“Ill Will: Throughout history, pandemics have been structured by racism” (2020) by Edna Bonhomme at The Baffler Mag

Excerpt: “For the mostly black and brown prisoners in the New York City jails in the early 1990s, the tuberculosis epidemic was so pernicious because there was, at first,
PC: An 1832 lithograph depicting the “invasion” of cholera, via the Wellcome Collection
“‘Nature is healing’: Why we need to be careful about how we tell the story of the pandemic“ (2020) by Nayanika Mathur at scroll.in
Excerpt: “Celebratory narratives of lower pollution levels in this period of the Indian lockdown also play into the hands of a long-standing debate, which pits “development” against “conservation”. A variation of this very same thinking is one that we now see politicians, policy-makers, the media voice all the time in India – that the objectives of saving the environment and moving the economy along (“economics” versus “environment”) cannot ever be
“COVID-19 Exposes the Weakness of a Major Theory Used to Justify Capitalism“ (2020) by Richard D. Wolff at Counterpunch.org
Excerpt: “Moreover, it was partly belief in the fantasy—that private profit-driven enterprise is the “most efficient” economic system—that hobbled governments around the world. They did far less than they could and should have done to compensate for capitalism’s failures adequately to prepare for or contain the virus. Across the globe, the more entrapped in that fantasy (as in the U.S., the UK, and Brazil), the worse the death and destruction of COVID-19. Where entrapment was less (as in New Zealand, Vietnam, and Japan)—sometimes because of competing traditional values not or not yet displaced by the capitalist fantasy—death and destruction were minimized.”
“Plague passport to detention — Epidemic Act was a medical surveillance tool in British India” (2020) by Tarangini Sriraman at theprint.in

Excerpt: “While the colonial establishment complained, these practices must not be seen purely as Indians causing misinformation, but also as providing critical information of socio-cultural prisms such as caste through which Indians act.
Besides, colonial officials were themselves guilty of
PC: A quarantined area during the bubonic plague outbreak, Karachi, 1897. | Wellcome Library archive collection
“Mike Davis: The Coronavirus Crisis Is a Monster Fueled by Capitalism” (2020) by Mike Davis at inthesetimes.com
Excerpt: ” The outbreak has instantly exposed the stark class divide in American healthcare. Those with good health plans who can also work or teach from home are comfortably isolated provided they follow prudent safeguards. Public employees and other groups of unionized workers with decent coverage will have to make difficult choices between income and protection. Meanwhile, millions of low-wage service workers, farm employees, the unemployed and the homeless are being thrown to the wolves.
As we all know, universal coverage in any meaningful sense requires universal provision for paid sick days. A full 45% of the workforce is currently denied that right and virtually compelled to either transmit the infection or set an empty plate. Likewise, 14 states have refused to enact the provision of the Affordable Care Act that expands Medicaid to the working poor. That’s why nearly one in five Texans, for instance, lacks coverage.”
“Against Agamben: Is a Democratic Biopolitics Possible?“ (2020) by Panagiotis Sotiris at Viewpoint Magazine

Excerpt: “The notion of biopolitics, as it was formulated by Michel Foucault, has been a very important contribution to our understanding of the changes associated with the passage to capitalist modernity, especially in regards to the ways that power and coercion are exercised. From power as a right of life and death that the sovereign holds, we pass to power as an attempt to guarantee the health (and productivity) of populations. This led to an expansion without precedent of all forms of state intervention and coercion. From compulsory vaccinations to bans on smoking in public spaces, the notion of biopolitics has been used in many instances as the key to understanding the political and ideological dimensions of health policies.
At the same time, it has allowed us to
“Covid-19 and the Continuity of the Familiar” (2020) by Raza Saeed at Critical Legal Thinking
Excerpt: “Pandering to the popular opinion by downplaying underlying problems, misrepresenting facts, presenting partial truths and the refusal to pay heed to scientific and medical expertise continued to be the first choice for many regimes, just as it has been the trend over the last decade. US, UK, India, Pakistan, Iran as well as China followed the populist trajectories initially until they were shaken out of their
But in terms of the prognosis, the disease is blamed on ‘them’ coming in to infect ‘us’, further fuelling racism, xenophobia, anti-migrant sentiments
“Anti-Capitalist Politics in the Time of COVID-19” (2020) by David Harvey at Jacobin magazine
Excerpt: “In the cholera epidemics of the nineteenth century, the transcendence of barriers of
This “new working class” is
“How the Pandemic Will End” (2020) by Ed Yong on The Atlantic
Excerpt: ” After infections begin ebbing, a secondary pandemic of mental-health problems will follow. At a moment of profound dread and uncertainty, people are being cut off from soothing human contact. Hugs, handshakes, and other social rituals are now tinged with danger. People with anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorder are struggling. Elderly people, who are already excluded from much of public life, are being asked to distance themselves even further, deepening their loneliness. Asian people are suffering racist insults, fueled by a president who insists on labeling the new coronavirus the “Chinese virus.” Incidents of domestic violence and child abuse are likely to spike as people are forced to stay in unsafe homes. Children, whose bodies are mostly spared by the virus, may endure mental trauma that stays with them into adulthood.”
“GIORGIO AGAMBEN: NORMALISING THE STATE OF EXCEPTION UNDER THE COVID-19 EPIDEMIC” (2020) by Giorgio Agamben on non.copyriot.com
Excerpt: “What the epidemic clearly shows is that the state of exception, to which governments have long familiarised us, has become the normal condition. Men have become so accustomed to living in a state of permanent crisis that they do not seem to
“Manufacturing Epidemics: Pathogens, Poverty, and Public Health Crises in India” (2020) by Sheetal Chhabria on The India Forum

Excerpt: “Historical common sense suggests that the colonial regime’s low public health expenditures