Miscellaneous
We are nearly one month into California’s shelter-in-place order in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. And it looks like, in the Bay Area at least, we’re seeing some payoff from our early efforts to socially distance; hospitals have not seen the number of patients initially expected, and public health experts are tentatively declaring our success in flattening the proverbial curve. In spite of these successes, the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown America’s inequalities into even sharper relief. Those who are most exposed to risk are the poorest among us, the undocumented, the unhoused, the under-or un-insured, and those whose incomes have suddenly disappeared as non-essential businesses have closed down. Talk Policy To Me hosts Colleen Pulawski (MPP ‘21), Sarah Edwards (MPP ‘20), Reem Rayef (MPP ‘21) and Khalid Kaldi (MPP ‘21) assembled on a video call for the podcast’s first ever virtual roundtable, to share learnings about the ways in which the crisis has both exposed and exacerbated gaping inequality in the US—and what policymakers, organizers, and communities are doing to protect the vulnerable among us. In this episode we discuss all things COVID-19. How does the federal government’s stimulus bill risk cementing economic inequality? What does shelter-in-place mean if you don’t have a home? How should governors and mayors talk about the pandemic, when the president doesn’t appear to take it seriously? And what are the dangers and benefits of talking about silver linings?