MJR trustee Joe Aldred was interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Sunday programme yesterday on the impact of Covid-19 on BAME communities, where the risk of dying from the virus is at least 2-3 times higher in African-Caribbean communities than in white ones.
Joe reflects on personal loss, the reaction from Pentecostal churches and the wider effects on his community. “It feels like there has been a health timebomb waiting to explode in the African-Caribbean community. If you were to look at any of the stats in the UK for BAME life and particularly for my own community… what you will see is that we show up in negative stats almost anywhere you care to look, socially, economically, politically. We have lived with that over-representation in underlying conditions, and what Covid has done is simply highlighted that.”
Listen to the full interview here (starts at about 18:50), or download an mp3 clip