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'Perfect storm for when COVID hits': Neglected Black communities in Alabama see coronavirus surge
NBC "News" / Comcast ^ | June 17, 2020 | By Ellison Barber and Tim Stelloh

Posted on 06/17/2020 5:34:07 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer

LOWNDES COUNTY, Ala. -- The area known as Alabama's Black Belt has been hit hard by the coronavirus.

The mostly rural region, which includes more than a dozen counties and is famous for pivotal Civil Rights-era events like the march from Selma and the Montgomery bus boycott, has some of the highest infection rates in the state.

It also has high unemployment, low income levels - several counties have poverty rates north of 30 percent, according to a 2019 University of Alabama analysis - and limited access to grocery stores, sewage service and health care.

Some hard-hit areas, like Lowndes County, outside Montgomery, the state capital, don't have a single intensive care bed, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.

To Felecia Lucky, president of the Black Belt Community Foundation, the virus has only magnified the region's long-simmering problems.

"When you look at our communities that are predominantly African American, with the lack of access to health care, pre-existing conditions - it's almost all the ingredients for a perfect storm for when COVID hits," she said.

Perman Hardy, a Lowndes County resident, said the virus was highlighting how people in the region can feel forgotten.

"This coronavirus has brought a lot to the surface that was hidden," he said. "You really seeing a lot of what the minority and Black people have to endure and what they are still enduring."

He added: "If you have a state like Alabama, cases steady going up, what are you going to do in the rural part of Alabama?"

(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Alabama
KEYWORDS: bias; journalism; media; narrative
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Irony can be beautiful. Imagine the far-left empty heads exploding if a few more states swing for Trump on Election Day . . . and the margins are smaller than the Chinese Coronavirus death tolls among arsonists, rioters, and looters.


21 posted on 06/17/2020 6:44:44 AM PDT by Pollster1 ("Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed")
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To: a fool in paradise
Here in WA State we have the same problem in the Mexican community as well as on the Reservations. It isn't racist to state facts. They live communally, that is a lot of people in one living space. And, they don't clean their living spaces.

I know there are some who will accuse me of being racist, but I worked with these people for years.

I remember one house on the Reservation that had the bathroom window removed so the horses could use the bathtub as a watering trough. In another house, the clothes were piled high on the dining room table and were rummaged through to get enough to wear for the day.

Now, you all can flame away.

22 posted on 06/17/2020 7:09:49 AM PDT by Parmy
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

I am puzzled by the attitude of some of these people. Are they suggesting that the government owes them a living, and everything else so they do not get Covid-19? Isn’t that a racist idea, sort of like a new type of plantation? Do they need a new handout to get them over this hump? And, when will this end?

If they need help, then give them help, but in the end they need to take control of the situation and quarantine themselves like all the other groups did.

As for their unemployment, we need to get our economy back so the jobs open up again.


23 posted on 06/17/2020 7:15:12 AM PDT by Gumdrop
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To: petitfour

No. The next county over.


24 posted on 06/17/2020 7:45:29 AM PDT by bgill
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To: petitfour

Even poor Alabama blacks wont work for the pittance Nike pays them asians


25 posted on 06/17/2020 8:36:08 AM PDT by Joe Boucher ( Molon Labe' Baby, Molon Labe)
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To: Joe Boucher

But they pay athletes so much. Can’t they share the wealth?


26 posted on 06/17/2020 8:38:51 AM PDT by petitfour (APPEAL TO HEAVEN)
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To: petitfour

Smart athletes regardless of color buy or start businesses instead of buying expensive vehicles or houses. They then hire and pay employees.
That is the way to share the wealth.
Course ignorants go for the bling.


27 posted on 06/17/2020 8:45:05 AM PDT by Joe Boucher ( Molon Labe' Baby, Molon Labe)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
Some hard-hit areas, like Lowndes County, outside Montgomery, the state capital, don't have a single intensive care bed

SHOCKING that a county with less than 10k people has zero intensive care beds says big media

28 posted on 06/17/2020 8:49:03 AM PDT by stuck_in_new_orleans
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

The Chinese are highly racist. Why should their viruses be any different?


29 posted on 06/17/2020 9:00:19 AM PDT by Rebelbase
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

I suspect the reason we are seeing higher rates of infection among certain groups comes down to how many people are sharing living quarters, and when one of them gets sick there is nowhere for them to quarantine to away from the rest of their house mates.


30 posted on 06/17/2020 9:45:34 AM PDT by Monitor ("The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-front for the urge to rule it." - H. L. Mencken)
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