COVID-19 and informal settlements: An urgent call to rethink urban governance

Abstract

While some countries are nearing or reaching their peak of coronavirus infections, others are only at what seems to be the early stages of the infection curve. Some of these countries, particularly in the Global South, contain some of the world’s largest informal and/or urban settlements and are low resource settings. Given that the last few months have shown us how quickly COVID-19 can push health systems to the brink or overwhelm them, even in high-income countries, it is worrying to think what would happen if the outbreak becomes severe in such contexts.