“The Rona”
Why it Affects African Americans at a Higher Rate
The “Rona,” as referred to in the African American community, is a new illness affecting your lungs and airway. It is caused by a virus called the Coronavirus.
The body has two lungs located on either side of the chest. Their function is to extract oxygen from the atmosphere and transfer it into the bloodstream, and to release carbon dioxide from the bloodstream into the atmosphere, in a process of gas exchange.
The Covid-19 is thought to alter the lungs function by preventing the release of carbon dioxide from the body. A build-up of carbon dioxide in the body can cause a host of problems including, but not limited to, shortness of breath, heart arrhythmias and respiratory failure.
Symptoms of the Coronavirus are cough, high temperature and shortness of breath.
There is no current cure for Coronavirus (Covid-19).
Treatment is simply to relieve the symptoms until you recover.
Reports suggest the transmission is spread by cough or sneeze droplets.
Your body’s response to Covid-19 determines your prognosis.
If your immune system is already weakened, your survival rate is decreased.
How does your body respond to COVID-19?
When a person is exposed to the coronavirus, a healthy individual will start producing antibodies to fight the infection. As antibodies start to restrict the virus, keeping it from replicating, symptoms usually begin to gradually decrease, and you start to feel better.
Your immune system will get rid of the virus but will keep memory cells available incase the disease returns.
A previously infected person who survived without additional health outcomes or disabilities is referenced as recovered.
Even after symptoms disappear there still may be small amounts of the virus in a patient’s system, and they should stay isolated for a specified amount of time to ensure they have truly recovered and are no longer infectious.
How does immunity work?
Once you recover from a viral infection, your body will keep cells called lymphocytes in your system. These cells remember previous viruses and generally react quickly to fight them off again.
If you have been exposed to a virus and it returns, your antibodies will likely prevent the virus from infecting you again. Immunity occurs when you become resistant to that virus. This is the principle behind many vaccines.
Immunity is not exact, and over time you should get revaccinated for previous conditions like mumps, chickenpox, or influenza — to allow your immune system to make additional antibodies or memory cells.
What exactly is a Vaccine? And How does it Work?
Vaccines help immunity by imitating an infection. This type of imitation infection, usually never causes an illness, instead causes the immune system to produce T-lymphocytes and antibodies, which are helpful in fighting the infection. In some cases, after a vaccination, an imitation infection occurs producing minor symptom such as fever. Such minor symptoms are normal and should be expected as the body builds immunity to the virus.
Once the imitation infection goes away, the body is left with a supply of “memory” T-lymphocytes, as well as B-lymphocytes that will remember how to fight that disease in the future. However, it typically takes a few weeks for the body to produce T-lymphocytes and B-lymphocytes after vaccination.
A person infected with a disease before, or slightly after vaccination could develop symptoms and get the disease, simply because the vaccine has not had enough time to provide protection.
Examples of Vaccines
MMR, DTap, Meningococcal Vaccine, influenza, HPB Vaccine and Chickenpox, are vaccines commonly administered.
What populations are more vulnerable for Covid-19
Based on data, those at high-risk for severe illness from COVID-19 are:
· People who live in a nursing home, and in my opinion, people who work in long-term care facilities.
People of all ages with underlying medical conditions, particularly if not well controlled, including:
· People with chronic lung disease or moderate to severe asthma
· People who have serious heart conditions
· People who are immunocompromised
· Many conditions can cause a person to be immunocompromised, including cancer treatment, smoking, bone marrow or organ transplantation, immune deficiencies, poorly controlled HIV or AIDS, and prolonged use of corticosteroids and immune weakening medications
· People with severe obesity (body mass index [BMI] of 40 or higher)
· People with diabetes
· People with chronic kidney disease undergoing dialysis
· People with liver disease
Is Covid-19 more prone to a race?
The CDC reports about 50% of African Americans with Covid-19 had high blood pressure. About a third had diabetes, and a third had cardiovascular disease.
African Americans are at high risk of illness and mortality (death) because of the conditions stated above, and the fact that most do not know enough about the human body to understand risk factors associated with their race.
If you gather a group of African Americans and ask what their baseline vital signs are, they wouldn’t have a clue. Questions like, what does your blood pressure usually run? What is considered normal blood pressure? What is your usual body temperature? What is the typical blood glucose rate? Is your electrolyte balance considered normal? Or is it abnormal?
African Americans are unclear how sodium, calcium, potassium, phosphate, and magnesium (electrolytes) affect the body’s ability to retain good health. If one or more of these essential electrolytes are severely low or high, seizures and cardiac arrest can occur.
Symptoms of electrolyte imbalance include:
Fatigue
Fast heart rate
Vomiting
Muscle weakness
Seizures
Muscle cramping
Irregular heart rate
A basic CMP or comprehensive metabolic panel blood test, as well as a CBC (complete blood count) is baseline bloodwork that determines your overall health including your electrolyte levels.
From these two tests your doctor can determine if more specialized tests are needed.
Why are African Americans at a higher risk for disease?
The Indiana University School of Medicine reports obesity is a common factor for health problems. Those labeled obese, in most cases, develop diabetes and other conditions as well.
Reports show over 4.9 million African Americans have diagnosed or undiagnosed diabetes!
Melinda Beck, a health researcher at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, suggests obesity throws off the fuel sources that immune cells need to function.
As a result, obesity seems to negatively impact the body’s immune response, limiting the production of antibodies necessary to deal with the virus infection.
33% of COVID-19 cases are African American, yet only 13% of the U.S. population is African American.
Of the twenty-six states reporting, African Americans account for 34% of COVID deaths, according to research from Johns Hopkins University.
This disproportionate number can be somewhat explained by the fact that there is a higher prevalence of obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes among African Americans compared with Caucasians.
As African Americans are generally subject to chronic stress, the effect of prolonged stress can make one more vulnerable to infection because it can lower your body’s ability to fight off an infection.
Examples of Chronic Stress associated with African Americans include poverty, unemployment, racial injustice, or discrimination, single parent household and police profiling.
Research has shown that people who report higher levels of stress, are ten times likely to develop an illness.
In summary, African Americans should reevaluate current lifestyle choices, seek healthy stress-reduction, and consider enrolling in basic anatomy to understand concepts and terminology of straightforward body functions.
In addition, eat healthy, exercise, drink plenty of water, get regular check-ups, and reduce your stress at all cost. Your immune system depends on it!
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