Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs caused quite a stir with Wednesday’s revelation that 10 of the local 13 coronavirus deaths were immigrants. She was accused of borderline discrimination and even inducing racism, although clearly that had never been the intention.
Her statements were instead meant to explain the county’s relatively high mortality rate. The argument is that these victims reported their symptoms rather late, presumably due to lack of papers and/or health coverage.
In principle, publicly singling out people from abroad is a no-no because it has a stigmatising effect and can raise anti-foreigner sentiment. The prime minister also mentioned “not-so-good” living conditions and possibly less-healthy eating habits.
However, one of the biggest factors might have been the inability to effectively get across the message that neither residency nor insurance would be an issue to test for or treat COVID-19. The involvement of community leaders who speak the language helped and eventually led to an increase in phone calls from within these groups to Collective Prevention Services (CPS) for assistance.
The consequences of widespread exploitation of foreign labour on the island over the years usually becomes most visible in crisis situations such as after major hurricanes or the 9-11 terrorist attacks on the US that had a devastating impact on the local economy, and the current pandemic is no different in that sense. These workers were needed to get important construction projects done in the post-Hurricane Irma recovery process, but their social circumstances should in many cases have been better arranged.
Some of these persons not only abruptly lost their employment and all income, but were yet to be paid for jobs already done. These are the kind of practices that could have been prevented by properly regulating their legal status.
That was apparently too inconvenient and costly for the builders concerned, but society may be paying the price.
