About Joint Japan World Bank Group Scholarship: The Joint Japan World Bank Graduate Scholarship Program (JJ/WBGSP) is open to women and men from developing countries with relevant professional experience and a history of supporting their countries’ development efforts who are applying to a master degree program in a development-related topic.
After earning their degree, developing country scholars commit to return to their home country to use their new skills and contribute to their countries’ social and economic development.
Type: Masters
Selection Criteria: Eligible applications are assessed according to three main factors: academic excellence, professional experience, and relevance of program of study. Priority is given to candidates from the public sector with a high potential to impact the development in their own countries after completion of their studies
Who can apply for Joint Japan World Bank Group Scholarship: Details on Eligibility Criteria for each call for applications are provided in that call’s Application Guidelines, and these detailed eligibility criteria are strictly adhered to. No exceptions are made.
Broadly speaking, Developing Country nationals must:
Be a national of a World Bank member developing country;
Not hold dual citizenship of any developed country;
Be in good health;
Hold a Bachelor’s (or equivalent) degree earned at least 3 years prior to the Application Deadline date;
Have 3 years or more of recent development-related work experience after earning a Bachelor’s (or equivalent) degree;
Be employed in development-related work in a paid full- time position at the time of submitting the scholarship application. The only exception to this criterion is for developing country nationals from a country that will be on the updated list of Fragile and Conflict States provided to applicants in the Application Guidelines for each call for scholarships.
On or before the Scholarship Application Deadline date, be admitted unconditionally (except for funding) for the upcoming academic year to at least one of the JJ/WBGSP preferred university master’s programs located outside of the applicant’s country of citizenship and country of residence listed at the time the call for scholarship applications open.
Not be an Executive Director, his/her alternate, and/or staff of any type of appointment of the World Bank Group or a close relative of the aforementioned by blood or adoption with the term “close relative” defined as: Mother, Father, Sister, Half-sister, Brother, Half-brother, Son, Daughter, Aunt, Uncle, Niece, or Nephew; *Please note: All eligibility criteria are strictly adhered to. No exceptions are made.
Eligibility criteria WILL NOT change during an open call for applications. However, this information is subject to change between the close of one application process and the opening of the next.
Number of Scholarships: Several
Joint Japan World Bank Group Scholarship benefits: The JJ/WBGSP scholarship provides annual awards to cover the cost of completing a master’s degree or its equivalent. The awards are given for one year and, provided that the academic program is longer than one year, may be renewed for a second consecutive year or a portion thereof, subject to satisfactory academic performance in the first year and the availability of funds.
The scholarship provides benefits for the recipient only, covering:
economy class air travel between the home country and the host university at the start of the study program and one return journey following the end of the overall scholarship period. In addition to the ticket, scholars receive a US $500 travel allowance for each trip;
tuition and the cost of basic medical and accident insurance usually obtained through the university;
a monthly subsistence allowance to cover living expenses, including books.
Duration: The proposed program of study should be for a maximum duration of two years.
Eligible Countries: Developing countries
To be taken at (country): One of the preferred universities (see in Program Webpage Link below)
How to Apply for Joint Japan World Bank Group Scholarship: Applicants are strongly encouraged to use the online application form available in English, French, or Spanish.
It is very necessary to go through the instructions in ALL application documents before applying.
Eligible Countries: Scholarships are offered to i) ADC Priority countries (See list below) and ii) Other Developing countries.
To be taken at (country): The Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management in Salzburg Klessheim, Austria.
About the Government of Austria ITH Fully-funded Masters Scholarships: The Austrian Development Cooperation through the Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management offers about 30 scholarships to applicants from priority countries as well as other developing countries. The Tourism School in Salzburg has an outstanding international reputation and a long tradition. They train future entrepreneurs and employees according to the needs of the international tourism and leisure industry.
Type: Postgraduate
Eligibility: To apply for the Government of Austria ITH Fully-funded Masters Scholarships at ITH, candidate must meet the following criteria:
Be between 18 – 35 years of age
Have a secondary school leaving certificate (high school diploma)
Have a minimum of one year‘s experience within the tourism and hospitality industry
Non-native English speakers must have an English qualification e.g. TOEFL, Cambridge 1st Certificate, IELTS or equivalent
Successful candidates should be ambitious and open-minded with good organisational and time management skills
Number of Awardees: up to 30
Value of Scholarships: Scholarship for Priority countries include:
tuition fee
accommodation
flight tickets (from home country to Salzburg and back)
health insurance
food from Monday – Sunday
excursions (except field trip to ITB Berlin)
€ 205.- pocket money per month
Not included in this scholarship are:
transfer from the Airport to the hostel and back to the Airport when leaving
visa fee: the visa fees have to be paid by the applicants. The entry visa is approximately $ 110, – and the 8 months residence permit, which will be issued in Salzburg, costs approximately € 120.
Scholarship for Developing countries include:
tuition fee
health insurance
food from Monday – Friday
excursions (except field trip to ITB Berlin)
€ 205.- pocket money per month
Not included in the Scholarship are:
accommodation: accommodation costs have to be covered by students who are awarded this scholarship. It is € 247, – per month. (€ 1976, – in total). The total accommodation fee of € 1.976, – has to be remitted in advance before admission letter can be issued.
flight ticket: Students who are on this scholarship have to cover their own travel expenses from their countries to Salzburg and back.
visa fee: the visa fees have to be paid by the applicants. The entry visa is approximately $ 110, – and the 8 months residence permit, which will be issued in Salzburg, costs approximately € 120.
Other Developing countries include: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Benin, Burundi, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Dem. Rep., Eritrea, Gambia, The, Guinea, Guinea-Bisau, Haiti, Kenya, Korea, Dem Rep., Kyrgyz Republic, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Myanmar, Nepal, Niger, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Togo, Zimbabwe, Bolivia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Congo, Rep., Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Arab Rep., El Salvador, Ghana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Kiribati, Kosovo, Lao PDR, Lesotho, Mauritania, Micronesia, Fed. Sts., Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Philippines, Samoa, São Tomé and Principe, Senegal, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Syrian Arab Republic, Timor-Leste, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Vietnam, West Bank and Gaza, Yemen, Rep., Zambia, Albania, Algeria, American Samoa, Angola, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Fiji, Gabon, Grenada, Hungry, Iran, Islamic Rep., Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Libya, Macedonia, FYR, Malaysia, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Mexico, Montenegro, Namibia, Palau, Panama, Peru, Romania, Serbia, Seychelles, South Africa, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Thailand, Tonga, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu and Venezuela
Important Dates:
Deadlinefor the submission of application form: March 16th 2025
Beginning of Courses: 8th September 2025
Visa Application: You can start with the Visa application process right after receiving the letter of acceptance in May 2025.
Planned duration of the Diploma Course: September 8, 2025 – May 31, 2026
How to Apply: Students may attend ITH by private means or through scholarships given by the Austrian Development Cooperation.
Procedure:
Get information about ITH from an Austrian consulate or embassy
Download ITH application form by clicking here. Austrian embassies and consulates have this form as well.
Application Process – all applications should be sent directly to the Institute via post. Submission deadline is the 16th of March 2025 (all applications have to be received by the ITH office the latest by 31st March 2024)
You will receive a confirmation by email that you application has been received
Confirmation – You will be informed about the result of your application in May 2024. If you were awarded a scholarship you will receive a letter of acceptance.
Clinical staff care for a patient with coronavirus in the intensive care unit at the Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, England, May 5, 2020 [AP Photo/Neil Hall Pool via AP]
Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) is experiencing one of its most severe winter crises. A so-called “quad-demic”—simultaneous surges in flu, COVID-19, norovirus, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)—is exacerbating the strain on already overburdened healthcare services.
Hospitals in England face enormous pressures managing an average of 5,408 new flu patients daily, including 256 in critical care, 3.5 times higher than the same period last year. The situation in just as acute in Scotland and Wales.
The surge in flu and other illness brought on or exacerbated by the low temperatures means Accident and Emergency (A&E) departments are experiencing unmanageable patient volumes, with overcrowding and long wait times: in some cases of up to two days in emergency departments.
A combination of overwhelming demand, insufficient available beds and critical staff shortages has forced almost 20 hospitals to declare a “critical incident”. These include three in Birmingham, the UK’s second largest city, two in Liverpool and three in the South West.
The impact of such a declaration means that the hospital focuses resources to prioritize emergency care and critically ill patients. Elective care is delayed, with planned procedures, surgeries, or outpatient appointments being postponed, further extending already bulging waiting lists.
In response to the shortage of beds, one hospital trust has even advertised for “corridor nurses,” to care for patients who face prolonged periods waiting in passages and walkways before they can be admitted to a suitable ward.
TheTimes reported, “Across the country, doctors and nurses have reported NHS trusts installing power sockets and oxygen lines in corridor walls, in anticipation of large numbers of patients needing to be stacked there on trolleys while they wait for a bed.”
Dr. Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, called the “degrading, dehumanising and dangerous” situation a “total acceptance of failure,” adding, “Let me be clear, it is not possible to provide truly safe patient care in environments such as corridors and cupboards.” The organisation’s vice president Ian Higginson commented that “Corridor nurses and care in corridors utterly normalised… Almost every hospital is treating patients in corridors and car parks.”
Writing in the Independent, Dr. Sarah Williams, who works in emergency medicine in a London hospital, described the scene she and her colleagues confront daily: “Cubicles are full in emergency departments before the morning shift has even begun. With no space on the wards to move admitted patients, we start to bottleneck at the front door. Resuscitation cubicles are frequently shared by two patients, with a screen in between to try and maintain some level of dignity. Trolleys rapidly fill any corridor space that becomes available.”
Another nurse, Lorraine, told the BBC: “The prime minister should actually sit in the waiting room, see the abuse that we get, the poor old ladies and pensioners, the young people that are trying to kill themselves, people collapsing, people having cardiac arrests in the waiting room. It’s 2025—we shouldn’t be seeing this.”
Fifteen healthcare worker and patient groups have now written an open letter to Health Secretary Wes Streeting demanding figures be released on the number of patients being treated in inappropriate settings, “a year-round scourge in our hospitals”.
The lack of reporting, they write, is “a significant omission, effectively continuing to hide the issue from the public, whilst in some cases silencing the staff forced to routinely deliver compromised care. It leaves the NHS and government without accurate data to understand how many patients are affected, why and for how long, and the extent to which it harms care outcomes.”
The NHS in England has consistently been unable to meet its A&E waiting time target, which aims for 95 percent of patients to be seen, treated, admitted, or discharged within four hours of arrival. This target itself was adjusted down from the original 98 percent in 2010, with the argument this would allow greater time for complex investigations.
In recent years, performance against the target has severely declined. For instance, in 2023/24, only 72 percent of people were seen within four hours in A&E. The last time the four-hour target was met was almost a decade ago in July 2015. The situation in Scotland is no better, which last achieved the target in July 2017, with subsequent performance also declining.
With hospitals overflowing, ambulances are unable to hand over patients. More than 3,500 times a day, paramedics cannot respond to an emergency 999 call because they are stuck in a queue. Over 1,000 patients a day are estimated to experience some kind of additional harm because of the delays.
Years of cuts and underfunding have seen a drastic reduction in the number of available beds in Britain. Over the past 30 years, the total number of NHS hospital beds in England has more than halved, decreasing from approximately 299,000 in 1987/88 to around 141,000 in 2019/20. This reduction has been observed across various categories, including general and acute care, as well as mental health.
Research by the Health Foundation’s REAL Centre indicates that, due to rising levels of chronic disease and an aging population, the NHS may require an additional 23,000 to 39,000 beds by 2030/31 to maintain pre-pandemic standards of care. This represents a 20–35 percent increase in bed capacity.
As of September 2023, the overall NHS vacancy rate was 8.4 percent, equating to approximately 121,000 unfilled full-time equivalent (FTE) positions. High levels of vacancies exist in almost every occupational group. Nursing remains a critical area of shortfall, with around 31,773 unfilled posts, representing a 7.5 percent vacancy rate. There are approximately 7,768 vacancies in medical roles, accounting for 4.9 percent of all medical posts.
Specific vacancy numbers for Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) are harder to ascertain. But evidence suggests this group, which includes physiotherapists, radiographers, and occupational therapists, is also experiencing staffing gaps, which further worsen overall care.
In 2020 and 2021, during the early waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, the then Conservative government Prime Minister Boris Johnson stood clapping on the steps of Downing Street and cynically hailed health workers as “heroes.”
The terrible conditions under which nurses, doctors and other health staff worked to provide care meant many paid a high price with their own health, if not their lives. The acute work pressures and almost constant distress saw a rise in NHS workers facing a range of debilitating mental health issues.
Even in 2024, sickness absences remained above the pre-2020 level, with mental health conditions—including stress, anxiety, and depression—accounting for over a quarter of them.
Dr. Boyle told the press bluntly, “We don’t have the resilience in the system to cope with these levels of pressure... We need to increase capacity within our hospitals.”
However, the response of the Labour government is to attack the NHS and its workforce in terms previously only used by the most venal elements of the Tory Party. Health Secretary Wes Streeting has proudly boasted, “We are not going to have a something-for-nothing culture in the NHS with Labour,” and threatened, “I’m not prepared to pour money into a black hole”.
Aymara man in Guaqui Bolivia [Photo by Patricio Crooker, World Bank / CC BY 2.0]
Peru and Bolivia are witnessing a significant surge of COVID-19 cases, showing the continuing danger posed to workers globally by new variants of the deadly virus.
In the first week of 2025, 457 cases of COVID-19 were recorded in Bolivia, while at least four people have died from the virus in the current wave since December 28. On January 9, the Peruvian daily El Comercio reported that “in the last three weeks, five people died from COVID-19, most of them older adults.”
Given the lack of testing and active indifference by the governments and the corporate media, the real numbers of infections and deaths are undoubtedly far higher. However, the official reports and attention are all the more significant.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has gravely exposed the healthcare systems in Bolivia, Peru and the region as some of the most deficient in the world. BBC News Mundo reported that of the “official”15 million deaths during the pandemic worldwide, with the real death toll likely approaching 30 million, the “Latin American countries [had the] highest excess mortality.”
Peru and Bolivia recorded the highest confirmed death rate and excess mortality rate from COVID-19 in the world, respectively. By March 2022, Peru had registered 3,542,602 positive cases and 211,944 deaths since from COVID-19; that is nearly 5,735 deaths per million inhabitants. During the first two years of the pandemic, Bolivia recorded an estimated excess mortality due to COVID-19 of 735 deaths per 100,000 people, compared to the global average of 120.
In contrast, the UK, where one of the deadliest variants originated, fared worst among European countries and recorded 3,396 confirmed deaths per million inhabitants—60 percent of deaths in Peru—and an excess mortality rate of 127 per 100,000 people.
The arrival of the pandemic in 2020 caught Peru’s health system in disarray. While the OECD recommended a ratio of 12 ICU beds per 100,000 people, at the beginning of the pandemic Peru had just one per 100,000 people.
Bolivia fared no better. Its health system nearly collapsed in June 2020. Health centers reached their maximum capacity for patient admissions, and hundreds of people died without receiving hospital care. Additionally, cemeteries became overwhelmed.
In 2025, the Bolivian press is once again focused on a potential COVID outbreak. “We are in the first epidemiological week,” reported Minister of Health María Reneé Castro. “We have seen 369 positive cases in Santa Cruz, 45 in Cochabamba, 15 in Chuquisaca, and 14 in La Paz. Tarija reported four cases, while Beni, Potosí, and Oruro each confirmed one.”
Jaime Bilbao, the director of the Departmental Health Service (Sedes), noted that COVID-19 infections have increased for the past two weeks. The Vice Minister of Health Promotion, Epidemiological Surveillance, and Traditional Medicine, Max Enríquez, clarified that Santa Cruz reported an increase from 288 cases in the last week of December to 369 in the first week of January, representing a surge of 28.1 percent.
Health authorities are concerned because only 257 people sought vaccinations in the first week, a significantly low number compared to the 82,279 vaccinations administered by the end of last year. This low vaccination turnout amidst the current COVID-19 surge is attributable to the irresponsibility of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) government.
The government operates under the false assumption that the pandemic, which claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Bolivians from 2020 to 2023, is over.
Article One of Ministerial Resolution No. 0461, dated July 26, 2023, exemplifies the absence of any proactive public health policy to prevent future pandemics. The Ministry of Health and Sports declared that, “effective July 31, 2023, the national health emergency due to COVID-19 would be lifted throughout Bolivia.”
According to government health entities, COVID-19 is now considered “one more virus circulating in the country, similar to influenza.” This view was used to justify the limited measures introduced by the government.
The government, however, has kept shifting responsibility for the resurgence of COVID-19 onto the population, stating that there is a “lack of concern among the public regarding the use of face masks and other safety measures to avoid infection.”
Now, as a palliative and entirely insufficient measure, four mobile hospitals have been set up in Santa Cruz to provide general medical, pediatric, nursing, and pharmacy services, aiming to reduce queues in larger hospitals. In La Paz, mobile immunization and diagnostic points will be strategically established, and within the next ten days, 500,000 new vaccine doses will arrive through the Covax mechanism.
Peru faces a similar situation, with a complete lack of concern from a government that is sinking in corruption, and the indifference of President Dina Boluarte, who, without asking for the permission required by law, took a leave of absence from her presidential duties to undergo plastic surgery recently. Peruvian Health Minister César Vásquez Sánchez attributed the recent deaths to the crowds caused by end-of-the-year celebrations.
Vásquez also specified that the cases registered during the first epidemiological week of 2025 were lower than those of 2024, relieving Minsa (Ministry of Health) of any responsibility for taking precautionary measures. He argued that there has been a “normal” increase in respiratory infections in various countries, implying that with time the virus has become weaker.
But the criminality of the Peruvian government’s real attitude is exposed in light of scientific assessments of the virus. The WSWS recently interviewed Dr. Arijit Chakravarty, a biologist who has written extensively about COVID-19 since its emergence in 2020, and commented: “it is false that viruses always evolve to become milder (they don’t), that immunity is building up in the population (it isn’t), or that somehow pretending everything is done has improved the state of the pandemic.”
The new COVID-19 surge in Bolivia and Peru results from the adoption of the pro-business healthcare policy imposed by the United States government, which advocates “learning to live with the virus” and refuses to deploy its vast resources to contain the virus around the world. The pandemic has demonstrated that under capitalism, profits will always be prioritized over human life.
The “learn to live with the virus” policy was spearheaded in South America by fascist former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. It led to the highest number of deaths on the continent. According to Datosmacro.com, by April 2024, Brazil had reported 37,511,921 COVID-19 infections—about one in five people—and 702,116 deaths, which equates to 3,250 deaths per million inhabitants.
Despite medical scientists’ warnings about a possible new wave of infections that could be as deadly as those from 2020 to 2022, the Bolivian minister of health insisted that COVID-19 will remain a concern for many more years. He noted that a vaccine is currently available that could help “reduce severe symptoms.”
This perspective overlooks the views of scientists who have studied COVID-19 extensively and oppose the “living with the virus” policy based on their findings. Bolivian authorities attribute the recent increase in cases to the Omicron variant and its subvariants—JN.1, XBB.1, XBB.1.5, and XBB.1.8—according to Vice Minister Enríquez. However, Dr. Chakravarty has warned that the virus can mutate and “could theoretically kill everyone it infects while still being transmitted without problems.”
In the wake of the holiday season, respiratory illnesses that include COVID-19, flu and RSV are once again on a rapidly accelerating trajectory in the US, Europe and China. Vaccines are available for these pathogens and the means to quickly contain their spread are well-established. But instead, capitalist governments have abandoned sound public health measures, and the “let-it-rip” policy is on full display, given political cover by a massive disinformation campaign.
Virus detections by subtype reported to FluNet, January 1, 2019 to December 23, 2024. [Photo: World Health Organization]
In the US, many hospitals in the upper Midwest and Northeast are scrambling to reinstitute mask mandates amid fears of what is being called the quad-demic (COVID-19, RSV, influenza and Norovirus, a stomach flu that is passed through the oral-fecal route for which a vaccine is currently in phase two studies). The rising number of emergency room visits speaks to the failure to address respiratory pathogens through public health measures.
Two large health systems in the metro Detroit area, the Detroit Medical Center and Corewell Health, are restricting the number of visitors they allow at their facilities. Dr. Rachel Klamo, president of the Michigan Academy of Family Physicians, told the Detroit Free Press, “Our hospitals are busy. Hospitals in southeast Michigan, for sure, are operating at pretty high capacity. There’s just a high burden of illness right now, and a lot of it is respiratory. We’re seeing high rates of influenza type A and B, respiratory syncytial virus or RSV, and then COVID-19 as well. There are hospitals in southeast Michigan with an extremely high burden of COVID right now and have a lot of patients who are very, very sick with COVID. We are at higher levels than we’ve been in some time.”
In the last three months of 2024, between October 1, and December 14, 2024, during the last lull in COVID infections, the CDC estimated there were 9.3 million cases of flu, 4.2 million doctor visits, 140,000 hospitalizations, and 13,000 deaths. For RSV, in the same period, there were 1.2 million cases, 60,000 hospitalizations, and 3,100 deaths. For COVID, the figures were 4.9 million cases, 1.1 million visits, 130,000 hospitalizations and 15,000 deaths.
Levels of Respiratory Illness Activity in the US as of December 28, 2024
With respect to the UK, retired physician, Dr. Evonne Curran, who worked at Glasgow Royal Hospital from 1988 to 2022, told The I Paper that she had never before encountered a winter infectious disease crisis like the one that is currently inundating health systems there. Curran said of the four viruses “floating around hospitals at absolutely high levels … When you have so many infections coming in through hospital doors, what you would normally do to contain infections is to shut that bay and shut that ward. But when you have got 12 ambulances lined up outside A&E and are desperate to place patients in beds, you are going to use beds wherever you can and put patients anywhere. I think it is understandable that people are terrified of going into hospital at the moment. I wouldn’t want to go into hospital in the current situation.”
The wife of former prime minister Boris Johnson (of the “let the bodies pile high in their thousands”), 38-year-old Carrie Johnson, was admitted for almost a week after contracting the flu and pneumonia. She was having severe labored breathing. This only underscores the seriousness of these pathogens to one’s well-being. While the rich and famous have access to boutique health care facilities with physicians at their beck and call, for most working class people, lack of prompt access to physicians means they will keep working and see their health dangerously deteriorate before seeking care at crowded emergency rooms.
Inevitably, the current wave of infections will only be aggravated by the return of students to school and university after the holiday break.
As Curran correctly observed, “Everyone [still] thinks it is people not washing their hands—that’s not the case. These are airborne viruses and even norovirus is found in the air for several hours and is more likely to be inhaled. So, the more people we have in hospital with an infection, the more contamination we have got in the air. You can’t hand wash your way out of this quad-demic because it is mainly spread by what you breathe in and what you breathe out.”
Given the repeated waves of COVID, each with higher rates of hospitalization and deaths than flu, the SARS-CoV-2 virus remains a formidable pathogen, and the population should take heed to avoid infections by masking with well-fitting N95 respirators and using HEPA filters in indoor environments. Vaccines continue to afford important protections against severe disease and death, and development of Long COVID from these infections.
Perhaps more daunting, fewer than 40 percent of all Americans have planned to obtain the latest COVID vaccine and just over half reported they might get the flu shots. According to an October Pew Research Center survey, “Smaller shares say they will get an updated vaccine (24 percent) or have already received one (15 percent).”
The majority of those choosing not to receive COVID boosters erroneously believe that “it isn’t needed” despite the numerous studies that have demonstrated the rising risk of cardiac disease, neurological consequences, Long COVID, and potential risks of cancers associated with repeat infections. These disparities between the science of COVID and the public’s understanding is the result of the ferocious bipartisan attack on science and public health that has shaped the response to the ongoing COVID pandemic.
Percent of tests positive for respiratory viruses. [Photo: CDC]
For instance, a recent study on cognitive impairments with neurological Long COVID, published in Nature, found that these patients exhibited higher rates of fatigue, depression and anxiety and did worse on cognitive tests. They had impairments in their mental flexibility, verbal short-term memory, working memory, and processing speed. These studies have their corollary in real-life experiences of workers. In another study published by Ohio State University researchers, Long COVID was continuing to cause significant daily disruptions in COVID survivors’ personal and professional lives, despite most having been infected in 2020.
The report noted, “For those who continued working after their COVID-19 infection, the effort and energy required for work left little capacity to participate in other life activities and made it difficult to attend recommended health care appointments. Participants reported financial impacts of changes in employment including loss of income and changes in insurance, which were compounded by high health care costs.”
Furthermore, the study continued, “A quarter of the patients who took part in the study reported significant activity limitations and two-thirds reported having a disability. Those with Long COVID show a lower likelihood of full-time employment and higher potential for unemployment compared to those without Long COVID.”
Most egregious, in the climate of COVID denialism, has been the inability of Long COVID survivors to address their health needs. The study’s lead author, Dr. Sarah MacEwan, told Ohio Capital Journal, “One thing we’ve uncovered through this work is people not being believed by their providers about their symptoms or being brushed off or pushed into other diagnoses that they feel don’t reflect their experience.” According to MacEwan, “It’s a real question of whether they are getting what they need from the providers they’re able to reach where they are.”
US COVID-19 transmission the past 12 months and forecast. [Photo: Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative]
At present, the average number of coronavirus infections per person across the US stands at 3.55 according to the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative (PMC), led by Dr. Mike Hoerger, a leading international expert on health analytics and COVID-19 modeler at Tulane. In the US, the XEC strain of the virus accounts for nearly 50 percent of all current COVID infections and continues to dominate the respiratory landscape. In their latest report, the PMC note that COVID infections have risen back to approximately 1 million cases per day and could top 1.5 million daily at the peak of the 10th wave.
What is particularly disconcerting however, as some have observed, the troughs (lows) continue to rise with each COVID wave, underscoring the lunacy of attempting to define this virus as endemic, as though it had stabilized or was under control. What remains undefined are the long-term implications of repeat infections with SARS-CoV-2 on overall population health. The evidence suggests that infectious diseases may be one of the primary causative factors of non-communicable diseases.
A study published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that there was a positive correlation between early childhood infection burden and subsequent infection risks, and systemic antibiotic use later in childhood. Among 614 children who were part of a study conducted in Copenhagen, the authors noted that children with a high infection burden (equal to or more than 16 episodes) in the first three years of life showed a significantly increased risk (2.39 times) of moderate to severe infections and systemic antibiotic treatments (1.34 times) later in childhood. The findings highlight the importance of infection prevention, not mass infection (aka “herd immunity”) as a public health policy.
The upcoming confirmation hearings of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has advanced anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and an assortment of anti-scientific conceptions, to head the Department of Health and Human Services, raises important political and social issues, threatening the advances in public health that have increased life expectancy and well-being for working people throughout the world.
Applications are open from January 10 to February 20, 2025.
Tell Me About The Award:
Türkiye Scholarships is a prestigious government-funded program providing full scholarships to international students for associate, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees. It includes not only financial benefits but also cultural and academic support.
Which Fields are Eligible?
All academic fields and disciplines participating Turkish universities offer are eligible under this program.
Type:
Fully funded scholarships for full-time associate, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees. Short-term programs like Research Scholarships, Success Scholarships, and KATİP are also offered during separate application periods.
Who can Apply?
Non-Turkish nationals.
Age limits:
Under 21 for bachelor’s programs.
You should be under 30 for master’s programs.
Under 35 for doctoral programs.
Academic achievement requirements:
Minimum 70% for undergraduate programs.
Minimum 75% for master’s and doctoral programs.
A minimum 90% for medical studies.
How are Applicants Selected?
The selection process includes:
Initial Screening: Based on academic qualifications, submitted documents, and eligibility.
Interview: Shortlisted candidates are invited for interviews conducted in person or online.
Which Countries Are Eligible?
Applications are open to students from all countries worldwide.
Where will the Award be Taken?
The award will be taken in Turkey, at top-ranking universities designated by the Türkiye Scholarships program.
How Many Awards?
The exact number varies yearly, but thousands of scholarships are typically awarded to deserving candidates.
Following the collapse of New Caledonia’s government on Christmas Eve, the French Pacific colony’s cabinet has installed an anti-independence loyalist as its new president. Alcide Ponga, 49, is the first indigenous Kanak to lead the pro-France Le Rassemblement party.
New Caledonian President Alcide Ponga [Photo: Facebook/Alcide Ponga]
Ponga was appointed by the Congress’s newly elected executive on January 8, replacing outgoing President Louis Mapou of the pro-independence Parti de Libération Kanak (Palika). Mapou had bitterly declared, “It’s a dirty political blow to the country.”
Le Rassemblement, which is affiliated with the fascistic Les Républicains (LR) in France, is allied with the colony’s “Loyalist” bloc that includes Les Républicains Calédoniennes (LRC), Générations NC, and Mouvement populaire calédonien (MPC). Supported by wealthier French expatriates, including descendants of settlers known as Caldoches, and the business elite, they are overwhelmingly right-wing and fiercely anti-independence.
From a prominent Kanak family, Ponga studied political science in France and made his career in the nickel industry before entering politics in 2014. His uncle, Maurice Ponga, served as a minister in the first two governments established after the 1998 Nouméa Accord in which anti-independence politicians held a majority within the executive. He was a member of the European Parliament for 2009-19.
Last July Alcide Ponga was defeated in polling for the snap elections for France’s National Assembly, which saw a surge in support for the territory’s pro-independence candidates. Standing in the heavily Kanak Northern constituency, his home, Ponga decisively lost to Emmanuel Tjibaou of the pro-independence Union Calédonienne (UC), by 57.01 to 42.99 percent of the votes.
The sharp shift within New Caledonia’s political establishment, after seven months of violent unrest by impoverished and alienated Kanak youth, is an expression of what the WSWS has characterised as “the violent lurch of bourgeois politics to the right around the world.” It coincides with the resignation of Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau following the collapse of governments in Germany, France and Austria.
The colony’s Mapou government was toppled after environment and sustainable development minister Jérémie Katidjo-Monnier, the sole representative from the pro-France Calédonie Ensemble, resigned and his party refused to nominate a replacement.
New Caledonia’s 11-member cabinet is made up from the parties represented at the Congress. It ostensibly operates under a proportional principle of “collegiality,” implying that the multi-party executive, which includes both supporters and opponents of independence, works together.
The arrangement is a product of the “power sharing” Nouméa Accord, initiated by the French Socialist Party government of Lionel Jospin in 1998, which ended nearly a decade of civil unrest. The nationalist leadership abandoned its struggle for independence in return for a place in office and access to business opportunities, including a stake in the vital nickel industry, while enabling France to maintain overall colonial control.
The 54-member Congress reconvened after Christmas to vote on the new cabinet. The Loyalists-Rassemblement bloc, including Ponga, won four seats. A joint list of the anti-independence Calédonie ensemble (CE) and Eveil Océanien (EO, Oceania Awakening) took two; the pro-independence UC-Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) three, and the Union nationale pour l’Indépendance (UNI) two.
Ponga’s elevation to the presidency came after the first attempt failed to reach a majority. The next day, during a contentious meeting convened by French High Commissioner Louis Le Franc, Ponga defeated the UC candidate Samuel Hnepeune by 6-3 votes.
According to Islands Business correspondent Nic Maclellan, Hnepeune, a leading Kanak businessman and former head of the domestic airline Air Calédonie, won the three votes of his UC-FLNKS faction. However, the two members of the UNI abstained, reflecting ongoing tensions between UC and Palika, the two largest members of the now broken FLNKS coalition.
The months of unrest have produced a crisis of rule within the colony’s bourgeois elite, including the pro-independence movement itself. While a level of “surface calm” is now being reported, the riots have left 14 dead, hundreds arrested, businesses shuttered and the economy on its knees. Some 6,000 French security forces remain deployed, enforcing what French President Emmanuel Macron has previously referred to as “Republican order.”
There are simmering tensions within the pro-France bloc. CE’s Philippe Dunoyer resigned when he was not offered the portfolio of finance and economy. Dunoyer and CE had proposed a program including market reforms, a new relationship with Paris and major cuts to government spending and the public service, but they could not reach agreement with the Loyalists and Rassemblement.
Amid the ongoing popular unrest, the official pro-independence bloc has suffered a series of reversals. In a surprise vote in August, Congress President Roch Wamytan of the FLNKS was replaced by Veylma Falaeo from EO. The EO’s three members had previously provided a majority for the pro-independence faction, but Falaeo won the support of the Loyalists to shift the paper-thin majority in their favour, enabling her to take over the Congress presidency.
The EO’s electoral base is in the community from the neighbouring French territory of Wallis and Futuna and it had sought to promote a “middle way” between the contesting blocs. The Loyalist parties declared their “joy” at the ending of Wamytan’s five-year presidency and denounced what they described as his “guilty silence in the face of the ongoing violence since 13 May.”
New Caledonia faces an immediate economic crisis with an estimated €2.2 billion in damage. An emergency €231 million French government payment has been reduced by one third. The aid package to allow essential public services to keep operating was endorsed in an eleventh-hour vote at the National Assembly, just before the French government of Prime Minister Michel Barnier fell to a motion of no confidence. New Caledonia’s Congress failed to endorse the third and last tranche of a financial “reform package” which was a precondition of the aid.
Nothing has been done to resolve the fundamental issues behind the unrest, triggered by poverty, inequality, unemployment and social desperation. The rebellion brought a substantial section of Kanak youth into conflict, not only with French colonial oppression, but with the territory’s political establishment. The official independence movement was exposed by the movement that erupted from below and outside its control, as well as by its subsequent efforts under orders from Macron to rein it in.
In November, the four-party FLNKS split apart after multi-party talks, which the FLNKS parties embraced, began with France’s far-right Barnier government regarding the future of the territory. Following separate party congresses, two of the “moderate” FLNKS components, the Melanesian Progressive Union (UPM) and PALIKA, declared they did not recognise the way the “hard line” UC had been operating during the riots.
Responding, UC secretary-general Dominique Fochi said the FLNKS was the “national liberation movement” recognised as the official representative of the Kanak people. “This is the message we want to convey to New Caledonians, and… the French State,” he declared. He insisted the FLNKS remained the only “interlocutor bearing the voice of the… anti-colonial movement regarding [New Caledonia’s] political future.”
Negotiations between all the parties, pro-and anti-independence, and the French State were initially expected to begin before Christmas but the Barnier government’s defeat in December brought this to a halt. The installation of a new minority French government under Prime Minister François Bayrou has strengthened the hand of the far-right.
During the French elections, the “left” New Popular Front (NFP) coalition led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, now supporting the new government from the outside, issued meaningless calls for “dialogue” and “consensus” over the colony’s crisis. However, the effective opposition leader, the National Rally’s fascistic Marine Le Pen, has previously warned that New Caledonia is “French” and will not see independence for “30 or 40 years.”
