Fighting Coronavirus | Why Covid-19 Disproportionately Kills Black Americans | 12

American Innovations

Wondery

Steven Johnson, History, Kids & Family, Education For Kids, Science

4.6 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2020

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There’s a saying in public health circles: “When white America sneezes, black America gets pneumonia.” When the coronavirus hit, health care experts knew that black Americans would be the hardest hit. But the numbers were still shocking. Black people make up 12.7% of the U.S. population but have so far made up 22% of its Covid-19-related deaths.

On this episode, Steven talks to reporter Linda Villarosa about the reasons behind those numbers, and her quest to give them a human face in her New York Times Magazine article, “A Terrible Price: The Deadly Racial Disparities of Covid-19 in America.” Along the way, she offers hope that we might be able to turn this current crisis into a call for action.

Articles by Linda Villarosa:

“A Terrible Price: The Deadly Racial Disparities of Covid-19 in America,” New York Times Magazine: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/29/magazine/racial-disparities-covid-19.html

“How False Beliefs in Physical Racial Difference Still Live in Medicine Today,” New York Times Magazine: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/racial-differences-doctors.html

“Why America’s Black Mothers and Babies are in a Life-or-Death Crisis,” New York Times Magazine: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/magazine/black-mothers-babies-death-maternal-mortality.html

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to American innovations
0:03.6	and free on Amazon Music.
0:05.6	Download the app today.
0:16.8	From Wondery, I'm Stephen Johnson.
0:19.3	And this is Fighting Coronavirus.
0:30.0	Of all the forms of inequality and justice in health is the most shocking and the most
0:47.4	in human.
0:48.4	That's a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.
0:51.6	Speaking at the Medical Committee for Human Rights, back in 1966.
0:56.4	54 years later, inequities in health are still a pervasive problem in the United States.
1:02.7	This week, Americans have taken to the streets to protest police brutality against black Americans.
1:08.7	But over the past three months, black Americans have also been affected by COVID-19 in alarmingly
1:14.6	unequal numbers.
1:15.6	In Chicago, black Americans make up 29% of the population, but 70% of the COVID-19-related
1:23.0	deaths.
1:24.0	In New York, where I live, black people are twice as likely as white people to die from
1:28.6	the virus.
1:29.9	The disparities are self-evident.
1:32.3	The reasons for them are less so.
1:34.7	We can't pin these numbers on individuals, bad doctors, or people who've made bad health
1:39.3	decisions.
1:40.8	Numbers like these require stepping back and looking at the systems that produce them.
	...

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