Pandemic

New CDC Guidelines Could Worsen COVID-19 Spread And Racial Disparities

April 15, 2020 National Nurses United. Educate! CDC, COVID-19, health, Pandemic, social distancing

New guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) encouraging workers exposed to the coronavirus to stay on the job would likely worsen the spread of the coronavirus and exacerbate the disparity of infected cases, and deaths, of African Americans that has become a national scandal. Under its new recommendations, the CDC revokes previous guidelines that most workers who are exposed to the virus should be isolated for a period of 14 days. Instead, CDC says essential workers can mainly just wear a mask and not practice social distancing, “as work duties permit,” a significant loophole that can be easily exploited by employers. “The loosened guidelines are dangerous, and risk exposing other workers and the public to infection, with supposed mitigation measures that are far less effective in reducing the threat of spreading the virus...

Cuba: From AIDS, Dengue, And Ebola To COVID-19

April 15, 2020 Don Fitz, Green Social Thought. Create! COVID-19, Cuba, Health Care, Pandemic

Preparing for a pandemic requires understanding that a change in the relationship between people is primary and the production of things is secondary and flows from social factors. Investors in profit-based medicine cannot comprehend this concept. Nothing could exemplify it more clearly than Cuba’s response to the corona virus (COVID-19). The US dawdled for months before reacting. Cuba’s preparation for COVID-19 began on January 1, 1959. On that day, over sixty years before the pandemic, Cuba laid the foundations for what would become the discovery of novel drugs, bringing patients to the island, and sending medical aid abroad. For twenty years before the 1959 revolution, Cuban doctors were divided between those who saw medicine as a way to make money and those who grasped the necessity of bringing medical care to the country’s poor, rural, and black populations.

The Big Lie: 102 Years Ago, Leaders Downplayed The Devastation Of The Spanish Flu

April 13, 2020 Mark Washburn, The Charlotte Observer. Educate! Media, Pandemic, Spanish Flu, Transparency

For 102 years, that lie has gone unchallenged. But now, spurred by curiosity amid a new pandemic, an examination of archived Mecklenburg County death certificates by The Charlotte Observer and a parsing of century-old news accounts reveal that Charlotte leaders — enabled by an acquiescent press and accepting public — systematically under-reported the 1918 death toll by half. In fact, at the height of the epidemic, when citizens were dying at the rate of more than 10 a week, they under-reported the scope of the crisis by two-thirds. To research the issue, the Observer examined official Mecklenburg County death certificates, held in an archive managed by Ancestry.com and accessed through the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library system, from September 1918 through January 1919 and compared the results to public statements about the scope of the crisis made by officials during the same time.

Fascists Are Using COVID-19 To Advance Their Agenda

April 13, 2020 Ejeris Dixon, Truthout. Strategize! Fascism, Mutual Aid, Pandemic, Police State

The COVID-19 crisis is a story of a predictable pandemic. It is a result of the willful ignorance of the impact of the climate crisis and unsustainable expansion, a failure of multiple governments and the intentional under-resourcing of public health and medical systems. It results from our societies’ ignoring of the conditions for poor people, the unhoused, disabled and chronically ill people, sex workers, migrants, communities of color and street-based communities, and the exploitation of this crisis by a rich, privileged and powerful fascist minority. Our government had the information, the resources, and the ability to prepare for this pandemic, including supporting those most at risk. We could have had the tests, the masks, the ventilators, the resources and emergency plans.

The Coronavirus Crisis Exposes How Fragile Capitalism Already Was

April 13, 2020 By Stephanie Luce, Labor Notes. Educate! Capitalism, COVID-19, Pandemic, Recession

When this is all over, will we be able to patch up the economy and get things back to normal? Trump certainly claims so. But he’s wrong. Weak attempts to patch up the problems of capitalism—as much as the coronavirus itself—are what got us into the current economic meltdown in the first place. Let’s define some terms. When we talk about the health of the economy, there are two parts: the “real economy,” which includes all the goods and services that we produce, and the “financial economy”: money, stock markets, banks, and credit. The coronavirus has affected the economy in stages: First, we saw the impact on the real economy as the spread of the virus in China led to slowed production in January 2020.

Don’t Blame China For Your Government’s COVID-19 Failures

April 13, 2020 Davide Mastracci, Passage. Educate! China, COVID-19, Media, Pandemic

In early January, COVID-19 was largely limited to China. Now, just three months later, it has spread far beyond China’s border, and has effectively been halted domestically within the country. There are currently around 1.36 million reported COVID-19 cases globally, with more than 76,000 deaths. China accounts for just 6 percent of all cases, and 4.4 percent of deaths. Yesterday, China reported no new deaths for the first time since January. Countries in the West, meanwhile, have gone into lockdown, hospitals have been overwhelmed and markets are crashing. There appears to be no clear end in sight for us here. Despite that, a group of ideologues already have their eyes on the post-pandemic world, and are concerned China may emerge as the new global superpower.

Trump Threatens To Suspend Resources To The World Health Organization

April 12, 2020 David Brooks, La Jornada, translation Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau. Educate! COVID-19, Pandemic, Trump, World Health Organization

Donald Trump accused the World Health Organization (WHO) of what he is accused of and lambasted independent federal inspectors who dare not submit to his official line as further evidence emerged that the White House had known of the potential severity of the pandemic since late January without acting, with consequences more than visible today in this city and across the country. Trump, in his almost daily briefing, continued his practice of holding others accountable for almost any problem he faces, and this time it was the World Health Organization – the world’s largest multilateral public health organization in the midst of a pandemic. Trump threatened to suspend the U.S. contribution to the WHO, because they “failed” to warn of the pandemic, and “were wrong,” and continued to accuse them of “not seeing” the beginning, and “not reporting” it – all of which is false.

Nicaragua And Covid-19: The Secret Best Hidden By The Western Media

April 12, 2020 Jorge Capelán, Managua con Amor. Educate! COVID-19, Media, Nicaragua, Pandemic

One of the best-hidden secrets behind the cacophony of panic and media terrorism caused by the current Covid-2019 pandemic has been the way as successful as Nicaragua, a small and poor country in one of the regions most exposed to climate change in the planet has been stopping the arrival of the new coronavirus. With 6.5 million inhabitants, Nicaragua had until April 5 only 6 cases of Covid-19 (all imported), of which 3 were active, 2 were recovered and one, sick with AIDS, had died. At the same time, it kept close surveillance on about 10 people who, despite having failed the tests, are still being monitored as a precaution. In comparison, in the Central American region, until that day there were 4,598 confirmed cases of Covid-19, of which 4,360 were active, 167 died and 71 recovered.

America First, COVID-19 Pandemic And Global Humanity

April 12, 2020 By Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD, Information Clearinghouse. Educate! American Exceptionalism, COVID-19, International Solidarity, Pandemic

The 21st century is an age of globalization. Crisis in one part of the world affects all the people of the Earth. We, the humanity, live in co-existence with the Nature of Things within the Universe. If we tend to be blind to basic human requisites of human rights, human safety and care, social justice and peace, we tend to challenge and deny the cosmic harmony and justice in which we exist as mankind. The COVID-19 pandemic crisis is a strand that can be found in the interwoven people’s thought and politics of the 21st-century knowledge-based informed governance that echoes concerns and priorities that humanitarian imperatives are scarified for political expediency. The common sentiment of human solidarity is increasing over the inept nationalistic politics of the few like President Trump- “America First.”

The Choice For Global Nonviolence Is Sharper Than Ever

April 11, 2020 Ken Butigan, Pace e Bene. Strategize! climate crisis, Nonviolence, Pandemic, Recession

Violence—which individuals and whole societies chronically reach for in the hopes of defending themselves, solving their problems or resolving their conflicts—makes no sense in coping with this dangerous reality. Violence will not flatten the curve of infection or heal those who have tested positive. If anything, violent policies and behavior—attacking the sick or restricting their access to treatment, or exploding into rage—will only worsen an already bad situation. Instead, people everywhere are increasingly unleashing the power and spirit of nonviolent engagement: compassion, courage, resilience, sacrifice and concerted action for the common good. In the midst of the terror of this moment, these facets of active nonviolence are spreading everywhere as we mobilize to prevent transmission, treat the sick, console the dying, comfort survivors, and learn vital lessons from the awful toll that this cataclysm is taking.

Scheer Intelligence: Coronavirus Has Already Transformed America, For Better And For Worse

April 10, 2020 Robert Scheer, KCRW. Create! COVID-19, Pandemic, Podcast, Revolution

In a special edition of “Scheer Intelligence,” host Robert Scheer becomes the guest as filmmaker Stephen French asks for the journalist’s take on the coronavirus crisis. Speaking on the eve of Scheer’s 84th birthday, the “Scheer Intelligence” host draws from lessons learned in his seven decades of reporting to make sense of this unprecedented moment. His two most recent books, “They Know Everything About You” and “The Great American Stickup,” are especially helpful in understanding how governments, as well as financial institutions and private companies are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. When the filmmaker asks him what he thinks about the pandemic sweeping the world, Scheer initially discusses the impact the coronavirus is already having on privacy and civil liberties.

Trump Goes For Venezuela; A Jump Into Nothingness?

April 10, 2020 Stella Calloni, Resumen English. Educate! Pandemic, US Imperialism, Venezuela, Wars and Militarism

In the midst of a desolate scenario, when the United States has become the country with the highest number those infected by the corona virus, President Donald Trump and his team of serial criminals like Elliott Abrams, Cuban-American Mauricio Claver-Carone, Marco Rubio and others, announced that their country and 22 other nations would launch a far-reaching operation against drug trafficking in the Western Hemisphere, deploying naval and air force military reinforcements in the Caribbean Sea and the South Pacific. From Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro denounced this situation to the world, in an extraordinary letter to the governments while the majority of the countries of the world and even the United Nations are requesting that the United States lift the sanctions against Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and other countries, in view of the very serious emergency of a pandemic of this magnitude.

What It Looked Like When Wisconsin Forced In-Person Voting During A Pandemic

April 10, 2020 Jessica Corbett, Commondreams. Educate! COVID-19, Elections, Pandemic, Voter Rights

As footage of Wisconsin's crowded polling stations flooded the internet Tuesday, public health officials and civil rights advocates condemned the state's Supreme Court and Republican legislative leaders for allowing in-person voting during the coronavirus pandemic and thwarting Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' last-minute efforts to address voter safety concerns. "It's not going to be a safe election. People are going to get sick from this," Brook Soltvedt, a 60-year-old textbook editor who is in charge of running the polling place at Thoreau Elementary School in Madison, Wisconsin's capital, told The Cap Times. Soltvedt added that though she thinks "the city has done about the best that they can do," she worries that the election will cause voter confusion and health consequences.

This Is A Global Pandemic – Let’s Treat It As Such

April 9, 2020 Adam Hanieh, Verso Books. Strategize! COVID-19, Global South, health, Pandemic, Poverty

In the face of the COVID-19 tsunami, our lives are changing in ways that were inconceivable just a few short weeks ago. Not since the 2008-2009 economic collapse has the world collectively shared an experience of this kind: a single, rapidly-mutating, global crisis, structuring the rhythm of our daily lives within a complex calculus of risk and competing probabilities. In response, numerous social movements have put forward demands that take seriously the potentially disastrous consequences of the virus, while also tackling the incapacity of capitalist governments to adequately address the crisis itself. These demands include questions of worker safety, the necessity of neighbourhood level organising, income and social security, the rights of those on zero-hour contracts or in precarious employment, and the need to protect renters and those living in poverty.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

Daily movement news and resources