COVID-19 deaths top 375K worldwide, racial and wealth gap in health system grows

Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous, Brian Sozzi, and Anjalee Khemlani discuss racial and wealth gap in healthcare services that's inciting outrage.

Video Transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: The coronavirus continues to be a global threat. This we know. Here are the numbers. There are nearly 6.29 million confirmed cases of the virus around the world, which has resulted in 376,000 deaths. Domestically, there are now 1.81 million confirmed cases and more than 105,000 deaths.

Anjalee Khemlani is joining us now. Anjalee, many people understandably very angry about the death of George Floyd, but you say there's also outrage over the racial and wealth gap we are seeing in health-care services. In fact, you wrote about it for our website. What can you tell us?

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: That's right, Alexis. This is actually a topic that's been prominent and growing for some time. You've seen health systems for quite a number of years take steps at looking at-- at the very least looking at their population. And that's where the idea of population health came from, and it's something that the health system at large is trying to figure out how to address.

And this goes back to sort of the same underlying issues. If you're talking about the history-- the African American history in this country and, you know, all the missed opportunities, those also play a role in sort of why we see many of them still in urban zones, in densely populated areas, and that plays a role in their ability to gain access to health-care services as well as pay for them, depending on what their jobs are.

We know that all the studies we've seen recently have shown that there is a large majority of minorities at large, really, in those essential services, in those-- counted as essential workers. And so all of that is coming together to kind of put a spotlight on those health disparities, which we've talked about as it relates to coronavirus knowing that, despite the smaller percentage of the population, there is a larger number of those who are being affected and dying of the virus in those minority populations.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Yes, we have discussed that at length, and I want to talk about what's being done to fix the problem. Are there things that companies, corporate America, the public and private sector are doing, Anjalee, to fix the issue?

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Well, while there hasn't been any real concerted or, you know, universal type of effort, there are-- there's what I think some have considered a hodgepodge sort of effect, and that is either looking into the community and getting community leaders together or having health screenings, say, in like a church or a community center.

There is one health organization in North Carolina who I spoke to that was doing things like focusing on food insecurity, and that's a major issue is making sure that there's healthy food available. So they've set up basically like drop spots where the local food bank is helping coordinate getting food to the people in need while they're under lockdown during the coronavirus.

And then there are others who are focusing on telehealth. You know, a startup is focusing on telehealth for the Hispanic community, because having Spanish speakers or physicians who are Spanish speakers may be hard to find when you're not physically in the building. And so that's something that they've been able to offer.

And it's been interesting to see, you know, the reaction as well. That one company wasn't necessarily able to get investor interest even at a time like this because they were considered not a deal, really, as, you know, a lot of people have been shopping for deals in the market right now.

So very interesting time to see the different efforts. And with the conversation building, we may see more coming soon. Alexis.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: I hope so. Good insights there. Anjalee Khemlani, thank you.