Letter to City and State Officials Re Impact of coronavirus on African Americans

This letter was written in partnership with B-PEP, NAACP, 1HOOD, & the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh.

Dear Gov. Wolf; County Executive Fitzgerald; Mayor Peduto; County Council President Catena & Members; City Council President Kail- Smith & Members: 

Recent national newscasts have shared rather startling statistics with regard to the percentage of African Americans in various cities and states of this nation who have tested positive and died from the coronavirus. In Louisiana 70% of the deaths from coronavirus were African American; in Michigan 40% of the deaths were African American, even though the population in Michigan is only 14%; in Milwaukee, Wisconsin 73% of those who have died from Covid-19 were African American, even though the Black population is only 28%; in Chicago, Illinois 70% of city's deaths from this virus were African American, even though the Black population is only 30%. The Washington Post analysis of the early data from jurisdictions across the country shared this concern. The nation's Surgeon General on Tuesday, April 7th acknowledged the emerging racial disparity and the apparent increased risk for African Americans amid growing demands that public health officials release more data on the race of those who are sick, hospitalized and dying. On April 8th the Center for Disease Control (CDC) announced that in fourteen states fully one third of the deaths caused by coronavirus were African American, even though only 18% of the population in those states are African American. 

Our understanding is that, at present, there are no existing breakdowns by race for Pittsburgh, Allegheny County and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in terms of the numbers of African Americans who have been infected by covid-19and/or who have died from the virus. With the echoes of the September 17, 2019 report released by the University of Pittsburgh, the City of Pittsburgh and its Gender Equity Commission still in our minds, which vividly described the racial inequities in the City of Pittsburgh when compared to other cities across the nation, and the report….