Saving Our Planet Requires Systemic and Behavioural Change

Graham Peebles

The natural environment has been poisoned, vandalized and trashed in accordance with the demands and values of the all-pervasive socio-economic system, and as long as it persists it is impossible to imagine the steps required to save the natural world being taken. Economic considerations and short term self-interest will continue to be applied and the devastation will continue.

Neo-liberalism is an extreme form of capitalism, like its founding ideology but darker, even more unjust and brutal. It sees every aspect of life – waterways, forests, the air, people, you name it – as a potential product to be exploited, profited from, drained of all value and discarded. The “free market” (does such a thing exist, anywhere?), and its power to regulate supply and demand, is a cornerstone, as is competition and private ownership of everything, including health care, education, even prisons. Whatever area, the aim is the same, maximize production limit costs and generate wealth for the business, most importantly the shareholders, no matter the impact on the environment and society.

A value system and integrated way of life has evolved consistent with the ethos of this poisonous ideology: individual ambition – personal success over group well-being; greed or excess; sensory pleasure; materiality; tribal nationalism (strengthened by competition); distrust of others who are different, and a fabrication of individuality. True individuality is impossible within the constraints of the doctrine which demands conformity, assimilates and dilutes creative expression to the mechanics and trends of the machine, and like all ideologies, moves towards crystallisation, maintains itself supreme and claims there are no viable alternatives.

Societies have been fashioned around these ideals and values, as has individual and collective behavior; behavior resulting from conditioned ways of thinking about ourselves, of other people, of the environment and the purpose of life, which, whilst openly undeclared is hinted at from the values promoted: Purpose it says is related to pleasure, sensory gratification and material success; all of which are sold as means to achieving self-happiness and self-fulfillment, without ever questioning what this “self” is.

Such self-centred happiness is derived from pleasure and the quelling of desire, which, as the architects of the system know well, is not possible, because desire is insatiable. This fact is instinctively known, but the messaging to the contrary is relentless and for many, most perhaps, the trials of daily living are so great, the separation from oneself and the natural world so acute, that relief is essential. The diverse and endlessly malleable World of Consumerism provides the means of momentary alleviation: Alcohol, drugs, (legal and illegal), sex, shopping, TV, sport, more shopping, holidays, organised religion, shopping and food. And to excess; greed, ownership of things (homes, cars, clothes etc.), and the general accumulation of stuff is insisted upon, for the simple reason that it is consumerism that feeds the monster. This very same consumerism, which is perpetuating unhappiness and fueling ill health, is also the underlying cause of the environmental emergency.

It is the irresponsible consumption of animal-based foodstuffs and manufactured goods, many of which are made in the Asiatic world (where the West has outsourced its production-based greenhouse gas emissions), that is driving the crisis.

A massive “if”…

Complacency, ignorance and selfishness have been the principal weapons of environmental destruction wielded by western governments, big business and the rich for decades. Adopted now by nations in other parts of the world, the global environmental impact has been devastating, in many cases catastrophic: destroying ecosystems, massacring animal life, poisoning the air and water, draining the soil of all goodness and disrupting natural climate patterns.

In order to stop the carnage and begin to heal the planet, a radical change is needed, not just more pledges and corporate greenwashing; fundamental change in behavior and attitudes that will usher in a kinder, more considerate way of living. The needed values and actions however are incompatible with Neo-Liberal capitalism, or any form of capitalism, and the greedy, selfish behavior that it promotes: cruel modes of living fashioned in rich nations, where the most extreme levels of consumerism occur.

It is not after all the villagers in India, China or Sub-Saharan Africa where rabid consumption is taking place, it’s the rich that are overwhelmingly responsible – the obscenely rich in particular; the private jets, numerous homes, cars, constant travel and piles and piles and piles of things. A study by Oxfam, published in 2015, found that, “Fifty percent of the world’s carbon emissions are produced by the world’s richest 10%, while the poorest half – 3.5 billion people – are responsible for a mere 10%.” In the 25-year period studied (1990-2015), global carbon dioxide emissions rose by 60%, and “the increase in emissions from the richest 1% was three times greater than the increase in emissions from the poorest half” of the world’s population, that’s around 3.6 billion people.

Wrapped in selfishness and protected by governments, it is the really rich, and the corporations (which they own) that own everything and are consuming most of everything. This overindulged, hideously wealthy collective, have benefitted enormously from the socio-economic machine and are extremely resistant to the systemic change that is needed if, and at this stage it’s a massive “if”, the natural world and all that lives within it, is to be saved.

The structural limitations (financial, political, social) and behavioral expectations of the Ideology of Greed and Exploitation, prohibit the needed changes taking place within the time frame required, hence the perpetual procrastination, excuses and delays, even as the planet burns. The inherent constraints and relentless demands – to consume, to exploit, to compete, to divide – run completely contrary to the needs of the environment, and indeed the health of humanity; sacrifice is required, it is not possible to have our materialistic consumer filled cake and eat it; sacrifice of a materialistic way of life that has resulted in divided societies of unhappy anxious people and the destruction of the natural world.

Last year, as with each year during the previous decade, global greenhouse gas emissions were the highest ever recorded; this, despite an economic quietening resulting from Covid restrictions and high levels of awareness of the environmental emergency throughout the world. As COP26 draws to an unimpressive close, governments haggle over emission targets, funding of fossil fuels and money for the global south, and a new poll reports that most people (in the 10 countries polled, including UK, US, Germany, France) say they are unwilling to alter their way of life to save our planet. We must once again ask, what will it take for humanity to wake up and change?

For the environmental emergency to be faced with the intensity needed, and healing to occur, a dramatic shift is required. A systemic shift, together with a fundamental change in attitudes, values and behavior, particularly among those living in the rich nations. A shift away from complacency and selfishness towards responsibility, cooperation and simplicity of living; united action rooted in love, as Elizabeth Wathuti (youth climate activist,) from Kenya told COP26 in her wonderful speech,“care deeply and act collectively.”

COVID-19 deaths and child infections continue to surge in Russia, Ukraine

Clara Weiss

Weeks into the latest surge of the pandemic in Eastern Europe, Russia and Ukraine continue to report record COVID-19 deaths on an almost daily basis. Both countries now have the highest daily death tolls after the United States, which is also heading into another spike in cases.

Medics wearing special suits to protect against coronavirus treat a patient with coronavirus, left, as others prepare a patent to move at an ICU at the Moscow City Clinical Hospital 52, in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2021. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

This week, Russia set several records in a row, with 1,239 people dying on Wednesday and 1,211 the day before. This brings the total number of official deaths to 250,454. While by far the highest number in Europe, this figure is widely acknowledged to be a vast undercount. The excess death toll in Russia has superseded 720,000 since the beginning of the pandemic and is expected to hit one million by the end of the year. Daily new cases continue to hover between 38,000 and 41,000 a day, more than during any previous wave.

According to Russia’s Health Minister Mikhail Murashko, as of Wednesday, 258,000 people are hospitalized for COVID-19, and 1.335 million—out of a population of 140 million—are under medical supervision because they have been infected.

The country now uses 2,925 tons of medical oxygen per day, and at least 12 regions are currently experiencing oxygen shortages. Murashko also indicated that about 53 percent of the population have now received at least one shot of the vaccine, but millions did so only over the past few weeks and are not fully vaccinated yet. Only a bit over one-third of the population have received two jabs.

The numbers for child infections are particularly disturbing. Alexander Gorelov, the head of the National Scientific Society of Infectious Disease Specialists, revealed on Thursday that 11 percent of all COVID-19 cases are among children. This means that over 130,000 children are currently infected, more than twice as many as the health minister indicated two weeks ago.

Gorelov also noted that among children, infants up to one year old, as well as children over seven years old, are getting infected most often. A medical expert earlier reported that 13.5 percent of all children who have gotten COVID-19 in Russia subsequently are suffering Long COVID symptoms, which can include severe neurological difficulties and the loss of several IQ points.

An untold number of children have died from the virus, with the Kremlin refusing to publish any statistics on child deaths. On Thursday, a newborn baby that had been infected by its mother three days after its birth tragically died in the city of Vladimir.

The high numbers of cases and deaths show that the “non-working week” from October 30 through November 7, during which schools and many businesses were shut down across the country, proved woefully inadequate to stem the spread. Despite the ongoing spike in deaths, the vast majority of regions, including the hotspots in Moscow and St. Petersburg, refused to extend the limited public health measures. Schools and businesses have fully reopened in almost all regions and only some colleges continue remote learning. Mask and vaccine mandates are imposed in a haphazard and chaotic manner with stark regional and local differences.

Conditions are thus rife for a further horrific spread, especially among children.

Deaths and child infections are also on the rise in neighboring Ukraine, which reported 24,747 new cases on Thursday. Of these, 1,550 were detected among children and 462 among health care workers. Over 800 people are now dying in the country almost every day.

The mayor of the capital Kiev, Vitaly Klichko, revealed earlier that 85 children had been hospitalized in serious condition on Tuesday, more than ever before, with some as young as two years old. Four of them are in the ICU. Tuesday also saw the highest daily deaths yet in Ukraine, 833 people. Over 72,000 have now officially died from the virus, among them at least 42 children.

Even before deaths surged to the current peak, there were gruesome reports of people burying COVID-19 victims in their backyard because cemeteries had run out of space. As in Russia, Ukrainian hospitals are reportedly experiencing oxygen shortages. Only 18 percent of the country’s 40 million citizens are vaccinated.

Governments in both countries are responding to the surge by blaming the population and declaring vaccination to be the key to resolving the crisis. The Russian government is now discussing a new law that would require proof of vaccination on public transportation, and many regions now are extending vaccine mandates. Ukraine is already requiring proof of vaccination in many areas of public life.

In a typical statement, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova said that “the degree to which the health care system gets stressed now completely depends on how you [citizens] conduct yourself” and on “preventive measures” like “vaccines.”

In fact, while vaccines are an extremely important tool to combat the pandemic and protect the population—above all, from severe illness and death—even under conditions of a near complete vaccination of the population, the virus will still spread. Only a combination of mass vaccination, regular testing, contact tracing and the temporary closure of nonessential businesses, coordinated on a global level, can eliminate the virus.

Already, the effectiveness of the vaccines is undermined by the continued spread of the virus. Many countries, including in Eastern Europe, report a growing share of people who are fully vaccinated and nevertheless are hospitalized or die. In the Moscow region, 18 percent of those hospitalized have been vaccinated, and in Latvia, 40 percent of those who died on Thursday had been fully vaccinated.

The attempts by Russian and Ukrainian officials to blame the population and make the spread of the virus an issue of “individual choice” is above all aimed at covering up the political and social reasons for the unfolding disaster. Conditions for the raging pandemic and the horrific death toll were created by the restoration of capitalism in the former Soviet Union by the Stalinist bureaucracy. The destruction of the Soviet Union was the culmination of decades of betrayals of the October Revolution by the Soviet bureaucracy and the suppression of the socialist alternative to Stalinism, which was represented by the Left Opposition and the Fourth International.

Capitalist restoration and unending austerity measures since the 1990s have devastated what was once one of the best health care systems in the world. The number of hospital beds in the country has been axed, and medical equipment is now so outdated that oxygen pipes burst and ventilators have gone up in flames. The medical staff is severely overworked and underpaid. Health care workers have also been among those worst-affected by infections and deaths from COVID-19.

The looting that accompanied capitalist restoration and the open criminality of the ruling oligarchies are also a principal reason why the vast majority of the working population have no trust whatsoever in the government. Across Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, distrust of the authorities is cited as the prime reason for popular hesitancy to get vaccinated. An additional factor has been the systematic promotion by the state of irrational, religious and anti-scientific conceptions.

When the pandemic hit, the oligarchs in Russia and Ukraine followed the examples of the capitalist class in the US and Germany: Having responded far too late to the emergence of the virus, since spring 2020, they have refused to impose the necessary public health measures and reopened factories. The school reopening this fall has been a major driving factor behind the latest surge. It is through these policies that conditions for mass suffering and death and the further spread and mutation of the virus were created.

Macron calls for policies of austerity, mass infection in France

Alex Lantier

Tuesday night, with the COVID-19 pandemic surging across Europe, French President Emmanuel Macron gave a prime-time address. It epitomized the murderous arrogance of the “president of the rich.” As over 3,000 people die of COVID-19 daily in Europe, and the World Health Organization (WHO) warns of 500,000 COVID-19 deaths before February, he proposed new attacks on pensions and unemployment insurance while demanding the French people “live with the virus.”

French President Emmanuel Macron. (Ludovic Marin, Pool via AP)

While Macron is so concerned with his own unpopularity that he has not yet formally declared his candidacy for re-election in April, the speech effectively marked the launch of his re-election bid. Currently dominated by Macron and neo-fascist candidates Eric Zemmour and Marine Le Pen, the campaign is politically toxic. Macron’s speech aimed primarily to assure the banks that he is the best candidate to guarantee their profits at the expense of workers’ lives and living standards, by ensuring no effective action is taken to halt the pandemic.

As over 10,000 people are confirmed infected and dozens die of COVID-19 every day in France, Macron began with a thoroughly false presentation of his record on the pandemic:

Our decisions were always based on scientific knowledge, the necessity of protecting ourselves, our will to act proportionately, and on the conviction that our greatest strength is individual and collective responsibility. This is what led us to decide twice on lockdowns when they were needed, in spring and autumn 2020. Then, we limited ourselves to a curfew and appropriate rules for each region at the beginning of this year, 2021, at a time when many of our neighbours were closing everything.

Macron rejected any further lockdowns or distance learning for schools, instead proposing a third dose of vaccines for over-65s, and for over-50s starting in December, to limit the death toll while the virus runs rampant. He concluded, “we know we will have to live with the virus and its variants until the world population as a whole is immunized.”

This position needlessly condemns hundreds of thousands of people across Europe and millions worldwide to die of the virus. Macron is imitating British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s infamous call: “No more fucking lockdowns, let the bodies pile high in their thousands.” As the virus circulates broadly, and hundreds of millions are unvaccinated or have fading immunity from a less-recent vaccination, this policy will lead to the emergence of more new variants and mass infections and death.

This is why Europe is on track to see 100,000 COVID-19 deaths this month, though a large part of its population is vaccinated. Germany, which has a similar proportion of its population vaccinated as France, is seeing over 45,000 cases and 150 to 250 deaths each day.

Macron’s claims that he bases his policy on science are false. From the beginning of the pandemic his government lied about the virus and trampled scientific advice underfoot. Former Health Minister Agnès Buzyn, who is now being prosecuted for her handling of the pandemic, publicly dismissed COVID-19 as a “little flu,” while privately warning Macron’s cabinet that the virus was causing mass deaths in China. The French government also initially destroyed large quantities of masks, falsely claiming they were useless to fight the virus.

Macron did not decide on the spring 2020 lockdown: it was imposed by a wave of strikes spreading from Italy across much of Europe. Companies “cannot continue operations due to pressure from workers,” French Business Movement (Medef) vice president Patrick Martin said at the time, bemoaning “an extremely brutal change in attitude by the workers.” This strict lockdown brought the number of daily cases in France down to below 500 and halted a massive wave of death at around 27,000 in France and 200,000 in Europe.

If the number of COVID-19 deaths now stands at over 1.3 million in Europe and 118,000 in France, this is because the Macron administration and other EU governments refused to implement contact tracing to halt the regrowth of cases and has ruled out ever again imposing a strict lockdown. Since then, they have focused exclusively on keeping schools and workplaces open, to ensure a continued flow of profits to the super-rich. Whatever “lockdowns” were implemented were not strict, but involved keeping non-essential workplaces open and children in school so their parents could be kept at work.

The contrast with China—where a zero-Covid policy has limited deaths to under 5,000 and caused far less damage to the livelihoods of workers and small businesses—is a staggering indictment of the Macron administration, who set priorities of profits over lives.

While millions died in Europe, the European Central Bank printed €1.25 trillion in bank bailouts and the European Union (EU) launched a €750 billion corporate and state bailout scheme, of which Macron announced that France is to receive €100 billion.

The Macron government and the European ruling class as a whole intend for these massive sums of public money to continue being funneled directly to the pockets of the financial aristocracy. Macron proposes a few sops to workers, such as responding to surging inflation with a temporary cap on natural gas prices and distributing €100 checks to workers earning less than €2,000 monthly. The real money, however, goes to the billionaires, who in Europe have added a staggering $1 trillion to their net worth during the pandemic.

The 500 wealthiest families in France now hold just under €1 trillion, up 30 percent in just one year, according to Challenges magazine. LVMH luxury conglomerate owner Bernard Arnault owns €157 billion, up 57 percent from 2020; the Hermès family, €81.5 billion, up 47 percent; L’Oréal heiress Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers, €71.4 billion, up 40 percent; the Wertheimer clan of Chanel, €67 billion, up 26 percent; François Pinault of the Kering luxury conglomerate, €41.5 billion, up 30 percent. At the same time, France’s economy contracted 8 percent due to the pandemic.

The rest of Macron’s speech was dedicated to promoting austerity measures that will further boost the wealth of his wealthy backers. He pledged to slash unemployment insurance “in the coming weeks,” by purging the rolls of large numbers of unemployed: “Job seekers who are not actively seeking work will see their payments suspended.”

Macron also said he planned to raise the official retirement age from 62 to 65 and take other steps to effectively cut pensions. Significantly, he said he would not take action immediately for fear of provoking a social explosion: “The health situation we face and that is worsening across Europe, the common wish of business and trade union federations to focus on restoring the economy, and our nation’s need for social harmony means that conditions are not right to return to this topic today.”

He also agreed not to promulgate the pension cut he passed last year in the face of mass strikes, and which has already been voted into law. It is, however, only a matter of time before Macron or his successor move to slash public pensions in France.

Macron’s speech exemplified an essential point: that the principal obstacles to ending the pandemic, and to providing decent salaries and living standards, are not technological, but political, due to the obscene and criminal self-enrichment of the ruling class. As the French ruling elite puts forward either neo-fascists or Macron and his fascistic record as the principal presidential candidates, it is ever more apparent that the elections by themselves will resolve nothing.

Inflation surge to intensify financial turmoil

Nick Beams

The latest inflation figures from the US and the surge in prices around the world have blown apart the claim of central banks and government authorities that inflation was “transitory” and would pass once problems with the re-opening of the economy had passed.

Wall Street sign (Sjoerd van Oosten/Creative Commons)

On Wednesday it was announced that the US consumer price index (CPI) had risen by 6.2 percent in October compared to a year ago—the fastest annual rise since 1990 and a considerable jump from the 5.4 percent increase recorded in September.

So-called core inflation, after stripping out volatile items such as food and energy, rose by 4.6 percent, the highest level since 1991, and a clear indication that the price surge is spreading throughout the economy.

And the inflation surge is set to continue. As one financial analyst told the Financial Times: “Transitory is dead and buried. There is a good chance we will see core CPI close to 6 percent over the next few months.”

The global character of the inflation surge is reflected in rising CPI figures elsewhere. The eurozone inflation rate was 3.4 percent in September, the highest level since before the global financial crisis, and well beyond the European Central Bank’s target of 2 percent. In the UK the inflation rate is expected to reach 5 percent in the first months of next year.

Data coming out of China this week showed that factory gate prices rose by 13.5 percent in October, their highest increase in 26 years. The increase exceeded economists’ forecast of a rise of 12.4 percent and was well above the level of 10.7 percent in September.

The price surge in China is the result of rising commodity prices, particularly in energy and other raw materials. At the same time, manufacturing activity has been declining, prompting fears of stagflation in the world’s second largest economy.

The surge in inflation, particularly in the US, will add to the deepening turmoil in global financial markets, pushing up yields on Treasury bonds, especially at the short end of the markets and adding pressure on central banks to start tightening their monetary policies.

In response to Wednesday’s figures the yield on two-year US Treasury bonds rose to 0.503 percent from 0.409 percent the day before. This was the biggest movement since the market turmoil since March 2020 at the start of the pandemic.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 1.558 percent from 1.431 percent as bonds were sold off and their prices fell. Yields, that is interest rates, and bond prices have an inverse relationship.

It remains to be seen what effect the rise in yields will have on the rest of Wall Street where the stock market has been powering to record highs over the past two months. It experienced a slight fall on Wednesday on the back of the inflation number and remained steady yesterday.

The stock market has been lifted to ever-greater heights by the flow of cheap money from the Fed and the expectations of higher earnings by the largest firms. Higher interest rates tend to depress stock values because they mean that the present value of future cash flows is discounted at a higher rate and is thereby lowered.

So far, the main financial impact of the higher inflation over the past months has been in the bond market where those investors, very often major hedge funds using billions of dollars of borrowed money, who bought into the Fed scenario of “transitory” inflation have lost large amounts of money.

The situation is being compounded by uncertainty about the direction of the policies of the Fed and other central banks. So far Fed chair Jerome Powell has insisted that there will be no increase in the Fed base interest rate at least until the process of tapering its purchases of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities is completed in the middle of next year.

But there are fears that with inflation continuing to rise it may have to act before then and slam on the brakes. The problem of uncertainty was highlighted last week when the Bank of England decided not to lift its base rate after its governor, Andrew Bailey, had given clear indications that it would.

Uncertainty means large losses for hedge funds and other speculators who make bets based on forecasts that turn out to be wrong.

There are also clear indications the problems that beset the $22 trillion US Treasury market in March 2020 have not gone away. The market faced a profound liquidity crisis when, at one point, no buyers could be found for US government debt.

This was contrary to previous experience when, in times of turmoil, there is a rush for the “safe haven” of government debt. Instead, Treasury bonds were sold off in a dash for cash, requiring a massive intervention by the Fed, to the tune of $4 trillion, to stabilise the market.

This week, the FT reported that trading conditions in the Treasury market had become “less hospitable” in recent weeks and pointed to “choppy” movements in the prices of securities.

Liquidity, that is the ease with which an investor can buy or sell an asset, had deteriorated in recent weeks, it said.

A working group of US financial authorities set up to probe the events of March 2020 produced a report this week on top of those made in the past but added few insights and did not advance any proposals to prevent a recurrence.

In its report on the group’s findings the FT cited critical comments by Yesha Yardav, a professor at Vanderbilt Law School who researches Treasury markets regulation.

“The report does not go far enough to support the plumbing of the Treasury market and to assure that liquidity providers will remain trading when conditions become stressed,” he said.

The report, however, did contain one significant statistic which shows the extent of the problems with which regulators are now seeking to grapple.

At the end of 2007, just before the global financial crisis, US Treasury debt held by the public totaled $5.1 trillion, or 35 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). At the end of 2020, the debt had reached $21.6 trillion or 101 percent of GDP. The very increase in its size and the increasing complexity in financial transactions creates greater regulatory problems.

Furthermore, almost all trading is carried out electronically, most often using algorithms.

The report noted that because of electronic trading, firms “access multiple markets over ever-shorter time-frames” and markets have become increasingly interconnected, “resulting in significantly faster risk and information transmission.”

This has two consequences. In “normal” times it means that greater profits can be made more rapidly. But it also means that in times of financial stress problems in one area are more rapidly transmitted to the rest of the market, creating the conditions for a generalised crisis.

Public health experts warn of a winter surge in the pandemic

Benjamin Mateus

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington has offered a sobering projection for COVID-19 as the United States heads into the winter months. The IHME warned: “[w]e see increasing evidence in the Northern Hemisphere that the expected winter surge has started to unfold. Reductions in cases, estimated infections, and hospitalizations have essentially stopped in the US, and we are starting to turn around.”

The Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital is shown on May 8, 2020, in Gallup, N.M. Hospitals in northwestern New Mexico are grappling with a surge in coronavirus infections. New Mexico's health officials said Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2021, that the state's health care system continues to be heavily burdened by sustained rates of hospitalizations from COVID-19 cases. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee, File)

They note that aside from winter seasonality and waning immunity, the “third factor that’s fueling these winter increases is the fact that people are much less cautious than last winter, as mask use is much lower … than a year ago. People’s mobility levels are just below the pre-COVID baseline instead of 20 to 30 percent below the pre-COVID baseline. Putting those together, we expect that despite progress on vaccination, we will see a winter surge.”

The IHME’s observation of population behavior is correct as far as it goes. But the American people did not suddenly throw caution to the wind after suffering nearly 800,000 deaths. The curtailment of mask-wearing and greatly increased public activity are a product of the demand by the American ruling class, acting through the Biden administration, state governments, political parties, the media and giant corporations, that the economy must be opened and kept open, to fuel the profit-making essential to the capitalist system.

How big will the winter pandemic surge be? IHME, in its current projection, foresees another 70,000 people will die in the coming months. The number of deaths from COVID-19 during Biden’s presidency will undoubtedly eclipse that of his predecessor. Mass death will become the new yardstick for measuring presidential terms in office.

Two months ago, Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and a former Biden adviser on the pandemic, speaking with Bloomberg , said, “We’re going to see hills and valleys, at least for the next several years as we get more vaccine out. That’s going to help. But the challenge is going to be: How big will the hills and valleys be, in terms of their distance? We don’t know. But I can tell you, this is a coronavirus forest fire that will not stop until it finds all the human wood it can burn.”

As the third year of the pandemic is nearing, despite the repeated hosannas that the COVID-19 vaccines have saved humanity, the sixth wave is well underway, with more than 550,000 new infections reported worldwide yesterday, more than a quarter-billion reported cases and over 5 million reported deaths in these two years with no end in sight. There is still much human material that the virus can exploit, and given the nature of SARS-CoV-2, it can do so again and again.

There have been 7.16 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines administered globally. More than 4 billion people have received at least one dose of the vaccines, and 3.16 billion (40.5 percent) are fully vaccinated. However, with campaigns to offer all adults boosters and children the pediatric version of the COVID-19 vaccines, it will mean that masses of people in low- and middle-income countries will continue to go without.

According to Dr. Lone Simonsen, an epidemiologist, and professor of population health sciences at Roskilde University in Denmark, the longest global flu outbreak lasted five years, with two to four waves of infection. COVID-19 is not only “novel” in the sense of a new coronavirus: The shape of the pandemic itself is novel, completely different than any previously experienced, with six separate waves in barely two years, and no sign that the infection is either weakening or subsiding.

Speaking with Bloomberg , Dr. Simonsen explained that previously held conceptions that viruses become milder in the course of a pandemic are erroneous. “Although new mutations aren’t always more severe than their predecessors,” she said, “pandemics can in fact get more deadly during the pandemic period, as the virus is adapting to its new host.”

Developments with the highly virulent Delta strain and mutating progenies refute the complacent suggestions that the vaccines will bring the pandemic to its knees as populations reach herd immunity. More than 30,000 cases of the AY.4.2, a sublineage of Delta from the UK, have been detected across more than 30 countries.

More transmissible than its ancestors, it has been classified as a variant under investigation. Virologists have observed the virus still has room to enhance these qualities and wreak havoc over the immune system of those it infects. It is possible that vaccines will not produce even a threshold immunity. Populations will be dependent on boosters to stave off infection and its accompanying risks of Long COVID and death.

Europe is in the throes of a massive surge, despite mass vaccination. According to the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 dashboard, the continent reported more cases in one week than at any other time during the pandemic. Deaths have also been climbing, with 26,877 for the week beginning on November 1, 2021. This is a 10 percent rise over the previous week. Germany, Europe’s most populous country with 67 percent of the population fully vaccinated, had a single-day high of more than 45,000 COVID cases on November 10, with cases continuing to rise.

WHO Regional Director Hans Kluge commented, “We are at another critical point of pandemic resurgence. According to one reliable projection, if we stay on this trajectory, we could see another half a million COVID-19 deaths in Europe and Central Asia by February 1 next year.”

These alarming projections are just as valid for the US, which is pursuing a reckless policy of vaccinating the population into normalcy and failing at that too. The sudden decline in cases seen during October has been followed by an abrupt upturn in just a short time. And instead of absorbing these lessons that have repeatedly played out for the last two years—massive deaths and overwhelmed health systems—Biden has decided to open all international borders.

Yesterday, the US reported close to 100,000 COVID cases. Deaths reached nearly 1,500. Cumulatively, there have been 47.7 million cases and almost 781,000 deaths. This means one in seven persons has had a documented infection, and one in 423 has died from COVID since the pandemic began.

The seven-day average of daily cases reached a trough of 70,291 on October 25. It has since climbed to 76,769, a 9 percent rise in a little more than two weeks. The US regions experiencing a rise in cases are across the Northeast, Midwest and West. However, the recent celebrations about the decline in cases across the South will have to be put on hold as cases have plateaued. Twenty-seven states have now reported a positive 14-day change in their ledger of new cases.

In August, a study from Japan in preprint form found that the Delta variant possessed multiple mutations in its anti-N-terminal domain (NTD). The authors wrote, “All anti-NTD neutralizing antibodies failed to recognize the Delta spike, indicating that the Delta variant is completely resistant to anti-NTD neutralizing antibodies” as compared to the original strains. Such studies highlight that SARS-CoV-2 is evolving to become resistant to the current vaccines, which will have considerable ramifications to the current vaccine-only strategy being advanced.

That the virus has undergone repeated mutations is not just a “natural” property of the virus’s adaptive mechanisms. This process has been assisted from the beginning by the policies decreed by the financial oligarchs, who insisted that profit considerations should have priority over public health. They have given the virus the necessary time and scope, with hundreds of millions, and perhaps billions of human hosts, to develop and “improve” its ability to infect and to kill.

Over 100,000 Sri Lankan workers walk out to demand higher wages and better conditions

W. A. Sunil

Thousands of health employees, teachers, development officers and other sections of the working class, including railway workshop employees and private sector workers, held protests and strikes across Sri Lanka on Monday and Tuesday over wages and conditions. The action follows anti-privatisation demonstrations last week by electricity, port and petroleum employees.

Sri Lankan teachers march on Tuesday in Hatton to demand wage rise. [WSWS Media]

The mass walkouts are another indication of rising social anger against the Rajapakse government and its big business program which is ruthlessly driving up the cost of living and eliminating meagre social support, while forcing teachers and other employees to return to work amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

* On Monday, an estimated 50,000 development officers held a national sicknote protest over seven demands, including the abolition of salary anomalies, a monthly salary increase of around 15,000 rupees ($US75) and the establishment of a proper promotion scheme. There are about 100,000 development officers employed at different state departments across the country. Media reports indicated that more than half were involved in the campaign.

* On Tuesday, public hospital nurses and paramedics walked out in a one-day sicknote action. Union officials told the media that nearly 50,000 health employees were involved in the strike. The hospital workers want rectification of salary anomalies, a special duty allowance increase of 3,000 rupees and higher overtime payments.

Protesting teachers in Hatton on Tuesday [WSWS Media]

The strike was called by the Collective of Health Professionals (CHP), an alliance of 16 unions. While the CHP has called a series of protests and strikes over the same demands in recent months, it has limited the walkouts and then shut them down following bogus promises by the government that it would resolve workers’ demands.

Health employees blamed the unions for not fully mobilising their members for Tuesday’s strike, resulting in lesser numbers participating.

A nurse from Kandy national hospital told the WSWS that union officials had discouraged members from participating and that only about 500 of the 2,000 nurses at the hospital joined the walkout. “There was no discussion with members before the strike. Workers can’t be mobilised by just distributing a leaflet,” they said.

Health workers protest in Kandy last June [WSWS Media]

The health unions, like their counterparts across the island, have deliberately divided workers. The Public Services United Nurses Union (PSUNU), led by Buddhist monk Muruththetuwe Ananda who backs the Rajapakse government, and the All Ceylon Health Services Union (ACHSU), which is controlled by the opposition Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), did not participate in Tuesday’s action. Instead, the ACHSU called a separate lunch-hour demonstration.

While health workers are determined to fight for their longstanding demands, the unions are desperate to prevent any political confrontation with the government. This week’s one-day protest was called to dissipate the rising anger of health workers, who for almost two years have been working extended hours attempting to treat COVID-19 patients in the country’s dangerously under-staffed and underfunded hospitals.

* Also on Tuesday, thousands of public-school teachers and principals demonstrated in several parts of the island. This included about 3,000 teachers in central Colombo and over 1,000 in Kandy with a similar number mobilising at Hatton in the Central Hill Districts. The protests were called by an alliance of some 30 teachers and principals unions, including the Ceylon Teachers’ Union (CTU) and Ceylon Teachers Services Union controlled by the JVP.

Thousands of teachers, principals and parents also demonstrated outside the Mawanella police station, about 25 kilometres west of Kandy. They were demanding that police arrest a local Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna politician who is alleged to have physically assaulted a parent during a protest the previous week. While police later arrested the politician, and three others involved in the attack, they were bailed by a local magistrate.

Thousands of teachers demonstrate in Kandy on Tuesday [WSWS Media ]

The teachers’ demonstrations followed the unions’ shutdown on October 25 of a determined 100-day strike and boycott of online education services by 250,000 teachers demanding higher salaries. Teachers have been fighting for increased wages for over 20 years.

The Rajapakse government refused to grant the teachers’ pay claim but later “offered” one third of the amount being demanded to be paid in instalments over the next three years. Desperate to end the dispute, the unions accepted the reduced amount, demanding that it be paid in one instalment, and then shut down the strike, ordering teachers to return to work. This week’s protests, and similar demonstrations the previous week, were a cynical attempt by the unions to dissipate members’ anger.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse and Finance Minister Basil Rajapakse met with the teachers’ unions and said the government would pay its reduced salary offer in one instalment. The unions readily agreed to the meagre rise, ditching teachers’ longstanding pay claims. Finance Minister Basil Rajapakse later told the media that Colombo’s deal should not be seen as a salary increase.

This week’s union-controlled protests were timed to coincide with Finance Minister Rajapakse’s annual budget proposals, which will be presented to parliament today, and were aimed at promoting the illusion that the government can be pressured. The JVP-controlled unions are demanding the government budget increase workers’ monthly wages by 10,000 rupees.

Finance Minister Rajapakse, who confronts a collapse in export earnings, a falling currency and massive foreign debt repayments has made it abundantly clear that he will be unveiling a ruthless austerity budget. “The people will not gain anything. Instead, we will be taking from them,” he told journalists last week. He plans to cut the fiscal deficit by two-thirds to 4.5–5 percent of gross domestic product, down from last year’s 14.7 percent.

Confronted with this crisis, which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Rajapakse government is prioritising profits over lives and implementing “herd immunity” policies. This criminal agenda has been fully backed by the unions and has seen the health unions abandon their members’ demands for increased work safety.

The reactionary role of the trade unions is bringing Sri Lankan workers into conflict with these organisations, which defend the Rajapakse government, and are hostile to any independent political mobilisation of the working class against the capitalist profit system.

Alongside the increase in workers’ struggles, farmers are continuing their protests, calling for fertiliser and other necessities for cultivation. On Tuesday, hundreds of housewives demonstrated in Colombo and other parts of the island demanding a reduction in the price of essentials and an end to food shortages.

Contrary to the union claims that the Rajapakse government can be forced to grant concessions, Colombo has passed an essential public services act, which covers nearly one million state sector workers and criminalises all industrial action and strikes in these institutions. At the same time, it is moving to whip up communalist tensions to try and divide the working class.

The unions, which function as industrial police, have not opposed the government’s anti-strike laws and its racialist moves. Workers cannot develop a genuine struggle for their social and democratic rights through these organisations.

The refugee crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border and the danger of war

Peter Schwarz

The crisis caused by the decision of Poland, Lithuania and the NATO alliance to deny entry to a few thousand refugees they have blocked at the border with Belarus is reaching a dangerous new stage.

For days, European politicians and media have been accusing Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of using refugees as weapons in a “hybrid war” against the European Union (EU). The opposite is the case. The EU and NATO are instrumentalizing the fate of the refugees in order to threaten Belarus and Russia with war, mobilize troops, override elementary human rights and incite a right-wing, fascist mob.

In this handout photo released by State Border Committee of the Republic of Belarus on Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2021, a view of a tent camp set by migrants from the Middle East and elsewhere gathering at the Belarus-Poland border near Grodno, Belarus. (State Border Committee of the Republic of Belarus via AP)

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Angela Merkel (Christian Democrats), German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (Social Democrats) and numerous other leading politicians have publicly accused Belarus and its ally Russia of leading a “Hybrid attack” on NATO borders “to destabilize democratic neighbors.” This accusation comes close to a declaration of war on Belarus and Russia, a nuclear power.

The Estonian Defense Minister Kalle Laanet described the “hybrid attack” by the Belarusian government as “the greatest security risk for the region in 30 years.” Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki claimed that the entire EU’s stability and security were at stake. Polish opposition leader and former EU Council President Donald Tusk is calling for Article Four of the NATO Treaty to be activated, the first stage of legal mechanisms requiring NATO members to go to war all together in the event of an attack.

Poland has stationed 20,000 heavily-armed troops, beyond its huge police and border protection force, on the border with Belarus. According to Russian news agency Tass, Polish armored units have been moved near the border. The Polish ambassador in Berlin, Andrzej Przylebsni, told the right-wing extremist magazine Junge Freiheit, “The first shot could be fired soon.”

Ukraine is also moving 8,500 soldiers and police officers as well as 15 helicopters to the 1,000-kilometer border with Belarus and plans to build border fortifications for €560 million.

Poland and Lithuania have sealed off the 1,100-kilometer border with Belarus with a barbed wire fence and declared a state of emergency. Journalists, aid organizations, and even doctors and ambulances are strictly prohibited from entering a three-kilometer-wide strip of land. There are to be no witnesses or aid workers as refugees are deprived of their basic rights, violently mistreated, and left to die from hunger and cold without food or shelter.

The European foreign ministers intend to decide next week on further sanctions against Belarus. Airlines that bring refugees to Belarus are set to be sanctioned, including not only Belarusian but also Russian and Turkish airlines.

This is being done in conjunction with the US. Following a meeting Wednesday between von der Leyen and Biden, the EU Commission president declared that they had a common assessment of the situation, adding that the US was also preparing more Belarus sanctions “that will be in effect at the beginning of December.”

The reasons behind the hysterical campaign against Belarus and the brutal mistreatment of the refugees at the border have nothing to do with threats to “stability” and “security.”

Since President Lukashenko refused to serve as the EU’s border guard because of Western sanctions, a few thousand of the estimated 12,000 refugees in Belarus have reached the Polish border, almost all of whom want to continue to Germany. Exact figures are not available, as the Polish government prohibits any independent research. The German border authorities registered 5,300 refugees in September and a further 1,900 in October who reached Germany via the Belarus route, amounting to a little more than 7,000 over two months.

By comparison, at the height of the refugee movement in 2015, 10,000 refugees arrived in Germany every day, and were accommodated and cared for.

The hysterical accusations against Belarus and the brutal mistreatment of refugees at the border have entirely different reasons.

NATO and the EU are systematically working to militarily encircle Russia, as they have been ever since German unification and the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union three decades ago. All European members of the former Warsaw Pact as well as three former Soviet republics in the Baltic States have now joined NATO, which has been massively expanding its troop presence on Russia’s borders for years. The risk of tensions spiraling out of control and turning into open military conflict is constantly increasing.

Belarus Foreign Minister Vladimir Makeï met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday, after which Lavrov said the two states would reinforce their collaboration “to counter a campaign against Belarus triggered by Washington and its European allies within international organisations.” Russia flew two Tu-22M3 strategic bombers over Belarus Wednesday, one day after a NATO spokesman told the Daily Telegraph that the military alliance “stands ready to further assist our allies and maintain safety and security in the region.”

A far more fundamental reason for the latest escalation of hostilities towards Belarus and Russia is the enormous escalation of social tensions within the EU itself.

A handful of oligarchs now control economic life in both Eastern and Western Europe. A small number of billionaires have enriched themselves enormously from the pandemic, while 1.4 million people in Europe have died from COVID-19. The latest wave, which is completely out of control, threatens to double the death toll.

The question of responsibility for the murderous policy pursued by the European governments, which ruthlessly sacrifices human life for profit, is becoming more and more persistent. This coincides with a wave of strikes against unbearable working conditions and for higher wages.

The ruling class is responding with the tried and tested method of diverting social tensions outwards by fomenting nationalism, war propaganda and xenophobia. The brutal mistreatment of refugees at the border, followed by millions of people with shock and horror, serves to intimidate the population, accustom it to death, abolish basic democratic rights and stir up the fascist dregs of society.

Thousands of refugees, including women and small children, are trapped without food, drink or medical care in the forests and swamps of Belarus’ border region. Many do not even have tents and blankets and are exposed to the freezing cold and rain. At least ten have died so far. The mayor of a town near the border estimated the true death toll at 70 to 200. Refugees have repeatedly reported discovering corpses in the forest or in rivers.

Anyone who still manages to cross the border is forcibly brought back to Belarus. Such pushbacks are strictly forbidden, according to the Geneva Refugee Convention. Nevertheless, the Polish parliament gave them its stamp of approval. The Polish PiS government, which is under strong pressure domestically because of its COVID-19 policy, its abortion ban, and the social crisis, is committing crimes against humanity on the Belarusian border.

The European Union, NATO, the German government, the official Polish “opposition” and a large part of the western media are supporting these crimes, in line with the EU’s broader policy of blocking all immigration that has led to tens of thousands of drownings in the Mediterranean Sea.

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (Christian Social Union) called for the EU to help Poland secure its border. “We call this a hybrid threat, where people are used to destabilize the EU and especially Germany - that must not prevail in the world,” his spokesman quoted him as saying.

The conservative daily FAZ demanded that the EU “remain tough,” “send out clear signals” and “impose further sanctions.” A “humanitarian solution,” bringing refugees into the EU, is “the wrong political message.”

The Berlin editorial board of the Swiss Neue Zürcher Zeitung wrote, “The Poles have so far secured their external border, which is also that of the EU, on their own. Germany could also offer bilateral help here: with police officers, material resources—whatever Warsaw demands.”

The campaign against the refugees strengthens the right-wing extremists and fascists, which is its intended purpose. Poland commemorated “independence day” yesterday, when the future dictator Jozef Pilsudski took over command of the Polish army in 1919. Tens of thousands of right-wing extremists and fascists marched through the streets of Warsaw. The liberal mayor Rafal Trzaskowski initially banned the parade, but PiS intervened to make sure it went ahead.

Human rights organizations such as Pro Asyl and Amnesty International have protested the mistreatment of refugees on the Polish border, but their appeals are directed to the European governments to change their ways. That will not happen.

Defending the refugees is the task of the working class. It is the only social force that can counter capitalist reaction and defend democratic rights. This struggle is of vital importance for the workers.

A fascistic stench rises from the NATO powers’ assault on refugees in Belarus. The brutal security forces and fascist gangs whose illegal violence is turned against refugees today will serve tomorrow to suppress the resistance and opposition of the working class and youth.