Beyond Handwashing: Water Insecurity Undermines Covid-19 Response in Developing Areas

Abstract

The global response to COVID-19 has invoked the familiar refrain “back to basics” with respect to basic control strategies such as quarantining and isolation, handwashing, and social distancing. The pandemic has already revealed stark structural challenges to the health care and governance systems of many high-income nations. As of March 2020, we have only seen a glimpse of how COVID-19 may affect low- and middleincome nations that have even fewer material resources. In this context – particularly in high-density urban areas that are potential epicenters of transmission – perhaps no other single factor will impede control strategies as the daily struggle experienced by billions of households globally: water insecurity.