“Should rank and file safety committees decide for schools to reopen face-to-face, we demand safety measures, preparation, and sanitation of facilities be enacted at the highest scientific level. Universal daily rapid on-site testing of all faculty, students and staff must be made mandatory. School ventilation systems must be renovated or replaced to comply with scientific recommendations for a safe environment. Registered nurses must be stationed at every school, and authorized and trained to oversee testing and robust contact tracing. Working alongside educators organized in the rank-and-file safety committee, they must ensure that safety protocols are fully enacted. Teachers have the collective right to refuse to work under unsafe conditions.”

(https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/10/16/sdrf-o16.html)

This final demand incorporates one of two Democratic Power demands into the full list of demands, allowing the SEP and the workers’ committees to lead the revolutionary movement through the entire course of the pandemic. Leaving out certain revolutionary demands, such as “that famous paragraph 9” for nationalist movements and the prosecution by elected People’s Tribunals of organized political rape; organized political-sexual harrassment and political-sexual assault; and political human trafficking; the exclusion of such demands, gives rise to movements such as BLM and #MeToo, allowing reformists and the capitalist class to dominate the revolutionary movement. For this reason, we are thankful for this change.

The committee has left out, however, any mention of an investigation into the possible origins of the virus, remaining silent on the PREDICT program and Yan Report, the possibility that a military lab engineered the virus, and that such a military lab might hold a prototype for a vaccine. This prevents the committee from accusing the government of developing and using counter-revolutionary violence and secret weapons. Withholding such an exposure will compound the difficulty of the defense of the committees when they gain popularity.