Specifically , we draw on longitudinal data from qualitative interviews conducted as part of the ' Solidarity in times of a pandemic ' Consortium ( SolPan ) with a total of 482 respondents in Germany , Italy , Ireland , Austria , German - speaking Switzerland and the UK . In contrast to public debates over how the pandemic should be handled which often position public health against public wealth , our data illustrates that oppositions between saving lives or saving livelihoods fail to capture the entangled , long - standing nature of structural inequalities revealed through the pandemic . We complicate such dichotomies through a qualitative understanding of the pandemic as a lived experience , and conclude that the current moment presents an opportunity to address the structural inequalities which have emerged with greater force as a result of COVID-19 .