Truthout
Despair and Disparity: The Uneven Burdens of COVID-19
Addressing how the pandemic intersects with issues of social, economic, environmental, racial, gender and disability justice.
![Despair and Disparity: The Uneven Burdens of COVID-19](https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2020/04/2020_0428-covid-1200x675.jpg)
Series Introduction
Since COVID-19 hit the United States, it’s been at the top of every news outlet’s headlines. However, the disparate impact and deep injustices that the crisis has wrought often go unmentioned. So do the underlying oppressive systems that allowed the pandemic to reach the magnitude that it has. Truthout is taking on these injustices with a broad-ranging series, “Despair and Disparity: The Uneven Burdens of COVID-19,” which addresses how the pandemic intersects with issues of social, economic, environmental, racial, gender and disability justice. Through investigative reporting and dynamic analysis, we’ll paint a real picture of this pandemic’s implications — and sketch a bold new image of what a post-pandemic world could look like. In this series, journalists, activists, organizers and thinkers, many of whom have been brutally impacted by the crisis themselves, will share stories and insights that point the way toward a transformed future.
![Faith leaders and activists hold signs and tombstone shapes as they hold a public memorial in front of the Phillip Burton Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse to honor victims of COVID-19 that have died while incarcerated, on May 12, 2020, in San Francisco, California.](https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2024/04/2024_0408-prison-covid-400x300.jpg)
Sentenced to Death by COVID — How US Prisons Became an Epicenter of the Pandemic
COVID was so deadly due to US policies that view marginalized people as acceptable sacrifices to capitalism.
![A student walks to the yellow school bus waiting for him at the end of his driveway](https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2024/02/2024_0214-school-covid-400x300.jpg)
“Back to Normal” Pandemic Policies Are Harming Those Most in Need of Protection
Public health advocates in California and Oregon fear contagion as public schools implement relaxed COVID policies.
![A person holds a sign reading "I DIED ALONE" during an outdoor demonstration to call attention to the plight of seniors in nursing home care during the covid-19 pandemic](https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2023/08/2023_0809-covid-action-400x300.jpg)
Right-Wing “Herd Immunity” Logic Has Infiltrated US Politics and Public Health
A toxic worldview has exploited pandemic despair to win new converts to the politics of the far right.
![Silhouettes of young people over red](https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2023/08/2023_0808-silhouettes-400x300.jpg)
More People Die Young in US Due to Health Care and Welfare Cuts, Study Finds
By the time COVID-19 hit, about 600,000 more people in the U.S. were dying each year compared to its peer nations.
![Illustration of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gladhanding in front of big red COVID molecule](https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2023/07/2023_0714-desantis-covid-19-400x300.jpg)
DeSantis Claimed Pandemic Success in Florida as “Excess Deaths” Skyrocketed
More people died in rural Florida and across the U.S. during the pandemic's first two years than officially reported.
![A person walks by tributes in art made by 20 community groups to those impacted by COVID-19, done in collaboration between Naming the Lost Memorials, City Lore and Green-Wood Cemetery, at Green-Wood Cemetery on May 8, 2023, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.](https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2023/07/2023_0706-covid-400x300.jpg)
COVID Hasn’t Disappeared — But Empathy, Care and Solidarity Have
Governments worldwide are abandoning people to a debilitating disease with one simple trick: saying it no longer exists.
![Protestors demonstrate outside the White House to call attention to those suffering from Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and long COVID on September 19, 2022, in Washington, D.C.](https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2023/05/2023_0530-long-covid-400x300.jpg)
Denial Isn’t an Effective Health Care Strategy, Say People With Long COVID
Gaslighting and disbelief make long COVID worse for people living with long-term effects from the virus.
![An activist hold a bullhorn and raises a fist in the air in a crowd of people holding signs that read "UAW on strike"](https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2023/04/GettyImages-1245289556-400x300.jpg)
University of California Workers Center Disability Justice in Union Organizing
Workers built solidarity by rejecting the “deserving vs. undeserving” disabled model and scarcity approach to access.
![An FFP2 mask is seen lying on a wet pavement in Frankfurt, Germany, on April 18, 2021.](https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2023/03/2023_0324-discarded-mask-400x300.jpg)
I’m Immunocompromised. I Know Ableism Is Oppression. We Need Disability Justice.
To protect the growing immunocompromised population, we need to practice collective care.
![Andrea James, executive director of the National Council For Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, waves to people banging on the windows of the South Bay House of Correction in Boston on May 9, 2021. Calling for the release of incarcerated women, members of several groups rallied at MCI Framingham and then rode in a caravan to Boston, during the continuing coronavirus pandemic.](https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2023/02/2023_0221-prison-400x300.jpg)
Prison Deaths Increased by 50 Percent in the First Year of the COVID Pandemic
In six states, the rate of deaths in prisons doubled between 2019 and 2020.