Fifty percent of people testing positive for coronavirus in Kansas City are black
Jae Bennett began coughing last Saturday afternoon after visiting some Kansas City homeless camps as part of his job with a nonprofit.
By that evening, his dry cough had worsened and his temperature climbed to 104 degrees.
For the next 48 hours, he frantically searched for a place to get tested for the new coronavirus. He eventually found a clinic and was tested Monday, but it wasn’t easy.
“You have to do your due diligence,” Bennett said. He suspects many people in his shoes, especially other black Kansas Citians, might give up and not get tested at all.
“They may fall behind and just get frustrated and say forget it.”
Because of a widespread lack of testing, it is likely that only about 10% of coronavirus cases here are being reported, according to the Kansas City Health Department. As of Friday, 1,097 cases and 44 deaths have been reported in the five-county Kansas City metropolitan area. But the preliminary data already points to a troubling trend.
The coronavirus is hitting black residents especially hard.
In Kansas City, black residents make up 50% of the people testing positive for the virus, health department director Rex Archer said this week. That’s despite black people making up only 30% of the population.
In Johnson County, 13% of the people testing positive are black, while only about 5% of the population is black, according to local health officials. In Wyandotte County, the coronavirus has ravaged predominantly black church congregations, claiming two lives and leaving others hospitalized.
The local figures follow a national pattern in which the coronavirus pandemic has caused disproportionate damage in black communities. In St. Louis, the first 12 people to die from COVID-19 in the city were black.
Much of the difference stems from already existing inequalities in income, access to health care and opportunities to work from home, according to experts, health officials and community leaders.
“African Americans are over-represented in low-wage, front-line jobs,” said Gwen Grant, CEO and president of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City.
“Our people are disproportionately struggling with chronic illnesses that place them at greater risk of contracting, and dying from, the coronavirus.”
Another problem has at times been a lack of communication and trust.
When the pandemic first hit Kansas City, some didn’t believe it was a serious threat, said the Rev. Emanuel Cleaver III, senior pastor at St. James United Methodist Church, one of the area’s largest predominantly black churches.
Some even thought black people couldn’t get the virus, an idea Cleaver said was “insane.” For a while, some continued to carry on as normal. Some churches continued to hold services as late as last week.
At Parade Park, a group of young men played basketball during the stay-at-home order before parks and recreation workers boarded up the basketball goals.
Cleaver knew of five people in his congregation who tested positive for the virus. Now, he said, people understand the urgency. But barriers remain.
“Many African Americans are slow to go to a doctor because of the out-of-pocket cost and then a lot of distrust,” Cleaver said.
There are historical reasons for the lack of trust. Studies have shown that many physicians still display implicit racial biases when dealing with patients of color.
“What we are seeing is a representation of every inequality that we have in our community,” said Mayor Quinton Lucas.
“In this situation I fear that as time goes on this crisis seems to have impacted a number of communities including communities of color and we wouldn’t have the health infrastructure to support them.”
On Thursday, Bennett learned that he tested negative for coronavirus. But he’s not sure what to make of the results. He feels sick. And coronavirus tests have been reported to produce a high rate of false negative results.
“We can’t win,” Bennett said. “It’s not accurate. I have all the symptoms. I have had different degrees of the flu, but this one is totally different.”
An ‘alarm bell’
The national Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law has called for the release of data showing the race of people testing positive for the coronavirus.
In Kansas City, Lucas has said the numbers should be released. “It would only help and reflect the seriousness with which we need to take this virus.”
But Jackson County Executive Frank White disagreed.
“I fear that on the backside of this epidemic will exist another opportunity for redlining in the districts with high case numbers,” White said in a written statement.
“The people in these districts could be subjected to feeling inferior, rejected for services and charged higher premiums on car and home insurance simply because of their address.”
Earlier this week, Kansas City health officials released a map that showed the city’s Third District, with a majority black population, has the most confirmed cases of the coronavirus.
Many Third District residents, as in other urban centers, lack proper health insurance, do not have money for frequent visits to their doctor and are among the city’s essential workforce, which prevents them from working from home during the pandemic.
Because the Third District is about 60% black, it was an early indicator that the disease was falling unequally on those residents. But the full picture is still not clear as private labs testing for the virus do not report race.
“That really cripples us,” said Archer, the health department director.
Kansas City will soon release numbers of confirmed cases by ZIP codes, Archer said, adding further detail to the picture of where the virus is causing the most harm.
That has already been done in St. Louis, where the pandemic hit harder and earlier, and the results may show Kansas City what is to come.
Chris Prener, assistant professor of sociology at Saint Louis University, has been examining the ZIP code data in St. Louis and across the state for weeks.
He said it is not surprising that African Americans are being infected and dying at higher rates, and that poverty and race are fundamental causes of health disparities that lead to increased rates of illness.
Even if local and state health departments had a “picture perfect” response, he said, blacks would have suffered more than whites.
“We should have been doing things differently for the last four centuries,” Prener said.
What’s happening in black neighborhoods, he said, is an “alarm bell.”
Spreading the word
As the coronavirus spread through Kansas City, the United Inner City Services office at 12th Street and Brooklyn Avenue had to close its doors.
But like many other such institutions, it had converted to drive-thru service by Thursday, when a steady stream of cars pulled up to the entrance.
Each week, families that the agency serves are given food for several meals, milk, diapers, educational materials, art supplies and other necessities.
Jamaica Moore, a 32-year-old mother of five, was in line to pick up some items. She was laid off from her job during the pandemic and lost her health insurance.
She said her family was grateful for the help.
“It’s been hard not being able to go to work,” Moore said. “You have to live life but more cautiously.”
Michele Watley, founder of Shirley’s Kitchen Cabinet, a Kansas City nonprofit that works to empower black women, has seen a lack of information in the communities she works in.
She now spends her days making phone calls and holding virtual meetings to work on getting the public health message out and connecting people with resources.
Watley said she heard from a friend whose 80-year-old godmother developed a cough and respiratory problems and was told she could access telehealth.
She was told to download Mozilla Firefox.
“(She) called my friend and said, ‘What is Mozilla Foxfire and how do I download it?” Watley said.
Another friend told Watley her landlord suddenly demanded two months of rent by April 1. She didn’t know what resources were available.
Both of these women, Watley said, have done everything right, but are still disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus.
Watley’s organization has partnered with others, including Uzazi Village, which trains doulas, and Blaqout, a grassroots effort led by D. Rashaan Gilmore to end HIV/AIDS.
Gilmore, through his regular radio appearances and social media accounts, has been working to put out accurate information and correct misinformation about the pandemic.
“People who have developed platforms, they have a responsibility and opportunity to share info,” Gilmore said. “I feel an obligation to make sure that I’m getting the absolute most relevant information to my listeners.”
Gilmore worries that, as in the case of the HIV epidemic, some gay black men might be reluctant to seek medical treatment or testing because the stigma they face.
“If you’re a young black queer person and you already don’t feel comfortable going to these places for your sexual health, are you likely to go there now?” Gilmore said. “Probably not.”
He’s also concerned about how people’s mental health is holding up and frequently does virtual mental health check-ins with friends. And to maintain social distancing, he even had a virtual birthday party.
On Thursday, after Bennett received his negative test result, he said he still suspected he may have the coronavirus. So he will act accordingly. He’s staying home.
For now, he will continue his regimen of cold medicine and wash his hands every half-hour. He’ll go see a doctor if his condition worsens.
“I’ll stay isolated until next Friday,” he said.
This story was originally published April 12, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
