Covid-19 and the transformation of american society

Jose Martinez

• Publisher: Academica Press
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781680539813
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

In Covid-19 and the Transformation of American Society, the first book-length consideration of the Covid-19 pandemic's implications, noted sociologist Jose Martinez lays bare the immense social changes that we should expect from the nouvel coronavirus, which has upended American life since March 2020. A vital theme of his critique is how inequality already entrenched in American society may worsen due to large-scale economic disruption that resonates strongly in the socioeconomic circumstances of minorities and the poor. On the other hand, society may also experience constructive social changes resulting from a widespread reconsideration of consumerism driven by frank reassessments of our wants and needs. This book addresses how the coronavirus has contributed to long-lasting reconsiderations of social relationships, from dating to leisure to education, in both negative and positive ways, and how national and cultural politics will never be the same. Martinez opens a new field in foretelling an unanticipated future for American society and, indeed, the entire world. It concludes with a consideration of possible solutions to address social changes that we are unlikely to avoid.

Chapter 1

The Service Sector

One of the sociological reasons (other than the fact that this nation’s population is one of the largest in the world) that cases of infection are high is because this economy is predominantly a service sector type of employment wherein people frequently interact with others because of their occupations, in comparison to other societies. Other societies/countries are more likely to be industrial as we were in recent history or even agricultural as we were many years ago as well. In the latter type of societies people do not interact with each other all that extensively. Therefore, a contagious disease such as the coronavirus will be more devastating in a largely service type of society.

Thus, in the sociological sense most employment is service oriented, providing services to others in some way. The service sector is generally low income, with significant exceptions such as physicians and some managers who are paid more than the great majority of the others in the service sector. Even then, blacks as an example face racism in the health care field not only when they are physicians and nurses themselves, but also as patients, in addition to elsewhere in the service sector of the economy other than in health care.

A good number of those being infected are physicians, nurses, and others who may make good money, which means they have better education, health care, etc., than others but still interact extensively with various people and thereby get infected as well. Wouldn’t you know it, though, that a disproportionate number of blacks and Latinos who work in health care do so in the poorer hospitals with more blacks and Latinos as patients. The same applies to black and Latino teachers who work in poorer schools. In fact, service workers are increasingly people of color, with the percentage much higher in certain occupations than in others.

There are consequences to those of color willing to work under such conditions in contrast to better-off employments. Due to racism and discrimination by employers, some people unwillingly are rather placed in those positions, to put it nicely. Then these health care workers and teachers are expected to work miracles with insufficient resources. This has already been noted by health care workers who are battling COVID-19 without adequate masks, ventilators, etc., provided for them in their settings, in contrast to the better hospitals.

Both patients and students in poor neighborhoods are already under difficult economic and other circumstances, again in contrast to those in the better-off neighborhoods. Yet the miracles are still expected from them out of nowhere. If not, those working there won’t be promoted, while those working in better-off circumstances find it easier to do their job and to thus be promoted for their “good work.”

The socialization of many people by society is such that even many patients and students both have become skeptical of professionals of color. The latter are questioned more, etc. The racism is palpable in just about every facet of work that those of color do. As a personal aside, that is exactly what I and most any colleague of color have found, no matter the academic background and the accomplishments a person of color has (in my case with previous books having hundreds of references), the experience, etc.

Professionals of color have to prove themselves every minute in contrast to whites who do not have to or are not even professionals, such as Trump with his outright falsehoods on the pandemic or on practically anything else, with such statements of his accepted at face value by his base, which is millions of people. There are entire books now on the experiences of professionals of color. The title of one of them about professors of color says it all: Presumed Incompetent, by Gutierrez y Muhs, Niemann, Gonzalez, and Harris.

Inequality is woven throughout all aspects of the pandemic. The reason is simply because inequality is interwoven throughout society.

There are also many who work in social agencies who thereby interact extensively with a variety of people every day. Many of these working in such agencies are people of color and do not in general get paid much. A good number of them majored in the social sciences out of a desire to help others like themselves.

Then there are those who work as police in providing services without very high pay but who are more likely in their line of work than others to interact with a diverse set of people, touching and even forcibly holding suspects and sometimes getting infected in the process. This added hazard to policing has implications for their families. Not only do those families experience divorce and domestic violence at higher rates than other families, now the coronavirus may infect them at high rates. The higher risk for infection also applies to EMTs, nurse aides, and physical therapists who handle people every day, among other similar occupations that involve touching people. Masks and gloves will only go so far in preventing infections when handling closely a lot of others.

However, since most in the service sector of the economy have low incomes they therefore do not have the best of health care, or none that they can afford. The lower paid retail sales clerks, cashiers, restaurant workers and many others mostly earn little and additionally most of these are women.

Essentially, most of the service sector in reference to gender is comprised of women, which is one of the reasons they are paid less. At first, bank tellers were almost all men and working conditions were good for them. These working conditions reversed course when almost all of them who started entering the occupation were women. Now there are a good number of them who are women and some men, both not in ideal conditions after it was mostly women in that occupation.

Many who work in unstable jobs such as commission sales need to be very engaging with others if they are to make sales. Thus, they did a lot of handshaking and worked quite closely with their customers. There are some questions about all this now.

Since many in these service occupations earn low income or now are the long-term unemployed, these workers are more likely to have predisposing conditions of poor health even if they are younger. The elderly, though, are more so in a vulnerable condition as well due to their poorer health because of their age. The predisposing conditions are a result of the relative lack of health insurance, poorer nutrition, unhealthy environments, etc., in contrast to those who are better-off, disproportionately preventing them from accessing health care, especially preventive health care. Thus it is that poor whites and blacks and Latinos (the latter two more likely than whites to be of lower income in comparison and in poorer health consequently) incur more infections and death from the coronavirus. People of color are contracting the virus at a younger age than whites, thus the virus a greater threat to them than to whites.

In other lines of work other than services, many factory workers on the other hand do not interact with a large number of people on a daily, direct basis. Some who work on assembly lines in the meat and poultry industry, still, work shoulder to shoulder all day. Acrylic shields between them are not going to be very practical in the work they do.

There are laboratory workers who focus on what they do which does not involve much interaction with different people other than co-workers. Then there are those who do repair work on automobiles, electronics, etc., and do so basically in their own physical work area. Repair people overall cannot wear gloves in their occupation or be constantly sanitizing what the customers bring to them. Moreover, of those who do wear gloves and face masks in their occupation or elsewhere may very well contaminate themselves when they take them off, if they do so incorrectly. This was not a society of face mask and glove wearers before, so this is novel, as the coronavirus too is called novel.

Some of the most sought-after jobs now are those where an employee is working at home, because of the virus. Even though these positions involve telecommunicating with others, there is not even a modicum sometimes of interaction in physical proximity with coworkers. Interacting in person with others is too often an important factor in working. Moreover, working at home can mean that there are distractions at home as well as other problems.

Nevertheless, those doing relatively solitary work interact with friends and family and are not entirely unlikely to be infected. It must be kept in mind though that their friends and family work mostly in the service sector, interacting with others. Those others may infect them and then they infect the relatively solitary worker friends and family members. The solitary long-haul truck drivers as well as local truck drivers, to begin with, in large measure are not well-off and neither are many of their friends and family. That is already saying that poorer people are more likely to suffer the negative consequences of being infected, what with no or little health insurance and other negative living conditions.

There are others who drive for a living who do interact with a diverse set of customers each day such as taxi drivers, unlike truck drivers. Taxi drivers themselves are more likely to be poor and have friends and family who are poor. These are sociological likelihoods of such categories of people. In other words, in reference to taxi drivers there are not equal numbers of wealthy, middle class, and poor taxi drivers in many quite variegated situations.

It must be said that in a service economy like that of the U.S. there are types of businesses which in pre-coronavirus days relied heavily or entirely on ambience of the particular business. A good example is that of some restaurants which did not even have a take-out window because of the “atmosphere” they were proud to provide. They relied on customers seating inside the place. Then some which did not focus on atmosphere were buffet-type where diners handled the spoons and other items to get food from the trays, which is now not possible as in pre-virus days, but that is what these restaurants relied on.

Now many restaurants will be reconsidering a number of things if they want to stay in business. For one, some will add outdoor tables if they had not already done so, though that may backfire during inclement weather such as rain and cold. For another, they may rearrange the seating inside the restaurant. They probably are not going to have fans, since these blow the aerosols and droplets from the virus throughout the place. All this will be done at their own cost, cutting into their profits.

These situations have been upended and will continue be so for some time, closed as they had to be entirely for many weeks and losing the revenue. Then they only opened at about 25% capacity, then later at 50%, and so forth, which is a losing proposition for many businesses. The restrictions were loosened, then tightened again by some states “opening up” too soon, particularly by those who supported Trump’s concern about how his economic system looked. By the time they re-opened and then closed again, the damage had irreversibly been done. Quite a number of establishments have closed for good since they did not have the luxury (cash) to stay afloat until presumably better times in some unforeseeable future, the uncertainty taking its toll on the employees who worked there as well and have been left without immediate prospects for a job elsewhere.

Then again, there were some employers imploring with reluctant employees to return to work. Said employees harbored great anxieties about getting infected. They faced the dilemma of returning to work and possibly getting infected and getting a family member infected (with death as a possibility), or remaining unemployed but perhaps healthy, without money to pay bills and probably being replaced at work. The only question now would be finding work thereafter, an increasingly questionable proposition.

Once it was realized that contagiousness of the virus was high at meat packing plants these businesses were closed. Then Trump classified that industry as essential and basically ordered the re-opening of the plants. The workers were told to return, though some said they would not because of the risk of infection. Acrylics placed between these workers are not practical, and are more so for show and pretensions about concern for workers.

The meat packers had already lost profits before being initially closed down, since restaurants which would have bought their meat were closed for many weeks, not to mention that unemployed consumers did not have much money for expensive meat. Throughout the pandemic it is clear where priorities are, primarily in reference to profit.

When some do not work due to the above reasons about infection, or during strikes, there are what are called scabs who employers readily hire to replace at lower pay the former employees. Scabs without a family can move more readily. Many are younger without other job prospects and are less likely than older workers to become ill with COVID-19. If they live alone they don’t have others, in comparison to those who are married and have a family, to transmit the infection. Moreover, their parents and grandparents might live far away.

The undocumented are in precarious situations. They keep a low profile to avoid deportation. They are desperate for income, often sending much of it to their families in their home country. Employers know all this and find it easier to exploit them. A number of the occupations of the undocumented are unsafe, with injuries commonplace but without recourse about such injuries. In various ways they are among the most vulnerable for super-exploitation. Many of them work in conditions which make infection more likely with no social distancing, etc.

In this way society pays less for their services, etc., since the employers unfortunately pay them less. Not many investigate their rates of infection. As is the case with prisoners, many in society are not concerned about the undocumented.

Of those who are told to return to work in virus-risky jobs, many are people of color. Those who work as hair stylists and nail salons and the like are examples of this. (With fewer haircuts perhaps the style of longer hair will return as it perforce had when the salons were closed.) Then some would rather not return at a certain point in time to work, but not have much choice about that such as restaurant workers, particularly servers who earn much of their income in tips, when and if they do earn tips. Sometimes they hope against hope to earn a decent living as they may previously had been doing from tips.

That may not be the case now that many diners would rather order take-out, or worse for restaurant workers, not eat out anymore and instead eat at home, what with the risks of interacting with restaurant workers who may be infected, or with other diners. Food may be prepared by cooks without a mask and even touching the plates, etc. (without gloves, of course, said gloves getting dirty and harboring perhaps more of the virus). The food itself may not be a great problem, since cooked food apparently does not harbor much of the virus. Inspectors, however, generally pay less than a handful of visits to restaurants in any given year, if any.

Something not mentioned often by those in political office seeking to have employees return to work is that their return will end the unemployment compensation payments to those who had been unemployed due to the virus. This is not all that different than the efforts by some to get those receiving government assistance foisted onto a worthless job or training. Countless of the low income employed cannot afford much for food, rent, etc. Employers of the latter jobs sometimes themselves get monetary assistance by the government to hire in dead end jobs those receiving “welfare,” with the employer being the main beneficiary of it all.

Of course, for many of these low paid workers there is no day care they can afford. Furthermore, day care centers are now becoming places where the virus spreads, akin to the nursing home situation. Then the parents, grandparents and others would be infected, more seriously so than younger people. All this is in addition to the fact that those who return to work do need some sort of childcare. They were taking care of their own children when schools closed.

It will be interesting to see how schools which had after-school care/programs will fare when schools re-open, since many parents, particularly poor parents, cannot be home for their children right after school and had relied on these centers as a type of childcare place until the parent got home. Nevertheless, after-school programs will be needed now more than ever due to the uncertain hours of the jobs currently available, and the jobs of the future (the contingent type of jobs elaborated here later).

Some colleges are modifying their academic calendars to avoid classroom type of courses during a good part of the winter. The fear is that there may be a resurgence of the coronavirus at that time, as there often is of the flu. Finals would be online. It is not that easy for K-12 schools to do this, since their academic year is much longer overall than that of higher education and runs throughout the winter, except for the two weeks of holidays.

The pent-up economic demands that politicians emphasize will not be that pent-up after all if there is a possibility of death in the process which before the virus had not been factored. Vaccines and treatments alone won’t salvage the losses and the lingering uncertainties in society.

There may not be pent up demands for certain things, such as certain forms of recreation. As just one example, bowlers might have to buy their own bowling balls instead of sticking their fingers in balls that others used right before them. If they buy bowling balls it will be at the player’s expense, and companies which sell them might profit more than they did before. In addition, renting out used bowling shoes will become a problem. There may not be that many workers at bowling alleys (who are paid little) all the time to sanitize everything, and definitely not a fulltime position allotted for just doing that.

No decent analysis is made of why things happen and the meaning of it all and the consequences. The coronavirus will continue to wreak havoc in the meantime, just as terrorism, crime and other maladies continue to do, but the deadly virus is now ever-present in the background of society hereafter in the U.S. and around the world. Very significantly and rather immediately the coronavirus is changing many societies. It is infecting people in this society and throughout the world on a continuous basis, unlike terrorism and even murder which occur intermittently and at discrete moments, according to crime clocks.

Some issues arise in regard to vaccines, treatments and testing. Vaccines such the one for the flu are not entirely successful, with those vaccinated sometimes still coming down with the flu. There are variants of the flu and different vaccines try to address this at certain time intervals, be it annually or otherwise. Moreover, not everyone gets the flu vaccine. Affordable heal...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Service Sector
• Chapter 2: Relationships
• Chapter 3: Education
• Chapter 4: Religion
• Chapter 5: Sports
• Chapter 6: The Economy
• Chapter 7: Politics
• Recommendations
• Index