M
arch 27 marked the day
the United States officially
surpassed
every
other
country in confirmed cases of COVID-19.
That day alone, over 3,000 people died
globally, pushing the total death count past
27,000. And yet, as thousands lose their
lives every day, I have seen one phrase
circulate more than almost any other,
second only to “wash your hands” — “we
are the virus, and coronavirus is the cure.”
Beside insinuating that the deaths
of COVID-19 victims are a good thing
and equating the deceased to parasites
being incredibly cruel, the statement
is untrue. Most of the environmental
“improvements” cited as proof that
quarantine is healing the Earth actually
have far simpler answers. The suddenly
clear, fish-filled Venice canals, for instance,
aren’t due to any change in water quality;
it’s because there are no boats to kick
sediment into the water when everybody
is home. In some cases, the lack of human
activity is detrimental to animal life, like
the monkeys and deer in Asia who are now
abruptly without their primary source of
food — tourists — and are now wandering
hazardous cities in search of replacements.
There
have
been
some
real
environmental benefits to the mass
quarantines,
though,
particularly
a
decrease in air pollution. However,
coronavirus-related changes in emissions
are temporary and relatively small in
scope. If anything, the changes brought
by COVID-19, and the responses of our
institutions, show us just how little the
average person is to blame for pollution.
We are not the virus, industrial capitalism
is.
Take for instance the air pollution drop.
The decrease in emissions in Italy and
China is because their factories have been
shut down en masse, not because people
are driving less. Italy even continued to run
public transportation, as it was deemed
an “essential service,” and still saw these
massive emission decreases. Simply put,
it makes little difference that individuals
aren’t getting in their cars when 71
percent of greenhouse gas emissions come
from only a hundred companies. These
corporations and the people who run them
are the virus, not the commuters and car
owners.
Coronavirus will ultimately only make
pollution worse as economic panic tempts
governments to be even more permissive of
corporate pollution. The Prime Minister of
the Czech Republic has already called for
Europe to “forget about the Green Deal” for
the economy’s sake — his country happens
to depend heavily on nuclear power and
coal. Similarly, President Donald Trump
has pledged a bailout for the airline
industry, saying they’ll be “number one”
in line, all while airlines are on track to
emit a quarter of the world’s maximum
manageable amount of carbon (carbon
budget) by 2050.
We know for a fact that human beings
are not fundamentally harmful to the
planet because we’ve been living here for
hundreds of thousands of years. Indigenous
people have been living sustainably for as
long as people have existed, and they still
are. Now, with most of the world living
industrially, indigenous people care for
80 percent of Earth’s biodiversity and 28
percent of its land, despite being only 5
percent of the world population. Not only
can human beings live without irreparably
polluting the environment — we can live
in ways that are beneficial to the planet,
despite what Western environmentalists
might say. We just need to adopt these
beneficial practices on a much larger scale,
and that means ending the harmful ones
first.
To call industrial capitalism a virus
is apt, because it sickens and kills people
like a virus. It isn’t happenstance that the
U.S. ranks first in infant mortality, obesity
and youth poverty and last in sanitation
and access to water of all the world’s
developed nations despite having the
highest GDP. Poverty and social inequality
kill Americans as often as heart attacks
and lung cancer, with 4.5 percent of U.S.
deaths being traced back to poverty. This
translates to 874,000 Americans who died
in 2000, a toll over 32 times larger than the
total COVID-19 death count by March 27.
These fatal issues in America have only
gotten worse in the 20 years since 2000.
Coronavirus is set to combine with these
already fatal issues in apocalyptic ways.
The U.S., as of 2017, has 2.6 doctors per
1,000 people. Compare that to Italy’s 4.0
doctors per thousand as Italy’s hospitals
are overwhelmed with dying COVID-19
patients. Make no mistake: capitalism will
be the primary reason coronavirus kills
Americans. A system built on masses of
impoverished people selling their labor
to a few business owners ensures that
workers will work unless they are given
another way to survive. Unsurprisingly, the
Families First Coronavirus Response Act
neglects paid leave for millions. COVID-
19 belongs to a family of viruses we’ve
known about for a long time, but a vaccine
doesn’t exist yet — of course, now it will
take months before one will be developed.
Still, our government is already itching to
lift shutdowns and social distancing rules
so that businesses can operate (and profit)
normally. Some officials have even said,
implicitly and explicitly, that the deaths
caused by relaxing restrictions would be
worth it for economic recovery.
As of March 17, COVID-19 is projected
to kill 2.2 million Americans in total.
This sort of death toll is neither normal
nor necessary; in China, only 3,331 have
reportedly died and the number of cases
has started to stagnate (although this
number is disputed). Social distancing
alone is not enough to save lives when some
don’t have the option and others have no
health care to save them once they have it,
and yet even that bare minimum is falling
by the wayside for the sake of profits. We
can only hope that this will be the final case
study against unfettered capitalism before
we finally learn to care for each other and
our planet. We’ve all but passed the point of
no return already.
4A — Wednesday, April 8, 2020
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Alanna Berger
Zack Blumberg
Brittany Bowman
Emily Considine
Jess D’Agostino
Jenny Gurung
Cheryn Hong
Krystal Hur
Ethan Kessler
Zoe Phillips
Mary Rolfes
Michael Russo
Timothy Spurlin
Miles Stephenson
Joel Weiner
Erin White
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Managing Editor
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Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
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Editor in Chief
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EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
RAY AJEMIAN | COLUMN
We are not the virus
Ray Ajemian can be reached at
rajemian@umich.edu.
J
esus Christ. I think most
of us can agree we didn’t
see anything on this scale
coming. It hasn’t been more
than a couple weeks since the
University of Michigan decided
to suspend in-person classes, and
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer recently
decided to join several other
states and shut down nonessential
services. More and more people
in the United States are getting
infected, and we’ve even passed
China as the country with the
most confirmed cases. Each state
is trying its own methods to limit
the spread, with the march of
infections seemingly unstoppable
at its current rate. Many criticize
President Donald Trump for his
refusal to make the hard decisions
early enough. The bewildering
thing about this mess is that there’s
supposedly a presidential race
running concurrently. If you forgot
about it, I wouldn’t entirely blame
you. The news cycle seemingly
switched from the U.S. presidential
elections and “Decision 2020”
to
exclusively
covering
the
coronavirus, spreading information
and possibly fear-mongering for
ratings. Understandably, the focus
of many citizens is on the ongoing
pandemic. But where does that
leave us on the path leading up to
November?
The
most
immediate
repercussion on the election cycle
has been the delay in Democratic
primaries, where former Vice
President Joe Biden has pulled a
political upset against the already
unprecedented early lead of Sen.
Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. Biden is now
projected to win the nomination, a
position almost nobody would’ve
predicted just a month ago. The
most recent state primaries were
March 17: Arizona, Illinois and
Florida. I personally hadn’t heard
anything about them until the day
after they happened. The news was
supplanted by the ongoing crises
in places like China and Italy, as
the full brunt of the pandemic had
yet to hit American shores. Ohio
was also slated to have a primary
that day, but delayed over early
concerns about the virus.
Many of the future primaries
— 14 states and one U.S. territory
— have been delayed until a later
date. The Democratic National
Committee (DNC) is scheduled
to meet August 17, but the status
of the convention has been put
into question. How long will the
quarantine last? Nobody really
knows. Trump extended his social
distancing guidelines until April
30, but will that be long enough?
What happens next? We don’t
know that, either. Not only is the
primary put in jeopardy, but the
general election in November is
at risk as well. As of now, there
are no plans to change anything
involving the general, but there
are still concerns to be addressed.
Congress has granted the states
$400 million to prepare for the
disease-rampant populace voting
in the general election, but strictly
defined precautions are nowhere
to be found. Many politicians fear a
delay in the election, which is a step
many countries — such as Chile
and the U.K. — have already taken
in their referendums and elections
to avoid further infections. Trump,
however, hasn’t made any moves
toward delaying the election, and
actually wants us to believe the
virus will reach its peak before
April is over.
If we want to find the solution
and prevent further fatalities
quickly, the first instinct is to
follow the leader in damage
control — which happens to be
China. Following an autocracy to
uphold the sanctity of a democracy
is a strange thing, but these are
strange times. New cases of
infection in mainland China have
nearly stopped, and the Asian
powerhouse is taking a leading role
in assisting fellow nations slow the
spread of the virus. One benefactor
of Chinese influence seems to
be Italy, gladly accepting aid
after European contemporaries
seemed too busy with their own
coronavirus struggles to assist
their neighbors. But as much as it
would seem topical, I’m not here
to prescribe a solution to solve
the issue, rather to try and have
some foresight for November.
As the U.S. is engulfed in its own
crisis, the growing Chinese clout
poses immediate and long-term
implications.
But long-term implications are
for people who aren’t impulsive.
The short-term is of course the
standing of Donald Trump, who
has long stood at odds with the
Chinese state on a variety of
issues. Trump is hard-pressed to
accept any aid from China and has
tried his own hand at fixing the
problem. From calling the panic a
Democratic hoax to supporting a
$2 trillion stimulus package, he’s
quickly shifted his positions and
tried to adjust to the continuous
stream of bad news. Trump’s
focus, however, has remained
surprisingly consistent. He wants
the economy to stay afloat. In a
press conference on March 23,
Trump went on record saying that
“We have to save these companies.
These are companies that weren’t
in trouble three weeks ago, and
now they’re in trouble because
of what happened. These are
great companies, they’re in some
cases triple-A companies,” giving
infallible justification for ignoring
the general populace. Even before
this $2 trillion stimulus, he was
dumping money into the stock
market to avoid a recession.
Trump is put into a volatile
position this November, as his
response to this crisis will most
definitely affect his chances in
the coming election. He’s handled
it with the grace of an elephant
jumping off a skyscraper into a
backyard pool, but his position
in the polls remains uncertain.
In fact, Trump’s rating is rising
amid the crisis. Trusting polls
has made a fool of many before,
but similar polls pitting Trump
against frontrunner Biden show
a closing gap between the two.
Only time will tell if his chances
were hindered or helped by his
contemporary decisions, but they
will certainly define his campaign.
A
return
to
normalcy
is
something that many people
wanted to come this November,
but that fickle and uninformed
dream
has
been
shattered
regardless of your candidate. The
future is uncertain and none of us
could’ve possibly predicted this.
I don’t have some sweeping and
all-encompassing
prescription
to solve everything I’ve listed in
this piece, but I want you to stay
on top of things. Make sure you
aren’t caught off guard when the
status quo changes. Stay informed
and stay alert, and most of all, stay
home.
Coronavirus and the machine – what about 2020?
SAM FOGEL | COLUMN
Sam Fogel can be reached at
samfogel@umich.edu.
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