As the pandemic builds, most people, led by government officials and policy wonks, perceive the threat solely in terms of human health and its impact on the national economy. Consistent with the prevailing vision, mainstream media call almost exclusively on physicians and epidemiologists, financiers and economists to assess the consequences of the viral outbreak.
The coronavirus pandemic is overwhelming to comprehend. There are now hundreds of thousands of confirmed cases. Tens of thousands have died. Nations are on lockdown as the disease continues to spread. The planet is in crisis.
How did this happen?
What are the underlying political, economic and environmental structures that paved the way for this global outbreak? Where do pandemics emerge from? Is our capitalist way of life biologically sustainable?
The ongoing pandemic epoch has exposed a clear duality marked both by increasingly obvious and blatant inequalities, hypocrisies and systemic failures as well as beautiful, loving and creative responses in the form of mutual aid communities and direct action to save lives.
VANCOUVER -- Homeless activists and their supporters occupied the recently closed North Surrey Recreation Centre for several hours Wednesday night to call attention to the danger the COVID-19 pandemic poses to people living on the streets or in insufficient housing.
Dubbing the occupation the "Hothouse Squat," the group issued a press release saying it planned to occupy the vacant building as a safe place to live during the pandemic.
170 Dutch academics sign manifesto for sustainable, equal and diverse societies based on international solidarity
The following statement, signed by 170 academics from eight universities in the Netherlands, has been widely reported in the Dutch press, becoming a focus for discussion on how to avoid repeating past mistakes when in planning for the future.
Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps wants the B.C. government to use its emergency powers to requisition empty hotel and motel rooms for people without homes during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Health officials in British Columbia and Saskatchewan are advising people to self-isolate if they’re returning from an area of Alberta where an oil sands site is suffering from a COVID-19 outbreak.
The Saskatchewan Health Authority said in a statement that it and the Northern Inter-Tribal Health Authority have begun a contact tracing investigation into new cases of the novel coronavirus in the province’s north that are related to cross-boundary travel.
It’s a question that’s been debated since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau eyed broader emergency powers for the federal government and left the door open to using cellphone data to track compliance with physical-distancing rules.
