Tag: pandemic

(Director’s note: Pauline de Tholozany, an  Assistant Professor in the Department of Languages department, specializes in 19^th-century French Literature. Her first book, L’Ecole de la maladresse (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2017), is a history of clumsiness in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. She is now working on a second book that focuses on impatience, a feeling that we tend to decry; she is interested in why we do so. Her contribution to this series, posted on Medium.com, is on impatience.  She reports that this project as a whole was inspired by Clemson students’ activism and their legitimate, peaceful, and powerful impatience.  This is Clemson Humanities Now.)

(Director’s Note: Stephanie Barczewski is Professor of History and Carol K. Brown Scholar in the Humanities. She is a specialist in the history of modern Britain. Her most recent book is Heroic Failure and the British (2016); her next book, Englishness and the Country House, is forthcoming from Reaktion Books in 2021.  The title of her essay comes from Oscar Wilde’s essay “The Critic as Artist” (1891): “To give an accurate description of what has never occurred is not merely the proper occupation of the historian, but the inalienable privilege of any man of parts and culture.”  This is Clemson Humanities Now.)

The response to the coronavirus pandemic has relied upon academic expertise from obvious sources: medicine, epidemiology, biology and other scientific disciplines. Occasionally, however, historians have been summoned to provide insight, mostly related to the “Spanish flu” pandemic of 1918. For example, they have pointed out that the very name of the pandemic is misleading, because it resulted from Spain’s neutrality in World War I, which meant that its newspapers were the first to report the outbreak. Even today, the source remains unknown: it was most likely the United States but could also have been China, France or Britain. This knowledge is valuable not only for accuracy’s sake, but because it points out the damage that can be done by associating a deadly virus with a particular country. This has been useful for combating President Trump’s efforts to label Covid-19 the “Chinese” or “Wuhan virus,” which can lead to the demonization of people of East Asian ethnicity.[2]

Historians have also contributed to efforts to examine the efforts made to reduce the impact of the 1918 flu through “non-pharmaceutical interventions” (NPIs). Academic studies showing that American cities that imposed NPIs more aggressively saw reduced death rates have been frequently cited on social media.[3] But I would like to introduce a counter-example: in Britain, almost nothing was done to combat the spread of the virus, as the Great War was deemed a greater threat to public safety and the national welfare. The general attitude was summed up by Sir Arthur Newsholme in a report compiled for the Royal Society of Medicine in 1919: “There are national circumstances in which the major duty is to ‘carry on’, even when risk to health and life is involved.”[4] We might then assume that the death toll was higher in Britain than it was in the United States. But this was not the case: Britain, with minimal NPIs, suffered around 228,000 deaths out of a total population of around 42,000,000 (or .005 of the total population). The United States, with far more NPIs, suffered 670,000 deaths out of a total population of 104,000,000 (.006). So are we to conclude from this that not introducing NPIs saved 24,000 lives in Britain, or the difference between .005 and .006 of the population? Or conversely that NPIs cost 130,000 lives in the United States? This would be ridiculously simplistic, but it is no more so than the “Philadelphia had a parade and St. Louis did not” comparisons that have frequently been used to justify aggressive NPIs.

I am not attempting here to assess the efficacy of NPIs, a subject on which I am not qualified to offer an opinion, but rather I am trying to make a suggestion about how history can be most effective in helping to shape the response to a present-day crisis. My point is that the past rarely offers simple answers, because the evidence often points in multiple directions. History may be doomed to repeat itself, but this is not because we ignore it, but because of how difficult its lessons are to extract. In 1918, there was a debate over whether wearing masks could slow the spread of influenza. In some large cities, mask usage was widespread, and, as one Red Cross public-service announcement put it, “the man or woman or child who will not wear a mask” was seen as “a dangerous slacker.” But other voices argued that masks did not work, were uncomfortable or detrimental to commerce. Some public officials refused to wear them, and in San Francisco there was even an “Anti-Mask League.”[5] A century later, the “science” has not much changed; it is instead the culture of mask-wearing that has evolved in recent months, perhaps to fit people’s political predilections.

If history is going to provide understanding of the Covid-19 pandemic, it must be done in a way that acknowledges the unknowability of the past alongside its knowability; history tells us not only what we do know, but also what we do not. If we fail to acknowledge this, it will mislead more than it will enlighten. As a guide to present-day decision-making, it therefore requires more than facile comparisons between then and now. And with its eye on the long view, it may be better suited to helping to provide the answers to the big, long-term questions about the impact of the pandemic rather than the shorter-term ones such as what measures might be effective. In this moment where we are increasingly recognizing the historical impact of the privileging of certain groups over others, we should be unafraid to acknowledge how the ways in which western societies have chosen to react to a threatening new disease are having an impact on the rest of the world. Is the near-obsessive focus on Covid-19, in other words, yet another embodiment of the elevation of the lives of wealthy westerners over those of people in the developing world? While attention and resources are directed exclusively at Covid, millions may die from other infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria, the treatment of which is currently being set back for years if not decades, while millions of children will go unvaccinated for diseases like polio that were, prior to this crisis, on the brink of elimination. And this is without taking into account the effects of the massive economic disruption caused by the western response to the pandemic, which will cause widespread hunger and social unrest. This, I fear, and not our failure to achieve the eradication of the virus through lockdowns or universal mask-wearing, is the most dire way in which our current history will take the form of a repetition of the past.

[1] The title of this essay comes from Oscar Wilde’s essay “The Critic as Artist” (1891): “To give an accurate description of what has never occurred is not merely the proper occupation of the historian, but the inalienable privilege of any man of parts and culture.”

[2] See https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304645.

[3] The most-frequently cited study is: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3291356/.

[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-52564371. See also https://www.historyextra.com/period/first-world-war/spanish-flu-britain-how-many-died-quarantine-corona-virus-deaths-pandemic/.

[5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/05/06/mask-protests-flu-san-francisco-coronavirus/.

(Director’s note: Salvador Oropesa, Chair of Languages, earned a PhD in Latin American literature from Arizona State, was born in Málaga, Spain, and studied Spanish Philology at the Universidad de Granada, Spain.  This is Clemson Humanities Now.)

At this age of wisdom and foolishness, the pandemic arrived with the new year. The citizens of the kingdom of Spain obediently followed the royal decrees and constitutional States of Alarm. Spaniards stayed at home and wore masks. The old folks died alone in residences, and the younger survived thanks to the best cleaning and auxiliary personnel, nurses, and doctors. Tourists disappeared, and the Prado Museum ghosts returned. The old kings and queens painted by Titian, Velázquez, Ranc, Goya, and others were puzzled by the lack of visitors. The bars poured the last beer and turned the lights off, and the school principals closed the doors with keys that no one knew ever existed. People moved to the balconies of their apartments to contemplate deserted streets. They applauded and cheered the work done by the exhausted hospital personnel and police officers. Army soldiers entered abandoned residences to pick up the corpses of our elderly and disinfect the facilities. Grandparents could only see their grandchildren via video WhatsApp and schoolmates became little squares on computer screens and smartphones. Some local representatives, just a few, became beacons of hope amongst a generation of Instagram, hollow politicians. Democracy is boring and managerial, and many representatives got tired of dealing with reality. Teachers, doctors, pharmacists, firefighters, supermarket managers, restockers, cashiers, truckers, and bikers became the city’s lifeblood by delivering goods to those in need and became heroes in their own right while civic servants kept state services functioning.

Spaniards learned again or for the first time, what an exponential chart was. Today’s date, mid-June, the official death toll is more than 28,300, and the highest mortality rate in the world per million inhabitants. The curve has been flattened, and there is a slow return to the new normalcy: the soccer season is finishing with empty stadiums with a virtual audience, and furloughed players. People get sunburnt in the lines at the beach, waiting for their determined square meters to abide by social distancing standards. Churches are practically empty, with marks to determine where you can sit, communion is to only be received by hand, and offerings such as holy water and peace greetings are banned. The government canceled spring Holy Week ceremonies and the summer celebration running of the bulls. Resilience is the new buzz word. Many jobs have disappeared forever, Nissan shut down for good the Barcelona plant.

Many bars and cafes will never reopen, and plastic screens reflect the sadness of a new society, covered by the obligatory face masks. Memes in my Whatssup groups display the new reality. Why is the Committee of Experts secret under the excuse that they will be harassed if we know their names? Democracy and transparency are always casualties of big crises. The nation is not better; we have become too polarized; my friend Javier uses the term “podrido,” ‘rotten.” Javier is the epitome of common sense and cordura, the sanity of the heart as the Latin root ‘cord’ indicates. Tribes are more important than science and common sense. Greeks invented the tragedy to represent situations like this. We all lose, the least fortunate their lives, many their jobs, others, their immediate future like college degrees without a job waiting for them. I talk to my brother and sisters, my nephews and nieces, and their children, my schoolmates, and their feelings are that of being in the middle of a war, with many more months to come and no light at the end of the tunnel. The unaffected and the devastated of the pandemic share the same street as if a random bomb of the resurrected Civil War exploded. “Safe Sport, Safe Tourism” is the new slogan promoted by the Ministry of Health and professional soccer La Liga. Ojalá (I wish.)

(Director’s note: Brookes Brown, Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Program in Law, Liberty and Justice, writes on civic obligation, corporate ethics, and is beginning a book project on the ethics of loneliness.  This is Clemson Humanities Now.)

Like many of you, I have not interacted socially in person with anybody outside of my household since early March—no barbeques, no dinner parties, no weddings, no coffee-dates, no board-game nights. I expect I will not do so for many months. I am fortunate—my quarantine household includes three adults and a child. Even if the number of people with whom I can engage are greatly reduced, I can have an in-person conversation, trade household duties, receive a hug. For millions of people, this is not an option. An estimated 35.7 million Americans reside in single person living arrangements (28% of households.) For such persons, quarantine often entails severe social isolation. For the rest of us, the consequences of Covid-19—the need to stay at home, tele-working, unemployment, mean far lower levels of social interaction. This increased physical isolation is likely to be accompanied by an increase in loneliness. Loneliness is not the same thing as social isolation. As great literature often reminds us, it is possible to be alone without being lonely, and to be deeply lonely without being physically alone. Yet there is certainly a correlation. The less we interact with others, lonelier we are likely to feel.

Philosophers do not typically treat the sensation of loneliness as relevant to justice. Instead, it is viewed as a matter of personal concern. I might want more friends, just like I might want to go on vacation in Tahiti, have twins, become a dermatologist, or learn to Salsa. But unlike food or shelter or healthcare or money the fact that I do not have these desires is not a moral concern.

In a project at which I am currently at work, I argue that this common way of thinking about loneliness is a mistake. Loneliness is concerning for the exact same reason that lack of access to healthcare or money are concerning, and thus should be equally considered a concern of justice. In many ways, the argument is simple. Resources like wealth or healthcare are especially important because they underlie our ability to achieve all of our different personal aims, whatever they might be. You cannot start a judo company, succeed as a trucker, or become an artist if you are dying of cancer, or cannot afford mats, brushes, or a driver’s license.

Unlike failing to make it to the South Pacific, loneliness has consequences every bit as devastating to our general ability to pursue our personal projects as lack of access to healthcare or income. Lonely people are twice as likely to develop dementia or suffer losses in executive function.^[1] Lonely individuals have higher blood-pressure, poorer sleep quality,^[2] more harmful stress hormones,^[3] and experience greater bodily pain.^[4] Women who require breast biopsies are at nine times the risk of developing breast cancer if they lack social support.^[5] Social connectedness is important for genomic expression and immune-regulation.^[6] Caring relationships give us other people that we can rely on for help in everything from moving to paying for college. Our relationships to others are even an important part of how we maintain ourselves as people who care about justice. lack of social connections has been shown to heighten self-centeredness and makes it more difficult to envision the challenges faced by others.^[7] If we are sick, have fewer people we can count on, or have trouble maintaining our dispositions we will find it harder to succeed at our aims, just as we would if we lacked money or healthcare.

This suggests that in thinking about who we as a society need to help in the coming months and years, we will not only need to consider those who will lose income, or who find themselves infected. We will also need to think about what we owe to those who are facing a loss of social connection in our global quest to survive this pandemic.

(Director’s note: Joseph Mai, Associate Professor of French, with an affiliation in World Cinema, team teaches with Angela Naimou, Associate Professor of English, a Creative Inquiry group,“Stories of Refuge, Detention, and Hospitality,” dedicated to understanding the stories of immigrants, the conditions of detention, and creative practices of hospitality.  This is Clemson Humanities Now.)

If you are as privileged as I am, the current pandemic has meant inconvenient but bearable modifications to daily life: wearing a mask, more time at home, Zoom meetings, perhaps an ill-starred attempt to cut your own hair. But for immigrants held in US mandatory detention centers, the freedom to make such basic choices in healthcare does not exist. For some, the situation has been catastrophic.

I have been thinking of this because, over the past year, my colleague, Dr. Angela Naimou (English), and I have been mentoring a group of students conducting research on the stories that immigrants tell about detention. One of their central activities is to participate in a visit, organized by the El Refugio hospitality house, with people detained at the Stewart Detention Center, located in Lumpkin GA. Stewart is the second largest ICE detention center in the United States, a country with the largest immigration detention system in the world. During our conversations, which take place in English, French, Arabic, and Spanish, we learn a great deal about life in detention, including much about medical distress.

Here is one alarming recent story, though only scarce details are available. On May 24, Santiago Baten-Oxlaj, a husband and father to three children, became the first person to lose his life to COVID-19 in the Stewart facility. Santiago had been arrested at home in Marietta, Georgia on March 2. By March 26 he had requested and been granted voluntary departure to his home country of Guatemala. By April 17, the 34-year-old was sick enough to require a month-long hospitalization, at the end of which he died. Santiago was clearly not a flight risk. His unnecessary death exposes much of the dysfunction and callousness inherent in immigrant detention.

Like most ICE detention centers, Stewart is operated by a private company (CoreCivic), whose main priority is to increase returns for its shareholders. Much of the company’s cost cutting directly affects people’s health and living conditions: low-quality food, sometimes dirty drinking water, extremely overcrowded sleeping and washing facilities, and a lack of medical technology, medicine, and health-care personnel. When immigrants complain of poor conditions or illness, the undertrained staff often respond with punishment such as solitary confinement. Even mental health incidents receive punitive responses, and two men with documented mental health issues have committed suicide at Stewart after being left in solitary confinement.

Given this structural neglect during routine times, the inability of Stewart’s staff to manage this pandemic has been sadly predictable. Just two days before Santiago was granted voluntary departure, immigrants held a hunger strike to demand more protection and possible release. But still most CDC guidelines have been ignored (staff reportedly do not use personal protection equipment, living conditions have changed little, and ICE continues to transfer people from one center to another). To make matters worse, Stewart County has such a spike of COVID-19 that it has declared a state of emergency. Unsurprisingly, the virus has penetrated deep into the facility. Of some 300 employees, over 50 have tested positive. ICE claims that 16 detainees have been infected but there are reliable reports that many cases go untested.

Indeed, it is not easy to know precisely how far conditions have deteriorated inside. The one “safety measure” that ICE has consistently enforced throughout the country has been the suspension of personal visits. This means that the only communication detainees may now have with the outside is through their attorneys (the vast majority do not have one), letters (if delivered), or telephone accounts. Those who have been detained for up to two years and have come to rely on visits from family or community members have grown more isolated.

Thinking about Santiago Baten-Oxlaj can be overwhelming at a time when we are already worried about tumultuous current events. This is especially true when we consider how Santiago and his family’s story touches upon contexts beyond the walls of the detention center: immigrants who are essential workers and who lack health care; undocumented people who fear arrest by ICE or local police participating in 287(g) agreements; people living in tents and kept just beyond our border due to the ironically named “migrant protection protocols” (better known as “remain in Mexico”); at risk incarcerated people throughout the US…

But despite this burden, our research group has continued to explore forms and practices of hospitality that struggle to affirm dignity within this system. Groups such as El Refugio, Project South, SPLC, and the Tahirih Justice Center have sought new ways to support immigrants (through providing telephone accounts, for instance) and demand accountability, transparency, and the release of vulnerable individuals. This summer our students have been thinking of how to aid these efforts and educate those around them.

Bio: Joseph Mai is an Associate Professor of French with an affiliation in World Cinema. He teaches courses on French society and French cinema and literature, and is currently completing a volume on the post-genocide cinema of the Franco-Cambodian filmmaker, Rithy Panh. “Stories of Refuge, Detention, and Hospitality” is a Creative Inquiry group, dedicated to understanding the stories of immigrants, the conditions of detention, and creative practices of hospitality.