RACISM & COVID
As we reflect back on 2020, we will undoubtedly still feel the effects of the coronavirus pandemic that upended our lives and continues to ravage the health and security of our country. We will also continue to feel the weight of racism, compounded by the pandemic, as amplified voices ardently advocate for change.
Alumna, Datcha Dorvil, D.O. ’08, MPH, is an internal medicine-pediatrics physician (Med-Peds) who primarily works in both the inpatient and outpatient setting for the Navajo Nation in Arizona. After a grueling 24+ hour shift, she posted to her Facebook page the disturbing experience that left her feeling exhausted and pensive. She recalls admitting patients both young and old, “some over 60 and under 35… some with comorbidities and some had NO chronic problems… some people of the same family unit-one right after another… some will recover, some will recover slowly and a few I wonder if they will make it.”
Amidst the stress and the turmoil, it was one phrase that stuck in her head uttered over and over again by her patients: “I can’t breathe.” The irony wasn’t lost on her that the COVID-19 and racial pandemics shared the same catch-phrase, uttered by George Floyd on that fatal day in May 2020. “I noticed this week, I have been triggered by the racial events and this has caused me to deal with events of racism that I have experienced and suppressed,” Dr. Dorvil shares in her post. “I am still working on confronting these issues so I can forgive and move on but was not expecting to have to deal with those issues in the middle of fighting a pandemic.”
Like other healthcare providers, Dr. Dorvil is acutely aware of the mortality rate of these pandemics and the countless other lives they destroy and infect. She also noticed other similarities:
Both are highly contagious.
Both are stifling and oppressive.
Both can be silent killers.
Both magnify/highlight health disparities /inequities in this country.
Both cause physical and mental destruction.
Both cause social distancing.
Both isolate.
Both have a negative impact on society and the economy.
UNE Football players at a recent demonstration at UNE