Unequal Pandemic: COVID-19 and Health Inequalities

This accessible, yet authoritative book shows how the pandemic is a syndemic of disease and inequality. Drawing on international data and accounts, it argues that these inequalities are a political choice and we need to learn quickly to prevent growing inequality and to reduce health inequalities in the future.
It has been claimed that we are ‘all in it together’ and that the COVID-19 virus ‘does not discriminate’.This accessible, yet authoritative book dispels this myth of COVID-19 as an ‘equal opportunity’ disease, by showing how the pandemic is a syndemic of disease and inequality. Drawing on international data and accounts, it argues that the pandemic is unequal in three ways: it has killed unequally, been experienced unequally and will impoverish unequally. These inequalities are a political choice: with governments effectively choosing who lives and who dies, we need to learn from COVID-19 quickly to prevent growing inequality and to reduce health inequalities in the future.COVID-19 is an unequal pandemic.