Great Lakes Wire

The newly christened Michigan Coronavirus Racial Disparities Task Force has announced strategies for joint policies and programming and systemic alterations to safeguard minority communities from the spread of COVID-19 and establishing tangible structural change.  

Director of the Michigan Coronavirus Racial Disparities Task Force Thomas Stallworth III said the organization has crafted recommendations that will reduce inadequacies in health care for Black residents.  

"The members of this task force have worked tirelessly with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to develop recommendations to address this crisis that exposed the long-standing inequities for Black Michiganders that have persisted for decades. Now we must make sure to turn these recommendations into actions that reduce and eventually eliminate the racial disparities impacting the health of Michiganders," Stallworth said.

According to the office of the governor, Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices released a study that the task force has made strides already in mitigating health care racial discrepancies linked to the COVID-19 pandemic.  

The task force tackled racial health gaps and suggested answers to solve inequalities when it was established in April of 2020, according to a news release from the governor's office.

According to the office of the governor, those solutions include eliminating obstacles to testing within minority communities, more testing for citizens at risk of becoming severely ill, cultivating culturally adept information on stopping the spread of COVID-19, along with gathering prudent racial statistics that would result in improved health care for underserved communities.

"When we saw that COVID-19 was uniquely lethal in communities of color in Michigan, Governor Whitmer and I knew we had to act quickly," said Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, chair of the Michigan Coronavirus Racial Disparities Task Force. "Two years later, the successes of the Michigan Coronavirus Racial Disparities Task Force in balancing short-term needs with long- term goals have made it a national model on responding to racial disparities and flattening inequities. But we know there is more work to do, which is why I am proud to join the Task Force in releasing these recommendations to help us chart the way forward.”

Gilchrest added that he looks forward to continuing to work with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the task force to be guardians of citizens of the state and save lives in the process.