Michigan Governor Whitmer sets up coronavirus racial disparity task force

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ordered on Monday the creation of a task force to investigate why the novel coronavirus has disproportionately affected the state’s African-American community.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted communities of color throughout our state,” Whitmer, a Democrat, said in her executive order. “For example, while African Americans represent 13.6 percent of our state’s population, they represent a staggering 40 percent of the deaths from COVID-19.”

Whitmer’s task force will investigate and study strategies to address the disparity as well as the historical and systematic inequalities pertaining to race that have amplified the death rate in the state’s black community.

Michigan’s governor is not the first public official to recognize the disproportionate toll the virus is having on communities of color.