Record breaking heat wave puts hundreds of millions in US and Canada under heat risk advisories

Alex Findijs

A record-breaking heat wave is making its way across much of the Eastern and Southern United States and Eastern Canada this week, sending temperatures into the high 90s and over 100 degrees Fahrenheit for hundreds of millions of people. As of Monday the National Weather Service estimated that over 72.6 million people are under heat alerts, more than a fifth of the entire US population, and CNN Weather predicts that more than 260 million people will see temperatures of 90 degrees or more over the coming week. Overall, temperatures will reach 15–25 degrees above normal for this time of year in areas affected.

Heat warning posted at the U.S. Open golf tournament Saturday, June 15, 2024, in Pinehurst, North Carolina [AP Photo/Frank Franklin II]

For many areas affected, the heat dome will break records for June temperatures. Cities like Pittsburgh and Syracuse, New York, have not seen June temperatures this hot in nearly three decades.

The high temperatures are the result of a “heat dome,” a high pressure atmospheric system that produces extreme heat events. The heat dome is produced by a high pressure system that pushes and compresses air from the atmosphere to the surface. As the air warms under compression it begins to rise but is pushed back down by the high pressure, creating a large mass of stagnant heated air that is made hotter as cloud formation is prevented and solar radiation heats the air even more.

This process has been compared to placing a lid on a pan on a stove, trapping heat inside.

This heat dome began forming over the American Southwest and Mexico two weeks ago, putting 20 million people from California to Eastern Texas under federal excessive heat advisories with a further 11 million under general heat advisories.

As of Monday the center of the heat wave had moved to the area around St. Louis, placing parts of Illinois and Missouri under extreme heat risk, the highest rating by the National Weather Service. Large sections of Kansas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio were also under major heat risk advisories.

According to projections from the NWS, the heat wave will peak from Tuesday through Saturday with extreme heat risks affecting the Midwest and Northeast from Missouri to Maine. States like Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma, currently under moderate to extreme heat risk, will see a brief respite from the heat but the heat dome is expected to move south over the weekend, putting much of the Southern US under major heat risk advisories. Southwestern states will also see a resurgence in moderate to major heat risks at that time.

By the weekend the heat dome is expected to break into two systems, with one traveling out into the Atlantic and one migrating south. This will weaken the system somewhat across much of the US.

Heat domes are a common natural phenomenon, but climate scientists have noted that the intensity and frequency of them is fueled by climate change driven by the emission of carbon dioxide from capitalist industrial production into the atmosphere. One study estimates that the conditions that cause heat domes could double in magnitude by the end of the century.

As such events become more common and stronger the risk to public health increases.

Excessive heat is the top weather-related cause of death in the US, with more than 1,200 people killed by extreme heat each year. The intense temperatures from heat domes make them a deadly event.

The Western North America heat wave of 2021, caused by a heat dome, resulted in prolonged temperatures up to of 121 degrees Fahrenheit across much of Washington and Oregon in the US and British Columbia in Canada. The high heat caused damage to roads and railways, melted snow caps resulting in flooding, destroyed crops, killed livestock and caused wildfires that destroyed the town of Lytton in British Columbia, Canada.

In total, that heat wave killed between 1,400–1,600 people and cause nearly $9 billion in damage.

Multiple studies attributed the 2021 heat wave directly to climate change, finding that it would have been virtually impossible without human-caused climate change and that the likelihood of such events occurring is increasing as the Earth warms.

Cities are especially vulnerable to the increasing severity of heat waves. Urban areas can suffer from the “urban heat island effect” whereby concrete and asphalt absorbs more heat than more vegetated suburban and rural areas, increasing temperatures. When large heat waves set in, they can cause even higher temperatures in cities, especially areas that lack trees.

In order to combat extreme summer heat, many cities have set up heat warning systems and cooling stations with water misters and shade to help provide respite from the heat. Such services can be lifesaving for many. After a deadly heat wave in 1993 which killed more than 100 residents, Philadelphia implemented a system of heat warnings and cooling centers that has resulted in a decline in heat-related deaths. But the limited nature of such measures nationally still leaves millions at risk.

While air conditioning has become widespread in the US, many households still do not have it or lack reliable cooling. In Vermont and New Hampshire, which will see several days of extreme heat this week, 67 percent and 77 percent of residences respectively do not have any air conditioning and many homes, schools and businesses do not have adequate systems for countering the high heat.

Many occupations and workplaces suffer from a lack of air conditioning or proper climate control as well. People who work in industries such as construction and landscaping are exposed to the full brunt of the heat and those working in warehouses and factories without air conditioning or even ventilation will find themselves working in a veritable oven. And the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has no requirements on workplaces to maintain a certain temperature, only a vague mandate for a workplace to be “free from recognizable hazards.”

According to OSHA, 50–70 percent of outdoor fatalities occur in the first few days of working in hot weather. This is because the human body requires time to acclimate to the new temperatures and is susceptible to heat-related risks when temperatures rise. By failing to provide adequate protective measures against extreme temperatures, employers put millions of workers at risk every year.

The influence of climate change also reflects a broader social crime against the working class. The first warnings against the adverse impacts of greenhouse gasses on the climate go back to the 1960s, yet only limited measures have been taken by capitalist governments to fight climate change. Today, the Earth has seen an increase in average temperatures of 1.36 degrees Celsius (2.45 degrees Fahrenheit). Every month globally for the past year has been the warmest on record.

Climate scientists warn that if average temperature increases reach 1.5–2 degrees Celsius, the Earth could reach a tipping point of no return, making certain climatic events irreversible and having disastrous effects on global climate and weather patterns.

Social banditry: Oligarch Elon Musk takes record $45 billion payout

Kevin Reed

On Thursday, Tesla announced its shareholders had reapproved an unprecedented pay package for CEO Elon Musk, which is currently valued at more than $45 billion. As noted by the Delaware judge who previously blocked the payout for “unjustly enriching the billionaire,” the sum is “the largest potential compensation opportunity ever observed in public markets by multiple orders of magnitude.”

Elon Musk, center, attend the 10th World Water Forum in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia on Monday, May 20, 2024. [AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati]

The payout is a form of social robbery, equivalent to every single household in America being forced to send the world’s richest man a check for $350 at a time when most can barely pay their bills. The aristocratic “robber barons” of the Middle Ages stole from travelers one by one on the side of the road. But through the workings of the capitalist “free market,” Musk and his fellow oligarchs are swindling and defrauding all of humanity.

Musk’s payout is larger than what is estimated it would cost to eliminate homelessness ($20 billion) and hunger ($25 billion) in the US. It is equivalent to what is made, before taxes, by 1.2 million workers who earn the median income in the US ($37,500) in an entire year.

According to the latest Forbes list of the top 10 richest people, Elon Musk is already the wealthiest individual on the planet, with a net worth of $208.4 billion. Along with others in this group, including Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta/Facebook) and Bernard Arnault (LVMH), Musk’s wealth is greater than the gross domestic product (GDP) of three-quarters of the world’s countries (156 out of 212).

The decision by Tesla shareholders to award the package to Musk takes place within the context of an accelerating growth of social inequality, financialization of the economy, imperialist war and the collapse of democratic government.

According to figures published by the Financial Times on Saturday, trends in executive compensation are increasing at the fastest rate for at least the last 14 years, bringing the separation of the ultra-wealthy from the rest of the population to record levels.

The FT report says:

So far in 2024, median chief executive pay at S&P 500 companies has risen by 12 per cent, according to ISS Corporate, part of proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services. That compares with a 4.1 per cent year-on-year increase in US wage growth, according to official figures.

The FT quotes William George, former compensation committee chair on Exxon’s board and former chief executive of Medtronic, who said executive pay “has gotten out of control.” He added that the Musk pay package sent the message that “the sky’s the limit here . . . you can earn as much as you want to.”

Expressing concern over the growth of social anger and opposition, George warned:

This is going to cause a further split in our country between the haves and the have nots. This is a grave concern to me because I think there will be a loss of trust [in companies].

The wealth controlled by Musk and other oligarchs is directly related to the extreme social crisis facing millions of workers and young people in the US and around the world.

Officially, there are 582,500 homeless people in the United States, which is known to be a significant undercount. While tens of billions are being handed over to Musk, workers and their families are confronting soaring prices and working multiple jobs just to get by while the government is cutting funds for social programs, education, healthcare and infrastructure.

Both the Democrats and Republicans at every level of government claim there is no money for basic social programs, while the rich pay little or no taxes, and countless billions are provided for the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine and for the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza by the Israeli government.

The wealth accumulated by the billionaire elites is bound up with the decades-long rise of the stock market, a mechanism for funneling society’s wealth into the hands of the corporate and financial oligarchy. The $45 billion going to Musk is in the form of Tesla stock options, a reward for the rapid increase of the company’s share values since 2018 from $50 billion to $558 billion today.

The rise in share values is the result of unrestrained speculation on Wall Street, fueled by a Federal Reserve policy of printing money for the rich. The transfer of assets from the central bank to the extremely wealthy reached a high point during the response of Democrats and Republicans to the coronavirus pandemic, when $3 trillion was handed over to the financial oligarchy between February and June 2020.

After the CARES Act was passed in March 2020, the ruling class launched a campaign to force workers back to work, leading to more than 1.5 million “excess deaths” in the US and more than 27 million globally. Musk was a leading proponent of mass infection with COVID-19, even defying California state law and reopening Tesla plants, a criminal policy that was accepted by the Democrats, who controlled the state government.

Rescue efforts end following Papua New Guinea landslide disaster

John Braddock

Two weeks after the landslide disaster in Enga Province in the Papua New Guinea (PNG) highlands, the Provincial Administrator formally ended the search and recovery on Friday, June 7. Authorities stopped searching for bodies and the landslide area will be designated as a mass burial site with monuments erected.

Villagers desperately searching for bodies following catastrophic landslide in Enga Province, Papua New Guinea [Photo: International Organization of Migration]

Two days earlier the PNG government had ruled out finding more survivors and Armed Forces Major Joe Aku told media that the area was a “no-go zone,” deeming it unsafe due to the risk of contamination and disease. Some locals ignored warnings and continued their desperate search for victims.

The death toll, according to government figures, is 670, down from earlier estimates of over 2,000. On June 5, the National reported that only 11 bodies had been recovered, including two children. On May 29, chair of the Mulitaka Disaster Committee Jaman Yandam told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that more than 160 people had died, citing village leaders who had conducted a head count.

The final toll remains unclear and will never be fully known. The current figures are based largely on information by village and provincial officials. About 150 homes were totally buried. The average PNG household has between five and eight people, but one resident who survived said a dozen of her family members were buried.

The side of Mount Mungalo sheared away and fell at around 3 a.m. on May 24, almost entirely obliterating the village of Yambali under mud, debris and rubble 20 to 26 feet deep. Massive boulders and dense earth caused major destruction to buildings, a makeshift hotel, medical facility and food gardens. Over 4,000 people were immediately affected. The area is accessible by only one highway, a section of which was covered by rubble.

Little aid reached the displaced villagers for the first week with officials blaming difficult terrain and tribal unrest. Such delays are in fact bound up with the lack of basic infrastructure, especially in PNG’s remote highlands region.

The Red Cross reported that the initial emergency response consisted of police, military, officials from the provincial governor’s office and local nongovernmental organisations. Helicopters carrying machinery and supplies began to arrive on May 29. World Vision said humanitarian aid groups began travelling to the site that same week and UNICEF was able to supply medical kits for about 1,000 people for three months plus sanitary products and food.

The Enga provincial government last week issued a 72-hour evacuation order for the surrounding area due to the risk of more earth movement. The UN International Organization for Migration (IOM) told the Associated Press that 7,847 people had been affected by the landslide and 1,650 were displaced.

The IOM’s PNG chief, Serhan Aktoprak, said, “Working across the debris is very dangerous and the land is still sliding.” He added: “People are coming to terms with this [the deaths and destruction] so there is a serious level of grieving and mourning.”

New Zealand geotechnical engineers sent to PNG released a report raising concerns about the instability of the ground. “We believe that there is real potential for further landslides to occur in the near or medium term,” Aaron Waterreus, leader of the Fire and Emergency NZ (FENZ) team, told a news conference.

FENZ geotechnical engineer Jan Kupec said the landslide, which covers about 35 acres, could continue to move for months or even years. He said the avalanche was likely part of an old landslide that had been reactivated and there are concerns that coming monsoon rains will liquify the debris and reactivate the landslide again.

If correct, the comments raise serious questions about why a village of 4,000 people remained in an area of proven land instability and avalanche risks—and how many more are in equally precarious situations given the propensity of the vast PNG interior to landslides.

UN Humanitarian Affairs advisor Mate Bagossy said poor road conditions have cut off some surrounding villages, which are also in need of assistance. “It seems re-opening the road is not safe. So the back road will need to be opened. The original road could be declared a burial site,” Bagossy said.

Radio NZ (RNZ) reported that aid groups have expressed particular concern for pregnant women and children. “Women affected by the landslide tell us they have no spare clothes or food. It’s beginning to get very cold in the Highlands,” CARE program director PNG, Doreen Fernando warned. “Many mothers have been telling us their children are beginning to fall sick. There’s also been a diarrhoea outbreak due to lack of sanitation and hygiene options,” she said.

UNICEF PNG representative Angela Kearney said: “There are just so many needs there. Everything is gone.” Avoiding malnutrition was a priority with about 50 percent of PNG children “stunted… not the right height for their weight. A week with no food can tip them into acute-severe malnutrition.”

The social disaster is compounded by the deterioration of public services, in particular the health system. Malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS are rife. Many children in remote areas are poorly vaccinated. As well as the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been outbreaks of whooping cough and measles.

PNG, an Australian colony until 1975, is one of the world’s poorest countries. It ranks 154th out of 193 countries on the UN Human Development Index. Its considerable valuable resources, including oil, gas, gold, silver and timber are exploited by transnational companies that make vast profits from their operations.

The landslide site is near the giant Porgera gold and silver mine co-owned by Canadian-based Barrick Gold and China’s Zijin Mining. Initially mainly concerned about accessibility of the road to the site, the mine’s management has now donated $US1 million to the relief effort, including supplies of food, medical items and tarpaulins. The company has a long history of environmental damage and degradation in a region where 50,000 villagers rely mainly on subsistence farming.

The corrupt PNG ruling elite, which garners its share of the profits from the resources industry, displays disdain for the majority of the country’s 10.5 million people. With parliament reportedly “distracted” by an impending vote of no confidence in the government, Prime Minister James Marape took until May 31 to visit the site.

Marape dismissively told parliament that “nature threw a disastrous landslip.” According to the prime minister, natural disasters have cost the country more than 500 million kina ($A196 million) this year, before the landslide at Enga, blaming “extraordinary rainfall.”

Culpability lies with the PNG government, which prioritises business interests above the health and welfare of the population. This was highlighted during the COVID pandemic when, ending a national lockdown in July 2020, Marape bluntly declared: “COVID-19 not only affects us health-wise, but also economically. We must adjust to living with the COVID-19… we will not shut down our country again.”

Australia and New Zealand made paltry offers of assistance to what is an unfolding humanitarian disaster. In addition to disaster response teams and supplies, Canberra pledged $A2.5 million while NZ Foreign Minister Winston Peters gave $NZ1.5 million. Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong absurdly declared; “Australia stands with the people of Papua New Guinea.”

While routinely evincing sympathy for the plight of the so-called “Pacific family” on the frequent occasions the vulnerable island states fall victim to destructive natural disasters, the imperialist powers are above all concerned about defending their geo-strategic and economic interests in the region.

European Union joins US economic war against Chinese electric vehicles

Nick Beams

The European Union has decided to join the US-inspired trade war against Chinese exports of electrical vehicles (EVs) despite deep divisions within its own ranks with the opposition led by Germany.

Geely Auto Group unveils the Galaxy Starship a new technology flagship AI-driven SUV prototype at Auto China 2024 in Beijing, April 25, 2024 [AP Photo/Ng Han Guan]

The imposition of the tariffs, which could go as high as 48 percent in some cases, was announced in a lengthy European Commission report, which was initiated in September of last year.

It notified carmakers on Wednesday that it will apply duties of an additional 17 to 38 percent on top of the existing 10 percent tariff which is imposed on all Chinese EVs from July 4, unless in the unlikely event that some agreement to limit exports is reached before then.

The duty varies according to each company and whether it is deemed to have co-operated with the EU Commission. But two of the major companies BYD, the world’s largest EV manufacturer and Geely, which owns the Swedish company Volvo, are set to be hit by tariffs of between 17 and 20 percent.

The commission said that Telsa, which has factories in China, may receive an individually calculated rate.

The opposition has been led by Germany because of the close involvement of German companies in the Chinese market both as a buyer for their products, a base for manufacturing and as a source of component parts. It fears that Chinese retaliation is going to have significant adverse effects.

The German auto industry, one of the largest in the world, forms the backbone of the the country’s manufacturing industry.

According to EU officials, in the lead up to the decision, German chancellor Olaf Scholz put pressure on European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to drop the investigation, but to no avail.

As the decision was being prepared, he came out publicly against the move saying that “isolation and illegal customs barriers… ultimately just make everything more expensive, and everyone poorer.”

The German company Volkswagen is one of the most heavily involved in China. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal it has an EV factory in Hefei in which more than a thousand robots are involved in the manufacture of an all-electric SUV, which it intends to export to Europe. VW officials say it is one of the company’s most efficient in the world, drastically reducing the time taken from design to mass-market production.

China is the market for one third of VW sales as well as a production base for its exports.

In a recent interview, cited by the Journal, Ralf Brandstätter, the CEO of VW operations in China, expressed the company’s opposition to the tariff moves.

“We stand for fair and open trade and do not want additional protectionist measures. We have to adapt to this new situation instead of putting up new barriers.”

Sweden and Hungary are also opposed to the tariffs, with Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban joining Scholz. The Czech Republic and Slovakia are also expected to join the opposition. But so far, the opponents appear to have fallen short of the additional 11 needed to overturn the decision when it comes up for ratification by member states on November 2.

In response to the announcement, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian denounced the EU move and the anti-subsidy investigation on which it was based as a “typical example of protectionism” which “violates market economy principles and international trade rules.”

Beijing has yet to specify as to how it might respond but it has said it will “take every necessary measure” to defend Chinese interests. This could include restrictions on European dairy products and the imports of luxury vehicles. In January, China launched an anti-dumping investigation into the imports of French cognac in response to the push by Paris for the EV probe.

While the tariff hikes are significant, there is considerable doubt as to how much impact they will have, as a number of studies have revealed.

In 2023 China exported $10 billion worth of EVs to the EU, doubling its market share to 8 percent, with predictions that it could rise to 15 percent by next year. One of the main reasons is price, as the cost of Chinese EVs is about 20 percent lower than corresponding EU-made cars.

Bill Russo, the former head of Chrysler in China, told the Financial Times (FT) that while the tariffs would promote production in Europe, they would have little effect on the growth of BYD, which is competing with Tesla as the biggest manufacturer of EVs in the world.

“Will it slow them down? No. If you put that kind of tariff on top of the Chinese cost structure, it is still going to be better on cost that anything the European carmakers are currently capable of doing,” he said.

Yale Zhang, managing director of the Shanghai-based consultancy firm Automotive Foresight made the same point in comments to the FT.

“Even if Chinese EV brands sell their cars in Europe at 50 percent higher than [their domestic retail prices], they’re still very competitive.”

In a report on the EU investigation into Chinese EVs released in April, the Rhodium Group said it expected duties of between 15 and 30 percent.

“But even if the duties come in at the higher end of the range, some Chinese-based producers will still be able to generate comfortable profit margins in the cars they export to Europe because of the substantial cost advantages they enjoy,” the report said.

A review of the economics of the decision strongly indicates that political considerations were involved. No doubt France and Spain were pushing for the move in order to boost national production. But the EU has been under great pressure from the US to join its economic war against China in the fields of high tech and green technology of which EV production is part.

This was underscored in a major speech delivered in Germany at the end of last month by US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen in which she emphasised the importance of a “transatlantic alliance” in the drive against China.

In this situation any decision by the European Commission not to take action on EV tariffs would have meant a major breach of relations with the US.

At the same time, however, a decision to follow the US and impose a 100 percent tariff, as Washington did last month, and seek to totally exclude Chinese vehicles seems to have been considered a bridge too far.

This is because it would have brought significant retaliatory action from China, impacting most heavily on Germany and its auto industry, and widened the divisions within the EU itself on the issue of China.

The EU decision, irrational as it is from an economic standpoint, reveals that it is inextricably bound up with an even greater insanity—the drive by the US for the subjugation of China, if necessary through war, as it strives to maintain its global dominance.

The National Academy of Sciences issues a damning report on Long COVID in the United States

Benjamin Mateus

“The Academy shall, whenever called upon by any Department of the Government, investigate, examine, experiment, and report upon any subject of science or art …” March 3, 1863, signed by then President Abraham Lincoln

In August 2022, the Social Security Administration (SSA) charged the Health and Medicine Division of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (the actual name of the institution popularly known as the National Academy of Sciences, NAS) to convene a committee of experts to review the chronic health impact related to infections with SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes the disease COVID-19. 

In the statement of tasks, the SSA wrote that the Academy “will review the evidence regarding long-term disability that may result from COVID-19 illness and produce a report addressing the current status of the diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of related disabilities based on published evidence (to the extent possible) and professional judgment (where evidence is lacking).” 

The NAS report [Photo: National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine]

However, the SSA specifically requested “the committee’s conclusions regarding best practices for assessing disability in these populations,” but to “make no recommendations.” This has profound implications for the millions of people who continue to struggle, filing disability claims that are frequently rejected.

A USA Today report from last year found, “Although the federal government has said that Long COVID can be considered a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the health care system doesn’t have a clear way to diagnose it. There is no single test to identify Long COVID, and not having a positive test of the initial COVID infection can be a barrier to qualifying for disability, long haulers say.” 

How the SSA defines a disability makes it nearly impossible for Long COVID sufferers, whose illness may wax and wane or manifest different symptoms, to qualify for benefits. The condition must last at least a year and the government only pays out five months after they deem a person is qualified, which can be an eternity for those who can no longer work or care for themselves. Delays and denials of benefits are further exacerbated by a healthcare system poorly equipped to order appropriate tests and adequately document evidence of Long COVID in patients.

Almost two years later, after extensive discussions and exhaustive research into every facet of the multisystem disorder and high-level interviews with several established experts in the burgeoning field of Long COVID, on June 5, 2024, the NAS published a 265-page report drafted by a committee of 14 doctors and researchers, meticulously detailing the chronic disability the country’s population has been exposed to as a result of the “forever COVID” policy pursued under the administrations of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden. 

At present, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, 17.8 percent of US adults have experienced Long COVID, or nearly 50 million people. Since last winter’s peak in infections, the number of adults reporting Long COVID symptoms has remained stubbornly high at 6.8 percent, or around 17.6 million. In a JAMA Medical News Brief from February 14, 2024, the number of children living with post-COVID conditions, including neurological consequences like loss of smell and brain fog, as well as mental health conditions including anxiety, was estimated at about six million.

In their summary the NAS committee wrote, “Long COVID is associated with a wide range of new or worsening health conditions and encompasses more than 200 symptoms involving nearly every organ system.” Average estimates of these found that four percent can expect chronic cardiovascular health effects. About six percent develop neurological and psychiatric symptoms, six percent may have gastrointestinal disorders and up to four percent experience pulmonary issues. 

Fatigue remains the dominant symptom, affecting upwards to three-quarters of those with Long COVID. Post-exertional malaise, or fatigue after minor physical or mental exertion, is insidious and may impact a significant majority of long haulers. They are unable to exercise, work or return to their daily activities. 

Cognitive impairments mean that those affected do not have the ability to think normally. They can’t recall information easily, process information or pay attention, or problem-solve and use executive functions to multitask. There are also conditions under the heading of autonomic dysfunction, which means problems like brain fog, lightheadedness and rapid heart rates.

However, the NAS report acknowledged there are no consensus-based diagnostic criteria for Long COVID because of the multisystem nature of the disease. Additionally, the study makes the critical point that due to the nature of testing in the US, sole reliance by healthcare and insurance companies on a documented history of SARS-CoV-2 infection when considering the diagnosis of Long COVID will miss many people. The scientific understanding, however, is that “the presence of signs and symptoms and self-reported prior infection are generally considered sufficient to establish a diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection.”

Protesters hold placards outside the COVID Inquiry at Dorland House in London, Monday, Dec. 11, 2023. [AP Photo/Frank Augstein]

The report also stated that the severity of Long COVID increases with the severity of the acute phase of the infection. According to their research, the committee said, “People whose infection was sufficiently severe to necessitate hospitalizations are two to three times more likely to experience Long COVID than are those who were not hospitalized, and among those who were hospitalized, individuals requiring life support in the intensive care unit may be twice as likely to experience Long COVID.” They then noted, “However people with mild disease can also develop Long COVID and given the much higher number of people with mild versus severe disease, they make up the great majority of people with Long COVID.”

Other factors exacerbating Long COVID severity, the study noted, include being female, lack of vaccination, baseline disability or chronic health conditions, and smoking. But in their investigation, given the SSA’s current Listing of Impairments, the NAS investigators concluded, “[Most] individuals with Long COVID applying for Social Security Disability benefits will do so based on health effects not covered in the Listings.”

Regarding Long COVID among children and adolescents, the committee members made the following important observation:

It is important to note that in pediatrics, because of typical development, the baseline for performance of skills is constantly changing, especially among young children. This can make deviations in their performance during Long COVID challenging to assess, and there may be a delay in recognition of any deviations (e.g., lack of developing a skill at the appropriate age).

Additionally, the duration of symptoms (e.g., 1 or 3 months) can feel very different to and have a greater impact on children compared with adults. Currently, there is a dearth of prospective and cross-sectional studies on the prevalence, risk factors, and time course and pattern of Long COVID in children. More research is needed to identify the long-term functional implications of Long COVID in children, because information from adult studies may not be directly applicable to the pediatric population.

There are as yet no approved drugs or disease-modifying treatments for Long COVID. Recently, a Reuters report on a study with 155 participants who took a 15-day course of Paxlovid versus placebo found the drug failed to reduce the Long COVID symptoms of fatigue, brain fog, shortness of breath, body aches, or cardiovascular or gastrointestinal symptoms. 

Although the COVID vaccines have shown the potential to reduce the risks of Long COVID, the current policy that allows the virus to continue to re-infect millions each week only undermines these benefits. Scientific research has shown repeat infections can exacerbate Long COVID compared to a single infection. However, vaccine hesitancy, misinformation and the evisceration of public health has led to a plummeting in the uptake of vaccines by the public.

What is left then to help those with Long COVID? The NAS committee wrote, “As with other complex multisystem conditions, management of Long COVID relies on techniques for controlling symptoms and improving functional ability, such as pacing (i.e., balancing periods of activity and rest in daily life), mobility support, social support, diet modulation, pharmacological treatment of secondary health effects, cognitive behavioral therapy, and rehabilitation. Management often requires a multidisciplinary team.”

Given how heavily COVID has impacted workers, in particular low-income wage earners who faced the brunt of COVID with limited access to healthcare and subjected to strict work demands without any meaningful paid sick leave, for them the forever COVID policy also means forever Long COVID. The notion that masses of workers will be able to engage in “pacing” or have a multidisciplinary healthcare team that can care for them is laughable. 

Although the population is told that their Long COVID symptoms will improve over time, recovery may stall after six to twelve months. Only 22 percent of people at six months will make a full recovery by one year. For those who don’t fully recover, some can see their symptoms continue to worsen. 

These same points were underscored in the committee report. They stated, “Patients with Long COVID may encounter skepticism about their symptoms when they present in medical settings, which discourages care seeking. This is particularly true for individuals disadvantaged by their social or economic status, geographic location, or environment, and can result in preventable disparities in the burden of disease and opportunities to achieve optimal health ... Individuals with Long COVID have increased health care utilization and financial burden, which may be exacerbated if they are unable to work to gain income and or receive health insurance coverage.”

Milei’s fascistic Law of Bases nears vote in Argentine Senate as union apparatus facilitates approval

Rafael Azul

Argentine President Javier Milei’s “Law of Bases” (Ley de Bases, aka, the omnibus bill) is approaching a vote in the Senate. While Milei has threatened to remove the bill for a second time if legislators introduce too many changes, several media reports indicate a growing likelihood of its approval “within days.” 

Argentine Senate debates the omnibus bill, May 22, 2024. [Photo: Senado Argentina]

The omnibus bill is a set of 250 neo-liberal measures aimed against the working class. The lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, approved the legislation last month.

If the Senate does approve the Law of Bases, with no changes, it will make it easier for banks, corporations, and public agencies to sack full time workers at will and replace them with contingent “gig” workers and temps, bringing back the infamous “shape-ups” of the past. New reprisals against strikers in the public sector will include the non-payment of wages, suspensions and layoffs.

The legislation would sanction the declaration of a state of emergency citing the existing economic crisis and other “emergencies,” which would give the fascistic president widespread authoritarian powers to further attack the social and democratic rights of workers. 

This legislation also imposes new income taxes for single workers earning yearly extremely low wages of US $2,000 and families earning US $2400, adjusted for inflation.

These measures are coupled with reductions in property taxes, along with measures that facilitate the privatization of public firms and deregulation of capitalist industry. Together they will ensure the immiseration of the working class, the destruction of its democratic and social rights, and a sharp increase in the gap between rich and poor.

The “center-right” Radical Civic Union (UCR), which holds the balance in the Senate, is demanding the removal of the state of emergency provisions, the halting of the privatization or elimination of a handful of state companies, institutions and funds, and the curtailment of some of the massive investments for corporations. 

Even if approved with these changes, the legislation constitutes a massive counter-revolutionary attack on public services and workers’ rights. A “Regime of Incentives for Big Investments” for natural gas and mining would remain in place, turning Argentina into an economy dependent on natural resource exports.

In the six months since Milei took over as president, the collapse of Argentina’s economy has accelerated; living costs have shot up relative to wages, and unemployment is on the rise, as many small and medium firms shut down, or greatly reduce their operations. The Argentine crisis is also impacting the economies of other Latin American nations.

Since the end of World War II, Argentina has gone through waves of inflationary and hyper inflationary crises combined with stagflation—growing unemployment, rising inequality—and periods of brutal military rule.

What is developing today is the worst economic crisis in 70 years, the culmination of a continuous wave of economic crises and implosions that followed the end of World War II and the overthrow in 1955 of President Juan Domingo Perón, whose integration of the trade unions into the state and other aspects of his regime were inspired by Mussolini’s Italy.

Throughout this entire epoch the working class has fought, resisted, and protested, as it is resisting the Milei administration today. The most salient epochs of rebellion (1968, 1982, 2001) raised the necessity of a socialist revolution and a workers’ government.

In May 1969, a protest took place involving sugar workers in Tucuman Province, followed by protest strikes in the industrial cities of Córdoba and Rosario that led to the end of Franco-like Onganía dictatorship. 

The Cordobazo and Rosariazo forced the resignation of the Onganía-Lanusse dictatorship, but without a revolutionary leadership and a program of concrete demands, the working class was diverted back toward illusions in Peronism and blocked from power. The Stalinist Communist Party, the trade unions, the pseudo-left organizations led by Nahuel Moreno and those advocating for Castroite guerrillaism all bear political responsibility for this outcome.

Three years of right-wing Peronist rule followed, including the formation of the right-wing Triple A death squads directed against radicalized workers, militant students, and the Montonero left-wing guerrilla movement (Peronist). 

In 1976, the military dictatorship took over. Some 30,000 workers and students were “disappeared” (murdered) by the military. By 1980, Argentina was going through an enormous economic and debt crisis, combining mass unemployment and hyperinflation. Once more, the working class responded with revolutionary strikes and protests, particularly in the auto industry, centered in Cordoba. In 1981, the US-backed military junta went through five “presidents.”  

The military, in desperate fear of more workers’ uprisings, initiated the war over the British-occupied Malvinas Islands, a military disaster that caused thousands of deaths and the end of the junta. The war was supported by the CGT and Peronism, which helped recruit volunteers for the Argentine army.

Rather than call for the dictatorship’s defeat and a policy of unity between British and Argentine workers against their own regimes, Nahuel Moreno and other Pabloite renegades of Trotskyism advanced a policy of critical support for the junta. Even following the defeat, these organizations took a passive hands-off attitude as the working class once more renewed its struggle.

Fast forward to 2001, as the native financial oligarchy was removing billions from the country to invest them in Wall Street, which bankrupted the Argentine banking system, the working class rose up and forced the resignation of President Fernando de la Rúa and four other presidents in less than two weeks. Workers occupied factories and carried out protest strikes.

Throughout this whole 32-year period (1969-2001), Argentina’s ruling class parties—the Peronists and the center-right—together with the military, presided over one inflationary crisis after another, while living standards collapsed for the working class.

The current government, led by Milei, is already facing mass working class opposition as it imposes deep austerity measures, in the interest of the ruling class, which consists of the landed oligarchy, the industrial monopolies, and the financial aristocracy.

Once again it is up to the working class to replace this government with a workers’, socialist, regime. This means breaking with those pseudo-left leaderships that create illusions in the falsely called “classist” and “pro-worker” sections of the trade union apparatus and in Peronism.

The General Workers Federation (CGT) of Argentina and the Autonomous Argentine Workers Federation (CTA-A) were among the attendees at the 112th conference of the United Nations’ International Labor Organization (ILO) which began in Geneva on June 3 and will end on June 16. On June 6, these union federations made presentations at the conference asking that the ILO members to support the struggle of Argentine workers against Milei’s “Law of Bases.”

The CGT’s and CTA’s call for support was directed not to the workers of the world, but to the governments and other union bureaucracies attending the ILO meeting to help provide a cover for betraying the struggle of Argentine workers against Milei’s bill.

True to form, on June 6, Gerardo Martínez, a CGT leader, used the podium at the ILO meeting to announce that his federation intended to carry out a “dialogue” with President Milei: “We are committed to an agenda of dialogue,” he said, offering Milei the CGT’s help in restructuring the Argentine economy and promoting growth. Ominously, he declared that “without a state, there is no nation,” a phrase full of fascistic content.

The version of the omnibus bill approved by the Chamber of Deputies was already modified according to certain demands made by the CGT to secure the economic interests of the union bureaucracy, including the removal of an earlier ban on automatic dues payments to unions from non-members, called “solidarity dues.” 

Prison terms of up to three years for setting up picket lines outside workplaces were also eliminated from the current version, as well as blanket bans on strikes in some “essential services” like education. These changes, however, have merely served to underpin the ability of the union bureaucracy to suppress opposition to the bill, with the CGT becoming an effective cosponsor of the bill.

Why is the far-right vote surging in the European elections?

Peter Schwarz & Alex Lantier

Sunday’s European elections saw a surge in the vote for far-right and neo-fascist parties. The European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) coalition, led by the Brothers of Italy (FdI), the Identity and Democracy (ID) coalition of France’s National Rally and the Alternative for Germany won 146 seats altogether. This is over one-fifth of the EU Parliament’s 720 seats and a 28-seat increase from the previous record vote for the far right in the 2019 European elections.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen speaks as Jordan Bardella, president of the French far-right National Rally, listens at the party election night headquarters. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly)

The result is a humiliating disavowal by voters of the current social-democratic and liberal parties that dominate the European Union (EU) and the EU Parliament.

These parties campaigned as defenders of the decades-long EU austerity diktat, supporters of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and promoters of a massive escalation of the US-NATO war with Russia in Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz recently announced plans to bomb Russia with NATO missiles, and French President Emmanuel Macron has moved to send troops to Ukraine to fight Russia.

Scholz’s Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) fell to 13.9 percent of the vote. This is its worst election result in 137 years, when the young SPD’s activities were largely banned under Bismarck’s Anti-Socialist Laws. Their Green coalition partners lost 8.6 percentage points, falling to 11.9 percent. Together with the 5.2 percent of the Free Democratic Party, the German government parties won only 31 percent of the vote. The far-right AfD took 15.9 percent of the vote and 15 seats, coming second behind only the right-wing Christian-Democrats (30 percent).

In France, with 31.4 percent of the vote, Marine Le Pen’s neo-fascist RN trounced Macron’s party, which collapsed to 14.6 percent of the vote, as well as the Socialist Party (PS, 13.9 percent) and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed (LFI, 9.9 percent).

Macron reacted Sunday night by suddenly dissolving parliament and calling snap legislative elections for June 30–July 7. The RN is set to make large gains and possibly form France’s first-ever neo-fascist government.

What political dynamic has underlain the rapid growth of the far-right parties? It is not the emergence of mass, middle-class fascist movements like the Nazi “Brown Shirts,” the Italian fascist “Black Shirts,” or the French Nazi-collaborationist Milice units. Europe’s far-right wave is not the product of mass fascist sentiment in the working class or in the broader population.

In fact, military aggression and genocide, the policies championed by European fascism, face mass opposition. Polls have found 68 percent in France, 80 percent in Germany and 90 percent in Poland oppose Macron’s call to send troops to Ukraine to fight Russia. And popular opposition to the Gaza genocide, which has triggered protests across Europe, is so deep that even EU governments that arm Israel feel compelled to issue a few hypocritical and insincere criticisms of the ongoing mass murder.

The rise of the far right is the product rather of the systematic disenfranchisement of the workers by nationalist, bureaucratic organizations that the media and the ruling class promote as the “left.” Unlike the far right—which tries to exploit mass discontent with the existing political system, denouncing it as a conspiracy against the nation and expressing reservations about unrestrained war with Russia—these parties of the affluent middle class exude complacency and self-satisfaction.

Even in the face of war between nuclear-armed powers, genocide and the surge of police state and fascistic forms of rule, these organizations insist that popular opposition must be tied to debilitating alliances with parties of capitalist government and allied union bureaucracies. Whatever criticisms they make of the far right, they are far more hostile to Trotskyism and to building a revolutionary movement in the European working class for socialism.

Yesterday, David North, the chairman of the International Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS), replied to the complaints of Yanis Varoufakis, the former finance minister of Greece’s SYRIZA (“Coalition of the Radical Left”) government, on his “personal defeat.”

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“Would it not be appropriate for [Varoufakis] to examine his political responsibility, and that of the pseudo-left tendencies, for the resurgence of the fascistic right? The betrayals of Syriza, Podemos, Corbynism, et al. have provided an opportunity for the extreme right.”

Their treachery is epitomized by SYRIZA, which came to power in 2015, pledging to stop EU austerity policies, only to flagrantly betray its promises. Forming a government alliance with the far-right Independent Greeks (ANEL) party, it adopted a further EU austerity package slashing living standards and built EU prison camps for refugees. After leaving power in disgrace in 2019, SYRIZA is now led, fittingly enough, by former Goldman Sachs banker Stefanos Kasselakis.

Such treachery and fecklessness, repeated in various guises in every country, is opening a path for the far right. For a long time, the German Left Party served the SPD-led government as a left-wing fig leaf. It expressed verbal criticism but supported the war and attacks on the working class. Now, with 2.7 percent, it has achieved its worst result in a European election. Even in the province of Thuringia, where it still has Bodo Ramelow as prime minister, it only achieved 5.7 percent.

From the Left Party there emerged the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which combines limited criticisms of the war in Ukraine with xenophobia and social demagoguery and explicitly rejects socialism. It received 6.2 percent of the vote nationwide and as much as 13.9 percent in the former territory of the Stalinist East German regime.

In France, Mélenchon’s LFI lost half its vote in the 2022 presidential elections, when it had 20 percent and a majority in working class districts of almost all France’s largest cities. It consistently rejected making any appeal to mobilize its electorate in strikes and struggles, even during last year’s mass strikes against Macron’s pension cuts, when two-thirds of French people supported blocking the economy with a general strike against Macron. It insisted that protests against the Gaza genocide had to be based on a perspective of supporting LFI members’ maneuvers in parliament.

LFI works entirely within the ever more authoritarian framework of France’s police state. Mélenchon pledged during the 2022 elections to serve as prime minister under either Macron or a neo-fascist president. In these elections, LFI allied with the Stalinist French Communist Party and with pro-Ukraine war PS candidate Raphaël Glucksmann, issuing only verbal complaints even as the Macron government threatened to prosecute its members for statements of solidarity with Gaza.

Critical conclusions must be drawn from this continuing surge of the far right in European politics. In the absence of a Marxist-internationalist revolutionary leadership in the working class, the neo-fascists grow uninterruptedly—even amid mass strikes and protests.

The far right enjoys support from powerful sections of the capitalist media and ruling class because it gives the sharpest and clearest expression to the needs of imperialism in a period of war, genocide and capitalist crisis.

Their promotion of nationalism and police-state rule divides workers along national lines, legitimizes militarism, and promotes violent hostility to socialism. As the French RN’s shift on the Russia war—notably its decision not to vote against military aid to Ukraine—makes clear, the neo-fascists do not oppose imperialist war, but are preparing to adjust themselves to the military escalation being prepared by NATO.