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---
title: "Flatten the curve, grow the care: What are we learning from Covid-19"
images: ["/images/care_curve.jpg"]
description: "A collective note-taking effort to learn from the urgency of care amidst the Coronavirus pandemic, focusing on issues of care, labour and technology."
description: "A collective note-taking effort to learn from the urgency of care amidst the Coronavirus pandemic, focusing on issues of care, labour, ecology and technology."
has_sessions: assistingpeopleinisolation, throughafeministlense, kidsinquarantine, withouthomeincorona, convivialitywithoutproximity, mutualaidfortheunemployed, coronavirusandenvironmentalcrisis, techandcorona
---
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However, we want to claim that "Flatten the Curve" is not enough. Not only do we want to keep the spread of the contagion within the limits of health care system's capacity, but rather that the social crisis resulting from the response to and the aftermath of the pandemic will require a re-focusing of societies on modalities and capacities of care. Something that we think is already pre-figured in the practices and forms of organisation documented here. Hence, "Grow the Care".
# A common health care crisis
## A common health care crisis
The Coronavirus outbreak has demonstrated the weaknesses of the public health system that has far too few ICU beds and ventilator and respirators to deal with the sudden spike in infections, thus contributing to increased mortality from the outbreak. In Italy, the system is so overstretched that the ERs are not able to timely attend to acute conditions such as heart attacks and many surgeries have been postponed, leading to many additional preventable deaths. Time-critical procedures as pregnancy terminations are being postoponed too.
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The vulnerability of many at-risk groups is contributing to the crisis. First, there is the elderly and those living with other health conditions. Then there are those who are undocumented migrants and can be refused medical care. Those who don't have medical care coverage and face a crippling debt if they need testing or end up in hospitals. Those who don't live in a home of their own: homeless, refugees, elderly in retirement homes, women in safe houses or foreign students on campuses. But also many who cannot avoid to work: cleaners, workers in grocery stores, food industry and transport, carers - and industrial workers, who are asked to continue as nothing is happening.
# A combined crisis of care, work and environment
## A combined crisis of care, work and environment
Over the last few decades, capitalist development has privatised, defunded and undercut the public mission of the healthcare systems across the world. It has surrendered to market forces many other institutional and non-institutional aspects of social reproduction, such as cleaning, cooking, child care, elderly care, and education. These sectors depend on a large army of labour, frequently consisting of women and migrants, who work in precarious conditions of low wages, limited benefits, zero-hour or on-demand contracts, informal arrangements and illegality. As the societal tasks of care have been subsumed to capitalist accumulation, the forces of labour have been fragmented and individualised, excising their own reproduction from the networks of mutual support and social action. Isolation is already a prevalent condition.
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For the majority of people on this planet, who are deemed expendible from the point of view of capital, to die from epidemics or even common viruses has been the norm for a very long time. The pre-existing conditions of neo-colonial poverty, poor health, malnutrition and degraded habitat can weaponise viruses and epidemics. It is believed that 60% of deaths from the Spanish Flue was in Western Bengal. The worst is, however, that many of these diseases have known cures and vaccines. In the UK, for instance, the life expectancy between the richest and the poorest kids is today of [18 years](https://www.ft.com/content/35003f82-565d-11ea-abe5-8e03987b7b20?fbclid=IwAR3bBaG61uScXBsqFIvK8cub7AhbBKiJMVCoSM2DwOGe5z9Ee18AI2funvg). What Coronavirus is introducing is a class-less variable in the disposition of care provisions, making it impossible, for the moment, to sort out the damned from those who can be saved along the usual axes of discrimination. This condition will not last for long.
# A crisis of domesticity
## A crisis of domesticity
Due to the advised social distance and the cancellation of many public activities, many precarious workers are now facing weeks and months without work and income. Compensation for self-isolation does not exist in many places. Staying at home in deepening poverty is a horrific prospect. They will be joined by armies of laid-off workers.
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But there are also who suffer mentally ill, disabled and suffering severe conditions for whom remaining isolated to home is not feasible. And then there are those who face domestic violence for whom the lockdown equals continued abuse. The violence will only grow as neither adults nor kids can pursue their interests outside of home nor can socialise. The isolation without a radical rethink of how we organise self-determinative work, free time and conviviality will start to leave its psychological toll.
# Organizing for an alternative future
## Organizing for an alternative future
The pandemic is likely to push an already unstable global economy into a tailspin, triggering measures to restore capitalist accumulation that will, judging from the past, might bring about further reductions to the public care system, dismantling of labour protections, discouraging civic life and deepening inequality and poverty. The fallout might set back efforts to counter and adapt to climate change that might lead to comparable disasters. Against these prospects, the loss of organising capacity to effectively make political claims while the outbreak is ongoing might prove crippling.
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**Making sense of the pandemic:**
- [How will country-based mitigation measures influence the course of the COVID-19 epidemic?](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30567-5/fulltext)
- [Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand](https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf)
- [Flatten the Curve](https://www.flattenthecurve.com/)
- [The Man Who Saw the Pandemic Coming](http://nautil.us/issue/83/intelligence/the-man-who-saw-the-pandemic-coming)
- [Mike Davis: "The Monster is finally at the door"](http://links.org.au/mike-davis-covid-19-monster-finally-at-the-door)
- [Why We Should Care: Common Questions and Answers about Covid-19](https://medium.com/@davetroy/why-we-should-care-commonly-asked-questions-and-answers-about-covid-19-6b166f1876e9)
- [Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now](https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca)
- [Naomi Klein: Coronavirus Is the Perfect Disaster for Disaster Capitalism](https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/61852-focus-naomi-klein-coronavirus-is-the-perfect-disaster-for-disaster-capitalism?fbclid=IwAR111ceSXprOitsyaUpELycWsFv5tFflQDEZSTxOSnXZRITn0REKBH7RC9E)
- [Toilet Paper Wars and the Shithouse of Capitalism](https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/03/15/toilet-paper-wars-and-shithouse-capitalism?fbclid=IwAR1ApiyvG5b-6thnWwQQ_G0Df7no8Tivfwz0dOnJnhVXtXE15ILUg5a9WPk)
- [Naomi Klein: Coronavirus Is the Perfect Disaster for Disaster Capitalism](https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/61852-focus-naomi-klein-coronavirus-is-the-perfect-disaster-for-disaster-capitalism)
- [Toilet Paper Wars and the Shithouse of Capitalism](https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/03/15/toilet-paper-wars-and-shithouse-capitalism)
- [Against Agamben: Is a Democratic Biopolitics Possible?](http://criticallegalthinking.com/2020/03/14/against-agamben-is-a-democratic-biopolitics-possible/?fbclid=IwAR3H1X3rlmKu8qctgEWK_zY3l0H05SZ1S3LdppoBVfeWbM0sC-krErLRUck)
- [The Coronavirus Is Killing Globalization as We Know It](https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/12/coronavirus-killing-globalization-nationalism-protectionism-trump/?fbclid=IwAR35xfbhOR2LwxXFdiqh8Kds8OsKXdxyahjR4bfuHrutkTXguTE4LALyGaA)
- [Daniel Tanuro: "Huit thèses sur le coronavirus"(FR)](https://www.gaucheanticapitaliste.org/huit-theses-sur-le-coronavirus/)
- [The Coronavirus Is Killing Globalization as We Know It](https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/12/coronavirus-killing-globalization-nationalism-protectionism-trump/)
- [Daniel Tanuro: Huit thèses sur le coronavirus (FR)](https://www.gaucheanticapitaliste.org/huit-theses-sur-le-coronavirus/)
- [La vendetta del welfare – di Andrea Fumagalli (ITA)](http://effimera.org/la-vendetta-del-welfare-di-andrea-fumagalli/)
- [Chi paga i costi del Coronavirus? Raccolta di testi, by InfoAut (ITA)](https://www.infoaut.org/precariato-sociale/chi-paga-i-costi-del-coronavirus-raccolta-di-testi?fbclid=IwAR0whrPuxHI2-TXmfEYLRC9np0_2S_E1NObyY0LNGCfO8keUhvs2CkQsr5I)
- [Habitar la excepción: pensamientos sin cuarentena (ES)](https://www.filosofiapirata.net/habitar-la-excepcion-pensamientos-sin-cuarentena-i/?fbclid=IwAR3OV1uMMHPvZrLR321jIU5uN-5yyLgeuGnCiTUDlNbE8dBK1PKo-6IeHNY)
- [Habitar la excepción: pensamientos sin cuarentena (ES)](https://www.filosofiapirata.net/habitar-la-excepcion-pensamientos-sin-cuarentena-i/)
---
**Political demands:**
- [Plan C: "Pandemic inequalities, pandemic demands"](https://www.weareplanc.org/blog/pandemic-inequalities-pandemic-demands/)
- [Plan C: Pandemic inequalities, pandemic demands](https://www.weareplanc.org/blog/pandemic-inequalities-pandemic-demands/)
- [Bue Rübner Hansen's list of demands](https://www.facebook.com/buerhansen/posts/10158037155810351)
- [To our friends all over the world from the eye of Covid-19 storm, by DINAMOPress, (Italy)](https://www.dinamopress.it/news/to-our-friends-all-over-the-world-from-the-eye-of-covid-19-storm/)
- [The Insanity of Making Sick People Work, by Jacobin Magazine (USA)](https://jacobinmag.com/2020/03/coronavirus-workers-rights-health-care-cleaners-gig-economy)