Trump, task force say COVID-19 impacting African Americans especially hard

PHILADELPHIA - President Donald Trump said during the White House briefing Tuesday that data is beginning to show that the African American community is "getting hit very, very hard."

"We have a particularly difficult problem of an exacerbation of a health disparity," infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said during the briefing. "We've known, literally forever, that diseases like diabetes, hypertension, obesity and asthma are disproportionately affecting the minority populations, particularly the African Americans."

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Juanita Chappel is an essential worker Philadelphia who says she's feeling the weight of a community disproportionately affected by the deadly coronavirus far beyond concerns of public health authorities.

"Heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and I'm out here every day servicing the community because that's my job," she told FOX 29's Joyce Evans.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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