ST. LOUIS — A black woman in her 80s was the 13th person in St. Louis to die from COVID-19, the St. Louis Health Department announced Thursday.
No other information about the woman was provided by the St. Louis health department.
Earlier Thursday, St. Louis Department of Health director Fredrick Echols announced that black patients accounted for all of the city's COVID-19 deaths in an article published in the St. Louis American.
"The idea that African Americans are somehow resistant to it is both untrue and dangerous to the health of our community," he said in the article.
According to the United States Census, 45% of the population of the city of St. Louis is black.
Doctor Alexander Garza of the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force said there is a higher proportion of people who are affected by COVID-19 in the minority population.
He explained that the tracking aligns with what other cities such as Chicago, Detroit and New York are seeing.
“And the reason for that isn't necessarily about race. It's about social inequities. We know that populations that are socioeconomically challenged, that don't have access to good health care, that don't have access to nutritious food, are victims of many diseases, including diabetes, high blood pressure, all of these things,” Garza said.
St. Louis has 565 confirmed COVID-19 cases.
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services published information about the race of COVID-19 patients for the first time Thursday.