Lack of ventilators in UK means patients left to die

Margot Miller

A new narrative has emerged in Britain’s capitalist media, with several articles questioning the efficacy of ventilator treatment for severe cases of COVID-19. These aim to cover over the Johnson government’s criminal inaction and failure to mobilise all the resources necessary to tackle the outbreak—including the necessary stockpiling of ventilators before the pandemic broke out.

The Sun headlined an article April 6, “Coronavirus doctor reveals he has yet to get a patient off a ventilator alive.” Once the seriously ill are put onto a ventilator, they may well be too ill to recover. But there can be no doubt that if many are not surviving being ventilated, then it is because they are receiving treatment too late. This is not the fault of National Health Service (NHS) workers but a result of the government allowing the pandemic to tear through the population for weeks as part of its “herd immunity” policy.

On April 4, the Spectator magazine ran a piece headlined: “Ventilators aren’t a panacea for the coronavirus pandemic.” The Spectator is a right-wing Conservative-supporting publication. Tory Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is currently in intensive care undergoing oxygen treatment for COVID-19—and is near a ventilator should the need arise—is a former editor of the magazine.

The Spectator cites Matt Strauss, a former medical director of the critical care unit at Guelph General Hospital, Canada, and now assistant professor of medicine at Queen’s University. He states, “[A]t least two-thirds of attempts to stave off death with their [ventilator] use will fail in the short term. Of the remaining third, we do not know how many will be successful in the medium or long term. This doesn’t quite seem like a convincing rationale to shut down the British economy, [and] redirect previous manufacturing output towards ventilators …”

On average, around 50 percent of ventilated patients survive. If treated early, the outcome improves, yet those with coronavirus symptoms are being encouraged to remain at home in self-isolation and only report to hospital once they have become very ill.

The WSWS spoke to an NHS haematology doctor from Wales, who challenged this acceptance of death over life and the playing down of the necessity for ventilators in tackling the pandemic.

The doctor explained that in his own hospital in Wales, “We have 10 COVID patients. One man on a ventilator, aged between 60 and 70 with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), survived. Around 60 to 80 percent of patients on ventilators can be saved if proper ITU (intensive therapy unit) care is given. But these things cannot be done if the hospital is overwhelmed. Then only 30 percent survive.”

The doctor exposed the dire hospital conditions facing colleagues and patients as the number of COVID-19 cases rises exponentially.

His friend, an Accident and Emergency (A&E) consultant at a hospital in the north of England, “has seen lots of COVID-19 admissions. He told me the hospital is partially overwhelmed, so they had to open a new A&E department because they can’t cope with the flood of admissions.”

Hospitals are implementing rationing because of the lack of ventilators for those with the most severe form of the disease. Speaking on the BBC’s “Andrew Marr Show,” Health Secretary Matt Hancock said there are 8,000–10,000 ventilators in the NHS, and the government target was to secure 18,000—far short of the original target of 30,000. Hancock evaded answering when these additional ventilators would materialize, despite the government’s own prediction that the pandemic will peak around Easter, in a few days’ time.

Doctors are being placed in the terrible predicament of denying elderly patients’ medical intervention.

The doctor in Wales commented, “Doctors have to explain to patients over 70, with no underlying health issues, that the doctor has to make a decision to sign a DNR [do-not-resuscitate] order, because there are no ventilators.”

The lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) is putting staff and patients in danger—three National Health Service nurses and two doctors have died recently.

“They only have surgical gowns and masks at the hospital,” explained the doctor, “Instead of the proper PPE. My friend got a fever and tested positive and is now self-isolating at home, at the time his service is essential to the hospital.

“Another dreadful story—one of my haematology colleagues at a Hospital in Birmingham said her hospital became overwhelmed a couple of weeks ago. The hospital has been turned into a mainly COVID hospital. Doctors in all departments, like my colleague, are asked to deal with COVID patients.

“Birmingham is at the epicentre of COVID outside of London. My friend is looking after patients who are recovering from COVID, who have been removed from ventilators. Up until last Friday, they only had a surgical mask and apron, used for other hospital procedures. Since then, intubation is done with some protective equipment, but not the full kit.

“Policy is changing day by day. No doctors can wear face masks when moving around the hospital, even on the medical ward for stroke and heart patients. A group of nurses wearing face masks while walking on the corridors were asked to remove them by a manager and a matron, saying you must follow hospital guidelines.”

“I could not believe this,” said the doctor, “No reason has been given.”

“Medical staff are still not being tested for COVID-19, even if they present with symptoms and are putting the staff and patients at risk. This will possibly make the available system collapse due to lack of trained staff.

“My friend got a sore throat and felt feverish. She asked the hospital administration what she should do, and could she have the test. They said we are not allowed to test you. If staff are not tested, they will give the virus to patients and other staff. It is criminal.”

As in the north of England hospital, doctors are forced to leave patients, who may have a life expectancy of another 10 or 20 years, without lifesaving treatment.

“At Birmingham hospital, patients who are 70 and older, even without underlying health problems, will not be put on a ventilator and the doctor signs a DNR, because the hospital cannot cope with the tsunami of COVID patients admitted without the necessary number of ventilators.

“There’s a new Nightingale hospital planned in Birmingham with more than 1,000 beds. The plan is not to put ventilators in because there are no ventilators. To form a new hospital you need staff too, not just new instruments. It will be used for non-COVID stable patients, to free up space.”

The doctor compared the high fatalities in the UK with countries which have implemented rigorous testing for COVID-19 alongside contact tracing. “The Czech Republic followed the method taken by South Korea, and the number of patients is very low. It is well managed in New Zealand. They started testing a lot, and also because of early school closure and lockdown measures.”

A letter from a GP’s (General Practice) surgery in Maesteg, Wales telling patients with underlying health problems they would be denied treatment has gone viral. Dated March 27, it began: “This is a very difficult letter for the practice to write to you … people with significant life-threatening illnesses, such as incurable cancer, neurological conditions such as motor neurone disease, and untreatable heart and lung conditions such as pulmonary fibrosis or severe heart failure … are unlikely to be offered hospital admission if they become unwell and certainly will not be offered a ventilator bed … We would like to complete a DNR form for you … The emergency services will not be called and resuscitation attempts to restart your heart will not be attempted.” The letter ends with the cruelly ironic words, “We will not abandon you.”

One can only imagine the fear and bewilderment of the frail and elderly, promised care under the post-war welfare state “from the cradle to the grave,” seeing the fatalities increase daily at an exponential rate, now being abandoned to their fate.

The practice and health trust have since apologised for the letter due to the widespread disgust it elicited.

UK government ignored scientific advice and treated COVID-19 as a public order issue

Robert Stevens

Boris Johnson’s Conservative government disregarded scientific advice about the danger to life posed by the coronavirus almost from the moment when the first deaths were reported in China.

Instead, the government was mainly concerned with developing its response from the standpoint of combating “public disorder” and social unrest. This was the backdrop to its passing of the Coronavirus Bill on March 25 handing authoritarian powers to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his ministers.

Put on the statute book without a parliamentary vote, the 351-page Coronavirus Act 2020 allows the government to restrict or prohibit events and gatherings in England and Wales during the pandemic in any place, vehicle, train, vessel or aircraft, any movable structure and any offshore installation. Ministers have the powers to close premises. Powers were also granted allowing the forced detention and isolation of anyone, including children, and for any amount of time. The Act rubber-stamped postponing this year’s local authority and mayoral elections, with provisions to postpone any other electoral events over the next year.

As the bill was being rushed through both Houses of Parliament, the government announced that 20,000 military personnel had been placed on standby—10,000 military personnel regularly assigned to operations among civilians, such as in floods, plus a further 10,000 troops. As the WSWS noted, “The mobilisation of the armed forces has also been in advanced preparation and was a central component of the Tories’ post-Brexit planning strategy known as ‘Operation Yellowhammer.’ Yellowhammer predicted a ‘rise in public disorder and community tensions.’”

According to a government web page, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) exists to provide “scientific and technical advice to support government decision makers during emergencies.” SAGE’s advice “is made available to decision makers to support UK cross-government decisions in the Cabinet Office Briefing Room (COBR) [also known as COBRA].”

SAGE is co-chaired by Sir Patrick Vallance (government Chief Science Advisor) and Professor Chris Whitty (Chief Medical Officer). Both played a central role in the adoption by the Johnson government of the “herd immunity,” policy, i.e., the attempt—in the absence of a vaccine—to mass infect most of the population [up to 70 percent] with coronavirus. This was advocated in the face of all international experience from China and other countries that the mass testing of the population, allied with quarantining, social distancing and lockdowns as necessary, was the only way to prevent the spread of the virus and save lives. Had there not been widespread opposition to “herd immunity,” including from top scientists, the government’s policy would have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands.

As the COVID-19 pandemic began, the government enlisted the advice of three SAGE groups: the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG); the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M) (Department for Health and Social Care) and the Independent Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours (SPI-B).

Behavioural scientists played an extraordinary and unwarranted part in determining policy, compared with the input of medical professionals.

In a March 14 SAGE document, “The role of behavioural science in the coronavirus outbreak,” the section “What is “SPI-B?” notes: “To date, there have been three meetings of SPI-B to discuss specific topics of advice requested by SAGE. The topics discussed relate to the risk of public disorder; the use of behavioural and social interventions; and how to give guidance to people who are asked to self-isolate.”

The SPI-B was “asked to consider several possible behavioural and social interventions”—including “stopping large events (‘mass gatherings’), school closures, isolation of people with symptoms and also their households, general social distancing, and lengthy social distancing for people in at-risk groups.”

The criteria used was not what was scientifically necessary but rather “public attitudes and support; likely adherence; and any barriers, facilitators or communication issues that should be considered.”

A key passage reads “in order to limit the risk of public disorder even further, the Government should: provide clear and transparent reasons for the different strategies that might be taken; set clear expectations on how the national response would develop; and promote collective action throughout the country.”

After 10 years of brutal austerity, the government was acutely aware it was sitting on a social volcano and that the pandemic could mean social anger erupting to the surface.

The National Health Service (NHS) had been eviscerated over the last decade due to billions of pounds cut in “efficiency savings” and the privatisation agenda. The government was advised in a SAGE paper February 26, “In the event of a pandemic, without action, the NHS will be unable to meet all demands placed on it. Demand on beds is likely to overtake supply well before the peak is reached.”

Rather than demand additional resources, the government focused on dealing with the public’s reaction to the NHS failing to cope. As far back as February 25, (Cobra) commissioned advice from SPI-B “on the risk of public disorder in the Covid-19 RWCS [reasonable worst case scenario].”

SAGE and the Home Office, working with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) “considered the risk of public disorder, with a focus on scenarios where there are significant workplace absences, e.g. in the police, and pressures on healthcare facilities…

“SPI-B defined public disorder to include actions from opportunistic crime, community tension and rioting.”

SPI-B were clear under what conditions social unrest could arise: “Where public disorder occurs, it is usually triggered by perceptions about the Government’s response, rather than the nature of the epidemic per se. For example, a perception that the Government response strategies are not effective in looking after the public may lead to an increase in tensions.”

It noted that the risk of public disorder could occur where there are “staff absences in police forces, pressures on healthcare facilities, perceptions that there is limited resource, e.g. limited face masks or hand sanitiser, perceptions of inadequate government response to contain the outbreak.”

SPI-B warned that public unrest could develop in “Specific scenarios where police actions are experienced as excessive and which prevent the public from accessing services they believe they have a right to access (e.g. food, healthcare) may lead to increased tensions.”

Under conditions in which virtually no testing had been done among the population for COVID-19—in contrast to China, South Korea and other countries—SPI-B stated that the “public need to understand the purpose of the Government’s policy, why the UK approach differs to other countries and how resources are being allocated.”

It was necessary for the government to “Promote a sense of collectivism: All messaging should reinforce a sense of community, that ‘we are all in this together”—i.e., promote the lie that the super-rich and the mass of working people were equally affected by the coronavirus pandemic and shared a common purpose in fighting it.

Knowing this to be a lie, just one month after the February paper was written, the government passed into law the Coronavirus Bill in readiness to confront workers opposed to policies that have caused the deaths of thousands.

The SAGE documents went almost without comment in the media, with just one article, in the Daily Mail, noting its warnings of “flashpoints over stretched healthcare facilities or goods shortages.”

One of the most critical voices raised in opposition to the government’s strategy was Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the Lancet medical journal. On the SAGE papers, he stated, “There is evidence on modelling and on behavioural science, but I don’t see the evidence from the public health community or from the clinical community.

“We [i.e., the Johnson government] thought we could have a controlled epidemic. We thought we could manage that epidemic over the course of March and April, push the curve to the right, build up herd immunity and that way we could protect people.

“The reason why that strategy was wrong is it didn’t recognise that 20 percent of people infected would end up with severe critical illness. The evidence was there at the end of January.”

Further damning evidence of how the government refused to act and enforce the most rudimentary policies to protect the population was made public this week in a Reuters special report.

In it, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care claimed the government was delivering “a science-led action plan” to fight coronavirus: “As the public would expect, we regularly test our pandemic plans and what we learned from previous exercises has helped us to rapidly respond to COVID-19.”

This is a lie. As noted by the WSWS, in 2016 the government knew from Exercise Cygnus, intended to determine readiness for a novel respiratory influenza pandemic, that there would be catastrophic National Health Service failings during a flu pandemic that would kill “a lot of people.” The government responded by continuing to cut the human and material resources available to the NHS.

Reuters published comments from John Edmunds, a professor of infectious disease modelling at Imperial College, of the flu pandemic modelling committee (SPI-M). Edmunds said that around seven weeks before the first confirmed death of COVID-19 in the UK, “from about mid January onwards, it was absolutely obvious that this was serious, very serious.”

Graham Medley, a professor of infectious disease modelling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and chairman of SPI-M, told Reuters, it was “clear that this was going to be big from the first meeting.” By the end of January, SPI-M went into “wartime” mode.

Despite this, on January 30 the government only raised the official threat level posed by COVID-19 from “low” to “moderate.” It was kept at moderate as deaths began to mount in other countries, including in mainland Europe, even after a February 21 meeting of NERVTAG, the group which advises the government on the threat posed by new and emerging respiratory viruses.

Reuters notes, “Edmunds, who had technical difficulties and couldn’t be heard on the call, emailed afterwards to ask the warning to be elevated to ‘high,’ the minutes revealed. But the warning level remained lower. It’s unclear why.” Edmunds recalls, “I just thought, are we still thinking that it’s mild or something? It definitely isn’t, you know.”

These warnings were ignored because Downing Street had set on its “herd immunity” policy. According to a report in the Times, during a private event held at the end of February, Johnson’s key adviser advisor Dominic Cummings argued against strict measures to contain coronavirus. Those present summarised his position as “herd immunity, protect the economy, and if that means some pensioners die, too bad.” A senior Conservative source described his view as “let old people die.”

By February 28, the virus had already led to fatalities in Iran, South Korea, and Italy. It was too late to stop the spread of the virus, with Reuters noting that on March 2 the “pandemic modelling committee SPI-M produced its ‘consensus report’ that warned the coronavirus was now transmitting freely in the UK.”

The first coronavirus death in the UK was announced on March 5. But in contrast to Italy—which had recorded 827 deaths by March 11 and ordered a national lockdown—the Johnson government continued to play down the impact the virus would have as it ripped through the population. On March 12, it officially announced its “herd immunity” policy. Government Chief Science Advisor Sir Patrick Vallance, stood alongside Johnson and Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty in Downing Street and said of the deadly virus: “It’s not possible to stop everyone getting it and it’s also not desirable because you want some immunity in the population to protect ourselves in the future.”

International Labour Organisation warns of massive job losses from COVID-19

Nick Beams

There could hardly have been a clearer expression of the deepening class divide. Yesterday the US Fed announced new financial stimulus measures of $2.3 trillion, as another 6.6 million American workers filed for unemployment benefits, bringing the total number to almost 17 million over the past four weeks.

As workers face ever-greater hardship and the real economy goes further into slump, the financial markets celebrated on the announcement that money is still going to be pumped out, including through the purchase by the Fed of high-yield corporate junk bonds.

And there could be even more to come with Fed chairman Jerome Powell declaring during a Brookings Institution webcast that the central bank would use its powers “forcefully, proactively and aggressively.”

In this Oct. 1, 2019, file photo people wait in line to inquire about job openings with Marshalls during a job fair at Dolphin Mall in Miami. On Friday, Dec. 6, the U.S. government issues the November jobs report. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)

The S&P 500 index, which is already up 25 percent from its mid-March lows, rose by another 1.4 percent, with big banks and real estate companies enjoying the biggest increases.

Earlier this week the International Labour Organisation published an update on the impact of the pandemic and lockdown measures on the global labour force. Official statistics lag far behind the actual situation, such is the speed of the economic plunge, and so the ILO had to use changes in working hours to make some estimate of the state of the labour market.

Using this approach, it said the COVID-19 crisis is expected to wipe out 6.7 percent of total working hours globally in the second quarter of this year—equivalent to 195 million full-time workers.

It said the eventual increase in unemployment for 2020 would depend on economic developments and policy measures but there was a “high risk that the end-of-year figure will be significantly higher than the initial ILO projection of 25 million.”

Currently 81 percent of the global workforce of 3.3 billion is affected by the full or partial workplace closures.

“Workers and businesses are facing catastrophe, in both developed and developing economies,” said ILO Director-General Guy Ryder.

The ILO found that 1.25 billion workers are employed in sectors of the economy identified as being at high risk of “drastic and devastating” increases in job losses, wage cuts and reductions in working hours.

“Many are in low-paid, low-skilled jobs, where a sudden loss of income is devastating.”

Emphasising the speed of the pandemic, the ILO noted that since its preliminary assessment on March 18 global COVID-19 infections had risen six-fold with an additional 47,600 people having lost their lives.

It said those still working, especially health workers, were most at risk together with workers in transport and essential public services.

“Globally there are 136 million workers in human health and social work activities, including nurses, doctors and other health workers, workers in residential care facilities and social workers, as well as support workers, such as laundry and cleaning staff, who face serious risk of contracting COVID-19 in the workplace.”

While the ILO did not make the point, those risks have elevated to unnecessarily high levels because of the decades of savage cuts to health and hospital services, leaving staff without necessary protective equipment. The resources of society have been siphoned to its upper echelons via the mechanisms of financialisation that have boosted the stock market.

There are around two billion people working informally, mainly in less developed economies, and tens of millions of them are now being directly affected by the pandemic. Informal workers, the report said, lack basic protection, are disadvantaged when it comes health care but are also involved in areas that “not only carry a high risk of virus infection but are also impacted by lockdown measures.”

The ILO is clearly of the view that there is not going to be some kind of “snapback” or V-shaped recovery when the immediate effects of the pandemic pass.

Characterising the outlook as “highly uncertain,” it said the rapid and far-reaching developments that had already taken place “bring us into uncharted territory in terms of assessing labour market impacts and in forecasting the severity of the shock.”

Economic organisations and institutions around the world are offering forecasts but none of them has an accurate gauge either of the depth of the slump or its duration.

Speaking ahead of its spring meeting next week, International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva said; “We anticipate the worst economic fallout since the Great Depression.”

The IMF releases its economic forecast next Tuesday which Georgieva said would show how quickly the coronavirus had turned the year into one of deep downturn. There was no doubt 2020 would be an “exceptionally difficult” year.

The IMF head warned that low-income countries in Africa, Latin America and in Asia were at high risk.

“With weak health systems to begin with, many face the dreadful challenge of fighting the virus in densely populated cities and poverty-stricken slums,” she said.

The problems confronting these countries are being intensified by the operations of the global financial system. Right at the point where additional resources are needed, money is being withdrawn at a record pace, putting pressure on currencies and government budgets.

Over the two months, according to Georgieva, capital outflows from emerging economies have totaled more than $100 billion. This is more than three times the outflows at the start of the global financial crisis. The IMF has received calls for emergency assistance from more than 90 countries so far.

The dire economic situation in Europe was reflected in two forecast published on Wednesday

One of Germany’s major economic forecasting bodies warned that the economy would contract by 10 percent in the second quarter, double the size of the biggest quarterly drop during the global financial crisis.

The Banque de France has warned that the lockdowns aimed at trying to contain the spread of the virus are slicing 1.5 percentage points from the French growth rate for every two weeks they continue.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said an index designed to identify turning points in the economic cycle showed its biggest drop on record in March. But worse may be to come. The OECD said its latest index only reflected the current situation, not how long or how severe the contraction would be.

World coronavirus cases surge past 1.6 million

Bryan Dyne

Yesterday marked the end of the first 100 days of the coronavirus pandemic, from when the World Health Organization was first notified of a “pneumonia with unknown cause” in China. Since then, there have been 1.6 million officially confirmed cases of COVID-19 around the world and more than 95,000 deaths. There have been more than 300,000 new cases and at least 25,000 deaths since this week began.

The United States itself has had 462,000 cases, more than three times those in Spain, the second-worst country, with 152,446 cases. The US also has 16,114 deaths, and is poised to overtake Italy, the country with the highest number of deaths at 18,279, within five days. And the pandemic has begun to make inroads into the heavily populated less developed countries: India, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Egypt.

Within the United States itself, there has been no let-up in the rate of infections and deaths. In the New York metropolitan area, the epicenter of the crisis, there have been nearly 160,000 cases and 7,067 deaths, with more than 1,500 new deaths reported in the last two days. New York City has begun to dig mass graves on Hart Island as the death toll becomes unmanageable for the city’s funeral homes and cemeteries.

Members of a privately-funded non-governmental organization working with county officials disinfect a street to help curb the spread of the new coronavirus, during the dusk-to-dawn curfew in Nairobi, Kenya Thursday, April 9, 2020. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

The death tolls in New Jersey and Michigan are 1,700 and 1,076 respectively, while the case numbers in Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, Louisiana and Maryland are accelerating. In addition, the New York Times reports that hundreds of rural counties across the country that had been virus-free two weeks ago are now reporting infections and deaths.

Yet even as the pandemic continues its bloody rampage in virtually every corner of the globe, the Trump administration, the corporate media and the entire US political establishment are declaring they can discern “glimmers of hope,” that the fight against COVID-19 has “turned a corner,” that there are “reasons for optimism.”

According to US President Donald Trump, “We’re at the top of the hill, pretty sure, and now we’re going downward. In some cases we’ve already started that process.

To that end, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has published “interim guidance” that provides the justification to force tens of millions of “critical infrastructure workers” back to work. These include law enforcement, janitorial staff and workers in agriculture, manufacturing, information technology, transportation, energy and government facilities.

In the United States, there are an estimated 3 million migrant and seasonal agricultural workers, 12.85 million manufacturing jobs, 2.5 million janitors, 4.6 million IT workers, 5.2 million transportation workers, 8.1 million workers in transportation-related industries, 6.4 million energy workers and 10 million government local, state and federal employees.

Along with the 18 million health care workers and 3 million grocery store workers in the country, the Trump administration is calling for at least 73 million people to be sent back to their jobs or continue working in the midst of a deadly and highly contagious pandemic. And the guidelines are so vague that millions more could be ordered back to plants, warehouses and offices with the claim that they are “essential.”

Moreover, the CDC only recommends that employers “should” ensure that their workplaces are sanitary and that their workers are healthy. The entire document paves the way for corporations to resume exploiting their employees without expending a cent on ensuring that their workers don’t succumb to the pandemic.

When asked at yesterday’s coronavirus task force briefing if a nationwide testing system for the virus is necessary before sending workers back to work, Trump snapped, “No. We have a great testing system. We have the best testing in the world. There are certain sections in the country that are in phenomenal shape already. Other sections are coming online. Other sections are going down.”

Trump is engaging in crude charlatanry. While the official statistics indicate that the number of new cases may be the same from day to day, that does not mean the epidemic has stabilized. On the contrary, the number of coronavirus cases is still increasing by an average of 30,000 each day. And there is no guarantee that even extreme social distancing measures ultimately hold: Italy has seen an uptick in its new case figures in the past two days, despite weeks of a nationwide lockdown.

Another form of this argument was taken up by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who during his daily press conference on Thursday cited the decreasing number of new hospitalizations and new admissions to intensive care units as a sign that the pandemic was slowing down. Cuomo did not state, and no reporter questioned, whether or not this is a reflection of hospitals reaching a saturation point and being unable to take new patients or people simply afraid to go to hospitals for fear of being infected.

Neither Trump nor Cuomo was asked about the discrepancies between the fatalities declared as caused by the coronavirus and the sharp spike in deaths of people at home in New York City. Mark D. Levine, a member of the City Council’s health committee, has noted that there are currently 200–215 people dying in their homes each day, up from 20–25 a year ago. This suggests that thousands of people who have died from COVID-19 are not being counted.

It was also announced that the administration plans to be able to do 750,000 tests per week, this will not happen for 4–8 weeks. By that time, likely hundreds of thousands more will be infected and tens of thousands will be dead. Only the rich and their hangers-on will be tested quickly.

The numbers that Trump and the American ruling class are focused on, however, are not the toll of sick and dying—about whom they could care less—but the Dow Jones Industrial Average and other figures indicating their continued accumulation of wealth and profits.

The Dow has shot up more than 5,000 points since its low on March 23, a rise sparked by the trillions of dollars that have been pumped into corporations and the financial markets as well as predictions that factories and workplaces will soon reopen and the process of extracting profit from the labor power of the working class would resume with full force.

Wall Street is also being buoyed by promises that the Federal Reserve will continue pouring unceasing trillions into their gaping maws, even as the Trump administration and congressional Democrats haggle over the terms in which rations will be doled out to workers and small businesses who face poverty and bankruptcy from the ongoing economic collapse.

The working class faces an irreconcilable class conflict. Thousands of workers have carried out strikes and protests over being forced to work under unsafe conditions with the spread of the coronavirus epidemic. It was this resistance that forced corporate America to accede to the shutdown of the auto plants, factories and many other work locations. The efforts by Trump and his Democratic Party accomplices to declare America “open for business” again, under conditions of a rising toll of infections and deaths, will trigger a social explosion.

Social and economic catastrophe intensifies as 6.6 million Americans file for unemployment

Jerry White

According to the US Labor Department, 6.6 million workers filed for unemployment benefits last week, as the health crisis produced by the coronavirus pandemic develops into the greatest economic crisis since the 1930s.

Over the past three weeks, 16.8 million Americans filed for jobless claims in the largest and fastest wave of job cuts in the US on record. During the 2008-09 global financial crash, it took 44 weeks—roughly 10 months—for national jobless claims to reach as high as they now have in less than a month.

As staggering as these numbers are, they are an underestimation of the full scope of the catastrophe. Millions of undocumented workers who lost jobs in restaurants, construction, service jobs and other sectors cannot qualify for unemployment benefits and are therefore not counted in the figures.

People wait in line for help with unemployment benefits at the One-Stop Career Center in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Moreover, the surge of applicants over the last three weeks overwhelmed state unemployment offices, clogging phone lines, crashing web sites and leaving hundreds of thousands unable to file their claims.

There were 170,000 new claims in Florida last week, bringing the three-week total to nearly half a million. The state’s automated system broke down at the end of March after 860,000 calls were made in a four-day period. In Hialeah, near Miami, hundreds of laid-off workers were forced to risk their health and line up outside a local library to get paper applications.

California saw a staggering 925,450 initial claims last week, on top of the 1.06 million claims filed the week of March 28 and the 186,000 claims filed the week of March 21. Like the rest of the country, large and small businesses have been shuttered due to the statewide lockdown.

This week, San Francisco Bay Area event-organizing company Eventbrite announced it would cut its workforce nearly in half. Online-review company Yelp told employees it was laying off 1,000 workers and furloughing 1,100 as it imposes “severe cost reductions” to “survive amid the coronavirus pandemic,” the San Jose Mercury Newsreported.

Among other large states, Georgia posted 388,175 new claims, Michigan 384,844, New York 345,246, Texas 313,832 and Ohio 272,129.

In New York City, Corrine Chin, a 23-year-old marketing worker from Brooklyn, told the Wall Street Journal that she sometimes calls New York’s labor department hundreds of times a day but has been unable to collect a penny since being furloughed in mid-March.

Millions of workers were living paycheck to paycheck before the crisis. The one-time $1,200 payment promised under the misnamed Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act will do little, if it ever arrives.

Nearly one in three Americans (31 percent) expect that the stimulus money will not sustain them for a month or help them out at all, according to a new Bankrate.com survey of nearly 1,500 adults. Nearly one third of apartment dwellers could not pay their April rent, and the $1,200 is less than the monthly median rent.

While millions face economic destitution, the stimulus package will provide trillions to the banks and corporations. The same day that the new jobless figures were released, the Dow Jones and S&P 500 shot up on news that the Federal Reserve will use $2.3 trillion to purchase the bad debts of Wall Street and the giant corporations.

Over the last two weeks, as coronavirus deaths rose from 550 to nearly 17,000, the Dow increased by 28 percent, the most rapid rise in history. For the financial oligarchy, there are no lines to wait in to receive its handouts from the US government. While small businesses are finding impossible hurdles to qualify for loans, the assets of the central bank and its money-printing operations have been turned over to Wall Street.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is cynically seeking to exploit the massive economic hardship caused by business closures and lockdowns to argue for a premature return to work under conditions where the pandemic continues to spread rapidly through workplaces.

There is a rising tide of social opposition in the US and around the globe to demand adequate protection from the pandemic and its devastating economic and social consequences. The essential principle that must guide the response to the health care and economic crisis is that the needs of the working class must take absolute priority over the wealth and profits of the rich.

The Socialist Equality Party demands emergency measures to address the economic crisis for workers:

• Full pay for all workers and the cancellation of all rent, utility and other payments for the duration of the pandemic.
  
• The repeal of the corporate-Wall Street bailout. The immediate redirection of financial and industrial resources toward fighting the pandemic and providing health care, service and industrial workers with all necessary equipment.
  
• Free and universal health care for everyone, including all those who are unemployed. Full pay and citizenship rights for all immigrant workers who have been laid off.
  
• Stop the COVID-19 pandemic! The lives of thousands of workers can be saved through emergency measures to expand medical care, testing, and treatment.
  
• All industries that are being bailed out by the government must instead be converted into public utilities under the democratic control of the working class, redirected toward the production of critical necessities.
  
• A massive increase in taxes on the rich and the seizure of the trillions of dollars hoarded by the corporate and financial oligarchs.

The pandemic has laid bare the fundamental class divisions in society. The working class is the essential and progressive force in society—saving lives, producing and transporting food, medicine and other necessary goods and maintaining the infrastructure of a modern, mass society. The ruling class, in its mad fixation on self-enrichment, has proven to be the biggest obstacle to a scientific and humane response to the pandemic.

In every action that it has taken over the past three months, the ruling class has demonstrated its contempt for the health and lives of the working class. The conditions in the United States, moreover, are repeated in different forms in every capitalist country. While the ruling elites utilize their control over the state to hand themselves trillions, workers face death, unemployment and immiseration.

Atlas Corps Fellowship 2020 for Emerging Global Leaders to Serve in USA

Application Deadline: 1st May 2020

Eligible Countries: International (except citizens of the United States)
Special Opportunity: Thanks to the support of the U.S. State Department, Atlas Corps has a special focus on rising leaders from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Palestinian Territories, and Russia.

To be taken at (country): United States of America (USA)

About the Award: Atlas Corps is an overseas fellowship for the world’s best social change leaders. Our mission is to address critical social issues by developing leaders, strengthening organizations, and promoting innovation through an overseas fellowship of skilled social sector professionals. For those serving in the United States, we will be bringing in new classes every 2 to 4 months. Fellows serve full-time at Host Organizations, develop leadership skills, and learn best practices through the Atlas Corps Global Leadership Lab professional development series and networking opportunities with other Fellows who are talented professionals from around the world. This prestigious fellowship includes health insurance, enrollment in the Atlas Corps Global Leadership Lab, flight and visa costs, and a living stipend to cover basic expenses (groceries, local transportation, and shared housing).

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: 

• Two or more years of professional experience
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent
• English proficiency (oral, writing, reading)
• Age 35 or younger
• Apply to serve in a country other than where you are from
• Commitment to return to your home country after the 12-18 month Fellowship
• Commitment to living on a basic stipend that only covers groceries, shared housing, and local transportation to and from the Host Organization

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Fellowship: As volunteers, Fellows receive a modest living stipend intended to cover only shared housing, food and local public transportation. The stipend is not intended to cover expenses you may have in your home country; eating out at restaurants; buying new clothes; or emergencies. While Fellows are able to keep their basic expenses (food, shared housing and local transportation) within the allotted stipend, many choose to bring additionalfunds for personal items, such as clothing, or travel and entertainment. We recommend Fellows have a little money saved for emergencies. The amount of additional funds required will depend entirely on your personal spending habits. Monthly budgets vary from city to city, but the monthly living budget for a Fellow in Washington, DC, is as follows:

• Rent & Utilities: $800
• Transportation: $200
• Food and other small necessities: $460
• Total $1,460/month

Atlas Corps provides documentation to secure a J-1, Exchange Visitor visa (trainee designation).

Duration of Fellowship: The Atlas Corps Fellowship typically lasts 12-18 months.

How to Apply: The application is a multi-step process.

1. Online Application – Part 1: You will need to create a login and you can save your responses so you can return to the application at any time. In Part 1 of the application (known as the “short form”), you provide contact information and complete the initial eligibility test, and if you pass the eligibility test, you’ll complete additional background questions and one short essay.NOTE: In order to sponsor candidates to come to the United States for one year as a Fellow, we require detailed information about each applicant. Please answer each question honestly and thoroughly. If you are found to be dishonest in the application, you will NOT be accepted as a Fellow and you will be sent home if you have been accepted.
2. Online Application – Part 2 (by invitation only): Atlas Corps will review Part 1 applications and invite eligible candidates to complete Part 2 of the application (known as the “long form”), which includes additional questions about your skills and interests and several short essay questions. You will also be required to submit contact information for at least two references who know you in a professional capacity and will write a letter of recommendation about your skills and experiences as well as your potential for success as an Atlas Corps Fellow. You will need to send your requests for letter of recommendation directly through the application system. Your recommenders will receive an email that asks for a recommendation. More detailed instructions can be found in the online application form.
3. Atlas Corps Review and Interview Process (by invitation only): Atlas Corps will review Part 2 applications and select top candidates to interview via Skype with the Atlas Corps Selection Board, including Atlas Corps staff and nonprofit sector, government, and business leaders from multiple countries.
4. Host Organization Review Process (by invitation only): Candidates who pass the Atlas Corps interview stage will be designated as Semi-Finalists, which means they are eligible to be reviewed by potential Host Organizations . Atlas Corps determines which of our Semi-Finalists may be a good fit for specific positions at potential Host Organizations based on their interests and skill set and the organization’s needs, and forwards those applications to the organizations.
5. Host Organization Interview Process (by invitation only): Host Organizations conduct Skype video interviews with selected Semi- Finalists.
6. Selection and Visa Process: Host Organizations will make their final recommendations to Atlas Corps, and Atlas Corps will notify the selected candidates. After being selected, Fellows will go to the U.S. Embassy in their respective countries to apply for a J-1 visa. Atlas Corps will provide support in obtaining this visa.
7. Semi-Finalists who are not selected by a Host Organization will be notified and may be given the option to keep their application on file for consideration for the next class of the Fellowship.

For more information, go through the FAQs

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

UNEP/UNESCO/BMU International Short Course on Sustainable Mobility 2020 Scholarships for Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 15th April 2020

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

To be Taken at (Country): Germany AND/OR Online

About the Award: Participants will learn from each other’s experiences, present the respective national transport policies and develop sustainable processes and measures for their countries. Professors and scientists from the Technical University of Dresden and other renowned research institutions, as well as experts from industry and the German Environment Agency, will elaborate on approaches for holistic traffic planning and concepts for sustainable transport development. Topics include an analysis of the current situation, assessment procedures and manuals, alternative fuels and engines, transport planning, regional planning, pollution and noise, fuel consumption and climate change, public transport, walking, cycling as well as methods for measuring access and the needs of the population in terms of mobility. This interdisciplinary short course provides a solid background knowledge combined with workshops, participatory teaching methods and on-site inspections.

Type: Short course

Eligibility: This course is aimed primarily at senior management experts with a technical background in traffic and urban planning. The training is suited for experts on a managerial level and decision-makers with tasks in environmental-related planning, coordination and management in ministries, authorities, local government and non-governmental institutions of developing countries, including newly industrialised economies. We expect a high motivation to explore concepts for sustainable mobility – as well as working towards implementing them. A first university degree (BA, BSc, e.g.), adequate communication skills in English language and the nomination by the delegating institution are mandatory.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award:

• Our International Steering Committee selects the 21 participants of this course by August 2020. Participants stay in our comfortable private studio apartments and receive a stipend to cover basic living expenses. Flights, health insurance etc. will be provided. Our course office provides further manifold assistance. Participants successfully completing this course will be awarded a Certificate of Proficiency in Sustainable Mobility.
• In both scenarios (online and on-site training), after successful completion of the training, you will, of course, receive a certificate detailing your achievements. You will also receive a fellowship of 550 € to support you with any additional expenses you might have had during the training.

Duration of Award: 13 November – 09 December 2020

How to Apply: For more information on the application process, please visit the FAQ section.

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Important note: Courses are full-time and attendance of lectures and excursions is compulsory. It is not possible to pursue regular employment at the same time. In the application process, we therefore request confirmation from the employer that the candidate is exempted from his regular duties for the duration of the course. We strongly advise against applying for the courses if the employer does not fully agree to the exemption from the job for the time of the course.

New Zealand government says unemployment will hit “double digits”

Chris Ross & Tom Peters

New Zealand’s Treasury stated last week that the country’s unemployment rate could reach “double digits,” as the crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic continues to deepen.

Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said unemployment would top 6.7 percent, the level reached following the 2008 financial crisis, despite a multi-billion dollar economic stimulus package mainly consisting of subsidies and tax cuts for businesses.

Economists’ forecasts for unemployment range between 8 percent and 30 percent, roughly the same as in the 1930s Great Depression. The OECD expects New Zealand’s economic activity to contract by 28 percent in the June quarter.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern enacted a state of emergency and a four-week lockdown of schools and non-essential businesses on March 26, in an attempt to reduce the spread of the potentially fatal COVID-19 virus. The number of cases in New Zealand reached 1,239 today but limited testing means there could be many undetected cases.

A major part of the stimulus package is a “wage subsidy” scheme that pays a wholly inadequate $585.80 a week per full-time worker and $350 for part-time workers, before tax. Businesses whose revenue falls by a 30 percent decline in any month of 2020 can claim the subsidy. As of Tuesday, $6.6 billion had been paid to employers, covering over a million employees, one fifth of the population.

This has not prevented mass redundancies and wage cuts. The payments effectively keep workers on belt-tightening budgets, some not knowing whether they will be able to cover basics such as rent or mortgage payments, food, power and other costs or debts.

Ardern told the media on Monday she wouldn’t rule out taking a pay cut to her salary of $471,000 a year, and reducing MPs’ salaries, in a bogus gesture of solidarity with workers affected by the crisis.

As in the US, Europe and Australia, everything is being done to prop up big businesses and the banks and protect the fortunes of the super-rich. No policies have been announced to prevent a major reduction in living standards of the vast majority.

There is widespread hardship, particularly among low-paid workers and insecure migrants who have been thrown out of work. Demand for Wellington City Mission’s food parcels has quadrupled since the lockdown began. Charities in Auckland and Christchurch have reported similar sudden increases in demand.

The union bureaucracy is playing a key role as enforcer of the cutbacks. The unions, which support and frequently help to fund the ruling Labour Party, are acting as adjuncts of the government and big business, as they did following the 2008 crisis.

Air New Zealand plans to lay off a third of its 12,500 workers, despite the company receiving a $900 million government loan. The union E tū, which covers 5,000 airline workers, agreed with cutting jobs, only suggesting in a March 31 statement that the company didn’t need to “lay off as many people as quickly as they have proposed.”

Similarly, after Air NZ confirmed it wanted to sack 387 pilots, the NZ Air Line Pilots’ Association agreed on the need for job losses. President Andrew Ridling said on April 7: “we have been working closely with the airline… [and] will continue to negotiate on getting this number reduced and finalising the agreement process.”

Flight Centre has made 250 NZ-based staff redundant and closed 33 shops following the closure of 100 outlets in Australia.

German-owned media publisher Bauer NZ last week ended publication of its NZ magazines including Woman’s Weekly, The Listener and North and South, resulting in over 300 job losses. The magazines are not being published during the lockdown, but the media sector was already facing economic problems. Chief executive Brendon Hill stated that reduced advertising revenue made it “highly unlikely that demand will ever return to pre-crisis levels.”

Media company NZME closed one of its radio stations, Radio Sport, following the suspension of professional sports, and has warned of job cuts at NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB. MediaWorks, which owns TV3, asked staff to accept a “voluntary” 15 percent pay cut otherwise the company would begin widespread redundancies.

On March 31, Infrastructure New Zealand chief executive Paul Blair threatened that the construction sector could shed 30 percent of its workforce in three months. The industry employs one in ten NZ workers.

Fletcher Building, one of the country’s largest and most profitable companies, accepted the government’s wage subsidies while announcing that 9,000 workers will face an initial wage cut of 20 percent, rising to 50 percent if the lockdown continues after four weeks, and then 70 percent if it is further extended.

On April 2, the Amalgamated Workers Union described Fletcher’s proposal as “disgraceful,” while at the same time praising other companies that had cut pay to 80 percent as an example of “a fair outcome” achieved in collaboration with the unions. Similarly, FIRST Union appealed to the government to intervene and instruct Fletcher to “make every practicable effort to pay their workers 80 percent of their normal wages at a minimum.”

SkyCity, a casino and convention centre business with over 5,000 workers, has also cut wages by 20 percent and last week announced 200 planned redundancies. The company said it was losing $90 million a month in revenue during the lockdown. However, in the last two financial years alone it made $314.1 million in profits.

Some employers are pressuring workers to use annual leave to “top up” their wages. FIRST Union reported that this included bus companies Ritchies and Go Bus, which have been involved in protracted disputes over low wages and long hours.

Local government is also beginning to impose drastic spending and job cuts. Auckland Council, whose mayor Phil Goff is a former Labour Party leader, announced on Tuesday that it would cut as many as 1,100 temporary and contractor jobs. Goff told Stuff the cuts were necessary “with a recession looming perhaps as big as the 1930s.”

In an attempt to maintain the ruling elite’s fiction of shared sacrifice, Goff declared that he would be willing to take a pay cut to his $296,000 salary.

The central government is no doubt preparing even more drastic cuts to force workers to pay for its unprecedented bailouts of big business. On March 31, Finance Minister Robertson told Newstalk ZB “generations” would be paying back the debt incurred by the government.

Sri Lanka government intensifies crackdown on social media

Vimukthi Vidarshana

Sri Lankan police have arrested more than seven individuals, including several university students on allegations of publishing “false” information on their Facebook accounts and “maliciously” criticising public officials involved in COVID-19 prevention programs. Authorities claim that such news “impedes” the work of officials attempting to contain the pandemic.

The crackdown follows an April 1 directive by the acting Inspector General of Police (IGP) ordering the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and all police stations to arrest accused individuals. Deputy Inspector General of Police Ajith Rohana later told the media that anyone sharing “false” information would also be charged.

It is yet another sign that President Gotabhaya Rajapakse’s government is preparing even more repressive attacks on freedom of expression in response to rising social discontent.

Peradeniya University student Tharindu Avishka was arrested for allegedly making false claims on his Facebook account that the hospital affiliated to the Kotalawala Defense University had been reserved as a coronavirus quarantine centre for VIPs.

It is no secret that while the general public is being held in quarantine centres with minimal facilities, wealthy layers returning from overseas are allowed to quarantine themselves in their homes or other comfortable places of their own choice.

By contrast, thousands of workers and poor people confront immense hardship because the government’s lockdown and curfew measures fail to provide any real plan for ordinary people to obtain daily food essentials and medicines or safe conditions for health workers.

Police also raided the home of another university student in Maharagama, near Colombo, following allegations that he criticised the appointment of Basil Rajapakse—the Sri Lankan president’s youngest brother—to head the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, on his Facebook account.

According to media reports, a dance teacher was arrested on Sunday for reportedly claiming on Facebook that President Gotabaya Rajapakse was “infected with the coronavirus.” A youth has also been arrested by Uppuweli police in Trincomalee on claims that he criticised on his Facebook the area’s divisional secretariat for injustices that occurred during the coronavirus eradication and quarantine program.

Police Media Spokesman Superintendent of Police Jaliya Seneviratne said that the accused were arrested under Section 6 of the Computer Crimes Act and the Penal Code, but gave no specific details. According to media accounts, many of those arrested have not received any legal assistance. Anyone arrested under this law must be tried by a High Court.

The new directive can be used, not just against social media activists but any internet publishers and to witch hunt journalists. The clear message is, “Do not criticise the government!”

The IGP’s directive and these latest arrests are illegal and undemocratic. The publication of so-called “false” news and defamation, however, are not criminal offences in Sri Lanka and, according to records, no one has previously been arrested for allegedly publishing such information.

Last year, the Sirisena-Wickremesinge government attempted to introduce legislation criminalising “fake news” with fines of up to one million rupees and a maximum prison sentence of five years. The bill was not passed in the face of widespread opposition by civil rights groups.

In Sri Lanka, successive governments and extreme-right formations have launched anti-democratic attacks on the media and individual journalists. Under former President Mahinda Rajapakse—Gotabhaya Rajapakse’s oldest brother—many journalists were singled out and targeted, including Sunday Leader editor Lasantha Wickrematunge, who was shot and killed, and Prageeth Eknaligoda who disappeared.

These assaults continued under the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration. One year ago, on April 1, police arrested and remanded well-known writer Shakthika Sathkumara, falsely accusing him of insulting Buddha in a short story published on his Facebook account.

The latest anti-democratic attacks on social media are occurring amid rising criticism of the government’s refusal to introduce mass testing to trace and contain the highly-contagious coronavirus or provide sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE) to medical workers and basic healthcare and daily necessities to the masses.

Public health inspectors, nurses, officials providing Samurdhi welfare assistance, and village officers have threatened to withdraw their services unless authorities provide them with enough PPEs and other facilities.

Hundreds of thousands of workers and the self-employed in urban areas have been pushed back to their home villages, many without any means of financial support while the rural poor confront major difficulties cultivating and selling their crops.

After Colombo’s three-decade war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and years of successive government attacks on jobs and social conditions, the current Rajapakse regime is sitting on a social and political tinderbox.

Currently there are almost six million social media users among the island’s 21 million-strong population, many of them young people who recognise that mainstream capitalist media function as mouthpieces of the government.

Sensitive to this fact, and the rising anti-government denunciations, Rajapakse issued a tweet last weekend warning the public to “beware of fake news & messages being circulated” under his name on social media platforms. All of his announcements, he declared, “will be published only through official channels of Presidents’ Media Division.”

The Sri Lankan government’s actions against social media users coincide with the increasing attacks on the media internationally. Last week, the Indian government secured a legal mandate from the country’s Supreme Court to crack down on the media over “false” news. The court ruled that media outlets could only report what it termed “the official version” of developments. This was coupled with a threat that media outlets that failed to do so could be prosecuted for spreading “fake news.”

The Rajapakse government’s increasing censorship is in line with the expanding militarisation of its administration and the appointment of retired military generals to key positions, including Army Commander Lt. General Shavendra Silva to head National Task Force on prevention of COVID-19.

None of the parliamentary parties of Sri Lanka’s ruling elite, including the United National Party (UNP), Tamil National Alliance and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), has raised any objection to the recent arrest of social media users and, notwithstanding various tactical differences, have backed Rajapakse’s militarisation of its administration.