BARONESS DOREEN Lawrence will lead the Labour party’s review into the impact of COVID-19 on black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities.
The review will examine why the virus appears to disproportionately impact those from ethnic minority backgrounds.
Advisor
The mother of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence has been appointed as Labour’s race relations adviser by party leader Sir Keir Starmer.
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.
It found that 35% of almost 2,000 critically ill patients with COVID-19 were from a BAME background, despite forming only 13% of the UK population.
Fourteen per cent of those with the most serious cases were Asian and the same proportion were black, according to the study.
And an analysis by The Times based on figures from NHS England and the Office for National Statistics found that black people are dying from COVID-19 in English hospitals at twice the rate of their white counterparts.
Discussion
A digital roundtable was hosted recently to discuss the issue, which was attended by a range of health experts and campaigners.
There was an agreement among many of those attending the event that pressure needed to be placed on the government to take action and tackle the concerns of the BAME community.
These concerns were addressed at a digital roundtable held earlier this week.
It was attended by Labour leader Keir Starmer, Marsha de Cordova, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, Harun Khan (Muslim Council of Britain), Lord Simon Woolley (Operation Black Vote), Yvonne Coghill (Deputy President, RCN), Jas Khatkar (Sikh Network), Prof. David Katz (Jewish Medical Association) and Dr Chaand Nagpaul (Chair of the Council of the British Medical Association).
Crisis
Shadow secretary of state for women and equalities de Cordova said: “This crisis has highlighted the underlying structural economic and social inequalities that disproportionately affect BAME people. This includes issues surrounding insecure employment and low paid work, as well as overcrowded and multigenerational households that put BAME people at greater risk.
“Labour welcomes that the government has announced a review into the disturbing impact of COVID-19 on BAME communities. It is not yet clear whether this will be an independent review, when it will be concluded and who will be leading it.”
She added: “The government must ensure that this review is robust and looks into the underlying structural economic and social inequalities that has impacted BAME communities in this crisis. It must also urgently record data broken down by ethnicity on the number of people who have died as a result of COVID- 19.”
Comments Form
4 Comments
BAME people catch the flu at the same rate at which they catch covid-19 because all of the eco/societal reasons that could effect infection are the same for the full family of coronavirus. PHE publishes surveillance data every year on the impact of flu but this data reports how it affects age but not ethnicity.
I am sure if they broke that data down by ethnicity we would see the exact same pattern of infection.
However, the survival rate once you become critically ill with flu or covid-19 is down to hospital treatment and nothing else. The institutionalised racism in hospitals is what is driving the death statistics among BAME doctors and patients, but this is not something they are ever likely to reveal.
Shadow secretary of state for women and equalities de Cordova said: “This crisis has highlighted the underlying structural economic and social inequalities that disproportionately affect BAME people. This includes issues surrounding insecure employment and low paid work, as well as overcrowded and multigenerational households that put BAME people at greater risk.
Unfortunately she neglected or forget to include, the health, fitness and weight of the people that have died. If any of these factors contributed to their early demise and it is not looked into, then we are doing ourselves a disservice and perpetuating the notion that there is something wrong with us, as a group of people.
Having listened to Baroness Lawrence address an Oxford audience, I was less than impressed by her limited reasoning ability. I have no doubts that she is firmly attached to the Labour Party, however, inquires generally need to be led by brave truth-seekers; who are politically independent.
Vitamin D deficiency is the probable cause of the excess mortality in African and south Asian people in UK. African Americans and Middle Eastern / Cypriots in the UK are also affected. Bangladeshis in the UK who eat oily fish regularly will be less affected. Prisoners in the US (many are African Americans) who exercise in the sun every day are 95% asymptomatic.
Melanin in the skin absorbs ultraviolet light, protecting the skin from cancer but also reducing the production of vitamin D by a factor of 10X compared to pale skinned white people without a sun tan. 80% of African Americans are deficient in vitamin D.
Vitamin D is essential to the normal functioning of the immune system. Public Health England is ignoring people with brown and black skin and offering advice aimed only at white people. It is a scandal and a tragedy! Thousands of people are dying unnecessarly.
The elderly make less vit D with the same sunlight and are especially at risk.
Almost all people with severe or critical COVIUD-19 have low vitamin D levels.
https://www.nutraingredients.com/Article/2020/04/28/Clear-link-between-vitamin-D-deficiency-and-severity-of-coronavirus-says-researchers#.XqgeRvEl75g.twitter