In the State of the Union, President Joe Biden stated that “we have broken COVID’s grip on us.” Indeed, COVID-19 deaths are down about 75% since last year’s speech. Consistent with that progress, the Biden administration announced in January that it will end the public health emergency (and national emergency) declarations on May 11.
Yet nearly 500 Americans are dying from COVID-19 per day. As many as 1 in 5 U.S. adults who contract the virus experience some effects of long COVID. And the toll of the disease has never been distributed equally.
Historians have long pointed out that pandemics tend to reveal social inequalities and often make them worse, as we have seen with COVID. Studies show that people in areas of social disadvantage have died from COVID at higher rates than those in affluent areas. After controlling for differences in age, people of color have contracted COVID at higher rates, and have died at higher rates, than white people.
