WATCH: CNN’s Laura Coates and ER Doc Take Apart Texas Lt Gov Dan Patrick for Blaming Covid Spread on Black People
CNN legal analyst Laura Coates hosted an expert to help debunk Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick’s attempt to blame the spread of COVID-19 in his state on Black people.
Filling in on Friday night’s edition of Don Lemon Tonight, Coates told viewers “COVID cases are spiking in many states including Texas and that state’s Republican Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick is falsely implying that it’s black people’s fault.”
Coates then played a clip of Patrick telling Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, among other things, that “the biggest group in most states are African-Americans who have not been vaccinated.”
“Let’s set the record straight,” Coates said, then introcduced Baylor College Of Medicine Assistant Professor Of Emergency Medicine Dr. Cedric Dark.
Coates, reading from a CNN fact check of Patrick, said “Just on raw numbers, black people at about 13 percent of the total population are not the biggest group of unvaccinated people either in Texas or across the U.S. And analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that white adults account for the largest share of unvaccinated adults.”
“So, the lieutenant governor is wrong, but what is your reaction?” Coates asked the doctor.
“Well, first reaction is don’t blame black people for your failure to implement mitigation mechanisms like masking and, you know, vaccinating in the people who you employ,” Dr. Dark said.
“As you said, there are 3.7 million unvaccinated white people in Texas, which is vastly more than black people in Texas that are unvaccinated, 5.6 million versus 1.9 million,” the Dr. continued, allowing also that there is some disparity in vaccination rates.
“Forty 40 percent of white people in Texas are vaccinated. Only 29 percent of black people in Texas. But as you said, it is a numbers game. The more people you have, the more people that are unvaccinated, the more likely we are to spread this virus,” Dr. Dark said.
Coates said “you’ve been talking along with other doctors in Texas since really day one about vaccine hesitancy and also about misinformation,” and asked “what were you hearing from those folks about these issues?”
“What black men and black women in medicine did from the beginning of this pandemic, from day one, is reach out to our communities so that we could get past the vaccine hesitancy that we knew was going to be there because of systemic injustices due to things like the Tuskegee experiment,” Dr. Dark said, and described his own efforts to reach out.
Watch above via CNN.
