"We need to address the societal well-being of our nation, not just the economic well-being: our people are telling us that politics are not delivering and meeting their expectations. This is not woolly, it’s critical.” Jacinda Ardern
Amrit Lohia tweeted the following:
Giving everyone "access to water and food" requires socialism. Eradicating SARS-CoV-2 also requires a shift to a socialist model where we recognise our responsibility to protect each other. Tagging in @coreluminous who can probably explain this better than I can.
I replied: I think you have distilled it into its purest form.
"where we recognise our responsibility to protect each other."
That is the essence of the situation with regards to COVID, Climate Change, pollution, poverty, environmental degradation, Racism, Misogyny etc.
Then I wrote some more.
I would call it a pro-social model rather than ideological Socialism.
Management of the shared commons implies duty of care to all who share the commons. This demands that decisions on policy and practical implementation are grounded in equity and mutual aid and are based on evidence rather than upon ideological belief or the opinion of any one group.
Externalised Costs
.
Costs incurred by producers or consumers any other actors acting within the shared commons, that are not resolved, that are passed on to others who bear the burden are anti-social, profoundly so.
This is where I part with existing ideological Socialism which seeks equitable pay and conditions for all, whilst still allowing externalised costs to be accrued. Externalised costs is the root of all the problems we face, globally.
Resolution will be of that issue will be complex, that's well understood.
That said it is attachments to power and status which make it more complicated than it needs to be.
Thus a reckoning with power and status lies ahead, it cannot be avoided.
Does this reckoning have to descend into a power struggle?
Only if those who hold asymmetric power choose to make it so.
Those who hold positions of power and status could choose to share that power, and they could manage it slowly enough to empower the corrective changes required that would protect us all as we move through this phase.
That choice is real.
To recap:
Elimination of community transmission is possible.
It's really simple. Virus needs to date a new human host, or it dies out. It is a complex operation to support a population to do EoCT. Professor Gabriel Scally is a highly respected, deeply experienced public health professional and scholar. He is in no doubt whatsoever that elimination of community transmission is the best possible strategy under the current circumstances, where in the UK we are still at less than 20% population infected, and globally much less than that. There is an immense amount of harm to prevent, to avoid and it makes no sense to push the global population into harms way.
What complicates it are matters of power, wealth and status. That much is clear.
1. there's a world of difference between eradication and elimination of community transmission.
2. New Zealand is not in complete isolation from the rest of the world. Tourism is not an essential human activity. Quarantine can manage necessary travel.
3. Proof of concept is 1.8 billion people who were not faced with multiple national level lockdowns, health care and economic harms over extended periods.
4. Proof of concept is variants from areas that rejected elimination strategy arriving and breaking through quarantine systems.
5. Australia’s official COVID-19 strategy, suppression, doesn’t have an epidemiological definition.
“Suppression isn’t a known technical term,” says epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre, head of the Biosecurity Program at the Kirby Institute and Professor of Global Biosecurity.
6. “It’s either elimination or disease control.”
‘Disease control’ means reducing the number of cases to a locally acceptable level, but community transmission may still occur.
7. In England that successful disease control is defined by Johnson as being 1000 deaths by Covid19 per week. No mention of the acceptable number of cases of chronic disease, Long Covid.
8. So, if I was one of those 'acceptable deaths' would I agree with Johnson?
If you or your beloved, or your son or daughter was one of those 'acceptable deaths' would you agree with Johnson?
9. And the other more harsh reality of each death by covid is this:
These are truly awful, horrific deaths. Really, really grim.
https://vox.com/2021/2/20/22280817/covid-19-deaths-us-nursing-home-icu-ventilator
Oxygen depletion, organ failure, death. Terror, despair and horror over the course of ten days or so. One thousand times every week. Thousands of families. Hundreds of ICU teams
Oxygen depletion, organ failure, death. Terror, despair and horror over the course of ten days or so. One thousand times every week. Thousands of families. Hundreds of ICU teams
Who decides these deaths are acceptable? On what metric?
10. In another context, how many terrorist bombings would be considered an acceptable level?
Is it the case that the 241,000 Afghani deaths of the past 20 years are acceptable to UK citizens, but the 404 combat deaths of troops are not?
11. Who makes these calls about policy and public health strategy, which have such immense impact the shared commons, and on what basis?
12. Is there a need now for urgent collective decision making and collective action to prevent further avoidable harm, when we are in a situation that affects us all?
Kindest regards
Corneilius
"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."
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