Ever since the last day of February when the first recorded death in the United States of COVID-19, the number of deaths have continued to rise and the news media has been all over it–giving us updates as the number climbs. Within a month after that, we are over 3,700 deaths and numbers are expected to skyrocket further.
Dr. Tony Fauci, the nation’s number one infectious disease expert (you’ve seen him on the news and at the White House a lot), said on March 29 on CNN that it is possible to see between 100,000 and 200,000 COVID-19-related deaths by the end of the crisis. But that’s not the half of it.
In early March, we posed the question if Black people were immune to COVID-19. But with the new numbers, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
As a matter of fact, the more and more research comes out, it seems that an alarming number of these deaths are disproportionately of Black people.
So is COVID-19 a virus that hits Black folks more seriously than it does people of other ethnic make up or is the virus afflicting those with health disparities, something Black Americans rank highest at? Hmmmm….
Wait…I hear the conspiracy theorists coming.
The deaths of Black Americans are being noted throughout the nation. In Wisconsin, as of March 27th, of the state’s 14 COVID-19 deaths, eight of the victims were Black. That’s 57 percent of all Wisconsin deaths in a state where the Black population is just 6.7 percent. The bulk of the deaths were in concentrated in Milwaukee which happens to be one of the cities with the highest African American populations in the state.
mid adult professional woman tries to work at desk despite being sick, upset or stressed
Now, take Detroit for example; another city with a high African American population.
As of March 29th, 132 people in the state lost lives due to the virus. Of that, “Detroit and suburban Wayne County combined account for 49 percent of all confirmed cases of coronavirus in Michigan – and 42 percent of the 132 deaths. That’s disproportionately high to Wayne County’s share of Michigan’s population, which is about…
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