Think China Mishandled the Coronavirus? Wait Until It Sweeps America.

Flaws in the American Political System Make Us Vulnerable to a Pandemic

At this point you have probably heard a lot in the news about COVID-19, or the Coronavirus as it is commonly known. You might have even received a notice from your employer or school about how they plan to respond to what is now a worldwide epidemic likely beyond the point of containment.

Just as the virus spreading through China highlighted critical flaws in the country’s authoritarian government, so too will it showcase the weakness of America’s cruel and inefficient health care system. Below are the reasons why.

Our workers cannot take time off if they get sick.

The people who prepare our food, teach our kids, and work in areas such as airports which make them huge vectors for the spread of disease cannot take time off work if they get sick. I’ve always found systems of limited sick days to be ridiculous.

It’s like employers have this idea that workers possess some kind of control over when they become ill and can ration their sick days accordingly. When it comes to contagious diseases this becomes even more insane. It seems employers would rather sick people come to work and infect their coworkers and customers rather than simply take time off.

Even those who are allowed to take time off work without being fired often go without pay, something which is not doable for the many Americans working paycheck to paycheck. Paid sick leave should really be viewed as a public health priority similar to vaccination.

Even to the ruling class of this country who do not give a singular shit about the well being of workers, the risk of being infected by them seems to be a pretty compelling argument for protections on paid sick leave. Of course, those with the virus might not even know it because…

Testing is obscenely expensive and we lack universal healthcare.

“Universal healthcare”, “medicare for all”, “healthcare like the rest of the developed world”, whatever you want to call it, we don’t have it, and never will the dysfunction of our profiteering parasite ridden medical system be more obvious than during a public health emergency.

One family was charged a whopping $3,918 after being medically isolated and tested for Coronavirus, tests which eventually came back negative. It’s beneficial for people experiencing symptoms going in to get tested, but stories like this prevent people from doing so due to fear of bankruptcy. The aforementioned family has now turned to the dystopian world of healthcare crowdfunding in a desperate attempt to pay their bill.

Even as the federal government allocates funding to researching a vaccine, there has been reluctance among officials to say exactly how much the taxpayer funded vaccine will cost Americans to receive once it is developed.

A need to appease the writhing mass of for-profit grifters which our healthcare system is largely comprised of will make it much harder for the government to effectively allocate resources to this, which leads into the next reason why this thing is going to spread faster than a 2030 California wildfire…

Astounding government incompetence at the federal level.

Since his recent appointment as Plague Lord, Mike Pence has been managing the Coronavirus epidemic just about as badly as he managed Indiana’s AIDS outbreak. As if taking inspiration from China’s mishandling of the crisis, he is now preventing public health officials and scientists from speaking about the issue without going through him first.

This seems to be part of an effort to downplay the crisis, one which Trump has played a much more explicit role in. Recently Agent Orange has pushed the idea that the virus is a “hoax” by Democrats, and of course his zealous network of rightwing fuckwaffle pundits on Fox News and beyond have echoed this sentiment.

Not content with simply allowing for the spread of disease, Plague Lord Pence plays an active role in facilitating it. He was recently seen wiping his nose before shaking hands with top doctors at a Coronavirus press conference.

All of this is of course after health authorities sent workers into quarantined areas without protective equipment, an action which may have aided the initial spread of the virus to the US. Our government then in typical Trump regime fashion, attempted to cover this up until whistleblowers stepped forward.

Is there an upside to all of this?

Well if there is one it’s that whether directly through public outrage over a mismanaged crisis, or indirectly through its impact on the economy, the virus seems as though it will deal a significant blow to Trump’s reelection chances.

If we are lucky, perhaps this disaster could also show Americans why having healthcare like the rest of the developed world and sick leave for workers is in our best interest.