Rush to Reopen Businesses Could Endanger Black Iowans
Black America is Being 'Decimated' by Covid-19
Black Iowans remain skeptical as the state reopened malls and other businesses during rising cases and deaths due to COVID-19.
“I will be very selective where I go during this pandemic,” said Abraham Funchess Jr, director of the Waterloo Commission on Human Rights. “I will not be congregating in large groups for a while. I will continue to monitor the rate of infection. Different areas across the state are spiking at different times and where I live in Black Hawk county, our proximity to the meatpacking plant makes our living situation especially perilous.”
Many Americans who are weary of quarantines and social distancing rules have flocked to malls, restaurants and parks as states reopen amid controversy. President Donald Trump has pushed reopening businesses to help the struggling economy, which is reeling from record high unemployment. Calls to reopen come as various models show the virus could kill more than 100,000 Americans.
To combat the virus’ spread, experts have pushed hand washing, social distancing and wearing face masks.
Iowa has 11,959 positive cases of COVID-19, and 265 deaths. Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds resisted calls for a stay at home order, instead issuing guidelines for business closures while the state grappled with community spread and outbreaks in meat processing plants and nursing homes. Reynolds on May 8 approved reopening malls, fitness centers and other businesses in 22 of the state's hardest hit counties.
During a recent press conference, Reynolds said the majority of Iowa’s workers are essential employees. Iowa farmers are critical to the nation’s food supply and ramped up COVID-19 testing and mitigation efforts have been successful, she said.
Vice President Mike Pence, whose staffer and others associated with him, recently tested positive for Covid-19, visited Des Moines on Friday to urge religious leaders to reopen and speak with agriculture officials.
Coy Bundy, a Des Moines grandmother who has 500,000 TikTok followers and recently appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres show in a dance challenge, criticized calls to reopen by Reynolds and Trump.
“Don’t go to the malls. Stay home,” Bundy said. “Don’t be visiting people’s houses.”
Bundy warned her Facebook followers that politicians aren’t worried about their lives.
“Unless you want to be part of the people who are waiting for a ventilator, don’t go to the mall,” she said.
Black People are Dying
COVID-19 is disproportionately killing black and Latinx people in large urban centers like St. Louis, Detroit and New York. It’s taking a toll here in Iowa, too. Blacks in Iowa account for about three percent of the state's population, and 13 percent of Covid-19 positive cases, according to the most recent figures available from the Iowa Department of Public Health.
“The black community is right now being decimated across the nation because of the virus,” Funchess said.
A lack of access to quality health care has predisposed blacks to diseases that compromise the immune system and make them more vulnerable to COVID-19, he said. His wife has a debilitating nerve disorder and asthma, he said.
“So if she contracts COVID-19, her body will have a very difficult time fighting the virus off. She could die,” said Funchess, a pastor at Jubilee UMC Freedom Center in Waterloo.
Proponents cheer plans to open businesses and get employees back to work, but Funchess and Bundy remain skeptical.
COVID-19 is exposing “a capitalist system that works only for the people at the top and cares very little for the elderly and the everyday, ordinary blues people trying to make it day by day,” Funchess said.
Until there is irrefutable proof that COVID-19 has stopped spreading and there’s widespread treatment or a vaccine, those concerns are warranted.
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