Research Paper
Sonahana
SumayaDraft1.docxSumaya Yeasmin
PSC 12500
Professor Ankita Aggarwal
Research Paper
Understanding Democracy During and After COVID-19: The Case of the United States Comment by Ankita: Nice title!
The COVID-19 pandemic unfolds itself the moment democracy is declining. It has been in recession for more than a decade, but the rate at which countries continue to lose their political and civil rights continues to accelerate during the pandemic. A key concern regarding this pandemic is that, even after COVID-19, it will continue to exacerbate the decrease in democracy (Frey et al., 2020). This has continued to raise serious problems: have autocratic regimes continued to take stringent policy measures that restrain the movement of people to curb the spread of the virus been effective? Comment by Ankita: Can you clarify what you mean by this statement. Comment by Ankita: Here you pose a question about autocratic regimes, but your case study is the US, which has a democratic regime.
Digital surveillance impinges on civil liberties; it is in being used to track the spread of this pandemic and prevent future outbreaks. Nevertheless, it is still early to predict the policy decisions will be used to counter further spread but the ones being used will continue to affect the democratic life of people. However, the first half of this year has shed light on various pressing challenges to people's democracies because COVID-19 has reshaped the world. The salient ones include: defending the democratic model, coping with resurgent nationalism, looking for the right space for expertise, and safety measures ofor elections. Comment by Ankita: It is worth elaborating on how digital surveillance is being used for tracking the spread of the coronavirus.
The rapid trend of the pandemic prompts many concerns and questions. The governments are wondering how fast the virus is spreading, the efforts or policies to control the pandemic better, and the difference between the COVID-19 outbreaks with earlier pandemics such as the Spanish flu in 1918. Fortunately, with the daily update changes, the information is available on a site provided by authors in real-time (Alizadeh et al., 2020). In this case study, it aims to see how COVID-19 has continued to affect democracy in the United States since the outbreak until half period of the year. The study will also evaluate the effect of the United States government policy in controlling the pandemic.
Arguments and Evidence
The COVID-19 pandemic makes politics worse. It has generated greater awareness of many inequalities the citizens are experiencing in the United States and not only that, but it has also sharpened them. Unfortunately, these inequalities can become self-perpetual. In the middle of this year, 2020, the pandemic has been reported to affect more than 8 million individuals worldwide. It has also killed more than 430,000 people. As many countries feel the effect, the pandemic has also hit the United States hard. COVID-19’s wrath continues across the continent, and its impacts are taxing social systems, politics, and economics in prolific ways. Comment by Ankita: Can you clarify what you mean by this. Comment by Ankita: Which continent are you referring to?
Not only that the pandemic is affecting many lives but amplified existing disparities in the country such as gender, race, class, and other essential traits like religion (West (2020). The country is finding itself in a political dysfunction - inequality. And that's how it affects the democracy of the citizens during this period and after. There is evidence of inequality in various sectors.
Voting Rights
In the country, the elections are complicated because there is no national ballot. OnDuring Election Day, it is usually a coordinated dance where thousands of citizens are locally administered to elections (Frey et al., 2020). Depending on the state, each will follow its laws and procedure on registering, balloting, and casting of votes. Every citizen has the right to vote, but a pandemic makes voting coordination difficult because the states are forced to vote by mail and not in persons. Thus, the citizens voting rights are now under threat. Comment by Ankita: Many felons don’t! Comment by Ankita: But the voter turnout was unprecedented this year – approximately 160 million voters cast their vote in the 2020 presidential election.
Administering elections will exacerbate the inequalities of the citizens and threatening democratic practices. According to Frey et al. (2020) right to vote is for all citizens in the country, yet most of the history shows that a large number of the population is not allowed to practice their democratic rights. For example, blacks were not allowed to vote until 1965 with the amendment of the Constitution. As the pandemic struck, there is high pressure in the coming election. That's why most states are looking for an alternative method, such that the citizens can vote by mail. That helps safeguard public health and, at the same time, ensure democratic practices. To make matters worse, on restrictions and liberties regarding voting via mail, it is a tricky practice. These states will require some identification form for individuals to vote. That will be complicated with issues on voter ID laws, access to ballots, polling place locations, etc. Comment by Ankita: And also in-person early voting.
Education
Education is another sector that has been highly affected by the pandemic. Most schools were completely shut down. With the rapid spread of the virus, the effect onin education presented in the United States was uncertain. Closure of schools was one way to protect the general public health where the act was framed as generosity, especially to those vulnerable to communicable diseases (Lau et al., 2020). As closures went on, there was the cancellation of organized sports, social gatherings, proms, graduations, and school rituals. That's how inequalities among the students became more apparent. For some students, the school was their safe place. That affected the students who have housing and food insecurity. And those who also live in abusive families, focusing on schoolwork would be near to impossible. Besides, there exist disparities in accessing wireless devices, and high-speed internet required for one to join an online class
While students are in a class, there is a form of equality because each student has the same kind of books, desks, pencils, and the ability to attend. However, in a remote learning environment, no parity. Each student will have their unique set up and preparation method in terms of learning environment, equipment, access to books, and distractions, which denies them democratic rights. Comment by Ankita: Can you elaborate on which democratic rights you are referring to?
Healthcare
Before the spread of the pandemic in the US, people used to access quality health care. With the arrival of the pandemic in the country, those workers placing themselves at risk for contracting COVID-19 are the ones likely not to access health services. Besides, the pandemic has also struck more to the people of color and those with limited resources, unlike those with access to health care and resources. A report showed that death rates were highly recorded in New York City on Latinos and African Americans (Eikenberry et al., 2020). Comment by Ankita: Not everyone had access to quality health care.
Case study
The United States has continued to confirm the infected, recoveries, and deceased since the outbreak of COVID-19. Earlier on 10th March, the statistics showed that both the infected and death cases increased by 2.9% and 2.5%, respectively. The high increase rate of confirmed and death cases did push the regression line algorithm, such that it defined the confirmed cases to death cases duration in 0 days. That would not have been possible unless more death cases were confirmed immediately after their death. In accepting the three days, the Case Fatality Rate (CFR) was about 4%. Such a high CFR would occur after the detection of infected individuals who are in their last illness stage. Comparing with other countries, it shows that the United States continues to confirm record higher death cases, thus requiring higher implementation. If compared with an increment of other countries like Iran, South Korea, and China, it shows that the United States is at an early stage because, in some countries like China, it's like the outbreak nearly ended (Kupferschmidt, & Cohen, 2020). Experimentally, if the strategy does not change in the country, there is a higher chance of the United States having two outbreak phases. The first phase is where the pandemic spreads increasingly with new cases each day and more than the previous day. The second phase, on the other hand, the country will be controlling the outbreak, and new cases will be highly reduced to nearing zero. Currently, the United States is in the spreading phase, with a high number of new confirmed cases and death cases each day. With a higher reduction of the new cases, it will cost the country more. Considering the updates, it shows that each day during the first phase, the confirmed cases added about 2.5 times. However, the two phases can also be repeated in the country more than once. Comment by Ankita: As compared to? Comment by Ankita: Of?
On the other hand, ignoring climate and race conditions - no idea of their impact - there should exist a strong rationale for the differences. One hypothesis is that various infected individuals will not be diagnosed with the infection until their profound states. It could be the reason for increased confirmed cases and thus suggesting that the infected will remain in contact with the uninfected. Statistically, it has also shown that CFR of this pandemic is directly related to age between 28 to 47 years - which has potentially contributed to the high increase in CFRs.
CFR = D (T) ÷ C (T - dt)
Where;
D - The value of death cases
C - The value of confirmed cases
dt - mean duration of death
T - Date of inspecting CFR
Conclusion
The current outbreak of coronavirus whose originepicenter wasis at the Hubei province in China has spread across the world. In the United States, the case detection rate changed daily and was easy to track daily in real-time through the website.
According to Eikenberry et al. (2020), social distancinge has been recommended as among the most effective policies for controlling previous pandemics. That's because it reduces human to human transmission, and helps to reduce mortality and morbidity rate. Studies show that the government should combine multiple policies to boost effectiveness (Eikenberry et al., 2020). With the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, mass movement and gathering of people would increase in the spread of the virus prior to the Lunar New Year holiday ends. Facing the concern, many countries have implemented policies to control this disease, such as isolation of confirmed cases, practicing home-based quarantine, preventing spread from individuals having asymptomatic infections, lockdown, among others. In a democratic country, like the United States, these measures are affecting the democratic rights of citizens in the country. Comment by Ankita: You should elaborate on how exactly these measures are affected the democratic rights.
It can't go without saying that the virus brought inequalities in voting rights, economics, education, and health as they are self-reinforcing. Such factors are endogenous; therefore, it is hard to separate the pandemic from the effect; you can also not affect one aspect without affecting the others.
References
Alizadeh, M., Derakhshan, P., Babazadeh, P., & Jahandideh, A. (2020). Understanding epidemic data and statistics: A case study of COVID-19. Journal of Medical Virology. Retrieved from http://iuwa.ir/corona/ Comment by Ankita: Journal names are written in italics. Also mention the volume and issue number of the journal from which the article is taken.
Eikenberry, S. E., Mancuso, M., Iboi, E., Phan, T., Eikenberry, K., Kuang, Y. & Gumel, A. B. (2020). To mask or not mask: Modeling the potential for face mask use by the general public to curtail the COVID-19 pandemic. Infectious Disease Modelling. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468042720300117
Frey, C. B., Chen, C., & Presidente, G. (2020). Democracy, Culture, and Contagion: Political Regimes and Countries Responsiveness to Covid-19. Covid Economics, 18, 1-20. Retrieved from https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/Democracy-Culture-and-Contagion_May13.pdf
Garnett, R. W. (2020). Ellis M. West: The Free Exercise of Religion in America: It's Original Constitutional Meaning. (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave MacMillan, 2019. Pp. xiv, 317.). The Review of Politics, 82(1), 175-178. Retrieved from https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=m6o0aV0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra Comment by Ankita: ?
Lau, H., Khosrawipour, V., Kocbach, P., Mikolajczyk, A., Schubert, J., Bania, J., & Khosrawipour, T. (2020). The positive impact of lockdown in Wuhan on containing the COVID-19 outbreak in China. Journal of travel medicine, 27(3), taaa037. Retrieved from https://academic.oup.com/jtm/article/27/3/taaa037/5808003
Kupferschmidt, K., & Cohen, J. (2020). Can China's COVID-19 strategy work elsewhere? Retrieved from https://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6482/1061.summary
