ABSTRACT
This article aims to analyze food delivery workers' working conditions and ongoing collective organization during the pandemic in Brazil. The discussion involves historical analysis, based on empirical research carried out with delivery couriers over the past eight years in Brazil and on analysis of the delivery workers' strikes in July of 2020. Our view is that their work is subsumed to a new type of work organization, management and control, defined here as uberization. Recent investigation shows that their working conditions are worsening during the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of reduced working hour value alongside unchangingly long workdays. These conditions have been met by platform workers' collective organizations demanding better working conditions. Our findings indicate an ongoing political struggle involving different institutions, and the central role of communication between workers through digital platforms as the first form of organization. From the class composition framework, we understand that there is a germ for political composition involving Brazilian riders, in line with the circulation of workers' struggles around the world, especially in Latin America.
ABSTRACT
In view of the current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, patient care, including that of psychiatric patients, is facing unprecedented challenges. Treatment strategies for mental illness include psychotherapy and psychopharmacological interventions. The latter are associated with a multitude of adverse drug reactions (ADR); however, they may currently represent the preferred treatment due to restrictions regarding patient care (i.e. social distancing). Direct contact to patients may have to be reduced in favor of telephone calls or video conferences, so that new techniques in diagnosing and treating patients have to be established to guarantee patient safety. Patients should be extensively informed about relevant ADRs and physicians should actively ask patients about the timely recognition of ADRs. The use of psychotropic drugs may lead to an increased risk of developing ADRs, which are considered to be particularly unfavorable if they occur simultaneously with an acute infection or may even lead to an increased risk of infection. These include respiratory depression, agranulocytosis, intoxication by inhibition of metabolizing enzymes and venous thromboembolism, each of which may be associated with potentially fatal consequences; however, physicians should simultaneously ensure adequate efficacy of treatment, since the ongoing crisis may lead to a worsening of preexisting mental illnesses and to a surge in first onset of psychiatric disorders.