New York’s COVID-19 nursing home deaths severely undercounted while Cuomo forced out public health officials

Josh Varlin

A recent report from New York Attorney General Letitia James followed by new data from the state Department of Health (DOH) confirm that nursing home deaths due to the pandemic have been drastically undercounted by nearly 50 percent. The new information, revealing more than 4,000 additional deaths of nursing home residents due to COVID-19, combined with a New York Times report about nine senior public health officials resigning over the past year paints a portrait of the criminality of the ruling elite’s response to the pandemic in New York.

Prior to the report’s January 28 release, the state’s count of deaths at nursing homes was 8,711. Within hours of James’ report being released, the DOH updated its website to show 12,743 deaths. The state had been excluding people who died in a hospital from the nursing homes’ death tally. Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said that day that the DOH website had indicated that the tally did “not include deaths outside of a facility.”

Andrew Cuomo (Zack Seward/Flickr.com)

Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo responded by dismissing the focus on nursing home deaths as originating in “a political attack.” He also pointed to the fact that nursing home resident deaths make up a slightly smaller proportion of overall deaths in New York than nationally. Given that New York is still the hardest-hit US state due to the traumatic impact of the “first wave” in the spring of 2020, with over 42,000 deaths, this is a product less of policies that protected nursing home residents and more of policies that led to millions of people outside of homes getting infected and tens of thousands dying.

In a particularly callous response, Cuomo said: “Who cares [if they] died in the hospital, died in a nursing home? They died.”

Above all, the new DOH data make clear that the pandemic has been a disaster for elderly and disabled New Yorkers. The report from Attorney General James also sheds light on other aspects of the failure of the state and nursing homes to protect residents, including a “[l]ack of compliance with infection control protocols,” “[i]nsufficient personal protective equipment (PPE) for nursing home staff” and “[i]nsufficient COVID-19 testing for residents and staff in the early stages of the pandemic.”

The report also includes among its preliminary findings that “[l]ack of nursing home compliance with the executive order requirement communication with family members caused avoidable pain and distress” and that “[g]overnment guidance requiring the admission of COVID-19 patients into nursing homes may have put residents at increased risk of harm in some facilities and may have obscured the data available to assess that risk.”

The latter point—that state guidance declared that “[n]o resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the nursing home solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19,” in the words of the DOH—has been much-discussed in relation to Cuomo’s culpability in the high death toll. This guidance was in place from March 25 until May 10 last year, during which time over 6,000 people were admitted into nursing homes.

Because of the very nature of the guidance, which did not require testing for COVID-19 before admission, it is difficult to determine what role this played in the nursing home deaths. Both Cuomo and James note that the state’s guidance was consistent with contemporary guidance from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Significantly, the report indicates that Cuomo’s executive order granting immunity for nursing homes likely contributed to the high death toll and general worsening of conditions inside the homes, including by admitting residents without sufficient healthy staff to care for them.

Cuomo’s actions during the pandemic—including providing immunity for nursing homes, keeping schools and businesses open, and reopening the state early—combined with his actions disparaging of scientific expertise to create an environment which public health officials have found impossible. According to the New York Times, nine top public health officials have resigned in recent months, with many citing Cuomo as a particular cause.

Analogous to former President Donald Trump’s attacks on scientists such as Dr. Anthony Fauci and scientific evidence, as well as New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio forcing out city Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot, Cuomo declared the day after the attorney general’s report was issued: “When I say ‘experts’ in air quotes, it sounds like I’m saying I don’t really trust the experts. Because I don’t. Because I don’t.”

Cuomo’s Trumpian disdain for scientific expertise extended to his decision to rely on hospital systems for the state’s vaccination program rather than using preexisting vaccination plans involving the state DOH cooperating with city and county health departments. A task force with independent vaccination experts was largely for show, whereas a lobbyist for Northwell Health was given an office inside the DOH from which to work. Changes in regulations were announced at news conferences, leaving health officials to scramble to implement them. Cuomo’s much touted “microcluster” strategy, which is wholly inadequate for controlling the pandemic, was also evidently designed with the DOH playing a secondary role, according to the Times .

One former health official told the Times, “Morale certainly was and continues to be at an all-time low.” Whereas past public health emergencies made DOH personnel feel valued and necessary, this time, “the opposite happened,” according to that official.

As a result, the deputy commissioner for public health, director of the communicable disease bureau, medical director for epidemiology, and state epidemiologist have all left the DOH since the summer. Dr. Jill Taylor, head of the Wadsworth Center laboratory, which has been testing for virus variants, has also left recently.

That so many public health officials have felt compelled to leave just as the state embarks on an unprecedented—and so far substandard—vaccination effort bodes poorly for the next stage of the pandemic, which will also see a further reopening, with indoor dining resuming in New York City on February 14.

Cuomo’s own political health is uncertain. On February 3, the state Supreme Court ordered that the DOH release additional information on nursing home deaths within five days in response to a lawsuit from a right-wing think tank. Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that the federal Department of Justice (DOJ) may decide to pursue charges in relation to nursing home deaths, implying that President Joe Biden would let the DOJ make its decision independently. The DOJ was already investigating the nursing home situation in New York under the Trump administration.

Australian central bank expands quantitative easing program

Nick Beams

There is a glaring contradiction at the centre of the decision by the Reserve Bank of Australia on Tuesday to step up its quantitative easing (QE) bond-buying program and to keep its base interest rate at virtually zero for at least the next three years.

On the one hand, according to RBA governor Philip Lowe, the outlook for the global economy has improved over recent months. In Australia, “the economic recovery is well under way and has been stronger than was earlier expected” with gross domestic product predicted to increase by 3.5 percent over both 2021 and 2022.

Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Philip Lowe (Credit: Wikimedia)

However, on the other hand, the RBA decided that it would expand its emergency bond buying program by $100 billion, to be carried out at the rate of $5 billion a week, and to keep its base interest rate at just 0.1 percent—far below what it was in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008–2009.

The move was at variance with market predictions. “The market appeared to have been preparing for a taper signal,” Alvin T. Tan, a strategist at RBC Capital Markets in Hong Kong told Bloomberg. “So the additional QE is definitely against those expectations,” he said, adding that the “message was also more dovish.”

While pointing to a strong recovery, the RBA said wage and price pressures remained subdued. The consumer price index rose by only 0.9 percent in the year to December. Wages were increasing “at the slowest rate on record” and any rise in the future would be only gradual.

What this means in effect is that any increase in the output of the Australian economy will be virtually entirely appropriated in the form of profit, further contributing to the long-term decline of wages as a proportion of national income.

Lowe said the RBA remained committed to maintaining “highly supportive monetary conditions” until its goals were achieved and, given the current outlook for inflation and jobs, “this is still some way off.”

“The Board will not increase the cash rate until actual inflation is sustainably within the 2 to 3 percent target range. For this to occur, wages growth will have to be materially higher than it is currently. This will require significant gains in employment and a return to a tight labour market. The Board does not expect these conditions to be met until 2024 at the earliest.”

There was another notable feature of the RBA decision: an explicit reference to the exchange rate of the Australian dollar in international currency markets. The major economic powers have all committed themselves not to use monetary policy to lower the value of their currencies lest this set off a destructive currency war. But the commitment is increasingly being honoured in the breach.

Since its fall to US55 cents in the financial markets freeze last March, the Australian dollar has surged by 33 percent against the US currency.

This is largely the result of an overall fall in the US dollar due to the massive increases in US debt and the stimulus measures of the US Federal Reserve. It has expanded its balance sheet by around $4 trillion in the past 10 months and is purchasing $120 billion worth of financial assets every month—a rate of $1.4 trillion per year.

Lowe noted that the exchange rate for the Australian dollar had appreciated significantly. It was in the upper end of the range for recent years and the RBA’s latest measures would contribute “to a lower exchange rate than otherwise.”

Commenting on the currency implications of the latest decision, Bloomberg noted: “Lowe’s QE announcement reflects Australia’s small stature in the global monetary marketplace, requiring it to remain in the slipstream of major central banks. If the RBA were to step outside that line, it would risk sending the currency soaring and damage exports and jobs.”

A key aim of the current QE program, which has seen the RBA expand its balance sheet by around $160 billion since the start of 2020, is “to restrain the currency,” it said.

The QE program is set to continue. According to Westpac chief economist Bill Evans, the RBA will spend at least another $100 billion in two separate tranches later this year and in 2022. The chief economist at the financial firm EY, Jo Masters, told the Sydney Morning Herald the RBA was on track to expand its balance sheet to around 30 percent of GDP.

The RBA announcement came the day after Prime Minister Scott Morrison delivered an address to the National Press Club in which he made clear his Liberal-National Coalition government would press ahead with measures to slash unemployment benefits and other critical social spending.

He said the government would exercise “fiscal discipline”—code for attacks on the social position of the working class. After providing billions to support corporations under COVID-19 economic support measures, Morrison said the government was not running a “blank-cheque budget.”

Taken together, the two announcements reveal the essential class agenda being pursued at the highest levels of economic policy making. Both the government and the RBA promote the fiction their decisions are made in the interests of the “economy” and the “nation.” However, their latest actions reveal the essential class divide.

The government’s measures will push up unemployment, impose increased poverty on broader sections of the working class and youth, forcing them into lower paid jobs.

At the same time, the RBA uses these conditions as the justification for its decisions to pump still more money into the financial system for the benefit of major corporations and the financial elite.

Such measures—the maintenance of ultra-low interest rates for the indefinite future and bond purchases—do nothing to boost either employment or wages. But what the RBA acknowledges are “highly accommodative” financial conditions boost the bottom line of corporations and facilitate lucrative speculation in shares, real estate and other financial assets.

Cooperation and Contestation in East Asia

Sandip Kumar Mishra

East Asia has seen significant changes this past decade: both domestically within the countries of the region, as well as in their relations with each other. Three broad trends can be flagged to make sense of the many developments that have taken place. One, East Asia has become more economically and strategically salient in global politics. Two, we have seen the rise of strong leaders across the domestic political landscapes of most of these countries. Three, the parallel tracks of economic cooperation and strategic contestation along which inter-state relations were earlier conducted have been increasingly blurred, with political dissonances impacting the flow and frequency of economic exchanges.      

East Asia’s Increasing Salience in Global Politics

In October 2011, then US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton wrote a Foreign Policy article titled America’s Pacific Century, in which she argued that “the future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq,” and outlined a US ‘pivot to Asia’ policy. This was a clear indication of American intention to invest more in the region—diplomatically, strategically, economically, and otherwise. It drew from a 2011 development: of China overtaking Japan as the world’s second largest economy with a valuation of around US $ 5.88 trillion (Japan was US$ 5.47 trillion). China was estimated to overtake the US by 2027. Early on in the decade, East Asia became a site of interaction for the world’s three biggest economies.

Further, China’s ‘assertive’ rise became more overt. This was a challenging development for the regional order, and tracking Beijing’s changing course was an important consideration for all actors. It also posed a challenge to the US' regional and global primacy. US-China bilateral contestation, which is strategically the most important variable in global politics, has unraveled most prominently in Asia.

Japan’s changing posture under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe drew further attention to East Asia. Tokyo has actively articulated and pursued its Indo-Pacific strategy, which has had a bearing on its exchanges with Beijing. An ‘assertive’ Japan, as seen over the past decade, will have implications for regional as well as global politics.

Leadership change in North Korea following the death of its leader, Kim Jong-il, and the destabilising impact of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and missile capabilities also occupied much of the international relations limelight. The global security implications of North Korea’s frequent nuclear and missile tests were granted more serious consideration than before. It led, among other things, to US President Donald Trump proposing a summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Three such meetings were held.

In 2018, the US attempted to address China’s unfair trade practices by setting tariff barriers. This gradually evolved into a bilateral trade war. In tandem with the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, it will have important consequences for global supply chains.

Rise of Strong Leaders and Nationalist Domestic Polities

East Asian domestic politics also saw considerable changes in the first half of the decade. This shaped not only the internal nature and course of individual countries, but also of the region. ‘Strong’ leaders assumed office, and the popular mood in most of these countries favoured such change. Xi Jinping, who became president of China in March 2013, showed his intent to change Beijing’s “hide your strength” strategy. This has led to China becoming increasingly assertive under his rule. Xi has augmented and centralised power through anti-corruption moves and removing the two-term presidential limit.

Shinzo Abe became prime minister of Japan in December 2012. This was his second term as PM, and his resignation in late 2020 made him Japan’s longest serving leader of the post-War period. Abe began with ‘Abenomics’: a set of policies to revitalise Japan’s economic stagnation and stabilise domestic politics, which was witness to frequent leadership changes. He also sought to make critical defence posture changes by revising Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. In December 2013, Abe introduced the concept of ‘proactive pacifism’ and a five-year plan for military expansion. In July 2014, Tokyo reinterpreted the constitutional provision of ‘collective self-defence’ and allowed Japanese Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to aid and defend an ally under attack, which was not allowed earlier.

North Korean politics witnessed generational change in the beginning of the decade. The power transition to the third generation of the Kim family was relatively smooth. Kim Jong-un swiftly assumed power and consolidated his position. Between 2012 and 2017, North Korea conducted more nuclear and missile tests than in all the previous years combined, which were a total of four. North Korea halted testing in 2018 and initiated summit meetings with the US in the hope of sanctions relief. These meetings didn’t produce the desired results.

Things were eventful in South Korea as well. Conservatives such as Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye, or the progressive Moon Jae-in, are all seen as strong leaders. Attempts by conservative leaders to restrict the country’s democratic space resulted in a non-violent democratic protest. This led to Park Geun-hye’s impeachment in 2017—the first instance in South Korean history of a president being successfully ousted from office through impeachment. Current President Moon Jae-in has tried to restore democratic space, and has made efforts to engage North Korea.

Taiwan has demonstrated a similar domestic political tendency. It has become less compromising towards China, which was reflected in the 2016 change of guard from Ma Ying-jeou to Tsai Ing-wen. The new leadership claims Taiwan as an independent country; a reality that it would like China to accept.

Interstate Strategic Contestation’s Impact on Economic Amity

Interstate relations in East Asia have historically been conducted on dual tracks. Countries of the region were earlier able to isolate their growing economic relations from disagreements in other domains, especially those of a strategic and political orientation. This separation has increasingly thinned.

In the beginning of 2010-2020, China and Japan faced-off in the East China Sea over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, which negatively affected their economic exchanges. China-South Korea relations showed positive trends at the beginning of the decade, with the top leaders of both countries meeting over 2013, 2014, and 2015. Seoul also joined the Beijing-led Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as a founding member despite reservations from its ally, the US. Relations however began deteriorating when South Korea allowed the US to install the Terminal High Altitude Aerial Defense (THAAD) system on its territory. Once again, the economic dynamic suffered as a result.

The China-North Korea relationship has also gone through two phases in this decade: one of discordance, followed by one of reconnection. As leaders, Kim Jong-un and Xi Jinping did not meet until 2018. High-level exchanges between the two countries were quite rare, and it was assumed that Pyongyang was not happy with Beijing toeing the international community’s line on sanctions on North Korea. Earlier, gaps in national policy priorities did not have a similar economic fallout.

The most glaring example of political spill-overs onto economic considerations is the Japan-South Korea relationship. This is especially true of the past two years, which has seen both Seoul and Tokyo impose tit-for-tat trade restrictions in response to political one-upping. When South Korea announced its intention to review the agreement on the comfort women issue, and its courts ordered Japanese companies to pay reparations for wartime forced labour, Tokyo removed Seoul from its trade ‘white-list’. This meant that certain Japanese exports to South Korea were removed from the automatic approval list. The annual trilateral dialogue on trade and economic issues between China, Japan, and South Korea that began in 2008 has also become irregular. The most recent one scheduled to be held in Seoul did not take place because of Japan’s dissatisfaction with the forced labour matter.

However, the global pandemic, which has inevitably affected all economies, may prove to be a surprisingly positive catalyst in inducing some political rapprochement in the region. There are indications that regional capitals may be willing to restore the separation of political and economic engagement. One indicator of such a trend is China, Japan, and South Korea signing the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) in November 2020 despite strategic friction.

Looking Ahead

Any future prognostication will have US President Joe Biden’s approach towards China and US allies in East Asia as the most crucial variable of analysis. While the US will probably continue down the path of tensions and confrontation with China, it is likely to be more principled. Washington will also be less transactional in its relations with Japan and South Korea, and seek to build more trust into alliances. The Tokyo-Seoul relationship is presently at its nadir, but this may look up in the coming years. Both countries are aware that any further deterioration in ties will be detrimental to both. North Korea’s nuclear programme will continue to be unpredictable and a cause for serious concern. Pyongyang is unlikely to denuclearise, even though it may formally continue to have talks with Washington and Seoul on the issue.

As in 2010-2020, East Asia will continue to be—and perhaps become even more—central to global politics. As a site of regional and global cooperation and contestation, it will have ramifications that will ring beyond its political boundaries.

What Explains COVID’s East-West Divide?

John Feffer

COVID-19 has been ruthless in choosing winners and losers around the world.

The obvious “losers” have been those countries led by right-wing nationalists: Brazil, India, Russia, the United Kingdom, and (until recently) the United States. These five countries are responsible for more than half of the world’s coronavirus infections and nearly half the deaths.

Just as obviously, the “winners” have been the countries of Asia.

Although China and South Korea were both hit hard early on in the pandemic, they have managed to recover quite dramatically. The rest of the region, meanwhile, has suffered nowhere near the same magnitude of adverse consequences that Europe or the Americas have experienced. Taiwan has had fewer than 1,000 infections and only 7 deaths. Vietnam had had about 1,500 infections and 35 deaths. Thailand has had over 13,000 infections but only 75 deaths. Mongolia has had under 1,700 infections and only two deaths.

Even the less fortunate countries in the region have managed to control the pandemic better than the West has. Burma has suffered over 130,000 infections, but just over 3,000 deaths. Malaysia has had 185,000 infections but only 700 deaths, while Japan has had over 360,000 infections but just under 5,200 deaths. Singapore has actually had the largest per-capita number of infections in the region but has registered only 29 deaths.

The two relative outliers are the Philippines with over 500,000 infections and 10,000 deaths, and Indonesia with nearly a million infections and over 28,000 deaths.

It’s not as if these countries have avoided the various surges that have taken place globally as a result of holiday travel, the loosening of restrictions, or new variants of the disease. But even among the outliers, the renewed outbreaks have been several magnitudes smaller than what Europe or the Americas have faced.

To give you a sense of how relatively successful even these outliers have been, imagine if the Trump administration had handled the pandemic as poorly as the worst performing Asian nation. Rodrigo Duterte is in many ways the Donald Trump of Asia. But if the United States had managed to follow the Filipino example, the United States would now be facing 1.5 million cases of infection and only 30,000 deaths. Instead, America not long ago passed the 25 million mark in cases and the 400,000 mark in deaths.

Now imagine if the Trump administration had dealt with the pandemic as successfully as Vietnam. The United States would have been hit by under 5,000 infections and a little over 100 deaths.

Not fair, you say, because Vietnam is a communist country that can impose draconian restrictions without fear of backlash? Okay, if we use Taiwan as the yardstick for comparison, the United States would have 15,000 infections and a little over 100 deaths.

Not fair, you say, because Taiwan is an island? Okay, if we use South Korea as the baseline, the United States would have had 450,000 infections and about 8,000 deaths.

Any way you look at it, the United States did worse than every single country in Asia. If America had just managed to handle the crisis as effectively as the worst-performing Asian country, close to 400,000 more Americans would be alive today.

It’s easy to blame Trump for this woeful discrepancy between America and Asia. After all, according to the first Global Health Security Index released in 2019, the United States came out on top in terms of its readiness to deal with a pandemic. U.S. hospitals routinely receive high marks in global lists. A failure of governance would seem to be the key distinguishing factor, particularly in light of all the mistakes that Trump made from day one, errors that he compounded through ignorance, incompetence, and sheer foolishness.

But many of the governments in Asia made similar mistakes. Duterte has been widely criticized for delays and missteps. South Korean leader Moon Jae-in faced calls for impeachment early in the crisis because of the government’s failure to prevent the first outbreaks.

So, perhaps at least some of the fault lies elsewhere: not in our political stars, but in ourselves.

East vs. West

After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the West indulged in more than a little triumphalism. Pundits fell over each other in their eagerness to declare that the individual had prevailed over the collective, capitalism had vanquished communism, and the West was the best (so forget about the rest).

Many people in Asia, however, begged to differ.  Maybe you remember the debate in the 1990s around “Eastern” vs. “Western” values. Singapore leader Lee Kuan Yew and Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, along with their house intellectuals, claimed that Asian countries had superior value systems than those of the West.

Rather than unstable democracies, disruptive human rights movements, and the overwhelming cult of the individual, the East valued harmony, order, and the common good. These values, they argued, made possible the continuous economic success of the Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan) not to mention the earlier accomplishments of Japan, the leapfrogging rise of Mainland China, and the copycat efforts of the Tiger Cubs (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam). The proof was in the productivity.

The counter-arguments came quickly from such august figures as Kim Dae Jung of South Korea, Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, and Amartya Sen of India. They pointed out that there’s nothing inherently Western about human rights and democracy. Both South Korea and Taiwan, after all, democratized without putting a dent in their economic growth. Human rights movements had mass appeal in Burma, the Philippines, and elsewhere in the region. After the Asian financial crisis of 1997, which devastated countries in the region, it became increasingly difficult to argue that the East was immune from the same economic problems that plagued capitalism in the West.

As a result, the “Eastern values” camp gradually faded from view. Good riddance to bad theory. The dividing line between East and West was spurious in so many ways, reminiscent of older stereotypes of the East as “unchanging” or “inscrutable.”

And yet, today, COVID-19 has drawn a clear line between Asia and the rest of the world. What’s particularly striking about this latest divergence is the lack of significance in types of governance. The countries that have been successful in Asia have very different forms of government, from communist (Vietnam) to democratic (Taiwan) to military dictatorship (Thailand). Moreover, they have different histories, religious backgrounds, and relationships with the countries of the West. The only thing they share, it would seem, is what realtors are always going on about: location, location, location.

So, should we be resurrecting “Eastern values” to explain such a startling difference in outcomes during this pandemic era?

Three Reasons

The most important reason that Asia reacted to COVID-19 with greater seriousness and better results has to do not with ancient history but with more recent experience.

In 2003, the region was blindsided by the SARS epidemic. The first cases emerged in southern China in late 2002. By March, the new coronavirus was showing up in Hong Kong and Vietnam as well. Eventually it would appear in 29 countries and result in over 700 deaths. By July, after unprecedented international cooperation, the World Health Organization declared the epidemic contained.

Think of SARS as a virus that stimulated Asia’s immunological system. That system went into hyperdrive to fight off the infection. Once Asia successfully beat off the new disease, a certain immunity remained. That immunity was not biological, in the sense that the populations of the region had any resistance to novel coronaviruses. Rather, the immunity consisted of a heightened awareness of the problem, a new set of institutions and practices developed to fight future attacks, and a historical memory among a certain generation of political leadership. The rest of the world, which avoided the brunt of SARS, didn’t develop that kind of immunity.

A second advantage that Asian countries have enjoyed is a coordinated central government response. After its initial denial of COVID-19, Beijing soon switched into high gear to contain the spread of the disease by locking down Wuhan and other hot spots and severely restricting internal travel. South Korea moved rapidly to institute a nationwide testing and tracing system. Taiwan quickly made masks available, imposed an immediate quarantine system, and monitored citizens digitally. Countries in the region with less tightly federated structures – Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia – weren’t able to react as quickly or as consistently. But even they were models of central authority compared to the kind of policy clash between center and periphery that so complicated the pandemic response in countries like Brazil and the United States.

The third advantage, and this comes the closest to a revival of the “Eastern values” argument, is the issue of compliance.

The U.S. anti-mask mentality, for instance, has no real counterpart in Asia. Sure, plenty of people in the region have issues with their governments and with state regulations. A number of the countries in the region, like South Korea, are notoriously low-trust. But throughout the region, citizens have a greater respect for scientific authority and a greater respect for community standards. And those who for whatever reason choose to flout this authority and these standards are quickly shamed into compliance.

As Lawrence Wright points out in his thorough piece on COVID-19 in The New Yorker, consistent mask use stands out as a determinant of success in containing the spread of the virus. “Hong Kong was one of the world’s densest cities, but there was no community spread of the virus there, because nearly everyone wore masks,” he writes. “Taiwan, which was manufacturing ten million masks per day for a population of twenty-three million, was almost untouched. Both places neighbored China, the epicenter.”

Anti-vaccine sentiment is also quite low in Asia. According to a 2018 survey, 85 percent of people in Asia believe vaccines are safe – the highest of any region in the world. Although anti-vaxxers have managed to spread their messages in Asia, it’s notably been in the two countries with the worst records on COVID-19: the Philippines and Indonesia. Elsewhere, vaccination levels have remained high.

It’s not just deference to science or fear of public shaming. Compliance may also derive from a stronger sense of the common good. It’s not as if harmony prevails over Asia like a benevolent weather front. Look at the political polarization in Thailand that has led to multiple mass demonstrations and military coups. Or the rapid alternation in power of different political parties in Taiwan and South Korea. But underneath the great divisions in these societies is a persistent belief in pulling together during a crisis rather than pulling apart.

It is impossible to imagine a scenario in any Asian country like what transpired in the United States during the January 6 insurrection. Lawmakers evacuated from the congressional floor found themselves packed into a small, windowless lockdown room. If ever there were a time for bipartisanship, it was during this attack on American democracy. Yet, some Republican legislators, although they quite obviously couldn’t maintain social distance in this crowded space, refused to wear the masks offered to them. They couldn’t even pretend to care about the health and safety of others, and several lawmakers indeed tested positive for COVID-19 after this experience. This is the American response to the pandemic writ small: astonishing selfishness and ideological rigidity.

In Asia, it’s very possible that the successful efforts by governments to contain COVID-19 will lead to a virtuous circle of trust, if not in the governments then at least in social institutions like medical authorities, as this recent study from South Korea suggests. The West, meanwhile, is descending into a vicious circle of mistrust that vaccinations, herd immunity, and the exile of Trump to Florida will not be enough to forestall.

Forget about so-called Eastern values for a moment. The West needs to look more carefully at its own values, since they are clearly not fit for purpose at a time of crisis.

Taking on Telecom’s “5G”

David Rosen

Do you own a “Fifth Generation” – 5G – smartphone? They are promoted as the hippest, most essential tool of postmodern life. The Gartner Group, a market research firm, estimates that worldwide sales will be 489 million units in 2021. For North America, estimated 2021 sales are projected to be 158,618 units. One forecast estimated 2020 smartphone sales revenue in the U.S. at $75.5 billion.

For nearly a decade, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., chairman of the Children’s Health Defense (CHD), and others have raised serious concerns about the health impacts of 5G technology. The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) and the powerful telecommunications industry have dismissed the critics’ concerns, lumping anyone who raised questions about the technology’s health impact as part of “anti-vaxxer” movement.

“The American public has been poorly served by the FCC,” warned Kennedy. “The FCC’s guidelines are decades-old and are based on scientific assumptions that were proven false. Its failure and disregard of public health is evident in the growing and widespread conditions involving brain damage, learning disabilities, and a host of complex neurological syndromes.” He added: “The FCC has shown that its chief interest is protecting the telecom industry and maximizing its profits, and its position as put forward in its brief is simply indefensible.”

In 2013, the FCC opened an inquiry into 5G, requesting public comment as to whether it needed to review its 1996 health guidelines for Radio Frequency (RF) radiation emitted by wireless devices and infrastructure. Some 2,000 comments were submitted from a wide assortment of scientific, health and public interest organizations and individuals as well as municipal health departments (e.g., Boston and Philadelphia). In December 2019, the FCC ruled that there was no evidence that wireless technology causes harm, nor a need to review the guidelines.

However, things might be changing. On Monday, January 25^th, attorneys for CHD and the Environmental Health Trust (EHT) presented oral arguments before the U.S. Courts of Appeals of the DC Circuit challenging the FCC’s support for the telecom industry’s long-term effort to impose 5G wireless technology on American consumers.

They were joined by David Carpenter, co-editor of the BioInitiative Report, and the Consumers for Safe Cell Phones. In addition, numerous groups submitted supporting documents, among them are the California Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics; U.S. Access Board, NIBS, the Department of Interior, U.S. Navy, the Military, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Toxicology Program (NTP); as well as appeals from leading expert scientists. In all, environmental, health and communications advocacy groups submitted 440 documents consisting of 11,000 pages.

The plaintiffs were represented by two attorneys. Scott McCullough, former Assistant Texas Attorney General, represented the Irregulators last year in its case against the FCC. EHD was represented by Edward B. Myers, who earlier represented the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and several Native American tribes when the court upheld the relevance of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in FCC proceedings. The plaintiffs arguing that the FCC violated the Administrative Procedures Act and NEPA for failing to comply with the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

The documents allege that 5G electronics are responsible in one way or another for a wide range of illnesses. They include a variety of cancers, non-cancer conditions and DNA damage; blood flow to the brain and damage to the blood-brain barrier, cognitive and memory problems; and effects on sleep, melatonin production and mitochondrial damage. Most startling, in December 2020, the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NAS) reported that the most likely cause of the symptoms suffered by the U.S. diplomats in Cuba and China was from RF (wireless) weapons.

At the January 25^th hearing, U.S. Circuit Judge Robert L. Wilkins questioned whether the FCC properly cited two working groups under the Federal Drug Administration’s umbrella that are supposed to monitor the possibility of wireless harms. He pointed out that the FCC failed to explore how these bodies contributed to the record and to substantiate whether they exist at all. “I’m just going to be very upfront with why I’m inclined to rule against you,” Wilkins said.

Judge Patricia Millett went further, noting that the universe of connected devices has grown significantly over the last quarter-century. She pointed out that the FCC’s focus on “fixed devices” doesn’t addressed the potential harms of popular “mobile” devices that consumers constantly interact. “Is an iPad a fixed facility? Is a watch a fixed facility? Is a laptop a fixed facility?,” she asked. “The fixed facility stuff doesn’t feel responsive. I’m really curious about all these other devices.”

In 2019, three of the five FCC commissioners were Republican appointees and the chair, Ajit Pai, previously served as a lawyer for Verizon. Pres. Joe Biden has appointed incumbent FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel as acting chair. She has a long record supporting Net Neutrality and backing efforts to end the Digital Divide. A Democratic controlled commission may be more favorable to a critical consideration of 5G’s health impacts.

The challenge raised about the health impacts of 5G technology recall the legendary struggles that scientists and health activists faced in the battle over the role of cigarette smoking and lung cancer. While the link between cigarette smoking as a likely cause of cancer was acknowledged as early as the 1940s, it was not until 1999 that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a verdict against Philip Morris for the death of Mayola Williams from lung cancer. One can only hope that the case against 5G will not take that long to resolve.

West Papua Calls for Independence Referendum to Avert Genocide

Jeff Armstrong

The Indonesian-occupied nation of West Papua has called for urgent international intervention against Indonesia’s intensification of what a 2016 report called “slow motion genocide.”

West Papua is facing an onslaught of colonial settlement backed by the military of the fifth largest nation in the world, with the largest army in Southeast Asia. Papuans are quickly becoming a minority in their own country, if they are not there already. Former Indonesian intelligence chief Abdullah Mahmud Hendropriyono recently called for the forced removal of some two million indigenous Papuans to the island of Manado in apparent response to a Dec. 1, 2020 reaffirmation of West Papuan independence, first declared 59 years earlier on that date.

The pro-independence coalition known as the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) on its national independence day raised the outlawed Morning Star flag and named a provisional government headed by interim President Benny Wenda, who was arrested and tortured by Indonesia but now lives in exile in England after escaping from custody 18 years ago.

“This is racial ethnic cleansing, a genocidal fantasy at the highest levels of the Indonesian state,” President Wenda said in a recent statement.

The occupation of West Papua is driven by greed and fueled by deep-seated racism that depicts the tribal peoples of the nation as subhumans incapable of self-government, a concept that even penetrates Indonesian textbooks. The chairman of an organization tied to Indonesian President Joko Widodo recently referred to a prominent West Papuan human rights defender as a “monkey,” a common racial slur among Indonesians.

Similar expressions of Indonesian racism sparked demonstrations throughout West Papua in 2019, as did the Black Lives Matter protests that broke out throughout the US and the world last spring and summer. Such demonstrations have been met by the Indonesian state with lethal force and lengthy prison terms. In recent days, 13 West Papuans were arrested and charged with treason for campaigning for an independence referendum, while two others were arrested for displaying the Morning Star emblem on a bracelet and a bag, according to the Free West Papua Campaign. Indonesia has placed tight restrictions on media and human rights observers in West Papua, severely limiting the information available to the world.

According to the 2016 report of the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission (CJPC) of the Archdiocese of Brisbane, “The situation in West Papua is fast approaching a tipping point. In less than five years, the position of Papuans in their own land will be worse than precarious. They are already experiencing a demographic tidal wave.”

Jakarta-based human rights activist Mas Wibowo said that tipping point has come.

Wibowo called on “all countries of the world and the UN [to] immediately intervene in overcoming the extermination of indigenous Papuans and the extermination of all natural resources in the land of West Papua.” Papuans are demanding international recognition for peace talks and a legitimate UN-sponsored referendum on their status. West Papua is rich in natural resources and home to virgin rainforests threatened by Indonesian plans to build new roads into the forests.

“The Indonesian government through its military security forces kills and shoots dead indigenous Papuans every day,” Wibowo said.

Protection of the environment will be a priority of a free West Papua, Wenda said upon assuming the interim presidency. ““Embodying the spirit of the people of West Papua, we are ready to run our country. As laid out in our Provisional Constitution, a future republic of West Papua will be the world’s first green state, and a beacon of human rights – the opposite of decades of bloody Indonesian colonisation.”

Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Papuans have been killed or disappeared in the conflict since Indonesia assumed control in 1963 under UN administration, with a referendum slated to follow six years later. United Nations General Secretary Dag Hammarskjold had recognized West Papua’s independence aspirations before dying in a mysterious plane crash on his way to the Congo in 1961, just months before West Papua declared its independence.

In 1969, Indonesia organized a plebiscite on the status of West Papua under the auspices of the United Nations, known with painful irony as the “Act of Free Choice.” In it, just over 1,000 Papuans were held by force for two weeks without contact with their families or the outside world and threatened with violence if they did not accede to annexation by Indonesia. There was no recorded vote, only a purported show of hands in assemblies of literal captives surrounded by armed Indonesian soldiers.

Nevertheless, the UN recognized the farcical colonial assemblies as the expression of self-determination rights by West Papua, with only scattered international dissent at the UN. Although a 1969 report by the US embassy cited UN officials on the ground who said 95% of Papuans opposed Indonesian rule, the United States was aligned with the brutal dictatorship of Gen. Suharto at the time, and offered no objection to the annexation of what the regime renamed West Irian.

US military assistance to Indonesia was suspended through most of the Clinton Administration in response to international revulsion over Indonesia’s genocidal war on East Timor, whose annexation the US was virtually alone in the world in recognizing. Military ties have increased since then, beginning with frequent military training exercises with the Hawaiian National Guard but recently expanding to combat training for elite Kopassus troops on the mainland with US special forces. US military ties to Kopassus had been restricted due to the elite force’s role in human rights abuses. An additional 450 members of an elite Indonesian battalion have been deployed to Indonesia this month.

Even before the formal annexation of West Papua, Indonesia conducted aerial bombing and other scorched earth tactics against a resistance initially only armed with bows and arrows. The armed wing of the ULMWP, the West Papua National Liberation Army, has held its own for decades, but the beleaguered nation of West Papua will have to rely on international solidarity as much as its own determination and ingenuity to win freedom from a nation 100 times its population. Current and former parliamentarians from at least 15 nations have joined Papuan calls for an independence referendum, including Catalonian President-in-Exile Carles Puigdemont and former British labor leader Jeremy Corbyn. Former Sinn Fein TD Caoimhghín Ó Caolain called on the Irish government in 2001 to “state publicly its support for self-determination for the people of West Papua.”

“We indigenous Papuans ask you all for moral and social responsibility to save us from the genocide of indigenous Papuans and ecocide in the land of West Papua,” Wibowo said.

Biden’s Most Urgent Challenge: More Countries Wanting Nukes

Nick Licata

Former President Donald Trump had placed the United States on the runway to take off on another nuclear arms race. Trump threw out two treaties that held Russia and the U.S. in check. It also deterred other nations from developing nuclear weapons over the last thirty years.

President Joseph Biden cut the throttle by agreeing to a five-year extension with Russia on their remaining nuclear arms treaty: the New SALT Treaty. But that single act is not enough to keep the U.S., Russia, and other countries, from flying off to seek security in possessing nuclear weapons. There must be a plan.

First, a quick review of the Trump administration’s actions is in order. On August 2, 2019, the United States formally withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. It required the United States and the Soviet Union to verifiably eliminate all ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. With these range restrictions, missiles from Russia’s furthest western and eastern boundaries could not reach the lower 48 states or Hawaii.
The 32-year-old treaty initiated an intrusive inspection regime, including on-site inspections, to maintain compliance. Over the past decade, the United States and Russia have charged the other country with not complying with the INF Treaty. Trump decided to “terminate” the agreement accusing the Russians again of noncompliance. As a non-sequitur, Trump also said he had concerns about China’s missiles. China is not part of the INF treaty; that concern could have been dealt with separately.

In May of this year, Trump said he was also pulling out of the 30-year-old Treaty on Open Skies. That treaty has reduced the chances of an accidental war between Russia and the United States by allowing reconnaissance flights over the two countries. Trump accused Russia once again of not complying with a treaty.

In this instance, he added that “… there’s a very good chance we’ll have a new agreement or do something to put that agreement back together.” The national security adviser, Robert C. O’Brien, issued a statement saying that the Trump administration would try to reach a new arms-control agreement with Russia and China. However, Trump left office without putting anything on the table to show the Russians or the Chinese.

President George W. Bush started to walk away from nuclear-arms treaties before Trump. In 2001, he withdrew the U.S. from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) with Russia. Bush sought to build a massive missile defense system.

Ironically, three former Republican presidents successfully negotiated the three nuclear-arms treaties that Trump and George W. Bush dumped: President Nixon on the ABM, President Reagan on the INF, and George H. W. Bush on the Open Skies. However, since President George W. Bush, most Republicans in Congress have not shown interest in avoiding a nuclear-arms race.

The passage of the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) under President Obama in April 2010 is a perfect example. While the Senate approved it by 71 to 26, over two-thirds of the Republicans voted against it. Even so, the current START pact, which Biden would extend, has been endorsed by six former secretaries of State who worked in Republican administrations and by past presidents from both parties.

On his first full month as president, Trump criticized the New START treaty as a “one-sided deal” and a “bad deal.” That position was undermined by an aggregate data report published by his State Department, which may have been removed from the website where it was to be posted. That report showed that the treaty was working and that both countries kept their strategic nuclear arsenals within the treaty’s limits.

This year Trump said he was trying to negotiate a shorter extension for New START than the five-year option built into the treaty to be approved by both countries. Russia’s legislative body, the Duma, has approved the five-year extension.

Meanwhile, Trump had failed to do so because he tried to include China in the treaty, as had tried to do in the Open Skies Treaty. China refused, and Trump’s envoy wasted months trying to change their mind. Biden’s team has kept their eye on the ball. It’s Russia, not China.  Biden officials have said that Moscow’s arsenal “is at least ten times the size of China’s.”

Biden’s approval of the extension does not need the Senate’s approval. But if the treaty is amended, it could be considered a new treaty subject to a two-thirds vote for Senate approval. And that would not have happened unless the new treaty dramatically conformed to any conditions the Republicans demanded.

Biden’s decision to extend New START avoided real consequences that Trump would have invited by scuttling the last strategic nuclear arms treaty with Russia. First, it would have allowed both countries to deploy an unlimited number of nuclear-armed submarines, bombers, and missiles.

Second, by significantly growing our nuclear arsenal, federal funds could be diverted from rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. Third, it would have encouraged non-nuclear weaponized nations to begin to develop them. The Washington Post reported that American military leaders recognize this danger and supported the New Start Treaty.

But those dangerous trends remain real possibilities. Biden must publicize them enough to build support for promoting a national campaign to reduce the chance of a nuclear war. That may be the only way to overcome congressional Republican’s reluctance to negotiate any arms agreements.

With more than 10,000 nuclear warheads on Earth, avoiding nuclear war is an issue recognized by the international community. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres videotaped a message saying, “Nuclear weapons pose growing dangers, and the world needs urgent action to ensure their elimination and prevent the catastrophic human and environmental consequences any use would cause.”

To that end, the first-ever treaty to ban nuclear weapons entered into force on January 22, President Joe Biden’s first day in office. The U.N. General Assembly initially approved The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in July 2017. But it did not become adopted as international law until 50 countries ratified it, and as of today, there are now 62.

Officially it bans nuclear weapons. However, none of the nine countries known or believed to possess nuclear weapons — the United States, Russia, Britain, China, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel — support it. Neither does the 30-nation NATO alliance support it.

This treaty has good intentions, but without any authority to enforce it, a replay of what happened after World War I is certain. At President Wilson’s insistence, the League of Nations’ creation was codified as part I of the Versailles Treaty ending the war. The League was a “general association of nations established to afford mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity of all nations…”

Even with those guarantees, the U.S. Senate refused to have the U.S. join it. If it had, nations belonging to the League would still have ignored its disarmament objectives since they were based entirely upon “goodwill.” There was no enforcement mechanism. Such is the case with the current treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons.

However, one existing successful treaty does not have an enforcement mechanism and is a multinational agreement. The treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) went into force in 1970. One-hundred ninety-one nations are party to the treaty, including five who have nuclear-weapons. What keeps it going is that there is a review of the treaty’s operation every five years.

The underlying success of the NPT has been an understood bargain that the non-nuclear states would not develop the bomb in exchange for the existing nuclear weapons states reducing and ultimately eliminating their arsenals. As a result, Michael O’Hanlon, the Director of Research at Brookings Institute, states that current nuclear arsenals are only about one-fifth the size of what they were a half-century ago.

Nevertheless, the U.S. and Russia are still the central nuclear-weapons states, accounting for more than 90% of the total number of warheads on Earth today. None of the other seven known nuclear-weapons states, including China, has more than 300. North Korea has the smallest amount, approximately between three and five dozen.

The danger now is that our current political climate is moving away from reaching compromises. The lack of getting them creates an unstable environment and contributes to the spreading of nuclear weapons. Trump removing the U.S. from the INF treaty and the Iran Treaty, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), has contributed to this condition.

Robert Einhorn, a Senior Fellow in Brookings’ Foreign Policy Division, believes that not only are the NPT’s disarmament goals at risk but now there are fears that the number of nuclear-armed states could increase.

Einhorn believes that if the U.S. does not return to JCPOA, Iran will consider leaving the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In response, the Saudi crown prince says the Kingdom will acquire nuclear weapons if Iran does. Then we have President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan asking why other countries’ have nuclear weapons, and Turkey has none.

Meanwhile, Trump’s one-on-one relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has not produced any positive changes. In fact, the Congressional Research Service issued a January 2021 report that said, “Recent ballistic missile tests and an October 2020 military parade suggest that North Korea is continuing to build a nuclear warfighting capability designed to evade regional ballistic missile defenses.”

Biden must avoid weakening existing treaties, which could lead to a free-for-all race to build nuclear weapons. He needs to reassert the U.S.’s role as a leader in negotiating new nuclear-arms treaties. Four presidents successfully played that role, Nixon, Reagan, H.W. Bush, and Obama. Our last president just walked away from that leadership role. Biden has the opportunity to make once again the U.S. the voice of reason in reaching complicated treaties.

The first step to grabbing the world’s attention would be to re-engage with other nations in making the Iranian treaty work better for everyone. If we remain on the sidelines, skirmishes between countries could lead to multiple nations seeking to possess nuclear weapons.

Without treaties, those conflicts could trigger nuclear wars. We are not an island. We will suffer if there is any use of nuclear weapons. The cost of lives to us will be many times greater than what we endured with the covid pandemic.