The Toll

On this first day of October, WBFO concludes its series "The Toll." For the last two months, we've been telling the personal stories of Western New Yorkers who've survived COVID-19 and those who haven't.

But as WBFO's Marian Hetherly reports, another group of people has since emerged that medical experts are just beginning to understand. This group may forecast just how great a toll the coronavirus ultimately takes on our society.

Black, Indigenous and other Americans of color are getting sick, being hospitalized and dying from COVID-19 at higher rates than white Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Today on The Toll, WBFO’s Kyle Mackie takes a closer look at the virus’ disproportionate impact through the experience of one Black family on Buffalo’s East Side.

Black residents account for 16.5% Erie County’s COVID-19 deaths despite making up 14.6% of the county’s population, according to the Erie County Department of Health. Today on “The Toll,” Black community leaders discuss the virus’ disproportionate impact on people of color in Buffalo.

With more than 10,390 positive cases of COVID-19 to date, according to state data, Erie County has the highest number of virus infections in all of upstate and Western New York. Today on “The Toll,” a South Cheektowaga couple recounts how they overcame the virus together but apart.

More than 40% of the country’s now more than 180,000 COVID-19 deaths are linked to nursing homes, according to a New York Times database. WBFO’s Older Adults Reporter Tom Dinki has been covering the impact on local nursing homes throughout the pandemic. In this week's story from “The Toll,” he spoke to family members who lost loved ones in two local long-term care facilities.

Similar to older adults and people with underlying medical conditions, pregnant people face a greater risk for severe illness from COVID-19 than the general public. This week on “The Toll,” WBFO’s Kyle Mackie reports the story of an Amherst woman who contracted COVID-19 during her last week of pregnancy earlier this summer.

Fever. Cough. Shortness of breath. The most common symptoms of the novel coronavirus are well-known by now. But in the third episode of WBFO’s “The Toll,” survivors of COVID-19 describe the more complicated physical and psychological impacts of battling the virus.

In the second story of WBFO’s new series, “The Toll: Western New York Stories of Loss & Survival in a Pandemic,” two daughters remember the veteran parents they lost earlier this year to COVID-19.

In the first story of WBFO’s new series, “The Toll: Western New York Stories of Loss & Survival in a Pandemic,” reporter Kyle Mackie sheds light on one unusually strong relationship forged at the hospital bedside of a COVID-19 patient.