COVID-19 Politics and Policy

With historically underrepresented communities experiencing higher rates of COVID-19 infection and mortality, the pandemic has thrown into stark relief the severe inequities in US health care. In this special issue, a multidisciplinary group of contributors presents empirical evidence for how the pandemic has had a disproportionately negative impact on people of color, incarcerated people, and people with disabilities. These articles show how the pandemic response has been both wholly inadequate for the magnitude of the problem and, in certain policy arenas, has exacerbated existing inequities. Topics include changes in the treatment of disabilities under crisis standards of care, systemic racism in the federal pandemic health care response, and compounded racialized vulnerability within incarceration facilities. The contributors offer a dynamic and accessible analysis of the impacts of and public attitudes about the varieties of inequity in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Contributors. Zackary Berger, Andrea Louise Campbell, Katharine Carman, Maria Casoni, Anita Chandra, Matthew Denney, Doron Dorfman, Ramon Garibaldo Valdez, Sarah E. Gollust, Colleen Grogan, Michael Gusmano, Morgan Handley, Yu-An Lin, Julia Lynch, Carolyn Miller, Rebecca Morris, Ari Ne’eman, Christopher Nelson, Sara Rosenbaum, Michael Sances, Michael Stein, Jhacova Williams