The United States healthcare system has systematically ignored and excluded the illnesses of Black people, and especially Black women. Even with the Affordable Care Act outlawing racial discrimination from healthcare providers, African Americans in the United States still have less access to healthcare than White Americans do. Black women get breast cancer and die from complications while giving birth more than White women do, and overall Black people’s symptoms are ignored or disregarded more than White people’s are. The novel Coronavirus is exposing the gaps in our healthcare system and will force us to have discussions about race, affordable access to doctors, and working to undo the structural biases in the healthcare system that often mean life or death for people of color in the United States.

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COVID-19 is plainly revealing the ways in which the healthcare system consistently fails African Americans in the US. African Americans often have a higher chance of contracting diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure, and now the coronavirus. In Chicago, for example, Black people make up about 30% of the city’s population but comprise over 70% of the coronavirus cases in the city. In the US as a whole, Black Americans make up about 13% of the population, but 33% of people hospitalized for Coronavirus. Additionally, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director Dr. Anthony Fauci has acknowledged these disparities and has made it clear that the US needs to focus on closing these racial gaps. The US needs to start centering our healthcare systems and practices around the lived experiences of Black Americans, or else this pandemic will have taught us nothing.

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Not only are Black Americans constantly failed by our health system, but they are also consistently failed by systemic biases and barriers as a whole. These inequities are also contributing to the disparities between African Americans and White Americans and the likelihood that they will contract COVID-19 and be hospitalized for it. Additionally, while coronavirus and its corresponding shutdowns negatively impact all of us, Black Americans are often feeling these negative impacts far more than White Americans are. One example of this is how Black Americans, particularly Black men are being put in danger by wearing masks. Incidents of racial profiling have increased, and one video of two Black men being followed by police in a Walmart while they were wearing masks has gone viral, demonstrating the danger that these men and other Black men have experienced while following the rules that the CDC has said is best for their safety.

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Additionally, African Americans are more likely to work in positions considered “essential” at this time, meaning they still have to go to work and expose themselves to the virus. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Black Americans are more likely than the rest of the workforce to work in transportation, food service, healthcare support, and personal services. Many of these industries are still requiring their employees to go to work at this time, and employees are often not provided with personal protective equipment. 

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Similarly, redlining and the structure of United States neighborhoods have resulted in African Americans being significantly more likely to get the coronavirus. Black Americans are 75% more likely to live in an area with poor air quality, therefore making them more susceptible to asthma, which is a preexisting condition that dramatically impacts the severity of the coronavirus. In addition to living in areas that leave them susceptible to asthma and other lung conditions, Black Americans are also more likely to live in food apartheids - a term that Karen Washington coined that describes areas with limited access to fresh food, but that have limitless potential for community gardens and Black gardeners. 

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The only way we will protect all United States citizens, but especially Black Americans from the next global pandemic, is if we address the systemic barriers in our healthcare system and our society as a whole that prevent Black Americans from living healthy lives, and further prevent them from getting care when they get sick. We can no longer sit and talk about the inequities and disparities that persist. Instead, we need to use the government’s resources and our newfound knowledge from this pandemic to uplift Black communities and populations around the United States.