Canadian farm and industrial worksites become new coronavirus hotspots

Carl Bronski

The reckless back-to-work drive across Canada, greenlighted by the federal Liberal government and spearheaded by the hard-right provincial governments of Ontario, Quebec and Alberta, is already producing new outbreaks of the potentially deadly coronavirus. The precipitous re-opening of manufacturing operations, warehouses and retail centers without any consideration for the health and safety of workers, combined with the seasonal increase in agricultural activity, have turned many worksites across Ontario into COVID-19 hotspots.

In Norfolk County, near the shores of Lake Erie, 125 migrant workers out of a 216-strong workforce at Scotlynn Farms have tested positive for COVID-19. At the time of this writing, seven have been hospitalized, with two in intensive care. The workers, who mostly hail from Mexico, passed the 14-day quarantine period after arriving in the country and worked another 11 days in the fields before symptoms began to be recorded last week.

More than one hundred of the workers who tested positive are still asymptomatic (i.e., display no symptoms but are nonetheless capable of spreading the contagion). Public health authorities, fearing more extensive community spread, are now testing clerks at a Port Dover grocery store where the workers shopped.

The migrant workers, consigned to cramped, poorly-ventilated bunkhouses, live in ideal conditions for the spread of the virus. With the highly time-sensitive asparagus crop requiring immediate harvest, Scotlynn Group CEO Scott Biddle has put out a call for local labour, promising a $10 per hour wage increase over the wages of the foreign workers. This move, which amounts to bribing unemployed local workers to risk their health and even their lives, has outraged the migrant workers and their advocates, who point out that they have laboured in the fields in substandard conditions for years at or near the minimum wage.

The outbreak in Norfolk County is only one of a number of hotspots in the southern Ontario agricultural sector. Near St. Thomas, south of London, 20 new cases were recorded last week at an Ontario Plants Propagation greenhouse operation. Another 40 cases have occurred at Greenhill Produce, near Chatham. Twenty people throughout Windsor-Essex tested positive over the weekend, most of them temporary foreign farm workers. On Saturday, an unnamed 30-year-old Mexican worker in the county died from COVID-19.

About 20,000 migrant workers arrive each spring in Ontario for the growing season. A recent US study showed that the average life expectancy of a career migrant farm labourer in that country was an appalling 49 years of age. Chris Ramsaroop, organizer for Justice for Migrant Farm Workers—responding to the contagion amongst foreign temporary field-hands in Canada—cited a lack of personal protective equipment and hand sanitizer, overcrowded and unsanitary housing conditions, and the failure to separate infected workers from their colleagues as standard procedures in an industry that continues to exploit its workforce to the hilt.

The rise in infections has not been confined to agricultural areas. A CBC News report last week noted that in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), which accounted for 76 percent of all new COVID-19 cases in Ontario in the month of May, enclosed industrial sites are threatening to become the next virus hotspots.

In Peel region, which encompasses the cities of Brampton and Mississauga just west of Toronto, public health authorities announced that they are tracking “several large workplace clusters” linked to manufacturing plants, warehouses, and delivery companies. Since March, 450 workplace infections have been recorded. About 200 cases originated in just thirteen Peel workplaces. The region’s Chief Medical Officer stated last week that “dozens more” workplaces are now suffering outbreaks.

In Toronto, two recent clusters have been identified at large grocery stores.

In York Region, just north of Toronto, authorities have identified 45 workplaces that have recorded two or more infections. At the Honda auto assembly plant in Alliston, three workers have tested positive. That plant re-opened on May 11. The company has yet to provide full information on whether at least two of the infected workers attended the plant after it re-started production.

In the Detroit Three assembly plants in Ontario, where the Unifor union has worked closely with the major automakers to send autoworkers back into unsafe plants where they interact in close contact at entrance gates and on the shop floor, the ruling elite is also accepting that large numbers of workers and their families will get infected. Kristen Dziczek, vice president for industry, economy and labour at the Centre for Automotive Research, a key industry think-tank that assisted the Big Three in reopening their facilities in Canada, Mexico and the United States, bluntly told CBC, “I think we’re going to see hotspots keep popping up and that’s going to be one of the disruption factors in auto production.”

Ontario meatpacking plants continue to experience COVID-19 infections. A Conestoga processing operation north of Kitchener had at least 90 cases by the end of May. In Brampton, Maple Lodge Farms poultry processors reported 25 cases and one death on May 4. The first case of infection had been confirmed on April 15. However, the company did not publicly announce the presence of the virus in the plant for three more weeks. It was later discovered that workers there had filed safety complaints with the Ontario Labour Relations Board without any response.

The widespread outbreaks of COVID-19 in workplaces across a broad range of economic sectors underscore the criminal indifference shown towards the health and lives of working people by the right-wing Ford provincial government and the entire ruling elite. Ford granted vast exemptions from lockdown restrictions to mines and manufacturing facilities that were clearly not essential services, accelerated the back-to-work drive as case numbers continued to increase sharply, and failed to provide medical staff with adequate personal protective equipment. At the federal level, the Trudeau Liberals focused all their efforts on organizing a bailout for the financial oligarchy and big business worth hundreds of billions of dollars, while placing workers and the health system on rations.

The back-to-work drive by governments across Canada is being implemented in flagrant disregard of repeated World Health Organization warnings that mass testing and contact tracing capabilities need to be developed and health care systems significantly strengthened before any relaxation of restrictions on normal economic and social life. Even now, some five months after the declaration of a global pandemic, workers in industry after industry report shortages of personal protective equipment, crowded workplaces, increasing line-speeds and unsanitary company washrooms and cafeterias.

The rate of testing in Ontario remains low, although it has recently picked up slowly. Medical experts have also noted that the province’s contact-tracing capabilities are woefully inadequate. Global experience has shown that increased testing without 24-hour contact-tracing turnarounds will do little to arrest the spread of the virus. In regions with higher rates of virus transmission, it is still taking several days for positive cases to even be questioned about their contacts and then several more days for the contacts to be traced, let alone tested.

Brazilian youth join international wave of protests against police violence

Tomas Castanheira

Responding to the massive demonstrations around the United States and the world, thousands of people took to the streets in Brazilian capitals protesting against police violence, racism and the government of Brazil’s fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro.

On Sunday, hundreds of people participated in a demonstration in downtown Rio de Janeiro denouncing the deadly police operations in the favelas, which left 177 dead in April alone. The protest took as its symbol João Pedro Mattos, a 14-year-old black youth brutally murdered by the police in May. Although the protest was peaceful, the military police attacked the demonstrators, shooting them with rubber bullets and stun grenades. The TV station Globo filmed a policeman pointing a rifle at a defenseless demonstrator raising his hands in the air.

The same day, another demonstration took place in São Paulo, called by organized soccer fans who define themselves as “anti-fascists” and “in defense of democracy.” The protest was attended by more than a thousand people and made references to the murder of George Floyd. In a place nearby, there was a small group of fascist supporters of Bolsonaro, who have been demonstrating every weekend in support of a military intervention and the end of social distancing measures against the coronavirus.

Youth protest in Curitiba against racism and police violence, Monday, June 1. (Credit: Twitter)

The extreme right-wing militants provoked the demonstrators while being escorted by the military police, who then suppressed the protest with pepper spray, rubber bullets and a “rain of [tear gas and stun] grenades,” according to representatives of the Human Rights Commission of the OAB (Brazilian Bar Association). Six people were arrested.

Right-wing governor João Doria of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) welcomed the brutal action of the police, and said it was used to “protect” the demonstrators, preventing a possible conflict. He declared that his government will ban demonstrations in the same place and on the same day and said that the police will control more harshly those who attend future protests, i.e., will prevent them from happening.

After the protests in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, more than a thousand young people marched in Curitiba, capital of Paraná, on Monday night. The police brutally attacked the demonstrators and arrested eight people. Videos show policemen sweeping the streets of the city, throwing bombs and firing rubber bullets at the demonstrators. Police officers were also recorded attacking groups of demonstrators with batons, after they had already been dispersed.

In addition to street demonstrations, videos of Floyd's murder and images of protests and police violence in the US were widely shared on Brazilian social media. Hundreds of thousands felt immediate identification with the social conditions in the United States and with the political response against police violence that is growing internationally.

Brazil is one of the most unequal countries in the world and its contradictions are being intensified by the response of the ruling class to the coronavirus pandemic. The country already has more than 500,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, a figure exceeded only by that of the United States. With the death toll having surpassed 30,000, the governments in every state, driven by Bolsonaro and a campaign by the media, are promoting the homicidal reopening of all economic activities.

Besides the danger of death from the virus, Brazilian workers are seriously threatened by misery and hunger. Unemployment, already staggering before the beginning of the pandemic, has grown with the cutting of more than five million jobs over the past few months. Among those who are still employed, wage cuts and contract suspensions already affect more than eight million.

The generalized economic despair is being answered by the Brazilian bourgeoisie with the intensification of state violence against workers, especially the most impoverished sections. The state of Rio de Janeiro, after registering last year a 92 percent increase in murders committed by the police, surpassed this rate during the pandemic. Compared to the same period last year, April and early May witnessed a 28 percent increase in the number of police raids on favelas, and a 58 percent rise in the deaths provoked by them.

The terror deliberately spread by the police in the favelas and outskirts of Brazilian cities, many of them majority black, only prepares the generalized employment of violence against the working class and its social opposition to capitalism.

The fascist Bolsonaro—just like US President Donald Trump—is seeking a political base among the police and military for a move toward an openly dictatorial regime. In February of this year, political figures of the Bolsonaro administration led a military police strike in Ceará and spoke on stages to the mutinous cops arguing that “for the first time we have a president who knows what it is to be a military police officer.”

A report by Portal Democratize website reveals that one of the individuals responsible for the repression of the demonstration in São Paulo Sunday is a military police colonel who works for the Center for High Studies in Security of the Military Police and is a fanatical pro-Bolsonaro militant.

Bolsonaro is reinforcing his appeal to the military every weekend in the fascist demonstrations in front of the government palace in Brasilia, in which he is making increasingly ostentatious appearances. Last Sunday the president flew over the demonstration in an official helicopter and then paraded among the demonstrators mounted on a police horse.

Among the organizers of the demonstration in Brasilia is a fascist group directly promoted by government officials, “Brazil's 300.” The day before, they had staged a march against the Supreme Court, carrying torches as in the fascist demonstrations of the American Ku Klux Klan.

Bolsonaro's defense of a police state regime is openly and insistently based on the danger of an uprising of the working class against the capitalist order in Brazil. He has justified his proposals to intensify the domestic use of the army against the population based upon the danger of a massive working class uprising, such as what occurred in Chile at the end of 2019, characterized by him as “terrorist acts.”

At the beginning of the pandemic, he again warned that, “what happened in Chile will be nothing compared to what may happen in Brazil.” And more recently, at a ministerial meeting on April 22, publicized by court order, he claimed that current social conditions are a “fertile ground” for uprisings that threaten the established political order.

The right-wing shift of the ruling class all around the globe, and especially in the United States, is perceived by Bolsonaro as the main point of support for his authoritarian project. On Sunday, as his palace advisors discussed the possibility of deploying the National Guard to repress the initial demonstrations in São Paulo, Bolsonaro retweeted Donald Trump's post that threatened to declare "Antifa" a terrorist organization.

The growing hostility, especially among the youth, to the advance of authoritarianism and the formation of state-financed fascist groups is an important political development.

However, the development of a genuine struggle against fascism and for democratic rights is only possible through a massive political movement of the working class advancing an internationalist and socialist program.

No step forward is possible under the leadership of the bourgeoisie and the pseudo-left parties, who are trying to dominate this movement and whose task is to channel the social opposition behind the bourgeois state. In alliance with the official media, they seek to falsify the nature of the protests that are taking place in the United States and the world, classifying them as a racial movement.

By hiding the multiracial composition of the protests, they are attempting to conceal their own petty-bourgeois class interests, limiting their objectives to the pursuit of state reforms. By establishing that the essence of police violence is “structural racism,” a crime of which all whites are guilty, these reactionary political forces want to silence the working class and push the idea that placing more blacks in positions of power in the state and corporate hierarchy is enough to resolve society's contradictions.

The Workers Party (PT), one of the chief advocates of this right-wing policy, is promoting the candidacy for mayor of Salvador, capital of Bahia, a military police major, alleging that the fact of she is black and a woman makes her a natural representative of “popular interests.”

What these political forces a fear the most, just as Bolsonaro and other bourgeois politicians, is increasing militancy within the working class. Workers in call centers, meat processing plants, hospitals and delivery services have staged independent strikes against exploitation and unsafe working conditions promoted by the capitalists. It is to this revolutionary social force that the youth coming into struggle today must turn.

Protesters defy Trump’s threats, expand nationwide movement against police killings

Jacob Crosse

The Trump administration and state governors are continuing to deploy tens of thousands of police and troops against peaceful demonstrations in over 200 cities in the US.

Curfews, mass arrests and police terror have not quelled the powerful movement of youth and workers of all races and ethnicities in response to the May 25 police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. If anything, Trump’s fascist tirade from the Rose Garden on Monday, in which he asserted dictatorial powers and threatened to illegally deploy the military to crush the protests, has stiffened the resolve and heightened the anger of the hundreds of thousands marching in cities across the country.

Trump accompanied his repudiation of the US Constitution on Monday with the mobilization of hundreds of military police to spearhead an unprovoked attack on peaceful demonstrators well ahead of the 7:00 pm curfew declared by Washington DC’s Democratic mayor, Muriel Bowser.

The demonstrations are expanding internationally. Protests and marches have been held in London, Paris, Berlin, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Dublin, Auckland, Sydney, Tehran, Halifax, Idlib (Syria) and many more cities.

In Houston, over 60,000 joined George Floyd’s family in a march against police murder. Drums played as tens of thousands, some on horseback, moved through downtown Houston. The march ended in front of City Hall with protesters holding signs reading, “I Can’t Breathe” and “No justice, no peace.”

In New York City, beginning at 2:00 p.m., thousands marched across the Manhattan Bridge towards Manhattan in an attempt to meet up with another group of marchers. At the Manhattan end of the bridge, protesters encountered a wall of police, forcing them to remain on the bridge. For two hours, protesters waited for the police to let them pass before deciding to turn around. Upon reaching the other side, the group came face-to-face with another wall of cops. For two hours the police refused to let anyone off the bridge. As word spread on social media of the cops’ thuggish tactics, the police were forced to relent and let the marchers pass.

In southern California, over 20,000 workers and youth braved scorching temperatures to march throughout Los Angeles and Hollywood. These peaceful demonstrations were juxtaposed with the sight of heavily armed National Guard troops and Humvees deployed all along the famous boulevard to safeguard private property.

Demonstrating the widespread opposition to police violence, which takes place in every working-class community, protests have sprung up in rural towns such as Glasgow, Kentucky. This town of 14,000 people in south central Kentucky, in which 86 percent of residents identify as “white,” turned out 400 protesters on Tuesday afternoon.

Despite the overwhelmingly peaceful nature of the protests, governors, mayors and local officials have imposed curfews on over 60 million people living in 200 cities in 27 states. This includes a countywide 6:00 pm curfew for Los Angeles and an 8:00 pm curfew in New York City. The entire state of Arizona in under a curfew.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, imposed an 11:00 pm curfew on Monday which led to over 700 arrests. Not satisfied with this level of police repression, Trump demanded in a tweet that Cuomo “CALL UP THE NATIONAL GUARD” before “lowlifes and losers ... rip the place apart.”

Taking Trump’s message to heart, in an extraordinary press conference on Tuesday, Cuomo characterized the New York Police Department’s response to the protests as a “disgrace.” He warned Mayor Bill de Blasio, also a Democrat, that there is an “option ... to displace the mayor ... bring in the National Guard.”

In an earlier press conference on Tuesday, de Blasio slammed his fist on the table as he decried “vicious attacks on police officers.” While dozens of social media videos have depicted NYPD thugs bashing, beating, gassing and attempting to run over protesters in the last 96 hours, de Blasio embraced the police and said, “anyone who attacks a police officer attacks all of us.” At the press conference he announced an extension of the curfew through the weekend.

While de Blasio had plenty of words for “violent outsiders,” he did not mention the vicious beating New York police delivered to 32-year-old hospital worker Rayne Valentine after his shift ended Saturday night at Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn.

In an interview with the Daily Beast, Valentine described walking home from work when he came upon a group of officers chasing a young person. Valentine began to record the encounter as officers swarmed the individual. The police then turned to him, warned him to “get back” and began assaulting him.

The beating forced Valentine to undergo two CT scans and receive 7 staples to close a gaping head wound. Valentine recalled yelling to the officers beating him as he lay on the ground, “I’m just trying to go home.” One of the cops responded, “Well, you picked the wrong time to do that.”

As of this writing, governors in 28 states and the District of Columbia have activated thousands of National Guard soldiers. In addition to the 45,000 Guard troops already activated in the previous months in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, 20,400 Guard soldiers have been deployed against the protests, with thousands more on standby.

While the bulk of this force is in Minnesota, nearly 2,000 have been activated in California. Currently, 1,200 soldiers are deployed in Los Angeles, 100 in Long Beach and 530 in Sacramento.

On Tuesday, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, activated 250 Guard troops and deployed them to Chicago. At a press conference, Pritzker assured his ruling class constituents that “We’ll continue to deploy as needed.” Bluntly stating the chief concern of the ruling class, Pritzker promised that “we are doing—and we will do—everything we can to protect private property.”

In Washington DC, soldiers have been deployed around national monuments. Three massive A4 tanker trucks, able to transport 2,500 gallons of fuel, rolled through city streets in preparation for the arrival of the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment (ACR) out of Tennessee. Ordered to deploy on Tuesday, the 1,000 soldiers are expected to arrive in the capital by Saturday. ACR units are known as “hunter-killer” units.

From the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers from the 278th will be occupying the capitol in Bradley Fighting Vehicles. Featuring explosive reactive armor, a 25mm M242 Bushmaster chain gun, TOW anti-tank missiles and a M240 machine gun, the Bradley’s battlefield purpose is to destroy light armor and scout out enemy tank positions in order to draw them out for the larger M1A1 battle tanks.

There is a glaring contrast between the response of the Trump administration and the ruling class to the deadly COVID-19 pandemic and their response to the mass protests. In the case of COVID-19, nothing was done for weeks as the White House, senators and congressmen sought to downplay the threat, while they prepared a multitrillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street. The malign neglect of the ruling class has resulted in tens of thousands of preventable deaths, with more to come.

In the case of the protests, within hours thousands of police were mobilized and then quickly supplemented by state troopers and the National Guard.

This massive repression against the demonstrations includes the targeting of journalists and photographers. According to data provided by Trevor Timm, executive director of Freedom of the Press Foundation, there have been 211 “press freedom violations,” including over 33 arrests, 148 assaults (118 by police) and 30 instances of equipment or newsroom damage.

In the Philadelphia neighborhood of Fishtown, police still have no answers as to why officers abetted a group of 70 fascist thugs, armed with baseball bats, sledgehammers and axes. The roving band was given free rein to violate curfew in order to harass and beat protesters, including local television producer Jon Ehrens of WHYY.

Ehrens was taken to the hospital Monday evening after he and his girlfriend were attacked by the group for recording them as they assaulted a protester. Even though the police precinct is on the street where the assault happened, and multiple cops were less than a block away, no one has been charged or arrested in connection with the assault.

Africa Fact-Checking Awards 2020 for African Journalists

Application Deadline: 22nd July 2020 midnight GMT.

Eligible Countries: African countries

To be taken at (country): Kenya

About the Award: The awards continue to grow. In 2019, we received a total of 153 entries from more than 20 countries – from Ethiopia, Nigeria and Senegal to Egypt, South Africa and Zimbabwe. In the inaugural year, 2014, we received entries from about 40 journalists across 10 countries.
Across the globe, the Covid-19 pandemic has ushered a flood of dangerous false information. The World Health Organization says the outbreak has been accompanied by the so-called infodemic: “an overabundance of information – some accurate and some not – that makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it”.
The pandemic has raised the stakes even higher in the fight against misinformation, requiring that the media play an even more active role in sifting the facts from the fiction.
“With health-related decisions sometimes being a matter of life or death, good fact-checking journalism is vital – now more than ever. The quality of information disseminated in public can determine the life outcomes of many and so it is the responsibility of the media to refrain from being conduits of misinformation,” says Noko Makgato, executive director at Africa Check.
“Each year we are seeing growing interest in fact-checking as evidenced by the number of organisations that have emerged focusing their efforts on debunking harmful claims in different parts of the continent. This, we believe, strengthens the quality of public debate and, hopefully, improves the quality of life across the continent.”
As a result of the growing interest in fact-checking on the continent, Africa Check is expecting an increase in the quantity and quality of entries in 2020.
This year’s categories include:

• Fact-Check of the Year by a Working Journalist
• Fact-Check of the Year by a Student Journalist
• One runner-up in each of the two categories above 

Type: contest

Eligibility:

• Best fact-checking report by a working journalist

To be eligible, the entry must be an original piece of fact-checking journalism first published or broadcast on any date from 1 August 2019 to 22 July 2020, by a media- or independent fact-checking organisation based in Africa. The work may be published in print or online, broadcast on the radio or television or published in a blog. Reports published by Africa Check are not eligible for the competition.

• Best fact-checking report by a student journalist

To be eligible, the candidate must have attended a journalism school in Africa at some period between 1 August 2019 and 22 July 2020 and be younger than 35. The entry must be an original piece of fact-checking journalism, produced as course work or first published or broadcast on any date from 1 August 2019 to 22 July 2020, in a blog, student publication or by a media- or independent fact-checking organisation based in Africa. The work may be published in print or online, broadcast on the radio or television or published in a blog. Reports published by Africa Check are not eligible for the competition.
Candidates can only enter for the awards in one category per year, but can submit more than one report if they choose.
Selection Criteria: The entries will be judged on the following four criteria:

• The significance for wider society of the claim investigated
• How the claim was tested against the available evidence
• How well the piece presented the evidence for and against the claim
• The impact that the publication had on public debate on the topic.

Number of Awardees: Four (4)

Value of Award: The winner of the award for best fact-checking report by a working journalist will get a prize of $3,000, while the runner-up will be awarded $1,500. The winner of the award for best fact-checking report by a student journalist will get a prize of $2,000, and the runner-up $1,000.

How to Apply: Interested participants should:

Enter the awards

Visit Award Webpage for details

“The World Cannot Breathe!” Squashed By The U.S.-A Country Built On Genocide And Slavery

Andre Vltchek

More than two centuries of lies are now getting exposed. Bizarre tales about freedom and democracy are collapsing like houses of cards.

One man’s death triggers an avalanche of rage in those who for years, decades and centuries, have been humiliated, ruined, and exterminated.

It always happens just like this throughout the history of humankind – one single death, one single “last drop”, an occurrence that triggers an entire chain of events, and suddenly nothing is the same, anymore. Nothing can be the same. What seemed to be unimaginable just yesterday, becomes “the new normal” literally overnight.

*

For more than two centuries, the country which calls itself the pinnacle of freedom, has been in fact the absolute opposite of that; the epicenter of brutality and terror.

From its birth, in order to ‘clear the space’ for its brutal, ruthless European settlers, it systematically liquidated the local population of the continent, during what could easily be described as one of the more outrageous genocides in the human history.

When whites wanted land, they took it. In North America, or anywhere in the world. In what is now the United States of America, millions of “natives” were murdered, infected with deadly diseases on purpose, or exterminated in various different ways. The great majority of the original and rightful owners of the land, vanished. The rest were locked up in “reservations”.

Simultaneously, the “Land Of The Free” thrived on slavery. European colonialist powers literally hunted down human beings all over the African continent, stuffing them, like animals, into ships, in order to satisfy demand for free labor on the plantations of North and South America. European colonialist, hand in hand, cooperated, in committing crimes, in all parts of the world.

What really is the United States? Is anyone asking, searching for its roots? What about this; a simple, honest answer: The United States is essentially the beefy offspring of European colonialist culture, of its exceptionalism, racism and barbarity.

Again, simple facts: huge parts of the United States were constructed on slavery. Slaves were humiliated, raped, tortured, murdered. Oh, what a monstrous way to write the first chapters of the country’s history!

The United States, a country of liberty and freedom? For whom? Seriously! For Christian whites?

How twisted the narrative is! No wonder our humanity has become so perverse, so immoral, so lost and confused, after being shaped by a narrative which has been fabricated by a country that exterminated the great majority of its own native sons and daughters, while getting insanely rich thanks to unimaginable theft, mass-murder, slavery and later – the semi-slavery of the savage corporate dictatorship!

The endemic, institutionalized brutality at home eventually spilled over to all parts of the planet. Now, for many decades, the United Stated has treated the entire world as full of its personal multitude of slaves. What does it offer to all of us: constant wars, occupations, punitive expeditions, coups, regular assassinations of progressive leaders, as well as thorough corporate plunder. Hundreds of millions of people have been sacrificed on the grotesque U.S. altar of “freedom” and “democracy”.

Freedom and democracy, really?

Or perhaps just genocide, slavery, fear and the violation of all those wonderful and natural human dreams, and of human dignity?

*

Then one single death of a man whose neck got crushed by the knee of a ruthless cop. And the country has exploded. Hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy fighters and activists are now flooding the streets of Minneapolis, Washington D.C., New York City, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and other U.S. cities.

The death of Mr. George Floyd is a symbol, really, as black people get murdered in the most despicable way, almost every day. From January 2015 to date, for instance, 1,250 African-American citizens have been shot and killed by the police, in our democratic U.S.A.

In the “Country of Freedom”, 2.3 million human beings are rotting away alive in the increasingly privatized prisons. The U.S. prisoner rate is the highest in the world. Holding people behind bars is big business. Minorities form a disproportionately high percentage of the detainees.

*

And that is not all. Actually, the entire world has already become one huge prison. Look around: the whole planet is now being monitored, policed in that very special and thorough U.S. way; policed, brutalized, and if it dares to protest – pitilessly chastised.

Essential terms are all being twisted. The country abusing its own people, as well as the entire world, is defined by its own corporate mass media and propaganda system, as “free” and “democratic”. Those nations that are defending their own people against the brutal diktat of the empire, are insulted, called ‘regimes’ and ‘dictatorships’.

I have already described this madness in my 800-page book, “Exposing Lies of the Empire”, after witnessing some of the deadliest trends being spread by the United States in some 160 countries.

The murder of George Floyd unleashed resistance; it opened many eyes. In the United States, and everywhere else. Mr. Floyd, African-Americans, Native Americans and other oppressed people in the United States are brothers and sisters of those billions of men and women who are to this day, colonized, brutalized and murdered by the Empire, all over the world.

Let this be the beginning of a new wave of the global liberation struggle!

Now more and more people can finally see what few of us have been repeating for years: The entire world has its neck squashed by the U.S. boot. The entire world “cannot breathe”! And the entire world has to fight for its right to be able to breathe!

China diminishes itself

Bhabani Shankar Nayak

The rise of China is not only a hope for the Asian people but also inspires working class people all over the world. It instils hopes that there is an alternative to predatory capitalism of the west. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) played a major role in transforming China as a major world power while uplifting many Chinese from poverty, hunger and homelessness. The Chinese state capitalism or socialism with Chinese character under the leadership of CCP has managed its economy, politics and culture in a progressive manner. The Chinese achievements are potential alternatives to western capitalism. However, there are many issues that is confronting China today that limits the working-class politics. There is falling ideological appeal of the CCP among Chinese youth due to its top down approach. There is growing disillusionment among the CCP members because of the growing gap between theory and ideological practice among the top leadership within the CCP hierarchy. There is huge growth of economic inequality among Chinese population. The growing gap between rich and poor shows the failures of the CCP in developing egalitarian economic policies. The gap between rural and urban China is another concern that CCP ignores in practice. Many of these problems are self-inflicted by the arrogance and dominance of the CCP. It is making the same blunders that USSR made and collapsed. These self-inflicted harms are avoidable for the sake of China, Chinese people in particular and working-class people across the globe.

The internal issues of discontent in Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan and fear among the Uighur Muslims reflect democratic distrusts between Chinese government, party and people living within China. It demands democratisation politics and decentralisation governance within the democratic traditions of communist ideology. The CCP led Chinese government has failed to overcome the trust deficit within different regions and provinces in China. The trust deficit of China is accelerated by its aggressive postures in its neighbourhood foreign policy.  China and India are two civilizational postcolonial states. These two countries share more than 3,440km (2,100 miles) long border and have overlapping claims. These two nuclear armed countries can solve their border disputes with debates, discussions and diplomacy. The military confrontation between two diminishes their role both in regional and global forums. It sends wrong signals to regional and world peace. Both the countries need to focus on their own economic development and cooperate with each other for human welfare. China, Nepal and Pakistan are all weather friends. This is how neighbours should be in relationships but there is distrust of Beijing in Kathmandu and Islamabad. Vietnam, Philippines, Sri Lanka and east Asian countries are also good friends with China but scepticisms are growing in these countries because of the highhandedness of Beijing. There is local resistance against Chinese investment and Chinese takeover of their natural and strategic resources. Similar trends are visible in African continent against neo-colonial modes of Chinese investments. The Chinese aggressive postures diminish the good will for China in different regions.

The ruling elites need to understand that these issues are serious liabilities in long run. The sustainability of CCP and the rise of China depends on the good will it generates among people within its effective foreign policy praxis in dealing with neighbours and other friendly nations. The CCP can solve all these issues with a clear, coherent and democratic approach by developing uninterrupted trust between China and other neighbouring countries. It can solve its internal disputes and discontents with an open, honest, progressive and democratic manner. It needs political resolve that can further strengthen China within and outside its territory. But the Chinese aggressive behaviours diminish China and all its potentials. China is making the same mistakes as Soviet Russia has made, which led to its disintegration. It was a major loss to the working-class people of the world. Similarly, the failures of China will further weaken the working-class politics in the world.  In this context, the CCP led China need to take responsibility and initiative for peace and development and transform itself within changing requirements of time.

The organisational, ideological and structural transformation of the CCP, Chinese state and government depends on various factors. These factors are local, regional, national and international.  The understandings of these factors are central to the initiation of reform processes. The CCP’s dominance and monopoly over Chinese politics and state needs serious reflection by which CCP can accommodate different political, cultural, social and intellectual voices within and outside China.  The China is no more solely an agrarian economy. There are different sectors emerged in China during the post 1985 reform period. The Chinese party state need to develop capabilities to engage with different professional classes and negotiate with their requirements.  It would be political suicide to ignore the new class formations in China. The CCP, Chinese state and government can manage all these challenges and uncertainties if it engages with it in an open and democratic manner. The Chinese communists have nothing to hide but need to reform the way it functions.

China is a part of the global capitalist production and distribution networks. China is using these networks for its own national interests. But the national interests should not be the only criteria for a communist party state to determine its future course of actions in geopolitics. The national interests are not free from the interests of Chinese people and their Asian neighbours.  If the CCP looks at its national interest only, it would be very difficult to sustain the Chinese model of economic growth and development. There is growing local resistance movements against special economic zones, industrial and technological parks due to the perilous working conditions and precarity of Chinese workers. In this way, China faces these uphill tasks and challenges during these uncertain times. The Chinese story can survive if Chinese ruling classes can transform themselves by reflecting on their aggressive, neoliberal governance within the country, and poor public relations management, and bullying behaviour with neighbouring and friendly countries.

A Superpower In Chaos

Chandra Muzaffar

Minneapolis could not have happened at a worse time for the US elites. While violence perpetrated against African Americans by White police officers has happened a number of times before, its occurrence right in the midst of a huge health emergency that has already claimed more than a 100,000 lives and a related massive economic disaster that has robbed 30 million people of their jobs, is truly unprecedented. The mayhem and chaos accompanying the violence have spread to a number of other cities right across the United States of America.

What has sparked outrage among thousands of Americans (and not just those of African descent) was the way in which an unarmed Black civilian, George Floyd, suspected of using a counterfeit banknote was killed by a White police officer. The officer had pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for 5 to 9 minutes forcing him to plead that he could not breathe until he went silent and limp. The officer has now been charged with third degree murder though a lot of the protesters are demanding that three other police personnel who were with him at the time of the incident should also be punished.

If there is a lot of anger among thinking, caring Americans about the Floyd incident, it is mainly because they know that discrimination against African Americans is still pervasive and is a manifestation of the larger marginalisation of the community. True, through education there has been some mobility for groups within this minority especially in the decades following the civil rights movement but large segments remain trapped at the bottom of the heap.  The current economic devastation has underscored the vulnerability of these segments just as the coronavirus pandemic has also revealed how the poor and disadvantaged in the US and elsewhere are more likely to be the victims of the scourge than others.

That the US is not really able to protect the well-being of the poorer and weaker segments of society is obvious when we look at the situation of yet another minority, the Hispanics. In the last few decades their economic and social burdens have been exacerbated by an irrational fear of their alleged demographic challenge to the White majority. This fear was exploited successfully by candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election as it will be manipulated again in the forthcoming November 2020 election through issues such as building a wall to protect the US’s southern border.

There is a third minority, better positioned than the first two, which is also the object of racist attacks from time to time. Broadly classified informally as ‘Asians,’ they are often equated with Americans of Chinese origin. Since the coronavirus crisis and president Trump’s attempt to pin the blame upon China, the harassment of Chinese and Chinese looking Americans has escalated. Indeed, verbal and even physical abuse of members of the community has been going on for a while given the constant negative targeting of China by some US elites on a variety of issues ranging from trade and technology to alleged human rights violations and suppression of minorities. Though independent research has shown that there is a great deal of distortion and exaggeration in these allegations, they appear to have impacted upon ordinary Americans through community and social media.

Why China is subjected to such vile treatment, it is not difficult to understand. The US elites and a section of the media see the ascendancy of China as a challenge to US dominance and control of the planet, or US hegemony, and are therefore determined to tarnish and subvert China. Other countries which are independent-minded and unwilling to submit meekly to US power are also often targeted. Sometimes, prejudice against a particular religion or specific ethnic communities — this is true of the prevailing attitude of certain segments of American society towards Islam and Muslims — tends to warp inter-community relations.

The US pursuit of global hegemony has affected adversely the rights and interests of millions of Americans in a number of ways. By spending so much on the military — in 2019 it was 732 billion US dollars — and maintaining some 800 military bases encircling the world, the US has sacrificed the essential needs of its people such as well-equipped hospitals and schools. Gross neglect of the economic and social rights of the people has emerged as a tragic reality for everyone to witness when the nation is confronted by a twin health and economic crisis of gigantic proportions.

Indeed, given its wealth, the US failure to enhance the rights of millions of its citizens including the underclass within the White majority is simply criminal.  In the domestic arena, as in international politics, it is the height of hypocrisy of the US political elite to present itself as a champion of human rights and democratic rule. In fact, on a number of occasions in international politics —- Iran 1953; Chile 1973; Palestine 2006; and Egypt 2013 —– the elite had directly and obliquely participated in the suppression of democratic principles.

Today, through the two crises that have overwhelmed the superpower and the righteous anger vented in the streets of the nation by ordinary citizens of all shades —- anger that stems from centuries of contempt and scorn heaped upon a people —- the truth about the elites’ lack of respect for human rights and human dignity is exposed for all to see. Will this lead to some sincere soul-searching especially among young Americans?

Challenges in Seeking Health Care amidst COVID 19 Pandemic: Experiences of Cancer Patients

Akhter Hussain Bhat &  Noorain Batool Khan

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has become a worldwide threat and a major healthcare concern. Since its outbreak in China, the virus has so far affected more than 5.72 million people with over 3.56 lakh deaths globally causing widespread concern, fear, anxiety and stress. Owing to the severe infectious nature of the virus, the World Health Organization (WHO) in March 2020, declared the outbreak as a pandemic and a public health emergency of international concern. As the medical fraternity around the world is yet to find a proper cure for the infection, the primary interventions that the countries worldwide have adopted are significant public health measures, less social exposure, social distancing and national lockdowns. The virus that emerged only months ago has forced sudden and dramatic changes throughout the medical world. Health care and other associated social care including community medicine have been redirected to manage COVID-19 outbreak. Consequently, many clinical including oncology services have been relegated to second priority. Annual checkups, routine surgeries and even normal services have been cut back or canceled to minimize exposure to the virus. This in turn has posed major challenges for people suffering from various morbidities. The challenges are even greater for people who are grappling from cancer and are more susceptible than others. According to a study from China, cancer seems to have comparable associations with an increased risk of death from the virus to those of other comorbidities, such as chronic respiratory disease, tuberculosis, and hypertension (Liang et al, 2020). This article is an attempt to highlight the challenges faced by the cancer patients in seeking health care amidst the pandemic of COVID 19. But before that as a prelude, a brief talk about the health seeking behavior, as the utilization of health care or in other words seeking health care is broadly situated within the concept of health seeking behavior.

Health seeking behavior (HSB) has been defined as any action undertaken by individuals who perceive themselves to have a health problem for the purpose of an appropriate remedy (Oberoi et al, 2016; Latunji et al, 2018). Health seeking behavior is situated within the broader concept of health behavior which encompasses activities undertaken to maintain good health, prevent illness, as well as dealing with any departure from a good state of health (MacKian, 2003). Health care seeking behavior is categorized as formal (help sought from health professionals), informal relational (friends or family), and informal personal (self-help). According to Musoke et al (2014), the health seeking behavior of a community determines how health services are used and in turn the health outcomes of populations. Health seeking behavior is influenced by different factors or in other word there are various determinants in the form of physical, socio-cultural, political, environmental, socio-demographic, gender, knowledge about the facilities and even the health care system itself. It is regulated by the individual himself and family habits, norms that exist in a society, expectations and characteristics and availability of health services (Musoke et al, 2014). Among the factors mentioned, the availability of health services or facilities, access to these services, quality of services, utilization of the health care system are considered the major determinants of the HSB and accordingly the quality of the health standards of the people.

As the pandemic of COVID 19 has disrupted the whole social life, health care services to patients suffering from cancer are no exception. The foremost challenge facing cancer patients is the inability to receive necessary medical services both in terms of getting to hospital and receiving normal medical care once there. Lack of adequate health care infrastructure and human resources, serious supply-chain disruptions, and widespread fear among patients and health care workers have resulted in patient care and safety being compromised. Several cancer centers drastically scaled back their services after preliminary reports from China showed that Covid-19 outcomes are significantly worse among patients with cancer.

Due to the measures adopted by world governments’ to prevent the spread of the infection, cancer patients face major encounters. They cannot travel from one place to another and get the timely treatment. This has resulted in many untoward incidents to occur like the recent one in Kolkata, West Bengal where a two year old girl died because of the reason for not getting the timely treatment. The child had undergone tumor surgery in her stomach in last December at the state run Calcutta Medical College. Amidst the lockdown, her condition deteriorated and the family took her to at least four hospitals but to no avail. “Everywhere we went, we were turned away,” the father of the toddler is reported to have said who is a cycle van driver. Unable to get treatment the child lost her battle against the deadly disease. ‘Had the outbreak not occurred our daughter would have been alive today’¸ the parents are reported to have said (India Today). The death of the child will not figure in the list of COVID-19 casualties as she was not suffering from any covid related infection. Instead, the non-availability and also inaccess to the health care services lead to the otherwise avoidable incident to occur.

The joblessness of the daily paid workers caused due to complete lockdown is adding to the further challenges to seek timely health care for the cancer patients. Here the case of a toddler suffering from blood cancer can be cited as a reference which we have taken from the ketto.org website which is an online crowdfunding platform that supports the treatment of various poor and needy patients. The child named Kritika is reported to be suffering from blood cancer since December, 2019 for which initially doctors have advised high doses of chemotherapy with no positive results instead it caused further health related complications. According to the doctors the only thing that can make her get rid of cancer is a bone marrow transplant. However, her father (Rajkumar) cannot afford the treatment that costs a whopping amount of Rs 2100000. Rajkumar earns his livelihood working as a taxi driver but due to continued lockdown he is unable to earn though he has borrowed some money from everyone he knows which further aggravates his situation. “Cancer will take away my daughter if I don’t get the required amount. I have absolutely no income. I don’t even know how I will provide for my family in the coming days. Everything is so uncertain and I am helpless. I can’t do anything”, the father is reported to have said. The poor parents are trying hard to save their child, but now they have no option than to helplessly watch her suffer. The case referred to here, exemplifies the challenges faced by cancer patients in accessing the health care due to the negative impacts caused by the pandemic on the socio-economic conditions of the people.

Many patients with cancer are struggling to receive treatment due to hospitals canceling or delaying surgeries and other procedures. The non-availability of timely services and their utilization has negatively impacted upon the mental health of the people suffering from cancer. For cancer patients, stress is more disturbing than the cancer itself says Dr Shankar-a Delhi based oncologist. He further says that in this situation, it is very difficult to manage these people as they are unable to come to the hospital. The cancer specialist remarked that it is a dilemma for healthcare professionals as well as patients because there is an issue regarding what to follow and what not to. Even educating patients with cancer about the various aspects of COVID‑19 infection is more difficult because patients have their own illnesses and symptoms to worry about, say a group of leading oncologists at Tata Memorial Center- the oldest and the largest comprehensive cancer center in India. Further for a cancer patient, nothing, not even the danger of contracting COVID-19, is more worrisome than that of compromising their cancer care, say the experts at the center. There is also concern that patients who are otherwise healthy and have curable cancers have unfortunately concluded that the risk of contracting COVID-19 may outweigh the benefits of cancer treatment (Cannistra et al, 2020; Uzzo et al, 2020). Due to the current crisis of the pandemic with people fearing hospital visits aided by delayed diagnosis can lead to stage migration say from stage 1 and 2 to stage 3 and 4 which can become incurable sometimes, says Dr Bhawna Sirohi, director of medical oncology at Max healthcare.

There is no denying the fact that the coronavirus pandemic is potentially the greatest public health crisis. This crisis has brought unprecedented challenges before world governments. But a crisis is no excuse to focus all of one’s efforts on one disease at the expense of others. Though there are some reports of cancer cases been treated at some hospitals like the one in the live mint e-paper (May 17, 2020) of the 20 cancer-cum-corona patients who were successfully cured of the infection at city based Rajiv Gandhi Hospital in Chennai but, at the larger level the situation is not that much better. Considering the serious medical and emotional needs of patients, the governments need to issue scientifically drafted patient centric guidelines about managing cancer patients and handling their care against the backdrop of the COVID-19 outbreak. Healthcare providers on their part must remain committed to providing cancer patients the information about appropriate medical care, practice modifications and treatment programs. The COVID-19 pandemic needs to be managed, but not at the expense of lives and sufferings of cancer patients. Cancer, like coronavirus does not respect national borders, neither should we.

Corona And Environment: A Lesson To Learn

Harsh Khanchandani

Introduction

Birds are chirping, highways have quieted, rush hour traffic follows easily, airports have been shut down, smog has disappeared, reviving sunny and blue skies. COVID-19 has left this earth with dramatic drops in air pollution and a hope to solve the climate crisis by putting a halt to several harmful practices. It has drastically changed life on a global scale. Looking on the other side of the coin, it can be called an invisible menace which has caused an incalculable human and economic destruction. But there is an important lesson to be learned from this pandemic.

Impact on environment

Talking about the positive impact of the pandemic, greenhouse gas emission which is a primary contributor to global warming has seen a decline due to decreasing travel and economic activity. International Energy Agency has estimated 2.6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions to never be emitted into the atmosphere. This may not be permanent but the rising trend of remote work can now help to accelerate lasting effects on cutting carbon emissions. Similarly, according to reports, China’s carbon emission fell by around 25 percent. Further, a 10 percent reduction in pollutant nitrogen dioxide per week was seen in Italy and a drop of 50% of carbon monoxide, mainly from cars was seen in New York. Apart from this a significant decrease in air pollution in many parts of the world has been one of the major impacts of the coronavirus outbreak. According to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of China, the proportion of days with “good quality air” increased by 11.4% compared to the same period last year. A similar story is seen in India when residents of Jalandhar Punjab woke up to view Dhauladhar mountain range which is 213 km apart as a result of clean air. As we know India is home to 21 out of 30 worst polluted areas in the world, COVID-19 has helped us all to realize and expose the respiratory health crisis. As a result the period has denoted an unintentional but welcome breath of fresh air for the populated and polluted cities of the nation. It can be said that this pandemic is driving us towards the emission reduction target set by international climate agreements such as the Paris Agreement.

Impact on Biodiversity

Talking about wildlife, we have seen a stag scampering through Dehradun, puma being spotted at Santiago under lockdown and school of dolphins returning to marine drive. Coronavirus has truly resulted in a bunch of positives for planet Earth. As a result of lockdown, 475,000 endangered Olive Ridley sea turtles have come the coast of Odisha and laid their eggs. With fewer people crowding the water, a school of Oman cownose rays were spotted in Dubai marina. Nevertheless, while our species were in temporary retreat during the lockdowns, the gap was filled with wildlife.

Important takeaways for post COVID scenario

But the question that needs to be answered is could this temporary period be enough to combat environmental challenges? Certainly Not, but this pandemic can show us how the future can look with less air pollution, or it may simply demonstrate the magnitude of the challenge ahead. These days have altered our way of thinking. Substantially it taught us how lower levels of human activity could lead to greater visibility of the diverse array of species living in urban areas which often go unnoticed by the average human inhabitant. When aircraft begin to fly, factories and industries come back to life, pollution will eventually tend to pick up. As seen during the global economic crisis where global CO2 emission levels from fossil fuel oxidation and cement production fell by 1.4 percent to only rise to 5.9 percent in 2010. But this time, the crisis will result in a longer-term impact on the environment, at far greater cost to human health and security. We may certainly see countries after lockdown prioritizing economic development over environmental reforms. But it will be in our hands to learn from COVID-19 and live a better life in our ecosystem. Whether this pandemic is good or bad for the world ultimately depends not on the virus but on humanity.  At the very least, it should challenge governments and companies to consider how things can be handled differently after the pandemic, to hold on to temporary improvements in air quality and biodiversity. It is clear that this epidemic has given us a chance to regain a sense of humanity and learn from our mistakes to make this planet a better place to live. It has shown a deeper reflection on our relationship with the environment.

In essence, the lesson to learn from this is that once nations get to grips with the coronavirus, better enforcement of the environmental, transport, and industrial regulations should be made a priority to relieve the adverse impacts of human activity on the environment. To end this I would like to quote Lady Bird Johnson, a visionary environmentalist and former first lady of the US who once said: “The environment is where we all meet; where we all have a mutual interest; it is the one thing all of us share.”

Preparing For Natural Disasters Within A Pandemic

Shreya Urvashi

As I write this piece, rainfalls have started along the Konkan coast, and the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a red alert and 33 National Disaster Response Force teams have been deployed in anticipation of Cyclone Nisarga to Mumbai and its neighbouring districts. Nisarga, coming just two weeks after Amphan, is expected to result in a severe cyclonic storm with a windfall of over 100 kilometres per hour.

Cyclone Amphan wreaked massive havoc in the eastern states of the country, and we are yet to recover from that disruption. Thus, another cyclone at this time, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic which is rather intensified because of the migrant crisis, only a few weeks after the gas leak in Visakhapatnam, does not signal a good time for India. However, in the case of cyclones, India does not seem to have ignored lessons learnt from previous times. The Indian Meteorological Department’s alert systems are more accurate now, and precautions are taken. Nevertheless, as Amphan showed, it still led to a grim situation along the East coast for many days in the aftermath.

One of the most curious points about the formation of Nisarga is that the Arabian Sea has rarely seen such events. The Indian Eastern coast is much more prone to phenomena like cyclones and hurricanes, as has been proven several times. The geographical positioning of the Bay of Bengal further makes the states of West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand and Bihar along with the North-Eastern states extremely fragile and prone to harsh climatic events. Floods and cyclones annually lead to devastation in this season. Hence, the West needs to thoughtfully look at and learn from the post-Amphan situation to prepare for the coming days.

Cyclone Amphan, being one of the most destructive cyclones ever formed in the Bay of Bengal, left West Bengal and Odisha extraordinarily devastated this year. The Sunderbans took a major brunt as expected, but the trees could not stop the wrath from reaching till the city of Kolkata and many adjoining areas. At least 85 people are dead, and normal life is paralysed for thousands. The intensity of Amphan was anticipated, but it could not prevent the catastrophe. The warning and predicting systems of the country have massively improved and been extremely helpful. Steps were taken in accordance with it being a Category 5 storm. Evacuation was done, and backup power was arranged. Sturdy buildings were designated as shelters with at least a week’s supply of cooked food. Medical supplies were bolstered. Further, people were warned to stay far from the coasts. However, regular forecasting and the preparatory moves by National and State Disaster Response Force units could only help to an extent.

It is evident that it is the precarious lives led by a significant number of citizens in our country that leads to devastation and shock due to such disasters. People in West Bengal said that they have never seen anything like this before, and people in Maharashtra find themselves on similar grounds. Along with massive destruction to property, numerous power lines and communication towers were damaged by winds during Amphan that went up to 160 kilometres per hour. Amphan turned out to be especially significant because migrants working in other states had been returning to their villages in these states. Their income is already in a dire state, and this added loss is proving to be extremely harmful to them. The loss and damage of life and livelihoods are significant. Those affected by the storm, as well as the associated heavy rains, will need substantial help to pick up their lives again.

It is all the more tragic that the cyclones are striking at a time when COVID-19 is roiling India. With people crammed into makeshift camps, the threat of infections gets magnified. Adhering to hygienic practices, monitoring those requiring medical assistance and testing for the virus is going to be a humongous task for the authorities. The threat due to coronavirus still remains very real. But how are people who witnessed such horrifying scenes, and have little means to survive, be expected to follow distancing rules? The lockdown is posing problems in regions that are normal in terms of weather and climatic conditions. What should we expect in cyclone aftermath? It is probably not even possible to maintain the required distances in the makeshift shelters that have been arranged. People’s houses and livelihoods are flooded- maintaining hygiene and social distance is not on their minds at the moment. It might also end up leading to a spike in the number of COVID-19 cases.

With a vaccine, maybe we will know how to tackle the novel coronavirus, but we need to keep strengthening our institutions and response mechanisms to overcome the never-ending cycle of storms along our coastline.