Philippines overwhelmed by COVID-19 onslaught

John Braddock

Southeast Asia, home to more than 650 million people, has reportedly experienced the worst COVID-19 outbreak in the world in recent months. The Delta variant has devastated countries which have failed to contain the more contagious strain, amid delayed and chaotic vaccination rollouts.

The region’s disaster has been compounded by the near-collapse of chronically underfunded healthcare systems and widespread losses of jobs and incomes. Popular disaffection is rising as millions of people, mostly impoverished, suffer the worsening impact on lives and livelihoods of the failure of capitalist governments, locally and around the globe, to protect them from COVID-19.

Bloomberg’s Covid Resilience Ranking for September listed Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam in the bottom five countries worst hit. The Philippines fell to last place following a sharp decline over the course of 2021.

The monthly snapshot—a pointer to where finance capital sees the virus being handled the most effectively and with the least social and economic upheaval—ranks 53 major economies on 12 data points related to virus containment, “the economy” and “opening up.”

On October 6 the Philippines recorded 9,847 new cases with a 7-day average running at 12,455. Total cases have risen to over 2.6 million, with 115,328 active cases and a death toll of 38,937. Most of the deaths occurred during a spike in March–April, followed by the latest surge beginning in July.

Vendors sell food and water to waiting residents at a vaccination center in Quezon city, Philippines on Monday, Sept. 13, 2021 [Credit: AP Photo/Aaron Favila]

At its peak in mid-September, the 7-day average was running at 21,000 cases and 400 deaths. The death total is second-worst in Southeast Asia after Indonesia, which has registered 142,600 dead among a population of 273.5 million.

The Philippines last month had the second-worst positive test rate in Bloomberg’s rankings, at 27 percent—only above Mexico. The government is however only testing the sickest patients for COVID and there are likely high levels of undetected community infections.

According to the Philippine News Agency on October 5, the country has a total of just 77,410,640 doses. Fewer than 22 million people are fully vaccinated, in a population of 110 million. Spokesman Harry Roque stated the government was “not surprised” that the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations landed at the bottom the Bloomberg list, as richer countries get more vaccines.

Attempting to shift blame from his own government, authoritarian President Rodrigo Duterte previously threatened to arrest people who do not get a vaccine. Limited access to vaccines, however, has been compounded by official inefficiency, callousness and neglect. Chaos overtook vaccination sites in Manila in August as thousands of people tried to receive a shot before a partial two-week lockdown. Rumours had spread that unvaccinated people would not be allowed to claim government aid or go outside.

The WSWS last April characterised Duterte’s response from the outset as a “militarized police operation,” aimed not at ending the transmission of the virus, but at suppressing social opposition. The government channeled over $US19 billion in public funds towards paying off state debt to major investors instead of implementing proper public health measures.

In spite of a long running lockdown in March–April 2020, workers were kept on the job in unsafe factories and offices, continuing to pump out profits for capitalist corporations. Workers in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industries, export processing zones, banking, financing, and mining were exempted from lockdowns and forced to work throughout the pandemic.

Duterte has used the pandemic to boost the role of the military in line with his brutal authoritarian agenda. In April last year, he declared he would order the police and military to shoot dead anyone “who creates trouble” during lockdowns. The warning came after residents in Quezon City staged a protest along a highway near their shanty houses, declaring they had not received any food packs and other relief supplies since the lockdown began two weeks earlier. After they refused to disperse, police broke up the protest and made arrests.

Government handling of the pandemic has further been hampered by a 1991 law that made city, town and village leaders responsible for the health system. Village-level health teams often follow rules set by mayors or chieftains, resulting in a fragmented response. Tracing and testing remain slow with local officials in charge. The goal of inoculating all adults, or 70 percent of the population, this year is unlikely to be met.

The pandemic has exposed the under-staffing and dire working conditions in the health sector, particularly for nurses. Hospitals are understaffed and low on beds, forcing patients to queue. Nurse-to-patient ratios are at a low of 12.6 nurses per 10,000 people.

Al Jazeera reported that in April 2020, just a month into the first outbreak, nurses and hospital staff were resorting to using rubbish bags and motorcycle helmets as protective gear. A video went viral on social media, prompting an outpouring of donations from citizens. The health department’s 2020 budget was cut by 10 billion Philippine pesos ($US197m), with Duterte calling health workers heroes who would be “lucky to die for their country.”

Before the pandemic, one in five was living in extreme poverty. Government policies have worsened inequality. As of last February, 4.2 million people over the age of fifteen were unemployed, while 7.9 million were underemployed or worked reduced hours. Many are unable to buy food and other essential items to survive, but the government has offered only paltry support payments of $US20 to $80 per fortnight to low-income households.

A grass-roots movement of community pantries has sprung up on the streets to provide food and other assistance. Some marginally better off sections of the population have spontaneously organised to provide aid to those who are enduring harsh food shortages. Meanwhile, according to Forbes, 17 billionaires have increased their combined wealth to over $US45.6 billion.

The crisis has developed into a widespread social disaster in densely populated, impoverished communities such as San Roque, where families live in one or two-room dwellings and share bathrooms with neighbours. The lack of running water, access to nutritious food and dilapidated housing in poor communities makes hand washing, maintaining good nutrition, and self-quarantine virtually impossible.

Short-lived lockdowns were re-imposed in March and again in August on Manila’s National Capital Region and surrounding provinces, home to 14 million people. While curfews and checkpoints on working-class and poor neighbourhoods were set up, workers were again kept working in BPO industries, export processing, banking, factories and offices. This did not stop Philippine shares falling by 3.5 percent on the stock exchange in early August.

Under a new “localised” lockdown introduced in Manila on September 13, the government eased movement restrictions and allowed fully-vaccinated people more public access. Restaurants and beauty salons have been reopened, public transport is operational, and limited in-person classes will soon resume, though with vaccination so low that raises the risk of further transmission. Although borders are closed to most foreigners, migrant workers can return, straining inadequate quarantine facilities.

Like other countries throughout Southeast Asia, the Philippines is under enormous pressure to “open up” its economy and force the impoverished masses to “learn to live with the virus.” Bloomberg commends the action taken by European countries now leading its Resilience Ranking, linking improved vaccination rates to a program of “normalisation,” that is, the homicidal policy of “herd immunity.”

375 Michigan children infected with COVID-19 every day

Zac Corrigan & Genevieve Leigh

A new report from the state of Michigan released Tuesday shows a steady rise in COVID-19 cases among children, with over 375 children under 12 years old becoming infected each day over the previous week. As of Friday, 35 children are now hospitalized with the virus across the state, more than double the number from one month ago.

The report also makes an explicit warning about the dangers of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C), stating, “Expect cases to rise in future” because “Higher community transmission is followed by higher incidence of MIS-C cases nationally.”

Slide from "MI Covid response data and modeling update", October 5, 2021 [Source: State of Michigan]

MIS-C is a horrific condition observed in some children infected with COVID-19, in which “multiple organ systems become inflamed or dysfunctional,” as the report explains. At least 169 children and adolescents in Michigan alone have suffered MIS-C so far, the majority of them younger than 12. Over 70 percent of MIS-C patients have been sent to the ICU and five have died so far.

Contrary to the claims of the Biden administration, children can catch COVID-19, suffer severe symptoms, and even die from the virus. Last week, 22 children died from COVID-19 in the US, bringing the nationwide pediatric death toll to 520. Michigan is one of several states that do not report the total number of child COVID-19 deaths, but among the victims was an 18-year-old student at Decatur High School, near Kalamazoo. Internationally, COVID-19 is now the leading cause of death among children in Brazil.

Recent studies also indicate that roughly one in seven infected children develops Long COVID, suffering debilitating symptoms months after infection. Another study showed an average loss of two to seven IQ points in those who have recovered from COVID-19. For comparison, lead poisoning can cause a loss of two IQ points.

In-person learning is not only putting children’s lives and health at risk; it is fueling the spread of the pandemic through communities throughout Michigan and nationally. The daily new case rate in Michigan has increased over 75 percent since schools fully reopened across the state one month ago, with the seven-day average going from 2,360 on September 7 to 4,175 on October 7. The new report shows that school-aged children (5-18 years old) saw a rapid rise in infections and hospitalizations over the same time period, larger than any other age group.

With Michigan’s daily new case rate on the rise, K-12 schools are not only the largest source of the recorded COVID-19 outbreaks across the state. For the third week in a row, schools are the source of the absolute majority of new outbreaks in Michigan.

The latest weekly data from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services shows 167 new recorded outbreaks. Ninety-four of them were at K-12 schools. The next most likely place to catch COVID-19 in Michigan last week was at a nursing home, where 26 outbreaks were recorded.

This is in spite of the fact that on September 28, Michigan changed the way it measures outbreaks in schools, now requiring at least three related cases to constitute an outbreak instead of two. Schools were the only type of location which underwent that change, yet even with this handicap they remain the highest recorded source of transmission.

The 94 new outbreaks are on top of another 270 ongoing outbreaks at K-12 schools in Michigan that were initially recorded last month but continue to grow. The state’s largest ongoing outbreak is at St. Charles High School in Saginaw County, where 48 students have tested positive so far in a growing outbreak first recorded on September 20. Next is Cedar Springs High School in Kent County, outside of Grand Rapids, with 44 COVID-positive students.

Click here for interactive map of COVID outbreaks in Michigan K-12 schools.

Map of COVID-19 outbreaks in K-12 schools in Michigan [map data Copyright 2021 Google Maps]

Even these figures underestimate the degree to which schools cause community spread, because only students and teachers are included in the case totals. Family members of children and teachers who become infected in the same chain of transmission are not included in these outbreaks, nor are any other members of their communities who may catch COVID-19 from a child, teacher or school staff member outside of a school. Since the pandemic began, over 140,000 US children have lost a parent or caregiver to COVID-19.

This is not the first time that school reopenings have fueled a surge in cases in Michigan. In March, the reopening of schools while the Alpha variant was spreading produced a massive spike in cases throughout the state.

The Delta variant—which is now responsible for 99 percent of COVID-19 cases in Michigan—is at least twice as contagious as the original “wild type” of COVID-19 and can cause “breakthrough” cases among those who are fully vaccinated.

Science shows that although masks and vaccines reduce the spread of COVID-19, these measures cannot stop the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant. However, school districts across the state are touting these inadequate mitigation measures to pretend schools are safe to open when they are not.

The mask issue is being used to attack public health and public education from two flanks: on one side, the Michigan State Legislature recently passed a reactionary law that takes away funding from schools that have mask mandates; on the other side, schools that do have mask mandates are using it as an excuse to flout contact tracing and quarantines.

As Evart Public Schools Superintendent Shirley Howard wrote in a letter to parents on September 21, “Wearing a mask prevents your child from having to quarantine if they are identified as a close contact to someone who has tested positive for COVID.” Since then, outbreaks have been recorded at Evart High School (3 cases), Evart Middle School (9 cases) and Evart Elementary School (5 cases).

Masks, vaccines and other mitigation measures are important, but they must be incorporated into a comprehensive program of public health measures aimed at bringing COVID-19 infections down to zero in ever-broader geographic regions and ultimately eradicating the virus worldwide. These necessary measures include the temporary closure of schools and nonessential workplaces, mass testing, contact tracing, the safe isolation of infected patients, travel restrictions, and more. If implemented in a combined manner and coordinated globally, the pandemic could be brought to an end within months.

How to Avert Afghanistan’s Food and Economic Crises

John Sifton

Afghanistan’s humanitarian situation is spiraling into catastrophe.

Millions of Afghans are now facing severe economic stress and food insecurity in the wake of the Taliban’s August takeover, set off by widespread lost income, cash shortages, and rising food costs. Officials with the UN and several foreign governments are warning of an economic collapse and risks of worsening acute malnutrition and outright famine.

Surveys by the World Food Program (WFP) reveal over nine in ten Afghan families have insufficient food for daily consumption, half stating they have run out of food at least once in the last two weeks. One in three Afghans is already acutely hungry. Other United Nations reports warn that over 1 million more children could face acute malnutrition in the coming year.

One main cause of the crisis is that governments in August stopped payments from the World Bank-administered Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund, previously used to pay salaries to millions of civil servants, doctors, nurses, teachers, and other essential workers. Afghanistan’s health and education systems, among other sectors, are collapsing. Millions of Afghan families have lost their incomes.

At the same time, Afghan banks and global financial institutions, including Western Union, MoneyGram, and the Central Bank of Afghanistan, now lack enough paper currency to cover withdrawals. Account holders receiving foreign transfers or with “money in the bank” — ordinary Afghans, companies, UN agencies, humanitarian aid organizations — can’t access their money.

Donor governments are understandably concerned about actions that would bolster or appear to legitimate Taliban authorities who are arbitrarily arresting and attacking activists, journalists, and former government workers and adopting policies and practices that violate the rights of women and girls to education, employment, and freedom of movement. They have already imposed severe restraints on activists, women, and the media and resumed executions.

But Afghanistan’s underlying economic and humanitarian problems, which disproportionately affect women and girls, cannot simply be ignored because of the Taliban’s record.

The U.S. Treasury on September 24 did issue new guidance and licenses that authorize electronic transfers with Afghanistan banks and other entities for humanitarian purposes. The problem is that electronic transactions alone cannot address the crisis. The Afghan Central Bank needs to be able to supply physical dollars and afghanis.

But after the Taliban takeover, the New York Federal Reserve cut off the Central Bank’s access to its U.S. dollar assets and capacity to settle U.S. dollar transactions with other banks — and its capacity to purchase paper dollars from the Federal Reserve to ensure liquidity and currency stability. The World Bank also stopped the bank from accessing its assets held by the International Monetary Fund.

U.S. dollar transactions, including paper transactions, are integral to Afghanistan’s economy. Most of the country’s gross domestic product comes from outside the country in the form of dollars — donor money, remittances, export income. If the Afghan Central Bank isn’t provided with a method of settling dollar accounts and obtaining new paper currency in dollars, liquidity problems and cash shortages will only grow worse. Local currency issues also need to be addressed. Companies that print Afghan currency in Europe, concerned about sanctions, still cannot ship new bills to Kabul. Taliban authorities have no capacity to print money.

Afghanistan’s economy has a limited capacity for resilience. The new Taliban authorities, like the previous government, do not possess adequate revenue sources to fund basic government services. This is a country that has relied on outside donors to help with such services for most of its modern existence.

The UN has announced a plan to send $45 million to support the health sector via UN agencies — but this will not solve the paper and liquidity crises. It’s not the UN’s role to fly millions of physical U.S. dollars into Afghanistan. Foreign governments need to figure out how to restore funding to public services, not only health but also education, using the country’s banks and without enriching the Taliban or facilitating their abuses.

In doing so, the U.S. government and other main donors to Afghanistan will need to adjust sanctions policies and reach agreements allowing the Central Bank to process selected transactions and obtain paper currency. Donors and the Taliban will also need to agree on methods for supporting vital services through independent organizations such as the UN or non-governmental organizations.

The Taliban will have to accept that concerns about providing direct budgetary support, and preventing corruption, will require independent financial oversight of transactions — something UN and international financial authorities already do. The Taliban will also need to accept that donors will only support assistance and services that are equitably distributed to women and men, girls and boys, and allow systems to monitor and ensure that services benefit all Afghans.

Inaction is untenable. The Taliban’s cruelties are horrendous, but walking away from past support for vital services, politically and economically isolating the country, and maintaining overbroad, blanket financial restrictions, won’t mitigate the abuses, but only hurt the Afghan people more.

The Privatization of “Jihad”

Ron Jacobs

Modern jihad is exactly that—modern. It is not a revival of an ancient instruction from the Koran, nor is it even what the author of the Koran or its classical interpreters had in mind. Instead, modern jihad as practiced by self-proclaimed Islamic organizations like Al-Queda and the Islamic State(ISIS) is a manifestation of this age of neoliberal capitalism. No longer is jihad carried out with an army of the Caliphate or even a state, but by a private group of individuals acting perhaps in concert, but just as likely as disconnected individuals angry at their lives and the society they exist in. Like those who shoot up high schools and those who murder dozens from hotel windows in Las Vegas or nightclubs in Orlando, the protagonist of this so-called jihad are symptoms of the economics and politics of their time and the atomized society of today.

This atomization is the result, if not the intention, of capitalism’s latest phase—neoliberalism. As the reader most likely knows, the main features of neoliberalism involve the destruction of the social element of human civilization. Services provided by the state are either privatized or just terminated. The process begins with services provided to the poor. From there, other services follow. Universities once generously subsidized by the state find their budgets reduced, causing them to raise tuition, hire part-time instructors, and farm out their research resources to the very industries benefiting from the end of state-funded education. Roads and other infrastructure are left to disintegrate while private developments and their financiers build private roads while state governments push through more and more tolls on existing and new construction. The wealthiest few pay little or no taxes to the state, which now serves them to a degree never before seen in recorded history. Indeed, the system for which Wall Street is a synonym is now the state in the USA, if not the world. Traditional forms of resistance seem increasingly futile; antiwar movements mutate into support for one of the war parties while social democrats and democratic socialists in power lead the rush to transform the government into another set of privatized entities funneling the public money to the bank accounts of that wealthy few.

This is the foundation of author Suzanne Schneider’s new book, The Apocalypse and the End of History: Modern Jihad and the Crisis of Liberalism. Simultaneously a brief history of the roots of jihad, its meaning throughout history and its relationship to the Muslim worshiper, the text is also a critique of modern capitalism and the effects of its predatory nature. The reader is presented with the essence of western colonialism and imperialism and their role in the creation of today’s increasing inequalities and accompanying despair. In addition, the discussions of the changing roles of state actors in relation to private capital and the effect those roles have on the ordinary human provide a context that applies to phenomena well beyond the primary focus of this book—modern jihad. Perhaps even more important is her argument that neoliberal capitalism was “prefigured—if not actively constructed—in the colonial world.” (227) In other words, the trappings of neoliberalism we are growing more familiar with each day—authoritarian mechanisms to control the population, hyper-surveillance, the privatization of the public sphere, and the irrelevance of popular politics—were created and honed by the west in its colonies. Now, not only are the populations of former colonial and imperial powers experiencing the economic and racial inequalities that were the basis of colonial rule, those populations are also experiencing the measures of control developed and refined in the former colonies by the imperial powers. Of course, certain elements of the populations in the imperial states have always been under the regimes of poverty and oppression; especially the Black population in the United States.

In her look at acts and groups of individual terror throughout history, Schneider considers groups as disparate (and similar) as the FLN in Algeria, various anarchists and leftists in Europe, Tsarist Russia and the United States, and certain Latin American organizations. She correctly compares the nature of the works of modern religious terrorists—suicide bombings, car bombs—to those historical actors. The difference in the two lies in their intent. Schneider points out that the majority of the leftist and anarchist terrorists undertook their actions as a means of moving the revolutionary struggle for social justice forward. Targets were usually chosen because of their status and their meaning in the structures of oppression. ISIS, on the other hand, seems to act out of a desire to kill anyone because we are all guilty. The hope for a better existence for the ISIS terrorist exists after they are dead. Making life on earth better is apparently a pointless exercise. This is one reason why she connects the modern “jihadist” with those young men who shoot up schools and other public facilities; they share a similar hopelessness and disconnect from the world the live in. Both have been given lives empty of meaning in a world full of distractions designed for profit-making and without regard to the human need for purpose and connection. In the extreme cases of this “jihadism” and mass shootings identified with solitary young men, their purpose is destruction and their connection is to a glory fostered by hate and despair. As the examples of ISIS and various violence by far right actors especially in the US make clear, when these extremists are provided political/religious rationales for their violence by self-proclaimed leaders, their rage becomes murderous.

The Apocalypse and the End of History makes clear that there is no imperial military solution for the episodic terrorism done these days in the name of jihad. Indeed, it is the actions of the imperial military that help create the grounds for these self-proclaimed jihadists. Although Schneider provides little if any answers to the problems she examines, her discussion of the “jihadists,” their motivations and rationales most certainly need to be heard by those who would send their military to foreign lands. Their reasoning might be more similar to those of these “jihadists” than they think.

Malaria vaccine: Vital addition to toolkit for preventing malaria but no magic bullet

Bobby Ramakant

It is indeed a breakthrough scientific achievement that will now have the first-ever and only malaria vaccine to prevent malaria in children. This is an important (and long-awaited) addition to existing range of scientifically proven effective methods to prevent malaria. While we celebrate this moment of yet another milestone scientific feat we must remind ourselves that this new and only vaccine is a complementary malaria control tool which needs to be added to the already proven measures for malaria prevention.

Malaria vaccine is a vital addition to malaria prevention options such as routine use of insecticide-treated bed nets, indoor spraying with insecticides, and the timely use of malaria testing and treatment. But we have to also acknowledge that access to these proven methods to save lives from malaria has been far from satisfactory, as a result of which, as per the latest data, 229 million people got malaria in 2019 (compared to 228 million in 2018), and 409,000 died of malaria in 2019 – most of them children (compared to 411,000 deaths in 2018). Children under 5 are at greatest risk of its life-threatening malaria complications. Despite unprecedented progress in in the recent two decades in the fight against this ancient disease, malaria remains one of the world’s leading killers, claiming the life of one child every two minutes; and most of these deaths are in Africa.

Let us celebrate this turning point – as there is no doubt that malaria vaccine is going to be one of the blessings in the global fight to end malaria by 2030. Clock is ticking! As 110 months are left to end malaria worldwide, let us also make doubly sure we scale up the rollout and access to all the science-backed methods to save lives from malaria.

DYK about first-ever malaria vaccine?

The United Nations health agency, World Health Organization (WHO), has recommended the first-ever malaria vaccine for children, in regions with moderate to high transmission of deadliest malaria parasite (Plasmodium falciparum). This vaccine acts against this malaria parasite which not only causes the most lethal malaria globally, but also is most prevalent in Africa. The WHO recommendation of this vaccine is based on results from an ongoing pilot programme in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi that has reached more than 800,000 children since 2019.

This malaria vaccine (RTS,S/AS01) is the first, and to date the only, vaccine that has demonstrated it can significantly reduce malaria in children.

The scientific research for this malaria vaccine has been going on since past 30 years. Phase-3 clinical studies were conducted between 2009 and 2014 in African nations. Children receiving 4 doses of this vaccine, experienced significant reductions in malaria and malaria-related complications in comparison to those who did not receive the vaccine.

In clinical studies, the vaccine was found to prevent 4 in 10 malaria cases, including 3 in 10 cases of life-threatening severe malaria. In addition, the vaccine also prevented 6 in 10 cases of severe malaria anaemia, the most common reason children die from malaria. Significant reductions were also seen in overall hospital admissions and the need for blood transfusions, which are required to treat severe malaria anaemia. These and other benefits were in addition to those already seen through the use of insecticide-treated bed nets, prompt diagnosis, and effective antimalarial treatment.

This malaria vaccine (RTS,S/AS01) is to be provided in 4 doses to children from 5 months of age up to 2 years. First 3 doses are given between 6 to 9 months of age, and 4th dose is given at 2 years of age.

The pilot of this malaria vaccine has been going on in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi since 2019. This malaria vaccine pilot began first in Malawi in April 2019, then in Ghana in May 2019, and finally in Kenya in September 2019. This Malaria Vaccine Implementation Programme generated evidence and experience on the feasibility, impact and safety of the RTS,S malaria vaccine in real-life, routine settings in selected areas of these three African nations: Ghana, Kenya and Malawi.

The pilot has proven that:

– Feasible to deliver: Vaccine introduction is feasible, improves health and saves lives, with good and equitable coverage of RTS,S seen through routine immunization systems. This occurred even in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

– Reaching the unreached: RTS,S increases equity in access to malaria prevention. Data from the pilot programme showed that more than two-thirds of children in the 3 countries who are not sleeping under a bed net are benefitting from the RTS,S vaccine.

– Layering the tools results in over 90% of children benefitting from at least one preventive intervention (insecticide treated bed nets or the malaria vaccine).

– Strong safety profile: To date, more than 2.3 million doses of the vaccine have been administered in 3 African countries – the vaccine has a favourable safety profile.

– No negative impact on uptake of bed nets, other childhood vaccinations, or health seeking behaviour for febrile illness. In areas where the vaccine has been introduced, there has been no decrease in the use of insecticide-treated bed nets, uptake of other childhood vaccinations or health seeking behaviour for febrile illness.

– High impact in real-life childhood vaccination settings: Significant reduction (30%) in deadly severe malaria, even when introduced in areas where insecticide-treated nets are widely used and there is good access to diagnosis and treatment.

No one-size fits all

Let us hope this malaria vaccine along with all proven methods to save lives of malaria will be fully rolled out without any delay in every part of the world, driven by the local needs, contexts, and national/ subnational strategies to end malaria. Financial crunch or inequitable rollout or other forms of unjust programming will not be an obstacle in ensuring universal access to all range of healthcare services.

Iraq elections held as Washington’s puppet state nears collapse

Jean Shaoul

Iraq’s elections for its 329-seat parliament that will choose the president and prime minister-typically after months of horse trading between the multiple political blocs—are set for October 10. Voter turnout is expected to be lower than the 44 percent of the 25 million eligible voters that cast their ballot in the 2018 elections as calls to boycott the elections grow.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi (Wikimedia Commons)

The elections take place amid increasing hostility towards the political setup established after the 2003 US-led invasion and overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime, simmering protests over endemic corruption, the terrible social and economic conditions and water and power outages. These conditions are exacerbated by low oil prices, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the fallout from the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, Washington’s man in Baghdad who lacks both popular support and a political base, is seeking a second term as prime minister in Saturday’s elections that have been brought forward to appease protesters.

The former intelligence officer became prime minister in May 2020. He did so after months-long mass protests, starting in October 2019 against inequality, poverty, corruption, the sectarian-ethnic political system and its rival external backers Washington and Tehran, that swept across Baghdad and Iraq’s southern region, brought down the government of Adil Abdul-Mahdi.

The government sought to put down the protests, the largest since 2003 and known as the Tishreen (October) movement, with lethal force. It deployed the security forces and paramilitary groups to shoot down more than 600 protestors, further inflaming tensions until the pandemic and the accompanying restrictions emptied the streets.

The repression has continued under al-Kadhimi, with militias affiliated to the various political parties assassinating 34 political activists, local leaders and outspoken journalists and critics, including Hisham al-Hashimi, a critic of Iraq’s militias.

Key demands of the youthful and largely leaderless protest movement included early elections based on new legislation that would overturn Iraq’s sectarian political system and an investigation into the killings by the security forces. Neither these nor any social demands have been met.

Al-Kadhimi’s economic measures have devastated workers’ incomes. The Central Bank devalued the country’s currency that is pegged to the dollar by 23 percent as a means of raising government income, since oil prices are denominated in dollars and oil revenues provide almost all government income. His government has sought to halve the public sector wage bill by cutting salaries and slashing benefits, in a bid to secure loans from the International Monetary Fund.

The economy contracted by a massive 11 percent last year, equivalent to a 15 percent GDP per capita reduction, far higher than its regional counterparts. Some 31 percent of Iraq’s 39 million population are now poor, according to a report by the World Food Programme (WFP). More than 1.4 million families receive social security assistance, while a further million have applied for social security. Unemployment is around 40 percent, up more than 10 percentage points on pre-pandemic levels. Young people are particularly badly affected as every year more than 180,000 graduates enter the job market with little hope of anything other than casual or day work.

Iraq, once a middle-income country, is a social tinder box. There have been sporadic demonstrations in the last six months, most recently on October 1, denouncing the political assassinations, demanding an overhaul of the entire political system, and calling for an election boycott. Graduates have rallied in front of government buildings, demanding jobs.

The established Iraqi parties have refused to introduce any changes that would encroach on their privileges, patronage and wealth. In November 2020, parliament enacted legislation that increased the number of constituencies from 18 to 83, giving better regional representation; eliminated the list-based voting system and replaced it with a Single, Non-Transferable Vote, thereby enabling voters to choose an affiliated or an independent candidate; and reserved one quarter of the seats for women. It thus maintains the power of the existing, sectarian, and ethnic-based parties and the kleptocrats.

Iraq, with its strong trading and commercial links with Iran, has become a key political battleground in US imperialism’s confrontation with Tehran. Washington, under both the Trump and Biden administrations, has insisted that Baghdad rein in the Iran-backed Shi’ite militias that have repeatedly fired rockets into the Green Zone, the heavily fortified area that houses the US Embassy, military forces and contractors.

Last month, the New York Times reported that the US would deploy around 2,000 troops to Iraq for a nine-month period despite the Biden administration’s earlier announcements that it would end its combat mission by the end of the year with a task force remaining in a training and advisory capacity.

Although US combat troops withdrew from Iraq in 2011 after the Iraqi government refused to renew its agreement to station US troops in the country, a smaller force returned in 2014 as part of the coalition against the Islamic State (IS) group. It has remained there ever since despite the defeat of IS in 2017 and the call by Iraq’s parliament for all US troops to leave the country after the Trump administration assassinated General Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s Quds Force. Soleimani, the second most powerful figure in Tehran, was killed—along with five Iraqi nationals including the deputy chairman of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces and commander of the Iran-backed Kata'ib Hezbollah militia, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and four other Iranian nationals—at Baghdad airport in January 2020.

According to The Gazette, the force will provide security and protection, assist and advise Iraqi security forces, as well as air defence and training “partner” forces in the country. According to Pentagon spokesperson Commander Jessica L McNulty, US forces would support operations against IS, which the US claims still launches attacks.

Washington has been urging its regional allies, including Saudi Arabia, to renew their links with Iraq as a means of containing Iranian influence and bolstering al-Kadhimi’s political legitimacy. Earlier this year, Egypt’s military dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah met with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad, the first such meeting in years, to cement a “new Levant” that would also try to draw Syria back into the Arab camp. It follows the signing of 15 agreements with Baghdad for major reconstruction projects in sectors including oil, roads, housing, construction, and trade, as well as plans for an oil pipeline connecting Iraq’s southern city of Basra with Egypt via Jordan’s port of Aqaba in the Red Sea. Egypt is seeking to trade its construction materials for Iraq’s oil, as part of broader plans to become an energy and refinery hub in the eastern Mediterranean, following the discovery of significant offshore oil and gas reserves. In return, Iraq is expected to import natural gas from Egypt, reducing its reliance on Iranian gas for its electricity supplies.

The London-based Amwaj.media reported that Baghdad had hosted high level talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia aimed at ending the war in Yemen, which Saudi Arabia invaded in April 2015 to suppress a rebellion by the Iranian-backed Houthis and restoring diplomatic relations between Baghdad and Riyadh. Riyadh closed its embassy in Tehran after protesters stormed the embassy over the execution of dissident Saudi Shiite cleric Nimr Al-Nimr in January 2016. An anonymous Iraqi source was reported as describing the talks as fruitful on both fronts, with Iranian and Saudi officials agreeing to curb their acrimonious media campaigns against each other and resume diplomatic relations.

At the end of last month, al-Kadhimi organized and hosted the Baghdad Conference on Partnership and Cooperation, attended by leaders from neighbouring countries and French President Emmanuel Macron, who conceived of the project. France has 800 troops in the country, second only in number to those of the US, and its energy giant TotalEnergies recently signed a $27 billion contract to invest in oil, gas and solar production. Macron, who pledged that France would continue to deploy troops to counter terrorism even if the US withdrew its forces, views this as an opportunity to extend French influence in Iraq as part of a wider effort to expand its position in the Middle East, following his intervention in Lebanon after last year’s port blast in Beirut.

Macron lifts mandatory masking in French primary schools

Samuel Tissot

Beginning last Monday, masks for primary school children in 47 French departments are no longer compulsory. Classes will also no longer be closed for seven days following the detection of a positive case. Instead, all class members will be tested, with only those who are positive or who refuse the test sent home.

A school in Strasbourg, eastern France, on September 2, 2021. (AP Photo/Jean-François Badias)

For now, these measures are being implemented in departments that recorded incidence rates of less than 50 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the preceding week. However, in 23 of the 47 departments selected for these measures the incidence rate among primary school-aged children is above 50 cases per 100,000. This shows that even with mandatory masking, schools have already become primary vectors for the spread of the virus since reopening in September.

Masks greatly reduce the chance of infection and are one of many crucial measures for stopping contagion. They should be worn in all crowded environments until there are no cases. However, the wearing of masks will not end the spread of the virus in schools. Even with masks thousands of children are being infected at school every week in France and internationally, some of whom will needlessly die.

So far, at least 10 French children have died of COVID-19, including six since June. Eight thousand youth under the age of 19 have also been hospitalized from COVID-19, including 2,000 since June.

Announcing the new policy last week, Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer told France Info, “we are launching an experiment in dozens of departments.” The government is fully aware that infections will grow en masse. The “experiment” is whether a policy of “immunity by infection” amongst children who are unvaccinated will provoke mass social opposition.

The Macron government’s policy continues the de facto herd immunity policy it has pursued throughout the pandemic. Although the capitalist media widely presents the pandemic as over, opposition to this deadly policy remains widespread.

On Tuesday, Le Monde published an open letter against the move to remove masks in schools, signed by a number of leading scientists, individual parents and parent groups in France, such as Forgotten Families and Schools. Citing data from the effects of school re-openings in the UK, Canada and the US, it stressed that the removal of masks will accelerate infections amongst children and their families. It also drew attention to the long-term consequences of COVID-19 infections for children, including damage to vital organs and cognitive development.

Undoubtedly the Macron government is looking enviously at England, where schools returned in September without mandatory masking or class closures following a positive case. This has led to at least 10 child deaths from COVID-19 since September. In America, where similar conditions dominate, 22 children died from COVID-19 in the last week alone.

While the authors undoubtedly intend to save children’s lives, their conclusions are a political and scientific dead-end; they accept the government’s diktat that schools must remain open at all costs, even though schools cannot be opened safely amid mass transmission of the virus. Yet the letter states: “In the face of the highly contagious Delta variant, it is crucial to keep schools open and safe by adopting and maintaining measures to minimize the transmission of SARS-CoV-2.”

Macron’s policy has nothing to do with a scientific fight to eradicate the virus. His professed concern for the psychological well-being of children—thousands of whose relatives have died from the pandemic due to the official policy of spreading the virus—is a fraud. Macron’s policy is driven by French corporations’ demands for business operations to continue as usual, and thus for students to be in classrooms so that their parents can work.

The authors call for the maintenance of compulsory mask-wearing for all age groups and investment in high ventilation equipment for all classrooms. While these measures are necessary to contain the virus, they will not by themselves eradicate the virus and stop infections in schools.

The infectiousness of COVID-19 and the Delta variant make it essential that schools be closed as part of a society-wide lockdown to eradicate the virus. Even with the measures proposed, the virus will still spread, mutate into new strains and kill students, teachers, and their families.

Implicit in the open letter’s argument is the false notion that keeping schools open will protect children’s mental health. Mental health and educational quality are critical concerns, but a policy of mass infection or even one of partial mitigation of the virus cannot address them. What could be worse for children’s mental health than constant fear of being infected with coronavirus and transmitting it to loved ones?

The best way to ensure children’s physical and mental health is by implementing stringent scientific measures to end the pandemic once and for all, as quickly as possible. This can also rule out future disruptions to their education and the further degradation of children’s mental and physical health.

Speaking to the WSWS webinar in August, “For a Global Strategy to Stop the Pandemic and Save Lives!”, Dr. Malgorzata Gasperowicz of the University of Calgary explained that aggressive public health measures could eradicate the virus in two months. In this short period, all children must have access to high-quality computers and internet and their parents receive full income. This has been shown to be viable in practice by China, where scientific policies led to the suppression of multiple outbreaks of the Delta variant in recent months.

Since the pandemic began, the French government, like its counterparts across Europe, has been guided by nothing but the profit interests of the corporations and billionaires. In January and February 2020, when reports from China showed how deadly the virus was and that basic social distancing restrictions were halting the spread of the virus, the Macron government ignored basic scientific advice.

Similarly, schools were proven to be major vectors for transmission of the virus during the first wave. Nevertheless, in September 2020, January 2021, and May 2021 the Macron government reopened schools, fueling further resurgences of the virus. From September 1, 2020, to the end of the school year, an additional 80,000 people died from COVID-19 in France.

The Pasteur Institute warned in early September that even with higher rates of vaccination than at present, the infectiousness of the Delta variant coupled with the tendency of respiratory viruses to thrive in colder conditions could lead to a peak of hospitalizations exceeding those reached in 2020. In August, the World Health Organization warned of 236,000 additional COVID-19 deaths in Europe by December 1.

In the coming months, hundreds of thousands of lives, including those of many children, depend on the struggle for a scientific policy to eradicate the virus. Throughout the pandemic, the education unions and nominally “left” opposition parties have actively supported the Macron government’s herd immunity policy.

Over 140,000 US children have lost a parent or caregiver to COVID-19

Evan Blake

A study released Thursday in the journal Pediatrics found that “from April 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021, over 140,000 children in the US experienced the death of a parent or grandparent caregiver” due to COVID-19. The results follow the July release of a study in The Lancet by the same lead author, Dr. Susan Hillis, which estimated that the same figure globally stood at 1.56 million children through the end of April 2021.

A procession of vehicles drive past photos of Detroit victims of COVID-19, Monday, Aug. 31, 2020 on Belle Isle in Detroit. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

These staggering figures underscore the immense scale of the tragedy that has swept across the globe during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the US, nearly one in four of the 621,656 deaths from COVID-19 by June 30 were those of parents or caregivers to children.

The latest study notes, “the lives of these children are permanently changed by the deaths of their mothers, fathers, or grandparents who provided their homes, needs, and care,” adding, “Loss of parents is associated with mental health problems, shorter schooling, lower self-esteem, sexual risk behaviors, and risks of suicide, violence, sexual abuse, and exploitation. Loss of co-residing grandparents can impact psycho-social, practical, and/or financial support for grandchildren. After a caregiver’s death, family circumstances may change, and children may face housing instability, separations, and lack of nurturing support.”

The level of trauma inflicted on an entire generation of young people is unfathomable. While the ruling elite and their media endlessly repeat the mantra that everyone must “learn to live with the virus,” in reality more and more families are being ripped apart as nearly 7,000 people continue to die from COVID-19 worldwide each day.

Every child’s needless loss of a parent is a life-altering event, the vast majority of which have not been written on or covered by the corporate media. Some of those which have been covered offer a glimpse into the social crisis confronting these youth.

In late August, five children from Yucaipa, California, were orphaned after both their parents, Davy and Daniel Macias, died from COVID-19 in the same week. Their entire family was infected with the virus during a vacation, with the children recovering but their parents becoming steadily more ill. The children, with the eldest only 7 years old, now live with their grandparents. Terry Seri, Daniel Macias’s sister-in-law, told local press that they “spend a lot of time at night looking for mom and dad.”

Also in August, in Mississippi, a 32-year-old mother of a newborn child died from COVID-19 only months after her husband succumbed to the virus, leaving the baby girl orphaned. In neighboring Alabama, a single mother of seven is now raising 12 children on her own after her sister and brother-in-law died from COVID-19 in the same month, orphaning their five children. In Michigan, seven children were orphaned in early September after their mother, Charletta Green, died from COVID-19, and their father Troy, who also had COVID-19, died from a heart attack that began shortly after he learned that his wife was taking a turn for the worse.

Given the lack of comprehensive testing and contact tracing, there is no way to measure the precise number of infections that have been caused by the reopening of schools before COVID-19 was contained. However, multiple studies and analyses of government data have shown strong correlations between school reopenings and surges of the virus in their surrounding communities. Undoubtedly, a substantial number of the parents and caregivers who have died from COVID-19 were infected by their children who had been compelled to return to unsafe schools.

Capitalist politicians throughout the world have pushed to reopen schools by cynically professing their concern for the mental health and well-being of children who struggled with remote learning. In reality, school reopenings were always driven by the needs of the corporations to have parents back at work producing profits. Just as these same politicians continuously cut education and social spending and never cared about the well-being of children before the pandemic, so, today, they have no concern for the mental health of millions of children whose parents and caregivers have died from COVID-19.

There is enormous opposition within the international working class to the pandemic policies implemented by the ruling elites, and a growing desire to fight for the eradication of COVID-19 worldwide. This found powerful expression in the October 1 global school strike initiated by British parent Lisa Diaz. Throughout the week leading up to and including October 1, the primary hashtag for the event—#SchoolStrike2021—was used over 26,000 times in dozens of countries around the world.

Asked about the studies on children who have lost parents and caregivers to COVID-19, Diaz told the World Socialist Web Site, “The governments and those who need us to keep working go on and on about mental health. But there’s a severe risk of the parents dying, which will have a far greater impact on children’s mental health than remote learning for a couple months. These children now have to live with the thought that they might have accidentally killed their parents. If schools can’t be open and safe, if there’s going to be any kind of transmission in schools, they need to be shut down.”

In addition to the loss of their parents and loved ones, children themselves can be severely impacted and die from COVID-19. Recent studies indicate that roughly one in seven infected children develops Long COVID, suffering debilitating symptoms months after infection. Last week, 22 children died from the virus in the US, bringing the cumulative pediatric death toll to 520. COVID-19 is now the leading cause of death among children in Brazil, with 1,518 children ages 10-19 dying from the virus in the first half of 2021. During a major surge of the Delta variant in Indonesia this summer, over 700 children died from COVID-19 in July alone.

It is no exaggeration to state that the future of an entire generation now hangs in the balance. If the strategies of “herd immunity” or its variant of enacting limited mitigation measures remain dominant worldwide, COVID-19 will continue to spread through schools, factories and other workplaces, with millions more people dying and masses of children scarred for life.

The only scientifically-grounded and viable strategy for putting an end to this needless suffering and death is one which aims at the global eradication of COVID-19. This entails a globally-coordinated vaccination program, mass testing, contact tracing, the safe isolation of infected patients, masking and the deployment of all other public health measures in every country. Wherever the virus is spreading, schools and nonessential workplaces must be temporarily closed until daily new cases are brought to zero, with workers and small business people guaranteed full income protection during lock-downs.

Kellogg’s mobilizes scabs to break strike of 1,400 workers

Carlos Delgado

Food manufacturer Kellogg’s announced Wednesday that it plans to use white collar workers and “third-party resources” as scabs in a strikebreaking maneuver against the 1,400 workers who have launched a strike at its four US cereal plants this week.

Picket line in Omaha, Nebraska (source: BCTGM Facebook page)

The company announced on its “Kellogg's’s Negotiations” website that they are “implementing contingency plans to mitigate supply disruptions, including using salaried employees and third-party resources [hiring scab labor] to produce food.”

Workers on social media expressed outrage at the company’s actions. Several pointed to an incident that occurred in 2014 during an illegal lockout of the workforce at the company’s Memphis, Tennessee plant in which a scab worker recorded video of himself urinating on a conveyor belt of the puffed rice used to make Rice Krispies Treats.

Other workers noted the inherent safety hazard of bringing in workers unfamiliar with dangerous production equipment. Mark Gregory, a third shift mechanical operator, told a local news reporter, “They can try to run the plant. I know they think it's easy for us to run the plant, but it takes a lot of skill to run the facility. I hope nobody gets hurt. Equipment in there is very dangerous, we spend a lot of time learning how to run the equipment.”

Workers launched the strike Tuesday morning, shutting down four plants which account for all production of Kellogg's cereals in the United States: Battle Creek, Michigan (also the location of the company’s global headquarters); Omaha, Nebraska; Lancaster, Pennsylvania; and Memphis, Tennessee. Kellogg's is one of the largest producers of cereals and snack foods, with products including Frosted Flakes, Rice Krispies, Pop-Tarts, and Pringles.

Kellogg’s workers are fighting against cuts to jobs, wages and benefits, and the expansion of the hated two-tier structure, which forces new hires to labor for less pay than their co-workers on the same line. The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) agreed to the provision that created the second tier, which is currently capped at 30 percent of the workforce. The company is seeking to lift that cap and expand the number of ultra-exploited “casual” workers who receive a poverty wage.

In addition, workers have been forced to work under a brutal overtime regime during the pandemic, during which the company’s revenues have soared amid rising demand for snack products. According to its 2020 annual report, the company made $1.76 billion in profit on $13.8 billion in sales in 2020. Kellogg’s CEO Steve Cahillane received $11.6 million in total compensation in 2020, a nearly $2 million increase from his 2018 package of $9.9 million.

In a widely shared Facebook post, one Kellogg’s worker wrote, “Imagine if you started working at a job that proclaimed to have the best benefits. Then come to find out you will never ever see those benefits because you were hired in after a certain time...Then explain to your family that you put in for a day off months in advance for a special occasion only to be denied that day off...Explain to your family that Santa is going to be late cause you just got forced over 10 minutes before the end of your shift to work another 8 hours. Oh, and after you get home you only get 4 hours of sleep because you have to be back to work...This isn't about employees being greedy. This is about equality and quality time with family.”

The wife of another worker posted a picture listing the multi-million dollar compensation packages of Kellogg’s’ top executives, commenting, “Kellogg’s thinks it’s ok to pay new employees significantly less, and give them less benefits because the men and women who work SEVEN DAYS A WEEK YEAR ROUND cost the company too much money...let’s take a look at who is really costing the company too much money.”

The BCTGM union, meanwhile, has offered workers no serious strategy for victory. Earlier this year, the BCTGM forced through sellout agreements to shut down strikes of Nabisco and Frito-Lay workers, isolating Kellogg’s workers before their strike even began.

A Nabisco worker in Chicago warned Kellogg’s workers, “Make sure they count the votes in front of them. Because they didn’t count the votes In front of us, we all know that the union just wanted us to go back to work. At the end of the day is all about money. Do you really think that the union wanted to keep paying us? And also ask for more than $105 [in strike pay] that we got.”

After the sellout contract was forced through, he said, “We’re all still working about 20 plus hours overtime for nothing.”

Another Nabisco worker in Richmond expressed his support for Kellogg’s workers and said, “Fight for what you deserve.” He added, “Sixteen-hour days is the normal [shift] being forced over [on] us. The company does what it pleases,” while the union did nothing to stop the sweatshop conditions.

The BCTGM has been promoting reactionary nationalism to undermine the solidarity of workers at precisely the moment when international unity is most needed. Kellogg's is a multi-national corporation with factories in 18 different countries outside of the United States. Any serious strategy to defeat the company requires the international unity of US workers with their brothers and sisters around the world.

The BCTGM, however, is promoting “America First,” anti-Mexican chauvinism, claiming that workers must unite along national lines to prevent the company from relocating operations to Mexico. In a blatantly racist comment to Yahoo Finance, BCTGM Local 3G President Trevor Bidelman claimed, “You’re told quite rightly not to drink the water in Mexico. So I don’t know why you would want to eat the food that was made from that water.”

In fact, Bidelman and the union did nothing when Kellogg’s announced plans in September to cut 212 jobs from its Battle Creek workforce by 2023. According to a local news report at the time, Bidelman claimed he was “blindsided” by the proposed cuts and offered only the hope that the union could provide “input” on the company’s decision.

The BCTGM is promoting GoFundMe pages to “crowdfund” resources for striking workers, signaling to workers that they are going to be largely on their own to survive during the strike, even as the union sits on $32 million in assets and $11 million in income built from workers’ dues money. Both the union and the company fear the outbreak of a genuinely militant and independent struggle by workers, and they are no doubt working behind the scenes to shut the strike down as quickly as possible.

The gravest warning must be made against any illusions in the BCTGM. As at Nabisco, Frito-Lay, and countless other struggles in recent decades, the unions follow a tried-and-true strategy of isolating strikers, starving them out with meager strike pay, and ramming through a company-backed concessions contract when workers have reached the breaking point.