The first comprehensive study of how coronavirus affects non-white people released on Tuesday has confirmed initial data that people from Indian, Afro-Caribbean and other ethnicities are more at risk from dying than the white population in England.
The report by Public Health England came in the context of allegations that the Boris Johnson government is delaying its release to prevent any public protests against official steps to deal with the pandemic that has caused over 39,000 deaths as of Monday evening.
Several doctors and nurses of Indian origin have passed away during the pandemic in recent weeks.
The report says: “People from Black ethnic groups were most likely to be diagnosed. Death rates from Covid-19 were highest among people of Black and Asian ethnic groups. This is the opposite of what is seen in previous years, when the mortality rates were lower in Asian and Black ethnic groups than White ethnic groups”.
“An analysis of survival among confirmed Covid-19 cases and using more detailed ethnic groups, shows that after accounting for the effect of sex, age, deprivation and region, people of Bangladeshi ethnicity had around twice the risk of death than people of White British ethnicity”.
“People of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Other Asian, Caribbean and Other Black ethnicity had between 10 and 50% higher risk of death when compared to White British”, it adds.
The report found a “particularly high increase” in deaths among those born outside the UK and Ireland; those in a range of caring occupations including social care and nursing auxiliaries and assistants; those who drive passengers in road vehicles for a living including taxi and minicab drivers and chauffeurs; those working as security guards and related occupations; and those in care homes.
Men working as security guards, taxi drivers and chauffeurs, bus and coach drivers, chefs, sales and retail assistants, lower skilled workers in construction and processing plants, and men and women working in social care had significantly high rates of death from Covid-19, it adds.
