[ad_1]
Some media in Germany report that immigrants and minorities become more seriously ill with Covid-19. Other doctors call these statements racist. While some experts bring arguments, writes Auron Dodi.
It is in fact mainly the media with a clear right-wing political orientation that spread the news this week about the coronavirus-infected immigrants. Among them are the boulevard newspaper Bild-Zeitung and the magazine Focus, which often pay little attention to the government’s prudence in spreading news, which can fuel prejudices against foreigners.
Austria and the Czech Republic publicly declare the figures for members of minorities infected with Covid-19, writes the magazine Focus. So why not Germany? But this magazine forgets that they are smaller countries with a different composition and social balance from Germany.
Focus magazine cites, among other things, a doctor who remains anonymous. He says most of the patients undergoing therapy are patients of both Turkish origin and from many parts of the Balkans. This is especially true at the height of the second phase of the pandemic. Focus magazine points out that this situation occurs even though the Coronan warning app also exists in the community languages: Turkish, Arabic and Albanian. And although the German government and clinics have distributed information material in the languages of the communities. But the news about immigrants and communities was treated on Thursday, in a balanced way, by ZDF, a German public television with a conservative tendency.
The news about sick immigrants is based on doctors’ stories
The question that arises is where the arguments of the experts are based that Covid-19 has hit hardest persons of migrant origin, when in Germany there are no figures for this. For Germany, this news is based on doctors’ impressions and stories. This was told to the German station ZDF by a representative of the German Interdisciplinary Association of Intensive Medicine (Divi). He said he does not even know of any organization in Germany that registers such data for intensive care patients in hospitals. So which of the patients is of immigrant origin or which has language barriers.
ZDF quotes the head of a lung clinic on Thursday. He was informed by his colleagues that patients with Covid, of immigrant origin make up 50 to 90 percent of the patients they have. But even the impression of the doctor talking about his clinic supports this. According to the Bild-Zeitung, the chief physicians of the hospitals have informed in an informal conversation about these circumstances the head of the Robert-Koch Institute, Wieler.
The phenomenon of richer countries: immigrants hit by Covid-19
But even experts believe that people of immigrant origin are disproportionately affected by Covid-19. They believe this, for several reasons.
First, because people of immigrant origin work more often in occupations, where the risk of getting the virus is greater. For example, in Germany they work disproportionately in health care and in healthcare.
Secondly, the health culture and knowledge of many people of immigrant origin are non-optimal. Even because of the language, they do not get serious information. In addition, the misinformation they sometimes receive from their homeland, that e.g. Covid-19 is not as scary as they make it, adds perversion. Some foreigners also fatally fall prey to conspiracy theories and take a completely blocking stance on state information about the virus.
Third, the transmission of the virus is facilitated by the poverty and living conditions of a part of persons of immigrant origin.
According to the OECD, in many high-income countries we have the same situation. Factors that drive the spread of the virus to migrants, according to the OECD, are the housing of many people under one roof, or the heavy use of public transport. So is the inability of many members of minorities to work from home. Or to maintain social distance, as in gastronomy or in meat slaughterhouses. Even the British government did years of research on this phenomenon. And he concluded that the risk of loss of life, in minorities, is 50 percent higher than in white Britons.
Reasons for special non-registration of sick immigrants
In Germany, accurate data on immigrants infected with coronavirus are not collected, also because there is a risk that they will be unfairly generalized by interested circles. For example, to say that it is foreigners who spread the pandemic.
This would even be a welcome topic for anti-government protesters, as they say the virus does not exist and the government’s restrictive measures are wrong. It is known that some of these protesters have previously demonstrated against migrants.
Even the latest news, the ultra-right party in Germany, Alternative for Germany, immediately commented. AfD wrote on Twitter that for the government it was “more important” to say that “the multicultural model succeeds, than to fight the coronavirus”.
On the other hand, well-known doctors in Germany called the statements of doctors about immigrants sick with coronavirus racist for ZDF. They say there are also many Germans who are not properly informed. And it is wrong to point to a group of the population. The virus must be fought by all together. These doctors want to increase information campaigns in the communities, in addition to the information that the German government already provides in the languages of the communities./DW
top channel
[ad_2]
Source link
