Nineteen tragic facts about Covid 19

14th December 2020   ·   0 Comments

By Bill Quigley
Contributing Writer

87 million.
Eighty-seven million workers will lose federally mandated COVID sick leave at the end of December unless Congress acts to extend the law.

50 million.
Fifty million people are now facing hunger at least once a month, including one in four children. The rate of adults who sometimes or often do not have enough to eat is double in Black and Latino homes, according to The Associated Press.

30 million.
Thirty million people are facing eviction as of December 31, 2020 when the current Centers for Disease Control moratorium on evictions ends. There has been a 70 percent increase in the number of people paying their rent by credit card.

16 million.
Sixteen million unemployed workers have already lost or will lose their federal unemployment benefits by December 26, 2020. 4.4 million people have already exhausted their federal benefits and another 12 million people stand to lose their unemployment benefits by December 26, 2020 unless Congress passes new laws, according to the Century Foundation.

12 million.
As many as 12 million people who were entitled to the $1200 stimulus check never received it.

10 million.
Two major national law firms and several national restaurant chains received $10 million dollars each from the Paycheck Protection Program. More than 25 percent of the $500 billion in aid went to just one percent of borrowers.

7 million.
seven million more Americans, about 11 percent, now live in poverty, than did months ago when the $600 Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program was operating.
NBC News.

2.2 million.
Since January, 2.2 million women have lost or quit their jobs or are no longer looking for work because mothers have been forced to choose between caring for their children and their jobs.

1.5 million.
Of the record high 1.5 million homeless children in the US, over 400,000 have dropped off their school’s radar during the pandemic. Education Week.

1.4 million.
One million four hundred thousand children have tested positive for COVID.
American Academy of Pediatrics.

110,000.
110,000 restaurants have closed permanently, according to the National Restaurant Association.

106,000.
At least 106,000 nursing home residents and staff died from COVID as of early December, around 39 percent of the overall deaths reported. NBC News.

600 Percent.
Failure rates in math and English jumped 600 percent among low income students in some school districts recently in Maryland. Nationally grade school students are falling significantly behind in math and the percentages may even be worse because a large percentage of students were not even present when testing was done. Several states report that many fewer children enrolled back in school this fall than were there a year ago.

400 Percent.
Covid 19 rates are 400 percent higher in state and federal prisons than among the general public and the death rate is more than twice as high. National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice.

400 Percent.
Black, Hispanic and Native Americans are four times as likely to be hospitalized for COVID than whites. CNN.

200 Percent.
The risk of being exposed to COVID at the grocery store is twice as high in low income neighborhoods as in high income neighborhoods.

37 Percent.
African Americans are 37 percent more likely to die from COVID than whites; Asians are 53 percent more likely; Hispanics 16 percent.

31 Percent.
There has been a 31 percent increase in mental health emergency room visits for children since the pandemic began and an overall 24 percent increase in emergency room visits for children. Centers for Disease Control.

16 Percent.
College applications are down 16 percent from first generation students and lower income students.

Thirteen.
In 13 states, the unemployment benefits provided fall below the federal poverty line of $245 a week according to the Government Accountability Office.

Bill Quigley is a professor at Loyola University New Orleans. He can be reached at Quigley77@gmail.com

This article originally published in the December 14, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.