Coronavirus is not the ‘great equalizer’ – race matters: U of T expert – U of T News
One of the first stories to use race-based data to talk about the risk that Black communities face because of COVID-19 came on March 30 from the Charlotte Observer. The article said Black residents in Mecklenburg County, in Charlotte, N.C., accounted for 43.9 per cent of the 303 confirmed COVID-19 cases locally, but Black residents make up only 32.9 per cent of the county’s population.
More recently, the non-profit investigative journalism site ProPublica published a story on April 3 based on early data that shows “African Americans have contracted and died of coronavirus at an alarming rate.”
Indigenous communities globally have also been speaking about how the new virus may have more devastating impacts on their communities.
The fear and mistrust of health systems expressed by many in Black, Indigenous and racialized communities stem from historical eugenic practices of both governments and individual doctors. These communities have experienced systemic racist violence for generations. They have recently experienced xenophobic responses to COVID-19 and historically, other health crises.
Read More: https://www.utoronto.ca/news/coronavirus-not-great-equalizer-race-matters-u-t-expert
