Evolving discourses of COVID-19 and implications for medical education: a critical discourse analysis

The othering of individuals has been identified as a concern during the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study was to examine public commentary during early stages of the pandemic for: 1) emerging discourses that highlighted population-level inequities, and 2) the implications these discourses may have for medical education.

Using a critical discourse analysis (CDA) approach, an archive of texts available in the public domain discussing COVID-19 was iteratively created, reviewed, and coded. We used an intersectional framework to analyze how COVID-19 highlighted structural and institutional inequity at the population level.

We found 86 representative texts published from March to June 2020. We focused our analysis on implications within Ontario. The two major discourses that emerged were "COVID-19 as Equalizer" and "COVID-19 as Discriminator." The former emerged in the early stages of the pandemic to mobilize public health recommendations and describe near-universal impacts on the public. The latter followed to highlight new and pre-existing forms of marginalization exacerbated by the pandemic.

This study provides a unique perspective on how structural and systemic responses to COVID-19 were shaped through analysis of public discourse, and therefore, has implications for how the COVID-19 pandemic and future pandemics are framed for future medical learners.