Pandemic surges in the Americas as the global death toll nears 560,000

Kate Randall

As of Friday evening, there were more than 12.4 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide and 559,622 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. The trend of new cases is at record highs, averaging over 200,000 daily over the last week.

The United States is leading the global toll of new cases and deaths, with nearly 3.2 million cases and 133,885 deaths as of Friday evening, about a quarter of the global total of both metrics. Not far behind is Latin America, which has seen a surge in recent weeks, accounting for nearly half of all new COVID-19 cases globally.

US officials reported a record single-day spike of 60,021 coronavirus cases earlier this week, setting a single-day record for sixth time in 10 days. This surge has been largely driven by states in the country’s South and West, which are seeing a dramatic rise in cases and deaths after being some of the first states to loosen restrictions to curb the spread of the virus.

Texas set a record for the fourth consecutive day on Thursday, recording more than 10,900 cases. At least six states set single-day records on Thursday, including Alabama, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Oregon and Texas. In California, cases are up 275 percent since May 25.

Since the state began reopening in early May, Florida has seen average cases increase more than tenfold. Cases in Arizona have risen by 858 percent since May 8 when the state began to reopen; cases in Texas have jumped by 680 percent since May 1.

Hospitals across the country are seeing a surge of hospitalizations of COVID-19 cases, overwhelming capacity and staff.

• In Florida, 40 intensive care units (ICU) have reached capacity; hospitalizations in Miami-Dade Country are up 74 percent.

• In Arizona, people are waiting in their cars in miles-long lines for testing, with tests running out and people waiting more than a week for results as labs are overwhelmed.

• In El Centro, California, on the Mexican border, a surge of COVID-19 patients has forced the Regional Medical Center to set up tents taking up half of the facility’s parking lot.

Despite this burgeoning catastrophe, Donald Trump maintains that his administration is “handling it” and that “99 percent” of coronavirus cases are “totally harmless.” The basis of this contemptible attitude toward the suffering of the America people is the drive to force workers back on the job, no matter the cost to life.

One of the main focuses is opening public schools, placing the lives of teachers and children in danger so parents can get back on the job. In Florida, which has seen a more than 1200 percent rise in cases since reopening, Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, is moving forward with a plan to require “brick and mortar schools” to be open five days a week beginning in August. The governor has also vowed not to order reopened businesses to close.

On Friday, President Trump visited Florida, not to discuss the pandemic’s toll of the state, but for a fundraiser focused on fighting drug trafficking.

Commenting Wednesday on the surge of cases in the US, infectious disease expert and White House health adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, on a Wall Street Journal podcast, said that states should consider “shutting down” or “pausing in their opening process.” Over the past week, the US has reported an average 52,444 cases, up more than 30 percent over the previous week.

“What we are seeing is exponential growth,” Fauci said. “It went from an average of about 20,000 to 40,000 and 50,000. That’s doubling. If you continue doubling, two times 50 is 100.” Hoping such sobering statistics will miraculously evaporate, Trump has reportedly not met face-to-face with Fauci in more than two months.

South of the United States, Latin America is seeing a similar surge in cases. Latin America is home to 8 percent of the global population, but accounts for nearly half of all recent COVID-19 cases. Brazil has the second highest number of confirmed cases, 1.8 million, and 70,398 deaths, second only to the US. Mexico has also seen a recent surge in cases, recording 289,174 total cases and 34,191 deaths.

Following the Tuesday announcement of Brazil’s fascistic pandemic-denying president

Jair Bolsonaro that he tested positive for COVID-19, two other leading South American politicians have also tested positive for the virus: Diosdado Cabello, leader of Venezuela’s Socialist Party, and Jeanine Áñez, right-wing interim president of Bolivia.

The World Health Organization (WHO) worldwide breakdown as of Friday is as follows:

Africa: 428,051 cases, 7,733 deaths

Americas: 6,264,626 cases, 276,370 deaths

Eastern Mediterranean: 1,238,779 cases, 29,690 deaths

Europe: 2,868,080 cases, 202,341 deaths

South-East Asia: 1,065,093 cases, 27,382 deaths

Western Pacific: 236,958 cases, 7,517 deaths

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, spoke on the rising tide of the pandemic at the WHO Member State Briefing on Thursday in Geneva. He said COVID-19 has “exploited the inequalities in our health systems and the schisms in our societies. It has exposed existing inequities, widening and deepening the cracks between us.”

Ghebreyesus said, “We know that when countries take a comprehensive approach based on fundamental public health measures—such as find, isolate, test and treat cases, and trace and quarantine contacts—the outbreak can be brought under control,” referring to countries like South Korea.

“But in most of the world the virus is not under control,” he said. “It is getting worse,” obliquely referring to the Americas and Trump. He noted that the total numbers of global cases had doubled in the last six weeks.

The director-general said that the damaging health effects of the pandemic stretch beyond the virus itself. “Hundreds of millions of children are at risk of missing out on routine vaccines for tuberculosis, pneumonia, measles, polio, cholera, diarrhea and others. Many countries are running low on HIV medicines.”

Ghebreyesus referred to the impact of the pandemic on refugees who are “among the most vulnerable to the pandemic, already facing limited access to adequate shelter, water, nutrition, sanitation and health services. COVID-19 could push them over the brink.”

“And around the world,” he said, “in countries rich and poor, many more people are now going hungry, we can see poverty visibly now, with estimates from the World Food Program that global hunger could increase to more than 270 million people. These are not numbers: these are people.”

He added, “It has been made devastatingly clear that the best defense against health emergencies is a strong health system. A strong health system is a resilient health system.

That is why national governments and local governments need to invest in preparedness and essential public health functions.”

In a world in which health care systems are subordinated to the drive for profit and the enrichment of the health care system, such appeals from the director of the United Nations body will fall on deaf ears. Left to the likes of Trump, Bolsonaro and the UK’s Boris Johnson, nothing will be done to organize a scientifically based response to combat the pandemic.

The working class must take command of the situation, beginning with the establishment of workplace committees to protect the health of workers on the job and their families when they go home. Workers—whether at auto plants, restaurants, retail shops or schools—must be the ones to determine whether their conditions are safe. There are adequate funds in the coffers of the super-rich to ensure that wages, rents, groceries and other necessities are covered in the interim.

At a press conference on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo set aside the glaring statistics on coronavirus cases and death in the US, telling reporters, “Of course the US remains the world leader in the pandemic.” Pompeo said the “world turns its eyes” to American scientists and researchers to develop treatments and to US aid to assist other countries in fighting the COVID-19 outbreaks. He neglected to say that the Trump administration turns its eyes away from the same scientific guidance.

The reality? The US has providing a paltry $1.3 billion to more than 120 countries in emergency health, humanitarian and economic assistance during the pandemic, the State Department said Friday.

By contrast, the CARES Act, passed with the unanimous support of the Democrats and Republicans, authorized the multi-trillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street and the corporate elite, with no restrictions. The US House Armed Services Committee also just approved an $840 billion budget, to fund the US military’s aggressive wars abroad while the pandemic rages at home.

Morland Writing Scholarship 2020 for African Writers (£18,000 Cash Prize)

Application Deadline: 18th September, 2020

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: The Scholarships are open to anyone writing in the English language who was born in an African country or both of whose parents were born in Africa.

To be taken at (country): Candidate’s home country

Eligible Works: The Scholarships are meant for full length works of adult fiction or non-fiction. Poetry, plays, film scripts, children’s books, and short story collections do not qualify.

About the Award: It can be difficult for writers, before they become established, to write while simultaneously earning a living. To help meet this need the MMF annually awards a small number of Morland Writing Scholarships, with the aim being to allow each Scholar the time to produce the first draft of a completed book. 
At the end of each month scholars must send the Foundation 10,000 new words that they will have written over the course of the month. Scholars are also asked to donate to the MMF 20% of whatever they subsequently receive from what they write during the period of their Scholarship. This includes revenues as a result of film rights, serialisations or other ancillary revenues arising from the book written during the Scholarship period. These funds will be used to support other promising writers. The 20% return obligation should be considered a debt of honour rather than a legally binding obligation.

The Foundation will not review or comment on the monthly submissions as they come in. However, each Scholar will be offered the opportunity to be mentored by an established author or publisher. In most cases the mentorship will begin after the book has been finished and the Scholarship period has ended. At the discretion of the Foundation, the cost of the mentorship will be borne by the MMF. It is not the intention of the MMF to act as editor or a publisher. Scholars will need to find their own agents and publishers although the MMF is happy to offer advice.

Type: Contest

Eligibility: The only condition imposed on the Scholars during the year of their Scholarship is that they must write. They will be asked to submit by e-mail at least 10,000 new words every month until they have finished their book or their Scholarship term has ended. If the first draft of the book is completed before the year is up, payments will continue while the Scholar edits and refines their work. 

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: Scholars writing fiction will receive a grant of £18,000, paid monthly over the course of twelve months. At the discretion of the Foundation, Scholars writing non-fiction may receive a grant of up to £27,000, paid over a period  of up to eighteen months.

Duration of Scholarship: The Scholars may elect to start at any time between January and June in the year following the Scholarship Award. Their payments and the 10,000 word monthly submission requirement will start at the same time. The Foundation may exercise its discretion to offer non-fiction writers a longer Scholarship period of up to 18 months.

How to Apply: To qualify for the Scholarship a candidate must submit an excerpt from a piece of work of between 2,000 – 5,000 words written in English that has been published and offered for sale,. This will be evaluated by a panel of readers and judges set up by the MMF. The work submitted will be judged purely on literary merit. It is not the purpose of the Scholarships to support academic or scientific research, or works of special interest such as religious or political writings. Submissions or proposals of this nature do not qualify.

They should be sent by e-mail to scholarships@milesmorlandfoundation.com Please do not submit anything in hard copy or by terrestrial post.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Women for the Environment Africa 2020 for Women in African Conservation

Application Deadline: 25th July 2020

About the Award: In 2017, Women for the Environment Africa (WE Africa) was born through the determination of a small dedicated group of women conservationists frustrated with the current model of conservation leadership. They shared a conviction that a different style of leadership with more diverse and inclusive teams  and more collaboration and less competition would result in more conservation innovation and impact. This desire to “do conservation differently” led to the realization that we needed to both build a community of women conservation leaders in Africa to increase our resilience, and establish a transformational leadership course to increase our numbers at the decision-making tables. 

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: WE Africa is for women working for the environment who wish to transform the future of African conservation and environmental work. Supported by an extensive network of practitioners, Indigenous community leaders, scientists, academics, gender researchers, business leaders, and professional coaches across Africa and internationally, we have designed a fresh and relevant model of leadership development tailored to the individual and the environmental sector in Africa.

Eligible Countries: African countries

To be Taken at (Country): Online and Offline (TBA)

Number of Awards: 20

Value of Award:

1. Membership in a community of passionate, experienced African women who are some of the most senior leaders in conservation today
2. Access to twelve months of 1:1 leadership coaching
3. An opportunity to create a new leadership vision for yourself and pursue a personalized leadership plan
4. Monthly online sessions to fit around your work schedule
5. Two in-person retreats for intensive personal and collective growth and community-building

Duration of Award: October 2020 to September 2021

How to Apply: CLICK HERE TO APPLY

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Google Podcasts creator program 2020 for Podcast Creators ($12,000 funding)

Application Deadline: 3rd August 2020

About the Award: Launched in 2018, the Google Podcasts creator program is guided by a mission of providing a global audio community with open resources, empowering underrepresented voices, and showcasing new work. Last year, the program welcomed early-stage producers from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, India, Kenya, Lebanon, Spain, and the United States. 
This year, the program will serve producers with an existing podcast who want to advance their skills and take their productions to the next level. BIPOC podcasters and creators from traditionally marginalized groups are encouraged to apply. 

Type: Contest

Eligibility: Last year, we welcomed early-stage producers from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, India, Kenya, Lebanon, Spain, and the United States. This year, the program will serve creators from around the globe who have produced at least five episodes of their podcast since January 2019, and who want to advance their skills and take their productions to the next level. 

Eligible Countries: Any

To be Taken at (Country): Online

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Free to participants, the 12-week training will be entirely virtual and conducted by PRX alongside international industry experts and Google Podcasts creator program alumni. 
Participants will receive: 

• Regular feedback on all aspects of their production, including editorial and technical input
• Training on topics such as storytelling, sound design, and reaching audiences through marketing and engagement strategies
• Equipment and software to help meet independent production needs amid the challenging circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic
• Up to $12,000 in funding for use as they see fit for their productions

Duration of Program: 12 weeks

How to Apply: Please note that you will only need to fill out the application one time to be considered for all three cohorts. If you applied to last year’s program, you will need to fill out the application again.

APPLY NOW

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

The Camo Economy: How Military Contracting Hides Human Costs and Increases Inequality

Heidi Peltier

Recent research of mine has shown that rather than reduce costs, military contracting — or what I call the “Camo Economy” because it camouflages human and financial costs — has resulted in higher costs to taxpayers. It has also distorted labor markets and contributed to rising inequality, as military contractors earn excessive profits that enable them to pay their employees and particularly their top executives much more than their counterparts in the public sector and most other private sector jobs.

In 2019, $370 billion — more than half of all Department of Defense (DOD) spending — went to contractors. While contracting is sometimes called “privatization,” I think this is an inaccurate description, since military contracting serves a public purpose and uses public funds, while contractors earn profits at the taxpayer’s expense and are often not subject to the competitive pressures of private markets.

Many contractors operate more as monopolies than as competitive firms. Last year, 45 percent of DOD contracts were classified as “non-competitive.” And even among competitive contracts, many of these are “cost-type” contracts, which means that the firm will be reimbursed all its reasonable costs, and therefore has no incentive to reduce costs as competitive, non-monopolistic firms would. Additionally, firms such as Lockheed Martin have created monopolies for themselves by selling weapons systems (like the F-35 fighter aircraft) and other equipment to the DOD that come with “lifetime service agreements” in which only Lockheed can service the equipment.

Military contractors, then, act more as commercial monopolies than as competitive private firms. And using their monopoly powers they are able to earn excessive profits. In 2018, Lockheed Martin Corporation earned $8 billion in profits. About 85 percent of their business was government contracts.

High profits allow military contractors to pay high wages, which contributes to rising inequality. While the average wage across all occupations in the U.S. last year was about $53,000, at Lockheed Martin the average wage was about $115,000, over twice as much. KBR, a contractor that provides various services in the Middle East, had an average wage of $104,000, nearly twice the national average.

The CEO of Lockheed earned nearly $2 million in base pay, well above the national average of $193,000 for CEOs; once we include stock options and other compensation, however, Lockheed’s CEO earnings shoot up to over $24 million.

The Camo Economy has made war more politically palatable by camouflaging its various costs. Contractors now outnumber troops in the Central Command (CENTCOM) region that includes Iraq and Afghanistan, 53,000 to 35,000. Deaths of U.S. contractors since September 2001 are approximately 8,000, compared to 7,000 troops.

Yet contractors receive neither the public recognition nor the honor of serving abroad, despite the increased risks they face. The Camo Economy is politically useful, as the White House can claim troop reductions while at the same time increasing U.S. presence abroad by relying more heavily on contractors.

The financial costs of military contracting are also opaque. While we know some top-line numbers, we know very few details about where our tax dollars go once they are paid out to contractors. We do know that contracting is more expensive, as contractors have limited incentives to reduce costs and they build profits into their contract agreements. As contractors then use sub-contractors, who also build in profits, there can be multiple layers of guaranteed profits built into a contract between the sub-contractors performing the work and DOD paying the prime contractor.

Add in the waste, fraud, and abuse in addition to the excessive profits, and the costs to government quickly balloon.

It will not be easy to reform the Camo Economy. Firms such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon each spent about $13 million on lobbying last year. Political connections operate alongside high profits and paychecks to keep the Camo Economy entrenched and growing. But reforms can be made. Reducing the size of the military budget is a vital first step. The National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies has detailed various ways to do this.

Next, the portion of military spending that is paid to contractors should be reduced and some services should be brought back in-house, including those on and near the battlefield. And third, the contracting process itself should be reformed, so that more contracts are legitimately competitive and create incentives for firms to reduce costs.

French-backed security forces in the Sahel guilty of mass extrajudicial executions

Will Morrow

A Human Rights Watch report published yesterday provides evidence that Burkina Faso troops are carrying out mass extrajudicial executions of civilians as part of operations in the French-led war in the Sahel.

The report is another exposure of the Franco-German-led war in Mali and the Sahel as a neo-colonial intervention whose aim is the subjugation of the resource-rich and geo-strategically critical region and its population. It follows a series of reports documenting similar atrocities by troops in Niger and Mali, which along with Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania make up the G5 force fighting alongside the European-led intervention. It also comes as the European powers are escalating their occupation, which is being cynically waged under the banner of combating “terrorism” and protecting human rights.

The report is based on interviews with 23 people from the northern town of Djibo, 45 kilometers from the border with Mali, including farmers, traders, civil servants and aid workers. All spoke anonymously for fear of government reprisals. In recent months, common graves have been uncovered in Djibo containing the bodies of at least 180 people, all men, killed in that town alone. All the witnesses said they believed the murders were committed by security forces, after the victims had been arrested.

Soldiers from Burkina Faso before deployment to an exercise in Mali (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

The executions reportedly spanned from November 2019 to June 2020. The victims’ bodies were left under roadways and bridges, fields and vacant lots. Most were found with their hands bound tightly behind their back and blindfolded, shot in the head. One farmer told HRW, “At night, so many times I’d hear the sound of vehicles and then, bam! bam! bam! And the next morning we’d see or hear of bodies found in this place or that.”

The residents reported that in most cases the bodies were left out in the open for days or weeks. Anyone accused of harboring sympathy for the Islamist ISIS forces fighting against the government could be killed. “People are just too terrified that if they claim the body of a man accused of being a terrorist, they too will be taken and end up dead,” one resident said.

The report includes specific details of mass executions. One man said: “I discovered the bodies of nine people some meters off the road, one of whom was my 23-year-old nephew. They’d been arrested the day before. A friend called around 11:00 a.m. saying there was trouble in the market, that my boy had been arrested. I went to the market immediately and saw all nine, tied up and face down on the ground. Four gendarmes led them into their vehicle and took them away. That night around 8:00 p.m. I heard shots near the Djibo dam, and in the morning saw them in the bush, hands tied, riddled with bullets… We were too afraid to even bury them … we had to watch my nephew turn into a skeleton. He was not laid to rest until the mass burial in March, with dozens of others, but it was hardly a funeral and my boy was not a jihadist.”

In March and April, the residents received permission to bury the bodies, and were “strictly forbidden” from taking photographs of the mass graves. “No one would dare do that because the FDS [Defense and Security Forces] was watching,” a resident said.

“I didn’t recognize any of them,” one resident said, “but several of those watching the burial later told me they’d recognized their father, brother, or son … that he’d been missing since being arrested by the soldiers in Djibo or in their village—weeks or months earlier. They didn’t say anything during the burial though … out of fear that they too would be arrested.”

Most of those killed by state forces belong to the ethnic Peuhl, or Fullani, community, which are predominately Muslim. Because of this, they are accused of being more sympathetic to recruiters for ISIS.

It is increasingly clear that the strategy of the European powers is based on the stoking of ethnic conflict between the Fulani and Dogons. The different ethnicities have long existed peacefully side by side in the same towns throughout the region. Since the launching of the war in Mali by France in August, 2014, however, a series of increasingly horrific ethnic massacres have taken place. Local security forces are widely reported to have armed and supported Dogon militia as part of the war against ISIS, and turned a blind eye to sectarian massacres.

In central Mali alone, HRW claims that it has documented the killing of 800 civilians in dozens of large-scale massacres of Peuhl citizens, and numerous killings of civilians by armed Peuhl groups and Islamists.

On February 14, 2020, a Dogon militia killed 35 villagers in the town of Ogossagou, the same location of a massacre of more than 150 people a year before, on March 23, 2019. It occurred within hours of a Malian security detail departing that had been stationed there since the previous year’s massacre.

The government has inexplicably claimed that the decision to stop protection of the village was a “tactical error.” According to a report in May by HRW, they withdrew without providing any explanation to the town’s inhabitants. Within hours villagers began to see a build-up of armed men in the Dogon neighborhood. They made calls to high-level Malian authorities, including government ministers, and to the UN peacekeeping mission, requesting protection.

“Among those they said they contacted were security force personnel—including gendarme and army personnel—based in Bankass, just 15 kilometers away,” the report stated. In addition, “a witness who had attended a meeting of high-level government and MINUSMA officials said … three ministers, including the defense and security ministers, had been contacted in the early evening of February 13 to raise the alarm about the likelihood of an attack.” The massacre was allowed to occur.

For European imperialism, such sectarian killings serve not only to terrorize the local population, but to provide a “human rights” rationale for maintaining a permanent occupation of the region. The Sahel contains not only contain uranium deposits that supply France for its energy production. The region is situated in a geographically important area of western Africa where European imperialism is seeking to hold back growing economic and diplomatic activity influence of China.

With criminal recklessness, French and German imperialism are following the strategy pursued by United States in its occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, which destroyed entire societies and led to the deaths of over one million people and the forced emigration of tens of millions.

In a war-mongering July 6 column published in Le Monde, the German Social Democratic Party deputy Nils Schmid declared that “contrary to the anti-jihadist operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, led by the United States, France and Germany carry the principal responsibility for what is happening in the Sahel. We therefore cannot abdicate responsibility to the Americans or pull out our troops free of charge!”

Indeed, France and Germany are using the occupation of the Sahel as a testing ground for the methods developed by the United States in its decades-long “war on terror” in the Middle East. France is already operating armed drones from Niger for targeted assassinations. Germany is planning to deploy drones to the region. French President Emmanuel Macron traveled to Mauritania on June 30 to an international summit with the G5 leaders to announce a further intensification of the intervention and even closer collaboration with the G5.

The latest HRW report has received scant coverage in the French-language media and no comment from the French government. One can only imagine the wall-to-wall media editorials, government denunciations, and threats of sanctions that would follow if such documented atrocities were committed by militaries working with the armies of Iran, China or Russia.

Chancellor Sunak announces end of UK jobs furlough and rolls out cheap labour scheme

Robert Stevens

Wednesday’s speech in parliament by Chancellor Rishi Sunak confirmed that the Conservative government’s furlough scheme will end in October.

The speech was billed as centred on a “Plan for Jobs,” but Sunak made clear that the Tories have no intention of defending workers’ jobs.

Around 9 million workers and a further 2 million of the self-employed are currently being paid 80 percent of their wages by the state, under the Job Retention Scheme. Making clear this will end in October, after first being wound down by making employers pay out a larger percentage of wages, Sunak denounced as “irresponsible” calls for “endless extensions to the furlough.”

British Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak leaves number 11 Downing Street, to deliver a financial announcement to the Houses of Parliament in London, Wednesday, July 8, 2020.. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

He said contemptuously that “if I say the scheme must end in October, critics will say it should end in November. If I say it should end in November, critics will just say December.”

His declaration that “we can’t protect every job” is the understatement of the century. Nearly 200,000 jobs have gone already during the pandemic, with companies announcing thousands more redundancies every day.

All Sunak proposed was a miserly £1,000 offered to companies for every furloughed worker they keep in employment until January. This is not even a month’s wages for those on minimum wage and working full-time. To incentivise companies to cut pay, and also hours, Sunak said that to qualify for the £1,000 means agreeing that each “employee must be paid at least £520 on average, in each month from November to January. …”

The scheme will be a gift only for companies that don’t intend to lay workers off.

Other measures announced were presented as major interventions to boost the economy and restore consumer spending. These included everyone receiving “Eat Out to Help Out” discount vouchers for August, subsidising 50 percent of the cost of food at participating cafés and restaurants three days a week, up to a maximum £10 per head. All that can be assured by this is the further spread of the coronavirus.

The chancellor also announced a temporary Value Added Tax cut for the next six months and said no stamp duty land tax would be paid on property purchases up to £500,000—ending next March.

Sunak, married to the daughter of Indian billionaire N.R. Narayana Murthy, personifies the social layers dedicated to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s goal of completing the “Thatcher Revolution”—with the economy freed of any and all restrictions and regulations hindering the glutting of the super-rich. His own contribution to achieving this goal was to announce a new cheap labour scheme. Its purpose is to ensure a generation of youth enter the labour force on rock-bottom wages that are the “new normal.”

The “KickStart Scheme” is mainly aimed at the under-25s and particularly “Over 700,000 people [who] are leaving education this year.” Sunak claimed that these will be new jobs, “with the funding conditional on the firm proving these jobs are additional.” But everyone knows that companies will just lay off existing higher-paid workers, cook the books, and employ the new recruits.

Sunak boasted that the jobs will be for “a minimum of 25 hours per week paid at least the National Minimum Wage.” The UK’s National Minimum Wage is among the lowest of all Western economies. Those under 18 classed as “apprentices” receive £4.15 an hour, and those under 18 in non-apprentice jobs £4.55. Workers aged 18 to 20 get £6.45, and those aged 21 to 24 get £8.20. Someone under 18 receiving an apprentice’s wage on Sunak’s scheme and working 25 hours a week will receive just £103.75 a week. A 24-year-old on the same hours would receive £205 a week.

To enforce the scheme, Sunak will pay businesses £2,000 for all young apprentices they hire. Those over 25 are also dragged into the scheme with companies being paid £1,500 for the hiring of “apprentices” 25 and over. A further £1 billion is being put into doubling the number of “work coaches” at job centres to enlist this low-pay army.

The most significant statement made by Sunak was his warning that “world economic activity has slowed, with the IMF [International Monetary Fund] expecting the deepest global recession since records began.” The “independent Office for Budget Responsibility and Bank of England are both projecting significant job losses.”

This is the backdrop to the Tories’ drive to scale up its attacks against jobs, wages, and conditions beyond anything seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. All the state debt accumulated during the pandemic will be put on the backs of the working class, with Sunak announcing a “Budget and Spending Review in the autumn” to “put our public finances back on a sustainable footing.”

With the £30 billion in spending announced yesterday, the Treasury has already borrowed £350 billion this financial year. Since March, the cost of the furlough scheme—solely aimed at bailing out big business—and other support measures for the economy have cost almost £189 billion. The Financial Times noted that “with tax revenues hit hard by the crisis, the deficit is likely to reach £361.5bn.” It predicted the deficit was “likely to reach 18 per cent of national income…almost twice the size of the deficit at its peak in the 2008-09 global financial crisis.” Institute for Fiscal Studies Deputy Director Carl Emmerson said, “the UK will borrow more as a share of GDP than it ever has done in the last 300 years, outside of the two world wars.”

Just 24 hours after Sunak’s speech thousands more job losses were announced by major high street firms—4,000 at Boots, 1,300 at John Lewis, 1,600 at Burger King. Rolls-Royce stated that plans were continuing to make 2,000 redundant at two UK plants with 1,000 more jobs threatened. 

On Tuesday, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development warned that the number of unemployed people in Britain could increase to almost 15 percent of the working population (around 5 million workers) from 3.9 percent, if the UK is hit by a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic. And such a “second wave”—which will claim more lives than the 70,000 killed so far—is guaranteed by the Johnson’s government’s reckless throwing open of the economy. To compound this, all school children and teachers are being forced back into classrooms in September—just ahead of the annual flu season. Among the final sections of the economy that are still closed, gyms will be allowed to reopen possibly as soon as next week. These will be followed by swimming pools, beauty salons, nail bars, bowling alleys and casinos.

In response to the chancellor’s speech, Len McCluskey, the leader of the largest trade union, Unite, said, “Redundancy notices are already flying around like confetti…so today was the day we needed the chancellor to put a stop to this with policies as bold and as necessary as the jobs retention scheme. This statement failed that test. … Our fear is the summer jobs loss tsunami we have been pleading with the government to avoid will now surely only gather pace.”

McCluskey specialises in this sort of bluster. When he shuts up, Unite just gets on with its main role of facilitating job losses, pay cuts and whatever else is required by the corporations it serves.

The UK has entered unchartered territory economically, politically and socially. The government has declared class war, and the working class must mount a counter-offensive. This means forming rank-and-file action committees to ensure safety in the workplace and to oppose all job cuts and speed-ups, guided by a socialist programme to replace the failed capitalist system with a socialist government of the working class.

Neyveli Thermal plant explosion in southern India kills 13 workers

Arun Kumar

The massive July 1 explosion in a thermal power plant which killed 13 workers at the government-owned Neyveli Lignite Corporation India Ltd (NLC) in Tamil Nadu was the second fatal blast at the company in just two months.

The latest tragic loss of life was not simply an accident, but an industrial catastrophe waiting to happen and the result of management’s criminal refusal to take action following the death of eight workers in the previous explosion on May 7. As in previous accidents, this month’s blast further underscores how capitalist production places profit interests above the lives of workers, disregarding even the most basic safety requirements.

On July 1, six NLC contract workers—Ramanathan, Nagaraj, Venkatesa Permal, Silambarasan, Arun Kumar and Padmanabhan—died on the spot and 17 employees, including permanent and contract workers, a junior engineer and two supervisors, were badly injured and hospitalised. Seven out of the 17 later succumbed to their injuries having been initially taken to an NLC-run hospital in Neyveli and then shifted to the private Appollo hospital, in Chennai, the Tamil Nadu state capital.

The NLC is a highly-profitable, central government-owned corporation, which mines lignite and generates electricity. It has four open cut mines with an annual capacity of about 30 million tonnes in Neyveli, and an open cut operation at Barsingsar in Rajasthan state. NLC also owns four thermal electric power stations in Neyveli and one at Barsingsar.

The May 7 explosion occurred after NLC resumed operations on April 8 at the plant without carrying out mandatory maintenance and safety procedures after the national government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi ended lockdown measures. This callous disregard for workers safety and the Indian government’s determination to “reopen the economy” has seen a rapid spread of the coronavirus in Tamil Nadu and across the country.

According to hotindiareport.com, the July 1 explosion was in Unit V of TPS II, an outdated boiler that had shut down late on June 30. Workers and engineering staff were “attempting to revive the unit when a fire reportedly broke out in the boiler, resulting in the explosion” at 10 o’clock the next morning.

As the WSWS previously noted in its report on the May 7 explosion, NLC has a notorious record of ignoring basic safety measures.

The downtoearth.org website has stated that over the past five years NLC has had two major accidents and one minor one that have exposed serious maintenance and safety problems in the old units being used in the company’s thermal power stations.

The efficient and safe-operating life of a thermal power plant is around 25 years. Despite calls by the Delhi-based non-profit Centre for Science and Environment, however, NLC has delayed commissioning new units. Its power stations have been running with units that should have been retired between 2011 and 2015. In fact, some of its units have been in operation for as long as fifty-seven years.

A report on this month’s explosion by newsclick.in included comments from NLC management, the trade unions and the Indian government.

In an attempt to diffuse widespread anger over the catastrophe, management has suspended a senior official and India’s coal ministry initiated a high-level inquiry and internal probe. An NLC official told the media that at least 3 million rupees ($US40,000) will be given to each family of the workers killed and 500,000 rupees ($6,770) to those injured. Regular employment will also be provided to an eligible member of the family of the deceased.

Additionally, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K. Palaniswami has announced 300,000-rupee compensation for the families of workers killed, along with 100,000 rupees ($1,330) and 50,000 rupees ($665) to those who suffered serious and mild injuries respectively. India’s home minister, Amit Shah, offered condolences for those killed and said the victims and survivors will be given “all possible help.”

Shah and Palaniswami’s crocodile tears and the pittance in compensation packages given by NLC and the state government are an attempt to dissipate the growing anger of workers and their families and to cover up company and government responsibility for the repeated industrial accidents.

The NLC’s two recognised unions are affiliated to the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and the Labour Progressive Front (LPF)—federations of the Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM and its ally the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), the main state opposition party, respectively. These organisations are complicit in the tragedy, having refused to seriously demand mandatory safety measures at NLC plants.

While the last explosion forced leaders of these unions and affiliated parties to make some “criticism” of safety conditions at NLC plants, this rhetoric was so much hot air.

C. Amirthalingam, general secretary of the NLC General Workers and Employees Union, which is affiliated to the Stalinist CITU, told the media: “The cleaning of boilers used to happen on each shift till a few years back. Now, with the decreasing workforce, daily maintenance has almost stopped. The privatisation of maintenance work and the consequent improper maintenance work have led to recurring accidents.”

CPM state secretary K. Balakrishnan declared: “The private contractors have failed in proper maintenance of the boilers leading to the accident. The details on the process of allocating contracts for maintenance works need immediate enquiry by a high-level committee and action on the culprits.”

Amirthalingam and Balakrishnan’s comments are bogus and cynical. These union officials and the organisations they head have blocked any mobilisation of workers in strikes or other industrial action to demand the decommissioning of outdated and dangerous plants and the establishment of basic safety standards and modern procedures.

Fiat Chrysler ends third shift at Windsor, Ontario plant eliminating 1,375 jobs

Carl Bronski

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) announced last week that the end of the third shift at its Windsor, Ontario auto assembly plant is irrevocably slated for next Monday, July 13. The announcement finalizes earlier plans to eliminate the shift and the 1,375 jobs assigned to it.

About 700 senior workers have accepted a buyout retirement package. Lower seniority workers will simply be laid off and placed on a list for possible rehire as Temporary Part Time workers (TPTs) when such openings occur and at significantly reduced pay and benefits.

When the initial announcement was made in 2019, Unifor officials claimed to have been blindsided by the planned layoffs. The union then did nothing to organize opposition to FCA’s aggressive corporate downsizing, which is driven by its determination to boost profitability. Instead, it parroted the company’s justification for the move so as to reinforce the sense of inevitability about the process. This no doubt played a role in encouraging many workers to accept buyouts.

Shift change at the FCA Windsor plant

Talking like a corporate executive, Unifor Local 444 President Dave Cassidy said the cuts were “strictly a business decision based on the Pacifica.” He rejected any comparison to the then impending shutdown of the Oshawa GM plant.

Right-wing Ontario Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford then issued a demagogic statement claiming his government “stood behind” Fiat Chrysler workers. He went on to boast that his government was dedicated to boosting corporate profits. “Our government is lowering taxes, lowering electricity rates and slashing red tape. There has never been a better time for auto manufacturers to invest in the province of Ontario,” declared Ford.

The New Democratic Party issued similar hollow statements of solidarity with Windsor autoworkers, while Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, Navdeep Bains, simply expressed his “disappointment” with FCA’s decision.

The Windsor plant, which builds the Chrysler Pacifica minivan, Pacifica Hybrid, Grand Caravan, and Chrysler Voyager, has operated on a three-shift schedule since 1993. The plant is the largest employer in Windsor, which has been devastated by a steady reduction of auto production in the city, once called the automotive capital of Canada. There are about 5,900 workers currently employed at the facility, which underwent retooling in 2015 to build the Pacifica. The plant can build up to 1,500 vehicles per day.

The job cuts will have an immediate knock-on effect in the city’s auto parts sector. It is expected that local FCA suppliers Flex-N-Gate and Syncreon will shed at least 200 jobs due to the Chrysler retrenchment.

The announcement of a final layoff date had been expected by autoworkers at the plant for some time. FCA has revised the shift’s end date five times since the initial announcement was made last year. In the ensuing months the company delayed issuing a conclusive end date as it calibrated production volumes with the plummeting sales figures of its Grand Caravan and Pacifica models and then, more recently, recalibrated once again to adjust for lost production during the COVID-19 shutdown.

Sales numbers for the facility’s main product, the Chrysler Pacifica, have steadily declined in recent years. Last year, purchases of the model dropped by 17 percent in the vital US market and by 38 percent in Canada. Sales of the Grand Caravan were down by 19 percent in the US and by 15 percent in Canada.

In mid-March, North American automakers temporarily closed their plants for two months after autoworkers in Canada, the United States and Mexico began to refuse unsafe work and carry out other job actions that included walkouts and wildcat strikes to protest the lack of protections against the spread of the coronavirus in their plants. In fact, it was a day and a half work refusal at the FCA operation in Windsor that began the cascade of job actions across the continent.

Windsor-Essex County, which includes the City of Windsor, remains one of Ontario’s COVID-19 hotspots with infection rates skyrocketing amongst migrant farm worker populations.

Work refusals have once again gathered steam in plants located across the river in Detroit, where virus infections are spiking. In recent days, autoworkers at FCA Jefferson North and FCA Sterling Heights have staged work stoppages over recurring infections. In both plants workers formed their own rank-and-file safety factory committees in opposition to the joint United Auto Workers (UAW) and FCA drive to force workers to continue production regardless of the deadly virus threat.

There was one other contributing factor to the previous delays in finalizing the third shift closure date in Windsor—the upcoming contract negotiations at the Canadian operations of the Detroit Three automakers.

It is no coincidence that the Windsor layoffs will take effect only two months before contracts expire at FCA, Ford, and General Motors facilities in Canada for about 16,000 autoworkers. It is expected that vehicle production in Canada on the part of the Detroit Three automakers will fall another 27 percent over the life of the next contract. The latest layoffs will be used as a threat by FCA to bully and intimidate autoworkers into accepting sweeping concessions, including wage and job cuts.

The future of 160 jobs at FCA’s Etobicoke casting plant is already in doubt. At the company’s Brampton assembly operation, which employs 3,400 workers, production capacity is currently significantly underutilized, as the future of the Dodge Challenger, Dodge Charger and Chrysler 300 sedans remain in limbo.

This strategy is not limited to FCA. Just weeks before the Canada Detroit Three contract negotiations are set to begin, analysts are reporting that Ford may be planning to phase out its Oakville assembly plant by 2023 due to the cancellation of its Edge cross-over program. Ford has axed more than 1,000 jobs in Oakville over the past year. For its part, General Motors laid down the gauntlet last year with the shuttering of its keystone assembly plant in Oshawa, Ontario that saw 2,300 assembly jobs slashed and thousands more auto parts jobs destroyed.

Unifor President Jerry Dias has already signaled that he will once again do everything in his power to suppress worker job action and to prove to the Detroit Three automakers that Unifor can be relied on to ensure that their Canadian plants are among their most profitable anywhere in the world.

In a May interview with Automotive News Canada previewing the contract negotiations, Dias went out of his way to proclaim his opposition to a strike. If “after months and months and months of reduced volume based on the pandemic” things are “starting to get back to a resemblance of where they were pre-crisis, no one is going to want a disruption,” said Dias. “And I mean nobody; both the workers and the automakers.”

With workers having been driven back into the plants in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an urgent need for workers to build rank-and-file safety committees independent of and in opposition to the union. These committees must ensure that health and safety precautions are enforced and production is immediately shut down when infections occur. In opposition to the automakers’ demands for layoffs to boost investor payouts and corporate profitability, they should also take up the fight to defend all jobs.

These committees must be the springboard to seize the conduct of the fight for a new contract out of the hands of the Unifor bureaucrats, forge unity with autoworkers in the US and Mexico , and organize a counteroffensive against all concessions, two-tier wages, and job cuts.

Spain imposes regional lockdowns amid resurgence of COVID-19

Alice Summers

Several regions in Spain have re-imposed partial lockdown measures as coronavirus cases begin to rise once again.

Since 21 June, when the Podemos-Socialist Party (PSOE) government declared the end of measures to tackle the virus and the start of the “new normal”, there have been over 100 coronavirus outbreaks, of which 73 are still active, according to Health Minister Salvador Illa. An “outbreak” is defined as a cluster of three or more linked cases in a single area.

As of yesterday, 28,401 people are confirmed to have died from coronavirus in Spain with 253,056 confirmed infections, including five new deaths and 241 new cases in the last 24 hours. This itself is an undercount of the deaths caused by COVID-19, as excess deaths between March and May alone during the pandemic were over 48,000.

People walk along a boulevard in Barcelona, Spain, earlier this year. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Segrià, a county in the west of Catalonia, which encompasses the city of Lleida and has a population of around 200,000 people, re-imposed limited lockdown measures on Saturday, after a surge of cases was reported. On Monday, health officials for Lleida province revealed that contagion rates in Segrià were 20 times that of Catalonia as a whole.

Over 500 new cases of coronavirus were detected in Segrià in the week preceding the imposition of lockdown measures, up from 208 cases the previous week.

Residents of Segrià will not be able to leave the county for two weeks and no one from outside the region will be allowed to enter—with the exception of those who need to for work. No restrictions have been placed on businesses, which continue to operate as normal, forcing their employees to travel to workplaces and work in often unsafe conditions. Wearing a face mask was made compulsory in Catalonia in all public places from yesterday.

Those who break the renewed confinement measures will be fined, with lockdown rules enforced by 200 members of the Catalan police, the Mossos d'Esquadra, at 25 checkpoints across Segrià.

The outbreak has been linked to temporary harvest workers in the area, with 11 of the 15 clusters reported in Segrià associated with fruit-picking companies. The increased economic activity in the area since the Podemos-PSOE government’s “back-to-work” orders, along with the arrival of thousands of temporary workers, saw the accumulated incidence of COVID-19 in Segrià rise to more than 175 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

Around 30,000 temporary workers arrive in the region during the fruit-harvesting season, including many undocumented migrant workers labouring in appalling conditions for minimal pay, and often without proper accommodation.

Fernando García Benavides, professor of Public Health at the University of Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona and former president of the Spanish Society of Epidemiology, explained that the horrendous conditions facing migrant workers in fruit-picking and packing companies provide a perfect breeding ground for the spread of coronavirus.

“It is inside [these] companies that there is the riskiest contact,” he said. “The virus is spreading; these are young people who aren’t getting ill from the virus and are passing on the infection. The working environment for these people, if you can call it that, is especially precarious; they work in the fields, in warehouses packaging the fruit and they live on the streets.”

United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, Philip Alston, who visited Spain in January and February this year, described conditions in camps for temporary fruit-picking workers as “worse than [in] a refugee camp, without water or electricity. The word that is most often heard is ‘abandonment’.”

In May, there was a massive outpouring of public anger after photos and videos emerged of around 200 temporary migrant workers, who had traveled to Lleida to find fruit-harvesting work, sleeping rough in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions in the streets of the historic centre of the city. With local authorities doing nothing to house the workers, Monacan footballer Keita Baldé—who is of Senegalese heritage like many of the migrant fruit-pickers—paid for hotels in the city to provide accommodation for the migrant workers.

On 3 July, the Catalan regional government set up a temporary field hospital in Lleida to assist permanent hospitals with a possible influx of coronavirus patients. Eighty-two people remain hospitalised with coronavirus in Lleida, of whom 11 are currently in Intensive Care Units. Regional authorities in Catalonia have reportedly also begun drafting volunteers from the public health care system to work at the temporary hospital.

While coronavirus cases are rising, the Podemos-PSOE government is rejecting a coordinated response, leaving regional authorities to manage and control local coronavirus outbreaks since Spain finally ended confinement measures on June 21. Despite the presence in government of Podemos, a “left populist” party linked to the Syriza party in Greece and Bernie Sanders in the United States, Madrid is in the final analysis pursuing the same policy as Washington and the other major European capitals.

Forced to impose a lockdown in March by a pan-European wave of strikes, Madrid is pushing workers back to work to produce profits for the financial aristocracy. The €1.35 trillion European Central Bank (ECB) bailout and state bailout packages are going overwhelmingly to pay off the banks and finance mass sackings and corporate restructuring. The PSOE, Podemos and affiliated unions are determined that deconfinement and European Union (EU) austerity will continue and that no measure is taken against COVID-19 that would interfere with corporate profits.

“We have taken necessary, adequate and valiant measures, we must see if they have an impact,” Illa said. Stressing that “there will continue to be outbreaks” and demanding that Spaniards “learn to live with the virus until there is a vaccine or a treatment,” he ruled out any return to a nationwide lockdown: “Currently there are no plans to adopt such a measure.”

COVID-19 is continuing to spread rapidly in regions across Spain, however. On 5 July, the county of A Mariña, in the north-western region of Galicia, was also forced to impose renewed confinement measures. Residents and other individuals will be prohibited from entering or leaving the area, which has a population of 71,000, until Saturday, the day before Galicia is set to hold regional elections.

The outbreak in A Mariña is centred on restaurants and bars in the municipalities of Burela and Xove, with around half a dozen venues having to close for two weeks after members of their staff tested positive for COVID-19.

As of Thursday, there were 165 active coronavirus cases in A Mariña, an increase of 21 cases on the previous day. The region of Galicia was the first to enter the “new normal” in Spain, lifting all restrictions on 15 June.

In the northern region of Aragón, bordering Catalonia, four counties — Cinca Medio, Bajo Cinca, La Litera and Caspe—were returned to “Phase 2” of the government’s deconfinement plan at the end of June, after COVID-19 outbreaks were detected in slaughterhouses and fruit and vegetable companies. “Phase 2” indicates that shops and indoor restaurants will be limited to 40 percent of their capacity, while wedding venues and places of worship must not be more than half full.

Residents in the four counties are advised to limit their movement and to maintain physical-distancing and hygiene measures, meeting in groups of no more than 15.

Two apartment blocks—one in Albacete in the central region of Castilla–La Mancha and one in Santander in the northern region of Cantabria—were also quarantined after outbreaks of coronavirus were detected. In Santander, around 80 people were isolated in their apartment block for 13 days after a cluster of 16 cases was found. In Albacete, around 20 people remain confined to their building after two outbreaks involving nine people were detected.

Quarantine measures at the two apartment blocks were enforced by national police.

The surge in cases is an indictment of the Podemos-PSOE government’s “new normal” policy, which has seen workers forced back to factories, offices and other workplaces without basic health and safety measures to protect them from the coronavirus. The new outbreaks are a direct result of this reopening agenda. Restaurants, bars, food-production companies, and other workplaces where physical-distancing measures are impossible are emerging as the centres of infection.

The average age of coronavirus patients has fallen by around 10 years in the last weeks, to 47 for men and 50 for women, indicating as younger, working-age people are infected.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), workers in Spain are among the most at risk of catching the virus. Nearly six in 10 (56 percent) workers carry out roles which put them at greater risk of infection in the workplace, the highest figure of the 24 countries analysed by the OECD. The average proportion of at-risk workers is 48 percent, the OECD said.

A recent seroprevalence study in Spain found that only about five percent of the population had COVID-19 antibodies. Thus, infections could spread rapidly through a population with little immunity now that preventive measures have been largely abandoned.

Joblessness soars as COVID-19 pandemic accelerates across US

Bryan Dyne

The past week saw a marked acceleration of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. There were more than 375,000 coronavirus cases reported in the United States during the last seven days, more than the number of cases reported in February, March and the first week of April combined. The daily official number of deaths, which had been decreasing in the country to an average of just above 500 each day, shot up to more than 800 for the past three days.

As a result, there are now 3.2 million people that have been infected by the pandemic virus and more than 135,000 that have died. While 1.4 million have recovered, another 1.8 million people currently have active cases of COVID-19, half a million more than a month ago. Worldwide, there are more than 12.3 million total confirmed coronavirus cases and at least 556,000 deaths.

There were also another 1.3 million people who filed for unemployment for the first time last week, the 15th week in a row that new unemployment claims have been above 1 million and more than six times the number who newly filed this week last year. In addition, 18.1 million people placed continuing claims, more than 10 times those of a year ago.

Diane Higgins, of Chelsea, Mass., right, unloads boxes of donated food at a Salvation Army while people impacted by the coronavirus wait in line for food, Tuesday, June 30, 2020, in Chelsea, Mass. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

The unemployment figures, moreover, only capture about half of those threatened with economic destitution in the wake of the shutdowns and layoffs in March and April in response to the pandemic. More than 1 million people filed claims last week under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which provides benefits to those who are self-employed, and thus can’t get normal unemployment benefits, or who are unable to work for COVID-19 related reasons.

The total number of people receiving this second type of assistance is 14.4 million, bringing the total number of people currently getting aid during the pandemic to 32.5 million. If the number of people receiving state and federal aid were a state, that state would be more populous than Texas.

Alongside the historically high unemployment figures, the National Bureau of Economic Research issued a paper noting that two-thirds of the workers currently receiving benefits are getting more money than they would be on the job. A fifth of them are currently getting double their salary. While the paper argues for a reduction of benefits or their elimination, it ignores the fact that its findings ultimately underscore the social crisis that had existed in the United States even before the pandemic.

Amid the ongoing public health and economic crises, there are increasing calls from medical professionals to again shut down states with growing outbreaks. Infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci noted yesterday in an interview on FiveThirtyEight that four states—Arizona, California, Florida and Texas—currently account for about half of the new infections in the country. He advocated at least pausing the reopenings in those states, as well as closing enclosed areas where large numbers of people gather, such as bars.

Dr. Ali Khan, a former health official at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was more direct in his comments. He told CNN, “If you’re not doing the … things we’ve talked about in the past to get this outbreak under control, starting with test and trace … your only option is to shut down.”

These warnings echo those that have been issued by the World Health Organization since countries around the world began to emerge from lockdown in late April. They noted then that lockdowns are only a temporary measure, one designed to allow public health systems to recover from the shock of a surge of infections, as well as set up mass testing and contact tracing capabilities.

While some states have been able to recover from their record highs of daily infections and deaths, such as New York, others have continued to see a steady rise in cases. California, for example, had a stay-at-home order in effect since March 19, but allowed many types of businesses to partially reopen in May. This included retail stores, restaurants and recreational facilities, as well as factories and other manufacturing plants.

The state’s new case numbers, however, have shot up in the past month. Unlike New York, which has had a sharp decline in daily cases, California’s trend has been only flat or upward. It has seen a 275 percent increase in its number of new cases since May 25 and now reports more new cases each day than any state except Texas and Florida. California also leads the nation in daily deaths. Wednesday it reported 150 fatalities and yesterday at least 135.

In the aftermath of Wednesday’s death count, Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer warned, “Our cases are rising. The rate of infection is increasing. And the number of hospitalizations are up. And today, we’re even seeing a small increase in the number of deaths.” She was also forced to admit, “Tragically, we do expect that more of our loved ones and neighbors may die of COVID-19 in the coming weeks with all of the increases we’re seeing with hospitalizations.”

The city has again begun to limit testing. While testing had become more widespread in May and parts of June, the growth in cases has forced Los Angeles to allow coronavirus testing only for those showing symptoms or working in an enclosed and crowded area, and for those who have come in contact with another person confirmed to have the virus. At the same time, local officials have estimated that 1 in 140 people living in LA County are unknowingly infected with the virus and are now far less likely to be tested.

Houston, Texas faces a similar situation. There are more than 40,000 cases just in Harris County, which includes Houston. As cases spiral upward, Houston also faces inundated hospitals and testing shortages. Staffing and bed shortages at the Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital last Sunday meant that at least 10 coronavirus patients who needed intensive care were forced to wait in the hospital’s emergency room pending transfer to other area hospitals. The growing crisis forced Mayor Sylvester Turner to cancel the upcoming in-person convention of the Texas Republican Party.

At the same time, paramedics for the city are reporting an increasing number of people dying at home before they can receive hospital care. While many of the fatalities are no doubt from the coronavirus, it is also likely that many have died of a heart attack, stroke or other sudden and dangerous medical condition that was not treated as a result of the overflowing hospitals during the pandemic.