Capitalism turned the coronavirus into a huge disaster. COVID-19 was not an inevitable and unavoidable pandemic; capitalism made it more likely that a virus would cross to humans and did not prepare for that. Once the virus was known to be infecting humans the response was inadequate. Almost everything capitalism did and is doing made this virus far more deadly and damaging than it should have been.
Cutting forests for agriculture increases the interactions of humans and domesticated animals with wild animals, especially primates, bats and rodents. AIDS, Ebola, Yellow fever and COVID-19, are among many virus diseases that crossed from animals to humans. Deforestation is on the increase, opening more opportunities for viruses to jump to humans.
Capitalism boosted profits with just-in-time delivery and long supply chains that are easily disrupted. Canada imported all its N-95 masks. Most of the chemical building blocks of pharmaceuticals are made in China and India. COVID-19 wreaked havoc with this short-sighted approach.
Public health workers have been warning for years of new dangerous pandemics. These warnings were constantly ignored. There was no planning or preparations. Amazingly, Canada shut down its early warning system, Global Public Health Intelligence Network, in May 2019. Protective equipment stocks were rundown. To pay for tax cuts for the rich, public health systems were starved of funds. Canada’s acute hospital beds were slashed, from 4.99 acute beds for every 1,000 people in 1976, to only 1.96 in 2018.
At the end of 2019, when it was known that the virus was infecting humans, China’s ruling class, hoping to avoid hitting profits, repressed early whistle-blowers. Most governments around the world did too little, too late. If at the start, mass testing and tracing had been introduced, along with plentiful supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE), mass lockdowns could have been avoided. Lockdowns were proof that the first lines of action had not been implemented soon enough or in a decisive manner.
South Korea’s first identified case was on January 20. By the end of January, the government directed the development of testing kits. In less than four weeks, thousands were being made daily, with mass testing starting in March.
Despite warnings in early January, including from Canada’s military intelligence, it was at least two months later, when the horror of overwhelmed hospitals in Italy and Spain made the news, before Canada began to prepare for the pandemic. In the spring, hospitals were not overwhelmed, only because 400,000 surgical operations were postponed, with long-term health impacts. It has taken many months for Canada to get to adequate levels of testing and there are fears that test materials are running low. There are still weaknesses in tracing.
Canada, like most countries, did not put production for COVID on an emergency footing. The dire shortage of PPE dragged on for months as the government had endless discussions with business. In World War II, government directed companies to make whatever was needed for the war effort. The government should have done the same with COVID, ensuring plentiful supply of test kits, PPE and other needed equipment. If there was a shortage of labs to do the tests, it should have taken over private or university labs.
Essential workers were cheered, but governments did not raise the minimum wage. While hotels were closed, thousands continued to be homeless. In Ontario and Québec, private care homes were death traps with low-paid over-worked staff – no action was taken for months to give them decent pay and regular hours. Unsafe working conditions were allowed in the food industry. In industry after industry, the bosses’ profits came before workers’ health and lives.
Now the economy and schools are reopening. The same questions will be posed again. Have enough precautions been taken to be safe? Or will profits and cost-cutting take priority and re-boost COVID-19? So far, almost everywhere, reopening has started a second wave.
Canada only looks good because of the disaster in the US. But here, as elsewhere, capitalism made society vulnerable to COVID and the response to the outbreak has been woefully inadequate.
Capitalism cannot be trusted with our health.
