And that's just this country - in the US over 33 million people have claimed unemployment in the last month, that's nearly 10% of the whole population. The knock-on effects of Western domestic policies will be enormous. Already there's talk of the mega economic crash causing a third-world famine which may kill millions.
Because - and this is a concept those people who derisively spit the word fail to understand - "the economy" translates into the price of bread, rent and fuel. It is warm clothes and clean water. It is petrol and gas and electricity. It is education, infrastructure and opportunity. It's being able to get a job and feed your children.
Those dreaming that this crash will be the destruction of the monied classes and the dawn of liberation for working people need to look back at Weimar era Germany, or Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.
How much liberation did they bring with them?
Did the people loading wheelbarrows with devalued currency to buy bread feel set free? Did the war veterans selling their medals on street corners suffer less than the Khodorkovskies ripping them off?
Billionaires love a crisis. There are fortunes to be made on put-options and derivatives; buying cheap stock in failing companies; snatching up foreclosed properties for pennies on the dollar; stagnating wages means paying your employees nothing while your profits soar. And debt. Mountains of debt. Private, and corporate, which gives you leverage for years - even decades.
It is in these crises that oligarchs are born. While many of us are struggling, the top billionaires in the US have seen their personal fortunes increase by over 300 billion dollars. The banks handling the bail-outs have charged over 10 billion dollars in banking fees alone.
What's happening to the economy is a disaster for everyone"except the billionaires.
Remember, all this is the result of a lockdown that, as of right now, there's zero evidence has saved any lives. In fact, there's actually very little evidence lockdowns work at all.
Remember, also, that the virus is acknowledged to be harmless to over 80% of the people it infects, and only mild in the vast majority of the those who ever show symptoms. We're not choosing between a Ebola and a devastating lockdown, we're choosing between a "mild to moderate" disease and a devastating lockdown.
The economic consequences are catastrophic, but that's not the end of the unnecessary human suffering being caused.
As part of the lockdown, the NHS has cancelled all non-essential surgeries and postponed cancer treatments.
Then there are the elderly people, and those with cognitive impairments, being coerced into signing DNRs.
Or those people suffering serious illnesses who stay away from A&E departments for fear of catching the virus and/or overloading the NHS.
Far from being overwhelmed, the NHS is operating with over 40% of its beds empty. To prevent the NHS from being "overwhelmed" it has, essentially, ceased functioning.
When society is stopped on a dime, when people are deprived of their livelihoods, when the sick and vulnerable are denied human contact and forced to sign documents declaring their lives meaningless, and when the health service stops servicing people's health"that is the opposite of saving lives. That's killing people.
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