NJ doctor preached about racial disparities in health care. Then COVID took her dad's life

In March, Chris Pernell of Montclair was just a few months into her position as a public health official at University Hospital in Newark when she found herself facing an enormous public health crisis: The hospital was "bursting at the seams" with Black and Latino patients infected with COVID-19.

While she was studying, writing and speaking about the virus's devastating effect on people of color — she has appeared on CNN, BBC, CBS, MSNBC and "The Dr. Oz Show" — her beloved father was battling for his life at another hospital a few miles away. Timothy Pernell, a Black man who rose from Bell Labs groundskeeper to research scientist, died from complications of COVID-19 on April 13.

His daughter was experiencing personally the message she preaches professionally: Systemic racism undermines the health of people of color.  

"We are at the collision of two pandemics, one fast and one slow," Pernell said. "The fast one is coronavirus, where we've lost 230,000 lives and counting. The slow one is systemic racism, which has been with us for over 400 years."

Pernell, 44, who has degrees from Princeton University, Duke University Medical School and Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, can cite a "litany of examples" from history of how racism has harmed Black people's health. 

They include the infamous Tuskegee study on Black men with syphilis who were never treated or even told what disease they had; Dr. Marion Sims, who pioneered modern gynecological techniques by operating without anesthesia on enslaved Black women, and the 5,000 poor Black women forcibly sterilized in North Carolina until 1974. 

Timothy Pernell was the son of a Pentecostal bishop who came to New Jersey in 1959 from the Jim Crow South, a self-taught scientist who co-authored many scientific papers, contributed to numerous patents and taught graduate students at the University of Virginia.

Chris Pernell attributes her role as an "apostle of science" to the influence of his twin passions for religion and science. Like her, he spoke for the Black community, fighting for equal representation in the research and engineering fields.

Because of COVID, his four children couldn't even grieve together; they had to view their father's long-planned burial next to his wife in Clarksville, Virginia, on the computer. They were grateful, however, when Gov. Phil Murphy paid him tribute in his daily press conference. And to honor her father, Pernell is volunteering for a coronavirus vaccine trial. 

The same week Timothy Pernell was buried, his 58-year-old daughter, Kim Walker of Fords, New Jersey, was diagnosed with COVID.

She likely contracted it working as a customer service manager at Walmart at a time when masks were still in short supply, Chris Pernell said. Though her high fever and shortness of breath improved in a week or two, she tested positive through July, still has bouts of fatigue, uses oxygen for shortness of breath and hasn't returned to work.   

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Doctors now recognize that a subset of coronavirus patients, known as long-haulers, continue to test positive even after they've recovered. 

"It's not a reinfection, but they still have some viral load in the body, though they don't have acute symptoms," Pernell said. 

She said her father's and sister's battles with COVID illustrate why Blacks and Latinos are more likely than whites to die from the virus. Like her father, Walker had a preexisting condition — she'd finished radiation treatment in January after a mastectomy — putting her at risk for a more severe case of the illness. Generally, Blacks and Latinos are in poorer health than whites, since health is tied to education level, neighborhood and economic opportunity. That translates to worse outcomes when they contract the virus. 

As a front-line worker, Walker was also more likely to contract the virus in the first place. Blacks and Latinos make up 43% of the production and service industries, often working in crowded conditions with no option to work remotely. Their jobs are more likely to be low-paying, and without hazard pay, Pernell said.

"About 20,000 Blacks and Latinos who died during the pandemic would still be alive if they were white," she said. "It's staggering. Racism is a preexisting condition."

Pernell's commitment to public health goes beyond preaching. She is also a volunteer participant in the Moderna vaccine trial and received injections in August and October. Study subjects don't know if they are getting the vaccine or a placebo.

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Now Pernell is being monitored daily as the lead scientists study what happens when participants become exposed naturally in the community. This could take months, since subjects must still practice precautions like wearing masks.

The earliest a vaccine would be widely available is mid-2021, she said, and even then, for FDA approval, it must show only that it would "prevent disease or decrease the severity of the disease in at least 50 of those vaccinated."

Pernell said she is "thrilled" she qualified for the trial. 

"The trial is a way for me to live out the legacy of my father, who was a man of reason and science," she said. "It's also a way for me to be part of the solution, to not only follow the data but to become the data. I feel proud that I can honor my dad and stand in the gap for my community."  

Julia Martin covers Montclair for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: jmartin@gannettnj.com

Twitter: @TheWriteJulia