THE PLAGUED CITY
“A blight is on the fruitful plants of the earth,
A blight is on the cattle in the fields,
A blight is on our women that no children are born to them...
a deadly pestilence is in our town, strikes us and spares not, and the house of Cadmus is emptied of its people while Black Death grows rich in groaning and lamentation…”
From Sophocles’ "Oedipus the King"
COVID-19
A PERSONAL TROUBLE
The rapid and widespread shift in rules and behavior has left each and every one of our personal lives looking very different than it did a few months ago. For many of us, the coronavirus has been made part of our illness narratives, affecting us either as the infected persons or as the caregivers of such persons. In addition to losing our loved ones, we have lost aspects of our freedom and safety, as we have been forced to stay home in fear of contracting the new coronavirus.
As Princeton students, we were informed of the University’s decision to send us back to our hometowns in the midst of preparing for midterms. Over the span of one week, our plans for the rest of the semester were upended. We went from planning our Spring Break vacations to packing our rooms, searching for storage space, and booking one-way flights to our hometowns. We had little choice between leaving our comfort in the Orange Bubble and embarking upon our return to our states of residence. What was even more frustrating was the fact that the possibility of returning to our home states of Washington and New York was not guaranteed. In Washington state, the origin of COVID-19 in the US, talk of the governor wanting to deploy the national guard to quarantine the state left students like myself (Dolly) frantically packing overnight in hopes of getting home before the escalation of the virus.
Besides dealing with our return from campus, we had to quickly adapt to the shift toward online instruction, as our classes were virtualized. Learning while in quarantine has presented numerous obstacles for us and our peers. The environments that we are in are much less conducive to effective learning compared to campus life, as our home environments are characterized with numerous distractions and a lack of structure. Plus, our mental health has been particularly affected by the combination of academic stress and living in isolation. Moreover, our summer plans were affected. We went from planning our eight-week internship in Europe to scrambling to find any productive summer opportunity. Till this day, we are unsure of what is to come in terms of both summer opportunities, as well as the state of our next semester.
In addition to our own worlds being turned upside down, our parents were, and continue to be, left to deal with the financial burden that resulted from employment cuts induced by COVID-19 restrictions. For instance, my (Maryam’s) father, who works as an Emergency Room Phlebotomist, experienced extensive hour reductions as he witnessed several of his colleagues get laid off.
Our personal experiences are not unique, as myriads of our peers are in very similar situations. In fact, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that the coronavirus outbreak is having profound impacts on the personal lives of Americans. According to the study, nearly nine-in-ten U.S. adults say their life has changed at least a little as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, including 44% who say their life has changed in a major way.What recently seemed like mundane daily activities now elicit concerns from large swaths of the population. About nine-in-ten U.S. adults (91%) say that, given the current situation, they would feel uncomfortable attending a crowded party and roughly three-quarters (77%) would not want to eat out at a restaurant. It is indubitable that our personal lives will forever be changed as a result of the coronavirus.
A NATIONAL EMERGENCY
In addition to dealing with our personal troubles, as American citizens, our freedom was further restricted as we were encouraged to uphold new national health and safety guidelines. On January 31, 2020, President Donald Trump ordered that all international travel to and from the United States be halted. During that time, the government started to call for social distancing protocols. Soon after, the United States declared a state of emergency and the stay at home order was released. All non-essential businesses were ordered to close; all non-essential workers were ordered to stay home; and those that could were instructed to work remotely. University students were ordered to return home and all students (including high, middle, and elementary schools) were instructed to conduct classes using an online platform. Our lives and the lives of our American neighbors were drastically transformed.
In the meantime, to stimulate the economy and keep families out of work afloat, Congress passed two separate rounds of stimulus bills that would give a $1200 check to those who fit the following description: “...if you're a single US resident and have an adjusted gross income less than $99,000. If you file as the head of a household and earn under $146,500. If you file jointly without children and earn less than $198,000”. In the past two months, a record breaking 22 million people have filed for unemployment due to their work being displaced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition to this, despite a number of assurances from the president and suppliers, grocery stores are seeing shortages in food and home essentials like flour, meats, and toilet paper. While many people are attributing these shortages to the infamous doomsday hoarders, other sources are saying that the food shortage is due to companies not having enough workers available to process and ship produce to grocery stores. Tyson chicken has been forced to close many of its processing plants as a result of a massive amount of their workers testing positive for COVID-19. Instead, many farmers are forced to dump hundreds of tons of fresh produce into pits or churn them back into their fields. According to an article by the NY Times, not doing so “...would put further financial strain on farms that have seen half of their paying customers disappear. Exporting much of the excess food is not feasible either, farmers say, because many international customers are also struggling through the pandemic and recent currency fluctuations make exports unprofitable”. The stay at home was reevaluated as of the beginning of May 2020 after a number of groups began to protest at several state capitals. In May of 2020 the president delegated state reopening to their respective governors. However, we are yet to see how the events of reopening our country affect public health and the economy.
A GLOBAL PANDEMIC
The United States is one of over 200 nations that have been affected by COVID-19. Deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction, WHO made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic. At a news briefing, WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, noted that during the first two weeks of March, the number of cases outside China increased 13-fold and the number of countries with cases increased threefold. He said that the WHO is "deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction," and he called on countries to take action now to contain the virus.
In addition to halting international travel, several nations have imposed severe restrictions on people’s freedoms, including to their privacy and other human rights. For instance, unprecedented levels of surveillance, data exploitation, and misinformation are being tested and used across the world. For example, Israel has instructed Palestinians seeking to verify whether their permits to remain in Israel are still valid to download the app Al Munasiq, which grants the military access to their cell phone data. The app allows the army to track the Palestinians' cell phone location, as well as access their notifications, downloaded and saved files, and the device's camera. Aside from increased surveillance, emergency law amendments have been used to expand presidential powers in several nations. For example, the Legislative and Constitutional Affairs Committee at the Egyptian Parliament approved 18 new amendments to section three of the country's emergency law granting the president additional powers to implement health and safety measures to curb the spread of COVID-19.
The international effects of COVID-19 will continue to be felt as long as the pandemic continues to prevail. As of May 7th, 2020, a total of 3,784,085 cases are confirmed in more than 227 countries and 26 cruise ships. There are 2,263,721 active cases and 264,679 deaths. Those who have been affected by COVID-19 do not strictly come from one country or one race, but are rather of diverse national, racial and socioeconomic identities. From royal figureheads, celebrities and political leaders to the average international citizen, COVID-19 has not left anyone untouched.
COVID-19: THE PANOPTICON
The era of COVID-19 has shed light on an idea that is central to Foucault’s works: that is, that power is not merely negative or repressive, but rather that power positively constitutes what is considered normal and right at a given time. In Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault presents “the measures to be taken when the plague appeared in a town” at the end of the seventeenth century, discussing panopticism, a term that indicates a kind of internal surveillance. These measures, which focus on enforcing isolation and quarantine, leave plagued towns as “segmented, immobile, frozen” spaces, where “each individual is fixed in his place. And, if he moves, he does so at the risk of his life, contagion or punishment” (195). Foucault argues that during times of widespread pandemics, “the registration of the pathological must be constantly centralized. The relation of each individual to his disease and to his death passes through the representatives of power, the registration they make of it, the decision they take on it” (pg. 197).
In an all-out effort to slow the spread of the new coronavirus, health and government officials worldwide have mandated travel restrictions, closed schools and businesses and set limits on public gatherings. People have also been urged to practice social distancing in public spaces, and to isolate themselves at home as much as possible. This rapid and widespread shift in rules and behavior during the pandemic allows the ‘plague’ to be met by order. The use of governmental authority during times of pandemics as a means of protecting the people is not a new concept. The imposed order during the Black Death, for instance, is depicted in Foucault’s writing: “Inspection functions ceaselessly. The gaze is alert everywhere… Everyone locked up in his cage, everyone at his window, answering to his name and showing himself when asked—it is the great review of the living and the dead” (p.196). As we live in the era of the coronavirus, it is important to realize that the various restrictions that limit our whereabouts and experiences are beyond us. Each one of us is part of the society that we live in, as well as the world population in general. How we act does not only affect us personally, but also impacts the state of our nation and the entire world.