Disproportionate Impact of COVID-19
The impacts of shelter-in-place orders are felt at every level of society. But they are not felt equally.
Published on: 5/4/2020
Alexis L. Krohn
COVID-19 is affecting millions of Americans, and billions in our global endeavor of humanity. The virus itself doesn’t discriminate based upon color of skin, ability status, sexual orientation, or any number of other identifiers.
The impacts of shelter-in-place orders are felt at every level of society. But they are not felt equally.
Inequities pre-existing in our country are both exacerbating and being amplified by the medical and economic realities of millions of marginalized people. This is all layered with the fact that discrimination and violence against Asian Americans is on the rise.
We know that deep inequities still exist in our American society. Electing a Black man as President did not make us a “post-racial” society. Systemic and institutional racism (hereafter simply referred to as “racism”) is still rampant on deep levels, along with the intergenerational inheritance and trauma of historical racism. For instance, Black people are incarcerated in state prisons at five times the rate of whites. The so-called racial educational achievement gap still exists. There are really only two stories for this disparity, and if we reject the blatantly racist assumption — that people from different racial and ethnic backgrounds inherently have different academic and social potential — then the only remaining explanation is that racism is alive and well, at the very least on systemic and historical levels, not to mention the continued existence of overt, violent racism.
Similar stories can be told about a variety of different marginalized groups within our country. Transgender folk are more likely to be or to have been homeless and to have faced employment discrimination. There’s gender bias in medical care. Education, resource, and employment inequalities exist for people with disabilities. Poverty and unemployment rates continue to be high for American Indians. When people have intersectional identities, these ills stack and can multiply.
As illness, shelter-in-place orders, and shutdowns of entire industries sweep the globe, these effects are not being felt evenly by all, because of pre-existing injustices and inequities.
Medical Inequalities
Predictably, communities of color are being disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Black people receive poorer health care, and “the poverty in which black people disproportionately live cannot account for the fact that black people are sicker and have shorter life spans than their white complements.” In the current crisis, Black and Latine patients are hospitalized and dying in greater numbers than whites. Racism has created systemic health and economic inequalities in the country, making it more likely for people of color to have health complications. The Guardian recently reported that in Arizona “Native Americans make up 16% of the state’s Covid-19 related deaths, despite representing only 6% of the state’s population. In New Mexico, Native Americans make up less than 10% of the population but over one-third of coronavirus cases.”
Ageism and ableism are rearing their very ugly heads across the country, and we can hear it in the words of folks who actively are willing to sacrifice the elderly for the sake of the economy. Moreover, ageism itself is alleged by some to be part of the reason for the scale of the pandemic: countries responded more slowly because of the perception that the virus was affecting a “less important” population. As well, people with disabilities and the elderly often have less access to services, leaving some calling for expanded broadband access and training so that people can get expanded access to services through the internet.
As reported recently in an NPR article, prison populations are also facing extraordinary explosions of COVID-19, with intersectional causes and effects related to the disproportionate number of Black people incarcerated,the criminalization of poverty and undocummented immigration. The conditions in the prisons themselves make it “impossible to maintain social distancing behind bars, and they say masks as well as soap and cleaning supplies are limited and sometimes not available at all.”
In addition, the health department and DOJ are overtly rolling back non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ patients. This is especially concerning given the correlation between being queer (and especially being transgender) with homelessness, unemployment, and other resource scarcities.
Economic Inequalities
At the same time, pre-existing economic inequities are being exacerbated. Workers who have been living paycheck to paycheck and have lost partial hours or entire jobs are receiving eviction notices despite rent moratoriums.
Given historical and current systemic racism, these disproportionately affect marginalized groups. Historically, Black families have had much higher unemployment and slower recovery during recessions, unsurprising given the drastically different rates of median wealth for Black and white families.
Not everybody can work from home — leisure and hospitality industries will be hit particularly hard. Black and Hispanic people are significantly less likely to be able to work from home, and it is one of the reasons that they will be at greater risk for unemployment.
LGBTQ+ people are more likely in these times to have had their hours, or entire jobs, cut. Some of this is due to bias, but some of it is related to job cuts in the service industry where there is a higher likelihood of queer people. They’re already more likely to be homeless or low-income, and will be less likely to have a financial safety buffer than straight people. Queer families are already more likely to live in poverty. All stripes of LGBTQ+ are often cut off from familial support networks and lesbian families are hit doubly by the gender wage gap.
Speaking from my own experience, I personally take 4 medications daily (three for hormonal control and one antidepressant — depression is known to be higher in LGBTQ+ populations). I also require regular blood work to check both the intended and unintended effects (such as kidney function) of my medications. Reducing access to health care will have direct impacts for queer folk, not only proximally to care for COVID-19 but also around routine needs which often carry an additional financial burden.
Many families, already struggling with the loss of schooling, will experience a huge hit. This will be particularly true within communities of color which have been systematically oppressed for generations. It will also disproportionately affect LGBTQ+ families with all of the earlier-mentioned inequities. Many of these families rely on schools for free necessary meals, and face increased economic hardship and less support for the nutrition and welfare of their families. Some systems are finding ways to help, but they are not sustainable solutions.
Children who lack the same affluence as wealthy families will have fewer resources at home for their schooling, whether through tutoring, more extensive online courses, dedicated learning spaces and devices, or even books around the house. School closures will have a disproportionate impact on lower-income families. In addition, there is a broadband internet digital divide that is preventing some students from having the same educational access as their peers.
At the same time, financial relief efforts are intentionally excluding immigrants, both undocumented and legal permanent residents who often provide critical labor both in cleaning and in food supply chains. It appears even from some reports that Puerto Rico — a United States territory whose citizenry all is United States citizens — has not been receiving stimulus checks.
What to do Next?
Across our country, this novel coronavirus is wreaking havoc, amplifying the ugliest realities of our society. But it’s not enough simply to know what’s happening. There are ways to act, to stay positive and connected to each other. We are sheltering alone together. Each of us can add a layer of paint to a more just present and future in our country. So what do we do? Our next article will highlight strategies from the Unconscious Bias Project and also a number of collected recommendations from other writers.
We can’t do this alone — we have to fight it together.