More UK Ethnic Minorities Dying from COVID-19

By Staff, Agencies

A new report said the coronavirus epidemic is killing Britain’s ethnic minorities in disproportionate numbers, despite the fact that most minority groups are much younger on average than the white British population.

According to a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, [IFS], per capita deaths for people in Britain who had black Caribbean heritage were three times that for British citizens who are white.

Per capita deaths among other black groups were double that of the population overall, said the think tank.

The IFS said those of Indian descent also suffered more fatalities than average in the United Kingdom [UK].

The report said this could be explained, in part, because these people are more likely to work in healthcare and other sectors most exposed to the new coronavirus.

The UK's National Health Service [NHS] is the largest employer of Black and Minority Ethnic staff in the country.

Some 40.1 percent of medical workers at the NHS are from minority groups.

This is while foreign doctors in the UK have typically found work in localities and practices that are apparently putting them on the dangerous front lines of the battle against the COVID-19 epidemic.

The UK’s death toll from the epidemic now stands at 26,711, said Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday. More than 171,000 people have tested positive for the disease.

Data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also highlighted racial disparities in the US, showing that African Americans are more likely to become infected and die of COVID-19 complications than their white counterparts.

The reports said Wednesday that more than 80 percent of the patients hospitalized in the state of Georgia were black.