Airlines’ mass infection policies wreak havoc in global airline industry

Jerry White

With the peak summer travel season beginning, the global airline industry is being stretched to the point of a complete breakdown. Understaffed flight crews and airport employees are exhausted; airlines face a shortage of manpower, planes and equipment; and stranded passengers and lost luggage are piling up at airports.   

More than 4,500 US-related flights were canceled over the Father’s Day and Juneteenth holiday weekend, and analysts expect the July 4 weekend, one of the busiest air travel dates, to be worse. The chaos could persist for months, they say, if not years.

Understandably, pilots and flight crew are reluctant to return to jobs where they are crammed into aircraft and airports with hundreds of other passengers with no measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 in place, with passengers not even required to mask, and in which workers are routinely forced to work inhumanly long hours with deadly consequences if they make errors due to fatigue.

On Tuesday, over 1,300 Southwest Airlines pilots marched in Dallas, Texas, to protest fatigue, stress, staff shortages and bad scheduling. Delta pilots say they have flown more overtime in 2022 than in the entirety of 2018 and 2019 combined, their busiest years to date.

Pilot fatigue is a deadly danger in air travel. Knowing they hold the safety of their passengers in their hands, the number of pilots calling off work due to fatigue has reached record numbers.

French pilots said efforts by the low-cost UK carrier EasyJet to deliver a full schedule of summer flights “with less flight crew, cabin crew, or flight planning officers” had “left hundreds of employees in distress.”  

The crisis is due to the criminal and profit-driven response by the airlines and world governments to the COVID-19 pandemic. Tens of thousands of airline workers have been sickened and debilitated by COVID-19, and an unknown number of have died. Before vaccine mandates for airline workers started in the summer of 2021, one United Airlines employee was dying every week.

During a meeting in Doha, Qatar on Monday, airline executives denounced workers for refusing to risk their lives. “People got into a bad habit of working from home” during the pandemic, Akbar Al Baker, the head of host airline Qatar Airways, told reporters. “They feel they don’t need to go to an industry that really needs hands-on people,” adding that shortages in airport staff could “hurt growth,” according to Reuters.   

With large numbers of pilots in the US set to retire in the next coming years, industry lobbyists are now pushing to increase the retirement age from 65 to 67. Incredibly, they are calling for the rollback of federal requirements that new pilots have 1,500 hours of flight time before they qualify as air transport pilots and fly as first officers. There has been a 99.8 percent reduction in airline fatalities since the requirement was increased from 250 hours in 2013.

These conditions are provoking a movement of pilots, cabin crew and other airline employees across Europe, the US and the world.

• The pilots union at Air France-KLM has called a one-day strike for Saturday, June 25.
• Ryanair cabin crews in Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain have called for strikes this coming weekend, while EasyJet’s operations in Spain face a nine-day strike, starting July 1, to demand a 40 percent raise. 
• Workers at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports are set to strike July 2 to demand wage increases, after a one-day walkout by groundcrew and firemen last week. 
• More than 50 departures were canceled at Norway’s airports on Tuesday and Wednesday due to an aircraft technician strike.
• In the US, 6,100 customer service workers at Southwest just rejected a second contract proposal backed by the International Association of Machinists because it included below-inflation rate raises. Alaska Airline pilots have voted to strike, and pilots and other workers at Southwest, Delta, United, American and other US carriers are engaged in contract fights.

When the pandemic first hit, US airline executives lobbied for and received some $63 billion in federal stimulus money to ostensibly prevent layoffs when air travel collapsed. Instead, they promptly forced out 80,000 workers through “voluntary buyouts” and early retirements. After receiving their own government bailouts, Lufthansa, KLM and other European and international carriers did the same.  

According to research by consultancy Oxford Economics, compared with pre-COVID levels, cited by the Financial Times last week, there were 2.3 million fewer jobs in the aviation industry by September 2021. “These figures include a 29 percent fall in contracted staff at airports, such as ground-handlers, where 1.7 million jobs were lost,” the Times wrote.

With the government bailout money in hand, airline executives aggressively pushed to lift travel restrictions and any measures to protect workers and passengers, which they saw as cutting across their profit interests.

On December 21, 2021, Delta Airlines CEO Ed Bastian wrote the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention saying a reduction in the quarantine period for infected workers would “significantly impact our workforce and operations.” Less than a week later, Biden’s CDC Director Rochelle Walensky cut the quarantine period from 10 days to 5, compelling sick workers to return to their jobs. 

In April 2022, Nicholas Calio, president of Airlines for America, the largest lobbying association for America’s airlines, wrote a letter to federal officials urging the government to lift mask mandates for all air travelers and COVID-19 testing for international travels, declaring, “Neither restriction is currently supported by data and science in today’s public health environment.”

In May, the Biden administration allowed mask mandates on trains and planes to end. Then, on June 10, the CDC dropped testing requirements for air travelers entering the US.

The Biden administration has adopted a “let it rip” policy even as new subvariants of the deadly and debilitating virus spread across the country.

Airline workers as UK rail workers and other sections of the working class are saying enough is enough. This growing opposition, however, needs organization and a political strategy.

The crisis in the airline industry is the product of decades-long promotion of the “free market” by capitalist governments around the world. The deregulation of the airline industry in the US and Reagan’s 1981 smashing of the air traffic controllers strike were the first shots in a war against airline workers. This was followed by the privatization of state-owned airlines in country after country, a wave of bankruptcies, mergers and mass layoffs, the emergence of “budget airlines” that spurred cutthroat competition and the undermining of safety and working conditions. 

Earth Journalism Network 2022 Reporting Fellowships to the UNCCD COP27

Application Deadline: 4th July 2022 at 11:59 PM, (UTC -11)

Eligible Countries: African Countries and India

To Be Taken At (Country): Egypt

About the Award: The Climate Change Media Partnership (CCMP), led by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network (EJN) and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security, is pleased to announce the 2022 CCMP Reporting Fellowship Program for journalists interested in covering the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP27). Hosted this year by the government of Egypt, the conference is scheduled to take place in the city of Sharm el-Sheikh from 7-18 November 2022.

Now in its 15th iteration since its launch in 2007, the CCMP has brought more than 400 journalists from low- and middle-income countries to attend and report on the annual UN climate talks. This has enabled journalists from around the world to cover the climate negotiations for their home audiences, while benefiting from working alongside knowledgeable climate journalists and gaining a multifaceted understanding of the actions countries are taking—or not taking—to address climate change’s global impact.

This year, the CCMP Reporting Fellowship aims to bring up to 22 journalists from low- and middle-income countries to report in-person at COP27.

CCMP organizers may also offer a limited number of virtual fellowships with mentoring and other support from CCMP staff and journalist trainers. Applicants will be asked to indicate if they are interested in a virtual fellowship, through which they would cover the COP remotely with mentoring support, if not selected for in-person participation.

Applications for the 2022 CCMP Reporting Fellowship will be accepted from June 6 to July 4. Decisions will be communicated by early August. Applications submitted after the deadline will not be accepted, please consider submitting at least one day in advance of the deadline to avoid any issues.

Type: Conference, Fellowship

Eligibility: To be eligible for the Fellowship, applicants must:

• Be a professional journalist from or representing an established media house and reporting from a developing country;
• Fill out the application form using the link below, including answering essay questions that illustrate his/her experience reporting on desertification and degradation issues. We also ask you to describe the kinds of stories you might pursue at the conference;
• Be available to arrive in India on Friday, 6th September and stay until departure on Saturday, 14th
• Commit to participate in all Fellowship activities;
• Provide a letter of support from an editor, producer or supervisor who can confirm your ability to publish or broadcast your material in an established media outlet. Freelancers are welcome to apply but must provide a letter of support.

Selection Criteria: Criteria for evaluating applicants will include the prospective Fellow’s demonstrated experience covering desertification, climate change and other environmental topics, their interest in continued coverage of these issues and their audience and outlet’s reach.

Number of Awards: 15-20

Value of Award: Amongst costs covered will be

• nonrefundable economy-class airfare, hotel, meals, and transportation both in-location and in transit.
• We will also assist with the press accreditation process and provide other support services relating to travel.
• Please note that the process of obtaining any necessary visas is a Fellow’s responsibility; however, visa costs can be reimbursed.

The Earth Journalism Network fully respects the editorial independence of all journalists. Throughout the conference, Fellows are free to report as they see fit. As well as the requirements above, we ask that journalists agree to cross-post all stories they file during the UNCCD COP27 on the Earth Journalism Network website and local and regional partner sites (we expect the stories will first be published or broadcast by a Fellow’s home media outlet).

Duration of Program: 7-18 November 2022.

How to Apply:

• Click the ‘Apply Now’ button at the top of the page.
• If you have an existing account, you’ll need to log in. Since we recently updated our website, you might have to reset your password by clicking the “Forgot password?” link in the log in page. If you don’t have an account, you must register by clicking “Log in” on the top right of the page and click the “Sign up” link at the bottom of the page that opens. Click here for detailed instructions on how to create an account, and here for detailed instructions on how to reset your password.
• If you start the application and want to come back and complete it later, you can click ‘Save Draft.’ To return to the draft, you’ll need to go back to the opportunity and click ‘Apply now’ again to finalize the application.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Electoral Victory of Colombians Petro and Marquez is Unprecedented

W.T. Whitney Jr.

Photograph Source: National Police of Colombia – CC BY-SA 2.0

A comment on the Historical Pact coalition’s million-vote plurality overflowed with enthusiasm:  “June 19 will be remembered [in Colombia] as a day of the people and will be a moment of celebration for democracy … Today was a day for changing history.”

In second-round voting, the team of Gustavo Petro for president and Francia Márquez for vice president took 50.5 percent of the votes. The loose-lipped, right-wing construction and real estate mogul Rodolfo Hernández, candidate of the ad hoc League of Anti-Corruption Governors Party gained 47.2 percent.

This was the third presidential campaign for Petro, a senator and former urban guerrilla and mayor of Bogota, who took 40.3 percent of the votes in first-round voting on May 29. He and Vice President-elect Francia Marquez take office on August 7.

The historical significance of this electoral victory in Colombia cannot be overstated. No real people’s government has ever ruled in Colombia. In the twentieth century, high-profile presidential aspirants on the people’s side were murdered. At long last, the corrupt and deadly hold on power of former President Alvaro Uribe and his protégée Iván Duque, now leaving office, is over. And not least, the Historical Pact victory vindicates the country-wide mobilizations and demonstrations that, with mounting intensity from 2018 on, were carried out by young people and social movements.

Relishing their victory, candidates and voters alike by all accounts have taken on a new hopefulness. They are counting on an end to deadly violence and dispossession marking decades of history, and an end too of marginalization and rampant poverty diminishing the lives of multitudes of Colombians.

The ascent to Colombia’s vice-presidency of African-descended lawyer and award-winning environmental activist Francia Marquez, of humble origins, provides hope potentially for Colombia’s oppressed subsistence farmers, Afro-Colombians, and indigenous peoples.

The Historical Pact victors represent hope for a watching world of solidarity activists. In that regard, they now join presidents López Obrador of Mexico, Fernández of Argentina, Ortega of Nicaragua, Castillo of Perú, Xiomara Castro of Honduras, Arce and Morales of Bolivia, and Boric of Chile. To this constellation of left-leaning Latin American presidents is added the stubborn persistence of Venezuela’s progressive government and of Cuban socialism.  The overall message is that real change is possible, despite U.S. interventions and all-but-open war.

Speaking to Colombians after his victory, Petro declared his intention “to build Colombia as a world power for life [which would consist] first of peace, secondly of social justice, and thirdly of environmental justice.”

Highlighting key passages in Petro’s remarks, observer Ollantay Itzamná identifies hopeful signs. He cites the president-elect’s references to war: “clandestine cemeteries,” U.S. airbases, Colombia’s association with NATO, paramilitaries and narcotrafficking. Reflecting on Petro’s call for social justice, Itzamná qualifies Colombia’s inequalities as the region’s most pronounced, except for Honduras and Brazil. He mentions that 2 percent of landowners control 90 percent of Colombia’s useful agricultural land.

Petro would have “the polluter to pay for or remedy damages to “nature.” He called for a “transition to sources of clean energy.”

The news is not all good, however.  As regards, social justice, Petro announced that, “we are going to develop capitalism in order to take Colombia out of postmodern feudalism.”  Petro’s purpose, says Itzamná, is to “generate and redistribute wealth …[But] this aspect is not at all clear, because in essence, capitalism is accumulation and is destructive of life.”

Petro as president with have to deal with a Colombian Congress made up of the representatives of multiple parties. The Historical Pact’s senate delegation is the largest in that chamber, but not by very much and will have to strike compromises with other well-represented party groupings. Petro’s coalition is only the second leading force in the House of Representatives.

Confronting the Petro administration will be the still-thriving power structures within Colombia represented by wealthy financial and business interests, big landowners, and narcotraffickers. Nor will U.S. interventionists and dark influences soon disappear, among them weapons manufacturers, banks that process narco-trafficking gains, the U.S. Southern Command, U.S. habits of regional domination, and U.S. and Colombian capitalists’ dread of people-centered political alternatives.

Deadly Games: The Labour Casualties of Qatar’s World Cup

Binoy Kampmark

Latha Bollapally, with her son Rajesh Goud, holds a picture of her husband, Madhu Bollapally, 43, a migrant worker who died in Qatar. Photograph: Kailash Nirmal

A sordid enterprise, nasty, crude and needless.  But the World Cup 2022 will be, should anyone bother watching it, stained by one of the highest casualty rates amongst workers in its history, marked by corruption and stained by a pharisee quality.  The sportswashers, cleaning agent at the ready, will be out in force, and the hypocrites dressed to the nines.

From the start, the link between the world’s premier football (or soccer) competition and the gulf state was an odd one.  Qatar and the World Cup are as connected in kinship as gigantic icebergs and parched desert sands.  But money was the glue, prestige the aim, and there was much glue to go around when it came to securing the rights to host the competition.  What was lacking was a football tradition, an absence of sporting infrastructure, and the presence of scorching weather.

The central figure in this effort of bald graft over distinguished merit was Mohamed Bin Hammam, Qatar’s football grandee and construction magnate.  From his position as a member of the executive committee of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), he is said to have acted, on occasion, more like “the head of a crime organisation” than a mere board official.  All the time, he risibly claimed that he was a fan of reform, calling for “more transparency in FIFA.”

There was little evidence of transparency when it came to Doha’s bid.  With manoeuvring and cash incentives, the votes fell Qatar’s way in December 2010.  FIFA’s own comically named ethics committee cleared the country’s officials of any misdemeanour (it was “verified internally” that no secret plots had been made leading up to the award), while also having harsh words for other bidders, notably England.

The body also commissioned a 430-page report from lawyer and ethics investigator Michael Garcia that put the officialdom of both Russia and Qatar at ease.  For one thing, Garcia seemed mild in noting that, “A number of executive committee members sought to obtain personal favours or benefits that would enhance their stature within their home countries or considerations.”  With specific reference to Qatar, Garcia mentioned the country’s Aspire sports academy, alerted to it being used to “curry favour with executive committee members”.  This gave “the appearance of impropriety.  Those actions served to undermine the integrity of the bidding process.”  But not enough, it would seem, to invalidate the choice.

In all the scrounging, haggling and dealing, the fate of tens of thousands of migrant workers have fallen into the void, showing that sporting choices, even if nourished by a grossly unethical base, will still be tolerated.  Despite this, the reports about the appalling treatment Qatar affords its imported labour have not stopped coming.  For one thing, 2 million workers retained to build the various stadia, a new airport, roads, the metro system, not to mention providing a range of other services (restaurants, transport, in some cases, even security), would generally count as indispensable.  The problem with modern trafficking and slave practices lies in the fact that they will, when the time comes, be dispensable.  The pool is large and constantly replenished.

The years since Qatar was awarded the right to host the World Cup have seen a degree of ugliness that would make the hair stand on the back of any labour and human rights activist.  Much of this predates the commencement of work upon the facilities needed for the sporting event, a legacy shaped by the Kafala system.  The system of sponsor-based employment effectively indentures the worker to the employer, or kafeel, trapping the employee by restricting mobility, choice of employment and visa status.

In 2017, Qatar reluctantly signed an agreement with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) giving an undertaking to combat labour exploitation and “align its laws and practices with international labour standards”.

Despite such undertakings, The Guardian revealed in February 2021 that 6,750 migrant workers hailing from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka had perished in Qatar since December 2010.  Such a total would be further inflated were it to account for other source countries of migrant labour, including Kenya and the Philippines.

The circumstances behind each death vary from suicide to being killed in shoddy worker accommodation.  But the authorities have done their best to relay the causes in murky terms, often aided by a reluctance to conduct autopsies.  “Natural deaths” tops the list as a favourite, with respiratory and acute heart failure featuring strongly.

In May this year, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, FairSquare, and a number of international migrant rights groups, labour unions, business and rights groups, along with football fans and abuse survivors, made a plea to FIFA.  In a letter addressed to its President Gianni Infantino, the collective writes of “hundreds of thousands of migrant workers” who had yet to receive “adequate remedy, including financial compensation, for serious labour abuses they suffered while building and servicing the infrastructure essential for the preparation and delivery of the World Cup in Qatar.”

In urging Infantino to work with the Qatar government, trade unions, the ILO and other relevant bodies to address labour abuses, the collective acknowledges various modest improvements.  But minor labour reforms and the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy Initiatives came “too late”.  The various reforms have also been unevenly enforced.  Many workers essential to the World Cup enterprise also fall outside the remit of the Supreme Committee’s initiatives.

This whole endeavour, in short, remains plagued and blotted by institutional callousness.  But a good deal of this will be forgotten come the opening ceremony and lost among the hordes of politically illiterate fans.  The sporting show will go on, and anyone wishing to protest its merits will risk five-year prison sentences and a fine of 100,000 Qatari riyals (US$27,000) for “stirring up public opinion”.  That’s mightily sporting of the authorities.

Increase in violent attacks on mosques and Muslims in Germany

Ela Maartens

There was a total of 768 violent attacks on mosques and Muslims in Germany between January 2014 and June 2021. In particular, the years 2020 and 2021 stand out, with over 140 attacks, although the unreported number of such hostile actions—including vandalism, incitement, arson attacks and bodily harm—is likely to be significantly higher.

There have already been numerous attacks on mosques this year. In January, the WSWS reported that the Islamic Cultural Centre Halle Saale e.V. was shot at with an air rifle.

The mosque attacked in Halle (Photo: Islamisches Kulturcenter Halle Saale e.V. via Facebook)

The figures were published by Brandeilig.org, the first nationwide reporting centre for anti-Muslim racism. The independent anti-discrimination organisation Federation against Injustice and Racism e.V. (FAIR), based in Cologne, had launched the initiative to raise awareness of anti-Muslim racism in society.

According to the Interior Ministry, between 4.4 and 4.7 million Muslims live in Germany, which is slightly more than 5 percent of the total population. Most originate from Turkey, although one in two Muslims now comes from another country. There are also about 2,350 mosques nationwide. Germany thus has the second largest Muslim population in Western Europe after France.

Through annual reports, Brandeilig.org now wants to close existing information gaps regarding mosque attacks and violence against Muslims. Last May, the initiative published the inaugural Brandeilig report, for 2018, as this was the first year in which a reliable amount of information was available; further reports are to follow.

Information was collected on the numerical extent of the attacks, in which federal states they occurred, the motivation for the crime as well as the sequence of events and types of attacks.

For 2018, Brandeilig.org registered a total of 120 violent attacks. Overall, violence of varying degrees was used in 84 percent of cases, in addition to considerable damage to property and personal injury. In 4 percent of cases, the perpetrators left pig limbs in the vicinity of the mosques—a particularly disgusting action, as many Muslims do not eat pork for religious reasons.

Bavaria had the highest incidence of violence against Muslims or mosques, with 25 attacks, or 21 percent of the total. North Rhine-Westphalia follows close behind with 23 attacks (19 percent). There were 14 attacks in Lower Saxony and 12 in Baden-Württemberg, each corresponding to about one tenth of the total number.

Violence against Muslims also occurred in 10 other federal states, with some people fearing for their lives. Only in Brandenburg and Saarland were there no attacks against Muslims or mosques recorded by Brandeilig.org in 2018.

A total of 54 attacks—almost half of all incidents—can be attributed to the right-wing extremist spectrum. In seven cases, the offence was characterised by the use of racist vocabulary or racist symbolism (e.g., daubing buildings with swastikas).

The most frequent type of attack (44 percent) was vandalism of various kinds. This included graffiti, leaving an animal carcass or broken windows, whereby the overall crime patterns are subject to a broad spectrum. There have also been nine attacks in the form of arson, e.g., the use of homemade Molotov cocktails against mosques, in which two people were injured.

Other types of attacks recorded were incitement (21), insults (7) or threatening behaviour (7). Two people were injured through the use of air rifles. Premises associated with a mosque—such as libraries, function rooms or residential units—were also attacked.

A particularly repulsive act, which according to the report cannot be assigned to any category but apparently has a right-wing extremist background, occurred in Bavaria. On the building site for a mosque in Regensburg, crosses were erected bearing the names of victims of the 2016 terrorist attacks in Brussels. At the time, the right-wing Identitarian Movement of Bavaria had claimed responsibility for the Regensburg incident. This was an attempt to tar all members of the Muslim religious community as terrorists and stigmatise them, even if this is not stated in the report.

By conducting an additional survey of 68 of the 120 affected communities, the Brandeilig initiative was also able to paint a more detailed picture of the vast extent of violence against Muslims.

In the process, 77 percent of those surveyed stated they had repaired the damage themselves because the insurance company would not cover the costs. About €211,230 were raised through donations to pay for such repairs. While the report does not give any information on the financial scale of the property damage, the money raised for repairs gives at least a rough idea of its extent. In one case, the insurance company cancelled the contract with the affected municipality after the costs were covered.

It is also alarming that about half of respondents answered “yes” to the question whether there had been previous attacks. Moreover, in some cases, the police were only notified when the attacks had become more frequent. This underlines the assumption that there was far more hostility than documented by Brandeilig.org.

While the Brandeilig report presents the attacks on mosques and Muslims in Germany in detail, making an important contribution to publicising such crimes, the causes of this wave of violence are only superficially hinted at and largely obscured.

The report’s authors state that the “right-wing populist wing in Germany’s party-political landscape is gaining strength and that extra-parliamentary right-wing extremist and Islamophobic groups” are also a cause for concern. However, the report also states that there is hardly any “awareness in society as a whole of the seriousness of the situation.”

The main responsibility for the increasing violence against Muslims lies with the ruling class, which has moved further and further to the right in recent years. It has created the ideological climate and political structures in which violence against Muslims and other minorities is now taking place.

Leaders of all the establishment parties and the media have joined in the agitation against Muslims. At the same time, the federal and state governments have de facto adopted the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) anti-refugee policy. Since its entry into the Bundestag in 2017, the AfD has been included in all parliamentary work, even functioning as the official opposition under the last government.

Right-wing extremist forces and terrorist structures—often with close ties to the state apparatus—are emboldened by this and are increasingly willing to resort to deadly violence. In recent years, the Hanau massacre (11 killed), the attack on the synagogue in Halle (2 killed) and the murder of leading Christian Democratic Union politician Walter Lübcke were three of the worst right-wing extremist terrorist attacks in Germany since the end of the Second World War. Right-wing violence can only be stopped by the independent intervention of the working class, which vehemently opposes right-wing extremism, militarism, and war.

The CDC approves vaccines for children under five: An advance, but with many limitations

Benjamin Mateus

Over the weekend, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted unanimously to approve the COVID vaccines for the youngest in the population. Based on these endorsements, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that children between six months and five years of age should be vaccinated with either Pfizer or Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines.

Arihana Macias, 7, gets a compress after receiving the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for children five to 12 years at a Dallas County Health and Human vaccination site in Mesquite, Texas, Thursday, Nov. 4, 2021. [AP Photo/LM Otero]

There are 19.3 million in this age group for whom the COVID vaccines remained out of reach since the vaccines were first ushered in in December 2020. 

While the number of young children who have died from COVID has so far remained low, some 442 under the age of five according to the CDC, this figure is far greater than the death toll from influenza in the same age bracket. As the pediatric infectious disease specialist Dr. Yvonne Maldonado of Stanford University noted, “Children shouldn’t be dying of anything.” 

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), children represented nearly 19 percent of all cumulative COVID cases in the US. However, seroprevalence data based on blood samples, published by the CDC, indicated that approximately 75 percent of all children 18 and under have been infected, far above the 60 percent figure for the whole population.

This means that children represent the most infected group, a point that should be contrasted with the incessant claims by capitalist politicians and the media bears that children were somehow immune to the ravages of the virus. 

Since the pandemic, AAP reported that over 1.3 million children have been hospitalized for COVID, a number known to be a vast undercount. Nearly a quarter million of these were during the three months of the first Omicron wave that began in early December 2021 and ended in February 2022. Per the CDC’s provisional count of COVID deaths, 1,257 children have died during the pandemic, 20 percent of them during the Omicron wave.

These figures might seem low compared to the horrifying death toll among the elderly and immunocompromised, but they are far greater than the toll in terms of hospitalizations and death from the flu among the same age group.

There were 42,386 pediatric hospitalizations during the 2017-2018 flu season, the worst in the last decade, as compared to the quarter million hospitalized in the first three months of this year due to COVID.

There were also 110 deaths among the youngest and, in total, 526 children died that flu season compared to the over 1,200 who have been killed by SARS-CoV-2. In the current flu season, only 29 children have died, in large part to the limited mitigation measures in effect, including masking. In just the last month alone, almost 60 children died from COVID.

A study released in preprint by the Imperial College of London, reviewing COVID deaths among children, found, “COVID was a leading cause of death in CYP [children and young people] aged 0-19 years in the US between March 2020 to April 2022, ranking #9 among all causes of deaths, #5 in disease-related causes of deaths (excluding accidents, assault and suicide), and #1 in deaths caused by infectious/respiratory disease.” Specifically, for those under the age of five, it ranked in the top five.

All these figures do not even address the broader issue of Long COVID and its unknown long-term impact on the health of children, who have much longer to live and develop symptoms than the elderly.

These realities make the approval of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines a welcome step forward, albeit with significant limitations, as we shall see.

Both Pfizer and Moderna had presented their clinical-trial data to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) advisory panel on June 15, highlighting that these vaccines are both safe and produce an antibody response that is similar to that in older children and adults. The panel recommended the vaccines unanimously by a 21-0 vote.

There are differences between the two pediatric version of the mRNA vaccines that are important to review.

Pfizer’s regimen consists of three shots, each containing three micrograms, or one-tenth of the adult dose. The second shot is given three weeks after the first and the third two months later, with a total of three months required to complete the series. 

The pediatric trials were small, with fewer than 1,000 participants. Only 10 children actually contracted COVID, seven in the placebo group and three in the vaccine group. Pfizer’s original two-dose regimen had not generated a sufficient immune response, leading the company to announce in December 2021 that it would add a third dose to its regimen.

As STAT News noted regarding Pfizer’s limited effectiveness data, “This was a result of the fact that the Pfizer shot was not effective enough as a two-dose vaccine to warrant authorization. The company, consulting with the FDA, decided to test a third dose, but there has simply not been enough time for cases of COVID to occur. FDA officials say they are confident the three-dose regimen protects as well as two doses in other age groups.”

It bears mentioning that the FDA’s confidence was based on the level of immune antibodies generated after participants had completed the vaccine series. As Pfizer noted in its review of the results for children aged 2-4 years and infants 6-23 months, “The antibody responses in both age groups were comparable to those recorded in people 16 to 25 years of age immunized with two 30-µg doses and met the pre-specified success criteria ...”

Moderna’s vaccine is a two-dose regimen, each containing 25 micrograms, or a quarter of an adult dose. The shots are given four weeks apart. Though children complete the vaccination series sooner with Moderna, the side effects, albeit transient, may be harsher. Whereas Pfizer’s were limited to pain at the injection site and some fatigue that resolved quickly, in the Moderna trial one child had a seizure presumably triggered by a high fever after vaccination.

An FDA panel member, who is a pediatric infectious-disease specialist from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, said, “Beyond one febrile seizure, there wasn’t anything that was highly concerning. That was very reassuring to me.”

Moderna’s trial was larger, at almost 5,000 participants. The efficacy against symptomatic infection ranged from around 37 to 51 percent with 265 children contracting COVID, making the data more robust and applicable. Additionally, in the Moderna trial more participants who received the active ingredient developed a fever after the second vaccine dose, while the adverse reactions among Pfizer recipients and the placebo arm had similar complaints.

Other side effects of the vaccines include loss of appetite, nausea or vomiting, irritability, fever, and pain at the site of injection. With Moderna, children can develop swollen lymph nodes in the inoculated arm. The trials were too small to evaluate for heart inflammation, which has occurred infrequently in adolescent boys. Questions about boosters have already been raised, as immune waning is rapid with the vaccines and the subvariants of the Omicron strain of SARS-CoV-2 are known to have significant immune evasion capacity.

As critical as it is to ensure all children have access to life-saving vaccines, the CDC and the Biden administration will use this advance to reinforce their claims that a vaccine-only approach is a viable response to the pandemic. They seek to justify the abandonment of all-inclusive public health measures to ensure mask mandates are in place, all COVID cases are tracked, and public health departments provide robust and accurate data that includes infections, hospitalizations and deaths.

More than 18 months into the era of COVID vaccines, the vaccine-only strategy has proven an abysmal failure. Breakthrough infections are very common, and vaccines have not alleviated the risks of Long COVID nor the impact on various organ systems. The campaign for Zero-COVID remains the only viable solution to a pandemic that continues to wreak havoc on the population of the working class across the globe.

Crypto currency meltdown points to deeper financial crisis

Nick Beams

It has been described as the week when the financial world shifted—the business channel CNBC described it as a “new reality”—when it became apparent global central banks were intent on lifting interest rates, come what may.

An advertisement for Bitcoin cryptocurrency is displayed on a street in Hong Kong, Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022. [AP Photo/Kin Cheung]

The major action was the decision by the US Federal Reserve to raise its base rate by 0.75 percentage points, the biggest single increase since 1994, with more to come.

The Bank of England lifted its rate for the fifth time and predicted the UK inflation rate would rise to 11 percent. Smaller central banks, such as the Reserve Bank of Australia, have indicated further rate rises are in the pipeline.

One of the most significant decisions was that of the Swiss National Bank which lifted its base rate by 0.5 percentage points. Previously it had been one of the firmest advocates of maintaining rates at historic lows.

The official reason for the rate rises is the need to combat inflation, but the central banks are well aware that their actions will not reduce price hikes. Their concerted action has another target. As inflation reaches its highest levels in four decades, it is aimed at clamping down on the wage demands of the working class around the world by inducing a recession, if that proves necessary.

The interest rate hikes have resulted in a sharp fall on stock markets around the world led by Wall Street. The broad-based S&P 500 is down by around 22 percent from its previous high, and the fall in the Dow is approaching 20 percent. The tech-heavy and interest-rate sensitive NASDAQ index has fallen by more than 30 percent, with significant stocks dropping by more than 50 percent from their highs.

One of the indications of the growing instability is the precipitous fall of crypto currencies, and the decisions by traders to suspend operations because of turbulent market conditions.

The crypto currency lender Celsius Network, which sent a shock wave through the crypto market last week when it suspended withdrawals, has said it will “take time” to normalise its operations. In a blog post message yesterday, it said it would continue to work “with regulators and officials regarding this pause and our company’s determination to find a resolution.”  But it provided no details.

The chaos began last month when the so-called stablecoin TerraUSD, used to facilitate crypto currency trading by providing a link to the US dollar, failed to maintain dollar parity.

The shutting down of withdrawals has extended beyond Celsius. On Friday the crypto lender Babel Finance, based in Hong Kong, said it was pausing withdrawals because of “unusual liquidity pressure” and the Singapore-based crypto hedge fund Three Arrows has failed to meet margin calls from lenders.

Yesterday the Hong Kong-based crypto exchange Hoo halted transactions which were threatening to exhaust its funds. It said it was trying to reconfigure its medium- and long-term assets in an “orderly and reasonable manner.”

Previously, the swings and gyrations in the crypto market were regarded as somewhat isolated from the equity market and the broader financial system. That was generally the case in the period prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a comment piece published in the Australian Financial Review, columnist Karen Maley drew attention to an analysis from an International Monetary Fund staffer published in January which pointed to the growing correlation between the crypto and stock markets.

Writing in response to the fall of bitcoin to below $20,000 over the weekend—down from near $70,000 in November, amid predictions that it would go to $100,000—she said more conservative investors “might be quietly congratulating themselves on their sagacity in not succumbing to the crypto craziness. But their smugness may be premature. That’s because the sharp drop in the bitcoin price will inevitably rattle global equity markets.”

According to the IMF research note entitled Cryptic Connections, “the analysis suggests that crypto and equity markets have become increasingly interconnected across economies over time.”

The research note detailed the extraordinary expansion of the crypto market, particularly following the bailout operations launched by the major central banks in response to the March 2020 crisis at the start of the pandemic.

“Launched in 2009,” the note began, “the total market capitalization of crypto assets has increased exponentially from less than $20 billion in January 2017 to more than $3 trillion in November 2021. Much of this increase has occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic as trade in crypto assets has accelerated, leading to a twentyfold increase in the market capitalization of crypto assets between March 2020 and November 2021.”

The IMF research found that in September 2021 two major crypto currencies, bitcoin and ether, “ranked among the world’s top traded assets, competing with the market capitalization of some of the world’s largest companies.”

While the risks from crypto were deemed to be minimal until a few years ago, “their widespread adoption could pose financial stability risks given their highly volatile prices, the rising use of leverage in their trading, and financial institutions’ direct and indirect exposures to these assets. Because of the relatively unregulated nature of the crypto ecosystem, any significant disruption to financial conditions driven by crypto price volatility could potentially be largely outside the control of central banks and regulatory authorities.”

The findings of the research, the IMF note said, “suggest that the interconnectedness between crypto and equity markets has increased notably over 2017-2021.”

Together bitcoin and the stablecoin tether explained about 19-23 percent of the variation in the volatility of major global equity markets and about 12-17 percent of the variations in their return in what it called the “post-pandemic period.” Spillover effects went both ways—from crypto assets to equity markets and vice versa. Crypto assets could no longer be considered as a fringe asset class and “could pose financial stability risks due to their extreme price volatility.”

The movement in bitcoin prices was associated with a nontrivial share of the variation of US equity prices, accounting for about one-sixth of the volatility in US equity prices and about tenth of the variation in US equity returns.

It described these results as “quite remarkable” given that five years ago, “the contribution of crypto assets to explaining the variations in US equity markets was one percent at the most and suggest a significant integration of the crypto asset markets, most likely because of the increased adoption of crypto assets by retail and institutional investors.”

The crypto crash also attracted the attention of academic economist Robert Reich, the labor secretary in the first Clinton administration.

He characterised the crypto markets as a Ponzi scheme which was now crashing, citing the words of Securities and Exchange Commission chief Gary Gensler who has characterised crypto investments as “rife with fraud, scams and abuse.”

“There are no standards for risk management or capital reserves. There are no transparency requirements. Investors often don’t know how their money is being handled. Deposits are not insured. We’re back to the wild west finances of the 1920s,” Reich wrote.

But as always with Reich and other would-be reformers of the capitalist system, there is no explanation of the underlying objective dynamic which has led to the increasing integration of criminality into the very centre of the financial system. Reich simply claimed that by the 1980s, “America forgot the financial trauma of 1929.”

Reich’s answer was a call for increased regulation to the crypto world. But in doing so he revealed the bankruptcy of even that limited perspective, pointing to the revolving door which exists between the financial system and the regulatory bodies that supposedly control it.

He noted that the crypto industry had hired “scores of former government officials and regulators” to lobby on its behalf against controls. These included “three former chairs of the Securities and Exchange Commission, three former chairs of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, three former US senators, one former White House chief of staff, and the former chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.”

Former treasury secretary Lawrence Summers advises a crypto currency investment firm and is on the board of a financial technology firm investing in crypto currency payment systems.

The mounting turmoil in crypto and the financial system is not the result of forgetfulness but is rooted in response by governments and central banks to the deepening crisis of the capitalist system.

Over the past period, starting with the stock market crash of 1987, and intensifying after the 2008 crisis, financial authorities have pumped in still more money as the “solution” to the growing storms.

But the effect of these actions has only been to the create the conditions for the re-emergence of the crisis at a higher level. This essential dynamic is once again at work as the central banks move to deal with rocketing inflation which their previous policies have created.

Study suggests more than half of all Australians may have caught COVID-19 in 2022

Martin Scott & Clare Bruderlin

A recent study by the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS) and the Kirby Institute at University of New South Wales has found that twice as many Australians as previously reported may have been infected with COVID-19 during the country’s first Omicron wave.

Staff prepare to collect samples at a drive-through COVID-19 testing clinic at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, Saturday, Jan. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

The researchers tested 5,185 samples taken from blood donors for antibodies produced by infection, but not by vaccination. Based on the results, the scientists concluded that around 3.4 million adults (17 percent of the population) had been infected by the end of February. According to the survey, this was “at least twice as high as indicated by cases reported to authorities by the end of February.”

A comparison of the infection rates in different states illustrates the disastrous impact of the “let it rip” policies now adopted by all governments, Labor and Liberal-National alike, across the country.

The samples, collected just before Western Australia’s Labor government dropped its “hard border,” indicated that just 0.5 percent of blood donors in that state had contracted the virus. In Queensland, where the state Labor government threw open the border on December 23, despite surging cases in neighbouring New South Wales (NSW), 26 percent of the samples tested contained COVID-19 antibodies.

Since the period in which these samples were collected, regular surveillance testing in schools and workplaces has been almost entirely eliminated, asymptomatic close contacts are no longer required to test or isolate in most states, and free polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing programs have been slashed, forcing people to rely on less accurate, self-reported rapid antigen tests.

This means the drastic under reporting of infections revealed by the study is only likely to have worsened. The clear implication is that at least 14 million Australians, or well over half the population, may have contracted the virus since the beginning of the year, based on a doubling of the official figure of more than 7 million.

Further indicating that the impact of COVID-19 has been far worse than the official statistics show, the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Provisional Mortality Statistics for January and February 2022 reveal 5,052 excess deaths, compared to the historical average, almost 3,000 more than have been reported as directly caused by the virus.

The doubled infection rate calculated in the NCIRS study also raises the spectre of mass Long COVID. Estimates of the incidence of Long COVID vary, but even using conservative figures of 5 to 10 percent of all infections, 700,000 to 1.4 million Australians could already be facing ongoing debilitating illness.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported yesterday that demand for neuropsychological treatment is reaching record levels and people seeking treatment for Long COVID are waiting between six and twelve months for an appointment.

While governments have been virtually silent on the issue, federal Health Minister Mark Butler admitted this morning that Long COVID was proving to be a “major health challenge” as a result of “millions and millions of Australians” contracting the virus this year.

Labor, no less than the Liberal-National Coalition, is directly responsible for those “millions and millions” of infections. In line with the demands of big business, all Australian governments have reopened workplaces and schools and abandoned virtually all public health measures.

The newly-elected federal Labor government has made clear that these homicidal policies will continue. Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese admitted last week that the pandemic “clearly isn’t over yet,” but only extended the federal government’s pandemic health funding by three months, to the end of December.

The $760 million pledged over this period will do nothing to address the crisis in the health system, which is being pushed to breaking point with a combination of surging COVID-19, widespread influenza, understaffing and decades of cuts under Labor and Liberal-National governments alike.

Emergency department wait times are at record highs and ambulances in every state and territory are routinely ramped outside hospitals for hours, waiting to offload patients.

At the same time, even the most basic and limited public health measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 infections continue to be removed, at the behest of the corporate and financial elite.

Last Tuesday, the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC), the body that supplies official health advice for government leaders to justify their edicts, released a statement calling on state and territory governments to end mask mandates for airport terminals from as early as June 17.

This has nothing to do with the protection of public health, but was because “all states and territories have relaxed mask mandates in most settings within the community.” What follows from this is the pretext for the removal of masks in every other setting where there are still mandates in place, in particular on public transport.

After the statement, Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory scrapped mask mandates in airports. From next week, mandatory mask wearing in Victorian airport terminals will no longer be required. Qantas CEO Alan Joyce used the announcement to demand the new Labor government scrap mask mandates for passengers on planes.

In Victoria, further public health measures are being wound back, with three-dose vaccine mandates to be scrapped in education, food distribution, meat and seafood processing and quarantine accommodation sectors. Changes are also being made to isolation requirements for positive cases, with Victorians who test positive for COVID-19 being able to leave home to drive a household member to or from education or work.

All of this takes place as the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Australia approaches 8 million and the official death toll surpasses 9,300.

Tens of thousands of new infections are being recorded every day across the country, with 3,000 people now hospitalised and 113 in ICU. At the current rate, basic arithmetic indicates that some 15,000 Australians could die from the virus by the end of the year.

In fact, all of the conditions have been created by the ruling class for forthcoming waves of COVID-19 to cause even greater amounts of infection, illness and death.

While only a tiny fraction of COVID-19 samples detected in Australia—mostly those found in incoming international travelers—are subjected to genomic sequencing, there are signs that Omicron BA.5 is set to become the dominant strain. A recent Japanese study has shown that the sub-variant is more contagious than earlier forms, and more resistant to immunity from vaccination or previous infection.

Vaccine immunity, already limited against Omicron, is waning. Just 67 percent of adults aged over 16 have received a third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, because of the relentless campaign by governments and the corporate media to downplay the severity of the pandemic. A fourth booster shot is currently limited to those over 65 years of age and those with underlying health conditions.

COVID-19 continues to spread throughout aged care facilities, with over 600 active outbreaks, including 3,316 cases among residents and 1,689 among staff. Only 50 percent of aged care residents have received a fourth vaccine dose. Almost a third of the total recorded COVID-19 deaths have been in residential aged care.

The ongoing wave of mass infections and deaths was not and is not inevitable. It is the result of a deliberate policy, embraced by state and federal, Labor and Liberal-National governments, to sacrifice the health and lives of the population for corporate profits.

The mounting deaths and infections demonstrate that, contrary to the claims of the ruling class, the population cannot “live with the virus.” COVID-19 can and must be eliminated. The recent experience of China, where a two-month lockdown in Shanghai and other public health measures, including widespread contact testing and tracing, successfully suppressed the most infectious variant of COVID so far, demonstrates that the virus can be stopped.