Nobody knows, so all we can guess at at the moment is some genetic factor. There are other diseases known to affect black people more, such as sickle cell anaemia.
To a lot of Americans, the racial disparities shown in the number of people dying of coronavirus-related causes have sadly been unsurprising.
The cities of Chicago, New Orleans, Las Vegas and states of Maryland and South Carolina are among those now starting to report data based on race, and show an over-representation of victims who are black.
While some of this could be due to the long-standing inequality issues in the US that we have become familiar with, other reasons are perhaps more unexpected and could potentially have been dealt with.
It does not depend on the virus, it depends on our society.