Governments need to do a better job of caring for disabled people during the vaccine rollout. But prioritizing their access to the shot will mean making the vaccines public, and putting an end to for-profit models of health care delivery in Canada and beyond. We must mourn those who have been killed by institutionalization, pandemic profiteering and government inaction, and fight to keep each other safe.

Are you tired of COVID? I fucking am. But as a longtime science writer and the author of two books on pandemics, I have to report what you probably don’t want to hear. We have entered the grimmest phase of this pandemic. And contrary to what our politicians say, there is only one way to deal with a rapidly mutating virus that demonstrates the real power of exponential growth: Go hard. Act early. And go to zero.

Canadians own the biggest retail network in Canada: Canada Post. Imagine if those locations could drive a post-carbon, post-COVID transition. Imagine if each of those locations were retrofitted for energy efficiency including solar panels. Every delivery vehicle was electric and there was a network of charging stations from coast to coast to coast, supporting them and the needs of our communities by providing public charging stations.

Those who wear masks may have trouble appreciating the degree of alienation experienced by people engaging in dangerous behaviour. Business owners will continue to promote conspiracy theories to try to open the economy. Notwithstanding these challenges, a critical recognition of science and power will not only help stop COVID but also make us more resilient in the face of the next crisis.

Jason Kenney is beset with woes—woes he believes are caused by everyone else but himself. So called zealots and urban militants lost Kenney his precious Teck mine. Trudeau is to blame for the Keystone XL pipeline’s second death. And Albertans are to blame for high rates of COVID-19. The reality is the only person to blame for Alberta’s economic and social woes is the person in charge—Jason Kenney.

Like so many aspects of this pandemic, the vaccine shortage is a clear example of how the private sector has failed to protect us during a crisis. Rather than setting its own priorities and running its own program, the Canadian government continues to chase companies such as Pfizer—which no democratic government controls. We see the results now, as health authorities cancel vaccine appointments and new cases surge across the country.

In a class-divided political economy, many risks are likely to impinge primarily (often only) on the working class; all too often on the poor, those with little power, and upon non-white, racialized, or Indigenous peoples. In those settings there is a much reduced impulse to avert the risks, especially if such attention demands restrictions on the ceaseless drive for the maximization of profits that is the life blood of capitalism. Class matters. It always did.

As COVID-19 continues to rage and safety for essential workers remains a central issue, the Correctional Service of Canada must be held accountable for failing to protect some of the most vulnerable essential workers in the country—working prisoners. CSC policy is endangering those to whom they owe a “duty of care” and threatens to undermine public safety by exacerbating the pandemic.

The attitude towards COVID long-haulers exemplifies the treatment that the capitalist state has always reserved for bodies with disabilities. It also gives the lie to the appreciative and caring posture adopted by employers and the Canadian government towards frontline workers, and shines a light on the realities of a society that has historically stigmatized and marginalized those who cannot work for pay.

Alberta was born in rapid societal change, its population growing a staggering 413 percent in its first decade. For reasons of geography, economy, and chance, the province’s history has been defined by booms that draw people in and crashes that can foster paranoid worldviews. Conspiracy theories evolve along with and as part of political culture, perhaps even faster when the culture itself refuses to.