 | | Photo by Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images |
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It’s been said that dying from Covid-19 is one of the more lonely ways one can lose their life, the risk of contagion being so great that loved ones cannot be at the bedside of people they care about when it matters the most. As CNN’s Daniel Burke reports, the coronavirus pandemic and its cruelties have forced a confrontation with one of our most ancient fears—dying alone—and has robbed us of the rituals by which we confront this fear.
Lately, there have been some lonely coronavirus deaths I’ve noted with particular despair: a Staten Island man, who died on May 5; a 50-year-old from the suburbs north of Chicago, who apparently died in mid-April but whose death hadn’t been reported until this week; another man, from Hawthorne, California, who perished at the end of March. These all had something in common: They worked for Amazon, as anonymous but essential worker bees in the powerful retailer’s network of warehouse fulfillment centers. |
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There’s lately been a surge of need at Amazon, The Verge’s Josh Dzieza notes. As the pandemic has forced so many of us to sequester in our homes to ensure that our threadbare public health system isn’t overrun, our reliance on the seamless and timely delivery of goods to our doorsteps has hit new peaks. To cover the demand, Amazon’s been on something of a hiring binge. Per Dzieza, “It has hired 175,000 workers in recent weeks, and this month, it ended a policy begun early in the crisis allowing workers to take unlimited time off without pay.”
Those warehouses have gotten a little more crowded as new hires man their posts. It should come as no surprise then, that the risk of contracting Covid-19 has also surged at these workplaces. “Amazon hasn’t released statistics on how many facilities have had COVID-19 cases or how many workers have fallen ill,” writes Dzieza, “but estimates tallied by workers from alerts they receive put the number of facilities at over 130—some ... with dozens of cases.” Workers have made various attempts to force Amazon to step up and ensure a greater measure of safety at these facilities, a long-standing problem that preceded the coronavirus outbreak.
But it’s the tumult of the current crisis that apparently led Amazon Vice President Tim Bray, perhaps concerned with the possibility that there is a source of moral authority in this universe, to resign rather than continue to tacitly endorse the despicable company policies that have worsened the lives of the workers lowest on Amazon’s org chart. Bray cited the “firings of two employees who criticized the company’s warehouse operations and climate policies,” including the termination of one Amazon worker who attempted to lead a strike to force the corporation to provide safer workplaces during the coronavirus crisis. These, Bray wrote in a blog post, were “evidence of a vein of toxicity running through the company culture.” |
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That “vein of toxicity” runs through our politics, too. Throughout the United States, the perverse push to “reopen America” is slowly taking hold, even as the early returns show a spike in Covid-19 cases and deaths. With so much at risk, and the best way of avoiding the coronavirus continuing to be remaining in quarantine, the best option for many workers would be to remain on unemployment for the foreseeable future.
In the state of Ohio, many workers don’t have that option. The government there is asking employers to report any workers who refuse available work on the grounds that they are worried about contracting Covid-19. These workers will be deemed ineligible for unemployment benefits. The state has even gone to the trouble and expense of setting up an online portal so that bosses can narc on those who don’t want to die. According to The Washington Post, some 600 employers have already turned in 1,200 people who have refused to put their lives at risk. It is very likely that the next wave of coronavirus deaths will feature those in this cohort of ratted-out workers; our shared experience from the catastrophic unemployment that followed the 2008 financial crash informs us that spikes in suicide are also a likely outcome.
Hopefully those tasked with processing those benefits claims aren’t working in an enclosed environment. And hopefully those who might soon be drafted into duty as cannon fodder for the free market’s fusillade against an invisible microbe might be properly eulogized. Because while it may be that these workers are contracting Covid-19, what’s killing them is a toxic vein of capitalism.
—Jason Linkins, Deputy Editor |
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| As for why the president would countenance the reopening of the economy and the deaths that will ensue, Libby Watson argued that perhaps it’s because the disease is “primarily killing poor people, black people, residents of underfunded and overburdened nursing homes, prisoners,” and the like. In the hunt for some sort of authority figure to correct the course we’re on, the forces that shape our media narratives held up former President George W. Bush as an exemplar. “In the final analysis,” he said in a brief video, “we are not partisan combatants. We are human beings, equally vulnerable and equally wonderful in the sight of God.” As Osita Nwanevu notes, a false notion of bipartisan purity is not going to save us, any more than the farcical “task force” that has primarily been concerned with getting Trump on television. Nevertheless, many Democrats stumbled over one another in the race to limn Bush as a statesman par excellence. If only they could find some sort of putative presidential nominee to put forward as a standard-bearer in these moments! |
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