Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
'Tuskegee Is In The Back Of My Mind': Black Americans Wary Of Volunteering For COVID Studies
The invitation to participate in a COVID-19 antibody study arrived in Jacquelyn Temple鈥檚 inbox early last month. Initially, the 72-year-old Leimert Park resident felt hope. She wondered whether the study and accompanying blood test could answer why she had been experiencing months of respiratory problems, even through her coronavirus test had come back negative. Maybe, she thought, the test would reveal that she had been exposed and recovered. (Jennings, 5/10)
In Georgia, a very limited study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found聽African Americans made up 83% of 305 Georgians who had been hospitalized with COVID-19 and whose ethnicity was known. A broader sampling of incomplete state data suggests that, in cases where the race is known, black males make up 33.47% of positive male tests and black females make up 39.56% of positive female tests. Georgia鈥檚 population overall is about 32.4% African American. (Suggs, 5/10)
Larry Arnold lived less than a mile from a hospital but, stepping out of his South Side apartment with a 103-degree fever, he told the Uber driver to take him to another 30 minutes away. Charles Miles鈥 breathing was so labored when a friend called to check on him that the friend called an ambulance. Still, Miles, a retired respiratory therapist, was reluctant to leave his home. Close family support had helped Rosa Lynn Franklin recover from a stroke several years ago, but when she was admitted to the hospital in late March, her daughter could do little more than pat her on the back and say goodbye. (Eldeib, Gallardo, Johnson, Waldman, Martin, Buford, Briscoe, 5/9)
Long dissatisfied with the doctor treating his diabetes, Reginald Relf decided to fight through whatever was causing his nagging cough. But then his temperature spiked and his breathing became so labored that he reluctantly took his sister鈥檚 advice to visit a doctor. The staff at an urgent care clinic in suburban Chicago sent him home, without testing him for Covid-19 but after advising him to quarantine. (Eligon and Burch, 5/10)
On April 17 in Toledo, Ohio, a 19-year-old black man was arrested for violating the state stay-at-home order. In court filings, police say he took a bus from Detroit to Toledo 鈥渨ithout a valid reason.鈥 Six young black men were arrested in Toledo last Saturday while hanging out on a front lawn; police allege they were 鈥渟een standing within 6 feet of each other.鈥 In Cincinnati, a black man was charged with violating stay-at-home orders after he was shot in the ankle on April 7; according to a police affidavit, he was talking to a friend in the street when he was shot and was 鈥渃learly not engaged in essential activities.鈥 (Kaplan and Hardy, 5/8)
A New York City police officer on a social distancing patrol pushes a black man to the ground, slaps him repeatedly and kneels on his neck in an incident captured on video. In Illinois, two black men wearing surgical masks filmed themselves at Walmart being trailed by a police officer who rested his hand on his gun. The men said in the recording the officer told them they couldn鈥檛 wear masks and had to leave the store. (Jouvenal and Brice-Saddler, 5/10)