Pandemic
In March, the History Channel published an article on the Spanish Flu—this is what they’re talking about when you hear about 1918 in reference to hasty reopenings of the economy. The story then is complicated by war with troops being sent even as, it turned out, they were infected, spreading a deadlier mutation of the virus disastrously to Europe.[1] But the rationale for the lockdown has peer reviewed backing in the Journal of the American Medical Association. History may not repeat, but it rhymes, and it’d be smart not to repeat the mistakes some U.S. cities made with the Spanish Flu.[2] As a country, we seem unwilling to learn from that history.[3]
The trouble, of course, is the economy,[4] and an unemployment rate estimated at between 15 and 20 percent.[5] But what this really says is that we are unwilling to actually take care of people, to give them money to tide them over, even, allegedly, to save their lives. Because neoliberalism, you know, is more fucking important than anything.[6]
So be sure to whisper your devotion to the “invisible hand” as you or your loved ones get sick, as you or they drown in their own lung fluids, in a panic, desperately trying to breathe. The capitalist god demands your sacrifice and theirs.[7]
William Wan, Carolyn Y. Johnson, and Joel Achenbach, “States rushing to reopen are likely making a deadly error, coronavirus models and experts warn,” Washington Post, April 22, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/22/reopening-america-states-coronavirus/
Zoë Hu, “A New Age of Destructive Austerity After the Coronavirus,” New Republic, April 23, 2020, https://newrepublic.com/article/157417/new-age-destructive-austerity-coronavirus
George Packer, “We Are Living in a Failed State,” Atlantic, June 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/underlying-conditions/610261/
- [1]Dave Roos, “Why the Second Wave of the 1918 Spanish Flu Was So Deadly,” History Channel, March 30, 2020, https://www.history.com/news/spanish-flu-second-wave-resurgence↩
- [2]Howard Markel et al., “Nonpharmaceutical Interventions Implemented by US Cities During the 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic,” Journal of the American Medical Association 298, no. 6 (2007), doi: 10.1001/jama.298.6.644↩
- [3]William Wan, Carolyn Y. Johnson, and Joel Achenbach, “States rushing to reopen are likely making a deadly error, coronavirus models and experts warn,” Washington Post, April 22, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/22/reopening-america-states-coronavirus/↩
- [4]William Wan, Carolyn Y. Johnson, and Joel Achenbach, “States rushing to reopen are likely making a deadly error, coronavirus models and experts warn,” Washington Post, April 22, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/22/reopening-america-states-coronavirus/↩
- [5]Rachel Siegel and Andrew Van Dam, “4.4 million Americans sought jobless benefits last week, as economic pain continued across the United States,” Washington Post, April 23, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/23/economy-coronavirus-unemployment/↩
- [6]Zoë Hu, “A New Age of Destructive Austerity After the Coronavirus,” New Republic, April 23, 2020, https://newrepublic.com/article/157417/new-age-destructive-austerity-coronavirus↩
- [7]David Benfell, “An impatient capitalist god demands human sacrifice. Now,” Not Housebroken, April 17, 2020, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/04/15/an-impatient-capitalist-god-demands-human-sacrifice-now/↩