Eligible Countries: All African countries and other regions
To be taken at (country): USA
About the Award: Global Health Corps is building the next generation of diverse health leaders. We offer a range of paid fellowship positions with health organizations in Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, the United States, and Zambia and the opportunity to develop as a transformative leader in the health equity movement. Everyone has a role to play in the health equity movement.
Type: Fellowship
Eligibility: Global Health Corps Fellowship is looking for a global and diverse group of passionate and talented emerging leaders who:
Are willing to push themselves outside their comfort zones, to embrace failure, and to approach a personally transformative year – with many challenges in the day-to-day – with integrity, humility, and self-reflection.
Are ready to strengthen and use their voice — the most powerful tool for change that you have — in order to engage others, create space for critical conversation, and effect meaningful social change in global health.
Are excited by a design-thinking approach to building a better world, creatively embracing wicked problems and ready to embrace failure as learning.
Are committed to bringing your best and doing the work in the day-to-day, showing up as a critical part of the global health equity movement.
Are passionate about social justice in global health and about finding and building their voices to effect health impact.
Are committed to inclusivity and collaboration across sectors, cultures, and borders of all kinds, while investing in and supporting others.
Selection Criteria: By the start of the fellowship, fellows must:
Be 30 years or younger.
Hold a bachelor’s or undergraduate university degree.
Be proficient in English.
Number of Awardees: Not specified
Value of Global Health Corps Paid Fellowship: Yearlong paid placements within partner organizations in Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, the US, and Zambia to address real-time capacity gaps and strengthen health systems.
In addition to on-the-job training, we engage fellows in a comprehensive leadership training curriculum to build effective, empathetic, and innovative leaders of tomorrow.
Fellow receive additional logistical and financial support during the year, including:
Monthly living and utilities stipend
Housing
Health insurance
Professional development grant of $600 and completion award of $1500
Travel coverage to and from placement site, all trainings, and retreats
Duration of Fellowship: 1 year
How to Apply for Global Health Corps Paid Fellowship:
As controversial president of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte’s run in office is soon ending, there are many thoughts arising on who will take his place and what the overall future of the country—and its volatile relationships to the US and China–will be.
Most notably, legendary boxer and Philippine Senator Manny Pacquiao has recently filed his candidacy to run as the next president. Other candidates include Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (son of the infamous dictator), police chief Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa, Vice President Leni Robredo, Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson, and Mayor of Manilla Francisco “Isko” Moreno.
There is even speculation that Duterte’s daughter Sara will run as president while Rodrigo will run as her vice, despite Duterte declaring he will retire from politics. The race for presidency in the country is already producing high levels of tension and anxiety as the elected candidate could bring the country to new heights or repeat its dark and corrupt history.
The Philippines has had a long history of graft and mismanagement. Much of this may be attributed to the two-decade US-backed dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, with a long historic aftermath.
Despite his reign ending, there seems to be a continuous cycle of periods of peace, then periods of chaos. Even during times of peace, most of the populace has endured poverty and lack of freedom.
Filipinos have also endured other nearly tyrannical regimes including Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Estrada’s popularity as a celebrity essentially guaranteed him the presidency due to his endearing public image, but he proved to be a grifting despot.
Once he was ousted for his malfeasance, his Vice-President Arroyo swung in and took his spot. He was then pardoned by her.
In her run for reelection, she allegedly fixed the results and made shady deals with outside parties, specifically corporations from China at the expense of the country and its people. This led to charges of fraud and other accusations.
The cycle further continued when Rodrigo Duterte, one of her closest allies, gave her back some power, appointing her to serve in his administration. Despite successful nonviolent resistance—People Power–in initially ousting both Marcos and Estrada, those movements only aimed to oust the main figure but never removed the roots of political strongman rule.
There are many lessons to be learned here, especially when relating to politics within the U.S. Though there are notable differences in structure and culture, there have been many parallels to Duterte and Trump in regards to how they conducted themselves and their parties during their respective presidencies.
Both are frequently crude in their public comments, but more deeply both favor highly dubious political and business deals.
Lessons here would include to not treat electoral processes as mere popularity polls as well ensuring in nonviolent resistance to persist and continue to act for justice and freedom despite initial goals being met.
Another profound consideration for the US is to stop supporting any autocratic ruler, a recurring problem that alienates us from average people in those countries. When the US supplies either a Marcos, a Saudi prince, or any dictator with weaponry then used to oppress his own people, the US loses respect and friendship.
We can do better and we wish the best for the people of the Philippines.
A fire in Osaka, Japan has left at least 24 people dead and four injured, including three in critical condition. The fire began Friday morning in a psychiatry clinic on the fourth floor of the eight-storey Dojima Kita Building, a multiuse facility in the city’s Kita Ward. The fire is the worst in Japan since a 2019 fire in Kyoto killed 36 people and injured another 34 at an animation studio.
Authorities are treating the fire as suspected arson. It began in the Nishi-Umeda Clinic for Mind and Body for Working People around 10.20 a.m. and was extinguished approximately 30 minutes later. The clinic specialized in treating people with depression, panic attacks, and other issues. Clients who spoke to the media stated the clinic was popular and offered support for people returning to work after sick leave.
Firefighters and police officers investigate a building in a major business, shopping and entertainment district hours after a deadly fire in Osaka, western Japan, Friday, Dec. 17, 2021. (AP Photo/Chisato Tanaka)
More than 70 firetrucks and ambulances responded to the blaze, which destroyed the fourth floor of the building. At present, authorities believe the fire started when a man, thought to be in his 60s and a patient at the clinic, ignited a flammable liquid concealed in a paper bag near a heater at the clinic’s reception area. A woman told police that “strong flames burst out of the paper bag as a man put it down” near the reception desk. Another person reported that “fluid was coming out of the paper bag.” Fire officials reported finding traces of oil in their investigation.
Authorities believe that the alleged arsonist is among those severely injured in the hospital. He has not been arrested. However, police did search the man’s home on Saturday where a small fire was also reported shortly before the one that began at the clinic.
As the fire began near the clinic’s entrance, it likely blocked any escape route. In addition, the thick smoke that quickly filled the area left people unable to find their way in the clinic. As a result, most of the victims died from smoke inhalation. A witness at the scene told Japan’s national broadcaster, NHK, “There was a lot of dark smoke…there was a very strong smell, too.”
Regardless of how the fire started, the high death toll points to flawed safety measures. Presently, officials have stated that the Dojima Kita Building, constructed in 1970, had no prior violation of fire prevention codes. However, whether or not the bare minimum legal requirements were followed does not mean safety standards were adequate.
Safety experts have questioned what measures should have been taken to prepare for a fire. Yuji Kumamaru, who runs an emergency response and disaster prevention consultancy firm in Tokyo, told the New York Times, “My initial thought was that the building construction design itself is the most important factor.” He said that older buildings often do not have the recommended two exits per floor or interior fireproofing. The elevator and emergency stairs were both located outside the clinic where the fire started. That emergency exits in buildings are mere recommendations is a clear indication of the lack of regard for fire safety.
Furthermore, the building lacked sprinklers, which are not legally required given the size of the building and the number of floors. In Japan, only buildings taller than 11 storeys are required to have sprinkler systems installed. As a result, landlords and construction companies can cut costs by not installing this basic safety measure in new buildings or being required to add them to existing buildings.
The necessity of sprinkler systems was tragically confirmed in the 2019 fire at the Kyoto Animation studio, which was only three storeys high. Shinichi Sugawara, an expert in structural fire engineering and professor emeritus at Tokyo University, said at the time, “I personally think that all places like (the studio) should have (fire) shutters, and all buildings should have sprinklers, regardless of size.” These words have clearly not been heeded.
Following the latest fire, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida offered the same empty words people have heard time and again from leaders around the world when these disasters occur. Speaking in Tokyo, Kishida stated, “A very tragic incident occurred. First of all, we must make efforts to prevent a recurrence by grasping the actual situation and clarifying the cause and circumstances. I pray for the souls of those who have died, and extend my deepest sympathies to those who have been injured or harmed.”
As in the case of the Kyoto fire, however, none of the underlying causes of the latest inferno are likely to be addressed and rectified.
The exact reasons and possible motivations for the fire are not yet known. However, if the allegations against the current suspect prove true, the tragedy does point broadly to sharp social tension and the conditions millions of workers in Japan must endure. And while this does not justify or excuse the deadly actions taken, it demonstrates the extreme breaking points to which people are being pushed.
In addition to the long and stressful work hours and low pay common in Japan, people have suffered through attacks on their jobs and living conditions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Older people and the elderly have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic, many of whom had already suffered from loneliness and social isolation. Mental illness in Japan also carries a strong stigma and many are reluctant to seek or receive help.
So severe is the problem that the Japanese government appointed a “Minister of Loneliness” in February this year. Speaking on the issue, Takako Suzuki, a member of the National Diet’s lower house from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party stated in April, “A prevention viewpoint is significant when taking countermeasures against loneliness and isolation. It is important that the expansion of a consultation system, which will become a safety net, and preventative measures are pushed forward together as one set.”
This, however, is not taking place. Whatever cosmetic measures the government has taken will do nothing to address the real issues that stem from the fact that under capitalism all aspects of life are subordinated to the drive for profit.
The Johnson government is refusing to implement any serious measures as COVID-19 spreads like wild-fire, exacerbated by the more transmissible variant Omicron.
Case numbers in Britain have officially reached 90,000 plus a day, but the government’s scientific advisers say the real figure is already “hundreds of thousands” every day.
Omicron is set to become dominant across Britain, having already achieved dominance in Scotland, London, Manchester and other cities. It became dominant in Ireland Sunday.
People queue up to get COVID-19 booster injections outside a vaccination centre in a UCL (University College London) building, in London, Friday, Dec. 17, 2021 (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
On Saturday, London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced a “major incident” in the capital, which saw its largest number of cases since the pandemic began. There are currently around 15,000 people in hospital beds with COVID in the capital, an increase of 30 percent in seven days.
According to the scenarios drawn up by government advisers, continuing with the government’s Plan B of limited COVID measures alone gives a range of 600,000 to 2 million infections per day from “late December 2021 to January 2022”. There would be between 3,000-10,000 hospitalisations daily from “January to February 2022” and 600-6,000 deaths per day from, “Mid-January to mid-March 2022.”
The ruling Conservatives, backed by the Labour Party, have insisted since the economy was fully reopened in July that there would be no more lockdowns—the proven method of reducing the catastrophic rate of illness and deaths during the pandemic, as demonstrated in China.
The only measure taken is to press ahead with the vaccine roll-out, including booster jabs to all adults, which though necessary will not halt the rise in infections. Scientists estimate a significant drop in the efficacy of existing vaccines even with the booster. Also, a large percentage of the population remains unvaccinated. The government has so far resisted vaccinating 5-12-year-olds, despite the fact that alarming data from South Africa indicates that it is children who are the second most susceptible age group to succumb to Omicron. Five percent of infected children were hospitalised in South Africa.
Parents take children to a primary school in Bournemouth, UK following the reopening of schools nationally. March, 2021 (WSWS media)
The government refused to close schools before the Christmas break, even though many schools were forced to partially close as COVID took its toll among staff and pupils. On Friday, the last day of term for most schools, the UK registered a record 92,597 cases. Saturday saw another record high of 90,418 cases, while total weekly cases increased by 45 percent.
The Tories are now resisting growing demands from parents and educators to keep schools shut after the holidays, even though the National Health Service (NHS) could be soon overwhelmed.
In the face of this escalating catastrophe, the education unions have also made reopening schools in the new term in January their top priority.
The Department for Education reported 13,000 staff COVID-related absences from schools on December 9, or 2.4 percent of the workforce. In anticipation of massive staff shortages due to COVID, Education Secretary Nadim Zahawi wrote to schools requesting they contact retired educators to make up the dwindling workforce.
Rather than condemning sending the most susceptible age group into one of the main vectors of infection, the education unions welcomed this insane proposal. Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, supported “anything which may help” tackle staff shortages.
Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), used the government’s appeal to reiterate the unions’ false claims that schools can be made safe with a few mitigation measures, and insisted face-to-face teaching must continue.
“Of course we support measures that could help to reduce education disruption,” he said. “It is important to say that this disruption is likely to be made worse because of the government's failure to put in place the mitigations and safety measures we have been calling for—on ventilation, air filtration, mask wearing and isolation of very close contacts.”
“We still need those mitigations to be put in place—even to help with the effort of recruitment of temporary retired staff.'
The NEU and other unions have allowed their members to work in, by their own admission, a dangerous environment for two years even as the government refused to put in place any of their demands. Official COVID statistics, not updated since October 21, show that 570 education staff have died due to COVID and 114,000 teachers have Long COVID. Twitter support group Long Covid Kids estimate 69,000 children have Long COVID, equivalent to three per school.
On December 8, unable to ignore increasing case numbers any longer, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his Plan B, proposing a few toothless mitigation measures such as compulsory face masks in indoor settings except hospitality venues; vaccination passes showing double vaccination or negative lateral flow tests; and working from home where possible.
Anticipating opposition among teachers and educators to the surge of cases in schools, the NEU rushed to the government’s defence with its own Plan B for schools and colleges. Courtney said, “We are disappointed that in his announcement the prime minister has made no mention of schools, given that cases are rising so fast and this is leading to so much disruption of education. More than 200,000 pupils were absent for Covid-related reasons on 25 November and since then infection rates among school-age children have risen further.”
This reprises the union’s role during the spring lockdown, when it produced its Education Recovery Plan to facilitate the reopening of schools in March, paving the way for further waves.
The union’s Plan B accepts some level of viral spread, which translates into more deaths and Long COVID cases, stating in a press release the government “must urgently increase the level of mitigations to slow the spread of Covid-19 in our schools.”
Its demands include the wearing of face coverings to be extended to classrooms by staff and students, but not in primary schools. On top of “Government guidance of 10-day isolation on close contacts of confirmed or suspected Omicron cases,” the union proposed a negative PCR test before returning to school.
Other demands include ventilation measures, staggered break times and “provision of higher-grade medical masks (FFP2, FFP3) provided where requested [!]” for “at-risk staff and pupils previously defined as clinically vulnerable, or clinically extremely vulnerable, or involved in close contact and personal care.”
The NEU therefore accepts that clinically vulnerable (CV) and extremely vulnerable staff and pupils (CEV), or those living with vulnerable family members, must remain in school.
No amount of mitigation measures the union proposes and the government routinely ignores can make crowded classrooms and corridors safe with an airborne virus. The NEU even turns a blind eye to the Ofsted school inspectorate body cancelling all inspections until further notice due to the out-of-control situation in schools.
The government has responded to COVID-related absences by stepping up its intimidation of parents, threatening parents Lisa Diaz, Sarah Paxman and others with huge fines and the prosecution in family courts. Education Minister Nadim Zahawi recently wrote to local council chief executives telling them to inform parents that school absence “has repercussions,” including fixed penalty notices, parenting contracts and education supervision orders.
Throughout the pandemic the NEU (membership 450,000) and NASUWT (300,000) have worked to suppress the growing opposition to the government’s policies of social murder. Their collaboration with the government to enforce a return to classrooms is only the most advanced expression of the role played by all the unions and the Labour Party during the pandemic.
With COVID-19 now being fueled by the highly contagious Omicron variant, infections have skyrocketed across the country. One of the most highly publicized impacts of this new wave has been on professional sports, as hundreds of players and staff have tested positive for the virus, causing the cancellation and postponement of numerous games.
The National Football League (NFL) on Friday postponed three games scheduled for the just concluded weekend due to COVID-19 issues. Saturday’s scheduled game between the Cleveland Browns and the Las Vegas Raiders was rescheduled to Monday. That decision came after 23 Cleveland Browns players landed on the NFL’s COVID-19/reserve list in recent days, including the team’s starting quarterback Baker Mayfield and backup quarterback Case Keenum, as well as Browns coach Kevin Stefanski, who all tested positive for the coronavirus earlier in the week.
Sunday’s scheduled games between the Washington Football Team and the Philadelphia Eagles and between the Seattle Seahawks and Los Angeles Rams were both postponed until Tuesday. As of Friday, the Rams had placed 29 players on the COVID-19/reserve list. The Washington Football team has 23 players on its list, including its starting and second-string quarterbacks.
Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford throws a pass against the Arizona Cardinals during the first half of an NFL football game Monday, Dec. 13, 2021, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ralph Freso)
The NFL describes the COVID-19/reserve list as being for players who either test positive for COVID-19 or who have been quarantined after having been in close contact with an infected person or persons. NFL teams are not permitted to comment on the medical status of players other than referring to roster status. Clubs may not disclose whether a player is in quarantine or is positive for the virus.
In the National Basketball Association (NBA), the Chicago Bulls are the only team to have games postponed thus far, but the Brooklyn Nets were on the border last week when they played against the Toronto Raptors with just eight active players, the minimum for a game to be played. Later the team announced that its three top stars, Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving, had all entered the COVID-19 protocol. Irving was the highest-profile vaccine refuser among NBA players, while Durant and Harden were vaccinated.
Many of the NBA’s biggest stars including Giannis Antetokounmpo and Russell Westbrook were among the dozens of players to test positive last week. On Sunday five Cleveland Cavaliers tested positive, jeopardizing their game later that night with the Atlanta Hawks.
The NBA was the first sports league to react to COVID-19 and its suspension of its 2019–2020 season on March 11, 2020, was one of the first indications to the wider American public that the pandemic would prove to be a massive disruption of everyday life.
On Friday the National Hockey League (NHL) announced that all Colorado Avalanche and Florida Panthers games would be postponed through December 26 over COVID-19 concerns. Then on Saturday the NHL announced that the Boston Bruins and Nashville Predators would also have their seasons postponed through the league’s holiday break. In addition to these four, the Vancouver Canucks, Toronto Maple Leafs, Calgary Flames, Carolina Hurricanes, Montreal Canadiens, Boston Bruins and Minnesota Wild have postponed two or more games.
On Thursday Montreal played in front of an empty Bell Centre and the Ontario government has curtailed capacity to 50 percent for Toronto Raptors NBA games and for Toronto and Ottawa NHL games.
College basketball also has been impacted by COVID-19 and has in the last week canceled or postponed more than a dozen games, impacting many of this season’s top teams, including UCLA, Ohio State and Seton Hall.
College football on Friday played the first of 42 bowl games that will conclude with the four-team playoff that begins December 31 with its championship game scheduled for January 10.
“Of course, we’re aware of what’s happening and we’re monitoring the situation,” said Bill Hancock, the executive director of the College Football Playoff, who added that no changes have been made to bowl itineraries or fan guidelines.
Last year 19 bowl games were canceled, media interviews were done remotely and teams often arrived in town the night before the games. No such restrictions have as of yet been mandated for this year’s bowl games and playoffs.
Professional sports beginning last year imposed some of the strictest protocols to assure games could be played. These included daily testing, masking, social distancing, contact tracing, as well as the creation of “bubbles” where all teams would be confined to various hotels in the same city.
Beginning in the spring of this year, as a result of vaccinations, these protocols were significantly relaxed, although testing on a weekly or daily basis (for the unvaccinated) continued.
Even though these protocols have been weakened, they are in most cases stricter then even those that apply to most health care workers. These recent outbreaks in professional sports, despite their stricter protocols, provide a more accurate measure as to how rampant the spread of the virus has become throughout the country. The lack of mass testing in the US has served to mask the true extent of the spread of this latest surge.
“What’s happening in sports is a mirror of what’s happening in society,” said John Swartzberg, an infectious disease and vaccinology professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley.
What most disturbs these sports leagues about these latest disruptions caused by COVID-19 is that the vast majority of athletes are vaccinated—around 95 percent in the NFL and NBA and 99 percent in the NHL.
The heavily vaccinated and tested American sports world, perhaps the most committed to the strategy of mitigation propounded by the Biden administration, thought it had returned to normalcy, a notion that has been upended by these recent events. The Omicron surge has demonstrated once again the necessity of an elimination strategy as opposed to “living with the virus.”
In contrast to the NFL, professional and college basketball as well as professional hockey still have months remaining in their seasons to take account of any disruptions. The NFL, however, is nearing the end of its season with playoffs commencing in January, leaving very little scheduling flexibility.
As a result, instead of increasing protections against COVID-19, the NFL is now in the process of lessening them. This process began when Alan Sills, the chief medical officer of the NFL, said on Wednesday that two-thirds of NFL players diagnosed as positive are asymptomatic, and most of the rest have mild symptoms.
On Friday Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones followed the lead from Sills by proposing that asymptomatic players should be allowed to play. “If you’re asymptomatic, you should be allowed to play,” Arians told reporters.
Jones, a billionaire and Trump supporter, told radio station 105.3 The Fan, “I think we will get to a point, probably this week, that we’ll only test if symptomatic, that’s if you’ve been vaccinated. That’s a good thing. Test when you’re symptomatic and that’s it.”
Predictably the next day NFL and the National Football League Players Association announced the implementation of “enhanced” COVID protocols that include changes to the testing cadence for fully vaccinated, asymptomatic players and staff.
A memo from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, obtained by NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport, sent to all 32 teams states that fully vaccinated, asymptomatic individuals will no longer be subject to weekly testing.
Goodell in his memo went on to declare, “Medical information strongly indicates that this variant is significantly more contagious but possibly less severe than prior variants, particularly for people who are fully vaccinated and have received a booster shot.
“Our experience with the Omicron variant is fully consistent with this expectation—while more players and staff are testing positive, roughly two-thirds of those individuals are asymptomatic, most of the remaining individuals have only mild symptoms, and the virus appears to clear positive individuals more rapidly than was true with the Delta and other variants. In many respects, Omicron appears to be a very different illness from the one we first confronted in the spring of 2020.”
The NFL had until this week engaged in extensive testing, and as a result more accurately mirrored the true extent of infection that is now rampant throughout the country. In response to the rapid Omicron spread, however, it is now implementing a new policy of not testing asymptomatic players in order to allow them to play. This amounts to embracing the utterly stupid claims of Donald Trump that if you test less, you’ll have less infection.
By doing so the NFL is now more accurately mirroring the true policy of the ruling class—COVID is here to stay so learn to live with it—and when necessary, die from it.
The Thailand government has announced a winding back of restrictions ahead of the holiday season, despite repeated warnings about the Omicron variant.
Daily cases last Monday were reported to be at 2,862 with 37 fatalities, according to the Public Health Ministry. The number of cases has been on a steady decline from the third wave in August which saw upwards of 20,000 cases and 300 deaths each day.
Thailand joined a rapidly growing list of countries when it first detected an imported case of the more transmissible and vaccine-resistant Omicron variant on December 6. There have since been another 10 cases from foreign arrivals.
A health worker administers a dose of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in Bangkok, Thailand, Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
The Thai government’s initial banning of travelers from eight African countries in order to halt the Omicron variant have been overshadowed by the pace of Omicron’s spread across the world. The World Health Organisation stated last week that a total of 77 countries have detected the variant thus far and that it was likely already present in most countries.
While there has been no reported community transmission in Thailand, the Department of Medical Services (DMS) has warned that Thailand could end up dealing with a surge of Omicron infections after the end-of-year celebrations.
“I must admit the Omicron variant appears to be spreading faster than Delta,” DMS director-general Somsak Akksilp said on Tuesday.
While the prospect of a highly transmissible variant is officially acknowledged as imminent, the Thailand government announced last Monday the relaxation of restrictions and an opening of its borders.
Overland border crossing between the north-eastern province of Nong Khai and Laos will be permitted from December 24. In mid-January, provinces bordering Malaysia will proceed under the “Test & Go” quarantine exemption scheme.
Under this arrangement, vaccinated travelers from more than 60 countries are given a PCR test immediately upon arrival and transitioned to a government-approved hotel until a negative result is returned, usually within 24 hours.
In addition, all 23 provinces classified as “maximum controlled” or “Red Zones” will be downgraded to “controlled” on Dec 16. Finally, places to eat in all provinces can serve alcohol on New Year’s Eve up to 1am on the following morning.
New Year’s countdown events will allow up to 5,000 people in public areas such as Hor Kham Luang and Royal Park Rajapruek in Chiang Mai Province, as well as venues in four other provinces.
The government’s adoption of a “vaccine only” strategy, criticised as inadequate by the WHO, stands completely exposed in the face of the vaccine-resistant Omicron variant. The country lags behind its vaccination target of 70 percent by October with only 62.1 percent of the population double-vaccinated and 5.9 percent given a third booster dose.
The government’s Covid-19 Taskforce scrambled to announce last week that booster shots could be administered three months after the second dose, rather than five. However, the scale of shots required means that for many months the majority of the population will be vulnerable to infection and death.
As with capitalist governments throughout the region, what is prioritised with the homicidal policy of “living with the virus” is corporate profit over public health.
Thailand’s economy is forecast to expand by just 1.2 percent this year, after a contraction of 6.1 percent in 2020, according to data from the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Council.
A concerted drive is underway by big business to revive its tourist industry which accounted for 11 percent of gross domestic product in 2019 and 20 percent of total employment, with 40 million tourists visiting from foreign countries. Last November, only 133,061 arrivals came, as opposed to a monthly average of 3 million before the pandemic.
Speaking for sections of big business at Bangkok Post’s International Forum 2021 on December 2, Air Asia Group chief executive officer Tony Fernandes attempted to downplay concerns over the Omicron variant, calling it a “huge over reaction” and for “common sense” to prevail.
“We don’t know anything about this variant yet. Let’s wait and see before we jump the gun,” he said.
In an interview with Channel News Asia, CEO of Asia-based Diethelm Travel Group lamented the fact that governments were “frightening people” and “risking an even bigger tragedy as people run out of financial resources”.
While big business is clamouring for an end to even limited health measures,
the military-backed regime faced significant protests at the peak of the latest wave of infections. Protests that have lasted a year calling for the ousting of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha along with reforms of the monarchy coalesced with opposition to the government’s mishandling of the pandemic.
Last Thursday inmates at Krabi prison in southern Thailand rioted to demand that those who have tested positive to COVID-19 be removed from the jail and hospitalised. After 300 police were sent to suppress the protest, some of the prisoners set fire to their cells on Friday night. Fourteen of the inmates had to be treated for wounds caused by rubber bullets.
Of the 2,100 prisoners in the jail, around 300 have tested positive. Thai prisons are notoriously overcrowded. Since the start of the pandemic, more than 87,000 inmates have been infected, with 185 officially recorded deaths.
The pandemic has intensified the country’s social and economic crisis. The latest unemployment figures for the third quarter of 2021 were the highest since the outbreak of COVID-19. While the official jobless figure of 2.25 percent is apparently low, it only covers the so-called formal sector of the economy, with large layers of working people eking out an existence in casual employment in the informal sector.
According to a Thai PBS World Report, household debt has increased to the largest level in ASEAN, and second highest in Asia. Increased demand is also being placed on highly exploitive migrant labour, most of which is undocumented from Myanmar. The incident of mental health problems and suicides is on the rise.
While the daily cases numbers have dropped since their peak in August, the spread of the Omicron variant threatens to lead to another wave of infections of the deadly virus.
Daily COVID-19 infection numbers in Germany continue to average 50,000, about twice as high as at the peak of the second wave. At the same time, the death toll is rising. With about 2,000 coronavirus deaths per week, more people are currently dying than at the peak of the third wave in spring 2021. A total of 107,639 people have succumbed to the virus since early 2020. More than 4,800 coronavirus patients currently require intensive care, which is already pushing hospitals to the limit of their ability to respond.
The situation threatens to worsen with the spread of the even more infectious Omicron variant. For the week before last, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) says the Omicron variant accounted for 1.6 percent of all new infections in Germany. Due to considerable reporting delays in the identification of coronavirus variants and the explosive spread of Omicron, the actual figures are likely to be many times higher.
The particularly high infectivity of Omicron means a very large number of unreported cases is to be expected, which are rapidly increasing unnoticed. An article on news website Zeit Online, for example, speaks of an “invisible wall” of infections and, supported by data from the RKI as well as district and state authorities, shows that an incidence rate of almost 1,000 per 100,000 inhabitants will be reached by the end of the year at the current rate of spread.
Casket containing a person who died of coronavirus at a crematorium in Meissen (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
The extent of this exponential increase is already evident in Denmark, Norway and the UK, where the numbers reported are exploding. In Denmark, Omicron could become the dominant variant as early as this week. Currently, the number of daily Omicron infections there is doubling every two to three days with 500 hospitalizations per day expected by New Year’s Eve. Extrapolated to Germany, that would be more than 7,000.
In Norway—a country with a population of barely 5 million—the health authorities expect up to 300,000 infections and 200 hospital admissions per day at the end of the year. In the UK, daily infection numbers are already at an all-time high of nearly 90,000. Case numbers are doubling every two days, and, even in a best-case scenario, two to three times as many people would need to be hospitalized daily by Christmas. By April, if the current rate holds, half the population could be infected.
The same development threatens all other European countries. According to scientists, Omicron will soon dominate infections in Germany. “Omicron has such speed that the variant could account for half the cases in Germany in two and a half weeks,” Michael Meyer-Hermann, a modeler and head of the Systems Immunology Department at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, told Der Spiegel .
The Omicron wave comes at a time when the situation is already catastrophic based on the spread of the Delta variant. Death rates are rising, hospitals are at a breaking point, treatment capacities are being exceeded regionally and the RKI had anticipated a further increase in serious illnesses and deaths even without Omicron.
Despite knowing the enormous dangers, the German government is refusing to take the necessary measures to contain and eliminate the virus. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said Friday that “we have to assume that the Omicron wave we are facing, which I don’t think we can prevent, will be a massive challenge for our hospitals, for our intensive care units, but also for society as a whole.”
Even if Omicron infections were slightly milder this would “not make a difference,” he added. The tremendous growth of infections would cause more deaths even with a milder progression to the illness, he said, adding that one must “prepare for a challenge that we have not had before in this form.”
Nevertheless, Lauterbach did not announce any additional protective measures. This is not surprising. The parties of the “traffic light” coalition—Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and Liberal Democrats (FDP)—ended the legal designation of an “epidemic emergency” in November, something Lauterbach also voted for in the Bundestag (federal parliament). Since then, he has spoken out several times in favour of keeping schools and businesses open and has defended the new Infection Protection Act, which legally rules out hard lockdowns.
Lauterbach’s primary health policy action has been to make appeals to get vaccinated. Yet even the government's announcement to accelerate the vaccination campaign is a farce. Less than 70 percent have been vaccinated twice in Germany, leaving almost 25 million people without any protection. Only 27.5 percent, or 22,923,853, people have received the urgently needed booster vaccination. Millions of people desperate to obtain a vaccination appointment are being put off until January or February due to insufficient capacity.
Lauterbach and all the bourgeois parties are pursuing a strategy of herd immunity. The extremely limited mitigation measures serve at most to somewhat flatten the increase in infections in the short term before they then break out all the more aggressively—potentially on the basis of new, dangerous virus variants. This is exactly what is currently happening with Omicron.
The fact that a different path is possible is clearly demonstrated by the example of China, which is the only country that continues to adhere to a Zero COVID strategy. The country, with a population of 1.4 billion, has been able to keep the total number of deaths below 5,000. Only three more deaths have been added since April 2020.
Targeted lockdowns, the isolation of infected individuals, mass testing and contact tracing have made it possible to contain outbreaks in metropolitan areas such as Chongqing (population 20 million) within 15 days and then largely lift restrictions.
The German government’s policy, on the other hand, places capitalist profit maximization above human lives and therefore sees the necessary closure of schools and non-essential production as unacceptable. This course is supported by all parties—from the Left Party to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). The traffic light coalition, which presents itself as a “progressive government,” has adopted and intensified the murderous herd immunity policy of the previous grand coalition of the SPD and Christian Democrats.
The supposedly left-wing parties in particular play a key role in enforcing these policies. With a current seven-day incidence rate of 870, Thuringia, governed by the Left Party, is the state with the highest infection rate. Leading representatives of the Left Party, such as Sahra Wagenknecht, have downplayed the entire pandemic and agitated against protective measures in the style of far-right coronavirus deniers.
While Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelensky headed to Brussels to plead with NATO for more military support in his ongoing reckless provocations against Russia, the UN Human Rights Council reported on Wednesday that “fundamental freedoms in Ukraine have been squeezed” under his administration.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky ( en.kremlin.ru)
The report covered developments from November 1, 2019 to October 31, 2021, all dates which fall under the regime of Zelensky, who was first elected in May 2019 largely due to widespread disillusionment with the right-wing nationalist policies of former President Petro Poroshenko. The Poroshenko regime had come to power in the wake of the 2014 US-backed coup in Ukraine, in which a pro-Russian government was toppled through the mobilization of far-right forces.
Several previous reports by the UN Human Rights Council since 2014 have made similar statements, demonstrating both a continuation and further acceleration of government attacks on the press and democratic rights under Zelensky.
According to the UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Nada Al-Nashif, “restrictions on the free expression of critical or unpopular opinions, and on participation in peaceful assemblies on sensitive topics, as well as the safety of human rights defenders in Ukraine were of concern.”
In February of 2021, Zelensky shut down three popular television stations associated with pro-Russian opposition leader and oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk.
The Zelensky government later charged Medvedchuk with “high treason, violating the laws and customs of war, and assisting terrorist organizations” and placed him under house arrest.
The report described these attacks as violations of “international human rights law.”
The prosecution of Medvedchuk, a Russia-friendly member of the Ukrainian oligarchy, was seen as a provocation by Moscow and contributed to the military crisis in the Black Sea in spring this year. In addition to supporting a negotiated settlement to the ongoing civil war in Donbass, Medvedchuk is personally close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
More recently, the Zelensky government has used claims of a supposed “coup” to similarly attack media outlets owned by Ukraine’s richest oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov, by claiming that Akhmetov was unknowingly involved in the coup with the backing of Russian intelligence.
Prior to the coup claims, Akhmetov’s media outlets had recently increased their criticism of Zelensky, due to his signing of so called “anti-oligarch laws” that could potentially strip Akhmetov of his media outlets. In reality, such laws will likely be used for the selective targeting of Moscow-friendly members of the Ukrainian oligarchy, while Zelensky loyalists maintain their obscene wealth and business interests.
Zelensky himself possessed an estimated net worth of $1.5 million when he came to office in 2019, an amount that has undoubtedly increased since he gained control of the Ukrainian state. The recently revealed Pandora Papers indicated that Zelensky founded a network of offshore companies in 2012 and purchased expensive properties in London.
Regarding attacks on individual journalists, the UN report stated, “Of particular concern is the lack of accountability for threats and violence targeting human rights defenders, media workers, and individuals who express opinions online or attempt to participate in policy-making. OHCHR documented 29 incidents targeting journalists, media professionals, bloggers, and individuals expressing opinions critical of the Government or mainstream narratives. In 2020-2021, investigative journalists and media workers covering political topics such as corruption and the implementation of COVID-19 restrictions were targeted.”
What the report did not mention is the heavy involvement of neo-fascist forces in carrying out these attacks on journalists. Since the 2014 coup, a number of prominent Ukrainian journalists have been attacked and killed by fascist gangs, most notably Kateryna Handziuk and Pavel Sheremet. In yet another attempted political assassination by the far-right in December 2019, a three-year old boy was killed.
In almost every case, Ukrainian authorities drag their feet on any investigation which rarely results in arrest or significant prosecution.
The report also failed to mention the most recent attack by Zelensky on the democratic right of the working class to freedom of movement and association.
On December 2, Zelensky initiated five bills into the Ukrainian parliament that would be used to deny Donbass residents citizenship and voting rights. The Ukrainian government would also be able to rescind citizenship from anyone participating in “actions threatening Ukraine’s national security and national interests.”
Such anti-democratic measures could easily be used to deny citizenship and voting rights to not only separatists in the Donbass, but any Ukrainian who opposes the right-wing nationalist and war-mongering policies of the Zelensky government. Rigged elections open only to “true” Ukrainian citizens would also become a real possibility.
The measures would also strip citizenship from Ukrainians with Russian passports. Such a move would be particularly punitive against the Donbass region’s working class who often have relatives living in Russia and have begun using Russian passports to travel across the border. These measures would, of course, have no effect on Ukraine’s obscenely wealthy oligarchy who travel across the world wherever they please.
The UN report noted that “similar restrictions on freedom of expression” as those undertaken by the Kiev regime have taken place in the separatist-controlled regions of Donetsk and Lugansk and in Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014. However, unlike Kiev, Donetsk, Lugansk and Crimea have not received $2.5 billion in military assistance from the United States and are not regularly praised as pinnacles of democracy by American and European imperialism.
While reports by the UN alleging human rights violations are regularly used by Western imperialism against strategically important nations to carry out already well-made war plans, in the case of Ukraine, it is Western imperialism that is publicly backing an extremely anti-democratic, right-wing nationalist state that backs neo-fascist forces and regularly carries out attacks on the press, ethnic minorities and political opposition. These connections were, of course, not addressed by the UN report.
Nevertheless, limited as it is, the UN report exposes attempts to frame a potential war between a “free Ukraine” against an “aggressive” Russia as a “war for democracy” as a complete fraud.
The coup of 2014, which provided the basis for an enormous escalation of the geopolitical conflict with Russia, was promoted by the Western media as a “democratic revolution.” The heavy involvement of neo-Nazi forces in the coup and new government was deliberately denied and covered up. To this day, bourgeois think tanks such as the Atlantic Council promote these lies in order to further the NATO war preparations against Russia. Thus, the Atlantic Council wrote last week, “Vladimir Putin fears Ukrainian democracy not NATO expansion.”
In reality, imperialism has been systematically building up a rabidly right-wing oligarchic regime and neo-fascist forces in Kiev in order to prepare both for a military conflict with Russia and the violent suppression of the working class.
