This article conceives of the prevalence of death occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic in older people’s care homes in the United Kingdom (UK) through the lens of necrocapitalism. There is significant evidence that pre-pandemic marketisation policies have structured endemic neglect in the sector, but these generalised failures are frequently not highlighted in the debates around the causes of COVID-19 deaths. The article seeks to specify the way caring has been re-fashioned through a specific form of necrotic privatisation, resting on degrading the intensity of caring, institutionalised via market-orientated regulation. COVID-19 fatalities in older people’s services are necrocapitalist as pre-existing the pandemic the sector was defined by forms of slow violence, exacerbated during the crisis. The de-regulation and cost-saving at the heart of commodified care denigrate older people’s existence, reorienting the value of care in terms of its potential to generate profit.
Joe G. Greener (Wed,) studied this question.