Millions return to school in the UK as doctors and scientists issue warnings

Thomas Scripps

Millions of children returned to school in England yesterday for the first full week back after the summer break, amid warnings from scientists over the rapid spread of COVID-19.

The infection rate in the UK among all age groups is currently 26 times higher than it was this time last year, and rising. Over 41,000 people tested positive for the virus yesterday, taking the total for the last week to 263,885 cases, a 12.2 percent increase on the week before. There were 6,573 people admitted to hospital in the last week, a 3.7 percent increase, and 789 deaths, over 110 a day.

Yesterday’s case number took the official total in the UK during the pandemic to over 7 million. Case numbers are likely far higher. The ZOE Covid Symptom Study, working with King’s College London, reported an estimated 57,322 daily cases last week—a 10 percent increase on the week before.

Pupils at Covid test station as they entered their new secondary school for the first time at Wales High school, Sheffield, England, Friday, Sept. 3, 2021. Fewer measures are in place in schools than during last term, with bubbles and masks no longer in use in England and Wales, while Northern Ireland has also scrapped social distancing requirements. (AP Photo/Rui Vieira)

An estimated 30 percent of these cases were among double-vaccinated people, with lead scientist Professor Tim Spector commenting, “we’ve seen evidence that the protection provided by vaccines is wearing off.” This confirms the findings of a major study by Oxford University last month which found waning levels of vaccine efficacy over time for both the AstraZeneca and Pfizer jabs.

The infection rate among children—with 30 times more cases—is even more elevated compared to last year than it is for the general population. In the week to August 28, there were more than 300 Covid cases per 100,000 among five to 15-year-olds, compared to 10 in 100,000 in the same week in 2020.

These numbers will skyrocket in the next few weeks, as children spend hours a day in schools with no requirements for mask wearing, distancing or contact tracing. The “bubble system”, albeit limited, has been scrapped and no provisions made to improve ventilation. The vast majority of children are still unvaccinated.

Dr David Strain, senior clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter Medical School, told Sky News, “The summer holiday acted exactly as a firebreak would. What we’re now expecting is the rates to pick up and the R number to jump to about 1.7—basically doubling in case numbers on a weekly basis.”

Professor John Edmunds, a member of the government’s scientific advisory group for emergencies (SAGE) cautioned that there was “a long way to go if we allow infection just to run through the population, that’s a lot of children who will be infected and that will be a lot of disruption to schools in the coming months.”

Primary school pupils return to a school in Bournemouth on Monday September 6, 2021 (WSWS Media)

A report published by SAGE’s Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling subgroup on August 27 predicted: “Schools will represent a high proportion of remaining susceptible individuals and it is highly likely that exponential increases will be seen in school-attending age groups after schools open.”

Infections have already surged in Scotland, after schools reopened several weeks earlier there and in Northern Ireland. A further 7,065 new coronavirus cases were reported Monday in Scotland. Case rates specifically among the under-15s in Scotland have trebled. In the last week, over 400 pupils at both Larne High School in Northern Ireland and St Ninian’s High School in Kirkintilloch, Scotland were reported absent due to Covid.

The rapid spread of infection will expose millions of children to the risk of debilitating Long Covid and severe illness and hospitalisation, with the longer-term health implications still unknown. School workers, even if vaccinated, can still contract the disease with serious consequences and will be exposed to extremely high levels of the virus. These risks are especially grave for the clinically vulnerable.

High infection rates in schools will also contribute to a dangerous worsening of the pandemic in the wider population.

Imperial College London pandemic modeller Professor Neil Ferguson has warned that he expects the return of English schools to lead to a “significant surge”. He added that if daily cases are allowed to climb above 100,000 there would be “significant demands on the health system”.

This would coincide with the extreme pressures placed on the National Health Service (NHS) annually in the colder months, which this year are preceded by a “summer crisis”.

Dr Nick Scriven, former president of the Society for Acute Medicine, explained last week: “I think it is fair to say we are currently facing an unprecedented summer workload that feels more like the worst winter pressures most of us can recall.

“We are seeing vast numbers of patients with non-Covid illness alongside the steady admission rates of those still very poorly with Covid.

“The types of illnesses we are seeing are typical of winter weather as in a lot of respiratory infections, especially in paediatrics, but also a lot of people where the lack of access to primary and secondary care during the last 18 months could now be contributing to them needing hospital admission.”

Current president Dr Susan Crossland added: “This is a deeply concerning time as we are in uncharted territory here with a summer crisis consisting of so many different problems with no end in sight and the daunting prospect of an extremely busy and difficult winter.

“We know many hospitals are at bed occupancy levels well over the safe limit of 85 percent, with some at more than 95 percent, at this point of the year and we know we have worse to come”.

The ambulance service received a record number of calls in July—close to one million—and of callouts for life-threatening conditions—82,000. In August, ambulance trusts in the North East, East, South Central and South West regions of England had to call in support from the Army.

Multiple hospitals in the last two months have been forced to declare “black alerts” due to patient numbers and a shortage of staff and resources, meaning they are “struggling or unable to deliver comprehensive care” and patients’ safety is at risk.

NHS Confederation leader Matthew Taylor described the summer as being like a “mid-winter crisis”, saying “we are running hot and you can’t do that forever.”

The criminally unsafe return to school has been backed by a major government propaganda campaign. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has pledged to “move heaven and earth to make sure that we aren’t in a position of having to close schools,” insisting “we want to see children back in the classroom; we don’t want to see the same level of disruption [i.e., children exposed to the virus self-isolating].”

On August 26, the BBC reported, “A campaign on radio, social and digital media to reassure parents and pupils it is safe to return to school in England has been launched by the government.” The BBC have lent their own services to this offensive.

Williamson and the Tory government can count on the backing of the Labour Party and the trade unions, both of which support the reopening even as they admit schools will become a “cauldron of Covid,” in the words of shadow schools minister Peter Kyle.

Where the unions criticise the government’s actions, they frequently do so from the Tories’ own perspective of minimising “disruption”, not of protecting workers and children. Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said late last month that the government’s management of the return to school was “a recipe for chaos, and the government cannot once again allow a situation to develop in which attendance unravels, and children experience yet more disruption.”

At most, the unions call for inadequate mitigation measures such as the reimplementation of masking, but even these are made as lame appeals to the government to act.

National Education Union joint general secretary Kevin Courtney has politely recommended, “Government should support leaders in secondary schools and colleges in weighing up the case for continuing to require staff and students to wear face coverings around the premises—including potentially in classrooms—and on dedicated school transport, particularly in areas with high case rates.” He has asked Williamson to help schools “consider face coverings from day one of term, alongside social distancing where possible, and special consideration for vulnerable staff.”

Reopening of French schools threatens students and workers with a resurgence of the pandemic

Anthony Torres

With an average of over 13,000 daily cases, the reopening of schools in France that began last week is preparing a new wave of infections, illnesses and deaths among teachers, children and the population at large.

In the face of this criminal policy, workers and teachers must fight for a strategy to eradicate the virus, based on the measures proposed by epidemiologists, virologists and other scientists throughout the pandemic. This means the international application of all the measures available in the fight against the virus, including lockdowns and social distancing measures. The implementation of this strategy requires the development of a powerful international and unified working-class mass movement based on science.

Millions of children and students returned to school and universities on September 2. Youth aged under 12 are not vaccinated, and those aged under 18 are on average the least vaccinated. In September 2020, France counted an average of 5,407 new daily cases, which prepared a new epidemic wave and the spread of new variants. Now the health situation is worse, due to the aggressiveness of the Delta variant.

Children sit in a classroom at school in Strasbourg, eastern France, Sept. 2, 2021. (AP Photo/Jean-François Badias)

Questioned on news channel BFMTV, Health Minister Olivier Véran said: “We must be extremely vigilant, and I ask the French people who are watching this to be very careful in the days and weeks to come, to respect social distancing measures, to wear the mask wherever necessary, to wash your hands; all of that you know.”

On the same channel, Lila Bouadma, a health worker at the Bichat Hospital in Paris and member of the Scientific Council, estimated that in the coming days, “there will be 50,000 children infected per day, which is colossal. We can fear that there will be a return of a paediatric epidemic. We are not prepared for that, because it is specialty care. For children, we think that it is not more serious, but we must change the paradigm; this does not matter. Some have long forms of COVID, they are not very symptomatic but they remain so, with a significant state of fatigue.”

The epidemiologist Arnaud Fontanet warned on France Inter: “The schools are the most complex situation that awaits us this fall. We cannot apply the same recipes as before.”

The reopening of schools in the United States confirms these warnings in France. In the second week of August, more than 121,000 children tested positive for the virus and a record number, more than 1,900, were hospitalized in the US alone. These numbers are expected to skyrocket in the coming weeks with the full reopening of schools.

Already in the initial days of the opening, teachers have posted statements on social media warning of the lack of preparation, the absence of resources, and no means to impose even limited social distancing measures.

One teacher, Marie, posted an image on the Red Pens Facebook group showing her windows almost sealed shut, with the caption: “Here are the windows of my classroom in their maximum open position. The two other walls have no windows. There are two doors but they open into another classroom and a hallway. … A CO2 captor would not be a luxury…”

Wrongly presented as a disease of the elderly, the virus is increasingly infecting young adults and unvaccinated children. Le Monde reports, “As of August 23, nineteen children and adolescents aged 0 to 19 were hospitalized in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, exceeding the thresholds reached during the third wave. These figures are linked to the record levels of contaminations in these territories during the holiday season.”

Faced with this alarming situation, the Education Minister Michel Blanquer announced on August 29 that the return to school would take place under a Level 2 health protocol, that is to say, face-to-face instruction with all students. As soon as the first case is detected in middle and high schools, there will not be any shutting of classes, and vaccinated students are to continue attending class. Only in primary school and kindergarten are classes to close for seven days after the first case is detected.

Non-vaccinated students who are contact cases will have to isolate for seven days. In Guadeloupe and Polynesia, where lockdowns have been implemented, the start of the school year has been postponed by two weeks.

The maintenance of the start of the school year accompanied by limited health measures, despite the alarming warnings of epidemiologists, underscores the criminal policy of the Macron government. The limited measures will not prevent the circulation of the virus among children and teachers as well as parents, encouraging the development of new and potentially more dangerous variants.

The policy of “herd immunity” has already caused more than 110,000 deaths in France and more than one million in Europe. Macron will be responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people in the coming months, including children, as well as the long-term impact of Long COVID from which many children will suffer.

This criminal policy would not have been possible without the complicity of the trade union apparatuses. The reopening of the schools is part of the “herd immunity” policy of the financial aristocracy. Having flooded the financial markets with liquidity and implemented bailout packages for itself, the financial elite is imposing the return to work, which would be impossible without the reopening of schools. The aim is to make massive profits on the backs of workers and their families, who are in mortal danger.

Not only did the trade unions refuse to fight to keep workers safe since the beginning of the pandemic. The CGT and CFDT, like the German trade unions, applauded the EU bailout packages and participated in the negotiations to restructure the European economy throughout the pandemic. They helped the state and employers to impose on worried teachers and parents the dangerous reopening of classes for children.

The Minister of Education negotiated and agreed with the unions upon the implementation of the reopening of in-person classes. The unions have since participated in protests against the health pass organized by the extreme right, demanding the lifting of health restrictions for the implementation of a policy of “herd immunity” without mitigation.

US football stadiums packed to the brim while COVID continues to surge

Benjamin Mateus

Labor Day weekend 2021 inaugurated the American college football season with stadiums from coast to coast packed to the brim with exhilarated fans, hardly any wearing a mask, in complete defiance of the COVID pandemic.

The number in attendance at some of the country’s biggest stadiums was staggering. The University of Michigan hosted Western Michigan with close to 110,000 spectators standing shoulder to shoulder. The University of Texas defeated Louisiana on Saturday, cheered by more than 91,000 screaming and cheering fans. And the list could go on and on as more than 80 games were played during the long weekend that included Thursday.

There is no question that tens of thousands of people who began this college football season cheering on their favorite team will be dead before it is over. That is the brutal arithmetic of the pandemic, which capitalist politicians, both Democratic and Republican, and their corporate masters are seeking to conceal.

Oregon fans watch a NCAA football game against Fresno State through a haze of wildfire smoke on Saturday, Sept. 4, 2021, in Eugene, Ore. (AP Photo/Amanda Loman)

A week before these sporting celebrations, Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, acknowledged that the country could expect more than 100,000 new COVID-19 deaths by December. “What is going on now is both entirely predictable and entirely preventable,” he said. “We could turn this thing around, and we can do it efficiently and quickly if we could just get those [80 million] people vaccinated. It’s so important that people in this crisis put aside any ideological and political differences and just get vaccinated.”

There are no “ideological or political differences” in college football and sports in general. As USA Today noted last year, “At stake is at least $4.1 billion in fiscal-year revenue for the athletics departments at just the 50-plus public schools in the Power Five conferences—an average of more than $78 million per school.” Ticket sales, merchandising of athletic apparel and television contracts can gross a top university over $100 million per season. According to Citadel Today, “The average game payouts [on TV contracts] run between $150,000 and $1.65 million depending on the teams playing and how ‘big’ the TV ratings are expected to be for that specific game.”

In what is perhaps a grotesque irony, the local media celebrated the return of the Iowa Wave in the game between the Hawkeyes and Wyoming Cowboys on Thursday. The tradition started on September 2, 2017, when at the end of the first quarter of every Iowa home game, teams and fans turn towards the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital and wave to all the patients.

Considering the rising number of pediatric hospitalizations across the country from COVID infections, the Iowa Wave lacked any traditional value. It seemed more of an insult to those families who have lost children to the coronavirus—and those who are going to lose them. Already, more than 204,000 pediatric infections have been reported by the American Academy of Pediatrics for the week ending August 26, 2021, nearing the winter highs in January 2021. Hospitalization rates for those under 18 have risen nearly fivefold since the beginning of summer.

In a show of complete hypocrisy and callousness, the University of Iowa’s president, Barbara Wilson, offered the fans and players her many thanks for supporting the football program, assuring the public that the COVID metrics in Johnson County have remained “relatively stable” and offering COVID-19 and flu vaccines to fans before the game.

Television ratings for these events have gone through the roof. As Newsweek noted, “The Saturday night game between top-5 teams Clemson and Georgia was the second-most seen season kickoff game—over any network—in the last 15 years, and it’s up 16 percent from a similar game in the 2019 season.” More than six million viewers tuned in to the game between number one-ranked Alabama and number 14-ranked Miami.

Many sports announcers predict even more enormous crowds for home openers on the September 11 weekend which universities like Alabama, Clemson, Georgia, Louisiana State, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Ohio State and Penn State will be hosting.

That these events will become superspreading events is not a question. One has to take in the chilling scene of jam-packed spectators to recognize the catastrophe in store. Public health officials, such as Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, have warned of the dangers posed by the highly virulent Delta strain, even for people outdoors.

As one senior contributor, Professor Bruce Y. Lee, poignantly asked in Forbes, “In fact, could the ‘return of college football’ be like pouring kerosene on a fire and adding fuel to the current COVID-19 coronavirus surge in the US?” To ask the question is to answer it.

The United States has registered more than 40.8 million cases of COVID-19, of which 4.4 million were amassed in just one month or more than one million cases a week. Many of these are linked to the recent return-to-school events that have ignited large clusters of outbreaks in multiple states. It has been demonstrated, again and again, that superspreading events are crucial to sustaining the pandemic.

The average number of daily new cases has risen to more than 161,000. With recurring weekly massive sporting events attended by millions who assemble beforehand for tailgate parties, watch the sporting events and, afterward, celebrate at pubs and dining facilities, the concerns raised within the medical communities are more than warranted.

Deaths continue to climb, with 1,560 people dying each day, a rise of 55 percent in the daily rate. In just one month, more than 33,000 people have been killed. However, the number of excess deaths in this period is twice this figure, highlighting the current surge’s extreme impact on the health sector and communities’ ability to respond to the crisis.

Present modeling estimates place the number of COVID-19 deaths at more than three-quarters of a million by December 1, 2021. This estimate is an upward modification by 13,000 deaths to the assessment preceding it a month prior. However, one doesn’t need to look up statistics when morgues are overflowing with corpses to understand the disaster compounded on the weight of previous disasters.

The White House and political establishment, working on behalf of the financial markets, have been responsible for conveying the possibility that life could return to normal with the COVID vaccines, creating the illusion that the coronavirus had been “defanged,” as a commentator for Bloomberg put it. As a consequence, mask usage is down by more than 66 percent from its peak, while the number of patrons going to restaurants and stores has neared pre-pandemic levels.

New Zealand government axes emergency benefit payments to migrants

John Braddock & Tom Peters

In another attack on the basic rights of migrants, the New Zealand Labour government of Jacinda Ardern has axed “emergency” benefits, paid to unemployed migrants. The move took place with the country in the middle of a nationwide lockdown over a surge of COVID-19 cases.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden speaking at a press conference in September 2020. (Image Credit: Jacinda Ardern, Facebook)

Like governments internationally, the Labour Party-led coalition, which includes the Green Party and is backed by the trade unions, is actively discriminating against migrants, in order to divert popular anger over worsening poverty and the spiraling cost of living.

When the economic crisis, triggered by the pandemic, erupted last year and borders were closed, thousands of migrant workers lost their jobs. Ineligible for unemployment benefits, they were forced to rely on food parcels and emergency support provided through the Red Cross.

The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) finally began paying welfare benefits to migrants last December, at the same rate as the standard poverty-level unemployment benefit: $251 a week for a single person and $375 a week for a sole parent.

However, temporary visa holders were denied any extra payments available to residents, including the accommodation supplement, which hundreds of thousands of residents rely upon to pay for out-of-control rental costs.

According to the MSD’s Work and Income website, the emergency benefit payment ended on August 31. The Ministry told Radio NZ that final payments were being made in the week beginning September 6.

The website says people still needing support should contact their embassy. It also directs migrants to the Immigration New Zealand Repatriation Fund, for “help with paying for travel to return to your home country.”

Among the affected temporary visa holders are an estimated 25,000 international students, who are limited to working 20 hours a week. In addition to axing emergency benefits, the government has also refused to renew a $1 million International Student Hardship Fund, which was established last year.

The fund provided grants to education providers and other organisations, to enable them to “direct financial relief or other support, including food parcels and support towards living costs.” International students were eligible for a maximum of $1000 in cash or kind, from the fund.

The International Students Association (NZISA) president Afiqah Ramizi told Radio NZ on August 31: “We pay extensive international student fees, support local economies, and contribute to the New Zealand job market. At the same time we are cut off from our families who are also struggling abroad.”

On August 25, Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni, bluntly told a parliamentary select committee that the government was “not considering extending” the emergency payments for migrant workers.

Sepuloni claimed that there were “between 60 and 80 people” receiving the payment. She told Stuff on September 1: “Ending welfare support for temporary visa holders reflects overall improvements in international travel and economic conditions that have enabled most [of them] to return home or support themselves in New Zealand by finding work.”

In fact, this relatively low number of recipients reflects the fact that migrants have been discouraged from applying, rather than a lack of need. Stuff reported: “When the scheme was set up, it was estimated it would support 5,800 people,” based on the level of need among jobless migrants. But from December 2020 to February 2021, only 306 migrants received the benefit.

Stuff journalist Dileepa Fonseka wrote on July 10 that early in the pandemic “several migrants I spoke to were struggling to survive, but also not particularly keen to talk, for fear of being found out. Going hungry or living on the street for a few weeks is not too high a price to pay if it means Immigration New Zealand won’t find out you no longer have that job your visa is attached to.”

The Green Party has postured as a supporter of migrant workers, with MP Ricardo Menéndez March writing on Facebook: “It’s callous for the Government to be cutting income support” in the middle of the lockdown. He pointed out that the low uptake was due to “strict criteria requiring migrants to prove they were leaving.”

The Green Party, however, has been part of the Ardern government since 2017, when it joined a coalition with Labour and the right-wing nationalist NZ First Party. The Greens’ role is to promote the illusion that the government can be pressured to move to the left—even as it ramps up the attack on immigrants and imposes austerity across the public sector, while handing out billions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks to big business.

The ending of benefits for temporary visa holders is the latest in a series of anti-immigrant measures, carried out since the 2017 election, when Labour and NZ First adopted a policy to slash migration—then around 70,000 a year—by up to 30,000.

New rules introduced in 2019 blocked thousands of less wealthy parents from joining their adult children. A resident or citizen must now earn over $106,000 a year to bring one parent, or $159,000—more than three times the median salary—to bring two.

The pandemic has been used to bring immigration to a virtual halt, with a net migration gain of just 6,600 people last year. Labour suspended the processing of residency visas under the Skilled Migrant Category (SMC) in March 2020, blaming the impacts of COVID-19, leaving more than 30,000 applicants in limbo.

The Indian Weekender reported on July 30 that around 60,000 Indian migrants with temporary work or student visas faced “uncertainty and despair,” as the government “continues to throttle the pathway to residency.” A decision to lapse 50,000 temporary visa applications, filed offshore after August 2020, and bar visa holders from re-entering the country, prompted protests in India and fueled fear among current residents. Some partners and children, trapped overseas, have not seen their family members for more than 500 days, due to NZ’s border restrictions.

In May, Economic Development Minister Stuart Nash said that the pandemic was a “once-in-a-generation” chance to “reset” immigration policy. He bluntly declared that the government aimed to make it harder for employers to take on workers from overseas. Meanwhile, new border exceptions allow more than 200 wealthy international investors to enter the country over the next 12 months. Larry Page, co-founder of Google and the world’s sixth richest person, reputedly worth $166 billion, was recently granted residency, on the basis that he invests $NZ10 million over three years.

New Zealand’s brutal, class-based immigration policies demolish the media propaganda that Ardern’s government is based on “kindness” and “compassion.” It is a right-wing government, intent on whipping up nationalism and xenophobia in order to prevent a unified struggle by workers from all backgrounds against austerity and social inequality.

Military coup topples President Alpha Condé in Guinea

Alex Lantier

On Sunday morning, Guinean special forces with links to US and French imperialism led by Colonel Mamady Doumbouya launched a coup in the capital, Conakry, ousting President Alpha Condé and imposing martial law in the former French West African colony.

In this image from video, an unidentified soldier takes up position under a truck near the office of the president in the capital Conakry, Guinea Sunday, Sept. 5, 2021. Guinea's new military leaders sought to tighten their grip on power after overthrowing President Alpha Conde (AP Photo)

The coup came amid mounting popular anger at fuel and food price hikes, bread shortages and tax increases as Guinea’s economy reels under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Condé’s attempt in 2019 to rewrite Guinea’s constitution to allow himself to hold on to power until 2032 had provoked mass protests.

At around 8 a.m. Sunday, troops of the Groupement des forces spéciales (GFS) sealed off the Kaloum neighborhood of Conakry, where the Sekhoutoureah Presidential Palace is located. They reportedly seized Condé after a brief firefight with the presidential guard.

Doumbouya then appeared on public Radio-Télévision guinéenne (RTG), armed and in uniform, to announce the formation of the Comité national du rassemblement et du développment (CNRD, National Committee for Unity and Development) junta. He said, “We decided, after having captured the president, who is currently in our custody … to dissolve the constitution that is currently in place, and to dissolve the institutions.” He added, “We have control of all of Conakry and together with all military and security forces, we will act to finally put an end to the evils in Guinea.”

Doumbouya decreed the closing of Guinea’s borders for a week and an 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew, demanding that public sector workers report to work as normal. He ordered government ministers to report to the junta or face prosecution on charges of rebellion. Yesterday, CNRD forces also released a video showing Condé in their custody, surrounded by soldiers and in rumpled clothing but apparently unharmed.

In his speech, Doumbouya pledged to set up a “government of national unity” and avoid a “witch hunt” against figures of the Condé regime. “Consultations will begin to sketch out the broad outline of the transition, afterwards a government of national unity will be established to carry out this transition,” he said.

Doumbouya also pledged to respect capitalist property, including the owners of Guinea’s bauxite mines, which play a significant role in global aluminum production. The CNRD, he said, will guarantee “our economic and financial partners of the normal conduct of economic activity in this country. The Committee assures its partners that it will respect all its obligations.”

During Doumbouya’s speech, it remained unclear whether his GFS unit had in fact seized control of the capital. The Guinean Defense Ministry issued a statement that the presidential guard had stopped the coup. However, the Wall Street Journal cited anonymous “Western security officials” who acknowledged that while the situation was “fluid,” the CNRD “held the cards.”

Yesterday, it appeared that the CNRD had control of Conakry. Press reports indicated that traffic in the city was slow, with many workers remaining at home and avoiding soldiers on the streets.

Significantly, the Union syndicale des travailleurs de Guinée (Trade Union of Guinean Workers, USTG) backed the putsch. Linked to both the US-based United Auto Workers (UAW) union and France’s Confédération générale du travail (CGT, General Confederation of Labor) union through the IndustriALL Global Union umbrella group, the USTG bureaucracy issued a statement endorsing the new CNRD junta.

USTG General Secretary Abdoulaye Sow declared: “History is repeating itself, on September 5, 2021 the people of Guinea awoke to a new reality that conforms to its destiny. Taking this new deal into account, the National Union of Guinean Workers (USTG) observes with great interest the situation in our country, GUINEA. … It appeals to the new military authorities for restraint and to save the economic and social structure of our country.”

In reality, nothing in the history of military rule in West Africa or in Guinea’s 63-year history since independence from France in 1958 suggests that the Guinean bourgeoisie can usher in a new era of prosperity and democracy, or establish genuine independence from imperialism. Condé became Guinea’s first elected president in 2010, having long been identified as a “democratic” opponent to the military regime. Once in power, however, despite international investment in Guinean bauxite mines, Condé faced international problems for which he had no democratic solutions.

Shaken by the French war of neighboring Mali launched in 2013 and the 2014-2015 West African Ebola outbreak, Condé’s regime foundered on the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the murderous health and financial policies pursued above all by the imperialist powers.

Guinea has reported 30,000 confirmed cases and 355 confirmed deaths of COVID-19, which are likely massive underestimates. It has administered only 9.2 doses of COVID-19 vaccines per 100 inhabitants of the country. Beyond the horrific toll of the disease, however, the surge in world grain and fuel prices and the fall in export revenues due to the global economic slowdown and financial speculation unleashed by the pandemic undermined Condé’s government.

As prices for imported wheat rose, there was mass anger in January as Condé increased the price of a 250-gram loaf of bread from 1,500 to 4,000 Guinean francs. Last month, the government raised the price of a liter of gasoline from 9,000 to 11,000 Guinean francs. These drastic increases are impoverishing broad layers of the Guinean population, whose median yearly income is 459,000 Guinean francs (just US$830).

Doumbouya represents a layer of the security forces in Guinea closely linked to imperialism and its wars for domination of West Africa. Having begun his military career in the French Foreign Legion, he received further military training at France’s War School, in Israel and at military academies in Senegal and Gabon, two West African countries with longstanding ties to French imperialism. He participated in the NATO war in Afghanistan and in US-led Flintlock military exercises in Ouagadougou, the capital of nearby Burkina Faso, in 2019.

One of Doumbouya’s fellow participants in the 2019 Flintlock exercise was Malian Colonel Assimi Goïta, who amid mounting anti-war protests in Mali led the August 2020 military coup. Like Doumbouya, Goïta issued a statement immediately upon taking power pledging to work with French and other forces stationed in his country.

In 2019, Doumbouya hailed the Flintlock exercise and Guinea’s providing of troops to serve as auxiliaries helping Paris wage war in Mali—notably in the north, near Kidal. He told Guinée News: “Guinea is fighting alongside its Malian brothers in Kidal, in the context of the war on terror. From our standpoint, we think it is an affair that concerns us.”

The putsch in Conakry—after the August 2020 coup in Mali and the April 2021 coup in another key African military ally of France, Chad—points to the incompatibility of imperialist war with even the formal trappings of democracy. This is not, moreover, only an issue in former French colonies in Africa. Social inequality and the official handling of the COVID-19 pandemic are undermining democratic forms of rule even in wealthy imperialist countries like France and the United States.

After then-US President Donald Trump’s January 6 coup attempt on the US Capitol in Washington, French officers—including many stationed in Africa—signed a statement endorsing a military coup and the use of deadly force in France.

US ruling class cuts off pandemic jobless aid, pushing millions over financial cliff

Marcus Day

On Monday, federal unemployment assistance programs related to the pandemic were allowed to expire in a deliberate move by both the Democrats and Republicans to cut off the sole source of income for millions of unemployed, and the millions more family members they support.

A person looks inside the closed doors of the Pasadena Community Job Center during the coronavirus outbreak in Pasadena, Calif. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

The result will be that many will be forced to accept whatever job they can find, no matter how low-paying, degrading or dangerous, or face being plunged into the social and financial abyss.

Coming in the midst of a re-explosion of the coronavirus pandemic driven by the Delta variant, with an average of over 160,000 new cases and 1,500 deaths a day, the termination of unemployment aid is nothing less than homicidal. The cutoff will inevitably fuel the spread of the virus, as millions are forced back into crowded workplaces where transmission is rampant, while forcing other sections of the population into utter destitution and homelessness.

Three programs ceased on Monday: one which provided benefits to gig workers, the self-employed and caretakers, who were previously ineligible for unemployment aid; another which increased the length of time benefits could be received; and a third which provided an additional $300 weekly payment supplementing jobless assistance delivered by the states.

Nearly 7.5 million people will be deprived of all unemployment income due to the expiration of the first two programs, while an additional 3 million will lose the $300 weekly supplement, leaving them with just the grossly inadequate state aid. In states which have been hardest hit by the pandemic recently, such as Mississippi and Louisiana, the maximum weekly jobless aid payment is less than even the paltry federal minimum wage of $7.25.

The reality is that many of those currently unemployed will simply not be able to find work of any kind for the foreseeable future. Economists estimate a shortfall of 6.6 to 9.1 million jobs in comparison to February 2020. Meanwhile, 8.4 million people were unemployed in August, and another 5.7 million were out of the labor force but wanted a job, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment report.

The cutoff also comes as a new wave of temporary shutdowns, driven by the microchip shortage, grips the auto industry. The Big Three automakers have worked with the United Auto Workers union to employ increasing numbers of temporary workers, who receive only meager state aid while they are on layoff.

Millions are losing their only economic lifeline less than two weeks after the Supreme Court overturned the moratorium on rental evictions, threatening an estimated 11 million who were already behind on their rent. Another moratorium on foreclosure evictions is set to expire on September 30.

The end of federal jobless aid has been carried out with the support of the White House and both parties in Congress. President Biden had previously made clear his endorsement of the September 6 cutoff, stating in June that “it makes sense.” On Friday, he made only a perfunctory reference to the benefits expiration in the course of remarks on the weak August jobs report, while misleadingly claiming that state governments have the “federal resources” to extend benefits if they wish. No states, whether Democrat or Republican-led, have indicated they plan to do so. On the contrary, this summer over half of US states withdrew from federal unemployment programs early, citing “labor shortages.”

The cutoff has also received de facto support from so-called leading “progressives” in the Democratic Party, including Senator Bernie Sanders, who has kept his mouth shut on the expiration, and House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who said merely that her caucus was “looking into it” in a recent interview with Business Insider.

The termination of unemployment benefits is driven by the basic imperative which has determined the overall response of the US capitalist ruling class to the crisis triggered by the pandemic: profits must be safeguarded and increased to the maximum degree, no matter the cost in human lives and suffering.

There is now growing anxiety in ruling circles over signs that the working class is seeking to break out of the low-wage regime which has dominated for decades, enforced with the willing assistance of the pro-corporate trade unions. Media commentaries have appeared worrying over “wage inflation” (Bloomberg, Forbes) or even “wage rage” (Time magazine). At the same time, the media has blacked out those struggles which have most explicitly challenged the authority of the unions and threatened to spread to other sections of workers, including the five-week strike of Volvo Trucks workers earlier this year and the ongoing rebellion by Dana auto parts workers against a concessions contract pushed by the UAW and the United Steelworkers union.

Corporate America, always acutely sensitive to the growth of resistance or opposition in the working class, fears that any significant rise in wages would lead to the collapse of its debt-fueled speculative orgy on Wall Street. Thus, the ruling class is executing an all-out assault on what remains of the social safety net, with the aim of breaking the resistance of workers and drastically intensifying their exploitation.

As usual, the Wall Street Journal, the most unabashed mouthpiece of the financial aristocracy, has expressed more openly the thinking in ruling circles, stating in an August 10 editorial that extended jobless aid “is bad for employers that need workers, bad for the economy that needs more production.” Unsatisfied with the cutoff of unemployment benefits—sadistically telling its readers to “hold the confetti”—a more recent editorial took aim at other supposed “disincentives to work,” including the now-lapsed eviction moratorium, as well as state-funded health care and child tax credits.

A further indication of the calculations of corporate executives can be found in a recent New York Times article, “Wage gains remained strong in August as hiring slowed.” The article cites comments by Jeff Owen, chief operating officer of the discount Dollar General store chain, who told investors on a recent earnings call, “As those states rolled off the enhanced unemployment benefits [earlier this summer], what we did see was an initial nice pickup in applicant flow and staffing.” Owen, boasting over workers being forced by desperation to take Dollar General’s $8 an hour or less jobs, received a compensation package of $5.6 million in 2020, an increase of 59 percent over the previous year.

The end of federal jobless aid goes hand-in-hand with the bipartisan effort to herd children and young people back into schools, an utterly reckless and criminal policy which threatens countless lives. The aim in both cases is to compel more people to return to the workforce, increasing the available labor pool and exercising downward pressure on wages.

The chief obstacle to addressing all the most burning social problems—whether the catastrophic impact of COVID-19, the dire poverty of the unemployed, or the degrading working conditions and low wages facing millions of workers—is the profit interests of the capitalist ruling class. At every step, the response to the pandemic and the associated economic crisis has been driven by the effort to protect the wealth and privileges of the super-rich.

Former US Marine sharpshooter murders four in Florida, including mother, baby and grandmother

Jacob Crosse

Early Sunday morning in Lakeland, Florida, a veteran US Marine sharpshooter with multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan massacred a family, killing four people, including a 3-month-old baby while in his mother’s arms. The former Marine turned private mercenary used multiple firearms and engaged in a ferocious firefight with police and SWAT units from inside the home where the killings occurred that only ended when the shooter, identified as 33-year-old Bryan Riley, surrendered to police.

A photo of Bryan Riley's Facebook account. (Facebook via Heavy.com)

While in police custody, Riley, a resident of nearby Brandon, Florida, apparently showed no remorse and gave no motive for his actions, reportedly telling detectives, “You know why I did this.” Police also claimed that Riley said he was high on methamphetamine and a “survivalist” following the horrific and apparently unprovoked mass murder.

The Marine veteran, who according to his girlfriend suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, is facing over a dozen charges, including four counts of first-degree murder and is being held without bond after appearing in court Monday morning.

The ghastly slaying is at least the 481st mass shooting in the United States in 2021 per the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), which defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are shot and/or killed in a single event at the same general time and location, not including the shooter. According to the GVA, at least 30,398 people in the US have succumbed to gun violence in the US this year, with slightly more than half of those deaths, 16,434, attributed to suicide via gun.

The victims in Sunday’s massacre were 40-year-old father Justice Gleason, along with his 33-year-old wife, a mother of three, their three-month-old baby and the 64-year-old grandmother. The family’s 11-year-old daughter is in critical condition at Tampa General Hospital after being shot at least seven times. The family dog was also shot and killed, according to Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd.

What few details that have been revealed are deeply distressing. Police claim the incident began on Saturday night, when Riley, for reasons not yet known, drove approximately 30 miles east from Brandon, a suburb of Tampa, to Lakeland and parked his vehicle on N Socrum Loop Road, near the family’s residence.

According to Riley’s girlfriend, Riley made contact with Gleason as he was mowing his lawn and told him that God had sent him there to find a child named Amber in order to prevent her from committing suicide. Gleason and his unidentified 33-year-old wife told Riley no one lived in their house by that name and to leave before they called the police. Riley’s girlfriend recounted to detectives that Riley told them “Look, you don’t need to call the cops because I’m the cops for God.”

The couple still called police; however, by the time they arrived Riley was gone, returning to his home in Brandon. Roughly nine hours later Riley returned to the residence.

At around 4:30 a.m., Pasco County Lieutenant Duane Thompkins, apparently in a stroke of luck, happened to hear gunfire coming from the area. As Thompkins made his way towards the sound of the bullets, multiple 911 calls were received shortly thereafter describing an active shooter situation in Lakeland.

According to police accounts, once officers arrived at the home, they discovered Riley’s truck on fire along with “glow sticks” that had been placed on the street and the front lawn, apparently directing the officers towards the front of the house. Police claim they saw a figure dressed in camouflage, without a weapon, run into the house as they attempted to make contact.

Once Riley was inside the house, County Sheriff Judd told reporters that police heard a volley of gunfire followed by “a woman scream and baby whimper.” Police were unable to enter the front door which was apparently barricaded. Three police officers attempted to gain entry through the back when they were confronted by Riley, who was wearing a bulletproof vest, helmet and kneepads and was heavily armed.

A brief shootout ensued as police attempted to retreat out the back door they had just entered. The shootout prompted a hail of gunfire from police outside the home. Judd surmised that “at least dozens if not hundreds of rounds [were] fired.” Photos released by the Polk County Sheriff’s office show the home riddled with bullets and broken glass.

After a pause in the shooting, a police helicopter deployed overhead reported seeing Riley exit the house with his hands up. He had apparently suffered a single gunshot wound and was transported to Lakeland Regional Hospital. Judd reported at least two weapons were recovered; however, there may have been a third weapon. While at the hospital, police claim that Riley attempted to reach for an officer’s gun and had to be restrained and sedated.

According to Riley’s LinkedIn profile, he was stationed at Camp Lejuene in North Carolina with the 1st battalion 6th Marines and the 1st Battalion 9th Marines from January 2007 through March 2011. While stationed at Camp Lejeune, Riley was deployed to Ramadi, Iraq in 2008 and to Marjah, Afghanistan from 2009-2010.

Riley indicated on his profile that he worked in 2013 as a “Guard Team Supervisor” for Academi, formerly known as Blackwater, the private security and military contractor founded by former Navy Seal and billionaire war criminal Erik Prince. Since August 2017, Riley claims to have worked as a “Protection Specialist” for Griffin Defense providing “close protection” in Mexico, Nigeria, Paris and Peru and as an “Executive Protection Agent” for ESS Global Corporation, where he performed similar functions.

Multiple social media photos posted by Riley feature him brandishing military grade weapons and gear. No doubt, Sunday morning was not the first time Riley had witnessed, or perhaps participated in, the wanton slaughter of men, women and children.

In a press conference on Sunday, Judd alternately characterized Riley as a “war hero” who “fought for his country” as well as “evil in the flesh” and a “rabid animal.”

Judd lamented the fact that his deputies were not presented with the proper circumstances to commit an extrajudicial execution Sunday morning, telling reporters: “It would have been nice if he would have come out with a gun and then we’d have been able to read a newspaper through him. But when someone chooses to give up, we take them into custody peacefully. If he’d have given us the opportunity, we’d have shot him up alive. But he didn’t because he’s a coward.”

The response by Judd is indicative of the deeply sick society that produces a figure such as Riley. While the exact reason Riley decided to drive some 30 miles away to massacre a family he apparently did not know, may never be known, the social causes that lead to such frequent and, at this point, routine, acts of homicidal sociopathic violence in the US are well known.

Capitalism has produced a severely unequal society in the United States in which the vast majority of the population is a missed paycheck or an unexpected hospital visit away from homelessness. Meanwhile, the ruling class, through their two bourgeois parties, maintain a stranglehold over all of society’s wealth and resources, usurping the majority for themselves.

Divorced from concerns of the working class, Democrats and Republicans, speaking for hedge fund managers, the CIA, Department of Defense and multinational corporations, focus their efforts on reversing America’s declining global economic position through unending war abroad, ruthless class exploitation at home, and unlimited cash infusions and bailouts for Wall Street.

Sunday’s terrible shooting, like the many others that preceded it and will follow, is apparently domestic blowback from the crimes of American imperialism abroad. Over 20 years of neocolonial wars overseas combined with mass deindustrialization has created an entire layer of society that is severely damaged.

While all the details of Riley’s life are unknown as of this writing, for many young workers and students, the only chance of escaping crushing poverty and to afford a college education is to join the US military. In this brutal institution, young people are trained, and paid, to kill people they do not know without hesitation or mercy, in the interest of maintaining US global hegemony. Highly trained assassins, such as Riley, are coveted by private military and security contractors, eager to gobble up US government funding and cash from predatory corporations seeking to “muscle” out their competition and suppress working-class opposition.

The American government’s official policy, from local police departments to the highest levels of the Pentagon, is to resolve every dispute with overwhelming and lethal violence. The corporate media, as seen in hand-wringing op-eds in the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal lamenting US withdrawal and defeat in Afghanistan, play a leading role in encouraging the antisocial atmosphere that pervades all aspects of US society, facilitating the unending carnage.