How the coronavirus is ‘tailor-made’ to wreak devastation in the black community

As the coronavirus continues to spread, the pandemic has disproportionately affected black communities in the U.S. As Gus Burns points out in MLive.com this Tuesday,32 percent of all confirmed coronavirus cases in the state of Michigan involved black patients, even though they make up 13.6 percent of the state’s 10 million people. Additionally, 40 percent of the state's deaths from the virus are African American.

According to the publisher of the Detroit-based Michigan Chronicle, the virus was "tailor made for devastation in the black community as we are structured now."

“Most of us live in urban environments where the population is dense,” Hiram E. Jackson said. “Many of us depend on buses for mass transit in Detroit; 35% of the residents don’t have cars.”

When looking at health data across Michigan, the racial disparity is obvious, according to Burns.

"In Washtenaw County, 48% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients as of April 1 were black, even though they only make up 12% of the county’s residents. The latest county figures show 24% of the deaths and 37% of the total confirmed cases involve black patients."

Read more at MLive.com.