alanjjohnstone
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An unintended consequence of closing schools and nurseries in Ireland and elsewhere because of COVID19 is that many poor kids will be deprived of their free school dinners.
Working single mothers will have the responsibility of day-care for their children which means time-off work or unsupervised kids at home.
What is worse?
As of Indian origin and hindu, she supports India’s nationalist president Modi.
Pro-Modi elements of the Hindu-American diaspora in the U.S. such as the Overseas Friends of the BJP, the American chapter of the Bharatiya Janata Party have donated generously to her campaigns.
The Hindu American Foundation is a prominent advocacy organization of Hindu-Americans with strong ties to Gabbard. In a 2014 Atlanta speech, Gabbard said she and her team are in touch with HAF on a weekly, if not daily, basis. In 2016, the HAF lobbied against the replacement of the word “Indian” with “South Asian” in middle-school history textbooks in California, arguing that the change was essentially an erasure of India itself. These efforts were protested by South Asian academics and activists belonging to India’s minority groups, who said that those on the side of the HAF sought to whitewash California’s history textbooks to present a nativist, blemish-free view of how the Hindu caste system was enforced in India.
The Sangh Parivar is a network of religious, political, paramilitary, and student groups that subscribe to the Hindu supremacist, exclusionary ideology known as Hindutva. Historian Vijay Prashad refers to their collective movement as “Yankee Hindutva,”
At least 105 current and former officers and members of U.S. Sangh affiliates, and their families, have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Gabbard’s campaigns since 2011. Gabbard’s ties to Hindu nationalists in the United States run so deep that the newspaper Telegraph India in 2015 christened her the Sangh’s American mascot. Since 2013, Gabbard has attended conferences across the United States organized by Sangh affiliates
In December 2013, she opposed House Resolution 417, which urged India to protect “the rights and freedoms of religious minorities” and referred to incidents of mass violence against minority Muslims that had taken place under Modi’s watch. Gabbard later told the press that “there was a lot of misinformation that surrounded the event in 2002.”
She is a supporter and advocate for the Hindu nationalist version of the Zionist AIPAC.
She is a wolf in sheep’s clothing
ALB, I am still very puzzled.
From what I read, for the vast majority of working age adults, Covid19 can be symptomless and at most a minor illness. Those at risk are the frail elderly and already chronically sick (you and I are probably in the former category) – non-productive sections of the population.
So when you say, “…I think it is to do with its effect on production as, with so many workers off sick, this will fall and the flow of profits be interrupted…They will also be concerned with whether the health care system can cope with a huge unexpected increase in sick workers and the cost of dealing with this.” i’m not sure that applies.
Just to repeat, it is not a debilitating illness for most healthy fit workers. Why should they care about its spread when it is there own actions such as self-imposed quarantine, lock-downs and ending travel which are impacting upon the profits, not the actual illness, nor the potential sick rate.
The healthcare consequences is a real concern for it adds to the already existing burden for looking after the aged and dependent which cannot be dealt with at the present time.
I’m surprised that the right-wing has not already said it is nature’s way of culling those who are drain on resources.
I am, as I said, truly mystified by the reactions of the ruling class and cannot think of any reason except mass hysteria.
Can it be they have now got an irrational fear of contamination from the “masses” and as Marcos says, there is no place for them to hide in their mansions.
It is almost like all those Zombie movies and we are walking dead to them.
When will they begin treat us like lepers were in the past, we have to ring our bell and call out “Unclean…Unclean”
When this pandemic exhausts itself, and herd immunity to the coronavirus is established, and all the panic fades away as we return to normalcy, will ordinary people learn that drastic government legislation that reduces the corporations profits can be passed to protect people.
And when, in the future, similar action is called for and it is opposed, will our fellow-workers recognise it is being done for the benefit of vested interests and not the well-being of the majority?
Perhaps we will all become aware of what community really means and that share prices on the stock-market does not reflect the real welfare of the people.
It might be as you suggest ALB, a silver-lining.
But the more I read the less I see that we have global cooperation to tackle it but individual nations taken un-coordinated action without consultation.
WHO’s role appears to be collating data. It is not being used to apply its recommended policies and best practice.
“no chance of me or any member of the working class in Britain catching it”
Little Englander 😛
Marcos and I fully acknowledge we are part of the world socialist movement and recognise global threats
“we must want as much to be done as it takes to protect the health and life of workers. Also the loss of earnings by those who can’t afford to take time off sick.”
I’ve said as much to Robbo, having talked with a direct victim of her precarious employment.
It isn’t coronavirus that is the real threat but it is the vulnerability of the poor, the inadequate health and social services.
But i still have never really got an answer to Robbo’s question…why this concern of capitalists to Covid-19, that it is rushing themselves into a recession when the death toll is far less than ordinary flu, wars and conflicts and many other social ills where the actual death toll is ignored.
I simply cannot believe it is the capitalist’s humanitarian concern for the relatively few victims.
Is it, as some say and as being frequently revealed with increasing numbers of the elite falling victime, the same mind-set that brought improved sanitation and treated water supplies and ending adulteration of food – that the capitalists are also part of the public and suffer equally?
The rich can retreat to their bunkers but you and I can’t
The relevance of Dengue fever, an illness with no cure nor vaccine just palliative treatment, is it is spreading to previously non-affected regions due to climate change but reaction is not as urgent despite some frightening stats.
https://www.climate-change-guide.com/dengue-fever.html
Where I lived in Kerala, there was no species of malaria carrying mosquitoes but Dengue infected ones were prevalent. And many were active day-time.
The good news was that unlike malaria mosquitoes that are numerously different types, Dengue mosquitos tend to be specific species so can ultimately be tackled by genetic targeting to make them extinct.
Another illness I read is on the spread is Lyme Disease, caused by tick bites and that too is being driven by climate change.
There was a vaccine available for it until 2002, when the manufacturer, facing criticism that the effect wore off over time, discontinued production. Scientists are again researching a vaccine
Reason for the lack of panic, is that it is neither is transmitted person to person.
One reason for the panic is that we have no natural immunity to COVID-19
The best information now available suggests a fatality rate of around 0.7 per cent
To me what this highlights is that if those in power really thought the climate change was an emergency, urgent action could be taken despite the economic consequences as we now see in many nations lock-downs and travel bans.
The fact that nothing like government responses to coronavirus is happening signifies that Greta’s and the greens’ message that we are on a cusp of an environmental emergency is not getting through, and governments are needlessly procrastinating over taking action.
At what point will climate change result in similar intervention from the State?
Capitalism is an Incubator for Pandemics: Socialism is the Solution
An interesting article that expresses much of our own ideas.
“COVID-19 highlights the need for socialism to face epidemics like these. And by socialism, we don’t mean Medicare for All or New Deal liberalism. Medicare for All is not enough to face pandemics like the coronavirus. We mean a society in which human needs govern production, not the drive for profit. It’s a society without capitalists, where production and reproduction is democratically planned by the working class and oppressed. In this kind of society, we would be able to respond to the COVID-19 infinitely better than in capitalism.”
“In a socialist society, both prevention and responses to outbreaks of illness would change drastically. Supplies such as hand soap, hand sanitizer, and surface sanitizing wipes or sprays are in extremely high demand at this time. We are already seeing shortages of key supplies around the world. The need for profit maximization under capitalism has led companies to drastically raise their prices in this time of high demand. For example, the Washington Post has reported drastic increases in prices of products such as Purell Hand Sanitizer. Under capitalism, scarcity leads to greater profit…A central aspect of socialism is a democratically run planned economy: an economy in which all resources are allocated according to need, instead of ability to pay. Need is decided democratically by both producers and consumers. With the means of production under workers’ control, we would be able to quickly increase production of these products in an emergency.”
“Capitalism has led to a globalized system of production containing industries at disparate ends of the globe that truly depend on each other to function. This allows for a capitalist’s exploitation of a worker in a factory in China producing iPhones that goes unnoticed by an Apple customer here in the U.S.. It also allows corporations to drive down costs in one area of the world that may have weaker protections for workers. While this is beneficial for capitalists, outbreaks of illnesses such as COVID-19 highlight clear weaknesses in this system…Socialism cannot exist in only one country, so a global planned economy would be key in these moments. If one country is experiencing a shortage, others would have to make up for it. This is key for reigning in global epidemics like the coronavirus: it will only be stopped if we stop it everywhere. In a global planned economy, this would be a much easier task.”
“Under socialism, the increased mechanization of production and the elimination of unnecessary jobs — goodbye advertising industry! goodbye health insurance industry! — would already drastically reduce the number of hours that we would need to work. We would be spending vast hours of the day making art or hanging out with friends and family. During disease outbreaks, we would be able to stay home at the first sign of a cold, in addition to getting tested right away. In a planned economy, we could allocate resources where they are most needed, and take into account a decrease in the workforce due to illness.”
“Companies such as Gilead Sciences, Moderna Therapeutics, and GlaxoSmithKline all have various therapies in development. Each company’s interest in maximizing profits around their particular COVID-19 therapy has kept them from being able to pool their resources and data to develop therapies in the most expeditious manner possible. The state of COVID-19 research exposes the lies about capitalism “stimulating innovation.”… Expropriation of the capitalists would mean the public would no longer have to subsidize private corporate profits.”
“Under socialism, the entire healthcare industry would be run democratically by doctors, nurses, employees, and patients. This would be drastically different from the current system in which wealthy capitalists make the major decisions in hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturing firms, and insurance companies (the key players that make up the “medical industrial complex”).”
“Capitalism created the conditions of the epidemic. Capitalist “solutions” are insufficient and exacerbate the crisis, meaning more sickness and more death. Capitalism has been an incubator for the continual spread of the coronavirus. Health care under this system will always be woefully inadequate in addressing epidemics. The coronavirus highlights the fact that we must move to a more social analysis of health and well-being. We are all connected to each other, to nature, and to the environment around us. Socialism will restructure society based on those relationships.
At the same time, socialism is not a utopia. There will likely be epidemics or pandemics in socialism as well. However, a socialist society — one in which all production is organized in a planned economy under workers’ control — would best be able to allocate resources and put the creative and scientific energy of people to the task.”Nevertheless the article is still wedded to the belief that nationalisation is progressive.
India suspends visas for visitors from all other countries for at least a month in response to the coronavirus pandemic, effectively bans all tourism to India until at least 15 April. It will be enforced from Friday onwards.
India’s coronavirus cases rose to 72
Karnataka invoked 123-year-old legislation to announce that any person who refuses hospital treatment or violates their quarantine will be prosecuted. The 1897 Epidemic Diseases Act was brought in by the occupying British administration to tackle the plague.
Is this a rational decision by the Indian government or driven by ill-founded fear? Is it justified?
Perhaps like pigs that are already facing swine fever pandemic, people are reacting to crowded factory life conditions
https://www.grain.org/en/article/6418-building-a-factory-farmed-future-one-pandemic-at-a-time
African swine fever (ASF) outbreak has killed a quarter of the world’s pig population. The outbreaks are concentrated in geographic areas where small pig farms are being rapidly replaced by corporate pig farming operations. The vast majority of pigs that have died from this pandemic are in factory farms and primary vectors in the spread of the disease include meat processing plants, movements of live pigs and animal feed supply chains controlled by large pig farming companies. Big meat companies are making huge profits from the ASF pandemic and using it to consolidate their control over the global meat supply.
In the 1990s, small backyard farms supplied around 80% of China’s pork needs. But this has changed rapidly over the past two decades, as the government has steadily industrialised the sector. By 2018, the share of pig farms with more than 500 pigs was around 80%, state-run media reported in November. The government is aiming for at least 65% of pork from industrial farming operations by 2025. As the government’s focus has shifted towards supporting larger-scale production, smaller operations continue to be squeezed into contract farming operations for larger companies.
The ICT view
http://libcom.org/blog/initial-thoughts-coronavirus-its-fallout-10032020
“There is a cure for this virus, as for all the other disasters that the capitalist disease has produced, is still producing and, even worse, will produce in the future. The cure is not immediate and definitive, that is clear, but it is a cure that fixes the minimum conditions for facing the environmental, human and social emergencies that capitalism will bequeath to the society that will replace it. Communism is the cure for this evil…We can guarantee our cure will work because it implies a radical change in mindset as well as in economic and social relations, exactly what this planet and this humanity so dramatically ill with capitalism needs today.”
Is the projected fall in oil costs in the price war going to have an impact?
United Arab Emirates followed Saudi Arabia in promising to raise oil output to a record high.
https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/uae-joins-saudi-arabia-opening-oil-taps-200311223745872.html
An update
Was this a rational well-thought out public health policy?
Trump has introduced a total travel ban from Europe, (excluding the UK), for 30 days.
So we can expect Europeans now to rebook to fly to the USA via Heathrow and Gatwick.
Robbo, there is many variations of the mortality figure. It is early days.
“The mortality rate in South Korea, where more than 1,100 tests have been administered per million residents, comes out to just 0.6%, for example. In the U.S., where only seven tests have been administered per million residents, the mortality rate is above 5%…The quality of the data per country range from extremely precise, such as in South Korea and the U.K. to fairly rough, as with Australia, whose department of health offered a rounded number.”
https://time.com/5798168/coronavirus-mortality-rate/
The 3.4 percent estimated mortality rate will likely change downwards as more and better information comes in. Remember, stats are over-estimates because do not include those who suffer no or insignificant symptoms to bother going to the doctor and go uncounted.
And of course it is age-related
“In data from China, less than two-tenths of one percent of victims under 40 who got COVID-19 died from their infection. But the mortality rate multiplied rapidly as patients got older, to nearly 15 percent among patients over 80.”
Why the concern? Is it a justifiable fear? I still have no idea. It appears to be a panic or even hysteria.
Perhaps it is the highly contagious nature of it compared with SARS or MERS which have higher mortality rates. Also the speed of first shown symptoms to an acute medical condition. Like the flu, perhaps it is its possible potential to mutate annually? Unlike controlling Swine flu or bird flu we cannot cull the population of infected or potentially infected animals.
Question is about ignorance, even institutional, are we more developed in our emotional reactions to the unknown than a medieval population when faced with the Black Death and plagues?
Am I coronavirus denialist by suggesting an over-reaction to it?…I may well be verging on being one.
I view the consequences of the current response to Covid-19 to be more detrimental than the actual illness with the enforced quarantine and the economic impact on those financially vulnerable as that precarious employed chamber-maid I mentioned in my earlier post although some countries with advanced welfare systems are starting to tinker with it to cope with the economic issues. Poverty is always more a killer than any medical condition.
Was talking to a big hotel chamber-maid laid off with no compensation because of the cancellations of the bookings by the Chinese.
I recall at the last flu outbreak the prison authorities were impressed by the enthusiasm of prisoners for hand-washing…until they discovered that most hand-gels are based on alcohol and was being used for making illicit hooch.
In the US, inmates will be used to manufacture the hand sanitisers who typically earn less than $1 an hour and will be banned from using the gels they make.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/10/hand-sanitizer-prison-labor/
Am I the only one unmoved by all this panic?..aaaatischooo…
