Coronavirus
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https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11/17/pers-n17.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws
A so-called Medical doctor asking peoples to rise against medical and scientific advice. They should remove the medical license from him
Under capitalism companies and nation-states are vying to be the first in producing a vaccine.
In socialism people all over the world would be co-operating together to do so.
Two contrasting headlines in today’s papers showing the government’s priorities;
”Four million public sector workers to have pay frozen.”
and
“Navy is big winner in Johnson’s £16bn defence spending spree.”
And they said they couldn’t afford to pay for free meals for deprived kids during half term,
George Orwell would understand the irony
Andrew Cuomo, New York State’s governor, is to receive an Emmy Award for his TV briefings on the pandemic.
“..his masterful use of television to inform and calm people around the world…”
Andrew Cuomo to receive Emmy award for televised Covid briefings | Andrew Cuomo | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/20/california-curfew-coronavirus-rules-explained
California Coronavirus curfew from 10:00 PM to 5:00 AM
The development of anti-Covid-19 vaccines in less than 9 months shows that society has the scientific knowledge and the technological capacity to solve a problem like this if enough resources are made available. This rarely happens under capitalism for something useful. It normally only happens in a military context such as the Manhattan project to develop a weapon of mass destruction.
Of course this was done in a capitalist context where money had to be used to mobilise the resources, with those with the resources having to be compensated for allowing them to be used. There was also competition with underhand means between different states and profit-seeking companies to develop a vaccine first and so get a bigger share of the market.
Mark Littlewood, the director-general of the mad-marketeer Institute of Economic Affairs, thinks this was the best way of doing it. Writing in the Times on 16 November he said of the scientific breakthrough;
”So striking is this success that this newspaper’s science editor, Tim Whipple, suggested to me last week that it might be appropriate for us all to stand at our doorsteps at 8pm each Thursday and give a round of applause to big, profit-making pharmaceutical companies.”
It is not clear whether Whipple had agreed beforehand to being exposed as a cynical fool. Littlewood also ignored the fact that the big, profit-making drug companies wouldn’t have responded so quickly if governments hadn’t guaranteed them in advance a market for their vaccine. And haven’t in other cases where has been no such guaranteed market.
In socialism it might have taken just as long and there might have been a place for different groups of scientists to work on different approaches, but with money and the profit motive it would have been organised more rationally.
Looking for something else at a debate in August 1905 between the Party and the SDF I noticed that the SDF speaker stated:
“He was an anti-vaccinist because he objected to having his child poisoned. This was not Socialism, but a question of human well-being.”
This suggests that, at that time, the antivax movement had leftwing support. I don’t know why. Something new imposed by the state?
Email received at Head Office, an example of the conspiracy theories circulating about this.
Create a false emergency and then offer a vaccine as the only solution. It’s a false emergency as Covid-19 only has a 0.23% infection fatality rate – on a power with flu. Of course, flu has mysteriously disappeared from view this year which begs the question whether we are mistaking Covid-19 for flu or lumping flu cases together with SARS-CoV-2 cases and thus hyping the figures. A vaccine is not the only option, and neither is it the panacea we are told it is. At least two recent scientific studies have shown the efficacy of using Vitamin D or Vitamin D analogues as a treatment for Covid-19. Similarly, with hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), several recent studies show low dose HCQ is an effective treatment against Covid-19. But these conclusions are lost in the corporate scramble to make huge profits and herald the birth of a biosecurity state guaranteed to mean the loss of civil liberties, wholesale, and in the guise of protecting us. It’s always for our own good, is it not? Even if it ends with us all being loaded onto cattle trucks, we’ll believe it’ll be for our own good!This suggests that, at that time, the antivax movement had leftwing support. I don’t know why. Something new imposed by the state?
When I was researching the history of the Socialist League in Norwich I was surprised to find references to ‘anti-vaccinists’ too. If I recall correctly some members were involved in raising funds for a couple that had refused to pay a fine – I’d have to look through my notes to get the exact story.
But don’t kid yourself, there are still people on the ‘left’ today who are anti-vaxxers, including members of the SPGB.
As soon as they approve a new vaccine for the public, I will get one myself, I do not care if it was created in Russia, the USA, China, England or Germany or financed by Soros, Bill Gates or Donald Trump, if it is medical safe I will take it. I support Medicine and I love Medicine and I do not support conspiracy theory created by right-wingers or leftwingers
The people doing the real work to produce these vaccines have been workers beavering away in labs.
Of course, when the vaccines become available the pharmaceutical companies involved are going to make a killing. Especially if it’s a case of two jabs apiece every year.
Apparently the three main contenders have respectively 95%, 90% and 70% effectiveness. So guess which the government is ordering most of? That’s right, the cheapest. Which happens to be the 70% one.
Having said which…’the birth of a biosecurity state guaranteed to mean the loss of civil liberties, wholesale’. Eh what? Was the email to HO from a party member?
While we recognise the capability of capitalism to provide results when needed, we also have experience where in its haste to accrue benefits mistakes are made.
AstraZeneca manufacturing error clouds vaccine study results (apnews.com)
But science does correct for mistakes…sometimes quickly, other times slower.
But most of all, it shows the need for full disclosure on research projects so that anomalies can be appraised.
Yes, on closer examination, the Oxford vaccine does not seem to be what Boris and the British media have boostered ( or is it boastered? ) it to be. On the surface they seem to have cherry picked or manipulated the statistics. But I suppose they will clarify the position at some point.
In any event a 30 percent rate of failure to stop people developing the symptoms doesn’t seem that impressive, even though they are saying that the failure rate for the flu jab is higher at 40 to 50 percent.
Maybe there is someone out there (BD for instance) who can explain whether or not this is the right conclusion to draw from “70 percent effectiveness”.
In any event a 30 percent rate of failure to stop people developing the symptoms doesn’t seem that impressive, even though they are saying that the failure rate for the flu jab is higher at 40 to 50 percent.
Here in Andalucía it has just been announced that flu jabs for people over 65 will be made compulsory. Coincidentally a local nurse in a medical establishment about a mile from me died just the other day day following administration of a flu jab.
I am not an anti-vaxxer myself. On balance the benefits, I think, significantly outweigh the disadvantages but I am somewhat troubled by the civil liberties aspect of this whole COVID-19 thing.
In our rush to enthusiastically endorse medical science come what may it does strike me that there is a certain cognitive dissonance in socialists appearing to get in bed with an authoritarian capitalist state.
While measures such as social distancing, mask wearing and self isolation may in themselves be beneficial, it worries that endorsing such measures forcibly imposed by the state, can be construed as lending authority and legitimacy to the state itself unless it is qualified in some way with a sort of socialist health warning concerning the capitalist state
Unfortunately, (though I might be wrong, its just my impression) the Party doesn’t really seem to be doing this effectively or sufficiently and to the naïve observer it might very well appear that we support the capitalist state by going along with the measures it has forcibly imposed on us.
How do we get round this dilemma?
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