Thread by @JenRoesch

This is so bad & terribly wrong, I'm not even sure where to begin. It's disappointing that @jacobinmag, which has run wonderful pieces by & about teachers fighting for their own lives & those of their students, would run a piece arguing *for* opening schools & economy. 1/

There's so much to say, but just a few major things for now:

The idea that Covid only targets the old is false. Young people die & Black people age 25-34 have a 10x greater chance of dying from it than white people their age. Our health inequalities mean more vulnerabilities. 2/

The idea that we can just lock away the elderly & let the young get on w/ their lives is ignorant of working-class life. 3.3 million seniors live w/ a school-age child (20% of Latinos). 20% work. Many are care providers for grandchildren and/or cared for by adult children. 3/

The explanation for racial disparities in death rates is glib, dismissive & wrong. It cannot simply be explained by overrepresentation of BIPOC in the urban working class b/c the disparities persist in areas where white people are the majority. 4/

The left has not ceded the "anti-lockdown" terrain to the right. The anti-lockdown terrain IS the terrain of the right. Black, Latinx and low-income people support lockdowns & other measures by dramatically higher numbers in every poll. 5/

Opposition to lockdown measures has come from the middle class & small business - and increasingly from the employer class more generally. Demand to open restaurants, for ex, has come from owners, not from workers. 6/

It's true that essential workers have borne the brunt of the virus, but those risks have been greatest when distancing measures are limited. It is possible to protect essential workers if other mitigation measures are in place. They bear the brunt of the risk w/ reopenings. 7/

Moreover, millions of workers have falsely been designated as essential workers. The true number of actually essential workers & businesses is much smaller. Limiting employers' ability to force these workers into unsafe conditions would save lives. 8/

Rather than providing ideological ammunition for capital's drive to reopen the economy, our side should be demanding that the vast wealth accumulated during the pandemic (& prior) be used to economically support workers: a pandemic income, rent relief, paid parental leave, etc 9/

Broad economic measures to support workers will not only save lives but they will be more effective in helping those affected by the pandemic. We've seen that reopening has barely made a dent in unemployment rates & the economy will continue to suffer as the virus plows on. 10/

They discuss herd immunity as if it's a menu of options. But there is no path to herd immunity short of a vaccine that doesn't rely on massive numbers of excess deaths. 11/

They deride those who want to lower infection rates as individualistic while failing to disclose the # of deaths that their strategy would entail - deaths that target the elderly, people with health vulnerabilities, immigrants, the working-class & people of color. 12/

Finally, while a vaccine is the most reliable & universal response, it is possible to contain the virus short of a vaccine. Many countries have successfully done so to the point that deaths number in hundreds, dozens & even single digits (total)while we approach 200k. 13/