Canada’s governments press ahead with school reopenings as fourth COVID-19 wave accelerates

Dylan Lubao

Schools across Canada are scheduled to reopen to full in-person learning over the next two weeks, even as the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic spikes, driven by the highly transmissible and deadlier Delta variant.

Covid-19 screening at Thorncliffe Park Public School (Twitter/@TPPS_TDSB)

Even before school doors open, COVID-19 infections have risen sharply in recent weeks. On Wednesday, Canada recorded over 3,300 new infections for the first time since the end of the third wave last May. Alberta alone recorded more than 1,000 new cases.

Craig Jenne, Canada Research Chair in infectious diseases at the University of Calgary, painted a bleak picture of the weeks and months ahead in an interview with CTV. “If you look back to last year’s cases,” said Jenne, “they really didn’t start rising sharply until we got into September with people back indoors at school. This year, the cases really have started to go up in a number of places—Alberta, Ontario and British Columbia in early August. Basically the wave has a month head start.”

Canada was ravaged by second and third pandemic waves that claimed the lives of more than 16,000 people and sickened more than 1 million others. Schools were major vectors of transmission in both the second wave, which peaked in late December 2020 and early January 2021, and the third, which peaked in late April and early May. “We can’t let this wave get out of control,” added Jenne, “because the more cases there are, the more hospitalizations, the more ICU [admissions] and tragically, the more deaths we will see this fall.”

Neither the federal Liberal nor the provincial governments have any intention of heeding this advice, or the mountain of evidence from other countries that shows the Delta variant is more dangerous for children. They are determined to fully reopen schools for in-class instruction, even while eliminating many of the inadequate “mitigation measures” they instituted last year, like cohort bubbles.

The school reopening drive is not being done for the sake of children, whose education governments have systematically undermined through decades of budget cuts. Rather, the capitalist politicians want to herd children into schools so that their parents can go to work generating profits for Canada’s banks and corporations.

With few exceptions, students from Kindergarten to Grade 12 will be expected to sit in classes numbering upwards of 30 children, many in rooms without proper ventilation and in some cases even windows. Virtually all provinces had announced they were scrapping mandatory masking in the classroom. But facing a public outcry, as cases have steadily mounted and public health officials have conceded Canada is in its fourth pandemic wave, several provinces, including Quebec, have had to reverse themselves at the last minute.

The growing opposition to these criminal policies among serious scientists was underscored by epidemiologist David Fisman’s decision earlier this week to resign from the Ontario Science Table, which advises the provincial government on pandemic policy. “I find myself increasingly uncomfortable with the degree to which political considerations appear to be driving outputs from the tables,” wrote Fisman. “Or at least the degree to which these outputs are shared in a transparent manner with the public.”

Many provinces have eliminated any remote learning option, and even when such an option exists it is difficult to access and is truly viable only for a small minority of children, generally from more privileged families. In Ontario, for example, parents were required to notify their school district that they wanted their kids enrolled in online classes before the end of June, well before the dangers of the Delta variant became widely known.

Provincial governments have been shameless with their lies in justifying the reopening of schools. Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, who reports to United Conservative Party (UCP) Premier Jason Kenney, derided remote learning and COVID-19 health measures as harming “the mental health of children and youth.” In reality, remote learning programs were carried out haphazardly across Canada and deliberately starved of resources, forcing teachers to cobble together virtual classes for students.

The escalation of the pandemic, along with the closure of schools, was principally due to the inaction of the Trudeau Liberal government at the outset. Only on March 10, 2020, as the pandemic was exploding across Canada, did it even write the provinces to inquire about potential shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators, and other vital medical equipment and supplies. Subsequently, it and the provinces dismissed out of hand any attempts to eliminate the virus, insisting that the “economy” had to be reopened and that the population had to effectively learn to live with COVID-19.

The claim that Canada’s relatively high vaccination levels now constitutes a “ticket” out of the pandemic is a fantasy, not supported by science. Fully 5 million children in Canada remain unvaccinated, including all those under 12 years of age. At an online meeting this past Sunday hosted by the World Socialist Web Site, “For a Global Strategy to Stop the Pandemic and Save Lives,” Dr. Malgorzata Gasperowicz, a developmental biologist and researcher at the University of Calgary, demonstrated that abandoning lockdown measures and relying solely on vaccines to contain the pandemic will permit the Delta variant to spread exponentially.

By far the most notorious lie, however, as articulated by the Manitoba Progressive Conservative Government’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Brent Roussin, is that “children are less likely to transmit COVID-19 while at home, in school or in community settings, and they are at lower risk of severe illness from COVID-19.” The preposterous character of this lie has been tragically confirmed by the recent explosion of the pandemic in the United States, which has been characterized by unprecedented child infections and hospitalizations as classes have begun to resume. In the week ending August 19, the US reported 180,000 cases in children, a 50 percent increase over the previous week. During the same period, 24 children succumbed to the disease.

According to Dr. Gasperowicz, research has shown that between 3 to 12 percent of children infected with the virus develop Long COVID. A chronic illness in which COVID-19 symptoms persist long after the initial infection, Long COVID can include respiratory problems as well as debilitating cognitive and developmental defects.

Provincial governments headed by establishment parties of all political stripes, from the ostensibly “left-wing” New Democratic Party in British Columbia to the hard-right Progressive Conservatives in Ontario, United Conservatives in Alberta, and Coalition Avenir Québec, are willfully ignoring the mountain of evidence that illustrates the madness of subjecting children, the most vulnerable section of society who deserve the most protection, to the best possible conditions for the spread of the virus.

Parents are increasingly worried about sending their children into classrooms that will function as breeding grounds for the virus. A July 2021 Statistics Canada report concluded that nearly 75 percent of parents were “extremely concerned” about juggling work, child care and their kids’ schooling during the pandemic.

An Ontario parent wrote a letter to the WSWS last week opposing the school reopening policy, in which he echoed the sentiments of countless parents and teachers who are looking for a means of opposing the ruling class policy of death and profits: “We need to find other parents, teachers and concerned workers and act. We need to demand that schools stay closed until all our children are vaccinated.”

The teachers’ unions continue to insist, against the wishes of rank-and-file educators, that schools be reopened with virtually no protections in place. From the start of the pandemic, the union bureaucrats have vehemently opposed rank-and-file demands for strikes over unsafe school conditions. They have mouthed token criticisms of government policy, and told teachers with COVID-19 concerns to file individual work-refusals with the various Labour Boards, whose function is to regulate and suppress the class struggle.

Sam Hammond, the president of the Canadian Teachers' Federation and former head of the Ontario elementary teachers' union (the ETFO), spoke for the union top brass across the country when he criticized the Ontario Tory government, not for pursuing its herd immunity policy, but for shuttering schools at the peak of the pandemic’s second and third waves. “Because of this government’s poor decision-making,” he railed, “students in Ontario lost more opportunities to learn in person than any other students in Canada. Educators want schools to stay open all year even as we combat the variants we know will threaten reopening and recovery for some time.”

Such a policy means accepting hundreds of thousands of infected children, tens of thousands of whom will contract Long COVID, and hundreds of child deaths.

Supreme Court orders Biden administration to revive Trump’s Remain in Mexico immigration policy

Kevin Martinez

The US Supreme Court ordered the Biden administration this week to reinstate the previous Trump policy known as the Migration Protection Protocols (MPP) program, also known as the Remain in Mexico policy. The program had forced thousands of asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while their court cases played out in the US.

A group of migrants rest on a gazebo at a park after they were expelled from the U.S. and pushed by Mexican authorities off an area where they had been staying, Saturday, March 20, 2021, in Reynosa, Mexico. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

The vast majority of immigrants affected by this program were confined to squalid, makeshift camps along the US-Mexico border where they were prey to human smugglers and criminals, while their cases could drag on for months, if not years, in US courts.

The Remain in Mexico policy established in 2019 was one of many punitive measures by the Trump administration to deliberately discourage immigration to the US. It was suspended at the start of 2020, when Trump banned all migration into the US under Title 42, using the pandemic as a pretext to stop asylum seekers. This anti-immigrant program remains in effect under Biden.

The Supreme Court ruled 6–3 in rejecting the Biden administration’s attempt to stop a Texas-based judge’s ruling which ordered the government to revive the Remain in Mexico policy. Three of the six conservative judges were appointed by Trump while Republicans in Texas and Missouri had originally challenged Biden’s rescinding of the order as they sought to reinstate some of the worst anti-immigrant policies of the previous administration.

In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said it would “vigorously challenge” the district court ruling but would comply “in good faith” and has started discussions with Mexico.

The court’s unsigned decision said the Biden administration violated federal law in reversing the policy, citing last year’s decision in Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of University of California, when Trump tried to undo former President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program which delayed deportation of young immigrants known as the “Dreamers” who entered the US illegally.

The court offered little explanation for its actions other than saying that the administration “failed to show a likelihood of success” on the claim that the memorandum rescinding the Migrant Protection Protocols was not “arbitrary and capricious.” The so-called “liberal” dissenting judges, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, did not write an opinion on their views of the case.

After Biden reversed the Remain in Mexico program this year, the state of Texas filed a lawsuit claiming the program’s suspension placed a burden on local governments to provide services for immigrants who were allowed to stay in the US. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton tweeted his approval of the Supreme Court’s decision, saying the policy “must be implemented now!”

A federal judge in Texas had previously ordered the administration to reinstate the Remain in Mexico policy. On August 19, the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, refused the White House’s request to put the ruling on hold.

Tuesday’s decision by the Supreme Court would mean that Kacsmaryk’s order must go into effect, but Justice Samuel Alito ordered a brief delay to let the court have time to consider the administration’s appeal. The Supreme Court may return to the issue if the Biden administration files an appeal.

The Supreme Court’s decision is another blow to the Biden administration’s attempt to present itself as a departure from the hardline anti-immigrant policies of Trump. While the number of immigrants seeking asylum has climbed in the last year, the current administration has refused to allow anything other than the most token numbers to enter the US.

Detention camps, for adults and children, still operate at full capacity despite the surge in the COVID-19 pandemic and the White House is planning to jail more immigrants. Regardless of which of the two capitalist parties is in power, the war on immigrants continues.

Terror bombs, gunfire kill at least 72 in Afghanistan capital

Patrick Martin

In what the US military described as a “complex attack,” several terrorists attacked a screening checkpoint at a gate into the Kabul airport and a nearby hotel on Thursday, inflicting a horrific toll of death and destruction.

Smoke rises from a deadly explosion outside the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021. (AP Photo/Wali Sabawoon)

Unnamed Afghan health officials told the media that at least 60 Afghan citizens were killed and another 140 wounded. The Pentagon said that 12 US Marines were killed and 15 wounded. Many of the wounded civilians and soldiers were in critical condition and the death toll could rise significantly.

At least two suicide bombers were believed to have detonated explosive-laden vests while awaiting or actually undergoing screening by US Marines at the Abbey Gate to the airport. Another suicide bomber, or perhaps a car bomb, exploded outside the Baron Hotel about 100 yards away. At the same time, gunmen opened fire on the crowd assembled outside the gate seeking to gain admittance to the airport and board evacuation flights.

US soldiers opened fire after the bombs were detonated, in order to clear the area in front of the gate. It was not clear whether any of the casualties were the result of that gunfire.

A group calling itself Islamic State-Khorasan, or ISIS-K, released a statement claiming responsibility for the attack. Allegedly a regional branch of ISIS, the group takes its title from the ancient name for the region of Central Asia of which Afghanistan is part.

The Taliban, which the Biden administration calls a “bitter enemy” of the Islamic State, denounced the attack. “The Islamic Emirate strongly condemns the bombing of civilians at Kabul airport, which took place in an area where US forces are responsible for security,” Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen said on Twitter.

A Taliban official told the Washington Post that the group has “launched an investigation to know the nature of the blasts and why it happened.”

The day before the attack, the US Embassy in Kabul, which has relocated to the airport, issued an official warning to Americans to stay away from the airport unless they had a scheduled flight to board, and calling on any US citizens near the airport gates to “leave immediately,” citing the imminent danger of a terrorist attack.

The 12 Marines were the first deaths among US troops in Afghanistan since February 2020, after the Trump administration signed a peace deal with the Taliban in which the Islamic group agreed to halt attacks on US forces in return for a commitment that US troops would be withdrawn by May 1, 2021.

President Biden has repeatedly cited that agreement as compelling him to choose between completing the pullout or tearing up the deal and resuming a full-scale war in Afghanistan.

This pullout was largely completed by late July, with a formal handover of Bagram airbase and other US facilities to the Afghan government, but the regime collapsed in the face of a Taliban offensive that culminated in the fall of Kabul on August 15. US troops were then rushed back into the country, using the Kabul airport as a point of entry and as a collection point for evacuations.

The bloodbath at the airport caused political shock waves throughout official Washington. Only 15 minutes before Biden was to meet with Naftali Bennett, the new prime minister of Israel, the White House announced the meeting had been delayed until Friday, and a series of other meetings were canceled as top US national security officials dealt with the crisis.

Biden finally appeared before television cameras at 5 p.m. Washington time. He denounced the attack and said that evacuation flights would continue undeterred. Just over 100,000 people have left Afghanistan since the flights began August 14, and 7,000 more flew out of the airport on Thursday, he said.

Biden rejected calls from Republican congressmen that he drop the August 31 deadline for the removal of US troops, or that he send more troops to the airport and expand their scope of operations, either into Kabul or to seize Bagram airbase, the huge complex north of the capital city that was long the US military headquarters in Afghanistan.

He defended a policy of relying on the Taliban forces to provide security outside the US perimeter at the airfield, saying that there was no alternative, and that the Taliban and ISIS had a long history of conflict. He threatened military action against ISIS, declaring, “We will respond with force and precision at our time, at the place we choose and the moment of our choosing.”

At an earlier press briefing, General Frank McKenzie, head of the US Central Command and in overall command of operations at the Kabul airport, said that terrorist attacks were expected in the remaining four days before all US forces are to be pulled out August 31.

He elaborated on the US military’s de facto alliance with the Taliban, saying US commanders were in regular contact with Islamic group, which was “actually providing the outer security of the airfield … and we will coordinate with them as they go forward.”

He said the face-to-face searches at the three gates to the airport were essential for the security of the airfield and especially of airplanes carrying out the evacuation flights. “You don’t want to let somebody on an airplane carrying a bomb, that could result in massive loss of life if an airplane were to get hit,” he explained.

Other dangers at the airport included rocket attacks, he said, noting that the US military forces “have pretty good protection against that, we have anti-rocket gun systems that have been out there, they are effective against—we feel we would be in good shape for that kind of attack to occur.”

Asked directly—by a reporter for the right-wing Wall Street Journal —whether the Taliban had allowed the bomber to go through to the US checkpoint, McKenzie replied flatly, “I don’t think there is anything to convince me that they let it happen.”

He also indicated that the evacuation flights would begin to include American troops as well and American and Afghan civilians, so that the August 31 withdrawal date would be met. The military planning was complex because it was “designed to maximize evacuees even as we begin to draw down the force on the ground. We recognize there is a need to balance the two.”

In a comment which underscored the precarious character of the US deployment at the airport, McKenzie said US military intelligence was focused on “any sign of something that might pose a threat to aircraft” because “aircraft is the only way we are going to get out of there.”

While the American media uncritically parrots the official claims that the attack was carried out by ISIS-K, the actual circumstances of the bombings are extremely murky. ISIS-K allegedly emerged in Afghanistan over the past few years as an avowed enemy of the Taliban, carrying out attacks that actually benefited the US-backed puppet government.

ISIS itself, initially a split-off from Al Qaeda, received assistance from US allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar to fight against the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, before it came into conflict with the US military after crossing the Iraq-Syria border and threatening the US-installed regime in Baghdad.

All of the Islamic fundamentalist terrorist and militia organizations have their origins in the US-backed guerrilla war in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1987, directed against the Soviet-backed government in Kabul. That is where Osama bin Laden formed Al Qaeda, and, after the Soviet pullout, where the Taliban originated, backed by US ally Pakistan.

Because of these deep-rooted connections and switching alliances, it is impossible to say definitely who are the actual perpetrators of Thursday’s bombing and who are their paymasters and masterminds. But the atrocity is one more contribution to the geyser of blood and suffering produced by American imperialism in an oppressed country torn by war and foreign intervention for more than 40 years.

Only Religious War Remains

James Haught

The Taliban seizure of Afghanistan underscores an ugly 21st century fact: Religion-based warfare remains the world’s worst type of armed conflict, and the “holy warriors” display barbaric cruelty.

After America’s CIA under President Reagan helped brutal Muslim tribal warlords drive the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan, victorious warlords fell into conflict with each other. That’s when the Taliban, a movement of armed Islamic students, swept through the mountain nation.

The Puritanical Taliban, like most Muslim extremists, were notorious for their hatred of sex. They ordered all women to wear shroud-like burkas outdoors because “the face of a woman is a source of corruption” for men. Females couldn’t be educated beyond age eight, and before that could study only the Quran. Those who secretly attended underground schools were executed, along with their teachers. Girls’ schools were burned. Females weren’t allowed to work or go outdoors without a family male escort. They couldn’t wear high heels under their burkas because clicking heels might excite lustful men. Apartment windows were painted over. Wearing form-fitting clothes was a capital offense. Public stonings or other executions of women occurred. Eighty percent of brides were forced into marriage.

The Taliban allowed the al-Qaeda terror network to operate from Afghanistan in the 1990s. After the historic 9/11 attack of 2001, America invaded and drove out the fanatics. But two decades of costly American effort to create an Afghan democracy failed, and now the Taliban rule again. Most of the world is holding its breath, waiting to see if sexual savagery returns.

—

Actually, the Taliban are merely one of many armed Islamist militias that rise and wage warfare. Some survive and some fade. There’s Boko Haram in Nigeria, al-Shabaab in Somalia, Hamas in Palestinian territory, ISIS in Syria, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria, al-Qaeda hidden somewhere, Hezbollah spread internationally, and a dozen Muslim militias who have been fighting India’s Hindu army in Kashmir for 70 years.

Back in 2017, when the Taliban seemed rather dormant, a book by an Arabic scholar said: “Boko Haram is now the deadliest terrorist organization operational in the world, by virtue of the sheer number of people the group have killed.” The Sunni group is notorious for raiding villages and cities, massacring civilians (including Shi’ite Muslims), raping and abducting girls, and seizing boys to become soldiers.

I wonder if Boko Haram someday may seize Nigeria, as the Taliban did Afghanistan.

Most of these groups employ a tactic not available to other militaries – suicide bombing. Generally, only religious operations can find lone wolf volunteer “martyrs,” though desperate guerrilla fighters and others in the past have undertaken suicide missions as well.

Terror attacks may be committed by a larger force such as Boko Haram or al Qaeda, or by smaller groups such as the14 perpetrators who massacred the Charlie Hebdo staff in Paris and the brothers who bombed the Boston Marathon.

Around the globe, warfare has faded enormously in this 21st century. It’s ironic that the world might become war-free, if not for religion.

Denmark and the Case for Optimism on the Pandemic

Dean Baker

The explosion of coronavirus infections across the country, and especially in the low vaccination states in the South, is really bad news. While it appeared that the pandemic was coming under control and no longer posed a major health risk in early July, we are now seeing rates of infections of close to 150,000 a day.

The hardest hit states, like Louisiana and Mississippi are seeing daily infection numbers that far exceed the worst days of the winter. Intensive care units are filled to capacity, which not only prevents many people infected with Covid from receiving adequate care, but also victims of car crashes and others in need of immediate care. This is quite a turnaround from where we were a month and half ago.

But we can tell a better story about future prospects. We know that our vaccines are not as effective against the Delta variant in preventing infections, but they still seem to be quite effective in preventing serious illness and death. This story is well-demonstrated by the situation in Denmark.

Denmark ranks near the top in the share of its population that is vaccinated. As of August 21, 75.4 percent of its population had received at least one shot and 69.0 percent were fully vaccinated. These numbers refer to percentages of its whole population, so the share of the population over 12 that has received at least one shot is close to 90 percent.

By comparison, the shares for the same day in the United States were 60.2 percent of the whole population receiving at least one shot and 51.0 percent being fully vaccinated. Getting another 15.2 percent of the currently eligible population vaccinated in the United States would mean giving the shots to over 42 million people.

We are current giving out more than 800,000 shots a day, most of which are mRNA vaccines which require two doses. If we assume this translates into roughly 450,000 new people getting shots each day, it would take us a bit over 90 days, or three months to hit Denmark’s vaccination rates. So, hitting Danish rates of vaccination should not be seen as impossible, although if the active resisters can successfully press their case, we may not be able to sustain the current rate of vaccination.

But we can still look to the situation in Denmark as a guidepost. The country actually still has a fairly high rate of infection. It has been averaging roughly 970 cases a day. Denmark’s population is just over 5.8 million, or 1.7 percent the size of the U.S. population. This means that Denmark’s current rate of infections would be equivalent to a bit less than 56,000 a day in the United States. That is less than half of our current rate, but close to three times the lows hit in July.

There is one important qualification to Denmark’s reported infection rate. They do an enormous amount of testing in Denmark. They have given an average of 13.7 tests per person since the pandemic began. By comparison, the United States has given just 1.7 tests per person. This means that the reported number of infections in Denmark is likely very close to the actual number. By comparison, the positive rate on tests in the United States is over 11 percent, which means that we are missing a large number of new infections.

So clearly Denmark has a far lower rate of infections than the United States, although it is still seeing a substantial spread of the pandemic. But the bigger difference between the United States and Denmark is not in the number of infections, but rather than number of deaths and seriously ill people. Denmark has been averaging just one death a day, which would be the equivalent of fewer than 60 a day in the United States. That compares to an average of more than 800 a day in the United States, a figure that has been rising. While every death is a tragedy, Denmark’s current death rate from Covid is considerably lower than what we would see from flu in a typical year.

Of course, many people who don’t die from Covid will suffer serious symptoms, some of which may be long lasting. We can’t know yet how many people who develop Covid will suffer severe or continuing symptoms, but rates of hospitalization should be a good proxy. Denmark currently has 20 people classified as being in serious or critical condition from Covid. That would be equivalent to roughly 1,400 people in the United States.

We currently have almost 23,000 people in intensive care due to Covid in the United States and of course these cases are disproportionately in the low vaccination states in the South. Denmark’s rate of Covid-related hospitalization would not be overwhelming hospitals and requiring health care workers to work themselves to the point of exhaustion.

In short, the situation with Covid in Denmark is not one where the disease has been eradicated. They are still seeing large numbers of infections. But it has become a very manageable disease, not one that most people need to fear and certainly not the sort of pandemic which would lead to large-scale economic shutdowns.

We should see this as an encouraging picture. If the nonsense coming from the vaccine resisters can be effectively countered, we should be able to reach vaccination rates comparable to Denmark’s in the not distant future. Some high vaccination states, such Hawaii, Vermont, and Massachusetts, are not very far from reaching the vaccination rates seen in Denmark.

This means that bringing the pandemic back under control is still very much a reachable target. We just need to maintain a high rate of daily vaccinations and we will get there soon. And, ideally get people to wear masks and maintain social distancing in the areas where infection rates are still high, until we can substantially increase the vaccination rate in those places.

Covid may be with us for a while, but it need not be a dreaded disease and pose a major threat to the economy.

As classrooms reopen in Britain: Covid cases pass 6.5 million mark, with deaths over 100 a day

Robert Stevens

Just five weeks after the ending of Covid safety restrictions on July 19, Covid cases and deaths are rising sharply in Britain.

Public Health England data for the seven days to August 19 found that two thirds of England’s local authority areas saw a week-on-week rise in Covid infection rates. Of England’s 312 local authority areas, 210 (67 percent) saw a rise in infections. The new cases sent the total number infected with Covid past 6.5 million since the start of the pandemic—almost a tenth of the population.

Schools across the UK are set to return, with scientists warning this will result in a surge in cases and illness. Schools returned in Scotland last week, with evidence already emerging that they are fueling a surge in Covid cases.

On Wednesday, the UK recorded 149 Covid-19 deaths and a further 35,847 cases. This followed the 174 deaths reported Tuesday. More than 100 deaths a day on average are due to Covid. The 743 deaths recorded in the last seven days are an increase of 14 percent on the previous week. This week’s cases already stand at just short of 100,000. In the last seven days 236,796 new cases were recorded, up 14 percent on the previous week.

Total deaths stand officially at 132,003 according to the government’s manipulated figures. But when Covid is listed as a cause of death on death certificates the figure is now 155,000, an increase of more than 17 percent.

Hospitalisations are on the increase. On August 21, the last date for which data is available, 859 patients were admitted to hospital with Covid, taking the seven-day total to 6,172—up nearly 10 percent on the week prior. Nearly 1,000 people (942) are in hospital classified as in a serious/critical condition.

On Wednesday, Scotland recorded a record high of 5,021 new cases—the first time daily cases have passed 5,000. This topped the previous record of 4,323 hit 24 hours earlier, itself an increase on the record 4,234 daily cases reached earlier this summer. At a Covid briefing Tuesday, Scottish National Party First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who has marched in lockstep with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government in abandoning safety measures, declared, “New cases in Scotland have more than doubled over the past week, and that is one of the sharpest rises we have experienced at any point during the pandemic.”

She said of the grave situation resulting from the herd immunity agenda her government has overseen, “If this surge continues and accelerates and we start to see evidence of substantial increase in serious illness, we cannot completely rule out having to reimpose some restrictions.”

On Wednesday, SNP deputy first minister, John Swinney, was forced to acknowledged that the return to classrooms beginning the week of August 16 was a factor in the surge in cases. Of the new cases, the under-19s age group accounts for a third. School children are entirely unvaccinated, with just 42 percent of 16 and 17-year-olds in Scotland having had their first dose of a vaccine. Swinney said, “Undoubtedly the gathering of people together in schools will have fueled that to some extent, and you can see that in the proportion of younger people who are testing positive.'

The overriding concern was still to keep parents working in factories and offices and the children in school, with Swinney insisting that school closures must be avoided “at all possible costs.” According to this agenda, Covid will be able to circulate unhindered in schools for two months, with the autumn half term break not scheduled until mid-October.

At the World Socialist Web Site hosted online discussion “For a Global Strategy to Stop the Pandemic and Save Lives!,” held Sunday, epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker described the herd immunity agenda of the Johnson government as an “almost barbaric experiment on the British people.”

The lifting of restrictions took place amid government and media lies that the threat of Covid was largely over, with much of the population vaccinated. Incessant propaganda was spread backing up claims that it was safe for people to meet up in crowded settings.

New data from a series of monitored large scale events, including concerts and sporting events, reveal that thousands of people were infected even among those who were double vaccinated. Some of the 37 “mass participation” events included the Wimbledon tennis tournament, Royal Ascot horseracing, the Download music festival and the Open Championship golf tournament. The largest of these was the British Grand Prix, held at Silverstone, Northamptonshire, from July 14-18 and attended by 350,000 people.

Fans fill the stands waiting for the start of the British Formula One Grand Prix, at the Silverstone circuit, in Silverstone, England, Sunday, July 18, 2021. (AP Photo/Jon Super)

As part of government’s Event Research Programme, 40,000 people attended the Latitude Festival, held in Henham Park in Suffolk, England from July 22 to July 25. To gain entry, people were required to provide proof of a negative Covid-19 test or be double vaccinated. Data released by Suffolk County Council confirms that 1,051 people tested positive for Covid in the days after the event. Of these the majority (619 people) were infected while at the festival, with 432 found to be infectious when they entered the festival site, despite testing negative.

According to Public Health England, thousands of already infectious people attended the soccer Euro final at Wembley in London on July 11, eight days before lockdown restrictions were lifted. At least 2,300 people were “likely to be infectious” with the coronavirus on entering the stadium and 3,404 people at the game developed Covid-19 shortly afterwards, with PHE finding they were likely to have contracted the virus while attending the game.

The government gave the green light for mass participation events to go ahead based on lies. Since then, the Boardmasters music Festival held in the Newquay area of Cornwall from August 11 and 15 resulted in nearly 10 percent of the 50,000 people attending being infected with Covid.

According to local health officials, three-quarters of the infections were among those aged 16 to 21 and, given the wide geographical spread of those who attend festivals, most infections were spread across the country, while 800 of the new cases lived in Cornwall. The mass infections occurred despite those who attended being required to show a National Health Service Covid Pass as a condition of entry. Even more infections would have taken place had 450 people 'who would otherwise have been at risk of passing on the virus' decided not to attend or left the festival early. In the latest available figures from Public Health England, Cornwall & the Isles of Scilly have the second highest rate of Covid infection with 4,129 new cases recorded—a rate of 717.4 per 100,000 people.

An even more dangerous situation is posed in the weeks and months ahead, with research published Wednesday finding that protection against Covid infection after two vaccine doses falls within six months, with protection levels even projected to reduce to as low as 50 percent by winter.

Researchers at King's College London analysed PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test results from more than a million people who had been fully vaccinated. Those who had received two doses of Pfizer decreased from 88 percent protected at one month to 74 percent at five to six months. For those double jabbed with AstraZeneca, effectiveness dropped from 77 percent to 67 percent at four to five months.

Another study, published Tuesday, found that four in 10 people who have weakened immune systems show “low or undetectable” levels of Covid immunity after being double vaccinated. The OCTAVE study by the universities of Glasgow and Birmingham found that some of the people with weakened immune systems failed to generate any antibodies four weeks after receiving the second vaccination.

Full FDA authorization of the Pfizer COVID vaccine: No panacea for the COVID catastrophe

Benjamin Mateus

On Monday, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that Pfizer’s COVID-19 mRNA vaccine was granted full authorization for the prevention of COVID-19 disease in people 16 years of age or older. The vaccine, now being marketed under the new name Comirnaty, will still be available to those aged 12 through 15 under the initial emergency use authorization.

In the press brief announcing the approval, acting FDA commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock said, “The FDA’s approval of this vaccine is a milestone as we continue to battle the COVID-19 pandemic. While this and other vaccines have met the FDA’s rigorous, scientific standards for emergency use authorization, as the first FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine, the public can be very confident that this vaccine meets the high standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality the FDA requires of an approved product.”

In concert with the FDA announcement, President Joe Biden released a statement from the White House urging business leaders, as well as state and local officials, to begin mandating vaccines for their employees. The Pentagon followed suit hours later declaring they would now enforce the vaccine mandates for 1.4 million soldiers and another million civilian employees.

Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, told the Los Angeles Times, “You’re going to see a lot more groups being more comfortable saying a shot is required. They’ll be more firm about helping people understand that, pure and simple, it is much safer to get the vaccine than to get the disease.”

As important as the vaccines have been to stem severe disease and death from COVID-19 infections, the FDA’s full approval for Pfizer does not mean any real progress in ending the pandemic. Vaccination alone is not enough; it must be combined with a massive public health campaign, including lockdowns as well as masking and social distancing, with the goal of eradication, not mitigation of SARS-CoV-2.

At the recent event hosted by the World Socialist Web Site, “For a Global Strategy to Stop the Pandemic and Save Lives ,” Dr. Michael Baker, renowned epidemiologist with the University of Otago in New Zealand, warned, “We cannot vaccinate our way out of the pandemic. Even if we had global vaccine access and high coverage, we would still have circulating virus. So, we need to combine vaccine with public health measures.”

Given the contagiousness of the Delta variant, vaccination will have little impact in suppressing the growth of the “circulating virus.”

Critical modeling analysis conducted by Dr. Malgorzata Gasperowicz, a developmental biologist and researcher at the University of Calgary, Canada, demonstrated that given the present efficacy of the vaccines against the Delta variant, only in combination with moderate public health measures could the growth of the pandemic in the US be brought under one, where, over a period of several weeks, the community outbreaks would be brought to zero.

In the current formulation by the White House, the CDC, and the entire political spectrum, the vaccine-only mandate gives free rein to the virus, which will have the final say on the matter, acting on the basis of well-known epidemiological laws. Whether it is the let-it-rip approach advocated by Republican governors, or the mitigation but not eradication approach of Biden and the Democrats, the virus will be able to expand exponentially, as will hospitalizations and deaths.

In two short months since the US saw the lowest case and death count, the seven-day moving average has now climbed to 150,000 infections per day with more than 850 people dying each day. On August 24, more than 1,100 people succumbed to the infection.

And the current drive to fully open all schools for in-class instruction will only accelerate the present massive surge of infections. The week ending August 19 saw 180,000 COVID-19 cases among children, a 50 percent increase over the previous week, and coming weeks will surpass the highs of the winter, when more than 211,000 children were infected in the week ending January 14, 2021. As evidence through the last 18 months has now clearly demonstrated, children in schools function as a primary catalyst for the waves of infections within communities.

Equally concerning is the mounting evidence that over time the COVID-19 vaccines, and in particular, the Pfizer jab, are demonstrating waning efficacy after a few short months. A recent study from the University of Oxford, in the UK, using data obtained from the Office for National Statistics, found that three months after vaccination, the efficacy against symptomatic infections for the Pfizer vaccine had slipped from the mid-90s to 75 percent. The efficacy of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine dropped but at a much slower rate. Extrapolating the data, Oxford projected that Pfizer’s efficacy would eventually drop below 50 percent, the level typically required to win FDA approval in the first place.

The threat the Delta variant poses is best exemplified by the present experiences in Israel, which has fully vaccinated more than 60 percent of its population. It is currently facing a surge of new infections that are also matching previous winter highs. And with these infections, the death toll appears to be keeping pace with trends during previous waves.

A spokesman for Pfizer, in response to a question from the press, declared, “These latest data from Israel are consistent with the epidemiological trends we have been observing and reinforce the need for a booster dose to re-establish maximum protective efficacy.”

Since the Israeli government launched a campaign to offer those aged 60 and older a third shot on July 30, approximately 60 percent in this group have received the booster. In the older group, it appears the rates of infection are declining once more, making many in the media and other countries take notice. Yesterday, Israel extended the eligibility for a third dose to those 30 years and older who had received the second dose at least five months prior.

With the granting of full approval, the FDA helps clear the way for an influx of people clamoring for booster shots, as physicians will now have more discretion to offer COVID-19 vaccines.

While little has been said in the American media or by the Biden administration, when such additional vaccination campaign measures are implemented across the US and Europe, many middle- and low-income nations will be left in the lurch, as they are once more pushed to the back of the line, unable to give most of their citizens even a first shot while people in the wealthy countries get a third one.

On September 20, the Biden administration will begin offering boosters for fully vaccinated individuals who received their second dose more than eight months before. However, the current approval, plans for mandates, and then boosters, will do little to stem the present disastrous wave as schools are beginning to admit students by the millions for in-person instruction. No vaccine campaign can win a foot race against the Delta variant without strict mitigation measures and lockdowns to check its spread.

Troubling evidence has only confirmed the dangers this virus poses. In a recent analysis conducted by investigators during of the outbreak in Guangdong, China in May, and June of 2021, they found that those infected with Delta strain are more likely to infect others before they become symptomatic than people infected with the earlier version that first emerged in Wuhan.

People infected with Delta shed viral particles for almost two days before developing symptoms. Previous data placed the window for asymptomatic shedding at less than one day. Additionally, a recent study from South Korea confirmed that the viral load shed by infected individuals when they first develop symptoms was 300 times higher than with the original virus and remained higher throughout the window of communicability.

The rise in the number of breakthrough infections suggests that the neutralizing antibodies in people who are fully immunized are not providing sufficient protection against the Delta variant. The main target for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines is the receptor binding domain (RBD) and the N-terminal domain (NTD) in the virus’s spike protein.

A just published study from Osaka, Japan, suggested that if the Delta variant acquires additional mutations beyond the ones it already possessed, it could develop the ability to escape vaccine-induced immunity. The acquisition of other mutations is expected, highlighting the importance of tracking these mutations where they start.

According to a report providing explanation of the Osaka study published yesterday in News - Medical, “Additional mutations … of the Delta variants may make it fully resistant to the immune sera of vaccinated individuals. … Thus, the Delta variant is likely to acquire further mutations with increased infectivity and resistance.”

The authors concluded that though “a third round of booster immunization with the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine is currently under consideration, our data suggest that repeated immunization with the wild-type spike may not be effective in controlling the emerging Delta variants.” They call for the development of a new vaccine directed against the spike protein of the Delta strain.

The implication of these findings means the need to rewind the pandemic clock and develop and produce new vaccines against the Delta variant and once more initiate a new vaccination campaign—in other words, vaccination without an all-encompassing public health response can become a never-ending treadmill, with new vaccinations required to guard against ever more virulent and dangerous variants of the virus.

Spain proceeds with school reopenings despite high infection rates

Alice Summers

Though over 10,000 coronavirus cases are recorded in Spain every day, the Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government plans to send all children back to in-person education at the start of September.

The decision to fully reopen schools, even as the virus still circulates widely, poses immense dangers to children, educators and parents across Spain and internationally. The start of the new school term last autumn precipitated an enormous upsurge in infections and deaths. Before schools even reopen, however, average daily cases this year are now more than double what they were a year ago.

Soaring infection rates are hitting younger age groups particularly hard. Among school-aged children ages 12 to 19, the 14-day incidence rate exceeds 600 per 100,000 people. In five of Spain’s 17 regions, this measure surpasses 1,000 per 100,000, meaning more than 1 percent of young people in these areas is suffering from COVID-19. These figures are significantly higher than the rate for the population as a whole, which stands at a still dangerously high 292 per 100,000.

Though official case numbers have fallen for the last several weeks, an average of around 10,000 people are still being infected every day. Deaths are continuing to climb. Last Friday closed with the highest weekly deaths in Spain’s fifth wave, with 660 deaths.

According to the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, in the three weeks from July 26 to August 15, 82,587 children and adolescents aged between 5 and 19 were infected with the virus. Using a recent study published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health showing that around 4.4 percent of children aged 5 to 17 infected with coronavirus contract Long COVID, this amounts to roughly 3,600 of them suffering persistent COVID.

Under these conditions, the PSOE-Podemos government’s reckless reopening of schools in only two weeks endangers the lives of tens of thousands of children. It is not the result of a mistaken policy, but part of an international drive based on the policy of the capitalist class to force parents back to work in unsafe conditions to further extract profits from the working class and finance skyrocketing corporate and bank bailouts.

Sending students back to school last year led to three new waves of infection. In June last year, Prime Minister Sánchez made the now-infamous statement: “We have defeated the virus.” At that time, excess deaths due to the pandemic stood at 48,000. Over the following year, as the PSOE-Podemos government reopened schools in September, over 52,000 people would die needlessly. The colossal surge led to a quarter million infections each day last January.

The PSOE-Podemos government’s staggering indifference to human life confirms the British Medical Journal ’s characterization of the ruling elites’ pandemic policy as “social murder.” Responsibility lies above all with the “left populist” Podemos party. Having promised radical change and an end to austerity, Podemos became the PSOE’s chief co-conspirator in the ruling elite’s pandemic policy.

The reopening of schools takes places as even so-called mitigation measures (nightly curfews, mask mandates, banning of gatherings of more than 10 people) are lifted. Last month, at the appeal of the far-right Vox party, Spain’s Constitutional Court ruled that COVID-19 lockdown measures imposed from March to June 2020 were unconstitutional.

Soon after, several regional courts ruled against nightly curfews, most recently last week in Catalonia. There, the courts ended the COVID curfew, banning the Catalan government’s grossly inadequate attempt to lower the incidence rate through nightly curfews in 148 cities and towns in the region.

The PSOE-Podemos government is not only forcing parents to send children back into unsafe schools, but is even scaling down, or even removing outright, the minimal social distancing measures that existed last school year. While masks will remain compulsory for all children above 6 years of age, social distancing, nominally still maintained, has been reduced to only 1.2 metres (4 feet).

This reduction in required social distancing will allow schools to reopen at full pre-pandemic capacity, junking already inadequate class-size limits imposed in previous terms. Infant schools will accommodate up to 25 pupils per class (compared to 20 last term), and primary schools up to 30 (up from 25). Secondary schools and post-16 education centres will return to class sizes of 30 and 35, respectively.

This takes place as only 18 percent of adolescents aged 12 to 19 have received at least one COVID-19 jab. No vaccines have yet been approved for children under the age of 12. This will leave the most vulnerable to infection, serious illness, and even death.

Moreover, thousands of children and teenagers infected over the summer will begin the school term with lasting COVID-19 symptoms: extreme fatigue, chest pain, headaches, stomach aches, problems with concentration, dizziness and heart palpitations. Tens of thousands more will contract the virus as schools open and children are herded into crowded classrooms.

If the PSOE-Podemos government can proceed with this criminal policy, the political equivalent to calling for children to be sent into burning buildings, it is above all due to the role of the trade unions and pseudo-left parties which work as foot soldiers for Podemos.

Spain’s two largest unions, the Workers Commissions (CC.OO) and General Union of Labour (UGT), have said nothing. Their main focus in recent months has been to oversee billions of euros in corporate bailouts being funneled from Brussels to Spain’s corporations and banks, while negotiating plant closures and tens of thousands of redundancies.

Likewise, the pseudo-left Workers Revolutionary Current (CRT) has maintained a complicit silence on the so-called “fifth wave” of the pandemic, which has infected more than 900,000 people and killed over 2,000. Over the last month, it has not published a single article on its Izquierda Diario website addressing the risk of COVID and the threat to children as schools reopen.

Their only recent coverage of the pandemic has been two articles solidarising themselves with anti-“health pass” protests in France called with the support of the far-right. While French President Emmanuel Macron’s policy is anti-scientific and insufficient to halt the spread of the pandemic, the CRT’s opposition to it does not stem from a principled call for a scientifically-guided struggle to eradicate the virus. In reality, it is aligned with the ruling class’ “herd immunity” policy in all its fundamentals, denouncing social distancing as “authoritarian” and “repressive.”

Throughout the pandemic, the Morenoites have denounced social distancing measures such as lockdowns as “authoritarian and palliative.” Last September, the CRT defended the policy of reopening schools, calling for a “safe” return to education centres, all while acknowledging that the safety of teachers and students “cannot be guaranteed.” During the “fifth wave,” they launched a politically criminal campaign encouraging youth to pour back into nightclubs and bars.

Ukraine holds “Crimean Platform” summit

Jason Melanovski

The inaugural “Crimea Platform” summit was held Monday in Kiev in an attempt by the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky to build international support for a military offensive against Russia to “return” the Crimean peninsula to Ukraine.

Officials from 44 countries and blocs took part in the summit, including representatives from all 30 NATO members.

Zelensky opened the conference by denouncing Russian “aggression,” and accused Moscow of militarizing the peninsula and persecuting Crimean Tartars, a Muslim minority living on the peninsula in the Black Sea.

“I will personally do everything possible to return Crimea so that it becomes part of Europe together with Ukraine,” Zelensky stated.

In addition to taking part in a large number of photo ops on a stage standing next to Zelensky, the participants of the summit issued a Joint Declaration which stated: “Participants in the International Crimea Platform do not recognize and continue to condemn the temporary occupation and illegal annexation of Crimea, which constitutes a direct challenge to international security with grave implications for the international legal order that protects the territorial integrity, unity and sovereignty of all States.”

The declaration also included a call for Russia to join the initiative and engage in talks over giving Crimea back to Ukraine, a suggestion which was predictably ridiculed by Moscow.

The event was the culmination of a strategy approved by Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council in March which is aimed at retaking Crimea and reintegrating the strategically important peninsula.

As part of its “3 pillars” strategy for “retaking” Crimea, Zelensky’s administration sought “full Ukrainian sovereignty” over not just Crimea but that of the port city of Sevastopol as well, which serves as the home of the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet. The provocative announcement of this strategy triggered a major military crisis in the Black Sea this spring.

Crimea, a peninsula in the Black Sea, was annexed by Russia in March 2014, following a US-backed, far-right coup in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. A referendum was held at the time on integrating Crimea to Russia and received support from over 95 percent of the Crimean population.

Crimea was previously part of Russia, but was transferred by decree to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954 by Nikita Khrushchev.

Following the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the port of Sevastopol had been leased to Russia by several successive Ukrainian governments. Its potential loss following the US-backed ousting of the President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014 was widely seen as one of the primary motivators in Russia annexing the militarily strategic peninsula.

Both Zelensky and the Crimea Platform’s participants are well aware that Moscow would never willingly place its only major warm water seaport back in the hands of a right-wing NATO-affiliated government, imbuing the entire conference with a high degree of political provocation.

While the Ukrainian government gloated over the number of attendees—including the presidents of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Moldova, Slovenia and Finland—French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were conspicuously absent from the summit.

Merkel’s absence was particularly glaring as she had just left the country the previous day after meeting with Zelensky in an attempt to control the fallout between the two countries over the completion of the $12 billion Nord Stream 2 pipeline that will carry Russian gas directly to Germany through the Baltic Sea. The pipeline’s completion threatens to significantly undercut Ukraine’s importance to European energy markets and deprive it of approximately $2 billion in annual gas transit fees.

Prior to meeting with Zelensky in Kiev, Merkel had met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss Nord Stream 2 and the ongoing civil war in eastern Ukraine between the Ukrainian military and Russian-backed separatists that has claimed the lives of over 14,000.

The United States, which has been Ukraine’s biggest military supporter since 2014 providing the country $4.9 billion in military aid, sent its Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. The real purpose of her visit in Kiev was to meet with both Ukraine’s and Germany’s energy ministers to smooth over strained relations between Kiev and Washington over Nord Stream 2.

The Zelensky government was essentially blindsided when the Biden administration announced in July that it had come to a deal with Berlin not to oppose Nord Stream 2’s completion.

Zelensky is currently scheduled to travel to Washington to meet with Biden on August 31. Last week, in an interview with the Washington Post, Zelensky again expressed his disagreement with the Nord Stream 2 deal.

In line with the course taken by the Biden administration, German Economy and Energy Minister Peter Altmaier made clear that the purpose of meeting with Granholm and Ukrainian officials was not to put Germany’s participation in the pipeline in question, stating, “From today’s perspective we shouldn’t reject any suggestions, but also not create any insurmountable obstacles [for the completion of the pipeline].”

The entire Crimea Platform summit was predictably met with disdain in Moscow where Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denounced the summit as an “anti-Russian event.”

Following the meeting spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova called it a “political performance that is removed from reality.” She warned that Russia “will be forced to view participation of separate countries, international organizations and their representatives in the Crimea Platform as encroachment on Russia’s territorial integrity which will inevitably have its effect on our relations.”

Zakharova’s comments make clear that the continued attempts by an increasingly authoritarian Zelensky government to gain support for an aggressive offensive to “retake” Crimea are a reckless provocation that threatens the outbreak of a full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine.

While Zelensky was initially elected in 2019 on the basis of a rejection of the far-right militaristic nationalism espoused by his predecessor Petro Poroshenko, Zelensky has increasingly decreed authoritarian anti-Russian measures by prosecuting political opposition and banning media outlets it dubs “Russian propaganda.”

On the eve of the Crimea Platform summit, the Zelensky government last week banned the popular opposition website strana.ua by decree. The site was one of the few major media outlets in Ukraine that reported on the violent exploits of the country’s various militant far-right nationalist groups and corruption within the Ukrainian government

Earlier in February, Zelensky undemocratically shut down three popular predominantly Russian-speaking television stations—ZiK, 112 Ukraine and NewsOne—all of which were affiliated with the rival oligarch and pro-Russian opposition leader Viktor Medvedchuk.

Medvedchuk was later arrested and charged with “high treason” by the Ukrainian government.

Hypocritically, the Crimea Platform denounced Russia for supposedly limiting “fundamental freedoms” in Crimea, “such as the right to peaceful assembly, the rights to freedoms of expression and opinion, religion or belief, association, restrictions on the ability to seek, receive and impart information, as well as interference and intimidation that journalists, human rights defenders and defense lawyers face in their work.”

Since coming to office, the Zelensky government has made clear that, in Ukraine, such “fundamental freedoms” do not apply to anyone that does not blindly support the nationalist and right-wing course of the government in Kiev.