alanjjohnstone
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Once more business will be expecting to receive a huge bail-out from governments for their drop in profits.
And although some tinkering is being done to alleviate the impact on coronavirus upon workers, it is minimum and often reluctant and certainly won’t compensate for the loss of earnings and loss of employment many are already suffering.
Thanks, Matt. It is good to have an extra pair of eyes which are much more careful than mine.
“In the 1980s, Murray Bookchin developed ideas for a “libertarian municipalism” that called for ecologically sustainable cities governed by direct democracy, producing for their needs with cooperatives.”
Certainly, not the importance he deserves though
“I don’t think that Bernie Sanders has the balls to run as an independent or as a candidate for the Green Party or the DSA”
I don’t think that is has ever been his strategy, Marcos.
What i think he is hoping is that he can bargain the support of his impressive grassroot support to campaign for Biden against Trump, if Biden adopts in some form or another M4A.
AOC earlier let the cat out the bag that she would accept some sort of phased opt-in version as a necessary compromise, if need be.
But i doubt very much Sanders can convince the establishment Democrats to endorse any of his policies. (Maybe the $15 minimum wage?)
As i said, the debate will be illuminating.
As for VP it may well be Amy Klobucher as he has hinted it will be a woman (less likely is Kamala Harris after her spat in the early debate with Biden), and Buttigieg will get some Secretary of State job.
No doubt some Brexiteers must be rejoicing that the EU “borderless” principles and passport-free Schengen Area has just disappeared with the very nationalist imposed sovereignty laws being passed due to COVID19
Austria, Slovenia, Switzerland, Czech, Slovakia, Poland, Cyprus, Denmark, Hungary, Portugal,
I may well have missed some who have re-imposed border controls.
Nevertheless, France, Germany, Spain and Italy opt to keep their borders open.
If needs must, EU harmony falls by the wayside
There are rumours that once Biden has tucked Sanders well and truly away, Biden may well be replaced at the convention, under some pretext or other.
Or that the choice for VP and secretary of states will not be his and that will be crucial since they will be given inordinate free rein on policies with little interference from Biden.
He will be a one-term president, so again the VP should be seen as his successor.
Those who know the most about his senility are actually those insiders within his campaign and the Democratic establishment.
His writers do not give him long speeches because they know he meanders off, he is not scheduled to very many afternoon engagements as like most of us old men, he needs to nap, but in his interactions, he can’t respond in a civil manner to innocuous questions from the public…a grumpy old man.
So the presidential contest is between one doo-lally politician against another gaa-gaa politician…and still the American voter cannot see through the charade.
I’ll be watching the no-audience debate between Biden and Sanders this evening with interest and hoping Sanders takes his gloves off and says some home-truths about Biden, something Bernie has never done. Or is he still very futilely hoping that Biden might adopt some of his policies and so remains diplomatic? I fear the latter.
As in China, Italy’s air pollution is fast disappearing as the pause in industry takes effect due to Covid-19
In China CO2 emissions fell by a quarter, or an estimated 200 million tonnes in the four weeks to March 1 – about half the amount Britain emits in a year.
The European Space Agency said it had observed a particularly marked decline in emissions of nitrogen dioxide, a noxious gas emitted by power plants, cars and factories, over the Po Valley region in northern Italy.
Evidence that when the urgency is recognised about dealing with the climate emergency, mitigating action can have almost an immediate result and the world won’t crumble around us.No faith in the divine
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51887510
Roman Catholic churches in England are “preparing for a time” when the celebration of Mass may have to “come to an end”
The Muslim Council of Britain urged mosques to have contingency plans in place for Ramadan – which begins in the second half of April – as it may have to suspend mass gatherings.
The United Synagogue asked its members to refrain from shaking hands and kissing religious artefacts, such as communal siddurim, which is a Jewish prayer book.
In an open letter, a group of 229 scientists from UK universities say the government’s current approach will put the NHS under additional stress and “risk many more lives than necessary”. The group said the current measures are “insufficient” and “additional and more restrictive measures should be taken immediately”, as is happening in other countries.
The signatories also criticised comments made by Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, about managing the spread of the infection to make the population immune.
The letter continues: “Going for ‘herd immunity’ at this point does not seem a viable option, as this will put the NHS at an even stronger level of stress, risking many more lives than necessary.
“By putting in place social distancing measures now, the growth can be slowed down dramatically, and thousands of lives can be spared.The scientists also questioned the government’s view that people will become fed up with restrictions if they were imposed too soon.
The government’s scientific advisory group for emergencies (Sage) advised that measures to protect vulnerable people – including household isolation – “will need to be instituted soon”.
In the US we now what is called ~ “Disaster Socialism”
I’m a strong believer that when you have dug yourself into a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging yourself any deeper. So no more challenging the medical seriousness of the pandemic.
From now on my focus will be on the damaging impacts of covid19 on those who are not being effectively protected and that is widespread both in the developed world and the less developed.
President Rodrigo Duterte issue a lockdown order for Metro Manila. This has already happened in Quezon City, which has so far reported six of the country’s 64 confirmed coronavirus cases. Quezon City has a population of more than three million.
The Manila lockdown, which takes effect between March 15 and April 14, will bar domestic travel in and out of the capital and confine more than 12 million people to the area. Duterte vowed to deploy police and military to instil “peace and order” during the lockdown, which was recommended earlier that day by an interagency committee. He insisted the measure is “not martial law”.
Philippine National Police chief Debold Sinas said that violators of the lockdown would be subject to arrest.
Dr Joshua San Pedro, co-convener of the Coalition for People’s Right to Health said, “It seemed mostly like a military and police solution rather than a health intervention.”
Duterte said authorities would enforce social distancing measures in public areas, including mass transportation. This may be impossible in densely populated, impoverished communities where families live in one or two-room dwellings and share bathrooms with neighbours.
The lack of running water, access to nutritious food and dilapidated housing conditions in poor communities makes “advice such as handwashing, maintaining good nutrition, and self-quarantine matters of privilege,” San Pedro said.
There is a severe shortage of COVID-19 tests in the Philippines and the country’s health workers are overburdened. Last autumn, it was reported the health department’s budget was cut by 10 billion Philippine pesos ($195.8m).
This is a typical situation for low-income countries with very poor safety-nets and where many live in overcrowded shanty-towns with little or no sanitation.
Bijou – “On a serious note I do think we need to consider postponing annual conference, we have a number of members who have health vulnerabilities and we don’t want to endanger any members.”
Certainly not under today’s circumstances but confirmation for those of us who have been saying for a long time that we should be making conference a virtual video interactive event.
Too late in the day to do it now, though. Or am i wrong?
“How can you deny that the pandemic is having a negative effect on production?”
Whoever denied that? What I have said is it appears that it is the containment policies are a self-inflicted wound upon the economy. I said the cure is proving more painful than the sickness to the economy and it was something I found hard to understand about the ruling class response.
I have highlighted the policies are particularly damaging to the poor economically and for many the covid19 threat is less than the harm of poverty upon them.
ALB does that stat include the recommended self-enforced quarantine or actual employees falling sick?
The exponential risk video is useful.
The contagious rate drops if travel is locked-down or social distancing or we clean our hands more. What should have been the most cost-effective policy implemented, one that can be sustained for a long time?
TWC, Michael Osterholm makes a very good case to treat the illness as a matter of urgency. His own view has changed from January.
He says Americans should be aware of the situation, but not worried.
“Public health around the world is on alert for this. They’re monitoring it closely and intervening quickly when cases are identified,” Osterholm says.Like all good scientists his opinions change with improved information.
He has a respected history of analysis which widens the debate. He was the messenger that nobody listened to. So I appreciate that you drew my attention to the interview
“We have the ability to make a very effective vaccine for yellow fever. The problem is no one wants to spend the money to make it because you can’t make money on it… And even though we have a vaccine for it today, we can’t get it to people because nobody will make it. If yellow fever comes back, it will make dengue and Zika seem like [much lesser] public health problems…And even though we have a vaccine for it today, we can’t get it to people because nobody will make it. If yellow fever comes back, it will make dengue and Zika seem like [much lesser] public health problems…We published a paper in 2011 in the Lancet about how flu vaccines don’t work nearly as well as the public health community has led the public to believe. In some cases, they don’t work at all, and their ability to be available for a pandemic is extremely limited worldwide because of the time period it takes to make them and the amount of vaccine we can make. During a pandemic, we’ll be lucky if a few percent of the world would even get a vaccine by the time the pandemic has wiped through the population. And then on top of that we don’t even know how well it would work, and it could be very poor.”
Why we can’t be complacent about the threat of infectious disease: a Q&A with Michael Osterholm
“We don’t want to do things that are counterproductive if there’s not a benefit,” he said.
I referred to the closing of the Irish schools as an example.
This virus is often talked about in terms of two modes: containment — preventing spread — and mitigation — trying to minimize harm — Osterholm said. But there’s a middle ground: suppression, or flattening the timeline of the epidemic so it’s not, for example, 100 people getting admitted to the hospital one week, but maybe 10 cases a week for 10 weeks.
Reading his other articles, his priority is protecting the healthcare workers who would treat coronavirus patients – suppression.
Matt, I read the article and again it is not satisfying me that the effects of covid19 justifies the extreme responses of various governments to stem its spread.
That covid19 travelled around the world fast is no surprise since in many cases it is symptomless and carriers can only be identified by tests and that is a point I keep raising. Very much like some STDs which are asymptomatic meaning the symptoms are not at all obvious. Hence the need for regular screening to ensure you’re free from sexual infection which of course is not done on the required scale and the continual rise of the numbers infected.
It is a threat only to a small section of the population and the much cited mortality rate of 3.4 is an over-estimate and it is 0.6 – which is albeit much higher than normal flu-rate of 0.1 which has been around longer and has various research facilities identifying the mutations to develop almost annually adapted vaccines for the vulnerable parts of the population. A few years down the line and so will covid19 have its vaccine incorporated in the health system.
Lets put things in perspective.
Up to beginning of Feb in the U.S. alone, the flu has already caused an estimated 19 million illnesses, 180,000 hospitalizations and 10,000 deaths this season
In 2009 during the swine flu pandemic, which is estimated to have killed between 151,000 and 575,000 people worldwide,
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-does-the-new-coronavirus-compare-with-the-flu/
Globally less than 5000 have died from covid19. So far less than 130,000 out of 7 billion people have been detected with the virus. That is absolutely miniscule.
And I am only making comparisons with many other diseases such as dengue to bring that out. And asking why they did not deserve the focus from capitalists.
Do we credit the precautions that governments have taken or do we view the virus as mostly non-fatal?
I’m suggesting that it is the latter
And my problem is that I don’t understand what is now become hysteria about it from the normally conservative scientific community and governments who primary care is usually solely about the health of their economy than with the health of their citizens. What is the threat that has got the callous capitalist class so concerned, very much more so than ever before?
ALB tried to say it was because of the potential effects on we the wealth-producers and sick days off but I don’t see that and have said why so I won’t repeat myself.
I really don’t like being in what can be considered a denialist camp.
I am genuinely mystified and until I find some rational explanation I have to remain a sceptic and express my doubts here on a discussion forum, rather than air them on a public medium like our blogs.
Look at the figures, ALB. We are not facing any apocalypse.
Look at the death count. Compare it with other illnesses. There are numerous health threats with a higher mortality toll that are ignored or neglected.
1.7 million people die of tuberculosis globally each year.
11,700 deaths from prostate cancer in the UK 2015-2017, 16,200 from bowel cancer, 35,300 from lung cancer, 11,400 deaths breast cancer.
One in five deaths around the world is caused by sepsis. Sepsis – 44,000 deaths a year in the UK, almost 260,000 in the USA,
We are not looking at an apocalypse with Covid19. Most people being detected are by tests since they show no symptoms or display mild flu-like effects. In other words fit and healthy people with immune systems strong enough to suppress the virus, despite natural or herd immunity still to develop. Then 3 or 4 years down the line and vaccines will be available for the vulnerable.
As I said it is the elderly who bear the brunt of covid19 and it’s them who get very little support from the State even under normal circumstances.
For society, it seems as if the cure is going to be worse than the disease.
We eliminated smallpox. We are on the verge of making polio extinct and that would happen already if the same energy were being used. Many others could be ended
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_infectious_diseases
My position is one of priorities. I still do not see why covid19 is as deserving all the publicity and concentration of resources. It is not the Spanish Flu.
Compared with climate change covid19 is insignificant and the climate threat is not 50 years from but happening in many places right now – the effects of climate change on Dry Corridor of Central America for instance is producing desperate refugees. Or the forest fires and droughts in Australia. Climate change is taking place right now, not in any indeterminate future.
And the only similarity between the two issues is the government actions – building of walls and ending peoples right to travel and move.
