Black Americans Have the Virus More Than Whites

Surprise, surprise, surprise! The latest research on COVID-19 reveals that African Americans catch the virus more than the white population.

The older you are, the more susceptible you are to getting the virus. And the blacker you are, the more likely you are to get the virus. Blacks are five times more likely to die from the virus. And if you are over 70 years of age, you are 10 times more likely to die from the disease.

Without a doubt, African Americans are disproportionately affected by COVID-19. The public might be confused about that, however, as we watch the height of white society live with the virus, including Prince Charles, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, the First Lady of Canada, Sophie Trudeau, actor Tom Hanks, opera singer Placido Domingo.

Worldwide as of Easter Sunday, 114,000 deaths had been recorded globally from the virus, around 22,000 deaths in the USA. In Illinois, there have been to date 21,000 cases and over 700 deaths.

Males are more likely than females to get the virus. If you are sick or have a pre-existing ailment, you are at a higher risk of dying from the virus. In order of pre-existing conditions, those with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, hypertension, and lastly, cancer, are subject to death should the virus attack.

Nationally, African Americans have the disease more than others because of poor health care in the areas listed above. Here are some health stats from the web site Black Doctor:

• Diabetes is 60 percent more common in Blacks than in whites.

• Black men are 50 percent more likely than white men to get lung cancer.

• Strokes kill four times more 35-to-54-year-old Black Americans than white Americans.

• Blacks develop high blood pressure earlier in life than whites.

• Nearly 42 percent of Black men and more than 45 percent of Black women aged 20 and older have high blood pressure.

• Black men have a 40 percent higher cancer death rate than white men.

• African-American women have a 20 percent higher cancer death rate than white women.

• Blacks are 50 percent more likely to get lung cancer than white men.

In other words, the health disparities of Black folk weaken the immune system and cause many to be more likely to get coronavirus and die because of it.

These disparities are due to poor eating habits, lack of access to quality and fresh food, fast food diets, lack of exercise, lack of medical attention, and poverty. Poverty can kill you because of the lacks it demands.

These stats are startling, but hardly surprising. Racism has caused much harm to Black America; there is a constant lack of what constitutes a healthy life, from money and education to employment, housing, and health. Centuries of discrimination, segregation, and cutoff have taken a toll on the whole of a people.

The virus is now invasive enough to be statistically recorded and as the demographics are just being reported with accuracy and target, the stats are probably actually worse than we realize at this time.

Amazing what zip codes disclose. Chicago remains a segregated community and the following zip codes tell the different patterns of the virus as it attacks Blacks compared to whites. Here is a look at Black and white zip codes and the coronavirus cases within them:

Black Zip Codes:

60637 169

60649 198

60620 359

60629 255

White Zip Codes:

60661 18

60642 35

60606 12

60633 31

High Black Death Rates
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot addressed the drastic difference of this information, as she discovered it. In a press conference of enlightenment with dead seriousness, the event got off track when a reporter asked if she had gotten her done professionally. Lori replied yes and said her stylist had gloves and a mask on while cutting her hair.

This fact, this personal grooming notion, made national news and once again the despairing Black statistics got somewhat lost and did not receive the national attention and addressing they deserved.

The ladies of The View used the Lightfoot hair cut to discuss what women are doing with their hair while shut-in. I am hoping that the Mayor will appear on the show to discuss the real issue about African Americans and the virus.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, with political savvy, addressed the issue by sharing that communities will receive 15 machines for rapid testing. However, as he addressed the machines on the South and West sides, the locations were not disclosed in the daily press conference.

Seemingly missing from the daily briefings is municipality coordination. As the Mayor and the Governor disseminate information, do they confer with each other with points and plans? Just asking. For instance, the Governor indicates that summer festivals will probably be canceled, while the Mayor is undecided. Shouldn’t they speak together and as a singular voice?

Meanwhile, Toni Preckwinkle, the one responsible for public health, is absent from the press briefings completely. A much more efficient way to address the very tired and locked up public would be for the three principals to hold a joint press conference daily with different information on what each is doing, but with focus.

Preckwinkle has secured an ice warehouse, with 18-foot wheeler trucks, like a morgue for 2,000. Hopefully, we won’t have to use it. But she fires the one doctor, Dr. Terry Mason, who has been the strongest voice on good health for Black Chicago at one of the most critical times in our life. When further pressed on her questionable decision, Preckwinkle says that he wasn’t good with operations. What the hell does that mean? And then she has no further comment.

The Governor prepares rapid testing and he and the Mayor readies McCormick Place for the coronavirus patients to recover. They tell us we haven’t peaked yet, that we must stay in, as we become bored and the weather becomes warmer and we become anxious.

We still haven’t peaked, and today, every day, the death numbers increased. The news now gives us the virus numbers like a sports score. Crime has decreased by 40 percent worldwide. So now we know that if you stay in, the criminals won’t act.

The virus is serious, and the masks, the human spacing is working because the numbers are taking a dive. But Spring is here and people are getting bored in the house and anxious to come out and do something to enjoy the weather.

We continue to live day by day with updates on the killer virus. We abide, stay woke and watch as our lives rest in the hands of the politicos.

Wear your mask. Wash your hands. Stay in. Vote.