Analyze

Just to begin the discussion for this particular question: here's the Harvard study that is being cited in various newspapers on the apparantly direct link between air pollution and Covid-19 vulnerability. van Donkelaar, A., R. V. Martin, C. Li, R. T. Burnett, Regional Estimates of Chemical Composition of Fine Particulate Matter using a Combined Geoscience-Statistical Method with Information from Satellites, Models, and Monitors, Environ. Sci. Technol., doi: 10.1021/acs.est.8b06392, 2019.
See e.g. how it is picked up by the NYT. I also find it interesting to link this data with more critical race-ish reports, such as this by Vice.

So, how to draw on this to develop what kinds of ethnographic studies?

I'm staying at home these days, that is, in Erfurt, set in Eastern Germany. My commute to the Ruhr University – roughly 400 km to the west – thus has been put to a hold. I have a background in waste studies, while also becoming increasingly interested in matters of energy production. I’d like to understand how pollution affects bodies, but also how the reactions to the pandemic are changing the way pollution is discussed and experienced. You can contact me via mail: stefan.laser@rub.de

I'm particularly interested in the following questions:

How is COVID-19 impacting and intersecting with air pollution?

What data infrastructure -- in different settings, at different scales -- supports efforts to understand and respond to COVID-19?

What COVID-19 data visualizations are in circulation and to what effect?

How does COVID-19 impact the civil rights of unsheltered populations and challenge ideas of what a healthy environment is?