Tag: COVID-19

Ten ways the COVID-19 pandemic is contributing to growing inequalities

Nationally and internationally, the COVID-19 pandemic is revealing and intensifying the inequalities between rich and poor. The virus is the same, but that is how far the equality extends.

Different access to private spaces, safe work environments, health care, economic support and vaccine are not only revealing existing inequalities around the world but also intensifying them.

Local inequalities

Nationally, there are inequalities depending on if you are able to transition your work online, working from home or if you have to continue working outside of your home, increasing the risk of infection dramatically. Many people able to work from anywhere have, while schools are closed, escaped cities for vacation houses with more open spaces.

Many have also lost their jobs altogether during this time. Although Australia has rolled out some extensive economic support packages such as the JobSeeker and JobKeeper, there are still those that found themselves without backing, such as non-citizens with casual, short-term employments. These payments have decreased substantially in the last few months, although many industries have yet to recover.

International disparities

However, the main inequalities can be found internationally. The effects are not limited to peoples’ health and access to medical treatment, the effects on people’s economic stability and food safety have been huge as lockdowns and other preventative measures have led to loss of employment and other sources of income.  

In India, for example, the country with the second most infections after the US, the pandemic has caused severe suffering. A sudden and strict lockdown in March left tens of thousands of migrant workers stuck, trying to get out of the city by foot in search for work. Millions of infections around the country meant that hospitals were (and are) strained well over capacity and had to turn patients away to their deaths. The pandemic also intensified Islamophobia as Muslims were blamed for the fast spread of the virus, unemployment and hunger.

The virus hit all economies hard and around the world lockdowns led to extreme hunger and poverty. Some countries were worse equipped to deal with these unprecedented events. Countries around Asia, South America and Africa saw a sharp increase in people living in extreme poverty and hunger. Colombian households struggling in lockdown waved red flags in their windows, a cry for help and donations from passers-by.

The latest State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report estimates that in 2019, 690 million people suffered from severe, chronic hunger. This number has increased by approximately 60 million in the last five years. Exact numbers are impossible to obtain, but the same report predicts that the pandemic might have brought another 130 million people into chronic hunger by the end of last year.

Access to vaccine

Whenever the COVID-19 vaccine is brought up among people at social gatherings I attend, I hear people say that: “I’d rather not be among the first to take it.” Granted, these are people that are not in risk groups and that hence tend to not fear the virus for themselves. In Australia we are partially sheltered from the devastating harms and deaths caused by the virus, as one of few countries that have managed to keep the virus at bay. People are therefore more concerned with the rush under which the virus has been developed and potential consequences of the vaccine, rather than the virus itself.

Due to the low levels of Corona cases in Australia, we are in a quite unique position to hold off on vaccines, to see how the vaccines fairs in other countries. This is a luxurious position to be in, while other nations are scrambling to use the vaccines to help curtail the rapid spread of the virus.

Meanwhile, many poorer countries are at risk of delayed access to vaccine. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) cautions that the unequal distribution of the vaccine to poorer countries is leading to a ‘catastrophic moral failure’. Richer countries are buying up available vaccines, leaving the poorer in danger of missing out. This, Tedros says, will extend the life of the pandemic.

Extended inequalities

The inequalities between countries have never been more apparent than during this global pandemic. Yet, the pandemic is far from over, and the aftermaths are yet to be fully appreciated. Apart from the previously named inequalities and manners in which the pandemic has extended these, delaying the distribution of vaccine to poorer countries, will continue to magnify socioeconomic and health inequalities between rich and poor.

The WHO is calling for wealthier countries to support Covax, a vaccine-distribution scheme aimed at providing equitable access to vaccine for all countries. For Covax to be successful, wealthier nations need to stop making separate bilateral deals which put them ahead of vulnerable populations in poorer countries. More than that, these rising inequalities require further commitments on part of wealthier nations to support other countries to deal with the pandemic and its aftermaths, to minimise poverty, suffering and harm.

What if you woke up to find that you are not allowed to move beyond 5 kilometres of your home? Oh wait, we already did.

What if you woke up one day to find that you are not allowed to move beyond 5 kilometres of your home? Actually, that already happened. Two months ago, people in Melbourne were told that, from that night forward, we were no longer allowed to go beyond 5 kilometres of our homes (unless for essential work or health related reasons). The Prime Minister of Victoria (the state Melbourne is located in) announced that: ‘Where you slept last night is where you’ll need to stay for the next six weeks’. If the police find you outside of that distance, without a valid reason, you risk incurring a fine of up to $1652 AUD. These are extreme, punitively enforced measure meant to limit the spread of coronavirus by restricting our movements.

Since the lockdown, I try to get out of my house for a daily walk. I walk in circles around my home. Trying and often failing to find new, interesting alternatives to my standard route. I live close to a major road called Ballarat Road. On one side of it, there is an industrial area. However, if I move beyond the anonymous industrial buildings, I reach the river with a trail running along it. Unfortunately, it lacks lighting, and, on weekdays, I usually do not get out before dark. So, I stay on the other side of Ballarat Road, around the residential area. The smaller the roads, the more I prefer to walk there. In the two and a half months I have lived here I have really gotten to know my neighbourhood in ways I usually would not.

What do you have within 5 kilometres of your home? If you are not in Melbourne, imagine if all you could access for the next two months was what is within 5 kilometres of your home. Neighbourhood characteristics, amenities and services are important component of urban equality. Well planned, liveable and healthy neighbourhoods and cities should provide everything you need within a walkable distance.

Similar to the ways COVID-19 is exacerbating issues of mental health, the struggles of doing a PhD, a healthy lifestyle and so on, COVID is also exacerbating social and economic inequalities. I have preciously talked about the significance of a house or apartment and the size of one’s property as we spend more time at home. However, add to this the inequalities associated with location. There is a huge disparity between living within five kilometres of a beach, a green area or in a satellite suburb (suburbs on the outskirts of major cities) far from amenities. Is your neighbourhood walkable? Do you have access to green open spaces? These inequalities remain after the 5 km rule is lifted and when shops, cafes, restaurants and bars reopen once again. What amenities are within five kilometres of your home? The cinema? A swimming pool? A gym? How many choices of restaurants and cafes?

These ideas are articulated in ‘20-minute neighbourhoods’, an approach to city planning proposing that everyone should be able to access a variety of services within a twenty-minute walkable round trip of their homes (about 800 meters one-way). This includes education, shopping, recreational and sporting facilities, business services and some job opportunities. Also, 20-minute neighbourhoods are walkable and provide high-quality open spaces. The establishment of a 20-minute city is an important component in the state government’s plans for Melbourne in the coming decades. However, we are still far from meeting that goal.

The 20-minute test is more stringent than the 5 kilometre one. Nonetheless the 5-kilometre restrictions, expected to last for at least another two weeks in Melbourne, underscore the injustices that are woven into the urban landscape.  Whether you currently spend your life within five kilometres of your home or are allowed to move around freely, we should stop to consider the equality of our cities and what minimal standards of accessibility we required in our neighbourhoods.

The State of Emergency/Disaster as the new emergency: Climate change and the new role of the democratic state

Yesterday, just over three weeks into Melbourne’s second lockdown, Daniel Andrews, the Premier of Victoria announced stage four restrictions for metropolitan Melbourne and a State of Disaster in Victoria. The stage three restrictions already required people to stay home except for work, health reasons, essential shopping and exercise. With the new restrictions in place, active as of 6pm last night, a curfew is imposed between 8pm and 5am when the only reasons to leave your home are for work and medical care. Among other restrictions, exercise must now take place within 5km of your home, at a maximum of one hour per day and only one person per household can go shopping each day. Since midnight Wednesday the 22nd of July, face masks are mandatory and those caught without one risk a fine of $200. Victorians caught failing to comply with the social distancing restrictions, including the new rules, will be fined $1600.

These restrictions have a severe and limiting impact on Victorian residents’ lives. We are experiences heavily restricted movements (locally and internationally), the closing of businesses, the suspension of sporting and cultural events and institutions, surveillance of people and forced hotel quarantine for returning Australians at a cost of at least 3,000 to be paid by the traveller. Most of us accept the restrictions since we understand the severity of the novel Coronavirus, because others seem to accept them, but also because we submit to the settler colonial state of Australia. That is, most of us tend to follow the laws and if the laws make us stay home, we do.

Nonetheless, we are many who feel conflicted about whether the measures are appropriate or whether they are causing more harm than good. The stay-at-home measures affect people disproportionately depending on whether you are isolated in a studio apartment without a balcony or a 500 square meter mansion with a rose garden. Moreover, we are seeing that these measures are applied differently on different populations and tend to disproportionately disadvantaged lower socioeconomic groups. This is demonstrated by the 3,000 residents in nine public housing towers in North Melbourne and Flemington, two relatively central neighbourhoods in Melbourne, who on the 4th of July were put under ‘hard lockdown’ for up to 14 days (the full time applied to one of the towers) after high numbers of infections were detected in the buildings. The high density in the public housing towers, the shared facilities such as laundry rooms and lifts, airflow, plumbing and the high numbers of infections were used to justify the harsh measures. Residents in the public housing towers under ‘hard lockdown’ or ‘detention directions’ were not permitted to leave their homes. These strict measures were not applied to anyone else in Victoria and in private apartment towers, not far from the public housing ones, people were living according to the general restrictions in Melbourne.

The hard lockdown represents excessive and punitive measures directed towards already over-policed communities, while outbreaks in more affluent areas are met with a dissimilar response. This is a punishment of the socially and economically disadvantaged public housing residents already neglected by the system.

So, what is the regulation that allows the government to put in place such restrictions? These laws are justified by a state of emergency initially declared in Victoria on the 16th of March 2020 and which is currently extended until the 16th of August 2020. State of emergency or state of exception is a concept coined by Carl Schmitt writing in Germany during the Nazi rule. The concept refers to the sovereign’s right to act outside the normal legal constrains when circumstances are out of the ordinary. Both legally and discursively the state of emergency justifies extreme actions and allows the sovereign additional powers to act. The state of emergency or the state of exception allow the temporary suspension of many human rights treaties. Consequently, it has been noted that restrictive measures to COVID-19 around the world come to infringe on human rights such as the freedom of association, the freedom of movement and the right to liberty. These are methods which could be misused for political purposes that would severely detract from democratic rule.

However, the state of exception is not so exceptional anymore, instead it is becoming the new normal. The fear is that restrictions will remain following the end of the COVID emergency, similar to the way the 9/11 terrorist attacks led to the extended powers of the US Presidents to perform torture and surveillance. Giorgio Agamben, one of modern day’s most influential writers on the state of exception, has severely criticised the Italian government’s response to the virus, claiming that the restrictive and repressive measures lack sufficient justified. This, he writes, reinforces the tendency to normalise the state of exception, ‘as a normal governing paradigm’, justifying a militarisation of society. Worryingly, yesterday the Victorian Premier declared at the press conference that he is prepared to make amendments to the 6-month restriction to the state of emergency, showing clear signs of a normalisation of these laws.  

The state of emergency is not only applied in relation to health crises but can be called on by governments to respond to dangerous and extraordinary circumstances such as threats to national security and natural disasters. Yesterday, the Victorian Government also declared a state of disaster which according to the Premier Daniel Andrews ‘will give our police additional powers to make sure people are complying with public health directions’.

A state of disaster was declared earlier in the year in large parts of Victoria as a response to the bushfires, allowing the government to, among other things, force the evacuation of people. I have previously written on the important connections between climate change and increasingly severe bushfire seasons. It is generally agreed that climate change such as dryer and hotter temperatures leads to increasingly severe bushfires (for example). Similarly, experts are highlighting the connections between the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. Three out of four infectious diseases found in people originate from either wild animals or livestock and therefore our health is deeply entangled with the health of the ecosystem. Moreover, climate change is making large parts of the human population more vulnerable to disease and other health threats. For example, the exposure to the smoke from last summer’s fires is intensifying our vulnerability to respiratory illnesses.

With the increasingly severe consequences of climate change and our degrading ecosystem, demonstrated in bushfires and the pandemic, the motives for the state of emergency/disaster measures will increase with the risk of detracting from democracy in ways already demonstrated, such as through the encroachment on human rights agreements. Moreover, as demonstrated in Melbourne by the treatment of public housing tenants, there is no guarantee that measures will apply equally to all. Or rather, it is unlikely that they will, since everyone enters a state of exception with access to dissimilar resources and capitals. It might make sense to have state of disaster measures in place for the crisis, but when the crisis becomes the new normal, it is worth considering the new role of the democratic state. We have to be careful, moving forward, that responses to emergencies are balanced against human rights and democratic values.