Statement on the Covid-19 health crisis

El CLACSO Working Group Social Studies for Health It expresses its concern about the COVID-19 health emergency that the world is experiencing, which appears above the current crisis of the global capitalist system, which has not yet recovered from the so-called real estate bubble of 2007, and which the United States is taking advantage of as an opportunity, despite its tragedy, to attack the region and advance its strategic needs.

The health crisis will also manifest itself acutely in the coming weeks in our continent, as is already happening in cities in the United States, despite the millions of dollars of resources launched to alleviate a weak private health insurance system that leaves at least 50 million Americans and undocumented migrants unprotected; Ecuador, in turn, is already showing the possible dimensions of the humanitarian tragedy that the region may find itself in this month and the beginning of May.

We are facing a health crisis of enormous proportions without robust universal public health systems, within the context of ongoing processes of democratic progress and regression in the region. It is worth remembering that, in general, in addition to the structurally unequal conditions of the countries, health systems have been subject to neoliberal policies for the last 30 years, characterized by states that are weak in their commitment to public services but strong in creating a market-driven model for health and social policy through privatization, labor flexibility and precarity, limited and basic public services, and the provision of so-called catastrophic health services as compensation for potential harm, financed by increased out-of-pocket expenses for families and public spending. In this context, prevention and health promotion have been conspicuously absent, explaining the high rates of morbidity and the epidemics of diabetes and obesity. Despite having younger populations than their European counterparts, these populations are more vulnerable to the severity of the pandemic, not only among those over 60.

Some of the conclusions, evidence, and lessons learned so far from the pandemic, pending further reflection beyond the unprecedented human consequences with 89.000 deaths worldwide, are:

• The profound inequalities in living conditions on the planet;
• The imbalance between current human development conditions and the state of humanity constitutes the ecological tragedy caused by current human practices, of which this pandemic is a sign;
• As far as the South is concerned, the pandemic has made it clear that there is no safe population as long as most citizens cannot comply with the recommended preventive care because they must leave their homes to obtain daily income;
• That housing does not have conditions to retain large and precarious family groups such as those in Latin America and the Caribbean, where overcrowding and deficiencies facilitate the reproduction of unhealthy relationships including various forms of violence;
• It is also not new that a very high proportion of Latin American families do not have access to drinking water to prevent infection by the virus through hand washing;
• The poverty and lack of protection that affects more than half the population in Latin America and the Caribbean establishes the limitations of the current system and the need for its transformation. We need to inhabit inclusive societies; now is the time to establish the conditions for formulating an inclusive, diverse, and inward-looking economic system that generates employment and connects with local communities and Mother Earth, in opposition to neoliberal capitalist and extractive exploitation.
• Capital never loses. Even in humanity's worst circumstances, capital has profited by generating new productive forces. Today, this is happening in the healthcare sector. The lack of human resources, materials, supplies, equipment, and technologies, along with insufficient medicines to address not only daily healthcare needs but also the pandemic, lends itself to the worst commercial practices of the globalized world. Industrial sectors are demanding that states once again become dependent on debt from international financial institutions, while the aggression against the sovereignty of insurgent countries like Venezuela and Cuba continues unabated. We demand that the United States lift the blockade for these countries, allowing them not only to confront the pandemic but also to normalize their financial and economic relations with the world.
• That solidarity and collaboration within and between countries in a new international order can allow us to better face the pandemic, as there are already examples, and be the beginning of confronting ignorance, poverty, and inequality.

April 27
CLACSO Working Group
Social studies for health

This statement expresses the position of the Social Studies for Health Working Group and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.