The COVID-19 pandemic, which is still gripping the world, brought death front and center into many people’s lives. In the United States, however, some of the deaths were treated as “more tragic” than others given someone’s economic use value coupled with dehumanizing language. Using Debord’s Society of the Spectacle, this is understood as a public values failure when economic productivity eclipses public health and humanity. Introducing a conceptual framework, this article explores this death narrative and implores public administrators to think about death management in a humane framing.

中文翻译：

---

当死亡被非人化时：作为公共价值失败的 COVID-19 期间的死亡护理

仍在席卷世界的 COVID-19 大流行将死亡置于许多人的生活中。然而，在美国，鉴于某人的经济使用价值加上非人性化的语言，其中一些死亡被视为比其他死亡“更悲惨”。使用德波的景观社会，当经济生产力超过公共健康和人类时，这被理解为公共价值观的失败。本文介绍了一个概念框架，探讨了这种死亡叙事，并恳请公共管理人员以人道的框架思考死亡管理。