THE GOVERNMENT is being urged to launch an independent public inquiry into why COVID-19 appears to be having a disproportionate impact on black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities across the UK.

Social enterprise The Ubele Initiative have launched a petition urging Prime Minister Boris Johnson and health secretary Matt Hancock to examine why and how BAME front line NHS staff including clinicians, care home workers and transport staff and the wider BAME communities are being disproportionately infected by COVID-19.

So far, the petition calling for an inquiry has received 1,749 signatures, with its target being 2000. 

Early research into patients critically ill with COVID-19 in UK hospitals has indicated that black and minority ethnic people are at higher risk of suffering complications of the disease than white people.

A report from the Intensive Care National  Audit and Research Centre, thought to be the first of its  kind in the world, examined  the ethnic breakdown of cases of the virus in the UK.

It found that  35% of almost 2,000 patients with COVID-19 were from a BAME background, despite forming only 13% of the UK population. 

Yvonne Field, founder and managing director of The Ubele Initiative said: “Over the past month the UK has witnessed the unprecedented spread of COVID-19 – it has infected around 90,000 and killed more than 11,000 people in hospitals (mid-April 2020).

‘Uncomfortable viewing’

“The disturbing images we see via our televisions and social media channels of those who have died make uncomfortable viewing.

“We see a selection of faces of doctors and nurses, bus drivers and care home workers all killed. All of whom represent our frontline workers in this battle against the spread of the virus. 

“The evidence from the deaths of these frontline workers clearly show that a disproportionate number of people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities who have been infected, are dying from COVID-19.”

Field continued: “Government experts are suggesting causes include social and economic factors, overcrowding and multigenerational living. However, they fail to acknowledge some of the well-known, deeply entrenched inequalities which pervade British society, and which adversely impact BAME communities.

Government experts are suggesting causes include social and economic factors, However, they fail to acknowledge some of the well-known, deeply entrenched which adversely impact BAME communities

Yvonne Field, The Ubele Initiative

‘Worse health outcomes’

 “Furthermore, several decades of health research consistently show that BAME communities experience worse health outcomes for conditions such as high-blood pressure, diabetes, coronary heart disease, HIV, breast and prostate cancer. 

“Many of these ‘underlying conditions’ are associated with poorer coronavirus outcomes, so it is little wonder that BAME frontline workers are being infected with COVID-19 to this extent.”

Among the politicians who have also called for the government to take action on the link between COVID-19 and BAME communities is shadow women and equalities secretary Marsha de Cordova.

The Battersea MP said that the government must “urgently investigate why BAME communities are more vulnerable to this virus”.