White House coronavirus task force member Anthony Fauci said Tuesday that blacks are disproportionately at risk from the coronavirus due to high rates of diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and asthma.
“When you look at the predisposing conditions that lead to a bad outcome with coronavirus … they are just those very comorbidities that are unfortunately disproportionately prevalent in the African American population,” Fauci said during Tuesday’s White House press briefing.
In Chicago, for instance, about 68% of the city’s 118 deaths and 52% of the estimated 5,000 cases have involved blacks, who make up only about 30% of Chicago’s total population, according to the Chicago Tribune.
“We’re very concerned about that. It’s very sad,” Fauci said. “There’s nothing we can do about it right now except to try to give them the best possible care to avoid those complications.”
President Trump said that Fauci will have exact data on Thursday showing the disparity between blacks and other racial and ethnic groups. In all, the United States has over 386,817 cases and at least 12,285 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University tally.
