ECDC warns Omicron variant to become dominant in Europe in a “few months”

Alex Lantier & Johannes Stern

Yesterday, the European Centers for Disease Control (ECDC) warned that the new Omicron variant of COVID-19 will rapidly become dominant in the European Union (EU). It noted that the Omicron variant of concern (VOC) is more transmissible than the Delta variant, which currently causes most cases in Europe.

People wearing face masks against coronavirus arrive at Saint Lazare train station in Paris, Tuesday Nov. 30, 2021. The new potentially more contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus popped up in more European countries on Saturday, just days after being identified in South Africa, leaving governments around the world scrambling to stop the spread. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly)

The ECDC noted that “preliminary data from South Africa suggest that it may have a substantial growth advantage over the Delta VOC. If this is the case, mathematical modelling indicates that the Omicron VOC is expected to cause over half of all SARS-CoV-2 infections in the EU/EEA within the next few months. The greater Omicron’s growth advantage over the Delta VOC and the greater its circulation in the EU/EEA, the shorter the expected time until the Omicron VOC causes the majority of all SARS-CoV-2 infections.”

This announcement has far-reaching implications, as genetic studies of the Omicron variant show it is likely substantially resistant to existing COVID-19 vaccines. “The presence of multiple mutations in the spike protein of the Omicron VOC indicates a high likelihood of reduction of neutralising activity by antibodies induced by infection or vaccination,” the ECDC declared.

The ECDC’s statement followed similar warnings from Stéphane Bancel, the CEO of the Moderna pharmaceutical firm, to the Financial Times. “There is no world, I think, where [the effectiveness] is the same level ... we had with Delta,” Bancel said. Speaking of vaccines’ effectiveness against the Omicron variant, he said, “I think it’s going to be a material drop,” adding that “all the scientists I’ve talked to ... are like, ‘this is not going to be good.’”

Governments across Europe are, however, relying almost exclusively on vaccinations, rejecting critical social distancing measures needed to eliminate viral transmission, even as the Delta variant devastates the continent. This has led to a disaster, as there are hundreds of millions of unvaccinated people in Europe, and the Delta variant is more resistant to vaccines than the initial strain of the virus. Already, Europe sees nearly 3 million infections and 30,000 deaths of COVID-19 each week.

Infections are at record or near-record levels, with Germany yesterday reporting 73,486, Britain 53,945, France 49,610, the Netherlands 23,043, Czechia 21,126 and Belgium 20,409. Moreover, infections are rising rapidly in parts of Southern Europe which had seen lower infection rates this autumn, with Italy reporting 16,806 cases and Spain 14,500. Deaths are at near-record levels in Russia (1,221), and Germany saw over 400 daily deaths several days this week.

There are already dozens of confirmed cases of the Omicron variant across Western Europe, however, threatening an even more drastic escalation of the pandemic. There are at least 16 confirmed cases in the Netherlands, 9 in Britain, 8 in France, 4 in Denmark and Germany, 2 in Spain, and one each in Sweden, Norway, Czechia, Austria, Belgium and Italy.

In the Danish city of Aalborg, a man at a packed Martin Jensen concert with 1,600 people tested positive for the Omicron variant, leading to fears of a superspreader event. Danish authorities are asking people who attended the concert to immediately get tested.

Nick Holm, the director of the Aalborg Congress and Culture Centre, where the concert took place, insisted his staff had strictly followed health procedures. “We follow the guidelines to the letter. In this regard, no one has come in without having a valid corona pass,” Holm said. This again underscores the likelihood that the Omicron variant can evade existing COVID-19 vaccines.

Even before the emergence of the Omicron variant, the World Health Organization (WHO) was warning that over 700,000 could die of COVID-19 in Europe by March. With the new variant, the number of COVID-19 deaths this winter in Europe could reach into the millions.

Despite this dramatic situation, however, governments across Europe refuse to take the necessary measures to contain the virus. On the contrary, they are continuing the “profits before lives” policy that has already led to more than 1.5 million deaths on the continent.

“Despite the Omicron variant, our current strategy remains unchanged,” French Health Minister Olivier Véran told the Sud Ouest newspaper on Tuesday. He ruled out lockdown measures such as closing schools and nonessential businesses that would be necessary to eliminate transmission of the virus. All that is necessary, he claimed, is “vaccination, both initial and booster, social distancing and wearing masks.”

Spain’s Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government has published a “message of tranquility” to the Spanish people, insisting that no measures besides masking and vaccines are necessary. It declared, “We must do what we have been doing throughout this pandemic: responsibility and solidarity in vaccinating ourselves, to use masks and so defend our health and those of our compatriots.”

The aim of this policy of social murder is to avoid any shelter-at-home orders that would slow the flow of corporate profits to the banks and avoid any broader, internationally coordinated social mobilization of the population to halt transmission of the virus.

The reaction of the ruling class in Germany is no less criminal. Even though over 73,000 people were infected yesterday and nearly 400 died of COVID-19 in Germany, and intensive care patients from Germany, Austria and the Netherlands must be transferred to other European countries as hospitals in many regions are overloaded, there is no serious action.

The decisions taken yesterday at the Conference of German state presidents were totally inadequate. At the meeting, acting Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU), her designated successor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and the different state presidents agreed only on some additional contact restrictions for the unvaccinated, the introduction of a 2G rule (vaccinated or recovered) in retail and the reintroduction of mandatory masks in schools. Private fireworks on New Year’s Eve are prohibited.

Large events such as soccer matches or concerts, on the other hand, will still be allowed. There is to be only a cap: a maximum of 5,000 (!) people inside and 15,000 (!) outside.

All parties in the Bundestag—from the far-right AfD to the Left Party—vehemently reject the closure of schools and nonessential production. Last week, the soon governing “traffic light” coalition parties (SPD, Greens and FDP), ended the “epidemic situation of national scope,” thus eliminating the legal basis for strict nationwide protective measures.

They are supported in this by the unions, which have opposed lockdowns and called to keep businesses and schools open since the pandemic began. “The fact that mass events are taking place while schools are being closed, that’s not on. Everything must be done to ensure that educational institutions remain open,” the Education and Science Union (GEW) wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

The pandemic reveals the deep class divide that separates workers from the unions and all pseudo-left parties of the upper middle classes. While the latter push opening policies in the interests of finance capital, the vast majority of the population favors strict lockdown measures. According to the “Trendbarometer” of RTL and ntv published on Tuesday, 65 percent of German citizens—a noticeable increase over the previous week (61 percent)—are in favor of a general “lockdown.” This data was moreover collected before the Omicron variant became widely known.

Canadian Armed Forces providing military training to Ukrainian neo-Nazis

James Clayton

The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) has been training and collaborating with neo-Nazi groups active in the Ukrainian Armed Forces and National Guard, with the knowledge and tacit approval of successive Canadian governments.

On November 8, the Ottawa Citizen reported that military and Defence Department officials attempted to conceal a 2018 meeting between a group of Canadian “officers and diplomats” and members of the Azov Battalion, an openly fascist group with members embedded in the Ukrainian National Guard. Fully briefed in 2017 on its Nazi ideology, Canadian officials were concerned only that the meeting remain secret. It was exposed when Azov boasted about it via social media.

The damaging revelation comes at an inopportune time for Canada’s ruling elite, which is currently considering an expansion of its military deployment to Ukraine as part of a massive NATO-coordinated build-up against Russia. The Trudeau Liberal government is reportedly deliberating on sending a warship to the Black Sea, deploying CF-18 fighter jets currently stationed in Romania to Ukraine, and expanding the current 200-strong contingent of CAF personnel in Ukraine.

The revelations about Canada’s alliance with far-right Ukrainian nationalist fighters underscores how the NATO powers are prepared to collaborate with the most reactionary political forces in their aggressive military build-up against Russia. The US-led military-strategic offensive against Russia, which has seen NATO deploy forces along much of Russia’s western borders, is aimed at bringing Ukraine and other former Soviet republics under Western domination and opening up Russia itself to neocolonial-style exploitation by the imperialist powers.

Photo credit: George Washington University, Institute for European Russian and Eurasian Studies

A study from the Institute for European Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University recently exposed Canadian military forces training students at Ukraine’s National Army Academy (NAA) belonging to a neo-Nazi organization called “Centuria.” The NAA is Ukraine’s version of Canada’s Royal Military College, where future officers and military commanders are educated. Canadian, American and other NATO military advisers shape the curriculum at the NAA.

Centuria functions as a wing of the Azov Battalion within the NAA, seeking to cultivate an “elite corps” of officers wedded to neo-Nazi ideology. The Azov Battalion, which celebrates the Ukrainian nationalist fascists who collaborated with the Nazis in their “war of extermination” against the USSR, has been branded a terrorist organization by the US State Department; this despite Washington itself having made use of Azov and other far-right Ukrainian nationalist groups to overthrow the Ukrainian government in the February 2014 “Maidan” coup.

In 2019, Centuria was part of a fascist demonstration which attacked the Kiev LGBTQ Pride event, calling upon “right patriots, nationalists, conservatives and Christians” to “defend the streets from perverts.” In April 2021, Centuria’s leaders boasted on Ukrainian social media that they “actively cooperate with foreign colleagues... participating in military exercises with France, Great Britain, Canada, the USA, Germany and Poland…” The same month, the group participated in a march glorifying the exploits of the 14th Division of the Nazi Waffen-SS, the “Galicia Division,” which was comprised of Ukrainian fascists. It honors this Nazi division because it “beat the Bolshevik contagion…”

Centuria social media post boasting about their receiving military training from the Canadian Armed Forces, the US military and those of other NATO countries. (Photo credit: Institute for European Russian and Eurasian Studies)

The 14th Division of the Waffen-SS was declared a criminal organization during the Nuremberg trials. Its top leadership was drawn from the ranks of seasoned Nazi mass-murderers.

The April 2021 neo-Nazi march caused a political uproar in Ukraine, where Nazi forces murdered millions during World War II. Despite the fact that the Ukrainian state openly deploys fascist fighters, such as those who comprise Azov, in its civil war in Donbass, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky was forced to issue an extraordinary statement on April 30, declaring, “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has already condemned any manifestations of glorification of the Waffen-SS troops and reminds that the propaganda of totalitarian regimes is prohibited in Ukraine. Our state partners have already been informed that violations of the relevant legislation in Ukraine will have logical consequences for any person who is guilty of it.”

Why would the Ministry of Foreign Affairs warn its “state partners”—a diplomatic euphemism for NATO—about “glorifying the Waffen-SS”?

Because the Canadian government does exactly that. In the early 1950s, the Canadian government provided haven to more 2,000 veterans of the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, and continues to defend them. The far-right Ukrainian Canadian Congress, which openly defends these Nazi veterans and glorifies the fascist World War II Ukrainian leader Stepan Bandera, wields considerable influence in Ottawa. The Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, has been an activist within the right-wing Ukrainian diaspora her entire life. She is the granddaughter of one of the Waffen-SS Galicia division’s principal promoters, Mihailo Chomiak, the editor of a pro-Nazi newspaper in occupied Poland. Chomiak and the Ukrainian Central Committee, the organization for which the newspaper spoke, used it to whip up hatred of “Jewish Bolsheviks” and to appeal to Ukrainians to join the Waffen-SS.

Both Prime Ministers Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau were accompanied by leaders of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, such as Paul Grod, on past visits to Ukraine. Grod praised the Waffen-SS Division on Remembrance Day in 2010, remarking that they “fought for the independence of Ukraine.” Liberal and Tory politicians have paid tribute to Ukrainian fascists at commemorations organized around public monuments that have been erected by Ukrainian veterans of the 14th Division of the Waffen SS and of the OUN(B), the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, a fascist army which fought alongside the Nazis against the Soviet Union.

The Canadian Armed Forces claims that Canada bears no responsibility if neo-Nazis have received Canadian military training. In a statement, it asserted that “it was up to Ukraine to vet its own security forces,” adding that “Canadian military personnel could refuse to train soldiers” suspected of neo-Nazi ties. The reality is that no such refusals have taken place, both because they would be viewed as a threat to the CAF training mission and because the officer corps has increasingly pronounced right-wing sympathies. Even the head of the Canadian military, Lt. General Wayne Eyre, has admitted that “we have a problem with far-right activity across the army.”

Concerns about Canada’s military potentially providing military training to Ukrainian neo-Nazis have been raised repeatedly since 2015, when then Conservative Defense Minister Jason Kenney sent 200 CAF personnel to Kiev under Operation UNIFIER. This decision followed shortly after the fascist-spearheaded Maidan coup, which was politically sponsored by the US and Canadian governments and their European allies. The Operation UNIFIER training mission is ongoing.

Kenney feebly claimed that restricting training to the Ukrainian National Guard and military would prevent Nazi sympathizers from learning Canadian military techniques. But such assurances were known to be fraudulent, as Ukraine’s National Guard was already integrating various fascist groups, including the Azov Battalion, into its ranks.

In fact, the Centuria revelations point not so much to the “accidental training of Nazis,” but rather to the conscious cultivation of far-right ideology within the Canadian Armed Forces, and the armed forces of its NATO partners. Far-right forces are being mobilized across Europe as the ruling class abandons bourgeois democratic norms, and as the capitalist system sinks ever deeper into the crisis accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Far-right forces are also becoming more emboldened in Canada, as evidenced by their aggressive protests targeting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and healthcare workers during the recent federal election campaign. In July 2020, right-wing activist and Canadian army reservist Cory Hurren attempted to assassinate Trudeau, under the delusion he is a “communist.”

In fact, Trudeau is a right-wing capitalist politician, who defends the interests of Canadian imperialism at home and around the world. In addition to supporting the US-led military-strategic offensives against Russia and China, the Trudeau government, with Freeland very much at the centre of these events, backed the far-right coup attempt fronted by Juan Guaido in Venezuela and the overthrow of the Bolivian government of Evo Morales in a far-right coup d’etat in 2019.

Under previous governments, the CAF has collaborated with far-right forces in its wars and military interventions. In 2004, Washington and Ottawa used remnants of the Tontons Macoutes, the thugs of the former Duvalier dictatorship, to pave the way for their occupation of Haiti and the ouster of the country’s elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. So intimate was the collaboration between Canada’s military and far-right Islamists in the 2011 NATO regime-change war in Libya, CAF officers themselves joked they were “al-Qaeda’s airforce.”

Canadian imperialism relies on the services of such far-right forces abroad to enhance its strategic position and keep markets open to penetration by Canadian capital and the cost of labour low, in order to maximize capitalist profits.

SS Commander (Oberfurer) Fritz Freitag (left) takes the Nazi salute from the 14th SS Division Galicia. (Photo Credit: Esprit de Corps.)

At least one prominent apologist for the Ukrainian far-right teaches at the Royal Canadian Military College. Lubomyr Luciuk, a Ukrainian Canadian Congress donor is a professor of Political Science at the Royal Military College, while being a life-long apologist for the OUN(B). Luciuk has called upon the Canadian government to “investigate Soviet ‘war crimes’,” while minimizing or denying outright the crimes committed by the Nazis’ Ukrainian collaborators. In 2001, Luciuk wrote, “No member of the Ukrainian Division ‘Galicia’ (sic) can be prosecuted for a war crime or a crime against humanity since no evidence of such crimes exist.” Luciuk has campaigned against the Holocaust exhibit at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. A fervent anti-communist, Luciuk is deeply involved in “educating” the future Canadian military leadership on subjects such as history and geostrategy.

If students at the Royal Military College are being taught that the Ukrainian Nazis in WWII were fighting a “just cause,” will they be prepared to suppress strikes, or put down an insurgency of the Canadian working class? How is the Canadian army dealing with its “far-right problem” if the instructors at its premier military academy laud Ukrainian fascists and Nazi collaborators implicated in the Nazi regime’s most horrific crimes?

US and NATO ramp up anti-Russia war drive

Andrea Peters

While the US and NATO continue their military build-up on Russia’s borders, their representatives are pressing ahead with hysterical anti-Russian rhetoric and threats of war. Insisting that Moscow has massed troops and equipment on the Ukrainian border and escalated its anti-Ukrainian campaign on social media tenfold in preparation for invading its western neighbor, the secretary of the transatlantic alliance Jens Stoltenberg declared Tuesday that Russia would pay a “high price” for such an action. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken echoed his words on Wednesday, warning of “severe consequences.” Both have reiterated their support for “Ukrainian sovereignty.”

In this photo taken on Nov. 19, 2021, Attache of the Land Forces at the US Embassy in Ukraine Colonel Brandon Presley looks at the map during the visit by a delegation of the US Embassy in Ukraine to the Joint Forces operation area in the war-hit Donetsk region, Ukraine(Ukrainian Joint Forces Operation Press Service via AP)

Moscow insists that it has every right to move troops on its territory. There has been no evidence presented that the forces positioned in Russia’s west, the size of which is entirely based on Washington’s claims, are preparing to invade Ukraine. While admitting that it is unclear whether Putin had determined whether or not to go ahead with an “incursion,” Blinken claimed that the Kremlin is “putting in place the capacity to do so in short order.”

In reality, NATO, working in alliance with the Kiev government, has been carrying out endless anti-Russian provocations, including naval exercises in the Black Sea, bomber flights within miles of Russian airspace, massive military training operations along Russia’s entire western border, and troop deployments to the Baltic states.

In June, a UK warship provocatively entered Black Sea waters claimed by Russia. Over just the past month alone, the US has sent three warships to that region. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said last week that the Kremlin was “witnessing a considerable increase in the US strategic bombers’ activity near the Russian borders.” They were practicing, he added, how to employ “nuclear weapons against Russia simultaneously from the western and eastern directions.”

On Tuesday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Polish Minister of National Defense Mariusz Blaszczak over the phone about “ways to enhance deterrence along NATO’s Eastern Flank.” The US and the EU are also escalating denunciations of Russia for allegedly engaging in “hybrid warfare” on the Belarusian-Polish border. Washington just imposed new sanctions on the German-Russian gas pipeline Nord Stream 2. The British Guardian reported that the current crisis might result in the pipeline project, which is of major economic and geopolitical significance to the Kremlin, ending entirely.

Last Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky declared that Kiev had uncovered a plot by Moscow, allegedly in cahoots with Ukraine’s richest oligarch, to overthrow his government this week. The Kremlin denies these claims. Western officials have also repeated unsubstantiated charges that the Kremlin, in the words of Blinken, is working “to destabilize Ukraine from within.” There are continual references from both quarters about Russia’s supposed “prior invasion of Ukraine in 2014”—a conscious distortion of events that followed the installation of a far-right, anti-Russian government in Kiev in a coup that was funded by Washington and Brussels.

The western media, in an effort to prepare the public for a possible mass slaughter instigated by Washington, is flooding the airwaves with reports of Moscow’s allegedly demonic aims. The groundwork is being laid for the justification of war against Russia.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Zelensky, who presides over a country in the midst of a disastrous COVID-19 wave, continues to demand that his country be admitted to NATO and that the transatlantic alliance immediately step up military cooperation with his government as part of a “deterrence package” that would also include economic sanctions against Moscow.

This week, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that the deployment by NATO of offensive capabilities on Ukrainian soil is a “red line” that cannot be crossed and proposed that an agreement be reached that precluded that possibility as well the admission of Ukraine to NATO. On Thursday, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Maria Zakharova reiterated this position and warned that any deepening of the NATO-Ukraine relationship would provoke the “destabilization of the military-political situation in Europe.”

In response, NATO head Stoltenberg, speaking in Latvia early this week, said, “It’s only Ukraine and 30 NATO allies that decide when Ukraine is ready to join NATO. Russia has no veto, Russia has no say, and Russia has no right to establish a sphere of influence trying to control their neighbors.”

Speaking in Stockholm on Thursday after a meeting with Blinken in which the latter demanded that Russia drawdown its troops on the Ukrainian border, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made an impotent appeal on this very question. Russia, he insisted, does “not want any conflicts” with NATO over Ukraine, but it has the “right to choose ways to ensure its legitimate security interests.”

“Let’s not forget,” he went on, “the proclaimed principle of indivisibility and security, including in the OSCE, in the NATO Council of Russia, which says that no one has the right to strengthen their security at the expense of the security of others. And the further advance of NATO to the East will definitely affect the fundamental interests of our security.”

He added, “… if NATO still refuses to discuss this theme or the guarantees or ideas put forward by the president of Russia Vladimir Putin, of course we will take measures to ensure that our security, our sovereignty and our territorial integrity does not depend on anyone else.”

On Thursday, Lavrov and Blinken indicated that there would be a forthcoming summit meeting between their countries’ leaders.

The reckless provocations by US imperialism are in no small part driven by a profound domestic crisis. American capitalism, whose current survival is based on an overinflated stock market kept alive by the massive printing of money and forcing people to work in the face of a deadly virus so that surplus value can be pumped out of them, must rely on military violence to secure its world domination. It sees the Russian ruling class’ control over more than 6.6 million square miles of the world’s resources and markets to be an intolerable limit on its appetites. For this, the occupants of the Kremlin and Russia’s oligarchs, whose wealth and power are entirely bound up with the global capitalist system, have no answer.

Biden offers platitudes while Omicron coronavirus variant spreads in US

Bryan Dyne

In reports reminiscent of February 2020, several new cases of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus have been detected in the United States, including one in Minnesota, one in Colorado and five in New York. The emergence of these cases indicates, as noted by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, that “there is community spread of the variant” in the city and across the country.

President Joe Biden speaks about the COVID-19 variant named omicron during a visit to the National Institutes of Health, Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The case in Colorado was traced to a traveler who had returned from South Africa, similar to the first detected case in California. The case in Minnesota, however, is the first known case of community transmission in the United States. The patient is suspected to have been infected in New York City, where he attended the Anime NYC 2021 convention at the Javits Center from November 19–21. The sources of the five cases in New York are currently unknown.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also reported that the Minnesota patient had received his booster dose in early November, an indication that this latest variant is at least partially resistant to even a triple-dose of the existing vaccines.

The dangers posed by a vaccine-resistant variant were ignored in Biden’s so-called COVID-19 winter plan, announced December 2 in remarks given at the National Institutes of Health. He began with a flat rejection of the type of measures that could eliminate the virus in a matter of months, including lockdowns and school shutdowns. “It doesn’t involve shutdowns or lockdowns, but widespread vaccinations, and boosters, and testing and a lot more,” Biden said.

The plan outlines an approach to the winter months, expected to see a massive increase in infections, by continuing the same policies that have already proven ineffective: expanded vaccine access for children, booster access for adults, further testing and extended mask requirements on public transportation. When asked after his remarks about a potential shutdown to stem the spread of the variant, and the virus in general, Biden responded, “I don’t think that will happen.”

Biden’s remarks are a continuation of his administration’s overall policy toward the pandemic, above all nothing that impinges on the financial interests of Wall Street and the major corporations. This was made explicit in the White House statement preceding Biden’s remarks, which asserted that, “We have the public health tools we need to continue to fight this virus without shutting down our schools and businesses.”

Perhaps his most significant statement was this: “Experts say that COVID-19 cases will continue to rise in the weeks ahead and this winter … So we need to be ready.” Given the lethality of the currently dominant Delta variant, a rise in cases means a rise in hospitalizations and deaths, crippling the health care system, which is already overwhelmed in states like Michigan, and leading inexorably to daily death tolls in the thousands.

Rather than lift a finger to prevent this outcome, Biden bemoaned the intervention of federal judges to block his proposed vaccine mandate for employees of large corporations, and the right-wing political opposition to mask mandates and other public health measures, calling it a “sad, sad commentary.”

In other words, beyond a further push for vaccinations and expanded testing, it will be business as usual in the United States. The policies that have caused nearly 50 million infections and at least 806,000 deaths in just the US will continue unabated. Markets responded favorably to Biden’s plan; the Dow Jones jumped 617 points today, making up for much of this week’s losses.

The Omicron variant also continues to spread internationally. The World Health Organization reports that the variant has been detected in 26 countries, ranging from Botswana to South Korea, Ireland and the United States. The epicenter continues to be in South Africa, where 11,535 new cases were reported today, an eight-fold increase over the past eight days. Deaths are also on the rise, doubling over the past two weeks to an average of 30 each day.

Hospitalizations are also on the rise. South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) reports that there are currently 2,904 patients admitted, an increase of 274 over the past day. In addition, ten percent of those admitted in Tshwane, where most of the current Omicron cases are located in South Africa, are of children aged 2 and under.

Waasila Jassat, public health specialist at the NICD, told Bloomberg that because “very young children have an immature immune system and they are also not vaccinated … they are more at risk.”

A further danger of the Omicron variant is the threat of multiple reinfections of the coronavirus. A preprint study in medRxiv, “Increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection associated with emergence of the Omicron variant in South Africa,” found that the chance for reinfection from the Omicron variant is 2.4 times higher than for previous variants. They documented 35,000 cases of patients with at least one reinfection in South Africa, along with 332 cases of a second reinfection—that is those people were infected with coronavirus three separate times.

The dangers of reinfection cannot be understated. To date, there have been more than 264 million cases worldwide and at least 5.2 million dead. Each day, more than 560,000 new cases are confirmed and more than 8,000 people die. A variant which can freely cause reinfections and evades immunity will essentially restart the pandemic, accelerating the current wave of death to new and more tragic heights.

Such dangers are already emerging in South Africa. Data collated by the Financial Times shows that two weeks since the Omicron wave began in South Africa, the seven-day average of new cases is increasing at a rate about triple that of the previous wave. Similarly, genome sequencing of the coronavirus indicates that more than 90 percent of cases in the country are of the Omicron variant. It took the Delta variant nearly 100 days to reach such dominance.

Put another way, early estimates show that the Omicron variant is three to six times as infectious as the Delta variant. If these figures are borne out, Omicron will prove to be more infectious than measles.

And while no deaths have been so far attributed to the Omicron variant, in South Africa or elsewhere, no confidence can be given to the empty platitudes of those such as Angelique Coetzee, chair of the South African Medical Association, that “I think it will be a mild disease, hopefully.” The variants of SARS-CoV-2 that spread across the world, particularly the Alpha, Gamma and Delta variants, have all proven to be more infectious and deadly than their predecessors.

5G Cell Towers: How the Game is Played

David Rosen

Do you have a “5G” (Fifth Generation) phone?  It’s being ceaselessly promoted by the telecom companies as the next new standard.

5G is replacing the “macrocells” used in 4G networks because it is relatively smaller in size and cheaper to deploy.  5G wireless cellular signals are transmitted through small cell towers or base station, miniature access points that transmit low radio frequencies.

Look up and you are likely to see small cells perched on top of buildings as well as atop street lights and stop signals.  In 2020, 1,945 5G small cells had been deployed, mostly in dense, urban settings. But by 2027, 1.56 million private 5G small cells are projected to be deployed.

More than 25 state legislatures have enacted legislating the deployment of small cells, including Michigan, Missouri, New York, South Carolina and West Virginia; 16 states introduced mobile 5G and small cell-related legislation in the 2020.

However, California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed SB 556 on October 4^th, a bill to promote the deployment of small cells.  Newsom wrote:

This bill would restrict the ability of local governments and publicly-owned electric utilities to regulate the placement of small cell wireless facilities on public infrastructure and limit the compensation that may be collected for use of these public assets.

There’s a secret story behind the small cell 5G push and that’s ALEC – American Legislative Exchange Council.  It proposed the model legislation that was not only promoted in California and other states, but legislation put forward by Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr in 2018 — “Carr’s 5G Order” – that launched the new-generation of wireless communications.

At the time, then FCC commissioner — and now chair — Jessica Rosenworcel warned: “So it comes down to this: three unelected officials on this dais are telling state and local leaders all across the country what they can and cannot do in their own backyards. This is extraordinary federal overreach.”

***

Over the last two decade, the mobile phone market was transformed, moving steadily from the earliest “1^st generation” to today’s “5^th generation.”  A short review of the process illuminates this transformation:

1G – Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) launched 1G in 1979 but it was not until March 1983 that Ameritech introduced the Motorola DynaTAC mobile phone – popularly known as “The Brick” – to the U.S.

2G – introduced in Finland in 1991, it included SMS text messages, digitally encrypted calls, improved sound quality, reducing static and crackling noises, and significantly increased download speeds.

3G – launched by NTT in May 2001, it enhanced location-based services, watch mobile TV, participate in video conferencing and watch videos on demand; in addition, users could access data from anywhere, which allowed international roaming services to begin; with speeds up to 2 Mbps, it enabled improved internet surfing and music streaming on mobile phones. It saw the introduction of Blackberry and Apple i-Phone.

4G – introduced in Norway in 2009, it provided high-quality video streaming/chat, fast mobile web access, HD videos, and online gaming; it offered speeds up to 12Mbps, five times faster than the previous generation. The best-selling cellphones included the iPhone 6 at 22.4 million units and the Samsung Galaxy S4 at 80 million units worldwide.

5G – developed in South Korea in 2008, Samsung announced that it had created a 5G network in 2013; in 2019, Verizon introduced 5G in the U.S.; it cut latency — the delay between the sending and receiving information — from 4G’s 200 milliseconds to1 millisecond (1ms); and it expanded bandwidth from 30 GHz and 300 GHz.

Today, 5G is slowly superseding 4G.

Serious concerns have been raised about the health impacts of smart phone technology.  Joel Moskowitz, a PhD researcher at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health and director of Berkeley’s Center for Family and Community Health, observes,

“People are addicted to their smartphones. We use them for everything now, and, in many ways, we need them to function in our daily lives.” He warns, “I think the idea that they’re potentially harming our health is too much for some people.”

The FCC rejects these concerns, insisting “currently no scientific evidence establishes a causal link between wireless device use and cancer or other illnesses.”  However, two lawsuits were recently brought against the FCC over wireless safety rules.

Now, with Democratic control of the agencies, this concern will likely get a more careful assessment.  On October 26^th, Jessica Rosenworcel, who had served as the FCC’s acting chair, was appointed the agency’s permanent chair; she was also nominated for a new term, which would be her third. In addition, Pres. Biden nominated Gigi Sohn, a former FCC staffer and prominent advocate for an open and affordable internet, to fill the agency’s remaining open spot.

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In a January 2020 piece, Richard Gale and Gary Null noted, “… it is no surprise to find ALEC’s fingerprints all over the aggressive push to roll out 5G technology across the nation.”

ALEC is an influential conservative organization whose lobbyists draft model rightwing and free-market legislation that is promoted by sympathetic state legislators across the country.  Founded in 1973 by arch-reactionary Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation, it promotes itself as a “nonpartisan individual membership organization of state legislators that favors federalism and conservative public policy solutions.”  It claims to “advance the Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government, federalism, and individual liberty ….”

 

Whether its claims are making Jefferson spin in his grave is an open question; nevertheless, ALEC’s campaign is clear.  It seeks to destroy unions, defeat climate regulation and further shift wealth to the 1 percent.

ALEC is, formally, a non-profit group that drafts model legislation.  It has an estimated membership exceeding 2,000 state legislators from both political parties, but most are conservative Republicans.  It regularly invites members to all-expense paid private gatherings with corporate executives and lobbyists where they devise model legislation to fulfill their political agenda.  These legislators, in turn, return to their home states and promote the legislation at state houses throughout the country.  Many of their initiatives have been enacted.

At its December 2016 Communications and Information Technology Task Force at the States and Nation Policy Summit, ALEC made the following proposal to advance 5G technology and small cell towers:

BE IT RESOLVED, that extending current pole attachment rules to poles owned by governments, electrical cooperatives and railroads would ensure that broadband providers may gain access to public rights of way at just and reasonable rates; and

BE IT RESOLVED, that ALEC urges lawmakers to utilize public-private partnerships and government-owned networks only to the extent that citizens’ demand for broadband is not met by the private market; and

BE IT RESOLVED, that, in assessing whether citizens’ broadband demand is being effectively met by the private market, lawmakers may consider, in addition to service characteristics and availability, pricing and the extent of competition, but should bear the burden of defining a market failure through rigorous economic analysis of robust data, and not rely solely on concentration metrics to assert a lack of competition; …

Gale and Null identify a number of ALEC 5G “model” policy recommendations, including:

+ Permit the telecommunications industry with free access to “public rights-of-ways” to assure full small cell antennae rollout.

+ Foster fast-tracking of 5G deployment to reduce time to conduct thorough reviews of the benefits and risks to local communities.

+ Create barriers for local governments to foster public broadband access.

Telecom analyst Bruce Kushnick drew special attention to FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, arguing that his promotion of 5G “model legislation” that was “most likely created by ALEC.”   Speaking before Indiana’s Statehouse in 2018, Carr promised that “5G will create jobs, improve education and promote safety. But to upgrade our networks, we must upgrade our regulations.”  He added:

Policymakers can’t claim success if 5G is only deployed in big cities like New York and San Francisco. Those ‘must serve’ cities will get next- gen mobile broadband almost regardless of what we do. Success means every community getting a fair shot at 5G.

He argued, “To achieve that success, we need to update our rules to match this revolutionary new technology.”

In an interview with The American Spectator, Carr fleshed out his vision for 5G:

I want to see 5G deployed as ubiquitously as possible and that’s part of why it was so important we took that effort to streamline regulatory red tape. Thirty percent of the total cost of deploying these small cells had been eaten up by this federal regulatory review, so by cutting that cost, which we did last month, that flips the business case for thousands of communities.

Fully articulating the ALEC legislative agenda, Carr conclude, “So communities that wouldn’t have been profitable for a carrier to deploy 5G to now becomes economical.

Carr argued that his 5G plan would cut roughly $2 billion in administrative fees and stimulate additional investments. However, the National Association of Counties (NACo) warned in 2018 that the FCC legislation “would significantly limit their ability to properly regulate wireless telecommunications infrastructure deployment. By narrowing the window for evaluating 5G deployment applications, the FCC would effectively prevent local governments from overseeing public health, safety and welfare during the construction, modification or installation of broadcasting facilities.”  Thus anticipating Gov. Newson’s veto of SB 556.

Carr also embraced ALEC’s support to reverse the internet from a Title II to a Title I service. Under the 1934 Telecommunications Act, Title II services are designated as basic or “common carrier” services and are subject to more regulation; Title I involves what is designated as an enhanced “information services” and subject to fewer regulations.

Pres. Trump’s FCC chair Ajit Pai’s issued a directive in 2017 to reverse Pres. Obama’s reinstatement of Title II of the Communications Act to internet services.  ALEC denounced Obama actions as “a heavy-handed regulatory mistake … and would have allowed the FCC as well as state and local governments to impose onerous taxes and fees on Internet bills.”

In the Spectator interview, Carr uses words that have the same shrill ring of the ALEC announcement:

When the commission adopted the unprecedented decision in 2015 during the Obama-era FCC to impose this heavy-handed Title II regime those decisions have consequences and we saw that investment by broadband providers was declining during the period in which that Title II regime was imposed.

So, when you look at the small cells towers, remember the politics of technology is played out in your smartphone.

7.5 magnitude earthquake leaves Peru’s impoverished Amazonas in ruins

Cesar Uco

A 7.5 magnitude earthquake has left a large part of the department of Amazonas, one of the poorest in Peru, in ruins.

According to the Peruvian Geophysical Institute, the earthquake occurred at 5:52 a.m. on November 28, and its waves extended throughout northern and central Peru, reaching the capital Lima, 1,125 km away by road, as well as the southern regions of Ecuador and Colombia.

Hours after the quake, the Lima daily La República said that in the department of Amazonas alone, “The tremor left 636 victims, 2,202 affected, 12 injured; as well as 117 houses destroyed, 110 uninhabitable and 408 houses affected.” One woman died apparently of a heart attack.

The updated Damage Assessment and Needs Analysis (EDAN) said that in the region 764 houses were affected, 375 left uninhabitable and 117 fully destroyed. “Three percent of the people do not have electricity.”

Peruvian rescue workers evacuating residents of the El Aserradero sector of Utcubamba earthquake. (Credit: Andina)

In addition, 32 health care facilities, eight public offices and 19 churches were damaged. Five other religious centers were destroyed. This is not counting the damage to the road infrastructure, which is enormous.

At the epicenter of the earthquake, “Six schools [were] affected, a health center and two temples destroyed,” the National Institute of Civil Defense (INDECI) reported.

Two days after the event, another newspaper, El Comercio, reported: “As of yesterday, the mortal victim of the earthquake was a three-year-old boy, who was crushed to death by some boards that fell due to the tremor.” It added that “more than 6,000 people were affected.”

“Other departments heavily affected were San Martin, Cajamarca and Loreto,” reported El Comercio. The figures for the neighboring departments were “Cajamarca with 170 victims, five houses destroyed, 30 uninhabitable houses; and San Martin with 143 victims, 33 uninhabitable houses, among others.”

Geophysics studies indicated that the threat was located behind Peru’s mountain range. Specialists warned that not only is the coast threatened by seismic risk. According to the executive president of the Geophysical Institute of Peru (IGP), Hernando Tavera, earthquakes in the highlands and jungles of the country can have the same or even greater intensity than those occurring in the coastal area, despite the fact that the collision of the Nazca and Continental plates occurs on the coast.

The tragedy could have been reduced to a minimum if it were not for the criminal policy of the central government, which abandons the regions furthest from the capital.

The lack of development of infrastructure in remote areas had a strong negative impact. Rock falls abounded on the highways. The main ones blocked roads linking Chachapoyas to Pedro Ruiz Gallo and Chachapoyas to Rodriguez de Mendoza.

Meanwhile, hundreds of inhabitants of the districts of Nieva, Chachapoyas and Chirinos have been cut off from communication after their roads were severely affected. According to COEN (Centro de Operaciones de Emergencia Nacional), as a result of the earthquake, 1.5 kilometers of road were totally destroyed, while 5.3 kilometers were damaged by falling rocks. “There are still landslides despite the fact that there are no more aftershocks,” an official of the institution told La República two days after the earthquake.

The statistics on the destruction caused by the earthquake appear less severe because it took place in a department with a very low population density, mainly dedicated to agricultural activities. With a little less than half a million inhabitants in a country of 33 million, it accounts for approximately 1.6 percent of the Peruvian population.

However, a comparison with what the same level of destruction would have meant for Lima is revealing. Assuming a similar infrastructure as the one in the department of Amazonas, for the 10 million inhabitants of metropolitan Lima, the figures would have been approximately 24 times higher, i.e., more than 52,000 affected and 13,000 homes destroyed, uninhabitable or affected.

President Pedro Castillo quickly flew by helicopter to the area and declared a state of emergency in five regions.

In the first 100 days of Castillo’s government, he has given in to everything the national bourgeoisie has asked of him. He has restructured his cabinet by getting rid of anyone the bourgeoisie denounced as a “communist” or falsely accused of having had decades-old connections with the extinct Maoist guerrilla group Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path).

Following his hollow policy of “no more poor people in a rich country” in his visit to the Amazonas, the president committed himself to the reconstruction of homes and assured that he will not rest “until the population has the security of being in their homes in peace.” This will likely prove to be more empty promises.

The total lack of fulfillment of his electoral promises has caused Castillo’s approval ratings to plummet. In the southern Andean departments, where in many places he won by a margin of up to 80 percent, the latest statistics from the Institute of Peruvian Studies (IEP) on October 31 showed that his approval ratings in the impoverished region, his main base of support, had fallen from 58 percent to 42 percent over the course of the previous month.

During his inspection of the affected areas, Castillo showed that political attacks, including over corruption and demands for his removal from office, are beginning to rattle him. When a reporter questioned him, “Are you considering resigning?” he rudely replied, “Are you crazy, sir?”

Humberto Campodonico, an engineering economist specializing in hydrocarbons, made a study on the economic situation of Amazonas in which he found that “In 2001, the Gross Added Value (not considering taxes) of Peru was 109 billion Peruvian soles in 1994, while Amazonas was only 713 million soles. This means that Amazonas accounts for 0.65 percent of Peru’s GVA. This same relationship was maintained until 2007, the last year with INEI statistics.”

He went on to explain, “In Amazonas, the predominant sector is agriculture, with 40 percent of GVA, but this figure for the average Peruvian is 10 percent of GVA. The difference is abysmal and revealing of economic backwardness. If we look at other services, manufacturing, commerce and construction, the distances from the rest of Peru are also notable.”

Campodonico added, “Poverty in Amazonas, according to the latest INEI Poverty Report, reaches 59.7 percent of the population, up from 55 percent in 2007. Thus, Amazonas became part of Group 2 of the poor regions of Peru along with Apurimac (69 percent), Ayacucho (64.8 percent), Pasco (64.3 percent), Puno (62.8 percent), Huanuco (61.5 percent), and Cusco (58.4 percent). Group 1 has only one member, Apurimac, with 82.1 percent poverty.”

Although it is recognized that mining and oil are not significant activities in the Amazonas department, the business daily Gestión warned, “Mining undermines the wealth of indigenous territories in the Amazon basin.”

Gestión continued, “According to a legal analysis carried out in Peru and five other countries that control more than 90 percent of the Amazon basin, “national laws and regulations tend to favor companies over Indigenous Peoples.”

Moreover, “The data also reveals that between 2000 and 2015, the indigenous lands where these activities are developed suffered a higher rate of deforestation.”

They also point out that in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru the loss of forest cover was at least three times higher in indigenous territories with mining operations, both legal and illegal, than in the rest; and one to two times higher in Colombia and Venezuela.

The situation among the 333 native communities is most alarming. Communication between the indigenous communities was cut due to lack of roads and electricity. New dangers are also feared due to the beginning of the heavy rainy season in November in the Amazon, intensifying the problem of landslides and more communication interruptions.

The Amazon region was also hard hit by COVID-19, which has claimed over 200,000 lives across Peru, the country with the highest recorded mortality rate on the planet. The region also has the lowest vaccination rate in Peru. The threat of a new and even more devastating wave of the pandemic was underscored by the report Tuesday that Japanese authorities had detected the new and highly contagious Omicron variant in a traveler arriving from Peru.

The earthquake’s destruction of the indigenous people’s property, land and means of subsistence in the poor department of Amazonas can only increase the growing discontent of the Peruvian people with a government that has broken all its promises.

In June 2009 then President Alan Garcia—who a decade later would commit suicide, when police appeared at his house with a preventive arrest order for alleged crimes of corruption in his dealings with the Brazilian mega-construction company Odebrecht—mockingly told the indigenous communities that it was he who decided how the jungle would be divided up for exploration and exploitation by transnational oil companies. This was in violation of the international rights of indigenous peoples to decide on the sovereignty of their lands.

A failure by Castillo’s government to make reparations to the indigenous people affected by the earthquake may help ignite social conflicts between the indigenous people and transnational petroleum companies.

Reuters recently reported on PetroTal Corp. complaining that “indigenous people from an Amazon region in Peru were blocking its crude oil transport operations and could halt production in the coming days, in another conflict affecting the country’s natural resources industry.”

The news agency added that the Canadian-based oil company is sending its crude down the Amazon River by barge to Brazil for export “because the pipeline it normally uses—owned by state-owned Petroperú—has been paralyzed since the beginning of October due to another protest in the area.”