Reflection: 2 Years Since the COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdowns

By Christine Leavitt

It is hard to believe that two years have passed since the COVID-19 lockdowns were initiated in the United States. What have the last two years taught us about structural and health disparities in the United States? What has the COVID-19 pandemic revealed about economic, health, political, social, and opportunity inequalities in the United States? What blind spots have been exposed?

In relation to gender, COVID-19 revealed that the majority of frontline workers who risked their lives caring for the sick were women. According to Guerrina et al. (2021), this high proportion of female frontline service workers is due to “both the vertical and horizontal segregation of the labor market. In other words, women tend to occupy lower paid positions often associated with the social function of ‘care’” (p. 2). While care work is essential and growing in importance due to an aging population, those who fill positions in care work fields are disproportionately female, people of color, and immigrants (Duffy, 2021). According to research, “the historical development of the paid-care sector has relied on a gendered narrative of care as a ‘natural’ characteristic of women that has created and justified low wages,” which are over 18% less on average than for other essential workers, such as police officers (Duffy, 2021 paras. 19-20).

*Figure 1 from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgwh.2021.670310/full

In the United States, the COVID-19 pandemic has also disproportionately harmed members of historically marginalized groups (e.g. Black, LatinX and/or indigenous). Research has found that “racial and ethnic minority status is inextricably associated with lower socioeconomic status. Black, Hispanic, and American Indian persons in the US are more likely to live in crowded conditions, in multigenerational households, and have jobs that cannot be performed remotely” (Lopez III et al., 2021, p. 1). These factors increase the likelihood of COVID-19 exposure to members of these historically marginalized groups, which is especially problematic when accounting for the higher hospitalization rate of minorities based on their increased risk of having chronic medical comorbidities such as hypertension, diabetes, and obesity. Additionally, “racial and ethnic minority populations have poorer access to health care, which likely results in persons initiating care later in the course of their illness with COVID-19” (Lopez III et al., 2021, p. 1). The risk of infection, hospitalization, and death due to COVID-19 for historically marginalized populations is significantly higher than for those who are white.

*Figure 2 from https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/issue-brief/covid-19-cases-and-deaths-by-race-ethnicity-current-data-and-changes-over-time/

What can we do as a nation to combat these structural inequalities that are literally a matter of life and death to historically marginalized populations? How can we move towards political, social, health, economic, and opportunity equality? What are you doing to resist and fight against the structural inequality that continues to plague our nation?