Questions over high rate of Bame deaths

The mayor of London has called on the equality watchdog to urgently investigate whether the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on people of black, Asian and minority ethnic (Bame) backgrounds could have been prevented or mitigated. According to a report in The Guardian, Sadiq Khan’s intervention comes after figures showed that black people in the UK are more than four times more likely to die from coronavirus than white people. After taking into account age, measures of self-reported health and disability and other socio-demographic characteristics, black people were still almost twice as likely as white people to die a Covid-19-related death. Bangladeshi and Pakistani men and women were more than 1.5 times likely to die than their white counterparts, when other factors were accounted for, according to the figures published last week. In a letter to David Isaac, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) chair, Khan says the commission has a ‘moral responsibility’ to carry out a wide-ranging investigation into the worse outcomes for Bame people that is not limited to the higher rates of deaths and critical illness. Khan said he welcomed the inquiry by NHS England and Public Health England, which will look into the disproportionality of deaths among Bame health and social care workers, but urged the EHRC to investigate whether people from minority groups are over-represented in other frontline roles and lower paid jobs, which may increase their exposure to Covid-19. Separately, a group of public figures wrote to Boris Johnson, calling for an independent public inquiry into the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on the UK’s Bame communities. The signatories include the dancer Akram Khan, the author Malorie Blackman and Kwame Kwei-Armah, the artistic director of the Young Vic.

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