Millett said researchers plan to track disproportionately black counties in four states — Georgia, Texas, Alabama and South Carolina — to see what effect loosening social distancing and sheltering requirements will have on covid-19 cases and deaths.
Researchers at Amfar and the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Georgia led the study team, which included investigators from Johns Hopkins, the University of Mississippi, Georgetown University and the nonprofit PATH.
The study adds to a growing body of data that has shown that black people have been infected and killed at disproportionate rates by the novel coronavirus. It also raises concern, as have other studies and analyses, about gaps in data collected and reported by county, state and federal officials about the race and ethnicity of virus sufferers, including testing, cases, hospitalizations and deaths.