Lt. Gov. Gilchrist talks state effort to investigate COVID-19's racial disparity of victims

FOX 2 - Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist is chairing a special task force investigating the racial disparity impact of COVID-19.

Gilchrist joined FOX 2 to talk about the work being done.

Gilchrist: "Unfortunately, racial disparity when it comes to health outcomes are nothing new in our society, in our state and even in cities like Detroit. We've seen people have poor outcomes way too often in the state of Michigan. What we are seeing is the racial disparities being amplified because frankly the virus kills so quickly. 

"Black people make up 14 percent of the population of the state of Michigan. But thus far we have made up 40 percent of the deaths. And I’m saying this not as a number exercise, it's personal for me and my life. Unfortunately, I've lost 15 people in my life to COVID-19 and a number of people, including members of my extended family have tested positive or recovering or in the hospital from this virus. This is real and this virus has proven particularly deadly to people who have some of the barriers to care or conditions that a lot of black people have. Diabetes, high blood pressure, people that have to rely on public transportation to get to work or the grocery store.

"Even the front line workers working at the grocery store or are working for the utility companies to make sure we have lights and gas and interview access to do things like this one. Those are often black people and people of color putting themselves at greater risk of exposure by going out to work and feed their families."

FOX 2: "Lieutenant governor, talk about the short-term and long term issue. COVID-19 is a crisis for black Americans. What is being done right now to help them? and what are some of the long term solutions to address this disparity?"

Gilchrist: "We pulled together a number of experts really both people from the medical community like Dr. Gregory, the head of the Detroit Medical Center, Dr. Rash the head, the dean of the Michigan State School of Nursing, pulled together infectious disease experts and key stakeholders and communities of color across the city and across the state. It is a broad cross-section of the community coming together to think about what are the protocols and practices we can do in terms of care intervention, but also the strategies for communicating and engaging with the community in safe ways to understand what is safe and what people could be doing to protect themselves and protect their loved ones."

FOX 2: "It is sad to hear this type of disparity. Is there a website for people to learn more about this?"

Gilchrist: "Information will be available at the state information center michigan.gov/coronavirus. this task force has taken action. we are having our first meeting today but we are taking some action. The chief medical executive for the state of Michigan Dr. Joneigh Khaldun has been doing an amazing job of trying to steer our medical response to this. She announced yesterday at our press briefing that there will be a greatly expanded testing protocol and guidance for more people to have testing. the reason that is important as she stated from a racial disparity perspective that in order to understand community spread, we have to test more by an order of magnitude more people.

"So that's why Governor Whitmer and I are advocating fiercely with the federal government to get more testing resources here in the state of Michigan. We are working to procure testing kits from private vendors across the world. Detroit was one of the leaders in drive through rapid preliminary testing and we've expanded that through different parts of the state including Flint and Benton Harbor and other areas where a lot of people of color live. We have to understand community spreads before we can get ahead of this virus."