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The COVID-19 crisis has not only increased socio-economic inequalities globally but it also severely affected people's everyday lives. This study explores the impacts of COVID-19 on household income, food security, and food consumption patterns in the urban slums of Punjab, Pakistan. Using a multistage random sampling method, cross-sectional data was collected from 257 households through face-to-face interviews. Respondents were chosen randomly applying the random walk method. The data were analysed using Probit regression models. The household food security situation was estimated using the food insecurity experience scale (HFIES) developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Results show that household income and food security situations during the COVID-19 pandemic were significantly affected by education level, household size, daily-wage earnings, salaried employment, and household income slot-I. Household participation in social safety programs appears to help mitigate income shocks and decrease food insecurity. Due to the COVID-19 crisis, 73.92% and 54.86% of the surveyed households faced income shocks and worsened food security, respectively. The consumption of meat, poultry products, and seafood decreased by 21.01%, 17.50%, and 14.39%, respectively, during the pandemic, in comparison to the pre-pandemic period. The study recommends that authorities should consider continuously focusing on supporting existing national social safety programs and designing new ones by providing responsive packages during such adversities. Further, structuring robust financial institutions to aid business recovery and to ensure the availability of food to marginalised communities, particularly in urban slums, could sustain the masses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social distancing has contributed enormously to controlling the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. From Latin America to East Asia and Africa, the majority of the urban dwellers are living in congested, ignored and criminalised squatter settlements with meagre resources restricting them to exercise social distancing. Stretching boundaries of the theory of planned behaviour, this article discusses how the utopia of social distancing interacts with the dystopia of living in slums. Based on participant observation and in-depth interviews, this article compares the lived experiences of the urban poor of Pakistan and Brazil to explore their subjectivities concerning the pandemic. This research finds that neglect of the "social distancing" is premised on socio-economic structures shaping socio-spatial realities of the urban poor. The exclusion and otherisation of these poor by the politicians, bureaucracies, and society at large is both discriminatory and criminalising. It further reveals that the absence of "social distancing" exhibits the socio-economic helplessness of such dwellers who mainly struggle to attain their basic survival needs. Therefore, the adoption of a class-sensitive approach to the pandemic is pivotal to devising an inclusive policy framework addressing the marginalised geographies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]