Op-Ed

A virus and police brutality: two public-health problems

Posted

The largest pandemic in 100 years gave us a crash course in public health. We quickly learned the epidemiological concepts of “flattening the curve, the risk of exposure, asymptomatic carriers, incubation periods, and why we must quarantine.
Even though everyone may not have understood these concepts, we all learned what to do: isolate and minimize contact with others to stop the spread of the coronavirus. This was enforced here through Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s “New York State on Pause” — even if you wanted to go to school or a bar or a movie, you couldn’t because of the policies that closed them all for the sake of the public. Individuals had to sacrifice for the greater good.
Eventually these policies, and changes in behavior, worked. On Long Island, the percentage of people testing positive for Covid-19 has dropped from 20 percent to 2 percent over the past six weeks. The number of daily deaths in New York City dropped to zero last week for the first time since March. Nassau and Suffolk were among the hardest-hit counties in the United States, and we have been meeting the metrics of declining hospitalizations and deaths, and are moving toward reopening.
We also learned that even though a virus cannot be seen by the naked eye, we can see its effects on the body. We understand that this invisible agent can be spread without the knowledge of those who have it, and that it can be deadly.
The same is true for police brutality and its root cause, structural racism.  Invisible to some and supported by many who are unaware of its impact, the overwhelming police presence in communities of color takes a continuing toll on people of color.

Just as electron microscopes made it possible for viruses to be visible 90 years ago, police brutality is now visible is cellphone documentation that is viewed and shared on our myriad screens. The shocking and deeply disturbing video of George Floyd’s death as a direct result of a Minneapolis police officer’s knee on his neck made it painfully clear how racism and law enforcement violence intersect. The fact that Floyd’s autopsy revealed that he also had Covid-19 the month before he was murdered further connects the vulnerability of black people to public-health threats. The protests that followed across the United States and the world demanded an end to systemic racism.
The American Public Health Association states that racism structures opportunity and assigns value based on how a person looks. The result is conditions that give an unfair advantage to some and unfairly disadvantage others. Racism hurts the health of our nation by denying some people the opportunity to attain their highest level of health.
We know that in Nassau and Suffolk counties, Covid-19 deaths have disproportionately affected black residents. In 2018, the APHA also recognized that law enforcement violence was a public-health issue.  Racism and injustice have resulted in the deaths of more people than the 110,000 that Covid-19 has caused thus far in the U.S.
We have seen that public-health solutions can work to reduce the virus’s toll. However, just talking about what to do — wearing masks, social distancing, disinfecting — does not work unless those recommendations are followed rigorously. Without conscious and vigilant action, Covid-19 would continue to spread and cause sickness and death. But as we wait for a vaccine and the building of herd immunity, we may one day gain control of the virus, and live our lives without thinking too much about it.
There is no similar one- or two-shot solution to an unjust societal system. Eliminating the public-health problems of police brutality and systemic racism will require public-health-sized solutions: consistent monitoring; education about how structural racism, especially on Long Island, came to be a force in our schools, communities and health care system; policy changes; and changes in citizens’ behavior and attitudes.
Police brutality, and the underlying causes of systemic racism, require the same unprecedented level of action and resources we used to address the pandemic. We are all connected, whether we see it or not.

Martine Hackett is an associate professor of public health at Hofstra University.