17.5 percent,” according to a Crain’s Detroit Business report. Detroit has the nation’s highest percentage of Black residents at nearly 80 percent.
Dr. Teena Chopra, professor of infectious disease at Wayne State University, said underlying health inequities are leading to more serious cases of COVID-19 among the state’s Black population.
“Detroit is uniquely disadvantaged,” said Chopra during a March 30 interview on CNN. “Obesity, diabetes, heart disease; these all are underlying conditions that make (COVID-19) so deadly. Also, by the time we see (COVID patients) in hospitals they are already seriously ill. That’s because they are socially disadvantaged.”
That disadvantage of possible medical bias is highlighted by the case of Bassey Offiong.
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Offiong, a 25-year-old senior at Western Michigan University, who was set to graduate with a degree in chemical engineering, died when, despite showing multiple symptoms of COVID-19, he was denied testing according to his sister. Asari Offiong told the Detroit News that her brother was denied test multiple times by medical staff at a Kalamazoo, Mich. medical facility.
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