Racial Disparities in the Impact of COVID-19

Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination Submission

United States

Figure 1: “SMHS and Elliott School Hold Webinar on Anti-Asian Racism During.” The School of Medicine & Health Sciences. Accessed October 12, 2021. https://smhs.gwu.edu/news/smhs-and-elliott-school-hold-webinar-anti-asian-racism-during-covid-19.

Figure 2: “’Coughing While Asian’: Living in Fear as Racism Feeds off Coronavirus Panic.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, March 24, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/24/coronavirus-us-asian-americans-racism.

Reporting Organization(s): 

Youth for Human Rights is a non-profit human rights advocacy group with more than 10,000 members, which focuses on human rights issues in the United States. The organization investigates and reports violations of human rights in the US. 

 I. Issue Summary

  1. Racial discrimination has become a growing problem in the US since the outbreak of the COVID-19, with the rapidly increasing number of cases. There are stark racial disparities observed in the death tolls from the COVID-19. According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) data from 2/1/20 to 6/6/2020, the age-adjusted death rate of Black people is 3.6 times that of whites and the death rate of Hispanic/ Latino people is 2.5 times that of whites. Black and Hispanic/ Latino people together comprise about 30% of the total population in the US and the white population is about 60 to 70% of the total. Even though they are a relatively smaller part of the US population, they have experienced the most death rates from the disease. Although there might be some unreported cases or errors in the process of tracking data, the mortality rate for Black and Hispanic/ Latino people is indeed much higher than that of whites. This points out the possibility that access to health services can be more difficult for certain racial minorities.
  1. Although Asian Americans show a relatively low mortality rate compared to other races, they have been subjected to “Tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering” since the break out of the pandemic. COVID-19, first appeared in Wuhan, China, spread globally. The rapid spread of the disease incited fear from the citizens, causing them to blame Chinese or other Asians for “bringing COVID-19” to their countries. In the US, the coalition of Asian American groups revealed that they have received about 1,500 reports of racial discrimination incidents on the CAA/A3PCON STOP AAPI HATE website from March to April. The reported discrimination includes verbal harassment, shunning, physical attack, and more. Asian Americans experienced those types of insults in the public, workplace, school, and also media. To give one of the extreme cases, in April, a man stabbed a Burmese-American and his two children at a restaurant in Texas, saying he thought they were “Chinese and infecting people with the coronavirus”.
  2. While there has been increasing tension and hatred towards Asians in the US, US President Donald Trump publicly used the term “Chinese Virus” and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo referred COVID-19 as “Wuhan Virus”. Such usage of terms by the public authorities has high potential to encourage people to blame at a specific location for the cause of the disease. Although President Trump stated that there is a need to protect “our Asian-American community” in March, he continues to defend his use of the term. 

 II. Legal Framework

  1. With the issues described above, CERD (Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination) requires the State parties to take effective and immediate actions to eliminate racial discriminations (Article 2); and to condemn any ideas or actions that promote racial superiority of one group or racial discriminations in any form (Article 4); and to ensure that everyone can enjoy rights they deserve regardless of race, ethnicity, and nationality as following the obligations of Article 2 (Article 5); to spread the idea of tolerance and friendship between different races and ethnicity in the fields of education, culture (Article 7). 
  1. In General Comment No. 15 on article 4 of the Convention, the Committee states the obligations owned by state parties. Under the convention, state parties are obligated to try their best to stop or penalize any spread of ideas that promote racial superiority and discrimination, acts of violence towards a certain racial group. Also, it states that public authorities at all administrative levels are required to follow the obligations under the Convention. However, in the United States, there are prevalent and blatant hatreds and acts of racial discrimination seen in public, media, and workplace. In the devastating impacts of COVID-19, when people’s blames were targeted towards the certain racial group, there was no immediate and direct response and action from the U.S. government. President Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo’s repetitive use of terms such as “Chinese virus” and “Wuhan virus” incited blames towards Chinese. Therefore, the U.S.’s lack of strong and immediate actions towards racial discrimination violates its obligations under CERD.

III. Previous Concluding Observations 

  1. In the concluding observations on the periodic reports of the US, the Committee recommends the State party to “Take concrete measures to ensure that all individuals, in particular those belonging to racial and ethnic minorities who reside in states that have opted out of the Affordable Care Act…have effective access to affordable and adequate health-care services.”
  1. Also, the Committee recommends the State party to “Prohibit racial discrimination in all its forms in federal and state legislation, including indirect discrimination, covering all fields of law and public life, in accordance with article 1, paragraph 1, of the Convention” and “Improve the system of monitoring and response by federal bodies to prevent and challenge situations of racial discrimination.”

IV. Recommended Questions

  1. Could you identify reasons for apparent differences seen in the death rates by race? What actions would the US government take in order to give equal access to health services to racial minorities? 
  2. What will the government do in response to the increased racial discriminations and social stigma associated with the COVID-19?

 V. Suggested Recommendations

The recommendations to the U.S. government is to:

  1. Amend the Affordable Care Act in a way that can cover or include marginalized racial groups who were opted out of the Affordable Care Act before. Ensure that all citizens have equal access to health care regardless of their race.
  2. undertake effective measures to reduce or stop the blames and hatreds towards  certain racial groups.

References

  1. “COVID-19 Provisional Counts – Health Disparities.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 28 July 2020, www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/health_disparities.htm.
  2. Ford, Tiffany, et al. “Race Gaps in COVID-19 Deaths Are Even Bigger than They Appear.” Brookings,         Brookings, 17 June 2020, www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/06/16/race-gaps-in-covid-19-deaths-are-even-bigger-than-they-appear/.
  3.  “Covid-19 Fueling Anti-Asian Racism and Xenophobia Worldwide.” Human Rights Watch, 30 July 2020, www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/12/covid-19-fueling-anti-asian-racism-and-xenophobia-worldwide.
  4.  “Covid-19 Fueling Anti-Asian Racism and Xenophobia Worldwide.”
  5. Jeung, Russell, and Kai Nham. “INCIDENTS OF CORONAVIRUS-RELATED DISCRIMINATION.” STOP AAPI HATE, 23 Apr. 2020, www.asianpacificpolicyandplanningcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/STOP_AAPI_HATE_MONTHLY_REPORT_4_23_20.pdf.
  6.  Jeung, Russell, and Kai Nham. “INCIDENTS OF CORONAVIRUS-RELATED DISCRIMINATION.”
  7.  “Covid-19 Fueling Anti-Asian Racism and Xenophobia Worldwide.”
  8.  “General Recommendation XV on Article 4 of the Convention.” TreatyBody Internet, 1993,     https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=INT%2fCERD%2fGEC%2f7487&Lang=en.
  9. “Concluding Observations on the Combined Seventh to Ninth Periodic Reports of the United States of America.”United Nations Human Rights , 25 Sept. 2014,    https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CERD/C/USA/CO/7-9&Lang=En
  10. “Concluding Observations on the Combined Seventh to Ninth Periodic Reports of the United States of America.”