New study proves that COVID-19 is far more harmful and deadly than the flu

Benjamin Mateus & Evan Blake

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the essential talking points of the far-right globally has been that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is no more harmful than the seasonal flu. From former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro calling COVID-19 a “little flu,” to Donald Trump claiming in February 2020 that the virus would be seasonal and “miraculously” disappear by Easter, this propaganda campaign aimed to minimize the dangers posed by COVID-19 and condition society to “live with” COVID-19 and all other pathogens.

With over 27 million excess deaths attributable to COVID-19 and estimates that hundreds of millions of people are now suffering from Long COVID-19 worldwide, such a comparison with the flu was always a transparent falsehood. Still, the propaganda has had an impact on public consciousness, with the great mass of the population unaware of the ongoing dangers they face as new variants of SARS-CoV-2 evolve and sweep across the globe every few months, leaving in their wake ever-growing numbers of dead and disabled.

While many principled scientists have exposed this central falsehood of the pandemic, none have done so as comprehensively as a study published last Thursday by the team of researchers led by Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, the director of the Clinical Epidemiology Center, chief of research and development service at the Veterans Affairs (VA) Saint Louis Health Care System.

Dr. Al-Aly at his desk [Photo by Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly]

The study, published in the Infectious Disease section of the Lancet, is an 18-month comparative analysis following patients after hospital admission for COVID-19 versus influenza. It proves definitively that not only is COVID-19 far deadlier than influenza, but it also causes more long-term health injuries and damage to the body.

While this was not the authors’ intention, the study also provides the first measurable comprehensive assessment of the long-term health complications of influenza, what is known as “Long Flu,” which are considerable.

Event rates per 100 persons are presented for COVID-19 (red) and seasonal influenza (blue). The hazard ratio, rate, and rate difference per 100 persons during the periods of 0–30, 0–180, 0–360 and 0–540 days are also presented. [Photo: Yan Xie,Taeyoung Choi,Ziyad Al-Aly]

Similar to infection with SARS-CoV-2 and a slew of other pathogens such as measles, Epstein-Barr virus, herpes, and other coronaviruses, the influenza virus too can cause long-term health complications after the acute phase of the infection has subsided. This phenomenon was already known to some extent by the historical record of the 1918 influenza pandemic, but until now there had been very little quantitative data on “Long Flu.”

Senior author Al-Aly said in a news release by the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, “The study illustrates the high toll of death and loss of health following hospitalization with either COVID-19 or seasonal influenza. It is critical to note that the health risks were higher after the first 30 days of infection. Many people think they’re over COVID-19 or the flu after being discharged from the hospital. That may be true for some people. But our research shows that both viruses can cause long-haul illness.”

This latest study by Al-Aly’s team, which is responsible for some of the most pioneering research on the impacts of COVID-19, is very timely. The US and much of the world are presently in the grips of a massive winter wave of infections caused by the highly infectious and immune-resistant Omicron JN.1 subvariant. In multiple countries where JN.1 is already dominant, most significantly in Singapore which has very high vaccination rates, COVID-19 hospitalizations are beginning to rise dramatically.

Utilizing the VA’s vast database, the study authors included over 82,000 patients who had been admitted for COVID-19 between March 1, 2020, and June 30, 2022, encompassing the pre-Delta, Delta, and Omicron phases of the pandemic. However, because of influenza’s rarity in the US during this period when some semblance of mitigation measures remained in place to combat COVID-19, the authors resorted to using a historical cohort (between October 1, 2015, and February 28, 2019) of nearly 11,000 influenza patients who had been hospitalized for a comparator.

A total of 94 pre-specified health outcome measures were analyzed, encompassing ten organ systems that included “cardiovascular, coagulation and hematological, fatigue, gastrointestinal, kidney, mental health, metabolic, musculoskeletal, neurological, and pulmonary.” The acute phase of their infections was defined as the first 30 days after their admission to the hospital and the post-acute phase of infection encompassed days 31 to 540, or 18 months.

Unsurprisingly, the absolute death rate was far higher for COVID-19 than the flu, with a cumulative death rate of 28.46 for COVID-19 and 19.84 for influenza per 100 persons, or 43 percent higher for COVID-19. In the first 30 days, the COVID-19 group had an increased risk of death that was 2.5 times higher than those admitted with the flu. Although this discrepancy declined over the intervening six-month intervals, it continued to remain elevated.

The acute phase of COVID-19 is far more often severe than that of flu, with roughly three times as many COVID-19 hospitalizations in the past year than the flu—roughly 1 million compared to 360,000—and four times as many official COVID deaths (roughly 83,000) as flu deaths (21,000).

Also, over the 18-month period, COVID-19 was associated with “significant increased risk” in 64 of the 94 measured health outcomes that encompassed nearly every organ system in the human body. By comparison, seasonal influenza was only associated with increases in six of the 94 health outcomes that included, angina, tachycardia, type 1 diabetes, and three pulmonary outcomes (cough, hypoxia, and shortness of breath).

As just one example of a measured health outcome, those with COVID-19 had a 2.4 times higher risk of heart attack in the first 30 days than those with the flu. This risk factor remained elevated throughout the 18-month period. Those who had COVID-19 also faced an increased risk of pulmonary embolism and many other potentially lethal conditions throughout the study period. Another uniquely devastating impact of COVID-19 pertains to mental health illnesses, including acute stress and suicidal ideations.

(A) Rate-based results presented on relative scale. From left to right: percentage of rate contributed from acute and post-acute phase in the COVID-19 group and in the seasonal influenza group, and rate ratio of COVID-19 compared to seasonal influenza during the acute phase and during the post-acute phase. (B) Rate-based results presented on absolute scale. From left to right: cumulative rate per 100 persons in the acute phase and post-acute phase in the COVID-19 group and in the seasonal influenza group, and excess rate per 100 persons between COVID-19 and seasonal influenza. [Photo: Yan Xie,Taeyoung Choi,Ziyad Al-Aly]

The authors highlighted two key findings in their study. With the exception of the gastrointestinal system, more than 50 percent of the total incident burden of disease in both COVID-19 and influenza occurred in the post-acute phase of infection, or between days 31 to 540. Secondly, COVID-19 patients had a higher burden of disease across all organ systems than the flu (except the pulmonary system) in both the acute and post-acute phase.

Summarizing these findings in an email communication with the World Socialist Web Site, Dr. Al-Aly wrote, “We observed higher risks of death, healthcare utilization and hits in most organ systems in COVID-19 than the flu. This was evident in pre-Delta, Delta, and Omicron. And also evident in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals. COVID-19 remain a much more serious threat to human health than the flu.”

He added that the study findings underscore that “COVID-19 is really a multisystemic disease and flu is more of a respiratory virus.” That is not to say that the pulmonary consequences of COVID-19 were negligible, as it only slightly trailed the flu in this domain throughout the study period.

Dr. Al-Aly then made the point, “The burden of health loss from Long-Flu is substantial, but the burden of health loss from Long-COVID-19 is even higher. Yet, both Long-COVID-19 and Long-Flu lead to more health loss than either acute COVID-19 or Flu. Conceptualizing these illnesses as acute events obscures the much larger burden of health loss that occurs in the post-acute phase.” [Emphasis added]

In a press release accompanying the study, Dr. Al-Aly clarified this shift in scientific understanding of these pathogens, writing, “the big ah-ha moment was the realization that the magnitude of long-term health loss eclipsed the problems that these patients endured in the early phase of the infection.”

With SAR-CoV-2, a highly infectious non-seasonal pathogen with a robust capacity for further evolution, and for which existing vaccines and prior infections offer very limited immunity, the current global policy of “forever COVID” means that society is being forced to endure multiple annual waves of mass infection, with unknown but far-reaching long-term consequences. This amounts to a continuous, full-scale assault on billions of people who face the consequences of preventable but often non-visible injuries like kidney damage, as well as the more well-known brain fog and severe fatigue brought on by Long-COVID.

The recent publication in Statistics Canada on the experiences of Canadians with Long COVID underscores the completely unsustainable character of this policy. It provides striking confirmation of the many studies conducted on the impact of COVID-19 by Dr. Al-Aly and colleagues, above all their study published last year on the compounding risk of Long COVID-19 after each reinfection with SARS-CoV-2.

With a population of 38.3 million in Canada, the report noted that about two-thirds of adults reported experiencing at least one confirmed or suspected COVID-19 infection, while many have had multiple infections since the beginning of the pandemic. Of these, 3.5 million (one in nine) had experienced long-term symptoms, with 2.1 million still experiencing them as of June 2023. Half said they had not seen improvements in their symptomology.

Commenting on these data, which had been predicted by many experts, Lond COVID specialist Dr. Claire Taylor wrote, “If you input the Statistics Canada data into David Steadson’s graph, you get 14.6 percent first infection get Long COVID-19 and 38 percent by third infection. The modelling curves were correct. This is literally insane.”

Long COVID cumulative risk modeling by epidemiologist David Steadson vs. Statistics Canada data. [Photo: @davidsteadson on X/Twitter]

Providing further context to the alarming findings of the latest VA study, The Hill published a report last week highlighting the high number of excess deaths being observed by life insurers in 2023 compared to the same period in 2019. In the first three quarters of this year, close to 160,000 more Americans have died than in the same pre-pandemic period.

The Hill wrote, “Actuarial reports—used by insurers to inform decisions—show deaths occurring disproportionately among young working-age people. Nonetheless, America’s chief health manager, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, opted in September to archive its excess deaths webpage with a note stating, ‘These datasets will no longer be updated’ … to some extent, we know what is killing the young, with an actuarial analysis of government data showing mortality increases in liver, kidney, and cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes.”

However, they are incapable of supplying the “why.”

The findings of the latest VA study, the data from Statistics Canada, and the ongoing elevated rates of excess deaths place into stark relief the necessity for a preventative strategy towards COVID-19 and all infectious diseases, rather than a reactionary status quo that plays Russian roulette with the health of the working class while funneling ever-greater wealth to the financial oligarchy.

Indeed, the trillions being hoarded by the world’s billionaires needs to be immediately appropriated and redirected into a massive global public health program, centered on renovating infrastructure to make all indoor spaces safe against disease transmission, including through the use of HEPA filters, ventilation, safe Far-UVC ultraviolet irradiation devices, and other sanitation measures. Through such a globally coordinated program, SARS-CoV-2, influenza and numerous other pathogens could be eliminated throughout the world, saving millions from death and long-term disability each year.

Additionally, funds must be made available for researchers to study the long-term impacts of infections, design treatments and conduct extensive health evaluations to address the developments of new diseases in individuals.

Altogether, the latest study led by Al-Aly demands a radical shift in all antiquated conceptions towards viral pathogens and the diseases they cause. Neither the initial damage caused during the acute phase of infections, nor the prolonged suffering that impacts a sizeable percentage of patients, should be accepted by modern society with its vast technological progress and capabilities.

US financial system a “minefield of vulnerabilities”

Nick Beams

Those pondering why the US Federal Reserve made a sudden and dramatic turn away from its previous insistence that monetary policy would need to remain restrictive, will find some of the answers in the latest annual report of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC).

In its report, issued the day after Wednesday’s Fed decision, the FSOC detailed a growing number of “vulnerabilities” that have emerged as a result of higher interest rates any one of which, or in combination, could set off a financial crisis.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell at news conference following the Federal Open Market Committee meeting, Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023, in Washington. [AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin]

The FSOC, set up under the Dodd-Frank legislation in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008, is chaired by US treasury secretary Janet Yellen and includes Fed chair Jerome Powell and Securities and Exchange Commission chief Gary Gensler.

The report began by reviewing the March banking crisis which, starting with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, saw three of the four largest bank failures in US history.

While laying the blame for the crisis on “poor risk management practices”—without explaining and how why those practices were allowed to persist by regulatory authorities—it said the events of the spring “underscored that activities of non-global systemically important banks can pose a risk to financial stability.”

It also highlighted the speed with which the crisis developed, the result of new technologies in the banking system and in social media.

“Bank runs are not new,” it said, “but the speed with which deposits flowed out of some banks in early March was unprecedented.”

Despite these events, the report said the financial system had remained “resilient” this year amid the “notable increase in interest rates.”

“However,” it continued, “additional increases in market interest rates would further increase debt servicing costs for those borrowers with variable-rate debt or who need to refinance existing debt, as well as reduce the value of existing fixed-income instruments.”

In combination with moves by banks to tighten credit as well as uncertainty over the economic outlook, this could lead to “potential financial stability risks if they result in financial distress among financial institutions and investors that spills over into other financial institutions and the broader system.”

The same risk arose from the increasing involvement of non-bank financial institutions in the system.

For the first time, the Council pointed to the risks arising from the increased use of artificial intelligence (AI) within the financial system, identifying its use as “an emerging vulnerability.”

Of course, the report did not refer to it, but this characterisation of AI is a confirmation of one of the central foundations of Marxist political economy, namely, that the crisis of capitalism is rooted in the fundamental contradiction between the growth of the productive forces and the social relations based on private ownership and profit.

With its very introduction, AI, which could provide enormous economic advances, has the potential to set off a crisis.

Climate change, which the ruling classes have let rip because action against it impinges on the bottom line, also has major financial implications in the areas of insurance and real estate, in particular the availability of property and casualty insurance (P&C).

The FSOC said many insurance companies had either lifted their premiums or had withdrawn completely, “most notably in high-risk geographic markets such as California, Florida and Louisiana” and these changes in the P&C market could affect mortgage markets and house prices and “potentially generate larger economic spillover effects.”

In its outline of financial risks, the report devoted considerable attention to the commercial real estate (CRE) market. It has been hit from two sides—the rise in interest rates and lowered demand for office space as a result of changing work practices. The latter is due to increased working from home as a result of the pandemic.

“Elevated interest rates, high costs, weakness in central business district CRE conditions and potential structural changes in demand for office space have heightened concerns about CRE. Maturing loans [which have to be refinanced at higher rates] and expiring leases amid weak demand for office space have the potential to strain office sector conditions further, which could cause stress to spread beyond this sector.”

Higher interest rates have also increased non-financial corporate credit risk.

“If credit quality significantly worsens, a potential wave of debt defaults could lead to large redemptions at investment funds with significant liquidity mismatches and in turn disrupt bond marketing functioning. Moreover, such defaults may have a cascading effect across broader financial markets.”

However, the FSOC did not have any recommendations to prevent such a potential disaster. It merely stated that authorities continue to “monitor levels of nonfinancial business leverage, trends in asset valuations, and the implications of the potential for a sustained period of higher interest rates for the entities they regulate in order to assess and reinforce the ability of the financial sector to manage severe simultaneous losses.”

While it is not significant relative to the size of the financial system as a whole, distress in the crypto market also had “the potential to transmit to traditional financial firms.”

The report warned that the banking sector faced a “challenging environment,” which included “higher interest rates and concerns about the economic outlook and credit quality.”

It said there were key lessons to be learned from the turmoil in the spring that could contribute to reducing financial stability risks emanating from this sector.

But it did not say what those lessons were, other than to call on supervisors to ensure that banks maintained adequate capital and liquidity and had sound interest rate risk management practices.

The chief conclusion, however, to be drawn from the March crisis was that the regulatory system was virtually non-existent. In some cases, where problems were identified no action was taken and the upshot was that the Fed and other financial authorities had to intervene to guarantee all uninsured depositors lest the entire system collapsed.

The report gave relatively short shrift to problems in the $25 trillion US Treasury market, saying it had shown resilience in 2023. This was rather surprising given recent history, including the market freeze in the March 2020 “dash for cash,” and the current efforts by SEC chief Gary Gensler to establish a central clearing house that would manage an additional $1 trillion worth of trades in an effort to ensure greater stability.

Overall, the picture presented by the FSOC report is that the financial system is a kind of minefield in which the triggering of any one of numerous “vulnerabilities,” created by the transition from a regime of virtually free money to higher rates, could set off a crisis across the system. This was no doubt a key factor behind the Fed turn at its meeting last week.

German government finalizes its war budget

Peter Schwarz

Unlimited funds for war and armaments, cuts in social spending and higher energy prices—this is the core of the German government’s 2024 budget, which Chancellor Olaf Scholz (Social Democratic Party–SPD), Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) and Finance Minister Christian Lindner (Free Democratic Party–FDP) agreed last Wednesday morning after meetings over several nights.

The agreement is expected to be passed by the Bundesrat and the Bundestag (the upper and lower houses of parliament) on February 2, one month after the start of the financial year.

Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz on December 13 during his government statement in the Bundestag [Photo by DBT / Florian Gaertner / photothek]

The renegotiation of the budget had become necessary after the Supreme Court ruled on November 15 that the transfer of €60 billion, originally intended to fight the coronavirus, to the Climate Fund was unlawful, tearing a deep hole in the planned expenditure.

The judgment triggered a crisis in the governing coalition. The SPD, Greens and FDP are agreed on the basic issues. They had already planned record spending on the military and massive cuts in social, education and health spending in the original draft budget.

But in view of the growing opposition to the budget, the parties argued behind the scenes about the concrete implementation of the austerity programme. At the same time, they claimed there would be no further social cuts. This, however, was nothing but window dressing.

The end result articulates the interests of the banks and business organisations to which the tripartite coalition is committed. Scholz, Habeck and Lindner agreed to adhere to the debt ceiling in 2024, although it would have been legally possible to suspend it once again, as in the current year. This means that the holes in the budget must be plugged through cuts or additional revenue.

Sticking to the debt ceiling will not only affect the 2024 federal budget, but also that of the following years, as well as the budgets of the federal states and local authorities, which cover a large proportion of education and social spending. In view of rising unemployment figures and sluggish economic growth, further social cuts are inevitable.

The agreement between the three coalition partners allows an exception to the debt ceiling in only one case: a further escalation of the war in Ukraine. The government wants to ensure at all costs a continuation of the carnage, which has already cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers.

In a government statement in the Bundestag following the agreement on the budget, Chancellor Scholz declared: “If the situation worsens as a result of Russia’s war against Ukraine—if, for example, the situation on the front deteriorates because other supporters reduce their aid to Ukraine, increasing the threat to Germany and Europe—then we will have to respond.” Scholz said it had already been agreed to propose to the Bundestag that the debt ceiling be exceeded should such a situation arise.

The current draft budget for the coming year includes 8 billion euros for arms deliveries to Ukraine, billions more in aid for the overall Ukrainian budget, and 6 billion to support Ukrainian refugees in Germany. This does not include the 50 billion euros with which the European Union intends to support Ukraine in the coming years, although Germany is contributing a considerable amount to this fund.

Added to this is the highest military budget in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2024, it will total €85.5 billion—spread across various budget items and special funds—which is 26 percent more than in 2023.

This huge expenditure on war and armaments will not be affected by the budget cuts. As Scholz said in his government statement, the military spending serves German great power interests. He spoke of the “historic opportunity” to “firmly anchor Ukraine, Georgia and the countries of the Western Balkans in Europe once and for all.” This will “benefit the region, but it will also benefit a geopolitical EU,” he added.

The German government also wants to expand its influence in the Middle East. Scholz once again justified Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip, on the grounds that “pacifying” the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would allow Israel to “focus on the most important threat: Iran and its regional supporters.”

The 2024 budget serves to shift the costs of this pro-war policy onto the working class. The cuts are huge. On top of €30.5 billion already saved in the original draft budget, government spending for the coming year will now be cut by a further €30 billion, including €17 billion in the budget and €12 billion in the federal government’s climate fund. By 2027, the savings in the Climate Fund will amount to €47 billion.

The sum of €1.5 billion is to be cut directly from social spending, including €600 million from the subsidy for statutory pension insurance and €250 million from the further training bonus for recipients of Bürgergeld (the citizen’s allowance, a form of welfare payment). Sanctions against recipients of Bürgergeld who refuse a job offer are also to be tightened once again.

Other measures will also affect working class households, and low earners in particular. For example, prices for electricity, heating and gasoline, which have risen sharply as a result of the sanctions against Russia, will be driven up further by the removal of subsidies and the imposition of additional taxes and levies. The €5.5 billion federal subsidy for electricity grid charges will be canceled and the CO2 levy on fossil fuels will be increased from €35 to €45 per tonne.

However, subsidies for large corporations such as Intel, which will receive €10 billion for the construction of a chip factory in Magdeburg, and the assets and incomes of the rich will not be affected. Although Germany’s DAX share index reached a new record high last week and the number of billionaires and millionaires is constantly rising, the SPD, Greens and FDP categorically reject the introduction of a wealth tax or higher taxation for those at the top of the income ladder.

With regard to the Climate Fund, €13 billion that was earmarked for the renovation of Deutsche Bahn’s (DB) dilapidated rail network has been completely canceled. Instead, DB’s equity is to be increased so that it can obtain loans more easily and finance the renewal of the network itself. The additional capital is to be raised through the sale of the profitable logistics subsidiary Schenker. A sale of the remaining federal shares in Deutsche Telekom and Deutsche Post, which together are worth around €28 billion, is also being considered.

This shows the absurdity of the claim that the debt ceiling serves to protect future generations from excessive debt. Instead, the family silverware is being sold off and thrown to the profit sharks. Urgently needed action on climate change, upon which the fate of future generations depends, is being postponed further.

Three months ago, we wrote that the 2024 federal budget was “a war budget in two respects: it plans record spending on war and armaments and declares war on the working class by significantly reducing social spending.” The revised budget has confirmed this.

In order to finance its wars and increase its profits, the ruling class is capable of anything. This looting operation is supported by all the establishment parties. If anything, they accuse each other of not being aggressive enough. The same applies to the trade unions, which—like Verdi in the public sector—are responsible for real wages falling due to contracts that impose wage “rises” far below the rate of inflation.

UK poll findings showing substantial support for COVID public health measures denounced by right-wing media

Robert Stevens

COVID is spreading throughout Britain ahead the holiday season, with the new JN.1 variant accounting for one in every 13 cases in November.

The end of systematic testing means hospitalisations are the only real indicator of the spread of the disease. These are rising sharply. In the week to December 8, in England, 2,622 infected patients were admitted to hospital, a 40 percent increase on the total a fortnight ago.

People queue for coronavirus booster jabs at St Thomas' Hospital, with the National COVID Memorial Wall in the foreground, in London, December 13, 2021. [AP Photo/Matt Dunham]

The ruling elite long ago declared the pandemic over, ditching every public health measure in place. This was done with the lie, supported by all parliamentary parties, that everyone wanted to abandon all efforts to control the virus, denounced as an affront to people’s freedom.

For the ruling class, what “living with the virus” really means is that nothing can be allowed to interfere with the profit making of the corporations, whatever the cost to the health and lives of the population.

This attitude is expressed in the denial of vaccine boosters to millions (anyone younger than 65 and without specific health conditions) and the lack of any effort to encourage those eligible to get their shot. Only 2.3 million people out of a population of 66 million in Britain have received this winter’s booster.

Under these conditions, a survey by the More in Common think tank has sent shockwaves through ruling circles, making clear that millions are opposed to this agenda. More in Common projects an ostensibly liberal outlook, having been founded by the husband of Labour MP Jo Cox after she was murdered by a fascist during the 2016 Brexit referendum campaign.

Over 2,000 people in Britain were asked between November 30 and December 4: “Currently, there are no legal Covid-19 restrictions in place in the UK. Thinking of the current health situation in the UK, would you support or oppose the Government re-introducing each of the following Covid-19 restrictions at the current time?”

A fifth of adults responded that they would support the reintroduction of a lockdown, leaving home only for essential shopping, work and an hour of exercise. Over a fifth (22 percent) of those aged 18-24 (Gen Z) supported the measure. Of those aged 25-40 (Millennials), almost 28 percent were in favour. For those aged 41-55 (Gen X), 56-74, and 75-plus, the rates of support were over 19 percent, nearly 16 percent and nearly 14 percent.

The highest rates of support across all age groups (45 percent overall) were for wearing masks on public transport—a highly effective measure for preventing the spread of the disease.

Measures to close pubs and restaurants were backed by 20 percent of those polled, with almost 25 percent of Gen Z supporting the move, and over 25 percent of Millennials. One third of those aged 25-40 backed the closing of nightclubs, as did almost a third of those aged 18-24.

Nearly a quarter of respondents (23 percent) said they would support limiting meetings to outdoor settings and only in groups of up to six. Among Millennials, support for the measure rose to 29 percent. Even among the oldest age group—tending to be the most opposed to public health measures despite their increased risk profile for COVID—support for this measure still reached 18 percent.

Significantly, support for public health measures was highest in London—the capital, and by far the most densely populated area of the UK—and the North East of England, one of the country’s poorest regions.

Drunk on its own propaganda agitating for the end of any public health response to the pandemic, the right-wing media responded to its rude awakening with wild denunciations. The response was summed up by the pro-Tory Daily Mail’s headline: “Proof Britain has gone completely bonkers?”.

Screenshot of MailOnline headliine "Proof Britain has gone completely bonkers?" [Photo: dailymail.co.uk]

The newspaper interviewed Professor Keith Willison, chair of chemical biology at Imperial College London and among those who favoured a return to work as early as May 2020 to “reactivate the economy”, while COVID was still rampant. Willison told MailOnline in horror, “It is upsetting that 20 per cent of UK adults feel this way about reintroducing lockdown restrictions. It demonstrates the effectiveness of ‘project fear’ which was initiated four years ago now… It is going to take many years to recover from the lockdown disaster… ‘Project fear’ also helped drive the emergence of the working from home lifestyle”.

More in Common itself was taken aback by the results of its survey. UK associate Ed Hodgson told the right-wing GB News, “We did the poll twice just because we wanted to make sure people understand this was not a hypothetical, we weren’t asking what would people want if COVID got worse. We were asking what they thought right now.”

Trying to downplay the findings, Hodgson told MailOnline, “it should be stressed support for these measures in the abstract doesn’t always translate into support in real life when the impacts of such policies become clearer.”

But this is belied by More in Common’s own earlier multi-nation polling of 14,000 people in September 2020 which found that “No country reports higher numbers of people following COVID-19 rules than Britain.” The other countries surveyed were France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, and the United States. At that time, 58 percent of Britons followed the rules “very closely”; and 36 percent “somewhat closely”. Very small minorities of 4 percent followed the rules “not very closely” and 3 percent “not closely at all”.

According to an Ipsos poll published this September, a significant section of the population were already or were planning in the next two weeks to take measures to stop the spread of COVID. It found that more than a third of people reported not going or planning not to go to pubs and restaurants, among them two fifths of young people, specifically to avoid them or their family catching COVID. Half of young people said they still wore/planned to wear face masks, along with 30 percent of people aged 55-75. More than two fifths of people said they were taking lateral flow tests, despite them not being available for free from the National Health Service since April 1, 2022.

Again, these findings were met with disbelief by those conducting the survey, with Cameron Garrett, research manager at Ipsos, stating, “we will have some overclaim on surveys like this where we are prompting them to think about COVID. There will also be some who read it and say they are avoiding it when actually they don’t do these things in the first place”.

The reality is that many people do not accept the incessant propaganda fed to them by a ruling elite already responsible for over 233,000 COVID deaths and another almost 2 million debilitated by Long COVID. The lived experience of millions, as they themselves fall ill with COVID, along with other people around them, is at odds with the lies of a homicidal ruling elite which could not care less about the human cost of living with a deadly, mutating virus.

Nor is the response recorded in the surveys “authoritarian”, in Hodgson’s words to the Independent. What he and the media denounce as “heavy handed” interventions are in fact scientifically informed measures understood by many to be the only rational and humane answer to a pandemic which is being allowed to run out of control.

What really incenses the right-wing media is the spirit of collectivism and social responsibility revealed by the survey figures, which is anathema to the dog-eat-dog individualism promoted by capitalism. The fact that this is more pronounced among younger layers, who have grown up with global economic, geopolitical and climate crises, fueled by the profit lust and greed of the super rich, is significant.

Major split opens between central banks

Nick Beams

A significant division has opened up between the US Federal Reserve, on one side, and the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of England (BoE), on the other, following their monetary policy meetings held this week—a division that could have implications for financial stability.

European Central Bank at Frankfurt, Germany [Photo by Thomas Wolf / CC BY-SA 3.0]

On Wednesday, the Fed indicated it was bowing to the demands of financial markets for interest rate cuts—possibly starting as early as March next year. Fed chair Jerome Powell abandoned the “hawkish” outlook he had maintained right up until the eve of the meeting.

The following day the ECB and the BoE adopted a different stance maintaining the position they had previously shared with the Fed that higher interest rates had to continue. In their monetary policy statements, both banks focused on the issue of wages as reasons for the need to maintain a restrictive interest rate regime to bring down inflation.

The BoE said monetary policy was “likely to need to be restrictive for an extended period of time” and “further tightening would be required if there were evidence of more persistent inflationary pressure.”

The statement from its Monetary Policy Committee made clear the focus is directed to the labour market and wages.

It said that while annual private sector wage growth had declined to 7.3 percent in the three months to October “there remain upside risks to the outlook for wages growth.” The Committee would closely monitor indications of persistent inflationary pressures, including the tightness of the labour market and wage growth.

In its report on the BoE decision, the Financial Times noted that “most evidence” suggested “the British labour market is still tighter than before the pandemic, boosting wage growth.”

Later in the day, the ECB also indicated wages were central to its deliberations and decisions.

ECB president Christine Lagarde got to the core issue at the very beginning of her opening remarks to a press conference.

“Underlying inflation has eased further,” she said. “But domestic price pressures remain elevated, primarily owing to strong growth in unit labour costs.”

Lagarde returned to the question of wages during the question-and-answer session, saying a lot of data would be received in the first half of 2024, “particularly on the employment front.” She noted that 50 percent of workers covered by the ECB in its wage tracker will have their terms of employment and possibly new wages set in new collective bargaining agreements coming up.

Setting out the line of the ECB, she said the central bank was “determined” to return inflation to the 2 percent target.

“Based on our current assessment, we consider that the ECB interest rates [which have gone from around zero to 4 percent in the present cycle] are at levels that, maintained for a sufficiently long duration, will make a substantial contribution to this goal. Our future decisions will ensure that our policy rates will be set at sufficiently restrictive levels for as long as necessary.”

Naturally, virtually every question at the press conference was directed to the decision by the Fed the day before which all but declared that it was moving to cut rates.

Significantly, as the Financial Times (FT) reported, citing a person involved in the discussions, the “dovishness” of Powell’s comments “caught many members of the ECB governing council off guard.” According to the source “it was surprising for a lot of us” and “makes life more difficult.”

In other words, the Fed did not even bother give the ECB, the second most important bank in the world, so much as a “heads up” that it was about to undertake a major reorientation.

If Lagarde had disagreements with the way the Fed had acted, she kept them to herself. She batted back questions on what had happened the day before while insisting the ECB was not going to follow suit.

In response to the first question, on the ECB’s response to the possibility raised by the Fed that it would make as many as three cuts next year, Lagarde sharply reminded the questioner of “one thing.” “We are data dependent. We are not time dependent. We are data dependent.”

Then to emphasise the ECB stance, she later added: “Should we our lower guard? We asked ourselves that question. No, we should absolutely not lower our guard.”

Perhaps she had in mind the phrase associated with former British Tory prime minister Margaret Thatcher “the lady’s not for turning” as she again referenced wages.

There was one measure on which inflation that was not budging, domestic inflation. “And domestic inflation is largely generated by wages,” she said.

Another journalist asked whether there was any discussion about rate cuts and how it might be done in light of the move by the Fed. Lagarde said the answer was “very easy.”

“We did not discuss rate cuts at all. No discussion, no debate on this issue. And I think everybody in the room takes the view that between hike and cut, there’s a whole plateau, a whole beach of hold.”

Another questioner referred to Powell’s remark that there was a risk of holding on to higher rates.

“Who wants to hold on for too long?” she replied. “But equally what we are saying today… is that we don’t think it’s time to lower our guard, and we believe there is work to the done and that we can very much take the form of holding.”

That may prove to be easier said than done as a number of analysts have pointed out.

Nathan Sheets, a former US Treasury official, now at a major financial firm, told the FT: “Major central banks can deviate from the Fed in principle, but doing so in a significant way for an extended period historically has been difficult to do.”

Frederick Ducrozet, head of macro-economic research at Pictet Wealth management, told the newspaper: “If the Fed does cut earlier and faster, it’s going to be very difficult for the ECB to hold on to their position.”

The Fed move not only blindsided the BoE and the ECB but also financial commentators in the US.

John Authers, a columnist at Bloomberg, a long-time observer of the US financial markets, said he had been convinced that Powell would have been uncomfortable with the recent easing in financial markets which made the Fed’s task more difficult.

He had expected him to “speak aggressively to damp down any prospect of early rate cuts” with the only question being whether he could get the market to believe him. That prediction was based in large part on what Powell had said just two weeks before the Fed meeting, insisting that it was premature to speculate on when policy might ease.

Authers said the shift in three months, that is since the last projections, the so-called “dot plot” by Fed policy makers of where they thought interest rates would go, had been “startling.”

“Three months ago, 10 members thought the Fed funds rate would be still above 5 percent by the end of next year. Now only three think that,” he wrote.

He listed a number of significant shifts in Powell’s remarks. Powell said policy was now “well into restrictive territory” not merely “restrictive” as he had said in November. He declared that the Fed would need to cut rates “way before” inflation reached the 2 percent target, and that the Fed was “very much focused” on the risk of keeping rates too high for too long.

The question which arises is what is to account for the sudden shift? The answers are to be found in the state of the US economy and financial system which have become ever more parasitically dependent on very low interest rates in a process going back decades.

The turn to higher rates has already had a major impact. Last March it resulted in three of the four largest bank failures in US history. The impact was only brought under control when financial authorities, including the Fed, gave an implicit guarantee to all wealthy uninsured depositors that the state would bail them out.

The $25 trillion US Treasury market, the basis of the global financial system, far from operating as a stable institution for the buying and selling of government debt, has become a snake pit of speculation which the Securities and Exchange Commission is desperately trying to bring under control.

Problems are emerging in the commercial property market because of the rise in interest rates. The money made available to tech firms when interest rates were low is drying up and corporations which took out loans at ultra-low rates face a major hit when they have to refinance at much higher rates.

These are just some of the issues which would have been under discussion behind closed doors at the Fed, in contrast to its public pronouncements that the financial system is “sound and resilient.”

While Wall Street has rejoiced at the Fed’s Christmas present to it, the divergence it has opened with other central banks has introduced another destabilising factor.

It should be recalled that one of the triggers for the October 1987 Wall Street crash—still the largest one-day fall of 22.3 percent—was the conflict between the Fed and the German Bundesbank which moved to raise its base rate.

History, of course, does not repeat itself.

However, it does contain lessons for the present. The divergence that has opened between the major central banks—by the fact that for all the talk of cooperation the Fed apparently did not even inform its counterparts in Europe of the shift—means that its actions this week could have far-reaching unintended consequences.

In bipartisan vote, US Congress authorizes record Pentagon budget: A blueprint for global war

Barry Grey

With bipartisan votes in both houses of Congress, the two parties of American imperialism this week authorized a record Pentagon budget for fiscal year 2024.

In the face of massive protests in the US and internationally against the US/Israeli genocide in Gaza and collapsing popular support for Washington’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, the Democrats and Republicans combined to adopt a National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that calls for $883.7 billion in military spending in the coming year, an increase of $145 billion, or 20 percent, since 2020.

The topline figure consists of $841.4 billion for the Department of Defense, $32.4 billion for “national security” programs within the Department of Energy, and $438 billion in defense-related activities. The total authorization consumes more than half of the annual federal discretionary budget.

An aerial view of the Pentagon, Washington, D.C., May 15, 2023. [Photo: Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Alexander Kubitza, US Department of Defense]

This is under conditions where hunger and homelessness are soaring, corporations are slashing jobs, and the Biden administration is using the bogus “end” of the COVID emergency to strip Medicaid and food stamp benefits from millions of workers and poor people. The full cost of the boost in war spending is to be imposed on the working class, while military contractors enjoy a profit bonanza.

The Senate passed the 3,000-page bill by a lopsided 87-13 vote on Wednesday, and the House followed suit by a vote of 310 to 118 on Thursday, easily surpassing the two-thirds margin required for expedited passage under a suspension of normal procedural rules.

The NDAA is not really a “defense” bill. It is a blueprint for global war, including stepped-up preparations for nuclear war, aimed at reversing the world economic decline of US imperialism by military means. It particularly targets China for military aggression, followed by Russia, Iran and North Korea, while affirming and expanding US military support and involvement in Israel’s war of annihilation against the Palestinians.

The “FY24 National Defense Authorization Act” summary released by the Republican-controlled House Armed Services Committee makes this clear. It begins:

America faces unprecedented threats from China and ongoing threats from Russia, Iran, North Korea and terrorist organizations. All of our adversaries are aligned in their desire to end American dominance. Threats from these adversaries are constantly evolving.

The document affirms: “The FY24 NDAA provides sufficient investment to build and maintain the lethal fighting force we need to prevail on future battlefields.”

Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said of the bill: “It’s laser-focused on deterring our adversaries, especially China.”

Republican Senator Roger Wicker, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said, “Our bill should signal to China, Russia and others that we will not accept a world where America does not have the best fighting force.”

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer agreed, declaring, “Passing the NDAA enables us to hold the line against Russia, stand firm against the Chinese Communist Party and ensure that America’s defenses remain state-of-the-art.”

The single longest section in the House summary, headed “Countering CCP Aggression,” begins, “The FY24 NDAA builds and maintains the overmatch we need to counter CCP aggression.” It lists among the bill’s provisions:

• Implementing the anti-China AUKUS agreement between the US, the UK and Australia and authorizing the sale of nuclear-capable submarines to Australia.

• Increasing the scale and frequency of exercises conducted by the US Indo-Pacific Command.

• Authorizing $14.7 billion for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative and establishing a training, advising and capacity-building program for the military forces of Taiwan, including the training in the US of up to two battalions of troops on new weapons systems and military tactics.

• Increasing funding for new technologies to “deter the CCP on future battlefields,” including AI, autonomous systems, cyber, mobile micronuclear reactors, and high-energy lasers.

• Expanding the deployable capacity of US nuclear forces “to counter the CCP’s unprecedented nuclear buildup.”

• Expanding the list of munitions eligible for emergency and multiyear procurement authorities.

• Adding Israel and Taiwan to a program started last year to expedite the delivery and replenishment of munitions to Ukraine.

The House summary also cites billions of dollars for additional combat aircraft, drones equipped to fire missiles, another seven “C-130J transport aircraft, used to rapidly deploy troops, tanks and artillery to new war zones,” more Army helicopters, more Navy warships, and the redesign of artillery, tanks and armored vehicles for “future warfare against near-peer competitors (war with Russia, China or another major power).”

The document lists a major upgrade and expansion of nuclear war readiness, calling for “across-the-board modernization of US nuclear weaponry, begun under Obama and continued under Trump, including submarine-fired missiles, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles and heavy bombers capable of intercontinental flight.”

On Ukraine, the NDAA authorizes an extension of military aid through the end of 2026 and $300 million in the current fiscal year and the next one for a program that pays industry to produce weapons for Ukraine, rather than drawing directly from US weapons stockpiles. The $60 billion for Ukraine in Biden’s supplemental spending bill remains in limbo as the White House and House Republicans work toward a bipartisan deal to further gut the right to asylum and virtually close the US-Mexican border to desperate workers fleeing poverty and oppression.

The NDAA does, however, “fully fund” the deployment of National Guard troops to the southwest border.

On Israel, the NDAA extends Defense Department authority to transfer weapons systems to the Zionist regime, including precision-guided munitions. It further requires the US Central Command to hold regular joint training exercises with Israel and authorizes Israel to participate in NATO pilot training programs.

The bill increases the pay of soldiers and civilian Pentagon employees by 5.2 percent, the biggest annual increase in 20 years, and includes increased benefits for housing, education and childcare. This is a cynical bid to attract young people unable to secure a decent-paying job, as the concentration of wealth in the hands of the top 1 percent in the US hits new records, now surpassing the wealth held by the entire middle 60 percent of households.

The moves by the House GOP toward the impeachment of Biden and its support for Trump did not prevent the White House and the Democrats from joining hands with the Republicans to further Washington’s preparations for World War III.