Covid has wreaked havoc in every corner of the world. Again, the urgency of covid is in news, covid has become the tale of the poor and marginalized. Karl Marx had said, “accumulation of wealth at one pole is at the same time accumulation of misery, agony, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole”. This has been reflected worldwide where a major chunk of wealth rests in the hands of one percent of people. And the rest are devoid of the wealth that is required to fill their basic needs. This covid has added more to their misery. Where, the riches afford the proper treatment and medical help, the poor spectrum of society dies to basic treatment.
The freshly released “Poor People’s Pandemic Report” shows that poor people died from COVID at twice the rate of wealthy Americans and people of color were more likely to die than the white population. “Our country has got used to unnecessary death, especially when it’s the death of poor people, says Rev. Liz Theohari, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign. As the US nears 1 million deaths from COVID-19, those living in poor and low-income communities suffer twice as many deaths as wealthier countries.
That’s the finding of the Poor People’s Campaign and economists at the U.N Sustainable Development Solutions Network. This report is very painstaking about the suffering of poverty-stricken people. This airborne virus reflects that society is caught up in a vicious network of mutuality. And pinpointed the deadly consequences of systematic poverty and systematic racism. But it is even more inhumane than the mass death acceptance had been rejected.
The poor have always been an outcast in society and if they are colored then they are doubly marginalized. This report mourns the fact the extent of loss, the gravity of how much death, and how much of it was completely necessary.
The report also showcased that in an overall pandemic, twice the number of poor people from a poor country died from COVID in various waves of the pandemic. Even the vaccination status doesn’t explain their plight.
This difference in the death rate of the poor countries and that of the rich country is due to the income gap and also of discrimination faced by these countries. Proper medical help, assistance, and rehabilitation were not provided to these countries by the developed countries. As Marx has analyzed that, “labor is the source of wealth and prime basic condition for human existence”, and if this labor class is wiped out from the face of the earth, then survival for the riches will be a difficult situation. Thus, everything should be in sync for the proper functioning of society. The disparity between the riches and the poor engulfs this functioning.
It is necessary to provide the needy with the proper healthcare, basic treatment, and importantly the wealth for their own benefit. This pauperization of the working class or the lower spectrum of the society reflects the inequality and miserable condition of people this pandemic has put them in and this report showcases of this.
