availability of vaccines, which some Americans have resisted. The Delta variant is driving the increase in hospitalizations, according to The Times.
There are very clear demographic differences in how COVID-19 has been handled and Michael Siegel, physician and researcher in the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine believes the deaths come down to structural racism.
“It’s pervasive. It’s differences in economic status, housing, education level, incarceration rates, types of occupations which affects level of exposure, preexisting conditions, population density,” Siegel says.
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Siegel, who has been studying racial inequity throughout the pandemic, says that even if these factors are controlled individually Blacks still have higher death rates.
Comorbidities and access to health care and transportation, which contributed to racial disparities in the beginning of COVID, have resurfaced with Delta Keisha Leanne Bentley-Edwards, a professor of medicine at Duke University School of Medicine who studies racial determinants of health says.
Blacks and Latinos are also more prone to work in service industries, which can put them more at risk.
Popescu says that COVID-19 remains a serious public health threat. She advises getting vaccinated and wearing masks.
“The biggest piece is, ‘Don’t let your guard down.’ We need continuous surveillance, genomic sequencing, access to testing, and public health interventions,” Popescu says. “We have transmission occurring with very limited exposure and that means that, for example, times without a mask, when you are out and around others, become much more of a risk.”