The New York Times, August 11, 2020: Opinion | Racism’s Hidden Toll
As hospital beds filled up this spring, health departments in cities like Milwaukee and Charlotte, N.C., began to report an alarming trend: A disproportionate number of their patients were Black.
Data eventually revealed that the pattern was nationwide. Black people were three times more likely than white people to contract the coronavirus, six times more likely to be hospitalized as a result and twice as likely to die of Covid-19.
The gap in Black and white infections has become part of a conversation this year about how deeply racism is embedded in the day-to-day lives of Black people.
“An epidemic shows in a short period of time what’s been going on for hundreds of years,” said David Ansell, who directs community health equity at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.
