WHILE THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC seems certain to extend its reach to all corners of the globe, its impact will not be felt evenly. Those on society’s margins and lower economic rungs will bear a much greater burden of the toll taken by COVID-19. That’s the urgent message from Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of the Boston University School of Public Health, and guest on this week’s Codcast.
Galea, who trained as an emergency medicine physician, has focused his career on the social determinants of health — the ways health status is closely linked to economic status and other social factors — and the coronavirus crisis is casting that relationship into stark relief.
“We cannot have a conversation about coronavirus without talking about those who are bearing most of the brunt of its consequences,” he says.
“We have a country that is best described as having health haves and health have-nots, and the health have-nots, which are, depending on how you count, the poorest 50 percent or the poorest 80 percent of the population, are going to also suffer most of the consequences of this, of the coronavirus and the approaches to mitigate it,” says Galea.
Galea is co-chair of The Emergency Task Force on Coronavirus and Equity, a coalition of nearly 100 organizations across Massachusetts that issued a call last Friday for state leaders to address four urgent recommendations: ensuring access to coronavirus testing for all, including immigrants; a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures; plans to provide access to quarantine lodging for those who need it; and emergency provision of 15 additional sick days for all workers in the state.
“Half the American population has essentially no savings at all,” says Galea. “Now that same half of the population has a much, much greater chance of being employed in a job with no paid sick leave. So essentially half the population has no savings, is now going to lose a job and not have paid sick leave.”
“I think the mistake that we make is that we think, well, this is a small group … and it’s regrettable that there are challenges, but it’s their problem, not our problem. Well, them is us.”
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Executive Editor, CommonWealth
About Michael Jonas
Michael Jonas has worked in journalism in Massachusetts since the early 1980s. Before joining the CommonWealth staff in early 2001, he was a contributing writer for the magazine for two years. His cover story in CommonWealth's Fall 1999 issue on Boston youth outreach workers was selected for a PASS (Prevention for a Safer Society) Award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.
Michael got his start in journalism at the Dorchester Community News, a community newspaper serving Boston's largest neighborhood, where he covered a range of urban issues. Since the late 1980s, he has been a regular contributor to the Boston Globe. For 15 years he wrote a weekly column on local politics for the Boston Sunday Globe's City Weekly section.
Michael has also worked in broadcast journalism. In 1989, he was a co-producer for "The AIDS Quarterly," a national PBS series produced by WGBH-TV in Boston, and in the early 1990s, he worked as a producer for "Our Times," a weekly magazine program on WHDH-TV (Ch. 7) in Boston.
Michael lives in Dorchester with his wife and their two daughters.
About Michael Jonas
Michael Jonas has worked in journalism in Massachusetts since the early 1980s. Before joining the CommonWealth staff in early 2001, he was a contributing writer for the magazine for two years. His cover story in CommonWealth's Fall 1999 issue on Boston youth outreach workers was selected for a PASS (Prevention for a Safer Society) Award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.
Michael got his start in journalism at the Dorchester Community News, a community newspaper serving Boston's largest neighborhood, where he covered a range of urban issues. Since the late 1980s, he has been a regular contributor to the Boston Globe. For 15 years he wrote a weekly column on local politics for the Boston Sunday Globe's City Weekly section.
Michael has also worked in broadcast journalism. In 1989, he was a co-producer for "The AIDS Quarterly," a national PBS series produced by WGBH-TV in Boston, and in the early 1990s, he worked as a producer for "Our Times," a weekly magazine program on WHDH-TV (Ch. 7) in Boston.
Michael lives in Dorchester with his wife and their two daughters.
While throughout history those who are better off have always enjoyed better health, Galea says the pandemic is also exposing the ways that everyone’s well-being is connected. “I have been trying to make the case for years that there is no such thing as health for some, that health ultimately is a shared good and that we need to treat health as a public good, and if any group is suffering poor health, it’s going to affect all of us.”
“We know that your risk of dying in a car accident is affected not so much by your driving as much as by the driving of others,” he says. “It’s always been there in front of our eyes. And this pandemic is inevitably elevating it and putting it front and center in our consciousness. It’s hard to think of silver linings when you’re going through a pandemic, but just to think together, this is elevating issues that we should just not forget once we get over this pandemic — and by the grace of God, we will. We need to keep thinking about these issues and say, what are the choices we want to make to create a healthier world?”
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