Black Americans already make up a disproportionate share of the deaths in the U. S. caused by the coronavirus as underlying conditions, income inequality and disparity in access to health care have exacerbated the outbreak in the black community.
As the U. S. erupted in protest over the weekend in response to the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, health officials are warning that mass gatherings will likely exacerbate the coronavirus outbreak in the most vulnerable communities.
The protests come as schools and businesses across the country have been closed for months in a bid to keep people home and curb the spread of the virus. The coronavirus has now infected more than 1.7 million people across the U. S. and killed at least 104,383, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
«I think there’s going to be a lot of challenges coming out of the events of the past week,» former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said in an interview on «Squawk Box» on Monday. «One of them’s going to be that probably chains of transmission will have gotten lit by large gatherings. I don’t think there’s really a question about that.»
The protests, which were sparked after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed Floyd a week ago by kneeling on his neck for almost nine minutes during an arrest, present a particular threat to Minnesota, which was already struggling with an uncontrolled outbreak, Gottlieb said.
