Public Health for the People
As the Omicron wave wanes worldwide, countries have been quick to declare COVID-19 officially endemic- the pandemic we are told is over. The growing consensus among Western governments is now is the time to loosen public health and surveillance measures and get on with life. If you're experiencing a sense of deja vu hearing these confident proclamations, it's because we've been here before.
Is it any different this time? Not according to experts. The notion that viruses evolve to be milder is a bit of a laughable statement to them. Why? Because evolution is a chaotic process that takes place on a scale and timeline so much larger than our own. There are no guarantees as long as vaccine inequity exists and breakthrough infections occur as the virus will continue to mutate, experiment and throw us curveballs. If one thing defines the post-COVID world, it is uncertainty. At this stage, the consensus from experts is that they know how much they don't know.
You wouldn't think this looking at the confidence of Western governments. In the United Kingdom, the Conservative government has lifted all public health and surveillance measures in England, including free testing for suspected COVID-19 cases. This move is staggeringly reckless and irresponsible, and it means we will be blind to what the virus is doing in a region with 56 million people. Meanwhile, after lifting restrictions in Denmark, cases and fatalities soared. Despite this, the Danish government insisted that rising death rates were not a cause for concern because these were people dying with, not of, the virus. The same logic is observed in Australia, with the media reassuring the public recently that 91% of people who died of COVID-19 had one or more other health issues. Is that supposed to be reassuring? The dehumanisation of disabled, vulnerable and immune-compromised people and the devaluing of their lives in all this is a world-historic disgrace and shame. Not to mention the total silence around the risks and health impacts associated with long COVID. We are watching people being maimed and disabled by COVID-19 globally at an enormous scale, and no one in power seems to care.
In New Zealand, as we follow the rest of the West's lead in treating Omicron as 'mild', there has been little effort to supply the populace with quality respirator masks or improve ventilation. The government wants us to be cool-headed about COVID; for most triple-vaccinated people, this will be something akin to the flu we're told. Recently, the Minister of Finance Grant Robertson even chided the public for going into self-imposed lockdowns as Omicron surges because this impacts the profit margins of hospitality and retail businesses. Obviously, protecting business is the real priority in a global public health emergency.
That isn't sarcasm, by the way; it is a summary of the West's pandemic response which at every avenue has prioritised profit over public health and people's lives. Over a million people have died of COVID-19 in the United States, and until recently, they were averaging 3,000 daily deaths. That is a 9/11 scale tragedy every single day, and the establishment's silence is deafening. New Zealand initially struck a different course; our elimination and border quarantine saved countless lives. It also made our small country a target for the international right-wing livid at the idea that we would prioritise lives over profit. I don't think it's conspiratorial to say that the current anti-public health campaigns and protests aimed at delegitimising public health are being stoked and funded by an international alliance of right-wingers. The aim is to make public health measures untenable.
If you want to understand what is happening across the West with our COVID responses, it is analogous to how climate scientists were systematically silenced and delegitimised because their conclusions were a threat to the profit margins of Exxon and British Petroleum etc. It has nothing to do with science; it's ideology and vested interests. If we've learned anything from the failure of climate scientists to translate their stark findings to political action, it's that knowledge, indeed the truth, is not enough. Having facts on your side doesn't translate into change; this is about power and who holds it, and how it is wielded.
The polls show across the West that people support public health measures in huge majorities. They want mask mandates, surveillance testing and the rest of it. In fact, in New Zealand, a sizable contingent wants more stringent public health measures, not less. Despite this, governments are determined to do the opposite. A good demonstration of how captured our democracies are by capital.
All things considered, there is an urgent need for working people of all stripes to organise for public health. It is not the elite who will suffer the consequences of this recklessness. It is everyday people, essential workers, elders, the vulnerable, and children who will. In response to the #clownvoy occupation in Wellington, I and other volunteers, activists, organisers from around the motu started an organisation we're calling Aotearoa Stronger Together. The organisation aims to give voice to the silent majority and stand up for public health measures. There's some urgency in this work. If working people don't organise for public health, stand beside the silenced experts, and fight to redress the imbalance of power permeating and eroding our society, the future is bleak.
I'm asking you to join us, demand public health measures like universal access to quality respirators, and stand up to the fringe, but powerful, groups trying to undo all our hard work. Alone, we are fragile snowflakes trying to survive a pandemic so much larger than us. Together we are an avalanche that cannot be ignored.
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