by Rob Taylor Jr., Courier Staff Writer
PITTSBURGH—We’ve all heard the old saying…
“A hard head makes a soft ___.”
But in the case of COVID-19, or novel coronavirus, a hard head could turn out to be life-threatening….for you or your older loved ones.
Yes, African Americans can contract coronavirus, African Americans have already contracted the virus, and more African Americans across this country will contract the virus in the near future.
Those tales about Blacks being immune to catching coronavirus are 100 percent false.
The New Pittsburgh Courier, one of the most iconic newspapers in the history of the U.S. and one of the premier African American publications in the country, is urging all African Americans to “Take This Virus Seriously,” and to dispel any rumors or myths that the virus cannot be contracted by African Americans. The Courier will consistently update the African American community in Pittsburgh and beyond with coronavirus information and story angles that affect African Americans. Those stories can be found online at www.newpittsburghcourier.com and via our weekly print edition, which publishes on Wednesdays.
For obvious privacy reasons, local and state officials wouldn’t dare give the names or ethnicities of those who have tested positive for coronavirus. But stories that have come to surface across the country show that African Americans are being affected by this, the “invisible enemy,” as COVID-19 is being labeled.
In Wisconsin, African American males like Lawrence Riley, Leonard Wells and Roderick Crape have passed away due to the virus. Riley was 66, Wells, 69, Crape, 54.
Jazmond Dixon, a 31-year-old, healthy African American woman who worked for the American Red Cross, was the city of St. Louis’ first person to die from coronavirus on March 24.
In Illinois, Patricia Frieson, 61, was the state’s first person to die from coronavirus. Nine days later, her sister, Wanda Bailey, 63, died from coronavirus as well. They were both African Americans, along with Carl Redd, 62, and Peggy Rakestraw, 72, who also died in Illinois.
In Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh and the New Pittsburgh Courier are located, the number of positive cases in the county began with just two on March 14—by March 27, the number was 158. Across Pennsylvania, there were 2,218 positive cases of COVID-19, with 22 deaths. It’s unclear if any of those 22 who have died as of March 27 were African Americans.
The virus seems to be attacking densely populated, urban communities. In New York City, the epicenter of the virus, there were nearly 27,000 positive cases of coronavirus as of March 27, with 450 deaths. Both numbers are sure to climb. And in a city as diverse as New York, with a quarter of the city’s 8.3 million people identified as African American, it’s a surety that this virus has affected countless numbers of African Americans in the Big Apple.
Medical experts are also saying that New Orleans, Detroit and Chicago are seeing coronavirus cases rise at a fast, scary pace. As of March 27, 119 people have died from coronavirus in Louisiana—more than 50 in New Orleans alone. The Crescent City, a city with 390,000 people, is 60 percent African American.
“Every business & resident in our community has an obligation to treat this as a matter of life or death,” New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell tweeted in part on March 27.
In the Motor City, Detroit, it’s gotten so bad that even the police chief, James Craig, an African American, has tested positive for COVID-19. Thirty-nine fellow officers have also tested positive.
Of the more than 3,000 positive cases in the state of Michigan as of March 27, the city of Detroit accounts for more than 1,000 of those positive cases. Twenty-three people have died in Detroit due to coronavirus as of March 27—92 overall in the state.
And in Chicago, the Army Corps of Engineers is working to construct a 3,000-bed makeshift coronavirus hospital in the McCormick Place convention center by April 24. The city is anticipating a huge wave of additional coronavirus patients. As of March 27, there were 1,489 cases of COVID-19 in Chicago, a city with 2.7 million people, 30 percent of whom are Black.
In the past weeks, African American celebrities (and those with African descent) have publicly disclosed their positive coronavirus status, such as Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell, NBA players with the Utah Jazz, Kevin Durant, an NBA player with the Brooklyn Nets, and Idris Elba, an actor. It was revealed on March 22 that Elba’s wife, Sabrina Dhowre, also tested positive for coronavirus.
The message is clear—take this virus seriously, and do everything possible not to get infected.
“Something that is scaring me, when I read the comments and some of the reactions, my people, Black people, please, please understand that coronavirus is … you can get it,” Elba said via social media on March 17, moments after revealing he had coronavirus. “There are so many stupid, ridiculous conspiracy theories about Black people not being able to get it. …That is the quickest way to get more Black people killed. And I’m talking about the whole world, wherever we are. … Just know you have to be just as vigilant as every other race.”
Marcus Smart, another high-profile African American celebrity with the NBA’s Boston Celtics who tested positive for coronavirus, said late last week on CNN to “take this seriously. Be positive. I’m OK. I’m going to be OK. But definitely be alert to what’s going on and take the precautions to not only protect yourself. By protecting yourself, you protect others.”
In a March article in The Undefeated, an ESPN web-based magazine that targets African Americans, public health expert Georges C. Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said that coronavirus is a threat African Americans must take seriously.
“I think the biggest challenge is the fact that people of color, African Americans, start out with health outcomes that are disproportionately poor when compared to White Americans,” Benjamin said. “The highest risk, if you get this disease, is to someone 60 or older with chronic disease. With African Americans, you start with a population that is disproportionately sicker, and if it gets exposed, it will have a higher death rate.”
Benjamin added: “I’m hoping we will get ministers and trusted advisers in the community up to speed. The places we also get health information—Uncle John and Aunty Sue, our barbers, our beauticians—right now they don’t all have the right information, but I’m hoping they’ll get that right information so that we can have all our trusted advisers give us the right scoop.”
And then there’s 55-year-old Kevin Harris, an African American male from Warren, Ohio, about an hour from Cleveland. On SiriusXM satellite radio, he said that “they don’t get no blacker than me;” thus, his doctor must have been correct a few weeks ago when Harris was initially told he had the flu.
He was given the popular Tamiflu medicine, and, in effect, told to go home. And he did. But he didn’t get better—in fact, his conditions worsened, and six days later, he went to Mercy Health-St. Joseph Warren Hospital’s emergency room. A few days later, on March 12, he tested positive for coronavirus.
Harris was floored.
He decided to let the world know of his diagnosis and subsequent near-death experience, via Facebook Live, on March 14. There he was, in a hospital bed, explaining how it never crossed his mind he had contracted COVID-19. He thought he had the “world’s worst flu,” according to an interview with Cleveland.com.
“When your doctor says to you, ‘there’s nothing we can do and you need to pray and beg God for mercy’…I never heard a doctor do that before, but I heard that in this situation,” Harris said in an interview with CNN Headline News (HLN).
The healthy auto body shop owner in his mid-50s survived this virus that attacks the lungs and has attacked the world.
“The more I rested, the sicker I got,” Harris said further on HLN. “And it’s really weird because it lets you feel better when you lay down, when you breathe slow; but the whole time, your lungs and your body is defeating the whole purpose…(your lungs) start to turn to glass and it crystallizes, and more and more of your lung capacity is taken away from you. But when you get up to move, your air consumption drops to half; you choke, you throw up, the pain, the headache, everything comes back when you move…but that’s what keeps you alive, it helps your immune system to help fight back.”
The scary part for Harris was, he wasn’t sure how he contracted COVID-19. He hadn’t been around too many people pertaining to his body shop business, and he said in multiple interviews that he was having a lot of time to himself. He traveled to Cleveland a few weeks ago and believes he may have gotten the bug there.
Harris’ symptoms included a fever, dry cough, and sinus headache. Eventually, he was placed in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, while being “treated” with chloroquine, a drug used to combat malaria. It’s a drug that has been mentioned as a possible remedy for coronavirus and recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the CDC is very quick to point out on its website that there are “no U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved drugs specifically for the treatment of patients with COVID-19.”
Seemingly everywhere across this country, it’s a ghost town. In many states, the governors there have ordered all the physical locations of “non-life-sustaining” businesses across the state closed. Sometimes, a governor has issued a “Stay-at-Home” or “Shelter-in-Place” order for the residents of the state.
In much of America, there won’t be any partying in the nightclubs anytime soon. Barely anyone will be enjoying their favorite food with a crowd inside their favorite restaurant anytime soon. Want to purchase some clothes at the mall? Most of them are closed. Sure, you can re-stock for your home at your local grocery store or Walmart, but you better get there early, especially if you need some more toilet paper….
The word is out—stay home. Stay away from crowds of any kind. Practice “Social Distancing,” which is staying at least six feet away from another person. Don’t shake hands with others. Wash your hands with soap and water on a continual basis. Cover your mouth when you cough, and if you have to sneeze, do so on the inside of your elbow. Clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces daily.
Medical experts have consistently said that those most vulnerable to succumbing to coronavirus are senior citizens with pre-existing health conditions. It’s imperative that seniors should heed the aforementioned procedures to hopefully lessen the chances of being infected. But younger adults are also being warned that, while the chances of a full recovery are far greater for them, one could be infected, be asymptomatic, and unknowingly infect their parent, grandparent or other senior citizen via close contact.
Simply put, COVID-19, or novel coronavirus, is not to be taken lightly.
“Be deftly afraid of everybody that is not you,” Harris, the 55-year-old who contracted COVID-19 in Ohio, said on SiriusXM satellite radio. “…Because if you get it, and your immune system cannot handle it, you are going to die because they have no treatment, no cure.”
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(Rob Taylor Jr. is the managing editor of the New Pittsburgh Courier.)
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