COVID lockdowns hurt people of color most

For all the local talk of equity regarding vaccine distributions, a sobering truth emerges: the hardship of lockdowns fell disproportionately on the poor and people of color, while wealthy whites skated by on zoom calls.  The UPI reports.

Low-income Black men were about three times as likely as high-income White men to experience "food insufficiency" and unemployment as a result of the pandemic and related lockdowns, the data showed. Low-income Black women had a 90% higher risk than high income White men for mental health problems caused by the pandemic and infection control measures.

In addition, as states strengthened stay-at-home restrictions and closed businesses and schools to limit virus spread, the risk for food insufficiency and unemployment increased, particularly for people of color and those with low household incomes, according to the researchers.

For every 10% reduction in mobility caused by lockdown measures, the risk for food insufficiency -- "sometimes or often not having enough food to eat in the last seven days" -- rose by 30%, while the risk for unemployment increased by 10%.

"Like taxes, lockdowns are a cost imposed on everyone, but have differential impacts across a population," study co-author Leigh Hamlet told UPI in an email.

"More privileged sub-populations tend to have minimized costs, meaning that regressive policies can amplify pre-existing inequities, which is what we may be seeing in our results,' said Hamlet, a doctoral candidate at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Read the whole thing here.

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Photo taken by Joe Green.