Black America and COVID-19

      Infectious diseases continue to claim the lives of African-Americans disproportionately. Growing up in the 1980's I saw first hand how infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS took the lives of my African-American family members and other African American families living on the Lower East Side, New York City. Almost forty years later, African-American communities are still notably impacted by HIV/AIDS. However, once again, I find myself on the front line of witnessing African-American communities in New York City being disproportionately impacted by a new infectious disease known as "the novel Coronavirus" or Covid-19. Ed Pilkington of the Guardian.com notes that "across the country, African Americans have died at a rate of 50.3 per 100,000 people, compared with 20.7 for whites, 22.9 for Latinos and 22.7 for Asian Americans." (Pilkington, 2020 p.1).      

         In April 2020, during the height of Covid-19, I was deployed to work in the nursing department of a major medical center in Brooklyn. As a medical tech, my job is to provide patient care and work along with nurses and doctors as we oversee care for our patients. I saw first hand how Covid-19 impacted new Yorkers of all racial groups. While this disease affected men more than women, African-American women and men with Covid-19 often had other comorbidities such as obesity, diabetes, heart issues. Watching many of my patients succumb to Covid-19 was tough. The fear I saw in my African-American patients reminded me of the same fear I saw in my relatives' faces, as they died of HIV/AIDS.  While many African-American Covid-19 patients died alone, as many other Covid-19 patients did, far removed from family and friends who loved them, I noticed that some African-American families used technology to document and stay connected to their loved ones afflicted with Covid-19. One African-American COVID-19 patient's daughter insisted on having her mother's iPhone 24/7 so she could see her mother, and see the care being rendered to her mother. The daughter sang songs, reminded her now the comatose mother about events during much happier times, and often prayed for her mother. Many African-American families and other families with loved ones hospitalized with Covid-19 utilized phone technology to check-in and document the experiences of their loved ones as best as possible. Seeing how important technology has become to Covid-19 patients and their families gives me hope in new ways to improve health outcomes for vulnerable populations using technology. As a Public Health Practitioner and clinician tech, understanding why pandemics continue to impact communities of color is important.

Co-Curator:  Michele Thorpe, New York University, Public Health (MPH) Candidate

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