The COVID-19 virus was once called the “great equalizer” because of its potential to infect anyone and everyone at pandemic speed. But data on mortality rates tell a different story.
Instead of affecting everyone equally, the coronavirus is amplifying the racial disparities in health outcomes across the United States. The disparities result from the country’s own pre-existing condition: an environment where people’s living and working conditions are anything but equal when it comes to pollution levels and protection from harmful toxins.
These disparities are most visible in urban environments that have become pandemic hot spots. There, the coronavirus kills a higher percentage of minorities than it does of the cities’ overall populations.
In the nation’s pandemic epicenter, New York City, black and Latino people die at about twice the rate of the total population. In Chicago, the disparity is even more dramatic: Black people account for about 70 percent of coronavirus deaths but make up roughly 30 percent of the city’s population.
In early April, before Wisconsin went ahead with in-person voting, about 80 percent of Milwaukee’s coronavirus fatalities were black people, though the black share of the city’s population is just 25 percent. Since then, seven more coronavirus cases have been linked to voting on Election Day, but the full impact of virus spread is not yet known.
While these statistics shocked many, environmental-justice experts and advocates were not surprised.