Further evidence this week of how marginalised groups get the cruder end of government responses to the pandemic. For instance, the technology being pitched to track COVID-19 was first developed to monitor the movements of refugees and other migrants into Europe. Then there are the Aboriginal groups in Australia who have been protesting after strict lockdown measures in a number of their towns have stopped them getting to supermarkets and clinics.
Roma villages in Slovakia and Bulgaria have suffered the same fate: residents are barricaded into their settlements and far-right politicians blame them for spreading the virus because they can’t get clean water. And in the UK, too, Gypsy and Traveller groups have been hit hard by the crisis, with nomadic communities excluded from the government’s ban on evictions during the pandemic.
