Reporting Series Examines Racial Disparities In COVID Cases, Deaths

Cases of COVID-19 are trending upward in Ohio and many states.  Ohio’s daily case count has been above 2,000 for much of the month outpacing the numbers we were seeing just a few months ago.

Last week, the Ohio Department of Health put Cuyahoga County at the cusp of the level 4 or purple coded designation. It is the highest level in the state’s color-coded public health advisory system. Since the state implemented the advisory system, no county has reached that designation.

From the start, the pandemic has focused a light on the disparities that exist within our society, including the racial disparities among those who get sick and suffer the most from the virus.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control analyzed by The New York Times, Black and Latinix communities have been three times as likely as white counterparts to get sick from the coronavirus and twice as likely than whites to die from it.

 With the rush on to develop a vaccine, efforts are also underway to include Black and Latinix communities in the process.

A reporting series on idestream-dot-org this week looked at the racial disparities in COVID cases locally and the effort to build trust to mitigate those disparities.

This series is a partnership between the Northeast Ohio Solutions Journalism Collaborative and the Cleveland Observer. It is presented as part of ideastream's Coping With COVID-19 project, which is funded by the Third Federal Foundation and University Settlement.

Earlier this week, Amy Coney Barrett took the oath to become the latest Associate Justice seated on the United States Supreme Court.  She takes the seat held for nearly four decades by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who died in September at the age of 87.

Barrett is the third justice appointed to the court by President Donald Trump.

With Barrett, the high court returns to its full 9-members and she firmly cements a 6-3 conservative majority on the court.

The court opened its latest session this month. Its docket includes a number of high-profile cases, such as the one that will likely decide the future of the Affordable Care Act.  The court scheduled the case for arguments one week after the election.

There are just days left before Election Day and the number of people voting has already shattered records.  According Secretary of State Frank LaRose, 2.2 million people in Ohio have cast ballots through the mail or by early in-person voting.  The number passes the 1.9 million who voted early in the 2016 presidential election.

Nationwide, the number of people who have already voted is estimated at 69 million. Ohio remains one of the battleground states heading into the election and experts say is a must-win for President Trump.

• Rachel Dissell, Reporter
• Charles Modlin, MD, Founder and Director of the Minority Men's Health Center, Glickman Urological Institute, Executive Director of Minority Health, Cleveland Clinic 
• Jonathan Entin, Professor Emeritus of Law and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, Case Western Reserve University 
• Chris Cillizza, Reporter, Editor-at-Large, CNN Politics