Abstract
As touched upon by almost every essay in this section, social workers tasked with supporting the different populations represented here (babies, LGBTQ+ youth, survivors of gender-based violence, families experiencing child loss, and older adults) must continue to provide services despite additional barriers. The double jeopardies laid out in each of these essays highlight how the global pandemic has exacerbated inequalities across the age spectrum. No age group has been left unaffected, each exposing unique vulnerabilities and different holes in our safety nets and support systems.
Stay-at-home orders, which rightly prioritize saving lives, and global travel restrictions create myriad unintended and hidden consequences. Closed national borders have left many troubling unanswered questions about the care and wellness of surrogate mothers in India and the babies they carried for non-Indian others (Goswami et al., 2021). While older adults are at greatest risk of severe or fatal illness as a result of Covid-19, stay-at-home orders have exacerbated isolation and a lack of connection for them in Ghana as government officials cling to outdated beliefs that adult children are able and willing to care for their aging parents (Deku et al., 2021). In both cases, border shutdowns and travel restrictions have disrupted care networks and jeopardized the vulnerable, young and old alike.
For others, staying at home means increased exposure to emotional and physical violence. For LGBTQ+ youth who are sheltering in place with unsupportive parents and can’t access vital social support networks, the situation can jeopardize their mental health (Iacono, 2021). Yet children and teenagers are trapped in their home environments, in part by their age and dependence. Similarly, victims of domestic violence are now forced to remain in their homes in high stress situations with very few opportunities for reprieve (Pretto, 2021). We conceptualize this experience of isolation – both the isolation created by sheltering in place and imposed by travel restrictions – coupled with vulnerabilities across the lifespan, as the double jeopardies of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.