April 11, 2020
‘Do It For Your Big Momma’: Surgeon General Pleads with Black Americans to Stop Smoking, Drinking or Taking Drugs to ‘Slow the Spread’
At the beginning of this pandemic, it was rumored and spread around like wildfire that black people couldn’t get the coronavirus. Now, after several months of the crisis hitting the United States in a way not imagined, it turns out that, in most cases, the majority of deaths are black people. According to The Daily Mail, twice as many black and brown Americans have died of COVID-19 compared to their white counterparts, government data shows.
Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who just happens to be black, has pleaded with the African-American community and other communities of color to follow the government’s guidelines. The stay-at-home orders and social distancing suggestions were made to ‘slow the spread’ of the coronavirus, as those communities are being disproportionately hit by the pandemic.
‘We need you to do this if not for yourself than for your abuela. Do it for your granddaddy, do it for your big momma, do it for your pop pop,’ the nation’s top doctor said Friday at the daily coronavirus taskforce briefing – later defending his use of slang.
‘But let me be crystal clear, we do not think people of color are biologically or genetically predisposed to get COVID-19, there is nothing inherently wrong with you,’ Adams said. ‘But they are socially pre-disposed to coronavirus exposure and have a higher incidence of the very diseases that put you at risk for severe complications of coronavirus.’
Earlier this week, New York had released data that showed black and Latino people were two times as likely to die from coronavirus than white residents. While in Chicago where 70 percent of the deaths have been black people, yet they only make up 30 percent of the population. Down in Louisiana, with New Orleans being another hot spot, 70 percent of the dead coronavirus victims have been black. while Black people only make up 32 percent of residents in that state.
The Surgeon General continued his pleas, ‘As a matter of fact, I’ve been carrying an inhaler in my pocket for 40 years out of fear of having a fatal asthma attack,’ said Adams. ‘And I hope that showing you this inhaler shows little kids with asthma all across the country that they can grow up to be Surgeon General one day.’
‘But I more immediately share it so that everyone knows it doesn’t matter if you look fit, if you look young, you are still at risk for getting and spreading and dying from coronavirus,’ he warned.