Ethnicity and COVID-19 infection: are the pieces of the puzzle falling into place?

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is exposing problems within our societies, and as always, vulnerable groups are hit hardest. One key story around COVID-19, particularly in the UK and USA, has been inequality in COVID-19 outcomes between people from different ethnic backgrounds. Reports of such differences initially emerged from certain states in the USA, where rates of hospitalisation and death from COVID-19 were higher in Black people than would be expected from the ethnic composition of the population [1]. Similar findings are shown in the UK, where Black and South Asian people have disproportionately high rates in intensive care [2], mortality amongst healthcare workers [3] and the general population [4], and the development of paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome (a paediatric hyperinflammatory state related to COVID-19) [5]. The question is, why?

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-020-01669-9

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https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/ethnicity-and-covid19-infection(18b74a51-deda-4412-906f-ad594594c66c).html