Fourth coronavirus wave leads to massive outbreaks at German schools and universities

Tamino Dreisam

Within a week, the seven-day incidence rate of the coronavirus in Germany has risen by more than 40, to a level of 155 per 100,000. It is almost as high as it was at the peak of the deadly third wave. The increase cuts across all age groups and is significantly higher than at the same time last year.

The number of new infections reported daily in Germany has reached a new high. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported 33,949 new coronavirus infections within one day on Thursday. This is 172 more than on December 18, 2020, the day with the highest number of confirmed infections so far.

Along with this, the number of coronavirus patients in intensive care units is also rising sharply in all age groups. Within the last day, more than 600 infected patients have been hospitalized. The hospitalization incidence is currently 3.29, with 2,058 ill patients in the ICU—an increase of 74 from the previous day.

People line up for vaccination injections in front of at the vaccination center of the Malteser relief service on the fair grounds in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

“We are in a critical situation of the pandemic,” the chief executive of the German Hospital Association, Gerald Gass, told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland. “If this trend continues, we will have 3,000 patients in intensive care units again in just two weeks,” he warned.

As with previous waves, the number of outbreaks is increasing in nursing homes and hospitals. Last week, there were 78 outbreaks in medical facilities (an increase of 23 from the previous week) and 122 outbreaks in nursing homes and homes for the elderly (an increase of 44 from the previous week). In total, there were nearly 2,000 new cases.

It is not uncommon for these outbreaks to be fatal. In a nursing home in Brandenburg last week, the number of residents who died increased to eleven. In a nursing facility in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, an outbreak resulted in 17 deaths.

The latest rise in infections is a direct result of the criminal policy of reopening the economy and dismantling protective measures in all areas. The recklessness of all state governments is particularly evident in schools. Among 5-to-19-year-olds, the seven-day incidence level is now over 180, and among 10-to-14-year-olds, it is even over 330.

In the last four weeks, there have been 190 coronavirus outbreaks at kindergartens and 768 at schools. In both cases, however, the last two weeks cannot yet be conclusively assessed, due to late reports. The number of school outbreaks has been increasing significantly since the beginning of August. These numbers can clearly be attributed to the reopening of schools and the dismantling of protective measures.

Despite this, all state governments are sticking to their unsafe school policies. Since the start of school after the end of the summer vacations, they are trying to outdo each other in who is the fastest to abolish protective measures such as distancing regulations or mandatory mask-wearing. On November 2, the mask-wearing requirement for nearly 2.5 million students was dropped in the most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia. School administrators were expressly prohibited by the state Education Ministry from opposing these dangerous regulations.

In Schleswig-Holstein and Saxony, too, the mask-wearing requirement is to be lifted again after the autumn vacations—contrary to the wishes of many students. “In the student body, we are largely in agreement: we would rather put on masks in class and be safe from coronavirus than be taught at home,” explained Oliver Sachsze, deputy chairman of the state student council, for example.

Thuringia is particularly clear in its pursuit of deliberate mass infection. Although the incidence level among 15-to-34-year-olds is 273 and among 5-to-14-year-olds 527, the Left Party-led state government is continuing to maintain unsafe classroom teaching. The requirement to wear a mask still does not apply to elementary school students. Testing is back, but untested students are allowed to continue coming to school in separate learning groups.

Infections are also on the rise at universities, which recently began their winter semesters again with in-person classes. In mid-October, the nearly three million students at German universities were sent back under unsafe conditions. Now the first consequences of this policy are beginning to show.

In Göttingen, the Faculty of Economics had to cancel its orientation weeks due to the increase in coronavirus infections. City spokesman Dominik Kimyon said it was difficult to determine exactly where the infections were coming from.

Seven infections also occurred during the orientation weeks at Leuphana University in Lüneburg, which can be attributed primarily to three study groups. At Leibnitz University in Hannover, there were two confirmed infections related to the orientation period.

At Freie Universität Berlin, the Korea Institute had to switch to online formats again just one week after resuming face-to-face teaching. Infections were also reported at the History and Cultural Studies department, including several cases of vaccine breakthroughs. Previously, the university president’s office had stated that it did not expect any serious outbreaks, due to the high vaccination rate.

Resistance is growing to this policy of deliberate infection at universities. At the last meeting of the Humboldt University student parliament (StuPa), the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) campus club introduced a resolution opposing face-to-face teaching and calling for “an immediate return to online teaching.” After an amendment, the following text was passed:

The StuPa criticizes the current course of the presidium to hold as many courses as possible in person without creating effective protective measures at the same time. Due to this short-term and chaotic decision, students are being exposed to health hazards and risk groups are being denied participation in courses. Students who have left Berlin due to the pandemic are now also faced with the task of finding an apartment in Berlin from one second to the next.

We call on the university management to oblige lecturers to create real options and to allow students to decide whether they want to participate in the courses in person or digitally. This should not put students who attend digitally at a disadvantage.

Outside of nurseries, schools, and universities, coronavirus outbreaks are occurring in numerous other places where workers must assemble without adequate safety measures. Last week, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) attributed 643 infections to outbreaks at workplaces, 1,075 at educational institutions and 71 at refugee shelters. But because the origin of the vast majority of infections cannot be identified, the number of unreported cases is much higher.

Sudan’s military seek to crush opposition demanding civilian rule

Jean Shaoul

Sudan’s security forces killed at least three and wounded 100 people taking part in Saturday’s mass demonstrations in the capital Khartoum against the seizure of power by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

It brings the total number killed in recent days to at least 12, according to the Central Committee of Sudan’s Doctors, although a senior US official believed the death toll had reached at least 20-30 people, and the number injured 170, even before Saturday’s protests.

There have been days of protests and strikes calling for a return to civilian rule, including of many federal and state government workers and bank workers, leading to a severe cash shortage in a country without an ATM infrastructure.

Demonstration against the coup in Khartoum (Twitter)

Demonstrators chanted, “The people are stronger and the revolution will continue” and carried banners reading, “No to military rule.” They demanded the release of all civilian leaders, including Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. Many schools and shops remain closed. The strikes are set to continue this week, with another rally due in Khartoum on November 6.

Defying arrests and beatings at the hands of the security forces, tens of thousands have taken to the streets in days of nation-wide protests since al-Burhan, who headed the joint civilian-military Sovereign Council that has led the country since August 2019, seized power. The Sudanese diaspora has mounted demonstrations in cities in Australia, Indonesia, Italy, Lebanon, Norway, the United States and the United Kingdom, calling for their governments to oppose the coup.

Al-Burhan dissolved the Sovereign Council on October 25, weeks before he was due to hand over his position to a civilian. He dismissed Hamdok’s civilian “technocratic” government, arrested Hamdok and several members of his cabinet and declared a state of emergency, shutting down the internet and closing the capital’s main bridges. He has sacked the Chief Justice presiding over crucial reforms to the judicial system and released key figures in and around former dictator Omar al-Bashir’s ruling National Congress Party, which was outlawed after his ouster in 2019.

The general said the coup was necessary to avert a “civil war” and that the military would establish a new government, promising elections in July 2023. While Hamdok and his ministers have been released, they remain under house arrest, even though al-Burhan has publicly offered Hamdok his job back. Al-Burhan has been unable to find any credible civilian figures willing to join a new government.

The strikes, rallies and demonstrations are the largest since the mass protests that precipitated the April 2019 pre-emptive military coup, led by al-Burhan with the support of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, that ousted President Omar al-Bashir and his Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated military dictatorship, which had ruled since 1989. Al-Burhan and the military had sought to prevent the overthrow of the entire state apparatus in which he was a leading light.

After seizing power two years ago, he opened negotiations with the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) that had led the protests—an umbrella group of 22 bourgeois and petty bourgeois opposition groups and political parties, including the trade unions and the Sudanese Communist Party. Just weeks later, soldiers and paramilitaries massacred more than 1,000 unarmed protesters, chasing them through Khartoum, tying concrete blocks to their feet and throwing them into the River Nile.

Despite this, the FFC signed a treacherous deal with the military, agreeing to serve in a transitional “technocratic” government, headed by Hamdok, a former economist at the African Development Bank and later the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. The government operated under the control of the Sovereign Council, in effect a joint military-civilian presidency headed by al-Burhan.

The political and economic path followed by the Hamdok government brought it into conflict with the economic, social and political interests of Sudan’s military, which controls much of the economy.

Hamdok sought to end Sudan’s pariah status by aligning the country with US imperialism and its regional allies, including Israel, in an anti-Iran block. He handed al-Bashir to the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Darfur, where 300,000 people were killed and millions displaced in fighting between 2003 and 2008. His government investigated and sanctioned military and security officials involved in human rights abuses, rooted out corruption and privatized hundreds of Sudan’s state-owned corporations. This was the political price for economic aid, loans and investment needed to shore up the country’s economy that has all but collapsed following the secession of South Sudan in 2011 and the loss of oil revenues upon which the government depended.

The conflict that had been brewing for months burst into the open in September. The army, seeking to capitalize on social discontent generated by increasing poverty and social inequality, mounted an abortive putsch, widely viewed as a dress rehearsal for last month’s coup, and organized mass demonstrations in support of the generals.

The coup has attracted almost unanimous condemnation from the major imperialist powers. The US is determined to prevent Sudan’s social tensions, replicated across the region, spreading to their allies Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. The Biden administration has demanded the Sudanese military restore the civilian government, suspended its $700 million aid programme in the country and sent its fixer for the Horn of Africa, Jeffrey Feltman, back to Khartoum to try and impose a civilian fig-leaf for the military. The World Bank has suspended $2 billion in aid and debt relief packages.

The European powers are also anxious to avoid any instability in Sudan, strategically located in the Horn of Africa alongside the Red Sea and the entrance to the Suez Canal, that might disrupt oil supplies or generate a new wave of refugees. It takes place as Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous country and the Horn’s powerhouse, has descended into a civil war that threatens to break the state apart. It is expected that the European Union and the Paris Club of creditors will follow Washington’s lead in suspending funding.

While al-Burhan believed he could count on Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have joined the US in calling for a return to civilian rule while Cairo has not openly backed him.

To form the now overthrown civilian-military transitional government, the FFC and the Sudanese Professionals Association, under the influence of the Sudanese Communist Party, built a broad alliance subordinating workers to the political parties and armed groups that had dominated Sudan since independence. The claim that such a government would be capable of resolving the enormous social and economic problems confronting Sudanese workers was a dangerous trap. But these liberal and pseudo-left forces in the middle class will stop at nothing to block a social revolution, as their record throughout the Middle East and Africa has shown.

US-trained Afghan intelligence agents, elite troops reported joining ISIS

Bill Van Auken

Intelligence agents and elite counterinsurgency troops trained by the CIA and the Pentagon during the 20-year US occupation of Afghanistan are reportedly joining the Islamic State-Khorsan (ISIS-K).

The Wall Street Journal this week reported on the influx of these US-trained forces into ISIS-K, citing unnamed Taliban leaders, officials of the ousted US puppet regime and people who knew agents and soldiers who had joined the group.

In a November 1 interview with Foreign Policy, Rahmatullah Nabil, former chief of the US-backed Afghan regime’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), reported the same phenomenon: “Of the ANDSF [Afghan National Defense and Security Forces] who were left behind, I am receiving reports from different areas that, in order to have some protection, they see the Islamic State as a better platform for themselves. And I think the Islamic State is accepting them.”

Former National Military Academy of Afghanistan (NATO)

In its report, the Journal noted that “Importantly, these new recruits bring to Islamic State critical expertise in intelligence-gathering and warfare techniques, potentially strengthening the extremist organization's ability to contest Taliban supremacy.”

ISIS-K is engaged in a brutal campaign of terrorist bombings against civilian targets aimed at destabilizing the Taliban government. On Tuesday, it claimed responsibility for an attack on the Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan hospital, the largest hospital in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, which killed 25 people and wounded more than a dozen others. The attack included a suicide bombing and an invasion of the hospital by gunmen, who shot a number of wounded Taliban fighters in their hospital beds.

This latest attack follows suicide bombings in Kandahar in the south and Kunduz in the north, which claimed well over 100 lives. In both cities, the targets were prayer services at Shiite mosques. ISIS-K identified the attacker in Kunduz as ethnic Uyghur, the largest population in China’s western Xinjiang province, which borders Afghanistan.

Given US imperialism’s record in Afghanistan and the CIA’s intimate connections to the emergence of ISIS, there is every reason to ask whether this bloody campaign is backed by Washington with the aim of destabilizing Afghanistan and preventing the emergence of any regime not under its thumb.

The US armed intervention in Afghanistan began more than 40 years ago with “Operation Cyclone,” in which Washington—together with its allies Saudi Arabia and Pakistan—armed and funded Islamist mujahedeen fighters in a war against the Soviet-backed government in Kabul. The largest operation ever mounted by the CIA, it provoked a civil war that ultimately claimed the lives of millions. It also gave rise to both Al Qaeda, which was allied with the CIA, and the Taliban, which Washington initially supported when it took power in 1996.

In October 2001, the US invaded Afghanistan on the pretext of retaliating for the 9/11 attacks on New York City and Washington, which were blamed on Al Qaeda. It was the start of a two-decade occupation in which some 800,000 US troops participated under four presidencies, cost over $2 trillion and led to the deaths and maiming of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Afghans.

A decade into the “global war on terror,” which was also the pretext for the even bloodier 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Obama administration launched a pair of new wars, in Libya and Syria. In both of these wars, Washington shifted from its supposed global crusade against Al Qaeda into supporting, financing and arming Al Qaeda-linked Islamist militias in the toppling of the Libyan government of Muammar Gaddafi and the attempt to bring down that of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.

In 2014, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh exposed the existence of a CIA “rat line” running from Libya’s eastern port city of Benghazi through southern Turkey and into Syria, which was used to smuggle in weapons and foreign fighters to wage the US-backed war for regime change.

There are strong indications that a similar “rat line” into Afghanistan was created following the rollback of ISIS by the US military along with Iraqi Shia militias, Syrian government forces and US-backed Kurdish militias.

A report issued in June by the United Nations cites information that the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), an Islamist separatist group dedicated to carving out a Uyghur state in Xinjiang, China had “established corridors for moving fighters between the Syrian Arab Republic, where the group exists in far larger numbers, and Afghanistan, to reinforce its combat strength” and “facilitate the movement of fighters from Afghanistan to China.” The ETIM has aligned itself with ISIS-K against the Taliban government.

How ETIM and other “foreign fighters” could “establish corridors” into an Afghanistan occupied by the US and NATO, the UN report does not explain.

Among those charging that ISIS-K is a creature of the US is Washington’s longtime puppet Hamid Karzai, who was president in the Kabul regime from 2001 until 2014. In 2017, he told Al Jazeera, “In my view, under the full [US] presence, surveillance, military, political, intelligence, Daesh [the Arabic acronym for ISIS] has emerged. And for two years, the Afghan people came, cried loud about their suffering, of violations. Nothing was done.”

In the same period, Karzai told Voice of America: “I consider Daesh [the US’] tool.” He added, “I do not differentiate at all between Daesh and America.”

There were numerous reports from Afghanistan of unmarked helicopters flying weapons and supplies into areas occupied by ISIS-K. At the time, the US and NATO were in full control of Afghanistan’s airspace.

For its part, the Taliban has alleged a “foreign hand” in the recent terrorist bombings and has rejected US proposals for cooperation in fighting ISIS, charging that the group had grown with US support.

In addition to the former intelligence agents and special forces troops that have joined ISIS, the US evacuated from Afghanistan thousands of commandos of the so-called Zero units that operated under the supervision of the CIA, carrying out night raids, assassinations and other war crimes. This provides the US intelligence agency with a pool of recruits for an intervention aimed at provoking a new civil war in Afghanistan.

Washington is pursuing a policy designed to provoke maximum instability and upheaval in the country that it occupied for 20 years. It has refused to allow access by the Taliban government to close to $10 billion held by US financial institutions, and has cut off all aid, which previously accounted for 80 percent of the Afghan government’s budget. The result has been an economic meltdown and the paralyzing of the country’s health care system as well as foreign aid groups on the ground. This, as the World Bank reports that 14 million people—one out of three Afghans—are on the brink of starvation, and winter is approaching with the threat of even worse conditions of famine.

US imperialism views Afghanistan through the prism of its declared military strategy centered on “great power” confrontation with China and Russia. Just as US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski promoted the CIA-orchestrated mujahedeen war of the 1970s and 1980s as a means of giving the Soviet Union its “own Vietnam,” today Washington sees an Afghanistan in chaos undermining Chinese and Russian interests in Central Asia and potentially provoking terrorist campaigns against both countries.

The Ahmadi family home in Kabul, Afghanistan, after a U.S. drone strike on August 29, 2021. (AP Photo/Khwaja Tawfiq Sediqi)

Meanwhile, the Pentagon issued a report Wednesday exonerating the US military for the August 29 airstrike in Kabul that killed 10 innocent Afghans, including an employee of a Western humanitarian organization and seven children. The US military initially claimed that it had killed four ISIS-K bombers.

The report found no “violations of law or of the law of war,” but rather “an aggregate process breakdown, in which many people are involved.” It insisted that the drone missile massacre had to be seen in the context of the attack at the Hamid Karzai International Airport that killed 13 US service members and resulted in the deaths of scores of Afghan civilians. In the wake of this attack, there was a US drive to exact revenge.

This Pentagon report constitutes a deadly warning that such massacres will continue under the mantle of the US military’s so-called “over the horizon” operations against alleged “terrorists” in Afghanistan.

After more than four decades, it is apparent that the tragic encounter of the Afghan people with US imperialism is far from over.

CDC approval of COVID-19 vaccines for children is portrayed as the last threshold to “normalcy”

Benjamin Mateus

On November 2, 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a media statement acknowledging Director Rochelle Walensky’s endorsement of their Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ (ACIP) recommendation that children 5 to 11 should receive Pfizer’s pediatric COVID-19 vaccine. The approval means that clinics, schools and pharmacies across the country can begin offering the 28 million children in this age group immediate vaccination.

The pediatric COVID-19 vaccine has only one-third of the adult dosing, or 10 micrograms. However, according to Pfizer’s phase 2/3 trial in children of this age, immune titers were as high as young adults receiving the adult dosing a month after their second dose. Additionally, as with adults, vaccine effectiveness was nearly 91 percent among those aged 5 to 11 years.

Kindergarten students at the Milton Elementary School in Rye, New York on May 18, 2021. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

In making the recommendation for vaccinating children, the CDC also had to admit that COVID-19 does take a significant toll on children. They wrote in their statement, “COVID-19 cases in children can result in hospitalizations, deaths, MIS-C (inflammatory syndromes) and long-term complications, such as ‘long COVID,’ in which symptoms can linger for months. The spread of the Delta variant resulted in a surge of COVID-19 cases in children throughout the summer. During six weeks in late June to mid-August, COVID-19 hospitalizations among children and adolescents increased fivefold.” They go on to assert a critical point, “Vaccination, along with other preventative measures, can protect children from COVID-19 using the safe and effective vaccines already recommended for use in adolescents and adults in the United States” (Emphasis added).

The admission is in passing, and none of the bourgeois press reporting these developments will bother to absorb the significance or entertain the statement’s implication. On the contrary, the pediatric vaccine initiative, though necessary, “will be used to overcome all resistance by parents to sending their children into social settings rather than protecting them at home,” as the WSWS observed this week. Even as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was announcing its near-unanimous approval of Pfizer’s pediatric COVID-19 vaccine, on the same day the New York Times was sowing the seeds for ending facemask mandates by publishing a lengthy opinion piece titled, “We need to talk about an off-ramp for masking at school,” by Jessica Grose.

With the CDC’s approval, the offensive to undo all previous restrictions is being accelerated, regardless of worrisome trends in various regions of the US and the world. Despite high levels of natural or vaccine-induced immunity, a surge in cases has led to a rise in hospitalizations and deaths.

Dr. Monica Gandhi, who has been outspoken for school reopening, in promoting her new article in The Atlantic, tweeted, “I recommend, with this [vaccinating children] threshold in the US … and rising immunity, let’s think about when we can downgrade from 2020 crisis mode.” She has brazenly declared the July Delta wave the last wave and children’s vaccination “the last threshold before a return to greater normalcy,” abandoning the most important precautionary principle in her field.

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden said, “For parents all over this country, this is a day of relief and celebration. … My administration is ready, we have been ready from day one, today, organized, and have a plan for this vaccination’s launch. … As soon as next week, we will have enough vaccines and enough places, and parents will be able to schedule appointments to get their kids their first shot. We’ve also been working with governors, mayors, and local school leaders to bring vaccines to schools. As of today, more than 6,000 school clinics have already been planned in school districts around the country. These efforts will also ensure equity at the center of our children’s vaccination program as it has been for adults.”

There is no such thing as equity in the United States, and the attempts to interpret the pandemic through the prisms of identity politics and racial categories are politically reactionary. In their latest update on COVID-19 vaccination, Kaiser Family Foundation found that though the proportion of black people receiving vaccinations has risen and closed the gap with white people, they remain below all other racial categories.

Vaccine distribution and boosters between high and low-income nations. (Financial Times)

However, no mention is made on the socioeconomic indices that demonstrate that poverty and social class, not race, are the fundamental bases of vaccine disparities. This data, however, is collected by the CDC. Between December 2020 and May 2021, it found that disparities in vaccination coverage increased with an increasing social vulnerability index (SVI). They wrote, “By May 1, 2021, vaccination coverage was lower among adults living in counties with the higher overall SVI [poorest and most vulnerable]. … Vaccination coverage disparities were largest for two SVI themes: socioeconomic status (Q4=44.3 percent versus Q1= 61.0 percent) and household composition and disability (Q4=42 percent versus Q1=60 percent).” There is no indication that such disparities will not impact children also.

They concluded by stating, “disparities in vaccination coverage by SVI have increased over time, especially in large fringe metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties. Disparities were associated with county-level differences in socioeconomic status and household composition, and disability. Although disparities were not associated with county-level differences related to racial and ethnic minority residents and housing types, individual SVI components suggested disparities among adults living in counties with particular housing characteristics (e.g., lower coverage in counties with a higher percentage of mobile homes).” Indeed, these disparities will translate through the same socioeconomic conditions that affect the working class predominantly.

Vaccine inequity within the United States is combined with the broader issue of global vaccine inequity as high-income nations are moving, through the aegis of vaccine nationalism, to curtail worldwide distribution to ensure boosters and now pediatric vaccines are available to their own population. The global supply of vaccines is being limited by profit considerations of the manufacturers and their adamant refusal to waive patents and allow massive production of generic versions of the vaccines that would make it possible to flood the world with tens of billions of cheap and effective life-saving treatments.

This is leading to the continued disparity in the distribution of vaccines, specifically in low-income nations. An interim report by the World Health Organization (WHO) dated October 4, 2021, makes the following recommendations: “In the context of ongoing global vaccine supply constraints, broad-based administration of booster doses risks exacerbating inequities in vaccine access by driving up demand and diverting supply while priority populations in some countries, or in subnational settings, have not yet received a primary vaccination series. The focus remains on urgently increasing global vaccination coverage with the primary series driven by the objective to protect against severe disease.”

The international distribution facility COVAX, which had been conceived to ensure fair and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, is facing a significant shortfall on its targets due to hoarding of these treatments and supply-chain issues that have plagued the world economy, as well as a grossly insufficient budget and lack of any meaningful authority to force manufacturers to honor their agreements.

The coordination of the program has been thrown into utter chaos as nations have turned to making lateral agreements between countries or purchasing the vaccines directly from the pharmaceutical companies due to delays and shortages. With more than 7.15 billion doses administered, COVAX has delivered only 400 million vaccines out of a projected 1.4 billion.

In the attempt by high-income nations to vaccinate their way out of the pandemic, they have already given more booster doses than low-income countries have given in total doses all year, according to Dr. Tom Frieden, former Commissioner of Health of the City of New York. He tweeted, “These graphs from the Financial Times (FT ) show just how shockingly unfair vaccine rollout has been. We can potentially prevent millions of deaths from COVID and reduce the risk of new dangerous variants by increasing vaccine supply and improving equity.”

As the US and the rest of the world prepare for winter, the drive to vaccinate children takes on a more urgent character implying that wealthier nations are buying up all the supply that exists. According to the FT, richer countries have received over 16 times more COVID-19 vaccines per person than poorer nations that rely on COVAX. Speaking with FT , Kate Elder, a senior vaccines policy adviser at the Doctors Without Borders access campaign in New York, said, “You’ve really got to look hard at the model. We need structural change if we’re going to avoid repeating this disaster in the future.”

Tonga’s first COVID-19 case enters from New Zealand

John Braddock

The Pacific nation of Tonga last week recorded its first COVID-19 case after a traveler from New Zealand tested positive.

Nuku'alofa, capital of Tonga (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Along with several Pacific neighbours, Tonga was among the few nations in the world to have avoided an outbreak of COVID-19 due to its geographic isolation and strict border closures. The positive case was one of 215 Tongan citizens on a repatriation flight from Christchurch on October 27.

Tonga’s Health Ministry released a statement Wednesday night saying a second test had returned a negative result. Another test is required to confirm this. A genomic study also needs to be done in New Zealand to check if the virus is the Delta variant. Meanwhile, precautions will remain in place.

The Tongan government announced Monday that the main island of Tongatapu would go into lockdown for one week. Banks and the market will stay open, however schools, churches and entertainment venues are closed. All domestic travel has been suspended.

Most of the passengers on the flight were seasonal workers and included the Tongan Olympic team who had been stranded in Christchurch. All were required to have negative COVID tests prior to departure.

The COVID-19 case, a young Mormon missionary, tested positive the day after arriving in Tonga’s capital Nuku’alofa. A spokesman for his church told TVNZ that he had entered New Zealand six weeks earlier after missionary service in Africa.

According to New Zealand’s Ministry of Health, the man, who remains asymptomatic, was fully vaccinated. The passengers have all been placed in managed isolation for 21 days, as well as nearly 100 frontline workers who dealt with the incoming flight. They have all so far tested negative.

New Zealand immunologist Dianne Sika-Paotonu told the Science Media Centre on November 1 that the case “continues to mystify.” Two close contacts were identified in Christchurch and two in Wellington—all tested negative and are in isolation. Links have yet to be established with any of the community cases active in Christchurch and no links to any other known sources have been found.

The arrival of COVID-19 in the tiny kingdom of 105,700 people could prove calamitous if it is not isolated and quickly eradicated. The highly vulnerable country has widespread poverty, high levels of unemployment and a growing methamphetamine epidemic. The health system could not cope with a major outbreak.

Tonga’s Minister of Health Amelia Afuhaʻamango Tuʻipulotu told the Guardian that there is “definitely more urgency” among the population now to be vaccinated. On Monday the number of those fully vaccinated had jumped from 35 percent to 62 percent as people rushed for their second jab. Eighty-eight percent of people have had their first dose.

Viliami Puloka, who has been involved in Tonga’s vaccine rollout, told Radio NZ: “There’s a bit of panic and people just don’t believe that it’s finally got here. I think more of them are disappointed that… our record of being COVID free is now spoiled rather than people are afraid that it can happen to them.”

In fact, the importation of even a single case of the Delta variant can quickly establish a foothold in the vulnerable Pacific countries. In July, Papua New Guinea’s first case entered the country with the captain of a cargo ship, setting off what is now an uncontrolled and deadly surge. Fiji avoided a significant outbreak until April, when a quarantine breach led to more than 50,000 infections and nearly 700 deaths.

Immunologist Dianne Sika-Paotonu told Stuff that news of the case is “heart-breaking” and if it “is not contained, the potential consequences for the Tongan nation will be catastrophic.” She also warned that the case very likely indicated more COVID-19 spread in the Christchurch community than is currently reflected by official case numbers.

The arrival of COVID-19 in Christchurch followed the Labour-Green Party government’s abandonment of its earlier elimination strategy. The country is in the midst of a rapidly growing outbreak, which began in mid-August in Auckland and has since spread to other regions. There are five active COVID-19 cases registered in Christchurch. Two of these people were previously unvaccinated and one had flown in from Auckland, which was under a stricter lockdown.

Epidemiologist Michael Baker said the government and civic leaders should have done more to keep COVID-19 out of Christchurch, stating there were “very mixed messages” about the need to keep the virus out of the South Island. He also sharply criticised Air New Zealand for accepting unvaccinated passengers.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on October 4 that the government would “transition” from its zero-COVID policy, under pressure from big business to “reopen” the economy and allow the extraction of profits from the working class to fully resume. This means that people must now accept “living with” the virus.

The consequences will not be confined within the country’s borders. The Ardern government will bear primary culpability should COVID-19 take off in Tonga. New Zealand, which occupies a position of neo-colonial domination over many Pacific countries, has an appalling history in that regard.

In 2019 nearly 3,000 people across the region fell victim to an outbreak of measles. Gaps in New Zealand’s health system saw the epidemic erupt in Auckland’s working-class Pacific Island communities. It quickly spread to Samoa, causing 5,700 cases and 83 deaths, mostly among children. Tonga had over 100 cases, even though the country previously achieved immunity to measles with 95 percent vaccination rates.

The NZ Ministry of Health warned at the outset that the situation “could become a threat for other countries in the Pacific region.” Dr Helen Petousis-Harris, an immunologist at Auckland University, told Radio NZ she was furious that New Zealand had “exported” measles to Samoa. Michael Baker declared that New Zealand had to get its “act together on public health policy,” a prescient warning given the current COVID crisis.

The measles disaster echoed a previous historic case which still resonates among Pacific islanders. In November 1918, the trading ship SS Talune travelled from Auckland to Samoa, carrying with it as many as 71 passengers and crew infected with a deadly influenza virus. New Zealand’s administrator in Samoa failed to place the vessel under quarantine and allowed passengers ashore.

Within a week, influenza had spread throughout Samoa. Approximately 8,500 people—more than one-fifth of the population—died. The vessel was then allowed to travel on to Tonga and docked in Nuku’alofa, from where the disease again spread. Most of Tonga’s population was infected and between 1,000 and 2,000 people died, an estimated 4 to 8 percent of the population at the time.

Sione Tu’itahi, head of the NZ Health Promotion Forum in Auckland, told Radio NZ last week that the effects of the 1918 flu have been passed down through his family. “I still have stories from uncles and grandparents who were affected, who lost loved ones, so those memories are still vivid and fresh,” he said. It was one of the main reasons that Tonga had closed down its borders so as “not to allow COVID to creep in,” Tu’itahi explained.

In the face of these catastrophic experiences and the current COVID surge, the Ardern government is recklessly expanding its pro-business program and opening up international travel. One-way flights from Pacific countries deemed “low risk” are set to resume on November 8, allowing travelers from Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu and Tokelau to enter, bypassing isolation and quarantine requirements.

WHO warns of 500,000 new COVID-19 deaths in Europe by February

Will Morrow & Alex Lantier

In a press conference yesterday, World Health Organisation (WHO) director for Europe Hans Kluge issued an urgent warning: Europe and the republics of the former Soviet Union are now the epicentre of the pandemic. Kluge warned that there could be 500,000 more coronavirus deaths in Europe in just the next three months, beyond the 1.4 million who have already died.

People wait to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in Zagreb, Croatia, Thursday, Nov. 4, 2021. Countries throughout Central and Eastern Europe reported spiraling coronavirus cases Thursday, with several hitting new daily records in the regions that have lower vaccination rates than the rest of the continent. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

“Today, every single country in Europe and Central Asia is facing a real threat of COVID-19 resurgence, or already fighting it,” he said. “The current pace of transmission across the 53 countries of the EU region is of grave concern. COVID-19 cases are once again approaching record levels, with the more transmissible delta variant continuing to dominate transmission across Europe and central Asia.”

He continued, “Last week—with more than 1.9 million new cases and 24,000 deaths reported—Europe and Central Asia saw a more than 6 percent and 12 percent increase in cases, respectively, as compared to the previous week. Over the past 5 weeks, Europe has seen a more than 55 percent increase in COVID-19 cases. Last week, Europe and Central Asia accounted for 59 percent of all global cases and 48 percent of reported deaths.”

“According to one reliable projection, we could see more than half a million COVID-19 deaths in Europe and Central Asia by the first of February next year,” Kluge said, “and 43 countries in our region will face high to extreme stress on hospital beds at some point through the same period.”

Death rates in eastern Europe, which has particularly low vaccination rates, are staggering. In the last seven days, 8,000 people died in Russia, 3,800 in Ukraine, and 3,000 in Romania, a country of less than 20 million people. Latvia, with a population of less than two million, is recording weekly death totals of approximately 250—equivalent to approximately 43,000 weekly deaths in a country the size of the United States. Lithuania, with a population of 2.7 million, recorded over 250 deaths in the past week.

There were over 1,000 deaths in the UK over the past week, and over 600 in Germany and Poland. More than 200 weekly deaths are still being recorded in France, Italy, Greece, Hungary, and Serbia.

The WHO’s latest 14-day cumulative COVID-19 case notification rate released yesterday shows much of eastern and northern Europe classified as either red or dark red, meaning case numbers of over 200 and 500 cases per 100,000 people, respectively. Dark red is the highest urgency indicator.

WHO Europe 14-day COVID-19 case notification rate, updated November 4. Dark red indicates the highest urgency rate of 500+ cases per 100,000 people.

Hospital admissions across Europe have more than doubled over the past week, Kluge said: “Of most concern is the rapid increase among older aged groups since Week 38 [four weeks ago]. This is translating into more people with severe disease and dying.”

Even before the northern hemisphere goes into winter, typically the deadliest season for COVID-19, Europe is seeing over 250,000 confirmed cases and 3,000 to 4,000 deaths each day. These numbers are rising rapidly as colder weather leads people to gather together in closed spaces indoors, where the virus is more easily transmitted. Moreover, the surge in Europe is likely just the beginning of a surge spreading across the northern hemisphere this winter.

Kluge urged health authorities to act immediately to halt the spread of the virus and prevent another deadly winter. From November 2020 to April 2021, Europe’s COVID-19 death toll surged from under 300,000 to over 1,000,000. Kluge said, “Europe is back at the epicentre of the pandemic, where we were one year ago. The difference today is that we know more and we can do more.”

“We must change our tactics from reacting to surges of COVID-19 to preventing them from happening in the first place,” Kluge concluded. “With a widespread resurgence of COVID-19, I'm asking every health authority to carefully reconsider the easing or lifting of measures at this very moment … Ultimately, we are only getting out of this pandemic if politicians, scientists and the public work together.”

The measures that can halt the pandemic—a combination of lockdowns, contact tracing, vaccination and other public health measures to eliminate viral spread—are known. A number of Asia-Pacific countries including China, New Zealand and Vietnam have successfully eliminated the virus on their territories for months or years during the pandemic. If applied on a global scale, such policies could end the transmission of the virus.

Kluge’s appeals are falling on deaf ears, however. As the pandemic hit Europe last spring, capitalist governments were forced to implement strict lockdowns across much of the continent: a wave of strikes spread at major industrial facilities from Italy across much of Europe, as workers in non-essential industries demanded the right to shelter at home. While the strict lockdowns brought cases down to low levels, however, these lockdowns were ended prematurely while the virus was still circulating and contact-tracing procedures were not set up.

Keeping workers at work, and youth at school to ensure a steady stream of profits to the banks, European governments have since overseen a politically-criminal policy of continued circulation of the virus. What is unfolding now in Europe is the product of this policy of social murder. While vaccinations and warmer weather led to slower infections in the spring and summer of 2021, a new, even greater surge is underway.

COVID-19 deaths and infections are rising faster than they were a year ago, despite the vaccination of hundreds of millions of people in Europe. While Europe’s COVID-19 death toll last year rose by 50,000 from October 18 to November 11 of 2020, from 250,000 to 300,000, Europe is on track to record tens of thousands more deaths in the same period this year.

European officials continue to claim that vaccination is the sole tool to halt the pandemic, even as they send unvaccinated children back into schools, workers back to work, and infections and deaths skyrocket. In France, where daily cases have just reached 10,000, Health Minister Olivier Véran recently told Libération that because of vaccination, he is less concerned about the rise in COVID-19 cases.

He said: “We are following this very closely, of course. This rise is taking place across Europe, unsurprisingly, as we know climate conditions favor the spread of respiratory viruses. However, we know vaccination has strongly limited the correlation between the number of infections and the number of serious cases and hospitalizations and deaths. So today, what I look at carefully, beyond the spread of the virus and incidence rates, it is mainly the pressure on hospitals, which is the fundamental indicator.”

In Britain, where Prime Minister Boris Johnson infamously declared, “No more f*cking lockdowns, let the bodies pile high in their thousands,” the government claimed it would take further measures only if COVID-19 deaths exceeded 1,000 weekly, or 52,000 per year. This figure has been reached, but the government is still not proposing any significant new public health measures.

In Germany, where daily infections have surged above 35,000, Health Minister Jens Spahn recently announced that the government is canceling the legal finding of an “epidemic situation of national scope,” ending the legal basis for anti-COVID-19 health measures. In Spain, the judicial system has repeatedly ruled that the lockdowns imposed last year to halt the pandemic were illegal.

Culture Wars: “The Great Male Renunciation”

David Rosen

 

I’m not a woman. I’m not a man.
I’m something that you’ll never understand.

– Prince

National Geographic is a monthly magazine launched in 1888 by the National Geographic Society and, in 2019, was acquired by the Disney organization.  In January 2017, it published a special issue on the “shifting landscape of gender.”  The issue is entitled “Gender Revolution” and offers a collection of telling profiles and articles exploring the complex issue of gender identity among young people across the globe.

The issue posed a critical question: “Freed from the binary of boy and girl, gender identity is a shifting landscape. Can science help us navigate?”

Provocatively, a number of articles profiled male gender identity in the U.S., including a trans boy, a gun-toting youth and a father raising two newborns. These stories suggest the range of maleness beginning to reshape masculine identity in a traditionally patriarchal society.

The issue has a particular resonance for males somewhere between 20 and … years of age. Especially for guys who do not identify as gay, bi or tranny; guys who are “straight,” hip and macho.  Some of these males are beginning to wear cosmetic makeup.

CNN profiled the former baseball player Alex Rodriguez (“A Rod”) and his BlurStick “skincare solution” for men. The Associate Press (AP) reported that on TikTok, videos with the hashtag #boysinmakeup had 225.9 million views and #meninmakeup was viewed 159.5 million times. Traditional male gender identity is being shaken-up.

Compounding these developments, a 2019 survey for the research group, Morning Consulting, found that 33 percent of young men ages 18-29 years said they would consider wearing makeup and 30 percent of men ages 30-44 reported said they’d be open to the idea as well.

***

Men long wore makeup. According to one report, “from 4000 BC to the 18^th century, men wore makeup daily.”  Various archeological studies date male use of makeup in China and Japan to about 3000 BC.  In China during the Zhou Dynasty (1046–256 BC), the word “mei” (beautiful) that is today is used to describe feminine beauty related to the beauty of both sexes.  During the Han Dynasty (202 BC–AD 220) and the Three Kingdoms and Six Dynasties period (AD 222–589) men often used artificial methods to look good.  White face powder first became popular among men and boys during the Han Dynasty.  However, at the end of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), men’s use of makeup fall out of favor.

In ancient Egypt, men and women used scented oils and ointments to clean and soften their skin and mask body odor. Among the basic ingredients used were myrrh, thyme, marjoram, chamomile, lavender, lily, peppermint, rosemary, cedar, rose, aloe, olive oil, sesame oil and almond oil.

In North America, many Native Americans tribes painted their bodies and faces for rituals, dances and for battle. According to one source, “the designs painted were believed to hold magic powers for protection. Colors and images were also used to make the warriors, chiefs and braves to look more ferocious. Their objectives were achieved.”  In addition, Native people also painted their horses and ponies, decorating them with war symbols or symbols of power,

In Europe during the 17^th and 18^th centuries upper-class as men and women wore make-up, especially lead-based ceruse cosmetics to whiten their skin.   As one commentator noted, “the aristocrats preferred several meters high wigs and hairdos, false teeth pulled out of corpse’s mouth, and fake eyebrows made from mouse skin.” During this period, men wore wigs including those with two large peaks at the top known as “allonge wigs” as well as more modest one known as “buckled wigs” or “buckled clubbed wigs”.

Profound changes in male fashion coincided with the American (1775-1783) and French (1789-1799) revolutions, a period British psychologist John Flügel dubbed “the Great Male Renunciation” in his 1930s work, The Psychology of Clothes.  He argued:

Hitherto man had vied with woman in the splendour of his garments, woman’s only prerogative lying in décolleté and other forms of erotic display of the actual body; henceforward, to the present day, woman was to enjoy the privilege of being the only possessor of beauty and magnificence, even in the purely sartorial sense.

It was the period in which Queen Victoria I associated makeup with the devil and a feminine attribute.  The French Revolution challenged established notions of privilege by promoting new ideals of meritocracy and equality.  It led to “the abandonment of bright color, loud patterns, high heels, shiny accessories and other types of ostentatious adornment.”  This included makeup and other cosmetics.  It bespoke a new masculinity, one promoting work and usefulness typified by the trim black suit.

The Great Male Renunciation sought to blurr class distinctions, while heightening gender stereotypes. Men’s clothing sought to present men as more rational and practical, while women’s clothing sought to present females as more decorative.

Gilles Lipovetsky, author of The Empire of Fashion, points out:

The neutral, austere, sober masculine costume reflected the consecration of egalitarian ideology as the conquering bourgeois ethic of thrift, merit, and work. Costly aristocratic dress, a sign of celebration and pomp, was replaced by clothing that expressed the new social values of equality, economy, and effort.

He adds, “Since the nineteenth century, masculinity has been defined in contradistinction to fashion, to the ephemeral and the superficial.”

***

Men wearing makeup is moving from the movie screen to street life.  Many will recall Tim Curry’s role as the cross-dressing alien Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show or David Bowie performing as Ziggy Stardust, both in exaggerated makeup and bold lipstick. Well, male makeup is moving from the exaggerated world of Hollywood to everyday life.

In a 2018 report, The Guardian asked: is makeup for men the next big beauty trend?  It noted that Chanel has launched “Boy De Chanel,” promoting what it identified as “actualization through makeup  rather than the idea of visual enhancement.” Oh, yes, “boy”  stood for “Be only you.” Among the products offered were foundation, lip balm and an eyebrow pencil. It was a product that was about, according to the press release, “breaking free of codes and rewriting the rules.”  The Chanel press office said: “Men should be free to use makeup products to correct or improve their appearance, without calling into question their masculinity.

According to Forbes, the 2021 global beauty and personal care industry, including makeup, fragrance, skincare and personal care, is projected to be a half-a-trillion ($510 billion) industry.  The valuation of the global male grooming products market is all over the place with a 2018 estimated valued it at $11.5 billion while a 2020 estimate reached a value of $69.8 billion.

So, is the Great Male Renunciation finally over?