Covid-19 and Justice
- Aaron Tews, Energy and Climate Committee
- Mar 17, 2021
- 3 min read
Due to long held systemic discrimination the United States, people of color have been historically relegated to inner cities, polluted rural towns, herbicide and pesticide saturated agricultural land and other areas with poor air quality. This, among many other factors, has culminated in a 2.4x higher death rate for Native Americans, 1.9x higher rates for African Americans, and 2.3x higher rate for Latino Americans according to the CDC. The pandemic may have forced everyone to alter their lives, but it is killing minorities the most.
Many people of color live in polluted areas due to years of institutionalized racism in the United States. Supreme Court cases like Plessy v Fergusson upheld segregation, creating separate but unequal “black” and “white” neighborhoods in the South. In the North, Midwest, and West black and brown people were pushed into the inner cities by redlining, racially restrictive covenants, terrorism, and racist urban planners. This kept them out of the tree lined suburbs and made their environments worse. Laws like the Highways Act of 1944 built multilane freeways that bypassed minority areas and polluted them, instead of focusing on public transport. LA and Chicago both have great examples of freeways built as walls between races. Overall, the general trend of policy in the US was to crowd minorities into the inner cities, let their environments degrade, and then increase pollution by vehicles, factory emissions, and the like.
Ground-level ozone, carbon monoxide, and sulfur dioxide are 3 major and prevalent pollutants in America’s cities. All three of these pollutants can make it more difficult to breathe deeply and vigorously, cause shortness of breath, and pain when deep breathing, damage airways, aggravate lung diseases such as asthma, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis, increase the frequency of asthma attacks, make the lungs more susceptible to infection, and cause chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). In addition to these gases, is particulate matter less than 2.5mm in diameter or “PM2.5”. Long term exposure to PM2.5 is correlated with an increased risk of death from COVID19. Research has discovered, “an increase in exposure to hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) is associated with a 9% increase in COVID-19 mortality” (Harvard.edu). Other Harvard studies found “an 8% increase in mortality from COVID-19 infection for every 1 microgram/cubic meter increase in air pollution” (Harvard.edu). The reason for the correlation is because exposure to PM2.5 damages the lungs and COVID19 is a respiratory disease. Another variable could be that those exposed to more PM2.5 have worse access to healthcare.
Researchers are pointing out hat the reason COVID19 affects minorities more badly than whites is because of conscious and unconscious bias in systems in the United States that have kept black and brown people in polluted, healthcare deprived, neighborhoods. Air quality is a major factor in respiratory and overall health. Poor air quality long term decreases life expectancy and increases respiratory disease risk. The science is stunningly clear.
To beat this issue, institutional restructuring will be necessary, and as always that is taking a while. However, there are a few simple and easy ways you can mitigate the enhanced risk of death due to COVID19 for minorities. To protect air pollution regulations, we can vote for politicians that express they want to keep or increase regulation, wear a mask, and teach our friends and family about historic oppression, and how it still influences health outcomes today.
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