With more than 4,000 COVID deaths in a few days, you may be wondering: How can you be safe? And are you at high risk? Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease specialist and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, spoke with Barbara Bush during the Preparation Futures Forum sponsored by the Schmidt Futures and Social Science Research Council on just that. He noted “the disparities in underlying conditions, as well as the likelihood of you being infected” – read on to see what he said about both and to ensure your health and the health of others, don’t miss these Clear signs that you’ve had the coronavirus.
Dr. Fauci said that brown and black communities are at high risk
“I refer to this in a kind of colloquial language as a double negative blow against brown and black people,” said Dr. Fauci, when asked about high-risk communities. “First of all, they are in jobs towards the jobs that many of them have, where they don’t have the opportunity to be behind the computer and do things virtually – they are there in the community with jobs that put them in touch with others people, thereby increasing their risk. They have a higher risk of infection, but just as important, if not more important, is the fact that the underlying conditions they have – diabetes, obesity, heart disease, hypertension, kidney disease, illness chronic lung disease – makes them more likely to get a serious result from COVID-19 disease. “
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Dr. Fauci says that we need to send more resources to brown and black communities
“What we can do is provide resources now for them, to test them, so that they can receive adequate care quickly if they need adequate care,” said Fauci. “But also for me, it illuminates a flaw in our society that has been going on for decades and decades and decades. And these are the social determinants of health that minorities have to face literally from the moment they are born. So we are not going to change that in the context of this outbreak, Barbara, but we really need to make this a stimulus to take it seriously – how to address the social determinants of health? “
Dr. Fauci called this “a multi-decade commitment. It is not something that you can change overnight because, as with HIV, the disproportionate number of minorities who become infected with HIV in our country, we are seeing the same thing with COVID- 19. It’s very painful, how many more of these do we have to see before we can make a national commitment to do something about it? a look at how to improve these social determinants of health. “
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How to survive this pandemic on your own
As for you, follow Fauci’s fundamentals and help stop this wave, no matter where you live – use a face mask, social distance, avoid large crowds, do not go home with people you are not sheltering (especially in bars), practice good hand hygiene, be vaccinated when it is available to you and to protect your life and the lives of others, don’t visit any of these 35 places you’re most likely to reach COVID.