Whenever I see the ‘Why?’ are people of colour disproportionately dying from COVID I see a scrambling for some pathological, biomedical explanation. quite frankly, like all patterns of health inequality, most of the explanation is and will be due to structural inequality

Even diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol, psychosis - so common is the need to necessitate pathological ‘culture’ as the answer to race/ethnic health inequalities, not the chronic stressors that become embedded and into the body

We can see this in so far as how good/better health reverses in immigrants of colour over the life course after they arrive, and then intergenerationally. A chronically stressful environment (esp. structural and material inequality) leads to a biologically response

it’s getting boring now - but a good example is even psychosis and what happens in the increase in prevalence for second generations but not first.

You want to know why they are dying from COVID? Pre-existing conditions are linked to the same things that also are putting them at higher risk of exposure - quality and types of work, poor employment protection, pay, housing conditions, racism, access to care/treatment etc

Not because there is something biological or genetically ‘different’ about them

Fun fact to remember especially where class and race intersect is how many comorbidities poor BAME people live with, and at a younger age to white peers, that significantly impacts quality of life and obvious one - mortality.

Body keeps the score mate - can only live under stressful environmental, psychological and material conditions for so long - it does and will catch up. and often shows up on the ‘frontlines’