Failure to fight COVID-19 pandemic has caused record fall in life expectancy

Patrick Martin

A report released Monday by Oxford University and published in its International Journal of Epidemiology finds that the decrease in life expectancy for 29 countries, including the United States, Chile and 27 countries in Europe, is the greatest in modern history.

US Army Capt. Corrine Brown, a critical care nurse, administers an anti-viral medication to a COVID-19 positive patient at Kootenai Health regional medical center during response operations in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, on Sept. 6, 2021. [Credit: Michael H. Lehman/DVIDS U.S. Navy/via AP]

For Western Europe, the decrease in life expectancy is the worst since the years of the Second World War, 1939–1945, and its immediate aftermath.

For Eastern Europe, the decrease in life expectancy is the worst since the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989–1991, which led to the restoration of capitalism and the dismantling of public health care systems and other social support.

For the United States, the decrease in life expectancy is the worst since official records began to be kept, in 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression. In other words, COVID-19 is the worst calamity to befall American society in living memory.

The declines in life expectancy averaged more than a full year across the 29 countries studied. The biggest decrease, 2.2 years, was for men in the United States, double the average across the 29 countries.

This massive social retrogression is caused not by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but by the refusal of the ruling classes in these countries to conduct any serious struggle against it. Rather than seeking to suppress the pandemic and eliminate the virus, they have carried out a policy of “profits first,” maintaining capitalist production at all costs, including that of human life.

In some countries the slogan has been “herd immunity,” the brazenly pro-virus policy adopted in Sweden, Britain and elsewhere in Europe. In the United States, the Trump administration followed the same policy, under a different slogan: “The cure can’t be worse than the disease.”

The same policy is now being pursued almost everywhere, from Biden’s America to Macron’s France and Merkel’s Germany, under a slightly different refrain; it is necessary to “live with the virus.” This means in practice that countless people will die by the virus.

The study was carried out by scientists at the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science at the University of Oxford, who created a database of life expectancy figures from all 29 countries which was then analyzed to determine trends from 2019 to mid-2020 based on sex and age. In only three Scandinavian countries was there any improvement. In all others, there were declines for both men and women, and for over and under 60 years of age.

According to the study, “The magnitude of these declines offset most gains in life expectancy in the 5 years prior to the pandemic. Out of 29 countries, females from 15 and males from 10 countries ended up with lower life expectancy at birth in 2020 than in 2015…”

There are significant differences between the two main regions covered by the report, Europe and the United States. In Europe, deaths among people aged over 60 were the main factor in reducing life expectancy. In the United States, however, “Notably increased midlife mortality (0–59 years) was the largest contributor to life-expectancy losses between 2019 and 2020 in the USA among males.”

This is only one of several findings that indicate that the working class in the United States, and particularly male workers, have suffered a disproportionate impact from the pandemic.

The report found: “Despite having a younger population, the USA also has higher co-morbidities in these age groups compared with European populations with greater vulnerability to COVID-19. Other factors, such as those linked to unevenness in healthcare access in the working-age population and structural racism, may also help to explain the increased mortality.”

These comorbidities include the higher rates of heart disease, cancer and diabetes, in many cases linked to stress in the workplace and overwork, the impact of alcoholism, opioid addiction and other forms of drug abuse brought on by similar causes.

There is also a crowding-out effect from the swamping of health care facilities by COVID patients, as those seeking care for heart disease, cancer and other conditions may not be able to gain access. The report notes, “Emerging evidence further indicates that non-COVID-19 excess mortality was concentrated in working ages.”

The Oxford report did not go further and examine the impact of economic inequality on life expectancy and COVID death rates. But recent data from a study in Ontario, Canada, found that those in the lowest income bracket had a five-times higher COVID infection rate in the highest income bracket.

While the virus which causes COVID-19 does not care whether its human target is rich or poor, the same cannot be said of the profit-based social order which determines which people will be exposed to the deadly virus and for how long, and how healthy and resistant to infection they will be. Nor is the profit-driven health care system indifferent to class and wealth when deciding what treatment a COVID-infected person will receive.

Working people in every country entered the coronavirus pandemic at a disadvantage compared to their capitalist exploiters, who had greater access to health resources and fewer comorbidities before the pandemic struck, and greater ability to isolate and protect themselves when millions were falling sick and dying.

In particular, once the pandemic hit, male workers were more likely to be working in industries deemed to be “essential,” (other than health care itself), such as meatpacking and other food production, warehousing and logistics, electricity and other utilities, and trucking and transportation.

The Oxford report concludes with this warning about the long-term implications of the pandemic: “Although COVID-19 might be seen as a transient shock to life expectancy, the evidence of potential long-term morbidity due to long COVID and impacts of delayed care for other illnesses as well as health effects and widening inequalities stemming from the social and economic disruption of the pandemic suggest that the scars of the COVID-19 pandemic on population health may be longer-lasting.”

The Oxford report is based on analysis of data collected before the production of vaccines and the onset of mass vaccination. But the vaccination of less than half of the world’s population, and that very unevenly, ranging from more than 70 percent in China and parts of the industrial West, to 5 percent or less in Africa, has not halted the spread of SARS-CoV-2, and the virus continues to mutate.

The study noted that 1.8 million died worldwide of COVID-19 in 2020, without making the obvious warning that the death toll is far higher in 2021—2.9 million so far, for a global total of 4.7 million—so the decline in life expectancy is likely to be even greater this year.

The United States, for example, hit 342,000 total deaths by the end of 2020. Another 365,000 have died so far in 2021, with more than a quarter of the year remaining. At the current pace, the death toll in 2021 would approach 500,000. If it accelerates, as widely expected, due to school reopenings and the onset of cold weather, which drives people inside where they are more easily exposed to infection, the death toll could easily go far higher, with a corresponding impact on life expectancy.

The science is clear that COVID-19 can be eliminated in regions and eradicated worldwide, but only if the political will exists to carry out a program of maximum social struggle against the pandemic: the closure of schools and workplaces except those genuinely necessary to sustain life—not corporate profits—and a full-scale public health policy including masking, social distancing, testing and tracing.

Bangladeshi school reopenings threaten wave of COVID-19 infections among children

Wimal Perera

More than a dozen students have been infected and one has died from COVID-19 after schools were reopened in Bangladesh this month.

Students attend a class at the Narinda Government High School as schools reopen after being closed for nearly 18 months due to the coronavirus pandemic in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, Sept.12, 2021 [Credit: AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu]

On September 12, the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ordered all schools, apart pre-primary facilities, to reopen with in-person classes. Educational institutions had been closed more than one and a half year, following the outbreak of the pandemic in Bangladesh in March 2020.

Government and education officials justified the reopenings by claiming that 97 percent of teachers and staff had been vaccinated. Most students, however, are not vaccinated and are highly vulnerable.

Health Minister Zahid Maleque said claims that students between 12 and 17 years will be vaccinated in October and those 18 years and over are being registered for vaccinations.

Inadequate and unsafe school infrastructure, however, makes it virtually impossible for students to maintain official health guidelines, including social distancing. This makes them highly vulnerable to infection and as transmitters of the deadly disease to their families.

The reopening of schools is a part of Hasina’s attempts to claim the situation in Bangladesh is “normal.” This is to justify the easing of pandemic control restrictions, which began on August 11, and allow major industries and many other businesses to resume full production. With the Bangladesh ruling elite prioritising corporate profits over human lives, most sectors of the economy are operating.

When schools began reopening in Bangladesh, the national test positivity rate was 7 percent, with some districts recording between 10 percent and 20 percent.

Epidemiologist AM Zakir Hussain warned in the New Age on September 13 that there was the danger of an infection “spike” of the virus. “What we see here is cluster transmission,” adding, “cluster transmission can develop into community transmission and then may cause a countrywide spike of Covid cases.”

Notwithstanding Bangladeshi government assurances, countries with high rates of vaccination are experiencing rising numbers of deaths and infections among students following the reopening of schools. In the US, where 54 percent of the population is vaccinated, “children and educators are dying of COVID-19 at a rate of at least three per day nationwide,” the World Socialist Web Site reported on September 23.

Bangladesh, however, has one the lowest vaccination rates in the world, with some 21 million or 12.7 percent of its 165 million population with one dose and just 14 million or 8.5 percent having had a second dose. This is less than a third of the 31.4 percent of the world population’s which is fully vaccinated.

As of September 24, the total number of COVID deaths in Bangladesh since March last year, was over 27,000 and total number of cases more than 1.5 million. Official, grossly understated, figures issued by the government are being used to claim the pandemic is under control. On September 21, the daily COVID test positivity rate fell below 5 percent, according to New Age .

While some online education was available in Bangladesh during the lockdown, most Bangladeshi parents cannot afford a computer or pay for internet access so their children can access online education. A study conducted by one Bangladeshi NGO found that about 56 percent of the country’s students had no online facilities.

The school reopenings are already adversely impacting on students. The Dhaka Tribune reported that a grade eight student at Surendra Kumar Government Girls’ High School at Manikganj Sadar died from COVID-19 on September 22. Her relatives told the newspaper: “She had been suffering from fever and sore throat since her first day of school on September 15.”

The young girl later suffered from shortness of breath and was rushed to Kurmitola General Hospital in Dhaka that day. The school was closed for a week when another student tested positive.

The New Age reported on September 24 that at least 14 primary and secondary school students at three educational institutions in Thakurgaon had tested positive for COVID-19, since schools reopened. A student from Ferdhora Government Primary School in Kotalipara sub-district of Gopalganj also contracted the virus on September 17, and her mother also tested positive.

Parents fear their children being infected. The father of one student told Al Jazeera, “COVID is still there, and I am not feeling comfortable sending my children to school.” These concerns are reflected in declining attendance at schools.

The Business Standard, citing the education ministry data, reported on September 24, that student attendances across the country stood at 67 percent on September 12 but dropped to 59 percent by September 21.

The decision to reopen all educational institutions was made following discussions early this month between Education Minister Dipu Moni and senior authorities from universities and schools.

Moni recommended “gradual” and “phased” reopenings in line with government health guidelines. These included temperature monitoring of teachers and students, social distancing, provision of hand washing facilities and other minimal procedures.

While the schools opened September 12, university authorities could decide for themselves to reopen any time after September 27, subject to government’s recommendation. This involved the vaccination of one dose for 70 to 80 percent of students, a retreat from the government’s previous target of all university students being fully vaccinated by September.

Under this “gradual” reopening, school classes will be held for a limited number of days per week—initially one day per week for lower grade classes.

The 18-month closure of schools has seriously impacted on children and led to a high number of dropouts. The Dhaka Tribune reported on September 17 that 50,000 children may have dropped out in the district of Kurigram, alone. Frustrated students from Rajshahi and Jahangirnagar universities have also demonstrated, demanding the universities be reopened by the end of September.

The government has exploited the concerns of poor parents and university students to declare the necessity for all education facilities to reopen. But the conditions that undermined the education of millions of students during the pandemic were created by the Hasina government and its failure to provide online education facilities for all.

This is the case across the region. Citing a report based on research in India, the Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, UNICEF’s regional director for South Asia George Laryea-Adjei said: “School closures in South Asia have forced hundreds of millions of children and their teachers to transition to remote learning in a region with low connectivity and device affordability…

“Even when a family has access to technology, children are not always able to access it. As a result, children have suffered enormous setbacks in their learning journey.”

The inability of the ruling elites in Bangladesh and rest of South Asia to maintain proper online education is another expression of their incapacity to address any social and democratic issues confronting hundreds of millions of working people and oppressed masses in the region.

The eradication of the pandemic, leading to safe reopening of educational institutes, requires a global strategy to mobilise the world’s vast resources and expertise.

This must include the closure of in-person education until the virus is eliminated, while providing all technological facilities to teachers and students to maintain online education, along with a full-range of health measures, including vaccines and a vast expansion in public health spending.

Acclimation and Heat Stress of Plants, and Future Crop Failures

Manuel Garcia Jr

One of the most popular ideas that springs into people’s minds when mulling over remedies for slowing the advance of climate change because of the ever increasing accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, is to plant more trees, bushes and grasses. Let a greater quantity of plant photosynthesis filter our atmosphere of excess CO2.

This is not an entirely bad idea — especially in its more nuanced formulation as multi-crop regenerative agriculture coupled with wildland, wetland and forest conservation and reforestation, ending industrialized chemical pesticide monoculture farming and drastically reducing the entire meat industry, along with a popular shift to plant-based diets — though it is an entirely inadequate tactic for absorbing the ever increasing load of CO2 in the atmosphere being fed by gargantuan torrents of anthropogenic CO2 emissions exhausted as waste products from the fossil fueled engines powering today’s capitalism and militarism, which remain requirements by our capitalists and militarists for the continuation of our present civilizational paradigm.

So, planting trees is being done and will continue because it is something that many people can do to try to help, and because it poses no real threats to capitalism or militarism. But one of the cruelties of global warming is that high concentrations of CO2 combined with elevated global temperatures reduce the rate of photosynthesis and plant growth. These effects are called “acclimation” and “heat stress” of plants, respectively.

Acclimation is either an enhancing or inhibiting effect on photosynthesis by high CO2 concentrations. Generally, photosynthesis is enhanced as CO2 concentration is increased from a low level. Then above an elevated threshold concentration, the rate of photosynthesis saturates and can even be reduced. The mechanism of the effect is involved and has been the subject of research for many years by agricultural scientists interested in maximizing crop yields (for example in greenhouses).

Elevated temperatures can cause heat stress in growing plants by dehydrating them: as in their fatally drying out in a drought. However, a growth inhibiting (and even growth killing) heat stress can also occur to well-watered plants by the high temperature “denaturing” of the enzymes that control the reaction rates (the chemical reactions) of the photosynthesis process within plant leaves.

Current research on plant growth under the combined effects of elevated temperature and high CO2 concentration shows that “in heat-stressed plants at normal or warmer growth temperatures, high CO2 may often decrease, or not benefit as expected, tolerance of photosynthesis to acute heat stress. Therefore, interactive effects of elevated CO2 and warmer growth temperatures on acute heat tolerance may contribute to future changes in plant productivity, distribution, and diversity.”

There are now scientific projections of crop yield reductions for several agricultural regions, due to anticipated rises of CO2 concentrations and their related elevated regional temperatures. A report issued by Chatham House on 14 September 2021 describes the following:

“The planet could be struck by a wave of ‘unprecedented’ crop failures in the next 20 years if global greenhouse gas emissions continue as usual… researchers detailed a litany of risks that climate change could pose to [food security]… global agriculture will need to produce nearly 50 percent more food by 2050 to feed a growing population. But as global demand increases, crop yields could drop by 30 percent as farmers contend with a hotter and more volatile planet… By 2050, an anticipated 40 percent of the planet’s cropland will be exposed to severe drought for at least three months per year, and the breadbaskets of the United States and southern Russia could be among the regions most affected. Europe, the report said, is likely to experience the largest increase in agricultural drought, ‘with the central estimate indicating that nearly half the cropland area will experience severe periods of drought by 2050’… By the 2040s, the United States, China, Brazil and Argentina, which grow 87 percent of the world’s maize, could suffer a steep drop in their maize production — all at the same time. ‘The probability of a synchronous crop failure of this order during the decade of the 2040s is just less than 50 percent.’… Farmers will also have to contend with a decline in the length of crop seasons and long stretches of water scarcity… East and South Asia will be particularly hard hit, with 230 million people subjected to prolonged drought by 2040. Outside of Asia, Africa will likely have the greatest number of people facing drought, exceeding 180 million by 2050. Many regions also will have to manage coastal and river flooding. By 2100… 75 million people in East, South, and Southeast Asia will face coastal flooding every year. ‘Across these three regions around 11 times more people will be impacted by coastal flooding than under a scenario in which climate change is averted.’”

This all leads to a bleak vision of our planet’s future, where lives are shorter, food is more scarce, and 3.9 billion people “are likely to experience major heat waves.”

My purpose in describing all this is not to feed into more self-indulgent wallowing in depression and flaccid fatalism over the anticipated ‘collapse of civilization’ and ‘human extinction,’ but to show how elevated CO2 concentrations along with elevated global-regional temperatures will physically reduce our food security — crop yields — and in that way very directly shorten human life globally. This is intended to prod the public mind to get on with the job of effectively responding to global warming climate change, by cutting through the many excuses for continuing to cling to the dysfunctional behaviors (fossil fueled capitalism and militarism) driving the planetary crisis, and to change those behaviors to ensure we all have sufficient good food and clean water in an enduring future.

White Supremacy, Immigration Hypocrisy, and Haiti

Wendell Griffen

Recent news coverage of U.S. Border Patrol agents on horseback chasing asylum-seekers from Haiti who tried to enter the United States at Del Rio, Texas is disturbing. The images harken back to a time when white slave patrols used horses and dogs to capture enslaved Africans who tried to escape the brutalities suffered from white capitalists who stole their bodies and labor to produce the wealth that funded the United States. The deeper history of white people to the people and place now called Haiti is even worse.

Haiti is about the size of Maryland. It is found on the western third of Hispaniola in the Caribbean. The eastern two-thirds of Hispaniola is the Dominican Republic. Hispaniola was home to Taino/Arawak people for thousands of years before Christopher Columbus stumbled upon it in December 1492.

Spanish colonizers enslaved their Taino hosts and forced them to work in gold mines. Hunger, violence, disease, and harsh working conditions decimated the indigenous enslaved people, so King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain licensed the colonizers to enslave Africans to replace the work force. The enslaved Africans worked on plantations to grow sugar cane, coffee, tobacco, and other raw crops for export to Europe. French colonizers replaced the Spanish in the western part of Hispaniola and continued the plantation system until San Dominque (the name the French gave that part of Hispaniola) became the most profitable French colony in the world.

Enslaved Africans waged a violent revolution against French colonizers that forced France to abolish slavery in 1794. Napoleon Bonaparte responded by invading San Dominique with the largest fleet then assembled and thousands of French soldiers. However, African resistance to the French invasion over the next ten years was so fierce that Napoleon lost over 50,000 soldiers, including 18 generals.

The Africans defeated the French invaders in 1804.  The war also led Napoleon to negotiate the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, a land deal that covered what is now all or part of the states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Iowa, Colorado, Wyoming, Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Montana to the United States. That successful revolt made Haiti the first Black republic, the only nation where enslaved people overthrew their oppressors, and the second nation in the Western Hemisphere (after the United States) to declare independence from its colonizers.

However, the United States refused to recognize Haiti until 1862.  Politicians from pro-slavery states opposed recognizing and having a harmonious diplomatic relationship with a nation that had overthrown white enslavers. White Americans worried that the existence of Haiti challenged the slave-driven US economy and would encourage slave revolts in the US.

Instead of being a good neighbor to Haiti, the United States sided with France and Britain in imposing an economic embargo against Haiti. The US supported France in its demand that the government of Haiti pay reparations to the white enslavers covering the cost of land, the value of enslaved persons, livestock, commercial properties, and services the enslavers claimed were lost due to the successful revolt. Even Haitian officials were assigned a monetary value – as former enslaved persons – which the French (with US support) demanded be repaid. However, no reparations were paid by the enslavers to the formerly enslaved persons.

The US sided with the French to force Haiti to take out a loan for 150 million gold francs with a designated French bank to cover the cost of “reparations” to French enslavers for the loss of their “property.”  The value of that loan was ten times that of Haiti’s total revenue in 1825 and twice the price the United States paid France for the Louisiana Purchase, which covered 74 times more land than Haiti.

In 1915, the United States invaded and began a military occupation of Haiti that lasted until 1934 – almost two decades. Over the years, the US has supported insurrections against Haitian political leaders, propped up corrupt and ruthless Haitian leaders, sponsored the assassination or forced removal of Haitian leaders, and been complicit in fomenting greed and discord among Haitians. Also, Haiti – the most impoverished nation in the Western Hemisphere – has suffered earthquakes, hurricanes, and other catastrophic natural disasters.

Now the US refuses to welcome Haitians who seek asylum from atrocities, inequities, poverty, disease, catastrophic natural disasters, centuries of white supremacist-sponsored and financed internal strife, and other hardships. Instead, Border Patrol agents on horseback chased and brutalized asylum-seekers. In addition to that despicable conduct, the Biden administration has forced asylum-seeking Haitians onto planes and returned them to Haiti rather than process their petitions for asylum.

Haitians who trek across Central America to seek asylum in the United States are survivors of a failed state, gang violence, political turmoil (including the assassination of the most recent Haitian president), natural disasters, and centuries of white supremacist schemes to punish Black people for overthrowing white enslavers. They have the right, under US law, to seek asylum in this country.  And they have the right to protection from abuse and oppression – in the United States – when they seek asylum.

What Haitian asylum seekers are now experiencing is the latest instance of more than two hundred years of white supremacy, brutality, greed, hypocrisy, disregard for the rights of Black, Brown, indigenous, and other people of color, and deliberate US policy decisions. The suffering produced by those decisions, past and present, is worse than despicable. It is worse than outrageous. It is damnable.

All of Germany’s parliamentary parties support the further spread of COVID-19

Marianne Arens

All of the parties in the German parliament (Bundestag) support a policy of allowing the COVID-19 infection to spread—with all of the subsequent devastating consequences. The Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (SGP-Socialist Equality Party, German section of the International Committee of the Fourth International) was the only party in the election campaign fighting for a policy to completely eradicate the coronavirus pandemic on a global basis.

Andreas Gassen, head of the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, was particularly outspoken a few days ago. Gassen, a specialist for orthopaedics and accident surgery, demanded a “clear political signal: That in six weeks we will also celebrate a Freedom Day!” He told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung that “after the experience of Great Britain,” it was also time for Germany to “have the courage” to lift all pandemic restrictions on October 30.

Gassen’s reference to the “experience of Great Britain” reveals the full brutal extent of what he advocates. Currently, the United Kingdom is again recording around 30,000 new infections per day and deaths in the hundreds. The BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal) denounced this very same policy as “social murder” some time ago.

Caption: Intensive care bed (Photo: Calleamanecer / Wikimedia)

Gassen’s proposal has been met with considerable opposition on the part of the public but is essentially in line with the stance of all of the politicians with influence at a federal and state level. The German Health Minister Jens Spahn (Christian Democratic Union, CDU), for example, has distanced himself from Gassen’s proposal, but expected the pandemic to be “over” by spring. Spahn told the Augsburger Allgemeine that it was “very unlikely” that a new virus variant would emerge against which vaccination offered no protection. And then “we will have overcome the pandemic by the spring and return to normality,” Spahn said last Wednesday.

All of the Bundestag politicians, regardless of political affiliation, are in practice pursuing a course of ruthlessly infecting the population. In doing so they accept that many thousands more will die. Despite an explosive increase in the number of cases among children and adolescents, they have fully reopened schools in all German states.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is expanding dramatically worldwide as the highly contagious Delta variant takes hold and even worse mutations are quite possible. The US, Brazil and India are all experiencing devastating new outbreaks with thousands of deaths every day. In Europe, the World Health Organisation has warned of another 236,000 deaths by December 1.

In Germany, a fourth pandemic wave is also erupting with the start of face-to-face schooling and the first cold days of autumn. The 7-day average of daily deaths rose to nearly 60 last Thursday and a total of 400 COVID-19 patients have died in the past week. Over the course of the past few days, the number of new infections has once again exceeded tens of thousands, and statistics indicate a high number of unreported cases.

At the end of last week, around 1,500 COVID-19 patients were receiving intensive treatment, with wards filling up day by day. This development was confirmed by a report by Cihan Çelik, a pulmonary physician, in the FAZ newspaper on September 19.

Çelik is head of an isolation ward for COVID-19 patients in Darmstadt. His hospital, he said, has had to transfer several COVID patients to other hospitals in recent days. The number of new admissions had fluctuated wildly for about three weeks. On several occasions, it had been necessary to expand the facilities for treatment of COVID patients with up to “ten Covid patients with a severe course” being admitted in the course of a single day.

Çelik also reported on “Covid patients with vascular complications such as thromboses, pulmonary embolisms and strokes.” His conclusion: “I’m afraid the current situation is just a taste of what’s in store for us this fall.”

Another report featuring Dr. Çelik, which appeared as a video for Der Spiegel magazine titled “Mavericks on the Corona-Station,” documents a number of horrific COVID cases with severe health consequences. “The fourth wave is here, and it is picking up speed,” the report states.

The video also shows that people who have been vaccinated twice usually have only mild symptoms, without pneumonia, but can still become infected. These are so-called “vaccine breakthroughs,” in which infected vaccinated people unknowingly spread the virus.

“Vaccination breakthroughs have been increasing since the Delta variant became rampant,” the report says, “with around 7,000 cases so far in Germany.”

This development is being systematically ignored. The current mantra of the country’s ruling politicians is that vaccination alone solves the problem. This is a deliberate misrepresentation and a dangerous fallacy. As important as vaccination is, it cannot defeat the pandemic without the implementation of a number of other measures. The Delta variant has a far higher R-value than the existing “wild type.” This means the pandemic will continue to spread even if 80 percent of the population or more is vaccinated.

Capitalist politicians don’t care, however, and have systematically downplayed the dangers of the fourth wave during the election campaign. The extent to which they themselves are becoming the driving factor for infection was evident in the measures they adopted just a few days before the election.

This applies first and foremost to the decision by federal and state governments to cancel compensation payments for unvaccinated people in quarantine. The state premiers claimed that by doing so, they would encourage vaccination among the group of those designated as “unwilling.”

In reality, this measure is highly dangerous. Denying the compensation for a quarantine loss of earnings, paid up until now, will result in countless outbreaks going undetected. How many infected people will continue to drag themselves to work for fear of losing pay? How many contacts will remain untested and how many infections will spread undetected and in secrecy until major outbreaks occur?

Another recently passed measure involves the cancellation of free “citizen testing.” This means that many people will be forced to pay for COVID-19 tests from October 11. This is stipulated in a new regulation issued by the Federal Ministry of Health on September 22.

This measure will also result in countless new infections going undetected. Nevertheless, the measure has been approved by Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and all of the country’s 16 state premiers.

The Left Party, in particular, is fully supporting this policy. This is vividly demonstrated in the state of Thuringia, where the party is part of a coalition government and a Left Party member, Helmut Holter, is Minister of Education. In Thuringia, as of last week, there are to be no more rapid tests at schools, no more mandatory masks, and virtually no more quarantine rules for contact persons.

“This gives the virus free rein among unvaccinated children and young people over the next few months,” commented the teachers’ platform news4teachers.de in bewilderment.

Thuringia has the second highest COVID-19 mortality rate in all of Germany, after Saxony. The state has recorded 208 pandemic deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. The national average is 112 per 100,000 inhabitants. More than 2,000 test results were positive in the first two weeks of school testing alone.

The example of Thuringia shows that all of the main parties are complicit in this contagion policy and act openly or quietly along the lines of the Freedom Day called for by Gassen. To keep the economy going, they insist on opening up schools in the midst of the fourth pandemic wave, abolish mass testing and categorically rule out any new lockdown.

To defeat the pandemic, the working class needs its own party to enforce internationally a consistent, science-based strategy for eradicating SARS-CoV-2, combining vaccination, contact tracing and isolation with consistent lockdowns. If world leaders had consistently addressed the pandemic in February and March 2020, they would have defeated the virus within weeks. Millions of people who died agonizing deaths in the last 18 months would be alive today.

US drops demand Canada extradite Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, allowing her to return to China

Roger Jordan

Under a deal worked out by Washington and Beijing at the highest political levels, Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei and the daughter of its founder, returned to China Saturday, after living under house arrest for nearly three years in Vancouver, British Columbia.

As part of the deal, Meng, who was seized by Canadian authorities at the behest of the Trump administration in December 2018, pled not guilty in an on-line New York court appearance to charges of committing bank fraud to evade US sanctions on Iran.

The Canadian authorities’ decision to arrest Meng during a Vancouver stopover had all the hallmarks of a political kidnapping, timed as it was to coincide with a bilateral meeting between then US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a G-20 summit. Trump’s goal at the meeting was to extract sweeping concessions from China on trade and economic relations.

Meng Wanzhou (Image credit: Wikimedia CC BY 3.0)

The deal to release Meng was designed to be face-saving for all concerned. US prosecutors officially pledged to suspend their concocted fraud case against Meng, until December 2022, at which point the criminal charges against her will be dropped entirely, provided that Meng does not violate any other federal laws. The US Justice Department claimed that Meng’s admission in the Statement of Facts that she described Skycom, a subsidiary of Huawei, as a business partner engaged in “normal business cooperation” in a 2013 power-point presentation instead of a company controlled by Huawei was an acknowledgement of guilt. This is a spurious reading of the evidence and, in any event, far from the incendiary allegations the US levelled against Meng that she duped the HSBC bank so as to violate Washington’s punitive, unilateral sanctions against Iran.

Several prominent US legal experts described the Justice Department’s deferred prosecution agreement as unlike any they had previously seen, underscoring that Washington effectively decided to abandon the case. Following the announcement of the deal, the Chinese government reiterated its position that Meng’s detention and prosecution were purely political and emphasized that she had made no acknowledgment of guilt. Her return to China became the occasion for the regime to whip up nationalism, with her red-carpet welcome ceremony broadcast on state television and livestreamed online.

The dropping of the US request for Meng’s extradition and her return to China was accompanied by the tit-for-tat release of two Canadian citizens, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, whom Beijing had detained on charges of spying in the immediate aftermath of Meng’s seizure by Canadian authorities.

Underscoring that the prisoner swap was orchestrated at the highest levels of the Biden administration, Kovrig and Spavor were picked up by a US Air Force jet destined for Alaska at precisely the same moment that Meng boarded her Air China-chartered flight from Vancouver. Kovrig’s and Spavor’s return to Canada Saturday was exploited by the political establishment and corporate media to intensify their virulent anti-China campaign.

Several considerations were at play in Washington’s decision to abandon its prosecution and persecution of Meng. First, the case against her, as the Statement of Facts attests, was based on a tendentious, politically-motivated representation of her dealings with HSBC and in serious danger of collapsing. While the Canadian government was emphatic in its support for Meng’s extradition, with lawyers for the Attorney General vigorously defending it in court, the judge hearing the extradition case, B.C. Supreme Court Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes, increasingly expressed concern about its legal foundation. At an August 12 hearing, she described the fraud case against Meng as “unusual,” noting, according to a Globe and Mail report, that “no one lost money, the allegations are several years old, and the intended victim, a global bank, knew the truth even as it was allegedly being lied to.”

The proceedings also uncovered how Meng’s rights were blatantly violated by Canadian authorities. For several hours Canada Border Services agents concealed from Meng that she was effectively under arrest as soon as she arrived in Canada in December 2018 and thereby got her to hand over her phone and other possessions. They then handed them to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which in turn made their contents known to the FBI.

There was no doubt concern in the Biden administration that if Meng’s extradition or subsequent trial collapsed or became the occasion for further embarrassing revelations about the lawlessness of US and Canadian authorities, it would represent a serious blow to Washington’s propaganda campaign against Beijing.

This campaign, which touts the US as the leader of a “democratic” coalition of nations that respect the “rules-based international order” against China and other “authoritarian” regimes, is political cover for an ever expanding military-strategic offensive against China whose logic is a catastrophic global conflagration. Earlier this month, Washington established a new Indo-Pacific war alliance with Australia and Britain (AUKUS), whose first action has been to supply Australia with nuclear-powered and nuclear missile-capable submarines.

The release of Meng may also have been motivated by a desire to mend fences with the European powers, who, led by France, have angrily protested the secretly negotiated AUKUS deal, which cuts across their own plans to play a greater role in the Indo-Pacific. Meng’s trial over Iranian sanctions would have involved the extraterritorial application of US laws, which the European powers view with hostility.

Finally, Washington has largely gotten what it wanted out of Meng’s detention, which was part of a concerted pushback against Huawei’s emergence as one of the world’s largest high-tech concerns. Key US allies, including Australia and Britain, have explicitly banned Huawei from their 5G networks, while many others have effectively blacklisted the company by choosing competitors. US authorities also introduced bans and restrictions preventing businesses from trading with Huawei, including an August 2020 measure that requires companies selling any product with a US-made microchip to Huawei to first obtain a license. At the time, this move was described as imposing a “death sentence” on the Chinese company as a maker of 5G technology products.

By taking the dispute with Beijing over Meng off the table, Washington removes what had become an impediment to any meaningful interaction with the China’s Communist Party-led capitalist regime, enabling it to concentrate on stepping up diplomatic pressure to make concessions on climate change and other issues that Biden has said are up for negotiation. US imperialism views the climate change negotiations as a vital arena in the pursuit of its global economic and geo-political interests and providing it with an avenue to attack China economically, including potentially through “carbon tariffs.” In his address to last week’s UN General Assembly, Biden summed up this policy by referring to a “new era of relentless diplomacy.” This is by no means a turn away from, but rather a critical component of, the comprehensive economic and military pressure US imperialism is exerting on China.

By securing the release of Kovrig and Spavor as part of its settlement of the Meng case, Washington is also in a position to ratchet up pressure on Canada to fall even more fully into line behind its diplomatic, economic, and military campaign of intimidation against China. Canada has yet to formally exclude Huawei from its 5G network, and repeated delays to the release of its updated China policy have frustrated US officials. Speaking just days prior to Meng’s release, David L. Cohen, Biden’s nominee as Washington’s new ambassador to Ottawa, told a US Senate confirmation hearing, “We are all waiting for Canada to release its framework for its overall China policy. As ambassador, if I’m confirmed, it’s an appropriate role to be engaged in discussions and make sure that Canada’s policies reflect its words in terms of the treatment of China.”

The most vociferously anti-China sections of the Canadian political establishment certainly got the message as they unleashed tirades against Beijing over the weekend, combined with demands that Canada further expand its across-the-board military-security cooperation with the United States. Ignoring the fact that Beijing’s seizure of Kovrig and Spavor was a reaction to the initial political kidnapping of Meng, Guy Saint-Jacques, Canada’s former ambassador to China, stated, “We must agree among ourselves on sanctions that we could apply against China if they ever use this hostage diplomacy again. It’s about sending a very powerful message that this kind of bullying can’t carry on. We have to put teeth to it.”

Conservative Senator Leo Housakos, a leading anti-China hawk, added, “Now that the two Michaels are home and the Chinese communist regime’s thuggery has been fully exposed for what it is, what we’ve known it is all along, Canada can no longer continue to deal with this regime as honest brokers.” Housakos demanded that the Trudeau government immediately ban Huawei from the 5G network and announce a boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

Far from avoiding confrontation with Beijing, the Trudeau government has lined up squarely behind US imperialism’s concerted geostrategic and military offensive against China. Under Trump, the Trudeau government supported the renegotiation of NAFTA to create an even more explicitly US-led protectionist North American trade bloc directed against China. The Liberals have also more fully integrated Canada’s military operations into US-led aggression in the Asia-Pacific, including by sending warships and submarines to the South China Sea.

Last month, the Trudeau government concluded an agreement with the US to modernize NORAD, the joint Canada-US aerospace and maritime defence, with the aim of consolidating the North American imperialist powers’ domination of the Arctic and preparing for a new age of “strategic competition” and potential nuclear war with Russia and China.

However, Trudeau continues to be associated by his political opponents with efforts to expand trade relations and even conclude a free trade deal with China. China is an important export market for corporate Canada, especially natural resources and agricultural products.

The exclusion of Canada from AUKUS gave further ammunition to Trudeau’s critics, who saw in this Ottawa’s sidelining by the US in the Indo-Pacific. It became the occasion for denunciations of the Liberal government from the right in the final days of the election campaign and demands from the military-security establishment for a more comprehensive foreign policy strategy and increased military spending.

Though Trudeau has avoided making any major statement about Canada-China relations since the Meng deal, the government gave its full support to the media-engineered propaganda campaign surrounding Kovrig and Spavor’s return to the country. Trudeau and Foreign Minister Marc Garneau both flew to Calgary to welcome the pair, who travelled on from Alaska in a Canadian Armed Forces plane.

Russian Wagner Group mercenaries to deploy to Mali as France withdraws

Alex Lantier

At the UN General Assembly on Saturday, Malian Prime Minister Choguel Kokalla Maïga denounced French proposals to withdraw occupation troops it has kept in Mali since 2013, stating that the Malian regime in Bamako would seek other allies. This came shortly after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Bamako had contacted Russia’s Wagner Group to hire mercenaries to fight Islamist militias in Mali.

Maïga denounced French President Emmanuel Macron’s threat last month to withdraw from France’s former West African colony, amid mounting popular opposition and strikes against the presence of French “Operation Barkhane” troops.

“The new situation created by the end of Barkhane, putting Mali before a fait accompli and abandoning it in midair, led us to explore ways and means to better ensure our security, autonomously and with other partners,” Maïga said. He added, “France’s Operation Barkhane suddenly announced its end with an aim, apparently, of becoming an international coalition whose shape is not yet known. … Or at least, it is not yet known to my country or to our people.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin (center) meeting with Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu (left) and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov (right) at the Vostok 2018 drills. (Image credit: Kremlin.ru)

A month after the humiliating US withdrawal from Afghanistan as the NATO puppet regime in Kabul fell to the Taliban, another neo-colonial war is collapsing. Maïga—who speaks for a bloody military junta installed by two French-backed coups in the last two years, economically devastated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic—appealed to France for support against internal enemies even as he sought aid from Moscow. This underscores the class gulf separating the Malian junta from the workers and toiling people of Mali and the entire Sahel region.

Recent years have seen repeated anti-war protests in Bamako, culminating in calls for a general strike that were sold out by Malian unions in May. At the same time, Paris and its allies—the UN Minusma force, the European Takuba force, and the Sahel G-5 force from regional states—failed to crush jihadist groups that have fought in northern Mali since NATO’s 2011 war in nearby Libya.

Maïga baldly denied the growth of popular opposition in Mali to the war, cravenly claiming there is “no anti-UN sentiment in Mali, not any more than there is anti-French sentiment.”

He criticized Paris for suddenly withdrawing its troops: “The unilateral announcement of Barkhane’s withdrawal and its transformation did not respect the tripartite bonds [between the UN, Mali and France]. Mali regrets that the principles of consultation and acting in concert, which must be the rule between privileged partners, was not observed prior to this decision.”

In his remarks, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov had said that Malian authorities “contacted private armed companies because France decided to significantly reduce its military presence opposing terror cells in the north of the country, against which France ultimately was not victorious because the terrorists continue to run the show there.”

Lavrov endorsed the Malian junta’s discredited claims to be leading a “transition” to democracy, saying: “In the country, today, a transition is underway, elections must be prepared under the aegis of the African Union and of other international organizations.” He claimed Malian “transition authorities contacted Russian private military companies, and we have nothing to do with that.”

Lavrov also said Moscow would provide official military aid to the Malian junta. “We have a politico-military cooperation program and are engaged in peacekeeping in line with decisions of the UN Security Council,” Lavrov declared. He stressed that this was called for by the Malian government: “Again, there should be no doubt about this, the Malian foreign minister whom I met Friday said that there was no problem with this.”

The sudden shift of the Bamako regime’s allegiances reflects an explosive, international crisis of the capitalist system. It points not only to mounting class struggles in Mali and internationally, but also to conflicts between nuclear-armed world powers that threaten to erupt into war.

Significantly, Lavrov publicly denounced European Union (EU) foreign policy representative Josep Borrell for threatening Russia and arrogantly asserting that Africa belongs to Europe. “Josep Borrell told me, ‘You’d better not work in Africa, because Africa is our place.’ … Statements like ‘I’m the first here. This is my place—go away,’ this is deeply insulting. These aren’t terms you should use with anyone,” Lavrov said.

Despite Borrell’s neo-colonial arrogance, Lavrov appealed to the EU for collaboration: “I think it would be better to coordinate our movements between the Russian Federation and the European Union in the struggle against terrorism, not only in Mali but across the Sahel.”

The debacle in Mali is a humiliating setback for the offensive French imperialism has waged in its former African colonial empire since revolutionary struggles of the Tunisian and Egyptian working class erupted in 2011. The war in Libya set the stage for French operations in Ivory Coast to topple President Laurent Gbagbo and set up military bases across the Sahel to wage war in Mali.

The pretext for the war—that France and its NATO allies were fighting to destroy Islamist terrorist militias—is a political lie. The same Islamist networks in fact enjoyed French and NATO support to wage proxy wars in both Libya and especially Syria. These forces carried out terror attacks in Paris and across Europe, which the French government used as a pretext to escalate police surveillance and repression of strikes and social protests in France.

However justifiably welcome it is in Mali, the announcement of a French withdrawal does not signify a final defeat of imperialism. French troops are to be redeployed across the region, including to neighboring Niger, and Russian mercenaries are not going to Mali to fight imperialism. As Lavrov’s remarks underscore, the post-Soviet capitalist kleptocracy that rules Russia, after having dissolved the Soviet Union and restored capitalism, is seeking a deal with the EU. It would happily use Mali as a bargaining chip in such negotiations.

The French withdrawal clearly also reflects mounting inter-imperialist conflicts, notably between America and France, after Washington canceled an Australian contract to buy French submarines and announced an anti-Chinese “AUKUS” alliance with Australia and the UK.

It is worth asking why the Wagner Group’s arrival requires France to totally withdraw its forces in Mali. France and the Wagner Group worked together to back warlord Khalifa Haftar in the civil war in Libya, and Macron has called for closer ties with Russia throughout his presidency. Significantly, French military sources claimed that their decision to leave Mali after Bamako began considering ties to the Wagner Group was dictated by Washington and specifically by fear of a cutoff of US logistical and intelligence cooperation with its European NATO “allies.”

The arrival of “Wagner in Mali could threaten US support for French or even European operations,” wrote French military news site opex360.com. AFP cited French military sources saying that if French troops stayed in Mali while Wagner Group mercenaries arrived, “The United States would stop everything. … Certain European countries could also decide to disengage.”

Social-democrats win narrow plurality in fragmented German elections

Johannes Stern

The result of yesterday’s German federal election reflects deep popular alienation from all the parliamentary parties and ushers in a period of political instability and sharp class conflict.

Outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and their candidate, Armin Laschet, suffered a historic debacle. After 16 years with Merkel as Chancellor, the CDU/Christian Social Union (CSU) received less than one-quarter of all votes cast, with 24.1 percent. The CDU/CSU lost more than eight percent of the vote, compared to its previous worst-ever performance in the last elections in 2017 (32.9 percent). In 2013, the party could still muster 41.5 percent of the vote.

The German Social-Democratic Party (SPD), the second so-called “People’s Party,” received barely over one-quarter of all votes cast, at 25.7 percent. The Social-Democrats and their Chancellor candidate, Olaf Scholz, were able to improve their share of the vote compared to their historically worst result four years ago (20.5 percent), but they did not win layers of non-voting workers. The lion’s share of new SPD voters (1.3 million) came from former CDU voters.

Its “election victory” notwithstanding, the SPD is hated by workers and youth. The party of the Hartz welfare reforms, tax handouts to the super-rich and the increase in the retirement age to 67, the SPD bears chief responsibility for deep social inequality in Germany. Scholz, the incumbent finance minister, is the architect of the billions of euros in handouts to large corporations and banks and the massive rearmament drive of recent years.

Only the Left Party is more bankrupt than the SPD. It achieved its worst-ever result, losing almost half of its votes (-4.3 percent) from 2017. With 4.9 percent, it missed the 5 percent hurdle for parliamentary representation in the end. However, the party will still be represented in the next parliament because it managed to win three direct mandates, which means the 5 percent hurdle no longer applies.

The reason for the Left Party’s debacle is clear. Amid the pandemic, widespread social inequality and the growing danger of war, the ex-Stalinists, worn-out social democrats and pseudo-lefts were neither willing nor able to appeal to the enormous social and political opposition in the population.

In states where the Left Party already governs, it cuts social spending, brutally deports refugees, and pursues the murderous policy of mass infection amid the pandemic. In the election campaign, their candidates campaigned for a SPD/Green/Left Party coalition (a so-called Red-Red-Green government) at every opportunity, signaling their support for NATO and German imperialism to the ruling class.

The AfD’s election result (10.3 percent) underlines just how hated the entire ruling class’ right-wing politics are. Though the right-wing extremists are constantly courted in the media, and the established parties systematically integrate them into the political system and adopt their agenda, the AfD lost votes. The far-right party lost over two percent of the vote in the federal election, and 4 and 6 percent respectively in state elections held simultaneously in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin.

However, this does not eliminate the danger posed by the far-right. On the contrary. The ruling class is reacting to the deep crisis of capitalism, the escalating tensions between the major powers and the global growth of the class struggle by ever more openly adopting the program of the right-wing extremists.

This is particularly evident in the current pandemic. Significantly, on the evening of the election, not a single leading politician said a word about the coronavirus pandemic, which has cost almost 100,000 lives in Germany alone. All parties, from the CDU/CSU to the Left Party, support the murderous reopening policy of allowing the virus to spread, which puts profits before life and, at its core, bears the signature of the AfD.

This political course, paired with violent social attacks and a major strengthening of the military abroad and repressive state apparatus at home, is now to be continued and intensified. On the evening of the election, Scholz and Laschet formulated competing claims to lead the next federal government and to quickly initiate exploratory and coalition talks with the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and the Greens. Both parties are open to such talks.

The Greens, who gained almost 6 percent and achieved their best result to date in federal elections with 14.6 percent, made clear that they are ready for a coalition. “We want to govern,” said the co-leader of the Greens Robert Habeck. There is “close proximity to the SPD,” Habeck continued, but an alliance with the FDP is also possible under the leadership of the CDU/CSU.

Christian Lindner, the lead candidate and chairman of the FDP, which achieved 11.5 percent (+0.8 percent) of the vote, told ZDF television that he saw the greatest agreement in terms of content in a so-called Jamaica coalition of CDU/CSU, FDP and the Greens. But Lindner did not rule out talks with the SPD either. Earlier in the evening, he announced in the “Berlin Roundtable” that the “Greens and FDP will talk to each other first” about how they intend to proceed.

All parties agree on the basic political issues and only differ in nuances. Nevertheless, the formation of a government could take months, just as it did four years ago. In mathematical terms, a continuation of the CDU-SPD grand coalition would also be possible. However, there are many indications that Germany will be governed by a three-party alliance for the first time since the 1950s.

Turning to the issue of forming a new government, Scholz warned in the “Berlin Roundtable” that everything must now be done “so that we are ready before Christmas.” A “little bit beforehand would also be good,” he added.

Laschet pointed out that Germany would hold the G7 presidency in 2022. This is one of the reasons why “the new government must come into office very soon” and the coalition negotiations must “definitely be (ended) before Christmas.”

Two key developments are driving the ruling class. On the one hand, it fears that a prolonged period of political instability could provoke escalating resistance in the working class. The election campaign was already marked by strikes and protests for higher wages and safe and decent working conditions. The strikes by train drivers, delivery workers and carers are part of an international upsurge in the class struggle.

On the other hand, the bourgeoisie’s struggle for geostrategic and economic interests does not brook interruption. In his speech at the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York on Friday, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) made clear one central task of the next federal government. Regardless of the colour, it will accelerate Germany’s return to an aggressive, great-power foreign policy.

Steinmeier shed a few crocodile tears over the imperialist debacle in Afghanistan, only to then declare that the policy of military intervention, which has destroyed entire countries, killed millions and turned tens of millions into refugees, must continue. He was “convinced: resignation would be the wrong doctrine. In my eyes, this moment of geopolitical disenchantment means three things for our foreign policy: We have to become more honest, smarter, but also stronger!”

By this Steinmeier means above all the foreign policy and military strengthening of Europe. “German and European foreign policy” should “not be limited to being right and condemning others. But we have to expand our toolbox -- diplomatic, military, civil, humanitarian,” he explained. “We have to become stronger in our possibilities.” That is why Germany is also investing “more in its defense capabilities in these unstable times.”