- [Announcer] NPT Reports: Aging Matters.

(dramatic music) - [Reporter] We're talking about the surge in coronavirus cases.

- [Reporter] The deaths among African-Americans in disproportionate numbers to their population.

- [Reporter] Black, Hispanic, and Native Americans are still being disproportionately infected, hospitalized, and killed by the virus.

- [Narrator] The coronavirus pandemic is forcing a reckoning in America's healthcare system about disparities linked to race, age, and socioeconomics.

- COVID was the perfect storm to bring these issues to a platform that allowed discussion on such a broad scale because we're not experiencing COVID in a vacuum.

And if minorities are dying from COVID, they're not dying alone.

It's going to affect others in the community as well.

- [Narrator] COVID-19's shocking death toll since 2020 reveals disturbing demographics.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, almost 80%, that's eight out of 10 deaths from COVID-19, have been people 65 years and older.

Compared to white people, American Indian, Alaskan Native, Hispanic, and black people have a greater risk of dying from COVID-19.

- It's hitting black and brown people more than usual.

It's also hitting those who have preexisting conditions, which is if all they had to do is have them under control.

And if they didn't have them under control, why is that, right?

Is it because they didn't have health care?

Is it because they didn't have access to food?

Is it because they didn't have access to just basic exercise or basic water, right?

(ominous music) - One of the things that I think all of us failed early in the process on was with COVID-19 testing.

We set up vehicle-based testing centers.

Well, that automatically excluded people who didn't have a way to get there.

What are the other kinds of things that we're not even aware of that are keeping people out of getting care or keeping people out from getting COVID-19 vaccinations?

We assume that people have cell phones.

We assume that everyone might speak English, or if they do speak English, they're gonna understand my accent.

Those are things that we can't take for granted.

And so I think one of the things that's happening with this dawning about, this moment that we're in, is we're becoming aware of just how many assumptions that we've made, some about race, but often about other things as well.

(gentle music)