African Americans could be at greater risk for coronavirus

Doctors warn that African Americans could be at greater risk for coronavirus.

There aren't yet statistics on the racial makeup of those who are suffering most from COVID-19. But in Louisiana, more than 70 % of deaths involve African Americans.

But some black men are reluctant to wear homemade masks here in Washington.

This is what some black men are afraid of: If they put on a mask like, they could be mistaken for something other than someone trying to protect himself from the coronavirus.

The few black men we saw wearing masks, were mostly wearing the standard issue ones like John Rogers of Renton.

"I was wondering what I was going to do if I ran out of these," he said, pointing to his mask, "because I went to school down in California, down in LA. And the blue and the red and green rags were a problem down there."

It is ever present on the mind of Edwin Lindo, too, a highly regarded lawyer who teaches issues of ethics and racial bias at the University of Washington Medical School.

"Our community, myself, are concerned that if we wear, like Doctor Oz was suggesting, a red bandana around our face, that there's going to be severe and significant issues," said Lindo, "not only in our community but in the overpolicing of our community."

Yet a lot of blacks have been ignoring the pleas for social distancing convinced they, somehow, enjoy a type of immunity.

"Everybody started saying in the black community 'this is a white folk's thing,' " said CNN contributor Van Jones.

But he says blacks may be at greatest risk.

"The numbers for the black community are going to be completely different than the numbers coming out of China or Italy," Jones said, "because it's an epidemic jumping on top of a bunch of other epidemics already in the black community."

And Edwin Lindo worries that will make the impact of the coronavirus on African-Americans, greater still.

"You want to talk about a pandemic," he said, "I do hope, I do hope that the seriousness that we've put toward COVID-19 is the seriousness we put towards a pandemic of the police shootings of our community."

Now King County is considering doing something Lindo says is desperately needed, outreach to communities at greatest risk for contracting and dying from COVID-19.

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