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> black people are disproportionately impacted by COVID. Serious question: I thought the African-America community in America was affected by COVID-19 dispropo
by MuffinFlavored 6y ago
> black people are disproportionately impacted by COVID.
Serious question: I thought the African-America community in America was affected by COVID-19 disproportionately due to blacks being more likely to be having comorbidities. Is that not the case?
- bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y agoThat's likely also the case, but aside from the melanin-vitamin-d angle, there's been some work suggesting a genetic susceptibility to covid for people with significant recent SSA ancestry.
- nradov 6y agoOn the other hand it seems a major genetic risk factor for COVID-19 is inherited from Neanderthals, and that should be less common among Sub-Saharan Africans. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2818-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2818-3
- alphabettsy 6y agoThat was the case early on, but the demographics most affected are changing. There are probably many factors at play, but early on it was suggested that comorbidities and the higher proportion working in the service sector made black and Latino people overrepresented.
- throwawaysea 6y agoIt probably is the case, but comorbidities are being ignored in favor of crisis-exploiting political narratives as to how systemic racism is causing disproportionate impact to African Americans. However, it is worth noting that comorbidities are also an issue more broadly across the entire American populace. Obesity rates are above 40%. And so is vitamin D deficiency. And in fact obesity worsens vitamin D deficiency (https://www.livescience.com/26961-obesity-causes-vitamin-d-deficiency.html https://www.livescience.com/26961-obesity-causes-vitamin-d-d...).