ATLANTA, GA — As health officials continue to report daily cases of the new coronavirus, one fact stands out — African Americans are disproportionately affected. The virus, which causes the respiratory disease COVID-19, has taken its toll on black people in Georgia and around the nation.

The next largest group are those who are white, non-Hispanic/Latino, with 2,001 cases and 188 deaths.

The Georgia Department of Public Health has started breaking down statewide cases by race and ethnicity. As of Wednesday afternoon, black or African American, non-Hispanic/Latinos, have the most cases with 2,881, and 276 deaths, the highest of any other group. There have been 19 more deaths since Tuesday, with a total of 276 deaths.

"Data is important," Dr. Stephanie Miles-Richardson, associate dean of the Morehouse School of Medicine, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "Absent the data, the ability to see where the virus is limits our ability to be responsive."

There could be more black people affected, but according to the DPH, racial data doesn't exist for 60 percent of coronavirus cases in Georgia .

According to census date, black people in Georgia make up about 32 percent of the state's population. About 8.5 percent of black people have coronavirus.

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Nationally recognized infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said last week that African Americans are disproportionately affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Health disparities have always existed for African Americans, he said, "But here again, with this crisis, …it's shining a bright light on how unacceptable that is."

Derrick Johnson, NAACP president and CEO, last week criticized the Trump White House for cutting programs in the past three years that harm the African-American community.

According to a NBC News report , black people who make less money are at a higher risk. They are also more likely to work jobs that don't allow for telecommuting.

"This pandemic has exposed the inequality that exists everywhere, particularly in the U.S. healthcare system, resulting in harm to African Americans at a drastically disproportionate rate," Johnson said in a statement. "The nation has seen only a small glimpse into the reality that has resonated within the black community for decades. Our communities remain marginalized, underfunded, and largely forgotten on every imaginable scale."

"I'm concerned this will be yet another case where there's a huge difference between people who are more wealthy and people who are poor, and there's going to be a difference between people of color and how much they suffer," Dr. Marcus Plescia, the chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, told the news outlet. "We have a longstanding legacy of bias and racism in our country and we're not going to get beyond that quickly."

Racial disparities related to the coronavirus have been reported in cities such as Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Milwaukee County and more.

Democratic lawmakers are noting what they see as a lack of racial data that's crucially needed to not only monitor disparities, but also address them pertaining to the coronavirus pandemic.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, both of Massachusetts, sent a letter in March to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, reports NBC News.

"Any attempt to contain COVID-19 in the United States will have to address its potential spread in low-income communities of color, first and foremost to protect the lives of people in those communities, but also to slow the spread of the virus in the country as a whole," the lawmakers wrote to Azar.

"This lack of information will exacerbate existing health disparities and result in the loss of lives in vulnerable communities,"according to the letter.

Warren said in a statement that "decades of structural racism" is to blame.

[It has] "prevented so many Black and Brown families from accessing quality health care, affordable housing, and financial security, and the coronavirus crisis is blowing these disparities wide open," Warren said. "We need the government to step up in a big way to ensure that communities of color have equal access to free testing and treatment. Congresswoman Pressley and I aren't going to let up until we see solid data and real progress."

The lack of information has made it challenging to determine whether or not resources are being fairly distributed or if groups like black people are being left out, say advocates. Black people are much more likely to have underlying health conditions.

Stacey Abrams tells WXIA that people in the south are more at-risk for contracting the coronavirus.



"What we know is that COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on our country, especially in the South," she said. "We know that there are lower rates of healthcare coverage at large in part because most southern states have refused to expand Medicaid, the very program that would be necessary to support a number of at-risk populations in the South."



DPH announced Wednesday that it's increasing the number of specimen collection sites statewide for COVID-19 testing, and is revising the current testing criteria to accommodate more testing of Georgia residents.

Effective immediately, all symptomatic individuals will be eligible for COVID-19 testing. Health care workers, first responders, law enforcement and long-term care facility residents and staff will still be prioritized for testing regardless of whether they are or are not symptomatic.

Referrals are still required, however, there are now two ways to be referred to a DPH specimen collection site:

Local Health Department

Individuals who meet COVID-19 testing criteria may now be referred to DPH specimen collection sites by contacting their local health department. They will be screened by appropriate health department staff and referred to the closest, most convenient specimen collection site. Contact information for local health departments can be found on the DPH homepage under COVID-19 in Georgia.

Health Care Provider Referral

Health care providers and/or physicians can and should continue to refer patients for COVID-19 testing.

People should not arrive unannounced or without a scheduled appointment at a specimen collection site, hospital, emergency room or other health care facility. Only individuals who have been evaluated by public health or a health care provider and assigned a PUI # number will be referred to these drive-thru sites.

As of Wednesday at noon, there have been 552 deaths, 14,987 cases and 2,922 hospitalizations in Georgia. Deaths make up 3.68 percent of Georgia cases. From the numbers released at noon on Tuesday, this is an increase of 764 cases, 153 hospitalizations and 51 deaths.

Fulton County still has recorded the most coronavirus cases thus far, with 1,844 cases and 62 deaths. Dougherty County in southwest Georgia, where Albany is the site of the state's worst hotspot, is second with 1,308 cases but has recorded the most deaths with 83, more than any other Georgia county.

According to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine, there have been more than 610,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States and 50,000 of those have already recovered, however there have also been 26,000 deaths. Worldwide there are more than 2 million cases and 129,000 deaths.

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