UK to probe racial bias in medical devices after Covid toll

Javid (pic) says the pandemic has highlighted health disparities along race and gender lines. Britain’s statistics office has found that in the first year of the pandemic Black and South Asian people had higher death rates than their white compatriots. — AP

LONDON: The British government is investigating whether built-in racial bias in some medical devices led to Black and Asian people getting sick and dying disproportionately from Covid-19.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid said Sunday that the pandemic had highlighted health disparities along race and gender lines. He said that a third of intensive care admissions in Britain at the height of the pandemic were people from Black and ethnic minority backgrounds, more than double their share of the population.