![]() Recent studies also show the redlining policies that have kept US neighborhoods segregated by race for decades line up with higher rates of pre-existing conditions that can make COVID-19 harder to fight. Pablo Monsalve/VIEWpress via Getty Images "Children don't go untouched when we're talking about marginalization and disadvantage."Ī baby boy sits on the "Black Lives Matter" mural in front of Trump Tower in New York on July 9, 2020. "Not just lack of access to food, but, lack of access to green space, lack of access even to healthcare and regular preventative care that could prevent worsening of these chronic conditions," Blackstock said. ![]() In these areas, there tends to be worse air and toxic dumps that contribute to asthma, as well as food deserts and other environmental and societal setbacks that hurt their health over time. Those conditions extend outside of a child's household and into the neighborhoods that Black and brown families disproportionately live in. In other words, the deaths have nothing to do with the color of a child's skin, they're tied to systemic racism that puts their health at risk, by subjecting them to different living conditions than their white counterparts. "Crowded living conditions, food and housing insecurity, wealth and educational gaps, and racial discrimination," as well as lack of access to care all also likely play a role in the higher rates of death in Black and brown children, the CDC report said. ![]() Racism, not race, is the reason for the deaths Wastewater analyses of the virus that causes Covid-19 suggests a recent surge in cases, far from the pandemic peak in January 2022 but in line with the large surge last summer.Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. The downturn can be explained with a number of factors including the Increasing use of rapid self-tests-often at-home antigen tests-decreasing testing in general as people return to pre-pandemic lifestyles and many infections being asymptomatic. Covid testing-particularly those using Nucleic Acid Amplification Tests, which are considered to be the most accurate and reliable tests available-has steadily fallen since July and is now at the lowest point since testing first ramped up in May 2020. Official case counts are likely to significantly underestimate the scale of the country’s Covid outbreak. Deaths also offer a narrow picture of the pandemic’s impact and it is important to consider the many who come down with the persistent, sometimes disabling set of symptoms after infection, a condition known as long Covid. The number of excess deaths, which include those who haven’t been counted and whose deaths may be linked to the pandemic, provide a more holistic picture. The true death toll is probably much higher than official figures indicate. Some 350,000 people died with Covid in 2020 and around 475,000 died in 2021. Early data suggests there were far fewer Covid deaths in 2022 than in the previous two years, around 265,000. Since emerging, Covid-19 has consistently ranked as the third leading cause of death in the U.S., trailing two catchall categories encompassing a multitude of distinct ailments: heart disease and cancer. since the pandemic started, according to CDC records. That’s how many Covid-19 deaths there have been in the U.S. The variant has spread rapidly in mid-December, the CDC estimates it accounted for less than 5% of cases. The emergence and spread of infectious new variants also concerns experts, particularly XBB.1.5, an offshoot of omicron that the CDC estimates makes up around half of all Covid cases in the U.S. CDC data suggests uptake of the reformulated shots has been dismal, with around 15% of the population having had one. Officials and experts stress vaccination, particularly with the recent updated booster shots, is important to stay protected. Officials are still plotting out the ways we can live with the virus and experts worry that the ground gained over the last few years has made people complacent to the virus that still kills hundreds each day. Though vaccines and treatments have helped bring down the number of deaths and hospitalizations-and despite the assertion of President Joe Biden-the Covid-19 pandemic is not over. Current levels are markedly higher than those at other points in the pandemic: for most of October and November, for example, hospitalizations hovered between 21,000 and 22,000 and there were around 320 deaths a day in November, according to CDC data.
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