March 31, 2020

Do we need more racial data on the coronavirus pandemic... and if so why?

I'm reading "Democratic lawmakers, including Warren and Pressley, call for racial data in coronavirus testing" (Boston Globe).
“Any attempt to contain COVID-19 in the United States will have to address its potential spread in low-income communities of color, first and foremost to protect the lives of people in those communities, but also to slow the spread of the virus in the country as a whole,” the lawmakers wrote to [Health and Human Services Secretary Alex] Azar. “This lack of information will exacerbate existing health disparities and result in the loss of lives in vulnerable communities,” the letter warned....
There are less humane-sounding reasons to want to see the racial data. I've noticed some people looking to find that it's some other race than their own that is more vulnerable to the disease. We saw how, in the early stages of the pandemic, some people seized on the idea that only old people are seriously threatened. That slowed the response and dampened the group spirit that was needed to get the social distancing strategy to work.

So I question the eagerness to racialize the coronavirus. But I do think it's a sign that life is getting back to normal. We weren't talking about race for a while. Not so much anyway.

91 comments:

Marcus Bressler said...

To some, it's ALWAYS about race. #Yawn.

THEOLDMAN

Stay safe.

Hey Skipper said...

Why not all “... low income communities ...” instead of just those which somehow belong to a color?

Fernandinande said...

I've noticed some people looking to find that it's some other race than their own that is more vulnerable to the disease.

I thought the opposite was likely in that Africans, and perhaps dot Indians, had some immunity because of the situation in those places. Also the horror anecdotes seemed to have fewer blacks than you'd expect, and those mentioned were asymptomatic. (the exception was that "the pain is 15 on a scale of 10!" guy, who I don't think was real)

But I also thought that Asians might be more susceptible to this SARS since they were more susceptible to the previous SARS; also the horror anecdotes seemed to have more Asians than you'd expect. (Lat and the "first case in New Jersey" was in the hospital).

We saw how, in the early stages of the pandemic, some people seized on the idea that only old people are seriously threatened.

That's still mostly very true (never say 'only'); the recent Brit paper pointed out that the fewer deaths in Africa could be due to a lack of old people there.

tim maguire said...

Thanks god the Democrats are there to get us talking about race again. We’ll really know life is ready for normal when they restart those life-saving gender reassignment surgeries.

rhhardin said...

Disparate impact, court action, Trump exposed.

Buckwheathikes said...

I'll just quote the lead article in this story:

"Democratic lawmakers are calling out an apparent lack of racial data that they say is needed to monitor and address disparities in the national response to the coronavirus outbreak."

So, to summarize: There's no data on race as it relates to COVID-19. And yet, there is a need to address disparities in the national response.

What is the evidence of these alleged disparities? Well, there isn't any. So they have to go invent some.

This will shortly be followed by much wailing and knashing of teeth that Orange Man Bad is using COVID-19 to purge brown voters from the rolls.

It's all so utterly predictable. These Democrats are beyond evil. Trying to score cheap political points on the backs of hundreds of thousands of dead Americans before their bodies are even cold.

Automatic_Wing said...

It must be terribly frustrating for race baiters to not know whether they should be race baiting this or not.

iowan2 said...

Their own statement said they want data from low income populations. Why not just do that. Low income? School, free and reduced lunch data already exists.

Fernandinande said...

Africans - also the possible association between resistance to malaria and the use of anti-malaria drugs to treat WuFlu.

So I question the eagerness to racialize the coronavirus.

Do you think differences, if there are any, should be suppressed, as They do with IQ scores?

stevew said...

“This lack of information will exacerbate existing health disparities and result in the loss of lives in vulnerable communities,”

Do they say how? Sounds like one of those "World to end, women and children hardest hit" kind of statements or arguments. Are the people in vulnerable communities not seeing and hearing the news? Are they not properly committed to the social distancing regime? Is their general health condition, on average, placing them in a high risk category?

Is there value in understanding more fully the risk profile for Covid, including race, gender, age, etc.? I suspect there is.

Laslo Spatula said...

They need to do studies like this so that they can make panels and task forces and press releases.

That will never do anything for those that are studied.

But money will exchange hands behind those connected to the panels and task forces.

This is called caring.

I am Laslo.

Michael K said...

There has been speculation about the ACE receptor in different races.

That is unrelated to the corona virus but the virus may use the ACE receptor to attach to the cell.

This is about asthma and ARDS It predates the virus epidemic.

Here is one about SARS and the ACE receptor.

Furthermore, SARS-CoV infections and the Spike protein of the SARS-CoV reduce ACE2 expression. Notably, injection of SARS-CoV Spike into mice worsens acute lung failure in vivo that can be attenuated by blocking the renin-angiotensin pathway, suggesting the activation of pulmonary RAS influences the pathogenesis of ARDS and SARS.

There is some genetic resistance to SARS viruses.

One-hundred and thirty confirmed cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) were recruited to evaluate their anti-SARS-coronavirus (CoV) antibody status and human leukocyte antigen (HLA) types in September 2006, 3 y after the SARS outbreaks in Taiwan. Western blot assay showed that 6.9% of participants still had anti-spike and anti-nucleocapside antibodies. A case-control study of the association of HLA with SARS revealed that the HLA-Cw1502 and DR0301 alleles conferred resistance against SARS infection (p<0.05).

HLA antigens are the tissue types in transplantation. Not racial but genetic.

Laslo Spatula said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
rehajm said...

You got your two weeks before people started to slip back in to their routines.

Laslo Spatula said...

What if they were to find there WAS an out-sized infection rate that pertained to a specific minority group?

Would they focus and enforce restrictive measures on this group?

Perhaps more police presence to prevent the disobedience of non-social-distance on the streets?

Or in the homes?

I can't breathe.*

(*Uh huh)

I am Laslo.

Kevin said...

We weren't talking about race for a while.

“We” generally don’t talk about race at all.

If it weren’t for major media outlets filling airtime it wouldn’t be part of most people’s lives.

Laslo Spatula said...

Maybe the low-income communities of color are experiencing a Daniel outbreak, too.

Which would suck, because - like - keep it to one outbreak at a time, okay white people?

I am Laslo.

Laslo Spatula said...

What if the answer is that you need to stay six feet away from white people, but twelve feet away from people of color?

That would be awkward.

I am Laslo.

David Begley said...

Because identity politics is all that they do.

Mr. O. Possum said...

Weeks ago for days Scott Adams went on and on and on in his daily podcast about his theory that only Asians could contract and die of the disease.

Haven't heard him talk about that much lately.

The big story to come is how the Chinese communists have downplayed the number of deaths there by hundreds of thousands of people...

stevew said...

What about the impact on the homeless community? I haven't seen any news about that - though I haven't been aggressively searching for it.

iowan2 said...

OFF topic.

Morning Joe has on Pelosi for a live interview. The first two minutes was an orangemanbad hate fest. Demanding President Trump shit out PPE and personally delivery it to thousands of individuals at once. The clear narrative is President Trump is acting too slowly. Of course not a single defined act is mentioned.

Michael K said...

I had heard the speculation about Asians, too. The first article I linked was about ACE inhibitors for high blood pressure which does have a racial aspect.

Fernandinande said...

Because identity politics is all that they do.

That's why the racial data should be collected and not suppressed. Suppressing racial IQ data led to destructive affirmative action programs and e.g. accusations that nearly all white elementary school teachers are anti-black racists. Also the optimum treatment and effects of a given medical treatment for WuFlu might not be the same for all races.

Laslo Spatula said...

If it DOES affect people of color more, than at least I'm glad bats were the problem, and not a more racially-charged animal.

We have enough problems.

Although maybe with the bat thing we're pissing off the Goth community: People of No Color.

Bela Lugosi's still dead.

I am Laslo.

stlcdr said...

The only motive is they want to demonstrate, once again, white people are racist.

Darkisland said...

 iowan2 said...

Demanding President Trump shit out PPE

I don't care about the risk and don't care who does it.

I'm not using any ppe that someone has shit out.

Seevery unsanitary

John Henry

traditionalguy said...

The common enemy approach and all hands on deck medical response instantly replaced the racial grievance propaganda game. Scum bag corrupt politicians bank accounts the only people hurt. BLEXIT taking over.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

If you’re going to slice this pandemic into demographic sections I’d prefer a look at religious differences. We know masks played a big part in Hong Kong and South Korea. What about Muslim women who wear head coverings, and especially the ones that wear a chador that’s leaves just the eyes showing. This clothing would prevent almost all hand-to-face touching, which experts say is the primary transmission path. Is anyone but me interested in THAT demographic slice of the pandemic?

Dust Bunny Queen said...

The best reason for gathering racial data in the Wuhan Flu spread is to determine if there are biological, or genetic factors or blood types that make the spread easier or harder.

Determine if there are other factors than proximity or previous exposures to other flu strains. Find if the virus hits everyone equally and if there needs to be finely tuned treatments.

The problem with this is that the Woke SJW types will have to admit that there are differences between the races. Admit that there ARE races. Admit that not all people are exactly the same. Men aren't Women and people whose genetic heritage may different will require different treatments. Whether it be sub Sahara Africa, or the sub-continent of India, or Chinese Asia, or Finland....

They won't want to do this because it goes against all their preconceived mythology.

You can't defeat an enemy you refuse to know or acknowledge.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Buckwheat, I wonder why they are concerned with disparities in the NATIONAL RESPONSE when in a disaster all meaningful response is local, very local, very dependent on the preplanning in place BEFORE the disaster hits and can only be marginally affected by assistance the Feds provide. Feds are never the first responders but are EVERYTHING to racial bean counters.

Sebastian said...

“Any attempt to contain COVID-19 in the United States will have to address its potential spread in low-income communities of color"

Ramping up the minorities-hardest-hit narrative. Never let a crisis go to waste.

But if SJWs believe their own rhetoric--yeah, yeah, the Althouse theorem says they don't--they'd have to be careful: what if racist white-hegemonic America discovers that most Wuhan deaths are of black lives that don't matter, so we can scale back the enormous costs we are now bearing?

Prog exploitation aside, there is necessarily a social justice angle to the epidemic: costs and benefits of containment will be distributed very unequally.

Gahrie said...

We weren't talking about race for a while. Not so much anyway.

Did you miss China, the MSM and Democrats calling Trump racist for using the same exact terms to refer to the virus that they had themselves used the week before?

mezzrow said...

They need to do studies like this so that they can make panels and task forces and press releases.

That will never do anything for those that are studied.

But money will exchange hands behind those connected to the panels and task forces.

This is called caring.


It's a jobs program for social justice majors, just like most of the "studies" programs in higher ed. How many people in America are part of the racial grievance infrastructure? What kind of opportunity cost does this represent? Disparate impact remediation leads to thousands of these jobs and billions in infrastructure, on the road to further billions in reparations.

That's the plan. Tomorrow's dream economy for the woke.

Gahrie said...

The problem with this is that the Woke SJW types will have to admit that there are differences between the races. Admit that there ARE races.

This.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Michael K What if they were to find there WAS an out-sized infection rate that pertained to a specific minority group?

Conspiracy theory from random nutjob on the internet I read a few days ago. (Note I DO NOT ASCRIBE TO THIS IDEA>>>>JUST PASSING IT ALONG because why not. All sorts of other rumors are being floated)

What if the virus was being manufactured by the Chinese to target and eliminate the annoying and pesty Uighurs and other Muslims in the western part of China....but....the virus got out before it could be so finely tuned. ooops!! Trying to target the muslim problem...their version of the final solution, gone wrong.

Inga said...

“The best reason for gathering racial data in the Wuhan Flu spread is to determine if there are biological, or genetic factors or blood types that make the spread easier or harder.

The problem with this is that the Woke SJW types will have to admit that there are differences between the races. Admit that there ARE races. Admit that not all people are exactly the same. Men aren't Women and people whose genetic heritage may different will require different treatments. Whether it be sub Sahara Africa, or the sub-continent of India, or Chinese Asia, or Finland....”

If you have DNA Covid don’t care, it’s not that picky. As for blood types and races, I believe all races have different blood types within their race. As for Asians and Ace2, it appears that they don’t exhibit elevated expression after all.

“Abstract

The recurrent coronavirus outbreaks in China (SARS-CoV and its relative, SARS-CoV-2) have raised speculations that perhaps Asians are somehow more susceptible to these coronaviruses. Here, we test this possibility based on an analysis of the lung-specific expression of ACE2, which encodes the known cell-entry receptor of both SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2. We show that ACE2 expression is not affected during tumorigenesis, supporting that the abundant transcriptomes in cancer genomic studies can be informatively used to study ACE2 expression among diverse individuals without cancer. We find that ACE2 expression in the lung increases with age, but is not associated with sex. Further, Asians do not differ from other populations for ACE2 expression and do not harbor unique genetic polymorphisms in the ACE2 locus. Thus, beyond illustrating an innovative method for assessing the potential impacts of demographic factors for non-cancer diseases from large-scale cancer sample datasets, our statistically robust findings emphasize that individuals of all races require the same level of personal protection against SARS-CoV-2.”

https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202002.0258/v2

Leland said...

This happens all the time, yet few connect the dot that the virus doesn't care about skin color, neither does Republicans, but the Democrats do. That's all they see when they look at a person.

Fernandinande said...

We saw how, in the early stages of the pandemic, some people seized on the idea that only old people are seriously threatened.

How dare some people seize on an idea with a factual basis.

CDC March 26, 2020
"This first preliminary description of outcomes among patients with COVID-19 in the United States indicates that fatality was highest in persons aged ≥85, ranging from 10% to 27%, followed by 3% to 11% among persons aged 65–84 years, 1% to 3% among persons aged 55-64 years,
<1% among persons aged 20–54 years, and no fatalities among persons aged ≤19 years."

Reformat so it's more readable:
≥85: 10% to 27%
65–84: 3% to 11%
55-64: 1% to 3%
20–54: < 1%
≤19: zero

Leland said...

I do think it's a sign that life is getting back to normal.

I realize this will confound a few people, but this is what has caused me to be skeptical about the seriousness of the virus. This disease is constantly being treated as a political problem. If it is political, then I'm concerned about the giant step towards authoritarian socialism we have just made.

However, if this is a bad disease, then we are at the early stages of it. We have to be, because the numbers aren't there yet for it to be bad. That means this is just starting. That should be scary.

So, when the governors of Michigan and Nevada withhold promising treatment for political reasons; then I'm back to thinking this isn't all the bad. It is just a political issue and not a medical one.

Fritz said...

Laslo Spatula said...
If it DOES affect people of color more, than at least I'm glad bats were the problem, and not a more racially-charged animal.

We have enough problems.

Although maybe with the bat thing we're pissing off the Goth community: People of No Color.

Bela Lugosi's still dead.


Pangolins are also suspect. Wouldn't it suck to be a vampire that could only turn into a pangolin?

320Busdriver said...

It’s instructive to see BMI data.

Wince said...

So far only two comments on the story at the Globe, from last night, both negative on the congresswomen. Even Globe readers may see it for what it is.

mm33, 3/30/20 - 9:20PM
Pressley seems to have found a test when no one else could. Did she find any tests for her under privileged constituency? I think not. Like all the other politicians she took care of herself first. Welcome to Washington, you fit right in.

wendybar said...

What DON'T they RACIALIZE??? Wake up!! They want us divided.

n.n said...

Diversity (i.e. color judgment), including racism, is a progressive religious imperative, which breeds adversity. Still, to be fair, viruses are notorious bigots, and diversity distributions are instructive to manage resources and direct treatment in order to minimize excess deaths.

William said...

I thought it had already been established that men more than women were susceptible to the disease. I would guess that the early victims would be relatively affluent in that they would be into organized social gatherings, plane and cruise travel, etc. I read that the reason Germany has so few fatalities is be because their early victims were all guys who went away on ski trips......I have no way of knowing this, but I think the majority of combat fatalities and disabilities in Iraq and Afghanistan were white. The reason I think this is because if the situation were otherwise we would have heard about it.....What a calamity if this wretched disease discriminates against women and the poor.

n.n said...

What DON'T they RACIALIZE??? Wake up!! They want us divided.

Yes. Normal people have color biases, but they do not progress as prejudices without forcings.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

Warren’s tribe has been wiped out by the white man’s Coronavirus blankets. She is the last of the Fauxhicans.

tim in vermont said...

Nobody wants to be put out of work by this, and that includes race hustlers.

n.n said...

I think the majority of combat fatalities and disabilities in Iraq and Afghanistan were white. The reason I think this is because if the situation were otherwise we would have heard about it.

Especially during Bush's administration. However, not necessarily. Diversitists are notoriously Pro-Choice (PC), selective, opportunistic, and there is a complex calculus to exploit their principles for social, political, and economic profit. The press, media, social platforms (e.g. steering) are part of their front line, but, with progress, people have grown wary of their yarns (e.g. social contagion), often spun from whole cloth.

Maillard Reactionary said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Maillard Reactionary said...

Dust Bunny Queen @7:34 AM: Yes, exactly.

Race is a biological fact. You cannot at the same time accept the reality of natural selection (as leftists claim to) and simultaneously deny the reality of race.

It is a fact recognized by medicine (and Dr. K can back me up and expand the examples here) that (1) disease incidence varies by race (e.g. glaucoma and sickle-cell disease for blacks, Tay-Sachs in Askenazi Jews, etc.) and (2) that members of different races respond differently to some drugs (e.g. aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 deficiency in Asians). This is important information to have when you are trying to get a handle on a new infection, and how to treat it.

The fact the leftists will try to weaponize (or if not possible, suppress) this sort of information is no reason to not carry out the science. Leftists weaponize everything: it's what they do.

Since race is part of nature, you can't understand or talk about nature without talking about race. The fact that some people are touchy about it is just too bad.

Danno said...

Maybe these idiots should look at the statistics for the victims of abortion It would show a hidden genocide of people of color infants.

But instead, crickets..

Michael K said...

What about Muslim women who wear head coverings, and especially the ones that wear a chador that’s leaves just the eyes showing. This clothing would prevent almost all hand-to-face touching, which experts say is the primary transmission path. Is anyone but me interested in THAT demographic slice of the pandemic?

India might give us a controlled study of this. Utter Pradesh is the last holdout of Polio in the world because Muslim women refuse immunization of their children.

We might get some numbers in a few months.

Lucien said...

If you read Slate you can find out that black folks may be more susceptible because they are more likely to suffer from obesity, hypertension, and diabetes. And they are more likely to suffer from obesity, hypertension, and diabetes because of (wait for it) — STRUCTURAL RACISM!

Also, early testing was focused more on people who had returned from trips abroad, who were disproportionately non-black.

Rick said...

How useless people are who ask only one question regardless of the issue and circumstance. If all you have is a hammer...

Gahrie said...

Maybe these idiots should look at the statistics for the victims of abortion It would show a hidden genocide of people of color infants.

Only if you stick your head in the sand. The ghoul who created Planned Parenthood openly expressed the hope that this is what would happen. The numbers aren't a secret. The location of the clinics isn't a secret. It's just one of those things you're not allowed to talk about.

Mary Beth said...

Maybe the low-income communities of color are experiencing a Daniel outbreak, too.

Was Daniel a drag racer? Friday and Saturday, this past weekend, hundreds were out on the street to watch illegal drag racing.

rcocean said...

The whole point is to get racial data, and compare data for blacks, Hispanics, and other POC's to Whites. Then find instances where POC are doing WORSE than Whites and scream RACISS! RACISS!. (instances where POC's do better than whites will be ignored) And demand more $$$ for them. Bonus Point: Being able to use the data to call Trump a RACISS.

And that's what its all about, Charlie Brown.

Sebastian said...

Fernandistein:

"≥85: 10% to 27%
65–84: 3% to 11%
55-64: 1% to 3%
20–54: < 1%
≤19: zero"

But, but it's so unfair to "seize" on the old-people skew! So heartless!

Politically correct anti-ageism is contributing to the devastation.

The solution is still obvious: quarantine the risk groups, the old and the sick, for real.

Fernandinande said...

You cannot at the same time accept the reality of natural selection (as leftists claim to) and simultaneously deny the reality of race.

Yet "They" manage to do it somehow, Lewontin's Fallacy etc.

Since race is part of nature, you can't understand or talk about nature without talking about race.

My interests in it are:

- the psychology of the denial of the obvious, and the almost total dishonesty of the government and the MSM about the subject. I've been interested in the general dishonesty of the MSM on certain subjects since approximately forever.

- the biological, e.g. my longest posts here in the past few weeks or months were in the thread about those hippos.

rcocean said...

If other races are more immune to the influenza, that does us little good in the short term in terms of finding a vaccine. A virus isn't like other diseases, there's little reason to think genetics provide protection. men supposedly do worse than women, but that seems to be true of almost every disease for a lot of reasons.

wild chicken said...

If there is a racial difference it's because of the different rates of obesity and diabetes.

Lotta fat people going down.


n.n said...

should look at the statistics for the victims of abortion It would show a hidden genocide

It's an elective solution, the woman's Choice, albeit wicked, so those lives don't matter. The victims of the Wuhan virus (SARS-CoV-2) and Covid-19 disease are, ostensibly, Gaia's Choice.

rcocean said...

One more reason for having racial data, is that middle class white women LOVE to talk about racism and race all the time. Its a hobby of theirs.

rcocean said...

Another BIG risk factor is lung disease and asthma. One caused by smoking the other is genetic. someone else said Obesity which seems to make EVERY medical condition worse.
Since the rates of all these conditions differ by race, it makes sense that the Chinese Virus deaths will also differ by Race.

Howard said...

Another huge factor is opportunity of exposure. poor people are much less likely to interact with international travelers. I suspect that is why so many elite type people came down with it quickly.

n.n said...

Unintended Consequences?

In 1992 Dr Krause from the National Institute of Health published, “There are numerous examples of old viruses that have caused new epidemics as a consequence of changes in human practices and social behavior. Epidemic poliomyelitis emerged in the first half of this century when modern sanitation delayed exposure of the virus until adolescence or adulthood, at which time it produced infection in the central nervous system and severe paralysis. Before the introduction of modern sanitation, polio infection was acquired during infancy, at which time it seldom caused paralysis but provided lifelong immunity against subsequent polio infection and paralysis in later life. [emphasis mine] Thus, the sanitation and hygiene that helped prevent typhoid epidemics in an earlier era fostered the paralytic polio epidemic.”

Maillard Reactionary said...

Fernandistein: Fully agreed. While not an all-out fan of Steve Sailer (he's a bit too much of a know-it-all wise ass for my taste) I do like the motto of his blog, which is borrowed from Solzhenitsyn: "Live not by lies".

Real progress in healing our congenital racial wounds will not take place until we stop picking at scabs and recognize the truth of that statement.

Maillard Reactionary said...

wild chicken: "If there is a racial difference it's because of the different rates of obesity and diabetes."

You sure? Why are so many black people obese? Many native African ethnicities are too, so maybe it's not just the access to Cheetos and grape soda that accounts for it.

robother said...

"Back to normal" meaning the project of deconstructing the United States into a collection of racial and sexual identities united only in their hatred of white men.

Francisco D said...

It seems obvious that we need lifestyle data as it relates to acquiring and surviving Covid-19.

For example, smokers would seem to be more vulnerable to the effects of the virus and aerobic athletes less so.

If lower income Americans tend to have less healthy lifestyles, it would be instructive in compelling them to change, if they want to change.

n.n said...

a collection of racial and sexual identities

Diversity: race (e.g. half-Americans) and sex. And the transgender spectrum ("Rainbow").

LilyBart said...


They want to prove that Corona Virus is racist and denounce it!

Ken B said...

I think the answer is to be found in looking at who is raising the issue.
I am sure that medical researchers are tracking race along with other factors, as usual. Without making it an issue.

Chris of Rights said...

Politicians have to play politics. It's all they know. They don't understand issues. They don't understand Americans. They understand politics.

It make me physically nauseous.

Tommy Duncan said...

Somewhere in the COVID-19 pandemic there is a:
--Watergate style coverup
--Katrina federal aid failure
--Return to slavery
--Plot by the Russians
--Link to global warming
--Scheme to increase income inequality
--War to deprive women of reproductive health care
--Plan to postpone elections to keep Trump in power
--Effort to disenfranchise minority voters
--Strategy to kill minorities
--Conspiracy to prevent immigration
--(add your item here)

SGT Ted said...

Low income white communities?

Fuck THOSE guys, they don't vote Democrat.

SGT Ted said...

The Racist Democrats will beat this gong only up to the point where the data shows more whites die as a percentage of the infected population. If that happens, then it will be quietly dropped.

Spiros said...

My opinion:

We need leaders who will speak the truth to the people driving the panic. Your student loans, credit card debts and mortgages won't disappear. You still have to pay for rent and for your cars and for your kids. Your apartment is not your condo and your landlord is not your slave master. This isn't a vacation from responsibility. And we're not going to liquidate capitalism so a bunch fat turds can sit around and watch Netflix all day and collect a $ 1,000.00 per month. Oh and by the way, cook your own friggin' food. What kind of loser orders Burger King delivery anyways?

Lurker21 said...

There's an urban-rural divide. Heavily African-American states like Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas haven't been that heavily hit by the virus. Louisiana and Georgia are harder hit because of New Orleans and Atlanta. The Carolinas are somewhere in between. The Yankee in me wants to say that it's because nobody visits or vacations in Mississippi, Alabama, or Arkansas if they can help it, but I should bite my tongue.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

What about Muslim women who wear head coverings, and especially the ones that wear a chador that’s leaves just the eyes showing. This clothing would prevent almost all hand-to-face touching, which experts say is the primary transmission path. Is anyone but me interested in THAT demographic slice of the pandemic?

3/31/20, 7:33 AM

You'd think Iran would have a low level of cases then, with all those woman in black sacks. Maybe it does help. We don't know because we don't have enough information about whether more men than woman are getting sick over there. I know the fatality rate in Italy is much higher among men, for reasons we don't yet understand.

It could be that the advantage gained by wearing chadors is offset by the mullahs' "medical advice" ie, shrine-licking and putting scented oil on the anus to ward against covid-19.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

"Heavily African-American states like Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas haven't been that heavily hit by the virus"

But blacks are getting covid-19 and dying of it in disproportionate numbers in Milwaukee. I think some in the hood thought at first it was a cracka and Asian disease and they didn't have to observe the same rules.

There are something like 7 or 8 different strains of this circulating throughout the world and in the US. I am not a medical person but couldn't that be the answer as to why covid-19 has a different impact in different communities and countries? In Italy, the fatalities are mainly elderly men; in other countries, younger people are getting hit.

Spiros said...

Exiled on Main Street's comment is very clever:

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/06/face-veils-and-the-saudi-arabian-plague/277112/

Maybe mini skirts are bad for your health. But what about extremist women carrying guns and bombs under their hijabs?

Paco Wové said...

"when the governors of Michigan and Nevada withhold promising treatment for political reasons; then I'm back to thinking this isn't all the bad. It is just a political issue and not a medical one."

Conversely: this is an emergency, this is really bad, but the governors of MI and NV are incompetent political hacks, and they are responding to this real, bad, emergency in the only way that incompetent hacks can.

Jupiter said...

What if Covid-19 were to race like wildfire through certain communities;

https://www.unz.com/isteve/social-distancing-hasnt-caught-on-yet-in-south-central-l-a/

Maye once they have herd immunity, they can take over running the economy while the rest of us sip mint juleps in the shade.

Yancey Ward said...

To know the racial data, all you really need to do is look at Georgia and Michigan. I also suspect you can look at NYC neighborhood data.....if you can find it anywhere.

I know Georgia better, having lived there for a while as a younger man. There are two main, deadly outbreaks- in Fulton County/Atlanta and Albany/Doughty County. If you look at Michigan, the biggest and deadliest outbreaks by far are in Detroit/Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties.

John Althouse Cohen said...

The Democratic lawmakers' letter says:

Although COVID-19 does not discriminate along racial or ethnic lines, existing racial disparities and inequities in health outcomes and health care access may mean that the nation's response to preventing and mitigating its harms will not be felt equally in every community.

I'd like to know how they know that "COVID-19 does not discriminate along racial or ethnic lines." Some diseases do discriminate along racial or ethnic lines, and we're still in the very early stages of studying Covid-19.

(The quote is from this CBS News article; I'm not able to read the Boston Globe article linked at the top of the post.)

Michael K said...

Maybe there is some evidence of disparate effect on blacks.

There seem to be a lot of deaths in this local cluster. I didn't see an age breakdown.

During the weeks that followed, illnesses linked to the coronavirus have torn through her hometown, Albany, Ga., with about two dozen relatives falling ill, including six of her siblings. Ms. Johnson herself was released from an isolation ward to the news that her daughter, Tonya, was in grave condition, her heart rate dropping.

Like the Biogen conference in Boston and a 40th birthday party in Westport, Conn., the funeral of Andrew Jerome Mitchell on Feb. 29 will be recorded as what epidemiologists call a “super-spreading event,” in which a small number of people propagate a huge number of infections.

This rural county in southwest Georgia, 40 miles from the nearest interstate, now has one of the most intense clusters of the coronavirus in the country.

Gospace said...

320Busdriver said...
It’s instructive to see BMI data.


The one NJ family that had 4 family members die had a widely circulated picture of them. Body masses seemed to range from obese to morbidly obese. Nothing came out about family tobacco use.

But pertinent demographic data about ICU cases and deaths should be openly published so we can all weigh out our own individual risks. I'm just shy of 65. Caucasian. Never smoked or used illegal drugs. Not overweight. Not an athlete by any means, but in better shape than most people in my age group. From the data I do know, my chances of death from getting the China Virus are relatively low. Only my age puts me in the vulnerably group.

Fulton County GA mentioned above. About 45% White, 45% black, and 7.5% Asian, Is that the demographics of those hospitalized with the China Virus? That differs a bit from the entire U.S. demographics which is white 72.4%, black 12.6%, Asian 4.8%.

I doubt many US counties bear much resemblance to the U.S. total.My county is 93.5% White. Do we need to worry about it as much as Fulton County GA?

I've also read that the disease may affect some blood types more than others. This is something doctors really don't like to talk about, much like they don't like to talk about the realities of racial differences in diseases and medicine effects. However, seems Penn Medicine has started being open about it. https://www.pennmedicine.org/updates/blogs/health-and-wellness/2019/april/blood-types

Andy said...

But I do think it's a sign that life is getting back to normal. We weren't talking about race for a while. Not so much anyway.

Not a normal I want to get back to and will fight to make sure we don't. Some aspects of the old world should be left behind.