The federal government has systematically shortchanged communities with large Black populations in the distribution of billions of dollars in COVID-19 relief aid meant to help hospitals struggling to manage the effects of the pandemic, according to a recently published study. "We are finding large-scale racial bias in the way the federal government is distributing" the funds to hospitals, said Ziad Obermeyer, a physician and a co-author of the study from the University of California, Berkeley. "If you take two hospitals getting the same amount of funding under the CARES Act, the dollars have to go further in Black counties than they do elsewhere," he said. "Effectively that means there are fewer things the health systems can do in those counties, like testing, buying more personal protective equipment, or doing outreach to make sure people are being tested."