We Need Pandemic Solidarity:
A Blueprint for the Long Future
Guided by deep love for our ancestors, elders, youth, and all of us living in isolation, we come together as a Black-led multiracial group based in occupied North America representing a tapestry of genders, ages, lived experiences, and abilities. We write this statement to address the mass death, physical and social abandonment, and loss of access to public space during the past four years of the COVID-19 pandemic. The continuation of this pandemic directly ties to violence enacted around the globe in the form of climate collapse, genocide, mass incarceration, and more. We hope this blueprint for true pandemic solidarity will shape how we all address the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the pandemics that will inevitably follow.
We must tell the truth about this crisis.
Profit-driven public health guidelines have failed us. Our capitalist governments serve the elites and the economy, not the people. They have deprived us of the information, tools, and policies we need to protect ourselves. Instead of providing free high-quality masks, access to updated testing, and supportive workplace protocols, they give us lies to uphold their fragile capitalist system.
We must support our inherent right to health and dignity.
COVID-19 is not mild, not endemic, and not “just a cold.” COVID-19 is a serious disease that can harm every part of your body, reactivate dormant viruses, permanently damage your immune system, and disable you. New variants, caused by letting the virus spread unmitigated, are not harmless. Vaccines alone are not sufficient to prevent the spread of disease, severe illness, or death. There currently is no cure. Despite this reality, dominant capitalist society tells us it is “unrealistic,” “unnecessary,” or “too difficult” to take any COVID-19 precautions. The ruling class tells us that our health and lives do not matter. We unequivocally reject this narrative.
We must declare that human life is more precious than capitalist economies.
Historically, colonizers and capitalists have weaponized plagues and pandemics to uphold domination. Our current governments and healthcare systems have manufactured consent for mass death, widespread disease, and the abandonment of marginalized communities. We are told to deny the toll that multiple infections have on our bodies and ignore the science that shows we cannot survive endless infections of COVID-19 unscathed. We refuse to be collateral damage.
We must commit to COVID safety for all and not just for some.
In opposition to a culture of eugenics, ableism, and racism, we choose to build a world invested in community care and liberation for all peoples. We must defend our right to clean air and protection from deadly diseases in all spaces. COVID-19 mitigations are not restrictions, but necessary acts of radical love and survival that treat each of us as valuable and worthy of protection.
Many of us are experiencing real grief, pain, and betrayal.We invite you to yell, cry, and act in solidarity with all of us who have been abandoned. We must implement rigorous and robust precautions that intentionally minimize COVID-19 infections.