WASHINGTON, D.C. — The disproportionate impact the coronavirus is having on communities of color is a conversation happening across Ohio, the country, and now in Congress.

“COVID-19 has shone a light on our country’s centuries-old legacy of inequality,” Representative Richard Neal (D-Massachusetts) said as he opened a hearing on the topic on Wednesday.

In what’s being called the first official virtual committee hearing held in the history of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Ways & Means Committee hosted witnesses who spoke bluntly about the problem.

“As of Monday, black Americans are dying at nearly two times their national population share,” said Dr. Ibram Kendi, the founding director of The Antiracist Research & Policy Center at American University.

“Racism, not race, has been the risk factor for disease spread,” added Dr. Thomas Sequist of Massachusetts General Brigham & Harvard Medical School.

“The poorest and the most disenfranchised Americans are once again dying disproportionately from disease,” echoed Dr. James Hildreth, the president of Meharry Medical College.

The latest numbers from the Ohio Health Department support those statements.

While 13-percent of the state’s population is black, African Americans make up 17-percent of Ohio’s coronavirus deaths, 25-percent of cases, and 31-percent of hospitalizations.

Cincinnati-area Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R, 2nd Congressional District) serves on the Ways & Means Committee and used his speaking time in the hearing to talk about the shared difficulties minorities in rural parts of his district and underserved urban areas are facing right now.

“We need to put nutrition, health care, and housing all into one area because people, right now, have to go all over the place to try to get their needs fulfilled,” Wenstrup said.

The witnesses who testified called for more publicly available coronavirus data based on race, continued federal relief from Congress that can be targeted for minority communities and building up an effective contact tracing team that can be trusted.

The testimony was almost identical to what Ohio’s two black members of Congress, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D, 3rd Congressional District) and Rep. Marcia Fudge (D, 11th Congressional District) told me was needed over a month ago.

Congress is still debating what another coronavirus relief package may look like.