Managing A Pandemic Without Making Inequality Worse: The Case of Santa Cruz County, California

The prevalence and social impacts of Covid-19 are taking different and more difficult forms in Watsonville compared to Santa Cruz, the two largest cities in Santa Cruz County. County and other resources are available to reduce incidence and impacts, but raise questions about how testing and public health response should be carried out to achieve results that are fair and equitable to the most vulnerable in society. We will describe trends in the detection of Covid-19, our plans for increased regional testing, some initial survey data, and public health communications options.

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David Ghilarducci, MD, Deputy Public Health Officer, Santa Cruz, California
Brent Haddad, PhD, professor of Environmental Studies at UC Santa Cruz
Teresa Ghilarducci, PhD, Schwartz Professor of Economics at The New School for Social Research, and Visiting Research Scholar at UC Santa Cruz

Please email the Institute for Social Transformation at transform@ucsc.edu for the Zoom link.