Race and COVID

Big Picture Science

While citizens take to the streets to protest racist violence, the pandemic has its own brutal inequities. Black, Latino, and Native American people are bearing the brunt of COVID illness and death. We look at the multitude of factors that contribute to this disparity, most of which existed long before the pandemic. Also, how the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe maintained their coronavirus safeguards in defiance of the South Dakota governor. And, the biological reasons why we categorize one another by skin color.

Guests:

• Marcella Nunez Smith – Associate Professor of Medicine and of Epidemiology, Yale School of Medicine, Director, Equity Research and Innovation Center
• Utibe Essien – Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and a Core Investigator, Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion, VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System
• Nina Jablonski – Anthropologist, paleobiologist at Pennsylvania State University and author of, “Skin: A Natural History,” and “Living Color: the Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color.”
• Robert Sapolsky – Professor of neuroscience at Stanford University, and author of “Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst.”
• Harold Frazier – Chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe, South Dakota. The Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation COVID checkpoint on Highway 212 is featured in an article on Indianz.com.

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