COVID-19

Vaccine Patent Shock As Biden Demands China Exclusion

May 22, 2022 Nury Vittachi, Fridayeveryday. Educate! Biden administration, China, COVID-19, New Cold War, Vaccines

The Biden Administration says it will veto a global plan to allow countries to ignore patents and make their own Covid-19 vaccines unless the Chinese are specifically excluded, Bloomberg reported. The sudden move has jolted top health workers who were hoping that the long-promised patent waiver would enable them to make vaccines available to everyone, including in poor countries in Africa and Asia. But the US says it will scupper the whole deal unless China is explicitly excluded from the waiver. In response, China said that it did not wish to be excluded from the pact, but would voluntarily agree not to take advantage of it. Deputy US Trade Representative Maria Pagan told Bloomberg that China’s offer was not good enough. It must be excluded in print.

The Plot To Keep Meatpacking Plants Open During COVID-19

May 16, 2022 Michael Grabell, Pro Publica. Educate! COVID-19, Meat Packers, Trump, Worker Rights

As hundreds of meatpacking workers fell sick from the coronavirus that was spreading through their plants and into their communities in April 2020, the CEO of Tyson Foods reached out to the head of another major meatpacker, Smithfield Foods, with a proposal. Smithfield’s pork plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, had been hit particularly hard, and state and local officials were pressuring the company to shut it down. “Anything we can do to help?” Tyson CEO Noel White asked in an email. Smithfield’s CEO Ken Sullivan replied that he wished there was. But White had an idea. Would Sullivan like to discuss the possibility of getting President Donald Trump to sign an executive order to keep meatpacking plants open?

In A World Of Great Disorder And Extravagant Lies

May 13, 2022 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! COVID-19, Health Care, Public Health

These are deeply upsetting times. The COVID-19 global pandemic had the potential to bring people together, to strengthen global institutions such as the World Health Organization (WHO), and to galvanize new faith in public action. Our vast social wealth could have been pledged to improve public health systems, including both the surveillance of outbreaks of illness and the development of medical systems to treat people during these outbreaks. Not so. Studies by the WHO have shown us that health care spending by governments in poorer nations has been relatively flat during the pandemic, while out-of-pocket private expenditure on health care continues to rise.

Case Factory Workers Strike For Higher Wages, COVID-19 Protections

May 7, 2022 Christine Hatfield, Wisconsin Public Radio. Resist! Auto Workers, COVID-19, Labor Movement, Strike, Unions, Wisconsin, Worker Rights and Jobs

Racine, Wisconsin - CNH Industrial employees in Racine represented by the United Auto Workers labor union have been on strike for almost a full work week. A local union representative said they're fighting for higher wages and better COVID-19 protections. Members of UAW Local 180 bundled up as they picketed Thursday outside the CNH plant where Case tractors are made. A collective bargaining agreement between the union and the company lapsed at noon on Monday. According to the UAW, more than 1,000 members are on strike at CNH locations in Racine and Burlington, Iowa. Richard Glowacki, chairman of the union's bargaining committee and president of the UAW CNH Council, said spirits are high.

Global Actions Condemn Big Pharma’s Vaccine Profiteering

April 29, 2022 Jake Johnson, Common Dreams. Resist! Big Pharma, COVID-19, Health Care, Vaccine apartheid

As major pharmaceutical executives and investors convened virtually on Thursday for their annual shareholder meetings, campaigners took to the streets in the U.S., the U.K., India, South Africa, and elsewhere to condemn major drug companies for hoarding technology and prioritizing profits over equitable distribution of coronavirus vaccines. Outside Pfizer's U.K. headquarters, activists dropped mock sacks of money and positioned wheelbarrows full of fake cash near the building's entrance to denounce the New York-based company's opposition to tech transfer initiatives and other efforts to expand coronavirus vaccine production in developing nations, where billions have been denied access to the shots. Pfizer has also faced backlash for obstructing African countries' attempts to study Paxlovid, the company's oral anti-viral treatment for Covid-19.

IMF Cuts Growth Forecast And Targets Wages

April 20, 2022 Nick Beams, WSWS. Educate! COVID-19, Finance and the Economy, International Monetary Fund, Supply Chain

In its World Economic Outlook report issued yesterday, the IMF said global growth for this year would be 3.6 percent, down 0.8 percentage points from its estimate in January and 1.3 percentage points lower than the forecast six months ago. For 2021, it said growth would come in at 6.1 percent. These figures, however, only partially depict a picture of a rapidly worsening economic outlook amid continuing supply chain constrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic and surging inflation, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine and tighter monetary policy, as central banks lift interest rates. The WEO report said “unusually high uncertainty” surrounded its forecasts and “downside risks to the global outlook dominate.”

COVID-19: The Poor People’s Pandemic

April 17, 2022 People's Health Dispatch. Educate! COVID-19, health, Mortality, Poverty

Soon after the first pandemic wave subsided, COVID-19 turned from the “great equalizer” to a poor people’s pandemic in the United States, shows a recent report published by the Poor People’s Campaign (PPC). The report brings a detailed analysis of how the pandemic affected poor and low income communities in the US, asking if their experiences are being taken into consideration at all, regardless of whether we are looking at pandemic response or post-pandemic re-building. The Poor People’s Pandemic Report is focused on the data and lived experience of people in the 1,000 poorest counties in the US, shining a light on the intersections between poverty and the pandemic. Some of the counties highlighted in the report have a very small population, which means they are not included in the official Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports.

Watchdog Finds DeJoy Invests In COVID Company, Potentially Breaking Law

April 6, 2022 Sharon Zhang, Truthout. Educate! Accountabiity, COVID-19, Louis DeJoy, US Postal Service

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy may have broken federal conflict of interest laws by holding investments in a company with federal government contracts for COVID rapid test kits, according to a government watchdog’s analysis of the embattled Trump appointee’s financial disclosures. The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) found in a report released last week that DeJoy owns roughly between $50,000 and $250,000 of stock in Abbott Laboratories, which produces the popular BinaxNow COVID testing kits. Earlier this year, federal officials awarded Abbott a $306 million contract for test kits as part of the government’s plan to send households free tests through the United States Postal Service (USPS). Abbott also recently won a contract modification for over $1 billion for test kits.

Foreclosures Moratorium Extended In Detroit And Wayne County

April 5, 2022 Abayomi Azikiwe, Popular Resistance. Resist! COVID-19, Detroit, Evictions, Housing

A Wayne County judge on March 29 granted a motion by Treasurer Eric R. Sabree extending the ban on owner-occupied homes being placed in jeopardy of seizure and public auction. This decision came in the aftermath of a campaign by the Moratorium NOW! Coalition (MNC) and other housing groups in the city of Detroit. A resolution was passed on March 29 by the Detroit City Council in favor of an extension after numerous people spoke out at the municipal legislative meeting calling on people to participate in the demonstration the following day at the Wayne County Treasurer’s Office in the Greektown district of Downtown. Although this resolution was passed without opposition, the MNC is calling for a permanent solution to the housing crisis in Detroit and throughout the county.

The CDC Is Beholden To Corporations And Lost Our Trust

April 4, 2022 The People's CDC, The Guardian. Create! Capitalism, CDC, COVID-19, Health Care

A new omicron variant, referred to as BA 2, is taking hold in the US. Anthony Fauci and others have said they don’t expect a new surge in the US, but BA.2 is causing devastating surges elsewhere, and the policies and behaviors we might use to prevent a surge in the US have been widely abandoned, in part thanks to the CDC’s new system for measuring and conveying Covid risk. In late February, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) unveiled a new Covid-19 monitoring system based on what they call “Community Levels.” By downplaying the importance of Sars-CoV-2 transmission, the new system instantly turned what was a pandemic map still red from Omicron transmission to green – creating the false impression that the pandemic is over.

National Endowment For The Arts Report On The Devastation Of The Arts

April 1, 2022 David Walsh, WSWS. Educate! Arts, COVID-19, Finance and the Economy, Performing Arts, Worker Rights and Jobs

On March 15, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the US government agency that funds arts projects, released a report revealing a portion of the financial and job losses sustained by artists and arts organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic so far. The NEA study points out that between 2019 and 2020 the US “arts economy” contracted at almost twice the rate of the economy as a whole. “Arts and cultural production fell by 6.4 percent when adjusted for inflation, compared with a 3.4 [percent] decline in the overall economy.” While the arts and culture sector remained “a major contributor to the economy,” according to the NEA, “certain arts industries saw enormous declines.” The performing arts were the most affected, experiencing devastating losses in 2020 in particular.

The Ongoing Covid Disaster

March 28, 2022 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Educate! COVID-19, Health Care, Joe Biden, Omicron

Nothing shows the abject failure of the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris administration like the continuing toll of covid-19 deaths in this country. A pledge to end the covid pandemic was a centerpiece of their 2020 campaign. They promised to improve upon Donald Trump’s disastrous handling of the crisis which resulted in the deaths of 385,000 people in 2020. Biden and Harris had 446,000 covid deaths as of their first anniversary in office. The total covid death toll is expected to reach 1 million by the end of March 2022. Now an Omicron subvariant, known as B.A.2, is becoming the dominant variant. The U.S. usually follows Europe in its covid rates, and on that basis scientists are predicting a new wave in the next two to three weeks.

We Need A Permanent TRIPS Waiver Mechanism

March 22, 2022 Rosa Pavanelli, Public Services International. Educate! COVID-19, Health Care, Patent Law, Vaccines

Two years into the pandemic, the trade rules that pose barriers to scaling up production of the vaccines, medicines, tests and other health products we dearly need have not been addressed, highlighting the need for an automatic mechanism to suspend problematic rules when a pandemic, other public health emergencies of international concern, or other exceptional circumstances arise, rather than leaving it to the murky politics of the World Trade Organization. On 15 March, the European Commission (EC) finally admitted that intellectual property rules pose a threat to vaccine access globally. The counterproposal that was leaked to the press is attributed to the quad of USA, the EC, India and South Africa, but only reflects positions from USA and the EC.

New ‘Compromise’ On IP Waiver For Covid Vaccines Is Worse Than No Deal

March 18, 2022 Sarah Lazare, In These Times. Educate! COVID-19, European Union (EU), Health Care, India, South Africa, Vaccines

On Tuesday, after a year and a half of negotiations over an intellectual property waiver for Covid-related products, the United States, European Union, India and South Africa reportedly reached agreement on a temporary waiver of patent rules for Covid vaccines. “The difficult and protracted process has resulted in a compromise outcome that offers the most promising path toward achieving a concrete and meaningful outcome,” said U.S. Trade Representative spokesperson Adam Hodge in a statement. Global health activists, however, are slamming the tentative deal as not only insufficient, but a potential setback, because it excludes tests and treatments, includes a carveout for China, and introduces new barriers for the production of generic treatments that could have implications far beyond the Covid crisis.

America’s New Dystopian Normal

March 16, 2022 Donald Earl Collins, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Capitalism, COVID-19, Failed State, Health Care

The United States has all but declared the COVID-19 pandemic over and done with. The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) advised 230 million Americans, 70 percent of the population, to no longer wear masks in most cases, including indoors. Cities, counties, and states across the US have lifted their mask mandates. Restaurants, shopping malls, movie theatres, and grocery stores have dropped mask and physical distancing requirements. Even school districts have gone mask-optional since the end of February. This is despite more than 55,000 Americans contracting the disease and nearly 2,000 dying from it and the complications it causes every day through early March. As the US approaches one million dead from COVID and 80 million sickened from this pathogen and its variants, it is clear that whiteness, capitalism, and narcissism have prolonged the pandemic, and horribly so.

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