New data reveals that anxiety over the COVID-19 pandemic is more prevalent among people of color in America. An NBC News/SurveyMonkey Weekly Tracking Poll found that 51% of adult non-whites say they are very concerned that they, or a relative, will contract the virus, compared to only 29% of white adults.
According to NBC News, 78% of Blacks, 82% of Hispanics and 82% of Asians expressed concern about their health. Economically, the poll found that 56% of nonwhites were concerned about their personal income compared to only one-third of whites. Interestingly, white adults said they regarded the pandemic as more of an economic crisis than a health issue.
Survey results also showed that 86% of nonwhite adults fear a second wave of the coronavirus compared to 74% of whites. The data for the SurveyMonkey poll was gathered between July 6-12 from a national sample of 53,106 U.S. adults, and reflects the findings of medical research on racial disparity in the COVID-19 crisis.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said that members of racial and ethnic minority groups are at increased risk of getting COVID-19 or experiencing severe illness, regardless of age. The CDC offered new data to show that in America, the death rates among Blacks and Hispanic/Latino people are much higher than for white people, in all age categories.
The CDC suggests possible reasons for this disparity, including long-standing health and social inequities that have put people of racial and ethnic minority groups at a greater risk of contracting COVID-19 and suffering severe complications.