Coronavirus crisis. When, if ever, will a vaccine be widely available?

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There would seem to be good prospects for safe and effective vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 [COVID-19] coronavirus.



First, numerous teams of scientists are working in parallel, applying diverse approaches to the problem. According to Dr. Stanley Plotkin, inventor of the rubella vaccine,[1] at least forty possible vaccines are already under development. Besides European and North American biotech companies, Chinese, Indian, and Japanese companies are now in the race. China alone is developing nine potential vaccines.



In addition, the Oslo-based Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations is funding several research efforts by non-commercial organizations.[2] Non-commercial projects are of special value, because they are not bound by the commercial secrecy that impedes cooperation among scientists working for different companies.



The Boston-based company Moderna has already begun a first-phase clinical trial of an RNA vaccine – a new type – on human subjects.[3]



Second, the evidence so far indicates that the virus is slow to mutate. Genetic differences among the strains that have emerged in different countries are slight. This greatly simplifies the task. Any vaccines developed to protect against the virus in its current forms will probably remain potent for a considerable period.  



Third, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is new but not completely new. It bears some similarity to other coronaviruses and especially to the SARS coronavirus of 2002—2003 (this is why it is labeled as SARS No. 2) and also to the MERS coronavirus of 2012—2014. This family resemblance to viruses that have already been studied facilitates the search for a vaccine.[4]  



Squandered advantage



However, much of the advantage that this family resemblance could have given was squandered when research into SARS and MERS was discontinued after the corresponding epidemics ended. In particular, Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi and her team at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development developed early vaccines against SARS and MERS but in 2016 were unable to obtain funding to conduct clinical trials. Such trials that would have given a head start to current work on a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Researchers would already have some idea of how humans react to one class of possible vaccines against members of the SARS family of coronaviruses.[5]



Why then was ‘no one interested’ in funding trials of these vaccines? Presumably, funders saw little if any point in developing vaccines against viruses that had apparently disappeared and seemed unlikely to return. That attitude would have reflected not only a poor understanding of the science but also a narrowness of vision typical of a profit-driven society, in which decision makers see no palpable advantage in contributing to a broadly conceived research program. 



It is precisely such a program that we humans need in our present predicament. To quote another scientist[6]:   



We need coordinated research, worldwide, on virus illnesses, to be prepared for the next mutation. It will be impossible to cover all possible variants, but we would be much closer to a new mutation than we are now.



This makes good sense. A socialist world community would do it that way. But is such a high degree of global coordination feasible in a world of competing producers and rival nation-states?



Delay, delay



The time needed from the start of research on a new vaccine until it is marketed is commonly estimated as 12—18 months, although many commentators say that it could easily take two years and some give an upper limit of three years or even longer. Dr. Plotkin recalls that ‘it took at least five years before a vaccine [for rubella] was on the market’ and adds: ‘We cannot afford to have that kind of delay in an emergency like this one.’ He urges companies to ‘go into superaction’ immediately, with a view to having a vaccine available in the event of a second wave of the pandemic next winter – that is, within about 8 months. 



One major reason why the process takes so long is the number and duration of the clinical trials required to get a vaccine licensed by regulatory agencies like the US Food and Drug Administration. The official purpose of licensing is to ensure the safety and efficacy of drugs and vaccines. In practice, the FDA was long ago ‘captured’ by the companies it is supposed to regulate, with most of the scientists who sit on its advisory committees dependent on those companies.[7] FDA decisions therefore tend to reflect the interests of the companies that have the most political clout at the time.  



Monopolization and extortion



Another recommendation made by Dr. Plotkin is that the FDA should license not one but several vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, ‘because if we need millions of doses a single manufacturer will not be able to make enough for the world.’ This too makes good sense. Or at least it would if production were carried on to satisfy human needs. However, we live under a global system in which production is for profit. 



How then does a company that develops and produces vaccines act in order to maximize its profit? It seeks to monopolize the market for a vaccine against a specific disease by ensuring that its vaccine – and its vaccine alone! – is licensed. Then it applies for a patent on its vaccine – another significant cause of delay. Monopolization sets the scene for extortion. The company sells its vaccine at an exorbitant price that makes it unaffordable to most of those who need it.   



How many times this has happened in the past! A few years ago, for instance, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization, one of the committees that advises the British National Health Service, recommended that a new vaccine against Meningitis B manufactured by Novartis NOT be made available to all children in the UK, even though this terrible disease afflicts 1,870 people per year. It was ‘highly unlikely to be cost effective’ – in other words, it was too expensive.[8] And this in a country that for over seven decades now has had what ‘progressive’ Americans politicians call ‘Medicare for All’! Vaccines against the scourge of viral hepatitis are likewise too expensive for large-scale use.[9] 



Indeed, there has already been an attempt to monopolize a future SARS-CoV-2 vaccine – one that does not yet even exist. In mid-March, the German press reported that the Trump Administration was trying to secure exclusive rights to any vaccine created by the German pharmaceutical company CureVac. Research and development would then be moved to the United States and the vaccine made available only in the United States.[10]



Notes



 [1] Interviewed here.



 [2] As of March 21, six projects. See http://cepi.net/news_cepi.





 [4] See the article by researchers at La Jolla Institute for Immunology in the March 16 online issue of Cell, Host and Microbe.



 [5] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/coronavirus-vaccine-cure-doctor-peter-hotez-covid-19-us-trump-congress-states-a9378001.html. For a detailed assessment and references to articles by members of the Bottazzi team, see comments by pharmaceutical engineer Christopher C. VanLang on the question-and-answer website quora.com.  



 [6] Physicist Cees J.M. Lanting on the question-and-answer website quora.com.



 [7] This includes scientists directly employed by companies, scientists working for them on contract, and the many university scientists who depend on corporate money to fund their research. In fact, there are so few genuinely independent scientists that the FDA would be unable to rely mainly on them even if its leading officials wished to do so. 



 [8] 10% of victims die, while many survivors become deaf or blind or have to have limbs amputated (The Independent, July 24, 2013; Daily Mail, August 24, 2013). 



 [9] Vaccines exist for types A and B of this disease. See here. For a discussion of the availability of vaccines in underdeveloped countries, see here.



 [10] The Washington Post, March 16. 


Stephen Shenfield

http://www.wspus.org/2020/03/coronavirus-crisis-when-if-ever-will-a-vaccine-be-widely-available/

Big Ag

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The US agriculture giant Monsanto and the German chemical giant BASF were aware for years that their plan to introduce a new agricultural seed and chemical system would probably lead to damage on many US farms.



Risks were downplayed even while they planned how to profit off farmers who would buy Monsanto’s new seeds just to avoid damage, according to documents unearthed.



The documents also reveal how Monsanto opposed some third-party product testing in order to curtail the generation of data that might have worried regulators.



The new crop system developed by Monsanto and BASF was designed to address the fact that millions of acres of US farmland have become overrun with weeds resistant to Monsanto’s glyphosate-based weedkillers, best known as Roundup. The collaboration between the two companies was built around a different herbicide called dicamba.



In the Roundup system, farmers could spray glyphosate herbicides such as Roundup over the top of certain crops that Monsanto genetically engineered to survive being sprayed with the pesticide. This “glyphosate-tolerant” crop system has been popular with farmers around the world but has led to widespread weed resistance to glyphosate. The new system promoted by Monsanto and BASF similarly provides farmers with genetically engineered dicamba-tolerant soybeans and cotton that can be sprayed directly with dicamba. The weeds in the fields die but the crops do not. Dicamba has been in use since the 1960s but traditionally was used sparingly, and not on growing crops, because it has a track record of volatilizing – moving far from where it is sprayed – particularly in warm growing months. As it moves it can damage or kill the plants it drifts across. The companies announced in 2011 that they were collaborating in the development of the dicamba-tolerant cropping systems, granting each other reciprocal licenses, with BASF agreeing to supply formulated dicamba herbicide products to Monsanto. The companies said they would make new dicamba formulations that would stay where they were sprayed and would not volatilize as older versions of dicamba were believed to do. With good training, special nozzles, buffer zones and other “stewardship” practices, the companies assured regulators and farmers that the new system would bring “really good farmer-friendly formulations to the marketplace”.



But records show agricultural experts warned that the plan to develop a dicamba-tolerant system could have catastrophic consequences. The experts told Monsanto that farmers were likely to spray old volatile versions of dicamba on the new dicamba-tolerant crops and even new versions were still likely to be volatile enough to move away from the special cotton and soybean fields on to crops growing on other farms.

Importantly, under the system designed by Monsanto and BASF, only farmers buying Monsanto’s dicamba-tolerant cotton and soybean seeds would be protected from dicamba drift damage. Other cotton and soybean farmers and farmers growing everything from wheat to watermelons would be at risk from the drifting dicamba.
According to a report prepared for Monsanto in 2009 as part of industry consultation, such “off-target movement” was expected, along with “crop loss”, “lawsuits” and “negative press around pesticides”. Just as Monsanto has done in the Roundup litigation, Monsanto and BASF sought to keep most of the discovery documents they turned over in the dicamba litigation designated confidential. Several million acres of crops have now been reported damaged by dicamba, according to industry estimates. 
The documents show that both companies were excited about the profit potential in the new system. BASF projected its new dicamba herbicide would be a “$400m brand in two years”, with sales by May 2017 exceeding $131m and a gross profit of 45%. The companies saw part of the opportunity in selling to soybean and cotton farmers who didn’t need or want the special dicamba-tolerant crops but could be convinced to buy them as a means to protect their crops from dicamba drift, the documents show. That strategy was noted in multiple documents. In one BASF 2016 strategy update, the company noted “defensive planting” as a “potential market opportunity”. Monsanto also saw “new users” in farmers who suffered drift damage.





Who are important?

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During the last global financial crisis in 2008 banks were considered important. Too big to fail was the slogan.



  Now, amid COVID-19, important means front-line nurses, doctors, drivers and teachers because without them nothing would work anymore. But unlike the bankers 12 years ago, these people are NOT responsible for the crisis.



  It is the so-called “little people” like shop workers who face the daily risk of being infected — a risk not to be not be underestimated — by just continuing to do their job every day. 



One can only hope that the coronavirus crisis will make some of us rethink our priorities. But do you really believe things will change?

Lockdown cracks begin to show

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Well into its third week of the lockdown, desperate people in Italy are begging for help because they have run out of money and food.



A video has been shared around the country showing a father with his young daughter addressing the Italian prime minister, saying: “It’s already 15-20 days that we’ve been inside and we’re at our limit. “He gestures to his little girl who is eating a piece of bread and says: “Like my daughter, other children in a few days won’t be able to eat this bit of bread. Rest assured, you will regret this because we’re going to have a revolution.”
Police descended on supermarkets in Palermo in Sicily after reports people have started stealing to feed themselves. 

The mayor of Palermo warns a social emergency is next. 
Leoluca Orlando said, “The more time passes, the more resources are exhausted. The few savings people have are running out. This tells us socio-economic issues will erupt.”

The further south you go, the higher the level of deprivation and the higher the unemployment. While the virus hasn’t reached the same crisis levels in southern Italy, hunger and hardship threaten to be even bigger problems. Lockdown is the only solution to save lives. But in southern Italy, for many, it feels like it’s threatening their very survival.
Closer to home, around a thousand workers at the food processing plant at Moy Park in Portadown went out on a wildcat strike over coronavirus safety concerns, including adequate social distancing. This was followed by a strike of 80 workers at the ABP food processing plant in Lurgan, Co. Armagh, expressing the same concerns. 40 workers at the Linden Foods processing factory in Dungannon in Co. Tyrone followed the examples of Moy Park and Lurgan and refused to start their shifts. There were grave concerns over workers exhibiting symptoms being allowed to work, as well as those with family members self-isolating because of being in high risk categories, and inadequate washing facilities.



How much is a human life worth?

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Private equity manager and former manager of Goldman Sachs’ Germany operation, Alexander Dibelius, has publicly wondered whether it is right to protect the 10% of the population that is at particularly high risk from coronavirus while allowing the economy to be affected.



The financial daily Handelsblatt published an interviewwith investor Alexander Dibelius.



Dibelius opposes the measures designed to delay the spread of the virus. He justifies this by saying that “the acute collapse of the world economy with all of its consequences is the much larger and more dangerous stress test than Sars-CoV-2.” He is “more worried” about the “collective shutdown of the economy and social life, implemented with virtually no discussion and with a raised moral finger” than “this viral infection.”
“Is it right,” he asks, “that 10 percent of the population—the really high-risk group—is protected while 90 percent and the entire economy are massively crippled, with the potentially dramatic consequence that the basis for our general wellbeing will be massively and permanently eroded?”
“Better the flu than a broken economy,” is how he sums up his position.



COVID-19 culling the elderly – Good for the economy

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A Daily Telegraph assistant editor, Jeremy Warner, has suggested coronavirus could ‘prove mildly beneficial’ to the UK economy by killing off elderly Britons. He reasoned the 1918 Spanish flu had a ‘lasting impact on supply’ because it killed off ‘primary bread-winners’, which he said is unlikely to happen with coronavirus.



He wrote: ‘Not to put too fine a point on it, from an entirely disinterested economic perspective, the COVID-19 might even prove mildly beneficial in the long term by disproportionately culling elderly dependents.’


Responding to criticism in the article’s comments section, Warner said he is ‘unrepentant about the economic point I was trying to make’. He wrote: ‘Any thinning out of those of prime working age is a much bigger supply shock than the same thing among elderly retirees. ‘Obviously, for those affected it is a human tragedy whatever the age, but this is a piece about economics, not the sum of human misery.’


COVID-19 Can Be a Catalyst

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Working people must be wondering in the middle of this COVID-19 pandemic if the wealthy and powerful have been contaminated by another sort of virus – humanitarianism. Some are quite baffled by the ruling class’s response to COVID-19. Why has our ruling class suspended the laws of capitalism, closing down production, shutting down borders, ending the movement of peoples, foregoing share dividends? What has made those who normally have little concern for the well-being of their employees suddenly panic?



One obvious motivation looms large – the ruling class is not protected from this virus, unlike diseases of poverty like TB which is the most prevalent infectious disease that kills a million every year. So they have reason to be seriously worried. Historically public health legislation has been passed e.g. for water sanitation, clean air etc, when the ruling class also found themselves affected. Their most immediate worry they’ve got is catching it themselves, as all the money in the world can’t buy a cure right now. Their more long-term worry is going bust amid a global slump while governments are also racking up unsustainable levels of debt, and The operating laws of capitalism may be suspended for several weeks and perhaps several months but they cannot be broken permanently – hence the growing voices albeit still minority now saying lets return to normalcy and accept the inevitable deaths as the price worth paying. We can be sure all parties will be very keen to tell workers it’s safe to go back to work at the  earliest possible opportunity, as soon as international health regulators can be persuaded to back their play. Whether workers will be convinced is debatable, however once the temporary subsidies are removed they won’t have any choice in the matter.



But is the fear of getting the virus isn’t the overriding factor for the ruling class. We can suspect it’s the fear of a total collapse of the social order.



Capitalism remains stable as long as populations are acquiescent and docile, doing what they’ve been brought up to do, but that requires a quid pro quo from the rich, an income to cover food, rent or mortgages and utility bills, to provide healthcare and general security. You can always deprive or deny a proportion of the population but not all of it simultaneously, and certainly not globally.



The spectre that’s haunting the minds of our masters must be the possibility of massive discontent and social disorder breaking out worldwide. No wonder they’re panicking with visions of their Old Etonian chums being strung up from the lampposts. If that seems exaggerated let’s remember that the ruling class is the class-conscious class. They know what’s in store for them if the 99% rise up against them. They must be thinking that if they mess this up, they could be facing revolution in country after country from desperate workers who have nothing to lose. And we should add it is said that workers are just six meals away from the barricades.



It has been the voluntarism of working people that has kept society running. A new disease has gone viral – one that is spreading solidarity. There is a new epidemic – an outbreak of altruism – a rush to help one another. When this pandemic eventually subsides, those who had been previously ignored and neglected will they forget that their communities survived because of their contributions and sacrifices. Surely, there’ll be a day of reckoning?



This pandemic is most probably the greatest political and economic development in our life-time. It could also be one of socialists greatest opportunity in generations to present the case for a society of mutual solidarity. iI has empowered those who previously were seen as surplus to requirements. Capitalism has identified who really are the key workers to the operation of its economics. Surely the shelf-stackers, the uber and gig workers will not forget the lesson. The skills and scalpel of the surgeons was very much secondary to the scrubbing brush and disinfectant of the hospital cleaners.


It is not unprecedented for capitalism to give priority to something other than profit-making. They don’t in major wars where their priority is victory and they spend “what it takes” to achieve this. But once the war over, it’s a return to prioritising profit as usual. Which is what will happen after this public health crisis is over.


But as in post-WW2 Britain, people expect their sacrifices to be rewarded and received the Welfare State. Can we now expect to raise our economic demands and exercise our newly discovered power if we are refused.


What will capitalism do this time around? Will it opt, as it did in 2008 recession, for policies of austerity to restore profits and to pay back the debt of extra government spending? Or shall we recognise that it was cooperation and solidarity which got us through COVID-19. 


The task now for socialists is to use this coronavirus crisis to strengthen the case for socialism – that even with social distancing, and self isolation we are social animals and when push comes to shove, we will work together as citizens of the world. This pandemic is exposing the inequalities inherent within capitalist society and also to point out the cooperation and mutual aid initiatives being set up as positive signs of perhaps social changes that in future maybe stepping stones to socialism. Today, offers an opportunity for ourselves to promote our vision for the future, one of social ownership and social planning of production.



Workers make the world run.

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Workers for Instacart, the Silicon Valley start-up that employs 175,000 people to deliver groceries nationwide via its online platform, plan to walk off the job Monday if the company does not immediately provide them with hazard pay and increased safety precautions to protect them from the deadly coronavirus now ravaging the nation.



Instacart’s delivery workers are demanding hazard pay of $5 per order, free hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes, and paid sick leave for workers with pre-existing medical conditions that would make COVID-19, more dangerous if they contract it.

Like millions of sanitation workers, pharmacy and grocery store employees, and healthcare workers across the country, said Instacart worker and strike organizer Vanessa Bain, the company’s shoppers “are working on the frontlines in the capacity of first responders”—all while many other Americans are able to work from home.



“Instacart’s corporate employees are provided with health insurance, life insurance, and paid time off and [are] also eligible for sick pay and paid family leave,” Bain told Vice. adding that the company’s gig workers “are afforded none of these protections.”

“We deserve and demand better,” Bain added. “Without [us], Instacart will grind to a halt.”


Bain slammed the company for “profiting significantly off of this pandemic” and planning to hire 300,000 new shoppers to keep up with demand and capitalize on the unemployment crisis resulting from the pandemic, while failing to ensure the safety of its current workers.


“Instacart has been busy crafting a rather heroic public image as the saviors of families sheltered-in-place, and as the economic saviors of laid off workers,” Bain explained. “In truth, Instacart is providing no protection to its existing gig workers.”




Instacart’s current sick leave policy for its delivery workers allows them to take two weeks of paid leave only if they test positive for the coronavirus. With tests in short supply and many Americans being told by healthcare providers that they don’t qualify for testing, Instacart could be forcing many of its shoppers to work while ill—or at least contagious. Providing the workers with safety supplies and a fair paid sick leave policy could actually save lives.



Considering delivery and grocery workers are just some of the millions of Americans considered “essential” during the public health crisis, “it’s especially cruel to withhold these guarantees from the very workers keeping millions of people fed,” tweeted Joelle Stangler, a field director for Sen. Bernie Sanders.



 Companies like Uber, Lyft, and Instacart would be nothing without the laborers they treat so poorly—people now deemed ‘essential’. No employee, especially those who work for one of the wealthiest corporations in the world, should be forced to work in unsafe conditions. Workers at Amazon warehouses worldwide continue to raise concerns that their employer is not doing enough to protect them from exposure to COVID-19



The pandemic proves that low-waged workers make the world run. Hopefully, history books will record 2020 as the year when people began to mobilize and launch the long-overdue political and social revolution. Common sense tells us it is now time to change what up until now has been considered “conventional” behavior. Now is the time to build  a movement for radical social change. We are all in this together. Hopefully 2020 will be remembered as the moment of transformational change when working people finally awoke. 



“Rise like Lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number-

Shake your chains to earth like

dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you

Ye are many-they are few.”
Shelley




https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/27/without-us-instacart-will-grind-halt-delivery-workers-threaten-strike-over-hazard

Farmers need foreign workers

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Charter flights to bring in agricultural workers from eastern Europe are needed as a matter of urgency, otherwise fruit and vegetables will be left unpicked in Britain’s fields. Some large farms have already been chartering planes to bring in labour from eastern Europe. British growers have been contacting companies in the hospitality sector to recruit laid-off staff.
90,000 workers are needed, many in just a few weeks’ time. One leading supplier, Concordia, was looking to bring in around 10,000 labourers – half from the EU and the rest from Russia, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia and Barbados. But all of the non-EU countries are closed. In a big setback, Ukraine extended its lockdown from 2 April until 23 April.

Stephanie Maurel, Concordia’s chief executive, said: “Our recruitment outside the EU is stalled which leaves us with Lithuania, which has closed borders, Romania with no airplanes, and Bulgaria which is our little beacon.”



Nick Marston, the chairman of British Summer Fruits, said. “They may be people from eastern Europe who were working here in the hospitality sector, who are relatively young and don’t have that many ties and want a job paying reasonable pay in reasonable conditions.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/28/fruit-and-veg-will-run-out-unless-britain-charters-planes-to-fly-in-farm-workers-from-eastern-europe

There is Always Money for War

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The government has quietly drawn up proposals to lend other countries £1bn of public money so that they can buy British-made bombs and surveillance technology.



The plan was revealed in a single sentence slipped into this month’s budget. Unveiling a new £2bn lending facility for projects supporting clean growth, the government also announced the creation of “a new £1bn fund to support overseas buyers of UK defence and security goods and services”.  The fund will be overseen by UK Export Finance, which gives loans to help foreign countries, especially those with developing economies, buy British goods and services.



“Even in times of crisis, the government is showing that it will go to any length to sell as many weapons as possible,” said Andrew Smith of Campaign Against Arms Trade. “The arms deals being supported with this money could be used in enabling atrocities and abuses for years to come. Government should be regulating and controlling arms sales, not using public money and doing everything it can to promote them.”



In 2018, the latest figures available, the UK won arms contracts worth £14bn. Between 2008 and 2018 the UK was the second biggest arms exporter in the world, with 19% of the market share. Three-fifths of arms sales over the period went to the Middle East. £5.3bn of arms have been licensed to Saudi Arabia since the war in Yemen began. 



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/28/revealed-1bn-of-taxpayers-cash-to-help-foreign-countries-buy-british-arms

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