September 11, 2020

A big reason US rate so bad is systemic racism in healthcare: no sick days, symptoms dismissed, etc

The death rate for people of colour is higher than for whites. The reason is systemic racism: "death by a thousand cuts".

* PoC are less likely to have paid sick days, so they work with other PoC when ill
* With no paid sick days, they don't seek treatment as often or as early
* When they do, their symptoms are more likely to be dismissed or deprecated
. . . because HC providers think they are less smart
. . . ... or think the PoC is running some kind of con
. . . ... or think the PoC is a hypochondriac, etc.
. . . ... or doesn't speak English as well so are exaggerating
* When admitted, they get worse treatment
. . . they have less access to HC advocates outside the hospital on their behalf
. . . they are seen as not as important as some other white person
. . . they suffer badly from triage for ventilators or expensive treatments
. . . ... they, as perhaps a trucker or warehouse guy are thought of as expendable compared to lawyers and executives and occupations more commonly populated with whites

And on and on it goes.

If there is just 1% worse treatment at, say, 1 out every 10 decision/action points, or 50 out of 500 points on the way to death or near-death, each point is undetectable as an incident of racism, but they accumulate by multiplication. 1% is really 99% reversed in probability analysis, and they are multiplied out, so it is 0.99 x 0.99 x 0.99 ... = 0.99 raised to the power of 50 = 0.6050. Reverse that back by subtracting from 1.0 and the result is that they get 40% WORSE treatment overall.

Death by 50 cuts. Not even a thousand.