“Covid-19 was like a magnifying glass for us to see what has already been in existence for a long time, Racial/ethnic disparities in health have been a pandemic.”

I am not surprised by this article in the slightest. To be honest I am confused as to why there are not more cities and states around the United States that are recognizing on a fundamental, political, and social level that Racism is not just an idea, it is not just some distant concept that used to be a part of our country, but that is is a current and public health issue. The root causes of racism I continue to discuss and are so heavily discussed by Isabelle Wilkerson in her book Caste. She describes racism and the caste that it creates as the "operating system for economic, political, and social interaction in the United States from the time of its gestation." This article describes the health crisis of the Pandemic in the lens of racism and poses the question, "why do some nonwhite populations develop severe disease and die from Covid-19 at higher rates than whites?" I reiterate that question! Why are there more people who identify as a minority that are dying from Covid-19 than non-minority people? There are no differences in physiology, no drastic differences in DNA, and no objective reasons for this discrepancy.... The answers are subjective and relegated to social determinants of health. In "A three-tiered approach to address barriers to COVID-19 vaccine delivery in the Black community," which we read in our Social Determinants of Health class, it discusses clearly that because of the systemic racism in place for centuries, the black community does not have trust in the medical system that has systematically abused them. Not only are they dying or having worse health outcomes from getting the virus but they are also less likely to receive the protection from the vaccine because of the system that has made their community mistrust it.