Race, immigration and health: the Hostile Environment and public health responses to Covid-19

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the impact of governmental management of the pandemic on the morbidity and mortality of migrants, gendered and racialized groups by focussing on the relation of its public health message campaign to accommodation, health and survival. The Hostile Environment immigration policies have restricted the ability of these groups to adhere to Government’s public health guidelines, increasing risks of their contracting coronavirus. These policies exacerbate existing health inequalities in intersectional ways. The Covid virus, in its socially reproductive capacity, can thus be understood as a biological descriptor for a political crisis of intersectional inequality in the politics of health.

KEYWORDS:

• Covid-19
• Hostile Environment
• health inequalities
• public health
• migrants
• asylum seekers
• gendered and racialized minorities

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).