COVID-19 cases explode again in Japan, South Korea

Ben McGrath

Cases of COVID-19 are surging in Japan and South Korea, fueled by the more contagious and vaccine-evading BA.5 Omicron subvariant. Governments in Tokyo and Seoul, however, continue to refuse to implement any serious measures to stop the spread of the deadly virus. Instead, they have made clear that keeping the economy open and extracting profits from the working class trumps saving lives.

Medical workers wait for people at a temporary COVID-19 testing center in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, April 15, 2022 [Credit: AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon] [AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon]

Japan, in particular, is experiencing its worst surge since the pandemic began. On July 28, the county recorded 233,066 daily cases, more than double the previous record-high set in February. Nearly half of Japan’s 47 prefectures are reporting record-highs, indicating widespread infection throughout the country. In a one-week period from July 22 to 28, Japan recorded 1,283,378 cases, more than any other country in the world.

However, the government of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has made clear that there will be no return to even the limited mitigation measures put in place during earlier stages in the pandemic. Shigeru Omi, the head of a government panel on COVID-19, reported to Prime Minister Kishida on July 11, that “if everyone does what they can do, there is no need at this point to impose movement restrictions.”

In other words, Tokyo is shifting blame for not halting the deadly pandemic onto individuals, despite the fact that people must still go to work and school, all the while using crowded public transportation systems and being forced to sit in crowded offices and classrooms.

Workers required to interact with large numbers of people, such as those in public transportation, are being subjected to widespread infection, as well as exposing countless others who rely on buses and subways. Some bus companies have started restricting their operating times, not to try to prevent COVID’s spread, but because too many drivers are testing positive.

The government’s refusal to put any health measures in place also exposes claims that Tokyo needs to amend the constitution to include a state-of-emergency clause to deal with situations like the pandemic. In reality, such a clause is not meant to address health crises or other serious threats to people’s lives, but to pave the way for police state measures, with an amendment that would restrict democratic rights.

Predictably, the hospital system is already being overwhelmed by the sharp growth in new cases. Hospital beds are being filled around the country, forcing patients to remain at home. As of July 29, four prefectures had hospital bed occupancy rates at 70 percent or higher, with Okinawa Prefecture, the county’s poorest, standing at 88 percent. In addition, 20 prefectures occupancy rates are over 50 percent, which is impacting normal medical care.

Another record-high for the one-week period through July 24 was that more than 2,600 people suspected of being infected with COVID-19 were unable to access the immediate ambulance transportation that they needed.

Health authorities in Seoul have similarly lifted nearly all mitigation measures with no intention of implementing new ones, even as daily cases climbed above 100,000 for the first time in three months on July 27, with a total of 100,285. The seven-day average through July 29 stood at 77,571 cases per day. In addition, several cases of the new BA.2.75 subvariant have also been discovered in addition to the surge in BA.5 cases.

Dozens of people continue to die each day, with the official total death toll passing 25,000 on Saturday. Most of those who have passed away did so this year, following the lifting of mitigation measures by the previous administration of Democrat Moon Jae-in.

In an indication of what could be in store, during the last Omicron surge in March, excess deaths for the month stood at 18,818, of which 9,034 people officially passed away from COVID-19. Among the others included in the excess death total were undoubtedly many who were unable to be tested and receive treatment, or who did not receive the necessary medical care needed for other ailments.

The only requirement still in place is a mask mandate indoors. In a token move, the government of President Yoon Suk-yeol stated recently that it would send officials to indoor facilities to ensure people continued to wear masks.

The government also made the empty suggestion that facilities like after-school academies, known as hagwon, close and only offer classes online. However, without any support from the government, nearly every academy remains open, and students are regularly infected.

A teacher at a hagwon in the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area told the World Socialist Web Site, “Nearly every day a student, or one of their family members, reports being infected. It’s impossible to ventilate classrooms properly in our building as most have no windows. We also can’t go to Zoom classes because the South Korean education system is so competitive that parents are afraid their children will fall behind. The government knows this.”

The real considerations for Tokyo and Seoul are ensuring enormous profits continue to flow into the pockets of big business. In May, Japan’s SMBC Nikko Securities reported that 1,323 major companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange had taken in 33.5 trillion yen ($US249 billion) in net profits for the 2021 fiscal year, surpassing the 30 trillion yen ($US223 billion) record posted in 2018.

In South Korea, the country’s four national banking groups—KB, Shinhan, Woori, and Hana—all enjoyed record profits during the April–June period, bringing in a total of 9 trillion won ($US6.9 billion). This easily surpassed the previous record of 4.63 trillion won ($US3.6 billion), set in the first quarter of the year.

Workers, however, are facing a fall in real wages as inflation soars. Japanese workers have suffered from stagnant wages for more than 20 years. Their real wages fell 1.8 percent in May. South Korean workers similarly are experiencing a fall in real wages, as consumer prices rose 6 percent in June.

Australian schools in crisis after governments reject basic COVID-19 safety measures

Ken Powlett

The resumption of schooling in Australia after the mid-year break has seen a further escalation in COVID-19 infections, with governments refusing outright to implement basic mitigation strategies, including mask mandates.

Students sitting the HSC in 2019 [Credit: ABC News]

No state or federal government, Labor or Liberal, has mandated mask wearing, including in schools. Earlier this month it emerged that the Victorian Labor government had rejected official advice that it do so, issued by its own chief health officer, Ben Cowie.

In a statement that explained nothing, Victorian Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas said on July 12 that “the chief health officer has provided his advice and I have accepted his advice, except that I have chosen not to extend mandates for mask wearing in some of the settings that were recommended to me.” Thomas said that she made the decision after discussion with “industry,” i.e., big business.

A farcical situation has emerged within the state’s school system, following the July 18 issuing of a co-signed letter from the heads of the Department of Education, the Catholic Education sector, and Independent Schools (Victoria). This outlined that wearing masks for all school staff and students aged eight and over was an “expectation,” yet not a requirement, with no penalties or consequences for non-compliance.

Similarly in Queensland, Labor Premier Anastasia Palaszczuk has said she “strongly encourages” mask wearing in schools but would not make this a requirement due to respect for “personal responsibility.”

Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was asked on July 20 why he rejected mask mandates. He absurdly replied: “One [factor] is mental health considerations… the imposition of controls on people’s behaviours has an impact on people’s health. And particularly young people, we’re seeing a really problematic increase in incidents of severe consequences when it comes to young people’s health, but others as well.”

There is no evidence whatsoever of any adverse mental health effects from being required to wear masks in schools and other indoor areas. Albanese’s comments are cover for the real agenda of the entire political establishment—refusing to enact any basic safety measures that potentially impinge on the accumulation of profit by corporate and finance capital.

Numerous epidemiologists and medical professionals have issued public statements of concern and opposition to the lifting of virtually all public health measures.

University of Melbourne Epidemiologist professor Nancy Baxter told the Age on July 11 that schools were helping drive COVID-19 transmission. “I don’t think it’s going to be better [than term 2] in fact, I think it’s going to be worse,” she said. “I think people should prepare themselves for there being closures and [teacher] shortages.”

That is now happening across Australia. Accurate and up to do date data on the situation in the schools is not being publicly released—this is part of official efforts to downplay the disaster that has emerged. Numerous local reports have nevertheless emerged of schools having to switch back to remote and online learning due to widespread staff illness.

For example, in the last two weeks reports emerged of one working class school in the western suburbs of Melbourne, Manor Lakes P-12 College, that had 60–70 of its 320 staff absent with illness. This forced the cancellation and merging of multiple senior classes.

There is a nation-wide shortage of relief teachers, resulting in sick teachers going unreplaced and their students often supervised together in large groups in halls.

In New South Wales, the state Liberal government of Premier Dominic Perrotet is reportedly preparing to fast-track university students into classrooms. The Australian reported on July 21: “University students would assist teachers in classrooms just six months into an education degree, under radical reforms to plug the national shortage of school teachers.”

The World Socialist Web Site spoke with several public school teachers on conditions in their workplaces.

A primary school teacher in a northern working class suburb of Melbourne said: “The department notice that there was an ‘expectation’ for children over 8 to wear masks was ridiculous. Many staff aren’t wearing masks, thinking that there isn’t a requirement to do so, so kids aren’t wearing them either. The wearing of masks needs to be mandated! We continue to see increased transmission with increased disruptions over what we already have.”

A secondary school teacher from a Victorian regional school reported: “We continue to have considerable staff and students absent with the virus. In the first week back in Term 3, there have been 73 year VCE [senior student] classes cancelled. A single ES [education support] member has had to supervise in excess of 120 students, amounting to a baby-sitting exercise.

“Some staff and fewer students are using masks, even though we have experienced a huge growth of the virus. Unless mandated, without masks, we will continue to see students and staff getting third and fourth doses of COVID.”

Another secondary school teacher in Melbourne said: “Even though the letter [recommending mask wearing] has gone home, there is no uptake from the kids.

“Student illnesses are still occurring and classes are severely disrupted. The pressure to catch up on work and assessments from students being away is insane. This has been the hardest six months of teaching I’ve ever had. I hate what is going on and now dread going into work.”

An entirely preventable spate of serious illnesses and deaths are now emerging. On July 24, a girl died of COVID-19, just two weeks before her second birthday. The death again exposed the lie that young people are unaffected by the virus.

The tragic loss is part of the worst spate of mass COVID deaths in Australia to date. In the seven-days including 30 July, 535 coronavirus fatalities were recorded, an average of more than 76 every day, up from around 40 a month ago. Yesterday’s 157 deaths were comfortably the highest reported on any day of the pandemic.

The wave of mass infection has broader implications. Several studies have found that 10–20 percent of people who are infected with the virus may suffer some form of Long COVID. This includes countless children now contracting the virus in their classrooms.

Across Australia, the Australian Education Union and its state affiliates are working as the active accomplices of state and federal governments. Throughout the pandemic, the unions have insisted that teachers and school workers comply with every official edict, and take no independent measures whatsoever to protect their safety and that of their students.

Papua New Guinea’s Governor-General tries to avert failure of election

John Braddock

Papua New Guinea’s Governor-General, Sir Bob Dadae, last week intervened to prevent the failure of the country’s national election. Widely disrupted polling and violence has marred the vote in the drawn-out election. Dadae allowed an extra two weeks until August 12 to allow vote counting to be completed.

Sir Bob Dadae [Source: Wikimedia Commons]

There had been warnings that a constitutional crisis could result if the election writs were not all handed in by the due date, July 29. Dadae declared he would allow the extra time on the recommendation of Electoral Commissioner Simon Sinai.

Only 20 writs from 118 electorates had been declared by the official deadline. On Friday the Post Courier cited former Chief Justice Arnold Armet, who said there were “no Constitutional provisions for any extension of writs.” The newspaper noted there was no formal Gazette notice legalising the extension of the writs, which it warned would portend “a troubling future.”

Highlighting the extremely unstable situation, incumbent Prime Minister James Marape called a press briefing late Friday to announce the writs would now be due on August 5, with parliament returning on August 9. A Gazette notice was posted accordingly. Peter O’Neill, the main opposition leader declared: “I think the whole [electoral] system has collapsed,” setting the stage for ongoing legal wrangling over the results.

The poll has been mired in bribery and corruption, ballot rigging and omission of names from the Common Roll. In one high-profile case, the Electoral Commission rejected the declaration of Don Polye as winner of the Kandep Open seat and charged the returning officer with breaching directives concerning the “integrity” of ballot boxes. Polye is leader of the opposition Triumph Heritage Empowerment Party.

In a desperate bid to stem popular distrust, Marape was forced last week to issue a statement that his Pangu Pati was “not rigging” the process. None of the 25 parties and 3,499 candidates, however, has any intention of addressing the social gulf that separates the political elite from the masses, a fact that is not lost on ordinary people.

The governor-general’s intervention came after escalating violence erupted in the capital, Port Moresby, on July 24. Rival supporters wielding bush knives turned the streets into what the National described as “a battlefield” when one group chased and slashed people indiscriminately as votes were being tallied for the Moresby East electorate.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported that the rampage started with a dispute over the counting of two ballot boxes, quickly escalating into a full-blown confrontation. Supporters had been camping outside counting centres with weapons, including knives and stones, hidden in their camp sites. Some electoral officials had been escorted in by police amid scrutineer complaints about incorrect tallying of votes. Four officials were last week charged with inflating the tally.

According to the ABC, the attack and violent incidents on subsequent days “fed fear and tension in the city,” and forced the capital into a near lockdown. Troops with armoured vehicles were deployed to patrol the streets and the count was suspended.

While the violence in Port Moresby provoked particular alarm, it was only the latest outrage to hit the chaotic election. A major source of popular frustration is the incomplete election rolls, which have not been updated since the last election in 2017. Within days of the polls opening, angry voters in East Sepik and Hela districts in the Highlands destroyed ballot boxes and set fire to ballot papers after discovering their names were missing.

A Commonwealth Observer Group monitoring the election reported that in some areas as many as half of those eligible to vote were not on the register. By one estimate, 1 million out of a potential voting population of 6 million have been affected.

Competing candidates are accused of inciting their supporters to try to influence outcomes. Dozens of attacks have taken place with election-related deaths officially reaching 49 since May 20.

The first occurred in early May in Western Highlands, when an election officer was shot. The incident followed a delay in the publication of a list of appointed election officers. False lists were then being circulated, prompting violence between rival candidates over rumoured appointments.

Throughout June and July, most violence occurred in the Highlands. In one incident four men were killed and three critically injured when they were ambushed and shot execution-style in Nebilyer, Western Highlands. The men were allegedly moving illegal ballot boxes when they encountered a roadblock and were gunned down by vigilantes with high-powered firearms.

In another tragedy, 25 people were killed in a massacre in Enga Province on 20 July, near the site of the currently idled Porgera gold mine. A police commander told the Post Courier the slaughter appeared to be the work of a “deranged mob” who had carried out an hour of “wanton destruction.”

Soldiers who had been stationed in the area reportedly left Porgera after polling finished, when the killings then erupted. A state of emergency has since been declared, with 150 police and army personnel in the township.

Authorities denied that the killings were directly linked to the elections but were part of a tribal battle that has been raging over a land dispute, causing 70 deaths. While tribal fighting is a regular occurrence in the remote Highlands, heightened social tensions surrounding elections inevitably intensify popular anger and frustration. The 2017 poll saw more than 200 people killed in clashes.

The lack of security has prevailed despite 8,000 police and army personnel, including 140 Australian Defence Force troops, being dispatched across the country, prompting calls from some quarters for harsher crackdowns. PNG Think Tank Group spokesman Samson Komati said that a force of anything less than 20,000 is “insufficient to contain any form of strategic violence.”

In fact, following decades of social deprivation and growing inequality, buttressed by authoritarian military-police measures, trust in the entire parliamentary system has disintegrated. The unbridgeable gulf that separates the poverty-stricken PNG masses from the country’s corrupt and venal political establishment has seen a series of strikes and protests by nurses, doctors and students in recent years.

The tiny ruling elite reaps enormous personal wealth through services rendered to giant transnational corporations. Successive governments have conducted decades-long attacks on living standards and basic rights. Tax cuts for the wealthy and private companies have accompanied harsh labour market deregulation and cuts to the minimum wage.

PNG remains among the poorest countries in the world. Some 85 percent of people live in rural areas, many on the margins of the modern economy, eking out an existence on semi-subsistence agriculture. Most have only limited or non-existent health care, education, and other social services and infrastructure amid widespread social distress. COVID-19 has caused further devastation, with escalating unemployment, inadequate social support and a disintegrating health system.

Behind the explosive situation is the legacy of economic backwardness produced by decades of colonial rule and the continued subordination of PNG’s economy to the interests of the banks and transnational corporations. Culpability lies with the former colonial power Australia which, since ceding nominal independence in 1975, has used its position to protect its business and geo-strategic interests while doing nothing to address the plight of the PNG masses.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who is due to visit PNG in September, has so far remained silent on the chaos surrounding the election. Whatever the outcome, Canberra’s central concern is to maintain its hegemony over the country, and to push back against China’s growing economic and diplomatic influence.

She Loves Tech Global Startup Competition 2022

Application Deadline:

12th September 2022

Tell Me About Award:

She Loves Tech Global Startup Competition 2022 is now open for registration. She Loves Tech is the world’s largest startup competition for women and technology including an acceleration program, resource matching and global pitch competitions. It seeks to close the funding gap for women and provide them with investments through its network of world-class investors.

The She Loves Tech Platform is the global go-to platform for gender-lens founders and funders. They are looking for early-stage women-led and women-impact startups. They are building a global ecosystem to facilitate greater visibility, funding opportunities, and community among women in technology to catalyse USD 1 Billion in funding for women by 2030.

The Competition is hosted in over 70 countries, across 6 continents, giving startups a lifetime opportunity to grow beyond limit.

What Type of Award is this?

Entrepreneurship

Who can apply?

• They are looking for early stage technology startups who are seeking seed, angel or A round funding (under US$5M) with at least a minimum viable product or working prototype (past ideation stage).
• You also must have a technology startup fulfilling ONE of the following gender lens:  
• Female founder
• Majority female users
• Majority female consumers
• Technology impacting women positively

How Many Positions will be Given?

Not specified

What is the Benefit of Award?

She Loves Tech works with startups to take their business to the next level. If you are shortlisted, they work closely with you, providing mentorship and/or workshops to prepare for your final pitch.

At the Global Finals, the week-long bootcamp is specially curated to provide you with mentorship, training and access to their network of top investors and influencers from the tech community.

• Over $500,000 worth of prizes will be made available to successful winners of the competition.
• Funding, resources, and visibility, including $100,000 direct investments will be received from She Loves Tech
• $15,000 Cash Prize from Teja Ventures
• $10,000 Cash Prize from ADB Ventures
• Special media coverage
• Mentorship from the best of the best
• Fast track access to programmes and resources
• In-house advisory services, and
• Unparalleled global community of founders and investors

How to Apply for Program?

• 14 Aug 2022 for South Asia, South East Asia, East Asia & Central Asia Regions
• 12 Sep 2022 for Turkey, Middle East, Africa, Europe, United Kingdom, Israel, Australia and America Regions

Click here to apply.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Ground workers paralyze Lufthansa flights in Germany

Peter Schwarz

On Wednesday, Lufthansa’s 20,000 ground workers largely paralyzed Europe’s largest airline measured by passenger miles. The company cancelled more than a thousand flights, including 680 in Frankfurt and 350 in Munich; 134,000 passengers were affected.

Cancelled flights at Frankfurt Airport [AP Photo/Michael Probst] [AP Photo/Michael Probst]

The strike shows the enormous power workers have when they decide to fight. But the Verdi union, which called the one-day warning strike, has no intention of using that power. Verdi official Christine Behle, who is leading the collective bargaining negotiations with Lufthansa, assured broadcaster ARD’s morning news program that there would be no further action until the next round of negotiations on August 3: “I can rule that out.”

However, Lufthansa employees can only win their fight for better wages and working conditions if they break with Verdi. The union has not the slightest intention of enforcing its own wage demands, let alone taking action against the intolerable working conditions. It is officially demanding a 9.5 percent rise, or at least €350 more pay monthly for a 12-month period. This would just about compensate for inflation but would not make up for the massive loss of income in recent years.

Behle justified Verdi’s demand on the basis of the precarious situation faced by Lufthansa employees. More than a third of the staff had been cut during the coronavirus crisis. Their work now had to be taken over by the remaining employees, who were “exposed to the anger of passengers on a daily basis.”

“The stresses are extremely high, and many are thinking about leaving aviation permanently,” Behle complained. After “three years of wages sacrifice to stabilize the company during the pandemic,” she added, employees had also been hit particularly hard by the high rate of inflation.

Such cynicism leaves one almost speechless given it was none other than Verdi and Behle herself who ensured Lufthansa was able to send thousands of ground and in-flight staff packing and dictate the remaining “wages sacrifice.”

Behle, a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), is not only deputy chair of the Verdi trade union, but also deputy chair of the Lufthansa supervisory board. In this function, which earns her an annual salary of €140,000, she is in constant contact with Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr and the shareholders.

While the corporation collected €6 billion in coronavirus aid from the federal government, Verdi and the sectoral unions UFO and Cockpit agreed to tens of thousands of job cuts and billions in wage sacrifices. In summer 2020, UFO agreed savings of half a billion euros at the expense of the 22,000 cabin staff, while Cockpit agreed cuts of €850 million at the expense of pilots.

At the end of 2020, Verdi then agreed to a downgrading contract for ground employees. By immediately foregoing vacation and Christmas bonuses, combined with a wage freeze and a waiver of bonuses until the end of 2021, ground employees “made a savings contribution of more than €200 million to help overcome the crisis,” Behle announced. The agreement with ground staff could save up to 50 percent in personnel costs for this group of employees, Lufthansa’s head of human resources Michael Niggemann cheered.

“German trade unions have never before agreed to such a cut—some €1.2 billion—in the income of their members” the WSWS commented at the time. “It marks a new point of departure for union sellouts. Averaging out the impact among 130,000 current employees, the deals will cut per-worker income by nearly €10,000.”

Verdi made sure—not only at Lufthansa—that any resistance to these massive cuts was nipped in the bud. The only exception was ground workers at Frankfurt Airport, who fought for months against their dismissal by the WISAG service company with a hunger strike and countless protests.

To wage this struggle, the WISAG workers had to break with Verdi and form an independent rank-and-file action committee. Their struggle ultimately failed because it remained isolated and the unions, the Hesse state parliamentary parties and finally the courts all stabbed them in the back.

After the Lufthansa workforce has been forced to bear the costs of the coronavirus crisis with mass layoffs and salary cuts, low wages and growing work stress, they are now supposed to ensure that the company can pay off the state aid as quickly as possible and get rid of 20 percent in federal shareholding so that the lavish profits bubble up again and the share price rises.

Working conditions are now so unbearable and wages so poor that Lufthansa is no longer able to find enough workers. As Verdi itself admits, hourly wages of less than €12 are sometimes paid at its subsidiaries LTLS and Lufthansa Cargo. That is less than the minimum wage promised by the federal government.

The union is now demanding that the hourly wage for these groups of employees be raised to at least €13! No one can live on this in expensive cities like Frankfurt and Munich, where the two most important German airports are located.

The staff shortage at the airlines and airports is now so acute that Lufthansa had to cancel 3,100 flights from the schedule during the summer months, far more than fell victim to the one-day warning strike by Verdi.

Worldwide, around 2.3 million jobs have been cut in aviation since the pandemic began, 600,000 of them in Europe. At German airports, about one-fifth of jobs are unfilled, according to the ADV airport association. A study by the Institute of the German Economy has calculated that there is a shortage of around 7,200 skilled workers for whom no replacement can be found in the short term. A high level of sick leave due to COVID infections further exacerbates the situation.

The consequences are not only flight cancellations, delays and long queues for travelers, but also insane work pressure for the remaining staff, who are paid miserably. The situation is reminiscent of the clinics and hospitals which, also under the direction of Verdi, were cut to the bone during the pandemic.

Verdi is desperately trying to keep the growing anger over these conditions under control. That is why the union called for a warning strike at Lufthansa. In the eyes of their well-paid functionaries, the one-day strike serves the sole purpose of blowing off some steam and strengthening their own authority so that they can calmly prepare the next sell-out.

The entire international aviation industry is seething. In recent weeks, there have been and continue to be strikes at Ryanair, Easyjet, the Scandinavian airline group SAS and other airlines. Industrial action at airports, particularly in France and Spain, has led to numerous flight cancellations. Thousands of flights have also been cancelled in the US due to staff shortages at airports. At Lufthansa, the Cockpit union is currently holding a strike ballot among pilots. British Airways pilots are also preparing for a strike.

As monkeypox spreads through universities, US government refuses to act

Chase Lawrence

Even with many campuses mostly vacant for the summer, universities across the United States are registering their first cases of the monkeypox virus. So far, the virus has been found at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., University of California, Berkeley, West Chester University in Pennsylvania and the University of Texas at Austin.

This 2003 electron microscope image made available by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows mature, oval-shaped monkeypox virions, left, and spherical immature virions, right, obtained from a sample of human skin associated with the 2003 prairie dog outbreak. [AP Photo/Cynthia S. Goldsmith, Russell Regner/CDC]

The monkeypox virus is spreading on an unprecedented level throughout the United States and the world, already constituting a pandemic. The US reported 1,048 new monkeypox cases Thursday, the biggest one-day increase on record according to BNO News. According to @monkeypoxtally on Twitter, 20,000 cases have been identified around the world with US cases jumping 1,900 percent from 244 to 4,639 in just one month. The US currently holds the global record for most monkeypox cases.

Public health activist Laura Miers tweeted concernedly about the spread of the virus and the lack of any serious response by the government, noting “So, monkeypox—a virus that can cause blindness, disfigurement, extreme complications, & death—has been reported on at least 5 college campuses & in county jails. It’s also infecting kids. There is no plan for fall/winter. We cannot accept doing nothing.”

American universities have been caught wholly unprepared for outbreaks. After the first case was confirmed at UT Austin, the university’s Health Services Associate Director Susan Hochman claimed the risk of transmission remained low and officials were working to mitigate the risk to students. However, many students feel the university has not released enough information and have no plans for the upcoming fall semester.

UT senior Sophie Gendron told Community Impact Newspaper that “I didn’t even find out about the first monkeypox case from the university; I found out through social media.” As of July 21, Austin Public Health identified nine monkeypox cases in Travis County, where Austin is located, with 20 presumptive cases.

In California, the Berkeley Health Department confirmed six unrelated cases of monkeypox. The Alameda County Health Department has confirmed 32 cases in Alameda County, which includes Berkeley, Oakland and Fremont, as of Tuesday, out of 356 total in California. UC Berkeley’s six cases bring Alameda County’s total to 38.

Contrary to the messaging of the corporate media and health officials, monkeypox is highly contagious and there is evidence that it may be airborne as well. Additionally, contrary to attempts to portray monkeypox as a disease limited to gay and bisexual men, it is in fact communicable to everyone.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states on its website that young children under eight years old, pregnant women, immunocompromised people and those with a history of dermatitis or eczema are at increased risk for severe outcomes from monkeypox. The WHO notes that recent monkeypox outbreaks, confined largely to the African continent, have had a 3–6 percent fatality rate, putting it above the rate of around 2 percent for SARS-CoV-2.

The quick spread of the virus is indicative of what may come when universities enter the fall semester to spread not one, but two pandemics at the same time as COVID-19 continues to rampage without control.

So what is the US government doing in response to this deadly disease? Virtually nothing.

The Biden administration’s Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra stated in an interview with CNN that while the CDC has the capability to call on states to start tracking the virus, it will not do so.

The interviewer, Poppy Harlow, asked Becerra how concerned he was about the virus and he responded that on a scale of one to ten he was at a “ten.” When then asked why the HHS was not requiring states to track the virus, Becerra gave the Orwellian response that to do so would require the Biden administration to declare a public health emergency. When the interviewer asked the obvious question, why there is not a public health emergency being declared given the obvious benefit of being able to track the disease to deliver vaccines and stop the spread, the HHS Secretary gave a typical government boilerplate non-response, declaring that “we’re monitoring closely.”

Harlow continued, “You have the power now to declare this a public health emergency and that would give you the authority to get more data… What are you monitoring for?” and was met with another non-response by the HHS Secretary “We declare public health emergencies based on the data and science.”

If Becerra were honest he would have stated: “We have the data, but if we released it people would rightfully be calling for action which would threaten to shut down businesses and school and create a precedent for action against other diseases (mainly COVID-19). That is why we are doing all we can to hide this data to keep children in school and workers at work continuing to churn out profits. We know many will die as a result, and many more suffer blindness, boils all over their bodies, scars, permanent medical issues, etc., but we see that as a fair price to keep Wall Street’s wealth intact and expanding.”

Much like the response to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, public health authorities have attempted to downplay the virus by claiming it is not airborne, with the World Health Organization tweeting “FACT: The #monkeypox virus is NOT airborne.” It later retracted the statement. Recent scientific studies such as the preprint “Air and surface sampling for monkeypox virus in UK hospitals” by Susan Gould, Barry Atkinson et al. have found viable monkeypox virus in both surface and air samples.

Monkeypox is a virus closely related to smallpox, a disease that was declared eradicated in 1980 and according to the CDC, “no cases of naturally occurring smallpox have happened since.” As the CDC notes, though, “Rarely, smallpox has spread through the air in enclosed settings, such as a building.” This was proven in the case of a West German hospital, where a West German male contracted smallpox in Pakistan and was admitted to an isolation ward, but the virus ended up spreading through the vents as evidenced by the lack of direct contact to infected persons.

The eradication of smallpox required a robust, international initiative entailing a massive amount of investment into developing public health infrastructure, developing novel vaccines, carrying out mass vaccination campaigns and the monitoring and tracking of all cases followed by ‘ring vaccination’ where everyone potentially within reach of an outbreak was given the vaccine. This societal effort ultimately led to the eradication of smallpox.

The smallpox vaccine, which the US stockpiles, is somewhat effective against monkeypox but risky for certain individuals. While two vaccines, ACAM2000 (an older generation vaccine) and JYNNEOS, are licensed by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat monkeypox, the former is in “ample supply” but poses health risks for certain individuals while the latter is in “limited supply” but is much safer. Vaccination with JYNNEOS early on gives the best chance of preventing disease onset according to the CDC, with a second dose required 28 days apart.

Now, even with the greatly expanded scientific knowledge and the experiences of eradicating past diseases which makes the eradication of diseases far easier, the capitalist ruling class around the world in every major country—save for China, where the legacy of the Chinese revolution presents a roadblock to such homicidal policies—are doing little to nothing to stop the spread of either monkeypox or COVID-19.

The eradication of smallpox only happened because of the legacy of the October 1917 Revolution and the workers state which it produced, which, despite its Stalinist degeneration, carried out comprehensive public health campaigns forcing capitalist countries to confront the blight of disease rather than ignore it as was done previously in order to stave off revolution. Whole sections of industry were mobilized in the USSR to produce novel vaccines, and to expedite their distribution.

The dissolution of the USSR removed this political pressure leading to the situation seen today where diseases are left to run rampant with blatant disregard for the lives ended and ruined. The necessity of a comprehensive public health system increases in direct proportion to the scale of internationalization which, while greatly increasing the productive forces, also greatly increases the rate at which diseases can spread.

Sri Lankan regime extends its arrests of leading anti-government protesters

Deepal Jayasekera

Newly installed Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe is extending the state repression of leading figures in the popular uprising that has already forced Gotabhaya Rajapakse to flee the country and resign as president. Calls are already being made for the resignation of Wickremesinghe who is determined to impose the austerity demands of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that will only worsen the already intolerable conditions facing working people.

Ranil Wickremesinghe [Source: United National Party Facebook]

Following his swearing in as president last Thursday, Wickremesinghe oversaw a violent military-police crackdown on Galle Face Green in Colombo, the main protest site, in the early hours of the following morning. Thousands of police and soldiers attacked sleeping protesters, including women and children, and some were severely beaten. Their temporary structures, including tents were destroyed and nine were arrested.

Other arrests have followed. On Tuesday night student leader Dhaniz Ali was arrested at Colombo’s international airport while he was boarding a Dubai-bound flight. On Wednesday, police announced the arrest of two more anti-government activists, Kusal Sandaruwan and Weeranga Pushpika on charges of unlawful assembly.

Yesterday, social media activist Pathum Kerner, who has played a leading role in the protests, was arrested by the Colombo Crimes Division which accused him of involvement in a protest at an entry road to the parliament early this month. On the same day, a police team raided a Catholic church in Ratnapura, 85 kilometers from Colombo, searching for a priest, Fr. Amila Jeewantha Peiris, another prominent protest leader, claiming to have an order for his arrest.

The government is clearly preparing for a police dragnet. On July 27, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) announced that its investigation teams had identified some 150 people involved in breaking into the Presidential Palace, Temple Trees (the prime minister’s official residence), the Presidential Secretariat and Prime Minister’s Offices and damaging property.

Retired Rear Admiral Sarath Weerasekera, the former public security minister in the Rajapakse government, told the media yesterday that fingerprints found in the government administration buildings occupied by protesters would be sent to the airport to prevent those involved from leaving the country. Yesterday a Colombo magistrate ordered a travel ban on 21 protesters.

The Morning reported yesterday that other protest activists, including attorney Nuwan Bopage, Catholic priest Jeewantha Peiris, Inter University Student Federation (IUSF) convener Wasantha Mudalige and former IUSF convener Lahiru Weerasekara were being intimidated by security forces who were tapping their phones and following them. Protesters told the newspaper that they had been prevented from reestablishing tents on the protest site at Galle Face Green after last Friday’s raid.

The government used the parliamentary debate on Wednesday on extending the state of emergency to justify its police state measures. In his inaugural speech as prime minister, Dinesh Gunawardena, a close confident of Gotabhaya Rajapakse, effectively denounced anti-government protesters as “terrorists.” He said the government would listen to the demands of peaceful protestors but would not yield to acts of “terrorism.”

No such distinction was made by the police and soldiers who descended on the Galle Face Green protest site last Friday where everyone including women and children were treated as “terrorists.” The term is simply the crude pretext for the police repression that is underway.

“Terrorism was the greatest threat to democracy, and the parliament, which upholds democracy would not support such acts of terrorism,” Gunawardena added. Far from upholding democracy, parliament upholds the rule of the capitalist class and defends the interests of the country’s wealthy elite and international finance capital.

The fraud of parliamentary democracy was exposed again last week when a parliamentary vote installed Wickremesinghe as president, who has no public support and is the sole parliamentarian of the rump United National Party. Wickremesinghe then installed Gunawardena as prime minister and re-appointed virtually the entire hated cabinet of Gotabhaya Rajapakse to their posts. The millions who have joined protests and strikes over the past three months had no say at all.

Needless to say, the parliament extended the state of emergency for another month, giving sweeping powers to the military to ban protests and strikes, arbitrarily arrest and detain people, search property and vehicles and censor media.

Wimal Weerawansa, one of a group of the parliamentarians who broke away from Rajapakse’s Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), bluntly explained that these so-called “independents” had voted for the state of emergency to prevent the capitalist state from being destroyed. Without the emergency, he said, “If the activists continue to protest to evict everyone who is in power, we cannot do anything. We have to accept that this is a legitimate government, whether we like it or not.”

The parliamentary opposition parties—Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP)—while voting against the emergency, have no fundamental differences with the Wickremesinghe government and would, if in power, implement the savage IMF austerity agenda just as ruthlessly.

The opposition parties are calling for an all-party interim government as a means of diverting public opposition into safe parliamentary channels and shoring up bourgeois rule. The SJB and SLFP, while criticising the government, are keeping their options open for some type of collaboration with it. An SLFP delegation led by party chairman and former president Maithripala Sirisena held talks with Wickremesinghe on the proposal for an all-party government yesterday.

Pseudo-left organisations, like the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), also back the formation of a bourgeois all-party interim government. Speaking to the media yesterday, FSP education secretary Pubudu Jagoda attacked the government and the emergency regulations not from the standpoint of defending democratic rights, but for “further undermining Sri Lanka’s credibility.”

Jagoda criticized Wickremesinghe for failing to ensure “political stability”—in other words, the stability of bourgeois rule demanded by the IMF as a pre-condition for financial assistance. “No one is going to help a man like Wickremesinghe. It is obvious that he is incapable of ensuring political stability. Countries like the EU, China or Japan will not help a state mired in political instability,” he said.

US economy starting to move into recession

Nick Beams

The US economy has taken another significant step towards recession with economic output contracting for the second quarter in a row, a situation often referred to as a “technical recession.”

When the first quarter results were released, they were generally passed off as having no real significance, the result of a statistical aberration. But the latest data indicate they were the start of a trend.

The Wall St. street sign is framed by the American flags flying outside the New York Stock exchange, Friday, Jan. 14, 2022, in the Financial District. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

The official definition of a recession in the US is determined by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and it will not make a determination for some time. But whatever it decides, the data for the last two quarters indicate a significant slowdown over the past six months. In the December quarter of 2021, the US economy was growing at an annualised rate of 6.9 percent.

Breaking down the data, there were a number of results which point to the underlying trends. Consumer spending, which accounts for around two thirds of total economic output, grew by only 1 percent for the quarter, down from the 1.8 percent increase in the first. Consumer spending growth is now at its lowest rate since the start of the pandemic.

Real wages are falling, with real disposable income falling by 0.5 percent for the quarter, the fifth straight quarterly fall.

The biggest drag on growth was the drop in business inventories, which cut 2 percent off the headline result. Earlier, Walmart, America’s biggest retailer, reported that it was cutting prices in a bid to clear out inventories that had built up because of falling demand. Business investment was also down.

There is a concerted attempt to deny that recession is taking hold. Earlier this week, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the US economy was not in recession and she would “be amazed” if the NBER declared it was.

One of the bases for such assertions is the low unemployment rate of 3.6 percent. How can there be a recession if the jobless rate is at a 50-year low? This ignores the fact that hirings are starting to be cut back by major corporations and rising unemployment is generally one of the last indicators to emerge if there is a downward trend.

Furthermore, there also seems to be a repeat of the COVID playbook: continually deny reality by pointing to the low unemployment rate and somehow underlying economic conditions will cease to exist.

But a key factor in what is continually referred to as the “tight labour market” is the death of more than one million people—many of them of working age—and the millions who have been impacted by COVID and are unable to work for periods because of immediate infection, the need of others to drop out of the workforce to take care of family and loved ones, and the growing impact of Long COVID in reducing the labour supply.

Statements aimed at covering up the situation are one thing, but objective reality is another.

Wall Street Journal (WSJ) writer Greg Ip noted that whether a recession is eventually declared, “the message from the latest economic data is just as sobering: The recovery is, effectively, over.”

He pointed out that “key indicators of economic activity have ground to a halt.”

“Total spending by households and businesses didn’t grow in the second quarter after averaging 6 percent annualised growth in the prior six quarters,” he added.

In another article, the WSJ cited remarks by James Knightly of the financial giant ING, who said a downturn was “really only a matter of time” because of the pressure on households from inflation and equity markets in conditions where “the housing downturn [is] really gathering pace now.”

The Biden administration is leading the campaign to deny economic reality just as it is on COVID. At a press conference after the GDP figures were announced, Yellen said economists and most Americans had a definition of recession that included job losses and mass layoffs, private sector activity slowing considerably and “family budgets under immense strain,” and that is “not what we’re seeing right now.”

Family budgets “not under immense strain?” One can only ask what planet Yellen is living on.

President Biden issued a statement shortly after the data were released saying it was no surprise the economy “is slowing down as the Federal Reserve acts to bring down inflation.”

The inducement of a slowdown and recession is the deliberate policy of the Fed, not to bring down inflation—its measures will not reduce the price of food or gas or untangle global supply chains—but are aimed at suppressing the growing wages movement of the working class.

The objective of the Fed is widely known in ruling economic and political circles, but is kept under wraps, covered over by the mantra of the need to fight inflation, lest its exposure further fuel the mounting anger in the working class.

In an effort to burnish her “left” credentials in sections of the Democratic party, Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote an op-ed piece in the WSJ this week that partially lifted the lid on what is really taking place.

She noted that the aggressive rate hikes by the Fed are largely ineffective against the inflation spike and warned that the interest rate hikes were aimed at “dampening demand.” If the Fed hiked too much or too abruptly, she wrote, “the resulting recession will leave millions of people… with smaller paychecks or no paycheck at all.”

Warren pointed to the remarks of former Democratic treasury secretary Lawrence Summers, who recently told the London School of Economics: “We need five years of unemployment above 5 percent to contain inflation—in other words, we need two years of 7.5 percent unemployment or five years of 6 percent unemployment or one year of 10 percent unemployment.”

But always anxious to ensure that the working class remains corralled within the confines of the Democratic party, Warren praised the actions of the Biden administration and said it recognised that the US had “many tools for fighting inflation that wouldn’t make the economy smaller and Americans poorer.”

Such claims ignore two facts: that the limited measures of the administration will do little or nothing to bring down prices, and that Biden has declared he stands four-square behind the actions of the Fed.

In the US, the world’s biggest economy, the GDP figures were announced just days after the International Monetary Fund revised down its estimate for growth and warned that the global economy was “teetering” on the brink of recession.

In the world’s second largest economy, China, growth in the June quarter was only 0.4 percent, narrowly avoiding a contraction, with estimates for growth over the next months being revised down.

The third key driver of the world economy, the euro zone, is on the edge of recession, with warnings of a major downturn by its leading economy, Germany, by the end of the year due to cuts in Russian gas supplies as a result of the US-led war in Ukraine.