As the coronavirus swept from China and eventually to the U.S., experts who study the fault lines along race and health care sounded an urgent alarm: The highly contagious, potentially fatal virus could ravage African American communities.

Their fears appear to be coming to fruition, as early data from multiple jurisdictions shows blacks accounting for disproportionate and, in some cases, shockingly high shares of coronavirus cases or deaths.

In both Louisiana and Chicago, for example, recent statistics showed that roughly 70% of COVID-19 deaths occurred among blacks, even though they are a minority in both areas.

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Next door in Michigan, state health officials report that 33% of COVID-19 cases have occurred among blacks or African Americans – 10 percentage points higher than whites, and more than twice the state's percentage of black residents. Blacks or African Americans also accounted for 41% of deaths, compared with 28% among whites and 26% of cases for which race wasn't known.

Some experts were appalled but not surprised by the grim data, and anticipate the disparities will get worse as the pandemic grinds on.

Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, says the pandemic has pulled back the curtain on social inequities and health care disparities – problems that usually aren't revealed in real time, or under such a harsh national spotlight.

"We have always known that we've had these enormous social determinants that impact health and create an unequal society," he says. "I'm not surprised that we have had these enormous disparities in illness and deaths from COVID-19. They exist for everything else."

At the same time, Benjamin says, "we don't know for sure" the true extent of illness and death disparities between blacks and whites because many states and cities have lagged on including race when compiling and releasing data on the coronavirus pandemic.

As of Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's information site also did not include a racial breakdown. Notably, a coalition of congressional lawmakers on Tuesday asked the CDC to make racial data on coronavirus testing, cases, hospitalizations and fatalities publicly available.

"As COVID-19 spreads into more American communities, government agencies and academic and industry researchers are working hard to understand the depth and breadth of the pandemic and its impact on the health and well-being of Americans," the lawmakers wrote in a letter to CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield. "To this end, it is important to document if particular groups in the United States are at greater risk for the virus and why."

The letter echoes a request last month from a group of doctors who called on the CDC and the World Health Organization to release data that could show whether African Americans are being tested for coronavirus at the same rate as whites.

Experts have warned that long-standing health disparities between racial groups in the U.S. – such as higher rates of conditions like asthma, obesity and diabetes, along with lower access to health care among blacks compared with whites – place some African Americans directly in the virus' sights, leaving them at risk of contracting a serious case of COVID-19.

Meanwhile, hidden biases white doctors have toward black patients, and black Americans' historical mistrust of the medical system, could exacerbate the situation, speeding the spread of the virus in struggling communities. Many black Americans also hold low-wage jobs in which it may not be possible to work from home, potentially increasing their chances of infection.

Mara Youdelman, staff attorney for the National Health Law Program – which works to advance access to quality health care for underserved populations – says the U.S. has "a long history of both overt and structural racism in society and in health care," ranging from unequal access to physicians to complicated, confusing messaging for immigrants who aren't proficient in English.

"The pandemic is a perfect storm for revealing these cracks," she says.

And as bad as the news is for African Americans, Youdelman says, this may be just the end of the beginning. Southern states that have turned their backs on the Affordable Care Act, she says, likely represent the next surge of new COVID-19 cases among blacks and Latinos.

"The states that haven't expanded Medicaid have huge numbers of people of color residing in them, and therefore efforts to expand health insurance and therefore access to care has continued to leave people behind," she says.

Both Benjamin and Youdelman say the high death totals among African Americans send a clear signal that the health care system must be overhauled and recalibrated to reduce disparities that the coronavirus pandemic has revealed.

"For decades there has been downward pressures on spending in public health and spending on health care infrastructure, including everything from helping clinicians come out of medical school without debt, expanding coverage to the uninsured and underinsured," Youdelman says. "The warning signs have been there for years and years. It's no surprise we're seeing the direct impacts" and the likelihood of more COVID-19 deaths in communities of color.

Benjamin has vowed to hold lawmakers' feet to the fire once the pandemic subsides.