Upended: Two Years of COVID, and Counting
Reflecting on Data & Society’s contributions to research, conversation, and critique concerning the pandemic.
Lockdowns, separation from colleagues and family, exploding case numbers, ambulance sirens around the clock, public safety protocols, home schooling and childcare challenges, remote and frontline work, economic uncertainty — uncertainty, period. Like many organizations around the world, Data & Society experienced major disruptions caused by COVID-19. As we adapted to our new reality as a remote-first organization, we worked hard to support and care for one another from a distance. Video calls became our lifeline for meetings and gatherings as well as connection to family, and with it came “Zoom fatigue” and pandemic burnout.
Now — April 2022 — we’ve entered the third year of the pandemic with no clear end in sight. Supply chains remain fragile, pandemic relief efforts from governments are inconsistent, and we face the BA.2 variant as mask mandates have been lifted across the United States. At the time of this writing, more than six million people around the world have lost their lives to COVID, including just under one million in the US. The statistics are staggering.
In and through the unending losses of the pandemic, existing social inequalities appeared in sharp relief. Data & Society’s pandemic-related work addressed these inequalities from our perspectives on health, labor, misinformation and our overall concern with the social implications of data-centric technologies — exactly the kinds of systems that have become even more entrenched in our lives during the pandemic.
In reaction to the pandemic, we created a COVID-19 tip sheet for human resources specialists. We explored the issue of digital injustice and algorithmic harms, which were aggravated by shutdowns. Over the last two years in Points, we published perspectives by researchers, staff, and collaborators that discussed the dangers faced by workers engaged in essential labor, the racial disparities in public health reporting and analyses, and how an overreliance on technology (including the introduction of vaccination passports) harms the most vulnerable people.
These and Data & Society’s other COVID-19-related works to date are collected below, grouped by theme. We hope they inform, provoke, and inspire further explorations of the pandemic’s sociotechnical inputs and repercussions.
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INEQUALITY
“Who Benefits from Health Misinformation?” Erin McAweeney, March 2020
“This pandemic exposes the erosion of our collective trust in health expertise.”
“Vaccine Passports” (with ADA Lovelace Institute). Imogen Parker, Ranjit Singh, Amy Fairchild, and Amanda Lenhart, March 2021
Data & Society and the ADA Lovelace Institute co-hosted a discussion about the next frontier of COVID-19 roll-outs: vaccine passports.
“Vaccine Passports and Pandemic Resources.” Joan Mukogosi, April 2021
“…[vaccine] cards are not only a marker of newfound immunity, but also a window into a familiar kind of privilege given that the pandemic’s racial disparities have persisted in the vaccine rollout.”
“Vaccine Passports are Poised to Serve Private Sector Interests.” Iretilou Akinrinade, April 2021
“This pandemic response may shape the future of digital identity.”
“Digital Barriers to Economic Justice in the Wake of COVID-19.” Michele Gilman and Mary Madden, April 2021
“Even when the public health crisis abates, the negative economic impact of the pandemic is expected to linger. And the increased reliance on digital profiling and algorithmic decision-making in key commercial and governmental sectors threatens to extend this impact in ways that exacerbate economic injustice for millions of Americans.“
“For Leaders and Researchers: Bringing Equity into the Remote Workplace.” Yang Hong, McKensie Mack, and Ellen Pao, May 2021
A conversation for leaders and researchers on the harms of remote work and pathways forward.
DISINFO and MISINFORMATION
“Pandemic Narratives.” Smitha Khorana, March 2020
“The insufficiencies of our information ecosystem and the failures of our economic structures are deeply intertwined, and this is the moment to address them, to support journalists and researchers, build out bridges between disciplines, and create factual reported narratives that offer citizens the information they need, in their local communities, and at-scale to protect lives and minimize harm.”
“COVID-19 Misinformation is a Crisis of Content Mediation.” Brookings TechStream, Robyn Caplan, May 2020
“Amid a catastrophe, new information is often revealed at a faster pace than leaders can manage it, experts can analyze it, and the public can integrate it.”
“Parallel Pandemics.” Imran Ahmed, May 2020
“We need to work together to counter digital hate and misinformation.”
ETHICS
“Ethics and Reporting Practices for COVID-19.” Smitha Khorana, March–May 2020
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
“High Tech, High Risk: Tech Ethics Lessons for the COVID-19 Pandemic Response.” Patterns, Emanuel Moss and Jacob Metcalf, October 2020
“This paper describes the coupling of machine learning and the social production of risk, generally, and in pandemic responses specifically.”
LABOR
“After Supply Chain Capitalism.” Ingrid Burrington, April 2020
“Supply chain capitalism principles…have played, at times, an under-appreciated role in the emergence of digitally-enabled inequities that COVID-19 will also likely exacerbate.”
“Paid Sick Leave Flattens the Curve.” Aiha Nguyen, April 2020
“It is nearly impossible to separate sickness from work in this current moment. But the reality is, it never was separate.”
“New Digital Infrastructures of Workspace Health and Safety.” Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy, Aiha Nguyen, April 2020
“…health and safety should be a fundamental right in the workplace that should be granted without a struggle.”
“Carework Under Crisis.” Alexandra Mateescu, April 2020
“Many scared domestic workers now have to tell their employer that they cannot risk their health by continuing to come in to work. At the same time, many others…have found themselves unemployed as households go on lock-down.”
“Automation Won’t Keep Frontline Workers Safe.” Slate, Sareeta Amrute, April 2020
“Future visions of automation need to recognize humans as partners up in front with the machines, rather than hiding the people who make automation work at the back.”
“Unsanitized: Frontline Workers Deserve More Than Hazard Pay.” Prospect, Brian Callaci, April 2020
“To truly honor frontline workers, we must do more than call them heroes and pay them a few extra dollars to risk their lives. We should empower them to protect themselves — and the rest of us in the process.”
“Pandemic Privacy in the Workplace.” Anne L. Washington, June 2020
“Some workers are already more vulnerable. Technology that exposes their COVID-19 status will not help.”
“On the Clock and at Home: Post-COVID-19 Monitoring in the Workplace.” SHRM Executive Network, Aiha Nguyen, Summer 2020
“HR leaders need to understand that increased monitoring of employees can lead to long-term consequences and misuse.”
“Working from Home During COVID.” Molly Laas, August 2020
A tip sheet for HR managers on worker surveillance during COVID-19.
“Gig Work Used to Be a Recession-Proof Safety Net. But Not Anymore.” Fast Company, Lindsey D. Cameron and Alex Rosenblat, August 2020
“With gig work even more unstable and uncertain than before, independent contractors are surviving the pandemic by cobbling together piecemeal labor, unemployment benefits, and COVID-19 stimulus aid.”
“Tech Work Under the Pandemic.” Natalie Kerby and Danny Spitzberg with Kaylen Sanders, May 2021
A collaborative interview series by the Tech Workers Coalition and Data & Society.
Software Engineer | Cleaner and App Co-Owner
LIVING INSIDE THE PANDEMIC
“Practical Magic in Pandemic Times.” Medium, Samantha Hinds, May 2020
“This crisis calls not for uncritical solutionism or for unscientific thinking, but for a kind of practical magic; one of rebuilding and recalibrating. A practical magic that draws on our deepest collectivist wisdom and refuses to return to an unjust ‘normal.’ ”
“Europe Cannot Afford to ‘Shelter-in-Place’ on Digital Regulations.” Frederike Kaltheuner, May 2020
“Europe’s uncoordinated tech response to the pandemic also reveals a deeper truth about the continent’s digital strategy: it’s ridden with contradictions and doesn’t quite live up to its own ambition.”
“Situated Immersion.” Jordan Kramer, October 2021
“Being immersed in remote fieldwork meant switching attention between Zoom and good-night hugs…”
HEALTH
“The Fact of Blackness: COVID-19, Medical Data and the Racial Design of Public Health.” Tamara K. Nopper and Kenyon Farrow, April 2020
“Data collection is often inherently political, and this crisis lays bare racist disparities in terms of public health and how medical data is being collected and publicly disseminated in ways that are unequal and/or incomplete.”
“Understanding Medical Uncertainty in the Hydroxychloroquine Debate.” Brookings TechStream, Smitha Khorana and Kellie Owens, July 2020
“The debate over hydroxychloroquine has become deeply politicized, which has obscured more nuanced debates within the scientific community over what constitutes actionable evidence.”
“Rewriting the Vaccine Distribution Algorithm.” Jorge A. Cabrera, February 2021
“We have a moral responsibility to roll out a national vaccination plan that allows all health care workers to have equal access to the vaccine.”
“Cultivating Pleasure In Virtual Spaces.” Joan Mukogosi, June 2021
“On Zoom, behavior ordinarily reserved for close relationships — such as long stretches of direct eye gaze and faces seen close up — has suddenly become the way we interact with casual acquaintances, coworkers, and even strangers.”
COVID-19 PERSPECTIVES ACROSS OUR NETWORK
“Alondra Nelson on Pandemics, Inequality, and the #CoronavirusSyllabus.” Institute for Advanced Study, April 2020
“Ruha Benjamin on COVID-19 and Race Inequality.” YouTube, May 2020
“COVID-19 is Devastating Black Communities. And amfAR Just Released New Data and a Website to Prove It.” TheBodyPro, Kenyon Farrow, May 2020
“What Does the COVID-19 Pandemic Mean for Medical Data Privacy?” The Markup, Colin Lecher, June 2020
“‘Colorblind’ Tech is Killing Us: Why COVID-19 Tech Must Focus on Equity.” Berkman Klein Center, Mary Gray and E.J. Safra, June 2020
“COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing Tracker.” ADA Lovelace Institute, July 2020
“Beware of Apps Bearing Gifts in a Pandemic.” Berkman Klein Center; Woodrow Hartzog, Johanna Gunawan, Dave Choffnes, and Christo Wilson, August 2020
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Chris Redwood is the Interim Director of Communications at Data & Society and has been “remote-first” since the start of his tenure with the Institute. This is his first contribution to Points.
