Teaching Crisis and Teachers’ Role in Times of Covid-19 Pandemic

Nawaz Sarif

The global Covid-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented change in all walks of life. It has clutched different sectors and overthrown people around the world to a new social and economic crisis. Education is one of them, due to the pandemic around 1.52 billion students stranded at home and over 60.2 million teachers remain out of schools (UN Secretary-General, 2020, March). In a bid to adjust to the crisis and to ensure classes to remain continued to students, the digital classroom has emerged as the most significant option before the academic stakeholders. Following the endorsement from the international body like UNESCO to the national body like the Ministry of HRD, the millions of schools and higher educational institutions have shifted their physical classrooms online to ensure ‘learning never get disrupted’ for the learners amidst the isolation crisis.

India has one of the world’s largest educational sectors. It has over 1.3 million recognized schools including primary, upper primary, secondary, and senior secondary schools (AIES, 2002). Also, it has over 789 universities, 37,204 colleges, and 11,443 stand-alone institutions (UGC, 2017). As per the report of UNESCO, the coronavirus crisis has put over 320 million Indian students into unfortunate adversity.

The country’s endeavor to switching off the offline classroom to digital space with its supportive systems has caused a paradigm shift in the formal education systems. The digital enabling online teaching is democratic and can be accessible even beyond geographical barriers. It edges over the traditional classroom especially in aspects of facilitating home-based learning opportunities for learners in times of the country-wide lockdown catastrophe. It is now playing a crucial role in building fundamental life skills and providing learning experiences to young adolescence at home.

The digital platform is something new for both teachers and students. There had no training intervention to empower teachers with digital skills before or immediately after the hastened nation-wide lockdown. So, teachers who have parallel skills in teaching in the face-to-face classroom are unfortunately crippled in this process of on-going digital shifting. They are now struggling to learn new techno-pedagogies to teach in online classes. They are spending more time to skill up themselves with the required digital mastery in virtual classrooms. However, many teachers are ‘digital immigrants’ who feel awkward with the digital ecosystem of online classes which induced new concerns about the online teaching.

Further, many teachers have expressed deep worry about the effectiveness of the teaching-learning process in digital classes. Meghna Saxena, a teacher from Delhi told Quartz, “kids don’t understand half our activities even in the real classroom. A teacher on a computer screen would hardly make sense to them”. Similarly, Saloni Kumar, a school teacher in Gurugram, Delhi, told that “during the classes, I have no way of knowing who is paying attention and who is not”. While, Navraj Tiwari, Principal of Neel Tara Academy, Sikkim, said “we want to conduct regular online classes but most of our students are from marginal families and they don’t have internet connection”.

The online teaching has different problems and those problems are varied across the different geographical regions of India. The states like Himachal Pradesh (mountainous areas), Rajasthan (sparsely deserted areas), and Madhya Pradesh (forested areas) have poor enabling internet establishments that cause grave concern for the countryside outreach of e-learning. Further, the students from poor economic backgrounds and remote villages in the states like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, and Chhattisgarh, etc. have also been crippled with the shifting from schoolrooms to the virtual classrooms.

Further, the Northeast part of India is the most geographical inaccessible with several obstacles varying from lack of development, infrastructure to socio-political unrest. The schools of this region are mostly located in rural areas and do not have the necessary digital infrastructure to equip with the current challenges that emerged in online classes. The educational institutions especially in the different cities of Northeast India have shown an accomplished portrayal of online teaching. For example, Mahatma Gandhi University (MGU), Ri-Bhoi, Meghalaya, has taken several initiatives to teach its students online using its own developed Learning Management System (LMS) and using Zoom app. Similarly, Assam Down Town University (AdtU), Guwahati, Assam has established a connection with its students over virtual platforms amid the crisis.

Notwithstanding, amid this crisis students across large swathes of marginalized urban ghettos and rural areas of Northeast India, are in devoid hope for online education. The parents are mostly daily wage laborers, small farmers, vegetable vendors, and small traders and most of them find it difficult to avail expensive smart gadgets for their children. Besides, internet penetration in this region is also critical as compared to the rest of Indian states. The region (included Assam & other northeastern states) has 38 percent internet penetration against the mainland states Delhi NCT (69%), Kerala (54%), Punjab (49%), and Maharastra (43%), etc. The states like Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur are in critical situations in terms of internet accessibility and digital outreach which raise another disheartening concern about outreaching digital learning amid the Covid-19 crisis.

Nevertheless, the state governments have taken several initiatives to overcome these barriers to suffice the e-ducation to students across the poor and marginal sections of the society. The state like Sikkim is enabling students to access online education using online networking applications like WhatsApp and Zoom. Similarly, the state of Assam is also using individual calls and WhatsApp for sharing e-contents and study-related assignments with students. Besides, in the rural areas of the states like Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur, the governments are planning to use radio broadcast and Doordarshan as means to outreach e-ducation to those areas having no internet establishments.

However, the inference from the revisited discourse on online versus face-to-face classes has brought out some intrinsic limitations of online teaching like issues related to instructional designs, students’ online discipline, learning engagement in the virtual classroom, teacher-taught relationships, online assessment, non-cognitive developments of students, and so on. Many questions have also aroused in teachers’ minds, from how to start online classes to make use of available e-resources to creating a supportive learning environment. The focus of the present article is to address all these queries about how to make e-ducation teaching worthwhile in the times of the pandemic despite having a range of challenges and issues.

The performance of inculcating knowledge and instructional materials to the learners in a face-to-face classroom system is what we call teaching. It is a noble profession as we treat where teachers, being the key role players involved in designing and orientating programs for learners’ all-inclusive development. Educators have always been striving to perform their obligations towards teaching against all kinds of turndown situations. Amidst the current cataclysm, teachers may take the following response measures to improvise the teaching in the digital classrooms-

Having an easygoing shifting from offline to online classes

Online classes have been on the rise amidst this home-based learning atmosphere. It stimulates teachers to participate in online teaching in virtual classrooms. Teachers use the internet and various apps to develop digital skills throughout the online course. However, many of them are grappling with the teaching difficulties, and few of them even pondering about how to go for online teaching. In this case, a teacher may think of having two ways, one recorded video-lectures, and other uploading e-contents in the forms of PPTs, word or pdf files, etc. The video lectures may be presented using a video-enabled synchronous or asynchronous streaming depending on the nature and objective of the instructional designs. There have been different online platforms like Microsoft Teams, Skype, Google classroom, and Zoom, etc. where teachers can take online classes. Besides, teachers can also use different social apps like telegram and WhatsApp to share e-contents with their students. However, for teachers who are working in rural schools of economically poorer states, due to the ‘digital divide’ the use of WhatsApp and mobile phones may be proven as effective ways to share learning materials and various study-links with their students.

Setting optimal class size for online teaching

It is a painstaking aspect of online teaching. It has been observed that educational institutions do not put any upper or lower limits on online class size. However, experts have asked stakeholders to limit the class size even for online teaching as we have for offline teaching in the conventional classroom. According to the Economic Survey (2017-18), the country has an average Student-Classroom Ratio (SCR) 30 in the face-to-face classroom teaching. Also, the RTE Act, 2009 mandates Pupil-Teacher Ratio (PTR) 30:1 for primary and 35:1 for upper primary level. However, for the digital classroom, there has no such established guidance. The published researches showed a varying size of online class from small to large depending on the purpose of course designations. According to a research project, a large size online class with 40 or more students’ enrollment is ideal for ‘foundational and factual knowledge acquisition’. On the flip side, a small class size with 15 or even fewer is better ‘to develop higher-order thinking, mastery of complex knowledge, and student skill development’.

Designing online course materials using multiple strategies

The virtual teaching has put new demands from teachers in curriculum reconstruction and teaching content designs. It behests teachers to provide enriched ‘human and non-human resources’ and pertinent ‘animated and unanimated’ study-materials. In the traditional classroom, a teacher acts as an instructor and a guide but this role of the teacher has incredibly changed in online teaching. A teacher is now no longer acting just as an instructor but a content developer and a designer of online curriculums. The teacher needs a good content-communicating skill too in virtual teaching. Here some simple tips a teacher should keep in mind while preparing digital contents including PPTs such as it must have explicit texts and improved contents with detailed facts and explanation, language must be simple and formal and must be well-designed with the use of graphic themes, gaming features, and various templates.

Also, especially when making video-lecture; it should be kept in short; around 30-45 minutes (UNICEF), from introducing the topic to justify the need and main themes presentation to recapitulation at the end. Besides, the teachers should uphold accountability to ensure video and voice qualities or the enrichment of the content before sharing them with students.

Making teaching more interesting to students

Good teaching always requires teachers’ full-engagement in students’ learning through explanations, illustrations, question-answer sessions, or group discussions. However, the question arose about online teaching for its potentiality to uphold students’ interests in the curriculum transactions in the virtual classroom. It depends on both attributes of teachers’ instructional materials and students’ perceived approach towards the class. In online teaching, a teacher must ensure his or her strong presence in the virtual classroom. Also, it is inevitable for teachers to make students feel connected to the classroom lectures. Besides, a teacher must avoid monotonous presentations including repetition of words, use of jargon, and abstracts terminologies while teaching online. Additionally, the abstract concepts must be explained using various analogies and place-based examples to students.

A teacher should also blend his or her lectures with thought-evoking incentives and humor. Facilitating the structured knowledge-based instructions will only encourage spoon-feeding habits and weaken students’ interests in classroom lectures, so, attempts must be taken to make students rational about why they need to listen to the lectures. Teachers should make students feel empowered in the virtual classroom. Besides, a teacher must give space for virtual interactions and provide collaborative learning assignments to students for a meaningful participatory-learning.

Strengthening students’ learning engagement in virtual classes

A question is often asked about the online discipline of students during the on-going discourse on online teaching. To ensure that, teachers may use something called video attendance which is acceptable in many cases where both teachers and learners have access to digital devices and internet connectivity. However, a muted-audio management system, performance- and check-in based attendance are some of the effective ways to check out students’ engagement during lectures. Also, teachers can think of using an ‘attendance-cum feedback’ form daily where students can be asked 3 to 5 questions to answers in brief based on the pertinent lecture. Additionally, to ensure children’s full-engagement, teachers may use other apps and software such as Attendance taker, Fedena, Fekara, TS School, Chalk Attendance, MyClass Attendance, SchoolTool, K12 Attendance, MyAttendance Tracker, SchoolTime, Gibbon, etc.

Making use of existing online resources

No wonder, it is understandable that developing e-contents is not a simple task. Many teachers have difficulties in computer-based preparation of PPT or other verbally-structured contents. They lack skills in developing different online modules too. In this situation, despite worrying about, teachers can have several online content providers from where they can easily access materials and after filtering, the age-specific relevance contents can be shared with their students. The platforms like NCERT YouTube channel, Diksha portal, and Swayam Prabha not only facilitate e-contents but help teachers to have swift access in the time to respond quickly to students’ requirements. Besides, teachers can also take advantage of various non-government e-learning apps such as Byju’s, Vedantu, Toppr, Khan Academy, Unacademy, Udemy, GradeUp, SoloLearn, Adda 247, Jigsaw Academy, etc.

Assisting those who are unresponsive and slow learners in e-classes

It is inevitable for a teacher to ensure learning equally happens to all. In online classes, there is nothing called backbenchers versus frontbenchers, like traditional schoolrooms. However, in online classes, we still have about 10% slow-learners who grasp things at their own pace. Also, many of them even do not understand teachers’ lectures at the first attempt. So, teachers need to ensure the availability of video-lectures online immediately after classes are over. There should be a space for repeating some of the taught topics too or teachers may think of organizing remedial sessions for slow learners. Besides, an ‘institution-based 24×7’ live chat-box must be availed to all learners to clarify doubts and get detailed explanations of their queries from teachers.

Appraising students’ learnings through online tests

This is the aspect of online assessment of students’ learning attainments from a taught lesson. In the traditional classroom, a paper-pencil test is conducted to test students’ learned knowledge in the presence of teachers. However, in the virtual classroom, as teachers are not physically there to ensure invigilation therefore, there is a high chance of copying books or excerpting relevant information from the internet. To avoid such uncertainty and unethical practices, teachers need to change the ways to assess students’ learned knowledge and experiences. Instead of MCQ and short-answer type questions, the focus may be directed to theories- and themes-based queries where an individual learner has no option but to express his/her experience-based creative thoughts and critical thinking on exam papers. Besides, teachers should also have an understanding and collaborative supports from parents to ensure parenting supervision at home during exams.

Ensuring the teacher-learner relationships in online classes

The teacher-student relationship is concretely embedded in the physical classroom that left out to a greater extent in online classes. The online ecosystem ensuring physical distancing but has wreaked human contact and socio-emotional proximity between teachers and students. However, in a bid to develop socio-emotional propinquity, teachers may use some tips such as sharing personal learning-experiences with learners, providing quick learning feedback, and creating a comfort communication aura and boosting learners to share their learning experiences, etc. Besides, the teachers’ responsive behavior and accountability towards learners are also helpful to improvise the teacher-taught relationships in the virtual classroom.

Developing students’ socio-emotional aspects through e-teaching

The critics of online teaching often argue on the overwhelmed emphasis of online teaching on cognitive development and leftover its undue focus on the socio-emotional development of children. Also, they argue that online teaching promotes the ‘banking system of education’ which is the deposition of knowledge-based instructions in children’s minds. In education, we know something called 3-H that is Head-on, Hand-on, and Heart-on. Due to the intrinsic limitation of online teaching, it finds difficult to meet these arguments. However, teachers may use ‘group-based tasks’ and encourage ‘collaborative learning’ to develop students’ social-emotional skills in virtual settings. Besides, the use of various incentives, creating opportunities for play-based activities, listening to students’ feelings, and valuing their opinions may be underscored as plaudits tips for learners’ progressive development.

Establishing home-school online partnerships

As the learners go for online classes sitting at home, so, teachers need to ensure every family with all kinds of supports required for effective delivering course contents. In this case, the role of parents must be prioritized in creating home-based learning environments for students. Both teachers and parents should work together through the ‘home-school online partnerships’ to ensure better learning opportunities, creative experiences, better time management, and safe learning. They should establish ‘spontaneous collaboration’ and ‘hands-on supports’ with parents to regulate online classes for students. Also, teachers should help in better parenting the learners to stay positive, creating a daily routine, avoiding health-risk behaviors, and managing stress in the time of isolation crisis (WHO).

In closing, it can be said that the Covid-19 pandemic has brought a far-reaching change in the way teachers teach in the face-to-face traditional classrooms. Hence, the teachers must collaboratively address all those emerged issues of online teaching. They must try to employ all kinds of possible techno-pedagogies and available resources to ensure effective teaching in online classes.

For Secular Atheists, Adopting The Language Of Religion Is Fraud

Vikas Dhiman

Yogendra Yadav recently wrote about how secularism gave up the language of religion. He blamed secular English-speaking elites for not talking in terms of the cultural metaphors that common Indian could relate with. I understand where he is coming from. But I object to both to the diagnosis of the problem that English-speaking elites are secular while masses are communal.  And I also object to the prescription that secular English-speaking elites should talk in cultural metaphors of religion.

Let’s talk about the diagnosis of the problem. Decline of secularism is omnipresent in India, including English-speaking elites. I count myself and my friend circle as English-speaking elite, but secularism is in decline even among English-speaking elites. Many of my pro-BJP friends stand by the principle of secularism but vehemently deny any attack on secularism during this regime. Some of them denounce secularism in toto. Even if we look at exit poll statistics, BJP was more popular in urban areas and there was no division among income groups. This doesn’t leave much scope to argue that English-speak elites were more secular than the masses.

Furthermore, Narendra Modi came to power not on the plank of Hindutva but on the plank of Gujarat model and development. Recall that 2014 campaign by Modi was focused on Gujrat model not on Hindutva. It is after 2014 that Modi has revived Hindutva. I believe that it is not the success of RSS work on the grassroots but the success and power of PR companies, social media and money in politics.

The prescription of using religious-cultural metaphors for propagating secularism has problems of its own. Indian culture does not leave much scope for materialistic atheists like me. I do not believe in spirituality, Atma, rebirth, heaven, hell or Karma after rebirth. I am sure there are many Indians who are like me. But what are the cultural metaphors available to me? The precedents in Indian culture are Charvaka and Brahaspati. Most of Charvaka writing have been lost, and they are only available from references by other texts. Moreover, no one knows about Charvaka among average Indians. I came to know about Charvaka only after explicitly looking for atheists in ancient Indian tradition.

It is true that Kabir, Sikh Gurus, and Bhakti saints advocated for abolition of rituals and equality of all religions. But is it ethical for me quote from these religious authorities when I myself don’t believe in their teachings? Even when it is done to propagate the principle of secularism and universal love, it is fraud to selectively quote authorities in order to organize the masses.

The one precedent in Indian Freedom movement that I know of is, Bhagat Singh. Bhagat Singh rarely invoked religion to organize Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. He invoked Marx and Lenin.

So, what should be done? We need to actively talk about secularism, rule of law, money in politics and democracy to our friends and family, while avoiding self-censorship. Instead of targeting the language that we think will convince people, we should talk in the language we know, and the one we honestly believe in. Whether someone gets convinced or not is something that we cannot control. Here invoking Gita would be appropriate but not doing that is the point.

Responding To Voter Suppression, Understanding Manipulated Elections

Kevin Zeese & Margaret Flowers

Voter suppression in the 2020 election has become a topic of great concern. In reality, voter suppression has been part of US politics since the founding of the country. The oligarchs who wrote the US Constitution enabled voter suppression by not including the right to vote in it and only allowing white male property owners to vote, suppressing the votes of 94 percent of the population.

Five of 16 states had white-only voting in 1800 and after 1802, every new state, free or slave, except for Maine banned Black people from voting. In 1807, New Jersey, which originally gave voting rights to “all inhabitants,” excluded women and Black men from voting. Maryland banned Jewish people from its polls until 1828. After the Civil War expanded voting rights to Black men, the Black vote was suppressed through intimidation campaigns and Jim Crow laws. After decades of protests, the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 and voting by Black people increased, but in recent years suppression tactics are reducing that vote.

This year, the Republican Party and President Trump are working to suppress the votes of Black people, the working class, immigrants, and others, especially by attacking the US Postal Service to decrease mail-in voting.

The Democrats are also guilty of voter suppression as they do all they can to keep third parties off the ballot. Green Party presidential nominee Howie Hawkins explains party suppression is voter suppression because millions of people refuse to choose between two Wall Street-funded candidates and so they don’t vote. Sanders-Democrats also point to an unfair nomination process resulting in Joe Biden becoming the nominee.

Voter Suppression is Violence, From Cool revolution.

Voter Suppression Today

Voter suppression has gotten more sophisticated in recent elections through the massive de-registering of voters, abuse of voter ID laws, cutting the number of polling places in minority communities, felony disenfranchisement, not counting provisional ballots, and voter intimidation at the polls. In 2020, the battle over mail-in ballots and the Post Office is also a major issue.

On March 30, President Trump said in an interview on FOX, if there was high voter turnout “you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.” Trump was explaining why he opposed more money being spent to help states conduct the 2020 election during the pandemic. More recently, Trump floated the idea of delaying the November 3 election, an idea rejected by even Republican allies and something he does not have the power to do.

Removing people from voter registration lists has become a common practice. A Brennan Center study found that almost 16 million voters were purged from the rolls between 2014 and 2016. Jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination, which are no longer subject to pre-clearance after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, had a median purge rate 40% higher than other jurisdictions.

Voter ID laws have become a key tool in voter suppression. The ACLU reports that: “Thirty-six states have identification requirements at the polls. Seven states have strict photo ID laws.” Over 21 million U.S. citizens do not have government-issued photo identification resulting in ID laws reducing voter turnout by 2-3 percentage points, according to the US Government Accountability Office.

This year voter intimidation is making a comeback. Trump’s response to the closing night of the DNC was to tell Fox News that on election day he’s going to send law enforcement, sheriffs, US Attorneys, and Attorney  Generals to polling locations. While Trump has no control over sheriffs and police, making the threat is part of an intimidation campaign.

Republicans are recruiting an estimated 50,000 volunteers to act as “poll watchers” in November, part of a multi-million-dollar effort to control who votes. This campaign includes a $20 million fund for legal battles as well as the GOP’s first national poll-patrol operation in nearly 40 years.

Poll watchers in some states can challenge the eligibility of voters. After the 1981 election, Democrats sued over voter intimidation and a federal “consent decree” stopped the practice but the decree was allowed to expire at the end of 2017, and a judge declined to extend it in 2018.

The ACLU points to some of the impacts of these voter suppression efforts and how they are targeted at people of color and youth, writing:

• Seventy percent of Georgia voters purged in 2018 were Black.
• Across the country, one in 13 Blacks cannot vote due to disenfranchisement laws.
• One-third of voters who have a disability report difficulty voting.
• Only 40 percent of polling places fully accommodate people with disabilities.
• Counties with larger minority populations have fewer polling sites and poll workers per voter.
• Six in ten college students come from out of state in New Hampshire, the state trying to block residents with out of state drivers’ licenses.

Stop privatization of the Postal Service from PostalReporter.com.

Voting during the pandemic, mail-in voting and the Postal Service

The COVID-19 pandemic has created new issues for voting in 2020. More people will be voting by mail as 20 states expanded or eased access to voting by mail as a public health measure. The election could be decided by a fight over which mail ballots are counted. One of the most common reasons for invalidating a vote is if the ballot arrives late, making postal delivery of critical importance. In the primaries, more than 540,000 mail ballots were rejected during primaries across 23 states this year, nearly a quarter in key battlegrounds for the fall, i.e. Florida, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Last week, the Democrats in the House passed $25 billion in emergency funding for the Post Office. While this is insufficient, it is opposed by President Trump. Senator Mitch McConnell may not take the issue up in the Senate, saying it is too much money and other COVID-19 relief proposals should be included in it.

Trump is also trying to undermine the ability of the Post Office to deliver ballots on time.  Trump crony, Louis DeJoy, who was appointed Postmaster General, is a prominent Trump donor, deputy finance chairman for the Republican National Committee, and the former lead fundraiser for the Republican National Committee. DeJoy donated more than $2.5 million to the Republican Party and its candidates, so he is heavily invested in a Republican electoral victory.

DeJoy fired people with experience running the Postal Service on August 17, and twenty-three postal executives were reassigned or displaced in a new organizational structure that centralizes power around DeJoy. He stopped overtime work and mail sorting machines and mailboxes have been removed. As a result of public pressure, he  says he stopped further removals until after the election, although people are reporting finding locked mail boxes.

The Democrats, who have been complicit with the attack on the Post Office, are paying attention now that it is affecting the election. Unfortunately, their proposal falls far short of the $75 billion investment needed by the Postal Service, and doesn’t address the long term problems created by the Congress and president in 2006 when they required the Postal Service to fund 75 years worth of pension and healthcare costs.

We need to act now because they are likely to ignore the efforts at privatization of the postal service after November. We need to demand more money for the Post Office and insist on the end of any privatization of the Postal Service so it remains a public agency serving the public good. The so-called ‘Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act‘ of 2006, which was designed to weaken the Post Office, must be repealed. And, the Post Office should be given greater power to provide other services like a Postal Bank for the millions of people who do not have access to banking services.

Showing up by protesting for the Postal Service gives postal workers the power to defy the Postmaster General and speak out. Postal workers in Washington State are refusing to take mail sorting equipment offline. Postal workers have been ordered not to speak to the press so people are not aware how bad the situation is. If workers see the public is on their side, they may have the courage to speak or anonymously leak documents to the media.

Protests in the US in 2011 targeted greed and corruption among banking and business leaders. By Scott Olson for AFP-Getty Images.

2020 Highlights Mirage Democracy

The failure of US democracy is on display in the 2020 election but these are long-term problems. The United States is not a democracy; it is a plutocracy. Elections give people the illusion of choice when in reality the power elites are the ones who choose the candidates, as we described in this 2013 article.

Some people choose not to participate in the elections for this reason. Others choose to use the election to make a point by rejecting the corporate candidates and voting for third-party candidates who support their positions, such as national improved Medicare for All, acting on climate change, ending police violence and imperialism, and more or only voting in down-ballot races.

If you choose to participate in the election, here are some actions you can take to protect your vote:

1. If you want to vote in 2020, order your mail-in ballots, if they are available, as soon as possible. In our state, Maryland, the Board of Elections warns they may run out of ballots.
2. Know your rights. It is illegal to intimidate or coerce voters. If you experience it or see it happening to someone else, record it by video or in writing to poll workers.
3. If you are told you are not registered, demand a provisional ballot. Due to Voter-ID laws, each state has different requirements. Understand what is required in your state, and come prepared.

Finally, it is important to remember when we are inundated with a constant focus on the 2020 elections that the power of the people does not derive from elections. Our task is to build people’s power outside of elections.

People have the power to make the country ungovernable. Both parties are ignoring issues supported by a majority of the people, including, improved Medicare for all, a robust Green New Deal, a guaranteed basic income, a tax on the wealth to shrink the wealth divide, cuts to the bloated military budget, free college and vocational education and confronting the climate crisis, which is already wreaking havoc across the nation.

The Occupy Movement, the Fight for $15, the student debt movement, labor strikes and the uprising against police violence show people have power. We have only begun to scratch the surface of our potential. We have to build the power to rule from below, no matter who is elected president in 2020.

The origins and evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus

Frank Gaglioti

The SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the disease COVID-19 is nimbly and stealthily racing through community after community devastating the world’s population. Over 23 million people have contracted the virus worldwide and 810,000 have died. It is critical to review the evolutionary history of this particular virus to provide necessary insights into how the pandemic can be brought under control.

Researchers worldwide are working arduously to trace the virus globally by studying samples obtained from various nations looking for subtle mutations that it undergoes as it infects, replicates and multiplies, providing them clues to the source and route of spread.

COVID-19 is caused by a type of coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2, named for its similarity to the coronavirus that caused SARS. The virus is called a coronavirus because it is covered by club-like structures that give the virus a similar look to the sun’s corona in electron micrographs.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus is part of a family of organisms that are known to infect mammals and birds. The Coronaviridae family are made up of a positive-sense single-stranded RNA completely enveloped in a complex protein and bilipid shell. These viruses are relatively large, consisting of 26 to 32 kilobase pairs. RNA or ribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that is essential for all reproductive processes and like DNA.

The first known scientific encounter with this family of virus is thought to be when veterinarians puzzled over bronchial infections afflicting cats, pigs, and chickens in the early 20th century.

Study of disease afflicting and damaging tobacco crops in the late 19th century led some thoughtful scientists like Dimitri Ivanovsky to conjecture the existence of non-bacterial infectious agents causing the “tobacco mosaic disease.” It would take another 50 years to capture the first images of the Tobacco Mosaic Virus. The invention of the electron microscope in 1931 enabled scientists to observe viruses more closely, allowing a more extensive and direct study of these micro-organisms. Virology as a field began to flourish.

Human coronaviruses were first identified in the 1960s. Seven species of coronavirus are known to afflict humans. Four result in relatively mild upper respiratory tract conditions, including the virus 229E that causes the common cold, along with NL63, OC43 and HKU1.

The other three strains, SARS, MERS, and SARS-CoV-2, are far more virulent. All these viruses were new to human populations when they first arose in the 21st century. A feature of SARS, MERS and COVID-19 is that they had a zoonotic origin, that is they originated in animal populations and then jumped into humans. The SARS outbreak in 2002, with a case fatality rate of 11 percent, showed the world the deadly potential of coronaviruses, but this was a warning that was mostly ignored. There had only been 8,422 cases and since 2004 no SARS-CoV has been reported worldwide. One advantage for public health responses to SARS was that it had an incubation period of 4 to 6 days and patients presented with symptoms prior to becoming infectious.

In their extensive investigations, the World Health Organisation (WHO) concluded that the SARS virus originated in bat populations, but the exact species remains unknown. Work commenced on the development of a SARS vaccine with testing on animals. The vaccine resulted in protective immunity but produced an immune mediated hypersensitivity as an adverse effect. The SARS threat, for unknown reasons, expired after six months though limited outbreaks did occur later.

With the threat of a pandemic having ended after six months, so did any interest in funding a vaccine, as pharmaceutical companies saw no profit in funding or exploring such research. The co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Dr. Peter Hotez, had been attempting to develop a SARS vaccine in 2016 but couldn’t get funding for his work. “We tried like heck to see if we could get investors or grants to move this into the clinic ... But we just could not generate much interest,” he said.

“We could have had this ready to go and been testing the vaccine’s efficacy at the start of this new outbreak in China (COVID-19) … There is a problem with the ecosystem in vaccine development, and we’ve got to fix this,” Hotez said.

The genomic sequence of the SARS virus was published in August 2003 by Chinese scientists in Beijing. In actuality, when the cause of the pneumonia-like illness was first identified in Wuhan, some believed this was a new outbreak of the SARS virus. SARS-CoV-2 and SARS share a genomic sequence that is approximately an 80 percent match.

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS, emerged in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and had a zoonotic origin in bats and was spread to humans through contact with dromedary camels. The virus produced symptoms similar to SARS but it had a low infectivity though highly lethal. Of the reported 2,500 cases, 35 percent died from the disease.

With limited capacity to spread from human to human, it was mainly passed through contact with infected people in hospitals. In the main it was concentrated in the Arabian Peninsula, although there were further outbreaks in South Korea in 2015 and Saudi Arabia in 2018. It continues to smoulder in the Middle East.

When the SARS CoV-2 virus emerged in late 2019, the world was totally unprepared. Health systems internationally had been systematically run down and were ill-equipped to respond. The warnings from WHO of the dangerous potential of the virus were largely ignored or belittled. The murderous government policies that dominated have been described as malign neglect or herd immunity.

SARS CoV-2 arose in Wuhan in December 2019. The virus is thought to have originated from bats and to have transferred to humans through an intermediary species. The exact origins of the virus may never be known. “It is quite possible we won’t find it (the species). In fact, it would be exceptionally lucky if we land on something,” a geneticist from University College London, Lucy van Dorp, told Nature .

Back in 2013, the Wuhan Institute of Virology had investigated the coronavirus genome from the horseshoe bat ( Rhinolophus affinis ). The viruses named RATG13 and SARS-CoV-2 were found to be 96 percent genetically similar. There are, however, subtle molecular changes that continue to be investigated that contribute to selection pressures that drive the virulence, pathogenicity, and immunogenic qualities of the virus.

In their detailed analysis of the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, Andersen et al., 2020, offered three possible explanations: 1) natural selection in an animal host before jumping into humans, 2) natural selection in humans after the virus transferred into human hosts, and 3) the product of artificial manipulation, which has been refuted by several virologists. According to Van Dorp, “… the 4% difference between the genomes of SARS-CoV-2 and RATG13 still represents some 50 years since they last shared a common ancestor.”

It was thought that pangolins ( Manis javanica ), a scaly ant-eating mammal, may be the intermediate host between bats and humans, but genetic studies indicate that as unlikely. However, some scientists think that because coronavirus-like SARS-CoV-2 cases have been found in pangolins, that species cannot be ruled out as the intermediary source.

Scientists are currently examining species of animals that were kept and sold in the live markets in Wuhan where bats may have been in the buildings’ roof near animals and humans. Presently a team of experts from the WHO are working with their Chinese counterparts to answer this pressing question.

“The opportunities for these viruses to spill over across a very active wildlife-livestock-human interface is clear and obvious,” the president of the EcoHealth Alliance in New York City, Peter Daszak, told Nature. The complex evolutionary history of SARS-CoV-2 disproves President Donald Trump’s ignorant claims (which have a political purpose) that the virus came out of a Chinese laboratory. “Whether they [China] made a mistake, or whether it started off as a mistake and then they made another one, or did somebody do something on purpose?” Trump said.

In a recent paper published in Nature Microbiology —“Evolutionary origins of the SARS-CoV-2 sarbecovirus lineage responsible for the covid-19 pandemic,” led by Maciej F Boni from the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Pennsylvania State University—found that the lineage of SARS-CoV-2 had been circulating in bat populations for decades. “If these viruses have been around for decades that means that they’ve had lots of opportunity to find new host species, including humans,” said Professor David Robertson from the University of Glasgow.

Scientists have carefully examined the Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) of the genetic sequence that codes for the spike protein, the necessary structure on the virus’ exterior shell that is used to bind and penetrate the human cell. The spike protein has been compared to a grappling hook that grips the host cell, then creates a cleavage site that enables the opening and penetration into the host cell.

This means that the SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins had evolved to target a feature of human cells known as angiotensin converting enzyme 2 receptor (ACE2) which are well known to assist in regulating blood pressure.

Andersen et al ., remark that the RBD is the critical component of the spike protein that allows it to bind to ACE2 receptors. SARS-CoV-2 appears to bind with great affinity to the human ACE2 receptors, but computational analysis predicted that the interaction is not ideal. According to the New York Times, “the authors indicate that the high-affinity bindings of the virus’ spike protein to human ACE2 is most likely a by-product of natural selection that has permitted another ‘optimal binding solution to arise.’ They then conclude that this is strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is not a product of genetic reconstruction or tampering.”

“These two features of the virus, the mutations in the RBD portion of the spike protein and its distinct backbone, rule out laboratory manipulation as a potential origin for SARS-CoV-2,” wrote Kristian Andersen, associate professor of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research, and co-leader of the study.

With SARS-CoV-2 virus proliferating around the world, the opportunity arises for further mutations and the emergence of new strains of the virus. This can mean that new virus strains may develop in the future not treatable by possible vaccines that were originally made to treat older strains.

According to Assistant Teaching Professor of Computer Science and Technology Niema Moshiri, COVID-19’s mutation rate is lower than seasonal influenza. The SARS-CoV-2 genome has a limited repair function that edits out most mutations. This has meant the virus has remained relatively uniform.

“What we are finding is that the SARS-CoV-2 virus appears to be mutating more slowly than the seasonal flu which may allow scientists to develop a vaccine,” Moshiri wrote on LiveScience. Despite this, variations do occur, and virologists are constantly looking at the variants to determine if a more virulent strain may be emerging or if the virus is losing its potency.

Scientists are collecting virus sequences and storing them in a globally available database. This is used to determine the rate of mutation and where in the virus genome mutations are occurring. Such mutations can affect the virulence and how effectively the virus can infect human host cells. The existence of different viral strains can be used to trace outbreaks.

Analysis of the SARS-CoV-2 virus from different countries has shown that the virus has undergone several predicted but insignificant mutations already. Scientists led by Peter Forster, along with researchers based in the UK and Germany, traced 160 COVID-19 genomes from China, Europe, and the US. They identified three strains of the virus called A, B and C. Type A is considered to be the original Chinese “ancestral type.” Type B is found in Asia, Europe and the US and has diverged from A with 2 mutations. Type C differs from type B at one site and is mostly confined to Europe and mostly absent from China.

More recently, researchers have alerted that a new strain, D614G, has become dominant in many countries. “The D614G variant first came to our attention in early April, as we had observed a strikingly repetitive pattern. All over the world, even when local epidemics had many cases of the original form circulating, soon after the D614G variant was introduced into a region it became the prevalent form,” wrote theoretical biologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory Bette Korber, in the journal Cell .

“This mutation is present in roughly two third of all global strains,” according to Associate Professor Denis Bauer, transformational bioinformatics team leader at CSIRO’s Australian e-Health Research Centre. The mutation that originated in the virus’ spike protein (not the RBD section) is thought to make it more contagious, but speculation that the virus is more virulent is extremely difficult to prove.

Scientists from the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at the Yale School of Public Health led by Nathan D. Grubaugh published a paper in Cell titled “Making Sense of Mutation: What D614G Means for the COVID-19 Pandemic Remains Unclear.” The paper examines whether the strain is more transmissible, infectious, or deadly, but concludes that “these data do not prove that G614 is more infectious or transmissible than viruses containing D614.” They conclude there is no evidence that the virus strain leads “to more severe disease.”

The history of human populations and coronaviruses indicate a possible course for the current pandemic. For instance, the virus OC43 is responsible for the common cold, but a study by researchers from the University of Leuven in Belgium suggest it may have been responsible for a pandemic in 1889 that killed more than 1 million people internationally. They speculate that humans eventually developed immunity against the virus, making future infections more benign.

The course of this pandemic is on par with one of history’s most severe health crisis in modern times. For humanity to develop herd immunity to SARS-CoV-2 would imply untold millions of deaths and incompletely understood chronic health morbidities. Yet, in the 21st century, where scientific knowledge is capable with confronting the threat, capitalism enchains humanity’s ability to respond in kind.

Australian universities unveil job cuts of up to 30 percent

Mike Head

Assisted by the role of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) in continuing to push through historic cuts in jobs, wages and conditions, Australian university managements are unveiling plans to intensify their offensive, eliminating thousands more jobs.

In line with the demands of the federal government and the corporate elite, the employers are exploiting the fallout from the global COVID-19 pandemic to demand further pro-business restructuring.

There was outrage by staff at the University of Sydney last week, after it was revealed that all departments have been asked to plan scenarios to cut full-time jobs by up to 30 percent next year to deal with the pandemic’s impact, which the management now admits will worsen next year.

With a workforce of about 9,000 full-time equivalent jobs, a 30 percent cut would slash 2,700. But many more people would be affected because the university employs a high proportion of part-time and casual workers, hundreds of whom have been cut already.

The University of Sydney

In an email last Wednesday, the head of the university’s School of Education and Social Work, Deb Hayes, said Arts and Social Sciences dean Annamarie Jagose had asked her to propose “how we might restructure to reduce by up to 30 percent FTE (full-time equivalent jobs).” Hayes suggested that one scenario would be for academics to take one day’s leave without pay each week.

In a bid to quell staff anger the management denied any final decisions had been made, but similar “scenarios” are being drafted across the university. The NTEU also sought to head off unrest by claiming that its enterprise agreement with the university would protect jobs, even though that agreement permits restructuring and retrenchments provided there is consultation with union representatives.

A hastily-called meeting, joined by more than 200 Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences workers last Thursday, committed to fight the cuts, possibly including by industrial action. But the motion put to the meeting offered no alternative perspective except to call on the management to borrow money on the basis of the university’s significant assets.

That call leaves unchallenged the underlying agenda of accelerating the decades-long transformation of universities into corporatised and casualised facilities serving the vocational requirements of the corporate elite. It echoes similar NTEU pleas at other universities for managements to sell off assets and axe jobs only as a “last resort.”

During the meeting, one professional staff member pointed to the wider cuts and restructuring throughout the universities in Australia and globally. He explained the culpability of governments and big business for their profit-driven response to the pandemic, and their bailouts of the corporate elite. He raised the necessity therefore to fight for the reorganisation of society on a socialist basis to meet social needs, not boost private profits.

The next day, the need for that perspective was highlighted when Melbourne’s RMIT University announced that it had eliminated 355 jobs via so-called voluntary redundancies, on top of the destruction of hundreds of casual jobs in April. A spokesperson said the measures would save $48 million and foreshadowed further cuts, saying the university’s revenue would fall by $175 million in 2020 alone.

Earlier in the week, Sydney’s Macquarie University told its staff that forced redundancies would follow if proposed “voluntary” redundancies failed to meet an expected a $175 million revenue shortfall this year, and an even bigger loss next year. This would mean eliminating between 600 and 1,000 full-time equivalent jobs.

The email from Macquarie’s vice chancellor also announced a “strategic alignment” of its academic workforce, including increased use of the “job families” scheme. This scheme, which forces targeted academics to devote 80 percent of their workloads to teaching, with no time for research, was imposed by the NTEU in its 2018 enterprise agreement despite significant opposition from academic staff.

Two weeks ago, Victoria’s La Trobe University launched a second round of voluntary redundancies following the axing of 239 jobs in an earlier round. It told staff it plans to cut costs by 20 percent and reduce the range of academic disciplines it teaches.

Remaining staff will be expected to lift their productivity by 20 percent as the ratio of full-time students to full-time staff member is lifted from 8.7 to 10.5. This was after a majority of staff voted, at the NTEU’s urging, to take salary reductions, supposedly to limit job losses.

In a draft 10-year strategy for 2020 to 2030, the La Trobe management said it may lose up to 25 percent of revenue by the end of next year and would resort to more online teaching. “We will be a smaller institution measured by revenue, staff and students for the foreseeable future,” the draft strategy stated.

In the same week, Melbourne’s Victoria University revealed a plan to cut up to 190 jobs. Vice-chancellor Professor Peter Dawkins said the number of positions lost would depend on staff’s willingness to accept a pay-cutting variation to their enterprise agreement.

These losses came in the wake of those at other Melbourne universities, with the University of Melbourne to lose 450 full-time positions and Monash University to shed 277 jobs despite Monash workers accepting an NTEU proposal to cut wages.

Universities Australia, the employers’ body, previously projected that the higher education sector would lose up to 21,000 jobs this year alone. That is now an under-estimate because of the pandemic’s resurgence since July, particularly in the state of Victoria.

In response, the NTEU has stepped up its collaboration with university managements, policing cuts to wages, jobs and basic conditions. It has defied the opposition of union members in May that triggered the collapse of the union’s “national framework,” which volunteered wage cuts of up to 15 percent and still accepted the loss of 18,000 jobs.

The NTEU and its allies are also trying to divert the outrage of university workers and students into a parliamentary petition campaign. They are appealing to right-wing senators to block the Liberal-National government’s latest student fee hikes and funding cuts on the basis of arguing that universities make a valuable contribution to Australian capitalism. This campaign buries the record of successive governments in cutting billions of dollars from the public universities, starting with the last Greens-backed Labor Party government of 2010-2013.

These bitter experiences demonstrate that university academics, staff and students can defend jobs and fight for free, high-quality education, only through a rebellion against the NTEU and all the other pro-capitalist unions and the entire political establishment.

The Committee for Public Education (CFPE) and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) have jointly called for the formation of independent rank-and-file committees to prosecute a genuine industrial and political struggle against all the union-enforced attacks.

That requires challenging the capitalist profit system and turning to a socialist perspective based on the total reorganisation of society in the interests of all, instead of the financial oligarchy. We urge all university workers and students who want to take forward this fight to contact us.

Australia’s two major airlines axe thousands of jobs

Terry Cook

A wave of job cuts is being unleashed across Australia’s aviation sector with Qantas and Virgin Australia, the country’s two major airlines, dramatically restructuring operations to slash costs amid ongoing turmoil in the global airline industry.

After claiming a net financial year after-tax loss of $1.9 billion last week, Qantas CEO Allan Joyce declared there would be further job cuts on top of the 6,000, or about 20 percent of the airline’s workforce, announced in June. Joyce did not say how many additional positions would be eliminated but made clear that 4,000 of the previously announced cuts would be imposed by the end of September.

The earlier cull was part of Qantas’s plan to achieve $15 billion in savings by 2023 and $1 billion in annual benefits into the future. In April, at the outset of the imposition of COVID-19 travel restrictions, Qantas, which had a total workforce of 29,000, stood down around 20,000 employees and grounded large sections of its fleet.

While Joyce has used the reported financial year loss to justify the ongoing job destruction, the loss was partly driven by a $1.2 billion write-down of its Airbus A380 superjumbos, which were placed in storage after the company suspended numbers of domestic and international services when the pandemic restrictions began.

Excluding the write-downs and various one-off costs, Qantas remains in the black with a reported financial profit of $124 million. The job destruction at the giant corporation, moreover, is being stepped up, despite the fact that it has received millions of dollars in government assistance and is asking for even more.

Last week, a Qantas spokesman confirmed that the company had received $248 million from aviation-specific government support schemes and $267 million through the government’s JobKeeper scheme that provides selected employers with $1,500 per fortnight per employee they keep on the books.

While Qantas claims that the majority of JobKeeper payments were given to stood-down workers, it admitted that the remainder were used to subsidise the wages of staff who continued to work. In other words, Qantas has been able to reduce its wages bill at public expense. In fact, Qantas reported a $15 million net benefit to its bottom line from the total $515 million it obtained in government support.

Qantas’s restructure is an attempt to position itself in the ruthless competitive war for market share in the global aviation that will see airlines go under and tens of thousands of jobs destroyed.

Joyce made the company’s predatory aims clear during a media briefing last week. Referencing the cost-cutting plan now being implemented by rival Virgin Australia, which has been taken over by private equity firm Bain Capital, he declared: “They [Virgin] will come out leaner and meaner and that’s a big challenge for us because the margin [advantage] that Qantas had is really important.”

Insisting that Qantas’s restructuring program was “now even more important,” Joyce added: “If Virgin were able to overcome that cost-base advantage, that’s a long term threat to Qantas.”

Joyce’s statement followed announcements by Virgin Australia earlier this month that it was shedding 3,000 jobs, or about one third of the carrier’s workforce. The cuts are part of Bain Capital’s restructuring of the failed carrier, aimed at establishing what it describes as “a leaner, fitter” operation. This savage attack has not deterred the Queensland state Labor government from offering Bain Capital $200 million in assistance and other incentives to maintain Virgin Australia’s home base in that state.

Virgin Australia was placed in administration in March this year owing more than $6.8 billion to creditors, including banks and major investors. Along with its job destruction, Bain Capital announced it was ditching Virgin’s low-cost carrier Tigerair, a move that will cost hundreds more positions. Around 220 Tigerair pilots have been made redundant.

Some of Virgin’s assets are being sold off, including a number of Boeing 737s to Rex, a regional airline that has already received $54 million in government assistance. The proceeds will go towards paying off Virgin’s secured creditors.

Bain Capital’s bid for Virgin, for an undisclosed amount, was selected by administrator Deloitte Australia in June, as a host of corporate takeover firms were circling the failed airline looking for lucrative pickings.

In a development that locks in Bain Capital’s takeover bid, the Federal Court last week ruled against an application by Asia-based hedge funds Broad Peak Investment and Tor Investments, who are representing Virgin bondholders for an alternate deal to be presented to a creditors’ meeting scheduled for September 1.

The deal, which was supported by major investment giants, including Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and UBS, involved Virgin’s bondholders swapping $2 billion in debt for shares in a relaunched airline and the raising of an additional $800 million to recapitalise the company.

The bondholders’ application was not motivated by any concern for Virgin workers but fear that if Bain Capital, succeeded they could end up getting as little as ten cents in the dollar on their debt holdings. Even if the bondholders’ proposal had succeeded, workers would have faced the same type of cost-cutting measures being implemented by Bain Capital.

From the outset, the airline unions’ response to the jobs slaughter at Qantas and Virgin Australia has been to deepen their collaboration with management, prevent any unified action by workers in the industry, and echo company appeals to the government for even larger financial handouts to the carriers.

Transport Workers Union (TWU) national secretary Michael Kaine insisted that further government support was “imperative.” He called on the federal government to “meet aviation businesses, airports and workers right now to work out a plan of action to stop aviation hitting a wall”—i.e., to involve the unions in airline industry job destruction and restructuring.

The airline unions endorsed Bain Capital’s takeover of Virgin Australia, even after the announcement this month of its massive job cuts.

Kaine cynically told the media that while the job cuts announcement was a “difficult day” for workers, the company’s decision to avoid becoming a solely low-cost carrier was “broadly positive.”

The mounting onslaught on jobs and conditions across the aviation sector in Australia and internationally underscores the necessity for a unified global struggle by airline workers. The long record of union-enforced cuts demonstrates the need for a decisive break with the unions and the establishment of new organisations of struggle, including independent rank-and-file committees.

Such committees would be tasked with turning to other sections of workers in Australia and internationally, who are all facing similar attacks, and developing a globally coordinated counter offensive of the entire working class. This struggle must be based on a socialist perspective and the fight for a workers' government that would place the airlines and all essential industries, along with the major banks and corporations, under public ownership and democratic workers' control.