1 William Otchere-Darko For original article, go to link: https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/journals/article/60539 Citation: Otchere-Darko, W. (2021). “Viewpoint: COVID-19, Spatio-epidemiology and Urban Planning”. Town Planning Review. 92(2), 209–213 COVID-19, Spatio-epidemiology and Urban Planning Cognisant of the ongoing spatial manifestations of COVID-19, this essay provides reflections for current and future urban planning. The essay argues that planners should pay attention to the changing nature of urban spaces, currently interjected by epidemiological relations, and identify actions towards potentially damaging future implications. Specifically, post COV1D-19 planning must advocate against socio-spatial segregation of former COVID-19 hotspots and survivors. In effect, planning policies must avert epidemiological redlining and initiate long-term strategies to create inclusive public spaces. Spaces of Advocacy and Renewal after COVID-19 Urban life has always been characterised by the trappings of anonymity, opportunity and even risk. COVID-19 has fundamentally intensified the risks of urban life; the pandemic has been a particularly urban – possibly peri-urban (Keil et al., 2020) – phenomenon. It has introduced a form of epidemiological relation in urban spaces, blurring the lines between health and infirmity. The hospital has always occupied a fringe aspect of the urban imagination, providing a space for treatment, observation, inoculation and recovery from ailments. With the emergence of COVID-19 however, the spaces of epidemiological observation and treatment have extended beyond hospitals into urban spaces in general. COVID-19 is characterised by different strains and susceptibilities to infection; for instance, younger people have comparatively milder symptoms. In effect, urban social relations have become epidemiological relations; mere proximity and movement prompts questions of one’s state of health. Everyday spaces are deemed as potential hotspots; every urbanite potentially infectious. Proximity, movement and location have become matters of urban-health and public policy. Various urban planning strategies have therefore been introduced to regulate urban spaces, movement, proximity and risks of infection. One such strategy is the tracking of potential COVID-19 urban hotspots and populations. During the bubonic plague in sixth century Constantinople, urbanites were required to wear name tags in public spaces to track their movements (Kolbert, 2020). In 2009, engineers at Google predicted the spatial trends of the H1NI spread in the US using real-time Google search queries (Ginsberg et al., 2009). In the current age of COVID-19, contact-tracing software applications have been touted as effective ways to track potentially infected people and spaces. The most widely cited case of contact-tracing has been South Korea. Here, South Korean state officials and health agencies publish information of potentially infected people to inform the public of possible proximal risks (Kim and Denyer, 2020). This information – akin to a travel log – consists of semi-anonymised locational data, surveillance videos and credit card records of the potentially infected. South Korea currently has one of the lowest COVID-19 infection rates in the world. In effect, the COVID-19 travel log has been lauded as a conscientious governmental use of private data in an age where “younger generations are less concerned about surveillance” (Sonn and Lee, 2020, 10). It is seen as an alternative form of private data use separate from the corporate surveillance encroachments of the ‘Big-Tech’ companies (Sonn and Lee, 2020, 8).