Phil Shannon casts a critical eye on the interplay between the engines of the COVID crisis: Illness, capital, class oppression and state overreach. In doing so, he raises questions that those on the left would do well to consider.
The “Covid left” has ended up sounding like rightwing reactionaries, writes Phil Shannon, and the left needs to drop its suspicion of the word “freedom”.
Part 1 reviewed the technical reasons why masks don’t work, and documented the suite of health harms they pose in return. Part 2 seeks to explain why they have risen to such prominence despite this.
On average, we touch our faces 23 times an hour. In part 1, Phil Shannon summarises the overwhelming evidence that shows face masks don’t protect and points out the multiple ways in which they harm.
The second part of a two part update from Australia by our correspondent, Phil Shannon.
A case study of the Zero Covid policy of the Australian government (and its Kiwi neighbour) will show the damaging fantasy that is Zero Covid, for any country foolish enough to attempt it.
When he was reflecting on the seemingly interminable periods of political stasis when nothing much changes, interrupted by concentrated outbreaks of dynamic political developments, Lenin astutely observed that “there are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen”.
