COVID-19

Epidemiologist Warns That A Fourth COVID-19 Surge Is Under Way

April 5, 2021 Benjamin Mateus, WSWS. Educate! COVID-19, Pandemic, United States, Vaccine apartheid

Leading US epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy in Minneapolis, gave a stark warning of a devastating new stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in interviews Sunday on two national television networks. Dr. Osterholm explained the context and real dangers hinted at in the statement by Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, when she declared last Monday that she was afraid and felt a sense of “impending doom” about the pandemic. On Sunday, speaking with host Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press,” Osterholm said, “At this time, we are in a category five hurricane status with regard to the rest of the world.

Nicaragua: Scary Covid Projections Are More Newsworthy Than Hopeful Results

April 4, 2021 John Perry, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Educate! COVID-19, Health Care, Media, Nicaragua

One year ago, as both the Trump administration in the US and the Johnson government in the UK responded fitfully to the growing pandemic, the international media were looking for whipping boys: other countries whose response to the virus was even worse. There were some cases of obvious neglect—Brazil was and is a prime example (FAIR.org, 4/12/20). But the press also turned on Nicaragua, repeating allegations from local opposition groups that the Sandinista government was in denial about the dangers, and that the country was poised on the edge of disaster. When, as the death toll in other countries grew alarmingly, Nicaragua “flattened the curve” of virus cases more quickly than its neighbors, its apparent success was ignored.

Beyond COVID: The Essential Building Blocks Of A Just World

April 4, 2021 Graham Peebles, Nation of Change. Create! Cooperation, COVID-19, Recession, Transformation

We are living through extraordinary times. Even pre-COVID they were strange, unprecedented in a variety of ways; now more so, crazy in many ways. Among the madness, contradictions and movements for and of change, the detritus of human society is somehow being raised from the shadows into the light of public awareness, apparently impossible to conceal or deny. As well as providing a stage for social goodness and acts of community kindness, the pandemic has functioned as a mirror to a range of social horrors and abuses, failed structures, inept politicians and corrupt methodologies. Nothing new, nothing previously unknown; old issues rooted in divisive attitudes, broken systemic practices and organized methods of conditioning and control made loud.

Study: Canada Is One Big Pandemic Response Experiment

April 4, 2021 Andrew Nikiforuk, The Tyee. Educate! COVID-19, Finance and the Economy, health, Pandemic

An extensive French study has surveyed nations’ responses to COVID-19 and concludes that those taking an aggressive “Zero COVID” approach fared better than others by both health and economic measures. The study rests its analysis in part on the experience of Canada, where six large provinces face steeply rising infection rates tied to evolved variants of the virus, while provinces and territories that hewed closer to the Zero COVID approach do not. Zero COVID, also called Go for Zero or elimination, employs a range of tactics designed to drive infection rates to negligible. Such tactics include one hard serious lockdown followed by strategic testing, active surveillance and tight border controls.

The Vaccine Must Be A Common Good For Humanity

April 3, 2021 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Create! COVID-19, Pandemic, Public Health, Vaccine apartheid

Nearly three million people have reportedly been killed by the novel coronavirus (SAR-CoV-2) and upwards of 128 million people have been infected by the virus, many with long-lasting health repercussions. Thus far, roughly 1.5% of the world’s population of 7.7 billion have been vaccinated, but 80% of them are from only ten countries. In February, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research warned about the ‘medical apartheid’ that has shaped the vaccine roll-out. Since 1950, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has celebrated Global Health Day on 7 April. Each year, the WHO choses a different theme for the day, with last year’s being ‘Support Nurses and Midwives’. This year, the theme is ‘Building a fairer, healthier world’, which goes to the heart of medical apartheid.

Vaccine Nationalism Is Putting World Health At Risk

April 3, 2021 Laura Lopez Gonzalez, Tribune Magazine. Educate! COVID-19, Global South, Pandemic, Vaccine apartheid

It’s 9:21pm, and the phones of journalists across South Africa are buzzing. The health department has just released the country’s daily Covid-19 statistics in a WhatsApp message. ‘We convey our condolences to the loved ones of the departed and thank the health care workers who treated the deceased.’ The single line has been repeated in every statement, every night, for the last year. Officially, 52,846 people in the country of almost 59 million have died of Covid-19 since the epidemic began in March. But experts warn that the true death toll could be in the hundreds of thousands. Today, just 0.4 percent of South Africans have been vaccinated against the virus. In the United Kingdom, meanwhile, almost half the adult population has received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine – making it one of the most vaccinated countries in the world.

UK’s Vaccine Rollout Is A Reminder That We Need Universal Healthcare

April 1, 2021 Natasha Hakimi Zapata, In These Times. Create! COVID-19, National Health Service, United Kingdom (UK), Vaccine

London - Dr. John Lister watched in horror as the United Kingdom’s Covid-19 mortality rate climbed above 1 per 1,000, one of the highest death rates in the world since the start of the pandemic. So, when the 71-year-old Briton was informed he would receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in late January, he could hardly contain himself. “It was a great moment of excitement when I got the notification,” Lister tells In These Times. Lister, a health policy expert and associate professor at Coventry University, was one of 15 million people in the United Kingdom to receive a Covid-19 vaccine before February 15, thanks to a vaccination program that has consistently ranked among the three fastest in the world.

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

March 30, 2021 Alexi Jones and Wendy Sawyer, Prison Policy Initiative. Educate! COVID-19, health, Mass Incarceration, Prisons

This month, the Bureau of Justice Statistics released two reports with updates on city and county jail populations nationwide: Jail Inmates in 2019 and Impact of COVID-19 on the Local Jail Population, January-June 2020. After a year of upheaval due to the pandemic, the first report is already out-of-date and mainly useful as a historical document. The second report, however, answers some important questions about the decisions local officials made when the high stakes of jail incarceration – for individual and public health – were put into stark relief by the pandemic. Their decisions, and the resulting jail population changes in the first half of 2020, hold important lessons for ongoing and future decarceration efforts; here we outline some of those lessons – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Victoria’s ‘Big Idea’ Pays Off In Housing For People In Need

March 29, 2021 Lindsay Kines, Times Colonist. Create! Canada, COVID-19, Housing, Housing First

Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps and councillors Ben Isitt and Jeremy Loveday were met with a heavy dose of skepticism back in 2015 when they proposed that the Capital Regional District borrow $50 million to build supportive housing for people without homes. Helps recalled Friday that their “big idea” was mocked by some and discounted by others as unworkable or too costly. More than five years later, however, their proposal — later scaled back to $30 million — has pried matching money from the federal and provincial governments, and continues to produce results. On Friday, the CRD’s Regional Housing First Program announced the completion of its latest project — 120 new affordable homes in a six-storey rental building on Hockley Avenue in Langford.

Organizations Petition High Court Of Justice Demanding Vaccines For Palestinians

March 27, 2021 M. Dennis Paul, Popular Resistance. Resist! COVID-19, Israel, Palestinians, Vaccine apartheid

Six Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations petitioned the High Court of Justice on Thursday demanding that Israel take immediate steps to ensure regular supply of vaccines to the Palestinian population under its occupation, control and influence, in the West Bank and Gaza. The petitioners also demand that the state transfer its surplus vaccines to the Palestinians immediately. The petition was submitted by Adv. Adi Lustigman on behalf of Physicians for Human Rights Israel; HaMoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual; Al Mezan Center for Human Rights...

China Issues Annual US Human Rights Report

March 26, 2021 By Chen Qingqing and Cao Siqi, Global Times. Educate! China, COVID-19, Human Rights, United States

China published its annual US human rights situation report on Wednesday at a time when the US-led ideological battle against China has intensified, mainly over Xinjiang and other domestic issues. By highlighting the COVID-19 turning into a human tragedy, disorder in American democracy vividly reflected in the Capitol riots, and recent growing discrimination against ethnic minorities including Asian-Americans, China slammed the US' terrible human rights record, which makes its remarks on other countries' human rights situation pure "hypocrisy and double standards."

End Vaccine Apartheid

March 25, 2021 the Boycott Times Editorial Board. Resist! COVID-19, Medical Apartheid, Vaccines, World Trade Organization

The latest in a series of proposals brought by India and South Africa to the World Trade Organization (WTO), backed by over 100 countries, to temporarily suspend COVID-19 vaccine patents was blocked by western powers, namely the United States, United Kingdom, and the European Union. The patents that give monopoly rights over the manufacture and sale of drugs like the COVID-19 vaccines are protected globally by The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), signed in 1994 by the WTO.

Progressives Pressure Biden Over COVID19 Vaccine Patent Waiver

March 24, 2021 Peter Sullivan, The Hill. Resist! COVID-19, Patents, Vaccines, World Trade Organization

Progressives are increasing pressure on President Biden to support a waiver for COVID-19 vaccine patent protections at the World Trade Organization (WTO), arguing the move is crucial for helping lower-income countries fight the coronavirus. The push features leading Democratic lawmakers and advocacy groups calling on Biden to take action, but the White House has not made clear its position. “The Biden administration has an obligation to reverse the damage done by the Trump administration and reestablish our nation’s global reputation as a public health leader,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), head of the powerful House Appropriations Committee.

Vaccine Diplomacy Is Paying Off For China

March 17, 2021 Yanzhong Huang, Foreign Affairs. Strategize! China, COVID-19, Diplomacy, Vaccines

Vaccines have had a place in diplomacy since the Cold War era. The country that can manufacture and distribute lifesaving injections to others less fortunate sees a return on its investment in the form of soft power: prestige, goodwill, perhaps a degree of indebtedness, even awe. Today the country moving fastest toward consolidating these gains may be China, under President Xi Jinping, who proclaimed last May that Chinese-made vaccines against COVID-19 would become a “global public good.” Since that time, top officials have promised many developing countries priority access to Chinese vaccines, and the Chinese Foreign Ministry has announced that the country is providing free vaccines to 69 countries and commercially exporting them to 28 more.

Capitalist Economies Overproduce Food

March 16, 2021 Robert R. Raymond, Truthout. Educate! COVID-19, Fast Food, Food and Agriculture, Hunger

The unprecedented pandemic, and the recession it has caused, has led to a sharp increase in food insecurity in the United States. The problem isn’t that there isn’t enough food to go around, but that more and more people are unable to afford to purchase it. Last year the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) recently released a report predicting that the number of people facing extreme hunger could soar to 270 million by the end of 2020 — effectively doubling. What’s leading to these extreme statistics isn’t a lack of availability — it’s that many people simply can’t afford to purchase food. Like with many commodities, capitalist markets are fairly good at producing food, but they are not so efficient at distributing it equitably.

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