COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic or simply COVID, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a respiratory syndrome caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The Chinese government first identified the virus in the city of Wuhan in December of 2019, quickly recognizing its potential for a global outbreak and moving to contain it. However, the virus spread throughout China and eventually across the world. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern from January 2020 until May 2023, and still continues to refer to the outbreak as a pandemic. As of 12 July 2023, the pandemic had caused around 700 million reported cases and over 6 million deaths.

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered varied responses from world governments, including mask mandates, lockdowns, quarantines, testing, and restrictions on travel. States such as China, Australia, and Taiwan responded effectively to the pandemic with a comprehensive set of policies, whereas heads of state like Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil actively blocked local and state anti-COVID measures. However, the virus triggered a global economic shock regardless of local policy, partly due to the failure of the indecisive policy of the United States, as well as the "supply shock" engendered by travel and work restrictions. A correlation has been demonstrated between prior COVID infection and a variety of long-lasting symptoms, including breathing issues, diminished sense of smell, or even non-respiratory issues such as brain fog, a syndrome known colloquially as "long COVID".

The global spread of the COVID pandemic in early 2020 was the trigger for a worldwide social, economic, and political crisis which intensified the secular contradictions of late neoliberalism. In the United States, the crisis played a major role in the 2020 George Floyd protests, the election of Joe Biden, and the January 6th riot. The US government's poor handling of the pandemic resulted in the deaths of over one million Americans. In addition, the virus triggered an explosion of reactionary conspiracy theories in Western countries concerning vaccines, the Chinese government, and the virus itself. Western governments and politicians took advantage of the outbreak to fuel anti-China sentiment, variously claiming that the Chinese government had poorly handled the outbreak or even caused it deliberately. Chinese citizens, on the contrary, showed high support for their government's COVID policies in a 2020 poll. Even after revising its zero-COVID policy, China remains the country with the least COVID cases per capita and has a death rate far lower than any other industrial nation.

Impact by country

United States

By 2023, the US had over one million COVID deaths, making it the country with the highest death count by a margin of over 400,000. The United States accounts for over 17% of global COVID deaths but only 4% of the world's population.

In May of 2020, data analyst Rebekah Jones was fired by the Florida Department of Health after attempting to make changes to the state's online COVID dashboard which she claimed would better represent the data. Her changes revised infection counts upward and indicated that most counties were not ready for lockdown to be relaxed, contradicting Governor Ron Desantis's optimistic rhetoric about the state's COVID situation. Police searched Jones's home in December 2020, ostensibly in response to her unauthorized attempts to contact state employees about her firing. After an investigation, the Florida inspector general stated in 2022 that Jones's removal did not constitute a violation of state policy, but that her claims about the circumstances of her removal had been accurate. Florida was and remains one of the US states with the highest infection and death rates.

Labor struggle in the United States has gone through a major shift in the three years since the outbreak. Interest in labor organizing is on the rise across the country. In addition, conflict over "work from home" (WFH) policies continues.

Responses

Leftist reactions

Responding to the COVID crisis and its fallout has been a controversial issue on the left. In many countries, especially in the West, COVID quickly became a part of the culture war in which liberals supported the policies and rhetoric of neoliberal governments and reactionaries opposed anti-COVID measures such as lockdowns, mask mandates, and in the United States, vaccination. Many leftists became reluctant to criticize liberal government responses in the face of reactionary attacks, mostly criticizing right-wingers and reactionaries as responsible for continued COVID deaths. In addition, anti-China radlibs assimilated Western establishment talking points which decried the oppressive lockdown policies of the Chinese government. Some leftists, on the contrary, adopted anti-vaccine or anti-lockdown positions; for example, anti-establishment journalist Max Blumenthal held the laissez-faire herd immunity policy of states like Israel to be superior to Western lockdowns and vaccines, which he viewed to be unjust to the point of constituting elite class war and "a mass science experiment".