As we pass the grim milestone of one million deaths in the United States, taking stock of the personal and collective consequences of the global COVID-19 pandemic becomes an urgent task for social scientists.

Recorded on May 10, 2022, this panel examined the physical, material and psychological toll of the past two years of rampant disease, on-and-off social distancing, and shifting economic ground. The panelists discussed the unequal distribution of the pandemic’s burden across the population and the long-term scarring that may ensue, and contemplated the (possibly more uplifting) lessons to be drawn for the future.

This event was co-sponsored by the Greater Good Science Center and the UC Berkeley Department of Psychology

Panelists

• Dacher Keltner, Professor of Psychology and Co-Director of the Greater Good Science Center
• Tina Sacks, Associate Professor, UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare; author, Invisible Visits: Black Middle Class Women in the American Healthcare System (Oxford, 2019)
• Andrew Wooyoung Kim, Assistant Professor of Biological Anthropology, UC Berkeley Department of Anthropology
• Iris Mauss (moderator), Professor, Berkeley Psychology