In Brazil, coronavirus hits blacks harder than whites
by Louis Genot
The coronavirus pandemic has a color in Brazil, the epicenter of the outbreak in Latin America: black Brazilians are exposed to greater risk than whites and are dying at a higher rate.
More than half Brazil’s population of 210 million people is black, but they face deeply entrenched inequalities that are on full display during the pandemic.
As in the United States, where black people are also bearing the brunt of COVID-19, there are a range of underlying reasons that Afro-Brazilians are being disproportionately affected.
From the quality of medical care they receive, to the level of exposure they face doing their jobs, to the death rate by race, blacks are worse-off than whites by a wide range of measures in a Brazil reeling from the virus.
In Sao Paulo state, the hardest hit in the country, people of color are 62 percent more likely to die from the virus than whites.
The death rate from the virus for blacks in the state is 15.6 per 100,000. For whites, it is 9.6 per 100,000.
White Brazilians hospitalized for the virus also have a better chance of making it out alive. Nationwide, 36.4 percent of patients hospitalized for severe acute respiratory syndrome are black, but they make up 45.3 percent of the deaths from the virus.
“Those numbers mean it’s taking blacks longer to reach the hospital because they live farther away, or simply aren’t receiving care when they arrive,” said Emanuelle Goes, a researcher at public health institute Fiocruz.
“The pandemic is deepening historical inequalities that have existed since slavery (abolished in 1888 in Brazil), at a time when policies to promote racial equality are all but dead.” (AFP)
