Fauci Says Pandemic Exposed ‘Undeniable Effects of Racism: Righting This Wrong Will Take Decades

FAUCI: “Not since the influenza pandemic of 1918 has humanity faced a public health crisis of this magnitude. Each of you deserves enormous respect for your extraordinary adaptability, resilience, and dedication to learning, completing your studies, and graduating despite immense difficulties and uncertainties. Covid-19 has shone a bright light on our own society’s failings. Our country’s experience with Covid-19 has not only upended our own lives, but it has uncovered a stark reality and failing of our own society. The unacceptable disparities in health experienced by minority groups, especially African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans. Many members of minority groups have a much greater risk of Covid-19, often because of the nature of the jobs that many of them have as essential workers in society. More importantly, when people of color get infected with SARS-CoV-2, they more likely will develop a severe consequence of the infection, and this is because minorities in general have a greater incidence and prevalence of underlying co-morbid medical conditions, including hypertension, chronic lung disease, diabetes, and obesity, that lead to a multifold increase in hospitalizations and deaths from Covid-19 compared with the general population. Now, very few of these comorbidities have racial determinants — relate to the social determinants of health, dating back to disadvantageous conditions that some people of color find themselves in from birth, regarding the availability of an adequate diet, access to health care, and the undeniable effects of racism in our society. Let us promise ourselves that our corporate memory of this tragic reality, that an infectious disease disparately hospitalized and kills people of color does not fade after we return to some form of normality. Righting this wrong will take a decades-long commitment. I strongly urge you to be part of that commitment.”