Welcome to the age of epidemiological liberalism
Despite being at increased risk from the negative health impacts associated with COVID-19 infection, and despite potentially serious consequences to changes in service provision in 2020, for unstated reasons people who rely on the Disability Support Pension did not qualify for the Coronavirus Supplement. Today’s important piece by Holly Barrow, of the UK-based Immigration Advice Service (@IASImmigration), outlines the dire situation for people with a disability in the UK and warns that the neoliberal response to the pandemic reflects a calculated valuation of lives.
If there is one thing the pandemic has made abundantly clear, it is the extent to which social inequalities shape our lived experiences. In the UK and beyond, those who are already marginalised - people living in poverty, people experiencing homelessness, people of colour, migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, disabled people - have suffered unique hurdles throughout the Coronavirus pandemic.
While almost everyone has been affected in some way by this vicious disease, it would be untrue and unfair to suggest that we have all weathered the same storm. For those with disabilities and underlying health conditions, the pandemic has regrettably reinforced and exacerbated long standing issues. Ableism in particular has been rife throughout this crisis, with both government and public response exposing how deeply ingrained this is.
In the UK, the government’s attempts to reassure the public have often been rooted in ableist logic, with its public announcements and press conferences frequently littered with language that dehumanises those who are immunocompromised or who have a disability. From the outset, Prime Minister Boris Johnson drew a clear distinction between those who are primarily considered ‘healthy’ and ‘able’ and those with underlying health conditions or disabilities that put them at greater risk. Research carried out by Bristol University found that terms such as ‘pre-existing’ and ‘underlying health conditions’ soon became shorthand for a ‘significant othering of people affected by the virus.’ It became a tool to attempt to justify the spiralling death toll, almost implying that, since these groups are more susceptible to the virus, their deaths are to be expected.
Regrettably, vast swathes of the population lapped up this rhetoric, firmly reassuring themselves and others that ‘only’ those with pre-existing conditions would likely suffer the most. This became so normalised that news headlines frequently focused on the fact that ‘Nine in 10 dying with coronavirus have an existing illness’; a way of comforting those most able and healthy. Disability activists challenged this dangerous devaluing of lives, with Gem Turner responding to such headlines by writing: “I know some people will read this & secretly sigh with relief – what about us that DO have health conditions? Why is this being shared so matter of fact? Are we not shocked? Sad? Angry that we don’t have enough resources?”
The role of neoliberalism in promoting this dehumanisation and devaluing of lives cannot be understated. ‘Herd immunity’ is a key example of this. When Boris Johnson spoke to ITV’s This Morning hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield in March 2020, he raised the concept of ‘herd immunity’, suggesting that perhaps we should ‘take it on the chin’, allowing the disease ‘to move through the population, without really taking as many draconian measures.’ By ‘draconian measures’, the Prime Minister was seemingly referring to national lockdowns - an approach China had taken.
Researchers at Sheffield University described how this marked a type of ‘epidemiological neoliberalism’; the idea that allowing the virus to run its natural cause - just as neoliberalism allows for an unregulated market - would build resistance in the majority while protecting profit, ‘only’ hurting a vulnerable minority in the process. This approach was heavily scrutinised, with academics describing how - just like neoliberalism - this ‘results in violence against the weak and the poor: elderly and disabled people, homeless people, refugees and people with severe health conditions – many of whom are likely to also have a lower socio-economic status because of the correlation between poverty and illness.'
In the same way that immunocompromised and disabled people were ‘othered’ by the government, so too were the elderly, further reinforcing how neoliberalism prioritises and establishes a hierarchy of human worth. Harrowingly, the deaths of elderly people in social care settings and in care homes were initially not included in national Coronavirus death statistics. It seemed that, rather than ensuring that the necessary resources were there to protect the most vulnerable, their lives were instead seen as expendable; their deaths considered an inevitability not worth counting.
For disabled people and those with existing conditions, this callous devaluing of lives similarly stretched into health care settings. Many of those who had long required ventilators to live were soon treated as an inconvenience, with the conditions of care under neoliberalism becoming brutally clear. Abrams and Abbott - two scholars working on muscular dystrophy care - described ‘a heartbreaking trend’ whereby ‘again, disability is reduced to breaths not taken by more productive lungs.’ In a further callous move, many with pre-existing health conditions and disabilities reported receiving ‘DNR’ (do not resuscitate) forms in the post. Attempts to control the allocation/restriction of access to healthcare became intertwined with a eugenics-like ideology, with limited resources prompting a horrifying ranking of human worth.
The inherent value that neoliberalism places on ‘productivity’ has inevitably contributed to both government and public response to the pandemic. Even the rise in anti-lockdown sentiment and anti-masks among the public seems symptomatic of a system which values some lives over others. Some of those considered most healthy and able have urged the government to end national lockdowns, instead suggesting that those who are most vulnerable to the virus ought to shield indefinitely while the rest of the public goes about their lives as normal. Once again, this mentality leads us to question: who is considered worth protecting and why? Anti-lockdown arguments inadvertently suggest that those with the most materially ‘productive’ lives ought to be prioritised.
If there is one thing we ought to take from this pandemic, it is that all lives are worth living and worth protecting. This means swiftly reasserting the societal value placed on material productivity and ensuring that immunocompromised and disabled people are treated with the respect and dignity they deserve.
Posted by @SusanMaury