Introduction

This commentary examines the intrinsic social dilemmas that present themselves in the face of pandemics and pandemic planning that are often highlighted through differential patterns of risk across a population. Specifically, we focus on the invisibility of what has become an essential labour force in many healthcare systems around the globe – personal support workers (PSWs). This article is informed by earlier analyses regarding sociality and risk: in 2012, we wrote an article in Sociology of Health and Illness about the gendered dynamics of frontline care‐giving in relation to increased risk of infection during the 1918 influenza pandemic. That piece, entitled ‘If you have a soul, you will volunteer at once: gendered expectations of duty to care during a pandemic’ used newspaper and archival material from Brantford, Ontario a small Canadian city to explore the moral obligations placed upon women to provide frontline care and as a result women were at heightened risk given their increased exposure to disease. Understanding dynamics of care‐giving in the 1918 influenza pandemic helped us illuminate gendered patterns of labour propagated through the language of moral responsibility that then became inequitably expressed on and through the bodily dynamics of disease transmission for nurses, other women who were called on to participate in nursing, and the families of these individuals (Godderis and Rossiter 2012).

Returning to this analysis in light of COVID‐19, and using similar data sources such as newspapers and organisational websites, we argue that the sustained and stubborn invisibility of particular caregivers is an important and telling pattern regarding care‐giving and risk. Specifically, we examine the work and conditions of PSWs – a form of labour that did not exist in 1918 – to examine gendered dynamics of risk that have emerged during COVID‐19. PSWs, who may be known by a range of titles such as ‘healthcare aides’ or ‘nursing assistants’, are common in countries such as Canada, Denmark, Australia, the UK and the United States (Zagrodney and Saks 2017). These healthcare workers engage in a variety of care‐related task within personal homes and ‘hybrid’ healthcare facilities such as long‐term care residences and may be hired privately or employed by an organisation (Lilly 2008). As discussed in further detail below, we maintain that ancillary healthcare worker invisibility is deeply tied to larger structural forces that shape the very meaning of who counts in calculations of risk, and whose labour is essential for the system but is so unseen as to not even be factored into these calculations. Indeed, we echo Einboden’s (2020) assertion that ‘public responses to COVID‐19 are reproducing neoliberal rationales about what bodies matter’ and that ‘[t]he virus shows the limits of biomedicine and the fragility of the for‐profit orientation of healthcare systems’. (4).

中文翻译：

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本质上不可见：COVID-19时期的风险和个人支持人员

介绍

这篇评论探讨了面对大流行和大流行规划时所呈现出的内在社会困境，而大流行和大流行规划通常通过整个人群的不同风险模式而凸显出来。具体来说，我们关注的是在全球许多医疗保健系统中已成为基本劳动力的隐身–个人支持人员（PSW）。本文是通过较早的有关社会性和风险的分析得出的：2012年，我们在《健康与疾病社会学》上发表了一篇文章，涉及一线照护的性别动态与1918年流感大流行期间感染风险的增加有关。那篇名为“如果有灵魂，您将立即志愿服务：大流行期间对照料的性别期望”使用的报纸和档案材料来自布兰特福德，妇女承担提供一线照护的道德义务，结果，由于她们增加患病的机会，她们面临的风险更高。了解1918年流感大流行中的护理动态，有助于我们阐明通过道德责任语言传播的性别劳动模式，这种性别模式随后在护士和其他被要求参与的妇女的疾病传播的身体动力学中以及疾病传播的身体动力学中得到了不平等的表达。护理以及这些人的家庭（Godderis和Rossiter，2012年）。

返回到根据COVID-19进行的分析，并使用类似的数据来源，例如报纸和组织网站，我们认为，特定照护者的持续和顽固的隐形性是关于照护和风险的重要且有说服力的模式。具体来说，我们检查了PSW的工作和条件（一种1918年不存在的劳动形式），以检查COVID-19期间出现的性别风险动态。PSW在加拿大，丹麦，澳大利亚，英国和美国等国家很常见，可能被诸如``医疗助手''或``护理助手''之类的称号所熟知（Zagrodney和Saks，2017年））。这些医疗保健工作者在个人住宅和“混合型”医疗保健设施（例如长期护理住所）中从事各种与护理有关的任务，并且可以私人雇用或由组织雇用（Lilly，2008年）。如以下进一步详细讨论的那样，我们认为辅助医疗人员的隐形性与更大的结构性力量紧密相关，后者影响着谁在风险计算中至关重要的意义，而谁对系统是必不可少的，却看不见甚至没有。纳入这些计算中。的确，我们呼应了Einboden（2020）断言“公众对COVID‐19的反应正在再现关于什么物质重要的新自由主义理论”，并且“病毒显示了生物医学的局限性以及医疗保健系统的营利性取向的脆弱性”。（4）。