68% of COVID-19 deaths during the first year of the pandemic were adults in low socioeconomic positions
University of South Florida epidemiologist Jason Salemi’s research confirmed associations between COVID-19 mortality rates and socioeconomic position, gender, ethnicity and race.
Salemi’s research shows:
- The mortality rate of low SEP adults is five times higher when compared to high SEP adults, and the mortality rate of intermediate SEP adults is two times higher.
- White women make up the largest population group considered high SEP. In contrast, nearly 60 percent of Hispanic men are in a low SEP.
- When compared, the mortality rate of low SEP Hispanic men is 27 times higher than high SEP white women.
“The degree to which it takes a toll on communities is very unevenly distributed and we wanted to call attention to that issue,” Salemi said.
Reminder that crackers started storming state capitols demanding lockdowns end about a week after news reported covid was harming black people at far greater rates than anyone else.
The “return to normal” was driven by complete disregard to the lives of low wage workers and outright racism.
But I’m sure things are great now that the “pandemic is over”. Genocide Joe and the party of science wouldn’t lie to you. Capitalism wouldn’t just sacrifice workers like that, right?
Covid is a class issue.
I just read a paper on where covid came from in my homecountry Finland. The entire spread of it was from tourist spots in three other European countries where the upper classes like to vacation and did during the first years. One ski resort in Austria seeded one wave alone here basically. Not a single case that spread further ever arrived here from Wuhan for example, the spreading was all done by the high income brackets from their vacationing.
Now the brunt of it is beared by the service workers, the labor aristroes are happily cushioned in their remote work and it is still them who keep bringing new variants in, those who say “I need to travel for mental health” or whatever.
Covid is a class consciousness issue on a very real level, it’s the working class that dies from it.
Another example of a class which benefits from the destruction of public health measures is petit bourgeois shop owners, whose businesses cannot function under conditions of reduced in-person travel