America will be changed forever by coronavirus

Wandering the National Mall last week in Washington DC I was frequently in the shadow of war memorials that seemed not just monuments to those lost but also to how the conflicts reshaped America – the Civil War ending slavery, World War Two bringing about the apogee of FDR’s New Deal, and Vietnam shattering that New Deal consensus.

Now coronavirus looks set to impose costs comparable to a war. Donald Trump is already reaching for a Korean War era law to boost production of key medical supplies.

However, while I was there the country was still in its phoney war phase. Business was being done as usual, bar a few hand sanitising stations, with restaurants, public transport, monuments, and museums all open.

Even when I flew back from New York on Saturday evening, the day Trump announced his EU travel ban would be extended to the UK, I was surprised to see there were still empty seats on my flight. Primed by the chaotic American stampede out of Europe when the initial EU travel ban was announced I had expected exit from the US to also be accompanied by scenes of near riot and tickets prices running into the tens of thousands. Bar the smattering of passengers wearing facemasks, things seemed the same as ever.

Perhaps Brits find the prospect of being stuck in America for a few months less unbearable than Americans find the thought of being marooned in Europe. Certainly, I was not overly worried by the prospect – there was even the upside I could spend a few months with my partner, who lives in the US.

More likely the apparent lack of rush for outbound flights, and the American rush back home, stems from the fact that last week few seemed to be panicking Stateside. In a depressingly predictable format many Republicans in America were, and are still, convinced that coronavirus’ risks have been over hyped by Democrats to damage Trump. But in deep blue New York and deep red Louisianna alike life was rumbling along unabated when I visited them.

The phony war feel was deceptively soothing. It meant that, despite knowing the US government was mishandling the crisis and the situation was likely much uglier than it seemed, I was irresponsibly slow to take the sensible decision to cut my trip short.

American politicians are beginning, at last, to take things seriously. The US federal government has now declared a state of emergency, as have over 40 states and territories and a number of local authorities. California, Illinois, Ohio, Washington, and Massachusetts, and New York City have all announced measures which sharply limit public gatherings as well as requiring restaurants and the like to either close or limit service. Schools are shutting down across the country.

These sorts of quarantine measures inevitably come with economic and social costs which will likely be particularly pronounced in the US. Its ragged social safety net means that large numbers of Americans are already extremely vulnerable. One of the reasons the city of New York hesitated for so long before closing its schools is that – at the last measure – 114,000 students in its school system were homeless. With schools closed they lose what little shelter and food these places provided. Across the country there is now a scramble to work out how to provide for the 20 million students who qualify for free school meals.

Service sector disruptions will also bite hard. While many middle-class office workers can continue their jobs from home as restaurants and bars close this will, for obvious reasons, not be possible for waiters, cooks, and the like. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, food preparation and serving jobs employ over twelve million people in the US. Paid, usually poorly, by the hour and heavily reliant on tips to make ends meet very few of these workers will have the resources to withstand the disruption to their income. The famous precariousness of the restaurant trade also means many of these businesses will go bankrupt and these jobs many take a while to return even after the pandemic subsides, not helped by the oncoming recession.

To try and cushion the coming hit the federal government has swung, belatedly, into action. Nancy Pelosi and Donald Trump have agreed to a deal currently working its way through Congress which provides a great deal currently taken for granted in other developed countries such as sick leave and, it is said, free coronavirus testing for all, as well as increased funding for food assistance programmes and unemployment insurance.

In true Washington-style loopholes and exemptions beset the deal. Bizarrely, the sick leave provisions do not apply to companies with over 500 employees and provide potential exemptions to those with under 50 employees. Perhaps only 20% of American workers will be eligible for sick leave under the current provisions.

It is also notable that the even these modest sick leave provision will expire within a year. Republicans rejected Democratic calls to make them permanent. Similarly, the provision of free coronavirus testing is not tied to any general expansion of healthcare coverage. That is unsurprising given the Republicans’ now instinctive hostility to this Democratic cause. Republicans, while still overwhelming believing that coronavirus’ risks have been overhyped by the Democrats, may have grudgingly accepted business as usual is over for now but they seem determined to ensure that it will resume once the pandemic is over.

This hope is in vain. Coronavirus is going to cause hardship on a mass scale, claim lives, and impose disruption to daily life almost utterly unknown in a country which has not seen conflict on its soil since 1865.

Life will change and any measures adopted to help cope will set a precedent, and more radical measures may be needed. Already some cities and localities are moving to ban evictions and prohibiting energy and water companies cutting off utilities due to unpaid bills for the length of the outbreak. Republican Senator Mitt Romney of all people has called for the government to unconditionally provide $1000 to every American to help them deal with the costs – a modest echo of Andrew Yang’s Universal Basic Income promise.

The Republic is once again going to be tested and reforged, and in an America where over 70% of young Democratic voters are backing Bernie Sanders the Republicans, and others, we would do well to wonder what might emerge from the wreckage.