This detail in WSJ’s report on CV19 in a La. prison echoes hundreds of other stories—but it’s also just an echo of the slower-moving crisis that this pandemic hijacked: our puny social welfare system & mass incarceration were killing people long before coronavirus came to town.

I keep repeating it: the pandemic hasn’t *changed* American society, it’s *revealed* it: The health outcomes in the South have ALWAYS been criminally terrible, gig workers have ALWAYS had a precarious existance, we’ve ALWAYS been overly reliant on a just-in-time healthcare system

There is not a single part of this crisis that wasn’t a crack in our facade of being a wealthy, democratic “superpower” before. Even people’s struggle to keep a balance their work and their sense of self (to be someone without DOING SOMETHING): we’ve always been terrible at that.

And free-market fanatics have ALWAYS put “the economy” above saving lives. We’ve been given a gift to be able to see all of this so clearly now. If we continue in the same path, if everything returns to “normal” soon, we’ll just be setting ourselves up to do this again.

And there is another part of that gift to take some hope from: We’ve also ALWAYS needed each other. We’ve ALWAYS benefitted when we seek to serve a goal greater than our immediate needs. We ALWAYS should have been checking in on those who might be lonely.

And I think we always should be thinking hard about what is *essential* to us and what is merely something we desire. Crisis sharpens our vision, it doesn’t necessarily change the landscape itself. But we could change it if we want. /fin (I think)

(P.S. we should have always been washing our hands, too. Take it from me, a former hand-washing-denier.)