April 8, 2020
There Is No Outside
Health workers can respond to this crisis by taking up working-class struggles as our own
The emergency room is a smog of coronavirus—and how could it not be? A person on a bed deprived of even the modesty of a curtain can’t be expected to keep a mask on for the eight or twelve hours they may be waiting there, before anyone comes to examine them. Those who end up waiting longer, as so many do, may get upgraded to a spot near the wall, which helps create the illusion of being in a room. One wall, after all, is one more than zero. This is how poor folks experience our health care system.
