Key points

Disease outbreaks can exacerbate mistrust between members of different ethnic and racial identity groups.

But a study using incentivized trust games suggests that this wasn't the case in the U.S. in 2020.

If anything, the trust gap may have narrowed.

Gratitude for the service and sacrifices of frontline workers may have increased empathy toward minorities.

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on American society were complex. How the pandemic impacted racial and ethnic relations, and how differently its impact was felt by people of different races/ethnicities, of different socioeconomic classes, and in different “media silos,” are much-discussed topics. While we’re all understandably eager to put the pandemic behind us, the degree to which our society suffers from divisio

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