Racism and COVID-19

Racism Exacerbates COVID-19 Effects for Black Communities

by: Tia Sheree Gaynor & Meghan E. Wilson

In 8 minutes and 46 seconds, the world watched Mr. Floyd beg for his life by explaining that he could not breathe. So many Black people, many residing in predominantly black communities, too cannot breathe.

The same racist state that perpetuates, condones, and valorizes police violence, is also producing disproportionately higher COVID-19 infection and death rates in predominantly Black communities. Black people in the United States are currently facing intersecting pandemics or a double pandemic. Racism, which is over half a millennia old and COVID -19, which emerged several months ago is infecting everything it touches.

As the architect of racial disparity, racism shapes the vulnerability of communities. Socially vulnerable communities are less resilient in their ability to respond to and recover from natural and man-made disasters when compared to more economically resourced communities. Racism exposes existing practices and structures in public administration that, along with the effects of COVID-19, have led to disproportionate infection and death rates of Black people.

In a recent project, we used the Centers for Disease Control’s Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) to analyze the ways Black people occupy the most vulnerable communities, making them bear the brunt of COVID-19’s impact. In our article, in Social Vulnerability and Equity: Disproportionate Impact of COVID-19, we found that existing disparities, largely racial, exacerbate COVID-19 outcomes for Black people. Life outcomes associated with the daily conditions of Black life in the most socially vulnerable communities predispose Black people to a hoard of disparities, health and otherwise.

In Cuyahoga County, Ohio and Wayne County, Michigan — counties with high levels of social vulnerability according to the Centers for Disease Control — also have some of the greatest disparities in infection and death rates, among their Black populations. According to APM Research Lab, Black people represent 24% of all known deaths, despite being 12% of the US population. They are 18% of deaths in Ohio (12% of the state’s population) and a shocking 41% of COVID-19 deaths in Michigan, although only 14% of the state’s population.

In our article, we highlight the severity of the double pandemic’s impact, illustrating how racism uncovers the politics, practices, and institutional structures that have exposed predominantly black communities for higher levels of social vulnerability. This increase is social vulnerability — proximity to environmental hazards, inadequate public transportation system, lacking public schools, poor housing condition, among others — exponentially increases a community’s resilience. We saw this in our examination of Cuyahoga and Wayne counties.

Because of racism, Black people are more likely to live in socially vulnerable communities and thus, as COVID data underscore, are more likely to be infected and die from the coronavirus.

The disproportionate rates are not because black people “do not wash their hands as well as other groups” nor are they sufficiently explained by the presence of comorbidities. The positive association between social vulnerability and COVID-19 infection and death rates do, however, highlight the adequate ways highly vulnerable communities were not able to respond to the virus’ impact.