COVID
Pandemic Preparedness: The Need for a Public Health — Not a Law Enforcement/National Security — Approach
ACLU warning in 2008 about the dangers to rights posed by law enforcement approach.
The spread of a new, deadly strain of avian influenza has raised fears of a potential human pandemic. While the virus is not easily transmissible to humans, were it to mutate to be more highly contagious to or between humans—a possibility whose probability is unknown—an influenza pandemic could occur. Government agencies have an essential role to play in helping to prevent and mitigate epidemics.
Unfortunately, in recent years, policymakers are resorting to law enforcement and national security-oriented measures that not only suppress individual rights unnecessarily, but have proven to be ineffective in stopping the spread of disease and saving lives.
Conflating Public Health with National Security and Law Enforcement Rather than focusing on well-established measures for protecting the lives and health of Americans, policymakers have recently embraced an approach that views public health policy through the prism of national security and law enforcement. This model assumes that we must “trade liberty for security.” As a result, instead of helping individualsand communities through education and provision of health care, today’s pandemic prevention focuses on taking aggressive, coercive actions against those who are sick. People, rather than the disease, become the enemy
To Spectacle-ise is also politics..
'Tika Utsav': Vaccinate all eligible people from April 11 to 14, PM Modi tells CMs https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/tika-utsav-vaccinate-all-eligible-people-april-11-14-pm-modi-tells-cms-146817
Not to Politicise, Is Politics.
"Do not politicise this" is a political statement --
one that is used by the establishment including anchors
Maharashtra CM to PM: Urge leaders not to play politics in Covid fight
The BJP and MVA have been engaged in a war of words over the vaccination shortage in Maharashtra over the last few days. https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/maharashtra-cm-to-pm-urge-leaders-not-to-play-politics-in-covid-fight-7265170/
'Hue and Cry by Certain States': Harsh Vardhan's Vaccine Math to Counter 'Partisanship' Claim https://www.news18.com/news/india/coronavirus-news-live-updates-pm-narendra-modi-maharashtra-mumbai-lockdown-night-curfew-delhi-india-cases-tips-3617864.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN_uQ-5qgrY 9th April Shah says the states had been given all the rights to take decisions about lockdown, containment zones, micro containment zones etc
Modi or Mamata, Rahul or Stalin, no election rally is following Covid rules despite surge
Thanks to the election season, rallies by all major political parties are seeing huge crowds gather but with no social distancing norms being followed & a majority of people without masks. https://theprint.in/india/modi-or-mamata-rahul-or-stalin-no-election-rally-is-following-covid-rules-despite-surge/627161/
As of March 20, of the 494 adverse events reported, 124 were deaths, 305 were serious events that required hospitalisation and 65 were severe events.
Covishield Blood Clot Risk Minuscule but Govt Not Transparent, Need Urgent Inquiry—Gagandeep Kang https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV5BD_DJvK8 in India we simply don't have any official information whether there have been worrying blood clots with a low platelet count after taking the Covishield vaccine. reports of rare forms of blood clots showing up in a small number of this vaccine's recipients in Europe had sent alarm bells ringing among national regulators in various countries. Dr Kang said that these conditions are marked by blood clots in veins in the brain and abdomen accompanied by low platelet counts.
This is an extract from a whats app post by Eric DS
What is the Peltzman Effect?
The Peltzman Effect is a theory which states that people are more likely to engage in risky behavior when security measures have been mandated. The Peltzman Effect is named for Sam Peltzman's postulation about mandating the use of seatbelts in automobiles - it would led to more accidents. Safety perception increases risk appetite.
Peltzman effect means behaviour compensating for the perceived risk. In other terms, people become more careful when they sense greater risk and less careful if they feel more protected.
This means that vaccines are giving a sense of security which leads to a increased risky behaviour.
But the problem is that while vaccines neither give immediate protection or full protection (against infection as against death), the sense of security unfortunately starts much earlier, even before the actual injection. And Peltzman effect comes into play: people wear masks with less caution, do not maintain distance as soon as they reach vaccination centres.
The Peltzman effect in fact started for most people even before they took the vaccine. Many people felt protected just looking at the vaccination numbers. The mask usage, social distancing and hand sanitisation have become progressively less. While this is attributed mainly to pandemic fatigue, the Peltzman effect cannot be ignored.
While this behaviour is dangerous for general public, this can be disastrous for health care workers who directly deal with Covid 19 patients. A lot of them can get infected in the present second wave impairing the health care services.
The Peltzman effect is also evident in the drastic decline in the usage of PPE kits by the healthcare workers.
It is important to vaccinate the majority of the people at risk. But it is also important to be aware of Peltzman effect and be more careful until the effect of vaccination takes us close to herd immunity.
Post to My Nephew: Vaccine Hesitancy
I appreciate your vaccine hesitancy..
The Human body has been designed to fight and more and more vaccines are probably making our body less of a fighting machine. My problem is that almost most of our activities today are making our body less of a fighting machine. Our food for example is so contaminated that most of the body's resistance is being taken up for fighting it. The air we breathe.. same issue.
So I do suspect that our normal lives have compromised our immunity system, and it would be good if we do take some immunity boosting activity.. like pranayam, exercise, Kadha etc. I remember that whenever we had any cold.. mummy used to make a khashayam.. I had grown fond of it.. as I like the kalameeree taste.. Also the cold pressed coconut oil and the jaggery we used to have and the "boiled" rice.. and the fresh fish.. all helped .. otherwise my unhealthy habbits would have consumed me a long ago.
Coming back to vaccine hesitancy. I too was very skeptical because political leaders like Trump were making bombastic statements about the virus and how soon they will bring in the vaccine. They even did short cuts by certifying the use of vaccine on an "emergency use" basis.
But now that so many million people have taken it, we can at least be clear that it is safe.
How effective will it be.. the evidence shows that it is at least for the time-being.. very very few cases of post vaccine infections have been reported.. and if they are infections, the severity is much less.. Making any future infection.. feel like a common cough and cold.. provided that we take proper care at the slightest signs of any symptoms.. like hydrating ourselves, doing things like kapal bharati on the stomach, improving our hygiene improving our food, taking Khada, etc. etc.
Now if we dont take the vaccine:
My problem will be how long you will keep yourself "safe"? As more and more people get vaccinated, and people start getting complacent, we are probably increasing the 'unsafeness" and we will have to be more and more careful.. and take more and more precautions. Not just the physical discomfort, and also other immunity increasing processes.
The other problem is: you may suddenly have to travel in an emergency.. and at that time, they will ask for all kinds of tests, and vaccination certificates. For example you will not be able to go to a football match, as you wont get the "virus visa". Work wise also, you maybe compromised.. as when the rest of the people have moved on.. and have definite anti-bodies and there maynot be an epidemic.. but the virus will still be there.. waiting for that vulnerable guy, who slowly starts getting lax on his precautions..
Thinking of all this I decided to take the vaccine.. and today about 21 days after my shot, as people in my building are getting infected, and I stay safe.. I definitely feel safer that what I would have had I not taken the jab. Now you have to decide, if everytime you hear someone sneeze in the background, you have to quickly look around, and see which way the wind is blowing.. Just imagine going to the beach a few months now, and there is a strong wind, and many people around.. what are you going to do?
For earlier documentation and Conversations on COVID, see http://emeets.lnwr.in/index.php/covid
While just 10 countries have used 75 percent of jabs so far, around 130 countries have not seen a single vaccination, according to the UN. Of 175 million vaccines administered, only about eight million have gone to South America’s 430 million population and two million to Africa’s 1.3 billion population.
https://socialistrevolution.org/permanent-pandemic-mutations-market-failures-and-zero-covid/ March 3, 2021
About $100bn of public money has gone towards coronavirus vaccine development, there is no good reason why private companies should make a killing from these medicines. Rather, these vaccines should be distributed to the entire world, free of charge, and quickly—before even more virulent variants develop, so that some normality can truly, finally, resume.
The profiteering, vaccine nationalism, and hoarding that pose the biggest obstacles to ending this pandemic flow directly from the rotten capitalist system.
The experience of this public health disaster will lead more and more people to draw the conclusion that this system is incompatible with a safe and healthy future for humanity. These lessons will weigh heavily on the minds of the working class during the stormy period we are entering.
We Marxists must be ready with a revolutionary program and party to chart a new course.
Reflections on Naomi Klein’s Pandemic Shock Doctrine
Daniel Møller Ølgaard https://www.e-ir.info/2020/09/15/reflections-on-naomi-kleins-pandemic-shock-doctrine/
It should also be analysed as a symptom of a necropolitical turn in the social-, political-, and economic organisation of our world, the aim of which defines and divides populations in order to decide who must be protected and, more importantly, who can be sacrificed in the process.
it becomes obvious that digital capitalism and its associated mode of production relies on the physical, cultural and social division between consumers of digital commodities, and the countless couriers, moderators, miners and assembly line workers which produce our technological devices and digital commodities.
power embodied by surveillance capitalism is partly exercised through the biopolitical governance of individual consumers in affluent countries, surveillance capitalism relies just as much on the exercise of a necropolitical form of power that reduces people (or workers) to precarious conditions of life in places such as the Congolese lithium mine or the Chinese assembly line.
Put differently, the Pandemic Shock Doctrine – and digital capitalism more widely – does not simply substitute measures of violence and oppression with a biopolitics whose technologies of control aims at ensuring the health of populations. Rather, the emergence of digital capitalism represents the relocation of violence and oppression away from the centre of Western knowledge-based economies and towards its (postcolonial) frontiers.
The Inequality Virus—India Supplement 2021 of the Oxfam Report By Savvy Soumya Misra & Tejas Patel https://www.oxfamindia.org/press-release/inequality-virus-india-supplement-2021
India’s 100 billionaires have seen their fortunes increase by Rs 12,97,822 crores since March 2020, enough to give every one of the 138 million poorest Indian people a cheque for Rs 94,045 each. Ambani earned during the pandemic would keep the 40 crore informal workers that are at risk of falling into poverty due to COVID-19 above the poverty line for at least 5 months.
Out of a total 122 million who lost their jobs 75 percent, which accounts for 92 million jobs, were lost in the informal sector.
Health Inequalities: Only 6 percent of the poorest 20 percent has access to non-shared sources of improved sanitation, compared to 93.4 percent of the top 20 percent. 59.6 percent of India’s population lives in a room or less. India has the world’s fourth lowest health budget in terms of its share of government expenditure. If India’s top 11 billionaires are taxed at just 1% on the increase in their wealth during the pandemic, it will be enough to increase the allocation of Jan Aushadi Scheme by 140 times, which provides affordable medicines to the poor and marginalized.
Health Expenses Pushed 55 Million Indians Into Poverty In 2011-12 https://www.indiaspend.com/health-expenses-pushed-55-million-indians-into-poverty-in-2017-2017/
90% Of India’s Poorest Have No Health Insurance https://www.health-check.in/90-of-indias-poorest-have-no-health-insurance/ Indians, especially those in rural India, have limited access to healthcare services such as doctors and hospitals, they are less likely to buy health insurance. the pool of people who are able and willing to pay for insurance is low, and insurance premiums are high, said Amir Ullah Khan, a health economist.
the poor are less likely to avail of hospitalisation. since they can’t afford to pay for healthcare, the poor postpone seeking treatment which, in case of diseases like tuberculosis, cancer, etc. turn serious and more expensive to treat,”
For earlier documentation and Conversations on COVID, see http://emeets.lnwr.in/index.php/covid
Unlike many developed and some developing economies, the report said 52 percent of urban Indian workers went without work or pay and received no financial assistance to tide over the crisis. "On average, earnings fell by 48 percent in April and May, compared to pre-COVID months of January and February. Financial assistance from the government or employers was available to less than a quarter of the workforce," - Shania Bhalotia Swati Dhingra and Fjolla Kondirolli - 'City of dreams no more: The impact of COVID-19 on urban workers in India', https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/business/1193253-covid-19-exacerbated-pre-existing-inequities-in-urban-india-report
Second Wave
Migrant labourers leave Mumbai in packed trains fearing lockdown https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/migrant-labourers-leave-mumbai-in-packed-trains-fearing-lockdown-101617932836476-amp.html
Speaking to ANI, a migrant worker who was travelling in an Uttar Pradesh bound train said, "This train will go to Gorakhpur. We're leaving the city because Covid-19 cases are rising here."
The Print Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwTKNKLXBKI Despite the surge in Covid-19 cases, the Dadar Vegetable Market in Mumbai witnessed a huge crowd on 9 April, and people could be seen flouting all social distancing norms. Many were also seen without a mask, or not wearing it the right way. Meanwhile, a UP-bound train packed with migrant workers was seen leaving the Lokmanya Tilak Terminus in Mumbai after new restrictions were imposed due to the rising cases.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtuagIOpYmE 9th April News Nation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlcS9n07aw0 9th April ABP News
Post by S Sen: Last time, as per the Union Government, more than a crore had to trek back home - maybe hundreds of miles away, braving the scorching sun. While Indians stuck in foreign lands were brought back free by chartered planes. The template for "Atmanirbhar Bharat".
The "New India".
In India's capital, pubs, malls, gyms have reopened, but govt creches have not. @radhikabordia found growing hunger, malnutrition & death in five slums, as workers lose jobs & their already at-risk children get lesser food than before the #pandemic. https://www.article-14.com/post/hunger-threatens-india-malls-open-but-anganwadis-stay-shut
The anganwadi was established under the central government’s Integrated Child Development Scheme nearly 45 years ago and is now one of the world’s largest early childhood development programmes, providing supplementary nutrition to children under six and pregnant and lactating women, apart from other services, such as early education, immunization, monitoring of health parameters. Those delivering these services–the anganwadi workers–are trained women from the community. More than a million anganwadis across the country are among India’s frontline health workers, serving over 80 million children younger than 6 years and over 19 million pregnant women and lactating mothers.
PIL in the Supreme Court, accusing the government of “gross mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic in India” and asking the apex court to use its power under Article 32 and appoint an independent inquiry commission headed by a retired judge of the court, Prashant Bhushan has, in fact, stepped-up and sharpened his criticism of the government. Discussion with Prashant Bhushan with Wire
https://scroll.in/article/992067/covid-19-imagine-the-headlines-if-any-other-religion-had-been-responsible-for-kumbh-like-gathering the Tablighi Jamaat congregation began before the novel coronavirus had been declared a health emergency in the country, some believe that the actions of the Jamaat were condemnable. Court cases filed against members have led to numerous acquittals. ..
In the Tablighi Jamaat incident, it was clear that the government had failed to dissipate a gathering that eventually became a hotpsot and then proceeded to make things worse by stigmatising the disease and making Indians afraid about getting tested.
In the case of the Kumbh, the dangers are much more obvious. As new variants are ripping through states around the country, with patients filling up hospitals and crematoriums struggling to handle the numbers of dead, the Uttarakhand government did not just fail to take action limiting numbers at the Hindu festival – it actively encouraged people to come and told them not to worry about Covid-19 restrictions.
This links to video modules of various presentations by NGO & Organisation People on what is changing in our work...
Webinars Reimagining the future. All videos
https://www.facebook.com/pg/centerforfinancialaccountability/videos/?ref=page_internal
Thinking about the origins of COVID-19, there’s no doubt that the twentieth-century development model—land clearing, dam construction, transcontinental supply chains, global warming and threatened species—has scrambled planetary ecologies, opening up spaces for viral mobility. Suggestions that COVID-19 was an accidental by-product of genetic-engineering experimentation for medicinal purposes, or even
particulate escape from a biological-weapons lab, can be read in the light of anxieties caused by such large-scale system breakdown. Some people claim that the outbreak has been an elite ploy to put in place profitable new Silicon Valley technologies for public surveillance and social control, but we do not have to go down that track to know, per Naomi Klein’s ‘shock doctrine’, that capitalism amorally exploits any disaster, as it most certainly has this pandemic.- Re-Worlding—with a Pluriversal New Deal by Ariel Salleh
Ashish Kothari: https://youtu.be/7rID4YSV9pQ?t=3177
About $100bn of public money has gone towards coronavirus vaccine development.
The profiteering, vaccine nationalism, and hoarding that pose the biggest obstacles to ending this pandemic flow directly from the rotten capitalist system...The experience of this public health disaster will lead more and more people to draw the conclusion that this system is incompatible with a safe and healthy future for humanity. These lessons will weigh heavily on the minds of the working class during the stormy period we are entering. We Marxists must be ready with a revolutionary program and party to chart a new course.
https://socialistrevolution.org/permanent-pandemic-mutations-market-failures-and-zero-covid/
the pandemic.. has shown to millions of workers who have been treated as most disposable, whose work had been most degraded, who were told that they were unskilled, that they were so easily replaceable, that they are, in fact, the most essential workers in our economy. They were labelled essential workers.
...now Amazon workers know how important they are to keeping people fed and keeping people clothed...It’s being organized online and in-person, but these are new tools that are being organized...Whether it’s nurses sent to care for patients with COVID-19, without what they needed to keep themselves and their family safe, there are so many enraged workers out there right now, rightfully and righteously enraged. And there is power in that if we can mobilize it. - How to Rebuild from the Disaster of Neoliberalism. Naomi Klein interviewed by Grace Blakeley Janata Weekly
Anupam Guha We need to examples out of those who are directly profiteering from implementing NPR or Aadhaar. Perhaps targeting them on social media. Anupam Guha: The way you hit the company where it hurts, is by getting their employees unionised. There is a Trade Union called FITE. There are multiple trade Unions - some are affiliated with political parties. We need to expand the scope of Trade Unions in IT sector. As Civil Society people are excellent organisers, you have the resources. you have the means to amplify such efforts. As a society if you have to police these companies, you have to get to their employees. . Of course there are other ways also. You can malign them, expose them, get people to avoid buying their products and other market based action etc. But nothing is more effective than direct action with their employees. These companies have laws and rules that you can't join a trade union, and all sorts of internal propaganda and nonsense precisely to prevent Unionisation. .https://youtu.be/KyK07mj8hIM