Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the issues that make minority communities more susceptible to the coronavirus are economic.
“Obviously, there are certain things we can do to make sure that preexisting conditions don’t exist,” Ocasio-Cortez said on The View on Wednesday. “But, ultimately, it’s inequity that’s the preexisting condition … and you can’t just go to someone and tell them, ‘Hey, you should have had healthcare this whole time when you’re working an hourly job and your employer doesn’t give it to you.'”
Surgeon General Jerome Adams recently said blacks, Latinos and other minority groups have a greater risk of contracting the virus.
“The chronic burden of medical ills is likely to make people of color less resilient to the ravages of COVID-19, and it is possibly, in fact, likely, that the burden of social ills is also contributing,” Adams said.
He called on minorities to stop drinking, smoking, or doing other things that might weaken their immune system.
Ocasio-Cortez, a proponent of “Medicare for all,” said access to proper health treatment is what is holding minorities back.
“You know, a lot of these preexisting conditions have to do with the inability to access quality healthcare, the inability to afford quality healthcare because we live in a country that continues to have a for-profit healthcare system, unlike the rest of the developed world,” she said.
