The Covid-19 crisis and the Broken Systems
By Harrison Clark
(Human Nature Spring 2020)
Over the past few weeks, the Covid-19 pandemic has been constantly at the forefront of the American mind. Regardless of our political leanings or socioeconomic status, this crisis is affecting everyone in drastic and unprecedented ways. However, some Americans are feeling the pain far more severely than others.
I am fortunate enough to belong to a financially stable family living near Boston, one of the most affluent cities in the country. With the ability to access the Internet from the safety of my home, I have been reading many articles from various news sources to stay informed about current events as I complete my online coursework. One interesting piece that I came across this week was an editorial in the New York Times, written by Bernie Sanders. Even though he has suspended his campaign for president (a campaign I did not necessarily support), he has continued to spread his ideas about the dilemma of American inequality and how to fix our “broken” systems. His article, titled “The Foundations of American Society Are Failing Us”, explains how the situation created by Covid-19 is significantly worse for lower-income Americans in many ways. He also outlines the changes that he thinks must happen in America in order to address this inequality and lead the country in a better direction going forward.
This article immediately reminded me of the concept of structural violence, introduced to anthropology by Dr. Paul Farmer, that we had talked about in class. It is now clear that African-Americans and “essential” members of the working class are getting sick and dying at disproportionately higher rates than the rest of America, a prime example of one’s social status directly and negatively affecting their health outcomes. In the article, Sanders states that the virus is “vicious and incredibly opportunistic in attacking people with pre-existing conditions and weakened immune systems…it is the poor and working-class in this country who are exactly in that position as they suffer higher rates of diabetes, drug addiction, obesity, stress, high blood pressure, asthma, and heart disease”. What Sanders is describing is a wide-ranging syndemic of poor health factors associated with low socioeconomic status, which greatly contributes to the gap in life expectancy between America’s rich and poor. So far, this crisis seems to be only increasing that gap, which already stood at nearly a decade according to the Unnatural Causes episode we watched about Louisville.
In addition to the immediate effects of the virus on people’s health, there is another crisis brewing that threatens to keep poor Americans suffering for years to come. As usual, Sanders does not let us forget the state of health care in this country: “The absurdity and cruelty of our employer-based, private health insurance system should now be apparent to all. As tens of millions of Americans are losing their jobs and incomes as a result of the pandemic, many of them are also losing their health insurance”. The fact that health insurance in America is tied to employment is yet another example of structural violence. People who cannot find work are already left without a source of income, but this struggle is compounded when they simultaneously lose health coverage. Without an insurance plan, they are less likely to seek medical care when they fall ill, get injured, or even to visit the doctor for a regular check-up. There are federal programs such as Medicaid that help lower-income Americans cover health care costs, but they cannot cover everyone and are probably overwhelmed with the onset of Covid-19. According to Sanders, 87 million Americans (a quarter of the population) are either uninsured or underinsured. Who knows how many of those people will catch Covid-19 and decide to stay home instead of getting treatment? How many people will end up dying?
The Covid-19 crisis is exposing many interactions between biology and culture that have always been present, but now cannot be ignored. While it is true that every human being has a physical body that can succumb to this virus, the factors that determine who among us will actually get infected or die are largely structural. Systemic causes of inequality within American society that have accumulated over centuries are now putting lower-income and minority Americans at greater risk because of the places where they live, the jobs they must work, and their limited access to quality medical care. Inner-city neighborhoods are often more densely populated. Those whose jobs are considered “essential”, for example, grocery store and postal workers, not only are more likely to live there but are also risking their health every day to put food on their tables.
Another cultural dimension to this pandemic is the differing perceptions of the crisis across political lines. Today, the news media is increasingly personalized and targeted toward individual biases, especially on the Internet. This has resulted in a further disconnect between red and blue America, or urban and rural America, as completely different portraits of Covid-19 emerge in the media. Communities who are farther from virus hotspots are shown that the virus is largely an urban or coastal problem and that their state governments are overreacting, as we have seen with the “Reopen America” protests happening this week. This perception directly affects policy, as states like Georgia begin to restart economic activity while others, like Massachusetts, extend their lockdowns further despite both states reporting thousands of confirmed cases. In this way, our cultural responses to the virus in each region will affect the biology of its future spread.
Before Covid-19, I thought that government-sponsored healthcare for all was a good idea in theory, but an expensive pipe dream for the real America. I thought Sanders’ ideas were too far left to capture the American public, which was correct; his momentum fizzled out after a couple of early wins. But after seeing the tragedy that is unfolding for millions of less fortunate citizens across the country as a result of biocultural inequalities, Bernie’s cries for system change resonated with me in a different way.
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