Growing up in metro Detroit prepared Dr. Rajiv Shah not to be surprised by the economic and medical calamity that has befallen millions of Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. He saw the auto industry automate and export thousands of jobs in the 1990s and knew it was a harbinger for working-class fragility writ large. He saw the stark contrast between the lives of the rich in his hometown of West Bloomfield and those of the poor in Detroit itself, and knew the gulf was widening. He saw the nation’s social safety net fray to the point that unequal access to quality health care, education, and opportunity was bound, one day, to result in a catastrophe of this magnitude…
Best of Detroit 2020: Dr. Rajiv Shah Thinks Big To Confront a Deadly Foe