Amy Maxmen spent eight months investigating how exploitation, poverty and discrimination drove COVID-19 in rural America.

For more than a century, public health researchers have demonstrated how poverty and discrimination drive disease, and the coronavirus pandemic has only reinforced this.

In a Coronapod special, Nature senior reporter Amy Maxmen takes us with her through eight months of reporting in the San Joaquin Valley, a part of rural California where COVID's unequal toll has proven deadly.

News: Inequality's deadly toll

This piece was supported by grants from the Pulitzer Center and the MIT Knight Science Journalism fellowship.

Never miss an episode: Subscribe to the Nature Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite podcast app. Head here for the Nature Podcast RSS feed.