Our society considers those people in “essential services” to be sacrificial animals. They really don’t matter as long as we keep benefiting from their work. It’s brutal but it’s always been like this, just less obvious.
Sorry, are you saying we're capable of not having essential services run? Because we're not. There's no choice for society to make when it comes to essential services.
There is the dictionary definition of essential services - power, water, etc. But somehow Burger King is being called an essential service as well.
I agree with your point but don't think it's any less obvious at all. Our country has long treated essential service personnel as fungible.