The new coronavirus is killing African-Americans at a higher rate than the U.S. population at large, according to preliminary numbers from Louisiana, Michigan and Illinois that officials say point to disparities in health and healthcare access.
Dr. Fauci comments on higher rate of mortality among African-Americans
With early signs that the coronavirus outbreak is plateauing in New York and other hot spots, health officials say the pandemic may kill fewer Americans than recent projections, however on Tuesday (April 7), U.S. President Donald Trump acknowledged that racial disparities in the death toll of victims have started to emerge.
"There's a real problem and it's showing up very strongly in our data on the African-American community and we're doing everything in our power to address this challenge, It's a tremendous challenge, It's terrible and provide support to African-American citizens of this country who are going through a lot.
But it's been disproportional they are getting hit very, very hard, in fact," he said.
The figures were reported by state and city leaders at briefings on the coronavirus, including Louisiana Governor John Edwards who said more than 70% of the 512 people killed by the coronavirus in Louisiana as of Monday (April 6) were black, a much larger percentage than the state's population that black people represent, about 33 percent.
Michigan officials also said that the coronavirus took a disproportionate toll on African-Americans with 40% of the reported deaths in the state, whose population is 14% African-American.
As of Tuesday, confirmed cases in Michigan were 18,970 with 845 deaths.