Monday brought another grim statistic about the coronavirus to Chicago: African Americans are catching the disease and dying from it at an alarmingly higher rate than the rest of us.
Why virus is hurting blacks most
Several social and economic factors help explain why so many more people of color are contracting the virus.
For one, many people of color hold jobs that simply don’t allow for working at home, as so many white collar professionals are doing. Anyone who works as a grocery store clerk, bus driver or a car mechanic can’t practice social distancing to the same extent as a lawyer or corporate executive — or journalist — who can all telecommute.
Only about 1 in 5 black workers, and 1 in 6 Hispanic workers, have jobs that allow them to work from home, an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute found. Among low wage workers overall, the number is even lower: less than one in 10 can telecommute.
Many of these workers, too, rely on public transit, which adds to the risk.
So if you’re a nursing home aide, health care worker or delivery driver, you hop on the bus because you can’t afford not to go to work. And you pray you don’t come in contact with someone else on the bus, or a co-worker or client, who’s carrying the virus.
Lower-wage workers, too, cannot rely on ordering groceries from Instacart, or dinner via GrubHub. It’s too expensive. A trip to the grocery store or maybe a fast food restaurant is the only option — and yet another chance to get sick.
Read the full Chicago Sun-Times editorial here.
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