On November 2, at 3 p.m. Brasília Time, the Rank-and-File Committee for Safe Education in Brazil will hold a meeting with supporters on “The need for school closures and the means to end the pandemic.”
The goal of the meeting is to arm teachers and parents fighting against the reopening of schools with a program that is science-driven and aligned with the objective interests of the working class, the only social force that has the interest and capacity to effectively combat the pandemic.
Eighteen months after the World Health Organization recognized the pandemic, it is far from over. In the poorest countries, without access to vaccines or other forms of mitigation, it advances unchecked. In the wealthier countries in the northern hemisphere, the advances made through vaccinations have served as a pretext for the capitalist governments to abandon any strategy to contain the advance of the virus. The onset of winter is causing infection rates to return to pre-vaccination levels. The second year of the pandemic, with two months to go, has already killed more than the first, despite the existence of vaccines.
All over the globe, schools are a major vector of contamination. Students are being forced to return to classes under the threat of punishment for themselves or their parents, who are faced with imprisonment and even the loss of custody of their children.
In Brazil, compulsory education is being accompanied by the lifting of any demand for social distancing in classrooms. Several cities are already discussing relaxing the requirement to wear masks based only on the number of people vaccinated, without any effective control of the transmission of the virus.
The goal of the capitalist authorities is to make society “live with the virus” at any cost, to ensure the operations of companies and financial markets, and the profits of their owners and shareholders.
Workers cannot accept these conditions, which will still claim tens of millions of victims.
The meeting will discuss:
● What is the real situation of the pandemic in the world and in Brazil
● How the new coronavirus is transmitted
● The reality about the impact of COVID-19 on children
● The reality about “Long COVID,” which is not a rare condition, contrary to what governments and the corporate press claim
● What role schools play in transmission, and what Brazilian scientists have discovered about the COVID-19 tragedy in Manaus
● What measures are needed to eradicate the coronavirus
● The need for a conscious political organization of the international working class to end the pandemic
In addition, the meeting will be an opportunity for teachers and parents from different regions of the country to talk about the real situation in school communities. We urge all our readers and supporters to register, attend and share information about this key event for the working class. To register, please contact us through our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/CBESBR, or through this form.