Watch: The impact of COVID-19 on women of color

In recognition of International Women's Day, Axios hosted a News Shapers conversation about COVID-19's impact on women of color, featuring San Francisco Mayor London Breed and activist Brittany Packnett Cunningham, host of the "Undistracted" podcast.

Mayor London Breed discussed how the city of San Francisco prioritized addressing women's systemic inequalities in their pandemic response, highlighting disproportionate child care and educational responsibilities.

• On supporting working parents: "We set up learning hubs so that when the schools did shut down, and there were a lot of working parents that needed to get to work...parents and mostly women could continue to work while their child was being cared for."
• On addressing the rise of domestic violence during public health quarantines: "Domestic violence was a big challenge during this pandemic and the need for mostly women to have safe places to go...We had to make sure that there were resources readily available."

Brittany Packnett Cunningham unpacked the impact of the pandemic on Black women, citing new research on health effects.

• On the psychological and physical impacts of structural racism during the pandemic: "Racial battle fatigue is real, especially in a pandemic. What this also means is that there is a physical effect. What we've seen in the Black community is that we've actually lost 2.7 years of life expectancy due to COVID."
• On centering the voices of those most impacted by the crisis: "An intersectional lens on justice is the approach that we have to take...Black women, Indigenous women, Latinos, and women of color who are suffering disproportionately from both the racial strife of this time and the sexist strife of this time should be at the center of [political] decision-making."

Thank you Bank of America for sponsoring this event.