Why are Ethnic Minorities More Vulnerable to Coronavirus?

Inequality, Comorbidities, Public-Facing Jobs and Language Barriers Mean Some Groups are More Likely to Bear the Brunt of the Virus Why are Ethnic Minorities More Vulnerable to Coronavirus?

The first ten doctors to die in the UK were all from BME backgrounds.

People from minority communities are also less able to socially distance as they often live more closely together than in the general population.

people from such groups make up only 14 per cent of the population of England and Wales, for instance. The first 10 doctors in the UK reported to have died from Covid19- were all BAME and analysis suggests 60 percent of the total number of deaths among NHS staff with the disease are from a BAME background.

by Yasmine El-Geressi

During the coronavirus epidemic, people from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) face a disproportionately high risk of death from coronavirus, according to emerging data. Recent figures compiled by the UK’s Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre suggests that of nearly 5000 people critically ill with covid19- in England, Wales and Northern Ireland whose ethnicity was known, 34 per cent were from BAME backgrounds. New NHS England figures also reveal that, of the 13,918 patients in hospital who tested positive for Covid19- up to April ,17 16.2 per cent were of BAME background. But The UK is far from the only country where people from black and minority ethnic groups have been disproportionately affected. When Norway’s public health experts began looking into the backgrounds of those infected by coronavirus, they found that born in Somalia have infection rates more than 10 times above the national average. In the US, black Americans represent around 14 per cent of the population but 30 per cent of those who have contracted the virus. In the US, in Chicago, as of early April 72 ,2020 percent of people who died of coronavirus were black, although they only make up one-third of the city’s population. Similar reports have emerged from New York, Detroit and New Orleans.

The pandemic sheds new light on how racial dynamics manifest in ways that are complex and not entirely understood. An international research effort is under way to examine genetic differences that make some people more likely than others to be infected with the virus or to develop severe symptoms. In the UK, the Department of Health and Social Care announced on 16 April that a review would be conducted, to investigate why BAME people were being affected disproportionately.

While it is not yet clear why communities with proportionally higher number of BAME inhabitants appear to be dying at higher rate,

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scientists have already highlighted factors including the increased underlying health conditions among BAME people, such as heart conditions, type 2 diabetes and respiratory issues. The black population, where the discrepancy appears to be greatest, is particularly afflicted with hypertension. Diabetes is three-fold higher in this ethnic group, according to The Guardian. Both of those conditions will increase your risk of death once you’ve got Covid.

There are also concerns that social and economic inequality, which impacts minority communities more starkly, could be playing a role. In many majority-white countries, people from other ethnic and racial minority groups have less access to economic resources – such as high-earning jobs. That economic vulnerability often translates to food insecurity and a lack of access to consistent nutrition, has a number of consequences, including higher risk of underlying health conditions “There have been health inequalities that have existed in the [BAME] population but what is being reflected in this pandemic is that those inequalities are actually coming out,” Wasim Hanif, professor of diabetes and endocrinology at University Hospital Birmingham told The Guardian. He added: “Deaths happen in relation to complications related to diabetes all the time, as with cardiovascular diseases and cancers, but they have never hit the headlines and that’s the effect we’re seeing now.” There are healthcare disparities as well. In the

In the US, in Chicago, as of early April 72 ,2020 percent of people who died of coronavirus were black, although they only make up one-third of the city’s population.

US, Native Americans, Hispanic Americans and African Americans are less likely than whites and Asian Americans to have health insurance. Racial biases also play a role. US surveys have found that medical staff are more uncertain and less communicative with non-white patients than with whites, according to the BBC.

People from minority communities are also less able to socially distance as they often live more closely together than in the general population. BAME families are more likely to have multigenerational – grandchildren, parents and children – overcrowded homes than white counterparts. In the UK, just under a third of Bangladeshi households are classified overcrowded, as are 15 percent of black African households, according to government statistics. Meanwhile, only 2 percent of white British households are classified as overcrowded. Chinese households in the UK also have higher rates of elderly people living with children. People from BAME backgrounds are also

Nurses and healthcare workers mourn and remember their colleagues who died during the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (which causes COVID19-) during a demonstration outside Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan on April 2020 ,10 in New York City. (Getty)

concentrated in essential roles public-facing jobs such as transport and delivery drivers, shop keepers, as well as health and social care, where they risk greater exposure to the virus. One in five people working for the NHS in England, for example, is from an ethnic minority background, however these numbers are even higher when we look solely at doctors and nurses. 26.4 percent of Transport for London staff are from BAME groups. People of colour are also substantially more likely to be unemployed, underemployed or precariously employed, which makes them especially likely to undertake hazardous temporary or gig economy work like delivering food. In the US, farmworkers are often undocumented migrants from Latin America with little control over safe working conditions. It can be difficult to ensure physical distancing in the fields, isolation in the farmworker camps, or proximity to medical facilities, according to the BBC.

There are also concerns that social and economic inequality, which impacts minority communities more starkly, could be playing a role.

effect. Much of the initial public health guidance around Covid19- has been in dominant languages, points out Salman Waqar, an academic GP registrar at the University of Oxford and the general secretary of the British Islamic Medical Association. “There needed to be a better understanding at the beginning of this pandemic that these messages may not necessarily get through to the grassroots,” he told the BBC. Dr Sheikh-Mohamed, a doctor working in Norway, told the Finanical Times the authorities made a mistake by relying solely on written material that many in the Somali community could not understand.

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Iran and the Coronavirus Crisis

by: Elie Fawaz

The Iranian regime is a criminal government that will gladly sacrifice the lives and livelihoods of the Iranian people. It is for this reason that European governments need to sanction the regime and work closely with opposition forces within and outside Iran. Only then will this regime, which poses a threat to the people of Iran and its neighbours, be ousted

It is evident today that the Iranian regime has been lying about the number of Coronavirus deaths in the country. In the beginning of the crisis, Iran has been following the strategy of lying about how bad the situation was, and downplaying the crisis. It did so by claiming that the virus was a conspiracy targeted towards the Islamic Republic of Iran. The regime then deliberately underreported the true number of deaths in the country. What the regime didn’t consider was the fact that in this age of independent record keepers and social media, hiding true statistics such as these has become virtually impossible. We can now safely say that the Iranian regime is directly responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians since it underreported Coronavirus cases and failed to take necessary measures to stop the spread of the virus. But why did the regime go through so much trouble to hide the true case and death figures in the first place? Well the first answer to that question is that totalitarian dictatorships, like the one that is ruling Iran, are not known for being transparent as they always strive to hide information from their people. There might be a latent answer to this question as well. Before the virus hit Iran, it was undergoing two major events; it’s annual celebration of the Islamic Revolution and the 2020 legislative elections. First of all, the revolution celebration was necessary because the regime was faced with mass protests a few months prior in November 2019. The protests happened as a result soaring petrol prices, which saw a 300 per cent increase. As such, the regime needed to use these celebrations to send a strong message to the people, who have been suffering from deteriorating living conditions since the 2009 “Green Revolution”. The military parades were also a message to the outside world stating that despite the tough sanctions that the Trump administration has placed, the regime was still in full control of the country. Secondly, the regime was adamant that the legislative elections needed to take place and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei went as far to say that “Iran’s enemies” were exaggerating the dangers of the virus to scare Iranians away from voting booths. The Iranian regime has been silent on the dangers that the virus poses on the public, and a result of such negligence the virus rapidly spread across the country and thousands of innocent people lost their lives. To this day, the regime is still not transparent to its people, as it downplays the real number of victims. The Iranian regime’s decision to hide the real statistics has placed its regional allies, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, in danger since these countries have still not halted flights to and from Iran. This has caused the virus to spread to these countries, and when the Lebanese health minister was asked why flights haven’t been stopped, he said that it was because of “political reasons”. Another reason for the regime’s secrecy is due to fear of how the public would react to the real statistics. This might trigger a second wave of mass protests, something that the regime wants to prevent. The prospects of more mass protests is real especially since the people have been asking why Khamenei and his allies haven’t spent part of their fortunes to save the lives of infected Iranians, rather than spending it on military adventures in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. The regime isn’t spending money to save lives because it is benefitting from the Coronavirus crisis. This is because it has been exploiting the pandemic to call for the easing of the Trump administration’s sanctions. However, if the regime does get an ease of sanctions and international aid, then it will use it to fund its terrorist activities at home and abroad and for economic alleviation, rather than healthcare funding. The Iranian regime is a criminal government that will gladly sacrifice the lives and livelihoods of the Iranian people. It is for this reason that European governments need to sanction the regime and work closely with opposition forces within and outside Iran. Only then will this regime, which poses a threat to the people of Iran and its neighbours, be ousted.