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This overlooked region of India is a beacon to the world for taking on the coronavirus, with the leftist government setting the bar for testing, tracing and treatment standards.

Cuba’s preparation for COVID-19 began on January 1, 1959. On that day, it laid the foundations for what would become the discovery of novel drugs, bringing patients to the island, and sending medical aid abroad. Coping with HIV/AIDS, dengue fever and Ebola helped Cuba develop the ability to cope with pandemics, both internally and abroad.

Capitalism has accelerated the transmission of diseases. Historically, most epidemics have spread geographically through two common forms of human long-distance movement: trade and war. The timing, however, changed dramatically with the rise of capitalism.

The land question is central to understanding political life and society in Brazil. The country has enormous landed estates, known as latifundios, which have their roots in the beginning of the Portuguese occupation of this part of South America at the start of the 16th century. The Portuguese seizure of this land and its conversion into large latifundios–together with the mono-cultivation of crops for export and the enslavement of human beings–established the roots of social inequality that persist to this day.

In the early weeks when the virus emerged in Wuhan, the Chinese government neither suppressed evidence nor did their warning systems fail.

Fifteen years ago, in his prescient book, The Monster At Our Door, Mike Davis warned that a viral catastrophe was being cooked up in the toxic vat built by the combined dangers of global capitalist production, ecological devastation, and the intentional, politically motivated neglect of public services the world over.

On April’s Fools Day, U.S. President Donald Trump gave a press conference where he announced a new “counter-narcotics effort” by U.S. Southern Command. “We’re deploying additional Navy destroyers, combat ships, aircrafts and helicopters, Coast Guard cutters…doubling our capabilities in the region,” he said

In a move seemingly reserved only for cartoonish villains, one of Austria’s best-known millionaires, Attila Doğudan, CEO of DO &CO—one of the largest culinary companies in Austria, and who employs over 11,000 people worldwide—has used the COVID-19 crisis to orchestrate a widespread layoff campaign against all restaurant employees within Austria.

Berlin, like many of your hometowns, is a ghost city. Except for those offering groceries, medicines or medical care, everything is shut tight. Luckily, no-one here has to stay inside, we can stroll around outside but, aside from families, we may not “assemble” in groups of more than two (if any cops are around).

Violent attacks against Asians in the United States has spiked as a consequence of the stigma driven by the Trump administration.

The bankruptcy of neoliberalism has been highlighted by the vastly different responses of the world’s two most powerful countries to the coronavirus pandemic.

In an extraordinary statement titled “On the Political Impasse in Afghanistan,” Washington has admitted to the failure of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s mission to Kabul on March 23, which was taken up to heal the political rift among Afghan politicians and to urge them to form an inclusive government so as to implement the peace agreement signed in Doha on February 29.

COVID-19, the illness caused by coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the second severe acute respiratory syndrome virus since 2002, is now officially a pandemic. As of late March, whole cities are sheltered in place and, one by one, hospitals are lighting up in medical gridlock brought about by surges in patients.

I’m in a small city in Catalonia called Olot, not far from the Pyrenees. I came here because I knew the coronavirus lockdown would be much rougher in Barcelona. Still, people walk around with masks and keep social distances, barely going out.

In a press conference on March 26, it was almost comical how little evidence the U.S. Department of Justice provided when it accused Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro and several of the leaders of his government of narco-trafficking. The U.S. offered $15 million for the arrest of Maduro and $10 million for the others. Maduro, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said dramatically, “very deliberately deployed cocaine as a weapon.” Evidence for this? Not presented at all.

When health policy is looked at from the point of view of which issues involve a direct confrontation with ruling-class interest, which involve simply relative benefits to a class, and which are neutral, we can predict which kinds of measures are possible—highlighting the lie in the notion society is trying to improve health for all.

These days we hear a lot about the symptoms of Covid-19 (dry cough, high fever, etc.). Conversely, there is much less discussion of the virus as a symptom. To intervene on the symptoms of the virus it is necessary not only to have specific scientific knowledge, but also to put in place a serious reflection on the structural causes of its global spread and, with them, the possibilities of change.

Being an ER Nurse, a lot of people have asked me what I think about COVID-19. I almost inevitably tell them- first and foremost- that I really can’t overstate how much of a problem it is that we don’t have enough personal protective equipment (PPE).

The pandemic has effectively provided a laboratory-like demonstration that people do better when states can plan ahead, apply national resources unequivocally to the public good, put science in the service of the people, and practice international solidarity. These are characteristics of socialist societies.

Bumping elbows at the United Nations.