Dr. Vandana Shiva: Why treating coronavirus crisis as a war will not work (E873)
We speak to Dr. Vandana Shiva, the founder of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy, who was awarded the Right Livelihood Award. She discusses why the war-like approach of governments around the world to fight Covid-19 will not succeed, how the coronavirus and other diseases such as Swine Flu and Bird Flu are the result of monoculture factory farms and neoliberal capitalism, how big agriculture and the ‘poison cartel’ have caused the weakening of ecosystems and humans, which has resulted in humans being more susceptible to viruses, how the lack of diversity caused by Big Agriculture has made viral diseases more inevitable, the damage GMO seeds have caused to ecosystems, making pandemics more likely, why there must be a fight against neoliberalism, why big tech executives like Mark Zuckerberg are the new ‘robber barons’ and more! Finally, we speak to Tony O’Sullivan, the director of ‘Keep Our NHS Public’. He discusses the damage privatisation and underfunding under governments since Thatcher has done to the NHS, why the NHS can’t produce its own PPE and is now relying on China, the revelations of Operation Cygnus which showed in 2016 that the UK was unprepared for a pandemic and more!
STATEMENT FROM THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION:
WHO is deeply concerned about the impact the pandemic will have on other health services, especially for children. Prevention services for other infectious diseases and immunization campaigns have been put on hold or shut down in some countries, because of COVID-19. We call on the global community to ensure this life saving work is fully funded.
WHO has issued detailed guidance on the issue. Please see this publication, on maintaining essential health services and systems: https://www.who.int/publications-detail/covid-19-operational-guidance-for-maintaining-essential-health-services-during-an-outbreak
See also our COVID-19 strategy where these topics are addressed in detail.
https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/covid-strategy-update-14april2020.pdf?sfvrsn=29da3ba0_19
The issue was also addressed at one of our press meetings recently: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/transcripts/who-audio-emergencies-coronavirus-press-conference-20apr2020.pdf?sfvrsn=b5656a70_2
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