Coronavirus
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https://peoplesworld.org/article/trump-response-to-pandemic-a-failing-of-unimaginable-proportions/ This the USA trouble shooter and deal maker
From our comrades in the WSPUS
That is a very well written article and it is in accordance with several microbiological researches done already. There was another virus before 1960 known as visna found on the sheep and it produced encephalitis and pulmonary diseases
This is a well written article There was another virus known as visna who came from the sheeps and it produced encephalitis and pulmonary disorders
Who are capitalism’s key workers?
There are a few categories we may well take exception to the inclusion of some but most are what socialists would say are performing socially useful work.
Health and social care
Frontline health and social care staff such as doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, as well as support and specialist staff in the health and social care sector. In addition it includes those working in supply chains including producers and distributors of medicines and personal protective equipment.
Education and childcare
Nursery, teaching staff and social workers.
Key public services
Those required to run the justice system, religious staff, as well as those responsible for managing the deceased, and journalists providing public service broadcasting.
Local and national government
Administrative occupations essential to the effective delivery of the Covid-19 response or delivering essential public services, including payment of benefits.
Food and other necessary goods
Those involved in the production, processing, distribution, sale and delivery of food.
Public safety and national security
Police, support staff, Ministry of Defence civilian staff and armed forces personnel, fire and rescue staff, and those responsible for border security, prisons and probation.
Transport
Those who will keep air, water, road and rail passenger and freight transport modes operating during the Covid-19 response.
Utilities, communication and financial services
Staff required to keep oil, gas, electricity, water and sewerage operations running. Staff in the civil nuclear, chemical and telecommunications sectors. Those in postal services and those working to provide essential financial services.It looks as if the Governor of California has some bad advisers too. According to this, they have calculated that 56% of the state’s population of some 40 million could get the virus. That’s 22.5 million. Chose your own death rate and “do the math” as he says: at 1% it’s 225,000, which is indeed “a particularly large number.”
When the UK Government’s advisers put out a similar calculation this backfired and they dropped it on the pretext of new medical advice. Now they are talking about keeping deaths down to 20,000 or so.
Of course it could be that the Governor is deliberately exaggerating to try to impress on people the need to stay at home (which is good advice). And the report does say that the figure of 22.5 million probably does not take into account any effect from mitigation measures. But at least he isn’t talking about aiming at herd immunity.
Putting this out doesn’t seem politically astute as he too might have to backtrack. On the other hand, he is a politician and could be calculating that when the figure of deaths doesn’t reach anyway near that figure he can claim the credit for this as a result of the bold mitigation measures he took.
The government of California does not know what he is talking about, the real number is around 200,000
China and Cuba offered medical assistance, medications and medical equipment and the USA rejected the offer but Italy did not reject it, even more cuba is producing and antiviral which helps to recover the immune system to the patients infested with coronavirus. Brazil have asked the Cubans doctors to leave but they want to employ them again
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51982005
<i>The government will pay the wages of employees unable to work due to the coronavirus pandemic, in a radical move aimed at protecting people’s jobs.</i> <i>It will pay 80% of salary for staff who are kept on by their employer, covering wages of up to £2,500 a month.</i>
Cuba has one of the highest ratios worldwide of physicians per capita even when excluding those doctors abroad
A 52-strong brigade has sent an emergency contingent to Italy.
This is the sixth medical brigade Cuba has sent in recent days to combat the spread of the new disease abroad. It has sent contingents to socialist allies Venezuela and Nicaragua as well as Jamaica, Suriname and Grenada.“In a time of crisis, the Cuban government, the Cuban people … have risen to the occasion, they have heard our appeal and they have responded,” Jamaican Health Minister Christopher Tufton said on Saturday upon greeting 140 Cuban medical professionals at Kingston international airport.
Britain also thanked Cuba last week for allowing a British cruise ship that had been turned away by several Caribbean ports to dock on the island and for enabling the evacuation of the more than 600 passengers onboard.
Meanwhile Cuba, which is known for its disaster preparedness, is stepping up measures at home too to stem the coronavirus contagion. Twenty-five cases have been confirmed so far. Thousands of doctors and medicine students are also going door-to-door monitoring their local communities.
Also sanctions in place against countries like Iran, Venezuela and Syria have not only weakened the general health of the people there but also the health service and access to medicines, drugs and medical equipment. It is therefore not surprising that Iran is being particularly hit by the virus.
Also sanctions in place against countries like Iran, Venezuela and Syria have not only weakened the general health of the people there but also the health service and access to medicines, drugs and medical equipment. It is therefore not surprising that Iran is being particularly hit by the virus.
It is ironic that America, the instigator of these sanctions, has now surged ahead of Iran in terms of the number of confirmed cases and is now third in the world behind China and Italy
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
“Confirmed cases” does not go anywhere near to reflecting the true extent of the infection because so many people who may have the virus may not have been tested . South Korea has probably got the most effective testing and tracking capacity of any country in the world. By contrast the US is very weak in this area and this combined with the unique deficiencies of the healthcare system there and the dithering bumbling and contradictory approach of the Trump regime is a recipe for disaster.
I have a hunch that the epicentre of the virus is soon going to move from Europe to America just as it earlier moved from China to Europe. In a month’s time the picture could be dramatically different.
Here is Boris reported as saying (19 March) that, unlike in the last crisis in 2008, this time the government is putting people first :
“Unlike during the financial crisis, Britain will put its people first in the fight against the coronavirus and more measures will be announced by the government on Friday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said..”This time it is going to be different,” Johnson said at a news conference. “(Remember) what happened in 2008, everybody said we bailed out the banks and we didn’t look after the people who really suffered – this time we are going to make sure that we look after the people who really suffer from the economic consequences.”
Of course he is a politician and so we don’t need to take anything he says at face value. Even so the government does seem to be putting people first, even if compelled to by the particular circumstances of this crisis as a public health one.
So I wonder if we shouldn’t change what we are saying from “they are putting the health of the economy before the health of the people” to “circumstances are compelling them to put the health of people first but this is being made difficult by capitalism as this is against its nature and can only be temporary.”
They do seem to be trying to put people’s health first in the sense of spending “what it takes” to enable the health services to cope and so minimise the number of deaths. And the measures they have taken have adversely affected the profits of most businesses, not to mention that the bill will have to be paid later out of future profits. You could argue that what they are doing is in the longer term interests of business but I don’t think we could sustain the argument that this is their main motivation.
It is not unprecedented for capitalism to give priority to something other than profit-making. They don’t in major wars when their priority is to win and they spend “what it takes” to achieve this. But the war over, whether won or lost, it’s a return to prioritising profit as usual. Which is what will happen after this public health crisis is over.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/03/21/trad-m21.html. The USA Intelligence Committee knew about the Coronavirus possible spreading since January but some senators preferred to hide the dangers of the virus and decided to sell stocks in the market to make profits, and some of those senators are the same one indicating that the government have handled the situation promptly, and have called it a Chinese virus. The USA congress is the club of the rich peoples and billionaires
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