Demographic data vital to fight coronavirus in black, brown communities | Opinion
COVID-19 may be indiscriminate in its geography, but it hits the poor and people of color far harder than their wealthier, whiter neighbors.
- Brandon Tucker is the policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee.
As the coronavirus pandemic deepens and spreads across our country, access to quality health care has emerged as the chief determinant of who lives and who dies. Sadly, this pandemic has only exacerbated the historical vulnerabilities plaguing our communities of color. Ensuring that black and brown communities have access to affordable housing, quality food, good-paying jobs and the ballot box, as well as a fair and sensible justice system that protects and serves them, will also be a matter of life and death as we emerge from this crisis.
COVID-19 may be indiscriminate in its geography, but it hits the poor and people of color far harder than their wealthier, whiter neighbors. The Census Bureau estimates Tennessee’s population to be 17% black or African-American. So far black Tennesseans account for a reported 21% of positive cases and 32% of deaths from the virus. However, race information has not been reported in 24% of Tennessee cases and no demographic information has been reported on overall testing, nor on infection rates at the county level.
Our leaders have a simple choice. They can either ignore these stark facts and become complicit in the devastation tearing through our communities, or they can confront this reality head-on.
Data must be collected and shared
The first step in challenging these disparities is fully collecting and sharing data with the public to inform policy decisions. In addition to collecting complete demographic data for positive tests across the state, counties and municipalities must also comprehensively track the rates at which racial minorities are tested, infected, hospitalized and killed by COVID-19. Once we are armed with a thorough accounting of how this pandemic has exacerbated racial and economic disparities, we must engineer a plan and allocate resources to minimize the devastation and ensure it never happens on this scale again.
The issues facing the black community stem from generations of neglect and discrimination in health care, the economy and the criminal justice system.
Deck was stacked before pandemic
Chronic diseases in the black community are linked to structural disparities such as air quality, food deserts, a lack of accessible health care, underemployment, stress and, quite frankly, societal disregard. As a result, black people suffer disproportionately from asthma, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, obesity and hypertension. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 90% of patients hospitalized with coronavirus had one or more underlying health conditions.
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Black workers are also more likely to be employed in front-line, essential jobs, increasing their risk of exposure to the coronavirus. As the Guardian recently reported, 38% of black workers are employed in essential services, compared with 27% of white workers.
And, of course, jails and prisons are emerging as ticking time bombs for an outbreak, with no ability to socially distance, properly sanitize or protect older and vulnerable populations. In 2018, black people made up 17% of Tennessee’s population but 40% of its prison population.
The deck was stacked against communities of color before this pandemic even began.
The ACLU of Tennessee has written Gov. Bill Lee on multiple occasions since the start of the outbreak. We’ve urged him to take seriously the lives of incarcerated Tennesseans by collecting and sharing data on race, testing, infections and the conditions of quarantine behind bars. In addition, we have urged the governor to use his vast power to reduce the state prison population by safely releasing individuals whose sentence would end in the next year, who are being held on a technical supervision violation, and those who are especially vulnerable if infected and have sentences that would end in the next two years. We also urged the governor to support re-entry programs that can aid those individuals in returning to our communities.
We call on local and state officials to equip our medical professionals with the data necessary to inform immediate and future responses by providing demographic data associated with COVID-19 testing, infections, hospitalizations and deaths disaggregated by race, ethnicity, gender and disability status at the county level. Such transparency is integral to our response.
The president of the United States often dubs COVID-19 an “invisible enemy.” But societal, longstanding, not-so-invisible enemies are spurring this infectious disease to become its most destructive, particularly for communities of color. It is time our local and state leaders take these racial inequities seriously.
Brandon Tucker is the policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee.