AP Photo/Adrian Sainz
The Gateway Shopping Center in Memphis, Tenn. has been chosen as a possible site for a backup coronavirus care center to ease the burden on area hospitals.
- A building in a low-income, predominantly black neighborhood is being considered as a potential makeshift coronavirus hospital, according to the Associated Press.
- Residents are worried they could be exposed to the virus or lose access to the stores they need if that happens.
- Data from other states already shows that African-Americans contract and die from COVID-19 at a higher rate.
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Residents in Memphis, Tennessee, are concerned after a shopping center in a low-income predominantly black neighborhood was chosen as a potential coronavirus makeshift medical facility, the Associated Press reported.
States across the country are turning public spaces like convention centers into makeshift hospitals to deal with the influx of coronavirus cases and help ease the burden on local hospitals. In Tennessee, officials found 35 potential locations for a backup facility. While the entire list of sites has yet to be released, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland confirmed that the building that was previously used for The Commercial Appeal was on the list, the Associated Press reported.
The building is located in the Gateway Shopping Center in the Nutbush neighborhood of Memphis. The center is also home to a Save A Lot grocery store, a Family Dollar, a beauty supply store, a Rent-A-Center, and a Chinese restaurant. Residents worry they could be exposed to the virus or that the businesses they depend on would have to close, according to the AP.
"I'm sure there are other places that would work, and they should have used those rather than go into a residential neighborhood," US Rep. Steve Cohen, a Memphis Democrat, told the AP.
No decision has been made on whether stores nearby would close, but that's a concern for residents who rely on those stores for necessities and don't have access to other places.
"For people who don't have a car, what do they do?" Patricia Harris told The AP. "When we do things, we've got to consider the people in the neighborhood. We don't need to make the neighborhood worse than it already is."
Additionally, the concern comes as reports across the US indicate that in several places, data breakdowns show that African-Americans are contracting and dying from COVID-19 at higher rates.
Business Insider previously reported that black people make up close to 40 % of deaths in Chicago, 42% in Illinois as a whole, 40% in Michigan, and 81% in Wisconsin's Milwaukee County. In St. Louis, Missouri, where about 30 % of the population is black, all but three of the 17 COVID-19 deaths were black.
"There are a lot of poor people in this neighborhood that come here and shop. People won't want to come over here. It's just going to kill this area," Nutbush local Homer Osborne told the AP.
Harris told the AP she wondered if city officials were "trying to contaminate" the neighborhood.
Additionally, activist Earle Fisher, an African-American pastor in Memphis, told the AP that residents that in "Memphis' predominantly black neighborhoods are already suffering from insufficient COVID-19 testing, a dearth of reliable information about the virus, and inadequate access to masks and other personal protection supplies."
"This is an honest and reasonable concern and skepticism. I think it's par for the course for black people to be righteously skeptical of governmental intervention that did not consult with people on the ground first," Fisher told the AP.
Distrust of the healthcare system is a contributing factor to the lack of healthcare among African-Americans, in addition to a lack of access. The distrust, termed the "Tuskegee Effect," stems from racists incidents like the Tuskegee study where black men were infected with syphilis and studied.
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