One of the questions I was asked the most about the pandemic is what it’s like to be on the front line of COVID. My answer is that it’s terrifying.
As a young black doctor, you will most likely get the virus, die, paint on the front to fight it, and be arrested under the legislation imposed on you. For those of us at the intersection of these factors, anything as undeniable as getting up and going to paint now seems like a life-or-death decision.
Look around Lockdown London at the other people who are still running and you will notice that they are usually black and Asian. The vast majority of nurses, cleaning staff and staff in my branch are black. Official knowledge also reflects this: in London, other people of color account for roughly all food production, social and fitness facilities and shipping workers.
This country builds and paints on paintings of black and brown bodies and in times of national crisis, this is even more evident. Other blacks drive our buses, pack our groceries, collect our trash and take care of the ones we enjoy. Other blacks keep the country alive. So why does the country rarely do the same for us?
Blacks are the maximum of the organization that will likely be diagnosed with COVID. Blacks are 4 times more likely to die of COVID than their white counterparts. In medical and media circles, there has been an early instinctive reaction to explain the racial disparity in COVID deaths as a purely clinical problem. I sat in my workplace and listened as genetics, blood pressure medications and vitamin D grades presented as imaginable explanations, all of which had little or no credible evidence behind them. It was as if everyone was too scared to admit that this country was disappointing its citizens.
The government’s late report on COVID inequality temporarily referred to “socio-economic aspects” of differences. It is undeniable that deprivation is a key factor and that blacks and maroons are overrepresented in disadvantaged areas. But why then were 94% of the doctors who died in the first month of the lockout black and brown? Would our socioeconomic status, physical education and access to intervention help us protect ourselves?
We’ve known this disparity for months. The black and brown fitness care staff has been expressing their considerations all this time. It all comes down to an undeniable fact: we are afraid of contracting a virus that has been more likely to kill us. Last week, three months after the blockade and more than two months after the BRITISH NHS requested individual threat testing for all fitness personnel, a survey found that 65% of the doctors who responded had not yet been tested for threats. Last week, my hospital emailed the tests, we have not yet obtained a reaction related to the changes or measures taken to protect vulnerable personnel. When the hospital’s antibody test reserve site was installed, it was blocked for two days. People are so interested in getting tested that servers can’t handle requests.
Although it turns out that nationally, our considerations are not being heard, other people are acting more locally. Where I work, the African-American and Minority Ethnic Staff Network has established peer-to-peer sessions to discuss the effect of COVID-19 on other people of color running in the hospital. The network also organized an occasion to kneel throughout the hospital in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and reminiscent of George Floyd and Belly Mujinga. That same week, however, one representative told me in front of 15 white colleagues that racism does not exist in the UK and that “whites and blacks” are treated the same way here.
When I was stopped in the direction for a ten-hour shift at A-E this month, I was not surprised. This isn’t the first time I’ve been arrested by the police. It won’t be, I know very well, the last one either. I was more surprised that my joke about Durham didn’t happen as well as on Twitter.
Police figures show that blacks are twice as likely to be fined and nearly 50% more likely to be arrested under COVID’s blocking regulations. My pleasure is not unique. A school employee was handcuffed and questioned by police while his car was being searched, and a paramedic was arrested and searched for drugs a few days later. Both men were black.
This pandemic has exposed racial inequality deeply rooted in the center of this country. Blacks and maroons work, catch COVID, are arrested and harassed by the police and die at a disproportionate rate. So when you ask me how you feel on the front line of COVID, that’s what I mean when I say it’s scary.
@willhunterr