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.

Five Years After COVID’s Onset, the Republican Party Wages War Against Vaccines
Despite the ongoing spread of COVID, measles and bird flu, Trump has handed power to anti-vaxxers and vaccine skeptics.

Don’t Forget the History of COVID in Prison: An Interview With Victoria Law
The pandemic bared the cruelty of prison in new ways. It was a lost opportunity to move away from mass incarceration.

COVID Rates Are Up in What Experts Are Calling a “Silent Surge” Across the US
“There’s a good chance that a lot of people are going to get sick in the next couple of weeks,” one expert predicted.

Progressive Dems Are Handing Trump a Weapon Against Dissent With Mask Bans
The push to ban masking in public is a threat to free speech and disability rights.

Experts Sow Confusion About State of COVID Pandemic Amid Another Serious Wave
Bipartisan rounds of strategic obfuscation follow each new COVID wave.

The US Government Has Abandoned Us to Endless COVID. We Can Do Better.
The pandemic isn’t over. Why is it so hard to find accurate information about it?

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.

“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.

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.

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.