Ohio under COVID

Welcome remarks by Dean James Mack, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Cincinnati

Kim Nielsen, Professor of Disability Studies, University of Toledo

Moderator: Vanessa Carbonell, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Cincinnati

Panelists: Danielle Bessett, Professor of Sociology, University of Cincinnati Katherine Sorrels, Associate Professor of History, University of Cincinnati Edward Wallace, Associate Professor of Africana Studies, University of Cincinnati

Moderator: Littisha A. Bates, Associate Dean for Inclusive Excellence and Community Partnership, Arts and Sciences, University of Cincinnati

Panelists: Elizabeth Lanphier, Assistant Professor, Ethics Center, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Kara Ayers, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati Michelle McGowan, Senior Associate Consultant II, Biomedical Ethics Research Program, Mayo Clinic

Dr. Amy Acton, Former Director, Ohio Department of Health Dan Skinner, Host of  Prognosis Ohio , Associate Professor of Health Policy, Ohio University

The symposium celebrates the publication of  Ohio under COVID: Lessons from America's Heartland in Crisis , Katherine Sorrels, Vanessa Carbonell, Danielle Bessett, Lora Arduser, Edward Wallace, and Michelle McGowan, eds., Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2023.

In early March of 2020, Americans watched with uncertain terror as the novel coronavirus pandemic unfolded. One week later, Ohio announced its first confirmed cases. Just one year later, the state had over a million cases and 18,000 Ohioans had died. What happened in that first pandemic year is not only a story of a public health disaster, but also a story of social disparities and moral dilemmas, of lives and livelihoods turned upside down, and of institutions and safety nets stretched to their limits.   Ohio under COVID tells the human story of COVID in Ohio, America’s bellwether state. Scholars and practitioners examine the pandemic response from multiple angles, and contributors from numerous walks of life offer moving first-person reflections. Two themes emerge again and again: how the pandemic revealed a deep tension between individual autonomy and the collective good, and how it exacerbated social inequalities in a state divided along social, economic, and political lines. Chapters address topics such as mask mandates, ableism, prisons, food insecurity, access to reproductive health care, and the need for more Black doctors. The book concludes with an interview with Dr. Amy Acton, the state’s top public health official at the time COVID hit Ohio. Ohio under COVID captures the devastating impact of the pandemic, both in the public discord it has unearthed and in the unfair burdens it has placed on the groups least equipped to bear them.

The book is available in print and in an open-access digital edition thanks to a TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem) award. You can access the e-book here:

Annie Laws Room, 407 Teachers College Closest parking: College Conservatory of Music (CCM) Garage

If there are any accommodations we can arrange in order to make the event accessible to you, please contact Katherine Sorrels at katherine.sorrels@uc.edu

Charles Phelps Taft Research Center

Biomedical Ethics Research Program, Mayo Clinic

UC Departments of History, Philosophy, Sociology, English, Africana Studies, and WGSS

You can download  the PDF here.