In the 1980s, US hospitals began to transform from institutions providing comprehensive care, no matter how long it took, to healthcare factories intent on shuffling patients in and out as quickly as possible. While this was meant to save money, shortages of basic equipment during the coronavirus outbreak have revealed the high price of these cost-cutting measures.
In the face of the COVID-19 tsunami, our lives are changing in ways that were inconceivable just a few short weeks ago. Not since the 2008-09 economic collapse has the world collectively shared an experience of this kind: a single, rapidly-mutating, global crisis, structuring the rhythm of our daily lives within a complex calculus of risk and competing probabilities.
The catastrophe demonstrates the results when public health is subordinate to private profit and to a governmental apparatus that adulates the superiority of private over public administration. The catastrophe we are living through was caused by a capitalist system that could not anticipate, plan for, or cope with the coronavirus. To “get through” this catastrophe yet leave the system intact will guarantee the next catastrophe.
Price of Canadian oilsands crude plunges to lowest level on record — and could be headed to $0
The cost of buying a barrel of Canadian oil fell to less than a Barrel of Monkeys on Thursday as the oil price again crashed to record levels.
Western Canadian Select (WCS) was selling for $6.45 US a barrel Thursday, down $2.84 US from a day earlier. That's below last week's record when it sold for as low as $7.63 US a barrel.
In the last week the NDP government has taken a host of welcome steps to deal with the Covid-19 crisis in our province. There are a number of glaring exceptions to this, however, especially including Horgan's conntinuing refusal to actually require social distancing when that policy comes into conflict with the economy. Mining and construction are explicitly exempted from this, having been designated as essential services yesterday by the Solicotor-General.
The news that Ireland is nationalizing its healthcare system for the duration of the coronavirus crisis inspired observers including Rep. Ilhan Omar to call for the same approach in the U.S. as the world’s largest economy faces the disease.
A 2014 report warned that reforms to the NHS would make it vulnerable to pandemics – by making staff redundant, undermining public health and defining spare capacity as waste. It was ignored.
