Last week, the WHO was forced to say what everyone already knew — the COVID-19 disease spread by the coronavirus — is a global epidemic. From day one, the spread of the virus has been a testimony to the inability of our current social system, capitalism, to cope with crises and the constant quest to put profits and “the stability of the system” before human health and life.
With the virus now having spread to Sweden, nothing is different — the measures taken have been too little, too late and emergency preparedness is at risk after the dismantling of the welfare state and adaptation to the market. While the big banks and big business have been given SEK1,000 billion as a “stimulus”, plans for major healthcare cuts have not even been stopped!
Advice from the Public Health Agency has been astonishingly passive, which has meant that valuable time has been wasted, especially since it became clear that there was an uncontrollable contagion in Italy and Iran, two countries with significant connections to Sweden.
The countries that acted immediately and advised against travel to risk areas and urged ALL who came from risk areas to isolate themselves for two weeks, while carefully following up these people, have today significantly lower levels of infection.
It is obvious that, like the Chinese regime, the Public Health Agency did not want to disrupt “business-as-usual”. Instead of using the precautionary principle, the agency has dismissed the warnings of researchers and doctors that Sweden is not prepared for a coronavirus outbreak.
As late as 8 March, the Director General of Public Health, Johan Carlson, dismissed all warnings of an imminent pandemic in a main Swedish newspapert. Three days later, the WHO classified the coronavirus as a pandemic.
After the health service, especially in the Stockholm region, had been overrun with imported cases, it was of course only a matter of time before cases of domestic infection appeared. In the absence of resources, both in the form of personnel and corona testing kits, the region is now forced to focus only on the most severely ill and at-risk groups.
But, as epidemiologist Joacim Rocklöv says, risk groups can never be effectively protected if there is widespread contagion in society-at-large. The lack of corona testing for broader layers now means that contamination measures are “blind” — and their effectiveness, or lack thereof, risks not becoming apparent until it is already too late and the hospitals are inundated with corona patients.
Criticism is now growing against both the late and inadequate measures taken as well as Sweden’s lack of readiness to deal with a pandemic. Where major government efforts have been made, it has been possible to slow down the rate of contagion, despite major outbreaks, like in South Korea, where mass testing has been carried out in state-run drive-in facilities and major efforts have been made to disinfect and isolate affected areas.
The pandemic could spread seriously and risks becoming long-term — many researchers believe that as many as 70% of the population can be infected without a vaccine. The big question is whether measures to limit contagion are sufficient to delay the course of infection long enough for the poorly prepared healthcare sector to be given a reasonable chance of coping with the effects, or if much more dramatic methods of isolation are needed to reduce the spread of infection to a minimum, while we wait for a vaccine.
After years of neoliberal cuts, deregulation and privatisation, Swedish emergency readiness for a serious epidemic of this kind is useless. The healthcare sector is already warning of “hard priorities” even if it has not openly said that this can cost lives. But the fact is that the number of intensive care beds in Sweden is among the lowest in the EU — 5 per 100,000 compared to, for example, Germany’s 30.
In the Italian region of Lombardy (with as many residents as Sweden), where the health service is being forced into making horrific choices such as not providing ventilators to the elderly, there are twice as many intensive care places as in Sweden, which shows just how vulnerable the health sector has become. Admittedly, the Stockholm region now claims that the number of intensive care beds can be rapidly increased by 50%. But in order for these new intensive units to receive personnel and equipment, all other care must be sidelined.
State-owned pharmaceutical companies which could be used to mass-produce the necessary drugs and equipment have been privatised and proper stockpiles have been replaced with capitalist “just-in-time” systems. Despite the extreme lack of protective equipment and testing kits and the fact that several countries have introduced export bans, the government has found it incredibly difficult to let go of its market fundamentalism. They are only “considering” state production of protective equipment.
At the same time, the health service has been privatised and adapted to the markets which makes it impossible to have real overview and control. Emergency readiness has been focused on scare propaganda about the threat of war from Russia, while readiness to deal with civilian crises has been ignored, something which is not only visible now but also during the 2014 and 2018 forest fires.
For example, stores of protective equipment, respirators, medicines and mobile hospitals have been slaughtered on the altar of cutback policies. This is despite agreement amongst scientists: it has not been a matter of if, but when, a major global pandemic would break out.
The fact that the government has increased liquidity for the major banks and big business with SEK 1,000 billion and provided other fiscal stimulus packages to companies to the tune of SEK 300 billion but has not decided on a massive upgrading of the health service shows where their priorities lie.
It is not enough to “flatten” the curve of the spread of infection.
Through more resources and abolishing market logic, the capacity of the health service must be greatly expanded, both in the short and long term.
Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna (ISA in Sweden) stands for:
- Trade union struggle for full compensation for all those affected. Protection from infection and the restructuring of work as needed. 100% compensation when it comes to sick leave, childcare leave, quarantine allowance and during temporary layoffs.
- Immediately expand protection for workers in the health and care sectors and other groups of at-risk workers. State production of protective equipment and tests NOW — requisition the necessary resources from private companies.
- Free care for all currently in Sweden — access to healthcare is a human right.
- Staying at home requires a home. No to all evictions — housing for everyone!
- Massive government investment in strengthening the work on tracing infections, virus testing, disinfection as well as free access to hand sanitiser in all public places, public transport and so on. Transfer military resources to civil society for these tasks.
- Extend virus testing to all suspected cases so that the entire household can be quarantined.
- Increase state grants to regions and municipalities by SEK 50 billion NOW for public health and social care without profiteering. Stop all plans for cuts immediately and develop emergency plans under the control of healthcare professionals and the unions in order to expand capacity as quickly as possible. Tear up the decision to abolish the higher tax bracket for high income earners and put an end to tax deductions — let the rich pay.
- Leaves of absence and financial incentives for those with medical education who have chosen to work in other areas but who may wish to work either temporarily or on a more long-term basis in the health and care sectors.
- Stop the draining of resources through market-based solutions in healthcare — bring all private, profit-making operations into public ownership immediately. Redirect resources from the market and bureaucracy to care. No to ‘New Public Management’ and “Just-in-time” management techniques.
- Nationalise the pharmaceutical companies and the production of protection and medical equipment in order to plan according to the urgent needs of today and the long-term needs of society.
- End worrying attempts to place restrictions on democratic rights that are in danger of becoming permanent — defend the right to strike. Instead, introduce the right for employees to work from home or alternatively to take leave with full pay in areas with virus outbreaks.
- Close the schools, at least in areas where infections are spreading, while maintaining childcare services for the children of parents with essential jobs in the health service for example.
- No redundancies or pay cuts with the coronavirus as an excuse. For a trade union veto on all notices of redundancy and organisational changes. No to state aid to large companies with full coffers — state money should go to operations and employees. Support for small businesses, sports and the cultural sector instead of making billion kronor grants to big banks. Introduce shorter working hours with full pay and opportunities for further education if there is a shortage of work.
- Fight against all racist nationalism and sexism. The labour movement must stand for unity, international solidarity and independent workers’ struggle against anti working class policies that let workers suffer while large companies receive billions.
- Stop forced deportations — amnesty for all refugees. Convert all residence permits into permanent ones — residence permits cannot be based on income requirements when the economy is in crisis.
- The airline industry and other fossil fuel industries are not sustainable even after a corona outbreak. Use the crisis to nationalise the airlines, re-train employees and switch to sustainable transport. Free public transport has already been temporarily introduced on Stockholm buses and should be extended to the entire public transport sector. Immediately implement a similar climate change policy in terms of food production, commodity production, energy systems, mining and more.
- Abolish capitalism’s hunt for profits, its over-exploitation of human beings and nature, its top-down management and its hush-hush culture that has given the spread of contagion free reign and laid the foundations for today’s crisis.
- For democratic socialist planning of the economy, where human health and well-being and a sustainable relationship with nature are prioritised over the profit interests of a small super-rich powerful elite.
