kids
Analysis: COVID is killing more minority kids
Here’s the bad news: The vast majority of kids (defined as people younger than 21 years old), who have died from a COVID-19 infection are Black, Hispanic or Native American.
The CDC said this week that, as of July 31, a total of 78 percent of all the kids who have died from coronavirus infections are minorities.
Here’s the good news: There haven’t been that many kids who have died from COVID-19 infections.
As of the end of July, there were 121 coronavirus-associated deaths in the U.S. among people younger than 21. That’s not a lot, considering the fact that we’re nearing 200,000 total deaths from the disease in this country.
The real question is why more minority kids are dying from COVID infections, and though the CDC doesn’t directly address that question, it does come at the issue in an oblique way, suggesting that there has not been culturally or linguistically appropriate “prevention messages” thus far.
“Infants, children, adolescents, and young adults, particularly those from racial and ethnic minority groups at higher risk, those with underlying medical conditions, and their caregivers, need clear, consistent, and developmentally, linguistically and culturally appropriate COVID-19 prevention messages,” the CDC wrote.
Remember, though, that this is not unique to COVID. Infant and mortality rates, and the incidence of other diseases, have been more prevalent in minority communities.
A few months ago, Lorenzo Jones, co-founder of Hartford’s Katal Center for Health Equity and Justice said the reason was institutional racism, but that he wasn’t surprised.
“Yeah, but that’s like saying the sky is blue,” he said. “The thing that COVID did was break the back of their resistance to it.”
