Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

Freedom Rider: The Never Ending COVID Crisis
Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
03 Feb 2021
Freedom Rider: The Never Ending COVID Crisis
Freedom Rider: The Never Ending COVID Crisis

Profits determine the US response to a health care crisis, so Americans are in trouble regardless of who occupies the White House.

“Joe Biden declared that there is nothing he can do about the disease trajectory.”

It was in early 2020 that the word COVID-19 entered the lexicon. In the past year more than 440,000 people in the United States have died from this disease. The impact of shutdowns meant to end the spread of disease have cost millions of people their jobs, and businesses large and small no longer exist at all. COVID-19 has proven that the political system is devoted to the interests of the billionaire class and is therefore incapable of acting in the interests of the people.

The vaccines which hold some promise are distributed by the same for-profit entities that run what passes for a health care system in this country. They are distributed by criteria that each state has developed, resulting in a patchwork of 50 different rules. There are acute shortages of the two-dose vaccines that have been approved thus far. Senior citizens were declared a priority population but they are forced to wait on long lines for hours, and in many locations only people with cars have access to vaccine sites. This supposed priority group is in fact at the bottom of the list.

“COVID-19 has proven that the political system is devoted to the interests of the billionaire class.”

Racial and class disparities persist. In the Washington Heights neighborhood of upper Manhattan, vaccines went to white suburbanites instead of residents in a mostly Latino community. Overall, Latino and Black residents are under-represented among vaccine recipients in New York City. The city of Philadelphia contracted with a 22-year old white man with no health care background and allowed him to develop a vaccine distribution strategy.

All talk of social distancing is meaningless in places where families live in overcrowded housing. Poverty is racialized in this country and the sharp increases in Latino and Black deaths in Los Angeles County are a sad example of this dynamic. Yet that same state will now allow restaurants to re-open, and in doing so will put front line workers, mostly people of color, at risk once again.

“Latino and Black residents are under-represented among vaccine recipients in New York City.”

The continued spread has allowed the virus to do what viruses always do, mutate into variant strains which may require additional vaccine options. Vaccines have been hoarded by the wealthier capitalist countries and most of the world’s people have no assurance that they will be able to access this preventive treatment. 

Donald Trump was blamed for the poor response in 2020 but it is clear that Americans are in trouble regardless of who occupies the White House because profits determine the response to a health care crisis. Joe Biden declared that there is nothing he can do about the disease trajectory and blithely stated that an additional 200,000 deaths are inevitable. His pre-inaugural promise of a $2,000 stimulus payment is now null and void. The sum of $1,400 is now on the table and no one will see that amount until March or April. 

“Vaccines have been hoarded by the wealthier capitalist countries.”

The failed state continues failing the people. It cannot do otherwise. The government does the bidding of the billionaire donor class, just as it did before COVID-19 struck. That evil alliance is the cause of all our troubles. None of the stimulus plans are adequate because they aren’t meant to be. Extra unemployment payments allocated in the first stimulus ended in July because the duopoly want workers back on the job more than they want anything else. Providing help to suffering people in need is the opposite of what the austerity regime demands. 

Trump will be the fall guy for as long as Biden and the Democrats need him to be. He is a very convenient scapegoat after all. Even as the system fails to provide enough testing or vaccines or new treatments, we are already propagandized into believing that Biden can’t be expected to undo the mess that Trump created.

“Providing help to suffering people in need is the opposite of what the austerity regime demands.”

But one need only look beyond U.S. borders to see that capitalism is the issue. China was the first country where the disease appeared but care for that country’s citizens produced a death toll of less than 5,000. A new outbreak there of 100 cases provoked the same response of new hospitals, housing for the infected, and a robust testing protocol. Cuba, beset by crushing U.S. sanctions for 60 years, is producing its own treatments and vaccines and has also experienced a small number of deaths.

All of the ills and contradictions of life in the United States have been exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The crisis continues because this system has not changed. Variants will emerge, the government will pay big pharma to produce more vaccines, and the cycle will continue. The only question is when popular anger will be directed where it belongs, on both sides of the political aisle and in corporate offices. COVID-19 will continue its wreckage until that day comes. 

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well at patreon.com/margaretkimberley and she regularly posts on Twitter @freedomrideblog. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com. 

COMMENTS?

Please join the conversation on Black Agenda Report's Facebook page at http://facebook.com/blackagendareport

Or, you can comment by emailing us at [email protected] 

Covid-19 and Capitalism

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles. Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

The Ongoing Covid Disaster
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
The Ongoing Covid Disaster
23 March 2022
Pollsters have advised Joe Biden to declare covid over. But the pandemic revealed all the shortcomings of a political system which is dedicated
America’s New Dystopian Normal
Donald Earl Collins
America’s New Dystopian Normal
15 March 2022
The high covid death toll in this country is a result of capitalist austerity policies.
Covid Fueled by Neoliberal Austerity
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Covid Fueled by Neoliberal Austerity
05 January 2022
The neo-liberal austerity model of governance ensures that Covid-19 will continue spreading and producing new variants. Only people focused pub
WHO Chief Blasts 'Grotesque' Vaccine Inequality as Rich Nations Block Speedy End of Global Pandemic
Andrea Germanos
WHO Chief Blasts 'Grotesque' Vaccine Inequality as Rich Nations Block Speedy End of Global Pandemic
31 March 2021
"As long as the virus continues to circulate anywhere, people will continue to die, trade and travel will continue to be disrupted, and the economi
The Vaccine Distribution Crisis: Capitalism in its Death Agony
Mya Shone
The Vaccine Distribution Crisis: Capitalism in its Death Agony
10 February 2021
The hoarding of existing supply and the refusal to create a vast public infrastructure capable of producing and distributing COVID-19 vaccines are
Activists Are Mobilizing to Create an Eviction-Free United States
Eleanor J. Bader 
Activists Are Mobilizing to Create an Eviction-Free United States
20 January 2021
Rent strikers are doing all they can to stop the violence of evictions and promote a vision of collective and community ownership of housing for ev
Will COVID-19 Contact Tracing Expand State Surveillance?
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Will COVID-19 Contact Tracing Expand State Surveillance?
06 January 2021
The US remains wholly incapable of tracing Covid-19 contagion, but if it tried, we might wind up with “the worst of both worlds” – a horror of coer
Capitalism on a Ventilator: A New Book Analyzes the Impact of COVID-19 on the U.S. and China
Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
Capitalism on a Ventilator: A New Book Analyzes the Impact of COVID-19 on the U.S. and China
06 January 2021
While China contained Covid-19 and preserved its economy, the U.S.
Cuomo Wins an Emmy for Being an Effective Weapon of Corporate Power
Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
Cuomo Wins an Emmy for Being an Effective Weapon of Corporate Power
10 December 2020
While liberals celebrate Biden and Cuomo at brunch, the situation for the growing class of “have-nots” in the U.S.
Coronavirus Protocols as Tools of Repression
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Coronavirus Protocols as Tools of Repression
10 December 2020
Covid-19 is a convenient excuse for governments to ban or restrict activities they don’t like.

More Stories


  • Jon Jeter
    Ready For the Revolution But Unable to See It: Blacks Recognize Racism But Lack Game Plan to Fight It
    30 Apr 2025
    Black communities once turned righteous fury into systemic change, but today’s outrage over slights like Shedeur Sanders’ NFL draft slide rarely sparks organized resistance. The blueprint for…
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    March, March, March… (For Million Worker March and Brother Ray Quan)
    30 Apr 2025
    "March, March, March… (For Million Worker March and Brother Ray Quan)" is the latest from BAR's Poet-In-Residence.
  • Kai Cash
    Planting Seeds of Sovereignty: Lessons from the Sahel and Beyond
    30 Apr 2025
    When the West slaps on tariffs, it’s 'economic security'—but when the Sahel rejects exploitative deals, it’s called a threat. From Cuba to Burkina Faso, countries have fought for self-sufficiency:…
  • Sean L. Malloy
    How the creation of the ‘New Antisemitism’ was used to shield Israel and attack the Left
    30 Apr 2025
    Challenges to Zionism in the late 1960s and 1970s sparked an effort to redefine antisemitism focused on defending Israel while attacking the political Left. This resulted in the IHRA definition and…
  • Dave DeCamp
    Sixty-Eight Reported Killed by US Airstrike on African Migrant Facility in Yemen
    30 Apr 2025
    The detention facility appears to be the one that was previously targeted by the US-backed Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us