How COVID pandemic affected different age, ethnic and political affiliation groups--3 articles

COVID pandemic exposed inequities involving age, race, political affiliation The United States has hit a grim milestone: 1 million COVID-19 deaths. During the past two years the virus has posed a deadly risk, but it hasn’t affected every person the same way. The pandemic has highlighted inequalities that have already existed -- and exposed new disparities between age, race and political affiliation. Yahoo

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According to December 2021 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an unvaccinated person was 53 times more likely to die of a COVID-19-associated illness compared to a fully vaccinated person with a booster dose.

While age remains a factor, recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed a major difference in the risk of infection, hospitalization and death by race....

Native Americans are over 2.5 times more likely to die of COVID compared to white Americans, according to the CDC data, which also showed that African-Americans are more than 1.5 times more likely, and Hispanic Americans 1.1 times more likely.

Some of this is due to vaccine hesitancy among certain communities that have been historically wronged by medicine before, according to Bicette-McCain, who cited the Tuskegee Syphilis Study as an example.

“So many instances in medicine where Black bodies were used for experimentation, where Black people were not treated justly and were left to suffer and were left to die from diseases that were curable,” said Bicette-McCain. ”Not just with COVID and not just with vaccines, but there is a deep sense of unsureness when it comes to medical providers and the entire establishment.”

Bicette-McCain said that’s why it is so important to be vocal about the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine to diverse communities beyond health care professionals.

“If the message is coming from someone who looks like you, it makes it a little bit more relatable,” said Bicette-McCain.  ...

ALSO SEE: How 2 New Jersey towns illustrated persistent race gap in the COVID pandemic

AND: Covid-19 narrows long-standing Latino mortality advantage, study finds