Ethnic Bangladeshi diaspora in Britain are 2.41 times more likely to die from Covid-19 than white people, according to stark official figures exposing a dramatic divergence in the impact of the coronavirus pandemic in England and Wales.
Black people and those of Pakistani ethnicity also have a significantly higher chance of dying from Covid-19 than white people, even when adjusting for deprivation, the British statistics office said on Thursday.
Using models that adjusted for a range of socio-economic factors, the statistics office said it was clear that there were significant differences in the risk of Covid-19 among different ethnic groups.
Without adjusting for a variety of factors including deprivation, education and health, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that Bangladeshi males were 1.8 times more likely to die from a Covid-19-related death and females were 1.6 times more likely than white ethnicity males and females.
The risk of Covid-19 death for people from Chinese and mixed ethnic groups was found to be similar to that for white people.
Black males were 4.2 times more likely to die from Covid-19 than white males, after other pre-existing factors had been accounted for, and females from those ethnic groups were 4.3 times more likely to die from the virus than their white counterparts.
Zubaida Haque, the deputy director of the Runnymede Trust race equality thinktank, described the findings as “alarming.”
“We cannot ignore how important racial discrimination and racial inequalities (e.g. in housing) are, even among poorer socio-economic groups,” she told The Guardian.
“These factors are important but are not taken into account in most statistical modelling of Covid-19 risk factors.”
While only 2% of white British households experienced overcrowding from 2014 to 2017, 30% of Bangladeshi households, 16% of Pakistani households and 12% of black households experienced this, according to a study of the English Housing Survey.
These groups are more likely to work in frontline roles in the health sector in England, where nearly 21% of staff are non-white, compared with about 14% of the population of England and Wales.
Black, Bangladeshi and Pakistani populations have been shown to face higher levels of unemployment and child poverty than white groups.
The analysis, which is awaiting peer review, follows other recent British studies showing people in disadvantaged areas -- typically more heavily populated by ethnic minorities -- had been worse hit by the virus.
Data from the United States showed African Americans were more likely to die from Covid-19, highlighting longstanding disparities in health and inequalities in access to medical care.