The Omicron COVID-19 variant and the reckless endangerment of children

Evan Blake

The highly transmissible Omicron variant of COVID-19 has now spread to 49 countries throughout the world, with many already experiencing community spread of the new variant. In the United Kingdom, which combines high rates of DNA sequencing with the “herd immunity” strategy of letting the virus rip throughout society, there are now 246 detected cases of the Omicron variant, a 54 percent increase in one day.

Residents listen to Gauteng Province Premier David Makhura in Lawley, South Africa, Friday Dec. 3, 2021 for the launch of the Vooma vaccination program against COVID-19. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

The situation is increasingly dire in South Africa, where daily new infections and hospitalizations have surged far faster than any previous wave. The seven-day moving average of daily new cases is now 10,628, while the test positivity rate stands at 26.4 percent, indicating that the real number of daily new cases is likely far higher than the official figure.

Hospitalizations and deaths are a lagging indicator, but the number of new admissions to hospitals and intensive care units increased by just under 10 percent over the weekend, and another nine South Africans succumbed to the virus over the weekend.

One of the most concerning initial trends of the Omicron surge in South Africa is the disproportionate impact of the virus on infants and toddlers under the age of five. At a press conference Friday, Dr. Waasila Jassat of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) stated, “We’ve seen quite a sharp increase [in hospital admissions] across all age groups but particularly in the under 5s.” She added, “The incidence in those under 5 is now second highest, second only to those over 60.”

In the city of Tshwane, over 100 children less than five years old were admitted to hospitals with COVID-19 between November 14-27, far more than any previous wave of the pandemic. The NICD noted Friday that children under the age of two accounted for roughly 10 percent of the total hospital admissions in Tshwane.

In an interview with SABC News, Professor Rudo Mathivha at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Johannesburg commented, “If we were to get children, toddlers, coming in great numbers, with significant severity of disease, this is going to be a major problem for us. Our hospitals were not built to house a lot of children, because naturally children do not get that sick in multitude. We will not be able to accommodate them.”

Experts have commented that infants and toddlers are most susceptible because they are not yet eligible for the vaccine, and there is also concern that the heavily mutated virus could affect children differently than previous variants. Already, the Delta variant has caused greater harm to children in the US and internationally, with thousands killed globally.

The growing spread of the Omicron variant takes place under conditions in which the Delta variant is fueling the sixth global surge of the pandemic, with Europe and North America the present epicenters. In response to this catastrophic surge, in which an average of roughly 600,000 people are officially infected and 7,000 people are dying from COVID-19 each day, capitalist governments adamantly refuse to close schools in order to protect children, their parents and communities.

In the United Kingdom, an average of over 45,000 people are now officially infected with COVID-19 each day. While the Omicron variant spreads rapidly and schools are forced to remain open, the Johnson administration is targeting British parent and anti-COVID activist Lisa Diaz with legal actions to try to quell the growing opposition among parents to the sacrifice of their children.

In Germany, an average of more than 55,000 people are officially infected each day. The incidence rate among children aged 5-14 has been above 1,000 per 100,000 people for over a week, the highest of any age group. Over the past month, there have officially been more than 1,540 school outbreaks throughout the country. In response to this crisis, no officials have supported the growing calls for school closures among parents, students and educators.

In France, daily new cases have more than quadrupled in the past month, reaching a current average of more than 40,000. The highest increase is taking place among children aged 6-10, driven primarily by outbreaks in schools. In response, officials are further lifting restrictions and limiting the ability of schools to close in the event of an outbreak.

In the United States, 18 states have detected the Omicron variant while an average of nearly 110,000 people are infected with COVID-19 each day. The entire fall semester has seen a sustained mass infection of children. According to this week’s report from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which is highly limited due to efforts by state governments to cover up COVID-19 data on children, another 133,022 children were officially infected with COVID-19 across the US last week, the 17th straight week of over 100,000 infections.

The report notes that eight more children died from COVID-19 last week, bringing their total count to 651. However, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that 974 children under 18 years old have succumbed to the virus, including an extraordinary 306 children under the age of five.

Despite the deepening catastrophe of infections, hospitalizations and deaths among children, which Omicron threatens to intensify even further, the entire political establishment, corporate media and the teachers unions insist that schools must stay open.

At a press conference Thursday on the Omicron variant, US President Joe Biden outlined a new “Test to Stay” program, whereby whenever a student tests positive for COVID-19, his or her peers will no longer be sent home to safely quarantine. Instead, they will continue learning in-person if they test negative.

This program, designed to keep kids at school so their parents can stay at work producing profits, was immediately endorsed by American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten. On a day when nearly 20,000 children in the US were officially infected with COVID-19, she cynically wrote, “Testing and tracing has always been our best way of getting an accurate picture of our public health landscape during this pandemic.”

The position of Weingarten, along with the Biden administration, ever more closely resembles that of the “herd immunity” advocates on the far right. In September, Weingarten chaired an AFT town hall at which Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) author Jay Bhattacharya was the featured “scientist.”

The central tenet of the GBD is the pseudoscientific notion that children should actively be infected with COVID-19 to serve as a “human shield” protecting their elders. In reality, this criminal policy has led to the deaths of nearly 1,000 US children and the potential long-term debilitation of millions, with the still incompletely understood effects of “Long COVID.” Before the ongoing Delta surge, more than 140,000 children had already lost a parent or grandparent caregiver to COVID-19, a figure that has likely now surpassed 200,000.

The role of the corporate media is equally criminal. In almost all the print and broadcast news, there is a concerted effort to disarm the population and prematurely declare the Omicron variant “milder” than previous variants of the virus. While the precise virulence and lethality of this latest Frankenstein monster will be determined in time, the rapid surge of hospitalizations and warnings from scientists on the ground in South Africa indicate that Omicron will likely be just as severe as previous variants, if not more so due to its higher transmissibility.

Instead of warning about these possible dangers and advancing the precautionary principle at the heart of public health, the New York Times is opposing lockdowns and ramping up its denunciations of China. In an article Monday, the Times decries China’s “unrelenting march toward herd immunity, the point at which enough people are immune to the virus that it cannot spread through the population.” They denounce China for being “the world’s last zero-Covid holdout” and absurdly present as “authoritarian” the country’s efforts to inoculate children aged 3-11, even as New York City announced the same day a vaccine mandate for private companies.

The truth is that tens of millions of parents were coerced to send their children back into unsafe schools across the US and every advanced capitalist country, with no remote option provided for the vast majority of working and middle class families. A criminal policy aimed at deliberately infecting masses of youth and their families has killed millions worldwide, with young people now increasingly threatened by the Omicron variant, all of which the Times has continuously supported.

UN’s highest ever humanitarian appeal falls on imperialism’s deaf ears

Jean Shaoul

On Thursday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) launched an appeal to the major powers for a record $41 billion to help the 183 million people most in need of life-saving assistance.

This was a large increase on the $35 billion requested for 2021 and double the amount sought just four years ago. It is needed for some 63 countries, nearly one third of the 193 United Nations member states, most of which came into existence after the national liberation movements took over from the colonial powers that had previously ruled them.

Speaking at a news conference at Thursday’s launch of the appeal, OCHA head and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths stressed that the number of people in need “has never been as high as this.” He said, “The climate crisis is hitting the world’s most vulnerable people first and worst. Protracted conflicts grind on, and instability has worsened in several parts of the world, notably Ethiopia, Myanmar and Afghanistan.”

Worse is to come.

OCHA’s Global Humanitarian Overview 2022 report, published the same day, draws on the work of 37 agencies, including various UN agencies and international aid organisations. It said 274 million people worldwide will need some form of emergency assistance next year, up 17 percent from the 235 million in 2021, a record high. One in 29 of the world’s 7.9 billion people will need help in 2022, up 250 percent on 2015 when one in 95 needed assistance.

In this Sunday, June 14, 2020 photo, seven-month-old Issa Ibrahim Nasser is brought to a clinic in Deir Al-Hassi, At seven months old, Issa weighs only three kilos. Like him, hundreds of children suffer from acute severe malnutrition because of poverty and grinding conflict. Yemen. (AP Photo/Issa Al-Rajhi)

The report noted that the COVID-19 pandemic, fueled by vaccine inequality, has devastated economies, livelihoods, health systems and education. Testing, diagnosis and treatment for HIV, TB and malaria has fallen. Ante-natal visits dropped by 43 percent and 23 million children missed basic childhood vaccines in 2021. With 2.2 billion children without access to the internet at home, many faced disruption to their education.

The pandemic has increased suffering and extreme poverty, rising again after two decades of decline with women and young workers disproportionately affected by job losses. Some 247 million women live on less than $1.90 a day. Hunger is on the rise and food insecurity has reached unprecedented levels, with 811 million people (11 percent of the world’s population) undernourished and famine “a real and terrifying possibility in 43 countries.”

Political conflicts have hit civilians hard. More than 1 percent of the world’s population is now displaced, of whom 42 percent are children. Millions of internally displaced people (IDPs) live in camps or in impoverished conditions in cities for long periods, unable to return home.

The humanitarian needs are by far the greatest in the Middle East and Africa, thanks to wars provoked, fueled and paid for by the imperialist powers in pursuit of access to raw materials and markets in the interests of the corporations they represent. The priority of the local oligarchies is to remain competitive for foreign investments, while continuing debt payments to the financial vultures, expanding their armed forces and suppressing the revolutionary strivings of the working class and poor peasants.

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), 45 million people are at risk of famine in dozens of countries, with Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia and Sudan topping the list. In Afghanistan, more than 24 million people are in dire need of assistance as the result of four decades of war and now the worst drought in 27 years.

Syria, which has endured more than 10 years of a US-led war to topple the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, faces a lack of basic commodities amid a horrifically damaged infrastructure. Average household expenditure exceeds income by 50 percent compared with 20 percent in August 2020.

In Yemen, at war since Saudi Arabia, aided and abetted by the US, Britain and the regional powers, invaded its impoverished southern neighbour in April 2015, 16.2 million of the 30 million population face acute food shortages. Even with humanitarian assistance, 40 percent of the population do not have enough food.

In Ethiopia, 25.9 million of its 118 million population need help as a result of the war in Tigray and other parts of the country, Drought and disease are mounting, with many of the country’s 4.2 million IDPs seeking shelter in the towns and cities adding to the social and economic pressures. In South Sudan, 8.4 million of its 11 million people are in need, as a result of the ongoing civil war since independence from Sudan in 2011, and three years of flooding and disease.

As well as the Middle East and Africa, there has been increased demand for humanitarian assistance from Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean. The situation in Myanmar has deteriorated significantly in the wake of last February’s military coup and the pandemic, with 14.4 million of the country’s 55 million people in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. In Haiti, a massive 43 percent of the population need aid, in the wake of last August’s earthquake that affected 800,000 people, on top of the even more devastating one in 2010; the pandemic and the deteriorating economic situation.

Despite the desperate need, funding for 2022 will not be forthcoming. This year’s OCHA appeal garnered just $17 billion, less than half the amount requested, with the 10 most underfunded emergencies receiving less than half what was needed, leading to cutbacks in food rations and life-saving healthcare services. Griffiths acknowledged this, saying, “We’re aware that we’re not going to get the $41 billion, much as we will try hard.” He did not spell out why this was so or the consequences for the world’s most destitute people.

It is not as if there are no resources available. The world’s richest billionaires have seen their wealth increase astronomically this past year and could easily foot the entire bill. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the net worth of Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla and the richest person in the world as of December 2021 is $311 billion, while that of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is $201 billion. Yet the world’s governments refuse to tax them or their ilk.

This leaves the OCHA reliant on appeals to donor countries that have become increasingly unsuccessful.

Its parent body and the UN’s humanitarian agency, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), was set up in 1950 along with the 1951 Convention on Human Rights and the Convention on the Status of Refugees to address the tens of million refugee, forcibly displaced and stateless people crisis following World War II, in the political context of the Cold War. Then popular revulsion at the Holocaust happened to align with Washington’s strategic interests in asserting its global hegemony, containing the influence of the Stalinist regime in Moscow and above all suppressing the threat of social revolution on a global scale.

Nevertheless, the UNHCR, and the agencies it spawned in the 1990s such as OCHA after the collapse of the Soviet Union, were always funded on an ad hoc basis.

Its approach was based primarily on aiding those in camps and defending the right to seek asylum anywhere but in the imperialist centres. This laid the framework of a global refugee regime, providing the template for the response to multiple crises in the 1960s in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Europe within the context of the Cold War.

Today, the majority of IDPs do not reside in camps, while the right to asylum is being obliterated.

OCHA’s appeal and report fell on deaf ears. Indeed, the agency pointed out the complete bankruptcy of its call. Admitting it had no solutions for the crisis, the OCHA declared, “Humanitarian aid cannot provide a path out of protracted crises when such a scarcity of funds persists.”

There was no mention of the appeal in the world’s press, testifying to the degree to which starvation and misery are not only being normalized but becoming the policy of choice—a weapon in the hands of the major imperialist powers that speak for their corporate and financial oligarchs, and their puppet regimes in the world’s poorest countries.

Washington now routinely uses sanctions and secondary sanctions to exert “maximum pressure” on Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and its allies in Syria and Lebanon, to cite but a few, in a bid to force them to toe its line. Israel has blockaded Gaza for more than 14 years; Saudi Arabia has besieged Yemen for six years and the Ethiopian government is blockading the rebel Tigray province to starve them into submission.

UK child poverty soars as workers’ living standards suffer sharp decline and household poverty grows

Simon Whelan

Child poverty in Britain is growing rapidly as working-class families suffer a severe reduction in living standards and are tipped into poverty.

Over recent months rapidly rising bills and prices, wages failing to keep pace with inflation, and cuts of £20 a week to the Universal Credit welfare payment on which million rely, including millions of low paid workers, have decimated incomes.

Cumulatively, UK household incomes could drop on average by approximately £1,000 next year, according to analysis by the Resolution Foundation (RF) thinktank. The Institute for Public Policy Research says a typical family will lose a further £500 a year because of the planned increase in national insurance taxes next April and an expected 5 percent rise in council tax.

Recent figures from the Department for Works and Pensions record astonishingly high levels of child poverty even before housing costs. It found that 11.7 million children (18 percent) are in relative poverty and 9.2 million (14 percent) are in absolute poverty. Once housing costs are taken into account, 14.5 million children (22 percent) are in relative poverty and 11.7 million children (18 percent) suffer absolute levels of deprivation.

RF expects child poverty to rise further by 2.7 percent, approximately 400,000 extra children, in the coming year. Over the course of this Parliament (2019-2024), the RF expects child poverty to rise from 30.9 percent to 33.7 percent, or one in three children. Even if the Universal Credit uplift payment of £20 a week (introduced at the start of the pandemic) had remained—it was removed by the Conservative government in October—the RF would still have expected child poverty to grow to 31.4 percent by 2024-25.

According to a report released November 29 by child poverty charity The Childhood Trust (CT), 250,000 children in the UK will go hungry this Christmas. The report, “Cold, Hungry and Stressed”, estimates that nearly a fifth of families are worried about not being able to afford Christmas dinner.

The Childhood Trust report "Cold, Hungry and Stressed"

While childhood poverty was prevalent before the coronavirus pandemic, the CT stress how the scale and complexity of child poverty has intensified over the past 18 months because of economic and political developments that have jointly reduced UK incomes.

Laurence Guinness, CEO of The Children’s Trust, said, “The social and economic situation across fuel, food and support services will force families into making impossible decisions between feeding their child or keeping them warm, decisions no families should be forced to make”.

The CT found families are being forced into desperate measures in order to make sure their children are fed and 28 percent of women admitted they have gone without food so their child can eat. Of the 55,318 children represented by 30 charities in the CT report, it is estimated that approximately 14,152 (26 percent) will not receive any Christmas presents this year. Contacted by the CT, London charities reported that 67 percent of the children they support were affected by food poverty in October 2021 and over half of the charities surveyed reported an increase in the number of people accessing their services due to food poverty. Of these charities, the average increase in the number of beneficiaries was up by an incredible 50 percent.

These results echo findings from CT’s UK-wide survey, which reported 22 percent of London and 20 percent of UK respondents were financially concerned about not being able to buy Christmas presents this winter.

Authoring a comment piece about their research at Politics.co.uk, Guinness wrote “Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, household food insecurity has increased, food bank use has reached its highest levels, and the number of children eligible for free school meals has risen. This winter, the rising cost of food is hitting low income families hard.” Guinness said children face devastating life-long consequences from food insecurity and the nutritional deficiencies it causes.

Charities involved with CT predict fuel poverty will get even worse in winter 2021/2022 causing many families to choose between heating their homes or feeding their children. The lives of 24,591 of the 25,726 children (96 percent) affected by fuel poverty across 23 of the charities surveyed are predicted to significantly worsen. Out of the total 106,523 children represented by 31 charities in this report, approximately 38 percent are expected to experience fuel poverty at some point during the Christmas holidays.

Millions of people are rationing the use of their gas central heating system. Kevin Peachey, personal finance correspondent for BBC News, reported December 2 on the case of Sandy Birtles and her child. Sandy must pile coats and blankets on top of him to keep him warm in bed. “When she goes in to check on him at night, Sandy Birtles says she can hardly see her teenage son for all the layers on his bed. The single mother of two says that the family do all they can to keep warm as the bills continue to rise.”

The article noted National Energy Action’s calculation that when domestic energy prices rise in April, it will mean that the typical domestic gas bill will have doubled in just 18 months. The charity, which campaigns for warm, dry homes, used industry data and forecasts to predict that the typical gas bill, for those on standard tariffs, is likely to have gone up from £466 a year in October 2020, to £944 in April 2022.

Widespread poverty has resulting in cases of malnutrition almost doubling in the decade since the Conservatives came to power in 2010. National Health Service research found that people were treated in hospital 4,657 times for the condition in the 2010/2011 financial year. By 2020/2021, this had risen to 10,109.

Poverty affecting millions of people has resulted in a staggering increase in the use of food banks over the last decade. In 2009/2010, The Trussell Trust provided 40,898 emergency three-day food parcels. By 2020/21, approximately 2.5 million parcels were given out across Britain. As an indicator of how poverty has worsened in the course of the pandemic, the amount of food parcels given out in 2020/21 was over 600 thousand more than the previous year. Nearly a million (980,000) food parcels were given out to children. The Trussell Trust operates nearly 1,300 food banks and a further 1,000 are operated by other organisations.

As working-class living standards collapse and poverty rockets, the ruling Conservatives occupy a parallel universe of Thatcherite triumphalism. When the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Professor Philip Alston, visited the UK in 2018 reporting on the impact of “extreme poverty” on people’s lives, the government belittled him and rubbished his damning findings. In 2013, a report on UK housing by UN Rapporteur Raquel Rolnik was dismissed as “a Marxist diatribe” by Kris Hopkins, the then Tory housing minister.

On the same day the Childhood Trust released their figures on child poverty, John Penrose MP, chairman of Conservative Policy Forum, wrote in a Daily Telegraph column, “In the past forty years… Britain has pretty much defeated mass unemployment, and improved living standards beyond our parents’ and grandparents’ wildest dreams.” Today, said the Tory minister receiving £81,932 plus expenses a year, the problem is that “We’re stuck down a blind alley, built by the political Left, where poverty is defined as a question of how equal or unequal people’s pay might be.”

Penrose has been this astoundingly corrupt government’s “anti-corruption champion” since it took office. He is married to the multi-millionaire incompetent Baroness Dido Harding, who has been paid £63,000 a year since 2017 for working two days a week as head of NHS Improvement, a role which saw her lead the privatised test-and-trace fiasco.

WHO says that Omicron could become the dominant variant globally

Benjamin Mateus

According to a press release on Friday by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529), first detected in South Africa in early November, has now been found in 38 countries across all six WHO regions. Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, WHO’s chief scientist, explained that though “it is possible that it [Omicron] could become the dominant variant [globally],” Delta still accounts for 99 percent of all infections worldwide.

Cases globally continue to surge, with more than 266 million cumulative reported cases and over 5.27 million deaths. Delta continues to take its toll on the populations of North America and Europe. The daily average number of cases has continued its steady climb for nearly two months, reaching more than 600,000 cases per day worldwide. Deaths have held constant at a horrific rate of around 7,000 per day.

Medics wearing special suits to protect against coronavirus treat patients with coronavirus at an ICU of a hospital in Volgograd, Russia, Sunday, Nov. 21, 2021. (AP Photo/Alexandr Kulikov)

In the United States, cumulative cases will top 50 million this week. Deaths are approaching 810,000, according to the Worldometer COVID dashboard. Meanwhile, the number of daily COVID cases is fast approaching 150,000 once more. The seven-day average of cases is over 106,000, and the rate of daily deaths has turned upwards, nearing 1,200 on a daily average.

In Europe, more than 88 million COVID cases and 1.56 million deaths have been reported. Weekly cases have been rising for more than nine straight weeks, with close to 400,000 cases on a daily average. Though there are indications that deaths have plateaued, they remain disastrously high at around 30,000 per week or more than 4,200 per day.

In East Asia, countries that had been able to control the coronavirus up to now face their most dire period in the pandemic. South Korea had a single-day high of 5,352 cases and 70 deaths on December 4. Infections are growing exponentially there, and deaths are rapidly rising. Further south, Vietnam and Thailand continue to battle recent surges.

Despite these developments, the world is focused on the current concerns raised by the highly mutated and transmissible Omicron variant. As bad as Delta has been, the incredibly rapid rates of infections caused by Omicron in South Africa have gripped public attention. According to the initial contact with this variant, it has far outpaced any of its previous predecessors.

According to Angelique Coetzee, the South African Medical Association chair, the effective reproduction number (R) for Omicron has been estimated to be above six. Speaking with the BBC, she said, “We know currently that the virus is transmissible. According to the scientists, the R-value is 6.3, I think.” The value for Delta was just over five.

Since scientists there first detected the Omicron on November 9, when the daily average was just 266 cases, infection rates in South Africa have risen 32-fold at 8,861 new cases per day. Cases are doubling every three days. Accompanying this trend has been a concerning rise in hospitalizations of children under the age of five, underscoring the issue that children are not only able to become infected, but they can become very ill.

During a press conference, Dr. Waasila Jassat, Public Health Medicine Specialist who works at South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases, said, “All these young children being admitted, most of them, the parents have not been vaccinated either. So, I think, certainly the value of vaccination in the adults, protecting the children in the homes, is something to keep in mind.”

Infants under the age of two account for about ten percent of hospital admissions in Tshwane, the epicenter of the Omicron outbreak in South Africa. The incidence of admissions for children under five is second only to those over the age of 60. Dr. Jassat explained that more than 100 children under the age of five were admitted in the first two weeks of the fourth wave. In the first two weeks of the country’s third wave, less than 20 children had been hospitalized.

Rather than taking the appropriate public health measures to stem this massive tide of infections, President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa is pressing for a vaccine mandate. Only a quarter of the country’s population is fully vaccinated. Meanwhile, Health Minister Joe Phaala has attempted to control the messaging on these developments by assuring the public that even though Omicron is more transmissible, it is “less severe.”

GISAID, which is tracking SARS-CoV-2 variants globally, noted that 35 countries have thus far submitted sequences confirming the presence of the Omicron variant. South Africa has submitted 228 sequences, accounting for almost 80 percent of all submissions. The United Kingdom has submitted 84, Ghana 33, the US 27, and Botswana 23. In the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that 15 states had detected the Omicron variant.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, speaking on ABC News on Sunday, said, “We know we have several dozen cases, and we’re following them closely. And we are hearing about more and more probable cases every day, so that number is likely to rise.” And this statement comes on the heels of ever-rising cases of infections caused by the Delta variant.

Walensky’s insistence that SARS-CoV-2 will become endemic in the US must be seen by the working class as an abdication of her responsibility to protect the population. It is a political statement that assures the ruling class that the policy of the CDC is aligned with that of the financial oligarchs. Omicron will be treated no differently than Delta or any future variants.

In Europe, the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, France, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Luxembourg, Ireland, and the Czech Republic have reported cases. The European CDC’s December 2, 2021, threat assessment brief noted that more than 70 cases had been confirmed by 13 European Union and European Economic Area countries by the time of their report. These are, by now, a vast undercounting, as several superspreader events have already been confirmed.

According to a Norwegian public health official, at a recent Christmas party in Norway where 120 people had joined in the festivities, more than half have been infected by Omicron. Dr. Preben Aavitsland said, “This party has been a superspreader event. Our working hypothesis is that at least half of the 120 participants were infected with the Omicron variant during the party. This makes this, for now, the largest Omicron outbreak outside South Africa.” [Emphasis added]

The European CDC made the following prediction in their brief: “…preliminary data from South Africa suggests that it may have a substantial growth advantage over the Delta variant of concern (VOC). If this is the case, mathematical modeling 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.”

They added, “The presence of multiple mutations in the spike protein of the Omicron VOC indicates a high likelihood of reduction of neutralizing activity of antibodies induced by infection or vaccination. Preliminary data suggest that the Omicron VOC may be associated with increased risk of reinfection in South Africa.” The statement is based on a recent study out of South Africa that showed a very high rate of reinfection, implying that Omicron can evade immunity from previous infections and vaccinations.

What is less clear is if infection with Omicron will produce less, the same, or more severity than Delta. The Technical Lead at the WHO, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, noted that it was still too early to make sense of the severity caused by Omicron. Generally, children and young adults will have mild symptoms, and inferences in populations that have been vaccinated or previously infected with other variants will muddy attempts to concretize these questions in the initial period. She said, “There were initial reports that it tended to be more mild, but it’s really too soon.”

Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, echoed his colleague's caution: “It takes time, unfortunately. We saw that as well in previous waves of this pandemic. When the incidence rate goes up, it takes a week or two for that to result in hospital admissions and deaths.”

In North America, besides the US, Mexico and Canada have also reported the new variant. Cases have also been found throughout Southeast Asia, Japan, Brazil, and Australia. By all accounts, many countries that lack comprehensive sequencing capacity are more than likely harboring Omicron. It is more than sure that this new variant has been deeply seeded in communities throughout the globe.

Indeed, despite the concerns raised by Omicron, country after country continues to take a cavalier attitude to these developments, a situation that could evolve into a two-strain pandemic, with Delta and Omicron acting side-by-side, rather than one displacing the other. As noted by numerous principled scientists, the reliance on a vaccine-only strategy is shortsighted and irrational. It amounts to calling for the population to get vaccinated and hoping for the best. The logic remains that the stock markets must remain unfettered by the risks posed by these deadly variants to the planet's population.

Government crisis in Austria

Peter Schwarz

The hasty withdrawal from Austrian politics of Sebastian Kurz and his closest cronies has, like the bursting of a boil, brought to the surface the musty stench and rot of democracy in the Alpine republic and throughout Europe.

There is no longer any doubt that for four years, the country was ruled by a criminal gang that spared no means to pave its way to power. Prosecutorial investigations, the publication of internal chats and other revelations have shown the unscrupulous methods they used.

Sebastian Kurz and Karl Nehammer (left), the new Austrian Chancellor (Photo: BKA/Andy Wenzel)

Discredited is not only the conservative Austrian Peoples Party (ÖVP), which elected Kurz as its leader and made him Chancellor and granted him unlimited powers, but also all the other parties that paved his way to power and—in the case of the Greens—secured his power even when the extent of the criminality had long been known.

Kurz had resigned—or, as he called it, “stepped aside”—as Federal Chancellor on 9 October after the Public Prosecutor’s Office for Economic Affairs and Corruption had opened investigations into him on suspicion of corruption and searched his offices. However, he retained all the levers of power. He remained ÖVP chairman and also had himself elected Klubobmann, i.e., parliamentary group chairman in the National Council (federal legislature). His close confidant Alexander Schallenberg, the former Foreign Minister, became Chancellor.

On Thursday, Kurz announced that he was resigning from all his political offices and withdrawing completely from politics. He cited the birth of his first son a few days ago, to whom he now wants to devote more time, as a flimsy reason.

The resignations followed one after the other. Only two hours after Kurz, Schallenberg also announced his resignation, thus confirming that he had never been more than a shadow chancellor by Kurz’s grace. He was followed by Finance Minister Gernot Blümel, who resigned all his posts with immediate effect, including that of Vienna ÖVP leader. The 40-year-old Blümel, who is also being investigated by the public prosecutor’s office on suspicion of corruption and bribery, was among Kurz’s closest circle of friends from the beginning.

Sebastian Kurz, now 35, was long celebrated by the Austrian and international media as a political wunderkind. The law school dropout was the country’s youngest secretary of state at 25, youngest foreign minister at 27 and youngest chancellor at 31.

In the meantime, we know the methods Kurz and his conspiratorial circle of friends used to make their way to the top: With intrigues in the party and government, whereby alleged party friends were bullied and dubbed “asses”; with falsified surveys and paid-for media reports financed by taxpayers’ money; and with the mutual passing on of lucrative posts in state-owned enterprises. The prosecution is investigating them for false testimony, post rigging, breach of trust and bribery.

Kurz and his circle embody a clique of power and money-obsessed social climbers who grew up after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, never experienced major class struggles and therefore know no social scruples and believe they can get away with anything. Kurz’s immediate circle also includes the 44-year-old real estate speculator and multi-millionaire René Benko, as well as the Wirecard managers Markus Braun (52) and Jan Marsalek (41), who pulled off a billion-dollar fraudulent bankruptcy.

Intrigue and fraud alone, however, would not have been enough to pave Kurz’s way into the highest Austrian government office. Rather, he proved to be a useful instrument to carry out a political shift to the right, which is endorsed by all sections of the ruling class. That is why he was celebrated internationally and named a “Next Generation Leader” by Time in 2017. The “statesman of a new kind” has found a new way to deal with the refugee crisis that is being adopted by other European politicians, the US magazine praised.

Kurz, who outwardly always appeared calm, polite and spic and span, knew how to mobilise the dregs of society for the most reactionary goals. In 2015, when numerous war refugees from the Middle East sought asylum in Europe, he became the forerunner of the brutal isolationist policy that is now common practice throughout Europe and has cost tens of thousands of lives.

After taking over the presidency of the ÖVP in 2017, Kurz formed an alliance with the extreme right-wing Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) and had them elect him as chancellor. From then on, their fascist course determined the government’s immigration policy. “Kurz lets the coalition partner FPÖ say the bad things, but remains silent about it himself,” German news weekly Der Spiegel described the division of labour between the chancellor and the right-wing extremists at the time.

Kurz gave the interior ministry to FPÖ politician Herbert Kickl, a notorious racist, who ensured that the police were oriented accordingly. The alliance of ÖVP and FPÖ also took harsh action against the working class. For example, it decided to make working hours more flexible, allowing daily shifts of up to twelve hours.

It was only in May 2019, when the so-called Ibiza video exposed the venality of the FPÖ, that the alliance with the FPÖ was shattered. Kurz had to dismiss its leader, Heinz-Christian Strache and Interior Minister Kickl and subsequently lost a vote of no confidence in parliament. Temporarily, a transitional government under the non-partisan lawyer Brigitte Bierlein took over.

But finally, the Greens came to Kurz’s aid. The party that had always claimed to be the antithesis of the FPÖ formed a government coalition with Kurz at the beginning of 2020, continuing the FPÖ’s right-wing policies on all essential issues.

Kurz’s career, however, could not be saved, even by the Greens. Ever new allegations of corruption, growing social tensions and above all the devastating consequences of its murderous coronavirus policy caused the ÖVP’s poll ratings to plummet.

The government’s refusal to take effective measures against the pandemic made Austria one of the countries with the highest infection rates worldwide. At the end of November, the nationwide seven-day incidence rate rose above 1,000 per 100,000 inhabitants, in some regions peaking at 1,800.

Fierce resistance developed against this. On 10 November, health workers in hospitals nationwide protested against “government inaction” under the slogan “It’s 5 past 12.” The 400,000 employees were physically and psychologically at the limit.

In opinion polls, an overwhelming majority favoured tougher measures to counter the virus. In the third week of November, Unique Research found that only 6 percent of respondents thought the existing measures were sufficient. The mood among the population had “long since tilted towards clear and swift measures to combat the pandemic,” commented the newspaper Heute, which had commissioned the survey.

Chancellor Schallenberg, who went to a meeting of state leaders in Tyrol with the firm intention of not allowing a lock-down for vaccinated people, could not get his way. In order to calm the explosive situation, they agreed on a partial lock-down, which also applies to vaccinated people. Businesses and schools, however, remained largely open.

Now, even the ÖVP’s provincial leaders moved away from Kurz and his closest confidants. After their resignation, the ÖVP party executive on Friday appointed former Interior Minister Karl Nehammer as the new party leader and head of government. Alexander Schallenberg will again become Foreign Minister.

Nehammer, a former professional soldier, is considered a domestic policy hardliner who has seamlessly continued the line of his predecessor in office, Kickl. He is known for his tough stance on immigrants and Muslims and, by his own admission, “admired” Kurz. His appointment as head of government is in preparation for a massive confrontation with the working class.

Nehammer, unlike Kurz, also has good connections to the Social Democrats. However, the Greens have already given assurances that they will continue the coalition with the ÖVP. Green Party leader Werner Kogler praised the always good cooperation with Nehammer, even if they sometimes argued about asylum issues.

The rapid formation of a new government will not solve the deep crisis in Austrian politics. Beneath the constant tremors on the surface are deep tectonic shifts in the social base of society. While social antagonisms continue to intensify under the devastating effects of the pandemic, all the establishment parties are deeply discredited. This applies not only to the conservatives and the Greens, but also to the Social Democrats, who in Austria, as in all other European countries, have transformed themselves into a right-wing, bourgeois party. Between 2015 and 2020, they governed in Burgenland with the FPÖ, i.e., the same right-wing and fascist forces that Kurz brought into government at the federal level.

Romanian Social Democrats join Grand Coalition government amid raging pandemic

Andrei Tudora & Tina Zamfir

A new Grand Coalition cabinet was sworn in on November 25 in Romania.

Under the weight of a catastrophic COVID wave and a looming economic crisis, the previous government led by the National Liberal Party (PNL) disintegrated as their junior coalition partners, Save Romania Union (USR), left the coalition and a no confidence vote was passed against it. The Social Democratic Party (PSD), direct heir to the Stalinist Communist Party, joined the PNL in a Grand Coalition government.

The fourth COVID wave, according to local health experts like Octavian Jurma, had claimed by the beginning of November at least 18,000 lives and continues to take close to 2,000 lives each week. The overall death toll surpassed 57,000.

People hold a large banner that reads "No to Vaccination - Our Children are not your guinea pigs" during a protest against vaccinations, the introduction of the green pass and COVID-19 related restrictions in Bucharest, Romania, Sunday, Nov. 7, 2021. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda, File)

As the economic growth, paid for with a criminal policy of mass infection and death, benefited a handful of oligarchs, the liberalization of energy prices threatens to leave millions without basic utilities as winter months approach.

The two parties have signed an agreement that is set to last until the 2024 election, with a rotating premiership. The first prime minister, retired general Nicolae Ciucă from the Liberal Party, was sworn in on the 25th. The PSD will hold key posts such as Healthcare, Economy and Defense. Joining the Coalition will be the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania, (UDMR) a right-wing party with close political ties to the Hungarian Orban government.

This new political set-up leaves the AUR, an avowed fascist party, as the main parliamentary opposition force in the country.

The Grand Coalition government formed in Bucharest marks a new and dangerous stage in the developing crisis of rule in Romania and Eastern Europe. Thirty-two years after the restoration of capitalism in the region, and as the ruling elites double down on murderous mass infection policies, the norms of bourgeois democracy are being increasingly discarded.

The Grand Coalition will have sweeping powers. It will work to forcibly suppress working class opposition to its murderous pandemic policies. It will also join other right-wing regimes on the region, from the Baltic States, Poland, Ukraine and Moldova, to act as a bulwark against refugees and intensify military provocations against Russia on the Eastern Front.

Like many similar social democratic parties and their pseudo-left appendages internationally, the Romanian Social Democrats have embraced the most right-wing positions on the coronavirus pandemic.

For the past two years, they have used every parliamentary and legal means to attack and thwart any measures taken by the former Liberal government to mitigate the worst effects of the pandemic. This position has seen the Social Democrats openly embrace the most backward social forces and far-right conspiracy theories. Recently, they have attacked the transfer of hospital beds to COVID patients even at the peak of the fourth wave and have blocked legislation introducing the Digital COVID Pass.

Alexandru Rafila, who now holds the position of Health Minister for the PSD, said last year that teachers who were opposed to the dangerous reopening of schools were suffering of “cabin fever.” Rafila, who is a professor of microbiology at the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy, is also opposed to the introduction of the Digital COVID Pass. His stated priority will be to further “normalize” COVID, by moving the burden from the hospital system to outpatient care centers.

The education minister Câmpeanu, despised by millions of parents for his Malthusian ramblings, will keep his job, as children will be forced to attend unventilated and unsafe schools. Over 18 children have lost their lives since schools were reopened in September, as many as in the whole previous pandemic period.

The Coalition has created a new portfolio, a Family Ministry, modeled on existing institutions in Hungary and Poland. The post will be occupied by former PSD mayor of Bucharest Gabriela Firea. As mayor of the capital, Firea rose to prominence as one of the most strident opponents of COVID measures. She is one of the main leaders of the party and a devoted follower of the Orthodox church.

During Parliamentary hearings, the Head of the Parliamentary Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, the fascist AUR deputy Tanasă, after praising the creation of the new Office, asked Firea about banning abortion. Along with issuing a perfunctory denial, the PSD minister had this to say: “I will fight so that all women have access to quality medical services, counseling, guidance so that, together with their families, with their close ones and with their priest they will take the best decision for their life.”

Romania currently allows abortion up to 14 gestation weeks without any qualification. In case of increased risk of fetal malformation, abortion is allowed up to 24 weeks, or at any time after that if the mother’s life is in danger. The new institution is a clear signal that the Grand Coalition will follow the direction set by the Orban and the Law and Justice governments (Hungary and Poland) in curtailing the most fundamental democratic rights.

The fascist AUR party will be the main political beneficiary of the Grand Coalition. The main parties have already integrated ultra-right policies in the governing program.

AUR is the product of attempts by sections of the Romanian ruling class to create a mass fascist party. Such attempts are now taking place throughout the world, as the pandemic is bringing social tension to a boil. However, such a movement does not currently exist.

The AUR’s anti-lockdown rallies draw dozens, at best hundreds, of individuals, drawn from the religious right and other deranged elements. Even their main rallies, which involve considerable organizational effort, such as the anti-lockdown event on October 2, can draw no more than a couple thousand individuals.

Serious efforts are made however to promote and normalize the fascists by the ruling establishment. The most ardent allies in this effort are the corporatist trade unions, the Stalinist PSR (Socialist Party) as well as various pseudo-left groups and commentators.

In Eastern European countries, the legacy of nationalism and backwardness promoted by the Stalinists is responsible for the mistrust of science and directly linked to low vaccination rates and preventable deaths. Stalinist parties like the Romanian Socialist Party (PSR), linked to Die Linke in Germany, are now openly promoting the fascists. Gheorghita Zbăganu, notable leader of the PSR, led a delegation at the October 2 AUR rally. Their placards were taken up by the media as proof of the heterogenous and “populist” nature of the event.

Pseudo-left outlets have likewise embraced the libertarian nostrums of the far right. Groups like the Association for the Emancipation of Workers (AEM), associated with the French Lambertistes (POI), and the Union of Militant Students (Sindicatul elevilor și studenților Militanți, SESM) work to provide a left cover to the maneuvers of the Social Democrats and Stalinists.

Collective bargaining agreement in Germany’s public sector: a slap in the face for all workers

Dietmar Gaisenkersting

After more than twenty months of the coronavirus pandemic, trade union and government representatives have made clear to workers employed by Germany’s federal states that they must not only risk their health and even their lives to pay for the ruling elite’s “profits before life” pandemic policy but sacrifice their wages and salaries.

The Verdi (United Service Union), GEW (Union for Education and Science), IG BAU (Industrial Union for Construction, Agriculture, Environment) trade unions as well as the police and civil servants’ unions on Monday sold out the collective bargaining struggle involving employees of Germany’s 16 federal states.

Berlin strikers on November 25th (Photo: WSWS)

The unions initially demanded a five percent wage increase over a period of twelve months, or at least €150, and at least €300 per month in the health sector. Given the current inflation rate of 5.2 percent, even that would have been an effective wage cut.

But now the 1.1 million federal state employees will initially receive nothing for 14 months. Not for one year, on December 1, 2022, will the wages of all employees be increased by 2.8 percent. The remuneration of trainees, interns and students will be increased by €50 (€100 was demanded) or by €70 in the health care system in one year’s time.

In March of next year, there will be a one-off payment of €1,300 euros for employees. Apprentices, interns and students will receive half this amount. The collective agreement has a term of 24 months until the end of September 2023.

The employers immediately agreed to extend the same pathetic wage result to the 1.4 million civil servants and about one million pension recipients.

The demand for a collective agreement for student assistants has vanished into thin air, as has the demand for improvements in working conditions in road maintenance and road construction. The GEW’s perennial call for equal pay for all teachers, whether they work on temporary contracts or hold permanent appointments as civil servants, was once again dropped.

This time the GEW gave the following bankrupt excuse for dropping the demand for equal pay: “In this collective bargaining round, the GEW finally wanted to achieve the full parallel pay scale for contract teachers.” But the federal states asked for cutbacks to the pay grades. “The unions now had to repel this attack on a cornerstone of the right to pay grades,” it wrote. In return, the federal states refused to negotiate the “structural” demands of the unions. “This also included the parallel pay scale,” the union continued. “The GEW will continue to push this issue.”

In an attempt to cover up the union’s betrayal, Verdi head Frank Werneke said, “This is a largely respectable result,” adding, “It secures noticeable income improvements for a whole range of health care workers and is another intermediate step on our way to improving working conditions in the health care sector.” The union will continue this in future collective bargaining rounds.

If the matter at hand were not so serious, one could laugh. Whom are Verdi and the GEW trying to kid? Only those on the unions’ payroll will be impressed by these absurd statements.

Hundreds of workers immediately spoke out indignantly on the internet and on social media. Sil Jan wrote on Facebook of Verdi, “This is really very depressing. During this time, respect and appreciation would be appropriate, especially for the colleagues in health care and in the social services. This is not even remotely respectable. We are obviously dispensable after all.”

Mike wrote, “The collective bargaining was just a sham negotiation to trick members into thinking they were bargaining.” The fact that Verdi head Werneke is trying to sell it as a good deal is “much worse than the truly bad ‘agreement’!”

Thomas wrote, “I did not strike for this result.” He does not intend to vote for the agreement. Many others confirm that they “definitely did not go on strike for this result.” Many have announced that they will be leaving the union. “Fortunately, there is still the option going forward of saving the monthly dues payment in order to have a little more money,” commented Sven. “Thanks Verdi, for nothing,” added Anja.

On the GEW’s page, Fridolin reported, “I already shook my head at the last one… But this agreement is even worse… How can they tolerate being treated like that?… This is so weak !!! ... in the high phase of the economic upswing and also in the pandemic !!!” He appealed for an expansion of strikes instead of capitulation.

Stephan Brylka wrote in frustration, “And the educators and other educational staff have once again received a slap in the face. And I’m supposed to convince my colleagues to join the GEW.”

Guido stated bluntly, “I feel ripped off. The pensions go up by over four percent and for us there is 1.4 percent. It would have been better to keep on striking.”

M. Willemsen was just as angry about the deal, asking, “Why don’t the unions call for strikes? At five percent inflation, that is a real wage loss of five percent!… Is this how we attract employees to work in hospitals? Hospitals, schools, kindergartens are supposedly essential services - what remains of that in the pay packet - nothing!” What was the point of the strikes over recent weeks, they wondered.

The GEW national executive replied, “As bitter as it is, without these job actions there would not even have been this agreement.” The employers resisted to the end, “knowing full well that a job action could not have been carried out on this scale in times of steadily increasing infections.”

In other words, the state governments knew perfectly well that the unions would give in. “Of course, we also wanted an earlier pay increase that will impact pay scales,” complained the union leadership. “But the employers didn’t want that.”

This is an official declaration of utter bankruptcy. If the unions can only deliver what the employers want, what is the point of having unions? The many comments stating the strike should have gone further and more extensively show workers’ readiness to fight.

But the unions deliberately isolated the strikes in hospitals, schools, and government services. The protests they organized were token events aimed only at letting off steam. The union leaderships are in cahoots with the employers, are often members of the same political parties, and regularly exchange well-paid positions in the union bureaucracy for senior government posts, and vice versa.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed as never before the subordination of the unions to the capitalist drive for profits at the expense of any consideration for public welfare. Health care workers have achieved incredible feats to keep hospitals running. Since the beginning of the pandemic, almost 140,000 people have been treated with COVID-19 in an intensive care unit, and the official COVID-19 death toll is 101,000. Of the approximately 4,500 COVID intensive care patients nationwide, more than half are on a ventilator. Thousands of intensive care beds can no longer be operated due to mental and physical burnout among nurses.

Despite this, Verdi and the GEW still insist that the schools remain open and that a lockdown must be avoided. A teacher from Duisburg wrote to the WSWS that “much more ruthless” than the real terms pay cut is the fact that the unions have “No plan to eradicate the virus, but rather the expectation that we teachers will continue to put our bodies on the line and help organize death.”

The latest sell-out underscores once again that the unions are on the side of government and big business. In view of the catastrophic COVID-19 situation, public sector workers must urgently organise themselves independently of the unions. Contact us to discuss how to build a network of rank-and-file committees in schools, hospitals, government agencies, and factories to organise resistance to the ruling-class policy of death and build a globally coordinated effort to eliminate COVID-19.

As part of the Global Workers’ Inquest into the COVID-19 Pandemic, we are collecting reports on the experiences of workers to document the impact of the pandemic on working people. We call on all those who are no longer prepared to tolerate the unions’ sacrificing of workers’ health and lives on behalf of the rich to support and participate in the Global Workers’ Inquest.