Jill Lawless / AP — People in Britain from ethnic minorities have died in larger relative numbers with COVID-19 than their white compatriots, according to a study by British health authorities published Tuesday. But it didn’t answer the biggest question: Why?
It also found that “accounting for the effect of sex, age, deprivation and region … People of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Other Asian, Caribbean and Other Black ethnicity had between 10 and 50% higher risk of death when compared to White British.” “People are understandably angry about injustices … this pandemic has exposed huge disparities in the health of our nation,” he told lawmakers in the House of Commons.
Those are major considerations. The report said “an analysis of over 10,000 patients with COVID-19 admitted to intensive care in U.K. hospitals suggests that, once age, sex, obesity and comorbidities are taken into account, there is no difference in the likelihood of being admitted to intensive care or of dying between ethnic groups.”