Coronavirus
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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?
I don’t understand your position. You get worked up about a potential threat that may or may not materialise in 50 years but pooh-pooh an immediate threat to fellow workers.
I am not saying that this pandemic is going to be as bad as the one a hundred years ago but this is what happened then:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu
No government can just let the pandemic take its course, as you seem to be suggesting. Even under capitalism those in charge of the central administration can’t be, and aren’t, that irresponsible. If they were that would of course strengthen our case that society’s central administration should not be in the hands of the capitalist class and its political representatives.
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.
I don’t know about all of that.
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/coronavirus-is-the-wolf
Denque is called a travel disease
There are too many suspicious things about this Coronavirus, it is very similar to the one the Germans was working in laboratory which produced Encephalitis and Pneumonia, and it can be found on sheeps
This virus has certain similarities with HIV, and in some places, they have used medications for HIV to treat the disease
Alan, you say: “My position is one of priorities. I still do not see why covid19 is as deserving all the publicity and concentration of resources.”
But if we say that priority should be given to dealing with dengue fever in the swamps of Asia and Latin America over dealing with the current new strain of Coronavirus in the densely populated parts of the world, we are likely to attract the support only of Christians and other do-gooders rather than ordinary people. In fact we’ll be seen and dismissed as just another bunch of do-gooders. Which we are not and must avoid.
We have got to think of something better to say on this issue.
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.
How can you deny that the pandemic is having a negative effect on production?
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/business-51689178
It will be the same in other countries though with a smaller impact in those with a larger service sector where some people can work from home. This should be confirmed (or not) when the statistics for the 2nd and 3rd quarters of the year are published.
The reason the government here is giving for their particular policy is that they want to try to control its spread so that the inevitable peak comes at a time (May) when the health service will be able to cope better. Other governments are pursuing the different strategy of trying to contain the spread now rather than control and postpone it. (None are pursuing your suggested policy of letting the pandemic run its course as it eventually will). We will see who’s right. Meanwhile we in the UK are guinea pigs in the government here’s experiment.
The herd immunity theory that the government are relying on is the idea that immunity has a rather large flaw.
It relies on the idea that millions will get the virus and develop immunity to future outbreaks. This itself is reliant on the idea that there will be no mutations. The common cold has no vaccine against because it mutates regularly and infection with one strain gives no immunity against another.
Mutation is more likely the higher the number of times an organism reproduces itself.
The current government strategy is based on high numbers of reproductions of the virus, which increases the risk of mutation.
On the plus side, we in the SPGB have been isolated and distanced for many years, so it won’t be a new experience.
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.
Do we credit the precautions that governments have taken or do we view the virus as mostly non-fatal?
I dont think there is any doubt that the virus will be overwhelming non fatal, Alan, but the death toll even with a mortality rate of 1% or slightly less will still be catastrophic. There is also the risk that a more lethal strain will emerge.
What puzzles me is the high degree of variability in mortality rates between countries. Italy, for example, according to this site
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
has at the this point in time 17,660 total cases and 1266 total deaths. Unless my arithemetic is wrong that works out at a mortaility rate of just over 7 percent! That’s astounding. If the virus is likely to affect 50-70 percent of the global population as epidemiologists predict then, with this mortality rate, that means a death toll of hundreds of millions!
Germany by contrast has 3481 total cases and only 8 total deaths. Very odd. Of course these are just officially registered cases as many people carrying the virus are only mildly affected and probably dont realise they have the virus. According to one estimate there are already about 10.000 cases in the UK alone, mostly unoffocial
It relies on the idea that millions will get the virus and develop immunity to future outbreaks. This itself is reliant on the idea that there will be no mutations
Bijou I believe there have been cases of repeat infections in China which suggests that the virus is mutating and that there are already several strains kicking around
What Bernie is advocating— help for the self employed and those with no sick pay — is already going to be implemented by the Tory government in the UK. As for Woolf, I thought I heard him complain that everybody in the US was not being tested to see if they’re carrying the virus. That doesn’t seem realistic or even necessary for that matter. He does raise one issue, though, of what about “illegal” immigrants: will the government here do what he says the one is South Korea is doing, ie forgetting their illegal status if they come forward for treatment?
It does appear, though, that there is concern about the pandemic even in the USA.
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