India’s calamitous lockdown, punishes poor while undermining efforts to halt spread of coronavirus

Wasantha Rupasinghe

The sudden, disorganized nationwide three-week shutdown announced by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi starting at midnight March 24 is causing immense hardship, especially for hundreds of millions of workers and rural toilers, manifestly undermining efforts to halt the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

For weeks, Indian authorities, including Modi himself, had boasted that India had the coronavirus pandemic firmly under control. They based this claim on the relatively small number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, blithely ignoring medical experts who warned that the small infection rate was in all likelihood a function of the tiny number of tests administered.

Then last Tuesday evening, Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government abruptly shifted gears. Having wasted two precious months, during which they had focused India’s anti-coronavirus efforts almost entirely on bans on entrants from foreign countries, Modi announced an unprecedented shutdown.

Migrant workers with their families

Claiming that if radical steps were not taken to “break the chain of infection” many would die, the prime minister ordered virtually all of India’s 1.37 billion people to remain in their homes for the next 21 days. In an act of criminal negligence, he did so without explaining how people, in rural areas and many urban slums, would get access to food and water—let alone how they would pay for them, if they could not work.

The result has been chaos, including large disorganized movements of people, opening up conditions conducive to the rapid spread of COVID-19 cases, both in number and geographically, from urban to rural India.

With the government giving people only a few hours to procure food, medicines and other essential items before the lockdown took full force, millions of people rushed to retail shops and markets.

Although the government claimed at the outset that the supply of goods would not be interrupted, shops in many cities had either run out of essential items or they were being quickly depleted. In many cities and towns, promised online deliveries were not functioning. There were numerous reports of police preventing trucks carrying food and other key supplies from crossing state borders. Even manufacturers of medical equipment needed to fight the virus said that they were struggling to get raw materials, and that some of their staff were being prevented from reporting for work.

Particularly poignant is the plight of millions of migrant labourers, who having lost their jobs and bereft of any savings, have undertaken to walk hundreds of kilometers to their native villages, clutching their children and meagre belongings. They are walking because the government has shut down all public transport, including train service.

Many of the migrants are in miserable circumstances, some having been forced to depart without receiving back wages. According to press reports at least 22 migrant workers have died on their way home. These include 38-year-old Ranveer Singh, who died from a heart attack on the Delhi-Agra highway on Saturday morning. He had already walked 200 km from the national capital toward his village in Madhya Pradesh’s Morena district. Four other migrant workers, who were walking home after they had lost their jobs, were crushed to death and three others injured Saturday, when a speeding truck ran over them at Bharol village in Vinar on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Highway.

Amid mounting popular anger over the government’s inaction and callous indifference, the BJP state government in Uttar Pradesh announced Saturday that it would arrange thousands of buses to ferry migrant workers who had been held up at the borders of the country’s most populous state. Again due to a total lack of forethought, the government’s “social distancing” policy collapsed as more than 100,000 migrant workers jostled against each other as they sought to secure a bus space.

Media headlines gave an inkling of the social disaster now playing out across the nation. “In Covid-19 shutdown, many of Delhi’s poor and homeless are being forced to starve” (The Print, March 27); “Not China, not Italy: India’s coronavirus lockdown is the harshest in the world—The biggest human migration on foot after [the 1947] Partition” (Scroll.In, March 29); “Mumbai Cops Opened 2 containers trucks, found over 300 migrant workers” (NDTV, March 26); “ ‘Hunger can kill us before the virus’: Migrant workers on the march during lockdown” (The Wire, March 27).

This disaster is all the more bitter because the disorganized, ill-conceived lockdown is undoubtedly helping to spread the virus because India’s dilapidated and nonexistent public health infrastructure, desperate poverty, and high population density threaten to cause a catastrophic loss of life numbering in the millions.

Two days after Modi ordered the lockdown, Finance Minister Nirmala Seetharamanan announced a 1.7 lakh crore rupee (US $22.5 billion) package of relief measures, equivalent to just 0.8 percent of India’s GDP. In per capita terms, this is about $16 per person.

But even this meagre sum is largely smoke and mirrors. A March 27 NDTV opinion piece cites an analysis by research firm CLSA that shows that the central government money is only providing about 400-500 billion rupees of new money (less than a third of the total package). “The rest will come from state governments or through the rescheduling of already existing entitlements.”

Meanwhile at the government’s urging, the Reserve Bank of India has taken steps to inject 3.7 trillion rupees ($49.4 billion) into the country’s financial markets to boost the fortunes of Indian and foreign capital.

Seetharamanan claimed the paltry relief measures will mean “No one will go hungry”—this in a country where the government recently conceded that more than 90 percent of children under the age of five are undernourished.

The BJP finance minister claimed that as the result of the government’s measures, 800 million people will get 5 kg of rice or wheat free for the next three months, “over and above the 5 kg they already get,” as well as “1kg of preferred pulses.” She added that “ration card holders can take the food grains and pulses from the Public Distribution System (PDS) in two installments.”

But Seetharamanan’s statement raised a very large question mark over whether even this meagre support will in fact reach most of the 800 million poor, since, according to reports, there are only 230 million ration-card holders. Many migrant workers cannot access the PDS system, which is linked to where their families reside.

As part of the government’s “relief package,” she announced that hundreds of millions of rural farmers will immediately be given 2,000 rupees ($26.65) through “direct cash transfer” under the existing PM Kissan Yojana program in the first week of April. However, many commentators pointed out that this is in fact the first installment in a scheme announced just before the 2019 elections. Underscoring the Modi government’s contemptuous attitude towards the rural poor, the package also provided a pitiful 20 rupee increase in the daily wage paid to those employed under the state’s MGNREG scheme, which promises to provide 100 days of menial minimum-wage work to one member of every rural family that requests it.

Seetharamanan also said that the government will provide medical insurance coverage of up to five million rupees ($66,796) for all healthcare workers. This is an attempt to cover up and financially “compensate” for the Modi government’s criminal failure to provide basic protective gear for healthcare workers on the frontlines of the fight against COVID-19. Reuters has reported that a four-page internal document dated March 27 from the Invest India agency noted that India needs at least 38 million masks and 6.2 million pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE) as it confronts the spread of the coronavirus. However, the quantity of masks available from the companies canvassed was just 9.1 million, while the number of PPE body coveralls stood at less than 800,000.

Chillingly, the Invest India document related to the needs of just seven of the country’s 36 states and federal territories, “meaning the total demand for such equipment required could be much higher.”

On Sunday, the total number of COVID-19 cases in India surpassed 1,000, and the death toll rose to 27.

Canada’s doctors issue dire warnings over lack of preparedness for surge of COVID-19 patients

Omar Ali

As the coronavirus pandemic spreads rapidly across Canada, doctors are sounding the alarm, even as they brace for the worst. Physicians and other medical professionals are concerned that the scenes of overwhelmed healthcare systems, particularly in Italy and Spain, could soon become reality across Canada due to the lack of any surge capacity in hospitals.

Epidemiological models indicate that the country could experience a sharp rise in cases, with the available infrastructure being overwhelmed within weeks. A study of Ontario’s capabilities carried out by the University of Toronto, Sunnybrook Hospital, and the University Health Network found that the province would run out of intensive care beds and ventilators in 37 days even if it manages to cut current infection rates by half. The study assumed that the average stay in an intensive care unit (ICU) ward would be eight days and that a quarter of ICU beds could be dedicated to coronavirus patients. The authors point out that even if more beds are made available, this would only alleviate conditions slightly. For example, dedicating 75 percent of all ICU beds to COVID-19 cases would buy a mere two additional weeks for the province.

Doctors have criticized the varying messages from different levels of governments and across jurisdictions. Dr. Michael Warner, the director of critical care at Michael Garron Hospital in Toronto, derided the response of officials to the impending crisis in a recent interview. He drew attention to the limited efficacy of social distancing, especially when the public has not been given clear and consistent instructions on what it precisely entails. He pointed to the suggestion, initially made by Ontario’s provincial government, that meetings of 50 persons or less were acceptable.

Warner drew similarities between Canada and Italy. He noted that the virus has ravaged the wealthy north of Italy (as opposed to the country’s much poorer south) where the healthcare system resembles Canada’s. On March 23, the Ontario and Quebec governments announced the shutdown of all nonessential services, but Warner said he fears Canadians will come to regret their having waited that long. The reality is that the provincial governments have allowed large sections of nonessential manufacturing, construction, and various resource industries to continue operating, unnecessarily exposing hundreds of thousands of workers and their families to the threat of infection.

Dr. Warner drew a bleak sketch of what might transpire in the coming weeks. He pointed out that Ontario only has 400 ICU doctors serving a population of 14 million people. A COVID-19 attack rate of 30 percent with five percent of those infected requiring intensive care would result in 200,000 new ICU patients. This would mean ICU physicians caring for 500 patients each, whereas they normally attend to a dozen or so each day. This scenario does not consider the inevitability that doctors (as well as other healthcare workers) will contract the virus themselves and require isolation or treatment.

In British Columbia, doctors wrote to the provincial NDP government to warn of the precarious position that hospitals are in, due to shortages of equipment and personnel, and to criticize the authorities’ failure to implement partial shutdowns as in Ontario and Quebec. The government has instead called for self-isolation of recent travellers and those who have had mild symptoms for at least two weeks.

A letter to the chief provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry, which was signed by over 200 doctors, called for the closure of all nonessential businesses and tighter social distancing measures (the province has continued to allow gatherings of up to 50 people). Henry dismissed these proposals as unnecessary. Rallying behind the government, the president of the provincial doctors’ association authored a letter calling on members to close ranks behind the government’s messaging.

However, social distancing can only accomplish so much. The World Health Organization (WHO) has stressed that breaking the transmission of the disease is paramount, and that this can only be accomplished by combining social distancing with mass testing and systematic contact-tracing to isolate positive cases. The WHO described not testing as akin to battling a fire blindfolded. Early analysis of success stories from South Korea as well as Italy reinforce this analysis. A study of the COVID-19 response a team of epidemiologists led in the Italian town of Vo demonstrated how systematic testing and retesting could eradicate the coronavirus. All the residents of the small town of 3,300 near Padua were tested, enabling the identification of the many asymptomatic cases, with all positive cases subsequently quarantined, and treated if symptomatic.

Hospitals are using a number of stopgap measures to prevent a calamity on the scale of what has taken place in Italy. Procedures deemed not to be urgent, including cancer surgeries, are being postponed, and patients awaiting transfer to other facilities (usually long-term care facilities) are being put in temporary housing, including hotel rooms. Doctors and nurses usually assigned to different wards are being trained to work in the intensive care units. Thousands of medical residents whose exams have been delayed due to the pandemic outbreak may receive provisional qualifications, while retired doctors and nurses are being encouraged to offer their assistance.

These provisions fall well short of what is necessary to strengthen the healthcare system to confront the surging pandemic. Moreover, the diversion of scant resources, both equipment and personnel, to fighting the pandemic will invariably result in increased deaths from conditions other than COVID-19, as overwhelmed hospitals postpone treatments and diagnostic tests.

Dr. Warner also noted that the government has not taken other measures to prepare, such as putting in place educational systems to assist in training other medical professionals who may be needed in intensive care units. In addition to medical workers, orderlies and custodial staff are needed for decontaminating surfaces and preparing beds.

Personal protective equipment is also in short supply, necessitating the reuse of gowns, masks, and other equipment, which increases the risks to doctors and nurses. However, the greatest concern remains the shortage of ventilators. Doctors have criticized the paltry 300 additional units acquired by the Ontario government in recent weeks as being well short of what is needed. Ventilators are usually needed for at least 3 weeks for each patient. In a situation where approximately 4 percent of those infected with COVID-19 according to some estimates require a ventilator, many patients will be left without the treatment they desperately need to survive.

The federal Liberal government and its provincial counterparts have done virtually nothing to tackle the disastrous conditions in the healthcare system that are the product of decades of austerity and privatization. While handing hundreds of billions of dollars to the banks and big business, the Trudeau government has announced a paltry $1 billion in additional healthcare funding. It is in currently haggling with over 2,000 for-profit companies, all of whom are seeking to secure their own pound of flesh during the pandemic, to produce urgently needed medical equipment and supplies.

This inept and haphazard response, which expresses the ruling elite’s contempt and criminal disregard for the health and well-being of working people, is forcing medical professionals to prepare to make harrowing choices. Hospitals are putting in place protocols to determine who among the gravely ill receives treatment and who will be left without the medical help they need. With the ostensible aim of “relieving” severely overworked physicians from having to take such painful decisions, British Columbia has instituted a system whereby a committee, composed in part by “medical ethicists,” will decide how to allocate scarce resources, effectively choosing who is to be given medical help and who is to be left to die.

The fact that such arrangements will not only be used in a handful of cases, but on a mass scale, can be seen if one considers the situation in Nanaimo, a mid-sized city on Vancouver Island with 90,000 inhabitants. Michael Kenyon, an intensive care doctor at a local hospital, provided an estimate to the Globe and Mail that around 900 residents will require a ventilator. This was based on the relatively conservative assumption that 25 percent of Nanaimo’s population would get infected, with 4 percent of those with COVID-19 requiring intensive care. However, Kenyon told the Globe he has just 14 ventilators. “What am I going to do with 14 ventilators?” he stated. “I can tell you what I’m going to do: I’m going to do what they’re doing in Italy and I’m going to take 70-year-olds off the ventilator, and then 60-year-olds off the ventilator and eventually 50-year-olds off the ventilator, and I’m going to give them to 30-year-olds with three kids.”

UN warns that COVID-19 pandemic could trigger global food shortage

Jean Shaoul

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned of the impact of the COVID-19 virus on the global food supply chain in a notice on their website writing: “We risk a looming food crisis unless measures are taken fast to protect the most vulnerable, keep global food supply chains alive and mitigate the pandemic’s impacts across the food system.”

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation’s chief economist Maximo Torero Cullen explained that while the supply of foodstocks is plentiful, the lockdowns, restrictions on all but essential work, shuttering of schools and border closures imposed around the world to limit the spread of the coronavirus are impacting farm workers and disrupting supply chains. This in turn is leading to a slowdown in the shipping industry, as many countries implement tighter controls on cargo vessels, as well as air cargo. These new measures will particularly affect fresh food produce and livestock.

Travelers wearing protective masks arrive to the main bus station in Bogota, Colombia, March 13, 2020 [Credit: AP Photo/Fernando Vergara]

The hardest hit will be the world’s most vulnerable people, including 300 million children who rely on school meals as their one reliable meal of the day. UN-supported school meals programs in Latin America and the Caribbean, for example, benefit 85 million children, with 10 million depending on them for the main source of food. Mass layoffs and lower incomes will make it harder than ever for the most impoverished families to put food on the table.

In an interview with the Guardian, Torero urged countries not to ban the export of foodstuffs saying, “The worst that can happen is that governments restrict the flow of food.” Protectionist measures and trade barriers would only make matters worse, creating “extreme volatility” in prices. Some countries have already begun to take such measures. March 20, for example, Russia called a halt to the export of buckwheat and other grains for 10 days, while Kazakhstan introduced restrictions on shipments of wheat flour, buckwheat, sugar, several types of vegetables and sunflower oil.

Torero insisted that global food trade had to be kept going, warning against the beggar-thy-neighbor policies of the global food price crisis of 2008 when some countries imposed higher export taxes or export bans that provoked tit-for-tat reactions.

Food flows are international in character. Some 20 percent of the calories people eat—such as rice, soya, grains and wheat, cross at least one international border, up by more than 50 percent since 1980, with one third the world’s food coming from low and middle-income countries.

Countries dependent on imported food are particularly vulnerable to slowing trade volumes, especially if their currencies decline relative to the US dollar. With retailers upping their prices everywhere, food costs are accounting for an ever-larger share of a shrinking household budget.

One indication of the devastation to come can be found in the fresh flower industry. Flight cancellations along with the collapse of the Dutch auctions have left many farmers in Kenya, the world’s flower garden with annual exports of tonnes of freshly cut flowers to all corners of the world, with no option but to dispose of flowers worth millions and close down virtually the entire sector.

Domestic food supply chains are no less imperiled, involving a complex web of farmers and farm labourers, as well as fertilizers, seeds and veterinary medicines, processing plants, freight distributors, retailers, etc.

Smallholder farmers in the “developing” countries are some of the worst affected by food insecurity, due to their low incomes. During the Ebola crisis in West Africa, lockdowns prevented farmers’ access to markets to buy inputs and sell products as well as impacting the availability of labour at peak seasonal times, leading to unsold food and a loss of income. The string of events led to a huge increase in hunger and malnutrition throughout the region.

Food insecurity is particularly acute in East Africa and the Horn of Africa, where 80 percent of the population works on the land and is now facing the destruction by desert locust swarms.

Some countries are already experiencing a shortage of workers to harvest fresh produce due in part to border closures and domestic lockdowns, and the lack of protective measures to ensure the health and safety of food-system and delivery workers, including on-site health measures, protective clothing, sick-leave and physical distancing.

The pandemic has exposed the degree to which farming is dependent upon migrant workers, with more than a 25 percent of the world’s farm work done by migrant workers.

In Europe, commercial farm work is dependent on the annual migration of hundreds of thousands of people from poorer countries to harvest food crops. Travel bans have reduced seasonal migration to a trickle, just as farmers are preparing for the harvest amid stockpiling and the most precipitous economic downturn in post-war memory.

Farmers in France, Spain, and Italy are warning that ripening fruit and vegetables will be left to rot, leading to severe shortages in April and May. Strawberry and asparagus growers have been unable to pick their crops, with other fruit, vegetables and salad greens next in line. France alone needs 200,000 workers, while Germany requires 300,000. Britain, where the problem is further exacerbated by Brexit, faces a shortage of 90,000 workers.

Some two-thirds of these 800,000 difficult and backbreaking jobs, characterized by low pay and long hours, are filled in the harvest season by workers from central and eastern Europe and north Africa. But the Schengen area, comprising 26 European states, has banned external visitors for 30 days and many borders are closed. Even where travel is allowed, transport is limited, and workers fear they may be barred from returning home if they fall ill.

In Britain, the Country Land and Business Association has called for a “land army” to work the fields, while Germany has appealed to the unemployed. France’s employment agency has announced that people can still receive benefits or earn money if they are furloughed while doing farm work, with the UK declaring farm labourers “key workers.”

In the US, farmers are hampered by the reduction in visas issued to workers from Mexico.

Ali Capper, chairperson of the UK’s National Farmers Union’s horticultural board, told the Financial Times, “Every first world economy is used to workers coming from other economies to pick their fruit and vegetables…. What you are talking about is a major societal shift.”

In India, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nationwide 21-day curfew on the country’s 1.4 billion people, introduced last week without prior warning or preparation for maintaining food supplies, has severely disrupted supply chains amid widespread confusion over which businesses are allowed to operate.

The police have stopped goods trucks from moving across state lines, while giant ecommerce companies, including Amazon, Walmart-owned Flipkart, SoftBank-backed Grofers and Big Basket, have reported severe difficulties, with police closing warehouses and harassing couriers delivering online orders to middle class homes in the cities.

This has already affected some of India’s most vulnerable people, including urban migrant workers who have lost their jobs and businesses due to social distancing and are now making the long journey home on foot, under conditions where they may be unable to pay for or get food on the way. While the government has said it will provide aid to the poorest for the next three months, this will only be available to villages, meaning that workers must return home.

Reetika Khera, economics professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, told the Financial Times, “We are very worried about starvation deaths… People on the march like this, they are not very nourished in the first place. They can die of exhaustion.”

According to FAO statistics, a massive 820 million people around the world (12 percent) are currently experiencing chronic hunger and lack the caloric energy to lead normal lives. An additional 113 million are so hungry that their lives and their livelihoods are in danger, reliant on external assistance for their existence.

As COVID-19 proliferates in the 44 countries that already need external food assistance or in the 53 countries that are home to 113 million people experiencing acute hunger as a result of poverty, wars, conflicts, landlordism, extortionate debt charges and climate change, the consequences will be catastrophic.

EU divisions erupt as anger mounts among workers over COVID-19 response

Alex Lantier

Amid the surging death toll and mounting anger at the official handling of the COVID-19 pandemic among workers, bitter divisions are erupting between the European Union (EU) powers over how to finance massive bailouts granted to their banks and major corporations. It is clear that no faction of the European ruling class offers a way forward to fight the pandemic. Instead, COVID-19 is exposing the political rot left by decades of social austerity and bitter inter-imperialist conflicts between the major EU powers.

Yesterday, as the world total of COVID-19 cases climbed to 721,277, and the United States led the world with 141,781 cases, Europe collectively had 382,823 identified cases of coronavirus. The European death toll had mounted to 24,138. These figures largely underestimate the number of the sick and the dead, as several European countries including France and Spain have already acknowledged that they deliberately do not count those who fall sick or die of COVID-19 at home or in retirement homes.

Since nationwide wildcat strikes in Italy and walkouts across Europe forced governments to implement confinement orders demanded by health authorities, Italy, France, Spain, Britain and large parts of Germany are on lockdown. Nevertheless, governments and major corporations continue to press workers in industries like auto, steel, and aerospace not essential to supplying the population with food and medicine to go to work, to boost corporate profits and the wealth of the financial aristocracy.

COVID-19 keeps spreading faster than it would amid a tighter confinement policy, prolonging the pandemic and increasing the number of cases by thousands. This weekend, according to official statistics, saw 15,449 new recorded cases in Spain, 13,757 in Germany, 11,883 in Italy, 8,420 in France, 5,401 in Britain, and 2,331 in the Netherlands. Italy saw a record 1,808 COVID-19 deaths, Spain 1,617, France 618, Britain 441, the Netherlands 205, and Germany 166.

An explosive confrontation is emerging between the European financial aristocracy and the working class. Anger is mounting among factory and service workers against employers’ attempts to force them to work, and among health workers against EU austerity measures that have slashed tens of billions of euros from state health budgets.

Rubén Herrera, a nurse in Alcalá de Henares, told Spain’s El Pais that with Madrid-area hospitals overwhelmed with severely ill COVID-19 patients, “We are working like in a war movie, with soldiers coming out of the trenches, that is the sort of medicine we do: as if it were wartime… We only think about the next seven or ten hours we have before us, hoping the emergency room will not collapse and that everyone can be protected…

“None of this would be happening this way without the cuts and privatizations, if in 2012 they had not cut 120 beds and 90 jobs from this hospital, and 2,100 beds and at least 2,200 health workers less in the entire region.”

After a video went viral on Italian social media of a father giving his daughter a piece of bread, and warning that the population could attack supermarkets if they ran out of money to buy food, ruling circles are warning that riots could erupt across major EU cities in the coming weeks. Italian officials are reportedly posting guards outside supermarkets across southern Italy. However, similar problems face broader layers of temporary, self-employed and other precarious workers who have emerged across Europe, especially since the 2008 crisis.

Francesco Rocca, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies (IFRC), told the UN: “We have a lot of people who are living very marginalized, in the so-called black hole of society... In the most difficult neighborhoods of the biggest cities, I am afraid that in a few weeks we will have social problems. This is a social bomb that can explode at any moment, because they don’t have any way to have an income.”

Rocca added that he thought “major Western cities” could see mass unrest “in a few weeks.”

The confrontation emerging between the working class and the European police states set up by the financial aristocracy has revolutionary implications. The claim that there is no money to carry out a struggle against the pandemic is absurd. However, the necessary resources to halt the COVID-19 pandemic and maintain the distribution of essential food and medical supplies across international supply chains requires the expropriation of the financial aristocracy.

Figures like Bernard Arnault (France, 2019 net worth: $106.8 billion), Armancio Ortega (Spain, $67.2 billion), Françoise Bettencourt Meyers (France, $49.3 billion), Karl Albrecht (Germany, $36.1 billion), Jim Ratcliffe (UK, $32 billion) or Giovanni Ferrero (Italy, $22.4 billion) and countless lesser financial aristocrats have plundered hundreds of billions from workers since 2008 alone. As an urgent matter of saving lives and maintaining public health, such fortunes must be impounded and used to plan a coordinated global response to the pandemic.

The pursuit of such a policy falls to the European and international working class, in struggle against capitalism and for a socialist reorganization of society. It cannot be waged in alliance with any faction of the ruling class. The EU’s COVID-19 summit last Thursday in Brussels failed miserably. The pandemic has deeply split the EU, bringing to the fore the unresolved national conflicts between the EU powers revealed by the 2008 crisis and threatening to blow them apart.

The heads of state summit collapsed after German, Dutch and Austrian officials refused demands from Italian and Spanish officials, echoing a joint statement signed with France, to jointly borrow money on credit markets to fund corporate bailouts. In response, Italian Prime Minister Conte refused to accept Berlin’s demands that COVID-19 bank bailouts be financed by the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). Borrowing from this fund, which imposed draconian austerity on Greece after 2008 as a precondition for lending it money to bail out EU banks, would allow the EU to impose similar conditions on Italy.

The summit provoked anger in Italian media, including in pro-EU dailies. The Corriere della Sera wrote, “If the EU does not get together, the European project is finished”, while La Repubblica concluded that the EU is an “ugly Europe.”

In France, 94-year-old former head of the EU Commission Jacques Delors returned from retirement to warn that the EU could collapse: “The climate that seems to prevail among heads of state and the lack of European solidarity are a mortal danger to the EU. The microbe is back.” French President Emmanuel Macron, who declared during the Thursday summit that the EU’s survival was at stake, gave a joint interview Saturday to Italy’s Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica and La Stampa, calling for “strong European solidarity on health and budget issues.”

Conte granted a lead interview to El Pais, warning that “the EU is nearing a point of no return in terms of losing the confidence of its citizens.”

Whether or not the EU powers cobble together some deal on funding their bailouts, the policy pursued by the European bourgeoisie will be hostile to the working class. The EU powers plan to hand hundreds of billions of euros to the banks and major corporations, from €756 billion in Germany to €300 billion in France or €200 billion in Spain, leaving crumbs for unemployment and other key social programs. Nor do these bailouts involve retooling industry to mass produce masks, medical equipment and other key supplies to fight COVID-19.

The southern European bourgeoisie’s conflicts with Berlin involve not an attempt to save the population, but to save their own increasingly unstable wealth. They are desperate to obtain Berlin’s assistance to ensure they can borrow money on good terms because—with Italy’s sovereign debt at 150 percent of GDP and France’s at nearly 100 percent—they are bankrupt in all but name.

The working class cannot let itself be tied to any of the reactionary national camps within the European bourgeoisie. Amid growing anger and a developing radicalization of the workers, the way forward requires putting lives ahead of profits, expropriating the vast wealth of the super-rich that is needed to protect humanity, and adopting an internationally-coordinated plan against COVID-19 that leads towards socialism.

Instacart workers in US begin nationwide walkout as Whole Foods workers plan sickout Tuesday

Erik Schreiber

Workers for Instacart, a grocery shopping and delivery service, began a nationwide walkout in the United States today to protest the company’s refusal to protect them or provide hazard pay during the coronavirus pandemic. They have vowed not to return to work until the company meets their demands. Instacart employs more than 150,000 workers across the country.

The planned walkout is part of a nationwide and international fight by workers to demand safe conditions, including strikes and protests by Amazon workers, sanitation and public transit workers and workers in the auto, steel and meatpacking industries. Amazon workers in Staten Island plan to strike Monday, and workers at Whole Foods—also owned by Amazon—plan to strike Tuesday.

The coronavirus pandemic has increased demand for shopping and delivery services dramatically, as many people stay at home or in quarantine. Last week, Instacart announced plans to hire 300,000 new workers during the next three months to meet this demand.

(Stock Image)

Instacart workers (or “shoppers,” as the company calls them) have been demanding for weeks that the company institute the most elementary safety measures. “We don’t feel safe at work and we don’t feel we have the tools to keep customers safe,” said Ashley, a full-service shopper in Washington who is participating in the walkout. “The shoppers I know who aren’t sick are certainly not at their mental best. It’s a very dehumanizing and draining job right now.”

“Instacart has still not provided essential protections to shoppers on the front lines that could prevent them from becoming carriers, falling ill themselves, or worse,” said Instacart Shoppers and Gig Workers Collective in a statement posted on Medium on Friday . “They are profiting astronomically off of us literally risking our lives, all while refusing to provide us with effective protection, meaningful pay, and meaningful benefits.”

“We haven’t been offered any type of cleaning products or funds to purchase such products,” said Sarah, a shopper participating in the walkout. “We haven’t been given any real information on how best to take precautions. They are doing the bare minimum and even making it hard for those who are diagnosed with COVID-19 to get paid time off.”

The walkout centers on four demands. Shoppers demand that Instacart provide them with protective supplies such as hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes, and soap at no cost. They demand an extra $5 per order as hazard pay and a default tip of 10 percent of the order total. They demand “an extension and expansion of pay for workers impacted by COVID-19—anyone who has a doctor’s note for either a preexisting condition that’s a known risk factor or requiring a self-quarantine,” according to Friday’s statement. Finally, they demand that the company extend the deadline to qualify for these benefits beyond April 8.

On Friday, after the shoppers announced today’s walkout, Instacart extended its offer to provide 14 days of pay to any worker diagnosed with COVID-19 through May 8. It also announced bonuses for certain employees, based on the number of hours worked. The company did not, however, agree to provide hazard pay or even the most basic protective supplies.

“Instacart’s response to our demands lacks substance and does nothing to protect us,” worker Vanessa Bain responded in a tweet. “Conceding to one demand is way too little, way too late. They can kick rocks. Our call for an emergency walk-off still stands.”

The announcement of the walkout had already exposed the insincerity of Instacart’s promises to compensate sick employees. “Instacart’s promise to pay shoppers up to 14 days of pay if diagnosed or placed in mandatory quarantine not only falls short but isn’t even being honored. Instacart knows it’s virtually impossible to meet their qualifications and is ignoring shoppers’ pleas for more substantial and preventative help,” the statement of the Instacart Shoppers and Gig Workers Collective said.

Many Instacart shoppers are gig workers that the company classifies as self-employed contractors. They are not guaranteed a minimum wage, and the average pay for one order of groceries is a mere $7, according to a former shopper. Furthermore, these shoppers have no paid time off, and Instacart does not contribute to unemployment insurance for them.

Some Instacart shoppers are full-time employees, however, who assemble orders in grocery stores but do not make deliveries or receive tips. Instead of providing in-store shoppers with the necessary protective gear, the company has recommended social distancing, which is impossible in crowded supermarkets. Instacart has denied in-store shoppers’ demands for hazard pay and wage increases, according to Jorge, a shopper who posted an open letter to the company on Twitter. Instead, it has offered, on a case-by-case basis, a maximum of only seven consecutive calendar days of unpaid time off.

Last year, shoppers became angry when Instacart reduced the default tip on the company’s app to 10 percent. The company refused to negotiate with them. In response, shoppers walked out from November 3 through November 5. The company retaliated by discontinuing the quality bonus that it had paid for “good work.” This spiteful act amounts to a pay cut of as much as 40 percent, depending on the order.

“The low pay is something that’s been an issue for a long time, but it’s a heightened issue now because sick people with no savings, or even next month’s rent, aren’t able to stay home,” said Ashley. “Instacart’s temporary paid sick leave has hoops most of their workforce can’t jump [through].”

“I have watched pay cut after pay cut, to where I was seeing a 50 percent or more decrease weekly,” said Sarah. “It’s so hit or miss, and honestly the majority of what I do make is usually tips, and not Instacart payment, which means these customers are paying a bunch to Instacart, and we shoppers see barely any of that money.”

Whole Foods workers have announced their intention to conduct a sick-out tomorrow, March 31, with a flyer circulating online reading: “We put ourselves at risk! We have demands!”

Whole Foods workers’ demands include three weeks’ paid time off for everyone, “not when we get sick but so we don’t get sick!” In addition, workers demand double hazard pay. “Don’t tell us we’re not emergency workers. Make the $2 wage increase permanent.” The flyer concludes, “The crisis has shown that we are worth more. We are no longer scared, but you should be.”

Sanitation workers in Pittsburgh, autoworkers in Detroit, bus drivers in Birmingham, Alabama, and Amazon workers in New York and Italy have all walked off the job after coworkers tested positive for the novel coronavirus. “I know other jobs are also walking out for mistreatment right now, and I support that,” said Ashley. “Being in public right now is well known to be dangerous and bad for the community. People should be compensated for that risk and protected if they’re forced to take it.”

China and COVID-19: What Went Wrong?

Vijay Shankar

The history of armed conflict is intertwined with the generation of diseases. In 1155, the German Holy Roman Emperor Barbarossa poisoned water wells in Italy with human bodies as he challenged the papacy; to 1763, when the British deliberately distributed small pox-infected blankets to Native Americans. In recent history, during World War I, the Spanish flu caused a pandemic accounting for over 50 million lives. Now imagine a weaponised variant of the pathogen—genetically engineered for survival and binary in nature, with artificial intelligence implants to disable or enable the virus—and you have a controllable doomsday weapon. Manipulated pathogens are in fact the next generation of damnable biologic agents. While theories about COVID-19 being a bio-weapon have been debunked, they occur within a larger narrative, which is that of China allegedly being a leader in “toxin-based threats.” Opaqueness in Chinese information-sharing, therefore, appears to have little dividend.

China has been suspected for several years of having offensive biological agents, although these claims have been refuted by the country. If the allegation is indeed true, it is notwithstanding China having ratified the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), which prohibits the development of biological weapons and decrees destruction of existing stockpiles. In the absence of instruments for verification, the BWC has no teeth.    

What could have influenced Chinese thinking in this regard? This paper suggests three factors. The first is of a historical nature. Between 1933 and 1945, Japanese BW attacks and experimentation on Chinese populations killed thousands. China also believes that the US conducted offensive BW operations in China and Korea during the Korean War. The final motivation may have to do with the erstwhile USSR, which had a reported history of experimenting with efforts to develop deadly germs and viruses as weapons. China’s strategic cooperation in general, and knowledge of the alleged Soviet BW programme as well as the goings-on at the centre of Soviet research on the island of Vozrozhdeniye in the Sea of Aral could have inspired Chinese thinking on this mode of warfare. Strategic motivations were governed by their abstract reasoning of the nature and use of weapons of mass destruction in a life and death struggle. Today, as George Keenan suggested in 1947, China needs the spectre of a permanent enemy to justify its security apparatus, and indeed, itself.

Under Chairman Mao, from 1949 to 1977, these sensitivities led increasingly to preparation for total war. By 1978, hamstrung by the terror of the Cultural Revolution and blinkered by ideological obsession, Premier Deng Xiaoping saw the quest for strategic dominance being stymied by the absence of development and direction. He presided over a radical veering from orthodoxy and sought from society the release of dormant capitalistic energies. This kicked off one of the most impactful economic reformations of the 20th century. By 1990, in the wake of the carnage of Tiananmen and the collapse of communism in Europe, China’s military policy was dictated by Deng’s ‘24-character strategy’ which mandated a watch, wait, and build capacities approach. These capacities included the ability to wage BW. The Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao dispensations continued with Deng’s policies towards technology and innovation at large.

China’s BW strategy is seen as a declaration of their resolve to make genetic weapons instruments of “bloodless victory.” The Chinese government launched the National GeneBank in 2016. It reportedly intends to “use China’s genetic resources, safeguard national security in bioinformatics, and enhance capabilities to seize the strategic heights,” which becomes important for consideration in light of allegations about China’s possession of offensive biological agents.

The SARS Episode of November 2002 constituted a testimony to the lack of Chinese transparency, and raised suspicion of China’s involvement. The lesson to be learned was the need for unambiguity and information-sharing where infectious diseases were concerned. This did not seem to be the case in the recent outbreak of COVID-19. An examination of the chronology will suggest that while China formally notified the WHO of the outbreak on 31 December 2019, the first cases reported by the late Dr Li Winliang (a casualty himself) were on 1 December—or could it have been even earlier?

Expert studies and circumstantial evidence alike have led to speculation about China’s quite possibly inadvertent involvement in the release of the COVID-19 virus. This sort of speculation is not unprecedented. In a 2017 Nature article, Dr Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, is quoted saying that “the SARS virus has escaped from high-level containment facilities In Beijing multiple times.”

More recently, in March 2019, a shipment of virulent microorganisms from Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) found their way to Wuhan. The event reportedly caused a scandal, with questions about how the lethal viruses were transferred to China. The incident was traced to Chinese operatives working at NML, and led to their expulsion. The group comprised of  Dr Qiu and Dr Cheng, among others, who are suggested to have past links with BW civil-military fusion laboratories in China. The nature of Dr Qiu’s and Dr Cheng’s research is not entirely known, and the investigation is on-going.

Does conjecture about the virus’ leak from a bio lab hold up to scrutiny? What about the speculation of this being a Chinese dual-use research programme gone horrifically wrong? This would be reminiscent of the reported Soviet experiment with re-engineering pathogens within a pathogen; the first stage illness was carried by an innocuous fast spreading endemic microbe. The second pathogen would be genetic material that would cause the body to attack and break down its own vital systems.

In the midst of theories of pathogen mutation from bats to pangolin to man, and its probable leak in a bio-experiment; there are many not-so-convincing allegations of cause and conspiracies with fake news clouding perception. What is known is that COVID-19 originated in Wuhan, from where it was inflicted on mankind. How, when, and why remain unrequited questions. In this environment, it becomes increasingly important to closely monitor Chinese potential military’s activities in BW. While it may be impractical to expect China to recompense for global disruption and mass casualties, what can be imposed is the demand for verifiable transparency, and making their laboratories indubitably transparent.

India: Climate Change and the Need for Gender-Responsive Policymaking

Akanksha Khullar


While climate change in general has negative implications, from a gender perspective, it entails greater risks for women than men. In India, as weather patterns change and become more unpredictable, with rising temperatures, droughts, heavy rainfalls, and powerful storms, it could exacerbate prevailing pressures as well as create new problems for women, especially those in rural areas.

In patriarchal societies, women’s abilities to adapt to the impacts of climate change are limited by social inequalities and their socioeconomic roles. These roles can influence property rights, access to information and resources, employment prospects, etc. Women are more likely to suffer from physical and psychological health problems, and also be the most affected during agrarian crises, natural disasters, etc. Further, rising temperatures and extreme weather events could adversely impact women’s lives and livelihoods, and also expose them to an increased risk of sexual abuse.

Food Insecurity, Water, and HealthDecrease in rainfall, increase in precipitation, and extended periods of drought—as already being experienced in different parts of India—bear profound implications for crop production, livestock, and fishery yields, leading to loss of traditional food sources and livelihood security. These developments will have differentiated, gendered trickle-down impacts.

As per the National Family Health Survey 2015-2016, 22.9 per cent of women (ages 15-49) in India suffer from chronic energy deficiency as compared to 20.2 per cent men (ages 15-49). Occurrence of anaemia among women is even higher, with 53.1 per cent women (ages 15-49) suffering from moderate or severe forms as compared to 22.7 per cent men (ages 15-59). Factors responsible for this include predominant cultural practices prioritising food provision to children and adult males. It is not inconceivable then that climate change could further intensify nutritional scarcity among women.

For example, the Indo-Gangetic plains currently account for 14-15 per cent of the world’s wheat production, feeding around 200 million people in the region. According to some climate change projections, crop yield in these plains might decrease by 51 per cent due to heat stress and drought by 2030. As evidence shows, in times of food scarcity, it is typically the women, especially those in rural areas, who would be the first to be deprived of food, and thereby, nutrition.

Moreover, changing consumption patterns induced by climate change could potentially widen existing gender-based health disparities. An increase in nutrient and micronutrient deficiency among women could cause poor attention spans, diminished working memories, impaired sensory functions, and in turn, reduced chances of survival in extreme weather conditions.

Climate change could also add to existing water shortage and access to clean drinking water such as in Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, etc. This too holds implications for women’s health in rural India, where women tend to be tasked with collecting water for the household. As groundwater ceases, women might have to travel longer distances, often in scorching heat, to fetch water, resulting in extreme fatigue. Coupled with occurrences of nutritional deficiencies, this scenario would aggravate existing health problems.

EmploymentIndia is witness to a feminisation of agriculture, with more women being employed as either cultivators or labourers. According to an Oxfam report, this sector employs 80 per cent of all economically active women in India. Of those, 33 per cent work as agricultural labourers and 48 per cent are self-employed farmers. As of 2018, 85 per cent of women in rural areas were engaged in agricultural activities. Given how agriculture in India is an extremely seasonal and rain-fed activity, any change in climate directly impacts employment opportunities for these women. It also has a health impact, with the high rate of hysterectomies among migrant cane-cutters in Maharashtra’s Beed district as a case-in-point.

Migration and WorkloadsIn the past decade, India has witnessed unprecedented internal migration. In the Economic Survey of India 2017-18, inter-state migration (2011-2016) was estimated at 9 million annually. The impact of climate change on the agricultural sector has resulted in mass out-migration of men for employment, leaving women with a considerably increased workload to plug the gap. Women now juggle dual responsibilities of livelihood generation and performing traditional domestic roles, including tending to family members. Among other effects, this has resulted in significant numbers of female students missing school to accommodate increased domestic workloads.

Sexual ExploitationIf existing patterns are any indication, climate change-induced natural disasters and epidemics (which are predicted to become more frequent in the future) would make women and girls more susceptible to sexual exploitation and other forms of gender-based violence. In India’s case, data is scant on the causal link between climate change and violence against women and girls. However, in the aftermath of the 2013 Uttarakhand floods, aid agencies estimated that female survivors were at a greater risk of being sold as brides or into domestic and sex trade by traffickers preying on vulnerable families.

ConclusionIn India, gender-based disparities are already acute and multi-faceted. Climate change will exacerbate them further, leading to women being affected disproportionately, and severely. A gendered approach to understand the impact of climate change is thus crucial to the formulation of appropriate mitigation and response strategies.

IBM COVID-19 Call for Code Global Challenge 2020

Application Deadline: 27th April 2020

Eligible Countries: International

About the Award: COVID-19, which is caused by the novel coronavirus, has revealed the limits of the systems we take for granted in a very short period of time. Whether it’s the massive increase in demand for information during a time of crisis, educating children when schools are closed, or helping communities best distribute limited resources, technology has a pivotal role to play. Through Call for Code, you can see your idea deployed by a global partner ecosystem.

Explore all IBM resources related to COVID-19

In addition to Call for Code, IBM is marshaling resources and bringing together the right communities of experts to address the COVID-19 global pandemic. Clients, governments, scientists, partners, academic institutions, health agencies and IBMers are applying data, knowledge, computing power, and insights to solve difficult problems. 

Type: Contest

Eligibility:

1. Submissions –
   Submissions must use one or more IBM Cloud services or IBM Systems. Use of sponsor or affiliate APIs and open source libraries is also encouraged.
2. Team size –
   Teams of up to five (5) participants, each at least 18 years old, are allowed.
3. Joining teams –
   A participant may not be part of multiple teams.
4. Participation agreement –
   All team members must have accepted the 2020 Participation Agreement at the time they submit to be eligible.
5. Application standards –
   Applications must be new and built for the 2020 competition, but they may use code that was open sourced and publicly available to all other participants as of February 26, 2020.
6. Winners –
   Winning teams will be subject to a code review after submissions close.

Selection Criteria: Submissions will be judged equally across 4 primary criteria which evaluate whether the solution solves a real-world problem and uses technology effectively.

• Completeness and transferability: How fully has the idea been implemented? Can it achieve an impact in the field? Can it be transferred elsewhere?
• Effectiveness and efficiency: Does the solution address a high priority area? Does it achieve its goal effectively and efficiently? Can it scale?
• Design and usability: How good is the design, user experience, and ease of use of the solution? How quickly can it be put to use?
• Creativity and innovation: How unique was the approach to solving a long-standing or previously intractable problem?

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award:
Grand Prize

•  $200,000 USD cash prize
•  Invitation to the Call for Code Global Award Announcement
•  Open source project support from The Linux Foundation
•  Opportunity for mentorship and investment in the solution
•  Solution implementation support through Code and Response™

First Runner-up

•  $25,000 USD cash prize
•  Invitation to the Call for Code Global Award Announcement
•  Open source project support from The Linux Foundation

Third and fourth runner up

•  $10,000 USD cash prize
•  Invitation to the Call for Code Global Award Announcement
•  Open source project support from The Linux Foundation

How to Apply: Accept the Challenge

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details