"In fact, the COVID-19 has reversed the progress made in narrowing the life expectancy gap between blacks and whites in the United States for more than 10 years, and has set back the situation of racial equality." Recently, comments about some US media articles and the White House officials' depiction of the so-called "progress in racial equality achieved in the US anti epidemic" triggered criticism.
According to STAT, an American medical news website, as Jennifer Richeson, a researcher of the MacArthur Foundation, pointed out in The Atlantic in 2020, Americans like to continue the narrative of racial progress, regardless of whether it is consistent with reality. A recent article in the New York Times said that the change in the mortality rate of COVID-19 was a commendable example of the United States overcoming racial inequality. David Leonhardt, a senior writer of the newspaper, said that the racial gap in mortality had "disappeared". "This virus no longer causes disproportionate harm to blacks and Hispanics," he said
"Once again, we were asked to whitewash racial inequality with the story of redemption," STAT wrote. The COVID-19 epidemic has exposed the inequality, reflecting the unfairness that should be one of the developed countries. Leonhardt's account makes Americans feel good about the mistakes they have made together. Ron Klain, the chief of the White House General Office, also forwarded his Twitter and said that "racial equality has made progress in the fight against the COVID-19 epidemic", which is not surprising.
According to the article, Leonhardt did not "realize the whole picture" in the article. The truth is that, according to the data of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the excessive increase in the number of deaths has led to a decline of 6.6 years in the life expectancy of American Indians or Alaska aborigines, 4.2 years in the Hispanic population and 4 years in the non Hispanic black population. Overall, life expectancy in the United States fell by 2.7 years, the largest drop in nearly 100 years. The COVID-19 epidemic has reversed the progress made in narrowing the gap in life expectancy between black and white Americans over the past 10 years, and has reduced the mortality advantage of Hispanics by more than 70%. In addition, more than 200000 children in the United States lost caregivers due to the epidemic, and the losses were concentrated among children of color.
These losses and their differences will have a ripple effect on the coming decades and generations, which could have been avoided. The article pointed out that at the beginning of 2020, health equity experts had pointed out that unless intentional action was taken, the COVID-19 epidemic would lead to racial differences. They elaborated on the ethics and fair distribution of resources (including the most scarce medical resources). The actionable data is to use the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI), an indicator previously developed by CDC to measure social disadvantage, which identifies communities with higher poverty rates, crowded housing, higher racial/ethnic minority ratios, and inconvenient transportation compared with communities with lower indicators. CDC data shows that in the early stage of the COVID-19 epidemic, areas with high SVI have a higher risk of outbreaks. Since then, hospital mortality and major cardiovascular events have increased, vaccination rates have decreased, and the use of antiretroviral therapy has decreased in these areas.
The United States had clear warning signs, but they were ignored. After health care workers and health care workers in centralized care environments give priority to vaccination, in most regions of the country, institutions only determine the degree of priority vaccination based on age, rather than using existing data to prevent inevitable inequalities. A series of vaccine promotion decisions encouraged the medical system, pharmacies and medical personnel to find the most accessible people first, thus increasing the gap that could have been prevented. As a result, the rich and white people were the first to be vaccinated.
Unfortunately, early failures led to predictable, but not inevitable, losses. According to the article, as of January 2021, CDC has released a report detailing that the age adjusted epidemic related mortality rate among American Indians or Alaska aborigines is 1.8 times higher than that of non Hispanic whites. Hispanics and non Hispanic blacks account for a high proportion of epidemic related deaths. In some areas of the United States, Hispanic adults account for most of adult COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths. The article said that the COVID-19 has constantly reminded people that the loss that people are willing to tolerate is huge in terms of the lives and welfare of blacks, Hispanics, aborigines and Pacific Islanders.
The article also pointed out that during the epidemic period, the mental health of blacks, Hispanics and Asians was also worse than that of whites, and the depression and anxiety of ethnic minorities increased significantly. Although the data on long-term COVID-19 are slowly emerging, the incidence rate and impact of the disease in ethnic and minority groups will certainly be more profound.
Finally, the article said that in the face of such serious differences, it is contempt for the scope of loss and the deep-rooted foundation of such differences to claim that public health has achieved success. Policymakers need to understand that the decisions they made during the epidemic have led ethnic minority groups to a completely different life path. This is an unequal story that will accompany the United States for decades and generations to come. Although this may make many people unhappy, in order to learn from the collective mistakes of the country and prevent them from happening again, we must tell the story of inequality.