Subjects Archives: Inequality

Newly released data from the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) show that COVID-19 is present at higher rates in certain Boston communities, including Hyde Park, Mattapan, Dorchester, and East Boston.

COVID-19 is having a disproportionate effect among vulnerable populations. When the dust settles, as in all U.S. disasters, there will be a tale to tell of who mattered and who was sacrificed.

Despite a deep economic recession, a profound political crisis and international sanctions that have ravaged its health sector, the South American nation of Venezuela is demonstrating that prioritising lives is possible in the battle against COVID-19.

The President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro Moros , reported this Sunday that 6 new positive cases for Covid -19 were recorded in the country, for a total of 181 infected patients and zero [new] fatalities.

Covid-19 has laid bare a fundamental truth: that capitalist healthcare is a contradiction in terms, since capital–like the killer virus–cares for nothing but reproducing itself.

In only three days, the total fatalities in Sweden due to the current epidemic rose from 477 to 881. While the problem started roughly about the same time in all the Scandinavian countries, Sweden’s stats are among the worst.

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.

In the U.S., Covid-19 unfolds with temporal and spatial unevenness. The health system barely has the necessary resources to handle normal operations, let alone a pandemic.

While, by April 9, Brazil to its east had registered more than 16,000 cases and 822 deaths and Colombia to its west, had seen its tally climb above 2000 cases and 54 deaths, Venezuela had only recorded 167 cases and 9 deaths.

The lockdown in South Africa has been extended till the end of April. However, the government’s execution of the lockdown, along with decades of under-investment in health, has left the country unprepared.

Muni Purchases Are Finally Here

In the backdrop of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, Michael D. Yates, decades-long union activist, director of Monthly Review Press and former Associate Editor of Monthly Review magazine, discusses condition of the working people and steps required.

Tupac Shakur passionately explains his views on generosity and responsibility, traits he feels some people with extreme wealth like Donald Trump lack, in this MTV News clip from 1992.

This validates everything the Tribe has been saying all along about the risk of oil spills to the people of Standing Rock. We will continue to see this through until DAPL has finally been shut down. – Jan Hasselman
Attorney, Earthjustice

The world is now in what scientists are calling a no-analogue situation. The dangers are increasing and so is the space for revolutionary human development, calling for a new Earth movement. If humanity is to survive a renewed struggle for freedom as necessity.

Dr. Jo Anne Welsch, currently working on vaccine development for low and middle income countries at a global health organization, discusses how vaccines are developed and tested, and the implications of the process for the coronavirus.

On this episode of Going Underground, we speak to legendary journalist and film-maker John Pilger about the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

CounterSpin interview with Bama Athreya on the gig economy and Covid-19

As COVID-19 grips the world, in country after country, there is socialization of healthcare and of production of some essential goods, which markedly departs from the capitalist norm