African Americans among hardest hit by coronavirus

New information out from the White House on Tuesday on which coronavirus patients are suffering the worst outcomes. CNBC's Eamon Javers reports.

White House officials worry that the COVID-19 outbreak is disproportionately hitting African Americans harder than other groups and are working with state and local officials to begin tracking how the coronavirus impacts different ethnicities.

Dr. Anthnony Fauci, who sits on President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force, said the COVID-19 outbreak is “shining a bright light” on how “unacceptable” the health disparities between blacks and whites are. “Yet again, when you have a situation like the coronavirus, they are suffering disproportionately,” Fauci said of minorities.

“It’s not that they are getting infected more often. It’s that when they do get infected, their underlying medical conditions ... wind them up in the ICU,” he said at a White House press conference Tuesday.

Public health officials have known that conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and asthma disproportionately affect African Americans, Fauci said. “Unfortunately, when you look at the predisposing conditions that lead to a bad outcome with coronavirus, the things that get people into ICUs that require incubation that often lead to death, they are just those very comorbidities.”

Dr. Deborah Birx , coordinator for the White House coronavirus task force, said officials are working with black communities to improve messaging on the risks of the virus.

“We don’t want to give the impression that the African American community is more susceptible to the virus. We don’t have any data that suggests that. What our data suggests is they are more susceptible to more difficult and severe disease and poorer outcomes,” she said.

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[marissaxxx]

All these cities that they are choosing from are predominantly black Americans cities. But if they want to talk about the issues that African Americans are facing with the virus shouldn’t they be doing the same for Caucasian people? Who probably been the most of all affected besides the People in China.

[Terra]

We have had a stay at home order in my state for a few weeks. My job is considered essential and gets me in the heavily black populated area of the city. I was blown away by the amount of people that were out and about. Kids off of school playing outside. People just hanging out. I believe many weren't taking this virus seriously.

[musashi-san____]

Gee... I wonder why African Americans have such high blood pressure? What might be causing stress in their life?

[McQueenPress]

We'd like to see a nationwide break down of morbidity statistics across all racial demographics rather than numbers cherry-picked from Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta, and New Orleans. We've been provided insufficient data for the media to run with this as a narrative.

The virus originated from the Asian community and Seattle is still a hot spot. Also Hispanic and Native Americans have equal or even worse health disparities than African Americans.

We also need morbidity rate comparisons to Seattle, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Dallas, Houston, Miami.

[brochal]

To understand this we have to go back to the basics. Consumption of processed foods, especially fast foods, full of sugars, salts, bad fats and all kinds of chemicals over the years weakens our immune systems exponentially, makes us obese and susceptible to all kinds of diseases including COVID-19. Nothing more, nothing less. Period.

[marissaxxx]

You can lie about the numbers but you cannot lie about the outcome

[tonyaberman]

America is crazy. Not sure if you can even trust what they are saying. I’m African American and I have plenty of black family in England, they are not dying more than anyone else over there. Africans aren’t dying at a higher rate from Corona and it’s not a lot of people in the Caribbean dying from this. Why is it only and always something bad happening to African Americans in America?

[lenirasusana]

Call them just Americans for God's sake!!

[QuatMan]

lolol...they definitely wont be doing the ONLY thing necessary...putting money i the black neighborhoods. If they wont be doing that, then no need of even pointing it out.

[QueenLadyQ]

Not enough money made in these communities can't afford to eat well. Disenfranchise, economically bankrupt by a system that was never designed for them

[ashidamungin]

They are not practicing social distancing

[g.i.nmediaglobalinformatio]

Blacks are being targeted I’m mad asf about this

[scaldon]

First off I'm a black man. So I can address this . Black people have alot of underlying conditions due to poor diet. Such as diabetes or high blood pressure . It's not that black people don't have money, but they dont use their money to buy healthy food . In the black community materialistic things like clothes and cars are looked upon highly . So that's where black people spend their money . In black communities they eat little debbie snacks like honey bun and etc . They drink Arizona juice which has massive amounts of sugar . So its the underlying illnesses that are causing complications.

[jsfreq]

There's just something off about this but whatever screw the news sometimes. Cause it feels like sometimes they are just planting seeds inside the mind ..

[blackdust]

Fake news. This report is about as real as Ariana Grande's ponytail.

[octosalias]

Disproportionately poor neighborhoods, bad healthcare options, and in my experience not wearing masks, or wearing them improperly.

[mann]

it is more about the homeless and those hanging round on the streets being more infected.

[whitdough]

😒. 400 years after, and now we're being thought of😐.




'Leave us alone'

[sipps]

I am totally frustrated by this stupid narrative. Only 48% of the patients are black. I realize that only 14% of the county is black. What makes me angry is that everything has to be about prejudice. I live in a black community. We are informed and there are still big parties going on within a half mile of my house. I have family members going to them. Older Aunts and Uncles are telling those who are choosing to put themselves and there families at risk to stop. But they will not listen. We are invincible. It is not just the young people it is older people too. And for that matter two weeks ago I drove through a party with over 50 people and there was a smattering of white in the crowd. The media does not need a stimulus because of coronavirus, it needs a stimulus because of the bad reporting.

[teesceeo]

A lot of black people don't get the proper treatment due to racism in the medical field. They get to the hospital in need of respiratory machines and they don't get them, they get treated like "oh u just need to go home and rest"... Sad that even in times like this we can catch a break.