Confronting the Intersection of COVID-19 and Privacy

When I first proposed this special issue in the spring of 2021, I had hoped the resulting articles would be a retrospective—looking back at how we had met the challenge of COVID-19, conquered it, and taken the lessons that it gave us into the future. Writing this editorial now, it is clear that is not what has happened. COVID-19 and its variants of concern, most recently BQ.1, continue to wreak havoc on our public institutions. This is, of course, most notably felt in the healthcare system, but all public services must grapple with balancing serving their customers with ensuring the safety of their employees—and the privacy of both.