Novel coronavirus mortality or ethnic differences are not entirely due to socio-economic factors?

The novel coronavirus COVID-19 pneumonia infection, severe and death population have significant statistical differences, and recently, British research institutions have made new discoveries.

Many studies have shown that groups with low income, living in areas with more serious air pollution, poor public health conditions, living in crowded communities, ethnic minorities and other characteristics may be more seriously affected by the novel coronavirus COVID-19.

In addition, preliminary results of a study conducted by researchers at Manchester and Swansea University showed that social distance and isolation had a significant impact on people's mental and emotional health, while people with low income or unstable occupations were the most affected.

However, this difference may not be entirely due to social factors.

Figures from the office of national statistics, which cover the number of deaths from March 2 to April 10, are the first official reflection of the impact of covid-19 on different ethnic groups in England and Wales.

To understand the extent to which racial differences in incidence rate of Covid-19 are purely ethnic related, statisticians have made adjustments in terms of age, area, classification of urban and rural areas, regional poverty, family composition, socio-economic status, highest academic qualifications and health or disability based on the 2011 census.

They found that the differences in the impact of the virus were not only due to differences in community wealth, health, education and living arrangements.

The study found that blacks were still almost twice as likely to die from covid-19-related diseases as whites, taking into account age, self-reported health and disability status, and other sociodemographic characteristics.

After considering other pre-existing factors, Bangladeshi and Pakistani men are 1.8 times more likely to die of covid-19 than white men, while women of these races are 1.6 times more likely to die of covid-19 than white women.

Indian men and women are less likely to die from covid-19 than people from Bangladeshi and Pakistani backgrounds, but still 1.3 and 1.4 times as likely as whites.



Ethnic influence infection rate?

It has been proved that gender differences have a definite effect on the infection rate of novel coronavirus COVID-19, but there are still few studies that only consider race factors.

It has been claimed that the virus is sensitive to small differences in body temperature and body fluids, while the average body temperature of white and black people is slightly higher than that of yellow people, which may be one of the factors affecting the infection rate.

An article in JAMA has pointed out that the mortality rate of black patients with severe sepsis is significantly higher than that of whites, because blacks have higher hair coloring incidence and higher risk of acute organ dysfunction than whites.

Chen Ying, a postdoctoral researcher in Qian Wenfeng's research group of Institute of genetics and developmental biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a doctoral researcher published a paper on the academic preprint website preprints.org in February this year showed that the gene expression level of ACE2, the receptor of novel coronavirus COVID-19, had no significant difference in different species. In addition, there is no East Asian specific ACE2 protein sequence.