The Internationalism

Internationalism No. 33, November 2021 Page 5 From the series The struggle against coronavirus Around 227 million people have been infected by the novel coronavirus SARSCoV-2 worldwide, causing 4.7 million deaths [Johns Hopkins University, September 17 th , 2021]. If tracked over time, both figures can be seen as indicators of the pandemic’s evolution . However, they do not give the full picture of the humanitarian disaster — not only because the coldness of the statistics hardly expresses the violence with which this health crisis has disrupted the lives of millions, but also because the official figures are believed to greatly underestimate the real situation. Missed diagnoses The number of Covid-19 cases indentified and registered in the statistics depends in fact on the number of diagnostic tests performed. It also varies greatly from country to country and in the different phases of the pandemic curve, as well as being...

Friedrich Engels memorably describes the poor sanitary condition of working-class neighbourhoods in mid-19 th century England. At a certain point, typhus and cholera epidemics began to threaten bourgeois neighbourhoods, and only then was the government forced to take remedial action. Well, with the pandemic of the century , it is as if Engels had entered the 21 st century, and the same contradiction was laid bare for the whole world. The Covid-19 catastrophe in India shows an elementary truth: Europe, America and China are completing colossal vaccination plans, but they will never be truly safe if the rest of the world, in Asia, Africa and Latin America, remains at the mercy of the virus and its mutations. And yet, even in the face of the evidence, the contention between powers to take advantage of vaccine diplomacy does not cease. The United States has put forward the promotional idea of suspending the patents of the pharmaceutical giants, perhaps in order to counter the Chinese off...

This article is taken from Intervenção Comunista — the journal of our Brazilian comrades We wrote in May last year that the ‘tropical Trump’ causes a perfect storm . This first quarter of the year seems to demonstrate this clearly: GDP decline (-4.1%) and increased unemployment (14.2%); an end to emergency aid and a delay in the resumption of a new, much leaner aid plan; a record number of deaths and Covid infections. With 2.7% of the world’s population, the country accounts for about 12% of Covid-19 deaths. In March alone, Brazil recorded an increase of about 33% in its daily deaths. The pandemic crisis, coupled with historical imbalances, is shaking up the dysfunctional government of Jair Bolsonaro, who has just appointed his fourth health minister in a year. Increased dependence on the Centrão The second half of Bolsonaro’s term began — for their politics — with the election of Arthur Lira (Progressive Party-Alagoas) as president of the Chamber of Deputies, and Rodrigo Pac...

From the series Vaccines and world contention There are by now ten authorised vaccines already in use against SARSCoV-2, and there are 77 countries in which vaccinations are taking place. By mid-February, 173 million doses had been administered and the campaign is proceeding at an average rate of six million a day, calculated on the basis of last week’s figures. At this pace, it would take 5 years to vaccinate 75% of the world population with two doses [ Bloomberg , February 15 th ]. More than half of the injections have been carried out in the United States, the UK, and the European Union which, together, account for 11% of the world population. In at least one third of the 77 surveyed countries, less than 1% of the population have received their first dose of the vaccine, and, in the rest of the world, vaccines have not yet arrived. Imperialist globalisation Individual states are pursuing autonomous solutions to a global problem. Epidemiologists believe that, while a vast propo...