UK National Health Service on the precipice due to COVID-19 surge

Ben Trent & Rory Woods

The National Health Service (NHS) is in imminent danger of being again overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients. The limited partial national lockdown—excluding schools, colleges, factories and universities—that came into operation last Thursday will do little to avert the impending disaster.

Announcing this belated and inadequate measure, Johnson said, “Because the huge exponential growth in the number of patients –by no means all of them elderly, by the way—would mean that doctors and nurses would be forced to choose which patients to treat.

“Who would get oxygen and who wouldn’t, who would live and who would die, and doctors and nurses would be forced to choose between saving COVID patients and non-COVID patients. And the sheer weight of COVID demand would mean depriving tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of non-COVID patients of the care they need.”

Johnson’s speech was an attempted cover-up of his government’s responsibility for tens of thousands of preventable deaths and suffering in Britain since the pandemic hit.

The Nightingale Hospital North West at Manchester's main exhibition centre (credit: WSWS)

Sir Simon Stephens, the Chief Executive Officer of NHS England, gave stark figures last week on the rise of COVID-19 infections and hospitalisations. He stated, “in early September we had under 500 coronavirus patients in our hospitals; by the beginning of October, that had become 2,000, and now [November 4] it is around 11,000. That's the equivalent of 22 of our hospitals full of coronavirus patients, and even since Saturday we've filled another two hospitals’ equivalent with more desperately sick coronavirus patients needing our specialist care.” This is over half the amount at the pandemic’s height in April (18,970), which was almost three full weeks into a complete national lockdown. Around 1,000 coronavirus patients in hospitals are occupying ventilators beds in Intensive Care Units (ICUs).

As the lockdown came into operation, the NHS was returned to the highest Level 4 alert status. This means that NHS England takes take over coordination of the health service's response to the pandemic, away from its normal regional control. The national incident coordination centre, led by the NHS’s senior figures was reactivated, after being closed in July. This is a response to the continuing rise in cases, which are estimated to persist for at least 10 days following the lockdown, due to the typical lag between infection and the development of symptoms requiring hospitalisation.

Professor Stephen Powis, NHS England’s medical director, declared at a press conference last week that, “[a]s infection rates rise in the next few weeks… the projection is that hospital numbers will rise as well and as that occurs, it starts to fill up our hospitals, it starts to eat into the current available capacity that we have, it goes beyond the peak bed usage that we had in wave one.”

Stephens warned that the surge in COVID-19 cases will result in the halting non-COVID related care, including surgery. This has already occurred in trusts across the North, impacting Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, and areas of Yorkshire, as well as NHS trusts in Devon and Plymouth.

COVID-19 cases are also rising in the South of England at an increased pace, with the R (Reproduction) value of the virus above 1 everywhere. The R number in Surrey and the south east were reported the joint highest in England last week.

In Greater Manchester, one of the first regions in the North that went into Tier 3 local lockdown, prior to the national lockdown, the regional health chief declared that the region’s NHS was in a “very, very worrying” situation.

The number of COVID patients being treated in the region with a population of nearly 3 million had already exceeded that of the peak in April. Hospitals are trying to open up new ICU’s in anticipation of the surge. Manchester’s Nightingale hospital has reopened, accepting non-COVID patients since the rest of the system is now starting to refuse admissions for non-COVID cases.

Leaked reports of forecast figures for bed occupancy rates in Manchester saw 90 percent capacity hit by the end of last week and into this week, with only the Manchester Foundation Trust forecasting that it can make it to late-November without hitting such high figures.

Last Monday, the North West Ambulance Service declared a “major incident” because of unmanageable amount of calls. They received 2,266 emergency calls in 8 hours, a 36 percent increase compared to the same period the previous Monday. COVID-19 calls accounted for around one in seven cases. This is the dire situation as the UK moves into the standard flu season, which brought the NHS to its knees just four years ago.

In terms of the national situation, Stephens declared that “There is no health service in the world that by itself can cope with coronavirus on the rampage.” While it is true that defeating the coronavirus and saving millions of lives requires a global effort, Stevens comments serve to conceal the devastating impact of the decades-long assault on the NHS that, including its deepening privatisation, that have rendered the NHS incapable of treat thousands of COVID-19 cases, on top of its usual public health requirements

According to NHS England data, the number of beds available are at record low levels. The current figure of 118,451 beds is under 40 percent of the 297,364 the NHS had in 1987. In 1987, however, the UK population was 56.7 million, and by 2020 the population has gone up by almost 10 million. On October 1, 96 percent of hospital beds in England were occupied. Bed occupancy of more than 85 percent is considered unsafe.

More than a decade of austerity measures by Labour and Tory governments has left Britain with only 246 beds per 100,000 people, one of the lowest rates across Europe. Even incorporating the additional beds available from “surge capacity”, and the seven Nightingale hospitals combined, adds a mere 13,500 beds to the total.

But with the staff shortages running at more than 100,000 vacant posts, which include more than 40,000 nursing vacancies in the NHS, manning these hospitals is not feasible. Staff absence due to COVID-19, stress and other mental health issues are at record levels. NHS England has already suspended the requirement for one-to-one treatment in intensive care, allowing nurses to look after two critically ill people at the same time.

A glimpse of the impact on staff due to COVID-19 infections is seen in Royal Bournemouth Hospital (RBH) and Poole General Hospitals (PGH). Last week, between both hospitals, 82 staff had symptoms, with 171 isolating and 14 shielding.

A member of staff at Royal Bournemouth Hospital told the WSWS, “We have so many absences of staff across our trust mainly due to staff or their relatives being ill with Covid-19. We experienced several outbreaks in our wards recently.

“Several wards had to be shut down in the Poole General Hospital and here in Bournemouth. We have several nurses, doctors and other staff tested positive with Covid-19. Even with numerous requests we were not able to get tests for the other colleagues who were in contact with them. Infection control unit says it is not necessary.”

“Filling the staff template is a nightmare even though the nurses who do extra shifts sometimes are awarded £70 extra. Every day we have dozens of unfilled shifts going to the staff resource pool in the trust including some in the ITU [intensive treatment unit]. This is not safe for the staff and patients.”

The reason the NHS cannot cope is not only because of underfunding and cuts but because of the homicidal policies of the Johnson government. The Malthusian “herd immunity” policy pursued openly at the start of the pandemic, but more subtly since, has led to almost 50,000 official deaths, with the real count at least 15,000 deaths higher.

The first lockdown, which was only implemented as a reaction to mounting social anger and industrial action, saw the shutdown of schools, colleges, universities and non-essential factories. But these are being kept open during the latest lockdown. This is not because the virus does not spread in these locations, but because of the fear that if production does not resume the capitalist elite will see a reduction in profits and their vast hoards of wealth.

The burnout of staff, backlog of non-COVID patients and the surge of the pandemic are the responsibility of the deliberate and criminal policies of the Tory government, carried out with the tacit support of Labour Party and the trade unions.

Spain’s PSOE-Podemos regime rejects lock-downs as COVID-19 soars

Alice Summers

As COVID-19 rips across Spain, the Podemos-PSOE (Spanish Socialist Party) government continues to reject measures to safeguard the lives of workers and their families. Having already denied requests from regional administrations to authorise a shelter-at-home policy, it is insisting that this policy is neither possible nor necessary.

Last Tuesday, in a press conference for the Ministry of Health, Fernando Simón, director of the Centre for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies, made this criminal policy clear: “What we have right now in Spain is not a [stay-at-home] lock-down, and this will probably not be necessary.”

Podemos party leader Pablo Iglesias speaks as Spain's caretaker Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez looks on after signing an agreement at the parliament in Madrid, Spain, Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2019. (AP Photo/Paul White)

He continued: “If we carry out a real and full confinement and nobody leaves their house for any reason, within around 15 days we would have this under control, or perhaps within a month. But this is impossible. There are people who need to work, to buy things, who need to leave… Total confinement is impossible.”

“If the objective is to completely eliminate transmission,” he added, “forget it, it is impossible.”

The priorities of the ruling class are clear: even if a lock-down could largely eliminate the virus, it would rather see mass contagion and death in order to ensure the working class keeps producing profits. Simón’s comments came as Spain registered its highest fatality total in a single day since the end of May, with 368 coronavirus deaths last Thursday.

Around 20,000 new cases are being recorded daily in Spain, far more than in the spring. As an average of 200-250 die of the disease every day, estimates suggest that at least 7,000 coronavirus deaths will occur in November alone in Spain. As of Monday, the official death toll stood at 39,345, with more than 1.4 million people so far becoming infected with COVID-19 across the country.

It is widely acknowledged, including in major corporate media, that these official figures massively understate the impact of the virus. Last week, the National Institute of Statistics (INE) released a document showing that there have been 65,892 excess deaths recorded since March, as overwhelmed hospitals struggled to treat the influx of COVID-19 patients.

New estimates from the Spanish Secretary of State for Social Rights also shine a clearer light on the true scale of the devastation wrought by the pandemic. According to these figures, released on Friday, approximately 43,697 people died of coronavirus in the first wave of the pandemic alone (up to 23 June), far higher than the official death toll of 28,148 recorded during this period.

Particularly badly hit were care homes, where an estimated 20,268 vulnerable or elderly people died from the disease during the first wave. This means that between 47 and 50 percent of the total COVID-19 deaths registered in that period were in these residential facilities.

During the pandemic’s March-April peak, the virus swept through care homes in Spain and across Europe, outpacing the ability of care workers to provide for and safeguard residents. In March, some elderly residents in Madrid were left without care and food for days due to staff absences and impossible working conditions. The military, which belatedly intervened to relieve care homes, found 23 dead in one care home in the Spanish capital, including two nuns who had been providing care.

Mortality rates for those infected with COVID-19 in care homes were around 13 percent in March, as the virus devastated these facilities, rising to 22 percent for those over the age of 80. While coronavirus mortality rates in care homes have fallen since March, they are still estimated at a very high 7 percent.

Residential homes are once again emerging as epicentres of infection in Spain, with 137 of the 1,526 outbreaks recorded in Spain in the week from 29 October being in these facilities—affecting 2,336 people. José Augusto García, President of the Spanish Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology, told Canal 24 horas: “Outbreaks in elderly residential homes are 12 times as frequent and three times as strong as in the population as a whole.”

Health care workers are also bearing the brunt of the pandemic, with 76,431 infections among this section of the workforce since the start of the pandemic, or 5.75 percent of the total. There were 63 health care worker deaths up until 5 June.

Meanwhile, according to public sector union Central Sindical Independiente y de Funcionarios (CSIF), the Spanish health care system shed 17,548 jobs over September and October, just as the second wave of infections began to pick up speed. The majority of these employees were temporary workers hired to fill gaps over the summer holiday period. Around 28 percent of all health care workers in Spain are on temporary contracts.

Agitation against measures to combat the pandemic is being led by the Spanish bourgeoisie, who are demanding that the government keep workers on the job and keep schools open. Speaking to El País, Antonio Garamendi, president of the Confederación Española de Organizaciones Empresariales (Spanish Confederation of Employers’ Organisations) stated that a new lockdown “would be a disaster for the economy, companies and employment.”

Echoing this view, a banker bluntly told the same newspaper: “The fewer confinements the better. We can’t close industry or schools, because this means that parents would have to stay at home with their children and the economy would not function. It would be a true catastrophe.”

Fraudulently claiming that lock-down measures implemented in March had no effect, a representative of a Spanish energy group told El País: “We don’t believe that confinement is a good idea. We have seen the results from March and its almost non-existent effect. We believe that before applying [lock-down measures] we should exhaust every possible solution so as to avoid completely paralysing the economy.”

Even as the PSOE-Podemos government continues to endanger workers’ lives at the behest of the Spanish and international bourgeoisie—justifying their criminal refusal to implement substantive measures to combat the pandemic with lying claims that the economy cannot afford it—they have been able to open the coffers of the state to hand out massive bailouts to giant corporations.

Last week, the Spanish cabinet agreed to their first massive state rescue package since the start of the pandemic, pledging to bail out Air Europa to the tune of €475 million. This state aid will see the third-largest Spanish airline (after Iberia and Vueling) receiving €240 million in participatory loans and another €235 in ordinary loans, to be paid back over six years.

The bailout will be overseen by state-owned industrial holding company SEPI (State Society of Industrial Participation), which will have the right to appoint two representatives to the company’s advisory board and will have to authorise any planned workforce restructuring by the airline.

The livelihoods of the airline’s nearly 3,000 workers now hang in the balance, with Air Europa refusing to reveal the details of its supposed “viability plan” to its employees, according to pilots union SEPLA. The state bailout will be predicated on massive attacks on jobs and conditions at Air Europa.

Australian political elite rushes to salute Biden and re-affirm US alliance

Mike Head

Both the Liberal-National government and the Labor Party opposition were quick to congratulate Joe Biden on his assumed ascendancy to the US presidency and to reassert their commitment to the US military alliance, knowing that this means an intensified conflict with China.

On Sunday, as soon as the major US media networks called the presidential election for Biden, Prime Minister Scott Morrison issued a statement welcoming a Biden presidency. Like many of his counterparts in US-aligned governments, Morrison did not wait for any concession of defeat by President Donald Trump.

Joe Biden during a 2016 visit to Australia as vice president (Credit: US Embassy in Australia)

Morrison’s statement was in sync with similar pronouncements by the other US-led “Five Eyes” global surveillance partners—the UK, Canada and New Zealand. That common response underscores the close military and intelligence ties that bind these governments to Washington and their support for the US ruling class in its fight to reassert the Asia-Pacific hegemony it cemented in World War II.

After wishing Biden “every success for his term of office,” Morrison’s statement declared: “The President-elect has been a great friend of Australia over many years, including when he visited Australia in 2016.”

Morrison insisted that “American leadership is indispensable” for the world’s “many challenges,” including the COVID-19 pandemic, “ensuring a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” and “upholding the rules, norms and standards of our international community.”

These are code words for an unequivocal alignment with Washington’s escalating confrontation with China, which was launched by the military and strategic “pivot to Asia” undertaken by the Obama administration, in which Biden was vice president.

Morrison doubled down on this message at his press conference. “There is no more important, no deeper, no broader, no closer relationship, no relationship more critical to Australia’s strategic interests than the one that we enjoy with the United States,” he said.

Morrison said he hoped Biden would visit Australia next year to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the ANZUS military treaty, saying it was the “bedrock of our security foundations.” This treaty was signed in 1951 at the height of the US-led neo-colonial war in Korea—one of the constant series of such US wars to which Australian soldiers have been deployed.

At the same time, Morrison praised Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for “their contribution to the Australia-US relationship.” In recent months, Pompeo has spearheaded the Trump administration’s threats against China, accusing Beijing of “aggression” in the Asia-Pacific and of deliberately letting loose the COVID-19 virus on the world.

Asked by a journalist to nominate Trump’s “legacy in the Indo-Pacific,” Morrison identified the re-establishment of the “Quad” between the US, Japan, India and Australia, which is aimed strengthening military ties against China, and the recent Malabar naval exercises between the four partners off India’s eastern coast.

The Labor Party echoed this line-up against China. Labor leader Anthony Albanese welcomed Biden’s victory, saying: “The US alliance has been our most important partnership since WWII and your commitment to leadership will see this strengthened into the future.”

Albanese issued a joint statement with Labor’s shadow foreign affairs minister Penny Wong and shadow defence minister Richard Marles, saying the US alliance “remains a cornerstone of Labor policy.” Albanese later told reporters that Biden was “a friend of Australia.”

Morrison’s repeated references to Biden’s July 2016 visit to Australia are revealing. On that trip, Biden restated in bullying terms the determination of American imperialism to maintain its economic and strategic dominance in Asia through every means, including war if necessary.

“Anyone who questions America’s dedication and staying power in the Asia Pacific is not paying attention,” he declared in a Sydney speech, boasting of America’s “unparalleled” military strength.

“And we’ve committed to put over 60 percent of our fleet and our most advanced military capabilities in the Pacific by 2020,” Biden added. Referring to Obama, he said: “As the president said, we are all in. We are not going anywhere.”

Biden’s tour, which included New Zealand, was not just a menacing warning to China. It was directed at laying down the law to Canberra and other regional allies that Washington would not tolerate any prevarication in backing the US as Washington’s war preparations in the Indo-Pacific accelerated.

In the first place, Biden delivered a threatening message to then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Before taking office in September 2015, Turnbull had expressed concerns about the US conflict with China, reflecting the interests of key sections of the Australian corporate elite over the impact on exports to China, their largest market.

In November 2015, Obama had personally reproached Turnbull for failing to provide Washington with advance notice that a Chinese corporation was to be awarded a 99-year lease to operate the commercial port in the northern strategic city of Darwin.

Although Turnbull heeded the warnings, and later sought to also appease Trump, Washington’s doubts about his reliability helped trigger his removal as prime minster in August 2018, to be replaced by Morrison, who tied himself closely to Trump, even to the extent of unsuccessfully inviting the widely detested president to visit Australia.

The Morrison government’s intensifying actions against China include police raids on political figures accused of supposed “foreign interference” on behalf of China, and the tabling of a bill, supported by Labor, allowing it to ban universities, and state and local governments from making trade or exchange agreements with Chinese institutions.

Biden’s 2016 intervention was not only aimed at Turnbull, however. It was directed against anyone in the political establishment who showed any signs of deviating from unconditional support for Washington. The vice president combined militarism with threats of economic reprisals.

In his Sydney speech, Biden declared: “If I had to bet on which country is going to lead economically in the 21st century… I’d bet on the United States. But I’d put it another way: It’s never a good bet to bet against the United States.”

In reality, while the US remains the largest source of foreign investment in Australia, it is in historic decline as the dominant global power and has resorted to military might repeatedly over the past 30 years in desperate efforts to shore up its position. Biden’s speech made clear that US imperialism was redoubling its efforts to maintain its hegemony by seeking to subjugate China, even it means a catastrophic war.

Four years on, the demands of the US for a frontline Australian role in the aggression toward China have only intensified during the Trump administration, and will be further ramped up under Biden.

On November 3, on the morning of the presidential election, the US ambassador in Canberra, Arthur Culvahouse, said as much. Whatever the election outcome, he told reporters, there was “bipartisan” agreement in the US on the challenge presented by China. “I see it continuing regardless of the outcome,” he said.

While acknowledging the lack of support for the US alliance among younger Australians, Culvahouse insisted that it would “remain strong and vibrant and forward-leaning,” adding: “The alliance never sleeps.”

Culvahouse, appointed by Trump, is a highly-connected member of the political-intelligence establishment, with a long track record of involvement in the acute political crises of successive governments.

In their praise of Biden, both Morrison and Albanese hypocritically spoke in terms of the two countries having common values, such as “democracy,” “respect for human rights and equality” and a quest for “peace and stability.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

Since World War II, Australian governments have backed every military and anti-democratic US intervention to maintain Washington’s dominance in the Asia-Pacific, including the Korean and Vietnam wars and the 1965-66 CIA-backed coup in Indonesia, all at the cost of millions of lives.

Today, on both sides of the Pacific, there is a mounting gap between the wealthy elites and the majority of the population, a growing lurch toward authoritarian rule and a heightening economic and military confrontation with China that could trigger another world war, this time fought with nuclear weapons.

BP refinery closure threatens hundreds of jobs in Western Australia

Terry Cook

In late October, British oil and gas company BP announced that over the next six months it will progressively close its refinery in the city of Kwinana near Perth, Western Australia (WA). The shutdown will cost at least 590 jobs.

The refinery, the largest in Australia and the only one in WA, has been in operation for over 65 years. It currently employs 400 permanent staff and 250 contractors. It is to be converted into an import terminal that will employ only 60 people when it is completed in the middle of next year.

Kwinana Refinery (Credit: bp.com)

The company’s callous decision will see the Kwinana workers dumped into an ever tightening jobs market under conditions where thousands of workers have already been laid-off across the state since the coronavirus crisis began.

Even before the pandemic had fully taken effect, official unemployment in Kwinana had hit 11.8 percent in the March quarter this year. This is far higher than the general rate for WA, which has just fallen to 7 percent, down from 8.7 percent in June as COVID-19 restrictions are eased.

BP Australia head Frédéric Baudry told the media that the company’s decision “was not in any way a result of local policy settings,” but was in “response to the long-term structural changes to the regional fuels market.”

The closure is part of a vicious global restructuring of the sector by the major oil companies, to cut costs and offset the impact of a slump in oil prices. Production is being slashed, jobs destroyed and older plants closed to facilitate the relocation of operations to newer large-scale export refineries in Asia and the Middle East.

A September article by Reuters stated that global oil refiners, “reeling from months of lackluster demand and an abundance of inventories,” are cutting fuel production “because the recovery in demand from the impact of coronavirus has stalled.”

Reuters reported that the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) had reduced its forecast for global oil demand for 2020 for the second time in two months “due to the faltering recovery.” The IEA also forecast that “global consumption of petroleum and liquid fuels will average just 91.7 million barrels per day (bpd) for all of 2020, a reduction in its previous forecast of 200,000 bpd and down 8.4 million bpd from 2019’s 100.1 million bpd level.”

According to natural resources research and consulting firm Wood Mackenzie, nearly 10 percent of high-cost refineries in Europe, or 1.4 million bpd of capacity, are in serious threat of closure over the next three years. Research and marketing agency Argus reported in August that US and Canadian refiners had already slashed 800,000 bpd of crude capacity this year and “at least 575,000 bpd of that will stay closed.”

In Australia, other closures are likely to follow Kwinana with owners of the country’s three other remaining refineries already placing their operations under critical review. Ampol is considering shutting its Lytton refinery in Queensland, threatening 500 jobs, Viva Energy will possibly close its refinery in Geelong, Victoria, a facility that employs 700 people, while ExxonMobil has put a question mark over its Altona refinery in the same state, which is manned by 350 workers.

Australia’s energy unions have signaled that they have no intention of mobilising workers in an industrial and political campaign to oppose the Kwinana closure or to defend jobs. On the contrary, they are already working to prevent such a development and to divert all opposition into dead-end appeals to the pro-business federal Liberal-National government to intervene.

In a statement reeking of nationalism, Australian Workers Union (AWU) national secretary Daniel Walton declared the Kwinana closure “a matter of national security, and called on Prime Minister Scott Morrison “to get on the phone to BP and tell them to stop dead in their tracks” and “throw this decision into reverse immediately.”

Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU) state secretary Steve McCartney has made it clear that as far as the union is concerned, the closure is already a fait accompli. He called on BP to reveal what “their plans are for the surplus staff,” adding, “BP needs to step up and show us what they’re going to do for these workers and for the contractors who provide maintenance and services.”

The Morrison government has no intention of intervening in the interest of workers. All this year, with the full support of Labor and the unions, it has backed the corporate elite’s ruthless utilisation of the pandemic to restructure operations, cutting jobs and implementing further regressive changes to working conditions.

For months, the unions have been involved in tripartite working groups established by Morrison. These bodies, involving corporate, government and union representatives have been tasked with developing proposals for pro-business workplace changes and more “industrial relations reforms.” The depth of the unions’ collaboration was epitomised by the declaration of Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) secretary Sally McManus in April that employers “can get everything you want through co-operation.”

The record shows that to mount a fight to defend jobs and conditions refinery workers have to break with the thoroughly corporatised unions. This must involve a complete break with the economic nationalism promoted by the unions. It serves only to divide the working class along national lines, in an inherently global industry, and line workers up behind their class enemies in the corporations and national governments.

The turn must be to building new organisations of struggle, including rank and file committees, to organise a unified counter-offensive by refinery and energy workers, nationally and internationally, against global oil conglomerates.

This struggle must be based on a socialist perspective and the fight for a workers government that will place energy and other key sectors of the economy under public ownership and democratic workers’ control to meet social need, not private profit.

Hundreds dead and missing after Eta devastates Central America and southern Mexico

Andrea Lobo

Hurricane Eta continued to break records in intensity as it caused widespread devastation and incalculable suffering across the entire Central American isthmus and much of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico.

As of this writing, 98 people have been found dead and 187 have been reported missing, while many more casualties are feared as rescuers reach communities isolated by the flooding and damage to roads and bridges. Millions have seen their livelihoods uprooted by the destruction of homes, public services, roads, and countless acres of plantations.

The rampant social devastation in the region, which is the product of the historical and intensifying neocolonial exploitation by US imperialism, had already been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the storm, the UN Economic Commission for Latin America had estimated that the Central American economy would contract 6.5 percent this year and sink over 1.5 million more people into official poverty.

Alan Sacún, Chiapas, flooded by Eta (Credit: Proteción Civil Chiapas)

Amid low levels of testing, the region has reported 512,572 coronavirus cases and 12,075 deaths, while the Pan-American Health Organization has warned that the storm has increased the threat of infection. The mass displacements of people, the crowding into shelters and water availability issues are compounded by the near total lack of emergency measures to prevent contagion.

Colorado State University specialist Philip Klotzbach found that, in the satellite era (post-1966), the 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season has had the most named storms, the third most named-storm days, the second most hurricanes and fourth most major hurricanes. Eta became the 12th named storm to make landfall in the continental US, compared to the previous record of nine storms in 1916.

As recently as November 1, Typhoon Goni made the strongest cyclonic landfall in recorded history at 195 mph, devastating the Philippines .

Scientific American reported in October that the factors that have contributed to this hurricane season in the Atlantic involved “unusually warm” ocean temperatures as well as low sea level pressure and favorable wind conditions. It indicates that, while research does not indicate that climate change will increase the total number of storms, they will grow in strength.

“Studies suggest that climate change will increase the speed at which hurricanes intensify over the ocean,” the magazine explains. Hurricane Eta intensified at record levels right before making landfall as a strong Category 4 storm in eastern Nicaragua, before becoming a tropical depression as it crossed through eastern Honduras.

The storm wiped out small communities in the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, where 30,000 people were evacuated. The government has acknowledged that two artisanal miners died but no official accounting of the damages has been provided.

Damage in Panama was concentrated in the Chiriquí province bordering Costa Rica. Landslides and flooding killed at least 17 people and left 68 missing, according to the Security Ministry.

In Costa Rica, a couple died after their home was swept away by a landslide. Authorities have reported that 1,872 people were sent to shelters after their homes were destroyed or placed at risk, while the destruction of roads and public infrastructure left 19 towns temporarily isolated and tens of thousands without power or running water.

Honduras saw the most widespread damage, including at least 26 dead and six missing reported so far. Large portions of the city of San Pedro Sula, the industrial center of the country with more than 1 million inhabitants, were submerged under a meter of water. Authorities have given estimates that across Honduras hundreds of thousands of homes and 1.7 million people were affected, with many losing all their belongings.

Thousands in surrounding communities in the Sula Valley were cut off, with residents waiting days to be rescued from rooftops. The news program “Hoy Mismo” received a call from a woman requesting a helicopter or boat. “We haven’t eaten for two days and there are about 60 of us here with children,” she exclaimed.

More than 16,000 people had been rescued by Sunday in the Sula Valley, where operations continued involving 50,000 rescue personnel and helicopters sent from the United States and even Guatemala, which was also severely affected.

Road destroyed in Sabanilla, Chiapas (Credit: Protección Civil Chiapas)

Some of the most affected communities are those surrounding the Chiquita banana plantations in La Lima, with survivors describing a continuing nightmare. Speaking to La Prensa, a man said 300 people crammed into his second floor to escape the flooding, living “moments of desperation.” Another says: “We were trapped, have no food or water for the children. Some desperate mothers are using water from the river itself to prepare baby bottles. We are in a state of calamity, surviving the flood, but now families are hungry and in need of water, clothes and mattresses.”

In Guatemala, the entire indigenous village of Quejá, with approximately 150 households, was buried under a landslide. The state disaster agency Conred announced that five bodies have been recovered from Quejá and 108 are missing, but family members estimate at least 200 missing.

A specialized group of Mexican rescuers known as “The Moles” arrived at Quejá to help find survivors. Meanwhile, hard-hit residents of Cobán protested against Guatemala’s right-wing President Alejandro Giammattei when he visited, indicating the anger the catastrophe has stirred against the corrupt ruling elite.

The authorities report that in other areas of the country, 22 others have been found dead, more than 150,000 people have been directly affected, and 14,000 were evacuated and sheltered.

Widespread flooding in the northeast of Guatemala has destroyed vast swaths of crops, public infrastructure and homes. Over 500 acres of rice plantations in the eastern Polochic Valley of Guatemala were damaged, while residents in Bilwi, where flooding took entire homes, are already re-building in the same places.

In the southern Mexican states of Tabasco and Chiapas, thousands of homes were destroyed by flooding, forcing at least 80,000 people into shelters and leaving at least 27 dead and four missing. Five people drowned in Tabasco, while 22 others died in Chiapas, including many drowned by flash flooding. Several towns remain isolated.

About 1,700 people were sheltered in El Salvador, where one fisherman was killed. While not reporting any casualties, authorities in Belize, Jamaica and Cuba described major flooding of residential and agricultural areas, the destruction of roads and large evacuations.

While heavy rainfall continued in Cuba, Jamaica and the Bahamas, Eta reached southern Florida on Sunday night leading to some flooding in Miami. The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecasts that the storm will turn to the Florida Gulf Coast as it reaches hurricane conditions on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The NHC has warned that a new tropical system in the Caribbean has a 50 percent chance of becoming tropical cyclone Theta before reaching Nicaragua on Sunday.

As Brazil’s Bolsonaro remains silent, the Workers Party and pseudo-left hail Biden victory

Tomas Castanheira

With Donald Trump refusing to acknowledge his electoral defeat, which was declared on Saturday by all the major US media outlets, his political ally in Brazil, the fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro, is one of the few world leaders who has yet to take a stand on the outcome of the US elections.

On Saturday night, Bolsonaro made an unscheduled broadcast live on social media, appealing to his supporters to cast their votes in Brazil’s local elections, which will begin next Sunday. Without speaking directly about the United States, he warned: “You are seeing the issues in the world, how politics are in the world.” Making a clear reference to the election of Luis Arce of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) in Bolivia, he continued: “several countries [in South America] are being painted red again.”

Former PT President Dilma Rousseff toasts Biden in visit to US in 2015. (Credit: Rodrigo Stuckert Filho/PR)

Brazil’s vice president, Army Reserve Gen. Hamilton Mourao, spoke Monday about Bolsonaro’s silence on the US elections. Boosting Trump’s false accusations of electoral fraud, he said: “I think the President [Bolsonaro] is waiting to the end of that imbroglio there, of the discussion, if false voting happened or not, to give his position.” Mourao added: “And I think it’s obvious that the President, at the right time, will convey the greetings to whoever is elected.”

Unlike Bolsonaro, other national leaders, such as the president of the House of Representatives, Rodrigo Maia, a member of the right-wing Democrats, promptly welcomed Biden’s victory. On behalf of the House of Representatives, Maia declared: “Joe Biden’s victory restores the values of truly liberal democracy.”

Biden’s victory was also celebrated by the country’s main bourgeois newspapers. The conservative O Estado de S. Paulo published an editorial with the headline “Relief,” stating that it doesn’t matter if Biden will fulfill his promises. What matters, for Estadão, is that most Americans have decided “to hand over to a traditional and experienced politician the task of leading the country in this hour of deep crisis” and that “this powerful message will be heard all over the world, but especially in countries ravaged by the savage populism inspired by Donald Trump, like Brazil.”

A similar position was taken by former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC) of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), a reliable spokesman for the interests of the Brazilian ruling class. FHC declared: “In two and a half centuries, no American president had sought to delegitimize the electoral process, one of the fundamental foundations of democracy. The present one did it systematically and deliberately. His reelection would therefore represent a grave risk to democracy, and not only in the United States.”

The newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, the most widely read in Brazil, echoed the reactionary racialist politics of the Democratic Party in the United States, declaring the election of Kamala Harris as vice president “historic, in many aspects.” She is the first “black, Indian-American and Asian-American woman...graduated from an elite African-American university...to reach the White House,” it stated in an article entitled “Kamala as vice president proves that 2020 is the year of black American women.”

However, Folha made it clear what is really at stake by stating in an editorial that the choice of Biden and Harris, representatives of “moderation, dialogue and the diligent exercise of politics,” signaled a refusal by the Democratic Party “to fight the ruffian on the right with radicalization on the left” (making a reference to Bernie Sanders).

The Brazilian ruling class is clearly expressing its nervousness about the destabilization of the political system in the United States, the bastion of world imperialism, and its inevitable consequences for the political crisis in Brazil. There is a growing fear of a “radicalization on the left”—i.e., in the working class—in response to the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, along with the deepening of already intolerable levels of social inequality, state repression and attacks on democratic rights.

Absolutely aligned with such positions is the supposed “left” opposition to the Bolsonaro government—the Workers Party (PT) and its pseudo-left petty bourgeois supporters of the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL)—which also enthusiastically celebrated Biden’s election.

Former PT president Luís Inácio “Lula” da Silva declared on Twitter: “The world sighs with relief at Biden’s victory. ... I express the hope that he will not only be guided internally, but also in his relations with the world and with Latin America, by the humanist values that characterized his campaign.”

His successor, Dilma Rousseff, also tweeted: “Biden’s victory...represents a breath of fresh air for those in the world who fight against the extreme right, intolerance and hatred. The election of the first black woman, Kamala Harris, for the vice-presidency of the United States is a relevant fact.”

Biden’s campaign never defended “humanist values”; on the contrary, it supported, domestically, the repression against the growing protests and, internationally, an aggressive imperialist policy. Lula seeks to cover up Biden’s political career marked by the prosecution of the reactionary interests of American imperialism in the world, including in Latin America. As vice president under Barack Obama, Biden participated in the orchestration of the coup in Honduras that overthrew elected President Manuel Zelaya and oversaw the introduction of draconian sanctions against Venezuela.

In light of the US election, the pseudo-left PSOL launched a campaign with the motto “Hope will overcome authoritarianism.” It states that Biden’s victory heralds the defeat of Bolsonaro in Brazil through...the election of the party’s city councilors and mayors! This opportunistic position assumes an even more reactionary character taking into account that the PSOL, following the lead of the PT, is seeking to “oppose” Bolsonaro in the local elections by running dozens of candidates drawn from the ranks of the Military Police and the armed forces.

In an article entitled “The King is dead. Death to the king!,” the “Resistance” tendency within the PSOL, which recently broke with the Morenoite Unified Socialist Workers Party (PSTU), has openly defended an alliance with a section of the US imperialist bourgeoisie: “With the electoral dispute over, fortunately with the defeat of imperialism sans phrase, the new stage of the struggle begins.”

It continues, with unadulterated petty-bourgeois cretinism: “If until today the enemies have been by our side (!)—and their seductive perfume (!!!) and discreet charm could be perceived without much difficulty—from tomorrow a very clear line—or rather, black, feminine and, above all, classist line—must be drawn between us.”

That both the PT and the PSOL are celebrating the advent of a right-wing US administration led by Joe Biden, which will implement a policy of savage attacks on workers in the US and throughout the world, unmasks the true class interests of these parties that seek to present themselves as “left-wing” and even “socialist” alternatives.

As significant layers of the Brazilian ruling class are increasingly dissatisfied with the Bolsonaro administration—not because of his brutal policies against the working class, which they find absolutely necessary, but because they fear that his provocations will unleash uncontrollable mass opposition—the PT and the PSOL seek to present themselves as a viable political alternative to defend capitalist rule in Brazil.

Long-COVID post-viral syndrome: Lessons from the Russian Flu of 1889 for the COVID pandemic

Benjamin Mateus

"While the so-called Spanish influenza of 1918–19 is frequently invoked as an analogue for COVID-19, the Russian influenza might be a better cultural parallel." Mark Honigsbaum

The English medical historian and journalist Mark Honigsbaum offers an interesting anecdote on the impact of the 1889–90 Russian flu in a recent article on the COVID-19 pandemic published in the Lancet. The Russian flu pandemic of 1889–1890 had killed around one million worldwide. Several waves of the epidemic recurred over the intervening years from 1891 to 1895.

The English feminist and campaigner for women's suffrage, Josephine Butler, wrote in January of 1892 to her son, "I don't think I ever remember being so weak, not even after the malaria fever at Genoa. I am so weak that if I read or write for half an hour, I become so tired and faint that I have to lie down.” (Honigsbaum & Krishnan, 2020)

During the Christmas season of 1891, she was stricken with the Russian influenza and left weak with conjunctivitis and pneumonia for several days. Though her fevers had subsided, she recounted that there had been little improvement in her overall condition three months later.

Hospitals in the early 1890s caring for patients stricken with the Russian Flu

A post-epidemic analysis conducted in 1957 using blood obtained from people still alive from the period noted that they had antibodies to H2N2, which may have originated from the Russian flu. Four decades later, a seroarcheological study then asserted the strain was most likely an H3N8 subtype instead. However, more recent studies led by Belgian biologist Leen Vijgen indicated that the contagion could have been a coronavirus, specifically the HCoV-OC43.

The “Asiatic” or “Russian” flu originated in central Asia, where it smoldered regionally throughout Siberia and northern India for a period of six months from May to October of 1889. Once it landed in St. Petersburg in November 1889, the pandemic accelerated westward, spreading, in a matter of weeks, into Europe, followed by the United States, and, then, the rest of the Americas, Australia, and coastal Africa, completing its circumnavigation of the globe by the fall of 1890.

The Russian Influenza has been characterized as the prototype of the modern era of a pandemic for the rapidity of its spread within an increasingly interconnected world.

In a scientific report published in PNAS in 2010 on the 1889 influenza pandemic, the authors wrote, “At that time, the 19 largest European countries, including Russia, had 202,887 kilometers of railroads, which is more than now. Transatlantic travel by boat took less than six days at that time, instead of less than one day now (which is not a substantial difference, given the time scale of the global spread of the pandemic.)”

Railroad and train in Lviv region (1880s)

In their support of the Russian flu pandemic's coronavirus theory, Vijgen and his team explained that in the second half of the 19th century, cattle herds were being affected by a deadly contagious respiratory disease. They hypothesized that the bovine coronavirus might have been the inciting agent in the sickened animals that underwent a zoonotic transfer into humans from 1870 to 1890 when industrialized nations were engaged in massive culling operations to stem the infections in the livestock industry when handlers could have quickly become infected.

The authors determined through a molecular clock technique, which uses the mutation rate of biomolecules to deduce the time in prehistory when two or more life forms diverged, that a common ancestor of the current Bovine coronavirus and HCoV-OC43 dated back to 1890, circa the Russian flu pandemic.

Additionally, they noted that the pronounced neurological symptoms that distinguished the Russian influenza from other influenza outbreaks speaks to coronavirus as a likely candidate.

Other findings indicated that men and the elderly appeared to be more susceptible to the virus. The reproduction number (R0) was 2.1, with a case fatality rate between 0.1 to 0.28 percent.

Infection symptoms included high fevers, crippling fatigue, and central nervous system disorders.

A Dublin physician named John Moore provided an account from a patient who fell ill on December 20, 1889. The female patient wrote, “Then my face and head got very hot and uncomfortable, and pains began in my arms, shoulders, and legs. All night the pains were very bad, sometimes so sharp across the back of my chest that I could have cried out.”

A report authored by Mark Honigsbaum, titled “The ‘Russian’ influenza in the UK: lessons learned, opportunities missed,” explains that after the first case was identified in December 1889, the virus began to kill thousands of people over several weeks. “The disease had already sickened the British Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, and sparked mass absenteeism in the General Post Office’s Telegraphic Department, the center of communications of the British Empire.”

Perhaps the most famous case was the death of Queen Victoria’s grandson, Prince Albert Victor, which changed the line of succession. Russia’s czar, the king of Belgium, and Germany’s emperor had taken ill but survived their infection.

Honigsbaum notes that the excess deaths from respiratory failure and the pattern of deaths impacting the middle age ranges “should have aided the public health response, but British health authorities preferred to advocate cautious preventive measures that did little to alleviate the pandemic’s impact.” The medical community was consumed by a now obsolete miasmatic theory that held the disease was caused by a noxious form of bad air.

The pandemic returned a year later, killing twice as many people. From 1890 until 1892, it has been estimated that 110,000 died from the infection in England.

In a study mapping the deaths from influenza in Paris in 1889 and 1890, the authors highlighted excerpts from a French newspaper La Lanterne that reported a single-day high of 450 burials on December 31, 1890 as comparable to the present situation in France in its second COVID-19 surge. The high daily deaths in Paris persisted throughout January 1891. (Kimmerly, Mehfoud, & Marin, 2014)

Russian Flu in Paris

In the context of the present pandemic, specifically considering thepost-COVID-19 viral syndrome known better as Long-COVID, Ms. Butler’s words quoted at the beginning strike a dreadful chord.

An untold number of people who have recovered from their infection continue their struggles facing chronic ailments with no end in sight and no help from an incredulous health community that has often attributed their complaints to “being in their heads.” (yerramilli, 2020) The post-viral syndrome associated with COVID-19 has only recently been gaining coverage in the media.

In a study that is still to be peer-reviewed, out of 4,182 cases of COVID, 558 (13.3 percent) patients noted symptoms beyond four weeks, 189 (4.5 percent) beyond eight weeks, and 95 (2.3 percent) beyond 12 weeks. These symptoms include extreme fatigue, persistent headaches, shortness of breath, and the loss of smell, affecting disproportionately females, older people, and those of higher weight.

In an online survey of self-reported symptoms from patients from Renown Health System in Reno, Nevada, out of 233 COVID-19 positive cases, 43.4 percent had symptoms lasting more than 30 days, and 24.1 percent had at least one symptom 90 days out from their positive results. These symptoms include chest pain, heart palpitations and tachycardia, poor concentration, shortness of breath, memory loss, confusion, headaches, and dizziness. Those with shortness of breath are at higher risk of developing chronic symptoms.

A European study from the Netherlands found that one-third of 1,837 non-hospitalized patients were dependent on caregivers.

Though these patients do not require intensive medical care, those who have joined social media support groups recount how debilitated their condition has made them, complaining of “rolling waves of symptoms” and “brain fog.” As one New Jersey-based administrator for the COVID-19 Slack group poignantly stated, “We’re not dead, but we’re not living.”

One of the most insidious aspects of the chronic effect of COVID-19 infection is the incapacitating exhaustion and ill-feeling. Thousands of those affected report struggling with just getting out of bed, let alone working for more than a few minutes at one time. A small study from Italy of 143 people discharged from a Rome hospital indicated that 53 percent had fatigue, and 43 percent had shortness of breath two months later. (Carfi, Bernabei, & Landi, 2020)

As with the Russian influenza, post-viral syndromes have been frequently reported with viral illnesses. Even with the Spanish flu of 1918, which was caused by the H1N1 influenza virus and killed an estimated 24.7 million to 50 million people, journals kept by treating physicians noted that many of those who survived never fully recovered.

After the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) pandemic of 2003 that infected over 8,000 individuals and killed close to 800, many of those who survived were followed to assess their health outcomes. In a study of survivors one year out from their infection, 18 percent continued to have decreased walking tolerance while 17 percent had still not returned to work. More than 60 percent had persistent fatigue. Forty-three percent were being evaluated for mental health disorders. Sleep disturbances were common. Caregivers of many of those severely impacted noted a considerable decline in their patients' cognitive capacities. (Tansey & Herridge, 2007)

In a pooled analysis of 28 studies in patients with documented SARS and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) infections, six months after discharge, 27 percent had impaired lung functions and reduced exercise tolerance. More than one-third of these patients suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression compounded by anxiety.

During the early phase of the pandemic, in a letter penned in June to the editors of the journal Medical Hypotheses, the lead author Dr. Raymond Perrin, a neuroscientist and specialist in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome from the School of Medicine and Manchester Academic Health Sciences, warned about the potential for a post-viral syndrome that could manifest in patients recovering from a COVID-19 infection, similar to that in SARS patients.

“After the acute SARS episode some patients, many of whom were healthcare workers, went on to develop a Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME)-like illness which nearly 20 months on prevented them returning to work. We propose that once an acute COVID-19 infection has been overcome, a subgroup of remitted patients are likely to experience a long-term adverse effect resembling CFS/ME symptomology such as persistent fatigue, diffuse myalgia, depressive symptoms, and non-restorative sleep.”

CFS/ME is a complex, fatiguing, long-term medical condition distinguished by lengthy exacerbations after mental or physical activity, significantly diminished capacity to accomplish tasks that had been routine previous to their illness, and unrefreshing sleep or insomnia. The proposed mechanism is a byproduct of the immune response to the infection that traverses the blood-brain barrier via the olfactory pathway into the hypothalamus.

The “pro-inflammatory cytokines” that pass through the blood-brain barriers cause inflammation in the central nervous system leading to “autonomic dysfunction,” which manifest “acutely in high fevers and in the long term to dysregulation of the sleep/wake cycle, cognitive dysfunction and profound unremitting anergia (lack of energy).”

There have been over 50 million cases of COVID-19, and by all accounts, the present surge is a massive tsunami of cases that have placed every health system in the Northern Hemisphere on notice. Millions are expected to die. However, millions more, especially within the working class who have lost their jobs, will face an uncertain future of disabling conditions and chronic unemployment unless immediate efforts are made to bring the pandemic under control. Early intervention and supportive care will be necessary to mitigate the long-term consequences for millions. Medical bills and the cost of treatments must be waived.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, Tricia Sales, a 41-year-old who fell ill with COVID-19 in March and is experiencing unremitting symptoms of nausea, dizziness, and numbness in her hands and feet, owes more than $100,000 in medical expenses. Many people are forgoing treatment due to concerns over high deductibles, attempting to live on their savings as they are still too ill to return to work.

The City University of New York Public School of Health estimated that if 20 percent of the US population contracts COVID-19, one-year post-hospitalization costs would be more than $50 billion, without considering the long-term care post-acute recovery. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, many insurance companies are raising 2021 premiums to account for expected COVID-19 costs.

Though a paramount concern, death is not the only indicator of importance concerning the health crisis caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Experience with post-viral syndromes has a long history in medical journals. The literature on SARS and MERS should have informed public health policies and provided guidance early during the pandemic in the post-treatment management and care of these patients.

It will be critical to developing rehabilitation programs in this context to address the multidimensional aspect of this disease. It has been predicted that 45 percent of discharged patients will require health and social care, while another 4 percent may need continued inpatient treatment. The health impact on all national health systems will be considerable.