Indonesian government allows COVID cases to skyrocket

Robert Campion

The highly infectious Delta variant of the coronavirus, which is spreading rapidly around the globe, is fueling an unprecedented surge of cases among the more than 270 million people in Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country.

UNICEF aid workers in Indonesia [Credit: UNICEF]

For weeks, the refusal of President Joko Widodo’s administration to introduce the necessary safety measures—with Widodo saying he did not want to “kill the economy”—has created the conditions for a catastrophe on the scale of that witnessed in India this year.

Over the past fortnight, records of transmission have been broken numerous times. The Indonesian Health Ministry recorded 25,830 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, a fresh record, bringing the total tally to 2,228,938, with the death toll rising by 539 to 59,534.

Health experts are unanimous in saying these numbers are a significant underestimation, with some epidemiologists in Indonesian universities reporting up to five times the official statistics. For the entire course of the pandemic, the share of cases returning positive has hovered around 20 percent, one of the worst reported results in the world.

The impact of the Delta variant is most pronounced, but not limited to, the heavily populated island of Java and the tourist destination of Bali, which has suffered a quadrupling of cases in the past two weeks. Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan reported that 87 percent of recorded cases in the city were due to the Delta variant.

According to the Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology (LBM), cases also have been discovered in Sumatra, Sulawesi and Kalimantan.

All the signs are pointing to a calamity because the government is still rejecting complete lockdowns and other safety measures. The Delta variant is widely considered to be 60 percent more contagious than the previous Alpha variant originating in the United Kingdom, and around four times more likely to cause hospitalisation.

Hospitals are reaching full capacity across Java, with the capital Jakarta recording a bed occupancy rate of 93 percent this week. With isolation rooms overwhelmed, makeshift tents have been erected in carparks to deal with the overflow of patients.

Many people are being turned away and forced to self-isolate in their homes, so deaths outside of hospitals are becoming more common, and families are having to bury their own loved ones. A video that went viral on social media earlier this week showed a 64-year-old man left to die outside his front door in North Jakarta waiting for an ambulance that took 12 hours to arrive. He had reportedly tested positive for the virus two weeks earlier.

Oxygen tanks—in high demand not just for hospitals but families in self-isolation—are in critically low supply in Java. The price for a tank has roughly tripled in price in some of the hardest hit areas, from $66 to $185. The health ministry claims this situation is temporary and is scrambling for all government agencies, including police, to redistribute tanks to the hardest-hit areas. Suppliers have made a belated commitment to shift their production from industrial to medical use.

At a press conference, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin sought to blame the oxygen tank shortage on an electricity supply interruption that halted factory production in Central Java.

As elsewhere internationally, the working class and poor are the hardest-hit by the government’s pro-business program and its failure to take the necessary safety measures.

Dr Dicky Budiman, an epidemiologist now based in Australia, said: “The problem in Indonesia is that testing rates are very low because only people who present themselves at hospitals with symptoms receive free tests. Everyone else has to pay.

“Based on the current reproduction rate in Indonesia that has climbed from 1.19 in January to 1.4 in June, I estimated there at least 200,000 new cases in the country today. But if I compare that with modelling by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, it is much higher, about 350,000 new infections per day. That’s as high as India before the peak.”

It is no coincidence that Indonesia, which has seen disastrously low testing and contact tracing as well as the avoidance of lockdowns at all cost, is one of the most unequal countries on the planet, with four billionaires owning as much wealth as the poorest 100 million people.

Widodo’s administration has pinned all hopes on a vaccination rollout that is now behind schedule. The government promised to inoculate 181.5 million people by next January with China’s Sinovac vaccine but has reached just 7.5 percent of this target. Health experts have stated that it could take up to three years to reach the government’s target.

Health measures belatedly announced by the government this week were of a limited character, stopping short of a full shutdown. As of Saturday, almost all of Java will be in a partial lockdown along with only the most populated areas of Bali.

The restrictions include all non-essential workers to work from home and the reintroduction of distance learning for schools. Shopping centres, houses of worship, leisure centres and parks will be shut, and restaurants have been restricted to takeaway and deliveries. Weddings are still running with a limit of 30 people in attendance.

Those industries allowed to run at 100 percent capacity include those relating to health, security and energy, while financial services are reduced to 50 percent. The measures are currently set to run until July 20.

The inadequate nature of the restrictions is underscored by the official aim, which is to halve the current number of daily virus cases to below 10,000.

“If the government is half-hearted it will just remain the same,” Defriman Djafri, an epidemiologist at Andalas University in Padang on Sumatra island, said. What was needed, he insisted, was two weeks in total lockdown, no outside activities and no contact, with people ordered to stay at home.

Up until now, Widodo has resisted introducing any measures that might affect corporate profits. News of even the limited curbs wiped out earlier gains on Indonesia’s main stock index.

The crisis in Indonesia is part of an international resurgence of COVID-19 cases, due to the refusal of capitalist governments everywhere to take the measures necessary to prevent the emergence of new mutations.

Infections are surging throughout Southeast Asia, including in Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines. There is also a rise in Africa, with nine out of 14 African countries experiencing a resurgence. South Africa’s cases have doubled in the past week.

Global automakers report huge sales increases in spite of pandemic and chip shortage, due to ramped-up exploitation of workforce

Jessica Goldstein

Auto companies reported substantial sales increases for the second quarter of 2021 compared to the same time last year, in spite of an ongoing worldwide microchip shortage which has idled much of the world’s auto production. Some corporations have reported sales numbers that reveal a closing of the gap between post- and pre-pandemic production. However, Wards Intelligence, an analytics firm which tracks auto sales, shows US light vehicle sales were down last month, with 1.3 million cars sold compared to 1.6 million in May of this year.

Ford Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan [Credit: AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File]

The basis of the rebound in the auto industry has been levels of exploitation of autoworkers which are practically unprecedented. At major auto plants throughout the country, with the full support and collaboration of the United Auto Workers union, forced overtime has become routine as companies scramble to make up for profits lost in the early stages of the pandemic. Meanwhile, an unknown but no doubt massive number of workers have gotten sick and died of COVID-19 inside the plants.

The human toll of this breakneck pace on autoworkers was expressed in a series of tragic deaths in Detroit last week. Two autoworkers died of drug overdoses at Stellantis’ Warren Truck Assembly Plant and Warren Stamping Plant, and a third worker died outside of the company’s Jefferson North Assembly Plant when she was struck by a train in the middle of the night leaving work.

Roadside memorial for Jefferson North Assembly worker struck by a train leaving her shift last Friday [Credit: WSWS Media]

The UAW announced this week that mask requirements would end later this month for vaccinated workers in US plants, as part of its continuing collaboration with the auto companies to tear up what remains of coronavirus-related restrictions, justified by false claims by the Biden administration that the pandemic, which is still surging throughout the world, is “over.”

Toyota reported a sales increase of nearly 73 percent this past quarter compared to 2020. EVs, including hybrids, made up nearly a quarter of total sales, the company said. Toyota replaced General Motors as the top selling automaker in the US for the second quarter of 2021. Unlike the US-based corporations, Toyota had a supply of the microchips on hand when the shortage first began to affect the auto industry, but as the situation has dragged out it has also had to cut back production at its plants due to the lack of components.

Cox Automotive earlier predicted that Ford’s sales would be up by 20.5 percent compared to last year, but still down 19.5 percent from the second quarter of 2019. However, Ford missed most predicted targets for the second quarter of 2021, increasing sales by only 9.6 percent. Its June 2021 sales fell by 26.9 percent compared to May 2021, with sales of its best-selling F-series pickups declining by nearly 30 percent.

Ford’s sales and production continue to be impacted by the chip shortage. The company reported earlier this year that it expected to lose half of its projected second quarter production as a result of the lack of parts. Recently the company announced a slew of production cuts that will impact workers across its factories in the US, Canada and Mexico over the next month. Of these, Ford Chicago Assembly Plant will be impacted the most, with all production shut down for four weeks beginning July 5. Workers will have to apply for dwindling unemployment benefits through the state yet again, many who have already been temporarily laid off this year due to the ongoing chip shortages.

Stellantis, formed out of a merger in January of PSA Group and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, reported a 32 percent increase in second quarter sales compared to what the two parent corporations reported last year. The increase was driven in large part by a 47 percent increase in Dodge Ram sales.

The most popular Ram pickup truck, the Ram 1500, is built at its Sterling Heights Assembly Plant (SHAP) in Michigan, where autoworkers have been on forced overtime for the entire year. Stellantis executives have clearly made the decision to keep the plant running at full blast no matter the cost.

This breakneck pace continued throughout massive outbreaks of coronavirus inside the plant. At one point in the spring, more than 10 percent of the plant’s nearly 8,000 workers were out on quarantine. The UAW, meanwhile, has run damage control for the company by covering up the true extent of the spread.

SHAP is also one of the few major assembly plants never to have shut down or cut production due to the microchip shortage. Stellantis even shifted chips and manpower from idled plants such as Warren Truck, which is now reopened, to SHAP.

General Motors (GM) reported sales increases over 40 percent for this quarter compared to the second quarter of 2020, down only 5.8 percent compared to 2019. Sales of the Chevrolet Bolt EV, built in Orion Township, MI, went up 31 percent, and sales of its Buick SUV, built in Delta Township, MI, went up 31 percent. Its Chevrolet Silverado truck, built at its plant in Silao, Mexico, also picked up large numbers of sales. Similar to SHAP, workers at GM’s Silao plant have faced grueling conditions, including forced 12-hour shifts, and COVID-19 has infected and killed an unknown numbers of workers at the plant.

Other major automotive corporations reported high sales increases compared to the previous quarter. German auto giant Volkswagen reported sales increased of 72 percent in the second quarter of 2021 compared to 2020 and sold 5,756 EVs last quarter, up from 474 in the first quarter. Its stock price rose 1.3 percent after sales results were released Thursday. Honda recorded an overall sales increase of about 64 percent compared to the same quarter last year. The company also reported a record number of EV hybrid sales.

All-electric carmaker Tesla, which reopened its plant in Fremont, California, in defiance of stay-at-home orders in the state of California last year, recorded record numbers of deliveries in the second quarter of 2021. According to Refinitiv, the company delivered 201,250 vehicles in total during the past quarter, above its expected target of 200,258 vehicles. Tesla stock prices rose as high as 3.3 percent on Friday morning and it has reportedly increased its vehicle prices in response to the chip shortage.

Although it sells far fewer cars in comparison to its competitors, the massive wealth of the company and its billionaire CEO Elon Musk rests in large part on speculative profits and is increasingly dependent on volatile cryptocurrency investments like its $1.5 billion bitcoin investment revealed in February. The company’s productive capacity is vulnerable to the supply of microchips, and there is nervousness on Wall Street that its streak of prosperity could end if it relies heavily on cryptocurrency to shore up its financial profits.

While the auto companies no doubt had much to celebrate this week, there can be no doubt that in corporate boardrooms and in UAW offices throughout the country there is intense anxiety that rebounding profits could be jeopardized by an eruption of struggles by autoworkers. Last year, workers rejected a UAW-corporate deal to keep plants running during the initial surge in the pandemic by carrying out wildcat strikes, temporarily foiling this corporatist conspiracy and forcing a two-month shutdown. Given the pressure-cooker atmosphere inside the plants, there is every reason for them to fear a renewed upsurge.

Creating a Crisis: It’s NATO’s Way

Ron Jacobs

Talk about a contrived crisis. NATO, in its ongoing struggle to create enemies and thereby provide itself with a reason to exist, is now calling Russia its greatest threat.  In other words, there really is no threat, unless NATO provokes Moscow and in doing so, creates one.  In the current period—one that was preceded most recently by almost complete military domination of the world by the United States—Russia’s recent and relatively mild reactions to its growing encirclement by US client regimes and NATO military forces has been ratcheted up to what NATO is calling the greatest threat faced by NATO since that its heyday.  Leaving aside for the moment the question of whether the Soviet Union (SU) was ever the threat US citizens were told it was by their government, this recent statement by NATO is overblown and, more importantly, potentially quite dangerous.

During the final years of the Soviet Union, numerous discussions took place between officials of the SU under Mikhail Gorbachev and officials of the US and Germany.  These discussions intensified after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany.  A part of these discussions focused on the continuing existence of NATO and its eastern European counterpart, the Warsaw Pact.  Although NATO survived the dissolution of the so-called Soviet Bloc, the Warsaw Pact did not.  An undertone of the ongoing discussions between Moscow and Washington was an understanding that NATO would not attempt to recruit nations that were previously in the Moscow-led alliance.  According to the NATO newsletter NATO Review, this understanding was never written down and was therefore essentially meaningless.  In fact, here is a quote detailing this perception from the journal’s spring 2015 edition:

Thus, the debate about the enlargement of NATO evolved solely in the context of German reunification. In these negotiations Bonn and Washington managed to allay Soviet reservations about a reunited Germany remaining in NATO. This was achieved by generous financial aid, and by the “2+4 Treaty” ruling out the stationing of foreign NATO forces on the territory of the former East Germany. However, it was also achieved through countless personal conversations in which Gorbachev and other Soviet leaders were assured that the West would not take advantage of the Soviet Union’s weakness and willingness to withdraw militarily from Central and Eastern Europe.  It is these conversations that may have left some Soviet politicians with the impression that NATO enlargement, which started with the admission of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland in 1999, had been a breach of these Western commitments.”

In other words, Washington lied, again.  Consequently, NATO began to invite/entice several nations from the defunct Warsaw Pact into its orbit, beginning with Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland in 1999.  This resulted in NATO forces moving closer and closer to Russia’s eastern flank.  Anyone who suggests that there is no strategic element to the incorporation of these and several other nations bordering (or much closer to) Russia is a liar.  Anyone who believes this is a fool.  The facts seem pretty clear.  Washington and its western allies saw the disintegration of the Soviet Union and its alliance as an opportunity to further intimidate Moscow by moving its military forces closer to Russian borders while simultaneously incorporating the economies of the new NATO nations into the neoliberal fantasy then being constructed in the banks and legislatures of the United States, Britain, and Germany.

It is now 2015.  After a US-sponsored coup in Ukraine that installed a government favorable to Washington and its plans, various separatist movements coalesced in regions of Ukraine where the majority of the population favors Moscow.  The coup itself was preceded by a reasonably popular movement among Ukrainians that was partially funded by western NGOs and US government agencies fronting as pro-democracy organizations.  The movement organized a series of protests following election results they did not agree with.  After weeks of these protests, armed elements provoked an insurrection in Kiev that resulted in the aforementioned coup.  It was only a matter of days before the separatist elements opposed to the new Kiev government held protests that were attacked.  The protests turned quickly to armed rebellions, most likely funded (at least partially) by Moscow.  A referendum on secession from Ukraine was held in the Crimean region of Ukraine that went overwhelmingly for secession.  Despite the election’s non-recognition by most of the west, Crimea remains separate from Ukraine.  In the Ukrainian east, battles continue to rage between Ukrainian military units and separatist militias.  Estimates of the dead from this conflict range from 6,000 to 50,000.

Europe is understandably concerned.  The continent fears the battle may spread and wants the war to end. Meanwhile, Washington seems to be pushing for it to intensify.  NATO is sending a total of 30,000 rapid-reaction forces to its easternmost members’ borders.  In Washington, legislators from both sides of the aisle together with Secretary of State John Kerry and others in the government are lobbying to send lethal weapons to Kiev’s forces.  It is fairly certain that Moscow is already arming the separatists.  The possibility of a greater war is genuine.

There are those who see the conflict in Ukraine as evidence of a new “cold” war, like that between the Soviet Union and the United States after World War Two.  This comparison is misleading.  There were genuine ideological and economic differences that fueled the dispute between the United States and Soviet Union.  These differences do not exist in the current moment.  The United States operates under a monopoly capitalist economy; so does Russia.  Both nations are also nominally democracies that are in reality governments run by oligarchs and banks.  A better template to utilize when examining the conflict between Washington and Moscow can be found earlier in history.  It is the template of inter-imperial rivalry.

To put it simply, Washington does not want its planetary hegemony challenged.  Meanwhile, Russia desires to maintain its domination of the world near its borders, while perhaps also playing with the idea of its own “sphere of influence.”  The encirclement of Moscow’s western flank by NATO threatens that domination in a very real way.  So, Moscow is fighting back.  Russia’s position is not merely a defensive one, but it is certainly the weaker player in this game.  If Washington begins to arm Kiev, the stakes for Moscow become even greater.

Meanwhile, Kiev refuses to call the conflict a war. Instead, it is being termed a terrorist operation. Naturally, the reason is related to the neoliberal IMF loans Kiev has coming; such loans would be much more difficult to obtain if it was officially at war. The will of those being conscripted to fight in Ukraine’s military is less than enthusiastic, with draft resistance growing. Antiwar protests in both Russia and Ukraine are also growing in size. However, in the United States the citizens are allowing their politicians and generals to involve their nation in the conflict without any substantial protest.

There are no good guys in this conflict.  The people of Ukraine are fighting battles in which they are ultimately pawns.  Arming either side is cynical and manipulative and paves the way for an expansion of the war perhaps even beyond Ukraine’s borders.  A truce should be agreed to that leaves all forces in place while the warring sides and their sponsors negotiate an end to the armed conflict.  The motivation for this war resides in the desire to control resources and territory, directly and otherwise.  Those Ukrainians desiring independence from Russia are seeing that desire being manipulated by Washington and local politicians with their own designs.  Those desiring independence from the new Kiev government are experiencing a similar scenario.  The longer the war continues, the more it will be influenced by Washington and Moscow.  And the more blood will be spilled.

France ends Covid-19 restrictions on businesses as Delta variant spreads

Alex Lantier

On June 30, President Emmanuel Macron ended social distancing measures that restricted business operations in France. Rules that limited the spread of coronavirus are being scrapped even as the more contagious Delta variant, first found in India, becomes dominant across Europe.

Workplace cafeterias, shops, museums, cinemas, theaters, restaurants and other closed public spaces will operate at pre-pandemic capacity. Restaurants will no longer limit the number of people at a table to six. The official protocol suggests that workplaces “set up, as much as possible, carry-out lunches that can be eaten at workstations” to limit crowding in canteens, but this is up to employers’ discretion and, therefore, largely meaningless.

Among the few venues still facing restrictions are music and sports events, which are limited to 2,500 people, though attendees at events with over 1,000 people will have to prove they are vaccinated or recently tested negative for Covid-19. The reopening of night clubs has been delayed to July 9, while the government negotiates with business owners who rejected its reopening plan as overly restrictive.

The policy of Macron, backed by the entire European Union (EU) and tacitly accepted by virtually the entire political establishment, is to allow the Delta variant to spread unchecked. Workers are supposed to accept the inevitability of infection and hope vaccines will protect them.

As for the unvaccinated, including children and many workers, they are to be left to their fate. Macron has declined to push for universal adult vaccination or organize a media campaign calling for vaccination. This means a policy of “herd immunity,” letting the virus spread unhindered, will provoke new mass infections and, potentially, the emergence of new, deadlier variants.

Moreover, it is widely reported that Macron plans to end free Covid-19 testing. Non-residents are to pay for Covid-19 tests starting on July 7, and French citizens and residents in September.

Amid mounting concern over the Delta variant and its impact on vaccine effectiveness, Macron kept restrictions on businesses until July 6 in the Landes, the southwestern area of France most affected by the Delta variant. This only underscores that he has no serious intention of stopping the Delta variant’s spread. There is no reason to believe the variant will disappear by July 6. Moreover, its presence is already confirmed in the Riviera, the Alps and the Paris area, where no measures are being taken.

Macron is again defying warnings from scientific authorities, who expect the Delta variant will trigger mass outbreaks of Covid-19 in Europe by September. Over the last month, its spread has seen the number of cases rise from 3,000 to 26,000 in Britain, double to 21,000 in Russia, and quadruple to 1,700 in Portugal. Portuguese authorities imposed a brief lockdown on the capital, Lisbon, trying to halt its spread. However, it is now present across Europe.

Super-spreader events are now taking place, particularly during the Euro football cup. UK officials reported that 1,290 infected Scottish fans traveled to Wembley Stadium in London on June 18, while Finland is seeing hundreds of infections among fans returning from the cup. Over 1,000 people nationwide in Spain have tested positive following a super-spreader event at end-of-year student holidays in Majorca.

French Health Minister has Olivier Véran confirmed that 20 percent of Covid-19 infections in France are now caused by the Delta variant. On Wednesday, the Robert Koch Institute reported that the Delta variant accounts “for at least half of all new infections” in Germany.

Yesterday, Pasteur Institute epidemiologist Arnaud Fontanet told BFM-TV that infections will rise significantly “by September-October,” due to the variants: “The Delta variant, in two months, will most likely replace the viruses that are currently present on French territory, with the possible exception of the South African Beta variant. It will become predominant, in any case … on the order of 80 to 90 percent of infections.”

Jean-François Delfraissy, the president of France’s National Scientific Council, told France Inter that current, “extremely low” daily infection levels in France, between 1,500 and 3,000, are “from a certain standpoint, falsely reassuring.” He said: “We must remember what happened the summer of last year. We were at essentially comparable figures as the end of June 2020, and we saw the second wave arrive in September.”

Delfraissy said vaccines are effective against the Delta variant “for someone who has received two doses,” but not just one dose. “So the message is: get vaccinated, and have your two injections before school starts.” He said anyone over age 60 should probably get a third, booster dose.

It is critical to politically alert and mobilize the working class against Macron’s policy, which leads to disaster. Already, 1.1 million Europeans have died of Covid-19 due to the EU’s opposition to scientific social-distancing measures. Yet a new wave of infections is being prepared. As when Macron told France to “live with the virus”—or, more bluntly, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson demanded “no more f--ing lockdowns, let the bodies pile high in their thousands!”—European governments plan to save the billions of the super-rich, even if millions die.

This week, the EU Commission approved France’s €39.4 billion part of the first slice of the €750 billion “Next Generation EU” pandemic bailout. While European billionaires saw their collective net worth rise by €1 trillion during the pandemic—thanks to a €1.25 trillion European Central Bank bailout—the EU bailout for its part funds private companies’ plans for a “digital and ecological transition.” To repay this bailout, Macron is discussing a pension cut and raising the retirement age two years to 64 with business and trade union federations.

At the same time, European governments’ policy is set to provoke millions of new Covid-19 infections. Even if the figures cited in the French media are correct, and two vaccines doses offer 90-95 percent protection against falling ill even with the Delta variant, this would not avert mass illness.

Firstly, even in the wealthiest countries, large unvaccinated populations remain vulnerable. Britain is seeing a resurgence of Covid-19, though 67 percent of its population has had one vaccine dose and 49 percent are fully vaccinated.

Vaccination rates are even lower on the European continent. In France, 30 percent of the population is fully vaccinated and 50 percent have had one dose. In June, moreover, daily vaccinations in France fell from 350,000 to less than 180,000. This means, Le Point notes, that “the government’s objective, 35 million people fully vaccinated and 45 million with at least one dose by August, is harder to reach than it appears.” Even this target, however, would only see 52 percent of Frenchmen fully vaccinated and 67 percent with one dose.

Secondly, even if the entire vaccinated population is protected with 95 percent effectiveness, many will still fall ill if repeatedly exposed to infected, non-vaccinated individuals. The US Centers for Disease Control have reported that 4,100 Americans have been hospitalized or died of Covid-19 though fully vaccinated. Such figures will rise if infections spike due to “herd immunity” policies.

Hong Kong police close largest opposition newspaper

Ben McGrath

Facing anti-democratic pressure from the government, Hong Kong’s Apple Daily newspaper announced that it would cease publication as of June 24. The paper cited staff safety for the closure, following the arrest of the chief editor and other executives. The paper’s assets were also frozen, making continued operations largely impossible.

Around 500 police officers raided Apple Daily’s offices on June 17, while arresting Ryan Law, the chief editor, and four others. These included Cheung Kim-hung, the CEO of Next Digital, the parent company that owned the paper. The police also froze $HK18 million ($US2.3 million) in assets owned by companies with links to the paper. These were Apple Daily Limited, Apple Daily Printing Limited, and AD Internet Limited.

Apple Daily (Hong Kong) headquarters

Arrests are ongoing. Fung Wai-kong, an editor and columnist with the paper, was detained Sunday night at the Hong Kong airport, reportedly attempting to board a flight to the United Kingdom. He is the seventh person affiliated with the paper to be arrested. In addition, on June 30, Reuters reported that Next Digital would end operations the following day, after its assets were frozen.

Hong Kong police have accused Apple Daily of violating the draconian national security law, which went into effect in June 2020, by publishing more than 30 articles since 2019 calling for other countries, namely the United States and the UK, to impose sanctions on the city and on China, in relation to the pro-democracy protests that erupted in 2019. The government accused the paper of “collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security.”

In Washington, the Biden administration issued a statement on the paper’s closure filled with hypocritical moralizing. It stated, “Through arrests, threats, and forcing through a National Security Law that penalizes free speech, Beijing has insisted on wielding its power to suppress independent media and silence dissenting views.” It continued, “Journalists are truth-tellers who hold leaders accountable and keep information flowing freely—and that is needed now more than ever in Hong Kong, and in places around the world where democracy is under threat.”

This is coming from the same government that continues to press charges against journalist Julian Assange, who remains locked in Britain’s Belmarsh Prison for exposing US war crimes. The Democrats and Republicans have also waged attacks on free speech on platforms like Facebook and Google, seeking to silence left-wing and anti-war voices online.

The Hong Kong office of China’s Foreign Ministry released a statement criticizing Washington. “The national security law… enshrines principles of rule of law including safeguarding human rights, addresses the most pressing and prominent risks facing national security in Hong Kong,” it stated. “Press freedom should not be exploited as an excuse for criminal activities, still less a fig leaf for acts to destabilize Hong Kong and China at large.”

Apple Daily was the largest newspaper associated with the pan-democrat bloc in Hong Kong. The paper first began publishing in 1995 and was owned by its founder, billionaire Jimmy Lai. Lai is hailed by the pan-democrat bloc and the Western bourgeois media as a defender of democratic rights in Hong Kong. He is currently incarcerated on a string of charges, and faces 20 months in prison following his latest sentencing in May.

Rather than being a voice for democracy, Jimmy Lai enjoys close connections with the US government. His long-time assistant, Mark Simon, a former US Navy intelligence officer with close links to the CIA, helped Lai secure meetings with leading officials in the previous Trump administration, like Mike Pompeo and Mike Pence. Lai also met with Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, in October 2019.

The Washington Post, one of the chief mouthpieces for the Democratic Party, published an opinion piece by Simon on June 25, lambasting Beijing. While paying lip service to freedom of the press, Simon revealed the real interests of this section of the Hong Kong ruling elite that he and Lai represent. He wrote, “Jimmy Lai often told us, ‘No free press, no free market.’ Those in the international business community who believe the closure of Apple Daily will have no impact on them are about to learn this lesson the hard way.”

He continued: “Businesses (on the mainland) are assumed to do what China wants, whether that means turning over technology or personal data. This makes the scrutiny and exposure provided by a free press all the more important to keeping Hong Kong a free and open financial market.” In other words, the concern driving Lai and his ilk is not democratic rights for the Hong Kong population, but the impact Beijing’s actions will have on their profit margins.

In this sense, US attacks on Beijing over Apple Daily have nothing to do with press freedom or democratic rights in Hong Kong. They are part of a coordinated campaign that includes false claims of genocide in Xinjiang, promotion of the lie that COVID-19 was leaked from a lab in Wuhan, and the ratcheting up of pressure over Taiwan. It is aimed at poisoning public opinion towards China at home, in order to justify war.

At the same time, Beijing is not concerned primarily with the likes of Jimmy Lai and others within the pan-democrat bloc. The government’s attack on freedom of the press is ultimately aimed at the working class. Beijing fears that any expressions of discontent will resonate with workers throughout China, where they face poverty, low wages, and lack of access to safe and affordable housing. One-fifth of people in Hong Kong live below the official poverty line. Approximately 200,000 people in the city are forced to live in tiny, subdivided apartments, known as “coffin homes.”

Indicative of the housing crisis throughout China, in mid-June, police in Shanghai discovered that 39 workers were crammed into a three-bedroom apartment, with an original rental price of 13,000 yuan ($US2,000) per month. The workers, mostly employed by nearby restaurants, were paying 700 yuan ($US108) per bed.

The minimum wage in Shanghai, rising to 2,590 yuan ($US400) a month on July 1, does not come close to the cost of renting an average 90 square-meter apartment. In the first quarter of this year, the average rental price per square meter of an apartment in the city cost 90 yuan (US$14), a 14 percent increase over the previous quarter.

Record-breaking heatwave results in over 486 deaths in British Columbia

Alexandra Greene

The prolonged and deadly heatwave that is scorching Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest in the US has at the time of this writing resulted in more than 486 deaths in British Columbia (BC) alone. The “sudden and unexpected” deaths, reported over the five-day period between Friday and 1 p.m. on Wednesday, account for a staggering 195 percent increase in the usual number of deaths reported in such a time frame.

While the death toll is the direct product of unprecedented temperatures due to climate change, the devastating loss of life is also the result of the savage attacks on social infrastructure and public services implemented by governments of all political stripes at the federal and provincial level going back decades.

The village of Lytton, British Columbia—where on three successive days this week all-time Canadian record high temperatures were set—has now largely been destroyed by a forest wildfire. (Photo Credit: Facebook/2 Rivers Remix Society)

British Columbia Emergency Health Services (BCEHS) ambulances responded to 187 heat exhaustion and 52 heatstroke calls between June 25 and 28. A staggering 15,300 911 calls were taken in the province between June 26 and 27.

The emergency services were overwhelmed. There is a major backlog in calls and delayed response times, with some emergency services forced to leave behind the bodies of victims as police and ambulances continued to respond to other calls. Due to the horrifyingly high death count, even the response times of coroners is being severely delayed.

“We’ve never experienced anything like this before in Vancouver,” Vancouver Police Department Sergeant Steve Addison told reporters in a Tuesday press conference.

Addison said that a surge in calls occurred on Tuesday morning as “people are showing up in their parents’ house or relatives’ house and finding them deceased.”

The abnormally intense weather is the result of a “heat dome,” which is a large area of high pressure that extends well up into the atmosphere. The high-pressure system traps sinking air that becomes hotter as it lowers and approaches the ground. This is compounded by heat becoming trapped within the dome, resulting in a “bubble” that prevents rain and cold fronts from entering and cooling down the temperature.

East of BC, Alberta Health Services have also reported an increase in heat-related emergency calls, with about six calls per day in Edmonton and 10 in Calgary.

BC’s Chief Coroner Lisa Lapointe stated in a press release that the number of deaths will increase as the data continues to be updated. “It is important we do not lose sight of the fact that each reported death is a person with a family and people who cared about them,” Lapointe said at a press conference on Wednesday.

Across BC, Alberta, Yukon and the Northwest Territories, over 103 heat records were shattered on Monday alone.

The village of Lytton, located at the north end of the Fraser Canyon, broke the all-time record for the highest temperature ever recorded in Canada for three straight days in a row. At 5 p.m. on Tuesday, the Lytton Climate Station reported an astounding temperature of 49.6 degrees Celsius (121 degrees Fahrenheit). This surpasses any temperature ever recorded in Las Vegas, Nevada, located in the Mojave Desert some 1,300 miles to the south in the United States.

At 6 p.m. on Wednesday evening, the village’s population was forced to evacuate without warning as a fast-moving wildfire was driven towards residences by winds of up to 71 kilometres per hour. People were forced to immediately flee the small town in all directions. Around 90 percent of the village’s buildings have been destroyed in the fire.

“It's dire. The whole town is on fire,” Lytton mayor Jan Polderman told CBC News. “It took, like, a whole 15 minutes from the first sign of smoke to, all of a sudden, there being fire everywhere.”

Lytton’s fire joins 9 other newly reported wildfires that have been sparked in recent days, bringing the total number of active provincial wildfires to 26. An abnormally dry spring and low humidity levels have primed the forests for such an occurrence, and the never-before-seen temperatures have set alight portions of the tinder-dry land.

In southern Alberta, the heat has set fire to the wheat fields in some places and is compounding a severe drought in the province. The result is a jeopardized harvest and major agricultural losses.

As well as wildfires, the heat is causing rapid glacier melting and massive snowmelt from the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Flood warnings are now in effect for the upper Fraser Valley area, and homes in the Pemberton Valley have already been evacuated due to the fast-rising river waters.

Across British Columbia’s mainland and gulf islands alike, cooling centres and spray parks offering shade, water, misting fans and cooling supplies have been established to keep community residents cool. Schools across the province were forced to close due to insufficient ventilation and cooling infrastructure. Many COVID-19 vaccination sites have also closed.

The World Socialist Web Site has reported on the heatwave’s devastating effects in the states of Washington and Oregon, where some 20 million people have been affected. As in BC, these regions are usually temperate and rainy, meaning that many residents do not have air conditioning in their homes.

The British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority reported that the rate of air-conditioned households is even lower in British Columbia than in Seattle and Portland, which have, respectively, the first and third-lowest percentage of air-conditioned households among major metro areas in the United States.

Despite marked increases over recent years, it is estimated that only 34 percent of households in BC had cooling appliances. The most recent data available for Vancouver indicates that just 19 percent of households are equipped with air conditioning. Hotels in the city are currently booked to capacity with people paying for rooms to escape the heat of their own homes.

Working class people and the poor are placed at especially high risk, as lower-income households are far less likely to have air conditioning. Workers are often forced to work in conditions that make it impossible to escape the heat, especially in labouring jobs that may require them to endure hours of blistering heat outdoors.

The contempt felt by the political establishment towards the most vulnerable sections of the population hit hard by the heat wave was summed up Tuesday by BC Premier John Horgan of the New Democratic Party (NDP). The social democrat Horgan callously stated during a press conference that “fatalities are a part of life.”

Horgan added that the public was “acutely aware” of the imminent period of extreme heat, and remarked that “it was apparent to anyone who walked outdoors that we were in an unprecedented heatwave and again, there’s a level of personal responsibility.”

A backlash followed, with many residents of the province taking to social media to express their shock and disgust that an elected official would make such brazenly insensitive remarks during the overlapping crises of both the pandemic and the deadly heatwave.

Horgan’s outrageous words are of a piece with his government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which was to keep workplaces and schools open while blaming working people for spreading the virus. His total indifference to the significant loss of human life is reminiscent of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who infamously declared in face of a surging pandemic, “No more f***ing lockdowns, let the bodies pile high!”

The devastating developments in BC this week are only a foretaste of what is to come over the years ahead if serious action to combat climate change is not undertaken. Canada’s Changing Climate Report, published in 2019, warned that the effects of climate change were set to intensify over the coming years. “These effects include more extreme heat, less extreme cold, longer growing seasons, shorter snow and ice cover seasons, earlier spring peak streamflow, thinning glaciers, thawing permafrost, and rising sea level,” the report noted.

Despite innumerable climate pledges made by governments at the provincial and federal levels in Canada and their counterparts across the world, the capitalist system is wholly incapable of resolving the imminent threats faced by the planet and its population. Whether it is Horgan’s NDP in BC, Justin Trudeau’s federal Liberal government, or the Democratic Biden administration in Washington, they all place the accumulation of corporate profits ahead of any genuine attempt to protect working people from the social and environmental ravages of climate change.

Young Americans are dying at rates not seen since 1953

Trévon Austin

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that approximately 19 percent more Americans died in 2020 than in 2019. Researchers also discovered that mortality rates for young adults aged 25 to 34 have skyrocketed in the last decade, reaching levels not seen since 1953.

The year-on-year increase in the mortality rate among young Americans is the largest since 1918, when deaths rose by 30 percent amid the Spanish Flu pandemic. Mortality rates for children and those 65 and older had been in steady decline for the last century until the COVID-19 pandemic, which halted this progress. The mortality rates for those aged 55-64 rose slightly before the coronavirus pandemic, but the 45 to 64 age group still saw a general decline in mortality rates until 2020.

A man walks past a mural in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2020 (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Due to improvements in medical science, the mortality rates for infants have declined spectacularly in recent decades, with infant deaths moving from the group with the highest mortality rate toward the middle of the pack. However, infant mortality in the US has not fallen as quickly as rates in other developed countries. Children aged 5 to 14 have always regularly held the lowest mortality rate, but the decline has stalled in the last decade.

According to the report, those aged 25 through 34 have seen the least improvement of all age groups in recent decades, dying at about the same rate in 2020 as they did in 1953. From 2010 through 2019, death rates among this age group rose by 25.2 percent. This increase, already far worse than that of any other age group in that period, was followed up in 2020 by a staggering 24.5 percent one-year increase, which made for a 55.8 percent rise since 2010.

Based on data going back to 1990, the report documents a public health crisis sweeping the American workforce. The downward trend was prevalent before the pandemic arrived, but working-age Americans have been deeply affected by the pandemic, the report noted.

“We’re losing more and more Americans in the prime of their lives, in their most productive years, and in their parenting years,” wrote Kathleen Mullan Harris, a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina and chair of the committee that wrote the report.

“Our committee was stunned by this mounting crisis, which will only get worse. The most troubling themes in our report—higher mortality than our peer countries; major racial and ethnic, socio-economic, and geographic disparities; lack of access to health insurance and care—have all been exacerbated by the pandemic” Harris said.

Researchers determined the rising death rate for adult workers was driven by a sharp increase in deaths from drug overdoses, alcohol, suicide, and cardiometabolic conditions. Drug overdoses have been the primary driving factor, with researchers attributing most of the increase in overdose deaths since 2013 to the ongoing opioid pandemic that claims the lives of thousands each year. However, suicide rates also rose from the mid-2000s to the mid-2010s at a concerning rate.

These “deaths of despair” are inextricably linked to the malignant growth of social inequality in American society in the last few decades. Americans under 40 saw their share of US household wealth fall to a record low of 4.3 percent in 2009. Although the current rate increased to 5.9 percent, young adults’ share of wealth is still lower than any time before 2008.

Previous studies reported rising death rates among those with a high school degree or less, and those living in rural areas. The March report indicated the increase in premature death is more widespread, striking working-age adults in all racial and ethnic groups, and in both rural and metropolitan areas.

The report noted that death rates among black working-age adults have been disproportionately high for years because of inequalities in socioeconomic status, health care, housing, education and other factors. Although progress occurred at the turn of the century in reducing the mortality gap between black and white Americans, death rates in working-age black people are now increasing, effectively erasing that progress.

Drugs and alcohol are major contributors to the rise in working-age mortality. From 1990 to 2017, fatal drug overdoses in working-age Americans increased in every state, but increases were particularly sharp in Appalachia, New England, and the industrial Midwest. The report described the opioid epidemic as a “perfect storm” created by pharmaceutical companies flooding the market with highly addictive and deadly prescriptions, combined with a growing demand for substances to bring relief from physical, mental and psychological pain.

American capitalism has devastated the American working class. Even before the pandemic, young adults in the US experienced much higher mortality rates than their peers in most other wealthy countries.

The increase in deaths, which began in the 1990s, coincides with the ferocious social counterrevolution waged against the American working class over decades. Since the 1980s, workers have seen their real wages steadily decline, and rapid changes in the US economy have devastated families and communities, especially in areas like the Rust Belt and Appalachia where working-age death rates increased the most.

Now, the arrival of the pandemic has exacerbated the social crisis facing American workers. The homicidal pandemic policies of the ruling elite have had severe consequences for workers. Meanwhile, the upper echelons of society have seen their wealth skyrocket during the pandemic, gorging themselves from the deaths of workers like vultures.

World Health Organization warns of new pandemic wave as cases surge in Europe and US

Benjamin Mateus

The number of daily new cases of COVID-19 has surged over the past week in the United States, as the government eliminates all remaining restrictions on the spread of the disease even as the dangerous Delta variant becomes prevalent.

In the United States, where the Delta variant has been detected in all 50 states, daily cases have turned upwards, having risen 14.8 percent compared to the previous week.

In this June 11, 2021, file photo, healthcare workers administrate a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to students during a vaccination clinic hosted by Jewel Osco in Wheeling, Ill. The latest alarming coronavirus variant, the delta variant, is exploiting low global vaccination rates and a rush to ease pandemic restrictions. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)

In Europe, COVID-19 cases have surged 29 percent higher than the previous week.

“There will be a new wave in the WHO European region unless we remain disciplined,” warned WHO Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge.

The Delta variant of the coronavirus (B.1.617.2), which ravaged India in May, has now rapidly swept across more than 85 countries, frustrating many countries that had planned to lift restrictions and reopen their economies before the summer tourist season. Only in South America has the Gamma variant, also known as P.1, remained dominant and is ravaging the continent.

Presently, according to Worldometer, there have been over 183 million cases of COVID-19 worldwide. The death count is fast approaching 4 million. However, this is known to be a gross underestimation, with modeling studies suggesting the death toll could be a magnitude of three times higher.

Despite the weeks of declines beginning in the early part of April, the global incidence of cases is again rising. Yesterday, the seven-day average stood at 378,000 COVID-19 cases. The seven-day moving average for deaths continues to remain high at over 8,000 per day. Though deaths continue to decline, they lag the trends in COVID cases and are expected to follow in step in the next week or two.

In the United States, increases have been most prominent in Southern and Western states, where vaccination rates are below the national averages, according to the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said this week: “I’m very concerned about the stark disparity between places with low and high vaccination rates. When you have such a low level of vaccination superimposed upon a variant that has a high degree of efficiency of spread, what you are going to see among under-vaccinated regions—be those states, cities or counties—you’re going to see these individual types of blips. It’s almost like it’s going to be two Americas.”

The highest case rates were in Nevada and Arkansas, with a 55 percent increase over the past seven days. Missouri and Wyoming saw almost a 20 percent rise over a week. In all, the United States reported more than 14,000 new cases and 249 deaths yesterday. There have been more than 34.5 million COVID-19 cases and over 620,000 deaths during the pandemic.

Indeed, the Independence Day weekend will add fuel to the fire. The holiday is expected to be the busiest travel period since the pandemic. Approximately 48 million people are planning to travel, primarily by car. AAA (American Automobile Association) forecasted that 3.5 million people would be flying, “bringing airlines back to 90 percent of pre-pandemic traffic.”

Eric Topol, professor of molecular medicine at the Scripps Research Institute, said of the Delta variant: “It is the most hyper-transmissible, contagious version of the virus we’ve seen to date, for sure—it’s a superspreader strain if there ever was one.” Also, recent studies indicate that the Delta variant may produce more severe disease. A recent study published in The Lancet on June 14, noted that hospitalization rates of patients with the Delta strain were about 85 percent higher than those that were infected with the Alpha variant.

Despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) recommendation that vaccinated individuals need not wear masks, health officials in Los Angeles strongly encouraged everyone, regardless of their vaccine status, to wear them indoors due to the threat posed by the highly transmissible strain of the coronavirus. During their last press briefing on COVID-19, the World Health Organization also recommended that all people wear masks indoors, including fully vaccinated people.

The United States’ vaccination campaign has stalled, remaining precariously at around 1 million vaccinations per day. Only 46.7 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated, with 54.4 percent having received at least a single dose. The current projections place August 2 as the estimated date when at least 70 percent of all adults in the US will have received at least one dose of the COVID vaccines, far behind the White House’s estimations.

The situation in Russia is growing direr by the day as deaths have surpassed the winter highs. Yesterday, 672 had succumbed to the infection, with 124 deaths in Moscow and 110 in St. Petersburg. Still, thousands of supporters were permitted to view the games as the quarter-final matches between Spain and Switzerland were given the go-ahead as planned. Meanwhile, Moscow’s Mayor Sergei Sobyanin confirmed that nearly 2,000 people are being hospitalized daily.

Sixty-five percent of the population have received at least one dose of the COVID vaccines in the UK. Still, there has been a 67 percent increase in cases of COVID-19 from a week before. The Delta variant now accounts for 97 percent of all COVID cases. Yesterday, they reported close to 28,000 new infections in contrast to just 3,165 on June 1. The epidemiological curves are rising exponentially.

Hans Kluge, Europe’s regional director for the WHO, has blamed these reversals in trends in relaxing restrictions and increased travel as the tourist season gets underway. Additionally, the Euro 2020 soccer tournament has drawn huge crowds of spectators from numerous countries mixing in crowded surroundings. Restaurants, pubs and bars are filled with patrons. Public transportation is brimming with fans and spectators. Reuters reported that this week almost 2,000 people from Scotland traveled to London for their game against England while infected with COVID-19.

“I am not here to pour cold water on any EURO 2020 fan of anyone’s holidays,” Kluge said. “But before we watch our players, and before we all pack and go for some well-deserved rest near home or far away, it is my imperative to give [some]messages. If you decide to travel and gather, assess the risks and do it safely, keeping all life-saving reflexes of masks and self-protection, especially indoors and in crowds.” He warned that Europe would be Delta dominant by August. He also noted that vaccination rates remain too slow.

Germany’s Interior Minister Horst Seehofer had more choice words for the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), calling them “absolutely irresponsible” for allowing 40,000 fans to watch the match between Germany and England at Wembley Stadium on Tuesday. “I have the suspicion that this is about commerce again,” he said. “And commerce must not outshine the protection of the population against infection.”

Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, who has been prominent in educating the public on the pandemic and the science behind the SARS-CoV-2 virus, tweeted: “Anyone who doubts the delta variant wave is coming only needs to look at Israel and the UK—two of the most heavily vaccinated countries in the world.”