An anti-racism group has condemned the 'institutionalised racism' which means that 35% of first 2000 Covid cases were from Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds.

Stand Up to Racism said BAME workers played a central role in running hospitals, the transport network, keeping the streets clean and supermarkets stocked.

Data on patients with confirmed Covid-19 from the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC) showed that ethnic minorities are over-represented compared with the general population. Of 1,966 patients with Covid-19, the ICNARC said 64.8% were white, 13.6% were black, 13.8% were Asian, and 6.6% were described as other.

Similarly disproportionate patterns of infection have been reported in US cities such as New York, New Orleans, Chicago and Detroit.

The reasons for such dis proportionality do not lie with any supposed fecklessness on the part of BAME communities or a cavalier disregard for the advice on social distancing.

Stand Up to Racism said that the marginalisation and exclusion of BAME communities means that they are far less likely to have the resources to enable them to cope with the crisis.

Most people from BAME communities also have far less space in which to exercise and self isolate. The group said Brockwell Park in Brixton is one of the few open spaces for working class people including South London’s sizeable BAME community living in tower blocks and cramped apartments.

Yet it was shut on a sunny Sunday afternoon at the beginning of April because the previous day it was deemed to have been too crowded.

Weyman Bennett of Stand Up To Racism, said "BAME people in Britain are suffering disproportionately from the effects of the CoronaVirus crisis. This is because they are disproportionately working in frontline jobs - open to infection and because they often live concentrated in economically disadvantaged areas - suffering from underlying health conditions.

"We are seeing from the deaths in the NHS and on the London buses that people from all across the world are fighting and dying to keep our society running. Racists may try to use these figures to show BAME communities are not responding to calls for social distancing - the exact opposite is the case.

"Our communities are dying because of the discrimination and poverty that is endemic in British society. While working people are fighting together to battle the crisis we have to oppose any attempt to scapegoat or divide us."