Pandemic

For The Workers Of The World, The Pandemic Is Based On Inequality

May 9, 2020 Pasqualina Curcio, Resumen English. Organize! COVID-19, Economic inequality, Pandemic, Workers

It is not entirely true that COVID-19 does not distinguish between attacking and, above all, killing. It is possible that biologically there are no differences in skin color, age, or sex, in any of the case studies that will have to be conducted carefully once we have all the details of the cases of infected and dead. But one thing we know already is the vast differences and inequalities in the ways the pandemic is being fought. It is not the same as the risk of contagion for the delivery man for Amazon who must go out to work every day because otherwise his/her children will go to bed without eating, to the risk taken by the owner of the same company who, while being socially very distant in his mansion, is at the top of the Forbes list with a fortune of 138 billion dollars.

Scheer Intelligence: Does Medicare For All Await Us At The End Of This Viral Massacre?

May 8, 2020 Robert Scheer, Popular Resistance. Educate! Capitalism, COVID-19, Medicare for all, Pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has revealed a number of fatal flaws in the ways the United States operates that all link back to capitalism. Perhaps the most egregious, however, is the country’s inhumane health care system. Given the global spread of Covid-19, it has been possible to witness in real time how other countries have fared against the deadly virus, and for anyone paying attention to health care systems, it has been clear from the onset that the American system, which boasts the highest costs in the world, was going to lead to mass death on a scale unseen in other nations. The combination of obscene health insurance costs, as well as deductibles and copays, and the fact that it is often tied to employment--a problem exacerbated by the rapid rise in unemployment linked to lockdowns across the U.S.--has left many Americans without recourse amid a pandemic in which the overall health of the nation has been determined by those who can’t access health care.

Post-Pandemic America: Prelude To Socialism Or Fascism?

May 8, 2020 Werner Lange, Hampton Think. Educate! Capitalism, COVID-19, Pandemic, Socialism

May 8 marks the 75th anniversary of the defeat of fascism in Europe, a historic victory over modern despotism that catapulted American capitalism to world domination by default. As the only combatant country with its cities and infrastructure left intact, the United States emerged from this colossal bloodbath as the single most potent economy on earth. Europe, especially Germany, lay in utter ruins and tens of millions, half of them civilians, lay in early graves. By contrast, the US economy flourished adding some 11 million jobs within the seven years following the war; the minimum wage increased; the poverty rate fell; farm incomes, dividends and corporate profits hit all-time highs; and bank failures along with unemployment had all but disappeared. American capitalism entered a Golden Age.

66% Of New Yorkers Say They Got COVID-19 While Following Lockdown Rules

May 7, 2020 Katie Camaro, McClatchy. Educate! COVID-19, health, New York (NY), Pandemic

New York is the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. The state has been shut down for six weeks, yet more than 20,000 people are still receiving positive test results each week, according to official counts. Now, state Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that 66% of new hospitalizations are from people who say they have been locked in their homes, according to CNBC. Admissions from nursing homes rang in second, making up 18% of the total, Cuomo said Wednesday at his daily briefing. “Much of this comes down to what you do to protect yourself. Everything is closed down; government has done everything it could, society has done everything it could. Now it’s up to you,” Cuomo said, CNBC reported. Over three days, 113 New York hospitals provided data on their nearly 1,300 patient admissions and their demographics, according to the New York Times.

We’re Fighting COVID, Budget Cuts And ‘Murderous Racial Inequalities’

May 7, 2020 Danny Katch, The Indypendent. Resist! COVID-19, Pandemic, Systemic Racism, Worker Rights

Sean Petty is a pediatric emergency room nurse at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx and the southern regional director for the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA). In mid-March, he spoke to The Indypendent’s Danny Katch about how the coming coronavirus spike would overwhelm a public hospital system that had been decimated by budget cuts and closures. The subsequent weeks proved his predictions correct. The official virus death toll in New York City is over 18,000 as of this writing, a number that includes dozens of health care workers. But Petty and his fellow nurses have also organized themselves into powerful political actors who have leveraged their moral authority to demand more personal protective equipment (PPE) and other resources from local and national officials.

Indigenous Leadership Points The Way Out Of The COVID Crisis

May 7, 2020 Yoav Litvin, Truthout. Strategize! colonization, COVID-19, Indigenous Peoples, Pandemic

The United States is in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has infected more than 1.2 million people and claimed over 70,000 lives. President Donald Trump has failed the American public, bungling the response while forsaking and targeting vulnerable communities. Meanwhile, the hopes for a progressive insurgency have faded with Sen. Bernie Sanders’s withdrawal from the race for the Democratic nomination for president. Indigenous people have been here before. White supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy and settler colonialism have systematically erased Indigenous communities, culture and voices, while confiscating their lands. Throughout their history of colonization, they have faced a variety of structural oppressions with clear lessons for the current crises.

Some Communities Are Forced To Fight School Closures And Privatization During The Pandemic

May 7, 2020 Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism. Resist! Charter Schools, Education, Pandemic, Privatization

Since mid-March, public school students in Minnesota have had to stay home because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, according to the state’s governor, Tim Walz, schools will remain closed until the end of this school year, with no guarantee that they will reopen in the fall for anything other than online teaching and learning. This hasn’t stopped the Minneapolis Public Schools from attempting to push forward with a dramatic restructuring plan, known as the Comprehensive District Design. Under this plan, nearly all of the city’s 34,000 public school students and teachers would be reassigned to new schools, beginning in the fall of 2021. The proposal includes the closure of several popular, long-standing magnet school programs, as well as the dismantling of existing community schools in favor of new school configurations.

World Leaders, Without US, Pledge $8 Billion To Fight COVID-19

May 5, 2020 Robbin Emmott and Francesco Guarascio, Reuters. Educate! COVID-19, Health Care, International Solidarity, Pandemic

Brussels - World leaders and organisations pledged $8 billion to research, manufacture and distribute a possible vaccine and treatments for COVID-19 on Monday, but the United States refused to contribute to the global effort. Organisers included the European Union and non-EU countries Britain, Norway and Saudi Arabia. Leaders from Japan, Canada, South Africa and dozens of other countries joined the virtual event, while China, where the virus is believed to have originated, was only represented by its ambassador to the European Union. Governments aim to continue raising funds for several weeks or months, building on efforts by the World Bank, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and wealthy individuals, and turn the page on the fractious and haphazard initial response around the world.

Indian State Shows Why Fighting COVID-19 Requires Working-Class Power

May 5, 2020 Samantha Argawal, Truthout. Create! COVID-19, India, Pandemic, Working Class

Even as the death toll in the U.S. from COVID-19 climbs to 63,583 and increasing numbers of Americans are forced to decide whether to forgo potentially life-saving treatment or face bankruptcy, we are bombarded daily with pro-corporate rhetoric opposed to universal health care systems. We are told that the market is the most efficient mechanism for distributing goods and services, including health care, and that social democratic policies like Medicare for All are a fiscal “fantasy” that would leave us with inferior quality care. But the COVID-19 crisis has thrown up a stubborn challenge to this pro-market logic. Despite high levels of private sector health care spending, the U.S. not only has fewer hospital beds per capita than other wealthy nations but also has huge regional disparities in how those beds are distributed.

Coronavirus: Scientific Realities Vs. Economic Fallacies

May 5, 2020 Georgi Marinov, LeftEast. Educate! COVID-19, Global Recession, Health Care, Pandemic

With the start of the second month of coronavirus quarantine, the issue of when and how life, and most of all, the economy will be able to return to “normal” is becoming more serious. This is understandable as in the current situation unemployment levels are close to reaching, even exceeding, those of the Great Depression, and if quarantine measures continue for a long time, an overall long-term economic downturn, commensurate with what happened in the 1930s, is very likely. Moreover, this is potentially the less important problem, since it is not clear what will become of public order if a large number of people are left to literally starve without any income and savings, a situation that can also be expected, at least in some countries.

Cancel The Rents Activists Say Housing Is A Human Right

May 4, 2020 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Housing, Human Rights, Pandemic, Recession

There is a growing movement of people refusing to pay their rent whether they are not able to or whether they can but they are acting in solidarity with those who can't. In this recession, tens of millions of people have lost their jobs. Support from the government is not reaching everyone who needs it. Thirty percent of people could not pay their rent in April. This is occurring in an environment where property owners are large corporations that seek profit even when it means people losing their homes during a pandemic. We speak with DC activist and co-host of By Any Means Necessary about the Cancel the Rent campaign, which calls on local government to put a moratorium on rent until the pandemic is over. Their long term goal seeks to transform the way housing is structured in the United States so it is treated as a basic human right.

The Corporate-Dominated World Faces Not One, But Three Pandemics

May 4, 2020 By Vandana Shiva, Commondreams. Educate! COVID-19, Hunger, Jobs and Wages, Pandemic

On this May Day, the world is witnessing three pandemics simultaneously. The first is the Coronavirus Pandemic. The second is the Hunger Pandemic. The third is the Pandemic of Destruction of Livelihoods. Thus far, he coronavirus pandemic has infected 3.19 million and killed 228,000. The World Food Programme has warned the world community of the looming “hunger pandemic,” which has the potential to engulf over a quarter of a billion people whose lives and livelihoods will be plunged into immediate danger. According to the world food program more than a million people who are on the verge of starvation, and 300,000 could starve to death every single day for the next three months.

Bolivia Vs Venezuela: COVID-19 Response Reveals True Nature Of Governments

May 4, 2020 By Federico Fuentes, Green Left. Educate! Bolivia, COVID-19, Pandemic, Venezuela

Government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have put into sharp relief their true nature. This is perhaps no more evident than when we compare Bolivia and Venezuela. Despite having been installed as an “interim” president after a coup last November, Jeanine Anez is presented in the media as leading Bolivia’s “transition back to democracy”. On the other hand, Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro is regularly described as a “tyrant” or “dictator” presiding over an “authoritarian regime”. Yet, when we compare how these governments have responded to COVID-19, it is clear these labels bear little resemblance to reality. In Bolivia, the government was quite slow to react to the pandemic and, when it finally acted, did so in an incoherent manner. Eight days after the first cases were detected on March 10 the government closed the country’s borders and initiated a nightly curfew from 5pm–6am.

Update: Number Of Unemployed Now Over 30 Million

May 3, 2020 Economic Policy Institute. Educate! COVID-19, Pandemic, Recession, Unemployment

The number of workers applying for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits has risen to never-before-seen levels as a result of the coronavirus shock. In the last six weeks, nearly 28 million workers have applied for unemployment compensation. That is more than one in six workers, and over five times the worst period of the Great Recession. I should note that the Department of Labor (DOL) reports that 30.3 million workers applied for UI during the last six weeks on a “seasonally adjusted” basis, compared with 27.9 million on an unadjusted basis. Seasonal adjustments are typically helpful—they are used to even out seasonal changes in claims that have nothing to do with the underlying strength or weakness of the labor market, providing a clearer picture of underlying trends.

A Federal Jobs Program For Contact Tracing

May 3, 2020 Dayton Martindale, In These Times. Create! COVID-19, Pandemic, Public Health, Worker Rights and Jobs

As of last Thursday, 26.5 million Americans had filed for unemployment in a five-week span, as businesses not deemed essential are scaling back or shuttering entirely. Yet perhaps the most essential work of all remains stubbornly undone. To safely reopen the economy without new waves of infection and death, virtually everyone who has written on the topic has been repeating the same urgent recommendation for months: The United States must ramp up testing, and with it employ a robust program of “contact tracing.” That is, we must reach out to those who test positive, determine who they have been in close contact with, alert these contacts that they may have been exposed, and ensure that these contacts are able to effectively quarantine. While technological tools play a role in this, providing personalized support will take people power.

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