No neighborhood left behind: building an ethos of community interconnections

We write this editorial as the world begins to reopen with the administration of 3.63 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines in more than 214 countries and territories around the globe. At the time of this writing, 1 billion or 12.9% of the world’s population have been fully vaccinated (Our World in Data, 2021). Although these are hopeful developments, we have not quite turned the corner on the pandemic as cases continue to climb. There are more than 191.1 million confirmed cases and 4.1 million deaths worldwide (Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, 2021). The U.S. continues to lead all countries with total confirmed cases and deaths at 34.1 million and 609,000, respectively, but India and Brazil do not trail far behind. Further, countries around the world are bracing for a third, fourth or fifth wave of the pandemic with the spread of highly infectious COVID-19 variants. We also write as the United States nears the 6-month mark of the Biden administration and the country shows fleeting glimpses of recovery from the pandemic and the past four years of political turmoil. While there are signs that recovery may be on the horizon, the country is still reeling from the toll of the COVID-19 pandemic and the previous administration on the physical and mental well-being of the population as well as the economic health and vitality of the nation. Nonetheless the unevenness of the economic recovery is marked (CNN Business, n.d.). Despite gains in overall employment, the United States has 7.3 million fewer jobs now than the country had before the start of the pandemic (Congressional Research Services, 2021). The Department of Labor estimates more than 9.5 million U.S. workers lost their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021), leading to a record 14.8% unemployment rate in April 2020. Although the overall unemployment rate in June 2021 was markedly lower (5.9%), unemployment remains higher than the pre-COVID rate of 3.5% (Congressional Research Services, 2021). Unemployment continues to be higher among African American and Latino workers – 9.2% and 7.4%, respectively, underscoring the significantly slower jobs recovery experienced by minority workers (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021). These rates are exacerbated by the anticipated permanent loss of approximately 3 million jobs in the leisure and hospitality as well as retail sectors of the economy where African American and Latino workers are disproportionately employed. The long-term unemployed – those who have been unemployed for six months or more – now total 4.0 million and are 2.9 million more than prior to the pandemic (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021). JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY PRACTICE 2021, VOL. 29, NO. 2, 91–98 https://doi.org/10.1080/10705422.2021.1959840