Despite withdrawal of ICE ruling, international students in the US remain at risk

Sam Dalton

On July 14, the Trump administration withdrew a July 6 ruling by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) requiring 900,000 international students to take at least one in-person class this fall—even as many universities move fully online in response to coronavirus pandemic—putting tens of thousands at risk of detention and deportation.

The ruling was revoked before initial arguments were set to be heard in a lawsuit brought against the Trump administration by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which was supported by tens of other colleges. Separate lawsuits had also been filed against the ruling by a number of California universities and a coalition of seventeen states.

Despite the Trump administration’s withdrawal of the order that would have threatened the residency status of 900,000 F-1 visa holders, international students’ right to study in the US remains precarious. The revocation was little more than a tactical retreat in the ongoing war against all immigrants waged by the Trump administration with the crucial support of the Democratic Party.

Far from representing any principled recognition of the rights of students, the revocation of the order is only the latest in a string of increasingly unstable vacillations from a ruling class wracked by crisis. In contrast, the Socialist Equality Party, which fights for the interests of the international working class and young people, insists on the right of every individual, regardless of the circumstances of their birth, to high quality education and to work, to study and live in any country they please with full citizenship rights.

The extent to which the Democratic Party has responded to the ruling has been limited by what they perceive to be the interests of US imperialism. Rather than asserting the democratic rights of the students themselves, the Democrats cited the contribution made by international students to the US economy, their role in critical American research projects and the ties this education fosters to the foreign government officials, many of whom attended college in the US.

Unless students break decisively with the Democratic Party and its pseudo-left agents, they will become pawns in the factional disputes amongst the American ruling class. As soon as the Democrats determine international students no longer suit American imperialism’s geopolitical interests, any pretense of their defense will be dropped forthwith.

Universities themselves have also shown they cannot be relied upon to defend the rights of their students. The Harvard lawsuit did not seek to defend any of the democratic rights of international students. Instead, it simply requested a restraining order on ICE’s July 6 rule which had reversed a March 13 order that gave a temporary moratorium on the requirement that international students take in-person classes. Following the Trump administration’s reversal, it is still the case that F-1 visas holders right to live and study in the United States rests on a temporary order.

The legal argument used in the Harvard suit against the contentious July 6 ICE ruling was to invoke the Administrative Procedures Act. However, as Nolan Rappaport, an ex-adviser on immigration law to the House Judiciary Committee, wrote in the Hill, “this argument applies also to the more generous March 13 directive that the administration has agreed to reinstate, and for the same reasons. Consequently, it is likely to be vacated if someone challenges it in court.”

If the Trump administration or aligned right-wing institution wishes to challenge the March order, it is extremely likely that the temporary exemption for international students will be overturned. As the economic crisis intensifies and efforts to scapegoat immigrants escalate, a legalistic approach to the defense of international students’ rights will be proven futile.

Ultimately, the inability of universities to defend the rights of their students reflects the integration of academic institutions into the US state apparatus. For the last three decades universities have been increasingly corporatized, subordinating their research activity to the dictates of Wall Street, the Pentagon and other state agencies. In conditions where US universities are in financial crises of their own, nominal opposition to the Trump administration’s policies will likely melt away in the face of government bailouts or military contracts.

One reason for the Trump administration’s withdrawal was the recognition that universities have a valuable role to play in the advancement of the aims of US imperialism. A manifestation of this was the appointment of fascist Sebastian Gorka, a former Trump White House advisor, to the National Security Education Board (NSEB), also announced on July 14.

The NSEB leads the recruitment of college students into the US military, State Department and intelligence agencies, with a particular focus on students with linguistic and cultural knowledge that can be used to further US imperialist interests in war and diplomacy. The appointment of a Trump confidant to this position exemplifies efforts of the White House to further integrate the universities into the machinery of US imperialism.

Another motivation for the withdrawal was the recognition that other means can be utilized to deport Chinese students from the country, a long-term goal of the fascist cabal around Trump led by ex-adviser Stephen Miller. On July 15, the New York Times reported White House plans to place a travel ban, similar in form to those placed on seven majority-Muslim countries in 2017, on the members of the Chinese Communist Party and their family members. This would strip 370,000 Chinese students of their right to reside in the US.

At every level, the pandemic is being used as an excuse to restructure society to the benefit of the ruling class. Universities and education more broadly are major targets in this assault. Nowhere is the American ruling class’s callous indifference to human life seen more clearly than in the bipartisan reopening campaign, which in the midst of a deadly pandemic aims to fully reopen schools and universities in the fall, even as tens of thousands continue to be diagnosed with COVID-19 every day.

In contrast to the cynical pro-immigrant posturing of the Democratic Party—which under President Barack Obama deported more people than any other administration and built up the network of detention camps now used by Trump—students and immigrants must be defended on the basis of their fundamental democratic rights.

The defense of these rights is impossible outside of a frontal assault on the capitalist system, and an orientation to the only social force capable of such an offensive—the international working class. In the context of the intensifying persecution of immigrants and the deadly reopening campaign, students must turn to the working class. In this struggle, the following demands must be raised:

• Oppose the assault on international students and all deportations. All students and workers have the right to live, study and work wherever they choose, with full citizenship rights.

• Abolish ICE and other immigration agencies. Immigrants in detention must be released immediately with full citizenship rights.

• The abolition of tuition and cancellation of all student loan debt. Education is a fundamental right that must be provided, free of charge, to the entire working class.

• Safe working and learning conditions. There must be no reopening of campuses until it is deemed safe by committees of workers and students, in consultation with medical experts.

• An immediate reversal of all cuts and layoffs. The trillions mobilized for Wall Street must be seized and redirected to support the needs of workers and students.

Following the lead of auto workers in the Midwest, to enforce these demands and protect their lives, students, professors and all academic workers must form rank-and-file safety committees that are independent of the corrupt unions. These committees must seek to connect the struggle in universities to the wider actions of workers taking place across the US and internationally.

Australian government slashes pandemic payments to workers after suspending parliament

Mike Head

Despite a worsening COVID-19 surge in Australia’s two most populous states, the Liberal-National government yesterday announced the slashing of its pandemic wage subsidies and welfare benefits, as part of its drive to “reopen the economy.”

Under conditions of mass unemployment, this will impoverish more than five million unemployed or under-employed workers and welfare recipients. The blatant purpose is to give workers no choice but to go back into unsafe workplaces regardless of the danger of infection.

“JobSeeker and JobKeeper are not do—nothing payments,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared, saying they were not designed to prevent people “from going out and seeking work.” Treasury had reported that the payments to workers “potentially blunted their incentives to work, or to take on additional hours of work.”

Workers queuing at a Centrelink office in Sydney in March [Credit: World Socialist Web Site]

With the agreement of the Labor Party opposition, Morrison unveiled the cuts just three days after cancelling the next two-week session of parliament, due to commence on August 4. As a result, there will be no discussion in parliament on the austerity measures for at least a month, even if parliament is reconvened as scheduled on August 24.

To satisfy the demands of the corporate elite for continued bailouts, JobKeeper wage subsidy payments will be ­extended beyond the original September cut-off date, at least for some businesses. The spreading global pandemic and its resurgence in Victoria and New South Wales, which account for about half of Australia’s economic output, has demolished the government’s claims that it would deliver an economic “snap back” from the impact of COVID-19 by September.

The new JobKeeper payments, however, will be at a rate reduced from $1,500 to $1,200 a fortnight for the following three months, and then to $1,000 for the next three months to March 30. There will be even steeper cuts to $750, and then $650, for part-time or casual employees.

This means that the 3.5 million workers currently receiving a bare minimum wage of $750 a week, via subsidies handed to their employers, will have their incomes reduced to just $500 a week by the end of the year, and to only $325 a week for part-time or casual workers. These amounts are not enough to live on.

At the same time, the 1.6 million jobless workers now receiving $1,115 fortnightly JobSeeker unemployment allowances will have these pittances cut by $300 a fortnight to $815. That is barely above the starvation level of $556 a fortnight for the pre-COVID Newstart jobless payment. And this level may be cut further after December 31, Morrison foreshadowed.

In the meantime, recipients will be compelled to actively search for work, starting with four job applications a month and then rising, despite the lack of jobs—there are an estimated 17 unemployed workers per vacancy. Workers will be cut off payments if they reject any job, no matter how poor the pay and conditions.

Together with the imminent end of moratoriums on evictions, and mortgage and bank loan repayments, these cuts will propel millions of working-class households into financial stress, destitution and homelessness. A report by the Australia Institute think tank, issued before Morrison’s announcement, warned that a cut in the JobSeeker payment to around the level proposed would push another half million people below the austere Henderson poverty line.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, about 3.7 million were living below this line. And households of two adults and two children living on unemployment payments were about 20 percent below the poverty line, after years of cuts to dole payments in real terms by successive governments, both Liberal-National and Labor.

According to the Treasury’s calculations, the number of workers on JobKeeper subsidies will fall from 3.5 million to 1 million by March. That means another vast rise in unemployment, which is already at the levels of the 1930s Great Depression, throwing many more workers onto sub-poverty JobSeeker payments.

Treasury’s advice to the government also predicted that many businesses, especially small family-run enterprises, will go to the wall, even as large corporations reap higher profits, making them ineligible for the wage subsidies. Treasury declared that JobSeeker subsidies were keeping unviable “zombie firms” afloat.

Treasury said the JobKeeper program “hampers labour mobility and the reallocation of workers to more productive roles.” In other words, the scaling back of payments is part of an offensive to exploit the pandemic to further restructure workplace relations in the interests of the corporate oligarchy.

Far from opposing this ruthless drive, the Labor Party fully agrees with forcing workers back into worksites, in order to help boost corporate profits and pay off the ever-expanding mountain of debt incurred by the governments via their business “stimulus” handouts, which now exceed $300 billion.

Leader Anthony Albanese voiced support for the JobKeeper cuts, having previously criticised the subsidies for supposedly paying some casual and part-time workers more than they earned before the pandemic. He said the government should permanently lift JobSeeker benefits above the pre-pandemic level, but refused to say what that rate should be.

In suspending parliament last Saturday, Morrison said he had consulted Albanese, who told the media he accepted the decision. Morrison said the government was acting on the advice of acting Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly regarding the “increased community transmission of COVID-19.”

Given that the government has told the population to expect virus outbreaks for months to come, after lifting most safety restrictions, the same logic could see parliament shut down indefinitely.

Yet, the government, purportedly acting on the advice of the same health officials, is insisting that school teachers, staff and students must return to classrooms, regardless of the growing infections erupting in schools.

Moreover, there is no legal reason for parliament not to meet online. When the pandemic erupted in March, both the House of Representatives and the Senate voted to be able to meet in “a manner and form not otherwise provided in the standing orders,” clearing the way for video-conferencing sessions.

Parliament has not sat fully for months already. During the first phase of the pandemic, the government convened rump sittings, with reduced quorums, to pass legislation for its business stimulus packages.

Some state and territory parliaments have shut down as well. The Victorian state Labor government of Premier Daniel Andrews has suspended parliament indefinitely.

In effect, the country is being ruled, via biosecurity emergency powers, by a “national cabinet” of the federal, state and territory government heads. This body has no constitutional or statutory basis and is not formally accountable to any parliament.

No precedent exists for this formation, except during World War II, when the Curtin Labor government decreed that decisions by the bipartisan Advisory War Council would automatically be decisions of the government’s “War Cabinet.”

Likewise, the current “national cabinet” has become a de facto national unity government between the Liberal-National Coalition and the Labor Party, with five of its eight members representing Labor. All the work of this self-proclaimed cabinet has been declared confidential and protected from Freedom of Information laws, blocking any public scrutiny.

These secrecy protocols have been extended also to the chief medical officers’ group, known as the Australian Health Protection Principals Committee, and the “National Co-ordinating Measure,” which runs the Crisis Coordination Centre, a police-intelligence-military command operation.

So, even the “health advice” that the government leaders cite constantly to justify their measures is being kept secret, along with the preparations inside the state apparatus for combatting crises, especially the eruption of working-class unrest.

These preparations include the growing use of the armed forces to reinforce the police in enforcing quarantine measures and state border closures. Almost 3,000 military personnel are now deployed, including in contact tracing operations. As during the summer bushfire crisis, this mobilisation is intended to acclimatise the population to the presence of troops on the streets and in civilian capacities.

COVID-19 cases surging again in Japan

Ben McGrath

COVID-19 cases have spiked in Japan in recent weeks, particularly in the densely-populated capital of Tokyo, demonstrating the danger the pandemic continues to pose. Last Saturday’s national one-day tally of 659 cases was the fourth highest since the pandemic began, with similarly high totals in April when the government declared a state of emergency.

On July 15, Tokyo raised its city alert system to level four, the highest. The next two days each set new record highs for the city with 286 and 293 cases respectively. As of Monday, that number had fallen to 168. However, the average number of untraceable cases has doubled, potentially leading to an explosion in life-threatening illnesses. Furthermore, given the government’s reporting time, the number of cases announced daily is on a three-day delay, meaning the public does not have up-to-date information.

Despite the fact that the pandemic has been intensifying around the world, the government has taken no steps to safeguard against a surge. Yoshihiro Yamaguchi, the head of the Trauma and Critical Care Center at Kyorin University Hospital, drew attention to the danger Tokyo faces during a meeting with local officials on July 15. “The pace of increase in the number of new COVID-19 cases has exceeded the pace of securing empty beds to take in patients,” he warned. “The current strategy needs to be changed. Otherwise the (health care system) will collapse.”

There are inadequate facilities for quarantining patients with mild symptoms, forcing hundreds, just within Tokyo, to self-isolate at home. If their symptoms worsen they will have no immediate access to medical care. Yet, the shortfall is not new. In April, as the pandemic developed, hospitals were already at or beyond capacity, forcing sick individuals to travel around the city looking for a medical facility that would admit them.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government has attempted to artificially deflate the number of cases in order to prevent the outbreak from negatively impacting the economy. This underscores the criminality of his administration’s approach to the deadly virus.

Japan ranks staggeringly low for conducted tests compared to other nations, carrying out only 5,060 tests per million people, or just half of one percent of the population. By contrast, many countries in Europe have carried out tens of thousands tests per million people.

Japan’s official death rate of just over 1,000 is also artificially low. Numbers released in June for Tokyo found there were more than 1,000 “excess deaths” in April alone, a 12 percent increase over the annual average. Whether these people died directly from COVID-19 and were not tested or were unable to access medical care for other illnesses in an overwhelmed healthcare system, their deaths are the result of the refusal by the central and local governments to take the required measures to address the needs of the broader population.

Instead, the central government has used the pandemic to force through a new state of emergency law, supported by the opposition Democrats in parliament, that will ultimately be directed at attacking the democratic rights of the working class.

Abe’s government also approved two record corporate handouts that total 234 trillion yen ($US2.2 trillion) to shield the wealthiest layers from the impact of the economic downturn. Another bailout package is being planned for the fall. However, only paltry amounts were made available for workers, including a one-off 100,000 yen ($931) payment for Japanese residents.

The fact that Abe now refuses to declare a new state of emergency despite similar, if not worse, conditions than in April, shows that the new law has nothing to do with public safety. The main concern for the government, now that the emergency law has been passed and corporate bailouts distributed, is to keep workplaces open, people on the job, and schools open so that big business can continue to extract surplus value from the working class.

Underscoring its big business priorities, the government is promoting a “Go to Travel” campaign, providing subsidies and financial incentives to people to travel throughout the country. This is an attempt to boost local economies and convince people that conditions have returned to normal. With the surge of cases in Tokyo, the campaign now excludes the capital, but the risk of spreading the virus elsewhere is high.

The pandemic continues to have a serious impact on the working class. Despite the bailouts, 55 percent of companies surveyed last month said they had either slashed wages or laid off workers. Hisashi Yamada, an economist at the Japan Research Institute, stated in June: “The jobless rate will remain on the uptrend as more and more firms will become unable to weather the economic pain.”

Officially, Japan’s unemployment remains relatively low, but it has grown to 2.9 percent in May, up from 2.5 percent in March. When taking into account workers who have been furloughed, the actual unemployment rate is more than 11.5 percent. Those most affected are part-time and contract workers who lack job protections and make up 36 percent of the total workforce.

The attack on workers includes those dealing directly with the pandemic. Last month, nurses at the Tokyo Women’s Medical University Hospital were told they would receive pay cuts as well as nonpayment of summer bonuses. Nearly 400 nurses, or 20 percent of the staff, are now threatening to quit in response. The Japan Federation of Medical Workers Unions is doing nothing to defend its members aside from asking the hospital’s board of directors to reconsider its decision.

The union is part of the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren), which is allied with the Japanese Communist Party, a degenerated Stalinist party that is part of the political establishment. Around 30 percent of medical institutions around the country are planning on cutting wages to nurses this summer, according to the union.

Doctors warn National Health Service will be “overwhelmed” as Johnson scraps UK lockdown measures

Laura Tiernan

Scientists and public health experts have spoken out against the government’s premature lifting of lockdown restrictions, warning the National Health Service (NHS) will be overwhelmed by a second wave of coronavirus infections this winter.

Dr. Alison Pittard, dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, said the NHS would be “overwhelmed” if another surge in COVID-19 combines with the annual flu season, placing pressure on a public health system already stretched to the breaking point.

“We still have COVID patients in intensive care. If the public don’t physically distance and don’t wear face coverings, we could very quickly get back to where we were earlier this year.”

Professor Carrie MacEwen, chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, echoed these warnings. “If we get a second surge it could be bigger than the last one…it could damage the NHS in the long-term, especially with the backlog [of surgery] and flu. Going into winter the situation is much bleaker and against a background of economic disaster. The public has begun to think we are free of this, but we are not.”

MacEwen told the Guardian that doctors are now completely reliant on the public to control the virus. This is because the Johnson government is openly defying scientific advice that strict social distancing is still needed.

On Friday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson scrapped the last remaining planks of national lockdown measures introduced on March 23. Employers will be able to order staff to stop working from home from August 1, pushing millions into crowded transport and workplaces. Football matches and other “super-spreader” events will also resume, while schools will reopen in September.

Johnson claimed the UK would be “back to normality” by Christmas, cherry-picking statistics to create a false narrative of national recovery. At last Friday’s press conference he cited a decline in UK COVID-19 deaths since their peak in April, but this was achieved thanks to the lockdown measures the government has now lifted as it drives millions back to work to protect the profits of the corporate and financial oligarchy.

Professor Christina Pagel, professor of Operational Research at University College London, told an Independent SAGE online briefing Friday that the rate of new infections in the UK had flatlined. There were 642 new COVID-19 cases that day, the same number as the previous Friday, “So, although new cases were [previously] declining, that decline has definitely now stopped.”

International experience showed it would take four to five weeks, Pagel explained, before the result of eased lockdown restrictions would be seen. This means the impact of the July 4 reopening of pubs and restaurants, for example, has not yet been felt. “Over the next two to three weeks we really need to keep an eye on new confirmed cases,” she said.

Last Friday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced that daily publication of new infections and deaths from COVID-19 was being “paused” due to “statistical anomalies.” The sinister move means that information charting infections and deaths in England has not been published for more than five days, right at the point where the government’s back-to-work measures are in full swing.

Hancock’s claim to have suddenly discovered “anomalies” in the way COVID-19 deaths are recorded in England is bogus. Explanatory text was already included on Public Health England’s (PHE) website, pointing to different calculations employed in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. PHE statistics are generated by reporting all deaths among patients previously diagnosed with COVID-19. The lack of any cut-off date between infection and death means PHE’s figures might sometimes include patients who died for other reasons, thus “exaggerating” the death toll. But Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland’s 28-day cut-off minimises the death toll—a problem that causes no concern for Hancock.

On July 7, scientists in Independent SAGE published a report, “Zero COVID-19: Why is England not pursuing an elimination strategy?” It found the government had “consistently failed to heed broad-based scientific advice, including that from the World Health Organisation and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.”

The scientists opposed statements by Sir Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical officer, who supported the Johnson government’s “phased” reopening of the economy while predicting on June 23 that “a significant amount of coronavirus” would still be circulating the following spring—equating to a minimum death toll of 25,000. Independent SAGE responded, “a death toll from COVID-19 of this magnitude is not only preventable but is absolutely unacceptable.”

To eliminate the virus, scientists say the infection rate must be reduced to one new case per million people each day. But on Friday, Pagel explained that in England, the number of new cases per million had risen to 10. The R-rate, which the government previously said must stay below 1.0 to prevent exponential growth, has risen to 1.0 in almost every area.

NHS Track and Trace—contracted to private companies including Serco—is in shambles. It has failed to deliver on the 80 percent contact success rate the government’s own scientific advisers say is needed to isolate new cases and reduce the overall rate of infection. Sunday’s outbreak at a Sitel contact tracing call centre in Lanarkshire, Scotland, symbolises the ineptitude and greed of a system that operates at the direct expense of public health. The pandemic is being seized on to further privatise and dismantle the NHS.

On Monday, the Guardian reported that contact tracing in England’s poorest local authorities reaches fewer people than in wealthy areas. “In Blackpool, 37% of people who had been in close contact with an infected person were not reached by the system. This compares with 9% in Cheshire East, which includes the affluent towns of Knutsford and Wilmslow.” People in the poorest parts of the UK are already more than twice as likely to die from COVID-19 compared to people living in rich areas.

There is overwhelming public opposition to lifting the lockdown. A Sky News poll published July 3 found that 83 percent of respondents would support a second lockdown to stop a second spike in infections. Support was uniform across all age groups, with just 6 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds saying they would oppose a second lockdown, compared with 4 percent of people aged 65 and over.

Polling took place on June 29–30, just one week after the Johnson government announced the reopening of pubs and restaurants, urging the population to “go out and enjoy yourselves.” But 70 percent of people said they would not go to a pub or cinema, 71 percent said they would not use public transport, and 73 percent said they would not feel comfortable taking an overseas holiday. An overwhelming majority also support compulsory use of face masks, with 91 percent of respondents saying they should be worn on public transport and 80 percent supporting compulsory use in shops.

Against the progressive instincts of class solidarity shown by millions of workers who fought for national lockdown measures to save lives, the homicidal outlook of the ruling class was summed up over the weekend by Johnson in an interview he gave to the Telegraph.

Discussing his government’s “transformative agenda,” he confirmed there would be no second national lockdown. “I can’t abandon that tool any more than I would abandon a nuclear deterrent. But it is like a nuclear deterrent, I certainly don’t want to use it. And nor do I think we will be in that position again.”

For Johnson and the ruling class, the threat of Armageddon arises not from the threat to the lives of millions of people, but from the loss of profits caused by socially necessary public health measures. There could be no clearer argument for socialism. Capitalism must be overthrown by the working class and replaced by a globally planned socialist economy, deploying scientific knowledge and resources to protect the world’s people.

Germany: The “riots” in Frankfurt and the right-wing network in the police

Peter Schwarz

After the so-called “Stuttgart Night of Violence” in late June, a similar event in Frankfurt is now being used to systematically increase police powers and justify and strengthen radical right-wing structures in the state apparatus.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, after an open-air party on Frankfurt’s Opernplatz [Opera Square] attended by about 3,000, clashes between young people and the police broke out. According to the police, officers who intervened in a brawl had bottles thrown at them. The glass panel of a tram stop was also broken. There are no independent reports about the events.

The police arrested 39 youths aged 17 to 23, but had to release them all the next day, as the public prosecutor’s office saw no evidence that they had been in an encounter with police officers. Nevertheless, the media and politicians immediately set in motion their propaganda machinery.

The Hesse state Interior Minister Peter Beuth (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) declared, “This senseless violence against the police cannot be justified by anything.” Referring to “security circles,” the Bild tabloid reported that the people involved were similar to those “from the riots in Stuttgart”—“a high percentage of immigrants, drunk and highly aggressive.” Stefan Müller, managing director of the Christian Social Union (CSU) faction in the Bundestag (federal parliament), called for “the causes to be clearly named—failed integration and the denial of grievances by left-wing elites.”

The Frankfurt police chief, Gerhard Bereswill, also claimed that the youths were mainly men with an immigration background. Asked by the Hessenschau newspaper about the causes of the clashes, he said that in addition to alcohol and an aggressive attitude, he named “the sweeping accusations” to which the police were exposed. Police officers were suspected of being right-wing extremists and were confronted with this on the streets. In addition, he said, there were accusations of racism and racial profiling, as well as accusations of police violence, which had spilled over to Germany after the death of George Floyd. The German police were being falsely identified with the American police.

The police chief deliberately mixes up cause and effect. Young people have every reason to be suspicious of the police.

For weeks now, more and more details about right-wing extremist networks in the Hesse police force have become known. Numerous celebrities—including the lawyer Seda Basay-Yildiz, who acted for several of the victims of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Underground (NSU), leading Left Party politicians, the cabaret artist Idil Baydar, Green Party member Jutta Ditfurth and the journalist Deniz Yücel—have received death threats signed “NSU 2.0.” In several cases, the threats contained personal data, which had been retrieved shortly before from a Hesse police computer.

But the perpetrators are being covered up by the highest authorities in state and politics. Although it would be easy to identify the officers whose accounts were used to retrieve the data, the police allegedly still do not know who is behind it.

At the centre of the affair is the 1st police station in Frankfurt, which is also responsible for Opernplatz, the site of the recent clashes. Two years ago, data about Basay-Yildiz was retrieved there. On the mobile phone of the policewoman who had logged in, there was a chat group in which police officers glorified Hitler and the Holocaust. Five of the officers involved were from the 1st Frankfurt police station. They were suspended, but nothing else has happened to them.

When data about the leader of the Left Party parliamentary group, Janine Wissler, were later retrieved from a police computer in Wiesbaden, the police officer responsible was not even searched.

Cabaret artist Idil Baydar filed criminal charges eight times because she received threatening emails. But the investigations were unsuccessful each time. Baydar learned from the press, not from police sources, that her data had been retrieved from a police computer.

Nevertheless, the Frankfurt police president is now blaming “the blanket accusation,” i.e., the exposure of right-wing extremist networks in the police force, for stone-throwing at police officers. This is a transparent attempt to suppress any criticism of the police.

To this end, the Frankfurt “riots” are being exaggerated excessively. Even if one takes the highly embellished portrayal of the police as a yardstick, it pales in comparison to the violence that football hooligans, for example, regularly use. According to official police statistics, 1,127 people were injured in violent clashes in the 2018-19 football season. Criminal proceedings were initiated against 6,289, a quarter of them for assault. For 34 match days, this means an average of 33 injured and 185 criminal proceedings per week. But since the hooligans are mostly right-wing extremists, their violence is hardly worth a line in the media.

The accusation of racial profiling is also not made up of thin air. The police openly admit to it themselves. For example, the Stuttgart police conducted so-called “family tree research” after the “night of violence” there, according to their own statements, whereby they inquired at registration offices about the origin of the parents of youths with German passports. Both Greens and CDU politicians defended this practice, which is reminiscent of Nazi anti-Jewish legislation.

A year and a half ago, the police introduced the category “anti-German” nationwide to classify politically motivated crimes. The right-wing propaganda term comes directly from the ideological arsenal of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). Official bodies dealing with police matters unanimously voted in favour, as taz recently reported.

The police’s notorious sympathy for neo-Nazis is also illustrated by an incident that took place in Berlin on the same day as the Frankfurt clashes.

Attila Hildmann agitates in Berlin

The right-wing extremist cookbook author Attila Hildmann once again organised a motorcade and a rally in the historic centre of Berlin. In front of some 150 applauding participants, he incited against Jews, whom he accused of “wanting to wipe out the German race.” He praised Adolf Hitler as “a blessing” for Germany and threatened Green politician Volker Beck with public execution. Although Hildmann demonstrably committed a large number of crimes, the police stood by and did not intervene.

Hildmann had already made similar statements on social media. Various Jewish associations reacted with horror, and the Potsdam police headquarters received a total of 1,600 complaints. Nevertheless, the Brandenburg public prosecutor’s office denied that any crime had been committed.

Together with the right-wing terrorist networks in the Bundeswehr (armed forces) and the KSK elite forces unit, as well as the close links between the Verfassungsschutz (secret service) and militant neo-Nazis, the picture that emerges is of a right-wing conspiracy within the state apparatus, which is covered up and promoted by the grand coalition of the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats together with all the other parties in the Bundestag. Even the Left Party and the Greens, whose members sometimes face death threats, do not lift a finger against this right-wing conspiracy.

There are deep objective reasons for this. Faced with the deepest crisis of capitalism since the 1930s, the German ruling class is returning to the methods of dictatorship and war to secure its rule and suppress all political and social opposition. It is thus reacting to sharp social tensions that herald fierce class struggles.

This is an international development. In all capitalist countries, the ruling class is arming the police and secret services and promoting extreme right-wing movements.

In the US, President Donald Trump has for the first time sent federal security forces into Portland, Oregon, against the will of the local authorities, to suppress demonstrations. In scenes reminiscent of a military dictatorship, these security forces in battle dress act against peaceful demonstrators and drag them into unmarked vehicles.

The struggle against the development of a police state and right-wing extremism requires the building of an independent movement of the international working class that combines the defence of democratic and social rights with the struggle for socialism.

EU Summit agrees to €750 billion fund for the banks and corporations

Will Morrow

After nearly five days of acrimonious negotiations inside the 27-member European Union (EU), the EU Summit announced that a deal had been reached early Tuesday morning for a financial stimulus programme funneling €750 billion to the banks and corporations.

The stimulus, along with a new, seven-year €1 trillion EU budget, were near-universally hailed as “historic” and a sign of solidarity amid a pandemic that has already killed nearly 200,000 people in Europe. French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted: “A common loan to respond to the crisis in solidarity and to invest in our future.” Spanish Socialist Party Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called it “an authentic Marshall Plan.”

In reality, the summit resembled nothing more than a group of criminals finalising a new mechanism for robbery of the population.

The bailout will not be used for investments in health care, jobs or social programmes to fight the pandemic or ward off threats of mass sackings and a global economic crisis. It aims to provide a new revenue stream for EU states to give handouts to corporations, boost the stock market, and shore up the wealth of the super-rich, while enforcing austerity across the continent.

Global share markets rose on the announcement of the deal. Germany’s DAX rose 1.7 percent, putting it in positive territory for 2020, and France’s CAC-40 1.2 percent. Fortune magazine summarised the celebratory response in the financial elite: “With more than 100,000 Europeans dead from the virus and an economy to rebuild, investors were looking for a display of unity to sustain the rally in stocks.”

Under the agreement, the EU Commission is empowered for the first time to borrow directly from the financial markets on behalf of all EU member states. Of the €750 billion total, €390 billion will be allocated to individual EU states as grants that need not be repaid, with each country receiving funds proportionate to the impact of the pandemic on their economy. The remaining €360 billion will be loans whose repayment conditions are still unspecified.

What is clear is that the money will be paid by the working class in the form of cuts to essential social programmes and infrastructure. Like after the 2008 crash, access to funds is tied to structural “reforms.” Member states must first submit national reform plans to the EU. If any member state considers that austerity policies are not proceeding quickly enough in another state, it can enforce an “emergency brake” on the funds. The brake is limited to a maximum of three months, while the EU Commission decides whether the “reforms” go far enough.

The “structural reforms” overseen in Greece over the past decade by the Troika—the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the EU—are to be extended across Europe to repay the trillions handed out to the rich.

This EU Summit was almost the longest in history. Initially scheduled only for the weekend, it was unclear whether any agreement could be reached at all. Opposition to a deal initially mooted by Berlin and Paris came from wealthier northern European countries, particularly the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Austria, which initially rejected any issuance of common debt that would go in greater proportion to poorer southern European countries, chiefly Italy and Spain. Italy is set to receive approximately €82 billion in grants and €127 billion in loans.

A deal was only brokered after the proportion of the €750 billion to be handed out as grants was cut from €500 billion to €390 billion. In addition, all four countries obtained additional rebates reducing their annual net contributions to the EU budget. With Germany, they will collectively receive over €50 billion in rebates over the next seven years.

The politically criminal, anti-working-class character of the agreement is shown by one element that was largely overlooked by the media. The deal slashes extra EU-wide funding for scientific research and health care that had been part of the initial proposal only two months ago by the EU Commission.

The seven-year budget includes €81 billion on Horizon Europe, the main European research programme, €13.5 billion less than two months earlier. Much of this funding goes towards venture capital investments in European technology companies, not towards actual scientific research. Additionally, the European-wide health care programme EU4Health was slashed from €9.4 billion to €1.67 billion proposed in May—amid the greatest pandemic in a century.

Marta Agostinho, the coordinator of EU-Life, an alliance of 14 life-science research institutes, commented over the weekend: “In a time when politicians and citizens look to science to find the miraculous solution to the COVID-19 crisis, the top leaders decide to cut the research budget—how insane is this?”

This decision is all the more criminal in that the EU Summit took place amid growing signs of a renewed upsurge of the virus in Europe. More than 4 million inhabitants of Barcelona have been asked to confine at home, while France today made masks compulsory in all public buildings, as Health Minister Olivier Véran announced this weekend that there are more than 80 active clusters across the country. The response of the European ruling class is to hand themselves hundreds of billions of euros, accelerate austerity, and intensify their militarist foreign policy.

The main proponents of the deal and the creation of a common borrowing mechanism that underpins it had been Berlin and Paris. France and Germany view this as essential for the development of an aggressive military and economic policy independently of and in opposition to China and the United States.

During his press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday, French President Macron stated: “We have succeeded in changing something fundamental on this occasion, together, on the basis of an initiative that is to borrow in common and to have a true mechanism of budgetary transfers and solidarity, which never existed before.”

The aggressive imperialist strategy behind this policy was stated by Humboldt University professor and economist Marcel Fratzscher, for German news magazine Der Spiegel. “Germany is the big winner of the agreed programme, even if many in this country don’t want to see it that way at the moment,” he wrote.

He explained, “Towards China and the USA, Germany will only be able to protect its interests as part of a strong Europe. The two largest economies in the world are becoming more and more nationalistic and are less and less afraid of conflicts with Europe and especially with Germany. We have to be aware that Germany is a small economy globally and cannot stand up to either China or the United States alone. The EU reconstruction fund therefore forms the basis for the long-term transformation of a bipolar to a tripolar world order in which Europe has a firm place.”

US indicts Chinese nationals on trumped-up hacking charges

Jacob Crosse

In an escalation of the bipartisan anti-China campaign, US Department of Justice officials in Spokane, Washington on Tuesday unsealed an indictment against two former engineering students, charging them with hacking in order to steal data on COVID-19 vaccine research.

In the 11-page indictment, Chinese citizens Li Xiaoyu, 34, and Dong Jiazhi, 33, are accused of working on behalf of the Chinese government in order to hack into the computer systems of US and international companies in order to steal trade secrets, personal information, and information on a potential COVID-19 vaccine.

The indictment states that the two not only worked on their own “for profit,” but also at the direction of the Ministry of State Security (MSS), a civilian spy agency, on behalf of the Chinese government.

Each of the two is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit computer fraud, conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, unauthorized access of a computer and seven counts each of aggravated identity theft.

If convicted on all counts and given maximum sentences, the pair would spend up to 64 years in prison. However, it is extremely unlikely they will ever be extradited to the US.

Li Xiaoyu and Dong Jiazhi, the indictment alleges, are former classmates at the University of Electronic Science and Technology, “an electrical engineering college in Chengdu, China.” Li and Dong are accused of using “their technical training to hack the computer networks of a wide variety of companies,” beginning in September 2009.

The indictment does not allege that the defendants actually stole any information related to COVID-19 vaccine research. This, however, did not stop the Washington Post, CNBC, MSNBC and the New York Times from running headlines accusing the two of “stealing vaccine data for China” (the Times) or smearing China for “sponsoring criminal hackers targeting coronavirus vaccine research” (the Post).

The accusations come less than a week after the intelligence agencies of the US, Canada and the UK accused the Russian government of “plotting to steal” coronavirus research. The Times breathlessly promoted the baseless claims of the intelligence agencies on its front page, despite there being no actual evidence or named victims.

It also follows unsubstantiated allegations by FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General William Barr that China has been hacking into US-based companies involved in coronavirus vaccine research.

As the World Socialist Web Site explained last week:

There is a ferocious global struggle between competing corporations and nations to be the first to patent a vaccine for the coronavirus. At stake are billions of dollars for corporate CEOS, investors and bankers, and an immense geopolitical advantage for the country that wins the vaccine sweepstakes…

Under no conditions is US imperialism prepared to allow either Russia or China to dominate the global market for a COVID-19 vaccine. It is seeking in advance to criminalize their efforts, very possibly as a prelude to banning the import of such a vaccine into the US and lesser powers dependent on it, such as the UK and Canada.

The indictment against Li and Dong does not name any companies but does give general locations and singles out industries that were allegedly hacked. The two are accused of compromising the security of various US engineering and technology firms as well as a “Virginia federal and defense contractor.”

The US also accuses the pair of breaking into a British artificial intelligence firm, a Swedish online gaming company, a Lithuanian gaming company, a South Korean shipbuilding and engineering firm, and an Australian solar company.

Li and Dong are alleged to have researched and identified targets through publicly available information. According to the indictment, they were able to gain access using “publicly known software vulnerabilities in popular products.”

In announcing the charges, FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich accused the Chinese government of stealing “intellectual property and research which bolster its economy, and then they use that illicit gain as a weapon to silence any country that would dare challenge their illegal actions.”

John Demers, head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, ramped up the saber rattling, stating: “China has now taken its place, alongside Russia, Iran and North Korea, in that shameful club of nations that provide a safe haven for cybercriminals in exchange for those criminals being ‘on call’ to work for the benefit of the state, here to feed the Chinese Communist Party’s insatiable hunger for American and other non-Chinese companies’ hard-earned intellectual property, including COVID-19 research.”

The announcement of the charges comes one week after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo branded nearly all Chinese claims in the South China Sea as “illegal.” Earlier this month, the US sent two aircraft carrier battle strike groups into the South China Sea for war games in the vicinity of Chinese military bases, escalating Washington’s war preparations against the nuclear-armed country.

It should also be noted that earlier this year reports surfaced that for at least five decades the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Administration, through a Swiss diplomatic encryption company they owned, have spied on the private communications of world leaders and government officials around the world.

Trump’s plan to send paramilitary police throughout the US: The ruling class prepares for civil war

Patrick Martin

The Trump administration’s plans to deploy federal paramilitary police forces in major cities throughout the United States is a major escalation in the assault on democratic rights and the erection of police-state forms of rule.

In Portland, the mobilization of these forces has already led to scenes reminiscent of Latin American death squads. Gangs of men, wearing generic camouflage without unit insignias or name tags, seize protesters, bundle them into unmarked vans and cars, and take them away for questioning, or worse.

On Monday, Trump threatened similar action in New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore, Oakland, and other cities. Referring to those protesting police violence, Trump said, “These people are anarchists, people who hate our country, and we’re not going to let them go forward.”

There is no legal or constitutional basis for the invasion of American cities by these federal agents. Congress has not authorized their deployment, and there is no actual emergency to which they are responding. For all Trump’s claims of violence and anarchy, the main violence is being perpetrated by his thugs.

In Portland, the federal attack has been spearheaded by heavily armed agents of the Customs and Border Protection, members of its internal SWAT team, known as BORTAC, used to fight narcotics traffickers at the border and to suppress disturbances at US detention camps for immigrants. But Portland is 400 miles from the closest US border, and BORTAC is not targeting either drug dealers or immigrants but protesters against police violence.

Joining the CBP officers are groups of armed men drawn from other agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Like the CBP, these are components of the Department of Homeland Security and were deployed at the direction of its top officials—Trump lackeys Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli. The DHS has reportedly placed a total of 2,000 officers on standby for deployment around the country.

Trump is, in essence, seeking to develop a paramilitary force—consisting of fascistic immigration SWAT teams, along with local police forces—operating under his personal authority.

There are ominous historical parallels. In Germany after its defeat in World War I, the ruling class sponsored the creation of the Freikorps, heavily armed groups of demobilized soldiers who acted as shock troops against the working class, murdering revolutionary leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. The Freikorps became the initial levies of Hitler’s stormtroopers.

In Argentina, Chile, Brazil and other Latin American counties, the CIA-backed military regimes in the 1970s utilized fascistic paramilitary organizations, such as the Argentine Anti-communist Alliance (Triple A) to eliminate militants in the factories. The signature of the Triple A was the dragging of their victims into unmarked Ford Falcons that roamed Buenos Aires and other cities. After extended torture, the bodies were frequently dumped into the Atlantic Ocean from helicopters and planes.

Those who have been kidnapped by Trump’s agents in Portland have been released to tell their stories, up to now. Only seven people have been arrested by federal agents, most for misdemeanor vandalism. Only tear gas and “nonlethal” projectiles have been used, not live ammunition. But precedents are being set. People are to become accustomed to the deployment of paramilitary forces, with the military in the background to intervene or act as arbiters.

The main target of Trump’s authoritarian efforts is the working class. The Trump administration’s actions take place as the ruling class expects an enormous growth of social conflict and resistance.

After handing trillions of dollars to themselves, the corporations and banks are enforcing a homicidal back-to-work campaign that has already produced an explosion of coronavirus cases and deaths. Foreclosures are about to begin again after a temporary moratorium, and the federal unemployment subsidy of $600 a week is scheduled to expire at the end of this week.

There is seething anger in the workplaces and factories, with workers beginning to resist being forced to work and place their lives and the lives of their loved ones at risk. There is particularly intense opposition to the reopening of public schools, only weeks away, with the accompanying threat to the lives of children, their families, their teachers, and all school employees.

While Trump’s actions are a major escalation, they are the outcome of a protracted crisis of American democracy. The Trump administration is utilizing the entire apparatus of the “war on terror” against domestic opposition. Indeed, as the WSWS warned from the beginning, this was its intended purpose.

The Democratic Party is complicit in all of this. They helped create, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the apparatus of the police state: the PATRIOT Act, the Department of Homeland Security, domestic spying, and the Northern Command center to control US military operations within the United States.

In 2013, it was the Obama administration that carried out the military siege against the population of Boston, using the Boston Marathon bombing as a pretext. As the WSWS wrote at the time, with the military-police house-to-house searches in violation of basic constitutional rights,

 ... the American ruling class crossed a historical, legal and political Rubicon. The die is cast, and the sun is setting on the democratic forms of rule that have existed in the United States for the past two centuries.

What history will remember as most significant about the events in Boston will not be the bombing near the marathon’s finish line or the perpetrators or their motives. What will be remembered instead will be the unprecedented military lockdown of an entire major American city, with military vehicles in the streets and heavily armed soldiers going house to house—tromping through living rooms, bedrooms and kitchens, staring down their assault rifles at terrified, barefoot families in their pajamas.

The response of the Democratic Party to Trump’s coup attempts is hypocritical and dishonest. In Oregon, local and state Democrats sought to dismiss Trump’s actions as “political theater.” Governor Kate Brown said, “Trump is looking for a confrontation in Oregon in the hopes of winning political points in Ohio or Iowa.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement decrying “President Trump’s political games.”

At the same time, Pelosi agreed to take up the new budget for the Department of Homeland Security next week, including full funding for the CBP, ICE and other agencies whose paramilitary units are engaged in attacks on both immigrants and the American people as a whole.

No Democrat has called for Trump’s impeachment over the plans to invade Democratic Party-controlled cities.

Trump’s actions come less than two months after he went on national television to declare his intention to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 and deploy military force to suppress the mass protests that erupted after the police murder of George Floyd.

The Democrats ceded all opposition to Trump’s attempted coup to the military and retired generals, who opposed the action out of fear that it could backfire because it had not been politically prepared. They regarded such a major step as not yet necessary. Trump pulled back temporarily and did not invoke the Insurrection Act.

As the Socialist Equality Party warned on June 8, “The dangers are very real. The conspirators in the White House have not ceased their plotting. The military is biding its time and considering its options. The police remain armed to the teeth.”

These warnings are now being confirmed. The coming elections will be held under conditions of explosive social unrest and political crisis. Trump has already declared that he may not accept the outcome of the elections if he is defeated. The Democrats are counting on the military to intervene to force him out. All factions of the ruling class are preparing for civil war against the working class.

It is the social power of the working class that must be mobilized against Trump’s attacks on democratic rights and his drive to establish a presidential dictatorship.

COVID-19 cases reach 15 million worldwide with 4 million in the US alone

Benjamin Mateus

The number of COVID-19 infections worldwide surpassed 15 million yesterday. In less than five days, another million cases have been added. More than 618,000 people have died in little more than seven months since the virus took its first victim. There are also six million active cases globally, which provides only a very indirect measure of the burden being carried by health care workers facing shortages of PPE, medical supplies, and stamina. Ten percent of all cases occur among health care workers.

COVID-19 tests in the parking lot of H-E-B Park soccer stadium in Edinburg, Hidalgo County, Texas [Credit: Billy Calzada]

More than 25 countries have posted more than 1,000 new daily cases. These include some of the poorest nations, like Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, and Ecuador. The poorest and most vulnerable people are at risk.

Lack of political representation and economic access make indigenous people, numbering 500 million on the planet, among the most vulnerable populations. Specifically, the World Health Organization raised concerns about the impact of COVID-19 on indigenous people of the Americas, such as in the Peruvian Amazon. In the Americas, 70,000 indigenous people have been infected, and more than 2,000 have died.

However, one of the wealthiest nations on the planet, with the highest number of ultra-high net worth individuals, those with more than $50 million, continues to lead every other country in cases of COVID-19. Yesterday, the United States registered another million-case milestone, with the total number of infections passing four million. There were another 67,140 cases of COVID-19 and 1,122 new fatalities in one day, the highest number of deaths since June 9.

The rise in fatality figures comes on the heels of rising infections over the past month as states like Florida, Texas, Arizona and California had moved quickly to reopen. California, with 10,278 new cases Tuesday, registered 120 fatalities. With 410,176 total COVID-19 cases, it is poised to pass New York state by week’s end. Hispanic communities, with many workers deemed essential and frequently living in impoverished multigenerational households, have been hit the hardest.

Texas has seen 357,127 cases of COVID-19, half of these just during July. Yesterday, the state reported 118 new fatalities, pushing the total to 4,299. Statewide, on Tuesday, hospitalizations rose to the highest level since the pandemic with 10,848 patients admitted to overcrowded hospitals. According to the Houston Chronicle, this marked twelve straight days with more than 10,000 hospitalized patients.

The Texas-Mexico border area has been ravaged. Hispanics make up 90 percent of the population and suffer from significant chronic morbidities. Hidalgo County, with a population of 870,000, has reached a death rate of 33 per 100,000. Public health officials expect the deaths are still lagging and expect the worst has yet to come. Funeral homes and crematories are running out of space.

Arizona logged 3,500 new cases, and 134 deaths with bed occupancy and ventilator use staying steady, which the health department attributes to the implementation of face masks.

Florida, with 9,440 new cases, logged 132 fatalities. It also saw 517 new hospitalizations on Tuesday, a one-day high for the state. The health department stated that their positive test rates stand at 17.4 percent. Given the insistence by Governor Ron DeSantis on reopening schools, in the face of the state's health catastrophe, the state’s largest teacher’s union has been forced to bring a suit against DeSantis and the Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran.

Not surprisingly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that the number of people infected in the United States may be two to 13 times higher than presently cited. Many of these are people who may not have had symptoms or did not seek medical attention. The information comes from a seroprevalence survey conducted using de-identified serum samples from patients across a large geographic area that includes several states and cities such as Louisiana, Utah, Minnesota, New York City, and Philadelphia.

Using patient blood samples that were drawn for other reasons than COVID-19 analysis, antibody tests were conducted. New York City had the highest seroprevalence, with an estimate of 23.2 percent. All other sites ranged from 2 to 9 percent. The CDC plans to increase testing sites and update their findings every 3 to 4 weeks. As they note, the nation remains far from the threshold of herd immunity.

Despite having conducted 50 million tests, the virus has continued to run rampant through communities in the US. In a report published online in Preventive Epidemics on July 21, the authors write: “The use of accurate, real-time data to inform decision-making is essential for infectious disease control. Unlike many other countries [Germany, Senegal, South Korea, and Uganda], the United States does not have a standard, national data on COVID-19. The US also lacks standards for state-, county-, and city-level public reporting of this life and death information.”

Some of the key findings are listed below:

1. Though all states have a COVID-19 dashboard, developed independently, no two have identical information presented, usability, or look. These create differences in functionality and capacity to drill down to necessary granular data, which results in substantial variations in geographic and demographic stratification of data, making them difficult to “inform current risk, readiness, and the effectiveness of response efforts.”

2. Many dashboards were overly complex to navigate and unorganized, making it difficult to find critical information, such as the number of cases for a given day. They use counts instead of rates that confound comparisons between localities. Multiple dashboards used by a state were not linked. Twenty percent of the state dashboards did not report data by 5:00 p.m. local time, while two states displayed information from previous days. Kansas only updates its dashboards three times per week.

3. After highlighting 15 essential indicators—cases, deaths, rates, tests (and time to results), positivity rate, hospitalization, bed utilization, etc.—that should be reported daily or as soon as possible for an effective COVID-19 response, the authors noted that only two percent of dashboards met these requirements. Sixty percent of state dashboards did not report the essential indicators. They write, “The majority of data missing is related to testing and contact tracing. Right now, not a single state reports PCR test turnaround time.”

4. Two syndromic surveillance indicators—influenza-like illness (fevers, coughs, sore throats) and COVID-like illness (fever, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing)—can provide early warnings that the coronavirus is spreading through a community. But only 18 percent of states report influenza data and 37 percent report on COVID-like data in their dashboards. The authors urge that all states report these as “a leading signal of potential COVID-19 spread.”

5. The authors also mention the need to track excess deaths compared to historical averages for the same period due to contribution from indirect deaths that may have occurred as a byproduct of the pandemic.

The report also addressed the dire need for states to report their findings from their critical contact tracing programs where infected individuals are quickly identified and quarantined to stop community transmission of the coronavirus. Regardless of treatments, vaccines, and therapeutics, contact tracing remains the bedrock of public health measures and the most effective mechanism to prevent morbidity and death of the population as well as the inundation of health care infrastructures. Only eight states are presently reporting data on the source of exposures for COVID-19 cases.

On the other hand, data on market indices are tracked every second by large supercomputers that are used to provide shareholders information on when to buy or sell stocks or how to shift investments to more lucrative arenas or safe havens. A massive industry is in place just for the analysis of the financial data that are used to guide policymakers, bankers, financial heads and hedge fund managers to support the acquisition of more and more fictitious wealth.

That a report is required to highlight the deficiencies in the United States’ woeful capacity to track critical metrics to respond to the pandemic is the height of irony. This only further confirms the malign neglect that is ubiquitous in the political leadership’s response—Democratic and Republican—to the growing health crisis, which has worn thin the temper of the population. For the ruling elites, the pandemic makes it imperative to prepare more authoritarian forms of rule.