Talk Policy To Me

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 U