The old African-American aphorism “When white America catches a cold, black America gets pneumonia” has a new, morbid twist: when white America catches the novel coronavirus, black Americans die.
There is emerging evidence that many disadvantaged communities in the United States are being disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. Native American communities share some of the characteristics of other disadvantaged communities that might make them susceptible to greater impacts, but they also face unique challenges.
A Guardian analysis found that about 80% of state health departments have released some racial demographic data, which has already revealed stark disparities in the impact of Covid-19 in black and Latinx communities. But of those states, almost half did not explicitly include Native Americans in their breakdowns and instead categorized them under the label “other”.
