As this is being written, another wave of Covid-19 is hitting the working class in Haiti with ferocity. Under “normal” conditions of imperialist-imposed misery, there is little or no health care. In the capital city, there is one public hospital—understaffed, under-resourced and underfunded—for about three million people. In most departments (states), the situation is the same. For the majority of workers, there is nowhere to go, so they are ill and dying at home, unnoticed except by their loved ones. Needless to say, private hospitals, while only moderately better, are off-limits to workers.
 The imperialist countries have yet to provide any vaccines against Covid-19 to Haiti, and when and if they do, what little can be expected will be “reserved” for the rulers and their allies who will push their way to the front of the line. Haiti is the only country in the western hemisphere that has yet to issue a shot of any COVID-19 vaccines (Bloomberg, 6/8). The racism is self-evident.
The government, with its history of working with the imperialist bosses to bleed the working class dry, has failed in every way during this crisis. The bosses have zero credibility, so most people don’t know what to believe about the pandemic, or just about anything else. But the rumor mill is active and has disarmed our class. It has made workers wary of vaccines, or doubting that the pandemic is real. The media ignores the pandemic except when it affects the “hauts-gradés” (big shots), though as the illness spreads and the death toll mounts, workers will have no choice but to confront the situation.
While all the conditions of daily life for workers and students—urban and rural—are deteriorating, what is really needed, more than vaccines and all the other necessities of a decent life, is a revolutionary communist party with deep ties among the masses to arm workers with the ideology and organization to change the world. We are fighting for all of it: a decent life today and communism tomorrow. We can change the world. The Progressive Labor Party has a lot of work to do. We will make the difference.
Build PLP! Fight for communism! Power to the working class!