Book Review: The Unequal Pandemic Covid-19 and Health Inequalities by Clare Bambra, Julia Lynch and Katherine E. Smith
| Author | Ambreen Yousuf |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13882627221092464 |
| Published date | 01 June 2022 |
| Date | 01 June 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Book Reviews
Clare Bambra, Julia Lynch and Katherine E. Smith, The Unequal Pandemic Covid-19 and Health Inequalities, 2021,
UK: Policy Press, 200 pp., ISBN: 1447361237.
Reviewed by: Ambreen Yousuf ,Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi
DOI: 10.1177/13882627221092464
Socio-political circumstances combined with economic inequalities have historically been part of
pandemics such as the influenza, or Spanish flu, pandemic of 1918, the N1H1 outbreak of 2009,
and the Covid-19 pandemic of 2019. Using historical data, Bambra, Lynch, and Smith examine
to what extent previous public health emergencies and the current Covid-19 crisis have impacted
different spectrums of society. Questioning the way various governments approached the lock-
down, the authors argue that the Covid-19 pandemic further widened the gap between the rich
and the poor. For instance, in India, the sudden announcement of lockdown led to the mass migra-
tion of poor migrant workers. What is remarkable about this work is that the authors have focused
on the plight of the disadvantaged sections of society, who were the biggest victims of this global
pandemic. It would be pertinent to mention here that the Covid-19 pandemic struck when many
countries were already facing political and economic backsliding.
The book consists of six chapters. Each chapter explores how the Covid-19 pandemic turned
everyday life upside down, particularly that of the marginalised communities. Interestingly, the
book shows glaring differences in how various governments made ‘varying efforts’to control
and manage the pandemic. For instance, New Zealand took strict and effective measures and
closed their borders while Sweden took a more laissez-faire approach, merely restricting public
gatherings. During the early phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, Australia, South Korea, and
Germany took health surveillance measures like contact tracing and introduced individual quaran-
tine to control the spread of the virus. The Covid-19 pandemic acts as an ‘unequal contagion’,
which, according to the authors, discriminates differently by posing huge risks to some sections
and fewer risks to other sections depending upon their social and economic background. By
arguing so, however, the authors also recognise the vulnerability of the masses to the Covid
virus, irrespective of their political and economic status.
The Unequal Pandemic seeks to argue that the Covid-19 pandemic is unequal in four broad
ways: it is killing unequally, it is being experienced unequally, it is impoverishing unequally,
and its inequalities are political. Explaining massive mortality rates among the weaker sections
of the society, the authors focus on the bigger picture of how pre-existing inequalities based on
social, ethnic, occupational, intersectional, and geographical inequalities have worsened the
impact of Covid-19 on certain sections of society.
Book Reviews
European Journal of Social Security
2022, Vol. 24(2) 156–164
© The Author(s) 2022
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