Even in places where the new coronavirus isn’t spreading throughout communities, the specter of COVID-19 lingers everywhere—whether in the form of folk touting conspiracy theories, teachers concerned about their safety, or our elders worried about whether they’ll survive.

Truth is, Black and Brown communities are more vulnerable to this epidemic than most. Our higher rates of chronic diseases—think: asthma, COPD, diabetes, heart disease, HIV/AIDS, hypertension, sickle cell disease and so on—and the more polluted environments we tend to live and work in may place our lungs at risk, leave our immune systems run down, place our hearts vulnerable to additional strain, and fill our minds filled with anxiety. 

On top of that, many of us work in public-facing jobs—from healthcare workers to educators, to retail, to customer service, to transit employees, to sales professionals. 

And then there’s the ever-present threat of last hired, first fired come lay-off time. 

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