COVID cases surge through northern US states before the holiday season begins

Benjamin Mateus

On the CBS program “Face the Nation” yesterday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen made a revealing statement about the impact of coronavirus in the US, staying away from offering assurances that inflation and the current crisis in the job market would normalize anytime soon.

Volunteers Robert Lewis, left, and Leonard Lee, second from left, distribute masks and sanitizer to people who have received a COVID-19 inoculation at a vaccination site at the Reggie Lewis Center, in Boston, Sunday, Feb. 28, 2021. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

She noted, “It really depends on the pandemic. The pandemic has been calling the shots for the economy and for the inflation. And if we want to get inflation down, I think continuing to make progress against the pandemic is the most important thing we can do.” She suggested that any improvement might not take place until next fall—i.e., nearly a year.

This is a stunning admission, especially when every political pundit and public health official, from President Biden on down, has been claiming that the United States is rapidly returning to normalcy with the vaccines, or that COVID eventually will become no worse than the common cold, or at least, will no longer arouse public concern.

A piece by David Leonhardt in the New York Times titled “How does this end?” makes precisely this claim that the American people have to accept the risks associated with infection because “the virus is unlikely to go away, ever.”

Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, speaking with the Washington Post, made a similar assessment in response to the question as to when the pandemic would end. She replied, “It doesn’t end. We just stop caring. Or we care a lot less. I think for most people, it just fades into the background of their lives.”

Leonhardt is a professional propagandist for the US ruling elite, spreading the political line of the day, which is that working people must live with the virus because they will have no other choice. Nuzzo is a scientist who is capitulating to the political and social pressure of a financial aristocracy that has never cared for the lives of working people, and wants any display of official concern shut down.

Currently, there have been almost 48 million cases of COVID-19 reported across the country, with close to 784,000 deaths thus far. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation is projecting another 60,000 will perish by the end of the year. The seven-day average of new cases has surpassed 80,000 per day, an 11 percent increase over the last 14 days. Though the daily death toll is currently declining, it remains above 1,100 a day, and the death rate is a lagging indicator in the course of infection, meaning that with rising cases, deaths will also ultimately increase.

Regions of the Midwest and Northeast are seeing new surges in cases. In the South, the declines have ended, and COVID cases are turning upwards.

Minnesota has become the epicenter of the pandemic in the US, with the daily average number of cases climbing to 3,802 or 67 per 100,000 (+54 percent 14-day change), the highest per capita rate in the country. The state has fully vaccinated 61.8 percent of its population, and 22.2 percent have received a third shot known as a booster.

Despite these measures, the number of breakthrough infections has been climbing. According to the public health department, fully vaccinated individuals made up 197 of the 483 deaths occurring from September 5 to October 9. They also accounted for 1,082 of the 3,492 COVID hospitalizations. In all, breakthrough infections have climbed “29 percent over the previous four months.”

Regarding waning immunity, Minnesota exemplifies a critical point. Almost 85 percent of all fully vaccinated individuals in the US received their vaccines four or more months ago. According to the CDC, there have been 29.2 million booster doses given. This accounts for less than nine percent of the population. In other words, a significant portion of all fully vaccinated people are under threat from Delta due to waning immunity.

Kris Ehresmann, Minnesota’s infectious disease director, told the Star Tribune, “It’s fair to say we are kind of in a perfect storm moment. We have Delta as the dominant strain so that certainly has changed the landscape since we first identified it in Minnesota in June. Then you have the impact of waning immunity.”

As the pandemic continues its surge across the upper Midwest and into the Northeast, Illinois, Vermont and New Hampshire are witnessing a startling increase in daily COVID case rates. The ongoing surge in infections in Michigan is particularly troubling as health systems are once more facing high volumes of patients and reconverting their facilities to accommodate COVID patients.

Just yesterday, the state reported close to 9,000 new infections, approaching last winter’s highs. The seven-day average has climbed to over 4,800 daily cases. Deaths have also been steadily rising. According to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, the test positivity rate has surpassed 16 percent, suggesting there are large numbers of undetected cases.

As one Beaumont Health System physician told the press, “Metro Detroit is again becoming a hotspot for COVID-19.” Admission for COVID has jumped 20 percent over the week, raising concerns among hospital administrators about how they will manage this fourth wave of infections.

Dr. Nick Gilpin, Beaumont’s Health’s director of infection prevention and epidemiology, speaking at a news conference last Thursday, said, “I am very concerned about the trajectory of this new wave,” then noting that 397 patients were hospitalized for COVID.

Though these figures are lower than the peaks seen last April, he worried they were climbing rapidly. “This is our early warning system,” he continued. “We are seeing community numbers increase. And I think with more cold weather on the way, with people starting to make plans for the holidays to get together, I think it’s an important time just to let everyone know that we’ve got to stay vigilant. We’ve got to make sure we’re wearing those masks. We’ve got to make sure we’re taking those precautions. We’ve got to get ourselves vaccinated. Those are the things fundamentally that are going to really improve the situation.”

Many Michigan school districts have been forced to shut one or more schools for in-person instruction and revert to online classes because of high infection rates, particularly in rural and outstate areas where vaccination rates are lower. Some schools in Calhoun County (Battle Creek), Allegan County (near Holland) and Jackson County were closed in whole or in part. The biggest outbreak is in Bay County, with four high schools reporting 221 cases combined, and four middle schools reporting another 168 cases.

Since September, 26 percent of all Michigan COVID cases occurred in people younger than 20, and K-12 schools were the number one category for outbreaks, accounting for 104 out of 181 new outbreaks and 428 of 744 continuing outbreaks.

With one of the highest rates of fully vaccinated people (72 percent), Vermont is also seeing an explosion of cases with a 14-day increase in new cases at 91 percent, reaching 59 COVID cases per 100,000. The trajectory in cases is astounding. Intensive case beds are quickly filling up with patients. The number of available beds is approaching single digits, having reached over 90 percent occupancy, the highest capacity the state has ever encountered.

Dr. Jan Carney, associate dean for public health and health policy at the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine, told the local news station, “Across the United States and Vermont, we’re seeing the impact of the highly contagious Delta variant. It really is so contagious it seeks out pretty much every unvaccinated person.”

Colorado remains among the worst-hit states. Governor Jared Polis, appearing on “Face the Nation,” said that one out of every 48 residents in Colorado has been infected with coronavirus, and virtually all the hospitals are filled to overflowing. There is a statewide order authorizing hospitals to triage vital services—effectively deciding who should live and who should die where there are inadequate resources or numbers of staff.

These trends are extremely ominous as the Thanksgiving week (November 22–28) will soon inaugurate the holiday season. NPR reported that booked flights for Thanksgiving were up 78 percent over last year and even higher than in 2019. These broad-based population movements will drive the rates of new infections across the country.

Dutch caretaker government imposes partial lockdown as COVID-19 surges

Daniel Woreck & Parwini Zora

The Netherlands is at the centre of a resurgence of COVID-19 that is now tearing across western and central Europe, infecting more people than ever before during the pandemic.

COVID-19 infections are out of control. Daily new cases reached record highs of 50,377 in Germany on Thursday and 13,152 in Austria and 16,364 in the Netherlands on Friday. This has brought seven-day incidence rates per 100,000 inhabitants to over 309 in Germany, 807 in Austria, and 556 in the Netherlands. There are growing warnings that in certain regions, such as Limburg in the Netherlands, hospitals ICUs will soon fill up and be forced to deny care to seriously ill patients.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte talks to journalists as he arrives for an EU summit in Brussels, Oct. 21, 2021. (Olivier Hoslet, Pool Photo via AP)

A week ago, after much deliberation, the Dutch caretaker cabinet reintroduced rudimentary public health measures, such as the mandatory use of the face mask in public spaces and the use of QR-coded vaccination passes.

On Friday, however, as infections continued to soar, Prime Minister Mark Rutte felt obliged to announce a three-week partial lockdown, something he had previously excluded. “Tonight, we are bringing a very unpleasant message with very unpleasant and far-reaching measures,” Rutte said in a televised address. “The virus is everywhere and needs to be combatted everywhere.”

Bars, restaurants and many businesses must close at 7 p.m., people can only receive four visitors at home, and sport events must take place without a public audience.

This came as, in Austria, Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg announced a lockdown for non-vaccinated individuals, who are required to stay at home except to buy groceries, go shopping, or seek medical care. Austria is also authorizing vaccination for children starting at age 5.

In the Netherlands as in Austria, however, these partial lockdown measures will not eliminate transmission of the virus but will, on the contrary, allow it to circulate. Schools will continue to remain open, as well as nonessential essential workplaces, as they did last autumn. This will ensure that workers continue to go to work to produce profits for the banks and major corporations, and that the virus will continue to kill thousands every day in Europe.

Of particular concern are reports that considerable numbers of vaccinated people are falling seriously ill in the Netherlands. Fully 45 percent of Dutch hospital admissions for COVID-19 and 31 percent of ICU admissions are of vaccinated individuals, according to AFP.

Workers can place no confidence in the reactionary Dutch political setup to resolve the crisis caused by the pandemic. Nearly 8 months after the general election on March 17, four parties of big business led by caretaker prime minister Mark Rutte’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) are mired in protracted talks on negotiating a “new” government—a fourth Rutte cabinet.

Two weeks ago, on again-off again government talks passed the 225-day mark, the previous record in Dutch history. They are set to bring back the deeply unpopular government that ruled since 2017.

Rutte’s right-liberal VVD, the left-liberal D66, the Christian Democrats and the conservative Christian Union have formed the Dutch government since 2017. They were forced to resign over a child benefits scandal back in January and have since ruled as a caretaker government. An I&O Research poll found that satisfaction in the outgoing cabinet “has declined sharply.” Only four in ten voters are “satisfied” with the current cabinet.

Nevertheless, the four parties have decided to form another government, which they plan to complete before Christmas. Earlier, D66 unsuccessfully attempted to form a five-party-coalition with the Social Democrats and the Greens.

D66-leader Sigrid Kaag, who resigned as foreign minister three weeks before her decision to enter coalition talks, told AP she expected the “new” coalition to be “more progressive, more generous and more humane.” Similarly, Rutte promised that “it will be a new start, a new culture, with a new program.”

The handling of the COVID-19 pandemic by the Dutch and European ruling classes thoroughly exposes this empty rhetoric. While policies of eliminating circulation of the virus were employed in a number of Asia-Pacific countries, including China, the Dutch government was especially aggressive in its implementation of the European bourgeoisie’s policy of “living with the virus.” As a result, while under 5,000 people died in China, a country of 1.4 billion, in the Netherlands, a country of only 17 million, nearly 19,000 people have died.

The wholly inadequate policies adopted by Rutte are not an attempt to reverse this horrific record but are above all driven by growing fear of the response in the working class. Indeed, the re-eruption of struggles of the Dutch workers has once again come to the fore as part of a growing global upsurge of the international working class, particularly in the United States.

By the end of September and October, 80,000 workers from all professional levels at eight university hospitals in Amsterdam, Leiden, Utrecht, Groningen, Rotterdam, and Maastricht went on a one-day strike demanding fairer working conditions and decent wages. A third one-day strike is planned by the end of November.

Alongside the hospital staff strikes, the Dutch railway workers (NS International) also entered a one-day strike in September demanding higher salaries, which brought a day of train services between Amsterdam and Brussels to a halt.

In early July and again in September, 4000 childcare workers from 660 childcare locations went on a national strike for the first time in 20 years, demanding better working conditions. They opposed a back-door “collective labour agreement” reached by the CNV trade union confederation with the BK and BMK employers’ organizations.

The FNV, the largest trade union federation in the Netherlands, and affiliated parties, prominently the ex-Maoist Socialist Party and its political satellites, have once again played a key role against these strikes. They isolated and limited them to one-day token protests, betraying strikes one after the other, blocking a united struggle of the working class against Rutte’s mass infection policy.

The Dutch unions, based on the Wassenaar Agreement concluded nearly 40 years ago, were pioneers in mainland Europe to embrace the role as executives or labour contractors imposing austerity and growing inequality in workplaces. However, they are being buffeted by an increasingly powerful movement from below.

Since July, hardly a month has passed without protests exposing the social and political powder keg created by the ruling classes’ response to the pandemic. In September, 15,000 people took part in a demonstration in Amsterdam calling for an end to the housing crisis and to homelessness, which is conservatively estimated at 40,000 and has increased by 74 percent in the last six years alone. According to one study, the rate of homelessness in the population in the Netherlands (0.23 percent) is higher even than in the United States (0.18 percent).

The FNV, just like its German counterparts, made sure that the strikes remained nationally isolated. They blocked coordinated and unified strikes of the Dutch railway, health care and childcare workers with the protests of workers and youth in Amsterdam against the mounting housing crises and with workers and youth striking simultaneously across the border in Germany. This again underscores their allegiance to the national bourgeoisie and its policy of enriching a few and protecting their wealth.

The decisive question is the collective mobilization and unification of the struggles of the working class, across Europe and internationally, to impose a scientifically guided policy to eliminate the transmission of the virus and stop the COVID-19 pandemic.

Whistleblowers expose US mass murder of women, children in Syria

Alex Lantier

Nearly three years ago, as US-led coalition forces trapped a remnant of the Islamic State (IS) in a small enclave near the Syrian town of Baghuz, the US military committed a horrific atrocity. As Air Force officers watched the scene via drone cameras in real time, US warplanes murdered at least 80 unarmed women and children with 500- and 2,000-pound bombs. The officers who saw the attack urged that a war crimes investigation begin immediately.

This act of mass murder is a war crime, the kind of offense for which Nazi officers were tried and convicted at Nuremberg. For three years, however, it was covered up by the US and its NATO allies until a devastating, 4,600-word article appeared on Saturday, based on US officers’ testimony, in the New York Times.

Smoke rises from a strike on Baghouz, Syria, March 22, 2019. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

The atrocity in Syria inescapably recalls the “Collateral Murder ” video, revealed by whistleblower Chelsea Manning and WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, of US Apache helicopters slaughtering over a dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007. It also recalls the massacre of patients and hospital workers in Kunduz, Afghanistan, in October 2015 and the bombing of wedding parties that killed hundreds.

These murderous acts are not isolated events, however. They are the product of the criminal operations of American imperialism as it has sought to subjugate and conquer the Middle East and Central Asia in three decades of unending war.

The revelations of the act of mass murder in Syria come from Air Force officers at Al-Udeid airbase in Qatar, who were monitoring a high-resolution surveillance drone flying over Baghuz.

That day, the Times writes, the “US military drone circled high overhead, hunting for military targets. But it saw only a large crowd of women and children huddled against a river bank. Without warning, an American F-15E attack jet streaked across the drone’s high-definition field of vision and dropped a 500-pound bomb on the crowd, swallowing it in a shuddering blast. As the smoke cleared, a few people stumbled away in search of cover. Then a jet tracking them dropped one 2,000-pound bomb, then another, killing most of the survivors.”

“We just dropped on 50 women and children,” said one officer monitoring the drone, though the US Central Command told the Times that 80 were killed, and the Times wrote that Air Force officers later saw a “shockingly high” death toll in another classified report.

The strike had been called in by a US Special Forces unit, Task Force 9. This unit, which bypasses the chain of command and was not coordinating with Air Force officers in Qatar, was advising the majority-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia attacking Baghuz.

It is not credible to attribute this atrocity to error. Lightly armed IS fighters or civilians at Baghuz were defenseless before drones and fighters that could film and bomb them at will. The Times admits: “Coalition drones had scoured the camp 24 hours a day for weeks and knew nearly every inch, officers said, including the daily movements of groups of women and children who gathered to eat, pray and sleep near a steep river bank that provided cover.”

US wars in the Middle East and Central Asia have been sold to the population as a “war on terror.” However, the murder in Baghuz is itself an act of terrorism, aimed at demonstrating that American imperialism will stop at nothing to subjugate the population.

A military lawyer, Lt. Colonel Dean Korsak, ordered drone operators and fighter aircrews to conserve footage of the atrocity for investigations. He then “reported the strike to his chain of command, saying it was a possible violation of the law of armed conflict—a war crime—and regulations required a thorough, independent investigation,” the Times reports. Korsak’s concerns were bolstered by reports from CIA officials “alarmed” about Task Force 9’s operations in Syria.

What they encountered, however, was a cover-up orchestrated at top levels of the state, under both the Republican Trump and the Democratic Biden administrations.

Coalition forces in Baghuz oversaw the hiding of the bodies. “Satellite images from four days later show the sheltered bank and area around it, which were in the control of the coalition, appeared to have been bulldozed,” the Times writes. It cites a former US Army Special Forces soldier, David Eubank, who arrived a week after the attack: “The place had been pulverized by airstrikes … There was a lot of freshly bulldozed earth and the stink of bodies underneath, a lot of bodies.”

The US Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations contemptuously ignored Korsak’s material. One of its officials bluntly wrote to Korsak that it would likely ignore his report, as it investigates civilian casualties only if there is “potential for high media attention, concern with outcry from local community/government, concern sensitive images may get out.”

Korsak then contacted the US Defense Department’s Independent Inspector General’s office. Gene Tate, a former Navy officer working as an evaluator at the Inspector General’s office, pressed for Korsak’s materials to be investigated. A team at Tate’s office even ruled that war crimes allegations were “extremely credible.” Ultimately, however, Tate was fired and thrown out of his office by security in October 2020.

After Korsak sent the US Senate Armed Services Committee his material, several months ago, the New York Times began investigating.

“I’m putting myself at great risk of military retaliation for sending this. … Senior ranking US military officials intentionally and systematically circumvented the deliberate strike process,” Korsak wrote in an email to the committee.

The bipartisan cover-up of the crimes of US imperialism in Syria is continuing, however. The Senate committee has not responded to either Korsak or Tate. The office of Senator Jack Reed, the committee’s Democratic chairman, refused to discuss the Baghuz atrocity with the Times .

As for the Times itself, after initially posting the article on the top of its site late Saturday evening, it had already begun to bury it by Sunday afternoon. The rest of the media has barely covered the revelations.

It is not hard to imagine what would happen if US media could pin blame for this atrocity on the governments of Syria, Iran, Russia, China or another country in the Pentagon’s gunsights. There would be morally outraged calls for UN Security Council meetings, sanctions, war threats or US missile strikes in Damascus. When responsibility indisputably lies with the Pentagon, however, it is simply covered up by the US and Western European governments.

The atrocity in Syria again exposes the interests behind the jailing of Assange—who is detained in Britain and facing extradition and death in the United States—and of Manning. Over the 30 years since the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union gave them a military opening to wage war across the Middle East, Washington and its allies have laid waste to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and beyond. Millions died in events that were covered up by the mass media but were witnessed by many people who can expose officials who carried out or are complicit in mass murder and war crimes.

The Baghuz atrocity points to a broad official falsification of death tolls in Syria. From 2014 to 2019, as the US, Britain, France and other countries destroyed the IS enclave in Syria and Iraq, they called down 35,000 airstrikes. “Nearly 1,000 strikes hit targets in Syria and Iraq in 2019, using 4,729 bombs and missiles,” the Times notes. However, “The official military tally of civilian dead for that entire year is only 22, and the strikes from March 18 are nowhere on the list.”

While Washington claimed it was killing only a handful of people in Syria, it was hiding reports on masses of people it had killed. The Pentagon was, the Times writes, “overwhelmed by the volume of civilian casualty claims reported by locals, humanitarian groups and the news media, and a backlog of civilian casualty assessment reports sat unexamined for months.”

The vindictive prosecution of Assange and Manning—and threats one can presume are now being made against Korsak and Tate—aim to ensure that war crimes committed as the product of the criminal wars supported by Democratic and Republican administrations alike will go unpunished.

The international working class must demand an end to the horrific persecution of Assange, who faces extradition to the US for revealing crimes such as those exposed by the Times article. Those responsible for the mass murder in Baghuz and its cover-up, along with the unending string of atrocities throughout the region, must be prosecuted.

NATO push for dangerous escalation along its European border with Russia

Clara Weiss

Military tensions between Russia and NATO at two major flashpoints, the Polish-Belarusian border and the Black Sea region in Ukraine, have escalated further over the weekend. Both Ukraine and Poland have for decades been cornerstones of the US-led NATO encirclement of Russia following the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union.

As the EU and NATO are illegally denying entry to thousands of refugees at the Polish-Belarusian border, NATO member states have been escalating military threats against Belarus while claiming that Russia was behind the crisis and using the refugees to engage in “hybrid warfare.”

British destroyer HMS Defender arrives at the port of Batumi, Georgia, Saturday, June 26, 2021. (Georgian Interior Ministry via AP)

The far-right Polish government of the Law and Justice Party announced on Sunday that Poland, Latvia and Lithuania intended to evoke Article 4 of the NATO charter to convene an extraordinary meeting of NATO. The Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki called it “inevitable” that the alliance gets involved. Last week, the UK already deployed troops to the border to assist the Polish government in its border standoff with Belarus.

The Russian government has responded to NATO’s growing military threats with a joint Russian-Belarusian paratrooper exercise on Friday in which two Russian paratroopers died. The Kremlin has rejected claims that it was engaging in “hybrid warfare” on the border through the refugees and insists that it has “nothing to do” with the crisis. Russia’s foreign minister also denounced plans by the European powers to sanction Aeroflot, Russia’s biggest airline, for allegedly flying refugees to Belarus.

Putin, however, also rejected the threats of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to cut off gas supplies through the Yamal-Europe pipeline which crosses from Russia through Belarus to Europe. The Kremlin has backed the Belarusian president since a mass protest movement erupted against him last year, but relations have been tense, and Moscow has tried to make Lukashenko leave office as soon as possible, so far without success.

Russia has called for direct discussions with the EU to resolve the crisis. The Russian press has also long waged a vicious, racist campaign against refugees fleeing to Europe, including those on the Polish-Belarusian border, as well as against migrants in Russia itself.

With full backing from the EU, the Polish army has violently cracked down on the defenseless refugees, who have fled the ruins, social disaster and civil wars created by imperialism in the Middle East. At least eight have already died, and many more are at risk of freezing to death as temperatures have dropped well below zero degrees Celsius.

The hysterical campaign against refugees and Russia by the far-right Polish government, which has banned mention of Polish anti-Semitism and openly collaborates with fascists, has been echoed across the European press. Germany, in particular, has seen a massive press campaign, and the German government has already declared it would send thousands of policemen to fight off migrants at its border with Poland.

In an indication of the fascistic forces that are being stirred up, the press service of the 61st infantry division of the Ukrainian army declared on its Facebook page that it would “destroy” any migrants trying to cross the Ukrainian border. Ukraine earlier announced it would move 8,500 soldiers and police officers to its 1,000-kilometer border with Belarus and build border fortifications for €560 million. The regime, which has emerged out of an imperialist-backed, far-right coup in February 2014, has been heavily promoting far-right forces for many years. Neo-Nazis regularly march on Ukrainian streets, and terrorize and assassinate political opponents, journalists and ethnic minorities with impunity.

The dangerous escalation along the Polish-Belarusian border is unfolding as NATO is simultaneously stepping up pressure on Russia further south in Eastern Europe, in the Black Sea region and Ukraine. The US has sent a missile destroyer, the tanker USNS John Lenthall and the staff ship USS Mount Whitney to participate in the US Joint Forces Command Europe military drills in the Black Sea. On Sunday, the British press reported that the UK was preparing to send 600 troops to Ukraine.

The Russian Foreign ministry has published a statement calling the activities of the US “a destabilizing factor in the Black Sea region, one of the goals of which is the military conquest of Ukrainian territory.”

In an interview with Russian state television on Saturday, Russian president Vladimir Putin described the US warship deployment to the Black Sea as a “serious challenge” and added, “This is creating the impression that they will just not allow us to let our guard down—well, let them know that we’re not letting our guard down.” He also reiterated the Kremlin’s position that any attempts by NATO to admit Ukraine to the alliance were “unacceptable' for Russia.

The latest escalation in the Black Sea region —the third major provocation of NATO in this region this year —began with completely unsubstantiated claims by the US in late October that Russia was moving troops near Ukraine’s border. These claims were initially rejected not only by Russia but also Ukraine. Washington then sent its CIA director to Ukraine and then signed a “strategic partnership' agreement with Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba at the State Department.

In the agreement, the United States vowed to continue to back Ukraine both militarily and economically. In regard to Ukraine's potential entry to NATO—regarded as a red line by Moscow—the document backs Ukraine’s “right to decide its own future foreign policy course free from outside interference, including with respect to Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO.”

Several articles in the Russian press over the weekend have discussed it as likely that within the next month the Pentagon is planning to back Ukraine in a war over the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, and the Donbass, a region in East Ukraine that has been controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014. This February, the Ukrainian government announced a military strategy to “retake” the Crimean Peninsula, triggering a crisis that lasted several weeks.

Kiev has now deployed 8,500 troops to its side of the border with Russia and has announced that it would relocate parts of its fleet from the Black Sea to the Azov Sea. Any such move would be highly provocative, as these waters are claimed by Russia. In 2018, Ukraine, with US backing, sent three warships to the Azov Sea, provoking a military standoff with Russia.

The military crises in Eastern Europe are unfolding against the backdrop of a profound destabilization of capitalist society amidst the pandemic, which is still claiming thousands of lives every day. The resulting social and political tensions and the growth in the class struggle, especially in the United States, are a major factor driving the increasingly reckless ratcheting up of tensions by the imperialist countries with Russia.

Class tensions are also running high in Eastern Europe and Russia, where the criminal handling of the pandemic by the ruling oligarchies has led to horrifying levels of mass death and infections among children. The crisis of the governments of these countries is lending the situation an additional degree of instability.

Survey reveals one in three Texas children have had COVID-19

Chase Lawrence & Andy Hartman

In October, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the Texas Department of State Health Services published a report, titled Texas Coronavirus Antibody Response Survey (Texas CARES), which found that over one-third (36.5 percent) of children in the state have been infected with COVID-19. Additionally, the results indicate that roughly one-quarter of educational professionals have been infected with the virus.

The report measured infections within the 275-500 days preceding October 3, the maximum range within which infection-generated antibodies remain detectable via test. Since its publication, the percentage among children has increased somewhat to 36.96, indicating further infections.

Arihana Macias, 7, gets a compress after reviving the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for children five to 12 years at a Dallas County Health and Human vaccination site in Mesquite, Texas, Thursday, Nov. 4, 2021. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

The results expose the massive fraud of the state’s portrayal of the pandemic, as well as the lie propagated by governments around the world that COVID-19 rarely affects children. The Texas government, in line with the entire political establishment and corporate media, has covered up the scope of child infections and deaths.

Texas’ COVID-19 dashboard only reports the age distribution for 3 percent of infections, which the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) report on November 4 noted, “resulted in an undercount of child cases” in the state. The current dashboard makes it appear that ages 0-19 years account for only 7.7 percent of infections as of November 5.

Researchers who produced the Texas CARES report measured the levels of COVID-19 antibodies among Texas residents. Participants were given two tests, an “N-test,” which does not detect antibodies developed from vaccinations, and an “S-test,” which detects antibodies developed both from previous infections and from vaccinations. The survey did not measure active COVID-19 infections. Participants were given three antibody tests over a period of six to eight months.

The tests were used to estimate the percentage of people in Texas who have antibodies to COVID-19, known as seroprevalence. The survey suggests that as of October 2021, about 75 percent of people in Texas had antibodies from either an infection or vaccination. Those with vaccine derived antibodies had higher antibody counts than infection-derived antibodies, exposing once again the myth that “herd immunity” can be achieved through infection. The report also found that of the children who had antibodies from an infection, 50.8 percent reported never having any symptoms.

The project is ongoing, with a dashboard that is updated weekly. Children have the highest seroprevalence levels among any group. As of this writing, the dashboard shows an infection-derived seropositivity (using only the “N-test”) of nearly 36 percent in children under 10 years old and nearly 38 percent in those between 10 and 19 years old, meaning those respective percentages of children had a previous COVID-19 infection.

After children, young adults age 20-29 had the next highest seroprevalence at 30 percent. This is compared to the average infection-derived seropositivity among all participants, which stood at 24 percent, itself a damning figure.

The implications of the study are astounding. In Russia, 13.5percent of all children who were infected with COVID have suffered Long COVID symptoms, which can include severe neurological difficulties and a cognitive impact comparabletostrokeorleadpoisoning .

The Texas CARES study also looked at several specific groups, including school-aged children (ages 5-19), educational professionals, university members, business employees, unemployed people and participants at community health clinics. Again, school-aged children had the highest seropositivity as a group at 36.5 percent positive using the N-test.

Educational professionals, consisting of all school staff, had a 26.7 percent seroprevalence, exposing the vast spread of the virus in schools that have reopened with few to no protective measures in place.

Underscoring the pandemic’s impact on primarily low-income and working class populations, the second highest seroprevalence by group was among community health clinic patients and staff. These are clinics which receive federal funding to provide health care to underserved populations, including Medicaid recipients and uninsured patients.

In regard to the ongoing impact of the pandemic on children, the AAP report also listed eight child deaths in Texas between October 28 and November 4, nearly half of the 17 pediatric COVID-19 deaths nationwide in that period. In total, 109 child deaths from COVID-19 have been recorded in Texas since the start of the pandemic, 17 percent of all recorded child deaths in the US, currently at 614.

The media is equally involved in a concerted campaign to cover up childhood infections and deaths. No news reports have been published by the corporate or local media on any of the child deaths recorded in the latest AAP report. This is true not just of the children in Texas, but also those in California, Colorado, Maryland, South Carolina, Guam, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington.

A culture of secrecy now pervades at schools, with educators and parents reporting to the WSWS and on social media that they are not informed when their children are exposed to infected students.

If the study’s findings are representative of the state’s population, it would indicate that millions more Texans have been infected than officially reported. If the seroprevalence among child participants in the study (ages 5-19), at 36.5 percent, is indicative of the entire population of the same age in Texas, then 2,000,280 children older than 5 have potentially been infected.

This figure is over five times the cumulative student case count reported in Texas schools by the Texas Department of State Health Services (TXDSHS) for all of the pandemic, which stands at 363,996 as of this writing. The seroprevalence averaged for all participants, at 24 percent, would indicate that 7 million people have been infected in Texas, over 2 million more than the official count.

The survey itself hints at some of the causes of the undercount of infections. Only 18.97 percent of participants had previously self-reported a positive COVID-19 diagnosis, versus the 24.1 percent who tested positive for infection-derived antibodies using the N-test. That is, a significant number of participants were unaware that they had been previously infected. The abysmal state of testing in the US accounts for many millions of infections going undetected.

There are some limitations to the survey as well. Participation was voluntary and was focused in heavily urban areas, with the highest participation in the Austin area, followed by a slightly lower participation in Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth and San Antonio. There was significantly lower participation elsewhere in the state, meaning that many rural areas may be underrepresented. Although two-thirds of the participants were female, seroprevalence was nearly identical for males and females, making this largely irrelevant.

Overall, the report is a damning indictment of the social crime being perpetrated by both the Republican state government and the Democratic Party, which controls many of the highly populated urban counties in Texas. The crime includes not only the entirely preventable spread of COVID-19, but also the extensive cover-up of it. It also exposes the rotten nature of the trade unions, particularly the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA), which have forced their members to accept the full reopening of schools, despite millions of children being infected and thousands of educators dying as a result.

These policies serve the interests of the ruling elites, who sit on an increasingly unstable stock market and an astronomical amount of debt. They insist that the economy must be fully reopened, seeking to stave off the collapse of their moribund system, while continuing to accumulate obscene amounts of wealth. The full reopening of schools is an essential part of this scheme. The ruling elites and the capitalist politicians, who tell the population to learn to live with the virus, cannot be pressured to change their course.

Social Science Research Council Just Tech Fellowship 2022

Application Deadline:

2nd January 2022

Tell Me About Social Science Research Council Just Tech Fellowship:

The Just Tech Fellowship supports and mobilizes diverse and cross-sector cohorts of researchers and practitioners to imagine and create more just, equitable, and representative technological futures. Fellows will identify and challenge injustices emerging from new technologies, and identify solutions that advance social, political, and economic rights.

The Just Tech program will administer two-year awards of $100,000 per year, augmented by robust supplementary funding packages to subsidize expenses related to dependent care, health care, workspace, technical equipment, project materials, communications, or other needs. These innovative awards are designed not only to support a researcher’s work but to invest in their entire person and to build a supportive and collaborative community. Fellows may apply for additional funding to seed collaborative projects within or across Just Tech cohorts.

What Type of Scholarship is this?

Fellowship

Who can apply?

The Just Tech Fellowship selection process has been designed with fairness and accountability as primary objectives. With this fellowship, the Just Tech program is working to bring new voices and perspectives into conversation, maximizing impact and avenues of collaboration across fields and practices.

Only people who submitted an expression of interest by January 2, 2022, will be eligible to submit a full application. Proposal consideration will not be based on the candidate’s response to this expression of interest.

Applications are reviewed only after the online application deadline has passed. Incomplete applications, and those that have not been submitted by the deadline, will not be accepted.

In February, Just Tech staff will screen applications for completeness and eligibility. Review and selection of complete applications will be led by the Just Tech Advisory Board and its Selection Committee, a cross-sector panel of experts. From mid-March through mid-April, top applicants may be contacted by Just Tech staff for a video/telephone interview, additional information, and/or clarification of information relevant to the application. All final selections will be made by mid-May. Those applicants chosen will be immediately notified by phone and email. All other applicants will be notified by email. 

How are Applicants Selected?

Fellows will be selected on the basis of a rigorous review process. We will be looking for the following criteria in reviewing all applications:

• Critical Research Question: Applicants must state clearly what question(s) they seek to answer with a Just Tech Fellowship.
• Clarity of Purpose: Applicants should communicate how they would use their time as a fellow to systematically uncover evidence, build understanding, and shape public interest solutions to advance the goals of Just Tech. 
• Commitment to Program Themes: Applicants should demonstrate a commitment to research that engages purposefully with questions of technology, inequity, and social justice, especially as they relate to the cohort theme of “Crisis and Reparation.”
• Public Impact: Applicants should communicate how their proposed work will contribute to equity and social justice. Applicants should also demonstrate a track record of successful, public-facing work that engages broad audiences through different forms of media.
• Collaboration: Applicants should demonstrate a track record of successful collaboration, as well as a willingness to share, learn, and create with others.

How Many Scholarships will be Given?

Not specified

What is the Benefit of Social Science Research Council Just Tech Fellowship?

Fellows receive two-year awards of $100,000 per year, robust supplementary funding packages to subsidize additional expenses, and seed funding to work on collaborative projects with other Just Tech Fellows. The fellowship will provide the space and time necessary for deep reflection, as well as an engaged community and opportunities to facilitate ambitious co-creation.

How Long will the Program Last?

A two-year, full-time, remote fellowship supporting a diverse community of researchers and practitioners investigating the intersection of technology and social justice

How to Apply for Social Science Research Council Just Tech Fellowship:

To complete the online application, you will need to provide the following information and documentation:

Expression of Interest (due January 2, 2022, at 11:59 p.m. EST)

Sign up for a public information session on December 1, 3:00 p.m. ET or December 9, 10:00 a.m. ET to learn more.

• Contact Information: Full name and email address
• Critical Question: What is the central question you would want to pursue with a Just Tech Fellowship? (300 characters max)
• Work Statement: In two to three sentences, please describe your work. How does your work focus on the intersection of technology and social justice? (450 characters max)

You must submit an expression of interest to apply for the Just Tech Fellowship.

Submit your expression of interest

Full Application Materials (due January 30, 2022, at 11:59 p.m. EST)

• Resume/CV: Up to three pages (saved as a PDF file). The application portal will also allow applicants to submit a link to personal web pages.
• Personal Statement: Applicants should submit a written or recorded (video) personal statement of up to 500 words (written) OR four (4) minutes (video).
• Work Proposal: Applicants should submit a short proposal for a project focused on the intersection of technology and social justice. 
• Samples of Work: Applicants are encouraged (but not required) to share up to two (2) samples of relevant work. Visual and audio samples may be linked or uploaded via the application portal.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Commonwealth Shared Scholarships 2022/2023

Application Deadline: 20th December 2021 16.00 (GMT)

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Eswatini, Kiribati, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, , Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tanzania, The Gambia, Tuvalu, Vanuatu.

To be taken at (country): Various UK Universities. Download CSS prospectus 2022 in Program Webpage Link below for full list of participating universities and respective deadlines.

Accepted Subject Areas: Commonwealth Shared Scholarship scheme is for taught Master’s courses only. All courses undertaken must be demonstrably relevant to the economic, social or technological development of the candidate’s home country.

About Scholarship: The Commonwealth Shared Scholarships, set up by the Department for International Development (DFID) in 1986, represent a unique partnership between the United Kingdom government and UK universities. To date, more than 3,500 students from developing Commonwealth countries have been awarded Shared Scholarships.

UK universities have offered to support the scholarships by contributing the stipend for the students from their own resources, or those which the university has been able to generate from elsewhere.

Offered Since: 1986

Eligibility: To apply for Commonwealth Shared Scholarships, candidates must:

• Be a citizen of or have been granted refugee status by an eligible Commonwealth country, or be a British Protected Person
• Be permanently resident in an eligible Commonwealth country
• Be available to start your academic studies in the UK by the start of the UK academic year in September/October 2022
• By September 2022, hold a first degree of at least upper second class (2:1) standard, or a second class degree and a relevant postgraduate qualification (usually a Master’s degree). The CSC typically does not fund a second UK Master’s degree. If you are applying for a second UK Master’s degree, you will need to provide justification as to why you wish to undertake this study.
• Not have studied or worked for one (academic) year or more in a high income country
• Be unable to afford to study in the UK without this scholarship

The CSC aims to identify talented individuals who have the potential to make change. We are committed to a policy of equal opportunity and non-discrimination, and encourage applications from a diverse range of candidates.

Selection: Each participating UK university will conduct its own recruitment process to select a specified number of candidates to be awarded Commonwealth Shared Scholarships. Universities must put forward their selected candidates to the CSC by March 2022. The CSC will then confirm that these candidates meet the eligibility criteria for this scheme. Universities will inform candidates of their results by July 2022.

Selection criteria include:

• Academic merit of the candidate
• Potential impact of the work on the development of the candidate’s home country

Number of Scholarships: More than 200 scholarships

Commonwealth Shared Scholarships value:

Each scholarship provides:

• Approved airfare from your home country to the UK and return at the end of your award (the CSC will not reimburse the cost of fares for dependants, nor the cost of journeys made before your award is confirmed) – arranged by the university; funded by the CSC
• Approved tuition fees – funded by the CSC
• Stipend (living allowance) at the rate of £1,133 per month, or £1,390 per month for those at universities in the London metropolitan area (rates quoted at 2021-2022 levels) – paid and funded by the university
• Warm clothing allowance, where applicable – paid and funded by the university
• Thesis grant towards the cost of preparing a thesis or dissertation, where applicable – claimed from and paid by the university; funded by the CSC
• Study travel grant towards the cost of study-related travel within the UK or overseas – claimed from and paid by the university; funded by the CSC
• Reimbursement of the cost of a mandatory tuberculosis (TB) test, where required for a visa application (receipts must be supplied) – claimed from and paid by the university; funded by the CSC
• If you are widowed, divorced, or a single parent, child allowance of £485 per month for the first child, and £120 per month for the second and third child under the age of 16, if you are accompanied by your children and they are living with you at the same address in the UK (rates quoted at 2021-2022 levels)
• If you declare a disability, a full assessment of your needs and eligibility for additional financial support will be offered by the CSC.

Duration of Commonwealth Shared Scholarships: Awards are normally tenable for one-year taught postgraduate courses only.

How to Apply: Applications for Commonwealth Shared Scholarships for the academic year 2022/2023 are now open.

Click here to apply

1. You can apply to study one of the taught Master’s courses offered in the Commonwealth Shared Scholarship scheme. These scholarships do not cover undergraduate courses, PhD study, or any pre-sessional English language teaching, and are usually tenable for one year only. View a full list of eligible courses.
2. You must also secure admission to your course in addition to applying for a Shared Scholarship. You must check with your chosen university for their specific advice on when to apply, admission requirements, and rules for applying. View a full list of university contact details.
3. You must make your application using the CSC’s online application system, in addition to any other application that you are required to complete by your chosen university. The CSC will not accept any applications that are not submitted via the online application system.
4. You can apply for more than one course and/or to more than one university, but you may only accept one offer of a Shared Scholarship.
5. To apply, access the CSC’s online application system.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for Details