BAME risk...It's not about ethnicity is it?

[MindTheRiskPlease]

Surely this whole "BAME" (nonsense term btw) people at risk of Covid is not about race ethnicity, is it?

If so, I don't see a great number of people being affected in "BAME" countries. Cases and Deaths are much much lower than that of the UK.

I live in a small town. Everyone is going about their business and following guidelines. Is 'the rona' coming to find me then because... "race" or is there more to it than that?

If two people (one "BAME", other not) come in contact with a covid patient, would the virus "choose" the BAME person and not the other? Wouldn't they both be at risk, depending on some factors? (What has ethnicity go to do with it?)

AIBU to think this whole "BAME people are more at risk" is a bit of a fallacious statement and has to be broken down to factors like geographical location, health, age, job, etc to actually be accurate?

In San Francisco, a steady trend in coronavirus (COVID-19) deaths has gone largely unnoticed until recently: Asian Americans consistently account for nearly half of COVID-19 deaths. For a city that is one-third Asian American, the disproportionate number of deaths appears striking, yet this highlights an even more worrisome statistic—Asian Americans experience a four times higher case fatality rate (CFR) than that of the overall population (5.2 percent versus 1.3 percent).

Asians are a prosperous ethnic minority in California. More prosperous than whites who make up the largest racial group in California. Yet at higher risk than whites.
Some kind of biological mechanism is happening.

@YgritteSnow PS just to clarify, I'm really not offended by you asking on this thread how you should ask the question. If anything, I appreciate the self-awareness that you might not have always got it right in the past, and want to avoid upsetting anyone now. I don't think my last post made that clear. :)

BAME is just such a stupid word because people never use it to mean BAME. They always, always, use it to indicate someone with dark skin. People always forget about East Asians.

Yes totally agree with you op.

Don't you find it reassuring Bananabread that urgent monitoring and investigation has been called for of this situation? The number of deaths or serious complications from covid is disproportionately high in BAME people and answers are needed.

I don't think for a minute those statistics were dreamt up so that BAME people "can be tested on first" You think it's a conspiracy? The investigations are looking at statistical evidence, including socio economic factors, health inequalities and structural racism, as well as genetic differences.

It can only be a good thing if members of a BAME community can be identified as vulnerable and why.

BAME is just such a stupid word because people never use it to mean BAME. They always, always, use it to indicate someone with dark skin. People always forget about East Asians

And Jews, who have also experienced high cases and deaths.

I honestly believe it’s fear of being labelled racist that PHE are not coming out and saying if you’re not white, you need to take high dose vitamin d

My DH is 61, high BP, diabetic and bmi 45

I’m 44 no underlying conditions other than being bmi 52 (not proud btw)

According to the media we should both be dead

In feb we started taking high dose vit d

I had it (confirmed) mild
Cough, loss of taste and smell and three days with a temp over 38). Now fully ok but smell not completely back

He we think had it - breathless for 48 hours ( never known him to be breathless in the 10 years I’ve known him)
Studies have shown that most people in icu have got severe vitamin d deficiency

I know that It might be correlation not causation but I firmly believe it

As it also explains the higher death rates amongst non whites in northern latitudes

But we can’t say that cos it might ainglemout Jon whites as different according to woke speak

BAME in the context of this thread is an umbrella term to classify the vast group of people identified as at higher risk. Health/ scientific studies will break BAME into all the different ethnicities as part of that study. So in a broad scientific context, what other abbreviation could be used?

On an individual level, I can see that people are frustrated to be swept into such a vast category and feel wrongly labelled? For example, at a doctor's appointment, they may require your ethnic background as it will sometimes help informed diagnosis or treatment and its rather vague and dismissive in that case to simply label a person as BAME.

I don't think a knee jerk reaction to the term is particularly helpful. It depends on the context and can be a useful abbreviation.

@SmileyClare

BAME in the context of this thread is an umbrella term to classify the vast group of people identified as at higher risk. Health/ scientific studies will break BAME into all the different ethnicities as part of that study. So in a broad scientific context, what other abbreviation could be used?

On an individual level, I can see that people are frustrated to be swept into such a vast category and feel wrongly labelled? For example, at a doctor's appointment, they may require your ethnic background as it will sometimes help informed diagnosis or treatment and its rather vague and dismissive in that case to simply label a person as BAME.

I don't think a knee jerk reaction to the term is particularly helpful. It depends on the context and can be a useful abbreviation.

If you look at the actual research, you'll understand why I'm so pissed off. The way data has been collected for anyone fitting into an 'other minority' is so flawed, it's impossible to tell if we're actually at higher risk or not. In a broad scientific context, data should have been collected in a much cleverer way than it has been done.

rainkeepsfalling I must admit I haven't looked in detail at how data is being collated. Whether it makes the data flawed or difficult to analyse, I don't know. Probably.

It has been reported that more funding is being allocated to research this issue.

I see what you mean though, for the general public it's difficult to interpret the information presented by the media PHE or by WHO . It's vague in terms of BAME risk and people don't know how to assess their own risk.

The actual statistics don't lie, but it appears scientists are pissing in the wind with finding the reasons why.

I don't think a knee jerk reaction to the term is particularly helpful.

I don't think anyone who is objecting to this term is doing is as a knee jerk reaction to be fair. More from years of being 'othered' by the society they grew up in. I am mixed race and grew up in this country. I have no ties to my mother's country of birth or her culture (her choice). My entire frame of reference and life experience has been within white culture and I am half white. Yet growing up I still got asked 'yes but where do you really come from' etc. It's as if if you have a drop of blood from another ethnicity, your white heritage is completely overlooked, and the BAME umbrella term does not really help this cause. And as a pp said, there are so many nuances within which people from ethnic backgrounds exist that include socio-economic factors and general lifestyle, as well as possible epigenetic susceptibility to C-19 in certain individuals that the term BAME is being used in a disingenuous way by a lot of the mainstream media in relation to the current pandemic.

Fair point Ceibatree. Any BAME (sorry!) person won't know what to make of how the media is representing this, or be able to work out how elevated their risk might be.

I can't say I am a fan of the bame term either. It just lumps all non white folk into one group when hey ho there is a fair bit of difference between south east asians, to chinese people and black people. Many south east asians work in healthcare (me included) so that could account for the higher than average rate of deaths of people who work for the nhs. Institutional racism will play a part in that they are less likely to be offered ppe or kick up a stink in the same way white colleagues might. I work as a pharmacist, a white colleague has started doing consultations in his tiny consultation room and his team were visibly annoyed when I refused with just a mask as ppe. Why should I put myself at a higher risk just because he chooses too? People of lower economic status are less likely to have jobs that involve working from home. My dad works in a factory, he wears a mask and uses sanitizer but there is no deep cleaning going on as far as I am aware.

Certain conditions are more common in south east asians including diabetes and heart disease or sickle cell anaemia in black people.

Living in a three generation family household means that one person with symptoms could potentially affect all members of their household so more people.

To the person who made a snarky comment about an indoor funeral of 250 people you really should check yourself. I have lost several family friends during covid-19 (some of whom have died due to covid-19, others not) and they have complied with the laws of the land with regards to funerals. They have been live streamed where possible and many funeral rites were not allowed to be followed as they normally would due to covid. This has been hugely upsetting for all concerned but from my own experience people have accepted this. Within the south east asian community where I live (cant speak for everywhere) funeral directors have been super strict about families sticking to the guidelines so as not to have muslim funerals banned altogether ( from a community aspect it is better to have some funeral rites followed than non at all). There have though been reports in the press of large people congressing at funerals but they were white and the police stayed away (why?).

The key finding that stood out to me from the government report linked was "... COVID-19 did not create health inequalities, but rather the pandemic exposed and exacerbated longstanding inequalities affecting BAME communities in the UK."

More research is obviously needed though.

@SmileyClare @bluebadgehelp101
"BAME" is considered to be an unhelpful adjective because it assumes that everyone who is non-white can be lumped together under one heading.

The reality is far more nuanced. Different ethnicities (even when they originate from countries which neighbour one another) have wildly different outcomes. A British-Pakistani, a British-Indian, and a British-Bangladeshi will have very different statistical outcomes.

Take the field of education for example. Received wisdom states that all BAME people will have poorer outcomes than white people. In reality, British-Indians will out perform white pupils on average while British-Bangladeshis will underperform. Afro-Caribbean boys will underperform but studies have shown Afro-Caribbean girls to be highly motivated.

Bringing it back to Covid, some ethnicities are more likely to work in medicine or public transport than others (we have right there a spectrum of wealth from the humble bus driver to the high flying hospital consultant). Different ethnicities have different attitudes to extended families, care for elderly relatives, and religious views.

So using one catch-all term to describe all ethnic minorities is unhelpful.

I only heard of the BAME word and didn't even know how to pronounce it when I heard one of the daily government briefings this year. it has always been hard to come up with words that cover the right people.

Covid 19 and BAME has been a complex issue as very rich well educated Indian doctors in the UK have had it even when not over weight I think and not even that old so it is not just about poverty or being fat or even multigenerational living but could be related to more BAME people working in big cities like London rather than rural Northumberland where I spent a lot of time when younger. I do think vit D plays a role. I have seen a GP once in 15 years and I try to get out in the sun in just my underwear from April to October for a bit of time just to get some sun. I am white (with freckles).

I suppose if BAME is used instead of "non-white" (the latter being a term I sometimes use when it is relevant) may be that is better than non-white. It is a can of worms but hearing how people like to be described is very useful so we don't put our foot in it and can be kind to others.

The fact is that Black, Asian and minority Ethnic groups are disproportionately dying or suffering severe complications when contracting covid. How else can that category of people be abbreviated?. In depth studies do break the BAME category down into specific ethnicities.

I think it's the media that use the term BAME dismissively and sometimes in an inflammatory way. The same way (in reference to CV) they refer to "the elderly" or "the obese" or "the poor" as some sort of homogeneous group.

Genuine question: Are Eastern Europeans living in UK classed as BAME? I didn’t think they would be but do they fall into the M or ME of BAME?

It is a can of worms but hearing how people like to be described is very useful so we don't put our foot in it and can be kind to others

Personally I'd just like to be described as an adult human female, but each individual would have a different preference I'm sure, so you can ask 10 'non-white' people this and you would get 10 different answers - or more if the question is context specific. I think the best way the 'we' you mention can be kind to others is to just treat people as people no matter what the shade of their skin :) I can't think of many day to day interactions you would have with someone where the colour of their skin would be relevant to be honest.

In terms of the discussion of C-19 and different ethnicities, as has been pointed out earlier in the thread, the term BAME is really kind of meaningless insofar as there doesn't seem to be any actual definition of the specific people that the term BAME is addressing in this context.

@LioneIRichTea I don't think so. If that were the case, I could qualify, as I'm half Czech. I would be mixed! But in reality, I still have white privilege, which has allowed me to only reveal this if I choose to, now that I'm married and no longer use my maiden name. I don't have to put up with endless questions as to where I really came from originally.

@SmileyClare I suppose to be fair, my understanding is that the data collected on the frontline has been flawed (when patients have presented with the virus and/or died, their true ethnicity hasn't been recorded properly for the 'less mainstream' of us), but I would have expect the findings to reflect this. I would much rather the research papers were honest and said, 'this is the risk for people of this ethnic group' and 'we don't have enough information to accurately report on the risk for people of ethnic groups X, Y and Z.'

I just don't know if I'm high risk or low risk and have been living my life as if I'm extremely vulnerable because I just don't feel I have enough information to make my own risk assessment. On this occasion, I feel hugely let down by the BAME banner. I object to it, because it is having a huge impact on my life.

I will always be led by the science... but I don't know what the science is, because the scientists apparently don't either.

@CeibaTree there are people with grandparents and even great-grandparents who were the ones who emigrated to the UK.

Even if it was just people's parents they may have been born in times of the British Empire and their countries were under British rule when they emigrated.

So if you asked me or a few of my friends where we were from you would get a dirty look and just be told our parents are/were British. Oh and this is not age dependent.

@LioneIRichTea

Genuine question: Are Eastern Europeans living in UK classed as BAME? I didn’t think they would be but do they fall into the M or ME of BAME?

Are Sicilian people? Are French people? Are non-white French people?

If you know anything about these countries you will understand why it is a stupid term.

[quote RedRumTheHorse]@CeibaTree there are people with grandparents and even great-grandparents who were the ones who emigrated to the UK.

Even if it was just people's parents they may have been born in times of the British Empire and their countries were under British rule when they emigrated.

So if you asked me or a few of my friends where we were from you would get a dirty look and just be told our parents are/were British. Oh and this is not age dependent.[/quote]
Yes and I am one of those people myself, who would be giving a dirty look - I think you have misunderstood something I have written!

Sometimes we need a term like BAME and other times it is unhelpful to lump people all into one category eg a lot of medicine tests are done on men whereas women have a different impact and children even more so to such an extent they changed the law to enable longer protection for what are known as paediatric extensions to patents for pharmaceuticals.

If vit D is the issue then comparing overweight Asian older men in London with those in the countryside in India might be a good way to test the theory comparing like with like other than the lack of sunshine (usually) in the UK.

I haven't done a whole lot of research into this (thanks to working stupid amount of hours etc at the moment) but I thought it had something to do with genetics more than culture such as sickle cell you are more LIKELY to have it if you are of african/carribian etc descent. It will be interesting to see when the government release the information as to why it seems to be affecting the BAME community more, or if it even is