Novel Coronavirus

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Regardless of why blacks have issues related to high blood pressure and diabetes they do. To ignore that fact is criminal. They have higher incidence of high blood pressure , obesity and diabetes. That makes them, at least in the USA, at a higher risk of doingpoorly with Covid19. So they need targeted care
Please read carefully.

They aren’t getting targeted care. As always, like before this, they are getting targeted oppression and neglect. And in the case of the news focusing on a genetic cause, targeted racism. Knowing they have higher risk of hypertension is a moot point. Focusing on that is even more besides the point. We already know...it’s been known for several decades that black communities in the US suffer from poorer health, with things like heart disease - and that it’s a public health problem, with systemic racism as the main driver. It would be pretty clear - before covid even struck!! - that those communities would fare worse in a pandemic.
 
Alberta is going on with it's phase 1 plans, but with regional differences as to the specific subphases? within phase 1.
I haven't paid attention across Canada, are other provinces taking regional approaches? Advantages and risks to doing it either way.
Will see I guess if Calgarians are 'Nenshi nouns' for the sake of a haircut or not.
 
Now, if scientists started looking at genetic causes in this instance when we know public health of indigenous communities is suffering due to systemic racism - nobody would deny that would be racist, would they?! It's a similar dynamic with African American communities and other non white communities, only their government(s) are not prepared to do anything about it.
COVID-19 outbreaks in 23 First Nations prompt worries
 
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what I get Kimmel is that you view everything as carved in Stone. If black and brown people are more affected than white people it is important. It highlights big issues. Poverty being a big part. It should also help health departments know where to focus. And Canada is watching this. In order to better get a handle on it. Targeted messaging. Enter t3ting perhaps in st risk populations

maybe it means something related to schools getting restarted. Maybe it means something about jobs restarting. Maybe it just puts the focus in inner city poverty in big cities. It will be important to see if Montreal Or Toronto’s has a high proportion of black and brown people affected. higher Than the population would dictate. Is it because they are living less healthy lives. What does that mean for the future. For how we handle public health, things like welfare, minimum wage.......

if you don’t look at stats and try to discern why you will miss the boat. And of course what other risk factors are there. Are people who have the flu shot slightly more protected For instance? And if so, is that something more taken by white society.....

not every discussion of race is racist.
I agree we can talk about incidences in racialized communities without it being racist...if we are talking about the socioeconomic determinants of health and what needs to be done to improve them...but not if we focus our priorities on genetics, especially in a pandemic. That's racist.

Side note - you mentioned sickle cell. Sickle cell is not something only black people are born with. If you look online (I had to look it up because I learned that, too, but I realized there's something suspicious about the fact that we don't question it - it deserved more thought, so I looked into it) - it's been known since 1937 that it's not something only black people can have.

 
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But nobody got angry when it was suggested that black people are more likely to be Vit D deficient and make that about being black. It was okay to point out their genetics and reasons why they may be more prone. The systemic inequality that causes poor nutrition and poor public health epidemics in US black communities is real - but it's not okay to suggest that decadence and convenience, could affect the immune systems of those individuals...if they are upper-crust British? That's "racist"?

It was okay to blame being black for getting covid but not point out any reasons why those British people might've gotten sick.

It was irony Kay. A couple of people here totally missed the point. Whatever.

Whatever Kimmio. If your words are coloured by irony, teasing, sarcasm or anything else, it would be helpful to share that information.
 
Now, if scientists started looking at genetic causes in this instance when we know public health of indigenous communities is suffering due to systemic racism - nobody would deny that would be racist, would they?! It's a similar dynamic with African American communities and other non white communities, only their government(s) are not prepared to do anything about it.
COVID-19 outbreaks in 23 First Nations prompt worries
I completely agree that black communities tend to be disadvantaged and have their specific problems. If you ask for public health to help those specific areas to assist with Covid 19, you certainly mean well. However, when here in NS it was discovered that a black neighbourhood had a cluster of Covid cases and they set up a Covid team in that area, ( as they also did in another cluster area of white Canadians as well as at a nursing home that had the majority of covid deaths), they were accused of being racist. Now, the Premier also did call people of that community out, which sounded racist. See here
It certainly is a touchy subject.
 
I completely agree that black communities tend to be disadvantaged and have their specific problems. If you ask for public health to help those specific areas to assist with Covid 19, you certainly mean well. However, when here in NS it was discovered that a black neighbourhood had a cluster of Covid cases and they set up a Covid team in that area, ( as they also did in another cluster area of white Canadians as well as at a nursing home that had the majority of covid deaths), they were accused of being racist. Now, the Premier also did call people of that community out, which sounded racist. See here
It certainly is a touchy subject.
Somebody should show your premier the photos of all the people packed on the most popular beach in Vancouver on Saturday (mostly white which is not typical of that Vancouver beach on a hot day - usually it's more diverse and representative of the city as a whole).
 
I think, it is not a weakness to discover our own biases.

Here is what the American Anthropological Association says:
In the United States both scholars and the general public have been conditioned to viewing human races as natural and separate divisions within the human species based on visible physical differences. With the vast expansion of scientific knowledge in this century, however, it has become clear that human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups. Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic “racial” groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes. This means that there is greater variation within “racial” groups than between them. In neighboring populations there is much overlapping of genes and their phenotypic (physical) expressions. Throughout history whenever different groups have come into contact, they have interbred. The continued sharing of genetic materials has maintained all of humankind as a single species (American Anthropological Association 1998).
This is the source:

Chinese Canadians have been attacked in BC lately ( as I heard this morning on the radio) and told that ” they” are the reason we are in this Covid mess. Brian Adams twitters racist insults.... especially today it is important to be vigilant because its the responsibility caucasians who need to control / call out their own.
 
Somebody should show your premier the photos of all the people packed on the most popular beach in Vancouver on Saturday (mostly white which is not typical of that Vancouver beach on a hot day - usually it's more diverse and representative of the city as a whole).
Oh, and to be fair, he called out all kind of people, like shoppers at Superstore and people walking in the park, independent of “ race”. His daily updates have been very blunt. I am not sure if he referred to a specific incident when he talked about partying in that district ( maybe the police had been called there). He has been scaring people daily. He created the expression “ stay the blazes home” which was then turned into a song and has appeared on many signs in NS, here the song:
 
Somebody should show your premier the photos of all the people packed on the most popular beach in Vancouver on Saturday (mostly white which is not typical of that Vancouver beach on a hot day - usually it's more diverse and representative of the city as a whole).
Did you see this in the news? One picture from the ground and another from up above. You can still be proud out in B.C. (Kitsilano Beach)

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Did you see this in the news? One picture from the ground and another from up above. You can still be proud out in B.C. (Kitsilano Beach)

View attachment 3661
Sunset beach (which is the one on the waterfront/ edge of Stanley Park near downtown was a different story, I think.

In Victoria, the beach I got to on Sunday, on my photo expedition just after my phone battery died, had been busier earlier in the day. People were still there in the early evening, starting to leave as the tide came in...but the news was that physical distancing had been respected. It looked that way when I got there, too (I was looking on from the elevated walkway beside it).
 
Come to think of it though...even in that photo of Kits Beach, what’s so different from a typical day at the beach? People sit with those they came with (and they look pretty close together), and a couple of metres away from groups of strangers, normally. Normally, they don’t put their beach blankets and towels down so that they’re shoulder to shoulder with strangers, anyway.
 
Covid 19 originated in China - that’s a fact - and the virus was not contained early on in large part because of the government’s lack of transparency and suppression of information- also a fact. Not race based...political decision based...authoritarian government based, with their decision early on to crack down on information rather than respond to the virus...they made mistakes...then they had to overcompensate. But that’s not the peoples’ fault and never was...most importantly...that covid 19 has absolutely nothing to do with race and it is not a “Chinese virus”. That is racist misinformation. The fact Chinese communities are being targeted in BC is horrific. I saw some of the footage, incidents caught on camera, and it’s sickening.
 
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I think the above are contributing factors but as they now start to wonder if the virus is airborne and we are seeing many cases within crowded facilities,hospitals, apartment buildings, super markets, etc...
shouldn't we also be looking at our ventilation systems(which doesn't just mean air conditioning....not many air filters that are used throughout these buildings have air filters that are probably small enough for this virus.


 
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