"Is Covid Racist?" is the title of a recent documentary on Channel 4. Presented by Dr. Ronx Ikharia it is a full investigation into why the coronavirus has disproportionately affected BAME frontline workers in the UK, and pays tributes to those who have lost their lives. The programme states that: "over 60% of NHS frontline health workers who have died of COVID-19 are also people of colour, despite making up only 20% of the NHS workforce"  and looks into the socioeconomic inequalities that may have caused this to happen.

Experts featured include Dr Chaand Nagpul, chair of the British Medical Association Council and Halima Begum, of race equality think tank, the Runnymede Trust. All reach the same conclusion: black and brown healthcare workers were at far greater risk than their white colleagues. Five themes are investigated: genetics, pre-existing medical conditions, wealth, health, and institutional racism. Though recent government research dismisses structural racism as a contributing factor, Dr. Ronx allows the "hard facts" to speak for themselves. 

Read more here and a review here. Watch the programme here until December 23.

Two more reports have been added to the growing pile of research showing that minority ethnic communities have been hardest hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, this time revealing that little effort has been made to address the issue.

A joint report from IPPR and Runnymede trust states: "there has been little effort to stop Covid-19 hitting minority ethnic communities hardest as we enter the second wave". It estimates that over 2,500 deaths could have been avoided during the first wave in England and Wales if the black and Asian populations did not experience an extra risk of death from Covid-19 compared to the white population (after adjusting for differences in age and sex). Put differently, over 58,000 and 35,000 additional deaths from Covid-19 would have occurred if the white population had experienced the same risk of death from Covid-19 as the black and Asian and populations respectively. The inequalities are not explained by underlying diseases (such as heart disease, diabetes) or genetics (as there is no genetic basis for race or ethnicity). The report says: "this inequality is likely to be driven by structural and institutional racism that results in differences in social conditions (such as occupation and housing) and differential access to healthcare". Read more here.

​The second report is a follow up by The Independent to the Government-commissioned review from Public Health England in June into inequalities in Covid deaths. It states that: "four months on, as the country heads towards another peak of cases, the government has been unable to provide The Independent with details of any action taken to address the issue". It quotes Marsha de Cordova, Labour’s shadow equalities minister: “Ministers’ failure to prevent the disproportionate impact of Covid is negligent, discriminatory and unlawful.” Read more here.

The cartoon, from The Independent in June, sums it up well.

The latest newsletter from Greater Manchester Poverty Action focuses on the recent Social Metrics Commission report which highlights the shocking extent to which certain parts of our community are at much greater risk of poverty. The report found that nearly half of BAME UK households live in poverty and many in deep poverty, and BAME families are between two to three times more likely to be experiencing persistent poverty. Coronavirus has exposed many existing inequalities, making talk of the virus being a great leveller, affecting rich and poor alike as nonsense. GMPA asked several leading figures from Greater Manchester's Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise Sector (VCSE) to comment on the Social Metrics Commission figures and what they mean for the fight against poverty in light of the pandemic.

Read their comments in the newsletter here.

This is a Facebook post written by Steve Burton in Leicester. He has given permission for us to reproduce it here.

You’re 31, working in the clothing and textiles industry in Leicester. You live in a small 3-bedroomed terraced house with your wife, two children, your elderly parents and your 28-year old brother. Work is in a small unit in a Victorian factory that used to be a huge engineering works but was split in dozens of ramshackle units back in the 1980s. You are crammed into a tiny space with all the other workers and machines. Health and Safety at work is something for big companies, not for small firms like yours.
The toilets, that you share with two other units, are a disgrace. They are never cleaned, there is no hot water, no soap, no towels. You are expected to bring your own toilet paper, although you are strongly discouraged from any kind of break during the working day – you are expected to do that kind of thing in your own time. In the six years you have worked there, you have seen so many of your fellow workers sacked on the spot, at the bosses whim, so you know better than to even raise the subject, let alone complain about the conditions. Your boss knows he can act with impunity – most workers do not understand the complexity of workplace legislation, and it has been made clear that they face instant dismissal if they join a union.
You earn £4 an hour. Someone told you about a legal minimum wage, but you can’t ask your boss about that because he’d sack you. Your brother works cash-in-hand for a local builder, and you live in constant fear that you’re going to be found out and thrown in jail – not least because you don’t know who would look after your parents. Your wife’s part-time cleaning job has disappeared, and she is not eligible for any government money. You live from pay packet to pay packet, just managing to scape by each week. There is never enough to save, never has been.
Before lockdown, you could take your family to the temple at the weekends, meet up with family and friends, share food, support each other, but you can’t do that in lockdown. You are terrified that you will pick up the virus and take it home to your parents – your mum is diabetic, your dad has never been well since he recovered from TB.
You friends in a richer part of town have been furloughed, which means they are being paid twice as much as you for not going to work. You think your boss is getting furlough money for you too, but you don’t really understand the scheme – you are still working 9 or 10 hours a day for the same pay. When you tried to ask other people about it, you were told that if you don’t like it here, you should go home.
The current spike in Leicester is your fault. Although you stay at home when you’re not working, along with the rest of your family, following the rules as well as you can, it’s your fault. You are to blame. No one has told you what you should be doing differently, or how you would survive if you weren’t working, but never mind all that – you are to blame. It’s all your fault.

This article about the higher death toll from COVID-19 among the descendants of slaves in Brazil illustrates again that countries that took part in the transporting and enslaving of Africans have, as a major legacy, structural racism. And this invariably results in disproportionate negative outcomes for the descendants of those slaves. Brazil forcibly brought some 4 million enslaved Africans into the country over three centuries, more than anywhere else in the Americas. About half its 209 million people are black – the world’s second largest African-descendant population after Nigeria. Though Brazil has never had legalised racial discrimination like Jim Crow, there are deeply embedded race-based inequalities shown in employment discrimination, residential segregation and a 3 year difference in life expectancy between black and white Brazilians (similar to the USA).

Government data does not include racial or ethnic information, and it was only after coming under pressure that the collection of COVID-19 racial data was begun in late April – but has yet to be released. Now outside researchers have shown that 55% of Afro-Brazilian patients hospitalized with severe COVID-19 died, compared to 34% of white patients. The research has found that structural racism – in the form of high-risk working conditions, unequal access to health and worse housing conditions – is a major factor shaping Brazil’s COVID-19 pandemic. There is also extreme economic inequality. White women earn up to 74% more than black men.

​There are parallels here with data coming out of the UK and USA. Read the full article here.

To better understand how the COVID-19 crisis is affecting Pentecostal and Charismatic worshipping communities in England, MJR Trustee Dr Joe Aldred, in his role with Churches Together in England has held conversations with all 23 CTE members that make up the Pentecostal and Charismatic Forum. His findings are summarised in this document.

There are three sections:

1. COVID-19 in terms of challenges, opportunities, and expected future impact (including concerns about BAME over-representation in statistics.
2. Financial impact of COVID-19.
3. The effects of conspiracy and apocalyptic theories linking COVID-19 to 5G technology, and a vaccine to the mark of the beast. 

Read it here.

MJR trustee Joe Aldred was interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Sunday programme yesterday on the impact of Covid-19 on BAME communities, where the risk of dying from the virus is at least 2-3 times higher in African-Caribbean communities than in white ones.

​Joe reflects on personal loss, the reaction from Pentecostal churches and the wider effects on his community. "It feels like there has been a health timebomb waiting to explode in the African-Caribbean community. If you were to look at any of the stats in the UK for BAME life and particularly for my own community... what you will see is that we show up in negative stats almost anywhere you care to look, socially, economically, politically. We have lived with that over-representation in underlying conditions, and what Covid has done is simply highlighted that."

​Listen to the full interview here (starts at about 18:50), or download an mp3 clip here.

Figures from the Office of National Statistics show that black people in England and Wales are more than four times more likely to die from Covid-19 than white people, exposing a dramatic divergence in the impact of the pandemic. 

“These results show that the difference between ethnic groups in Covid-19 mortality is partly a result of socio-economic disadvantage and other circumstances, but a remaining part of the difference has not yet been explained.” the ONS said. The Department of Health and Social Care said: “This virus has sadly appeared to have a disproportionate effect on people from BAME backgrounds." The figures, covering deaths from 2 March to 10 April, are the first official snapshot of the way that Covid-19 has affected different ethnic groups in England and Wales.

Describing the findings as “alarming”, Zubaida Haque, deputy director of the Runnymede Trust race equality think tank, said: “We cannot ignore how important racial discrimination and racial inequalities (e.g. in housing) are, even among poorer socio-economic groups,” she said. “These factors are important but are not taken into account in most statistical modelling of Covid-19 risk factors.” Helen Barnard, from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said the findings were “a stark reminder that although we are all weathering the same storm, we are not all in the same boat”.

Read more here. Read the ONS report here.

"COVID-19 has exposed a pre-existing underlying health condition in our society."

In a Press Release today Movement for Justice and Reconciliation has made a call for urgent action from the government on the disproportionate number of BAME people dying from COVID-19. Chair Alton Bell says: "Although underlying health conditions may have contributed to the disproportionate number of deaths, too few people have recognised that social inequality and the legacy of enslavement are also major contributory factors." MJR has produced research that shows the links to enslavement in the descendants and in our modern society. Read the full release here.

In this article Dr Jenan Younis outlines a number of factors contributing to the disproportionately high number of deaths among NHS doctors and carers from BAME communities. She points to an inequality in workplace culture which results in BAME doctors being expected to do more, and not to complain. "There is evidence from the BMA and GMC that Bame doctors are much less likely to complain about issues regarding safety born from a concern of having to face recriminations or reprisals in comparison to their white counterparts." In the present crisis this results in colleagues being "fearful for their own safety without adequate PPE but equally fearful of the repercussions of speaking out."

This inequality is rooted in discrimination. "The medical profession is certainly no stranger to discrimination, a GMC-commissioned independent report highlighted that Bame medical professionals are likely to be treated differently and undersupported by their peers. It seems this is a discussion we as a profession are afraid to have."

While acknowledging that there is a debate going on about this issue, Dr Younis is not optimistic that it or the promised inquiry will lead to any lasting change. "All that will change is that many individuals such as myself will undergo a stark realisation that the value of being “ethnic” in this society is to serve and be sacrificed"

​Read the full article. Photo: Amged El-Hawrani is just one of the many Bame care workers to have died.