Covid-19

The global pandemic in 2020.

Defend the right to protest

The civil rights group Liberty has reported that in the legislation for the new lockdown (5 November to 2 December), the Tories have quietly deleted the exception previously made, in the ban on public gatherings, for political protests done with due care. On 6 November, some 200 people were arrested on an anti-lockdown demonstration in London. The Netherlands, for example, explicitly makes political protests the one high-profile exception to its second-lockdown ban on public gatherings. The right to protest (with due care) is an essential service. However, the government has conceded on picket...

French teachers strike

School teachers in France struck on 10 November to demand better virus controls in schools. Their demands included: • Rota systems, with students in school half-time, to allow half-size classes • More staff, again to facilitate smaller classes • Better ventilation and cleaning • Free masks. (Masks are compulsory in French schools). Unions report a 45% turnout for the strike from junior high schools and 20% from primary. In some areas students blockaded senior high schools in the days before the strike as an act of solidarity. On 5 November, the government tried to deflect the strike by...

Schools: workers' control vs closure

Ireland’s second lockdown (21 October to 2 December), with schools open , has brought a 75% drop in infections from around 19-25 October to 14 November. The Netherlands’ (14 October, tightened from 4 November), with schools open, has brought a 45% drop so far from a 31 October peak. Wales’s, 23 October to 9 November, with schools closed to 2 November, ended with rates no lower than 23 October but maybe a third below peak around 29 October. Northern Ireland’s, 16 October to 13 November, with schools closed to 2 Nov, has got rates 50% down from the 12-18 October peak. Belgium’s (2 November for 6...

More student battles brewing

In the week starting 16 November, groups of students are organising workshops, banner drops, and email campaigns to highlight high rents, draconian lockdowns, and general lack of support at UK Universities. The National Union of Students (NUS) is promoting and encouraging local events, but has stopped short of calling for a national campaign of rent strikes. From 12 November, students at Manchester escalated their rent strike by occupying Owens Park Tower. The occupiers say: “We were lied to and brought onto unsafe campuses, forced to pay insane rent for facilities we can’t even access. We’ve...

Losses for communalists in Bosnia

Municipal elections in Bosnia-Hercegovina, delayed because of Covid-19, took place on 14-15 November, and the earliest indications are that the parties based on ethnic groupings have fared badly amongst voter concerns over widespread corruption and what is seen by many as a disastrous response to the epidemic. In Sarajevo, the SDA (Party of Democratic Action, the party claiming to represent Bosnian Muslims) lost out in three of four voting districts and in Banja Luka, opposition parties made important gains. The HDZBiH (Croat Democratic Union of Bosnia-Hercegovina, the party claiming to...

Right to picket

On 6 November, the police dispersed a covid-distanced picket line over pay at the Optare bus factory in Sherburn-in-Elmet, near Selby in North Yorkshire. They warned strikers they would be issued with penalty notices for breaking lockdown rules if they returned. But after a legal challenge from Unite the Union and the scheduling of a judicial review against the North Yorkshire Chief Constable and the Secretary of State for Health, the government conceded the right to picket should be upheld. It says it will issue guidance to all police forces that workers can undertake covid-distanced...

Worries on testing (John Moloney's column)

The Group Executive Committee for our members in the Department of Transport are preparing plans for a possible ballot of driving instructors. Instructors have been told they’re expected to resume driving tests after lockdown, but we don’t think that’ll be safe. Similar discussions about a possible ballot are taking place amongst our members working in courts. The government wants to roll out mass testing to workers across a number of government departments, including DWP and Home Office. We support an expansion of testing, but there’s a lot that needs firming up. The tests they plan to use...

To win the future, change the movement

The Socialist Campaign Group of left-wing Labour MPs, which relaunched itself at the start of 2020, has published a pamphlet, Winning the Future , on “Socialist Responses to the Coronavirus Crisis”. At a time when drive and radicalism are desperately needed, but Labour’s left is depressed and in retreat, the attempt to rally and raise ambitions is welcome. The pamphlet’s focus on developing and fighting for left-wing policies hopefully indicates a shift from previous Labour left reticence there. Its call for discussion of its proposals throughout the labour movement is encouraging. After an...

Thoughts on the vaccine news

There’s a tiny spark of optimism in the gloom of this November lockdown. On Monday, Pfizer and BioNTech announced, to everyone’s surprise, interim analysis showing their vaccine candidate for Covid-19 may have up to 90% efficacy in preventing symptomatic cases of Covid-19 in participants who received two doses three weeks apart. That was based on analysis of 94 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in a trial expected to enrol 44,000 people across the globe. Experts were cautioning that initial Covid-19 vaccine efficacy could be much lower. The US Food and Drug Association had set its bar for approval...

Back to the lockdown, then forward to...?

We’re now in a new era of lockdowns. This article reviews the progress of some of them and looks back to discussions around the first wave of lockdowns. Ireland’s lockdown, running from 21 October to 2 December, with non-essential shops shut (as well as cafés, pubs, etc.), but schools open, has brought a 66% reduction in new case rates from peak. Northern Ireland’s lockdown, 16 October to 13 November, which included closing schools to 2 November, has produced a 40-odd% reduction in new cases from the peak. Wales’s, from 23 October to 9 November, has brought new infections only, at best...

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