Notions of “Black peculiarity” – the belief that Black people are biologically more or less prone to diseases – have long been offered to explain away inequities in health or rationalize putting Black people at greater risk, notes Bentley-Edwards, an associate professor of medicine who studies the impact of race and racism on health. Such myths are an all-too-convenient distraction from the larger social forces that drove higher rates of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths among Black, Latino and indigenous communities, Bentley-Edwards and colleagues assert in an article published Feb. 26 in The British Medical Journal.