Blacks Fared Better During COVID in 3 Red States

The following article has been authored by a non-clinician.

My recent Newsmax article about the multifaceted flourishing of Black residents of Florida highlighted that this Republican-trifecta, super-state effectively protected African American lives during the devastating COVID pandemic.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 12,905 of 3,782,000 Black Floridians died from COVID, or 341 per 100,000. But in 2019, Florida had 394,00 Black residents 65 years of age and older, the second largest of this cohort among the 50 states.

Nationwide, with 155,979 deaths among 45,327,000 Black Americans, the rate is 344 per 100,000. There were 978,021 COVID deaths among the other 287,961,000 Americans, or a statistically equivalent 340 per 100,000.

Republican-trifecta Texas, with the nation's largest population of Black Americans of 3,964,000 and 11,098 COVID deaths, has 280 per 100,000, the lowest rate among seven mega-states with at least 1.4 million Black residents.

Georgia, another Republican trifecta with 3,601,000 Black residents and 11,448 COVID deaths, has 318 deaths per 100,000.

The three Southern super-states are home to 11,347,000 of 45,327,000 Black Americans, or a very robust 25.0%. Yet their combined 35,451 deaths are 22.7% of 155,979 total deaths.

Conversely, each of four Democratic-trifecta, mega-states has a death rate higher than the national average of 344 per 100,000.

Illinois, with 1,850,000 Black residents and 6,513 deaths, has 352 deaths per 100,000.

New Jersey, with a Black population of 1,417,000 and 5,727 deaths, has 404 per 100,000.

Michigan, with 1,415,000 Black residents and 6,712 deaths, has suffered an atrocious 474 deaths per 100,000.

The state of New York, with 3,463,000 Black residents and 14,697 deaths, has 424 per 100,000.

These four Blue super-states have a combined 33,649 COVID deaths, or a disproportionate 21.6% of the 155,979 Black American COVID fatalities. Their combined population is 8,145,000, or only 18.0%.

If the four Democratic-trifecta states had the same death rate as the three Red ones of 312 per 100,000, instead of 413 per 100,000, they would have suffered 7,422 fewer Black deaths, or 26,227, instead of 33,649.

Of New York's 14,697 Black COVID decedents, the most of any state, 10,023, or 68%, lived in New York City. With 1,915,000 Black residents, the nation's most populous city has suffered an abominable 523 deaths per 100,000.

Only Florida with 12,905, Georgia with 11,448, and Texas with 11,098, have suffered more Black COVID deaths than NYC's 10,023.

In early October 2020, a few days after the first presidential debate, I wrote an opinion article for Newsmax disputing Joe Biden's demagogic accusation that if President Donald Trump "doesn't do something quickly," the number of Black American deaths from COVID would double in the final three months of 2020.

While the death count was then 40,371 Black Americans, or 20.8% of the nation's 194,041 fatalities, there were definitely not 80,742 Black COVID deaths by Dec. 31, 2020. The Atlantic's "COVID Racial Data Tracker" counted 73,462 as of March 7, 2021.

But a very conservative extrapolation of 7,000 Black COVID deaths, or 7.6%, of the nation's 92,000 between Jan. 20, 2021, and March 6, 2021, must be subtracted from the 73,462, to account for all fatalities during Biden's presidency.

Thus, former President Donald Trump's total is 66,462 of 155,979 Black COVID deaths, or 42.6%.

Joe Biden's abhorrent toll is 89,517 fatalities, or 57.4%.

Finally, if Joe Biden has truly cared about the Black American lives lost to COVID, his Justice Department in July 2021 would not have ended a federal civil-rights investigation, initiated by the Trump administration in August 2020, of the tens of thousands of Americans who died in assisted-living facilities in the first half of 2020, in Democratic-run New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Moreover, President Biden's dysfunctional, politicized Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would certainly not have hired in January 2023 Dr. Howard Zucker as deputy director for global public health.

Dr. Zucker, the New York commissioner of public health under former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, issued the notorious directive in late March 2020 mandating that assisted-living facilities accept COVID-positive patients. This catastrophic policy led to at least 15,000 deaths in these highly vulnerable settings.

Tragically, 27,788 New York state residents, of a 42-month total of 79,759 COVID decedents, or 35%, died in April and May 2020.

New Jersey's grim toll for all residents, during these two critical months, is 12,368. Pennsylvania's is 6,213 COVID fatalities, and Michigan's 4,943.

Thus, in April and May 2020, these four Democratic dystopias accounted for 51,312 of the nation's total of 103,883 COVID deaths, or a mind-boggling 49.4%.

Similarly, Dr. Rachel Levine, who in March 2021 President Biden appointed as assistant secretary for health, was Pennsylvania's health secretary throughout 2020.

While Dr. Levine in March 2020 also issued a directive that the state's assisted-living facilities must accept COVID-positive patients, she removed her 95-year-old mother during this critical period from one of these Keystone State facilities.

The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives must immediately revive the investigation into the tens of thousands of Americans who died in the first half of 2020 in the nation's assisted living facilities as a direct result of the horrendous decisions of governors and their health commissioners.

In fact, the nation's first mass deaths from COVID erupted in a Seattle-area nursing home, beginning in late February 2020.

But Jay Inslee, the Democratic governor of Washington, and his medical advisers, quickly realized to stop sending COVID-positive patients into assisted-living facilities. Consequently, the state's total COVID deaths, according to the CDC, were only 289 in March 2020; 549 in April 2020; and 275 in May 2020.

Undoubtedly, many thousands of nursing-home deaths in April and May 2020, which occurred in these very same facilities in the four Democratic mega-states, could have been avoided if Andrew Cuomo in New York, Phil Murphy in New Jersey, Tom Wolf in Pennsylvania, and Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, had wisely emulated this life-saving decision of Gov. Inslee.

Mark Schulte is a retired New York City schoolteacher and mathematician who has written extensively about science and the history of science. Read Mark Schulte's Reports — More Here.