President Donald Trump addressed the fact that Black Americans are being hit disproportionately hard by the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.
Trump expressed concerns about the number of deaths among Black people in economically deprived neighborhoods in Chicago, Detroit and Baltimore, for example.
“This is real problem and it’s showing up very strongly in our data on the African-American community,” Trump said at his daily taskforce press briefing in the White House press room on Tuesday. “It’s tremendous, it’s terrible,” Trump said.
Taskforce members Dr. Tony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx both explained that Black Americans aren’t contracting the virus at a higher percentage. But the data shows Blacks are dying at a higher rate than other races.
“We don’t want to give the impression that the African-American community is more susceptible to the virus,” Birx said at the briefing.
She added that the Black population has higher rates of underlying health conditions like diabetes, hypertension, asthma and obesity – which make battling COVID-19 more difficult.
“Health disparities have always existed for the African-American community but here again with the crisis how it’s shining a bright light on how unacceptable that is – because yet again, when you have a situation like the coronavirus [Blacks] are suffering disproportionately,’ Dr. Fauci said.
He added there isn’t much the medical community can do about the disparity, except ensure Black patients they will get good care when they do get sick with coronavirus.
The bottom line is Black people must take responsibility for our own health and well-being rather than wait until we get sick to seek medical treatment.
