British government to investigate why BAME community worst-hit by COVID-19
Bianca Rahimi
Press TV, London
In the UK, figures suggest 28 percent of the most seriously ill COVID-19 patients needing hospital treatment are either black or Asian, despite making up only ten percent of the population.
Among health and social care workers it is the same. Of the 54 front line health and social care workers in England and Wales who have died because of COVID-19, 70 percent were black or from another ethnic minority.
Despite only accounting for 13 percent of the population in England and Wales, nearly half of all NHS doctors and a quarter of nurses are from a BAME background.
And hospitals aren’t the only place where minority deaths are happening: four of the five health trusts in England that have recorded the most deaths so far cover areas with some of the highest combined South Asian and black populations.
Experts are warning that COVID-19 interacts severely with medication prescribed for high blood pressure, something many black Britons and Americans suffer from. Members of ethnic minority communities are twice as likely to be affected by poverty as well, and are often hit the hardest by disease.
England is home to more than two and a half million Muslims, many of whom fall into the same category. In anticipation of a high death rate, rows of graves have been dug in advance for Muslim victims of COVID-19.
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