Racism and discrimination suffered by Britain’s black, Asian and minority ethnics has contributed to the high death rates from Covid-19 in those communities, NHS England have concluded, shock, horror. The conclusion is contained in an, as yet, unpublished government-commissioned report.
Sky News obtained a previously unpublished section of a review undertaken by Public Health England (PHE), due to the belief by some that the pandemic disproportionately impacted on Black and Asian communities. This followed pressure from BAME campaign groups who had quickly implied the 3% difference in real terms between White and Ethnic minorities deaths from Covid-19 had to be due to Racism.
The report by NHS England, the Whitehall organisation known for Virtue-Signalling and spectacularly failing in its duty to prepare for this Pandemic at all, said: “Stakeholders pointed to racism and discrimination experienced by communities and more specifically BAME key workers as a root cause to exposure risk and disease progression.” It goes on to state: “Racism and discrimination experienced by BAME key workers [is] a root cause affecting health and exposure risk. For BAME communities, lack of trust of NHS services resulted in reluctance to seek care.”
The report appears void of any scientific study (biological, virological, physiological or epidemiological) as one might reasonably expect in an NHS document concerning a Pandemic, but was filled with the slogans and soundbites of campaign groups. The report, which reads like the Black Lives Matter Go Fund Me page, claims to provide ‘evidence’ but then relies entirely on asking some 4,000 stakeholders from BAME groups and BAME academics about their experiences. If you ask 4000 BAME activists if their experience was due to racism, what do you think they’re going to say? To palm this type of Identity Politics off as anything other than the confirmation bias it is, shows NHS England for the complete joke it’s now become.
The newly uncovered section of the report highlights fears in BAME communities that people from those backgrounds could be badly affected again if there is a second wave of coronavirus and lessons from the initial wave have not been learned and acted upon. It does not state what those lessons were, how exactly a VIRUS can be RACIST, or indeed how scientists may be able to stop the virus from being racist in the future.
Labour, whose ‘policies’ now appear to be mostly Identity-based, criticised the government’s lack of openness over the report, which had been eagerly awaited by them and BAME groups to see if the report contained exactly what they’d told the authors to say. They needn't have worried as the reader is left under no illusion that everything is Racism.
The ‘No Sh*t Sherlock’ moment in Prof. Kevin Fenton’s report came with the statement: The fact that many BAME people occupy key worker roles, for example in the NHS and social care, means that they “may be more exposed to Covid-19 and therefore are more likely to be diagnosed,” stunning insight.
This report is not science, it is propaganda. It could not even be called a sociological study due to it having no balance, no control group and failing to back up its claims with hard facts and figures. If Prof. Fenton and his team could point to one law, rule, procedure or process, anywhere that specifically targets Black and Asian people then we may be more likely to accept the findings, but of course, it doesn’t. Moreover, it is not for NHS England to be writing sociological reports at all. This is not their remit.
Worse still, this Identity Politics propaganda will be used to influence government policy in the future and basing policy on 'feelings' never ends well.