THE NEVER ENDING COVID CRISIS
By Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report.
February 4, 2021 | EDUCATE!
Profits Determine The US Response To A Health Care Crisis, So Americans Are
In Trouble Regardless Of Who Occupies The White House.
"Joe Biden declared that there is nothing he can do about the disease
trajectory."
It was in early 2020 that the word COVID-19 entered the lexicon. In the past
year more than 440,000 people in the United States have died from this
disease. The impact of shutdowns meant to end the spread of disease have
cost millions of people their jobs, and businesses large and small no longer
exist at all. COVID-19 has proven that the political system is devoted to
the interests of the billionaire class and is therefore incapable of acting
in the interests of the people.
The vaccines which hold some promise are distributed by the same for-profit
entities that run what passes for a health care system in this country. They
are distributed by criteria that each state has developed, resulting in a
patchwork of 50 different rules. There are acute shortages of the two-dose
vaccines that have been approved thus far. Senior citizens were declared a
priority population but they are forced to wait on long lines for hours, and
in many locations only people with cars have access to vaccine sites. This
supposed priority group is in fact at the bottom of the list.
"COVID-19 has proven that the political system is devoted to the interests
of the billionaire class."
Racial and class disparities persist. In the Washington Heights
neighborhood of upper Manhattan, vaccines went to white suburbanites instead
of residents in a mostly Latino community. Overall, Latino and Black
residents are under-represented among vaccine recipients in New York City.
The city of Philadelphia contracted with a 22-year old white man with no
health care background and allowed him to develop a vaccine distribution
strategy.
All talk of social distancing is meaningless in places where families live
in overcrowded housing. Poverty is racialized in this country and the sharp
increases in Latino and Black deaths in Los Angeles County are a sad
example of this dynamic. Yet that same state will now allow restaurants to
re-open, and in doing so will put front line workers, mostly people of
color, at risk once again.
"Latino and Black residents are under-represented among vaccine recipients
in New York City."
The continued spread has allowed the virus to do what viruses always do,
mutate into variant strains which may require additional vaccine options.
Vaccines have been hoarded by the wealthier capitalist countries and most of
the world's people have no assurance that they will be able to access this
preventive treatment.
Donald Trump was blamed for the poor response in 2020 but it is clear that
Americans are in trouble regardless of who occupies the White House because
profits determine the response to a health care crisis. Joe Biden declared
that there is nothing he can do about the disease trajectory and blithely
stated that an additional 200,000 deaths are inevitable. His pre-inaugural
promise of a $2,000 stimulus payment is now null and void. The sum of $1,400
is now on the table and no one will see that amount until March or April.
"Vaccines have been hoarded by the wealthier capitalist countries."
The failed state continues failing the people. It cannot do otherwise. The
government does the bidding of the billionaire donor class, just as it did
before COVID-19 struck. That evil alliance is the cause of all our troubles.
None of the stimulus plans are adequate because they aren't meant to be.
Extra unemployment payments allocated in the first stimulus ended in July
because the duopoly want workers back on the job more than they want
anything else. Providing help to suffering people in need is the opposite of
what the austerity regime demands.
Trump will be the fall guy for as long as Biden and the Democrats need him
to be. He is a very convenient scapegoat after all. Even as the system fails
to provide enough testing or vaccines or new treatments, we are already
propagandized into believing that Biden can't be expected to undo the mess
that Trump created.
"Providing help to suffering people in need is the opposite of what the
austerity regime demands."
But one need only look beyond U.S. borders to see that capitalism is the
issue. China was the first country where the disease appeared but care for
that country's citizens produced a death toll of less than 5,000. A new
outbreak there of 100 cases provoked the same response of new hospitals,
housing for the infected, and a robust testing protocol. Cuba, beset by
crushing U.S. sanctions for 60 years, is producing its own treatments and
vaccines and has also experienced a small number of deaths.
All of the ills and contradictions of life in the United States have been
exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The crisis continues because this system
has not changed. Variants will emerge, the government will pay big pharma to
produce more vaccines, and the cycle will continue. The only question is
when popular anger will be directed where it belongs, on both sides of the
political aisle and in corporate offices. COVID-19 will continue its
wreckage until that day comes.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is
widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well
at
