How to end the pandemicAn international webinar with scientists and workers
Speakers
The World Socialist Web Site and the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) are holding an online meeting today, October 24, featuring a distinguished panel of scientists and epidemiologists, to explain the case for the global elimination and potential eradication of COVID-19. Workers involved with rank-and-file committees internationally will also participate, speaking on their experiences during the pandemic and raising questions for the panel of scientists.
After two years of the pandemic, the official global death toll from COVID-19 is now nearly 5 million. The real global death toll, measured by “excess deaths,” is well over 10 million. At present, every day nearly half a million people contract COVID-19 and nearly 6,000 die from the disease. The virus is now infecting children in alarming numbers, fueled by the reopening of schools to in-person learning, with unknown long-term consequences for an entire generation.
Irresponsible and even criminal policies have allowed the virus to spread and mutate. The governments of Boris Johnson in the UK, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and others are pursuing a policy of “herd immunity,” that is, the deliberate mass infection of the population. In the US, the claim of the Biden administration that inadequate “mitigation” measures, combined with vaccinations, can stop the pandemic, is belied by the enormous surge in cases and deaths. In Australia and New Zealand, enormous pressure is being brought to bear on governments to remove travel and other restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19.
The pandemic can and must be stopped. Leading scientists insist that the only feasible and effective strategy is one aimed at the global elimination of COVID-19 among humans. This entails the universal deployment of every weapon in the arsenal of measures to combat the virus, coordinated on a world scale, to stop all human-to-human transmission.
This webinar will explain the science of elimination and eradication and provide the public with the critical knowledge necessary to develop a broad-based and international movement to end the pandemic and reclaim the future.
Dr. Michael Baker
Epidemiologist, University of Ottago, New Zealand
Dr. Deepti Gurdasani
Mary University of London
Dr. Malgorzata Gasperowicz
Developmental biologist at the University of Calgary and co-founder of ZeroCOVIDCanada
Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding
Epidemiologist and Senior Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists
Professor Jose-Luis Jimenez
Professor of Chemistry at the University of Colorado, Boulder-Boulder
Dr. Howard Ehrman
Retired Assistant Professor from the University of Illinois, Chicago College of Public Medicine
Dr. Joe Vipond
Emergency physician at the Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary, Canada
Lisa Diaz
UK parent, member of SafeEdForAll and UK Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee
David O’Sullivan
Victimised UK bus driver sacked for defending the right to a safe workplace
Moderator: David North
Chairman, WSWS International Editorial Board
SundayOctober 241:00 PM - 3:00pmUS Eastern Time
Time zone Conversions
Mexico City: 12 noon, Sunday, October 24
London: 6pm, Sunday, October 24
Berlin: 7pm, Sunday, October 24
Istanbul: 8pm, Sunday, October 24
Mumbai: 10.30pm, Sunday, October 24
Beijing: 1am, Monday, October 25
Sydney: 4am, Monday, October 25
Auckland: 6am, Monday, October 25
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The science of how to end the pandemic
10-minute video
“Vaccines alone can't stop Delta. It's mathematically impossible”
Dr. Malgorzata Gasperowicz explains why stopping a virus as contagious as the Delta variant requires both mass vaccination and masks, and also public health measures like the temporary closure of schools and non-essential workplaces.
These statements and interviews with scientists published by the WSWS since the beginning of the pandemic outline a strategy for the elimination-eradication of COVID-19.
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