The Guardian reports on racial discrimination in enforcement of physical distancing rules in New York City, with one black man being beaten by a police officer: “African Americans in parts of New York City are being arrested for violating social distancing rules at a far higher rate than white people, according to data from the Brooklyn district attorney. Data showed that between 17 March and 4 May, 40 people were arrested in Brooklyn for breaking social distancing rules. One was white, four were Hispanic and 35 were black. The figures lend weight to anecdotal evidence which suggests that whiter and more affluent areas of the city are less likely to be targeted by police. More than a third of the arrests were made in the predominantly black neighbourhood of Brownsville, while no arrests were made in the predominantly white neighbourhood of Park Slope… Hakeem Jeffries, who represents New York’s predominantly African American eighth congressional district, told the Times police tactics were similar to “stop and frisk” – the widely condemned practice which disproportionately targeted black and Latino people. “We can’t unleash a new era of overly aggressive policing of communities of color in the name of social distancing,” Jeffries said.”

The New York Times reports on health-sector job losses: “For more than half a century, in good economic times and bad, health care jobs in the United States just kept increasing. Economists and health analysts thought of them as nearly recession-proof: a buffer against the business cycle. For more than half a century, in good economic times and bad, health care jobs in the United States just kept increasing. Economists and health analysts thought of them as nearly recession-proof: a buffer against the business cycle… A sudden drop in health spending and employment amid a pandemic that is overloading hospitals with sick patients might seem like a paradox. But it reflects how the health industry tends to make its money: Treating patients for a deadly illness is far less profitable than offering them elective surgeries. When the federal government asked hospitals to stop such procedures to free up capacity, that changed their economics profoundly.”

CalMatters reports that people living in low-income neighborhoods in Los Angeles are becoming infected and dying at twice the rate of residents of wealthier neighborhoods, and follows the story of a woman named Dalia and her experiences trying to access healthcare, distance herself from her family, and meet her family’s basic needs after contracting COVID-19. “In areas where more than 30% of residents live in poverty, 303 people per 100,000 residents were infected, compared with 156 people per 100,000 in areas where less than 10% live in poverty. Residents of those low-income communities also are more likely to die of the virus: A rate of 15 deaths per 100,0000 residents, twice the rate of people in the wealthier areas, according to the database. African Americans have the highest death rate in the county, followed by Latinos. Randall Kuhn, a demographer and sociologist with the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health who specializes in the demography of vulnerable populations, said the biggest concern for the Latino population is that many are working in jobs that have been deemed “essential.” “People working in food preparation, food service grocery stores, whatever it might be because that’s the job they can get because they are in poverty,” Kuhn said. He said that more investigation needs to be done in neighborhoods because the place where people live matters when it comes to their ability to survive the virus. “We need to know a lot more, there needs to be a lot more testing and there needs to be a lot more analysis of who’s getting most sick, with a real focus on race and neighborhood and poverty,” he said… After a week or so, she started feeling better. However, Dalia and her husband, who are street vendors on weekends, have been unable to work for weeks. They survived on donations from nonprofits and individuals. She is ineligible for unemployment because she is undocumented. Dalia said the owners of the factory where she worked never offered her any help, so she doesn’t want to go back to work for a company that doesn’t care about workers’ health. “For them it was easy to get rid of me and replace me right away,” she said, “because work doesn’t wait.”

The Navajo nation faces the third-highest infection rate of US communities, behind only New York City and New Jersey, emergency funding has been slow to arrive, and inequities in chronic disease, housing quality, energy sources, and water access are exacerbating the outbreak. The Guardian reports that the virus has “spread rapidly among the Navajo since the first case was confirmed at the end of March, even though the tribal government was among the first to issue a stay-at-home order, lock down schools and business, and impose evening and weekend curfews…  The US has repeatedly violated its treaty obligations by failing to adequately fund healthcare, education, housing, economic development and agricultural assistance for tribal nations, according to the National Congress of American Indians. As a result, the Navajo nation is beset with widespread structural, economic and health injustices which have helped coronavirus spread and hampered efforts to curtail it. Take housing. It’s been extremely challenging to quarantine infected individuals because of inadequate basic infrastructure and widespread overcrowding, according to tribal council delegate Amber Kanazbah Crotty. In part, the latter is down to cultural norms which mean multiple generations often live together, but it’s also due to chronic housing shortages, complex federal restrictions on construction, high unemployment and poverty on the reservation. In tribal areas, 16% of American Indian and Alaska Native households live in overcrowded conditions – eight times the rate of the rest of the population.... It’s not just the quantity of homes, it’s also about quality. About 30% of people do not have electricity, and so cook and heat their homes by burning coal or wood which irritates the lungs – potentially exacerbating the risk of severe Covid-19. That’s on top of high rates of lung disease caused by decades of exposure to uranium mines.”

A preliminary study finds that counties with majority African-American populations account for 52% of diagnoses and 58% of COVID-19 deaths nationwide. “In small metro areas as well as rural areas, we're seeing disproportionately higher Covid-19 deaths taking place in primarily black counties,” said Gregorio Millett, a lead investigator on the study and amFar vice president. Though the study is currently under review by a medical journal, the scientists felt an urgency to release their findings Tuesday in the hope that more complete data could influence policy decisions by state and federal governments. The findings back up trends in states such as Wisconsin and Louisiana, which have seen African Americans hit harder by the coronavirus compared to white residents. The study also found that the disproportionately black counties ravaged by coronavirus cases and deaths also showed high levels of underlying conditions like heart disease, hypertension and diabetes. “We know that being uninsured and crowded living conditions are associated with increases in Covid-19 diagnoses among black Americans,” said Millett, an epidemiologist…  Ninety-one percent of the 677 disproportionately black counties — those with black populations of 13 percent or more — were located in the South. The study evaluated cases and deaths across 3,142 counties from January 22 to April 13. The disproportionate toll on African Americans "calls for interventions like considering emergency enrollment for the Affordable Care Act,” said Patrick Sullivan, professor of epidemiology at Emory University. “And in the longer term Medicaid expansion in the South.””

California begins to reopen this week, somewhat relaxing a stay-at-home order that has been in place for seven weeks. “Not all Californians will experience “reopening” in the same way: Gov. Gavin Newsom revised the state’s guidelines earlier this week to allow counties discretion over how quickly to move through the second phase of Stage 2, which would allow shopping malls, personal services and child-care services to resume, along with certain outdoor museum and gallery spaces. In hard-hit Los Angeles County, the state’s epicenter, Mayor Eric Garcetti warned that reopening is not “the flipping on of a switch.” Local beaches will remained closed, and officials are pushing for stricter face-covering orders.”