Pandemic

Putin Explains Why We Need New Economic Policies

February 3, 2021 Moon of Alabama. Educate! Global Finance, Pandemic, Vladimir Putin, World Economic Forum

The President of Russia Vladimir Putin has given a great speech to the Davos 2021 online forum organized by the World Economic Forum. As usual it created little echo in the 'western' media. Putin sees a new danger of large international conflicts. Economic imbalances have caused socio-political problems in many countries which, when externalized, can lead to international conflicts. To solve this one has to reject the laissez faire doctrines that caused the economic imbalances. The nation states must intervene more in their economies. The people must be seen as the ends, not the means of such economic policy. There must be more international cooperation through global organizations to enable this everywhere.

The Virus Changed

January 31, 2021 Andrew Nikiforuk, The Tyee. Educate! Canada, COVID-19, Pandemic, Viral Mutations

Are you tired of COVID? I fucking am. But as a longtime science writer and the author of two books on pandemics, I have to report what you probably don’t want to hear. We have entered the grimmest phase of this pandemic. And contrary to what our politicians say, there is only one way to deal with a rapidly mutating virus that demonstrates the real power of exponential growth: Go hard. Act early. And go to zero. Last January, one strain of this novel virus began its assured global conquest, and since then our leaders have hardly learned a goddamn thing. So yes, I am angry, and I will not disguise my frustration with comfortable or polite language.

‘100 Seconds To Midnight’

January 31, 2021 Brett Wilkins, Commondreams. Educate! climate crisis, Doomsday Clock, Nuclear War, Pandemic

One hundred seconds to midnight. That's how close humanity is to the apocalypse, and it's as close as the world has ever been, according to Wednesday's annual announcement from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a group that has been running its "Doomsday Clock" since the early years of the nuclear age in 1947. Although the scientists cite the Covid-19 pandemic, which has killed 1.7 million people around the world and has "revealed just how unprepared and unwilling countries and the international system are to handle global emergencies properly," they acknowledge that the coronavirus does not pose an existential threat to Homo sapiens.

Patriarchy And The Pandemic

January 8, 2021 Surangya, People's Dispatch. Strategize! COVID-19, LGBTQ, Pandemic, Patriarchy

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it agonizingly clear that the systems under which we are living were already broken. The pandemic has only exacerbated the crisis of the capitalist system and removed any illusions about this reality. However, the impact of the crisis has not been uniform. The neoliberal capitalist model, which survives and profits by exploiting the vulnerable, again fell back on its same old ways. As a result, it has been the workers, the migrants, the women, and others, whose unpaid and underpaid labor serves as the basis for capitalists to profit, who have suffered the most. In this conversation with Renata Porto Bugni from the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, we discuss the study done by the organization...

We Are Living In An Emergency That Requires Urgent Action

January 7, 2021 Vijay Prashad and Noam Chomsky, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Strategize! climate crisis, Neoliberalism, Nuclear War, Pandemic

Large parts of the world – outside of China and a few other countries – face a runaway virus, which has not been stopped because of criminal incompetence by governments. That these governments in wealthy countries cynically set aside the basic scientific protocols released by the World Health Organisation and by scientific organisations reveals their malicious practice. Anything less than focusing attention to managing the virus by testing, contact tracing, and isolation – and if this does not suffice, then imposing a temporary lockdown – is foolhardy. It is equally distressing that these richer countries have pursued a policy of ‘vaccine nationalism’ by stockpiling vaccine candidates rather than a policy for the creation of a ‘people’s vaccine’.

In 2021, Let’s Ring A Global Alarm On Inequality That Everyone Can Hear

January 6, 2021 Sam Pizzigati, Counterpunch. Educate! COVID-19, Economic inequality, Pandemic, Recession

Remember that old joke they used to tell — and maybe still do — in luxury retail circles? The customer, precious product in hand, walks over to a haughty sales clerk at a high-end emporium and timidly asks: “How much does this cost.” “If you have to ask,” the sales clerk smiles back, “you can’t afford it.” How much more unequal have we become in 2020? This question demands that we turn that old joke inside-out: We have to ask because we can’t afford not to know. And we can’t afford not to know because inequality is killing us. We have to know exactly what we’re facing. And what we’re facing, the economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton have just reminded us, doesn’t look good.

The Political Lessons Of The Pandemic

January 4, 2021 Joseph Kishore and David North, WSWS. Strategize! Left Politics, Pandemic, Recession, Socialism

1. As the New Year begins, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to sweep across the globe. This is a world crisis of vast historical significance. The pandemic is a “trigger event” that manifests in a highly concentrated form the contradictions of the world capitalist system and is unleashing long-suppressed forces of social transformation. 2. The pandemic cannot be described as merely a medical crisis. In the course of the past year, the thoroughly reactionary character of world capitalism has been exposed. The interaction of the drive for profit regardless of social cost, the lust of the oligarchs for obscene levels of personal wealth, and their inhuman indifference to the lives and welfare of the world’s population has created a global social catastrophe.

Prisons And Jails Are COVID-19 Super-Spreaders

January 1, 2021 Marc Norton, Popular Resistance. Create! California, COVID-19, Pandemic, Prisons

One in five prisoners in the U.S. has been reported to have had COVID-19. That’s 20% of people behind bars. And that is likely a “vast undercount,” according to Homer Venters, the former chief medical officer at New York’s Rikers Island jail complex. If compassion for prisoners does not move policy makers or the general public, then eyes should turn to a pair of recent studies, one by the Prison Policy Initiative and the other by the Marshall Project, focused on prisons and jails in the U.S. According to data in these two reports: Prisons and jails are “super-spreaders” of the virus, not only among prisoners, but also among people in the communities where prisons and jails are located.

Biden Predicts Surge In Deaths

January 1, 2021 Barry Grey, WSWS. Educate! COVID-19, Joe Biden, Pandemic, Reopen Economy

On Tuesday, Democratic President-elect Joe Biden gave what was billed as a “major speech” on the coronavirus pandemic. He spoke following a meeting with his coronavirus advisory panel. In perfunctory remarks that lasted barely 15 minutes, Biden provided a grim description of the mass death already occurring and predicted that things would get only worse in the coming months. “We will lose tens of thousands more lives in the months to come,” he said. “Hospitals are being stretched beyond capacity. That is data before the impact of cases coming from the holidays and this coming holiday of New Year’s Eve. “We have to anticipate that infections over the holidays will produce soaring death tolls in February.

Sara Nelson, The Labor Movement Leader We Needed Most

January 1, 2021 Esther Wang, Portside. Organize! Democracy, Labor Unions, Pandemic, Worker Rights and Jobs

In January of 2019, weeks into Donald Trump’s government shutdown, Sara Nelson accepted the labor federations’ MLK Drum Major for Justice Award with a soaring, and startling, speech. The annual award doesn’t typically lead to national news headlines, but that year Nelson, the charismatic head of the 50,000-strong Association of Flight Attendants-CWA union, used the opportunity to boldly call for a general strike. “Almost a million workers are locked out or being forced to work without pay,” she told the audience. “Others are going to work when our workspace is increasingly unsafe. What is the labor movement waiting for?”

Chris Hedges: The Great Delusion

December 21, 2020 Chris Hedges, ScheerPost.com. Educate! Congress, Health Care, Pandemic, Trump

Joe Biden and the systems managers of the deep state and empire are returning to power. Trump and his coterie of buffoons, racists, con artists and Christian fascists are sullenly preparing to leave office. U.S. pharmaceutical corporations are starting to disseminate vaccines to mitigate the globe’s worst outbreak of COVID-19 that has resulted in more than 2,600 deaths per day. America, as Biden says, is back, ready to take its place at the head of the table. In the battle for the soul of America, he assures us, democracy has prevailed. Progress, prosperity, civility and a reassertion of American prestige and power are, we are promised, weeks away.

Science Magazine Report Praises China’s COVID-19 Vaccine

December 13, 2020 Telesur English. Educate! China, COVID-19, Pandemic, Vaccine

The Science magazine website has just published a report praising a Covid-19 vaccine China has developed and referred to its "outstanding efficacy data" as a relevant feature, compared to the other vaccines out in the market. The vaccine, developed by the China National Pharmaceutical Group (CNPG), had been under phase III trials in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) since June, involving 31,000 volunteers from 125 countries and regions. The UAE announced on Wednesday the official registration of the Chinese company's COVID-19 vaccine. According to a statement issued by the UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention, the interim analysis of the phase III trials indicates that the Chinese vaccine offers 86 percent efficacy against COVID-19 infections.

States With Few Coronavirus Restrictions Are Spreading The Virus

December 1, 2020 David Armstrong, ProPublica. Educate! COVID-19, Pandemic, Public Health

For months after Washington state imposed one of the earliest and strictest COVID-19 lockdowns in March, Jim Gilliard didn’t stray far from his modular home near Waitts Lake, 45 miles north of Spokane. The retiree was at high risk from the coronavirus, both because of his age, 70, and his medical condition. Several years ago, he had a defibrillator implanted. So he mainly ventured out during the pandemic to shop for food. There wasn’t much else to do anyway. Gatherings in his county were limited to no more than 10 people, there was a mask mandate, movie theaters were closed and many nightclubs and concert venues were shuttered because of a state ban on all live entertainment, indoors and out.

Mutual Aid Will Help Us Survive The Biden Presidency

November 30, 2020 Dean Spade, ROAR Magazine. Create! Joe Biden, Mutual Aid, Pandemic, Recession

Many people are feeling great relief that Trump has been voted out and are rightly celebrating the efforts so many people have undertaken to make that happen. But even as we celebrate, we must ensure we do not demobilize, hoping that the new administration will take care of our problems. Unfortunately, we can be certain that the Biden/Harris administration will not address the crises and disasters of climate change, worsening wealth concentration and poverty, a deadly for-profit health care system and racist law enforcement.

Evictions Have Led To Hundreds Of Thousands Of Additional COVID-19 Cases

November 29, 2020 Annie Nova, CNBC. Educate! COVID-19, Evictions, Pandemic, Recession

Expiring state eviction bans have led to hundreds of thousands of additional coronavirus cases, new research finds, raising alarm about what will happen when the national eviction moratorium lapses next month. During the pandemic, which at one point was estimated it would displace as many as 40 million people, 43 states, plus Washington, D.C., temporarily barred evictions. Many of the moratoriums lasted just 10 weeks, while some states continue to ban the proceedings. The researchers, from the University of California, Los Angeles, University of California, San Francisco, Johns Hopkins University...

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