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Thanks to Trump, COVID-19 Vaccine Further Out of Reach

Trump sides with pharmaceutical companies and private profit instead of world’s people.

by Jennifer Lin

Trump has announced that the US won’t participate in the WHO-backed COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access Facility (COVAX), a global initiative of 156 countries working together to develop a safe and effective Covid-19 vaccine and distribute it globally. Trump has already withdrawn funding from the WHO, which he falsely accuses of being controlled by China.

While international organizations including the WHO have praised China for its pandemic response and for assisting countries worldwide in curbing the pandemic, Trump insists on blaming China for Covid-19 in order to distract us from just how horrible the situation is in the US. Trump, who doesn’t believe in wearing masks and wants everyone to go back to work even though 200,000+ people in the US have died from Covid-19, once again shows he has zero commitment to public health.

Rather than being on the side of the people, Trump and his cronies are siding with pharmaceutical companies that have been profiting off the pandemic. One of these companies, Gilead, was given $99 million of US taxpayer money to develop remdesivir, a potential treatment for Covid-19. Gilead plans to sell remdesivir at $3120 per patient.

Pharmaceutical companies like Gilead see the pandemic as a giant cash cow, where the people fund research and development for lifesaving resources that Big Pharma hoards to secure billion-dollar profits. That’s why pharmaceutical companies are racing to produce vaccines as part of Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, which aims to sell vaccines by January 2021.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has already granted companies like Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Pfizer over 6 billion of our tax dollars to develop vaccines. When he was head of Eli Lilly, current HHS Secretary Alex Azar tripled the price of insulin. When asked if HHS plans to make COVID-19 vaccines affordable for all, he replied, “We would want to ensure that we’d work to make it affordable, but we can’t control that price because we need the private sector to invest.” In other words, the U.S. ruling class sees healthcare as nothing but a commodity and is willing to let people die so the rich can profit.

Trump is continuing with the same policy of mass murder we’ve seen since the pandemic began. Corporations have received bailouts totaling $500 billion while workers have lost their livelihoods and lives because of cuts to Social Security, Medicaid, and SNAP, mass unemployment, evictions, and being forced to return to unsafe jobs. How will we workers be expected to pay whatever outrageous prices Big Pharma charges for a vaccine when we’re already bankrupt trying to stay alive?

The WHO says another $35 billion will be needed for COVAX to succeed. Trump’s decision not to join this global effort is a threat not to just our safety, but to the safety of people worldwide. The only way out of the pandemic requires countries working together to develop a vaccine that everyone has equal access to, with an emphasis on protecting the most vulnerable populations. Countries like Cuba and China understand this; they are committed to offering vaccines to other countries rather than hoarding them for profit. We must oppose U.S. capitalists by championing global solidarity and organizing to secure healthcare as a right.

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Report From an Infected Office

by An Anonymous Office Worker

There is a sense of impending doom hanging over the company. The fourth positive COVID test sends rumors through the staff, but there’s no word from management except to a select few. No one is given a chance to decide for themselves whether they’ve been exposed.

Everyone is confused and upset: “Why are they making us come in when it’s not safe? Why won’t they let us work from home? Who’s going to be next?”

The lack of information only makes the terror worse. The bosses want the company to remain open no matter what danger it brings to workers. The measures taken to protect the workers are the bare minimum and clearly not adequate. When someone gets sick, the managers insist the exposure didn’t happen at the company. “We don’t know what they do in their free time” is a mantra they repeat, as if it will wash the blood off their hands.

“This is the new normal,” they claim, despite many other countries getting the pandemic under control. “We’re following the guidelines,” they insist, despite multiple people being sick.

They pass the blame onto workers while putting a metaphorical gun to our head, forcing us to work or be fired. As eviction courts reopen and the unemployment rate skyrockets, the alternative is to find another job in a dead job market or risk quitting and becoming homeless.

They twist every word to keep the company open. They ignore the fact that the guidelines have failed to stop the pandemic, that there are more than a thousand deaths per day around the country. They have the ability to make the workers safer, but they refuse, all in the name of making money. They don’t care that their excuses don’t make sense. To call them “irresponsible” is to suggest they don’t know exactly what they’re doing. They have prioritized profits over people.

Workers have little choice, unless we’re organized. In many places, management has kept people isolated, disorganized, and terrified of causing trouble. Throughout the city, the infection rate increases as workers are forced into danger. Workers feel powerless to stand up for themselves against manipulative bosses. But the truth is, the bosses are scared. They got a glimpse of what the world would look like if workers took back their power, organized, and refused to work when the pandemic forced them to shut down initially. They have called people back in a desperate attempt to save their businesses, knowing that if we unite and fight back, there’s nothing they can do.

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Jefferson Parish School Staff & Parents Continue Fight

School Staff and Parents Fight to Keep Schools Closed as School Infections Skyrocket Across the Country

by John Guzda; History Teacher, Jefferson Parish

On August 10th, the Jefferson Parish School Superintendent announced that the reopening of schools was pushed back from August 12th to August 26th. This decision was made in direct response to the people of Jefferson Parish standing up and speaking out! Three rallies, threats of sick-outs, press statements, emails to school board members and district leaders, interviews with the media, and an unwavering determination to love and protect students and education workers pushed the business-controlled school board and district administration back. This moment has proved once again, that when we fight, we win!

Unquestionably, this pushback has prevented countless cases of sickness and even deaths. Though we recognize this victory, as we continue to see more cases of sickness and death in children across the country occur due to the reopening of schools, we know that this fight is far from over! As Louisiana continues to remain number one in the country for per capita COVID-19 infections during this global pandemic, we will continue to demand that the lives and safety of our children and education workers must be protected! We will continue to demand that schools not reopen until there are at least 14 consecutive days of zero cases in any given parish, and that education leaders in the Greater New Orleans area move to end the digital divide now! Every student needs to be provided with a free high-quality computer, and free high-quality internet access during this time away from brick and mortar schools. Money should be provided to working parents for home child care and assistance. Access to a 21st century education is a human right and not something that should be paid for. The struggle continues…

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Movement for Louisiana Workers Councils Is Getting Fired Up

by Gavrielle Gemma

We have two choices. We can resign ourselves, our families and our children to a future of unemployment, low wages, no health care, hunger, and evictions while a select few capitalists live in luxury.

Or we can unite, employed and unemployed, workers of all nationalities, to fight for what we need and deserve.

Employed one week, unemployed the next. In our apartment or home one month and facing eviction or foreclosure the next. Already we’re seeing our wages fall and our hours cut as the bosses hire desperate people for less money.

It didn’t have to be this way. The government could have put into action a scientific plan to crush the virus but Wall Street’s concern for “the economy” won out. When they say they want to save “the economy,” they mean their profits.

The Democrats have put forward relief proposals but have allowed months to go by, all while conceding more and more to the Republicans. We workers are bleeding out while they politely negotiate with one another.

Billionaire Trump told us the virus would disappear or else that we could drink bleach. If it weren’t for the fact that he and his ultra-rich golf buddies needed our labor to increase their wealth, he’d have us all drink bleach and die.

It’s time to get real: we are not in this together. It’s us against them.

Independent Mass Action by Workers and Youth is Urgently Needed

Every last cent in the national, state, and city budgets comes from our labor. The CEOs, the bankers, the Trumps with all their lavish inheritances have never lifted a finger to “earn” their wealth. While we work, they spend their days counting the money we make for them.

Through struggle we can win back the wealth that they steal from us. Pensions, minimum wages (now criminally low), health care, unemployment insurance, and SNAP were all won by mass action. We’ve had to pressure the rich for each on of these concessions—by organizing, marching, and speaking up to demand what we need.

Join the Louisiana Movement for Workers Councils (LMWC)

The Louisiana Movement for Workers Councils has just started. They are demanding to restore and expand emergency $600 a week unemployment for all workers, including youth, home care and migrant workers; to reinstate the ban on evictions and foreclosures as well as the ban on utility shutoffs. They demand safe, living wage jobs or a guaranteed income for all.

You can begin a chapter in your own neighborhood, town, or city. Your voice, your ideas, your involvement is needed. When we fight, we win! Contact us at LouisianaWorkersCouncils@gmail.com or at 504-671-7853.

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Nurses Union: Epidemics Require End to For-Profit Healthcare

In response to the coronavirus outbreak, National Nurses United, which represents more than 150,000 registered nurses across the country, is demanding better protection for healthcare workers, temporary paid sick leave for all workers, and a ban on monopoly rights for vaccines manufacturers in order to ensure free, universally available vaccines.

In a March 2 letter addressed to the federal government they note that “the for-profit motive in our health delivery system has led to hospital closures in rural and underserved communities, system-wide short-staffing of health care workers and inadequate supplies of medicines, medical equipment (including ventilators), and PPE in health care facilities. As a result, our hospitals and health care facilities are unable to adequately respond quickly to potential COVID-19 infections.”

They note the urgent need for a national health system “in which everyone living in this country is guaranteed the health care they need.”

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Cancel All U.S. Sanctions!

The U.S. imposes sanctions on more than 39 countries, restricting access to healthcare for 1/3 of the world’s population. The coronavirus makes it clear: these inhumane sanctions endanger the whole world.

U.S. sanctions have significantly hampered Iran’s efforts to respond to the coronavirus outbreak, limiting access to medical supplies, test kits and information about the virus.

In Venezuela and People’s Korea, sanctions have killed thousands of people, primarily from lack of access to basic medicines.

Cancel all U.S. sanctions NOW!

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New Orleans Workers Group Makes Demands for Coronavirus Fight

Protect Workers, Not Profits!

As the case of China has shown, the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak requires extraordinary measures to contain its spread and its potentially lethal effects. Quarantines and potentially widespread closures of schools and businesses may be necessary. Infected people will need to be able to self-isolate without fear of going hungry, missing rent, or losing their jobs. Extra precautions will need to be taken to protect healthcare workers. The production and universal distribution of medical gear and personal protective equipment (PPE) will need to be ramped up and hoarding and price gouging strictly prohibited. In other words, to stop the spread of an epidemic requires economic planning and cooperation that protects the health of the whole social body, not just the rich. The New Orleans Workers Group makes the following demands:

  • All costs for COVID-19 treatment and containment should be born by the government including reimbursement for lost wages. No worker should risk spreading the virus for lack of income.
  • Childcare should be universally available to parents in the event of school closures.
  • Tests should be free for all residents and administered at conveniently located test centers throughout the country.
  • Price controls should be put into effect to shield workers from the disruptive effects that the virus has had on the global economy.
  • Workers’ 401(k)s should be protected from devaluation in stock prices. A moratorium should go into effect immediately.
  • Manufacturing of medical gear and PPE should be ordered to meet need without regard to private profits.
  • A system for free food distribution to quarantined areas and self-isolated households should be put into effect
  • Every resident is entitled to these protections to income, health, etc. regardless of citizenship status.
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Coronavirus Fight Requires International Solidarity

By Ashlee Pintos

The current conditions for workers in the United States leave us extremely vulnerable to sickness and disease. With the lack of comprehensive, if any, healthcare, no guarantee of paid sick days, and demanding daily responsibilities on top of low wages, it is no wonder the majority of us are terrified of contracting an illness as unknown as the new coronavirus. While we have real, valid reasons to be concerned about the spread of any life-threatening virus, we should not allow our vulnerability to be weaponized into racism or paranoia.

The truth is that the United States government will use anything that they can to divide us. The latest coronavirus (COVID-19) is no exception. COVID-19 starts with flu-like symptoms such as fever, dry cough and in more extreme cases, shortness of breath. COVID-19 is a mutation of one of many existing coronaviruses. The majority of the population has already experienced a different strain of coronavirus which usually produces symptoms similar to the common cold.

Since the virus first appeared in China, it has spread to over 60 countries and killed over 3,000 people. While this number is seemingly high, context matters. Just this season alone, the flu has killed 10,000 people in the United States. While the capitalist owned media run to fan the flames of anti-Chinese sentiment, they have done very little to provide U.S. residents with scientific information and tools to prevent the common flu, which has killed as many as 60,000 people in recent seasons.

While China built a hospital in 10 days to address the threat that the coronavirus poses to its residents, Trump initially claimed that the outbreak was a “hoax.” Meanwhile Trump is pushing for massive cuts to Medicaid which will leave millions more without health insurance. Because the Chinese government has undertaken extraordinary steps to contain the spread of the virus within their country, the number of new cases outside of China now exceeds the number of new cases within, which are on the decline, according to the World Health Organization. This means that it is now the duty of other governments to cooperate in order to prevent a large-scale global outbreak. Socialist Cuba shows the way forward: while the U.S. did not offer China assistance, Cuban medical teams traveled to China. Cuba has produced antivirals that were used to treat people infected with the coronavirus and they are actively working to develop a vaccine.