As published by The Daily Observer on Tuesday April 6, 2021
There is an old saying that a mirror does not lie. COVID-19 is holding a mirror on our face and the image is not very pretty. At every level– domestically and globally–the virus is showing us a host of inequities. These inequities are nothing new but now it is impossible to overlook or cover up.
When the schools in Chicago were closed because of the pandemic, a decision was made that all instruction will be delivered online. It quickly became clear 140,000 children attending public school did not have a computer or internet access at home. The number is probably in millions if you include the entire USA. The funding of all public schools is connected to the real estate taxes collected in that school district. It is, therefore, not too difficult to compute that rich areas have the best-funded schools. Perpetuating the social and economic divide starts at birth.
While the death rate from Covid-19 has gone down considerably, it is a shame that we lost over 553,000 people. A disproportionate number of people of the dead were poor and minorities as well as older people with underlying conditions.
It became appallingly clear in the first few months into the crisis that nursing homes were particularly vulnerable and older people were in the highest risk category for succumbing to the deadly Covid-19 virus. Children who cannot or do not want to take care of their parents or older relatives tend to send them to nursing homes.
Nursing homes are the most unregulated and inefficiently run among all healthcare facilities in the United States. Many such facilities are run by unscrupulous owners who mostly hire people with insufficient training for low wages. Infections spread like wildfire in many such nursing homes during the first phase of the pandemic, and many died because no infection control protocols were in place or enforced.
Statistics sadly show the death rate among African Americans is 3 times and among Hispanics 2 times that of whites. The numbers look equally dismal when we compare the death rates among the relatively poor versus affluent parts of the population. Economic inequality and healthcare inequity run parallel to each other here in the United States.
The job loss attributed to the effects of Covid-19 hit the poor and low-wage workers disproportionately. While most white-collar jobs shifted almost smoothly to zoom and other web platforms, there was huge job shedding in the retail and hospitality industry. Majority of the workers in those areas are Hispanics, African Americans, and women. The number of job losses in these two important areas of the economy was in the millions. According to most experts, a significant percentage of those jobs are unlikely to come back even in a post-Covid-19 economy.
Finally, vaccines and the rollout of vaccination programs are indicating that there may be light at the end of the dark tunnel of the Covid-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, here also the inequalities and inequities have shown up. In Chicago within months of the start of the government-sponsored vaccination program, it was clear that the vaccination rates among the whites were three times that of the minorities. Steps have been taken since then to remedy the deficiencies after a public outcry.
Inequality and inequity are equally visible in how the rich and powerful nations are getting their population vaccinated over their poorer counterparts. China and the USA are leaders in this race to get most of their population vaccinated. Sadly, half the countries in the world are yet to have any access to vaccines.
All news about the pandemic is not necessarily bad. Indeed, there are some interesting upsides to the Covid-19 crisis. The lockdowns and work-from-home policies have reduced traffic jams and associated pollution in major cities of the world. Air quality in those cities is cleaner and those images have been captured by satellites. On the human level, families have discovered how to enjoy each other’s company, reading is again a favorite pastime and people are eating healthier home-cooked meals.
Among the nations, there is a greater realization that problems like pandemics and climate change can only be solved globally and through cooperation. No country can be totally corona-free by itself. Words from President Kennedy’s inaugural speech–“if a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich”–are applicable to the Covid-19 situation. We can all use the Covid-19 pandemic as an opportunity to rebuild our societies and the world along with the ideals of equal opportunity, equity, and fairness.
Dr. Faisal M Rahman is a Founding Professor, the Graham School of Management, Saint Xavier University, Chicago, USA. He is also the CEO/President of APAC group of healthcare companies.