The Pandemic Isn't Endemic Yet: Mass Media's Casual Eugenics and Self-Defeat of "Living With COVID"

        Former Biden health advisers say the US needs to change its Covid-19 strategy to face a 'new normal' U.S. experts offer a sensible strategy for living with Covid, a CNN headline writes. U.S. experts offer a sensible strategy for living with covid. Biden should listen, an op-ed by the Washington Post reads. Throughout the past couple of months, discourse surrounding the Omnicron variant has echoed the feelings of despair, hopelessness, and a longing for "normalcy," paving the way to a much more sinister idea. An idea that reared its ugly head in January, when CDC Director Rochelle Walensky stated this in a televised interview on Good Morning America:

The overwhelming number of deaths, over 75 percent, occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities, so really these are people who are unwell to begin with, and yes, really encouraging news in the context of Omicron.

  

        Disability justice activists, including myself, were *rightfully* upset with Walensky's comments. Ultimately, the fact that the U.S. fundamentally believes that it's "encouraging" if disabled and chronically ill individuals die is simply a form of eugenics. Therefore, to quote Matthew Cortland, "it's no wonder that...[the CDC] has consistently refused to issue guidance protecting the health...[and] wellbeing of chronically ill Americans." Unsurprisingly, around the same time, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a set of articles that argued "for making COVID-19 the 'new normal' and...[called] on states to 'retire' the reporting of COVID-19 deaths." In a time when hospitalizations and deaths are still in the thousands, calls for "living with COVID" and fear-mongering around the "inevitability" of COVID-19 by the ruling class is essentially a cop-out for the state to do absolutely nothing. Although the "do nothing" approach isn't much of a change from the U.S.'s previous strategy before, the "endemic COVID" narrative espoused by government officials, scientists, and media outlets is not only extremely concerning but also dangerous. With rhetoric that echoes the eugenics movements of the 20th century, it is unsurprising that many disability justice activists are concerned given that these ideas, taken to their most logical conclusion, are condoning state-sanctioned mass murder of the most vulnerable by the masses.  

COVID-19-related outcomes in immunocompromised patients

        Ultimately, the U.S.'s stance on the pandemic that is blindly supported by the media, i.e., "living with COVID," is one that doesn't value the lives of children, the elderly, and the immunocompromised. At the end of the day, many people don't have the luxury of "living with COVID." For instance, race and class have proven to play a substantial role in determining who contracts and dies from COVID-19 as well as who can and cannot access high-quality medical treatment for it. A study conducted by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and DePaul University confirms this, noting "that counties with a higher proportion of black or Hispanic residents and those with higher levels of income inequality were associated with higher rates of COVID-19 infections and deaths." Moreover, immunocompromised individuals and folks with disabilities and chronic illness (who cannot get vaccinated) are significantly more likely to contract and die from COVID-19. The CDC itself acknowledges this, stating that people with disabilities are more likely than those without disabilities to "get COVID-19 and have worse outcomes." I haven't even mentioned that COVID-19 in and of itself is a mass disabling event (long COVID) or the fact that many countries outside of the West are not able to manufacture vaccines due to PHARMA's refusal to share their patents. Undeniably, the inequalities at play reinforce the idea that some lives simply don't matter to the state, an idea that disproportionately targets "the young, the elderly, the immunocompromised...[who are the] most vulnerable members of our societies." As mentioned previously, the narrative of "living with COVID" espoused by the media is teetering on the edge of 20th-century eugenics and, if we are not careful, will result in a casual disregard for the wellbeing of those who are "weak," i.e., people that we are SUPPOSED to protect. Support for this idea should be called out for what it really is: absurd, dangerous, bigoted, and eugenist. Contrary to what Rochelle Walensky says, it is never encouraging for anyone to die, especially those who the state considers "weak." The U.S.'s refusal to adequately address this pandemic and the media's failure to call out the gross negligence of the state is directly responsible for the mess we are currently in. Claiming that COVID will inevitably become "endemic" no matter what is doing everyone a huge disservice; it essentially proposes that we should give up instead of fighting back. At the end of the day, if the state refuses to address the pandemic, we must do it ourselves by coming together in the name of solidarity and mutual aid. We owe it to those disproportionately affected by COVID-19 as their existence is threatened in a world in which we give up and decide to start living with COVID for the sake of "normalcy."