ABOVE: © ISTOCK.COM, LYUBOY IVANOVA
The COVID-19 pandemic has probed and exposed gaping fissures in the global healthcare landscape. There have been dramatic failures in the capacity to care for the affected, in the ability to diagnose, in prevention, and in intervention. Among the many astounding observations about the pandemic and the world’s response to it has been the consistent differential effect of SARS-CoV-2 on different communities and populations.
In the United States, COVID-19 has been more widespread and injurious among people of color, particularly among African American and Latinx people. Epidemiologists made this observation soon after the virus’s introduction to the country, and the pattern has held up in metropolitan areas as diverse as Houston, New York City, and Seattle. Reports ascribe the difference to the higher prevalence of underlying disease such as diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease in these populations. That comfortable explanation, while true on its surface, ...
