Last week, as
a result of recent medical research and data, The National
Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) President and CEO,
Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. has issued a solemn national
public warning and alert to nearly 50 million African
Americans. “Black America is now in a state of emergency as
a result of the disproportionately deadly impact of the
coronavirus pandemic on our families and communities across
the United States,” Chavis stated. “The coronavirus is now
airborne. That means that the coronavirus can be in air that
we breath.”
“Black
Americans should stay at home and only leave home for
critical life-essential reasons,” Chavis emphasized. “In
fact, all Americans should stay at home to mitigate the
spread of the coronavirus pandemic. But I must emphasize
that because before the spread of the coronavirus, Black
Americans were already disproportionately burdened with
multiple preexisting health conditions, including asthma,
diabetes, and heart disease, our communities are more
vulnerable to the impact of the coronavirus, including
higher rates of fatalities.”
A Pro Publica report revealed
that African Americans made up almost half of Milwaukee
County’s 945 cases and 81 percent of its 27 deaths in a
county whose population is only 26 percent black.
Milwaukee is
one of the few places in the United States that is tracking
the racial breakdown of people who have been infected by the
novel coronavirus, offering a glimpse at the
disproportionate destruction it is inflicting on Black
communities nationwide.
In Michigan,
where the state’s population is 14 percent black, African
Americans made up 35 percent of cases and 40 percent of
deaths as of Friday, April 3.
Detroit, where a majority of residents are black, has emerged as
a hot spot with a high death toll. As has New Orleans,
according to Pro Publica.
Louisiana has not published case breakdowns by race, but 40 percent
of the state’s deaths have
happened in Orleans
Parish, where the majority of residents are Black.
Illinois and North
Carolina are two of the
few areas publishing statistics on COVID-19 cases by race,
and their data shows a disproportionate number of African
Americans were infected, according to the report.
“We know in
the US that there are great discrepancies in not only the
diagnosis but the treatment that African Americans and other
minorities are afforded,” stated Dr. Ebony Hilton, associate
professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at
the University of Virginia Health Systems.
“So, I want to
make sure that in this pandemic, that Black and brown people
are treated in the same way and that these tests are made
available in the same pattern as for white people,” Dr.
Hilton said.
Medical
experts have also sounded the alarm that the virus could
well be transmitted through the air.
“Currently available research supports the possibility that
(COVID-19) could be spread via bioaerosols generated
directly by patients’ exhalation,” Harvey Fineberg, who
heads a standing committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases
and 21st Century Health Threats, wrote
in an April 1, 2020 letter to
Kelvin Droegemeier, the head of the White
House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).
“One must be
cautious in imputing the findings with one respiratory virus
to another respiratory virus, as each virus may have its own
effective infectious inoculum and distinct aerosolization
characteristics,” Fineberg wrote.
“Studies that
rely on PCR to detect the presence of viral RNA may not
represent virus in sufficient amounts to produce infection.
Nevertheless, the presence of viral RNA in air droplets and
aerosols indicates the possibility of viral transmission via
these routes.”
Fineberg penned the letter in response to a request from the White
House OSTP. The National
Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened
a standing committee of experts to help inform OSTP on
critical science and policy issues related to emerging
infectious diseases and other public health threats.
The standing
committee includes members with expertise in emerging
infectious diseases, public health, public health
preparedness and response, biological sciences, clinical
care and crisis standards of care, risk communication, and
regulatory issues.
“The results
of available studies are consistent with aerosolization of
virus from normal breathing,” Fineberg wrote.
He noted an
airflow modeling study that followed a coronavirus outbreak
in Hong Kong in the early 2000s supports the potential for
transmission via bioaerosols.
In that study,
the significantly increased risk of infection to residents
on higher floors of a building that was home to an infected
individual indicated to the researchers a pattern of disease
consistent with a rising plume of contaminated warm air.
“In the mind of scientists working on this, there’s absolutely no
doubt that the virus spreads in the air. This is a
no-brainer.” Lidia Morawska, at the Queensland University of
Technology in Brisbane, Australia, told the medical
website, nature.com.
A March 2020 Cambridge Research study of
those with influenza revealed that 39 percent of individuals
exhaled infectious aerosols, which experts noted that, as
long as an airspace is shared with someone else, breathing
in the air they exhale, it’s possible for airborne
transmission of the coronavirus.
“It’s
airborne,” Dr. Angela Guerrera, an emergency medicine
specialist in New Jersey, told NNPA Newswire.
“If someone
has the disease, they don’t have to cough and sneeze or
spit. If you then go into their space, you can probably get
it,” Dr. Guerrera stated.
Some experts
said they are convinced that a primary reason that
governments and organizations like the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health
Organization (WHO) have shied away from stating that the
virus is in the air is to prevent panic and because it could
take years and cost hundreds of millions of lives before
indisputable evidence can be presented.
“We shouldn’t
let perfect be the enemy of convincing,” Michael Osterholm,
an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of
Minnesota, stated.
A spokeswoman
for the WHO told NNPA Newswire that the organization is
focused solely on treatment and trials.
“As far as
treatment for COVID-19 is concerned, so far, we have no
evidence that any particular drug is effective, but
researchers around the world are working hard on this. More
than 20 vaccines are in development globally, and several
therapeutics are in clinical trials,” stated WHO spokeswoman
Ashley Baldwin.
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