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.

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.

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.

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.

I’m Immunocompromised. I Know Ableism Is Oppression. We Need Disability Justice.
To protect the growing immunocompromised population, we need to practice collective care.

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.

6.7 Million Children Could Lose Health Coverage as COVID Protections Expire
GOP efforts to end pandemic emergency orders early would create “wide-ranging chaos” across the health care system.

I’m Immunocompromised. Here’s How I Feel About Masking in 2023.
The hardest part of all this is that no one seems to care whether I live or die.

Prison COVID Policies Fell Short. Incarcerated Activists Fight for Their Lives.
Incarcerated organizers are still in fight mode against lethal COVID policies.

Why Did Democrats Vote With the GOP to End the COVID National Emergency?
Congress is debating whether to terminate emergency orders that have allowed more people to access health care.

Billionaire-Funded “Anti-Science” Campaigns Are Causing Unnecessary Deaths
In places like Texas where the legislature took a strong anti-vaccine stance, the consequences have been devastating.

CDC Finds Huge Racial Disparities in Access to COVID Treatment Paxlovid
Black patients received Paxlovid for COVID-19 infection 36 percent less often than white patients.