1/14 NEW: We've talked a lot about the structural reasons Covid19 is hitting black folks hard: pre-existing conditions, insurance, poverty, etc

Less discussed is the most uncomfortable factor: racial bias at medical facilities. @abscribe & I explored this https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/us/coronavirus-african-americans-bias.html

2/14 We found that for some black families, mourning a loved one's Covid19 death comes with a unique psychological burden -- wondering whether they got worse treatment because they were black.

3/14 Several black families described how their relatives were told to isolate at home & given over-the-counter meds after showing up at the hospital with clear Covid19 symptoms and a worrisome medical history.

4/14 A 49-year-old New Haven man with diabetes, hypertension, a low-functioning kidney & a double amputation showed up at Yale hospital with weakness and a 103-degree fever. He was sent home after a couple of hours. His mother found him dead at home the next day.

5/14 Now before you freak out and say, "But I know white people who got turned away from the hospital too!!!" let's look at some important facts.

FIRST AND FOREMOST: Decades of research shows that black patients receive inferior medical care to white patients.

6/14 Studies have found that doctors have downplayed African-Americans’ complaints of pain, given them weaker pain medication for broken bones & withheld cardiac treatments given to white patients. Experts say similar disparities are likely happening w/Covid19 treatment.

7/14 In the context of Covid19, we found one pilot study showing that black patients were six times less likely to get treatment or testing than white patients when they showed up at hospitals with coronavirus symptoms in 7 states.

8/14 "Unequal Treatment," a 2003 report ordered by Congress found that “Racial and ethnic minorities tend to receive a lower quality of health care.”

“Significantly, these differences are associated with GREATER MORTALITY among African-American patients.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25032386 

9/14 This doesn't mean doctors are cross-burning racists. But, yes, they have implicit biases.

One black Dr. explained: “When we walk into an ER, what they sometimes see is not a patient who is suffering from respiratory illness, they see a black man here who needs something.”

10/14 Even @CDCgov is advising medical providers to be careful w/their implicit biases in this pandemic.

“Becoming aware of & reflecting on one’s own biases to help ensure they do not impact decisions is a potentially lifesaving step for clinicians to undertake," they told us.

11/14 It's also important to note that there is less access to quality health care in many black communities, and African-Americans are more likely to suffer from diabetes, hypertension & other underlying conditions that make Covid19 particularly fatal.

12/14 This means that if a medical provider misinterprets or ignores coronavirus symptoms in black patients, there is a higher likelihood that the results could be grave.

13/14 Given the definitive research on medical bias & a healthcare system that has produced poor outcomes for African-Americans, it's reasonable for black families to wonder if more would've been done to save their relatives if they were white.

14/14 And it's why we can't blame people like Ami Relf -- whose brother died of Covid19 after an urgent care clinic sent him home without a test -- for wondering:

“If he was a middle-aged white woman, would they have turned her away? Those are questions that haunt me.”

Read all the details from our reporting here. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/us/coronavirus-african-americans-bias.html