(The Center Square) – An “insight report” published and partially funded by the Washington State Department of Health argues that the response to COVID-19 “illustrates pre-existing inequities” and led to a disproportionate impact on nonwhite and non-Asian people.
Titled “Voices From The Frontlines: A Chorus of COVID,” the report was created by “thought partners” with DOH’s Community Collaborative and argues that “it’s urgent that politicians, institutions, employers, and sometimes everyday people not forget what COVID ruthlessly taught us all over three heartbreaking years.”
“Don’t forget sometimes white people disengaged on safety when they learned people of color needed help,” the report also states.
The groups represented in the report include:
Women of Wisdom – TriCities;
LatinX Unidos of the South Sound;
Asian Pacific Islanders Coalition SPS and Multicultural Center of the South Sound;
Building Changes;
Refugee & Immigrant Services NW; and
Equity Institute
The report’s central thesis is based on differences in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths among various ethnicities. For example, it states that American Indiana and Alaskan Natives had 2.5 times higher age-adjusted death rates than Asian and white Populations, and that Black and African-American populations have COVID-19 death rates twice as high as Asian, white and “multiracial populations.”