Black lawmakers say pleas for data still not answered

DALLAS — Three months into the coronavirus outbreak in Texas, black lawmakers say Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and state health officials have fallen short in addressing their pleas for better racial data and efforts to decrease COVD-19’s decidedly deadly toll on black Americans.

The Dallas Morning News reported Sunday that since the first positive coronavirus case in Texas in March, black legislators have asked for a task force, a more accurate count of the disease’s impact on black and brown Texans and increased testing in highly affected black and brown neighborhoods.

Texas has struggled to track racial health disparities. Many of the more than 70,000 confirmed cases and 1,700 deaths on the state’s case dashboard do not have information on race and ethnicity.

As of Friday, the state had still not received the race or ethnicity of 79% of the cases reported to the state and 63% of the reported deaths.

“We have been asking — myself, my colleagues and people of color — have been asking the government with no answers,” state Sen. Borris Miles, a Houston Democrat, told the newspaper. “It’s like we don’t exist.”

Miles said he was able to get state-provided COVID19 testing in predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods considered hot spots in his district in mid-May. But that was more than two months after Abbott declared a state of disaster.

Abbott spokesman John Wittman told the newspaper that the he state will significantly ramp up testing in black and Hispanic neighborhoods today. He did not provide additional details.

In April, Abbott said he was working with lawmakers to better respond to the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on African Americans.