Authored by Sandro Galea and Nason Maani.
The COVID-19 pandemic has come to define 2020 around the world, and perhaps no more so than in the United States. At the time of writing, there have been over 12 million confirmed US COVID-19 cases and almost 260,000 deaths. In parallel, the likely health and equity costs of social distancing measures are in of themselves large and growing. One of the chief pressures facing leadership at local, state and national levels is the nature and timing of ramping up or easing social distancing measures, such as choosing when to open or close schools, for example.
These are not easy decisions for leaders to make. Each is fraught with uncertainty, resource implications and potential liability. Criticism and pressure come from a variety of sources, such as unions, parents, political opposition, trade associations and advocacy groups. And many of the challenges to the decisions that are being made around how to deal with COVID-19 — be they decisions to relax distancing measures or to expand them, to extend additional support measures or not — have been presented as being based on principle or on a pragmatic concern about risk of COVID-19. We acknowledge that it may well be that both principle and concern about risk are informing our collective decision-making. We suggest, however, that an unspoken factor that underlies many such deliberations is privilege.
Read the full article on KCET.