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 ERIN WHITE Managing Editor Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com ELIZABETH LAWRENCE Editor in Chief EMILY CONSIDINE AND MILES STEPHENSON Editorial Page Editors Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of The Daily’s Editorial Board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. 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. CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor and op-eds. Letters should be fewer than 300 words while op-eds should be 550 to 850 words. Send the writer’s full name and University affiliation to tothedaily@michigandaily.com.