"In this sense, the COVID-19 crisis has sharply underscored the irrational nature of health care systems structured around corporate profit — the almost universal cutbacks to staffing and infrastructure (including critical care beds and ventilators), the lack of provision and the prohibitive cost of access to medical services in many countries, and the ways in which the property rights of pharmaceutical companies serve to restrict widespread access to potential therapeutic treatments and the development of vaccines. However, the global dimensions of COVID-19 have figured less prominently in much of the left discussion."