Romanian health care system collapsing under COVID-19 surge

Andrei Tudora & Tina Zamfir

As schools are being reopened throughout the European Union, a deadly surge is devastating Eastern European countries, including Romania, Bulgaria and the Baltic States.

Romania, like many other Eastern European countries, has already been hit hard by the pandemic. Previous waves officially claimed more than 39.000 lives. However, this number is a gross understatement.

In April, an official inquiry into unreported coronavirus deaths led to the dismissal of the country’s health minister who initiated it. Even though it was a whitewash exercise, the report showed significant gaps in the reporting of COVID-19 deaths, with thousands of people missing. According to health experts, death data for the second part of 2020 show a sobering 42,252 excess deaths, compared to the official 19,659 COVID-19 deaths for the same time period.

Emergency University Hospital in Bucharest

From the beginning of the pandemic, the entire political establishment pushed for herd immunity policies and the removal of the limited health measures implemented in the first half of 2020. In 2021, the country had one of the highest rates of economic growth in the EU, fueled by the bipartisan drive to eliminate any restrictions. One of the chief priorities has been the opening of schools, which had mostly remained closed over the previous period.

The reopening of the schools began on September 14, as the fourth wave of COVID-19 was mounting. One month later the situation is catastrophic. Community transmission has skyrocketed, with the seven-day average of over 14,000 cases, the highest ever during the pandemic. The highest number of deaths was recorded on October 12, when 442 people lost their lives. Seven-day average deaths stand at 337 deaths.

Pediatric cases have also exploded. Over 2,000 cases are reported each day among people under age 20. On October 18 over 450 children were in hospital and 41 in ICUs. At least 10 children’s lives were lost.

The country’s health system is collapsing under the weight of the pandemic. ICU beds are completely full and hospitals are increasingly running short on medical oxygen, which is vital for COVID patients. In the meantime, patients are admitted and treated in emergency rooms and makeshift tents in front of hospitals.

On-the-ground reports paint a horrid picture, already so painfully familiar in many places of the world: medical personnel completely overwhelmed, patients dying in wheelchairs and ambulances parked outside full hospitals, the selection of patients for available ICU beds or beds with an oxygen supply.

On October 1 a fire broke out in the ICU ward of Constanta’s county hospital, killing seven patients. It was the tenth such hospital fire in the country in less than a year. In January, four people died in a fire in the ICU of Matei Bals Institute in the capital Bucharest and 10 patients lost their lives in an ICU fire in November at Piatra Neamt County hospital. Three patients died in April in a mobile ICU unit when the oxygen supply system broke down.

While none of the official investigations returned any conclusions, these terrible accidents are undoubtedly the product of a decrepit health system stretched to its limit. The official response of government officials during the summer was that they were preparing for the fourth wave by opening hundreds of new ICU units. Most of these units, however, were barely worth the name, with many only hastily repurposed clinical beds. Most hospitals function in old and unventilated buildings full of bacterial infection.

In these dramatic circumstances, there is no explanation for the government’s reckless actions other than intentional infection of the population. Prior to October 1, as the scale of the incoming disaster was more than obvious, the government decided to cancel its own previous provision that schools would move to online learning when the incidence level exceeds six cases per 1,000.

A flurry of haphazard “expert consultations” and decisions over several days completely disconnected schools from local or national disease activity records. In a series of self-damning declarations, the education minister said in the same breath that “expert medical advice” will determine the outcome and that the previous provisions were never meant to be applied.

The same level of “expertise” is used to argue that children’s well-being is protected inside schools and that schools are “controlled environments.” This while students and parents are subjected to a plethora of confusing half measures, with classes often switching between online and offline, inadequate testing, obfuscation by local health authorities and, increasingly, the traumatizing experience of seeing relatives, teachers and colleagues fall ill or die.

The callousness and cynicism of the herd immunity precepts being followed by governments around the world were accurately captured in the declaration of the Romanian health minister, speaking on November 7, a day when 282 lives were lost in the country: Vaccination or natural infection “are the two options through which we will get immunity. If we will not choose the former, some say we will get immunity anyway by the latter, which is more difficult. Some get through it more easily, others with great difficulty and others still don’t make it.”

There is growing opposition to these murderous policies, with parents voicing their concern and outrage on social media and keeping their children at home.

Official unions are complicit in the government’s policies. Teachers unions have remained silent on school reopening, insisting on measly mitigation measures. They have also launched right-wing attacks on teacher vaccination drives and the introduction of green-light passes in schools.

Faced with a massive loss of life and the collapse of the health care system threatening even more lives, the authorities will only allow for the most token mitigation measures. Economic life is unaffected and even large public and religious gatherings are allowed.

This is what “living with the virus” looks like: destructive waves that take thousands of lives each week, alternating with periods of lower transmission when “mere” hundreds die.

Romania has the second lowest vaccination rate in the EU, with just under 30 percent of the population having received two doses. Government figures and the media have focused solely on this aspect to shift the blame for the tragedy on the victims of the disease.

While it is true that mortality is heavily concentrated in the unvaccinated population, vaccines alone would not have prevented the surge. Large cities, where transmission is highest, have higher vaccination rates of over 50 percent. But breakthrough cases, waning immunity and unvaccinated youth and children mean that the virus can transmit freely in the absence of any public health measures.

In part the low vaccination rate is caused by the incessant promotion of individualism and the lowest social instincts by the bourgeoisie over the last 30 years of capitalist restoration. On the other hand, the normalization of right-wing views on the pandemic by the official establishment and the repeated government claims that the pandemic “had been beaten” have contributed to the low vaccination rates.

As the ruling elites attempt to normalize mass death, immense social pressures are building up. The answer of the bourgeoisie throughout the world has been to promote fascistic movements.

In Romania, the fascist AUR (Alliance for the unity of Romanians) party was conjured up out of the anti-lockdown movement and propelled into parliament in November 2020. There, far from being marginalized as many pundits assured it would be, it has been transformed into a kingmaker.

On October 5 the ruling coalition of the conservative National Liberals (PNL) and free-market Save Romania Union (USR) broke down, and the government lost a no-confidence vote. In the process, AUR not only determined the arithmetic of the vote, but was also promoted as an anti-establishment force. It was subsequently invited to talks with the country’s president, along with the other major parties.

But the fascists’ main focus is to terrorize the streets in preparation for the developing working-class opposition. In the spring, when the third wave was raging, the fascists were allowed to mobilize lumpen and criminal elements and patrol the streets of cities, blocking hospitals and ambulances and attacking journalists and paramedics.

Australian Cadbury chocolate workers strike over wages, casualisation

Paul Bartizan

Nearly 400 workers at two Cadbury chocolate factories in Melbourne took 24-hour strike action last month and 300 stopped work again on October 8 as part of a dispute over a new enterprise agreement. Workers are demanding higher wage rates and opposing the company’s refusal to transition longstanding casual workers to permanent status.

The first stoppage, on September 17, took place at the company’s Ringwood and Scoresby factories, both in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. According to the Australian, the second strike involved only Ringwood workers. The Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU), which covers the sites, has said there will be “more action” taken at the plants “in the coming weeks.”

Mondelez International Scoresby (Photo: mondelezinternational.com)

One of the strikers, Sabina, who has worked at Cadbury for 25 years as a bagging operator, explained that production has been ramped up during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re being asked to do more work than ever,” she said. “I don’t feel like I am being recognised and the pressure is at boiling point. It’s gut-wrenching, it’s the pits and it’s not what we signed up for… People are so stressed at the moment and the company are not taking that seriously.”

Sabina (Photo: Facebook / AMWU)

These comments were featured on the Facebook page of the AMWU. The union added: “Many of the workers who make your favourite Cadbury treats are being forced to remain in insecure work. Some of them have been casuals for up to ten years and Cadbury are refusing to make them permanent.”

These complaints aim at covering up the union’s responsibility for the conditions at Cadbury. The previous enterprise agreement, negotiated between corporate management and the AMWU bureaucracy in 2018, expired last March. This saw an 8 percent wage increase over three years, or just under 2.7 percent per year.

The company’s latest offer, which was rejected by 80 percent of the workers, is for a 3 percent raise in the first year of the agreement and then 2 percent in each of the next two years. That is a total of just 7 percent, averaging 2.3 percent per year. This is even less than Cadbury’s original offer of just under 2.5 percent a year over a four-year agreement, and is significantly below the rising costs of living affecting workers. The union is asking for an only marginally higher raise of nine percent over three years.

In the face of corporate intransigence on both wages and secure employment rights, the AMWU is now working on behalf of the company to diffuse tensions among workers.

The bureaucracy has complained: “Workers shouldn’t have to take strike action to get secure jobs.” While that is the union’s position, Cadbury workers voted 94 percent in favour of an unlimited number of indefinite stoppages. The AMWU, however, is currently restricting action to 24-hour strikes, which the company insists have done nothing to disrupt production and supplies.

There were, however, reports that Cadbury deployed office staff to run the lines during last month’s strike, resulting in clogged chocolate machinery that took workers days to rectify on their return. This only demonstrates the enormously strong position that the Cadbury workers are in, and the potential impact of an ongoing strike unshackled by the AMWU bureaucracy.

The Australian reported there was a COVID-19 positive case on night shift and that Cadbury were “pleased that there were just three close contacts… A deep clean was undertaken and production has recommenced.” In other words, there was minimal disruption to production, and the AMWU initiated no industrial action to ensure workers’ safety.

To win this industrial struggle, Cadbury workers need to prepare to take on their own union as well as the company. They need to look at the bitter experiences and learn the lessons of other disputes the unions have sold out.

Cadbury in Australia was originally established more than a century ago as a subsidiary of the British chocolate giant. In 2010, US transnational Kraft Foods bought Cadbury and then, in 2012, spun off Mondelez International as their global confectionery business. The company has annual revenue of $26 billion and operations in 160 countries. In addition to the two Melbourne plants, the company has a factory in Claremont, Tasmania.

Mondelez International has been working to cut the Cadbury workforce and streamline operations. It has eliminated one-third of the Tasmanian workforce since 2015, now down to 360 jobs.

Chocolate sales and Cadbury profits have soared during the pandemic. “Old Gold,” which is one of Cadbury’s original brands, increased sales by 35 percent over the first 18 months of the pandemic as consumers turned to comfort foods during lockdowns.

The existing agreement has flexible categories of employment to assist Cadbury to maximise profits, with seasonal production variations like Easter eggs. Cadbury claims that 30 percent of its production at its Ringwood factory is seasonal. Flexible Permanent Part-time Employees, Mondelez Contractors and Agency Casuals are categories enshrined in the agreement that AMWU helped enact. Cadbury has unlimited flexibility to grow and shrink its workforce as it pleases.

Cadbury workers need to review the lessons of recent strikes at similar transnational food companies, McCormick Foods Australia and General Mills. In both cases, despite workers’ determination, the unions negotiated deals that fell far short of workers’ demands.

At the McCormick Foods plant in Clayton, Victoria, 100 workers struck for six weeks after 5 years without a pay rise as the company deliberately stalled negotiations on a new agreement. The United Workers Union (UWU) claimed a victory when workers got a 9 percent pay increase over three years but this was after losing at least 10 percent in real wages over the previous five years.

At General Mills, in the Sydney suburb of Rooty Hill, the union abruptly ended a strike by 80 workers after three weeks. The union rammed through a sell-out deal that delivered a pay rise of less than the meagre 3 percent per annum demanded and did nothing to address the other key issues in the dispute—job security and rampant casualisation.

In each case, workers’ needs for substantial pay increases, improved working conditions and secure jobs rather than casual positions were not met. Despite the willingness of workers to take action in the face of concerted hostility from their employer and under conditions of a global pandemic where workers risk infection every time they leave home to go to work, the main factor holding back workers is the unions.

These sell-out deals are not simply an Australian phenomenon. On the same day that Cadbury workers were on strike last month, the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) shut down a six week strike of over 1,000 Nabisco workers across the USA. Nabisco is a subsidiary of Mondelez International, Cadbury’s parent company.

School reopenings in Manaus, Brazil gave rise to COVID’s Gamma variant, study shows

Guilherme Ferreira

As schools reopen around the world, their role as vectors for the spread of the novel coronavirus is becoming increasingly clear, with growing numbers of children infected and dying.

In the United States, after schools reopened, the first week of September registered a 240 percent increase in cases in children compared to the end of July. In the last two months, 164 children died from COVID-19 in the US, an average of almost three deaths per day.

In Brazil, children and young people up to the age of 19 accounted for 2.5 percent of cases and 0.6 percent of COVID-19 deaths in December 2020. At the end of August of this year, one month after the largest school reopenings since the pandemic began, these numbers increased to 17 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively. Brazil has recorded the deaths of 2,398 children and young people up to the age of 19 from COVID-19, the highest number in the world.

Cemetery workers place crosses over a common grave after burying five people at the Nossa Senhora Aparecida cemetery in Manaus, Brazil. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

This is occurring despite several studies published in the world’s leading scientific journals having warned about the role of schools and children as vectors for the transmission of the virus. This criminal experiment with human life — particularly that of children, the most vulnerable sector of society, which should be best protected amid a pandemic that is still out of control — is a condemnation of the entire world ruling elite. It has refused to implement measures widely known to science in order to secure its profit interests.

A study published in the Journal of Public Health Policy at the end of August shed further light on the role of schools in the dynamics of the pandemic. Led by researcher Lucas Ferrante, from the renowned National Institute of Amazonian Research (INPA), the study “How Brazil’s President turned the country into a global epicenter of COVID-19” showed that the reopening of schools in Manaus, capital of the state of Amazonas, in September of last year gave rise to the more contagious Gamma variant, which triggered the second wave in March-April of this year and has been responsible for two-thirds of the more than 600,000 recorded COVID-19 deaths in Brazil.

Manaus can be considered the world’s largest open-air laboratory for the novel coronavirus. On two occasions, the city was the symbol of the negligent and criminal response of the Brazilian ruling elite to the pandemic, expressed most viciously by fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro and his local ally, Governor Wilson Lima.

In the first wave, in April-May 2020, Manaus shocked the world after being the first Brazilian city to start burying COVID-19 dead in mass graves. In the second wave, in January of this year, the world watched in horror as patients died from lack of oxygen , while the federal government pressured the city to use hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin on COVID-19 patients, two medi cines that science had already exposed as useless.

Urban mobility in Manaus (Credit: Nota técnica: Reavaliação da pandemia de COVID-19 em Manaus e necessidade de medidas restritivas para conter terceira onda)

According to the article, “the return to in-person classes on 24 September 2020 can be considered to have been one of the triggers of the second wave.” Three weeks later, a period corresponding to the viral cycle, “the number of hospitalizations doubled, followed by a more gradual increase since the December 2020 health collapse.”

In a Technical Note referenced in the article, in which the epidemiological model that supports their findings is presented in detail, the authors show that the mobility of public transportation in Manaus right after the return to school increased by 20 percent. By mid-December, when the school year ended, increases of over 40 percent were registered in urban mobility in Manaus.

Based on the SEIRS model (Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Recovered and again Susceptible), which is widely used by epidemiologists around the world, the article states that, besides the reopening of schools provoking the second wave in Manaus, it also led to the “emergence of the Gamma variant that potentiated the crisis and quickly spread throughout Brazil .”

The SEIRS model considers various parameters to understand the dynamics of the pandemic and make predictions. Among these parameters are, as the name implies, the number of people who may be infected, the number known to have been infected and the number who recovered, as well as urban mobility, the time that the infected person can transmit the virus, and the viral reproduction rate.

This predictive model, however, can also be used retrospectively, by changing its parameters to see what determined the current pandemic situation. This is what the study did. As the graph below shows, the number of daily hospitalizations in Manaus (yellow) is better estimated when the circulation of a variant that is twice as infectious (blue line), such as the Gamma variant, is considered than the original variant (green line), responsible for the first wave. Thus, according to the study, it is possible to verify that the date of the emergence of the Gamma variant coincides with the increase in urban mobility caused by the reopening of schools.

Daily COVID-19 hospitalizations registered in Manaus (yellow); daily COVID-19 hospitalizations estimated by the SEIRS model (black line); hospitalizations by the original strain estimated by the SEIRS model (green line); hospitalizations by the P.1 (Gamma) strain estimated by the SEIRS model (blue line) (Credit: Nota técnica: Reavaliação da pandemia de COVID-19 em Manaus e necessidade de medidas restritivas para conter terceira onda)

The Technical Note says that this finding is supported by phylogenetic analyses from the leading Brazilian epidemiological institute, FIOCRUZ. According to it, no cases of the Gamma variant were detected in Manaus in November 2020, while in December the predominance of the variant in the city was 51 percent. At the end of January this year, at the peak of the second wave, this number reached 91 percent. With this, the researchers were able to rule out “the possibility that the gamma variant was generated either by the November 2020 elections or by New Year’s Eve parties,” events that only increased community transmission.

The SEIRS model, the Technical Note concludes, showed that “the second wave had already begun in October, and was fueled by the emergence of the P.1 [Gamma] variant in November.” Therefore, the cause of both this second wave and “the emergence of the P.1 [Gamma] variant by mutations due to the increased viral circulation ... with the increased urban circulation that took place in Manaus from September 24, 2020 [was] the return to in-person classes.”

The study’s findings also strengthen the understanding of the active role of children in the spread of the virus. In fact, a February study published in Scientific Reports showed that “viral loads in children do not differ significantly from those in adults ,” while another study by researchers at Montreal University and George Washington University found that infections among children preceded that of adults, indicating that they were infecting their parents.

In a political condemnation of the federal and local governments, the article states, “the emergence of the gamma variant in Manaus occurred due to the … government’s strategy of encouraging the contagion of children with the return of in-person classes so that the population would reach herd immunity.”

Recently, this was also substantiated by the revelations of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) in the Brazilian Senate investigating the federal government’s response to the pandemic. The CPI report, which will be voted on next week, charges Bolsonaro with 11 crimes, including “quackery” in promoting medicines with no efficacy against COVID-19, “epidemic with resultant death,” “crime against humanity,” and “crime of commission by omission.”

The basis for the charges is the deliberate action by Bolsonaro in letting the virus spread so that the population would gain herd immunity by infection, something that science long ago ruled out with a disease as infectious and lethal as COVID-19. In Brazil, according to a study conducted by epidemiologist Pedro Hallal, from the Federal University of Pelotas, this led to 400,000 deaths that could have been avoided if social isolation measures had been implemented and vaccines had been acquired earlier.

The Brazilian government’s herd immunity policy, according to the article on Manaus, has also threatened the world, jeopardizing “the pandemic’s control on a global scale because, if variants resistant to vaccines were to emerge in Brazil it would put other countries’ vaccination programs in check.” It concludes: “This is not a purely hypothetical scenario, as only in the last two months three new variants have been identified in Brazil, which currently has at least 92 strains in circulation and can be considered to be a hotbed of new SARS-CoV-2 variants.”

The actions of Bolsonaro, who most nakedly represents all the barbarism of a system that puts profit above human life, have clear historical references. During the pandemic, the world’s ruling elite have resurrected the worst and most reactionary anti-scientific ideologies that justified imperialist wars and fascist dictatorships — from Malthusianism to Social Darwinism to Eugenics — in order to normalize mass deaths. The article firmly places Bolsonaro’s actions in this tradition, quoting legal expert Pedro Serrano, from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, as saying, “In the field of political and moral philosophy ... Auschwitz was for the exercise of political power in times of war as Manaus is for the exercise of political power in health issues.”

On the other hand, all the scientific effort mobilized globally to fight the deadly virus and save lives throughout the pandemic has revealed the whole progressive character of science, which has converged with the interests of the vast majority of the world population.

Tens of thousands protest in Rome against fascist anti-vaccine riot

Will Morrow

Tens of thousands of people took part in a protest in Rome last Saturday to oppose the fascist riot last week that saw the attempted invasion of parliament and the trashing of a national trade union office by bands of far-right thugs.

The trade unions, which called Saturday’s protest, estimated that 100,000 people protested in Rome in opposition to the far right. Other estimates put the number at 50,000 to 60,000. Demonstrators carried signs including, “We stopped talking with fascists on April 25, 1945,” and “si, vax!” The latter slogan is a response to the campaign against mandatory vaccination by the far right.

St. John Lateran square in Rome, Italy on Saturday, October 16, 2021 (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

On October 9, several thousand people took part in a right-wing protest against the introduction of the expanded “Green card” in Italy. The “Green card” consists of a proof of complete coronavirus vaccination, a negative COVID test within the last 48 hours, or proof of having recently recovered from the virus. Beginning last Friday, workers in both the public and private sector are obliged to scan a QR code of their Green card in order to enter their workplace. The requirement had already been enforced in bars, cafes and other public places.

In the course of the demonstration, a smaller group of several hundred people, led by two top members the small fascist Forza Nuova party, broke away and went to the parliament, where they tried to break in. After this attempt was repelled by police, the rioters went to the headquarters of the CGIL, the oldest trade union federation in the country’s history.

The assault on the parliament and trade union building were a premeditated plan, modelled on the January 6 assault on the US capitol building instigated by Donald Trump as part of his attempted coup d’état.

Seventy-five minutes before the siege of the General Confederation of Italian Labor (CGIL) headquarters, Forza Nuova leader Giuliano Castellino shouted from the stage of the protest in the People’s Square, “We’re all off to CGIL,” inciting the crowd. “Do you know who allowed the Green pass to become law and the fact that millions of our compatriots are living under blackmail and at risk of unemployment? They have specific names: CGIL, CISL and UIL. Do you know what free citizens do? They go to besiege the CGIL… Let’s go and get everything that is ours.”

Live videos taken on mobile phones by the rioters and posted to social media showed them trashing the union offices and chanting “liberty.” Only after a long delay did police intervene to force them out of the building, though the assault had been publicly announced at a rally of thousands of people more than an hour earlier by a leading fascist. Only 12 people were subsequently arrested, including Forza Nuova leaders Castellino and Roberto Fiore.

The targeting of the CGIL offices is a conscious political decision aimed at invoking the history of Italian fascism. Mussolini’s fascist gangs carried out such attacks on trade unions a century ago, in the early 1920s. While the trade unions today are very different organisations than in that period, lacking a broad working class base and collaborating with employers and the state against the workers, the real target of the fascist mob’s attack nevertheless is the working class.

Other small far-right protests have also taken place nationally over the past weeks. On Monday, police deployed water cannon to disperse a sit-in at a port in Trieste that had closed the port. The protest has involved local far-right activists in the region including Stefano Puzzer, a former member of the Christian-Democatic Italian Confederation of Workers Unions (CISL) who votes for the far-right Lega party.

The demonstration last Saturday against the fascists, which outnumbered the rioters from a week earlier by a factor of well more than ten to one, shows that the far right is a small minority that does not enjoy mass support in the working class or the youth.

The Italian working class is likewise overwhelmingly in favour of mass vaccination and opposed to the fascists’ claim that mandatory vaccines are an infringement on their personal freedoms. Italy has one of the highest vaccination rates in Europe. Around 80 percent of the eligible adult population is fully vaccinated. The Teneo research company estimated that somewhere between 20.5 and 20.8 million of Italy’s 23 million workers are vaccinated, varying by region and industry.

To the extent that the fascists are able to win support, it is a result of the bankruptcy of the official “left” parties and trade unions, and the fact that the far-right is backed and promoted from above by the corporate media and the capitalist political establishment.

Moreover, the fascists’ campaign against even the most limited mitigation measures against the virus has been strengthened by the policy of the entire Italian political establishment. It has declared that there would be “no more lockdowns” as part of its drive to reopen the economy and ensure that corporate profits would continue, regardless on the spread of the virus and ensuing deaths.

The proclamations by representatives of these same parties that they are outraged at the fascist assault on October 9 are hypocritical and empty. President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Mario Draghi sent formal statements of support to the head of the CGIL, Maurizio Landini.

Democratic Party deputy Emanuele Fiano announced that his party would present an “urgent” parliamentary motion to call for “the dissolution of Forza Nuova and the other openly fascist movements.” Former Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte, the leader the Five Star movement, also visited the CGIL offices and declared that the “conditions are in place for the disbanding of Forza Nuova.”

No one should place the slightest faith in any of these parties to fight against the danger of fascism. Their declarations are particularly absurd, given that all of them are now ruling together in a united coalition government together with the Northern League, led by the fascistic Matteo Salvini. As interior minister, Salvini gave speeches on Mussolini’s favourite balcony and continuously issued proclamations against immigrants and refugees aimed at whipping up fascistic sentiment. Salvini also issued a pro forma statement condemning the recent attack on the CGIL.

The formation of a coalition government also elevated the Fratelli d’Italia, a neo-fascist party, as the official parliamentary opposition. Fratelli d’Italia leader Giorgia Meloni criticised the October 9 protest, which she refused to characterise as fascist, claiming she “opposes all violence.” Meloni has previously stated that she has an 'easygoing relationship with fascism.”

The events of the past two weeks demonstrate that the tasks of fighting against the threat of fascist dictatorship and of ending the coronavirus pandemic fall to the working class. A policy of mass vaccination combined with lockdown and social distancing measures, with full wages paid to affected workers and small businesses, must be implemented with the aim of eliminating the virus internationally and putting an end to the pandemic.

It was the spontaneous strike action of workers in Italy which forced governments to temporarily implement lockdown measures in March 2020. The eradication of the pandemic is intimately connected with the mobilisation of the working class for workers’ governments and the reorganisation of social life on the basis of social need and the protection of human life, not the profit interests of the financial elite.

Malaysia, Singapore adopt deadly “living with COVID” strategy

John Braddock

Malaysia and Singapore have both moved to reopen their borders and lift certain COVID-19 restrictions as the Southeast Asian neighbours officially dump zero-COVID strategies for a policy of “living with” the virus.

The moves come as governments across the region—including Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam—seek to revive their economies by re-establishing tourism and reopening businesses.

Oxygen tanks are prepared for patients in the hallway of an overcrowded hospital amid a surge of COVID-19 cases, in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia, July 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Trisnadi)

Big business is ramping up pressure across Southeast Asia over the mounting global supply chains crisis. The Wall Street Journal noted last month that the surge in COVID-19 cases in the region “has throttled ports and locked down plantations and processors, sparking extended disruptions of raw materials such as palm oil, coffee and tin.”

Singapore is the headquarters of many multinational companies and is one of the world's biggest travel and finance hubs. Changi Airport has had two of its four terminals mothballed since last year after flights plummeted by 76 percent. Ford recently announced its auto factory in Cologne, Germany would pause production of Fiesta models because of a shortage of semiconductors sourced from Malaysian factories hard hit by the pandemic.

Both countries have begun treating the virus as endemic to be dealt with by vaccination, rather than public health restrictions. Despite relatively high vaccination rates, they are dangerously “opening up” while experiencing significant numbers of infections and deaths.

Latest COVID figures attest to the ongoing health crisis. Malaysia’s numbers have trended downward from a daily average peak of 21,571 in late August, but from October 4 to 17 there were still 113,122 cases reported.

Currently 89,173 cases are active, 679 of them critical. On 17 October, 6,145 new cases were confirmed with a seven-day average of 7,299. Malaysia’s total case numbers are a staggering 2.39 million with 27,921 deaths.

On October 17 there were 3,058 cases reported in Singapore with a seven day average of 3,030. There were 44,335 infections confirmed from October 4 to 17, with 25,456 active cases. Singapore has recorded a total of 148,000 cases and 233 deaths, most of them this year.

Despite the ongoing pandemic, Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob last week ended Malaysia’s domestic and international travel restrictions for fully vaccinated residents, after the vaccination target of 90 percent of the adult population was reached.

At the same time, Singapore added eight new countries to its vaccinated and quarantine-free travel lanes, the most significant easing of travel restrictions since borders shut last March. Singapore, a city-state of 5.45 million people, currently has 85 percent of the population fully vaccinated.

Both states battled disastrous surges in COVID-19 cases earlier this year, fueled by the highly infectious Delta variant. They responded by pursuing aggressive zero-COVID policies and imposing strict lockdowns and closing borders.

Singapore was previously among a few countries regarded as a model in combatting COVID-19. In April, Bloomberg gave Singapore a gold star for pandemic management, ranking it in top spot ahead of New Zealand and Australia. It seemed to have mostly suppressed earlier clusters among migrant workers.

Within a month, however, Singapore imported nearly 300 COVID-19 cases from South Asia. The government promptly reduced social gatherings, banned restaurant dining and reinstituted working from home for office workers. It began vaccinating children younger than 16 after pupils at seven schools had to return to home learning because 10 children tested positive.

In August, stocks on the Singapore Exchange fell from a 13-year high as investors reacted to the introduction of the limited restrictions. Singapore Airlines shares closed down 5.7 percent, providing a glimpse of the hostility of the financial elite to any measures that impacted on profits.

In Malaysia, the pandemic was similarly contained through 2020 as the previous government led by Muhyiddin Yassin imposed a strict lockdown and in July announced that the country had zero cases. However, as restrictions were eased, the number of infections and deaths rapidly escalated out of control.

Last January, amid a growing political crisis, Muhyiddin secured the support of the king to declare a state of emergency. When daily COVID cases hit 7,000 in June a “total lockdown” was declared. However, some manufacturing centres continued to operate, becoming transmission sites for the virus, exacerbated by an inadequate testing and contact tracing regime.

A series of anti-government rallies erupted in July, organized mainly by young people, over the government’s handling of the pandemic. The “black flag” protests developed into a broad social movement over the voting age, the high unemployment rate among 15- to 30-year-olds, stagnating wages, unaffordable housing, and the lack of any real social safety net in the pandemic.

Malaysia’s COVID surge peaked in August with the country reporting tens of thousands of cases per day. Amid a collapsing economy and a gathering political crisis, Muhyiddin resigned, replaced by Ismail Sabri Yaakob of the right-wing United Malays National Organisation.

When the vaccination rate rose to 66 percent the new government officially shifted the strategy to “living with” the virus. Eleven types of economic activities were allowed to resume in mid-August, including car washes, shops, beauty centres and hair salons. Schools began to reopen on October 3 at 50 percent capacity.

Yaakob told a news conference earlier this month: “We have to train ourselves to live with COVID, because COVID may not be eliminated fully.” He declared that Malaysia will not impose wide lockdowns again if cases rise.

Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said as the country moves into the “endemic stage” of COVID all Malaysians “have to be prepared to adapt to new norms.”

The easing of restrictions means fully vaccinated Malaysians can travel overseas without applying for permission. Domestic journeys will also be allowed, ending the ban on travel across Malaysia’s 13 states. The Langkawi islands holiday destination has been reopened to domestic tourists, while reopening the country to international travelers is under consideration.

Singapore also began lifting its restrictions in September as more than 80 percent of the population was fully vaccinated. Case numbers, however, continued to skyrocket throughout the month with over 3,000 new infections reported on average each day. Responding to widespread public concern, authorities were forced to reverse course. Tighter temporary measures included limiting social gatherings to two people and suspending or moving classes online for students age 12 and under.

Under growing pressure from business, however, many of these restrictions are now being removed, even as cases continue to rage. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong declared Singapore cannot “stay locked down and closed off indefinitely,” claiming that job losses, separation of families and business closures had caused “psychological and emotional strain and mental fatigue.”

In a major public statement on October 9, Lee falsely declared that a zero-COVID strategy was “no longer feasible” given the highly infectious Delta variant, adding that “almost every country has accepted this reality.” With vaccinations, he claimed, “the virus has become a mild, treatable disease for most,” and urged people to go about their “daily activities” while taking necessary precautions.

Singapore is now being held up internationally as an example of “living with” the virus, despite thousands of new cases daily and continuing deaths.

Marked slowdown in China’s growth rate

Nick Beams

China’s growth rate slowed significantly in the third quarter, adding to fears that flow-on effects mean that the so-called post-pandemic recovery in the global economy could be short-lived.

According to figures released on Monday, the economy grew by 4.9 percent in the third quarter compared to the same period in 2020 but by only 0.2 when compared to the June quarter. This was one of its weakest quarterly expansions in more than a decade. The growth rate for the April-June period was 7.9 percent compared to the previous year.

Workers labor near a construction site with cranes near the central business district skyline in Beijing, China, October 11, 2021. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

While retail sales were up by 4.4 percent compared to the previous year, industrial production only rose 3.1 percent, compared to forecasts of 3.8 percent growth, an expansion of only 0.1 percent from the previous month.

The lowered growth rate is attributable to a series of problems including the surge in global inflation, power shortages leading to cuts in production, and clamp downs imposed to eliminate outbreaks of the Delta variant of COVID-19. Another major factor was the slowing real estate and property market where a number of companies, most notably Evergrande, have been experiencing major financial problems.

In releasing the data Fu Linghui, a spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics, delivered a mixed message.

“The Chinese economy has maintained recovery momentum in the first three quarters with progress in structural adjustment and high-quality development,” he said.

Structural adjustment refers to the clamp down by financial authorities on the growth of debt, especially in the real estate sector. High quality development involves the moves by the government to impose restrictions on the high-tech financial and private education firms in the name of combatting social inequality.

Chinese premier Le Keqiang voiced confidence in the economy in a speech last week, saying that despite difficulties China would meet its meet its overall development targets. However, Fu said there were “increasing uncertainties in the external environment” and the “domestic economy is instable and unbalanced.”

One of the problems in the “external environment” is the surge in inflation from which China has not been exempt, particularly in the energy sector. Data released last week showed that factory gate prices in September rose at their fastest rate for more than a quarter of a century.

The producer price index jumped by 10.7 percent compared to a year earlier, the highest rate of increase since 1995.

This was the result of rising commodity prices for industrial materials and record prices for coal combined with significant shortages. The rise in production costs have not yet translated into higher consumer prices but there are warnings that China, like the rest of the world, could be at risk of stagflation—lower growth combined with increased inflation.

The financial crisis surrounding the property developer Evergrande, which has missed payments on dollar-denominated debt, together with financial problems at other real estate firms, has signalled that the role of property development in boosting Chinese growth is coming to an end.

Last Friday, in the first official comment since Evergrande missed international bond payments, Peoples Bank of China official Zou Lan made clear there would be no central bank bailout for the embattled company.

Zou told a press conference that the Evergrande situation was being resolved by local governments and authorities through “market and rule of law principles.” He said the company’s problems were of its own making and claimed they could be absorbed by the country’s financial system.

Evergrande, Zou said, had “poor management, failed to run its businesses cautiously according to changes in market conditions and expanded blindly.”

This was less than a full assessment. It failed to mention the central government’s role in promoting the expansion of property development as a driver of the Chinese economy and the effect of the credit restrictions it suddenly imposed last year.

Zou said Evergrande’s creditors were “scattered and individual banks’ exposure is small” and the “risk of spillover to the financial industry is controllable.”

Advisers to Evergrande bondholders have said they have had “no meaningful engagement” with the company.

Questions are also being raised about the role of the global accounting firm PwC in the Evergrande demise. The Financial Times has reported that last week Hong Kong’s Financial Reporting Council had raised “questions” about a PwC audit of the company in 2020 and for the six months to the end of 2021.

The PwC audit signed off on Evergrande as a “going concern”—meaning it had the resources to continue operating for another 12 months. The Hong Kong authority said it would investigate whether PwC’s audit “complied with the applicable auditing standards.”

The problems of the Chinese real estate sector do not stop with Evergrande. Property developer Fantasia has defaulted on a $206 million bond and another company, Sinic Holdings, defaulted on payments on $246 million worth of bonds that were due on Monday.

Recent data shows a downturn in the property market. Bloomberg reported that the combined sales of the country’s top 100 property developers fell by 36 percent year-on-year in September, normally a peak month for home sales.

In the first nine months of the year, according to official figures released this week, new construction starts measured by floor area fell by 4.5 percent in the first nine months of the year compared to a fall of 3.2 percent drop in the January to August period.

Despite the problems arising from its economic restructuring program—above all the effort to rein in debt—the Chinese government appears determined to continue.

This is indicated by the publication last Friday in Qiushi, a journal of the Chinese Communist Party, of an extended version of President Xi’s policy address in August on the need to achieve “common prosperity” and promote wealth redistribution.

In an indication of what the CCP regards as being at stake, Xi said that in order to “continuously consolidate the Party’s foundation for holding power over the long term, we shall focus on driving common prosperity for all.”

“At present income inequality is a prominent issue around the globe. The rich and the poor in some countries are polarised with the collapse of the middle class. This has led to social disintegration, political polarisation and rampant populism—indeed, the lessons [for us] are profound! Our country must resolutely guard against polarisation, drive common prosperity, and maintain social harmony and stability.”

Xi said it had to be clearly recognised that “the problems of unbalanced and inadequate development in China remains prominent with wide gaps between urban and regional development and income distribution.”

Xi’s remarks are a clear expression of the fact that the promotion of capitalist development by the regime is giving rise to social tensions threatening its stability. These tensions are only going to increase if the economic slowdown, indicated by the latest data, is a continuing trend.

US billionaire wealth increased 70 percent since the start of the pandemic

Kevin Reed

The wealth of US billionaires has increased by a massive $2.1 trillion, or 70 percent, since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, while tens of millions of working people have faced unemployment and illness, and 724,000 have died from COVID-19. Additionally, the list of American billionaires grew by 131 individuals—going from 614 to 745—during the same period.

According to an analysis of Forbes data about US billionaires by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) Program on Inequality, the wealth of the richest people in the country increased from “just short of $3 trillion at the start of the COVID crisis on March 18, 2020, to over $5 trillion on October 15 of this year,” and this wealth is “two-thirds more than the $3 trillion in wealth held by the bottom 50 percent of U.S. households estimated by the Federal Reserve Board.”

Left: Elon Musk at the 2015 Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP); Right: A newly opened cemetery for the victims of COVID-19 in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia, November 16, 2020. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)

In an accompanying press release, the ATF and IPS state that the “great good fortune of these billionaires over the past 19 months” is in stark contrast with the “89 million Americans [who] have lost jobs, over 44.9 million [who] have been sickened by the virus” and the nearly three-quarters of a million who have died from it.

The billionaire who increased his wealth the most is Elon Musk. The wealth of the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX grew by an incredible 751 percent during the pandemic, from $24.6 billion to $209.4 billion. Musk became the wealthiest individual in the country, beating out Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who went from $113 billion to $192 billion, or a 70 percent increase over the 19-month period.

Other top billionaires who increased their wealth significantly during the pandemic include the founders of Google (now Alphabet, Inc.) Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who saw their fortunes rise by 137.2 percent to $120.7 billion and 136.9 percent to $116.2 billion, respectively. Phil Knight, founder and chairman emeritus of Nike, Inc., nearly doubled his wealth since March 2020 from $29.5 billion to $57.9 billion.

A further analysis of the Forbes data shows that 12 percent of US billionaires are women, including Alice Walton of the Walmart empire with a personal fortune of $64.5 billion, up from $54.4 billion, and MacKenzie Scott, the former wife of Jeff Bezos, who increased her wealth by 54 percent this year from $36 billion to $55.5 billion. There are five billionaires in their twenties, including Sam Bankman, the 29-year-old CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, who was not previously on the Forbes list until this year, when he amassed $22.5 billion.

California has the largest number of billionaires in the US with 196. There are 182 billionaires in the finance and investment business and 142 in the technology industries. The next highest number is in the fashion and retail sector with 52 billionaires, with the Walton family members and Phil Knight at the top of the list, followed by Leonard Lauder (Estee Lauder), John Menard, Jr. (Menards) and Hank and Doug Meijer (Meijer), each with more than $10 billion in their fortunes.

The ATF and IPS analysis has been published as part of the campaign by Democratic Party senator from Oregon and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee Ron Wyden to get support for a Billionaires Income Tax (BIT) bill in the U.S. Congress. The Wyden tax plan—which he announced on September 23—is part of the negotiations now underway in Washington D.C. over the Biden administration’s Build Back Better Agenda infrastructure plan.

The press statement says that 67 national organizations have sent letters to Congress “expressing concern that neither the Ways and Means committee plan nor President Biden’s plan will adequately tax billionaires,” although the statement says that Wyden’s BIT proposal—the specific details of which have yet to be disclosed—is supported by the White House.

The ATF and IPS press release states that “most of these huge billionaires’ gains will go untaxed under current rules and will disappear entirely for tax purposes when they’re passed onto the next generation.” The statement reveals that, on average, billionaires pay an “effective federal income tax rate of about 8 percent” and that this is a lower rate than many “middle income taxpayers pay like teachers, nurses and firefighters.”

The document further explains how the super-rich avoid paying income tax on their enormous wealth increases. Most of their income comes from “the increased value of their investments such as stocks, a business or real estate, rather than a paycheck like most people,” and they do not have to pay taxes on this wealth unless they sell the assets. “But the ultra-rich don’t sell assets,” the statement says; instead they borrow money against their assets from the banks at extremely low interest rates “and live lavishly tax free.”

Even when they do sell the assets, the super-rich only pay a top capital gains tax rate of 20 percent—plus a 3.8 percent Net Investment Income Tax (NIIT)—that is far below the current top rate of 37 percent they would pay in taxes on an equivalent salary.

The report says that many billionaires have paid zero taxes in recent years, “including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Michael Bloomberg and George Soros” and the top 25 billionaires in the US “paid a tax rate of just 3.4 percent on a $400 billion increase in their collective fortune between 2014-18.”

The ATF and IPS analysis fails to mention that the grotesque increase in the number and wealth of America’s billionaire capitalist elite over the past 19 months has been fueled by a combination of an increase in the exploitation of the working class during the public health crisis and the unprecedented purchase of $7 trillion in financial assets by the Federal Reserve Bank as part of the US government’s pandemic stimulus response.

The staggering sums of billionaire wealth being accumulated at one pole of society, both within the US and on an international scale, are mirrored in the negative by the increasing poverty and suffering of the poor and working-class populations in the billions. The ruling elite is using the pandemic to accelerate, like a runaway train, the process of wealth inequality that has been underway for decades. But the working class is beginning to articulate its response to this crisis in the form of a strike wave developing throughout the United States and around the globe.