a woman standing on a subway platform in the dark

African Americans struggle with disproportionate COVID death toll

Creating a toxic storm of death and illness, the pandemic is devastating black communities across the United States and revealing the deadly legacy of inequality.

A woman and child wait at the Rockaway Avenue transit stop in Brooklyn, New York’s Brownsville neighborhood. Under New York City’s Essential Service Plan, the Metropolitan Transit Authority has slashed subway service by 25 percent. Many subway lines run in 20 to 30 minute intervals.

Photograph by Laylah Amatullah Barrayn

Coronavirus is ravaging every part of Warren Bell’s life in New Orleans. His 81-year-old cousin was hospitalized with COVID-19. His youngest daughter is furloughed from her culinary job at a major hotel because of the pandemic. His oldest daughter, a nurse, is doing 12-hour shifts at New Orleans East Hospital “where COVID-19 patients started dying weeks ago.”

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