You may or may not have noticed, but I make it a practice to not attack any individuals in the creation of articles for my blog. There are, as you might imagine, multiple reasons I do as I do.

To begin with, if I make it my business to talk about nothing more specific than a given group, there’s less chance I’ll alienate people by what I say. Considering the degree to which I’ve managed to accomplish that to this point, the less I can increase those numbers, the better.

Second, I want you to consider the facts on their merit, and make decisions as to whether what I’m saying has or lacks value. If I get others involved, there’s less of a chance some folks are going to consider what I say without bias. As such, I try to make it my intention to leave people other than myself and the folks to whom I’m speaking out of the picture.

I could give other reasons, but I’ve limited space. As such, I’ll give just one more. Ten, or even a hundred years from now, I want people to look back at what I’ve written, and draw conclusions on the soundness of the piece. I don’t want them to have to know or find out about people mentioned that aren’t directly relevant to what I’m saying. Sometimes I forget that, but it truly is one of my aims.

On to business!

Not long ago, I wrote an article Titled “Bad Information” in which I talked about the idea that folks were disseminating incorrect data in the apparent hope of getting others to behave badly.

The main thrust of that piece, was that cops were killing blacks in America in an unwarranted numbers “for nothing.” I pointed out that this was not the situation for most of the cases cited. In fact, one instance didn’t involve police at all.

Now I guess I need to do the same sort of thing with COVID-19, considering what a high level politician running for an even higher office said just yesterday or today, as I understand it. To be clear, I’m not absolutely certain on the date and time the statement was made, so I’ll make it plain here that’s the case.

The point is, that individual made it one of his or her (don’t want to unmask the individual in any way) positions, to essentially state that blacks and other minorities and maybe women too, were suffering unduly with COVID-19.

The first thing I want to do, is to direct you (and that person, if he or she ever sees this) to a page at the United States Centers for Disease Control. That page is titled “Health Disparities: Race and Hispanic Origin.” Table 1 on this page is particularly interesting. It points out that white folks are more likely nationally, to die of COVID-19 than any other group.

You may want to make the argument that the numbers for black and Hispanic folks are higher than they should be, considering the percentage of sheer population made up by these minorities. I would have to do a bunch of crunching of the numbers, but I would bet you’d find a large amount of the reason for this is Democrat enclaves like New York, where management of COVID-19 positive folks was initially horrible.

The point of all of this is though, that in most cases it’s substantially more likely that white folks will die of this ailment than blacks or Hispanics.

Table 2 Is equally interesting. In it, the numbers show that yet again, nationally, more whites than any other group have died of this virus at any given age across the country.

You could, again, make the same argument for differences in percentage of the population, but particularly in the younger decedents, the argument would be farcical based on the number of actual folks having died.

To say there was a statistical relevance to such comparisons, would be ludicrous based on the sheer lack of numbers presented.

More foolish than all of this though, is the idea that the deaths that’ve occurred, are a result of some sort of systemic maltreatment of black or Hispanic individuals. If there’s anything behind higher than expected numbers for those individuals, it’s as likely to be that they’re living in Democrat regions of the country as not.

The other (less likely) possibility, is that, as with some other conditions and diseases, they’re “less robust” in how their systems deal with them than are whites. If that’s the case, they should be working to protect themselves from this ailment. If they cannot protect themselves, then others who’re able to shelter them, ought to be working to do so.

More likely than not though, is the idea that blacks and Hispanics are found in higher proportions in areas with greater populations. This would result in their being more prone to die of the condition.

In the end though, to make the argument that black and Hispanic folks have suffered more greatly “at the hands of” of COVID-19 is disingenuous at best, and harmful and hurtful in its almost-certain misrepresentation at worst.

Considering the complexity of the data, I have my doubts the persons having done the research that led to this statement being made, did even a negligible amount of due diligence come to determining the whys and wherefores that can be inferred from the data used. That says nothing of the person making the statement; which I strongly suspect was presented as a matter of political expedience and party based hyperbole.

Many have pointed this out, but I’m going to do it again. The larger number of deaths as a result of COVID-19 have occurred in Democrat run cities and states. Even if you made the argument that blacks or Hispanics were disproportionately affected, and that it was a result of some sort of systemic bias or mismanagement, it would still likely be chalked up to Democrats having done the wrong(s). This is especially true, considering it’s not really on the President to deal with this sort of thing to begin with.

Thanks for reading, and may your time be good.