Gotta give a hard “no”to the outrage about race-based treatment decisions. The author of the Atlantic article states that it’s not really race that makes the difference, it’s things that correlate to race, like socio-economic status, geography, etc. But research that controls for those factors still shows that there are racial differen…
Gotta give a hard “no”to the outrage about race-based treatment decisions. The author of the Atlantic article states that it’s not really race that makes the difference, it’s things that correlate to race, like socio-economic status, geography, etc. But research that controls for those factors still shows that there are racial differences in health outcomes. Rage against “wokeness” all you want, but this isn’t an example of that; it’s evidence-based medicine. Which is why it’s not getting attention: it’s a non-issue. I speak as a physician who spent the last two years working with COVID patients, and with a Master’s in medical ethics.
It’s generally acknowledged that among health disorders that predispose a person to more severe COVID there are many that are correlated with race, ie. socioeconomic factors such as lack of access to affordable health care. You note that there is research that controls for race alone vs. these predisposing disorders. I might be persuaded if you provided references/links to one or more of these research reports. In the absence of evidence of a distinct and exclusively racial predisposition to COVID, it seems that claiming race as a factor unnecessarily inflames racial animosity and gives white folks who seek to claim ‘reverse racism’ something to squawk about. Wouldn’t a system that assigns points for the disorders that actually predispose one to more severe COVID cover more people of color in proportion with their additional predisposition to these disorders due to racially correlated socioeconomic disadvantage? Such a system would preferentially serve those so disadvantaged without unnecessarily stirring up racial animosities.
The points systems DO consider other factors, including age and other predisposing conditions. They consider them proportionally to their effects. It would be unethical to ignore that race is an independent variable.
Per the CDC: “ COVID-19 data shows that Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, American Indian and Alaska Native persons in the United States experience higher rates of COVID-19-related hospitalization and death compared with non-Hispanic White populations.[18] These disparities persist even when accounting for other demographic and socioeconomic factors.” https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/health-equity/race-ethnicity.html
This is about the third reference on a Google search of Covid-19 outcomes by race. Similar findings on many other health conditions. A lot of pretty skeptical people make guidelines and rating systems. Perhaps we could consider the possibility that they know what they’re doing.
Totally anecdotal response but my daughter and her family got Covid. He's part Asian and they had twins. One of the twins is a darker colored skin than the other. The darker skinned members of the family both got hit harder with Covid. I know it's not an empirical study...but it was odd that it happened to them like that. They all are very healthy people and no major environmental differences between them.
Gotta give a hard “no”to the outrage about race-based treatment decisions. The author of the Atlantic article states that it’s not really race that makes the difference, it’s things that correlate to race, like socio-economic status, geography, etc. But research that controls for those factors still shows that there are racial differences in health outcomes. Rage against “wokeness” all you want, but this isn’t an example of that; it’s evidence-based medicine. Which is why it’s not getting attention: it’s a non-issue. I speak as a physician who spent the last two years working with COVID patients, and with a Master’s in medical ethics.
It’s generally acknowledged that among health disorders that predispose a person to more severe COVID there are many that are correlated with race, ie. socioeconomic factors such as lack of access to affordable health care. You note that there is research that controls for race alone vs. these predisposing disorders. I might be persuaded if you provided references/links to one or more of these research reports. In the absence of evidence of a distinct and exclusively racial predisposition to COVID, it seems that claiming race as a factor unnecessarily inflames racial animosity and gives white folks who seek to claim ‘reverse racism’ something to squawk about. Wouldn’t a system that assigns points for the disorders that actually predispose one to more severe COVID cover more people of color in proportion with their additional predisposition to these disorders due to racially correlated socioeconomic disadvantage? Such a system would preferentially serve those so disadvantaged without unnecessarily stirring up racial animosities.
The points systems DO consider other factors, including age and other predisposing conditions. They consider them proportionally to their effects. It would be unethical to ignore that race is an independent variable.
Per the CDC: “ COVID-19 data shows that Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, American Indian and Alaska Native persons in the United States experience higher rates of COVID-19-related hospitalization and death compared with non-Hispanic White populations.[18] These disparities persist even when accounting for other demographic and socioeconomic factors.” https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/health-equity/race-ethnicity.html
This is about the third reference on a Google search of Covid-19 outcomes by race. Similar findings on many other health conditions. A lot of pretty skeptical people make guidelines and rating systems. Perhaps we could consider the possibility that they know what they’re doing.
Totally anecdotal response but my daughter and her family got Covid. He's part Asian and they had twins. One of the twins is a darker colored skin than the other. The darker skinned members of the family both got hit harder with Covid. I know it's not an empirical study...but it was odd that it happened to them like that. They all are very healthy people and no major environmental differences between them.