On June 4 one of our Aletta coordinators, Rina Knoeff, gave a webinar together with Catrien Santing (UG) and Beatrice de Graaf (UU), for LOTC (Landelijk Operationeel Team Corona, the operational team behind the RIVM and the OMT).

An important aspect of these responses is that epidemics, perhaps unlike any other natural disaster, lay bare social (and health) inequalities and injustices and almost always lead to social unrest (it is no coincidence that #blacklivesmatter has come up as an important issue now). An important lesson is that in making COVID-19 policies, and in our thinking about exit strategies, we should not only pay attention to regional differences, but more importantly we should take into account that socio-economic differences ask for different approaches on the very local level of communities and neighbourhoods.

The webinar was attended by ca. 150 mayors, councillors and delegates from the security regions (‘veiligheidsregio’s’). After the webinar the mayors of 15 Dutch cities have written a manifest demanding action on precisely the issues addressed in the webinar.