The Unraveling of America
rollingstone.comThis article is placing way too much weight on Covid changing the world. It will accelerate some trends, sure, but it's not a seminal change.
100k or 200 or 300 sounds like a lot of people but when a normal year sees 3 million dead it's barely a blip. Especially since many of those dying were likely to die within a couple of years anyway.
The US has not done worse compared to the rest of the west. Our deaths per capita are in line with France, Italy, Spain, and the UK. Germany is the only outlier.
This sentiment is entirely because of the dislkke of Trump. I don't like him either and think he sucks, but he's not ruining the country. The US will survive him and continue to be the strongest nation in the world.
If no more deaths were to occur after today, COVID would still be the 4th leading cause of death for this year after heart disease, cancer, and accidents. It isn't a blip. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm
Where it falls on the cause of death list doesn't really mean much. 3/4s of all deaths are caused by Cancer, Heart Disease, and Other. The remaining quarter of deaths are spread out over 8 causes in roughly equivalent numbers. Covid being high on that list ultimately doesn't mean much.
The better number to look at is percent increase in deaths. Worst case scenario we're looking at a 3-10% increase for a single year. Obviously not good, but that's amount of increase is not going to change the course of society.
> Obviously not good, but that's amount of increase is not going to change the course of society.
Are you old enough to remember Sept. 11, 2001? That changed a lot after far fewer deaths! Moreover, there's not much US political leadership can do[1] about deaths from Cancer, Heart Disease, etc. COVID 19, on the other hand...
[1] I mean besides something like Medicare for All. But let's ignore that for the moment since it's harder to draw a straight line from those policy decisions to deaths.
>Are you old enough to remember Sept. 11, 2001? That changed a lot after far fewer deaths
It did and it didn't. It started a couple wars and dominated public discourse until Obama was elected. But did it fundamentally change our society? I'd say no. It was a defining event in the lives of a lot of people. There was a temporary change in patriotism and concern about security. But today that effect is pretty much gone and as a society we're essentially the same as we would have been without 9/11.
In 20 years Covid will be the same. For those that lost a loved one or lost their career it will be a defining event. But for society? It won't really matter.
I don't think this article is saying that COVID is changing anything. I think it's saying that COVID lays bare how dysfunctional the US has become. It's a crisis that tests the ability of societies to come together, and the US is doing pretty badly.
>I don't think this article is saying that COVID is changing anything
?
>Pandemics and plagues have a way of shifting the course of history, and not always in a manner immediately evident to the survivors. In the 14th Century, the Black Death killed close to half of Europe’s population. A scarcity of labor led to increased wages. Rising expectations culminated in the Peasants Revolt of 1381, an inflection point that marked the beginning of the end of the feudal order that had dominated medieval Europe for a thousand years.
>The COVID pandemic will be remembered as such a moment in history, a seminal event whose significance will unfold only in the wake of the crisis. It will mark this era much as the 1914 assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the stock market crash of 1929, and the 1933 ascent of Adolf Hitler became fundamental benchmarks of the last century, all harbingers of greater and more consequential outcomes.
Totally correct, the other person cannot have read it.
No, it explicitly states that all the problems are pre covid and even pre Trump.
Did you read it all? "Odious as he may be, Trump is less the cause of America’s decline than a product of its descent. As they stare into the mirror and perceive only the myth of their exceptionalism, Americans remain almost bizarrely incapable of seeing what has actually become of their country."
Good grief, what a whiner.
We're half a year into covid, I personally know a handful of people who have had it and they are all recovered. Business is mostly moving forward, the stock market is fine, and there is no shortage of food, medicine, toilet paper, etc.
Vaccines are on the way. Every day brings us closer.
This is not a nation toppler.
Most of my family are now jobless. Many of them now can't afford necessary medication due to that fact.
My state's pandemic unemployment insurance site launched in May with gross security issues and had to be shut down. Thousands of workers and freelancers have yet to receive their first check.
My sister-in-law and her husband both came down with COVID and lost their jobs. They have three kids and now my partner and I are helping them financially (which we really can't afford to do).
There isn't a food shortage because corporations are forcing migrant laborers into the warehouses to work, and they're being infected and dying in higher proportions. Martyrs for the meat industry (Tyson's profits were up 600% Q1). There are human costs to "stock market is fine."
I personally am down thousands of dollars helping my friends/family/neighbors with their groceries and rents. My "rainy day fund" has long been drained and my one nest-egg land asset is probably a few months away from having to be sold to continue supporting my loved ones.
The state is on track to open schools in a couple of weeks. A recent study shows that closing schools can reduce the mortality rate per month by 58%; this research is being ignored in the name of profits. Business leaders and their cronies in the state are pushing for this to get parents out of the home and into work.
My more-rural family members flat-out refuse to wear masks and have already proclaimed that they will not take the vaccine should one become available.
You may be right that this isn't a "nation toppler," but nations are far more resilient than people. I'm happy for you that this isn't affecting you. Consider yourself lucky.
Wow, that is amazing.
I'm sorry you've been hit so hard by this. I really have painted an accurate picture-- in my part of the world, things are not changed that much.
I hope things get better for your area soon.