“How Full Is My Train” Gives Riders More Comfort for Safe Return to Public Transportation
LOS ANGELES – Metrolink, Southern California’s passenger rail service, today launches an online tool called “How Full Is My Train?”. The tool allows riders to check recent ridership levels of a train they plan to ride and confirm they will have the ability to maintain safe distances on board trains.
Metrolink’s goal is to keep ridership at or below 30 percent of the available seats per rail car to allow for up to six feet of social distance between riders. Ridership is closely monitored on all trains so when one has consistently reached 30% ridership, Metrolink can add a passenger car or additional train service, as possible, to allow for social distancing.
“How Full is My Train?” users will be able to view average train ridership before boarding. If their travel plans are flexible, they may choose to take a train that usually has fewer people on it. In many cases, riders will be able to simply move to other cars if one car appears crowded.
“We know that safety is top of mind with our customers,” said Metrolink Board Chair Brian Humphrey. “Safety is foundational at Metrolink – and a shared responsibility. Riders are required to wear face coverings while on our platforms and on board our trains. This tool empowers the rider to practice social distancing.”
Metrolink’s recent Customer Survey, found that social distancing and cleanliness are among the top concerns of riders. Close to 81% of survey respondents indicated they would ride with Metrolink again, with 29% planning to return as soon as the stay-at-home measures are lifted. The survey also revealed that popular amenities like electrical outlets and Wi-Fi are now taking backseat to riders’ desire for hand sanitizers on every rail car. Safety First at Metrolink Since March, Metrolink has significantly enhanced cleaning and other safety protocols to keep riders safe. These include:
Enhancing cleaning protocols, which include wiping down regularly touched surfaces such as doors, restrooms, head rests, armrests, handrails, tables and trash areas using disinfecting products, as well as the daily use of electrostatic sprayers that mist hospital-grade disinfectant on all areas of train cars – especially helpful for hidden and hard-to-reach locations.
Introducing a new Clean Care Crew dedicated to cleaning and disinfecting trains throughout the day.
Installing hand sanitizer stations on each train car, and ensuring they are filled more often.
Requiring face masks and coverings for anyone on board Metrolink trains and on Metrolink platforms and providing conductors with a limited supply of face masks for riders who have forgotten their face covering.
Continuing to reiterate guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and other health authorities on ways to keep themselves and others safe through personal hygiene and social distancing. For more information about Metrolink, please visit metrolinktrains.com.
As state hits record number of tests, California asks labs to prioritize testing turnaround for individuals who are most at risk of spreading virus to others.
SACRAMENTO – The California Health and Human Services Secretary, Dr. Mark Ghaly, issued the following statement today urging laboratories in California to prioritize testing turnaround for individuals who are most at risk of spreading the virus to others:
“Over the past six months, along with public and private partners, California has worked to increase access to diagnostic testing in response to the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19). Together, we increased testing from 2,000 tests per day to 100,000 test per day in just a few months. We did this by: (1) building laboratory capacity within public and commercial laboratories; (2) establishing new specimen collection sites outside the healthcare delivery system; and (3) disrupting the testing supply chain to ensure adequate supplies of viral media and swabs.
“As more states begin to scale their testing capabilities, new constrains are materializing within the supply chain. Simultaneously laboratories are becoming overwhelmed with high numbers of specimens, slowing down processing timelines. These delays will present significant challenges in (1) our ability to care for people in the hospital where testing helps us make appropriate treatment decisions and (2) our ability to appropriately isolate those who are sick in order to box in the virus and cut transmission rates.
“Due to these new limitations, California is recommending that laboratories prioritize the processing of specimens of individuals who are COVID-19 symptomatic and those who are hospitalized or in long-term care facilities, including skilled nursing facilities (e.g., Veterans Homes) and assisted living facilities (e.g., Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly). Additionally, specimens of patients in institutional settings, including prisons and jails, must be prioritized in order to timely implement appropriate interventions to mitigate the spread of the virus within the facility.
“California will continue to work hard to reduce any delays in testing turnaround time and return to our broader scale testing efforts.”
RIVERSIDE, CA— Each year, the NAACP-Riverside Branch holds its local Afro-Academic Cultural Technological Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO) competition, open to youth from 9th to 12th grade, competing for a chance to move on to compete at the NAACP National Convention. Due to Covid-19, this year’s competition was done via Zoom. Nine scholars competed in various categories online. The NAACP National Convention will take place July 22-25 and will be virtual. ACT-SO categories include: Performing Arts, Humanities, Visual Arts, Science/STEM, Entrepreneurship and more. ACT-SO was founded in 1978 by the late Vernon Jarrett. It is designed to recruit, stimulate, improve and encourage high academics and cultural achievement among African American high school students.
Medals were handed out at a special ACT-SO Award Recognition held at Woody’s Restaurant in Moreno Valley, Calif. Songstress Anyana Arbuthnot opened the event with a performance of ‘Song Rise Up’ by Audra Day. Also, 12-year-old Zaiah Shepard did an amazing and thought-provoking spoken word performance, voicing his perspective of why Black Lives Matter. Although he is too young to compete this year, he said he looks forward to competing next year. NAACP ACT-SO Chair Maudi Wilson expressed her thoughts about this years competition.
“Despite the challenges we had to overcome of not being able to hold this year’s competition in person due to the Corona virus pandemic, I was very pleased and thankful for the support of my team members who helped make 2020 ACT-SO competition a success,” said Wilson.
The Gold medalist winners who will move on to compete at the NAACP National Competition include: Jibaiana Jakpor (Stem/Mathematics/Medicine & Health), Veritus Miller (Music Composition/Classical Instrumental), Zenmarah Duruisseau (Contemporary Dance/Poetry), Sanaa Jefferson (Modern Dance) and Ayana Arbuthnot (Music Vocal Contemporary).
In order for our us to continue to mold and shape these future scholars and prepare them for the ACT-SO National competition, donations and sponsors are needed. If you would like to support our youth, please contact: Maudie Wilson, ACT-SO Chairperson at 951-640-1650 for additional information.###
About NAACP Riverside Branch #1059 (www.naacp-riverside.org) The mission of the NAACP is to advocate for political, education, social and economic equality of rights for all citizens, as well as eradicate racial injustice. The NAACP-Riverside Branch has been fulfilling this mission serving the community for over 75 years.
Seven out of 10 African American youth between ages 12 and 17 who smoke use menthol cigarettes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).?
And a higher percentage of Black adults who smoke began using menthol cigarettes (93%) — that’s more than two times higher than the number of White adults who did the same (44%), according to the CDC.
The two top-selling mentholated cigarette brands in the United States are Newport and Kool.
Anti-Tobacco advocates say these numbers are alarming. So, two of the nation’s top organizations committed to decreasing the use of tobacco in the United States are taking legal action to end the consumption of menthol by African Americans, calling them chemically unhealthy and deadly. They want it eliminated from all tobacco products.
The two groups, the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council (AATCLC) and Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) formally announced their joint lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) during a ZOOM news conference on June 17.
“We are suing the United States’ Food and Drug Administration for their failure to enact public health policy that protects the health and welfare of African Americans,” said Carol McGruder, co-chair of AATCLC.
Represented by Pollock Cohen, LLP, a New York City-based firm, the complaint requests that the court compel the FDA to act on the organization’s own conclusion that it would benefit the public health to add menthol to the list of prohibited cigarette flavors in the United States.
The AATCLC and ASH’s lawsuit also asks the court to carry out its duties under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. That action would also result in the removal of menthol-flavored tobacco products from the marketplace.
In California, there is no statewide ban on the sale or possession of flavored tobacco products. However, a growing number of communities in the state are banning the sale of them. So far, more than 30 jurisdictions have placed restrictions on the sale of mentholated cigarettes. San Francisco County was the first county in the state to ban menthol cigarettes in the summer of 2017.
In an effort to protect the public and design a healthier future for all Americans, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (Tobacco Control Act), was signed into law on June 22, 2009, by President Barack Obama.?
“When the Tobacco Act was signed, all characterizing flavors were banned from cigarettes. All except menthol,” McGruder said. “Menthol was inexplicably given a pass. Characterizing flavors are the building blocks to nicotine addiction. As we witnessed last year with the nicotine baby epidemic, flavors seduce children (and) nicotine hooks them.”
The Tobacco Control act gives the FDA authority to regulate the manufacture, distribution, and marketing of tobacco products, including:
Ensuring “Modified Risk” Claims are Supported by Scientific Evidence
Requiring Disclosure of Ingredients in Tobacco Products
Preserving State, Local, and Tribal Authority.
Pollock Cohen law firm’s Christopher Leung, an attorney representing AATCLC and ASH, said he hopes the lawsuit “saves tens of thousands lives” and that it would correct “a terrible wrong perpetrated against the Black community.”
“Over 10 years ago, U.S. Congress directed the FDA and the Department of Health to quickly address the harm caused by menthol cigarettes,” said Leung, who specializes in public-interest litigations. “In that time the FDA and the Department of Health have done nothing. Our lawsuit compels these agencies to do what congress directed them to do.”?
Tobaccofreekids.org has reported that 45,000 African Americans die each year from a smoking-related disease.
African American and Latino smokers —76.8% of whom smoke menthol cigarettes — likely prefer brands with menthol because the tobacco industry markets those products to young people and Black people, according to the FDA’s “Preliminary Scientific Evaluation of the Possible Public Health Effects of Menthol Versus Nonmenthol Cigarettes” study of 2013.
Several studies have documented how major tobacco companies have target-marketed menthol cigarettes to African Americans, beginning in the 1950s.
“By continuing to delay, the FDA and the U.S. government are failing to protect the health of U.S. Citizens, particularly, African Americans,”? Kelsey Romeo-Stuppy, ASH’s managing attorney said during the virtual press conference. “The U.S. is also falling behind the global trend as countries around the world are increasingly banning menthol.”??
Some African American leaders, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, have cautioned that making menthol cigarettes illegal will only create room for an underground market, which could expose Blacks to more criminal convictions and increase law enforcement surveillance — particularly in neighborhoods where there are more cases of police use of excessive force. Sharpton opposed a ban on menthol cigarettes in New York City last year that did not pass.
Menthol has been laced in tobacco products for almost 100 years. It is a substance naturally found in mint plants such as peppermint and spearmint, according to smokefree.gov.?A synthetic version of the compound can also be manufactured.
Smokefree.gov is a website operated by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) under the direction of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Smokefree.gov’s main objective is to assist efforts to reduce smoking rates in the United States, significantly among (certain) populations.?
AATCLC educates the African American community about tobacco use and cessation, partners with community stakeholders, and public health agencies to inform and affect the direction of tobacco policy, practices, and priorities, as it affects the lives of Black people.
Founded in 1967 and based in Washington, D.C., ASH is the country’s oldest anti-tobacco organization, dedicated to reducing tobacco-related deaths down to zero. ASH does not attack smokers. Its vision is to combat tobacco.?
AATCLC and ASH are non-profit entities. The Public Health Law Center, an organization that collaborates with other groups to reduce and eliminate the use of tobacco, supports AATCLC and ASH’s lawsuit.
“This landmark litigation is the culmination of a decade of pioneering work by the health champions of the African American Tobacco Control Leadership and other Black-led organizations,” Doug Blanke, the Executive Director of Public Health Law Center, said in a written statement. “It has the potential to reverse the leading cause of death in the Black community.”
The Washington Redskins National Football League franchise is a disgrace! In the year 2020, Washington team owner Daniel Snyder cannot possibly continue to rationalize keeping his ridiculously racist team name in the face of widespread, righteous public condemnation of Snyder’s racist recalcitrance.
Our nation’s capitol’s team name “The Redskins” will be retired before this football season begins, if Representative Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) has anything to say about it: “The time [for the name] has ended. There is no way to justify it. You either step into this century or you don’t. It’s up to the owner of the team to do that.”
In 1997, Washington, D.C.’s National Basketball Association franchise willingly changed its name from “The Bullets” to “The Wizards”. So what’s Daniel Snyder’s problem (other than being a bigot)?
As silly as some of these monikers are below, any one of them would be preferable to Washington D.C.’s current NFL team name. Take your pick, Mr. Snyder.
SAN BERNARDINO, CA – Today, Rep. Pete Aguilar announced $3,802,601 in federal funding for the County of San Bernardino Preschool Services Department (PSD). The funding was made possible by the CARES Act, bipartisan legislation passed by Congress to provide relief and resources during the coronavirus crisis, and will allow PSD to offer summer programming to the families it serves.
“This pandemic has presented countless challenges for San Bernardino County families, including new barriers to early-childhood education. I was proud to support the CARES Act to bring this funding to our community so that children throughout the Inland Empire can continue receiving high-quality educational programming throughout the summer,” said Aguilar.
“During a time of great uncertainty, the Preschool Services Department would like to thank Rep. Pete Aguilar and the members of Congress for the funds on behalf of the families that we serve. The CARES Act funds will provide for summer programming for children in need of high quality early learning over the summer. The funds will also be used to address health and safety concerns related to COVID-19,” said Phalos Haire, Director of the Preschool Services Department.
Rep. Aguilar serves as Vice Chair of the House Appropriations Committee, the committee responsible for allocating funding for federal agencies and programs.
Discrimination by someone who perceives you to be infected with coronavirus is an experience nearly a quarter of all U.S. residents have in common — particularly racial minorities. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 1 in 3 Black, Asian and Latino people have experienced at least one incident of COVID-related discrimination, compared to 1 in 5 white people, according to the Understanding Coronavirus in America tracking survey conducted by the USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR).
The study also determined that the overall percentage of people who experienced a recent incident of COVID-related discrimination peaked in April at 11% and steadily declined to 7% at the beginning of June, though racial disparities persist.
In early June, Asian Americans were more than 2.5 times as likely as whites (13% vs. 5%) to experience a recent incident of COVID-related discrimination. Blacks and Latinos were nearly twice as likely.
The prevalence of discrimination also varies by age. Adults between the ages of 18 and 34 were three times as likely as seniors 65 and older to report a recent incident of coronavirus-related discrimination.
“The early spike in the percentage of people who experienced COVID-related discrimination was attributable – in part – to discriminatory reactions to the growing number of people wearing masks or face coverings at the early stage of the pandemic,” said Ying Liu, a research scientist with CESR.
“Asian Americans were the first racial/ethnic group to experience substantial discrimination, followed by African Americans and Latinos. We also found that in some earlier weeks of the pandemic, people who were heavy users of social media were more likely to report an experience of discrimination.”
A long history of blaming Asians for outbreaks
The findings proved unsurprising to Nayan Shah, professor of American studies and ethnicity and history at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
“Blaming Asian immigrants and Asian Americans for outbreaks of disease has a long history in California and in the United States,” said Shah, author of Contagious Divides: Epidemics and Race in San Francisco’s Chinatown. “Every time politicians and people lash out with taunts, vitriol and violence, public health and democracy suffer. The U.S. is racing to have the highest case numbers and deaths in this phase of the pandemic, because basic precautions of wearing masks, physical distancing, and respecting each other in public is being willfully ignored.“
The Understanding Coronavirus in America Study regularly surveys a panel of more than 7,000 people throughout the country to learn how COVID-19 impacts their attitudes, lives and behaviors. To measure incidents of discrimination, respondents were asked if “people thinking they might have the coronavirus” acted as if they were afraid of them, threatened or harassed them, treated them with less courtesy and respect, or gave them poorer service at restaurants or stores.
Data from the study, supported in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and USC, is updated daily and available to researchers and the public at: covid19pulse.usc.edu.
Social stigma of COVID-19 declines
As the overall prevalence of coronavirus-related discrimination has declined, so has the social stigma associated with being infected or having been infected.
In early April, about 70% of the country thought people who had COVID-19 were dangerous and nearly 30% thought formerly infected people were dangerous. By early June, the percentage of Americans who considered infected people to be dangerous had dropped to under 30%, while only 5% thought people who’d recovered from the virus were dangerous.
“As growing numbers of people knew family members, friends and coworkers who were infected with COVID-19, we saw a decrease in the stigma associated with the virus,” said Kyla Thomas, a sociologist with CESR. “We also saw a steep decline in the percentage of people who perceived coronavirus infection as a sign of personal weakness or failure.”
About the Understanding Coronavirus in America Study
A total of 7,475 adult U.S. residents who are members of the Understanding Coronavirus in America Tracking Survey participated from March 10 to June 23, 2020.
Margin of sampling error (MOSE) is +/-1 percentage point for the full sample.
Results from early June are based on a sample of 6,408 respondents who participated in wave 6 of the tracking survey, from May 27 to June 23, 2020. MOSE is +/-1 percentage point for the full wave 6 sample. For racial and ethnic groups in the wave 6 sample, MOSE ranges from +/-2 to +/-5 percentage points. For age groups in the wave 6 sample, MOSE ranges from +/-2 to +/-3 percentage points.
YAOUNDE, Cameroon — When 21-year-old Anne Christelle Ntsama gave birth to quadruplets, she was over the moon.
She believed her children, who had been born prematurely at Yaounde Central Hospital, one of the largest public hospitals in Cameroon, would grow into adulthood. But soon after their delivery on May 11, her world collapsed.
Anne Christelle Ntsama tries to come to terms with the death of her quadruplets at the Yaounde Central Hospital in Yaoundé, Cameroon on May 11, 2020. (Photo Courtesy: Alain Ghislain)
She lost her two boys and two girls because of insufficient incubators at the state-owned hospital.
“I feel bad because out of the four babies, none survived. I wish at least some of the children had survived after all this suffering. If only there were incubators,” said Ntsama, tears trickling down her cheeks. “I blame the hospital staff for hiding the deaths of my babies from me. They didn’t tell me that all my babies were dead.”
Yaounde Central Hospital is a 381-bed, tertiary-level general teaching hospital in Cameroon, with nearly 800 staff, including 95 doctors and nearly 270 nurses. But like many other health facilities in the country, it has limited number of incubators. There are fewer than 100 incubators for more than 7,000 health care facilities in Cameroon, according to the French Development Agency.
The deaths of the quadruplets have brought attention to the number of maternal and infant mortality rates in the lower-middle class Central African nation. The 2017 World Bank collection of development indicators reported a maternal mortality ratio of 529 per 100,000 live births in Cameroon.
An estimated 4,000 women die in Cameroon each year from causes related to pregnancy and delivery, and more than 22,000 newborn deaths are recorded each year, according to the country’s minister of public health, Malachie Manaouda.
Ntsama and her poor family were unable to raise the CFA 100,000, equivalent to US$171, required by a private hospital to allow them use of incubators.
“The family was unable to immediately raise the money. So, we put all the four babies on oxygen while waiting,” said Dr. Felix Essiben. “The hospital staff did their best to assist the girl and her babies.”
Even after delivery, Ntsama could not immediately leave Yaounde Central Hospital because she had not settled her bill.
“I was in the hospital because I had to pay US$90.31,” she said.
The detention of patients in both public and private hospitals for having insufficient means to pay their medical bills is common practice in Cameroon, and victims of medical detention tend to be the poorest members of society who have been admitted to hospital for emergency treatment.
The Yaounde Central Hospital in Yaoundé, Cameroon records 4,000 deliveries each year, 200 of which are premature. (Photo Courtesy: Daniel Olomo)
In March 2016, a 31-year-old Monique Koumate died alongside her yet-to-be born twins at the Laquintinie Hospital in Douala-another public health facility, because she could not afford to pay her medical bills.
Many Cameroonians, especially pregnant women, prefer public hospitals to private hospitals because public hospitals usually have more structured technical support and bigger budgets, which increases the number of doctors and nurses and keeps charges relatively low.
Although the death of the quadruplets has raised questions about the state of Cameroon’s fragile health care system, medics at Yaounde Central Hospital attribute the babies’ deaths to other factors.
“The girl had never gone for a prenatal consultation to know that she had a multiple pregnancy,” said Essiben, who is assistant coordinator of the hospital’s maternity ward. “There was a large discrepancy between the period of pregnancy and the clinical evidence which we had. The babies did not die in our delivery rooms.”
Experts say there is need for more equipment in the country’s hospitals.
“We need a large neonatal unit, with pediatricians, nurses, incubators, ventilators and every other thing needed to take care of premature babies,” said Pierre Joseph Fouda, director of Yaounde Central Hospital.
Yaounde Central Hospital records some 4,000 deliveries annually; of that number, 200 are premature births, according to statistics. Approximately 900,000 babies are expected to be born in Cameroon in 2020, according to estimates by the National Multisectoral Program to Combat Maternal, Newborn and Child Mortality.
Cameroon’s health care workers aren’t equally distributed across the country, and prenatal care remains a problem. Studies reveal that financial constraints and long distance to the hospital are common reasons why most pregnant women do not go for antenatal care.
“The causes of maternal deaths in Cameroon include home births, difficult prolonged labor, HIV/AIDS related diseases and excessive bleeding,” said Dr. Martina Baye Lukong, coordinator of the multisectoral program.
“If you look at the problem of excessive bleeding, you realize that many Cameroonians are not yet into the culture of donating blood freely. So many women die while giving birth because we don’t have enough blood to give them.”
In 2018, women were disproportionately affected by HIV in Cameroon, according to UNAIDS. Of the 490,000 adults living with HIV, 330,000–67.35%–were women; 5,400 new infections were young women, compared with 2,000 young men. The figures further indicated that 18,000 people also died from an AIDS-related illness in the country.
Baye said the number of home births affects the maternal death rate in the country.
“Many women don’t go for antenatal care, or don’t go as often as they should in Cameroon. And I think it’s the lack of information because I don’t believe if the woman really has the information that she can develop hypertension during pregnancy which can end up killing her, she will not go for antenatal care.”
Cameroon is one of the African nations that has suffered a crisis in human resources for health in the past decade, with inequitable geographic distribution of health workers.
“While in the six other regions in the southern and western parts of Cameroon, at least 60% of women deliver in health facilities, it is not the case in the northern and eastern parts of the country, where just about 40% of women deliver in the hospitals,” said Dr. Martina Baye Lukong, coordinator of the multisectoral program.
A case study conducted by the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research in collaboration with the World Health Organization in 2017 showed the ratio of health personnel to population in Cameroon is 1.07 per 1,000 inhabitants. The organization recommends a ratio of 2.3 per 1,000 inhabitants.
The WHO recommends countries invest at least 15% of their budgets in health care systems. In Cameroon, less than 5% of the state budget is allocated to health financing, according to statistics from the multisectoral program. The country has 25 million people.
WHO statistics put the number of women who died during and following pregnancy and childbirth in the world at about 295,000 in 2017. Sub-Saharan Africa alone accounted for roughly two-thirds, or 196,000, of maternal deaths, while Southern Asia accounted for nearly one-fifth, 58,000.
“Many poor women and girls in Cameroon experience difficulties accessing quality health care service,” said Nehsuh Carine Alongifor, a feminist-activist in Cameroon. “Maternal health is a human right, and no woman should be deprived of this right.”
In 2016, UNICEF ranked Cameroon 18th out of 20 countries in the world with the highest mortality rate for children under the age of 5.
Black Americans are dying from COVID-19 more frequently than white people. But two researchers found it’s not because of obesity or poverty.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management professor Christopher Knittel and graduate research assistant Bora Ozaltunanalyzed daily COVID-19 death rates for a nearly two-month period for counties and states to understand the correlation between COVID-19 deaths and patients’ typical commutes, exposure to pollution, race and other factors.
A sign states that “All Princeton University Library services have moved online until Monday, April 6, at the earliest” on April 9. (M. DiPaola/Zenger)
While African Americans are dying at higher rates than white people, the researchers found obesity, poverty and smoking weren’t correlated to those deaths. Diabetes was ruled out, too.
“Why, for instance, are African Americans more likely to die from the virus than other races? Our study controls for patients’ income, weight, diabetic status, and whether or not they’re smokers,” wrote Knittel in the study. “We must examine other possibilities, such as systemic racism that impacts African Americans’ quality of insurance, hospitals, and healthcare, or other underlying health conditions that are not in the model, and then urge policymakers to look at other ways to solve the problem.”
The MIT researchers’ work comes as COVID-19 cases are on the rise in several states and in African American communities. According to data compiled by the COVID Tracking Project and Boston University for theCOVID Racial Data tracker, black people represent 13% of the U.S. population but account for 23% of the known deaths from the disease caused by the new coronavirus.
More than 26,708 black people have died in the U.S. pandemic, and four of the five counties with the highest death rates from COVID-19 are predominantly black. In counties where black people are the majority, MIT found they’re dying at rates close to 10 times higher than white counties. Other at-risk groups include the elderly and Hispanics, although healthy, young people, have also died from COVID-19.
The difference isn’t because of income disparities or that white people have a larger net worth on average than African Americans and therefore access to better care, although Knittel said in an interview that’s where policymakers often look to lay blame.
“The reason why African Americans face higher death rates is not because they have higher rates of uninsured, poverty, diabetes,” said Knittel. “It could be because the quality of their insurance is lower, the quality of their hospitals is lower, or some other systemic reason. Our analysis can hopefully allow policymakers to focus on a narrower set of potential causal links.”
Public transit usage is one potential link. The MIT researchers found people who use public transit to commute to work are at a higher risk of dying from COVID-19. People who rely on buses, trains and subways had higher death rates than those who drove to work or telecommuted. Essential workers, many of whom are black and Hispanic, often have no choice but to take public transportation and once at work, aren’t always equipped with proper protections. Paid sick leave isn’t a typical benefit for many hourly jobs, which means many people go to work sick.
“Black Americans and Hispanic Americans are more likely to be employed in service sector jobs that may be considered essential,” said Laurie Zephyrin, who oversees the Commonwealth Fund’s efforts to help vulnerable populations. The Commonwealth Fund is a nonprofit foundation focused on improving access to healthcare.
While the MIT professors weren’t able to pinpoint one direct cause for the higher death rates, Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, pointed to an inability to retreat during the pandemic, a high propensity for chronic diseases among African Americans and poverty as possible causes. He also said misinformation during the early days of the pandemic and a lack of proper testing put black lives at risk.
COVID-19. (Videoblocks)
Lackluster testing in the early days of the pandemic hurt the medical community’s ability to find and quarantine people to slow the spread of COVID-19. Even if a community had a testing site, it was often not easily accessible, said Benjamin.
Zephyrin said better messaging on social distancing and increased access to healthcare could make a difference, among other measures.
“We need to make sure the people who drive our buses, deliver our groceries, and are critical for day to day functions have the protective gear required to keep them safe.”
SAN BERNARDINO, CA—- During a lengthy NBA career, which including 4 titles, John Salley was on a different journey. He became a vegetarian during his playing days before going vegan in 2007. Now the TV host and chef has his very own vegan restaurant, the brand-new Cafe Organix located at 420 East Hospitality Lane, Suite A-10.
The grand opening was held on Friday, June 26. The event was definitely a celebratory one with community members from all throughout the Inland Empire and Los Angeles that stopped through. Kayla Collins DJ’ed during the last half of the event.
When asked why Salley chose San Bernardino for his establishment, he stated, “I wanted to be a part of the growth of veganism in San Bernardino, putting an end to food deserts in Black and Brown communities.”
Cafe Organix products are primarily made in-house with organic ingredients. “Expect a well-seasoned and tasty vegan cuisine. We will play with the menu to figure out the favorites and the foods we are good at making,” shared Salley.
Aside from offering drinks and eats, Cafe Organix will also stock frozen packaged goods, tea blends, candles, and other products! There is an art gallery inside the cafe that will feature a new local artist each month, and they also plan to host regular events for the community.
Visit CafeOrganix..com to plan your visit!
John Salley cutting the ribbon (Photo Courtesy: Facebook)
Westside Story Newspaper – Online The News of The Empire – Sharing the Quest for Excellence
