Yes, of course, we all know we should exercise every day during the holiday season to help counter the onslaught of excess calories that starts on Thanksgiving and will mercifully end with a New Year’s toast.
We may even tire of hearing about exercise and weight from family, friends, and the media. But an equally important reason to exercise every day is related to blood pressure, not waistline.
COVID-19 has put the American health care system’s deeply entrenched inequities into high relief. The social, economic, and political structures that predated the pandemic’s public health crisis and resulting recession have meant that Black and Latino people are more likely than white people to be exposed to, hospitalized for, and die from COVID-19. But Black and Latino people also died at higher rates than whites from non-COVID-19 causes in 2020, underscoring the harm of delays in medical care generally.
Simply put, inequity kills.
