The group of researchers, from Harvard Medical School and the Lancet Commission on Reparations and Redistributive Justice, examined how reparation payments made before the pandemic would have affected Louisiana, a state that remains segregated in parts, and found that the payments could have reduced coronavirus transmission in the state anywhere between 31% to 68%. To model how reparations would have affected Covid-19 transmission, the researchers chose Louisiana, one of the states that reported Covid-19 cases by race at the beginning of the pandemic and a state where the population is still “highly segregated” between Black and non-Black residents, according to the study.