This archive report was first published on 7 May 2020.
As the world grapples with the Covid-19 pandemic, a disturbing trend has emerged: the virus is killing black Americans at six times the rate of white Americans. This is not due to any innate difference, but rather the result of structural racism and economic inequality.
Health experts point to the long history of racial discrimination that has led to poverty, crumbling neighborhoods, police brutality, and incarceration of young black men. These factors have also meant that more blacks work in essential occupations, such as serving fast food, shelving commodities, and delivering mail, which expose them to coronavirus infections.
Furthermore, the legacy of marginalization and governance deficits has created chronic health conditions in African-Americans, including hypertension, diabetes, and lung disease. These conditions make them more susceptible to the deadly effects of Covid-19.
Similar disparities are likely to emerge in Africa, where socio-economic disparities have worsened over the past 40 years of market liberalization. The opening up of African markets to globalization has led to the exploitation of Africa's wealth by foreign corporations and local elites, leaving a gaping hole in basic services that would have guarded Africans against health emergencies.
As a result, Africa's healthcare systems are grossly unequal, with the most marginalized communities suffering the most. The virus will spread rapidly in overcrowded and unplanned urban settlements, subsistence industries, and poor rural areas without access to healthcare.
Looking to the future, the question is how much longer can Africans ignore or learn to live with these disparities and still expect their countries' health systems to come to their rescue when emergencies emerge? Do we adhere to unworkable isolation measures or can we use the inequities exposed by Covid-19 to stand together for equitable systems?
It is my conviction that anything short of civic solidarity spells death. What measures can civic activists, public health workers, and all people who uphold values of fairness embark upon in readiness to call out these long-established inequities that decide who dies of Covid-19 or the next epidemic or pandemic and who lives?
