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AFP
London
Ethnic minorities in Britain are paying with their lives after years of government neglect has left them uniquely vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic, according to research published on Tuesday by a racial justice campaigner whose son was murdered in a hate crime.
Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people are more likely to suffer from obesity, heart disease and diabetes.
But pre-existing conditions cannot explain entirely why they have suffered disproportionately during the pandemic, the six-month review by Doreen Lawrence said.
The report was commissioned by the main opposition Labour party, which redoubled its criticism of the Conservative government’s handling of the pandemic. Britain has the highest death toll in Europe from Covid-19.
“Black, Asian and minority ethnic people have been overexposed, under-protected, stigmatised and overlooked during this pandemic -- and this has been generations in the making,” Lawrence wrote, highlighting their often low-paid work and poor housing.
“The impact of Covid is not random, but foreseeable and inevitable -- the consequence of decades of structural injustice, inequality and discrimination that blights our society.”
Lawrence has become a respected figure in campaigns for racial justice in the years since her 18-year-old son Stephen was stabbed to death by a gang of white youths in 1993.
She was made a baroness in the upper chamber of parliament, the House of Lords, in 2013.
Her report builds on research by government statisticians who found that white Britons are at lower risk of dying from Covid-19 than any other ethnic group, except for people of Chinese heritage.
Black Britons are four times more likely to die than their white counterparts. If white people were dying at the same rate, Britain would have suffered more than 58,000 additional deaths from the disease, the report said.
The current official death toll stands at 45,365.
But citing researchers, the report said genetics alone could not explain why minority groups were so much more vulnerable.
London
Ethnic minorities in Britain are paying with their lives after years of government neglect has left them uniquely vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic, according to research published on Tuesday by a racial justice campaigner whose son was murdered in a hate crime.
Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people are more likely to suffer from obesity, heart disease and diabetes.
But pre-existing conditions cannot explain entirely why they have suffered disproportionately during the pandemic, the six-month review by Doreen Lawrence said.
The report was commissioned by the main opposition Labour party, which redoubled its criticism of the Conservative government’s handling of the pandemic. Britain has the highest death toll in Europe from Covid-19.
“Black, Asian and minority ethnic people have been overexposed, under-protected, stigmatised and overlooked during this pandemic -- and this has been generations in the making,” Lawrence wrote, highlighting their often low-paid work and poor housing.
“The impact of Covid is not random, but foreseeable and inevitable -- the consequence of decades of structural injustice, inequality and discrimination that blights our society.”
Lawrence has become a respected figure in campaigns for racial justice in the years since her 18-year-old son Stephen was stabbed to death by a gang of white youths in 1993.
She was made a baroness in the upper chamber of parliament, the House of Lords, in 2013.
Her report builds on research by government statisticians who found that white Britons are at lower risk of dying from Covid-19 than any other ethnic group, except for people of Chinese heritage.
Black Britons are four times more likely to die than their white counterparts. If white people were dying at the same rate, Britain would have suffered more than 58,000 additional deaths from the disease, the report said.
The current official death toll stands at 45,365.
But citing researchers, the report said genetics alone could not explain why minority groups were so much more vulnerable.
