On Monday we published new research with @RunnymedeTrust on ethnic disparities in Covid which found that 58,000 additional people would have died if white communities faced the same level of risk as Black communities

Here's a quick thread on how and why we made that calculation

In the House of Commons today Minister for Equalities @KemiBadenoch said that she does “not recognise those figures. Its methodology was not transparent, and our statisticians in the Cabinet Office could not understand where it got the numbers from”

We reject this conclusion.

Our methodology is widely accepted in the academic community. To get to this statistic we applied the black population’s age and sex specific death rates from Covid-19 to the white population.

The full methodology is explained in an addendum to the blog https://www.ippr.org/blog/ethnic-inequalities-in-covid-19-are-playing-out-again-how-can-we-stop-them

Our methodology was quality assured both internally and externally by epidemiologists at UCL and data scientists at CF healthcare consultancy. We have been entirely transparent with the Cabinet Office about this work and the methodology used.

In the HoC the Equalities Minister stated that she found the number “alarming”. We agree. The inequalities faced by minority ethnic communities are stark and disturbing. Our report is clear that the govt must take action now to save lives as we enter a second wave of the pandemic

For this reason we welcome the measures announced today. But we must go further by recognising the structural disadvantages faced by people from minority ethnic communities and respond accordingly

Our report sets out a number of measures to help address these injustices