Sheila Jasanoff speaks to The Nation: Science Will Not Come on a White Horse With a Solution

“It’s well known from disaster studies that effects on vulnerable populations are much more severe and long-lasting. The wealthier may have better insurance, they may live in circumstances where social distancing is easier to implement than for people living in crowded quarters, they may have the resources to take themselves out of danger zones. These things are not available to people on lower levels of the socioeconomic scale. “

“In my university, for example, undergraduates were evacuated with only five days notice. Clearly the burden of that evacuation fell differently on people who could immediately afford a ticket home and people who could not. It took a few days for the university to recognize that a single order, which was justified on grounds of public health, would fall very differently on people depending on their particular circumstances. Multiply that problem out by millions and millions of people, and you get a crisis that can be tracked by social science.”

The full interview can be read here.