IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2021 - 71

From Artificial
Intelligence Bias to
Inequality in the Time of
COVID-19
Miguel Luengo-Oroz

Cynthia Sin Nga Lam

United Nations Global Pulse, New York,
NY 10017 USA

United Nations Global Pulse

Joseph Bullock

Alexandra Luccioni

United Nations Global Pulse
Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, U.K.

Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC H3T 1J4,
Canada

Katherine Hoffmann Pham
United Nations Global Pulse
NYU Stern School of Business, New York,
NY 10012 USA

 As secretary general of the United Nations,
Antonio Guterres said during the 2020 Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture, " COVID-19 has been likened to
an X-ray, revealing fractures in the fragile skeleton
of the societies we have built. " Without a doubt, the
COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and exacerbated
existing global inequalities. Whether at the local,
national, or international scale, the gap between
the privileged and the vulnerable is growing wider,
resulting in a broad increase in inequality across
all dimensions of society. The disease has strained
health systems, social support programs, and the
economy as a whole, drawing an ever-widening
distinction between those with access to treatment,
services, and job opportunities and those without.
Global lockdown restrictions have led to increases
in childcare and housework responsibilities, and
most of the burden has fallen on women, further
increasing existing gender inequality [1], [2]. Indigenous populations worldwide find themselves more
vulnerable to infection, many times with less access
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2021.3056282
Date of current version: 16 March 2021.

March 2021

to health services or hygiene measures and limited
updated scientific information about the virus and
measures that can be taken to mitigate it [3]. Inequality has also pervaded the education sector, with
only a subset of students able to attend safe in-person
schooling or access online education when needed.
The pandemic has also increased the differences between countries, distinguishing between
those which are able to access tests and diagnostic
tools, personal protective equipment (PPE), medical equipment such as ventilators, and (eventually)
vaccines, and those which cannot. International
cooperation is critical, and as new diagnostics,
medicines, and vaccines come through the development pipeline, there must be collaboration and
mechanisms for joint procurement and pooling of
risk. Support for initiatives such as the COVID-19
Vaccine Global Access Facility (COVAX) will help
avoid myopic nationalist vaccine strategies which
will result in increasing inequality and worsen outcomes for humanity as a whole. When planning public health and economic interventions, governments
need to take existing inequalities into account, lest

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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2021

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