Life expectancy growth stagnates in England for first time in 120 years

Margot Miller

For the first time in 120 years, life expectancy in England has stopped rising and in deprived areas of the country it is falling.

Inequality in life expectancy between the rich and poor, a permanent feature under capitalism, is widening. So too is the gulf separating the rich and poor in terms of the number of years in good health they can expect to live.

An Institute of Health Equity report commissioned by the Health Foundation—Health Equity in England: the Marmot Review 10 Years On—refers to Professor Sir Michael Marmot, a leading expert in public health, who revealed gross inequalities in health outcomes a decade ago. He made recommendations to the national government to reduce the gap, including by “giving children the best start in life” and “fair employment and good work for all.”

The Marmot review 10 Years On reveals, in the words of Professor Marmot, who led the review, that “England is faltering” and has “lost a decade.” His foreword states, “From rising child poverty and the closure of children’s centres, to declines in education funding, an increase in precarious work and zero hours contracts, to a housing affordability crisis and a rise in homelessness, to people with insufficient money to lead a healthy life and resorting to food banks in large numbers, to ignored communities with poor conditions and little reason for hope … Austerity will cast a long shadow over the lives of the children born and growing up under its effects.”

Since 2011, life expectancy has stalled, a development “unprecedented, at least since the turn of the last century.” The slowdown has been “dramatic,” after previously rising one year every four years since the end of the 19th century. In men overall life expectancy rose by only half a year, from 79.01 in 2010-12 to 79.56 in 2016-18. The rate was lower for women, about a third of a year, from 82.83 to 83.18.

For males living in the most deprived parts of the country, life expectancy averaged 73.9 years in 2016-18, compared with 83.4 years in better off areas. For women the figures were 78.6 and 86.3 years.

This regression in public health coincides with the introduction of savage austerity by the Labour government led by Gordon Brown after the banking crash of 2008. A trillion pounds was made available to the banks, for which many working class people have paid with their lives.

The report comments, “If health has stopped improving it is a sign that society has stopped improving. When a society is flourishing health tends to flourish.”

In 2016-18, the difference in life expectancy “between the least and most deprived deciles was 9.5 years for males and 7.7 years for females... In 2010-12, the corresponding differences were smaller—9.1 and 6.8 years, respectively.”

Life expectancy is lower in the North and higher in the South. Differences are increasing both between and within regions. The North East has the lowest life expectancy, London the highest. For both men and women, it decreased the most in the 10 percent of neighbourhoods in the North East with the highest levels of deprivation.

For men only, life expectancy fell in Yorkshire and the Humber, the East of England as well as the North East. The poorest women fared worst. Their life expectancy fell in every region of England, with the exception of London, the West Midlands and the North West.

Among ethnic groups, “Pakistani, Bangladeshi and White Gypsy Travelers have much lower quality of life than other ethnic groups.”

For the least deprived, life expectancy improved. The rich have the greatest chance of longevity. The largest increases in life expectancy were in the least deprived 10 percent of neighbourhoods in London.

Those living in more deprived areas also spend more time suffering ill-health. This has also increased since 2010. Those living in better off local authorities can expect to live 12 more years of life in good health than those in deprived authorities.

This frightening societal regression also applies to Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

Professor Marmot attributes 20 percent of the slowdown to bad flu seasons. The rest is socially determined—linked to cuts in services, falling disproportionately on the more deprived areas, and increasing poverty due to low wages and benefit reforms. As the report explains, the “health of the population is not just a matter of how well the health service is funded and functions... Health is closely linked to the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age and inequities in power, money and resources—the social determinants of health.”

While cuts to essential services have affected all geographical areas since 2010, the axe has fallen hardest outside London, with the more deprived areas and the South East experiencing larger cuts. The report says, “The cuts over the period shown have been regressive and inequitable—they have been greatest in areas where need is highest… the cuts have harmed health and contributed to widening health inequalities… and are likely to continue to do so over the longer term.”

As a percentage of GDP, government public spending fell by 7 points, from 42 to 35 percent, between 2009/10 and 2018/19. Central government grants to local authorities have suffered punishing cuts. From this year, the central government grant is being phased out altogether. Almost half of all councils, 168, no longer receive any core central government funding. Cuts to local government allocations from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government fell by 77 percent between 2009–10 and 2018–19. Areas vital for health outcomes such as social protection and education declined most, by 1.5 percent of GDP.

The Marmot review outlines how deprivation in early childhood is associated with a poorer prospect of having a healthier life and longevity:

“Evidence shows that positive experiences early in life are closely associated with better performance at school, better social and emotional development, improved work outcomes, higher income and better lifelong health, including longer life expectancy.”

More than four million children live in poverty in the UK. The review cites the Institute of Fiscal Studies, “[R]elative child poverty, living in a household with less than 60 percent of median income, after housing costs will increase from 30 percent to 36.6 percent in 2021 in the UK.”

Pension poverty combined with poorly insulated housing contribute to unnecessary deaths among the less well off. A report by National Energy Action and environmental group E3G published February 2018 attributed 9,700 deaths annually to people living in cold houses.

The Marmot Review 10 years On draws attention to devastating attacks on the working class, but it has no solution to offer. As in 2010, it ends with a forlorn appeal for government action to reduce health inequalities. It states baldly, “We repeat: we neither desire nor can envisage a society without social and economic inequalities.”

However, what is required is the expropriation of the society’s resources currently in the hands of a super-rich minority.

Boris Johnson’s Conservative government is committed only to ramping up the exploitation of the working class. Under conditions of a developing trade war agenda and meltdown on the financial markets, the British bourgeoise must impose worsening working conditions and the further destruction of services.

The Labour Party is on board with his agenda. Labour councils have imposed Tory cuts in the large working class areas—for the last four years at the instruction of leader Jeremy Corbyn and his Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell—helping to pave the way for a Tory landslide in the general election.

Modi government shields instigators of Delhi anti-Muslim violence

Wasantha Rupasinghe

The response of India's Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government to the Hindu communalist violence that convulsed much of northeast Delhi for three days late last month (February 24-26) underscores its fascistic and criminal character.

At least 53 people were killed and some 300 injured in what was the worst outbreak of communal violence in India’s capital and largest city in almost four decades.

The Delhi violence was the outcome of a campaign of incitement led by Modi and his chief henchman, Home Minister Amit Shah, against opponents of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA)—a discriminatory anti-Muslim law the BJP pushed through parliament last December and the latest in a series of provocative government actions aimed at asserting that India is a Hindu Rashtra or Hindu state.

Faced with mounting social opposition amid a deepening economic crisis, Modi and his BJP are stoking Hindu communalism with the aim of mobilizing their right-wing base and confusing and dividing the working class.

They were pushed on to the back-foot by the sudden eruption of mass opposition to the CAA across India last December. Delhi is a centre of the opposition movement which has united students, workers and professionals across religious, ethnic and caste lines.

In response the BJP unleashed lethal state violence—more then 20 people were killed in Uttar Pradesh in December—and mounted a counter-campaign that depicts the anti-CAA agitation as “violent,” “anti-national” and even treasonous.

The anti-Muslim violence that erupted in northeast Delhi was triggered by a speech from BJP leader Kapil Mishra threatening violence against anti-CAA protesters. Subsequently Hindu communalist mobs took the offensive, attacking Muslims and torching and looting Muslim homes and businesses. Meanwhile, the police, in the region of India where there is the densest concentration of security forces outside of disputed Jammu and Kashmir, conspicuously stood down.

With their culpability so evident, Modi and the BJP have taken refuge in the Big Lie. In a speech to parliament yesterday, Home Minister Shah regurgitated the BJP's claims, charging that the opposition parties were responsible for the violence because they had criticized the CAA and been compelled to associate with the mass anti-CAA movement, and that the violence in northeast Delhi was the outcome of an opposition “conspiracy.”

He also lavished praise on the police, commending them for “controlling the Delhi riots within 36 hours.”

The Delhi police, which is under the direct control of the BJP-led central government’s Home Ministry, stood by while Hindu communalist thugs mounted brutal attacks on Muslims, and in some cases even joined in the violence.

Harjit Singh Bhatti, the ex-president of the Resident Doctors’ Association of the prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences and part of the first team of volunteer doctors to reach riot-hit northeast Delhi, explained to the Hindu how police deliberately obstructed their efforts to tend to the wounded.

Speaking about a patient with a deep gunshot wound in the stomach who was carried in an ambulance to GTB Hospital, Dr. Bhatti said, “They were stopped four times by the police. They [police] inspected the patient by opening his bandages. That was the level of inhumanness on display.”

An investigation by the Delhi Minorities Commission (DMC) found the violence was “one-sided and well planned” with “maximum damage… inflicted on Muslim houses and shops with local support.”

A government agency set up under the 1999 Delhi Minorities Commission Act, the DMC reported that thousands of Muslims have fled to remote villages in Utter Pradesh and Haryana or have found refuge living with relatives elsewhere in Delhi. Others are living in relief camps, some run by Muslim charities and others by the Delhi government.

Conditions for the more than five thousand people now living in the makeshift relief camps are miserable. Residents lack proper shelter, regular meals, clean clothes and toilets among other essentials.

The Hindustan Times described the horrific conditions at a flood-hit relief camp in northeast Delhi’s Mustafabad neighbourhood after thundershowers lashed Delhi for 24 hours on March 6.

Under conditions where the coronavirus is rapidly spreading across India, including in Delhi, the Times reported, “The wet mattresses, moist clothes and the damp surroundings are conductive to flu, infections and other health hazards—especially [as the camp is housed] in an 800-odd square meter prayer ground, fenced with brick walls on all four sides.”

People in the relief camps are also confronting police harassment and repression. At the Mustafabad relief camp, police have arrested a number of Muslim men and youth on phoney charges of rioting.

A woman named Fathima told online newsite ThePrint that her 17-year old son and husband were picked up by police on false charges of engaging in violence. “My husband and son put up a fruit stall at the Shiv Vihar puliya every day,” said Fathima. “They had put one up on 25th February as well. But police caught hold of them saying they saw my son rioting in video footage.”

According to the BJP government, Delhi police have arrested more than 2,600 people, including four dozen for Arms Act violations. However, everything suggests that the Delhi police, in line with their actions during last month’s riots and the ruling BJP’s communal policies, are mostly targeting Muslims, the riot’s principal victims, rather than the true perpetrators and instigators.

Among those the police have arrested for “rioting” is 45 year-old Usman Saifi. He was part of a group of Muslims who had organized to guard a Hindu temple in a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood in Mustafabad because they feared an attack on the temple would be used as a pretext for a Hindu communal attack on their neighbourhood.

While Muslims are being persecuted, the BJP government and the police are shielding thuggish BJP leaders like Kapil Mishra who openly instigated violence against Muslims.

The communal violence in northeast Delhi was triggered by Mishra’s declaration before hundreds of his supporters that they would clear the city’s streets of anti-CAA protesters if police did not do so forthwith. Yet no legal action has been taken against him or other BJP leaders who in the weeks prior to the eruption of communal violence in northeast Delhi led crowds of BJP supporters in chanting for lethal violence (“shoot them down”) against anti-CAA protesters.

Within hours of a Delhi High Court judge admonishing the police and government on February 27 for failing to initiate investigations (First Information Reports) of BJP leaders who had made anti-Muslim hate speeches, he was transferred out of Delhi.

Delhi police have arrested Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor Tahir Hussain and three of his aides, accusing them of rioting and murdering Intelligence Bureau staffer Ankit Sharma during the Delhi violence.

Hussain has vehemently denied the charges and said that he and his family were themselves the targets of a Hindu communalist mob. BJP leaders, aided and abetted by much of the corporate media, are trumpeting Hussain’s alleged involvement in violence to cover up their own crimes.

In a transparent provocation manifestly aimed at inciting communal violence, Utter Pradesh’s BJP state government has put up giant posters at all the major intersections of the state capital, Lucknow, bearing the photos, names and addresses of 57 people it claims were involved in violence during anti-CAA protests last December.

The 57, who include well-known BJP opponents, have not been found guilty of any crime. Yet the government has arbitrarily demanded that they pay “compensation” for property destroyed when state security forces ran amok while suppressing anti-CAA protests, and has vowed that if they fail to do so it will seize their property.

In a rare Sunday sitting, the Allahabad High Court ordered March 8 that the “name and shame” posters be taken down by next Monday, declaring that they constituted an “unwarranted interference” in people’s privacy.

However, BJP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who is himself under criminal indictment for inciting communal violence, has refused to heed the court order. Yesterday, the UP government went before India’s Supreme Court to challenge that High Court order.

Canada: Absence of sick pay and job security preventing at-risk and ill workers from staying home amid Coronavirus crisis

Penny Smith & Roger Jordan

As the coronavirus continues to spread rapidly across the world, the urgent need for emergency action to protect billions of people from this potentially lethal disease is becoming ever clearer. As well as free universal testing and high quality medical care for all, all workers urgently require paid sick-leave and full compensation for any earnings lost due to the pandemic.

Hundreds of thousands of workers employed in the so-called gig economy across Canada have absolutely no access to paid sick-leave. For many of them, staying home for the 14 days recommended by medical professionals to prevent the spread of the virus is impossible.

A self-employed single mother from Vancouver, British Columbia (BC), told CBC, “I’d have to be half dead to not go to work … I’m always one contract away from an eviction notice.” Explaining what the impact would be on her if she followed the recommended quarantine procedure, she added, “I don’t think people really understand what it means to not be able to miss work. It’s the difference between eating or not, the difference between having a place to live or not.”

Her sentiments reflect the worries and fears of hundreds of thousands of Canadians precariously working in the so-called gig economy. Financial pressure in the absence of paid sick-leave is compelling them to work even when experiencing symptoms of illness, which will accelerate the spread of COVID-19.

A third of new jobs created in BC since the 2008-09 recession were non-permanent, according to the latest figures from the BC Bureau of Labour Statistics. Nationwide, more than a fifth of professionals have precarious jobs, almost all of which do not offer paid sick-leave. Overall, 13 percent of Canada’s workforce was employed on temporary contracts in 2018, according to a Statistics Canada study.

Workers in the critical health care fields who are at increased risk of exposure to the virus are also faced with job precariousness. An estimated 5,000 long-term care aides, who in BC are paid as low as $16 an hour, would not have enough paid sick-days to cover the duration of the quarantine period. The province’s 50,000 unionized nurses can only earn 1.5 working days of sick leave per month, and that is if they are a full-time employee. Thirteen percent of BC Nurses’ Union members are casual workers, many with very few accrued sick-leave hours. Others are not entitled to paid sick-leave at all.

The federal Liberal government and the various provincial governments have nothing to offer these workers. On Wednesday, the Prime Minister announced a plan to temporarily waive the one-week waiting period before workers can obtain Employment Insurance (EI) benefits for those forced to go into 14 days of quarantine. But the sustained austerity measures and attacks on workers’ rights mounted by big business governments since the 1980s mean that barely 40 percent of Canadian workers even qualify for EI benefits.

There is no legislation at the federal level to compel employers to provide paid sick-leave to workers. Provincial regulations differ, but none of them come even close to covering the 14-day quarantine period necessary to restrict the spread of the coronavirus. In 2018, the Ontario Progressive Conservative government under Doug Ford eliminated the two paid sick-days that workers were entitled to per year. In order to “lower business costs and boost competition,” the government replaced them with three days of unpaid leave. In Quebec, workers can take two paid sick-days, while BC provides for five unpaid sick-days, a useless measure for most low-paid workers who cannot afford to lose a single day’s pay.

Hospitals throughout Canada are warning the federal government that they are ill-prepared for the coronavirus pandemic, underscoring that workers who contract the disease because they have been compelled to turn up for work will receive sub-standard treatment. The lack of testing kits, respiratory equipment, and hospital beds exposes the devastation wrought by decades of job and service cuts by governments indifferent toward health care worker protections and the critical needs of sick patients. On Monday, a Reuters report revealed that the 55 million N95 masks purchased by Ontario in the wake of the 2003 SARS outbreak have all passed their expiration dates. Despite warnings about this from the auditor general as long ago as 2017, no action was taken to replace them.

The Lynn Valley Care Centre in North Vancouver, where the first fatality in Canada from COVID-19 occurred Sunday, provides a microcosm of the chaotic scenes that will soon play out across the country if urgent action is not taken. Relatives of residents report that they have been forced to feed them and help with cleaning the centre because only two members of staff are left to care for 50 residents. Two care workers have gone into quarantine, while others have refused to turn up for work due to a lack of precautionary safety measures. “We were trying to keep them [the residents] apart, but that was one of the issues. We could not maintain the procedures (officials recommended) to protect everyone,” commented one woman, whose 96-year-old father lives at the centre. “It’s dangerous and a really atrocious situation we’ve got here.”

Even less support is available to the thousands of homeless people across Canada. Cathy Crowe, who has worked as a street nurse for years in Toronto with homeless people, told CBC that the combination of overcrowded shelters, drug addiction, transience, and chronic health problems make the city’s homeless population of approximately 8,000 on any given night at high-risk for contracting and spreading the disease. “Shelters are like a petri dish waiting for COVID-19 to arrive,” wrote Crowe in a blog post. “The conditions in the shelters are so severely crowded. Depending on who you talk to, there’s maybe 700 to 1,000 people sleeping outside because the shelters are full. It’s very much linked to the potential risk which is now at our doorstep,” she added to CBC.

Roxie Danielson, another street nurse, called on the government to increase shelter spaces by 2,000 to reduce overcrowding and use motels to isolate infected people. “I’m extremely worried about this because I know how deadly it could be if it hits the shelter system,” she said.

The utter failure of Canada’s ruling elite to protect workers and the homeless from the coronavirus pandemic poses the urgent need for the working class to intervene with its own program to protect the health and well-being of all. Workers must demand:

•  Paid sick leave for all workers
•  Free and universal testing for the coronavirus
•  Free high-quality treatment and equality of care for all

To fight for these demands, the Socialist Equality Party urges workers to form rank-and-file workplace and neighborhood committees to coordinate their activities, mobilize their collective strength, ensure that those who are sick receive social support, and monitor working conditions to enforce a safe environment.

Concerns spread over inevitable outbreak of coronavirus in US immigrant detention centers

Trévon Austin

The stark reality of the COVID-19 outbreak was made clear Wednesday, with the World Health Organization (WHO) declaring it to be a global pandemic. Concerns are growing over the potential of the virus to spread rapidly throughout the United States, including in its immigrant detention centers where men, women and children are held in substandard and unsanitary conditions.

Doctors are warning that without immediate, emergency intervention the spread of the coronavirus is inevitable among those detained in the network of facilities run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and private companies contracted by the federal government. The United States’ detention centers are infamous for their overcrowding and medical negligence, an environment favorable to the spread infectious disease.

Multiple reports have revealed severe risks within the network of prisons used to house immigrants, which would facilitate the spread of coronavirus. In the facilities, clean water and soap are not guaranteed, making it difficult to follow the most basic preventive measures against infection.

Dr. Ranit Mishori, senior medical adviser at the Physicians for Human Rights, told the Guardian that under such conditions it was only a matter of time before the coronavirus infiltrated prisons and detention centers.

“Looking at what has been happening in immigration detention centers, it doesn’t inspire much confidence in me,” Mishori said.

“We know there have been cases of medical negligence, of lack of access or reduced access to care, we’ve heard stories about a lack of basic hygiene measures so, no soap, no hand sanitizer,” Mishori noted. “And all these things are important to prevent the transmission of any infectious disease.”

ICE has a troubling record on the handling of infectious diseases. From September 2018 to August 2019, five cases of mumps in detention centers grew to nearly 900 among detainees and staff. In December, officials prevented doctors from giving flu vaccinations to detained children after at least three died in custody from complications of the flu.

Migrant rights advocacy groups have called for the immediate release of detainees who are at high risk from the coronavirus. In a letter sent to ICE on Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, and Columbia Legal Services requested that ICE release on parole any detainees older than 60, or who are pregnant, or who have underlying health conditions.

Seattle has been an epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the US, with at least 22 deaths and 190 cases. ICE’s Northwest detention center houses more than 1,500 immigrants. It is unclear how many in the facility may be at high risk and ICE has provided no indication that it is considering the release of any detainees.

The GEO Group, a for-profit corporation that runs the detention facility, said Tuesday it has not had any confirmed cases of COVID-19 at the jail. The company declined to say how many detainees or staff had shown symptoms or been tested.

In an emailed statement, ICE similarly stated that it had no confirmed cases and that the agency is following guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control in terms of when detainees and staff should be tested. ICE said that four detainees had met those criteria as of March 3, and staff are being provided protection equipment such as masks.

Those at high-risk can be kept together in units, the agency said. “The CDC advises self-monitoring at home for people in the community who meet epidemiologic risk criteria, and who do not have fever or symptoms of respiratory illness. In detention settings, cohorting serves as an alternative to self-monitoring at home.”

ICE has left attorneys, advocates, and more than 50,000 daily detainees in the dark about what protocols, if any, it has adopted in response to the coronavirus crisis.

Last month, after an ICE detainee was admitted to a hospital in California for coronavirus testing, ICE said in a statement that it was screening all detainees for infection within 24 hours of their arrival at detention facilities. The agency did not describe its process for screening immigrants or whether immigrants were being tested for COVID-19, nor did it say how any detainee sick with the virus might be treated.

An ongoing quarantine in an immigration detention center in South Florida has also raised questions about the agency's preparedness for an outbreak.

Several immigrants detained at Glades County Detention Center are being isolated in a special ward and barred from receiving visitors or eating with other immigrants in the facility. Last week, an unknown number of those quarantined that displayed “flu-like” symptoms were allegedly sent to a hospital to undergo testing for coronavirus.

Heriberto Hernandez, an immigration lawyer representing Isaac Santos-Mojica, one of the quarantined detainees, has been providing updates from within the facility. Santos-Mojica was placed under quarantine more than a week ago and said he had no idea when it will end.

“Detainees are essentially held hostage to any disease that might be spreading around the facility,” Hernandez told local news. “I’ve stopped shaking hands with my clients, unfortunately. I don't want to take any risks, especially now.”

In addition to serious health concerns, experts also fear that the outbreak could threaten detainees’ legal rights. Concerns over the disease’s spread could be used to further isolate detainees and prevent them from meeting with attorneys or advocacy groups. In the event that court hearings are held remotely, trouble with video feed or translations could present serious challenges as well.

Immigrants are among the most vulnerable layers in US society. Crowded into prisons or constantly in fear of being deported if they report a suspected infection to a doctor, the immigrant population is at high risk of being devastated by the spread of the coronavirus. This further exposes the criminal response of the Trump Administration, which has used the outbreak to spout xenophobia and virulent nationalism and left the US healthcare system woefully unprepared to confront the pandemic.

Italy’s coronavirus epidemic surges as mass layoffs announced

Allison Smith

Amid a nationwide lockdown to halt the spread of the virus, 12,462 people in Italy were confirmed infected yesterday with the coronavirus COVID-19—a jump of 2,313 in less than 24 hours. Overall, 1,028 patients are in critical condition, and 827 have died.

Even in relationship to China, the original epicentre of the pandemic, the intensity of the epidemic in Italy is reaching alarming proportions. While China has 56 coronavirus cases per million inhabitants, Italy has 206 cases per million inhabitants and a massive 6 percent death rate. In less than two months 827 people have died, while just over 500 people died of flu in Italy all of last year, making COVID-19 much deadlier.

Lawmaker Maria Teresa Baladini wears a face mask and gloves during a session in parliament in Rome, Wednesday, March 11, 2020. (Roberto Monaldo/LaPresse via AP)

Italian hospitals are at the breaking point, with severe shortages of negative-pressure isolation rooms designed to contain airborne contaminants, hospital beds, intubators and gloves. Italy’s Ambassador to the EU, Maurizio Massari, said Italy has already requested the activation of the European Union mechanism of civil protection for the supply of medical equipment. However, not a single EU country but only China responded to the call for desperately needed medical supplies.

“Certainly this is not a good sign of European solidarity,” Massari commented.

Germany and France have blocked exports of protective medical equipment, while China offered to sell Italy 1,000 lung ventilators, 2 million masks, 20,000 protective suits and 50,000 coronavirus test swabs.

At the same time, devastating stories of the social cost of the virus are emerging. Neapolitan actor Luca Franzese posted a video to his Facebook last Sunday sharing the shocking news that his sister died of the disease after doctors refused to treat her; authorities then took 36 hours to attend to her death. Franzese fought back tears and anger as he recounted the story. “I’ve had to put myself in self-isolation. ‘I might have the virus. To keep my sister alive, I gave her mouth to mouth resuscitation and no one cared, no one is calling me. We are ruined, Italy has abandoned us.’”

Daniele Macchini, a doctor at Cliniche Humanitas Gavazzeni in Bergamo, provided a graphic account of the stress on medical staff by the vast number of coronavirus patients. “War has literally exploded, and battles are uninterrupted day and night,” he wrote, warning of an “epidemiological disaster” that has “overwhelmed” doctors. “One after the other, these unfortunate people come to the emergency room. They have far from the complications of a flu. Let’s stop saying it’s a bad flu. Doctors are having to choose whom to save, with young and otherwise healthy people the priority for treatment.”

Under these dire conditions, doctors feel unable to live up to the Hippocratic Oath—the physician’s vow to treat the ill to the best of one’s ability and to do no harm.

Amid the nationwide quarantine, Italians are also beginning to experience the economic toll of the crisis, with thousands remanded home with limited or no pay and thousands more required to work but having to pay childcare as all schools in Italy remain closed.

Adding to an already bleak economic outlook, today, Fiat Chrysler, Pirelli tires, Decathalon sports stores and DF Sport Specialists announced they are cutting production or suspending operations across Italy amid the economic downturn caused by the pandemic.

Fiat Chrysler announced it is cutting car production and closing four plants across Italy until at least March 16, “to support the nationwide campaign addressing the Covid-19 crisis and minimize the risk of contagion among employees.” After the facilities reopen, the company said it will increase space between employees at their workstations, which will require changes to manufacturing processes and lead to lower daily production rates.

After one employee at Pirelli’s Settimo Torinese plant tested positive for the virus, the company said it will slow down production over the coming days in order to “make it possible to have a very small number of people in the factory in order to guarantee health conditions of maximum safety.” This comes on the heels of Pirelli’s announcement that they expected at least €30 million in lost sales due to the coronavirus.

DF Sport Specialists said it is closing all physical stores until further notice, and Decathalon has closed all physical stores until at least March 13, maintaining an online only operation.

None of these companies said whether or not employees would receive full pay during the shutdowns, nor what job cuts are planned.

The announcements came as the European Union (EU) agreed today that €7 billion euros can be diverted from the current Italian budget to the coronavirus and another €18 billion euros will be made available to Italy over a period of time to offset economic losses due to the virus. The government said it will elaborate the plan later this week, but current estimates of health care costs and economic losses due to the virus are expected to be in the trillions of euros, making this sum wholly inadequate.

Additionally, as the virus continues unabated, fears are growing that the current restrictions are not enough to stop the deadly virus, and several regional leaders are calling for a stricter quarantine measures.

Luca Zaia, the governor of Veneto, which includes Venice and other cities affected by the outbreak, said that in order to stop the virus and save the public health system, more draconian measures, including a “total closure,” were preferable to “drawing out the agony.”

The working class must intervene to demand that all necessary resources be deployed to combat the virus—including purchasing supplies, constructing hospitals and developing a vaccine—and that immediate reparations be made to all citizens impacted by the pandemic. This includes suspension of mortgage payments and utility bills, the payment of back wages and reimbursement for child and elderly care bills.

Congressional doctor expects up to 150 million Americans to contract the coronavirus

Bryan Dyne

Behind closed doors, Dr. Brian Monahan, the attending physician of the US Congress and Supreme Court, informed the senate staff that he expects a staggering 70 to 150 million people in the United States to become infected with COVID-19, according to NBC.

In Europe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has stated a similar figure, that up to 70 percent of Germany, some 58 million people, could become infected.

The report from NBC came amidst data showing a sharp increase in total cases worldwide to at least 126,000 and more than 4,600 deaths—a 50 percent increase in new cases internationally, compared to a 30 percent increase the previous day. The number of cases outside of China has increased 13-fold in the past two weeks to more than 40,000, and the number of countries where infection has been reported has tripled.

At the current rate, there will be a million cases outside of China by the end of this month and one million cases in the United States alone sometime during the second week of April.

Monahan’s comments were made public just hours after the World Health Organization (WHO) formally declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic and cited “alarming levels of inaction” by governments to prevent the spread. At the same time, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that it wasn’t just some countries lacked “capacity” or “resources” but that “[s]ome countries are struggling with a lack of resolve.”

Judie Shape, center, who has tested positive for the coronavirus, blows a kiss to her son-in-law, Michael Spencer, left, as Shape's daughter, Lori Spencer, right, looks on, Wednesday, March 11, 2020, as they visit on the phone and look at each other through a window at the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Wash., near Seattle. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

This was seen most clearly during US President Trump’s prime time presidential address last night. During his remarks, Trump, visibly rattled, announced no new measures to fight the expanding health crisis. He instead invoked a reactionary ban on all travel from Europe for 30 days, excluding the United Kingdom, as well as using emergency powers to provide economic relief to small businesses and large corporations.

In a comment directly contradicting Monahan, Trump reasserted his lie that for “the vast majority of Americans, the risk is very, very low.” At the same time, the conflicting stances between the claims of the president and the admission by a top US official that nearly half the country might fall victim to the pandemic highlights the paralysis of the Trump administration and the entire political establishment in the face of the most perilous public health crisis since the Spanish flu in 1918.

In what presumably was an attempt to provide a silver lining to the congressional staffers, Monahan reportedly touted that 80 percent of those who contract the virus will recover. While there are so far no reports indicating what he thinks will happen to the other 20 percent of COVID-19 patients, the virus’ progression through China and internationally gives some indication.

At the height of the epidemic in Wuhan, during which the health care system essentially collapsed in the face of several thousand cases, the mortality rate sharply spiked. In the US, a similar progression, if aggressive containment measures are not instituted, will result in millions dead.

The chief cause of the spike in Wuhan was not the virus itself, but the lack of available medical equipment and personnel to provide care for critically sick patients. Data collected since January indicates that somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of coronavirus patients suffer from severe respiratory problems that require an intensive care unit, oxygen or both, in order to give their own body’s immune system time to fight off the disease.

As hospitals in Wuhan were flooded with those ill or worried that they were ill, it became virtually impossible for those with a severe case of COVID-19 to receive the necessary medical assistance to survive. They ultimately suffocated, gasping for breath as their airways steadily closed.

At the same time, as has been seen in China as well as in South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong, strict testing, monitoring and quarantine measures can effectively halt the spread of the virus. In China, the epicenter of the virus, the number of new cases has continued to be under 100 for several days. In South Korea, the total mortality rate is less than one percent, despite having to deal with almost 8,000 total cases.

Without immediate and far-reaching measures to curb the spread of the infection, the United States will face a catastrophic scenario.

Even if the quarantine measures implemented in China were imposed on the US population today, the number of infected would likely rise to between 150,000 and 200,000 by early April. Upwards of 30,000 will require serious medical intervention in order to live. There are not enough hospital beds in the country to provide life-saving care for such a number of critical cases, much less the millions predicted by Monahan.

While the United States was not explicitly named, the total inability of the US health care system to meet the demands of the coronavirus were spelled out near the end of yesterday’s WHO briefing.

Executive Director Dr. Michael Ryan stated: “Some countries clearly, and you’ve seen this through the infection of health workers, have not yet got in place necessary measures to stop infections transmitting. Our hospital systems are designed to deliver at 99 percent efficiency. They don’t have any space to deliver more.”

This is most true in the United States, where decades of for-profit health care has resulted in the provision of the bare minimum of empty hospital beds, as well as forcing doctors, nurses and other medical professionals to work longer and longer shifts.

The indifference towards the lives of the American and international population expressed by Trump, Merkel and every representative of the world’s ruling elites is not incompetence, but political criminality. Like every major crisis, the financial aristocracy sees this as an opportunity to eliminate the “surplus population” and absorb billions of social security, Medicare, Medicaid and pension funds into their pockets.

Lift the Embargo on Cuba

Jacob Hornberger

The U.S. embargo on Cuba has been in effect for 60 years. It’s time to end it.

The embargo makes it a criminal offense for any American to spend money in Cuba or to do business in Cuba. If an American travels to Cuba and spends money there or does business there, he is subject to criminal prosecution, conviction, fine, and imprisonment by his own government upon his return to the United States.

The purpose of the embargo is regime change. The idea is to squeeze the Cuban people economically with the aim of causing discontent against Cuba’s communist regime. If the discontent gets significant enough, U.S. officials believe, the population will revolt and re-install a pro-U.S. regime into power.

Where is the morality in targeting the civilian population with death and impoverishment with the aim of achieving a political goal? Isn’t that why we condemn terrorism?

I say “re-install” because Cuba had a pro-U.S. dictator in power before the Cuban revolution installed Fidel Castro into power. The country was ruled by a man named Fulgencio Batista, one of the most brutal and corrupt dictators in the world. U.S. officials didn’t care about his tyranny because he was a pro-U.S. dictator — that is, one who could be counted on to do the bidding of the U.S. government.

But the Cuban people, who were suffering under Batista’s regime, revolted against it. Successfully ousting Batista from power, new Cuban dictator Fidel Castro made it clear that he would be no such puppet. In the eyes of U.S. officials, that made him a threat to “national security.”

What many Americans fail to realize is that the embargo is actually an infringement on their liberty. Under principles of freedom, people have the natural, God-given right to travel anywhere they want and spend their money any way they want. Freedom of travel and economic liberty are encompassed by the rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness that the Declaration of Independence enumerates as rights that preexist government.

When the American people agreed to this fundamental infringement on their rights and liberty, it was at the height of the Cold War. U.S. officials told them that there was a worldwide communist conspiracy based in Russia to take over the world, especially the United States. Cuba, U.S. officials said, was a spearhead in that effort. If a communist regime was permitted to remain in Cuba, which is only 90 miles away from U.S. shores, they said, there was no way to keep America from going Red.

The irony is that America was already going socialist and without an invasion by Cuba. That was reflected by the U.S. embrace of such socialist programs as Social Security, Medicare, public schooling, immigration controls, and a central bank, all of which are core elements of Cuba’s socialist economic system.

Terribly fearful of this supposed communist threat to conquer the United States, the American people traded away their rights and liberties for the sake of purported safety and security from communism.

The irony is that Cuba never attacked the United States and never even threatened to do so. Throughout the Cold War, it remained an impoverished Third World nation that never posed any military threat to the United States.

Instead, throughout the Cold War it was always the U.S. government that was the aggressor against Cuba. Not only did the U.S. government target the Cuban people with its embargo, it also secretly partnered with the Mafia to assassinate Castro.

In fact, the reason that Castro invited the Soviet Union to install nuclear missiles in Cuba was not to attack the United States but rather to deter the U.S. government from invading Cuba a second time or to defend Cuba in the event of another U.S. invasion of the island.

The Cold War ended some 30 years ago, but not for the Cuban people. When it comes to freedom and prosperity, they have been left behind, squeezed in a vise that consists of socialism on the one side and the U.S. embargo on the other.

Fidel Castro outlasted the embargo and the U.S.-Mafia murder attempts on his life and ended up dying four years ago. Nonetheless, the embargo goes on.

It’s time to bring an end to this sordid, immoral behavior on the part of U.S. officials. Leave the Cuban people alone, and restore freedom to the American people. If Cubans want to end their socialist system, that’s up to them to do so. The U.S. government has no legitimate business contributing to their suffering with its brutal economic embargo.

Moreover, the American people have the right to the restoration of their rights of freedom of travel and economic liberty, which should never have been traded away in the first place. The U.S. government has no legitimate authority to be prosecuting and punishing Americans for exercising what are natural, God-given rights.

Lift the embargo, now. It’s the morally and economically sound thing to do.

Saudi’s Brave Women Pull Back the Curtain on Crown Prince MBS

Medea Benjamin & Ariel Gold

This week, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), Saudi Arabia’s 34-year-old de facto ruler, was on a tear. He arrested members of his own royal family and initiated an oil price war with Russia that has sent the price of oil—and the world’s stock markets—plummeting. Behind the headlines, however, another critical event will take place in Saudi Arabia starting March 18: women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul, who was arrested almost two years ago for advocating the right to drive, is due in court. The diabolical MBS wants the world to believe he is the Arab world’s liberal reformer and took credit for eventually granting women the right to drive, but he is also the one who had al-Hathloul and nine other women thrown in prison, charging them as foreign agents and spies. The imprisonment of these peaceful women activists exposes the brutal nature of MBS’s regime and the duplicity of the Western democracies that continue to support him.

Loujain al-Hathloul gained notoriety in 2013 for campaigning against the driving ban when she posted videos of herself driving as an act of civil disobedience. She was first arrested in December 2014 when she attempted to drive from the United Arab Emirates to Saudi Arabia and spent 73 days in prison at that time. Al-Hathloul has also been an outspoken advocate for an end to the male guardianship system that treats women as no more than children throughout their entire lives.

On May 15, 2018, a group of armed men from the state security agency raided Loujain’s family’s house and arrested her. For the first three months of her detention, she was held incommunicado with no access to her family or a lawyer. According to the communication she was later able to have with her family, during those three months, she was beaten, waterboarded, given electric shocks, sexually harassed, and threatened with rape and murder.

Loujain languished in a Saudi prison for almost a year before the public prosecutor’s office finally announced that it had concluded its investigation and alleged that Loujain was involved in activities that “aim to undermine the Kingdom’s security, stability, and national unity.” She was accused of contacting “enemy groups”—a reference to cooperation with the United Nations and human rights groups such as Amnesty International.

Loujain’s initial hearing was in March 2019, but she was not allowed access to a lawyer or to hear the charges prior to the hearing. Her family members were permitted to attend, but the court was closed to both diplomats and journalists.

According to her family, in August 2019, Al-Hathloul was offered her freedom in exchange for denying, on video, that she was subjected to torture. She refused. For her incredible bravery and determination to fight for women’s rights, eight members of US Congress have nominated Al-Hathloul for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The case of Al-Hathloul and the other women’s rights activists on trial in Saudi Arabia is a tremendous embarrassment for MBS, who has been putting an enormous effort into convincing his Western allies that he is a reformer and that Saudi Arabia is becoming more liberal. But behind the facade of new musical concerts and theme parks, the Crown Prince has overseen a vast crackdown on all forms of opposition and dissent. In November 2018, the CIA concluded that MBS was the one who ordered the gruesome assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. MBS is also responsible for dragging Saudi Arabia into an internal conflict in Yemen, where constant Saudi bombings have decimated what was already a poor country.

The fact that MBS lifted the driving ban and simultaneously put in prison those who had campaigned and suffered for such reforms makes clear his actual motive: to silence dissent and prevent these women’s voices from being heard. Loujain’s sister Lina al-Hathloul says that the regime arrested these women’s rights activists “so that they make the [Saudi] people understand that change only comes top down. And the people should not even try to make the changes.” This sentiment was echoed by Suzanne Nossel, the head of PEN America.“These gutsy women have challenged one of the world’s most notoriously misogynist governments, inspiring the world with their demand to drive, to govern their own lives, and to liberate all Saudi women from a form of medieval bondage that has no place in the 21st century,” she said.

“The very existence of this sham trial pulls the veil off of the authorities’ so-called push for reforms in the Kingdom,” said Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International’s Middle East Research Director. “How can they initiate change in the country when the very women who fought for these reforms are still being punished for it?”

The bogus trial against Loujan al-Hathloul taking place this week should compel governments around the world to put more pressure on the Saudis and demand Al Houthloul’s immediate and unconditional release. Her imprisonment — as well as MBS’s arrest of royal family members and Saudi’s brutal war in Yemen — should be particularly embarrassing to the world community in light of the G20 meeting scheduled to take place in Saudi Arabia in November. How can the world’s leaders pretend that it is acceptable to meet in a country that imprisons and tortures peaceful women activists and bombs civilians in Yemen? It isn’t.

Supreme Court allows Eritrean refugees to sue Canadian mining company over use of slave labour

Laurent Lafrance

Canada’s Supreme Court has ruled that a lawsuit can proceed against Vancouver-based Nevsun Resources Ltd. for its complicity in forced labour, slavery, and torture at its Bisha mine in Eritrea.

The Canadian company co-owns the giant copper, zinc and gold mine in the impoverished East African country in partnership with the state-owned Eritrean National Mining Corporation.

In 2014, Gize Yebeyo Araya, Kesete Tekle Fshazion and Mihretab Yemane Tekle, three Eritreans who worked on the construction of the Bisha mine, launched a lawsuit against Nevsun Resources. The plaintiffs, who fled their country and secured refugee status in Canada, claim that between 2008 and 2012 they performed forced labour for two companies owned by senior Eritrean state officials helping build the Bisha mine.

Part of a group of 1,000 military conscripts ordered to work on the mine, they allege that they had to work for 12 hours a day, 60 hours a week under temperatures sometimes nearing 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit).

The conscripts were housed in huts without beds or electricity. Some suffered cruel punishments for disobedience, such as being ordered to roll in the hot sand while being beaten with sticks until losing consciousness.

Since it opened in 2011, the Bisha mine has produced hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gold, copper, and zinc. It is reported to be the most important source of revenue for Eritrea's ruthless authoritarian government, long headed by President Isaias Afwerki.

Nevsun Resources denied the accusations made in the 2014 suit, and argued that since the alleged crimes were committed by the Eritrean government and involved the functioning of its “national service” conscription program, the lawsuit should be thrown out on the basis of the “act of state” doctrine. This legal principle stipulates that a court cannot assess the legality of acts by foreign states. After both the Supreme Court of British Columbia and the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled against the company, Nevsun appealed the case to the Supreme Court of Canada.

In a 5-4 split decision rendered on February 28, Canada's highest court dismissed Nevsun’s arguments. While the court did not adjudicate on the merits of the refugees’ claims, it ruled that the B.C. Supreme Court should proceed with hearing the case against Nevsun. A majority of the judges rejected the “act of state” doctrine argument, ruling that it is not part of Canadian jurisprudence. The Supreme Court said its decision was also based on the fact that “customary norms” of international law, including prohibitions against slavery, forced labour, and inhumane treatment could be applied to the case.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision, Nevsun, which was acquired by Chinese company Zijin Mining Group Co. Ltd. for $1.4 billion in 2018, again denied the accusations and said it would defend itself in court. Revealing its main concern, the company complained that the decision was bad for Canadian mining corporations’ business interests. In its brief to the Supreme Court, it wrote, “permitting claims like this one may discourage foreign investment in developing economies.”

In submissions to the Supreme Court, the Mining Association of Canada similarly argued that if the case against Nevsun Resources were allowed to proceed it would create so much uncertainty for Canada's mining companies they would be forced to abandon operations in developing countries.

Located in the Horn of Africa, Eritrea is one of the world's poorest countries. 80 per cent of the population survives on subsistence agriculture. Eritreans have suffered through a bitter years-long war with neighbouring Ethiopia and conflicts instigated by US imperialism. Compulsory military service in the country was established in the 1990s with an official 18-month limit, but in reality the period of service is indefinite. This dire situation has led hundreds of thousands of Eritreans, out of a population of about 6 million, to flee the country.

United Nations investigations, including a major 2015 report by the UN’s Office of the High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR), found that during military service, Eritrean conscripts were victims of sexual abuse, mistreatment and forced labour. What the current B.C. case seeks to demonstrate is that forced labour not only benefits the state and state officials, but also Western companies and with their complicity.

The Nevsun case lifts the veil, if only slightly, on the criminal activities of Canadian mining companies abroad. The country is one of the biggest players in the global mining industry, with some 700 Canadian-based companies operating in more than one hundred countries worldwide. The total assets value of Canadian mining firms amounted in 2017 to more than $260 billion. This included foreign direct investments of $82.7 billion.

Canadian mining firms are also leading human rights violators. Organizations such as Amnesty International, Mining Watch Canada, and the United Nations have produced reports documenting gross human rights abuses and environmental damage perpetrated by some of the largest Canadian mining corporations, including Barrick Gold and Teck Resources Ltd. While innumerable crimes have been concealed over the years, Canadian firms have been found guilty, or are accused, of hiring local police forces, private security personnel, and even paramilitary groups to intimidate, attack, and kill workers, local residents, and environmental and indigenous activists opposed to their brutal work regimens, theft of resources, and environmental destruction.

Like transnationals headquartered in the United States, Europe or Australia, Canadian businesses have amassed vast fortunes through the rapacious exploitation of workers and the subjugation of entire communities in underdeveloped countries, mainly in Latin America and Africa.

These enterprises, led by some of the wealthiest and most ruthless Canadian businessmen, have enjoyed the full support of successive Conservative and Liberal governments. If 75 percent of the world’s private mining companies are headquartered in Canada and Toronto is the global hub for mining finance, it is because they benefit from highly favourable trade agreements and fiscal measures, including lucrative tax breaks.

Behind their phoney “progressive” posturing, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, like the previous Conservative government of Stephen Harper, are serving the interests of the mining giants and have vigorously opposed any effective regulatory oversight of their overseas activities. Trudeau has signed a series of foreign investment promotion and protection agreements (FIPAs), which consist essentially of lucrative deals between multinationals and local elites in resource-rich but economically poor countries at the expense of the population. FIPAs are also designed to empower companies to sue governments that attempt to nationalize natural resources and for compensation for “damages” (financial losses) caused by community or worker opposition. Just last month, Trudeau visited Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, to attend a summit of African leaders and continue talks on a FIPA with Ethiopia, one of the continent’s fastest-growing economies.

The economic subjugation of poorer countries by Western powers is bound up with increasing military aggression. Determined to deepen its partnership with Washington so as to advance Canadian imperialism’s predatory interests around the globe, the Trudeau government has pledged to increase military spending by more than 70 percent by 2026.

Trudeau has also further integrated Canadian militaries into the military-strategic offensives of its US and European allies around the world. These operations, including NATO’s 2011 air war on oil-rich Libya and the deployment of Canadian forces to Mali, a country which is home to hundreds of millions of dollars in Canadian mining investments, play a critical role in bolstering corporate Canada in the struggle for resources, markets and profits.

The methods Canadian transnationals employ in Africa, Latin America and elsewhere to suppress opposition and discipline workers, such as the hiring of police and far-right forces, are increasingly being employed within Canada itself.

Acting at the behest of Federated Cooperatives Ltd., Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe ordered the Regina police last month to violently break up picket lines organized by oil-refinery workers who have been locked out for more than four months. In support of its scabbing operation, FCL has also mobilized “United We Roll,” a far-right, anti-immigrant group formed by owner-operator truckers.