Is this example of COVID stats in my city flawed?

That is not what I am understanding, 68% are African American,the other 32% of covid patients in your city are other races,
Or are you saying 100% of the African Americans in your city are infected? That would make up the 80%.
Or maybe you could post a link to that news story.

If the city is 80% African American then having 68% of cases African American means the stats aren’t alarming. I would suggest make sure you are comparing apples and apples. The CDC and NIAID usually report cases in a “metro area” so if it 68% of the metro area, and the 80% is Memphis proper, then it’s not a good stat.

The stats where the media has been going on about are when 60% of the cases are black people, but only 30% of the populations is black (those are made up stats, it’s just illustrating a example) that’s when you see great concern.

Those are the statistics for all of Shelby County (which is 52.1% black according to the 2010 census and is currently estimated to be 54.2% black), not just the city of Memphis.

I checked, and was wrong about the percentage of the population of Memphis being African American—the stats are, 62.6 percent of the Memphis population are black, and the news story said 63 percent of the Covid cases in said area are black—so that makes sense. Nothing alarming, but the stats actually show that COVID affects everyone equally

@Yellowdog You say you checked, but your numbers are still wrong. According to the 2010 census, Memphis is 63.33% black. And Memphis is currently estimated to be 64.2% black. The only place I could find your 62.6% number is the American Community Survey from the 2006–2008 period, which is more than a decade out of date. It's not a big difference, and it doesn't really matter for this specific conversation. But if you're going to check your numbers, you should try checking in the right places.

The bigger problem is that there isn't a single source I can find, let alone a reliable source, breaking down cases of COIVD-19 specifically in Memphis by race. The city does not seem to be reporting those numbers publicly, which is why everyone is citing the county-wide numbers instead. Since your argument rests entirely on that number, the fact that you can't back it up matters quite a lot.

But even if your numbers were correct—which they are not—you can’t draw conclusions about the entire population of the world (or the US, or Tennessee, or Shelby Country) based on a survey of conditions in the single city of Memphis.

The numbers in Memphis don’t tell us that COVID-19 affects everyone equally because they doesn’t tell us anything at all about how COVID-19 affects people in general. You have to look at the whole data set, at which point it becomes abundantly clear that black Americans are disproportionately affected by the disease. Even the White House has acknowledged this fact (via Anthony Fauci).

So how about you stop being so completely dishonest and learn a little something about how statistics work?

The stats aren’t flawed; your assumption and lack of current data is skewing the outcome of your premise. North Carolina has 22% African-Americans and 39 % of the COVID-19 deaths have been African-Americans. The medical community thinks it primarily due to lack of good medical care historically.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/coronavirus/article241905546.html

My source was Wikipedia;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_large_African-American_populations

In any case, I don’t see any discrepancies between 62.6 percent and 64.2 percent. In fact, your 64.2% only emphasizes my point with a slightly higher percentage.

This question was SPECIFICALLY about my city, which reports that 68 percent of the COVID victims are African American, with, according to the data you site, are 64.2 percent of the population. That’s about what you’d expect. Not an exceptionally high amount when compared with the population percentage of African Americans.

Wikipedia is not a SOURCE ! ! ! SMH

@Yellowdog More disingenuous blabbering, I see. The issue isn’t the difference between 62.6%, 63.33%, and 64.2%. It’s not even the fact that when challenged with regard to your claim about the racial breakdown of COVID-19 cases in Memphis (for which you still haven’t provided a source), you responded by saying where you got the Memphis demographic numbers (even after I told you I had already found the number you cited in an outdated American Community Survey). It’s your complete inability to investigate and engage with issues in a way that is both honest and intelligent. All you do is lie, falsify, and spin. You’ve been called out on it so many times (including twice by me in just the last 24 hours) and you never get any better.

He never provides sources. I don’t know if he’s being disingenuous or if he doesn’t know how to do it.

@Dutchess_lll Doesn’t care ! !

Someone has an agenda, that has no connection to reality !

Oh come on people. The city is 64% black. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/memphiscitytennessee What’s the chance Wikipedia would have that statistic wrong did that.

The 68% black people with Covid is a county number. Shelby county is 54% black, but black people are probably more likely to be working in essential businesses and living in apartments so they are more exposed. Plus, part of the county number for positive cases might be the jail, which has a lot of African Americans. The virus runs through the jails rapidly.

@JLeslie The black population of Memphis isn’t the number at issue, it’s the racial breakdown of COVID-19 cases in Memphis that hasn’t been sourced. And I already pointed out that @Yellowdog was originally conflating the city of Memphis with Shelby County. It's not new information to me. Try reading the responses before getting indignant.

^^I pointed out Shelby county vs Memphis numbers before you. I don’t know who you think you are lecturing.

I’m not keen on being so obnoxious to a jelly who asked a question. He’s asking, which gives us a chance to answer with stats and points of view.

Most of the black people in the Memphis metro area live in the city of Memphis, the county is fairly segregated. More confusing some cities like Cordova and Bartlett are included in Memphis possibly, because they are incorporated into Memphis. I can’t find a city number for Covid cases. In Florida our racial breakdown is only done by county also from what I can tell.

Here is what I’m talking about The majority of Cordova has been annexed by Memphis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordova,_Tennessee

I’m assuming Memphis numbers would not include Cordova or Bartlett, but they might. We would need to know all sorts of specifics, that city is very confusing. I lived there 8 years, Memphis keeps annexing areas to get tax money.

@JLeslie ”I pointed out Shelby county vs Memphis numbers before you.”

First of all, no you didn’t. You talked about the “metro area,” which is not the same as Shelby County. But also, who cares who said it first? The point was that you were bringing up information that had already been covered as if it were something new we had overlooked.

“I’m not keen on being so obnoxious to a jelly who asked a question.”

Well, I am keen on calling out people who constantly spout bullshit and propaganda and then falsify and spin the corrections they receive in order to pretend they were right all along. I caught @Yellowdog lying twice in 24 hours. His lies are way more obnoxious than me pointing out his deception.

“He’s asking, which gives us a chance to answer with stats and points of view.”

And that’s what I did, in response to which you said “Oh come on people. The city is 64% black.” But that wasn’t the number we were arguing about. The big problem with @Yellowdog‘s argument—other than the fact that local conditions in Memphis don’t tell us how the virus is impacting people nationwide—is that he has no source for the racial breakdown of COVID-19 cases in Memphis.

“I can’t find a city number for Covid cases.”

Yeah, that’s my point. Welcome to the actual conversation.

It is a regular, ongoing story that 68 percent of the COVID cases in “Memphis’ are African American. However, the city is 64% black, The percentage of African Americans with covid is only about 5% higher.

This question never had anything to do with what the nationwide stats are.

Memphis HAS, indeed, annexed a lot of areas that are not at all urban in character—such as the Wolfchase area, most of Cordova, almost to the eastern borders of the county, for tax purposes. That could be why the African American stats are lower than the national average here. In any case, it is deceptive to say they are exceptionally high.

Story has a source ? ?

Please give source for you stats. If no source I’ll assume you made it up !
Your numbers do not agree with other Metro areas.

He doesn’t know how to provide sources. Don’t waste your breath Willy.

Here’s an article. https://www.google.com/amp/s/wreg.com/news/new-numbers-show-covid-19-cases-by-race-in-shelby-county/amp/

Thank you @JLeslie !

Thank you @JLeslie !

Thank you @JLeslie !

@JLeslie That is the same link I provided in my first response. Those are Shelby County numbers, not Memphis numbers.

@Yellowdog “It is a regular, ongoing story that 68 percent of the COVID cases in “Memphis’ are African American.”

Prove it. All of the stories anyone can find are about Shelby County, not Memphis.

“This question never had anything to do with what the nationwide stats are.”

But then you said that “the stats actually show that COVID affects everyone equally.” You said everyone. Not everyone in Memphis. Not everyone in Shelby County. Everyone. And that’s not true, which is where nationwide and worldwide stats become relevant.

“That could be why the African American stats are lower than the national average here.”

If you’re talking about Memphis, you have no evidence that the stats are lower than the national average because there are no stats available for just Memphis. If you’re talking about Shelby County, the stats aren’t lower than the national average when you control for testing and confirmed cases.

“In any case, it is deceptive to say they are exceptionally high.”

The claim you started with was about disproportionate numbers, not exceptionally high numbers. And now that it has been shown over and over again that you cannot provide numbers to support your claim, you are retreating to a different position and pretending it’s what you were saying all along.

Furthermore, the only claims that have been made about black Americans being effected in numbers that are exceptionally high relative to the overall population are about… wait for it… the nationwide numbers. So once again you are taking claims that are made about different things and making a hash of things by pretending they are all about the same data set.

GA @Irukandji

The link shows blacks are dying disproportionately in the county and getting sick at about the same rate as the ratio in the county. It implies either the healthcare (I’m talking in the hospital with COVID19) in the city isn’t as good, or that black people are more likely to die for other reasons in Shelby.

You’ll see that the article is mentioning that it destroys the myth that it is a white disease, because there was a rumor that blacks people cant get it traveling in the black community. There are all sorts of myths that fly around the very poor block community. They still worry about Tuskegee. A friend of mine volunteered in the jails and this became very obvious. All sorts of misinformation about HIV too.