«Speaking as a biologist who works on disease, I think there is a link to being black and brown.»
Ah but the argument becomes really hairy if the link is from “being black and brown” to being more susceptible to COVID, which is a very different argument, because the "vitamin D deficiency" argument applies to a lot of other group. There is…
«Speaking as a biologist who works on disease, I think there is a link to being black and brown.»
Ah but the argument becomes really hairy if the link is from “being black and brown” to being more susceptible to COVID, which is a very different argument, because the "vitamin D deficiency" argument applies to a lot of other group. There is nothing that says that the vitamin D deficiency argument applies only or even mostly to black and brown groups.
It is like the famous sickle cell anemia issue, which affects several other groups besides USA based black people, because like vitamin D deficiency it is not racist:
“In several sections of Africa, the prevalence of sickle cell trait (heterozygosity) is as high as 30%. Although the disease is most frequently found in sub-Saharan Africa, it is also found in some parts of Sicily, Greece, southern Turkey, and India, all of which have areas in which malaria is endemic. The mutation that results in HbS is believed to have originated in several locations in Africa and India.”
Also even among people of african descent sickle cell anemia is not prevalent, it is only prevalent among those groups that lived in malaria-infested zones, and it so happens that many black slaves sold by their black owners to slave traders and transported to America came from a narrow range of areas that were malaria infested, so sickle anemia is not a racial characteristic among black people either, it is a geographical one.
My (very lay) understanding of the Vitamin D science is that skin metabolizes UV into Vitamin D and melanin in the skin blocks UV so it would seem that Vit D deficiency may be related to skin-color in a way that, as you point out, sickle cell anemia is not. I think this could very well be one of the reasons black people are having worse Covid outcomes.
«Speaking as a biologist who works on disease, I think there is a link to being black and brown.»
Ah but the argument becomes really hairy if the link is from “being black and brown” to being more susceptible to COVID, which is a very different argument, because the "vitamin D deficiency" argument applies to a lot of other group. There is nothing that says that the vitamin D deficiency argument applies only or even mostly to black and brown groups.
It is like the famous sickle cell anemia issue, which affects several other groups besides USA based black people, because like vitamin D deficiency it is not racist:
https://www.medscape.com/answers/205926-15311/what-is-the-global-prevalence-of-sickle-cell-disease-scd
“In several sections of Africa, the prevalence of sickle cell trait (heterozygosity) is as high as 30%. Although the disease is most frequently found in sub-Saharan Africa, it is also found in some parts of Sicily, Greece, southern Turkey, and India, all of which have areas in which malaria is endemic. The mutation that results in HbS is believed to have originated in several locations in Africa and India.”
Also even among people of african descent sickle cell anemia is not prevalent, it is only prevalent among those groups that lived in malaria-infested zones, and it so happens that many black slaves sold by their black owners to slave traders and transported to America came from a narrow range of areas that were malaria infested, so sickle anemia is not a racial characteristic among black people either, it is a geographical one.
My (very lay) understanding of the Vitamin D science is that skin metabolizes UV into Vitamin D and melanin in the skin blocks UV so it would seem that Vit D deficiency may be related to skin-color in a way that, as you point out, sickle cell anemia is not. I think this could very well be one of the reasons black people are having worse Covid outcomes.