CHICAGO, IL — We don’t have to live like this. We don’t have to die like this. We don’t have to fear going to work, or school, to live in constant fear as our government denies us what we need to survive the COVID pandemic. No, we will not emerge from this great sickness without significant help from the government. We are not getting it, so we must demand it.
There are life-saving successes and hope from conscientious science. Unfortunately, transnational corporations and banks demand the removal of all safety mitigations taught to us from science. Business operations ignore the inevitable consequences of infection spread and consequent deaths.
Science teaches us three strategies:
- Herd immunity that encourages the spread of the virus. It claims that if enough people are infected, it will effectively burn itself out;
- Mitigation claims that a collection of measures like masking and social distancing, combined with vaccination will bring the pandemic under control; and
- Eradication that globally coordinates and deploys every weapon in the arsenal of measures to combat COVID-19.
Zero-COVID strategies used in China and New Zealand supplied necessaries to ensure low mortality and people’s health. Globally, a movement of a zero-COVID policy will stop pandemic spread. It requires conscious, international mobilization by the people to demand the eradication of COVID-19.
Consider: non-Zero-COVID governments force people to engage in infected work environments to activate an economy with production expansions at the excessive sacrifice of human lives. The majority of the world’s population remains unvaccinated. Evolution of new COVID strains, more infectious and vaccine-resistant develop from the continual spread of COVID-19. It is deadly, not merely a common cold to be allowed to become endemic. It will kill millions more people if we do not eliminate it.
Driven by economic requirements from the corporate elite, serious scientific measures to stop COVID transmission are abandoned. Its message is clear: the cure cannot be worse than the disease. Saving lives must be balanced against making financial profit.
The Biden administration was intent on getting women back on the job amid a raging pandemic. Therefore, children were returned to schools to free families to return to the workforce. The children contracted and spread the virus, leading to a sharp increase in their cases and deaths. An entire generation now face the prospect of long-COVID and other unknown developmental consequences.
The current propaganda dictates that it is necessary to live with the virus. Public health measures are abandoned, using private corporations to provide COVID testing, contact tracing, vaccinations, and health education. Mass media covers up of child infections and deaths.
Without an intervention by the working class to force a change in policy, the virus will continue to spread and evolve, exacting an overwhelming loss of human life. Political action must be knowledge and understand that it is vital and urgent to arm the public with scientific truth. It is necessary to fight the pandemic. Our future will depend upon the working class to build a movement to carry it out.
We need to demand the government supply our necessities while we quarantine and heal in our homes. We need the government to quickly rebuild the public health system with community members. We need the government to build more hospitals. We need universal health care. We can’t survive without this help.
Kathy Powers is a lifetime Chicagoan. At 50, Kathy speaks out as the voice of the people. She became a revolutionary activist whose lifelong fight raises unheard voices. She is the Health Care Desk on the People’s Tribune Editorial Board.
