NHS staff are on the front line, photo DFID/CC

photo DFID/CC   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

Public Health England has recently published its long-awaited report into why death rates from Covid-19 are highest among BAME people. This grim statistic has also formed part of the backdrop to the mass Black Lives Matter protests in the UK.

According to the report: “The largest disparity found was by age. Among people already diagnosed with Covid-19, people who were 80 or older were seventy times more likely to die than those under 40. Risk of dying among those diagnosed with Covid-19 was also higher in males than females; higher in those living in the more deprived areas than those living in the least deprived; and higher in those in Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups than in White ethnic groups.”

As Jim Hensman’s recent article in the Socialist (Black and Asian Covid-19 deaths: An indictment of capitalist inequality’) explained, this latter disparity is not due to genetic factors making BAME people more susceptible to coronavirus. The main factor is social inequality.

For instance, overcrowded accommodation is a key risk factor. According to a 2018 government survey, 2% of white British households experienced overcrowding compared to 15% of black African, 16% of Pakistani and 30% of Bangladeshi households.

Moreover, black and Asian people are disproportionately represented in low income jobs such as care home workers, transport, food processing, retail, security work, and such like, which are more exposed to coronavirus than professional and managerial jobs.

This is also the case in the NHS workforce where 21% of staff are BAME, and more BAME staff are employed in frontline roles. According to The King’s Fund: “Minority ethnic-group staff are systematically over-represented at lower levels of NHS grade hierarchy, and under-represented in senior pay bands.”

A higher proportion of BAME people are working class, and it is class inequalities which drives up coronavirus deaths.

It’s clear from an examination of the statistics that racism interacts with class inequality. Both are inherent in the capitalist system, which needs to be ended and replaced with a socialist society that can lay the basis for eliminating all inequalities.