COVID is still a risk for Black community

The data doesn’t lie.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Black people made up around 18% of all cases — and two out of every 10 deaths — despite being just 13% of the U.S. population. Black children who became infected were twice as likely as white kids to require hospitalization, and were more than five times as likely to be admitted to intensive care for treatment.

Meanwhile, Black women are nearly three times more likely to die during childbirth than white women, one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world.

Yet Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced last week that he would end the government’s recommendation that children and healthy pregnant women get vaccinated for COVID-19 — despite clear evidence of the harm it would do to millions,