Forty-six-year-old Angelene Sailes always helped those in need. The Detroit resident enjoyed looking after her nieces and nephews and volunteered regularly in her church community, says her cousin Marquitta Sailes
So it was especially painful when Angelene died alone in the hospital on March 26 of COVID-19 complications. “There was no one there with her in her final moments,” says Sailes. “It didn’t have to be that way.”
Compounding the devastation was the hindsight that Angelene lacked critical information about the risks for COVID-19 at its onset.
Statistics now show that Black people are dying from COVID-19 at a rate that is nearly two times higher than their share of the nationwide population