COVID-19 & Capitalism
The COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic has cast in deadly high relief that the United States, the richest country on Earth has a dysfunctional health care system. One should not even call it a system. “It’s unimaginable,” a CNN anchor commented upon seeing footage of hospital tents in New York’s Central Park and a refrigerator truck loading up corpses in Brooklyn. The reports of shortages of everything from testing kits to ventilators to masks to gloves to hospital beds boggle the mind. Where was the preparation? And now where is the coordination? States and countries are competing against one another. Viruses do not recognize borders. Collective global action is the only way forward. Universal medical protocols must be in place. An international public health infrastructure is urgently needed or the next pandemic will make this one look like a picnic.
Speaker
Stephen Bezruchka
Dr. Stephen Bezruchka is on the faculty of the Department of Health Systems and Population Health at the University of Washington. He worked for many years as an emergency physician in Seattle. He worked in Nepal for more than a decade where he helped set up a community health project a week’s walk from the road. He also established a remote district hospital for training Nepali doctors whom he supervised. He is the author of Inequality Kills Us All: COVID-19’s Health Lessons for the World.
Tim in Boulder, CO –
I enjoyed the show tonight with the doctor speaking about COVID19 and capitalism.
Joseph “Ziyang” Lee –
Dr. Steven Bezruchka,
Kudos, sir, on the powerful speech you gave that I’ve just heard on WBAI. I am looking to get hold of the transcript of the speeches either from WBAI or download it here. I got to have it! 🙂 Take care doctor. We need someone like you.
Margarete A. Mayer –
04/11/20
This was an excellent lecture. I am going to get the printout to read it again and again.
Bob Evans –
I tuned into this program when I was randomly scanning radio stations in Melbourne Australia on “good” Friday seeking an alternative to religious music. Dr. Bezruchka presents a very clear-eyed, wide-ranging critique of laissez faire capitalism which never trickles down but always gushes up with little consideration for the consequences of unsustainable consumption of finite resources. I’m going to keep following Dr. Bezruchka.
Jose Bazan –
I just heard this in Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada. It is an EXCELLENT lecture that, more than persuades, obligates anyone to truly ponder on what may be the root cause of the current state of the human being and the world humans have made for themselves. I Highly recommended it for understanding the context of what we are living within.
rrg –
Dr. Bezruchka weaves and interconnects a vast array of important dots to form a coherent mental big picture of how we got here, where we are, and where we can go next.
Art –
I just heard this whole program on kboo. It is excellent and Stephen really makes the situation of this epidemic very clear.
Mikhail Tarech Reheem –
He provides a sober, reality-based analysis of human experience from Hunter-gatherer to hyper-capitalism. This and the inequality of responses from small countries like Taiwan and South Korea to larger societies like the US, Italy, and the Philippines, reveal the failure of capitalism to meet the needs of the people and the earth.
Ray Newkirk, OutsideTheBoxBuilders.us –
This was a GREAT talk! Stephen has a wonderful understanding of world problems pertaining to covid -19 and more and how we can fix them. Highly recommended by me, the healthy, vegan, yogi, renewable-fuel-burning, building-contractor who loves Alternative Radio.