Economic shrinkage in the second quarter of 2020 wiped out all of the economic growth of

the past five years. Nationwide, schools are in the midst of a will they won't they

about opening back up. Forcing some important questions about the susceptibility and transmissibility

among children and yielding some alarming answers. After surges in the south, sunbelt, and

California, cases are now beginning to surge in the Midwest too. This is America Dissected.

I'm your host, Dr. Abdul Al Sayyad, and I'm under a blanket in my house.

The definition of public health is, and I quote,

what we as a society do collectively to assure the conditions for people to be healthy.

I'll say that again for the folks in the back. What we as a society do collectively to

assure the conditions for people to be healthy. Let me break it down a bit to highlight the parts

that matter most right now. First, public health is about our society acting collectively.

All of us together taking action for our shared benefit is critical to what makes public health

public. The second is that public health is about context. The places and conditions in the

places. The sum total of everything that surrounds a group of people, everything from laws and

policies to the air people breathe and the water they drink. Using collective action to change

context, that's the heart of public health. And it fails when we fail to act collectively.

And when we can't change the context in which people live. And one of the things that this moment

has shown us is just how unequal the contexts in which people live and learn and work and play

really are. And it explains so much of the differences in how people are experiencing COVID-19.

Black and brown communities across the country being hit harder and greater numbers and with fewer

resources to save them. The pandemic appears to be disproportionately affecting people of color.

The new data coming out that shows African Americans and people of color are dying in the pandemic

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