CHRISTIANS IN AFRICA: AWAKE!
America and the American Church
Are Not Your Friends
https://www.antipasministries.com/html/file0000234.htm For example, take the case of AIDS which no one had ever heard of before the very late 1970s and early 1980s. The government's theory traces the AIDS virus back to a certain "Patient Zero" - one Gaeton Dugas - a gay airline steward who allegedly contracted the disease in Africa (supposedly from monkeys) and then spread the disease to other gays in America with whom he was having sex. This is the theory that was initially promoted throughout the country by the CDC (Center for Disease Control). But on closer examination, the theory is nonsense. First of all, "Patient Zero" lived in Canada and flew primarily in Canada to Canadian cities, and only very occasionally to American cities; yet one must assume that he only had sex in American cities (never in Canadian ones) because the disease broke out initially only in certain, specific American cities. The disease did not break out in Canada until much later.
Say no to Medical Racism: Why African Americans are
dying at higher rates from COVID-19 in USA? Because they are being used as
guinea pigs in America’s COVID-19 Bio-weapon experiment: Remember the
HIV-bio-weapon was first discovered among gay blacks in USA
Medical racism in Babylon USA : HIV was not
brought to USA by a white French Canadian: It was brought by a Black Haiti who
got it from an African Monkey in the Zaire-DRCongo
When
Africans try to speak sense into naïve and babyish Africans : Dr. Cyril
Broderick’s expose of Babyoln USA role in Manufacturing Ebola in West Africa
attracts thousand of comments : Some Naïve Africans think the article has no
basis in fact: Will the US employ its mainstream media to counteract Dr. Cyril
Broderick’s expose just like Garry Web’s expose??
https://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2014/10/when-africans-try-to-speak-sense-into.html
Why African Americans are dying at higher rates from COVID-19 in USA?
Wednesday April 8 2020
The new coronavirus
isn't biased about who it infects -- so why does data emerging from some
states suggest that African Americans are bearing the brunt of the
pandemic in the US?
Experts say blacks are
disproportionately impacted by underlying health conditions linked to
poverty, face discrimination in medical care, and are more likely to
work jobs that require them to leave their home.
"We
know that blacks are more likely to have diabetes, heart disease, lung
disease," the nation's top doctor, Surgeon General Jerome Adams told CBS
News on Tuesday.
These chronic illnesses, which are in
turn linked to poverty and structural racism, can lead to more serious
forms of the COVID-19 disease.
Adams, who is himself
black and has high blood pressure and asthma, added: "I represent that
legacy of growing up poor and black in America.
"And I, and many black Americans, are at higher risk for COVID."
Only three states, Michigan, Illinois, and North Carolina, are providing data highlighting infection rates by race, but the figures indicate that African Americans have an outsize risk of getting a case of COVID-19 so severe that it leads to death.
There are calls for more states to provide this kind of data so a more reliable picture can be formed across the US.
Two experts have suggested the virus is having a starker effect on African Americans because people in that demographic are more likely to live in poverty and to be in ill health, both of which can exacerbate COVID-19.
New data from Michigan shows that African Americans are 14% of the population (1.4 million) but represent 40% (247) of the coronavirus deaths in the state.
It is a similar story in Illinois, where 113 African Americans have died out of a recorded 274 deaths, representing 41% of the total figure.
The black community in the state numbers 1.8 million, or 14.6% of the population.
Other anecdotal evidence from around the country — where testing data varies from state-to-state — affirms this apparent racial disparity in the coronavirus infection and death statistics.
ProPublica reported from Milwaukee: "As of Friday morning, African Americans made up almost half of Milwaukee County's 945 cases and 81% of its 27 deaths in a county whose population is 26% black." Within that figure, it is mainly men falling ill.
The trend was replicated in North Carolina.
In that state, 647 of total known cases — equivalent to 37% — were among African Americans, who make up 21% of the total population of 10.4 million.
The North Carolina death toll — which includes six African Americans of the 31 total deaths — was more in line with the population, making up 19% of deaths compared with 21% overall.
Dr. Lisa Cooper, a medical expert and social epidemiologist with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told US News & World Report that broader social disadvantage was the reason black people were worse-hit.
She noted that "as a group, African Americans in the US have higher rates of poverty, housing and food insecurity, unemployment or underemployment, and chronic medical conditions, and disabilities."
Dr. Camara Jones, a family physician, epidemiologist, and visiting fellow at Harvard University, told ProPublica: "This is the time to name racism as the cause of all of those things. The overrepresentation of people of color in poverty and white people in wealth is not just a happenstance … It's because we're not valued."
It is also possible, however, that the Illinois and Michigan data is skewed by the fact that the largest coronavirus outbreaks in those states are in Chicago and Detroit, which both have large African American populations.
A political campaign has been launched to pressure the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to start collating figures to monitor and address racial disparities in the US's response to the coronavirus disease.
Five members of Congress, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, signed a letter to Alex Azar, the US health secretary, on the topic.
"Although COVID-19 does not discriminate along racial or ethnic lines, existing racial disparities and inequities in health outcomes and health care access may mean that the nation's response to preventing and mitigating its harms will not be felt equally in every community," the letter said.
African Americans seem to be dying of the coronavirus at outsized rates, based on the few states providing data on the race of victims
- The coronavirus pandemic has hit the African American community harder than the general US population, early data suggests.
- Michigan, Illinois, and North Carolina are the only states that have publicly broken down the data on coronavirus infections and deaths by race.
- Experts believe poverty and a lack of healthcare are hampering the fight against COVID-19 in the African American community.
Only three states, Michigan, Illinois, and North Carolina, are providing data highlighting infection rates by race, but the figures indicate that African Americans have an outsize risk of getting a case of COVID-19 so severe that it leads to death.
There are calls for more states to provide this kind of data so a more reliable picture can be formed across the US.
Two experts have suggested the virus is having a starker effect on African Americans because people in that demographic are more likely to live in poverty and to be in ill health, both of which can exacerbate COVID-19.
New data from Michigan shows that African Americans are 14% of the population (1.4 million) but represent 40% (247) of the coronavirus deaths in the state.
It is a similar story in Illinois, where 113 African Americans have died out of a recorded 274 deaths, representing 41% of the total figure.
Chair of New York City Council health committee.
Representing District 7, Uptown Manhattan (Washington Heights, West Harlem, UWS).
Michigan has just started reporting on coronavirus cases by race.
African Americans are 14% of that state's population but 40% of deaths.
This pandemic is reflecting--and exacerbating--inequality.
NYC should publish this data as well, so we get the picture here.
The black community in the state numbers 1.8 million, or 14.6% of the population.
Other anecdotal evidence from around the country — where testing data varies from state-to-state — affirms this apparent racial disparity in the coronavirus infection and death statistics.
ProPublica reported from Milwaukee: "As of Friday morning, African Americans made up almost half of Milwaukee County's 945 cases and 81% of its 27 deaths in a county whose population is 26% black." Within that figure, it is mainly men falling ill.
The trend was replicated in North Carolina.
In that state, 647 of total known cases — equivalent to 37% — were among African Americans, who make up 21% of the total population of 10.4 million.
The North Carolina death toll — which includes six African Americans of the 31 total deaths — was more in line with the population, making up 19% of deaths compared with 21% overall.
Dr. Lisa Cooper, a medical expert and social epidemiologist with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told US News & World Report that broader social disadvantage was the reason black people were worse-hit.
She noted that "as a group, African Americans in the US have higher rates of poverty, housing and food insecurity, unemployment or underemployment, and chronic medical conditions, and disabilities."
Dr. Camara Jones, a family physician, epidemiologist, and visiting fellow at Harvard University, told ProPublica: "This is the time to name racism as the cause of all of those things. The overrepresentation of people of color in poverty and white people in wealth is not just a happenstance … It's because we're not valued."
It is also possible, however, that the Illinois and Michigan data is skewed by the fact that the largest coronavirus outbreaks in those states are in Chicago and Detroit, which both have large African American populations.
A political campaign has been launched to pressure the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to start collating figures to monitor and address racial disparities in the US's response to the coronavirus disease.
Five members of Congress, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, signed a letter to Alex Azar, the US health secretary, on the topic.
"Although COVID-19 does not discriminate along racial or ethnic lines, existing racial disparities and inequities in health outcomes and health care access may mean that the nation's response to preventing and mitigating its harms will not be felt equally in every community," the letter said.
Black America must wake up to this viral threat
CNN host Van Jones is the CEO of the REFORM Alliance, a criminal justice organization for which Jessica Jackson serves as the chief advocacy officer. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.
(CNN)At the start of any pandemic, early information can mislead. Unfortunately, for vulnerable populations, false assumptions can have deadly consequences.
African Americans are about to learn this awful truth -- in devastating ways.
Two
data points converged at the start of this crisis to make a lot of
black folk shrug and think, "Coronavirus is not our problem."
Myth #1: Covid-19 is a white disease.
The
Americans who were initially diagnosed with the virus were mostly
white. At the beginning of the epidemic, the media understandably
focused on affluent white people who had traveled overseas, especially
to Asia. The impact of this news coverage had African Americans joking
among ourselves that perhaps we were somehow immune to the virus. As
crazy as it sounds, a rumor took off that this was a disease that kills only white people.
It got so bad that Idris Elba, one of the first famous black victims of coronavirus, had to post a video begging black people to believe that people of African descent could get it, too.
And
yet, when I warned my family of the coming pandemic, my highly educated
cousin told me, with great confidence: "No, we got the antibodies for
that!"
My cousin's reaction
reminded me of the early days of the HIV epidemic, when people thought
of AIDS as a "white, gay" disease. The first visible victims were gay
white men. But the illness soon devastated black communities and African
nations. Today, AIDS is largely associated with poverty and race.
Covid-19
is likely to follow the same trajectory. The perception that the
disease impacts older, more affluent and whiter populations will soon
give way to a heartbreaking realization: the virus is crushing poorer and blacker populations, and it's affecting young people, too.
Myth #2: Younger people are safe.
And yes -- I did say "younger." The second data point was that (in Asia and Europe) this disease has mostly killed older people. Since communities of color are statistically much younger than the white population, many thought this disease posed no particular threat to people of color.
However,
it's important to keep in mind, first, that younger people -- even
healthy ones -- are at risk of contracting and spreading the virus. In
states like New York, about one in five hospitalizations are occurring in people under the age of 44, according to the city's health department. And the numbers appear even grimmer in parts of the South.
In addition, younger African Americans
are already dying at higher rates from diabetes, HIV and cancer than
white populations of the same age, according to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. And people who contract Covid-19 and are already
immunocompromised appear at greater risk of complications from the
virus, should they contract it.
Furthermore, obesity rates are significantly higher
among both African American children (17 and under) and adults (18 and
older), according to the Department of Health and Human Services. And
obesity puts them at greater risk of those underlying immunocompromising
illnesses such as diabetes and high-blood pressure.
Fact: Black communities are already reeling.
According
to the most recent data available from Department of Health and Human
Services Office of Minority Health, when compared with non-Hispanic
white citizens in the US, African Americans are 60% more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes, 20% more likely to die from heart disease, have the highest mortality rate of any racial and ethnic group for all cancers combined and for most major cancers, and represent 44% of the HIV positive population.
In
fact, as the virus smashes into black communities, it is actually one
epidemic jumping on top of several other epidemics. The sad fact is too
many African Americans are not healthy or adequately insured on
a good day. In polite company, we speak delicately about
"disproportionate health outcomes." But this antiseptic term does not
capture the truth. Black people are sicker than white people across the
board.
And this virus may be especially fatal to people who have out-of-control hypertension -- a disease that is nearly at epidemic levels in
the black community. While focusing on the elderly population, the
media underreported the risk to people with hypertension or high-blood
pressure.
In addition to poor health, African
Americans are disproportionately low-income. And low-income people are
often trapped or crowded into situations where the sheer population
density makes it hard to "social distance." Therefore, the virus will
likely spread quickly in housing projects, homeless shelters, prisons
and jails -- adding to the risk and pain for those black Americans who
are stuck in poverty.
The hard truth: At this rate, Covid-19 is going to devastate black America.
Based
on the arguments above, Covid-19 will kill black people in shockingly
massive numbers. We should expect to see black people dying at much
younger ages and in much larger numbers than the nation's leaders have
been suggesting. And now the anecdotal evidence is pouring in.
- In New York City, data from the Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development is showing the communities hit hardest by the pandemic are the lower-income communities in the outer boroughs, where a higher percentage of the population is black or brown and many residents work service industry jobs.
- In Michigan (one of the few states tracking data on Covid-19 and race) so far, African Americans account for 33% of cases and 40% of deaths.
- According to the Charlotte Observer, data from Mecklenburg County (which houses Charlotte) shows approximately 44% of the population with Covid-19 is African American, while the county itself is only 33% black.
- Milwaukee County is 27% black, yet the first eight people who died in the area because of coronavirus were African American. As of Friday, 81% of the 27 deaths in the county were black people. Almost half of the 945 cases are African American.
- In Illinois, African Americans make up 28% of confirmed cases, and only 14.6% of the population.
- In Memphis, most of the screening is missing the poor, black communities and instead is focused in affluent suburbs according to a heat map that shows where coronavirus testing is taking place.
- In Philadelphia, the highest percentages of positive tests are consistently coming from ZIP codes that have a large minority population.
Conclusion: It's time to sound the alarm.
While
some black media and influencers are starting to speak up about this,
it's not nearly enough. We need to crank up the volume in black
communities across the nation urgently and immediately.
Here are the things black media, influencers and leaders can call for:
1. Warn black people the threat to their health is significant.
This
is not a drill. Influential figures in black communities need to unite
and overcorrect for the misinformation running rampant about African
Americans being immune to Covid-19. Due to centuries of mistrust, we
need to take it upon ourselves as leaders to ensure all of our friends,
family members and communities know the truth: Black people are in far
greater danger of dying from this illness due to preexisting health
conditions, living environments, professions and limited access to
health care.
2. We need to demand racial data.
While
Covid-19 may not discriminate based on race, US health care certainly
does. History shows us that if you are poor and black or brown, you
aren't going to be first in line for support. Without data on who is
getting testing and treatment, we will not be able to hold the system
accountable. Democrats in Congress are already demanding
data from the federal government about the racial disparities in the
nation's response to the coronavirus pandemic. We all need to support
these efforts.
3. Call for people to be released from prisons and jails.
The US incarcerates 2.3 million people. Despite representing only 13% of US residents, black Americans make up 34%
of the incarcerated population. Our prisons and jails are primed to
become super-accelerators of coronavirus, both inside and outside
correctional facilities.
Incarcerated
people are in prisons and jails, not on another planet -- corrections
officers enter and leave these facilities every day, and approximately 200,000 people
flow into and out of jails every week. We must call on our elected
officials to take drastic action in two directions immediately and
simultaneously: depopulate jails and prisons safely, and surge medical
and sanitation supplies into these institutions.
4. Black churches should stop holding services, and offer our houses of worship as shelter for people seeking refuge.
Too many black pastors are continuing to hold church services, even while Rev. Al Sharpton and other black church leaders call for pastors to discontinue in-person services until the epidemic passes.
It's
crucial for pastors to heed this call. Of course God asks us to have
faith in Him. But we should also respect the laws by which He has
ordered the universe. For example, gravity is real. Few Christians would
dare to jump off a 100-story building and expect to be saved by the
power prayer alone. It would be just as foolhardy to ignore the
scientific warnings about the dangers of this virus. One can have faith
in God and respect for this virus at the same time.
Black
churches can play a powerful role. They can protect the well by
postponing in-person worship services until the pandemic ends. And they
can help the sick and uncertain -- by letting people self quarantine in
their sanctuaries.
