Our take on the latest developments |
The coronavirus creates new problems and amplifies old ones. One example: U.S. hospitals have long struggled to safely discharge patients who are homeless. That already difficult calculation becomes agonizing when the need to isolate patients collides with the pandemic’s strain on the health-care system. If a homeless person has Covid-19 but doesn’t require hospitalization, doctors can send the patient to a shelter or the streets, where they might spread the virus, or keep them in the hospital, occupying a bed that others need. Either path could exacerbate the virus’s toll. The CDC has recommended isolation housing for the homeless with Covid-19, and some places are trying to create it. Now think about all the social problems the U.S. faced three months ago before anyone had ever heard of Covid-19: Half a million homeless. More than 2 million incarcerated. Tens of millions with untreated mental health or addiction problems. Almost 28 million uninsured. And 40% of households with less than $400 in emergency savings. These aren’t small nuisances at the edges of the pandemic. They’re social problems deep at the core of America in 2020. Each compounds the challenge of responding to the virus, and each one may be aggravated by the pandemic and the economic chaos that’s already underway. Just as the virus poses the greatest threat to individuals with other health problems, perhaps a society’s existing illnesses magnify the damage it may inflict. We don’t yet know how great that will be. But it isn’t too soon to ask: What does healing look like?—John Tozzi |
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