Black And Asian People Should Get Priority Status For Covid Tests, Report Urges
Black and Asian people should be given priority status for Covid testing alongside NHS and care workers if the government’s test-and-trace service can’t cope with demand, a new report has urged.
The joint call by the Runnymede Trust and IPPR think tank came as they published research suggesting “structural and institutional racism” in health care, housing and employment are likely to be the main reasons for BAME communities suffering a higher risk of death from the virus than white people.
The new study, based on data analysis by CF healthcare consultancy, found that the disadvantage gap was so large that nearly 60,000 more deaths from coronavirus would have occurred in England and Wales if white people had faced the same risks as black communities.
And 35,000 more white people could have died if the risk was the same as for the south Asian population, the study estimates.
Titled “Ethnic Inequalities in Covid-19 Are Playing Out Again - How We Can Stop Them”, the report found the risk of death from coronavirus is “one of the starkest health inequalities” that cannot be explained by underlying conditions such as deprivation and underlying genetic health conditions.
Among its main recommendations is a demand to include ethnicity as a risk factor in any “triaged” or rationed testing system.
“If testing cannot be scaled up quickly, a triage system to allocate scarce resource should be devised,” the report says.
“The government has said they will prioritise tests based on occupation and
co-morbidities, with key workers such as NHS staff and care workers given priority.
“We argue that ethnicity should also be included as a parameter in this system,
particularly given the large unexplained excess risk of death for many ethnic
groups.”
Other recommendations include offering temporary accommodation to people who live in overcrowded homes and are asked to self-isolate and extending £500 isolation pay to migrants without settled status and better targeted...
