Americans still reeling from resurgence of pandemic

 Bill Knight column for 9-20, 21 or 22. 2021

 The plan was to showcase work and life, post-pandemic.

Oops.

After months of Zooming, cooking, gardening and streaming, we thought we were about to resume our lives, to BREATHE again – an odd thought given the same time associated breathing (or not) with police violence as well as ICU ventilators.

Some looked forward to returning to seeing friends or family without risking anyone’s health, going to church, a movie or ballpark. Most folks anticipated relief more than celebrations.

That seems gone despite having more facts and help. Uncertainty looms due to COVID’s highly contagious Delta variant and people still unvaccinated.

Resistance to vaccinating is persistent; some staffers at Illinois nursing homes reportedly will quit rather than get the shot. After 660,000 deaths (about 1 in 500 Americans), the U.S. saw 400,000 new infections over three days this month – a figure that took all of June to reach. Add to that the recent loss of jobless benefits for 9 million people, and Illinois jobs already down 6.9% from last year, according to Pew’s Stateline news service’s analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data, and disappointment, anxiety and anger mount.

The Federal Aviation Administration has some 2,500 unruly passenger complaints since Jan. 1 – about 20 times higher than the typical number of complaints for a year.

“This is an environment that we just haven’t seen before,” said Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, “and we can’t wait for it to be over.”

When it is over, will we learn anything?

“Eventually there will be studies … COVID’s effect on suicide rates, divorce rates, school participation, mortality, depression and anxiety, economic output,” said Stephen Marche, author of “The Next Civil War.”

“But none of them will get it. No study could ever capture the lived experience of the pandemic.”

Meanwhile, the country’s experiencing disasters tied to climate change, plus:

* A retail “apocalypse” worsened by shopping online and the dominance of big-box stores and smaller “dollar” stores. Companies like Payless, Sears and Toys ‘R’ Us went bankrupt; malls declined or died. Besides COVID, private-equity firms harvested companies’ revenues and left behind huge debts; some financially stressed department stores downsized; and malls are converting spaces into groceries, offices or housing.

* Civility to get along enough to cooperate to cope with crises, whether wildfires and hurricanes or the surging pandemic and the economic fallout on families has dwindled. Maybe such division, disorganization or dysfunction has always existed, but national tensions are now global, with disinformation making disagreements arguments. (It is the WORLD Wide Web.)

* A civic “meltdown” goes beyond rowdy airline passengers. Some states are trying Jim Crow-style voting limits, White nationalists are getting bolder, attacks on minorities increasing, and 15% of American adults believe claims spread by QAnon, according to Hal Crowther, author of “Freedom Fighters and Hellraisers.”

Is this a tipping point to outright chaos?

Our outlooks have altered.

“The pandemic revealed how much we hate our jobs,” wrote Joanne Lipman, author of “That’s What She Said,” in Time magazine. “We have an unprecedented opportunity right now to reinvent, to create workplace culture almost from scratch. It’s time to allow the creative ideas to flow.”

The pandemic – during which some workers died from inadequate safety measures and states cut off jobless benefits to force people back to unsafe, low-wage work – clarified how little faith people have in a system that prioritizes profits over people’s health.

For white-collar jobs, 83% of CEOS want office workers back full-time, Newsweek reported, but just 10% of their workers agree. Elsewhere, companies like American Express limited returning; in Illinois, such corporations include Amazon and Walgreens.

For decades, workers without unions or specialized skills had little leverage in the labor market. But the pandemic and shifting demographics of age, gender and race changed the balance of power.

“Workers have more bargaining power in the economy right now than at any point since at least the late 1990s,” said Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “Workers, especially at the bottom end of the wage ladder, are seeing substantial wage gains”

            Other good news: Daily deaths are decreasing to levels of March, and 75% of eligible Americans have at least one vaccination dose; 4 of 5 unvaccinated Americans say they’ll get the shot; and vaccination rates in reluctant rural areas are climbing. Kohl’s and Macy’s raised their 2021 projections and even Toy ‘R’ Us is back (inside some Macy’s locations).

Some hold on to “hope in hard times.”

“So much has been taken, but not everything,” said Marc Lamont Hill, author of “We Still Here: Pandemic, Policing, Protest and Possibility.”

“What this moment has taught us is that we have the ability to radically reimagine and reshape the world.”