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I've found myself returning to thinking about/around/within interstitial spaces of care, particularly within hospital settings, interested in how viral activity unsettles the ideas we have around space and boundaries, both biological and infrastructural. In COVID-19 pathology and response, the inbetween, the interstitial, become sites challenge and possibility. With COVID-19, we see an acknowledgment of once forgotten spaces quite obviously, with hospital atria and hallways being reconfigured into patient care spaces, makeshift morgues established in refrigerated trucks, and hospitals spilling out into neighboring streets and parks. More than ever, we see how hospitals are simultaneously bounded and unbounded--the most stable and unstable sites for care. Along this line of thought, what might thinking through hospitals as heterotopia of crisis and deviation afford?

Foucault outlines six principles for heterotopic spaces

The heterotopia is capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible

Heterotopias are most often linked to slices in time—which is to say that they open onto what might be termed, for the sake of symmetry, heterochronies. The heterotopia begins to function at full capacity when men arrive at a sort of absolute break with their traditional time. This situation shows us that the cemetery is indeed a highly heterotopic place since, for the individual, the cemetery begins with this strange heterochrony, the loss of life, and with this quasi-eternity in which her permanent lot is dissolution and disappearance.

Heterotopias always presuppose a system of opening and closing that both isolates them and makes them penetrable. In general, the heterotopic site is not freely accessible like a public place. Either the entry is compulsory, as in the case of entering a barracks or a prison, or else the individual has to submit to rites and purifications.

I'm currently based in Troy, NY where I recently completed a PhD in Science and Technology Studies.  I'll soon be living in NYC to attend medical school. I can be reached at amorgan14[at]gmail[dot]com

I've long been interested in the disaster of routine medical care in the U.S. healthcare system. As far as COVID-19 is concerned, I'm particularly interested in how the long-term health impacts of intensive care are conceptualized and communicated (including Post Intensive Care Syndrome (PICS)) and the tensions between acute and chronic illness, broadly. 

How is the aftermath of COVID-19 crisis being imagined in different settings? How is this shaping beliefs, practices, and policies?

Newark school's reported that their almost half of buildings have lead in their water.  This is creating immense vulnerability in Essex County, and the issue in Newark dates back to about four years ago.  This problem also stems from the history of lead-based paint, which was outlawed in 1978, but still can be found in many homes, and poisons children.

Professionals can use this data to place an emphasis on the need to solve blood lead issues in children.  This study concluded that a higher proportion of black students had higher blood lead levels; professionals can use this information to decrease the experience gap by working on solving blood lead issues.

Many precautions that were taken to reduce blood lead poisoning in New Jersey over the years. In 1978, lead paint was banned in America, and in 1996 New Jersey required children to be screened for blood lead levels.  However, Chris Christie vetoed legislation to remove lead paint from old housing in 2016. 

The main argument of the article is about how child poverty is induced by several factors.  She discusses the risks of child poverty to child development, some of these factors are parental stress, mental and physical illness, child hunger, and low expectations.  Lamy addresses how families can overcome poverty struggle.

In comparison to other counties, Essex county has the largest number of children above the CDC blood lead level, 5% of Essex county children are affected.  They surpassed Passaic County's 3.4%.  This risk is more prominent in Essex county than any other group in the state.

This study addresses vulnerable populations because it explains that high blood levels, which is a sign of poverty, can have an impact on performance in testing.  Even though information was not given pertaining to poverty in each subject, these conclusions can be drawn from other studies.

The article finds that because Newark's population is 75% black and Hispanic, the hiring problem has a disproportionate impact on minorities.  Blacks and Hispanics are most at risk of this issue.

The author is Cynthia E. Lamy, she is a developmental and National Institute for Early Education Research educational psychologist and research fellow at Rutgers University.