The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) invites all health workers, their family and friends, to attend an online public forum on Saturday, 2 October at 12 p.m. (AEST), to discuss and outline the realistic and achievable measures necessary to eradicate the coronavirus, end the pandemic and save lives, and how to take forward the fight for this.

Register for the meeting here: https://us06web.zoom.us/.../reg.../WN_aYKMflf6SZejCaMBLD8uOg

Twenty-two months since the emergence of COVID-19, the pandemic is only escalating, with growing numbers of infections and deaths around the world, and increasing reports of breakthrough infections—the more the disease has spread, the better it has become at evading the immunity offered by vaccinations. The virus is also infecting children in alarming numbers, resulting in long-term debilitation and even death.

The pandemic can and must be defeated. In a meeting of scientists held by the World Socialist Web Site in August, it was demonstrated that emergency, coordinated action at the start of the pandemic could have successfully eliminated the virus in a relatively short period of time. Even now, emergency action can bring this terrible disease under control.

The social force blocking a rational and scientific approach aimed at the eradication of the virus is the capitalist ruling elite. Capitalist governments around the world have effectively abandoned all measures to contain the pandemic, ending lockdowns and other safety restrictions, and removing any barriers to the profit-making activities of big business.

In Australia, state and federal governments, Labor and Liberal alike, have declared a strategy to eradicate COVID-19 is not possible and that the population has to “learn to live with the virus.”

Such comments are nothing short of a declaration of war on all workers and youth seeking to protect their health and lives.

There is growing opposition in the working class to these criminal policies, including among health workers, who are on the frontline of the pandemic. However, the opposition of the working class comes into conflict with all of the institutions of the state, above all the trade unions, which have deliberately kept workers’ struggles isolated. They have refused to mobilise their members to demand adequate public health measures and have waged a campaign, alongside big business, to keep non-essential industries open, putting workers’ and their families’ lives at risk.

The international working class must be organised and mobilised to put an end to the pandemic and eradicate the virus—workers must take these struggles out of the hands of the unions, who have no interest in this task, and build independent, rank-and-file-committees to take forward this fight.

We are very pleased to announce our speakers include Saman Gunadasa, the convenor of the Health Workers Action Committee (HWAC) in Sri Lanka.

We urge you to attend our meeting and participate in this vital discussion.