Bonus Episode: Why COVID-19 Is Killing Black People

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 29 April 2020

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As black people die from COVID-19 at disproportionate rates, the disease is highlighting health disparities we’ve long known about. Kai Wright, the host of WNYC’s “The United States of Anxiety,” speaks with Arline Geronimus, a public-health researcher, about what happens to black people’s bodies—on a cellular level—while living in a racist society. Plus, we hear from one essential worker in New York who’s doing his best to weather the pandemic.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.
0:02.4	A couple of weeks ago, we spoke on the program about the vast racial disparities that we're seeing with COVID-19,
0:08.7	the stark differences in outcomes of black people and white people who were infected by the virus.
0:15.5	The reasons for this are a growing and necessary subject of attention.
0:20.2	So I wanted to share this with you from WNYC's program,
0:23.8	The United States of Anxiety.
0:25.8	In this episode, Kai Wright goes deeper
0:27.9	into some of the reasons for that racial disparity,
0:30.4	and he learns something that might even give us a note of hope.
0:34.9	Kai Wright will join me again on the New Yorker radio hour this coming week.
0:38.5	Here's the United States of anxiety. A few episodes back, right about as COVID-19 was hitting the
0:46.0	U.S., I introduced you to Dr. Gail Christopher. We talked about the racial disparities that were
0:52.5	likely to emerge in the course of this epidemic,
0:55.2	and at the time, there wasn't a lot of data on this question.
0:59.1	She and many others who pay attention to racial justice, they were clamoring for more information.
1:04.4	Well, the data's in.
1:06.2	Now to that growing and disturbing trend, the disproportionate impact COVID-19 is having on communities of
1:12.2	color. An associated press analysis of nearly 3,300 coronavirus patients who died found 42% of them
1:20.2	were African-American. Every place that's reporting racial data is reporting racial disparities in
1:25.4	terms of African-Americans in particular, having a higher
1:28.1	infection rate and having a higher death rate.
1:31.1	Listen, I'll admit, it feels good to think about viruses and diseases as these great equalizers,
	...

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