A GOVERNMENT report on why people from the Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities suffer worse from coronavirus has been criticised by East Lancashire health experts.

It says that 'structural racism' is not a reasonable explanation black and South Asian people’s greater risk of illness and death.

Blackburn with Darwen Council's public health director and former former medical director of the East Lancashire Hospital Trust Dr David Grimes disagree.

The first quarterly report on Covid disparities by the government’s Race Disparity Unit identifies risk factors for ethnic minorities.

They include that they make up some 14 per cent of all key workers, who cannot work from home, and are more likely to live in urban areas where transmission rates of Covid-19 are higher.

Ethnic minorities are more likely to have less living space, tend to live in larger households at greater risk and a more likely to have pre-existing health conditions such as obesity.

Dr David Grimes said: "I despair at how the BAME groups have been let down during the pandemic.

"What is required is a comparison of deaths rates among white and BAME people in the same housing types.

"Vitamin D levels have been suggested as potentially contributing to ethnic differences in COVID-19 risk, given absorption could potentially differ by skin colour. The resurgence of Covid-19 has coincided with the time of the year when the sun is not strong enough to create vitamin D in our skin."

Prof Harrison said: "I do not agree with this report. There is no doubt that BAME communities have suffered a greater impact from Covid-19 because of ‘structural factors’ - the way society is structured socially, economically and in terms of children's life chances.

"Most of the factors increasing BAME Covid-19 risk are outside of the control of BAME individuals and families because they are to do with political choices made by successive governments not to act on known inequalities which are unfair, unjust and avoidable.

"BAME communities are not responsible for the higher rates of COVID19 in Pennine Lancashire.They are the unfortunate victims."