COVID-19’s Disproportionate Impact On Communities Of Color

Today's guest hosts are Brent J. Cohen and Charlotte Hancock, Executive Director and Communications Director for Generation Progress.

They’re highlighting a very alarming, but sadly not unexpected, trend that has emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Communities of color, and especially Black people, are contracting the infection at much higher rates than white people, and are experiencing consistently worse outcomes with the disease. For example, in Washington D.C., where Generation Progress is based, data has shown that Black people have made up around 80% of the deaths from COVID-19 despite making up only around 50% of the D.C. population. New York City and Chicago have reported even higher racial disparities in COVID-19 deaths, and some states have begun reporting infection and death rates by race in order to track the trend.

To learn more about why this trend exists and what it will take to mitigate the impact of racism on public health, Brent and Charlotte are joined by Dorianne Mason, the Director of Health Equity at the National Women’s Law Center, and Connor Maxwell, a Senior Policy Analyst on the Race and Ethnicity team at the Center for American Progress.

Here are the Twitter handles for today's guests and their respective organizations: Dorianne Mason - @DorianneMason, National Women's Law Center - @nwlc, Center for American Progress Race and Ethnicity Policy Team - CAPTalksRace, Connor Maxwell - @Connor__Maxwell

The website for "Generation Progress" is www.GenProgress.org and their Twitter Handle is @GenProgress. Brent J. Cohen's Twitter handle is @BrentJCohen and Charlotte Hancock's handle is @CharlatAnne.