“We have fewer rights than animals”: The unbearable life in the Greek refugee camp Kara Tepe

Katerina Selin

2020 was the year in which the mask fell. The coronavirus pandemic exposed the cruel essence of capitalism: Profits over lives. Millions of refugees have experienced this policy first-hand for decades, but the past year also brought their desperate situation to a head once again.

Anyone wanting to gauge the criminal character of European governments and the European Union (EU) must look to Kara Tepe, the temporary camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. Here, around 7,200 people spent Christmas and New Year in the cold and wet, in sickness and fear. More than 19,000 refugees are forced to persevere on the Aegean islands.

Migrants walk after a rainstorm at the Kara Tepe refugee camp, on the northeastern Aegean island of Lesbos, Greece. (AP Photo/Panagiotis Balaskas, File)

The Kara Tepe tent camp is located on a former military training area directly adjacent to the sea; it is a construction site where the noise is deafening day in, day out. Refugees had to move here in the autumn after the notorious Moria slum camp went up in flames in September.

Refugees and aid organisations report with horror that conditions in the new camp are even worse than in Moria. “We all live in fear and hardship,” Kara Tepe inmates wrote in a Christmas letter to the EU and its commission president Ursula von der Leyen (Christian Democratic Union, CDU):

How is it that after three months and so many millions of government donations and money raised by NGOs, we are still sitting in a place without running water, hot showers and without a functioning sewage system? ... Do we not have rights as human beings and refugees in Europe that include basic services for everyone? We often read and hear that we must live like animals in these camps, but we think that is not true. We have studied the laws protecting animals in Europe and we have found that even they have more rights than we do.

One in three refugees on the islands is thinking of suicide, the letter says. “We see a lot of appeals for donations and promises and we see our reality and it makes us frustrated and angry.” Their demands include adequate water supplies and showers, proper sanitation, provision of electricity, light, heating and tents for the winter, and better medical and psychological care.

But the EU will cast even these minimal demands for basic human needs to the winds because the hardship in Kara Tepe is not an accident, but a deliberate and conscious policy of deterrence. In the burnt-out Lipa refugee camp in Bihac on the Bosnian-Croatian border, refugees are also fighting for sheer survival under the eyes of the EU. For days, hundreds of refugees have been camping out in the open in the snow, facing death from frostbite with almost no help.

Marcus Bachmann of the aid organisation Doctors Without Borders Austria confirmed the extent of the disaster in the Greek refugee camps in an interview with the Viennese weekly Falter at the end of December. He used to be head of operations in crisis regions such as Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, and South Sudan. “But the dimension of the misery of the refugees on the Greek islands also stuns me,” he says.

Compared to his experiences in war zones, the Greek camps do not even reach the minimum standard. “As Doctors Without Borders, we have to do things in Greece that are otherwise only necessary in countries where the health system has completely collapsed,” says Bachmann.

An unbearable stench pervades the entire Kara Tepe camp. Until recently, there were no shower and washing facilities, people had to bathe and wash their clothes in the sea. There is still no hot water. There is no rubbish and sewage disposal. Dirty water and rainwater flow through the camp. Often the packaged food is inedible and already spoiled when it is handed out.

Food scraps, feces, mud—these unhygienic conditions attract rats and other creatures. They crawl into the tents at night and sometimes run around during the day, says Bachmann. “Especially children are badly hurt by these rodents,” he explains. “We have had babies in our clinic with several rat bites.”

“In the warmer months, the snakes also come.” He has treated many snakebite victims on Samos, for example. “We usually do that in South Sudan or the Central African Republic. But not in Europe.”

However, the warnings and demands of Doctors without Borders have not been heard in the EU and Greece for years, Bachmann said. “On the contrary, we see that the situation has even worsened.”

In addition to the coronavirus, numerous cases of diarrhoea, respiratory and skin diseases are rampant, as well as typhoid fever. People receive only 1.5 litres of drinking water per day per person, even in the hot summer, although according to Bachmann, the “minimum standard at the beginning of a refugee crisis” is 7.5 litres, which is achieved in camps in Ethiopia and Sudan, for example. He sums up, “It has to be said very clearly: if the people there are not evacuated, their lives are in danger.”

The severe traumas refugees suffer because of war, flight and the countless fires in the camps are particularly serious. Eight out of 10 people in the camps come from war and crisis regions, according to Doctors Without Borders. Mental illness and the risk of suicide increase dramatically. The huge Moria fire, in which several people were killed and wounded, drove thousands of families to flee.

Children, who make up more than a third of camp inmates at Kara Tepe, are suffering the most. On Lesbos alone, 49 children and young people with suicidal thoughts or attempts were treated last year. Joseph Oertel, who has worked as a counsellor in a therapeutic children’s project run by the aid organisation Medical Volunteers International in Kara Tepe, spoke to Der Spiegel of a “whole new form of hopelessness in the new camp.”

At least 300 police officers are operating in Kara Tepe. In an interview with the conservative newspaper Kathimerini, Greek migration minister Notis Mitarakis gloated that, “You didn’t have this feeling of security in Moria, it was a jungle.” By “security” he means the brutal repression of the refugees. The police monitor the camp around the clock and use batons against the refugees. Drones, barbed wire fences and exit restrictions give the camp more the character of a prison, as child psychologist Thanos Chirvatidis explained to Der Spiegel. Children are afraid of the police. Access for aid organisations and journalists is extremely difficult.

But Kara Tepe is only a foretaste of what is to come. The Greek government and the EU want to build a closed camp by summer 2021, which will probably be right next to a rubbish dump. German EU bureaucrat Beate Gminder, who heads the European Commission’s “Task Force on Migration Management” and is responsible for the construction of the new camp, sees no problem with this. Better sites were not available, but Greece had taken “numerous samples” of soil and water, she claims in an interview with Der Spiegel.

On December 31, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited Kara Tepe and praised it as representing progress over Moria. With similar gall, Gminder also glosses over and justifies the conditions. The camp had many advantages, for example, it is located directly by the sea—“people can swim.” And in the winter? Well, “large, heated tents have been set up” and “warm blankets and sleeping bags have been distributed.” When it comes to a lack of hot water and electricity, it was the Greek authorities who were to blame for all the problems, according to Gminder.

The moral decay and criminality emanating from these words are an expression of an EU policy under German leadership that has only one goal: To get rid of refugees at all costs and to mercilessly crush resistance within their ranks.

In October, Migration Minister Mitarakis boasted that 73 percent fewer refugees had arrived in Greece in the first nine months of the year than in the same period last year. However, the drop in new arrivals is not the result of declining refugee numbers, but the massive intensification of illegal rejections and deportations without asylum procedures.

The so-called “pushbacks” of rubber dinghies into Turkish waters take place not only under the eyes but also with the involvement of the European border protection agency Frontex. According to an internal letter from Frontex head Fabrice Leggeri to the EU Commission, reported by Der Spiegel at the end of November, German officials were also involved in pushbacks. The German Interior Ministry is trying to cover up these crimes and human rights violations.

In early December, reporters from Der Spiegel described the story of one of these brutal deportations, which are happening more frequently. Two African female refugees were picked up by hooded Greek police officers after arriving on Lesbos, searched, beaten, spat on and forced to undress. “Along with sixteen others seeking protection, including minors and several pregnant women, according to the refugees, the two were left on two small inflatable life rafts. In the middle of the night, in the middle of the sea, with no chance of reaching the coast under their own power.” Only after holding out for hours were they rescued by Turkish coast guards and taken to Izmir.

The entire year 2020 was marked by the war against refugees in Greece. In February, Greek police used tear gas against protesting refugees on Lesbos. In March, the land border with Turkey was sealed off and the right to asylum suspended. Suddenly, refugees were trapped in no-man’s-land on the Greek-Turkish border at the river Evros. Soldiers and police fired live ammunition and tear gas at defenceless people; at least three refugees were killed crossing the border. In its brutal action, the Greek government worked closely with the EU leadership under von der Leyen and received backing from Syriza party leader Alexis Tsipras.

At the same time, the coronavirus was spreading throughout Greece and thus also in refugee shelters and camps. Due to a lack of tests and inadequate health care, there are many unreported cases of infection and death among refugees. Under the pretext of the pandemic, Europe has also effectively stopped sea rescue operations, further accelerating mass deaths in the Mediterranean. This was followed by the unveiling of a murderous “Asylum and Migration Pact” that will further drive forward the disenfranchisement, deportation and ultimately the killing of refugees. From January to November 2020, more than 1,200 refugees lost their lives on the way to Europe.

Mounting mental health crisis among US health care workers

Alex Johnson

With coronavirus infections and deaths rising to astronomical heights over the past two months, frontline health care workers are increasingly experiencing acute mental and emotional distress.

Research studies have shed light on the dangerous mental health toll that is being exacted on health care workers, who are facing extreme physical demands as a result of the growth of the pandemic. In a new study by Mental Health America (MHA), health care workers were found to exhibit elevated levels of anxiety, stress and emotional exhaustion. The study was carried out in November, a month that saw the initial resurgence of the pandemic, overwhelming hospitals.

A nurse looking out a hospital window (Credit: pexels.com/EVG Photos)

According to the MHA survey, 93 percent of health care workers were experiencing stress, while around 86 percent reported anxiety produced by the sudden overflow of sick patients. Some 77 percent reported feeling frustrated with their working conditions, and a similar percentage experienced physical exhaustion and burnout. Paralleling the extreme strain on hospitals all across the country, 75 percent of workers said they were overwhelmed.

The survey revealed widespread worry about contracting and spreading the deadly virus. Among health care workers, 76 percent reported that they were worried about exposing their children to COVID-19, and nearly half were worried about exposing their spouse or partner. Another 47 percent were concerned about exposing their older adult relatives.

Many health care workers said the pandemic left them feeling emotionally isolated and alienated in their workplaces, as well as having to cope with severe consequences in their home life.

A significant 38 percent of health care workers said they did not feel that they had adequate emotional support. Among nurses, the number was 45 percent. Among workers with children, half reported that they were lacking quality time with their children or were unable to be a consistently present parent.

In the introduction to the survey, MHA wrote that workplace conditions are “getting worse by the day and health care workers aren’t getting a reprieve.” Health care workers are feeling “frustrated, anxious... and worried about exposing their loved ones.” Given the extraordinary amount of stress placed on health care workers, many are at risk of developing even more severe mental health conditions such as depression and even thoughts of suicide or self- harm.

This phenomenon is mirrored in the general population, with alarming increases in reports of depression and anxiety nationwide. Psychological screenings showed a 634 percent jump in anxiety for the nation from January, and depression soared 873 percent.

For health care workers, however, the deterioration of mental wellness due to the pandemic has been accompanied by greater risks. Countless research studies have shown, even before the pandemic, that physicians were at increased risk of suicide compared to the broader population. While research has not revealed a causal link between worsening conditions due to the pandemic and cases of suicide, there is a high correlation between health care workers’ suicide risk and an exacerbation of job-related stressors from the virus.

According to the Psychology Health Center of Excellence, a clinical resource center, these job-related stressors include significant workload changes as a result of the growth of the pandemic, and the inability of hospitals to manage rapidly increasing nurse-to-patient ratios.

Many health care workers have also found it extremely difficult to obtain and maintain effective personal protective equipment. Amid the massive scale of death from the pandemic, now close to 360,000, many health care workers have also been traumatized by their experiences in intensive care wards, often witnessing scores of patients falling victim to the virus with little ability to save them.

Because of the tremendous influx of COVID-19 patients and the dilapidated state of health care infrastructure, workers have been forced to confront the terrifying issue of rationing care, choosing which patients should be left to die. This is similar to the crisis in New York last spring, when it was the main hotspot of the pandemic.

Adding to the mental health crisis has been the staggering increase in positive tests for health care workers. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been at least 287,000 COVID-19 infections among health care workers in the US.

Hospitals and medical facilities nationwide are being inundated with COVID-19 patients, countless ICU wards have filled beyond capacity, and states have been forced to build impromptu and makeshift facilities to deal with the extreme demand. Moreover, staffing shortages and burnout conditions are leading to severe strains on what was an already devastated health care infrastructure and severely overworked staff.

More than 3,000 health care workers have died from COVID-19. In most cases, these deaths are the result of shortages of PPE and the cover-up by hospital management of the spread of the virus.

Central responsibility for the spread of the virus in hospitals and clinics lies with the inability of capitalism and the profit-driven health care system. Both big business parties failed to enact the most elementary scientific measures to contain the transmission of COVID-19. Since March, the main priority of the Democratic and Republican parties has been to pump unlimited cash into the financial markets and increase the wealth of the super-rich.

Instead of devoting more resources to cash-strapped hospitals for more PPE, nursing staff and testing and contract tracing for health care workers, the capitalist class and its political flunkies have aggressively promoted the homicidal “herd immunity” policy, which in practice means resuming non-essential production and in-person school learning, while ensuring that nothing impinges on the fortunes of the ruling class.

To cut costs, hospitals are implementing the bare minimum in safety protocols, even if it means endangering the health of health care workers. At St. Mary’s Medical Center in Duluth, Minnesota, health care workers who treat COVID-19 patients are required to reuse their respirator masks up to six times before discarding them. Although N95 masks are typically sterilized daily, they invariably begin to sag after two or three shifts and leave gaps through which the virus can enter. One cardiac nurse at the hospital described the situation to the New York Times as “driving a car without seatbelts.”

In Chicago, nurses have complained of not receiving N95 masks that properly fit their faces. Speaking to the Times, one nurse at Community First Medical Center blamed the shortage of appropriate gear for the deaths of at least three nurses who contracted the virus at the hospital this past spring and summer. A recent survey by the volunteer organization Get Us PPE noted that 90 percent of frontline workers said they are repeatedly reusing masks designed for single use.

Even though the need for necessary medical equipment has become more dire than it was in early spring, President-elect Joe Biden has provided no indication of how the large distribution campaign that has been promised will actually be implemented, nor has he addressed the monopolized health care distribution system, which allows wealthy hospital chains to hoard medical supplies. Instead, he has proposed creating “financial incentives” and “buy American” policies for major companies. This translates into providing subsidies, cheap loans and other hand-outs to large corporations to drive profits even higher.

In contrast to the social suffering and death hitting the broad mass of the population, the health care industry and its wealthy executives have seen their profits increase to record-breaking levels. Billionaires in the health care industry had their wealth increase by 36 percent between early April and late July, from $402 billion to $548 billion in less than four months, according to a report by UBS and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Biden and the Democratic Party, loyal representatives of Wall Street and the financial aristocracy, will continue the policy of placing profits above social need and human life.

Brazilian state governments push to reopen schools as COVID-19 deaths approach 200,000

Gabriel Lemos

With most Brazilian schools remaining closed during the COVID-19 pandemic last year, state governors are preparing to reopen them in February, when the next school year begins. UNICEF data showed only 3 percent of Brazilian students attending in-person classes during the second half of last year, making Brazil a worldwide exception in not reopening its schools.

By October of last year, however, 11 of Brazil’s 26 states had allowed public schools to reopen in part or totally. Private schools, on the other hand, due to enormous pressure from associations representing school owners, had been reopened in 16 Brazilian states. Despite state permission, the final decision to reopen schools rests with municipalities. The return to school has also been on a voluntary basis, with many parents electing not to send their children into classrooms for fear of their contracting the deadly virus.

A student taking a test in Manaus. (Credit: Divulgação/Seduc)

The drive to reopen schools last year was not broader only because the end of the school year was approaching. In addition, November saw the first and second rounds of municipal elections, and many mayors running for reelection feared losing votes if the reopening of schools caused further COVID-19 outbreaks and deaths among students and their families.

However, after the first round of municipal elections, the Brazilian corporate media began a campaign echoing the mantra of the world’s ruling elite that it is safe to reopen schools during the pandemic. It widely reported an open letter from a group of pediatricians, dubbed “Science for Education,” calling for the return of in-person teaching. They argued that “children become less infected” and “transmit less,” concluding that “schools ... are not the places of major infection. The European experience has emphatically proven this.”

In early December, in a report titled “Most countries keep schools open even with new high cases,” Brazil’s leading daily, Folha de S. Paulo, served as a mouthpiece for the president of the Brazilian Association of Private Schools, Arthur Fonseca Filho, for whom “The logic in the rest of the world is this: education is an essential activity, so it needs to return,” and for the president of the largest Brazilian pro-corporate educational think tank, “Todos pela Educação” (“All for Education”), who said, “The right thing is to do like Europe, close bars, theaters and gyms to reduce the circulation of the virus, and keeps school open.”

A school in Manaus, Brazil. (Credit: Ione Moreno/Semcom)

Already in early December, Folha reported that six Brazilian states planned or had already deemed public education an essential service and that schools could reopen even in the “red” phase, when the pandemic is escalating and non-essential services are not allowed to open. Before, this could only happen in the “yellow” phase, with the pandemic under “control” and non-essential services functioning under restrictions. On December 17, the state of São Paulo, with the largest school district in Brazil and the Americas, proclaimed education an essential service, which will certainly pave the way for other states to do the same.

All the claims that it is safe to reopen schools have no scientific basis. The “European experience” has proved to be a catastrophe in recent weeks, with the UK and Germany reporting more than a thousand deaths per day, and December being the deadliest month since the outbreak of the pandemic. Undoubtedly, the decision by the British and German ruling elites to keep schools open contributed to the pandemic’s upsurge.

Although studies have shown that children are less susceptible to the virus and that they tend to become less severely ill, they are still one of the vectors for the spread of the deadly virus. Studies have also shown that adolescents are as susceptible and as major spreaders as adults. In addition, reopening schools means setting in motion a transmission network within a huge percentage of the population, including students, parents, teachers and school staff, which would inevitably send COVID-19 cases and deaths spiraling. A study published in December in Science magazine showed that the closure of schools and universities reduced the spread of the coronavirus by 38 percent.

Contrary to claims of the Brazilian ruling elite, the majority of Brazil’s population is against reopening schools. On December 17, a Datafolha Institute poll showed that 66 percent of the population supports the closure of schools to contain the pandemic, as well as the closure of non-essential services such as bars, stores and gyms.

The campaign for a broad reopening of schools in Brazil is unfolding as the coronavirus pandemic is spiraling out of control in the country. The last three days of 2020 saw more than 1,000 COVID-19 deaths per day. On December 30, Brazil registered 1,224 coronavirus deaths, the highest number since August 20.

Marking the beginning of the second wave of the pandemic in Brazil, December showed increases of 64 percent in COVID-19 deaths and 67 percent in cases. It was also the month with the highest number of cases since the beginning of the pandemic. COVID-19 is already the major cause of death in Brazil, which, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, may reduce life expectancy in the country by up to two years.

The catastrophic situation of the pandemic in Brazil may be further aggravated by the millions of Brazilians who traveled over the Christmas and New Year holidays, and by the refusal of mayors and state governors to implement more restrictive measures on non-essential services. In addition, on December 31, the new strain of the coronavirus identified in the United Kingdom was detected in the state of São Paulo. It is estimated that it is 56 percent more contagious than the other coronavirus strains already identified, and that it has contributed to the huge increase in the number of cases in the UK since last month.

On January 1, Brazil surpassed 195,000 COVID-19 deaths, with a total of almost 7.7 million cases. It is the second country in the world in coronavirus deaths, trailing only the United States, and the third in cases, exceeded only by the US and India.

However, these numbers are a gross underestimation of the grim reality. On December 30, BBC Brasil reported that the excess number of deaths indicates that “there are at least 50 percent more COVID-19 deaths in Brazil than official data indicates.”

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Brazil has been one of the countries with the least coronavirus testing in the world, without any systematic contact tracing program to achieve a minimum control of the pandemic. Only 20 percent of the 24 million RT-PCR tests that the Brazilian Health Ministry promised by December of last year were carried out. Since August, after the peak of the pandemic, the number of tests has decreased by between 10 and 15 percent each month.

This, combined with the lifting of the few remaining lockdown measures and the complete underestimation of the pandemic by both Brazil’s fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro and state governors, means that a de facto herd immunity policy is being implemented to let the deadly virus spread freely and infect as many people as possible. Under these conditions, reopening schools will further increase coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

Teachers, school staff, parents and students should be aware that it is not safe to reopen schools until the pandemic is under control on a global scale. The official claims of concern about the educational damage done to students by school closures are a fraud. For years, these same officials have been cutting education budgets and imposing pro-corporate policies with the aim of privatizing public education.

The main concern of Brazil’s corporate and financial ruling sectors in promoting the reopening of schools is to give parents somewhere to leave their children and to work without any kind of constraint. This campaign has a definite political and class logic: putting profits before human lives.

The COVID-19 vaccination efforts in the US are proving to be a massive debacle

Benjamin Mateus

In early October, Alex Azar, Health and Human Services Secretary, said that there would be 100 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine produced by the end of the year. Due to supply chain issues, that estimate was quickly curtailed to 40 million doses a month later.

Exactly four weeks ago, Margaret Keenan of the UK, a 91-year-old grandmother, was the first person to receive the Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA vaccine on December 8, 2020. The United States officially rang in their vaccination rollout on December 14 after emergency use authorization was granted for Pfizer’s vaccine. Moderna’s vaccine was inaugurated on December 20.

Before the Christmas holidays, the White House coronavirus taskforce had assured the public that they were on track to vaccinate 20 million people by December 31. But by the end of the year, barely three million had received the vaccine.

According to a detailed report by Bloomberg, the US has administered 4.66 million doses, or 1.55 million doses per week. This means that only 1.4 percent of the population has been vaccinated, and only 30 percent of the distributed vaccines have been given out. The United Kingdom had administered just over 947,000 doses, representing 1.42 percent of its population. At these rates, barely a third of the British and American people will have been vaccinated by the beginning of 2022.

Internationally, after much fanfare and a media blitz, the intervening weeks have recorded a disastrously anemic administration of just over 13 million doses of these lifesaving vaccines across 33 countries. The world is organized into a nation-state system tightly interlinked by financial ties. Still, when it comes to a broad-based public health initiative, the utter incompetence of these state machines befuddles the mind. It will take a decade to deliver billions of doses to the globe’s population at the current pace.

Presently, most of the vaccines have been given to healthcare workers and residents of long-term care facilities. The significant challenges ahead will be vaccinating the general population. With limited supplies and vaccination sites still undesignated, finger-pointing and blaming have quickly become common. The federal government has left it to states to decide how the rollout would take place with little funding to aid them in this herculean task.

Clair Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers, told the Wall Street Journal, “There may have been an expectation from Operation Warp Speed or others that we’d give everyone the vaccine overnight. It was a logistics equation for them. If you’ve been in vaccines for a long time, you know that’s the easy part. Getting it into actual arms is the hard part.”

Compounding the inadequate budgets of most exhausted state health departments tasked with managing and overseeing the rollout is the massive underfunding for these initiatives. In a September press release, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced a miserly $200 million to jurisdictions for COVID-19 vaccine preparedness. At a minimum, it has been estimated that $6 to $8 billion would be needed to fund these programs.

Amid the ongoing surge in cases nationwide, health systems have a limited supply of staff available to assist in administering these vaccines. Attempting to administer these treatments in a socially distant approach and then monitor the recipients of the vaccine for 15 to 30 minutes for adverse reactions is resource-intensive. Overworked and stretched thin, the limited available staff are prioritized to the care of hospitalized patients.

Not surprisingly, a high percentage of health care professionals and frontline health providers, who are a priority for vaccination, are hesitant or refusing to be inoculated. After months of mismanagement by health systems and authorities at all government levels, many find it difficult to accept these interim analyses' results and prefer to wait for the actual studies to be concluded.

Governor Michael DeWine of Ohio noted he was troubled that a relatively high number of nursing home staff, 60 percent to be exact, have elected not to take the vaccine. He threatened them that if they didn’t accept the vaccine now, they would have to wait for it in the future.

Frozen vials of the COVID-19 vaccine (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Dr. Nikhila Juvvadi, the chief clinical officer at Chicago’s Loretto Hospital, who administered the first doses of the Pfizer vaccine to frontline health workers, told NPR that many hospital staff who are minority groups were mistrustful of the vaccine. In a survey conducted by the hospital, 40 percent would not get vaccinated.

In a recent Los Angeles Times article, less than half of the staff at St. Elizabeth Community Hospital in Tehama County were willing to be vaccinated. Twenty percent of the frontline health care providers at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills refused to be inoculated. Close to half of healthcare workers at Riverside County have declined the vaccine.

On an anonymous basis, a Riverside nurse speaking to the World Socialist Web Site expressed her distrust of the government agencies from the California Department of Public Health and Governor Newsom, who have waived their patient to nurse ratios, to the CDC who has repeatedly stated that it was safe to open schools.

"For a very long time, the CDC kept saying the virus was spread through droplets. Health care workers were only given masks if their patient was on a breathing treatment. CDC was clinging to the fact that it was droplet-based. They did that because they knew they didn't have the respirator masks, so a decision was made—let's sacrifice the health care worker and hang on to the lie. But as for nurses, we knew from the beginning that this was airborne. We have a nursing degree, and we knew we were being lied to and demanded PPE. If my simple mind can understand and see what we need, why is it that they can’t, and they have all the greatest minds at their disposal? At my hospital and EVS, lab workers died, and they were not given proper protection. [The SEP Congress resolution 2020] resonated really hard with me. The right thing would be to quit worrying about profit, stop war profiteering off [of] people dying."

There is merit to these concerns raised by rank-and-file healthcare workers. Stop-gap solutions being posed to deal with supply issues mean distributing the vaccines in ways not validated by the trials conducted to date.

The UK’s chief medical officer has defended the decision to extend the second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine out to three months, citing shortages in COVID-19 vaccines that will pose significant issues for several months to come. In a recent Washington Post opinion piece, Robert M. Wachter and Ashish K. Jha attempt to make the case for offering a single dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and delaying the second one in the face of the hundreds of thousands of daily infections. They claim that the vaccine trials indicated that a single dose after ten days offered 80 to 90 percent efficacy. Chief Operation Warp Speed adviser Moncef Slaoui has suggested that adults between 18 and 55 receive only two half-doses of the Moderna vaccine to increase the number available.

BioNTech warned the Financial Times that there was “no data” to support such recommendations, whose aim is to reach as many people as possible despite the limitations in supplies. Yet, other European countries like Germany are planning to follow the UK’s lead. As these regimens have been given emergency use authorization, a change in the protocol would need a separate approval, but based on what data?

A New England Journal of Medicine study published on December 31 found that twelve days after the Pfizer vaccine's first dose, efficacy was only at 52 percent with a confidence interval of 29.5 to 68.4 percent. The acceptable limits established by the World Health Organization require both a threshold of 50 percent and a lower bound over 30 percent, which would categorize the treatment barely acceptable.

One solution that all these national figures and leading scientist fail to mention is a program to “shut down all nonessential workplaces, the closing of schools and the emergency provision of the financial support necessary to sustain the population until the crisis is overcome,” as noted in the recent New Year’s Statement published on the WSWS yesterday.

This would allow time to contain the virus, provide breathing room for health systems, and initiate a mass vaccination initiative while resources were directed to vaccine production. It isn’t science, but its misapplication, that has created the present disaster.

Australian government slashes minimal pandemic subsidies for workers and unemployed

Oscar Grenfell

Scheduled cuts to federal subsidies for welfare recipients and workers in pandemic impacted industries came into effect with the new year, in the latest salvo of a government-corporate offensive against the social conditions of working people.

The reduction of the JobKeeper and JobSeeker payments is forecast to send hundreds of thousands more into poverty, amid the global economic slump triggered by COVID-19, and a continuing worldwide surge of the pandemic.

Workers queuing outside an inner-western Sydney Centrelink office last year (Credit: WSWS)

The cuts form part of a broader austerity offensive being enforced by Labor and Liberal governments at the state and federal levels, the trade unions and the largest corporations. All of them are seeking to impose the burden of the crisis on working people, as well as exploiting it to accelerate pro-business economic restructuring.

Under the JobKeeper program, eligible businesses, as well as some sole traders, have been provided with a fortnightly payment to cover part of their wages’ bill. The subsidy was initially capped at $1,500 per fortnight for each employee working over 20 hours a week. That was reduced to $1,200 in September and $1,000 on January 4. For part-time employees, with fewer than 20 hours a week, the payment has been slashed from $750 a fortnight to $650.

The changes will impact around 1.5 million workers, after 3.5 million were forced off JobKeeper in the final three months of last year. Employers will seek to pass on the cut by slashing wages, reducing workers hours and enforcing redundancies.

In comments to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation earlier this week, Jaymee Langrehr, a young hospitality worker in South Australia, explained that when JobKeeper was first cut in September, her hours were drastically reduced. “Suddenly, after doing 25 to 30 hours I was down to 10 to 15,” she said. “If things got busy and we had to stay back to clean, we would get in trouble because we stayed past what JobKeeper paid us for and they had to pay us out of pocket.”

While the breakdown of workers who remain on JobKeeper is opaque, many work in hospitality and other service sectors. Under conditions of a new spate of COVID-19 infections in Sydney, the country’s most populous city, and the reemergence of cases in Melbourne, businesses in hospitality, retail and related industries will again seek to drive down their labour costs, at the expense of workers, following the JobKeeper cut.

The impact that the cut will have was underscored by an Australian Bureau of Statistics survey on household expenditure, released last month. It found that, in the final months of 2020, 72 percent of JobKeeper recipients were receiving less income than prior to the pandemic, with 20 percent reporting a stable income and only 9 percent indicating that they were receiving higher wages than before the crisis.

Around 78 percent said they had spent a substantial portion of the subsidy on household bills, 63 percent reported using the income for their grocery purchases and 54 percent in order to cover rent or mortgage payments. Almost a quarter had allocated some of the payment to debt, and more than a fifth used it for medical expenses.

The immediate impact of the reduction will be magnified by the ending of JobKeeper altogether in late March. A relaxation of legislation, which effectively allowed businesses to continue to trade while insolvent, concluded on January 1. Combined with the reduction, and then abolition, of the JobKeeper payment, some financial commentators have warned that this will result in an avalanche of small business closures and job losses.

Modeling by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute has indicated that in a mild, baseline scenario official unemployment could surge from the current 6.8 percent to 8.7 percent with the conclusion of JobKeeper. In a more severe scenario, the rate would jump to 15.1 percent, accounting for more than 1.7 million out of work.

Official figures, however, grossly understate the scale of the jobs crisis. The federal Liberal-National government has touted employment data indicating that some 75 percent of jobs lost at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis have been restored. However, around 85 percent of those are part-time positions, while only one in three full-time jobs have been restored. At least a third of young workers are either unemployed or underemployed.

The social impact of the mounting jobs crisis will be intensified by the reduction of the JobSeeker supplement, paid on top of meagre allowances, from $250 per fortnight to $150. The payment was halved in September, before being cut at the beginning of this year. It is due to be phased out entirely in March, returning the unemployed to the sub-poverty rate of the Newstart allowance, which equates to just $40 per day.

Modeling by Australian National University researcher Ben Phillips indicated that the latest cut to JobSeeker will force another 330,000 people below the official poverty line, taking the total from 3.49 million to 3.82 million.

In an article published by the Guardian, Cassandra Goldie, the CEO of the Australian Council of Social Service charity group, cited one JobSeeker recipient who responded to the reduction by stating: “I am so scared for my future and feel as if I am worth nothing to anyone. I am begging the government to see that affordable housing for a single female is impossible to find. I really won’t be able to go back to the $40 a day, I won’t be able to afford food, let alone the internet. Please, I’m begging the government because I can’t cope.”

According to a study commissioned by social housing organisation “Everybody’s Home,” the $100 JobSeeker reduction could result in a rapid 9 percent increase in homelessness, equating to some 7,500 people thrown onto the streets.

The projections are starkest in Sydney and Melbourne, where a speculative property bubble has persisted, as a result of interest rate cuts and other government incentives, despite the economic carnage triggered by the pandemic. In Sydney’s inner-west, for instance, homelessness is forecast to rise by 27.1 percent, while the increase is expected to be over 33 percent in the Baulkham Hills and Hawkesbury regions.

While the most vulnerable face the prospect of homelessness, broad sections of the population are confronting a housing crisis. According to some estimates, housing stress, generally measured as spending more than 30 percent of income on rent, could affect 25 percent of the population after JobKeeper and JobSeeker are ended in March.

The social crisis is, above all, an indictment of Labor and the trade unions. Having spearheaded the deregulation of the economy and the destruction of hundreds of thousands of jobs, beginning in the 1980s, they have served as chief enforcers of the pro-business response to the pandemic crisis, overseen by the federal Liberal-National government.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese and senior union officials have issued weasel words of concern over the cuts to the subsidies. Albanese’s comments have largely been couched in terms of the negative impact on sections of business caused by a drastic reduction in the income of large segments of the population.

When in office from 2007–2013, Labor governments, in which Albanese was a senior minister, rejected calls for any increase to woefully low unemployment payments. Labor and the unions played a key role in drawing up the JobKeeper program, which provided a bonanza to major corporations, even as they were laying off tens of thousands of workers.

With the intensification of a corporate offensive against jobs, wages and conditions, Labor and the unions have done everything they can to suppress opposition from the working class. They have played the central role in isolating workers involved in industrial disputes, imposing sell-out agreements with the employers and drawing up plans for a further pro-business overhaul of industrial relations.

The Messiah Awaits Our Coming…to the Realization That no Messiah is Coming to Save Us

Amy Eva Alberts Warren & William Alberts

The Messiah awaits our coming to the realization that no Messiah is coming to save us. The Messiah is already here. Rather, they are already here. In fact countless Messiahs are everywhere, in every country. They are our children.

But in the Christian world, one child, alone, is deemed special. In fact, he was recorded as being born of a virgin, impregnated by the Holy Spirit. Born of holiness, not humanness, which is about as special as you can get. As his supernatural birth story goes, an angel of the Lord appeared to frightened shepherds, telling them. “Fear not, for behold I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day . . . a “Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.” And a chorus of angels appeared praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest heaven. And on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.” (Luke 2)

Wise men also hallow further Jesus’ birth story: they followed a star that led them to a lowly manger where Jesus was born and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Then warned in a dream not to tell Rome’s occupying ruler Herod the location of Jesus’ birth, they avoided him on their return home. A “infuriated” Herod saw the birth of Jesus as so special: as a threat to his power and rule. So he determined the region in which Jesus was born, and ordered the massacre of all the male Jewish children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under.” Then these prophetic words: “Rachel weeping for her children: she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.” (Matthew 2) Tragically, Rachel and her children merely serve as props for the special Christ Child.

Sadly, in evangelical Christianity especially, for Jesus to be special, all other human beings are believed to be the very opposite. This is the “interbeing” of Jesus’ speciality. For Jesus to be special, all others are assumed to possess an inherently sinful nature, inherited from Adam and Eve, the assumed first two human beings created by God. As the Genesis story goes: God put them in the Garden of Eden, which was filled with trees bearing delicious fruits, all of which they could eat, except for the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which is forbidden. A disobedient Adam and Eve ate from the tree, which “was to be desired to make one wise.” They were enticed by a serpent who said, ”God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. They took a bite and saw the moral light. “God reacted: ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil.’” (Evidently, “the gods” are not immune to sibling rivalry.) Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden, with Adam’s punishment: Working “by the sweat of [his] face.” And Eve’s punishment: “Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.” (Genesis 3 & 4) Shades of patriarchy and anti-rational and anti-moral thinking.

Evangelical Christianity especially believes that every human being has inherited Adam and Eve’s disobedient, and thus, inherently sinful nature. All are lost and face eternal damnation. They have no merit. So, out of his great mercy, God sent his only perfect, son, Jesus Christ, into the world to sacrifice himself on the cross for everyone’s redemption. Only those who confess their sins and accept Jesus as their savior will receive eternal life. Everyone else faces eternal damnation.

Here, salvation is about belief in divine grace, not moral behavior. It is about obedience, rather than knowing the difference between good and evil. It is about saving people’s souls more than supporting their self-determination. It is about evangelizing: getting people to confess their sins and unworthiness and accept Jesus as their savior, more than respecting their beliefs and join in enabling their economic, political, and legal empowerment. It is about salvation in heaven, more than about abundant life on earth.

Here the believers’ eternal reward is the unbelievers’ eternal punishment. You can’t have a heaven without a hell. Divinely legitimized eternal sadism.

Not only is Jesus special. All who believe he died on the cross for their sins also become special. And their evangelical need to convert others to their beliefs indicates an attitude of paternalism toward others, who are seen as lesser. The mere fact of being evangelistic — seeking to convert others to Christ – reveals a superior-versus-inferior dynamic, which breeds paternalism and sectarian and political divisiveness and militaristic imperialism– which supports nationalistic wars that offer the opportunity to convert even “the lost” enemy to Christ. Here is accommodating white evangelical imperialistic Christianity, fused with nationalism.

The stated doctrinal beliefs of certain Christian denominations reveal their use of guilt and fear of eternal punishment to gain power over and control people and make them loyal church members. And imperialism runs through their evangelical doctrines.

Lutherans, for example, believe that “The Bible is the written word of God, handed down to us in order to point us to the truth that we are saved from our sin and eternal death by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Its truth: “There is only one true God – the Triune God – who exists in three separate but equal persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” (‘LUTHERAN HOUR MINISTRIES,’ www.lhm.org)

The Southern Baptist Convention’s statement on “Evangelism and Missions”: “It is the duty of every follower of Christ and of every church of the Lord Jesus Christ to endeavor to make disciples of all nations . . . to win the lost to Christ by verbal witness undergirded by a Christian lifestyle, and by other methods in harmony with the gospel of Christ.” (“Baptist Faith and Message 2000,” (bfm.sbc,net)

In the United Methodist Church, the presiding minister says the following words to the baptismal candidate: “Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?” When the candidate says, “I do,” The minister continues: “Do you accept the freedom God has given you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they may present themselves?” After the candidate repeats, “I do,” the minister asked the candidate, ”Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior, put your whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as your Lord, in unison with the Church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races?” (‘THE BAPTISMAL COVENANT I,’ DISCIPLESHIUP MINISTRIES, The United Methodist Church, www.umcdiscipleship.org) The stated mission of the United Methodist Church: “To make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” (“What We Believe,” www.umc.org)

The Catholic Church’s catechism states, “Christ is the light of humanity; and it is, accordingly, the heart-felt desire of this sacred [Second Vatican] Council, being gathered together in the Holy Spirit, that, by proclaiming his Gospel to every creature, it may bring to all men that light of Christ which shines out visibly from the Church. (“Catechism of the Catholic Church” Part One The Profession of Faith,” www,vatican.va)

There is a different portrait of Jesus in the Gospels, one that many white evangelical Christians, and numerous other Christians, avoid. It is contained in Luke 4: 16 to 20, where he talks about other people who are special. He declares, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free.”

It is risky to speak reality and moral truth to political power. The result could be a faith leader’s loss of privilege and influence from a power structure, and also from religious superiors, many of who serve as defenders of the political status quo. It is safer to provide the Invocations and Benedictions for those in power. Better yet as evangelical Christians have done: Surround and pray for a President Trump in exchange for his appointment of pro-life judges and support of other sectarian issues. Never mind Trump’s constant lies, repeated belittling of people, and blatant anti-democratic behavior.

There are others whose lives were special to Jesus: Children. According to Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus’ disciples came to him and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” This argument goes on today between faith groups. Jesus “called a child whom he put among them, and said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’ “(Matthew 18: 1-5)

Perhaps Jesus understood that, in all children, we see our own great human potential.  We are born “citizens of the world,” fundamentally prosocial and with the transcendent potential to cross all the lines—national, cultural, religious, and so on—that, later as adults, we often come to believe unavoidably divide us.  It is this very dualistic worldview, the same one that supports the moral exclusion of others, that keeps us looking to be saved by a Messiah outside ourselves.  When, in reality, “the Messiah” is our own human potential, universal and born fresh every time, in every child.

The Messiah Awaits Our Coming

William E. Alberts

There is good news and bad news.  The good news: a biblical angel said, “’Do not be afraid.  I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.  . . . Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men!’” (Luke 2: 10, 11, 14)  The bad news is that no “Messiah” is going to come and save us.  The “Messiah” came, and, like numerous other historical liberation prophets, he was crucified—in his case, by the occupying Romans, for seeking to set his Jewish people free.  But he did leave a sacrificial model, embodied in The Golden Rule and in The Beatitudes like, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”  But that model involves much risk-taking.  So, basically, his later followers, and their descendants,  institutionalized him,  turning him into a Christian and his model into a monument—with rites emphasized over rights, and doctrine over doing—and they became chaplains of the status quo.

The transformation of Jesus from liberator into evangelizer is instructive.  When early Christianity finally became the religion of the state and attained authority and power under Roman Emperor Constantine in the Fourth Century, the “good news” went mainstream—moving from liberation to domination.  What began as a grassroots movement to empower and set people free became an imperialistic crusade to evangelize and gain power over them.   Armed with state power and with the exceptionalistic belief in the resurrection as proof that Jesus was “the only Son of God,” the now legitimized “Christians” joined the state in seeking to conquer the world.

The Christians’ mission of world domination was wrapped in the imperialistic words of their risen “Lord.” They put wings on his feet and words in his mouth: an assumed resurrected Jesus supposedly appeared   to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28: 16-20) Never mind that the Doctrine of the Trinity does not appear elsewhere in The Bible, and was not formulated until centuries after Jesus’ death. ( See, “The Doctrine of the Trinity,” www.religiousfacts.com)

Such New Testament beliefs in Christian exceptionalism turns non-Christians into The Other, making them fair game for conversion, or for obliviousness—and oblivion.  A 21^st Century example is former,  “Christ . . . changed my heart,” president George W. Bush, who launched an illegal, falsely based,  preemptive war against the Iraqi people—on prayerful bended knee.  His planned aggression against defenseless, non-threatening Iraq was supported by “the war sermons  [of]. . influential evangelical ministers during the lead up to Iraq war.”  According to evangelical Christian and University of Virginia professor of religion Charles Marsh, “The war sermons rallied the evangelical congregations behind the invasion of Iraq,” with “an astounding 87 percent of all white evangelical Christians in the United States supporting the president’s decision in April 2003—and almost three years later “68 percent of white evangelicals continue[d] to support the war,” (“Wayward Christian Soldiers,” The New York Times, Jan. 20, 2006)  The, one true, “Prince of peace” provided symbolic inspiration for imperialistic war and conquest.

Numerous Christian denominations in the U.S. initially opposed the invasion of Iraq, some strongly.  But, the fact that its horrible destructiveness continued for almost nine years, and that war criminals Bush and his vice president, Dick Cheney are walking around free, and honored in mainstream political, media and religious circles speak volumes about the immorality of the evangelizing mentality.  One person may wear an American flag on his lapel and another may wear a Christian cross; both have similar meanings for victims of American imperialism.

Traditional Christianity’s imperialistic belief in its own exceptionalism resonates with, far more than challenges, American exceptionalism, which our government trumpets to camouflage its goal of world domination.  Thus there is little Jesus-inspired outcry or demonstrations against the Obama administration’s drone warfare, that violates the national sovereignty of other countries, fills their skies with fear, and kills innocent children, women and men in Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and elsewhere– people in wedding parties, a grandmother working on her farm, children in their homes, and countless other human beings   Places that are far away, and their peoples’ out of sight.   Whereas, here in America “There’s a song in the air!  There’s a star in the sky”   . .  . And the star rains its fire while the beautiful sing, For the manger of Bethlehem cradles a king!” (“There’s a Song in the Air,” words by Josiah G. Holland, 1819-1881; music by Karl P. Harrington, 1861-1953)  In America, it is about a “star rains its fire while the beautiful sing,” not about a drone raining its fire while The Other scream—and are suddenly blown to bits.

“Making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world,” the mission of evangelical denominations, shares similarities with our government’s some 1000 American military bases in around 130 countries throughout the world, many in Arab and Muslim lands.  Never mind that America’s global presence is not really about “spreading freedom” but about expanding “free enterprise”–  which depends on controlling Islamic countries, exploiting their resources, and using their strategic locations for predatory policies toward neighboring nations.  Rather than speaking truth to such imperialistic power, many American Christian leaders are more likely to provide accommodating Invocations and Benedictions.

The Christmas carol, “Joy to the World” is an imperialistic fit for America’s global ambitions.  For, “He rules the world with truth and grace, And makes the nations prove The glories of his righteousness.” (words: Isaac Watts, 1674-1748; music: arr. From George Frederick Handel, 1685-1759, by Lowell Mason, 1792-1872) Yes, “There’s a song in the air!  . . . O’er the wonderful birth, for the virgin’s sweet boy is the Lord of the earth.”

Along with their imperialistic theological world view, many Christian worshippers place a related emphasis on personal salvation that encourages detachment from human rights, social justice, and “peace on earth, good will toward men.”  It is far more about individual belief than about interpersonal behavior.  About salvation, not solidarity.  About one’s final destination, far more than about the journey with others– unless they are like-minded. (See, Alberts, “Jesus, the Theological Prisoner of Christianity,” Counterpunch, Aug. 25-25, 2007)

Here, too, certain Christmas carols reinforce preoccupation with oneself and detachment from “strangers.”  From: “God rest you merry, gentlemen, Let nothing you dismay, For Jesus Christ our Savior Was born on this day.  To save us all from Satan’s power When we were gone astray.” (“God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen,” 18^th Century Trad. English Carol)  To: “Hark! The herald angels sing, ‘Glory to the new-born King!; Peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled!” (words: Charles Wesley, 1707-1788, Alt by George Whitefield, 1714-1770; music: Lyra Davidica, 1708)

A self-centered gospel of personal salvation, and related evangelical imperialism, driven by the belief that Jesus is “the Lord of the earth,” prevents many Christmas worshipers from practicing one of Jesus’s greatest teachings: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Their one true religion, with its personal and exclusionary salvation, depends not on them loving their neighbor as themselves, but on their neighbor becoming like themselves.

That baby in a manger still holds the key to “peace on earth, good will toward men.”  Not his assumed divinity in supposedly being “born of a virgin.”  But his humanity, which was corrupted by the   evangelical imperialistic need to turn him into a unique, divine being.  It is that baby’s humanity that is shared by all children and women and men and mothers and fathers everywhere.   All human beings laugh and cry and love and hate and hope and mourn.   To hear each other’s laughter and to see each other’s tears is to experience each other’s humanness.  And the need to be loved, and to love, is the center of that humanness.  Love that follows The Golden Rule and puts itself in another’s shoes.  Love that experiences rather than interprets other people’s reality.  Love that recognizes everyone is exceptional, without exception.  Love that believes everyone is entitled and has an inherent right to be and to belong and to become.  Love that demands justice for all people, and thrives on kindness.

The messiah awaits our coming to the realization that no one is going to come and save us.  It is up to us.  “Peace on earth” depends not on saviors, but on models, not on military power, but on human empowerment, not on force and fear, but on love and justice.