The UK government has announced that it is launching an official inquiry to investigate “why people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds appear to be disproportionately affected by coronavirus.” This follows reports that that “35% of patients in intensive care units were black or from another ethnic minority, despite people from such backgrounds making up only 14% of the population. The official data on total cases and deaths has not yet been broken down by ethnicity, but concerns were raised over the fact that the first 12 doctors who died after contracting the virus – and the only ones known to have lost their lives so far – were all non-white.” (1)
No details have been provided as to the scope or timeframe of the inquiry except that it will be led NHS England and Public Health England. For government with a notorious track record of supressing any information it regards as troublesome, from the secret Windrush documents (2) to the Parliamentary report into alleged Russian interference in UK democracy (3), it has to questioned whether such a report will ever see the light of day.
Moreover, there are whether NHS England should be leading on the report in light of its apparent acquiescence of the “whitewashed” Clap for the NHS campaign” (4) as well as new reports that “BME nurses ‘feel targeted’ to work on Covid-19 wards.” (5)
Sis. Carol Cooper, head of equality, diversity and human rights at Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Trust and recipient Diversity and Inclusion Champion of the Year at the Nursing Times Workforce Summit and Awards 2019., said:
“BME staff feel that they are being put on Covid wards and exposed to patients with Covid over and above their colleagues. Some are saying they are being taken from the wards that they usually work on and put on the Covid wards and they feel that there is a bias – the same bias that existed before they are feeling is now influencing their being appointed and they are terrified, everybody is terrified.” (6)
Another aspect to this is the assumption that these deaths have been accurately diagnosed as COVID-19. Further, that there is even such a thing called COVID-19. Both the government and broadcasting watchdog Ofcom have made moves to stamp out what it regards as “baseless 5G coronavirus theories.” (7) In spite of this, the issue still made its way onto to daytime terrestrial TV via This Morning host Eamonn Holmes who said during the broadcast on April 13th:
“What I don’t accept is mainstream media immediately slapping that down as not true when they don’t know it’s not true. No one should attack or damage anything but it’s easy to say it’s not true because it suits the state narrative. That’s what I’d say as someone with an enquiring mind.” (8)
He subsequently “clarified” his comments that “may have been misinterpreted,” following widespread consternation. Ofcom announced they were “assessing the matter as a priority.” (9)
If we separate 5G from coronavirus and examine it by itself, there still significant safety concerns about. One example of this is the 2017 appeal to the European Union by 180 scientists and doctors from 36 countries calling for:
“A moratorium on the roll-out of the fifth generation, 5G, for telecommunication until potential hazards for human health and the environment have been fully investigated by scientists independent from industry. 5G will substantially increase exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) on top of the 2G, 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi, etc. for telecommunications already in place. RF-EMF has been proven to be harmful for humans and the environment.” (10)
Other theories, deemed more controversial, espoused by the likes of Dr Rashid Buttar, suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic is really a cover for a mass vaccination and RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) microchip programme, propagated by the likes of Bill Gates and even current USA media darling Dr Anthony Fauci. This perspective posits that, rather than forced vaccinations, the fear generated by the pandemic will compel the people to demand one. He adds that the idea of social distancing of between six and thirteen feet (much further than the virus can travel) is being embedded and normalised to facilitate surveillance and repression through RFID microchips. (11)
A persistent point that some observers make is that, even if the issue of the accuracy (or lack thereof) of the testing is taken into account (12), COVID-19 deaths still generally trail the influenza mortality rate by some distance. The current number of reported fatalities in the UK is 16,060. (13) According to Public Health England, Flu deaths for the last five years are as follows:
2014/15: 28,330
2015/16: 11,875
2016/17: 18,009
2017/18: 26,408
2018/19: 1,692 (14)
Even though the data for 2019 is up to week 15, the number still seems inexplicably low.
Even if we accept at face value that COVID-19 is indeed a global pandemic, then serious questions need to be asked about the responses of the so-called leading democracies. In the UK, Exercise Cygnus was an extensive drill that took place in 2016 that should have laid the groundwork for an effective response, yet the Boris Johnson administrations was deemed woefully inadequate. (15) The USA’’s drill was even more recent, October 2019 and reportedly, “the exercise got a lot right about the pandemic now sweeping the globe” (16) but commentators still observed that “Trump left Americans vulnerable for pandemic.” (17) Indeed, as famed whistle blower Edward Snowden opines:
“There is nothing more foreseeable as a public health crisis in a world where we are just living on top of each other in crowded and polluted cities, than a pandemic. And every academic, every researcher who’s looked at this knew this was coming. And in fact, even intelligence agencies, I can tell you first hand, because they used to read the reports had been planning for pandemics.” (18)
Although traversing a different route, Snowden ends up at a place not markedly dissimilar to Dr Buttar:
“As authoritarianism spreads, as emergency laws proliferate, as we sacrifice our rights, we also sacrifice our capability to arrest the slide into a less liberal and less free world. Do you truly believe that when the first wave, this second wave, the 16th wave of the coronavirus is a long-forgotten memory, that these capabilities will not be kept? That these datasets will not be kept? No matter how it is being used, what’ is being built is the architecture of oppression.” (19)
Whatever your take on what is behind the current situation, as indicated above, Afrikan people are disproportionately affected. Not just in terms of health but also socially and economically. According to a recent Business In The Community Factsheet.:
“Black and minority ethnic groups are more likely to be unemployed and in precarious work than their white counterparts. A recent report from the UCL Institute of Education (IOE), Carnegie UK Trust, and Operation Black Vote revealed that BAME millennials are 47% more likely to be on a zero hours contract. They are also 4.17% less likely to have a permanent contract than their white peer group.” (20)
We see these conditions replicated in the USA where “The lack of a social safety net and the racial wealth divide are currently on display amid the COVID-19 crisis. Disparities in access to health care along with inequities in economic policies combine to make Black people more vulnerable to negative consequences than white individuals.” (18) Whereas in Brazil, “whites are more likely to contract coronavirus, but blacks are more likely to die from the disease.” (21)
In sum, the current situation is a life and death situation for Afrikans globally. Our communities are continually rocked by news of the passing away of family members, community activists and international icons. Irrespective of your take on the causes, the conclusion seems to be a higher likelihood of death for us.
One notable case that has gone viral is a harrowing video posted by Bro. Floyd Forbes in relation to his ninety-three year old father, whose blood pressure was equivalent to that of a forty year old . Bro. Floyd recounted that his father was admitted to the Royal Free Hospital with some breathing difficulties. Within an hour and a half after admission the family was contacted to “come and say goodbye.” Soon after, he was dead. Bro. Floyd recounts the experience from his Florida home:
“Be careful. Do not send your people to the hospital because they got a different agenda. Their plan is for something. I don’t know what the plan is. I’m not gonna tell you what the theory is. I just tell you the facts of what happened. All of my dad’s vital signs was good. All of it. They still can’t even tell us if he was COVID-19 and we know he wasn’t because he didn’t even have a temperature. I spoke to him the morning, he was walking. Had his shower, had his porridge and his lunch. Sent him off to the hospital, because he wasn’t breathing correctly. He could have OCPD, we don’t know what he’s got. All we do know is, soon as he got to the hospital they started to pump him with morphine. And I’m not even sure if it was his charts or not. Reason why I’m saying that is because the nurse, the head nurse, the ward sister, she said all of his vital signs was good. She can’t understand why he’s dozy. So listen, we need to get this word out. My friends, take care of your loved ones and if by any chance you can avoid going to the hospital, avoid it. Now I know a lot of these NHS workers are under pressure. Doctors worldwide are under pressure and they’re doing a good job. But these particular doctors – they’re 007, they got a license to kill.” (22)
One health professional who might concur with this perspective is “Superstar” National Institutes of Health (NIH) immunologist Dr Kizzmekia Corbett who suggested in a series of posted and/or shared tweets that the Coronavirus pandemic is a “genocide” against Afrikan people and that doctors are letting black patients die. Responding to March 28th article:
“I tweet for the people who will die when doctors has to choose who gets the last ventilator and ultimately… who lives.
The poor. And while the article doesn’t explicitly say it… the black.” (23)
The USA department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that “career ethics officials are reviewing the matter and taking the situation very seriously.” One wonders if HHS are taking statistics like “Black residents (in New York) are twice as likely as white people to die if they contract the virus, with 92.3 people in every 100,000 cases dying,” as seriously. (24)
It looks like Sis. Kizzmekia has the facts and the weight of history on her side. (25)
(1) Haroon Siddique and Sarah Marsh (16/04/20) Inquiry announced into disproportionate impact of coronavirus on BAME communities https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/16/inquiry-disproportionate-impact-coronavirus-bame
(2) Benjamin Kentish (02/05/18) Windrush scandal: Tories vote to block release of secret documents as they launch review. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/windrush-scandal-tories-vote-block-release-secret-documents-a8333501.html
(3) Daniel Kraemer (07/02/20) Russia report: When can we expect it to be published? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51417880
(4) Jo Stephenson (12/04/20) Exclusive: Are we whitewashing coronavirus? https://www.nursingtimes.net/news/coronavirus/exclusive-are-we-whitewashing-coronavirus-12-04-2020/
(5) Megan Ford (17/04/20) Exclusive: BME nurses ‘feel targeted’ to work on Covid-19 wards. https://www.nursingtimes.net/news/coronavirus/exclusive-bme-nurses-feel-targeted-to-work-on-covid-19-wards-17-04-2020/
(6) Ibid
(7) Jim Waterson (02/04/20) UK media outlets told not to promote baseless 5G coronavirus theories. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/02/uk-media-outlets-told-not-to-promote-baseless-5g-coronavirus-theories; BBC News (30/03/20) Coronavirus: Fake news crackdown by UK government. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52086284; Leo Kelion (05/04/20) Coronavirus: Tech firms summoned over ‘crackpot’ 5G conspiracies. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52172570.
(8) Mel Evans (13/04/20) Eamonn Holmes denies spreading 5G coronavirus conspiracy as he defends comments. https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/13/eamonn-holmes-denies-spreading-5g-conspiracy-12550092/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52255863
(9) Daniel Welsh (09/04/20) Eamonn Holmes Clarifies Comments About Coronavirus And 5G After Facing Backlash https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/eamonn-holmes-coronavirus-this-morning-5g_uk_5e958309c5b6c5b3d6b094dc?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMwPvOcA0LfmJrRC8_Z5PvO1Lswwy0CQa5b-KMJYG92Bke0XepnKacioQz2b4R69R6RbevjCe7K4YBK35x0TH-bYB0k0EDwnmucPvPn01xb7WoP3NDWIWER_L7P4u-hfbqKKk3_kA-DoyaKIaGb67uLuNOlDyvKMPXcfCJ30ns3P.
(10) 5G Appeal (13/09/17) Scientists and doctors warn of potential serious health effects of 5G. https://www.jrseco.com/wp-content/uploads/2017-09-13-Scientist-Appeal-5G-Moratorium.pdf
(11) The Next News Network (17/04/20) EXCLUSIVE: Dr. Rashid Buttar BLASTS Gates, Fauci, EXPOSES Fake Pandemic Numbers As Economy Collapses. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGbYHJcMbz8; Prashant Pradhan, Ashutosh Kumar Pande, Akhilesh Mishra, Parul Gupta1, Praveen Kumar Tripathi1, Manoj Balakrishnan Menon1, James Gomes, Perumal Vivekanandanand Bishwajit Kundu (2020) Uncanny similarity of unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1.full.pdf
(12) Hannah Devlin (19/04/20) Scientists raise concerns about quality of UK Covid-19 tests. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/19/scientists-raise-concerns-about-quality-of-uk-covid-19-tests
(13) Worldmeter (20/03/20) United Kingdom: Coronavirus Cases. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/
(14) Public Health England (2019) Surveillance of influenza and other respiratory viruses in the UK Winter 2018 to 2019. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/740606/Surveillance_of_influenza_and_other_respiratory_viruses_in_the_UK_2017_to_2018.pdf
(15) Toby Helm, Emma Graham-Harrison & Robin McKie (19/04/20) How did Britain get its coronavirus response so wrong? The https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/18/how-did-britain-get-its-response-to-coronavirus-so-wrong; Paul Nuki and Bill Gardner (28/03/20) Exercise Cygnus uncovered: the pandemic warnings buried by the government. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/28/exercise-cygnus-uncovered-pandemic-warnings-buried-government/+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
(16) Nick Wadhams and Iain Marlow (18/03/20) Virus Pandemic Exercise Got One Thing Wrong: the U.S. Response. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/virus-pandemic-exercise-got-one-thing-wrong-the-u-s-response
(17) Kisha J. Pinnock (14/04/20) Commentary: Trump left Americans vulnerable for pandemic. https://morristowngreen.com/2020/04/09/commentary-trump-left-americans-vulnerable-for-pandemic/
(18) Trone Dowd (09/04/20) Snowden Warns Governments Are Using Coronavirus to Build ‘the Architecture of Oppression’. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bvge5q/snowden-warns-governments-are-using-coronavirus-to-build-the-architecture-of-oppression
(19) Ibid.
(20) The Prince’s Responsible Business Network (2020) Factsheet: Ethnicity and The Economic Impact of COVID-19. Business In The Community. https://www.bitc.org.uk/fact-sheet/covid-19-ethnicity-and-economic-impact/
(18) Rashawn Ray and Andre M. Perry (15/04/20) Why we need reparations for Black Americans. https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/bigideas/why-we-need-reparations-for-black-americans/
(21) Marques Travae (11/04/20) In Brazil, whites are more likely to contract coronavirus, but blacks are more likely to die from the disease. https://blackwomenofbrazil.co/in-brazil-whites-are-more-likely-to-contract-coronavirus-but-blacks-are-more-likely-to-die-from-the-disease/
(22) Floyd Forbes (16/04/20) #corona #coronavirus #COVID19 #euthanasia #pandemic #OO7 #Licensetokill #Godhelpus #family #NHS #firstresponders. https://www.facebook.com/floyd.forbes.50?__tn__=%2CdlCH-R-R&eid=ARCbLz5ppZZcG7Wp6DJEM-SxtnwlF4P5-k8ow8I0dZVEDm4I7lHpjxeyAiytmVDMLgL0enEVB3X_WKT3&hc_ref=ARQ6SLn-8Uj-aWWBz55EINCYfkTBPoI9NslzYDIp8aJ46P0IA-DnrKs3V_Ftocaibeg
(23) Andrew Court (18/04/20) Top NIH coronavirus immunologist under investigation for tweets suggesting the pandemic is a ‘genocide’ and claiming doctors are ‘letting black patients die’. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8233119/Top-coronavirus-researcher-tweeted-doctors-let-blacks-die-COVID-19.html
(24) Rachel Sharp (17/04/20) Black people in NYC are TWICE as likely to die from coronavirus as white people, shocking new data reveals. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8231077/Black-people-NYC-TWICE-likely-die-coronavirus-white-people-data-shows.html
(25) Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (2015) we charge genocide again!. http://www.operationghettostorm.org/uploads/1/9/1/1/19110795/we_charge_genocide_again_final.pdf; Ellen J. Kennedy (09/11/19) ‘We Charge Genocide’: Still, no justice. https://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2019/09/we-charge-genocide-still-no-justice/
We ask the question:
License to kill? Why are so many of us dying from Coronavirus?
1) Can we believe the COVID-19 fatality figures?
2) Do you really expect anything to come out of the government inquiry?
3) Is COVID-19 really a cover for mass vaccination and repressive laws?
4) Is it mainly down to our socio-economic status?
5) What’s our agenda to address the situation?
Our Special Guests:
Bro. Ldr. Mbandaka: Resident guest who is Spiritual Leader of the Alkebu-Lan Revivalist Movement and UNIA-ACL Ambassador for the UK and national co-Chair of the interim National Afrikan People’s Parliament. Bro. Ldr is a veteran activist of over 30 years standing, a featured columnist in The Whirlwind newspaper and author of Mosiah Daily Affirmations and Education: An African-Centred Approach To Excellence.
Sis. Kai Ouagadou-Mbandaka: is the Chief Officer of Alkebu-Lan Revivalist Movement’s Education and Health & Social Welfare Departments. She Head Teacher for the Alkebu-Lan Academy of Excellence Saturday School, and Co-ordinator for the Ma’at Academy of Excellence Home School Collective. She is also head of ARM’s Rites of Passage Programme for Girls and a Columnist for The Whirlwind Newspaper. Sis. Kai is one of the original co-hosts of Afrika Speaks with Alkebu-Lan when it first launched in 2006. l