The socialist response to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic

Today’s congressional hearing on the pandemic was a festival of reaction, with fascistic Republicans using the occasion of the testimony of Dr. Anthony Fauci to advance anti-scientific conspiracy theories about the origins of COVID-19.

While the Democrats postured as opponents of the Republicans during the hearings, in fact the two parties have collaborated in enforcing the ruling class policy of “Endless Covid.”

When the pandemic first began more than four years ago, workers sought to take action to save lives, including walkouts of autoworkers in Detroit. With the assistance of the trade union apparatus, this opposition was shut down.

Under the slogan of “the cure can’t be worse than the disease,” first advanced by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and then taken up by Trump, the ruling class adopted measures that guaranteed mass infection and death.

Biden came to power pledging to “follow the science,” but he has in fact implemented the Republican program of removing even minimal restrictions against the spread of the virus. The Biden administration ended the public health emergency and has systematically dismantled all mechanisms for even tracking infections and deaths.

The ruling class, in the US and throughout the world, subordinated public health to private profit. It operated and operates on the principle: Better that a million people die than a billion dollars be lost on the stock market.

Indeed, the premature death of the elderly and disabled is seen by the ruling class as a positive good, since it reduces resources spent on healthcare that can be reallocated to the military and the bailout of the rich.

As a result, more than 27 million people have died internationally, including nearly 1.5 million in the United States alone. Hundreds of millions suffer from the impact of Long COVID, which is completely ignored by the political establishment and the media.

And the pandemic is not over! The virus that causes COVID-19 continues to mutate, and there are alarming signs of a summer surge in the US and in Europe.

The lesson the ruling class has drawn from the pandemic is: “Never again!” Not, never again will a virus kill millions, but never again will even the most minimal measures be taken to save lives.

The fight for a society that prioritizes lives over profit is the fight for socialism. Capitalism is based on the subordination of everything to private profit, to the wealth and privileges of the capitalist oligarchy. And as they have normalized mass death during the pandemic, the ruling elites are now normalizing genocide in Gaza and nuclear war against Russia.

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The Socialist Equality Party fights for socialized medicine, as part of the socialist reorganization of economic life in the US and throughout the world.

Health care is a social right that must be available to everyone free of charge. The giant medical corporations must be placed under democratic control. The parasitic insurance industry—which exists solely to deny people access to healthcare—must be abolished and replaced with universal healthcare.

The SEP calls for the expropriation of the wealth of the corporate and financial oligarchy and an end to imperialist war. The trillions monopolized by the rich and allocated to the means of destruction must instead go to meet pressing social needs. This includes a massive multi-billion dollar program to finance air filtration systems, far-UV lamps and other advanced technologies that can prevent viral transmission. An emergency program must be initiated to develop mucosal vaccines, as well as treatments and a cure for Long COVID.

And the SEP fights for a policy of global elimination—of COVID-19 and other viruses. The public health measures necessary to eliminate and eradicate deadly pathogens are well known. What prevents their implementation is the capitalist system and the interests of the ruling oligarchy.

In these elections, the SEP campaign is the only campaign advancing a program to stop the pandemic or even treat it as a serious political issue. We call on all workers and young people to support and join this fight.