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Medical mapping is a key tool for visualising disease spreading, managing epidemiological crises and making decisions. The COVID-19 pandemic compels urban studies to be reformulated. It has breathed new life into old debates on unsolved urban issues, such as inequality in cities; a subject which seemed unthinkable in 21st-century urban discussion until recently. Indeed, the disease is proving to be a significant and telling indicator of urban contrasts. A long-term neglect of the universal human need for shelter, health and safety has made lower-income neighbourhoods much more vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic, not only in terms of health but also in relation to a loss of income, increased unemployment rates, weaker social protection, etc. Growing poverty and rising socio-spatial inequality on various scales are taking shape into what is known as spatial injustice. The assumption that poverty and scarcity are causing more infections and victims amongst the most vulnerable is indeed feasible (González and Piñeira, 2020).
Vulnerability in Barcelona and Madrid is particularly evident in the city outskirts, especially in neighbourhoods that were raised during the years of strong economic boost back in the 1960s, which are nowadays typified by high levels of social housing, high population densities and a drift to serve as a place of residence for immigrants. In Barcelona, the social divide lies between a more vulnerable north and south and a more wealthy west. In Madrid, the pattern is rather south-north. For their part, the historical city centres and the 19th-century expansions are areas of scant vulnerability. High rates of COVID-19 infections were limited in historical city centres to very small and specific old areas that have not yet been restored or gentrified, such as El Raval neighbourhood in Barcelona. In short, the most vulnerable areas in Madrid and Barcelona were also the areas to record the highest cumulative incidence of COVID-19 cases.
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The index developed depicts Barcelona as a city where high rates of vulnerability are observed in two areas: first, the neighbourhoods in the north (''Torre Baró, Ciutat Meridiana, Canyelles, Les Roquetes'') and some in the northeast (''Bon Pastor''), where a high number of immigrants live; second, the area to the south of the city, where the harbour and La Barceloneta neighbourhood lie. These areas registered a cumulative incidence of over 500 cases per 100,000 inhabitants (February-June 2020) and sometimes even over 1,000 (the maximum considered). By contrast, the lowest figures in vulnerability were recorded in census sections to the west of the city (Pedralbes and Sarrià), much of the Eixample and those bordering the northern coastline (''Vila Olímpica del Poblenou, Diagonal Mar and Front Marítim del Poblenou''). A study on the amount of cases in these less vulnerable areas reveals that they registered the lowest incidence rates of COVID-19 in the whole city of Barcelona, with under 500 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
