Joe Biden’s cabinet: A rainbow coalition of imperialist reaction

Eric London

The corporate media and Democratic Party are celebrating Joe Biden’s incoming cabinet as “the most diverse in US history,” proclaiming that the appointment of women, African Americans and Latinos to key cabinet positions is a sign of tremendous social progress.

In reality, Biden’s rainbow coalition of imperialist reaction encapsulates and exposes the right-wing essence of identity politics.

Nowhere is the excitement more palpable than in the editorial offices of the New York Times, a leading proponent of racial and gender politics, which gushed that the president-elect has “signaled his intention to draw from a diverse cross section of America in building his cabinet.”

The Times writes: “Unlike President Trump’s cabinet, which is more white and male than any in nearly 40 years, Mr. Biden’s list of likely top advisers promises to reflect 21st-century sensibilities.” It cites statements by Biden aides claiming the incoming cabinet “will look like America.”

Whatever the skin color of the cabinet members, the Biden administration will not think like America. The population is demanding massive social change to address the deadly pandemic and unprecedented levels of inequality and social desperation.

Though over 7 in 10 Americans favor universal health care, there will be no constituency within the cabinet for such a policy. The same goes for the more than 6 in 10 Americans who support tuition-free college and student debt forgiveness, who will be “represented” by a cabinet consisting of equity fund partners of various races and genders.

While 8 in 10 people now favor diverting money from police departments to support social programs following this summer’s nationwide, multi-racial demonstrations against police violence, Biden has pledged to increase funding for police.

And for the over 75 percent of Americans who want troops removed from Afghanistan and Iraq and who support cutting defense spending, the multi-racial Biden cabinet will give them the exact opposite.

The nominees are not pioneers of their race or gender, they are social criminals:

Avril Haines, a former CIA deputy director, will be the first woman director of national intelligence. Haines was an architect of the Obama administration’s drone assassination program, which killed thousands of impoverished Africans, Arabs and Central Asians, with no attention to the victims’ gender.

Alejandro Mayorkas will be the first Latino to head the Department of Homeland Security. This will be little comfort for the hundreds of thousands of Latino (and other) immigrants who he will deport in the coming months and years, or to the immigrant children he jailed in cages when he was deputy DHS secretary from 2013 to 2016.

Janet Yellen will be the first woman treasury secretary, after having helped implement the quantitative easing policy that transferred tens of billions of dollars to the banks on a monthly basis during the Bush and Obama administrations while providing no support for millions of foreclosure victims.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield will be ambassador to the United Nations. Thomas-Greenfield worked in the State Department to help American oil and mining corporations extract resources from the world’s most impoverished countries.

Though not formally a member of the cabinet, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris—the first woman and first African American in that position—made her career as a “black woman prosecutor” by trampling the lives of the mostly-impoverished people she incarcerated.

Then there are the white men, whose own records are no more and no less criminal than those of their female and minority counterparts.

Antony Blinken is the nominee for secretary of state, having helped orchestrate the wars in Syria, Libya and Yemen. He was a partner at a private equity firm and co-founded WestExec Advisors, which works with Israeli intelligence and helped develop Google’s censorship tools. Former Secretary of State John Kerry, supporter of intervention in Syria and of the 2013 coup in Egypt which established the al-Sisi regime, will be “climate czar.”

As for those on the shortlists for other cabinet positions, the Times holds its breath for the prospect that Tammy Duckworth may become the first handicapped, Thai woman to serve as defense secretary. Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg could be the first openly gay secretary of transportation.

These servants of Wall Street and US imperialism have nothing in common with the working people of “their own” race, gender or sexual orientation. It is class, not identity, which is the fundamental dividing line in American society.

This was on display during a surreal press conference announcing the cabinet yesterday, in which Biden made little mention of the coronavirus pandemic currently ravaging the country and the world, instead focusing on the “personal stories” of the above-named nominees. When it was their turn to speak, the nominees congratulated themselves and their loved ones for the career advancement.

Meanwhile, in the real world, 260,000 Americans are dead from the pandemic with a disastrous winter ahead. The dead include a disproportionate number of poor and working people of all races who were forced back to work for corporate profit, who could not retreat to second or third homes in the countryside, who could not afford adequate health care, or whose underlying health problems (heart disease, obesity, smoking) are themselves badges of generations of poverty and oppression.

On the contrary, the ruling class’s bipartisan policy is to fuel the markets with death like coal fuels a steam-engine train. Biden has reassured corporate America that “there will be no national lockdown,” while Democrats and Republicans have conspired to ensure no substantial increase in benefits for the unemployed.

In the two days since Biden began announcing his cabinet picks, the Dow Jones industrial average shot up nearly 1,000 points, breaking records and crashing through the 30,000 point mark. The affluent sections within each race and gender grow obscenely wealthy while workers of all races confront varying degrees of disaster.

The selection of Biden’s cabinet shows that politics based on race, gender and sexuality has become a fundamental part of the Democratic Party’s efforts to divide workers, enrich themselves, and falsely present themselves as “representational” of the broad masses who in reality have no representation whatsoever in any branch of government.

Meanwhile, Trump and his fascist supporters capitalize on growing dissatisfaction with the race-obsessed Democrats. Trump doubled his support among black men and women in the 2020 election and tripled his support among LGBT people. At the same time, the far right sees recruitment opportunities among young white people who have no prospects for the future and are tired of being told by Democrats that they are nothing but racist “deplorables” who deserve their desperation.

In order to immediately address the social needs of workers around the world, the trillions of dollars hoarded by the rich must be seized and made available to alleviate human suffering. The success of this requires the greatest possible degree of unity of all workers in a common struggle.

The world working class consists of billions of people who work thousands of different jobs, speak hundreds of different languages, practice hundreds of different religions and local customs, and whose skin, hair and eyes also happen to come in many colors. For hundreds of years, in each country, the bourgeoisie has attempted to teach workers to hate one another based on pseudo-science, lies and violence.

The great historic task of socialists is to combat the long legacy of communalism and racial politics in order to make this massive, heterogeneous social force aware of its tremendous social power. The affluent proponents of identity politics who pretend to be “left wing” are bitter opponents of the historic struggle to unify the international working class. For this reason they must be uncompromisingly opposed.

Amazon announces the opening of its online pharmacy

Patrick Smith

On Tuesday, Amazon announced the opening of its online pharmacy, sending shock waves throughout the pharmaceutical industry, which sold over $380 billion in medications last year, and filled more than 3.6 billion prescriptions in the United States.

Amazon, which is run by the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, will compete with more-traditional drugstores like CVS Health, Walgreens, and Rite Aid. The announcement caused the shares of these companies to drop by 8.6, 9.6, and 16 percent, respectively, according to the Wall Street Journal. This translates to more than $10 billion in diminished market value for CVS and Walgreens alone. Shares of Amazon were up 1 percent.

Amazon is known for putting industries on edge with what Wall Street has dubbed the “Amazon effect.” Meanwhile, Amazon’s representatives openly discuss their strategy as “disruption” of formerly stable sections of the economy. When Amazon announced it was buying Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in 2017, shares of grocery store chains nationwide also dropped out of fear of competing with the world’s largest online retailer.

An Amazon box (Flickr/soumit)

With the news, the shares of GoodRx fell 22 percent. GoodRx is an online outlet that caters to people without insurance. According to TechCrunch, Amazon Prime members “can also save on medications when they pay without insurance on Amazon Pharmacy—and receive the same discounts at 50,000 other participating pharmacies nationwide. The Amazon Prime prescription savings benefit can save members up to 80% off generic and 40% off brand name medications when paying without insurance.”

Competitors to Amazon are trying to diversify with other health-related endeavors such as mini-clinics and pharmacist consulting. CVS stated it is re-allocating less profitable sections of its stores to “deliver a differentiated, consumer health experience” by initiating HealthHUB. This comes from CVS’s 2018 acquisition of health insurance giant Aetna.

HealthHUB represents a retreat in the face of Amazon’s attack, as it is an attempt to create a market for other services that can only be provided by in-store visits. In these HealthHUBs, there will be a staff of doctors and nurse practitioners who could diagnose ailments and generate prescriptions that could then be filled within the store.

However, there is speculation that Amazon will soon open stores that provide the same service. It also has a staff of online “wellness professionals” and pharmacists who can be summoned to consult with patients about their medications.

The drug distribution system took a hit as well from the launch of Amazon Pharmacy. Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, Express Scripts, and McKesson each fell more than 5.5 percent.

Amazon has been selling prescriptions through PillPack, which it bought for $753 million in 2018, but customers were directed to a separate site geared toward patients with complex, chronic medical conditions. Now, consumers can buy medications from Amazon’s main retail site, with some of the same perks—like free two-day shipping for Prime members—that come with buying toys or clothes.

The company’s entrance into the pharmaceutical industry was prepared by the infrastructure that was in place at PillPack when it was acquired, including its pharmacy software and licenses across all 50 states. PillPack also has a staff of online “wellness professionals” and pharmacists who can be summoned to consult with patients about their medication.

Amazon’s entrance into the pharmaceutical industry is part of its drive to dominate the health care market, worth an estimated $11.9 trillion. In 2018, Amazon partnered with JP Morgan Chase & Co and Berkshire Hathaway to launch Haven, a venture focused on utilizing developments in technology to offer health care products that undercut its rivals. Amazon purchased PillPack shortly afterward.

In its warehouses, where workers are regularly maimed by working in unsafe conditions and with constant pressure to “make rate,” Amazon has already been operating “AmCare” facilities for workers.

Amcare is Amazon’s in-house health care provider, and in the event of an emergency, workers are told they should not call 911, but call the company doctors at Amcare instead. The International Amazon Workers Voice , a project of the World Socialist Web Site, has covered numerous incidents involving Amcare that suggest that its role is primarily focused on generating a pro-management paper trail, which can then be used to block a worker’s claim for compensation after an injury.

In one case, an Amazon worker was told by AmCare that her workplace injury was “not an injury.” The worker recalled, “I was treated like a liar.” Another Amazon worker went to AmCare with concerns that she had symptoms of the coronavirus, only to be told that her temperature could not be taken because that would violate “the six-foot rule.”

When Amazon whistleblower Shannon Allen went to Amcare after a workplace injury permanently disabled her, the treatment provided by AmCare consisted of having her lie down on a heating pad for 30 minutes. Her subsequent “treatment plan” consisted of sitting on a heating pad for 15-20 minutes per night.

Amazon’s expansion into the health care industry has been a protracted process. In September 2019, Amazon opened a virtual health clinic with in-home follow-ups for employees in the Seattle area. In May 2020, the company expanded the service to include warehouse workers in a partnership with Crossover Health, a startup company geared toward self-insured companies. The first pilot of Amazon’s “Neighborhood Health Centers” is located in the Dallas Fort-Worth area, with expected development of 20 health centers in five cities across the US.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon’s share price has risen from $1,700 per share, to $3,100 per share, and the company posted a second-quarter operating profit of $5.8 billion. Amazon is expanding at a rapid pace, hiring over 175,000 workers in March and April, with a total global workforce of more than 1 million, according to some recent estimates. The company plans to add 33 new fulfillment centers by the end of the year, increasing storage capacity by more than 35 million cubic feet.

Amazon, which was launched in 1994, has spread its tentacles to large sectors of the world economy, including groceries with the purchase of Whole Foods in 2017, health care with the launch of Haven in 2018, and growing ties to the military with the establishment of a space unit called Aerospace and Satellite Solutions, led by former US Air Force Major General Clint Crosier, in 2020.

The conquest by the Amazon conglomerate of sector after sector of the world economy has encountered little resistance from the national regulatory frameworks designed to restrain the growth of monopolies, including in the US, notwithstanding a pending enforcement action recently announced by the European Commission .

In contrast to the ballooning value of the conglomerate and Bezos’s $180 billion net worth, Amazon workers are faced with increasingly dire working conditions, with inadequate protections against COVID-19 and increased demands for a breakneck pace of work.

As of the beginning of last month, Amazon admitted that nearly 20,000 workers had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Southwest Airlines gives ultimatum to workers: wage cuts or furloughs in 2021

Steve Filips

Southwest Airlines, the fourth largest airline in the US, is using the threat of furloughs as it attempts to impose a 10 percent pay cut on its workforce. Last week, the company ramped up its campaign of intimidation by sending out Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) notices to an additional 403 employees who would be furloughed in January if employees did not accept the concessions.

The total number of threatened job cuts was revealed in remarks by Southwest CEO Gary Kelly on Oct. 22 when he said, “Right now, in just very raw numbers, we’re roughly 20 percent overstaffed.” The layoffs would be the first in the history of the Dallas-based airline.

The airlines were handed $25 billion as part of the CARES Act bailout of major corporations and Wall Street. On Sept. 30, the prohibition on airline layoffs contained in bailout expired, leading to tens of thousands of layoffs including 32,000 job cuts at American Airlines and United Airlines.

Since Oct. 1, the share price for Southwest has shot up by 20 percent largely due to the anticipation of pay and benefit concessions and other cost-cutting measures.

There are 49,614 unionized workers—or about 83 percent of the workforce—at Southwest. Far from opposing the company’s ultimatum, the unions have agreed to Southwest’s request that they survey their members on whether they would prefer wage cuts or mandatory furloughs. The Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 556 has sent out the blackmail “survey” to 15,839 flight attendants and has announced that it would soon release the results.

Company spokesperson Brian Parrish said, “Southwest thanks union representatives for engaging in these discussions and helping the airline think creatively about potential solutions to save costs.”

The cuts supposedly last only until the end of 2021 but could go longer based on a loophole that states “unforeseen and uncontrollable circumstances” could lead to cuts continuing past next year and even include additional furloughs.

With anger growing among workers over the clause, the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA) issued a statement late last month, saying, “That language is wholly unnecessary as SWAPA pilots will work collaboratively on solutions that are favorable to both parties, just as we have always done at Southwest Airlines, should ‘unforeseen or uncontrollable circumstances’ arise.”

On social media airline workers denounced the company’s demands. One said, “Hope our NT (negotiation team) hears us. NO CONCESSIONS.” Another worker shared remarks that revealed their frustration, “I live on less than 45k a year. Why am I being asked to subsidize millionaires?”

Airline workers will have to take the conduct of the struggle in their own hands by building rank-and-file committees, independent of the unions, which have spent decades selling out strikes and collaborating with corporate executives and financial asset strippers in decimating the jobs, wages, conditions and pensions of airline workers.

The unions, while opposing any strikes to stop layoffs and wage-cutting over the past several months, have joined management in urging Congress to hand over another $25 billion to the airlines. Meanwhile, Sarah Nelson, the president of Association of Flight Attendants-CWA and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), admitted last month that half of her union’s 50,000 members at 20 airlines were out of work and without income and health benefits.

Southwest is seeking to slash labor costs to position itself for next year in anticipation of the coronavirus vaccine distribution that could spur an increase in domestic travel—the company’s main business.

In an effort to attract customers, Southwest’s rival Delta announced last week that it would extend the blocking of the middle seats on its planes from Jan. 1 through March, but Southwest will stop the practice by Dec. 1.

The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced last week that Americans should avoid traveling during the holiday season to help stem the rising cases of COVID-19. Nevertheless, the Transportation Security Administration reported that more than three million people passed through airport security checkpoints between Friday and Sunday, making it the busiest travel weekend since March.

A Southwest Airlines airplane (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

The major airlines, however, have been unable to replace their most profitable business travel segment by drawing more leisure travelers, and international travel has been crippled by the mandatory coronavirus quarantines.

As Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said, “With the US hitting a grim milestone of 10 million positive cases and outbreaks in Europe and other parts of the world, all signs point to a challenging winter ahead.”

At the same time, it is clear that the airlines are using the pandemic to implement far-reaching restructuring plans long in the making and ensuring that workers, not wealthy shareholders, pay for the crisis. Industry group Airlines for America announced that as a result of the collapse of air travel the US airlines have shed 90,000 of the 460,000 jobs they had in March, a 20 percent reduction.

The jobs massacre is taking place throughout the global airline industry, making necessary the rejection of nationalism and adoption of an international strategy to coordinate the struggle of airline workers around the world.

A counteroffensive by workers against job and wage cuts must be combined with a struggle to transform the giant airline monopolies into public utilities so that jobs and living standards can be protected and the public provided with affordable, safe and comfortable transportation.

US coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths explode during past two weeks

Bryan Dyne

The number of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the United States have exploded in the past two weeks. Hospitalizations currently stand at 85,836, according to the COVID Tracking Project, a new record for the fourteenth day in a row. The number of active cases has risen to more than five million and is on track to double every six to eight weeks. The number of daily deaths now exceeds 1,500 a day on average, more than 300 more than the summer peak and rapidly approaching the harrowing tolls of March, April and May.

In total, there have been just under 13 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States and more than 265,000 deaths. Moreover, an analysis from the New York Times shows that in reality at least 326,000 people have died from the pandemic, accounting for those who have officially died from the virus and the total number of “excess deaths” since March. Such above normal death rates are now reported in all fifty states.

Similar statistics are present on a global scale. Since the first case of the pandemic in December 2019, there have been 60 million cases worldwide, including 17 million which are currently active, up from 14 million two weeks ago. In total, 1.4 million men, women and children have died from the deadly contagion, a number which is currently estimated by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation to rise to 1.8 million by Christmas Day.

Medical student Kimberly Olivares, left, takes a sample from a patient at a free COVID-19 testing site provided by United Memorial Medical Center, Sunday, June 28, 2020, at the Mexican Consulate, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

As the death toll increases, so do the markets. The Dow Jones breached 30,000 for the first time on Tuesday, having rallied more than 13 percent since its pre-election low. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been added to stock portfolios and hedge funds while tens of millions of workers in America are on the brink of starvation and eviction.

An article in the Wall Street Journal attempted to gloss over this macabre contrast by focusing on the fact that the COVID-19 death rate in the United States is currently 0.6 percent, down from a 0.9 percent death rate in April, largely thanks to advances in treatments. Little mention is made of the fact that one of the reasons the death rate was so high in April, apart from the inherent deadliness of the coronavirus itself and its novel character, is that hospital systems in Washington, New York and California were overwhelmed with cases.

The overflowing morgues and mass graves in New York City, images that have become infamous, are on the verge of being repeated, this time in every state, county and municipality in the country.

One of the sharpest expressions of the crisis in the United States is the number of hospitalizations nationwide, which have quickly surpassed 85,000, rising from just over 23,000 two weeks ago. The figure is expected to rise even more as tens of millions travel during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

In addition to the record number of hospitalizations, there are also a record number of people in intensive care, 16,811. The number of people currently on ventilators, 5,411, is at its highest level since May.

The rise in hospitalizations has been accompanied by the increasing shortage of nursing staff needed to operate the ventilators and help keep patients alive. A recent report from Kaiser Health News notes that, because of the vast spread of the virus, shortages of nurses in a given city or region that were in previous months filled by nurses traveling from other areas are no longer being filled.

Instead, a bidding war has erupted among hospitals and health care systems across the country, offering up to $10,000 per week in places like North Dakota, where the governor recently told nurses to stay on the job even if they are infected with COVID-19. This makes it nearly impossible for rural and poor areas to get such nurses because of the high pay they can find at hospitals in more affluent neighborhoods. Such high pay offerings are a measure of the strain on a health care system which for decades has relied on traveling nurses to fill gaps, instead of training and hiring more full-time workers.

Another statistic which characterizes the current surge in cases is the positivity rate in each state. While this figure, the percentage of coronavirus tests that come back positive, hovers around ten percent for the country as a whole, states such as Alabama, Missouri, New Mexico and Pennsylvania all have positivity rates of more than 20 percent. Idaho, Iowa, Kansas and South Dakota have all spiked to around 40 percent, while more than two-thirds of all coronavirus tests in Wyoming come back positive.

Such high rates stem not just from the spread of the virus, but from the abandonment by the Trump administration of any measures to contain the virus. Since the start of October, testing has only increased by about 60 percent, while the number of new cases as gone up by more than 300 percent. This is what White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows meant when he declared in an interview with CNN last month, “We’re not going to control the pandemic.”

There is a similar lack of contact tracing, which is needed if testing is to actually help prevent the spread of the virus. According to the website CovidExitStrategy, there are only five states and Washington, D.C. where contact tracing is possible or difficult, calculated by comparing the number of daily new cases to the number of contact tracers hired by the state. Everywhere else, the ability of health officials to contact everyone who came into contact with a COVID-19 positive patient is either extremely difficult (17 states) or unlikely (28 states and Puerto Rico).

It has been estimated that $3.6 billion would be needed to overcome this shortfall in contact tracers. Instead, Biden and Trump spent four times that amount during the 2020 election campaign, including on thousands of door-to-door canvassers hired to promote the anti-working class and pro-herd immunity candidates instead of tracking down the virus and working to end the pandemic.

Surge in COVID-19 cases in Indonesia

Robert Campion

Indonesia passed 500,000 cases of COVID-19 on Monday, according to the country’s Ministry of Health. The grim milestone occurs amid a resurgence of the pandemic and the abandonment of any immediate measures to halt the spread of the virus by the government of President Joko Widodo.

The ministry announced another 4,442 new confirmed cases on Monday, pushing the total infections to 502,110, with the death toll rising by 118 to 16,002. Broken down by region, the capital city Jakarta recorded the most cases with 1,009, bringing its total to 128,173. This was followed by Central Java with 1,005 cases, West Java 602, East Java 365, Riau Islands 273 and East Kalimantan with 132.

The official figures are undoubtedly an extreme under-representation. Despite being touted as the world’s third largest “democracy” with a population of 274 million, it ranks among the worst in terms of testing.

According to the latest statistics from the non-profit research group ‘Our World In Data’, Indonesia tests on average 14 people per 100,000 a day, just over half that of daily tests in the nearby Philippines with 27 per 100,000. Indonesia has a GNI per capita of $US4,050 compared to the Philippines $3,850. In another comparison, Australia conducts approximately 185 daily tests per 100,000, and the US 395 per 100,000.

The percentage of daily tests returning positive also indicates that the pandemic is spiraling out of control. At least 11.4 percent are returning positive in Indonesia compared with 5 percent in the Philippines. This means with the low level of testing that the number of confirmed cases in Indonesia likely represents a small number of the true number of infections.

According to criteria set by the World Health Organisation in May, a positive rate of less than 5 percent for at least two weeks indicates that the pandemic is under control. Our World in Data shows that the share of positive cases in Indonesia has been hovering consistently between 10 percent and 17 percent since early June.

The escalating number of cases and lack of preventive measures are bound up with the crisis of the Indonesian economy and the need of the capitalist class to keep workplaces open regardless of the risks to workers.

Indonesia’s economy fell by 3.49 percent in the third quarter of this year, following a 5.32 percent fall in the second quarter, signaling that the country is formally in recession. The last time this occurred was in the Asian Financial crisis of 1998.

The ruling elite of Indonesia is committed to avoiding a lockdown, and at the same time placing the burden of the pandemic onto the working class. The government has cynically used the pandemic to justify breaking up the protests on health grounds.

The pro-business omnibus bill, signed into law earlier this month by Widodo, triggered mass strikes in October and was met with police repression which used water cannon and tear gas. An estimated 3.5 million workers could lose their jobs in the months ahead.

Social tensions are also being fuelled by the pro-market policies implemented since 1998 that have led to a huge gulf between rich and poor. Oxfam reported in 2017 that the country’s four richest individuals owned more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of the population, or 100 million people.

UNICEF aid workers in Indonesia (Credit: UNICEF)

Conscious of the mass opposition to his policies, President Widodo has been pinning hopes on an early vaccine.

After indicating that a vaccination programme would begin in November, Widodo announced in an interview with Reuters on November 13: “We expect to start the vaccination process by the end of this year following a series of tests by BPOM [the National Agency of Drug and Food Control].”

“We will put pressure on the cases so they can stay flat,” Widodo continued, “and then we will hit it with the vaccines.” He said that the first recipients would be health workers, followed by police and the military.

Just four days later, these plans were denied in a parliamentary hearing by BPOM, which declared that the Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) of the vaccine would not be given until at least January, and only then in limited numbers.

“We continue to carry out quality control, efficacy, and safety under the [World Health Organization’s] references and guidelines,” the agency head Dr Penny K. Lukito stated. “If the data is complete, the estimation for the vaccine to get EUA is the third or fourth week of January.”

Indonesia does not have the capacity to utilize some of the vaccines that are becoming available, including that being developed by the Pfizer and German partner BioNTech. Its use would require a “cold chain” distribution network across Indonesia’s tropical archipelago capable of storage temperatures of minus 70 degrees Celsius.

“Indonesia does not have such capabilities,” state-owned Bio Ferma president director, Honesti Basyir, said last Friday. “And it is hazardous if this vaccine is not stored at the proper temperature. In fact, it will be damaged so that later when it is given to the community, it will be dangerous.”

Indonesia is currently aiming to vaccinate 107.2 million people by the end of next year, using vaccines from China's Sinovac Biotech, as well as China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm), and CanSino Biotech. All of them, unlike the Pfizer vaccine, are yet to announce the results of their stage III clinical trials.

Indonesia has been testing at least 1,620 volunteers with the Sinovac Vaccine in Bandung in West Java which will be produced in Indonesia after regulatory approval. Its storage temperatures are between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius and therefore do not require the storage technology required for the Pfizer vaccine.

The vaccines are specifically slated to cover those aged between 18 and 59, with 30 per cent of this group having the cost covered. The remaining 70 per cent would have to pay the full amount. Basyir indicated in October that the Sinovac vaccine will cost around 200,000 rupiahs ($US14.11) per dose. The median weekly salary in Jakarta is approximately 3,250,000 rupiahs ($229.36).

Another potential stumbling block to the timely roll out of the vaccine is whether or not it will be certified halal, or permissible according to Islamic law. Along with applying for an EUA from BPOM, the health ministry is also seeking a halal certificate from the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI).

In 2018, the MUI declared that the vaccines for measles and rubella were haram, or unlawful, as they contained several porcine elements, leading to a large drop in the vaccination of children. Work is still underway for replacement, halal-certified vaccines that will not be available for at least another decade.

Sri Lankan budget: Tax bonanza for big business and increased burdens on working people

Saman Gunadasa

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, who is also the country’s finance minister, presented his 2021 budget on November 17 amid an escalating economic collapse intensified by the coronavirus pandemic. The government, which is teetering on the edge of default, currently faces annual loan repayments of $4.5 billion for the next five years.

The spuriously entitled “development budget,” which will be voted on by the parliament on December 10, is designed to boost foreign investment and enrich the wealthy while imposing further attacks on the living conditions of workers and the poor.

Budget expenditure next year will increase to 3.5 trillion rupees ($US19 billion) with estimated revenue of about 2 trillion rupees. The 1.5 trillion rupee deficit, or nine percent of gross domestic product (GDP), will be financed through foreign and domestic loans and increased taxes on working people.

Gotabhaya Rajapakse [Credit: AP Photo]

The planned tax concessions for international investors and the country’s big businesses include:

•  Personal and corporate income taxes for manufacturing will be reduced from the current 28 percent to 18 percent and to 24 percent for trading and finance.
  
  
•  Tax exemptions will apply to all investments exceeding $US10 million in the export dairy, fabric, tourism, agricultural products and information technology sectors for ten years; dividends of foreign companies for three years on the investments on their business, in the stock market or in Sri Lankan sovereign bonds; and profits on capital and interest income from Sri Lanka’s international sovereign bonds for the commercial banks, subject to purchases of $US100 million.
  
  
•  Personal and corporate income tax for agriculture, livestock, fish farming and information technology will be abolished.
  
  
•  A 50 percent tax concession for three years for all listed local companies on the Colombo Stock Exchange.
  
  
•  A one percent tax on the use of hidden local or international funds for investments facilitated by the budget—a measure that will further encourage “money laundering.”

Jubilant over the concessions, the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, the country’s premier big business group, said it “welcomed the tax relief for investment” and called for the timely implementation of the “commendable proposals.” The Sunday Times quoted apparel industrialists, who said they were “extremely delighted” with the budget plan.

While COVID-19 continues to ravage Sri Lanka, posing an escalating national health emergency, there are no new funds for overhauling the island’s dilapidated health system or adequate financial assistance for the needy.

The health allocation, in fact, had already been reduced to 159 billion rupees in 2020, down from 187 billion in 2019. Facing public criticism, the Rajapakse regime is proposing a meagre additional 18 billion rupees.

A 0.25 percent levy will be imposed on businesses employing more than 50 people for an “insurance scheme” to pay for the loss of livelihood due to COVID-19 quarantining. The proposal, however, did not specify the amount that could be paid to impacted families.

Currently families are paid a pittance of just 5,000 rupees. Protests have erupted in poor areas of Colombo in the past few days denouncing the government for not providing adequate assistance.

A new special goods and services tax (GST) will also be introduced in January. No indication, however, has been given on what the rates will be. According to the budget speech, these taxes, which already apply to liquor, cigarettes and gambling, could also be extended to essential items affecting the needy. The existing value added tax (VAT) and special commodity levies that have driven up prices will be continued.

Rajapakse told parliament that the government plans to amend the Employees’ Provident Fund Act in order to lift the retirement age for both men and women in the private sector to 60 years. It is currently 55 and 50 years respectively. This measure is aimed at retaining the provident funds due to those workers when they retire for further five to ten years for the state to invest, mainly in the stock market.

Amid growing anger among plantation workers, Rajapakse, in a face-saving measure, said the government would increase their daily wage to 1,000 rupees—a long-outstanding demand by these low-paid workers. Rajapakse, however, did not say how and when this would be implemented. The Planters’ Association immediately criticised the proposal, telling the media that it did not agree with the wage increase “unless it is subsidised by the government.”

Rejecting any salary increase for public sector workers, Rajapakse contemptuously declared that these workers should be permitted to “engage in other jobs” outside office hours.

The government plans to reduce education spending to 126 billion rupees, from 166 billion rupees in 2019, another clear move against public education while promoting the private sector.

In his budget presentation, Rajapakse spoke about “disposing of non-strategic state enterprises,” without naming them, and “necessary reforms” to the public sector—in other words, further privatisation and public sector downsizing in line with repeated demands by the International Monetary Fund. Last week authorities announced that Sri Lankan Airlines will destroy 700 jobs via a “voluntary retirement scheme.”

While slashing health and education expenditure, the government plans to increase defence and police spending to 440 billion rupees in 2021, up from 393 billion rupees in 2019. In fact, every Sri Lankan government has boosted defence spending since the end of the 30-year communal war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The latest boost to the military and the police is in line with President Gotabhaya Rajapakse intensifying the militarization of his administration and rapid shift towards a presidential dictatorship to take on the working class.

On the same day as the budget speech, President Rajapakse used the draconian Essential Public Services Act against port workers, threatening jail, fines and the confiscation of workers' possessions if they violated the law. The new measure was imposed as Colombo port workers began opposing demands that they continue working despite a growing number of COVID-19 infections at the ports.

Millions of workers and their dependents in the tourism and apparel industries, small business and the self-employed and rural poor are suffering from drastic income cuts caused by the pandemic. Rajapakse has not proposed any financial assistance for these workers.

By contrast, big businesses, including the major banks, have announced increased profits during the pandemic. The Hayleys group, for example, has announced a 600 percent increase in net profits in the six months up to September compared to last year and the net profit of mobile services giant Dialog in three months up to September increased by more than 100 percent to 4.8 billion rupees compared to the same period last year.

During last week’s budget debates, the opposition parliamentary parties engaged in empty posturing but offered no alternative to the government tax cuts for the rich and its austerity measures for workers and the poor.

Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) leader Sajith Premadasa declared that the government’s “vision of prosperity” election manifesto was not reflected in the budget. Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake voiced his regret that the economy was collapsing as a result of the coronavirus and said the government’s “economic strategies are wrong.”

Two weeks ago on November 3, SJB, JVP and the Tamil National Alliance speakers in the parliament urged the government to call an all-party conference to confront the economic and pandemic crisis, promising their support. Both the government and the opposition parties fear an eruption of mass social opposition.

Mass layoffs loom for Silicon Valley service workers

Aditya Veeraiah

A recent report by the trade union-aligned Working Partnerships USA organization highlights the impending threat of mass layoffs among lower-wage service workers at Silicon Valley tech companies.

Many have encouraged or instructed their white-collar software developers, engineers, and managers to work from home to fulfil social distancing guidelines. This has led toa reduction in janitorial and security requirements and a shutdown of cafeteria and shuttle transportation services. Layoffs have already begun and may accelerate.

The Working Partnerships report says tech firms in Silicon Valley’s Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties employed roughly 14,000 unionized cafeteria, janitorial and security workers, largely through private contracting agencies, before the pandemic. With skyrocketing rents in the area, these workers—whose median wage is one-sixth the median wages paid to white-collar software developers at the big tech companies—are already teetering on the verge of poverty.

Protest at Yahoo headquarters (Source: Working Partnerships)

It is unclear how many have already been laid off. Google, Facebook and Twitter have continued to pay the furloughed service workers or reassigned them to other duties such as receptionists at the various buildings on campus. However, many other big tech companies, including Microsoft subsidiary Linkedin, Verizon subsidiary Yahoo! and biotech giant Genentech, have laid off janitors, shuttle drivers, cafeteria workers, receptionists and security guards.

The current unemployment rate in Silicon Valley is 9.3 percent, compared to just 2 percent in a pre-pandemic month. The additional mass layoffs of tech service workers would increase local unemployment by more than 10 percent, the report noted.

The report also found:

•  Up to 12,000 service workers could lose health insurance coverage, along with family members who depend on the coverage.
  
  
•  An estimated 6,500 families with children could be at risk of being unable to pay rent.
  
  
•  An estimated 8,300 renters could be at risk of being unable to pay rent.

Microsoft, which laid off service workers at its Silicon Valley Linkedin office, made $14 billion in profit in a single quarter. Tesla, led by CEO Elon Musk, who just surpassed Bill Gates to become the second richest man in the world, with $127 billion—was the first to lay off blue collar service workers in April, even though it was also one of the first to restart operations in Silicon Salley in May, in defiance of County regulations.

Verizon, which laid off service workers who had been working at the Yahoo! office for several years, made over $4 billion in profits last quarter. Facebook and Google together have the same number of employees as General Motors. But the market capitalization of Facebook and Google is $1.7 trillion, about 41 times that of GM.

The biggest tech companies—Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet (Google) and Netflix—have raked in it during the pandemic, with stock prices rising over 45 percent year-to-date, hitting historic highs and producing a combined value of over $5.5 trillion. These corporations have also received billions in public subsidies and tax incentives, including at least $654 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds.

The unions that claim to represent these service workers, including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), UNITE HERE and the Communications Workers of America (CWA), have sought to channel workers’ anger into fruitless appeals to management and the Democratic Party. UNITE HERE held a protest of laid off workers in early September outside the Yahoo! office after a round of more than 100 layoffs. On November 17, the union held another protest outside the home of Verizon CEO Guru Gowrappan. But the unions have steadfastly opposed any strike action that would quickly pit workers against the Democratic Party, which controls every level of government in California.

Some of those who were laid off as long ago as September have not received unemployment benefits as of mid-November. Erika Sanchez, a Verizon cafeteria worker at the Sunnyvale office interviewed by NBC News, was making $19 an hour or about $38,000 per year. She needs to pay rent and support her son who studies at the University of California, Berkeley. So far, she has not received any unemployment benefits. Like millions across the country, she receives her food through a non-profit and is also trying to make some money selling jewelry and cleaning homes with a friend.

After handing major corporations and Wall Street a multi-trillion-dollar bailout in the bipartisan CARES Act, Congressional Democrats and Republicans have allowed federal aid to expire and refused to enact any measures to prevent laid off workers from falling into destitution. On the contrary, both parties are deliberately delaying any future stimulus funds to force workers back to work under perilous conditions despite the rampant pandemic.

The Democratic Party-run California state government has been no more forthcoming with aid to the unemployed. Silicon Valley companies have long lobbied for tax breaks with claims such as UC Berkeley economics professor Enrico Moretti’s assertion that each tech job creates five service jobs. As these companies continue to make billions, the Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom has rejected any increase in corporate taxes to fund vital programs to fight the pandemic or provide good jobs for laid off service workers. Nor has the Newsom administration done anything to provide any relief from evictions for laid off workers like Erika Sanchez.

To protect their livelihoods, active and laid off tech service workers must form rank-and-file committees, independent of the unions, to fight for the rehiring of all laid off workers. These committees must base their demands not on what the employers and the government claim is affordable but on what is socially necessary to safely contain the pandemic and ensure dignified lives for all workers. This is necessarily a political struggle against the Democrats, Republicans and the trade unions.

As pandemic rages out of control, Canada’s governments insist on keeping economy “open” to protect corporate profits

Roger Jordan

The COVID-19 pandemic is rapidly accelerating across Canada, as a direct result of the ruling elite’s reckless and criminal reopening of the economy and schools.

There were 5,707 new coronavirus infections on Monday, setting a new daily record for the second time in three days.

Daily new infections are now averaging well over 5,000 per day, more than twice as high as at the peak of the pandemic’s first wave last spring. Deaths are also rising sharply. COVID-19 killed more than 507 people last week, the highest number of fatalities since early June.

A member of the Canadian Armed Forces working at a Quebec nursing home. (Canadian Dept. of Defence)

Unless the working class intervenes to force a shutdown of all nonessential production with full pay for all workers affected, many thousands of people will lose their lives in the weeks and months ahead.

Total infections have skyrocketed almost threefold since schools were reopened over the widespread objections of teachers and parents at the beginning of September. Total confirmed COVID-19 infections surpassed 340,000 on Monday, up from less than 130,000 at the end of August.

The surge in cases is only expected to accelerate. Last Friday, the Public Health Agency of Canada estimated that if current levels of social contact are maintained, there will be 20,000 cases per day by the end of the year (see: “As Canada’s ruling class lets pandemic run rampant, workers must fight to shut down nonessential production and schools”).

Epidemiologists, acute-care doctors and other medical specialists have issued repeated warnings that health care systems will soon be overwhelmed. Yet the federal Liberal and provincial governments, irrespective of political stripe, are refusing to take the measures needed to contain the virus’s spread, beginning with a shutdown of all nonessential businesses. What limited restrictions they have announced in recent days have one overriding goal: allowing most of the economy—especially manufacturing, construction, energy, mining and other resource sectors—to continue unhindered so that profits keep flowing to the corporate elite, regardless of the cost in human lives. A key element in this strategy is forcing children to attend in-class schooling so that their parents are free to generate corporate profit.

The Globe and Mail reported late Monday that there had been 36,476 additional confirmed COVID-19 infections in the previous seven days, an increase of 13 percent from the week before. Currently there are more than 56,500 active COVID-19 cases across Canada, although even this is likely a vast underestimate, since contact tracing has collapsed in many of the worst impacted areas, including Toronto, Manitoba, and Alberta.

The virus is running rampant across the country, including in areas that were relatively unscathed by the initial wave. Manitoba now has the highest infection rate by far of all the provinces, with, as of Monday evening, 616 active cases per 100,000 inhabitants. Alberta is second, with 298 active cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

The so-called “Atlantic bubble,” which was established between Prince Edward Island (PEI), New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia in July after the first wave crested, and which permitted travel within the region, has burst. PEI and Newfoundland withdrew at the beginning of this week in response to a spike of cases in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Even the remote territory of Nunavut in Canada’s far north, which managed not to record a single infection until early November, now confronts a major outbreak.

In Ontario, which broke its daily record with 1,589 new cases on Monday and 19 additional deaths, Premier Doug Ford imposed limited restrictions on public life in Toronto and the neighbouring Peel Region last Friday. Cases have spiked especially sharply in Peel, which includes the city of Brampton, due to major workplace outbreaks. Delivery and distribution centres, which employ low-paid and highly exploited staff, have been particularly hard hit.

Ford’s announcement, presented as a “lockdown,” offered nothing to workers labouring under dangerous conditions. Predictably, the premier, who last week claimed schools to be “the safest place for children [to be] right now,” also refused to shut down in-class schooling or daycares.

Instead, small businesses, including retail outlets, restaurants, barbers, gyms, and nail salons, are bearing the brunt of the lockdown, with the government ordering them to close in-person service for 28 days as of last Monday. Nonessential retailers are allowed to offer kerbside pickup and restaurants takeout. Indoor public events and social gatherings are prohibited, apart from those limited to members of one household. Outdoor gatherings are capped at 10. Taken as a whole, the measures are a boon to large retailers like Walmart, Costco, and Canadian Tire, which can stay open because they sell groceries or hardware or operate pharmacies. On the other hand, the many small businesses forced to close have been left to fend for themselves with no financial support.

The Ontario government has placed no additional restrictions on major manufacturing or industrial sites, even though it is becoming increasingly clear that they are major vectors for spreading the virus. A recent CBC report noted that since the beginning of the pandemic, over 26,000 people have applied for workers' compensation because they contracted the virus at their place of work.

Flouting the scientific and medical evidence, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sought at his press conference last Friday to blame the population for triggering the resurgence of the pandemic due by failing to follow social distancing regulations. Describing the situation as “frustrating,” Trudeau declared, “I know we’ve all heard stories of people who’ve thrown up their hands and are not doing their part anymore. People who have stopped wearing masks or people who are going out more than they should. And it’s tempting for all of us to say, okay, well, maybe I can loosen up a bit more, too. But the reality is we need to go in the opposite direction.”

If there is anyone who has “thrown up their hands” and given up on combatting the pandemic, it is Canada’s federal and provincial governments. They have enforced a reckless policy of reopening the economy and returning to in-person learning in schools, ignoring the warnings of public health experts and the concerns of workers and families. Motivating this homicidal agenda is their determination to make working people pay for the more than C$650 billion bailout of investors and big business that the Trudeau government and Bank of Canada orchestrated last March.

This policy of placing corporate profits ahead of human life is expressed most starkly in Alberta, where Jason Kenney and his United Conservative Party (UCP) government waited until yesterday to unveil limited social distancing measures despite an exponential growth in cases. With a population of just 4.4 million, the province has consistently registered more than 1,500 infections per day in recent days. The official figures do not even come close to indicating the actual state of the pandemic, since the province’s contact tracing system has collapsed. According to the Globe, the source of 90 percent of new infections can no longer be traced.

As of last Saturday, 56 people were being treated in intensive care beds in the province. Just 70 intensive care beds have been set aside for COVID-19 patients, meaning that hospitals will soon reach capacity. Dr. Lynora Saxinger, an infectious disease expert at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, wrote on Twitter, “In case anyone is wondering, we’re really in deep trouble in hospitals. This can’t continue. This is a deadly pandemic, but we will be looking at excess deaths because of failure to take appropriate measures.”

Well aware that opposition to the ruling elite’s disastrous handling of the pandemic is mounting among working people, the Alberta Federation of Labour issued a lengthy resolution over the weekend making a number of policy demands. These included a “circuit breaker” lockdown to get infections under control, funding for schools and health care to hire additional staff, more regular inspections of workplaces, and the adoption of a “zero COVID” strategy. That the union bureaucrats who backed this resolution have no intention of fighting for any of its demands is highlighted by their decision to address it as an appeal to the Alberta government. That is to the very same UCP government that has ravaged public spending, laid off education and health care staff, attacked workers’ rights (including the right to refuse to work under unsafe conditions), and kept Alberta’s tar sands oil operations and most other industrial workplaces, including meatpackers, operating throughout the pandemic, even amid major local outbreaks.

Like the unions across Canada, Alberta’s unions blocked all working class opposition to the unsafe return to work and school after the initial lockdown in the spring. Their opposition to any independent struggle waged by workers against the dangerous working conditions produced by the pandemic was underscored last month, when they prevailed on workers to obey a reactionary labour board order outlawing a wildcat strike by health care workers against privatization and job cuts.

The calamitous conditions that have been produced across Canada by the ruling elite’s ruinous policies can only be countered through independent working class action to force the adoption of the radical measures needed to halt the spread of COVID-19. These should include the shutdown of all nonessential businesses with full pay for all workers affected, a halt to in-person learning in schools, and the provision of billions of dollars to the health care system to guarantee high-quality treatment for all. To fight for these demands, workers must establish rank-and-file safety committees in every workplace and school independent of the pro-capitalist trade union apparatuses.

Mental Health in India and Covid-19

Tehzeeb Anis & Mohammad Akram

Mental health is one of the most important aspect in the life of an individual. It includes cognitive, behavioural and emotional well-being. Mental health is all about how an individual think, feel and behave.

The World Health Organization (WHO) had also focus on the importance of mental health and given a comprehensive definition. According to WHO “Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his her community.”  In India the government started the National Health policy for the well- being of the people but mental health was not added in that policy. At a later stage during the 1980s the government initiated the National Mental Health Programme with the objective to ensure availability and accessibility of minimum mental health care for all in the foreseen future, especially to the most vulnerable and under priviledged section of the population and to encourage application of mental health knowledge in general health care and in social development. In today’s era mental health problems have become a global issue. A larger population of people are suffering from mental health disorders, no matter their age, sex or ethinicty. According to The Global Burden of Diseases study 1990-2017 in India around 197.3 million people have mental disorder which comprises 14.3% of the total population of the country out of which 44.9 million people had anxiety disorders in India. Among the major mental disorders that exhibit predominantly during childhood, the crude prevalence for both depressive disorders and anxiety disorders was 3.3% whereas bipolar disorders had prevalence of 0.6% and schizophrenia 0.3%. The study also revealed that prevalence of depressive disorders was positively associated with the suicide death rate.

Today the situation have changed, India and the world are facing a major health crisis following the outbreak of novel coronavirus. Increasing number of cases, deaths, social alienation, fear, trauma and social stigma of the covid-19 have pushed the world towards a higher risk of mental health problems. To prevent the spread of cases the government of India imposed several lockdowns resulting in forced isolation, stress and mass unemployment. Prior the lockdowns a larger section of the population experienced economic hardship, domestic violence and social stigma. According to a report the number of mental illness cases had increased by 20% since the lockdowns and that at least one in five Indians were effected.

The National Mental Health Survey 2015-16 conducted a survey which was focused on the prevalence and pattern of mental disorders in India and found that depression was very common among the population of India. Almost one in 20 people suffer from depression. Earlier the prevalence of depression was 2.7% but now it has been increased to 5.2 %. The study also revealed that depression was reported to be higher in the age group of 40-49 years and higher among females and those residing in the urban areas. Depression among this age group is very much increased  during this pandemic because this age group is the major contributor in the productive population and mass unemployment during the covid crisis is affecting work productivity, earning potential and quality of life which is leading towards suicidal risks. Risk of suicide related with covid-19 have very much increased. According to a recent survey by independent researchers 343 people died by suicide since March this year out of which 125 lost their life due to the fear of covid-19 infection, loneliness, a lack of freedom of movement and the inability  to go home. The study also reveals that financial distress and alcohol withdrawal as suicidal factors.

Gender is an important factor in mental health. There are certain disorders which are mostly prevalent in females while some are associated with males. National Mental Health survey also reveals that overall prevalence of mental morbidity was higher among males (13.9%) than among females (7.5%). Specific mental disorders like mood disorders (depression, neurotic disorders, phobic anxiety disorders, agarophobia, generalized anxiety disorders and obsessive compulsive disorders) were higher in females. Children have also not left behind in mental health issues. Nearly 9.8 million of young Indian children between 13-17 years suffers from mental disorders. The prevalence of mental disorders was twice (13.5%) as much in urban areas as compared to rural areas (6.9%). But the situation is worst during this pandemic. Children being the most vulnerable group are facing immense anxiety and emotional stress during this pandemic. The fear of losing family members, fear of getting infected and isolated by the peer groups and family violence are some of the major emotional stress children are going with. If children are not deal with proper care then this pandemic might left a long time effect on the mind of the children. Fear and anxiety about the covid 19 have created stress among every age group not only in India but around the globe. Fear of infection, concern about the health of the family members, loss of jobs and financial crisis and social stigma have created sleepless nights for the people which is worsening the mental health condition of the people. To overcome the situation and maintain a healthy mental life during this pandemic people should be advice to seek proper knowledge and facts about the diseases and rumors about it should be stopped. People having suicidal thoughts and behaviours should be given proper support from family, friends and community. Virtual counselling can also help with suicidal thought and behaviour during this covid 19 crisis.