Ties between race and COVID at heart of Lorain County Urban League's diversity conference

ELYRIA — Black Americans are being diagnosed with COVID-19 at a rate far greater than white Americans, with about 2.6 times as many cases per capita nationwide. Parris Smith, president and CEO of the Lorain County Urban League, called the most recent CDC numbers "alarming." The nonprofit will hold its 2020 Diversity & Inclusion Conference at 6:30 p.m. tonight, live on Facebook. A main thrust will be delving into the inequities Black Americans face in health care. The Health Policy Institute of Ohio will also present information about what COVID-19 looks like in the Black community and how racism plays into the picture. "I think sometimes society thinks, 'It's just another thing with the Black community. We talked about slavery and we talked about Jim Crow and they're over,'" Smith said. But she views the situation quite differently — she sees the prevalence of COVID-19 cases among African-Americans as a lingering, measurable result of centuries of racial inequality. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say Black Americans are hospitalized for the coronavirus at 4.7 times the rate that white people are, and die more than twice as often from the virus. Hispanic people and American Indians also have sky-high cases, hospitalizations and death rates compared to whites and Asians. There is no doubt minorities are contracting COVID-19 in disproportionate numbers overall, Lorain County Health Commissioner David Covell said. He cited estimates of 200 and 300 percent diagnosis rates in New York and other big urban centers. The case numbers in Lorain County hold remarkably close to census numbers on race and population. As of Wednesday afternoon, there were 217 local COVID-19 cases involving Black residents, making up about 10.26 percent of all cases in Lorain County. By comparison, 2019 census data says 9 percent of county residents are Black. Of the 78 deaths here, seven were African-Americans (8.9 percent). And of the 216 people hospitalized, there were 33 Black people (15 percent). Keith Armitage, medical director of University Hospitals Roe Green Center for Travel Medicine & Global Health, said COVID-19 cases are more closely tied to socioeconomics than race, though both are related. He said Black people and other minorities are more likely to use public transportation, live in multigenerational households and have more crowded quarters. Also, blue-collar workers are less likely to be able to work from home, Armitage said. Both he and Smith said Blacks make up a much larger percentage of essential workers, especially those in service industries such as restaurants and grocery stores and come face to face with customers, increasing the risk of exposure. They are also at a higher risk for obesity, hypertension, diabetes and other health conditions, while facing disparities in access to health insurance. That's an enormous problem, because COVID is most deadly when it weakens the immune system's strength against other diseases. "What happens with COVID-19 is, when you have an underlying health condition, you can't fight it off as well," Covell said. Health science and social factors such as poverty, housing, transportation, child mortality, education and racism are all inextricably intertwined, he said: "This idea that we can separate them is just a wrong idea." The closest thing to a silver bullet that Lorain County Public Health has is improving kindergarten readiness. Covell said that preparing kids to learn improves their chances of one day getting better jobs, and that means they'll have better access to health care. Watch the 2020 Diversity & Inclusion Conference live at facebook.com/lcurbanleague. Contact Jason Hawk at news@lcnewspapers.com.