A year has passed since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, which also acted as a catalyst for the deepening of the capitalist crisis, bringing much suffering to the working class and other popular strata all over the world. More than 100 million people fell sick, more than 2 million people lost their lives, millions more are faced with the dramatic deterioration of their living conditions and the social impasses of capitalism, such as unemployment, the sharpening of exploitation and repression.

The Communist and Workers' Parties signing this Joint Statement would like first of all to express our solidarity with those affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, those who have lost loved ones, those who have fallen sick, and to send our warm thanks to the doctors and nurses, the staff of hospitals and health units who, for a year now, have been fighting this battle, facing great difficulties.

During this period, the acute problems in primary health care and hospitals, the shortages in medical and nursing staff, Intensive Care Units (ICUs), and necessary protective means, due to the underfunding, the commercialization and the privatization of public of National Health Servises and of the medical and pharmaceutical production, which as a trend is expressed throughout the capitalist world, have manifested themselves in a dramatic way. At the same time, monopoly groups and pharmaceutical companies, which have increased their profitability, reap billions, while medicines, medical supplies, vaccines, and research are in the hands of big capital become the subject of profiteering, sharpening  inequalities among countries and geopolitical contradictions. The sharpening of competition for the production and distribution of vaccines and medicines, the delays in the necessary vaccination, the exclusions and the non-disclosure of the contracts with the pharmaceutical industries, express the impasses of the capitalist exploitative system that operates on the basis of the profit of monopoly groups. The importance of the struggle for the rights of the workers and peoples, of the necessity of Socialism, which can put contemporary scientific and technological potential at the service of popular needs, is highlighted.

The Communist and Workers' parties welcome the struggles of the healthcare workers as well as of the workers, the farmers, and the self-employed that demand measures to support their income and protect their health.

We denounce the governments that in pandemic conditions legislate new anti-popular and anti-labour measures, which once again put the burden of the crisis on the workers' and peoples' shoulders and at the same time suppress their struggle with authoritarianism and in a police-state manner.

We, the Communist and Workers' Parties, continue our struggle. We demand in each of our countries, public-free and universal health services and substantial measures to address the epidemic, to protect the health and lives of the peoples:

• Immediate strengthening of public health services with state funding, recruitment of permanent medical and nursing staff with full rights. Meeting of all needs in Intensive Care Units (ICUs) and infrastructure required for the full operation of public health care and research services.
• Faster vaccination of people in each country, with effective, safe and free vaccines, without exclusions in the supply of vaccines, as it happens at the expense of the peoples of the less developed capitalist countries. Abolishment of patents for vaccines and all other necessary pharmaceutical products that can help tackle the pandemic.
• Immediate public and universal provision of all the necessary means of precaution and protection (masks, gloves, disinfection gels, etc.), as well as diagnostic tests to the people by the state, free of charge.
• Providing support to the income and the rights of the working - popular strata. Protection of the unemployed, intensifying the struggle against capital and its political spokesmen, who are trying to further trample on wages and pensions, on insurance, labour and democratic rights. Measures to protect workers in the workplaces, public transport, schools and universities.
• No restriction of the democratic rights of the peoples under the pretext of the coronavirus.
• To intensify the struggle against imperialist interventions and to end immediately all sanctions and economic blockade measures, which in pandemic conditions are even more unjust and criminal, such as the criminals blockades against Cuba and Venezuela by US imperialism, and to withdraw the unacceptable action of the USA that places Cuba back on US list of the so-called “state sponsors of terrorism”.
• We say no to imperialist interventions and military exercises, such as those of NATO, and we demand that the necessary resources be provided and that the national public health and social security systems be adequately funded.

1. Communist Party of Albania
2. Communist Party of Armenia
3. Communist Party of Australia
4. Party of Labour of Austria
5. Democratic Progressive Tribune - Bahrain
6. Communist Party of Bangladesh
7. Communist Party of Belgium
8. Workers'Party of Belgium (PTB-PVDA)
9. Brazilian Communist Party
10. Communist Party of Brazil
11. Communist Party of Britain
12. New Communist Party of Britain
13. Communist Party of Bulgaria
14. Union of Communists in Bulgaria
15. Party of the Bulgarian Communists
16. Communist Party of Canada
17. Colombian Communist Party
18. Socialist Workers' Party of Croatia
19. Communist Party of Cuba
20. AKEL - Cyprus
21. Communist Party in Denmark
22. Communist Party of Denmark
23. Communist Party of the Donetsk People's Republic
24. Egyptian Communist Party
25. Communist Party of Finland
26. Communist Workers´ Party - For peace and socialism (Finland)
27. Pole of Communist Revival in France

28. Communist Revolutionary Party of France

29. German Communist Party
30. Communist Party of Greece
31. Hungarian Workers' Party
32. Communist Party of India (Marxist)
33. Kurdistan Communist Party- Iraq
34. Tudeh Party of Iran
35. Workers' Party of Ireland
36. Communist Party of Israel
37. Communist Party (Italy)
38. Communist Front (Italy)
39. Italian Communist Party
40. Jordanian Communist Party
41. Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan
42. Socialist Party of Latvia
43. Socialist Party (Lithuania)
44. AKFM Madagascar
45. Communist Party of Mexico
46. New Communist Party of the Netherlands
47. Communist Party of Norway
48. Communist Party of Pakistan
49. Palestinian Communist Party
50. Palestinian People's Party
51. Paraguayan Communist Party
52. Peruvian Communist Party
53. Philippine Communist Party [PKP-1930]
54. Communist Party of Poland
55. Portuguese Communist Party
56. Romanian Socialist Party
57. Communist Party of Russian Federation
58. Russian Communist Worker’s Party
59. Communist Party Soviet Union
60. Communists of Serbia
61. New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
62. South African Communist Party
63. Communist Party of the Workers of Spain
64. Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain
65. Communists of Catalonia
66. Galizan People’s Union
67. Communist Party of Sri Lanka
68. Sudanese Communist Party
69. Communist Party of Swaziland
70. Communist Party of Sweden
71. Communist Party (Switzerland)
72. Syrian Communist Party
73. Communist Party of Turkey
74. Communist Party of Ukraine
75. Union of Communists of Ukraine
76. Party for Socialism and Liberation
77. Party of Communists, USA
78. Communist Party of Venezuela