Alex Brandon/AP

President Donald Trump and Dr. Anthony Fauci on Tuesday discussed the disproportionate impact the coronavirus is having on African Americans.

“We’re actively engaging on the problem of increased impacts -- this is a real problem and it’s showing up very strongly in our data -- on the African American community. And we’re doing everything in our power to address this challenge. It’s a tremendous challenge. It’s terrible,” Trump said during a White House press briefing from the coronavirus task force.

He continued, “It’s been disproportional. They’re getting hit very hard.”

Fauci, the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, called the issue an “exacerbation of a health disparity.”

“We’ve known, literally forever, that diseases like diabetes, hypertension, obesity and asthma are disproportionally afflicting the minority populations, particularly the African Americans," Fauci said. "Unfortunately, when you look at the predisposing conditions that lead to a bad outcome with coronavirus, the things that get people into ICUs, that require intubation and often lead to death, they’re just those very comorbidities that are unfortunately disproportionately prevalent in the African American population.”

He added, “It’s very sad. There’s nothing we can do about it now except try and give them the best possible care to avoid those complications."