In reviewing the global situation around the coronavirus pandemic over the last couple of weeks, it is hard to not be reminded of the mass psychosis which swept across most of Europe in the mid 14th century in response to the Black Death. Now, as then, the behavior of entire nations and peoples can only be described as mad – apparently oblivious to the real-world consequences of their actions, and inaction.
On Wednesday the world hit a total of about 9.3 million cases of COVID-19, which is growing by about 180,000 new cases per day. There are now 480,000 total deaths, with some 5,600 added each day. At this rate (and things will probably escalate, not diminish in the weeks ahead), within four days, on Saturday or Sunday of this week, the world will have hit 10 million COVID-19 cases with a half-million deaths. The U.S. has about one quarter of the world total in both categories.
In the U.S., the highest five-day moving daily average of new cases occurred in mid April, at 34,760. On June 23, that number hit 34,720, and it is still rising—after having hit a low of about 20,000 per day two weeks ago. That is more than a 70% increase, and it portends a corresponding, if not exactly proportional, leap in hospitalizations and fatalities shortly down the line. As pretty much every serious epidemiologist and expert has stated, and even many state governors have concurred, the new sharp increase is not a reflection of increased testing—it is proportionally far greater. For example, Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy at the University of Minnesota, said “This is not an artifact of just more testing at all.” World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference yesterday: “We expect to reach a total of 10 million cases within the next week.”
In reviewing the deepening civilizational crisis confronting humanity, Helga Zepp- LaRouche, in her weekly webcast yesterday, kept returning to the central cause of the systemic collapse: the stupidity of those who continue to push geopolitical and neoliberal policies, long after they have failed completely. For example, take the coronavirus pandemic. Our emphasis has been that what is required is a worldwide health “Silk Road,” as the cause of the pandemic has been the economic policies of the last forty years which have destroyed health care in much of the advanced sector, and never allowed it to be developed in the former colonial nations.
This is the same problem with the global economic collapse. According to the IMF, and several reports from economic think tanks, we are headed toward what one called an “economic apocalypse.” The only way to address this is the way the Schiller Institute will in its conference this Saturday, with a mobilization to bring together the four most powerful nations—the U.S., China, Russia and India—to establish a New Bretton Woods
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s just-published article on the historic background to World War II is a major contribution to cutting the Gordian Knot on the strategic situation with such a summit process. As Helga Zepp-LaRouche put it in the conclusion of her June 24 statement, “Putin’s Discussion of the Second World War Can Prevent World War III!”:
“President Putin ends his article with a reference to the summit of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, which he has proposed, and which the other four heads of state have already agreed to. This summit, he says, should frankly discuss, among other things, issues of preserving peace and in particular, of overcoming the economic crisis which has been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. How severe the impact of the pandemic will be, he points out, depends decisively on the ability of these countries to work together, as real partners, in an open and coordinated manner, and to revive those high humanist ideals and values for which their fathers and grandfathers fought shoulder to shoulder.
“Such a summit must be supported by all peace-loving nations and people, because only the combination of the United States, Russia and China can implement the needed reorganization of the hopelessly bankrupt financial system through a new Bretton Woods credit system, and hopefully, the desolate state of the world will convince France and Great Britain that they have to give up their colonial and imperial traditions.
“Vladimir Putin’s initiative to use the 75th anniversary of the end of the Great Patriotic War to launch an international discussion about the historical truth of the causes of World War II is a brilliant flank, which may possibly prevent the world from sleepwalking once again into a new world war.”
