“So unfortunately we have a situation where it’s kind of double,” Fauci said.
But also, “obviously the African American community has suffered racism for a very, very long period of time,” Fauci said. “I can’t imagine this not contributing to the conditions they are in, financially or otherwise.”
It’s not the first time Fauci has talked about Covid-19 that negatively affects black Americans.
“African Americans have suffered disproportionately from coronavirus disease. They have suffered from a higher rate of infection due to the nature of the economic state in which many of them are out of work because they cannot be physically separated “. “Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services podcast” Learning Curve. “
“And then, when they get infected, they take into account the social determinants of health that make them have a higher incidence of diseases like hypertension, obesity and diabetes,” Fauci said. “They are at a much higher risk of suffering the harmful consequences, including death.”
The coronavirus pandemic has made it clearer than ever that the United States needs to invest in communities, especially in ways that can reduce health disparities, a racial justice expert said last week.
“It’s the way institutional racism, for lack of a better word, seeps into some very, very specific and particular treatment differences,” he said.
Addressing racism and Covid-19 in a talk on inequality and policing on Thursday, Harris highlighted issues that have put black communities at a disadvantage as the pandemic has continued.
“The coronavirus has revealed to us that we also need to invest large amounts of resources in our communities,” Harris said.
“Even if we have a vaccine and are able to survive the virus, we cannot forget the lesson the virus taught us,” he added. “We still have to insist on these resources.”
CNN’s Naomi Thomas contributed to this report.