Black Americans are dying from the novel coronavirus at a shockingly disproportionate rate. In majority-black counties, the Washington Post found, infection rates are triple that of majority-white counties. Deaths among Black Americans, meanwhile, are six times higher than that of whites.
Yet long before the pandemic, Black Americans have been dying at far higher rates than other Americans. They are victims of a longstanding epidemic of structural racism and unequal access to care. Unfortunately, the disparate impact of COVID-19 is only the latest chapter in an ongoing national tragedy, one that the virus has only brought into sharper relief.
Read more at Washington Monthly here.
Anne Kim 