Covid-19 is now planet-wide, but it is hitting at different speeds and intensity depending where you live.
In the Americas, the United States has it the worst right now — on pace to have tens of millions of cases and possibly hundreds of thousands of deaths that will overwhelm medical capacities and push major economic sectors into deep freeze.
Currently, the US accounts for the overwhelming majority of Covid-19 infections and deaths in the Western Hemisphere — despite having only about one-third of the region’s billion plus people. But the prognosis for this pandemic is that the rest of our region will soon catch up and face grim choices like those that parts of the US, Europe, and Asia are already facing today.
We invited friends from Mexico, El Salvador, Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Canada, and the United States to talk about how our respective societies are confronting this global health crisis and what we are all doing to hold onto human connectedness in a dark and isolating time.
We discussed: What can learn from each other? How can we best protect our communities? What does it mean to defend workers, our freedoms, and our mother earth in the shadow of Covid-19?
Our conversation includes:
•Ken Patterson, a senior emergency room doctor from Western Massachusetts, USA.
•Marco Castillo, immigrant rights advocate with Global Exchange in NYC, USA.
•Natalia del Campos, co-founder of the Defend Democracy in Brazil Committee in New York, speaking from São Paulo, Brazil.
•Alejandro Castillejo, Professor of Anthropology, Univ. of the Andes, Bogotá, Colombia.
•Natalia Greene President of CEDENMA (Coordinating Entity of Environmental Organizations of Ecuador) and GARN.
•David Huey, lifelong peace advocate in Colombia.
•John Guliano runs a youth and community center in Chalatenango Province, El Salvador.
•Laura Carlsen is a brilliant social movement analyst from Mexico City.
Thank you for watching and we hope you will help us share.