This is hard to hear, and I fear it is only the beginning of the bad news we& #39;re going to hear about #COVID19 and health disparities. I& #39;ve been asked 3 times in the past 24 hours about what we could do differently right now. A short thread: 1/6 https://twitter.com/chriskingstl/status/1247981602296168451">https://twitter.com/chrisking...

I& #39;ve given the same depressing answer every time - I& #39;m not in a position to judge the specific efforts of local public health departments. We can& #39;t read this as a real time failure to intervene and test - that is the wrong lesson here. Testing is a national embarrassment. 2/6

Racial disparities are a national shame. They are the culmination of a process that goes back to 1619 and before. We& #39;ve spend centuries building up to a moment where a largely unchecked pandemic tears through marginalized communities, including African American neighborhoods. 3/6

We& #39;ve allowed racism, white nationalism, austerity, and poverty to just ravage black communities in the U.S. We& #39;ve allowed health disparities to fester, and turned a blind eye to our social safety-net and public health systems. We& #39;ve left our neighbors uniquely vulnerable. 4/6

What we& #39;re witnessing is the result of these decisions. I& #39;ve been criticized off-line for sharing zip-code maps and scatterplots highlighting race/class. The data aren& #39;t perfect. Zip-codes are problematic. Fuck. That. Noise. The data we have are a raging, glaring alarm bell. 5/6

They& #39;re a flawed alarm bell, but an alarm just the same. I& #39;m gutted by the news that each fatality so far is an African American person. I& #39;m grieving for my neighbors. And I& #39;m resolved to not go back to normal when this is over. Normal got us to this point. Fuck normal. 6/6