family. Check in on your mother. She wants to hear from you right now.

ANTHONY FAUCI: Unfortunately, when you look at the predisposing conditions that lead to a bad outcome with coronavirus, the things that get people into ICUs, that require intubation, and often lead to death-- they are just those very comorbidities that are unfortunately disproportionately prevalent in the African-American populations.

JEROME ADAMS: We need you to do this if not for yourself, then for your abuela. Do it for your granddaddy. Do it for your Big Momma. Do it for your Pop Pop. We need you to understand, especially in communities of color, we need you to step up and help stop the spread so that we can protect those who are most vulnerable.

EDMOND BAKER: My name is Edmund Baker, and I'm currently the medical director at Equality Care Centers in Phoenix, Arizona. The new data that's becoming available is really quite alarming because what it shows is that the African-American community as well as other underrepresented communities are at a higher percentage of the COVID death rate. For example, Louisiana-- 32% of the population are African-American. 70% of COVID deaths are African-Americans.

Other states like Mississippi have 66% of the COVID deaths being African-Americans, Alabama 53%. US as a whole, where 13% of the population is African-American, 34% of the COVID deaths are African-American. The bottom line is that poverty is a public health issue. Looking at the recent census data and seeing that the two highest poverty rates are amongst Native Americans and African-Americans at 27% and 25%, respectively. You are already putting people at the disadvantage because if you're part of the poverty level, and you have a lower socioeconomic status, you have decreased access to medicine, which means late access to medicine, which means poorer outcomes, no matter how you look at it.

RAPHAEL WARNOCK: Hi, I'm Reverend Raphael Warnock. I'm the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, and I am a candidate for the United States Senate. What we are seeking in this virus is what many of us have seen for years in the kinds of work that we've been engaged in trying to deal with disparities in health care, access to affordable care. We know that black people are disproportionately represented in the Medicaid gap. I was among those voices fighting for us to expand Medicaid in this state.

These are the challenges that ordinary working people are dealing with every day, and they need those who would be representing them to fight for a living wage, fight for access to health care, to make sure that they get their essential needs met in the midst of actually having to close large portions of the economy down.

EDMOND BAKER: Short-term solutions to protecting the African-American community from bad outcomes with the COVID virus is basically extend the stay-at-home initiatives. We need to stay out, away from where the virus is. And if we are part of the population that has to come in contact, that we have the proper protective equipment, and we understand what putting that equipment on means and how to protect our loved ones at home.

RAPHAEL WARNOCK: Well, in the short term, we've got to encourage and urge everybody to take this very seriously. Leaders in general-- I think faith leaders in particular-- ought to be leading the way on this issue. Two weeks ago, I had my first death in the Ebenezer congregation from the coronavirus. A very sad story, and you can multiply these stories over and over again in our country. But here was a high school coach, the father of 16-year-old twin girls who grew up in our church. I've watched them grow up, and they lost their father to the coronavirus at the very time when we are called to embrace one another in the wake of grief.

This virus adds insult to injury because it requires us to engage in distancing when we would normally be engaging in intense embracing.

EDMOND BAKER: So long-term solutions are difficult, but they're not going to help us right now. But what they will help us with is with the underlying problem of racial disparity in medicine. So improve resources, and that's easy to say, but what does that mean? That means for this situation, more testing supplies, easier access to physicians like myself, more testing sites, and improved community partnerships because that is extremely important at a time like this.

RAPHAEL WARNOCK: We have the highest number of cases, and that's without knowing all the people that we ought to be testing. We are the most powerful nation on earth, and part of what makes us a great nation is not necessarily our material wealth, but the wealth of spirit, the ability to respond to a crisis like this and stand up and show up for one another. So I want to make sure we're doing that in public policy.