The Joe Biden government has the following plan to deal with COVID-19:
- Accept as normal 420 extra deaths every day, that is, 150,000 a year;
- Assume that the majority of deaths and a large part of the serious symptoms will continue to be concentrated in the oldest, poorest and most oppressed sectors of the population;
- When you hit the richest and most powerful people — like Biden and others in his administration — make sure they get antiviral drugs and the best supportive care, even if others can’t;
- Wait for the number of severe cases to be small enough for hospitals to avoid collapse – but take no action to expand COVID-19 care or other medical care to the general population;
- Affirm that everything is under control, whether it is or not. Going back to the old ways, without government mask mandates, without continued mobilization to distribute vaccines, without establishing and facilitating public health protocols – such as the tests and tracing necessary to face the next variant and the next pandemic; Y
- Blaming China for establishing strict local quarantines and, above all, for closing businesses. It almost insists that People’s China allow the virus to spread as it has in much of the rest of the world, even though this would likely result in millions of additional deaths a year.
Although the above scenario is very disturbing, it is possible that a variant of the virus will develop and plunge the world into even greater chaos. But for now, let’s put that thought aside.
The Democratic administration’s approach to the pandemic seemed reasonable in 2021, but only when compared to its predecessor. The Trump gang’s plan was to deny the problem and disregard the science — unless they themselves got sick. Even then they were willing to try dangerous pseudo-cures.
The dismantling of the protocols of the two major capitalist parties to deal with COVID-19 and its variants reveals much about the inability of the capitalist system to protect and develop humanity. This is even more proven, since the incapacity has been duplicated by almost all the governments of the imperialist world. This is true even for those countries where a strong labor movement has historically conquered a more humane health system.
The highest value under capitalism is to maximize profits. How the working class is doing around the world, if it even lives, is dismissed as trivial by the ruling class.
This can be seen in how the imperialist ruling class is facing the challenge of the pandemic, climate crisis, economic instability and even imperialist war. His main goal remains to maximize profits. Whatever suffering this goal causes, they try to impose it on the Global South and the working class. They do so even when their own safety is at stake. The COVID-19 crisis proves it.
The ruling class has long since lost any ability to positively guide the destiny of humanity.
The alternative is to prioritize improving the conditions of the poorest and most oppressed sections of the working class – along with that of the entire planet – which will improve and protect the lives of most of humanity. This can only be done in a system in which the urge to maximize profits has disappeared. The necessary system is socialism.
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