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As the COVID-19 pandemic evolves, it is offering some hard lessons about how American healthcare fails patients. The pandemic brings into focus inequities that pervade the system—in strategies intended to guide how limited resources are distributed among patients and in its impact on communities made vulnerable by decades of neglect, disinvestment and marginalization. (Jacqueline W. Fincher and Patrice A. Harris, 6/16)

Last week the Texas Health and Human Services Commission announced it would conduct a study to evaluate the coronavirus’s impact on vulnerable populations based on race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and location. This is an important step forward in addressing health disparities at their core, but, of course, that all depends on how the information is used. We need to ensure that this data is acted on, not merely collected. (6/17)

If you needed proof that the United States no longer has the best health care system in the world, the new coronavirus has delivered the evidence. The brave doctors, nurses and other health professionals may be well trained. The clinics, hospitals and research centers may be well equipped. But they are not enough. The failure comes from our poorly financed public health system, the amazingly fractured billing process, and the fundamental injustice of for-profit enterprises that exclude the most vulnerable. (Chris Tomlinson, 6/17)

"We actually punish black people for being resilient," says Carol Anderson, the author of “White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide.” She lays out a persistent pattern of injustice for African Americans in U.S. history. (Jonathan Capehart, 6/16)

Closing with the phrase “Black Lives Matter,” the McDonald’s statement may have given customers the impression that this was the first time the drive-through leader had to delicately acknowledge the roots of civil unrest while still selling Big Macs. But McDonald’s and the Black equality struggle have a long, complicated history. In fact, it was a moment similar to this one, in the spring of 1968, that brought Black consumers and dollars into McDonald’s consciousness. Since then, McDonald’s has profited handily from its Black customers, while its presence in Black communities has led to a vexing set of circumstances for Black wealth and health. (Marcia Chatelain, 6/16)

To tackle the ongoing catastrophe of the Covid-19 pandemic, the biomedical research community must deploy all the tools at its disposal, especially the extensive networks of international communication and collaboration that fuel scientific discovery. Unfortunately, we are hamstrung in our use of one of our most essential tools: open access to the vast repositories of accumulated knowledge contained in the published scientific literature. Restricting access to this resource, which can help scientists find tests, treatments, and even cures for Covid-19, is shortsighted and unethical, with tangible impacts on human life. (Peter Walter and R. Dyche Mullins, 6/16)

Marty Goddard's first flash of insight came in 1972. It all started when she marched into a shabby townhouse on Halsted Street in Chicago to volunteer at a crisis hotline for teenagers. Most of the other volunteers were hippies with scraggly manes and love beads. But not Marty Goddard. She tended to wear business clothes: a jacket with a modest skirt, pantyhose, low heels. She hid her eyes behind owlish glasses and kept her blond hair short. Not much makeup; maybe a plum lip. She was 31, divorced, with a mordant sense of humor. Her name was Martha, but everyone called her Marty. She liked hiding behind a man’s name. It was useful. (Pagan Kennedy, 6/17)

Registered nurse Asantewaa Boykin was volunteering as a medic in Sacramento, Calif. Cesar Chavez plaza during a recent protest, when people who had begun to march out of the plaza — came running right back. They were fleeing from tear gas that had been fired at them by the Sacramento police. Boykin, who has been a social justice advocate longer than she has worked in the emergency department at Sacramento’s UC Davis Medical Center, soon found herself overcome by tear gas, as well. (Bonnie Castillo, 6/15)

With a stroke of the president’s Executive Order pen, the Trump administration awarded a $354 million, four-year contract to a new company called Phlow located inside the Beltway in late May. Its charge is to manufacture pharmaceutical ingredients and generic medicines used in treating patients hospitalized for Covid-19, ingredients that for years have been produced overseas supply chains, mainly in China and India. (Michael Rea, 6/17)

As the dual impacts of a pandemic and structural inequalities ravage our country, now is the time to act on the need for paid sick leave across the nation. This Father’s Day, we urge the government to stand up for family values and protect Americans with overdue leave laws that can protect us from going forward. We must learn from our mistakes as a nation and ensure the safety of future generations. (Esteban Garces, 6/16)

“We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice,” Martin Luther King Jr. said during a 1968 speech. It may be an overused phrase, but it is an apt description of events on Monday as the U.S. Supreme Court issued a historic ruling guaranteeing the rights of LGBTQ Americans in the workplace. The ruling came just days after the Trump administration issued a misguided rule that takes health care protections away from transgender Americans. (6/15)