Coronavirus infection rates in Germany reach all-time high

Marianne Arens

The coronavirus incidence rates in Germany are higher than ever. On Monday, the seven-day incidence (cases per 100,000 people) reached a new all-time high of 553.2. In Germany alone, 116,448 COVID-19 patients have died; no fewer than 1,620 coronavirus deaths have accrued in the last seven days.

The incidence recently exceeded 500 for the first time since the pandemic began. In just one week, more than five of every thousand residents have become infected with SARS-CoV-2.

A year ago, even the administration Angela Merkel declared a seven-day incidence of 50 people infected per 100,000 population to be a “critical threshold,” because at higher incidences, public health departments could no longer reliably track chains of infection. Such considerations are long out of date. Levels have increased tenfold and continue an exponential rise due to the Omicron variant. But the federal coalition and state governments still see no reason to employ effective public protections.

People in the center of Essen, Germany, on Jan. 12 (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

In a dozen days, the seven-day incidence has more than doubled. And in a number of counties and cities it has passed the 1,000 mark. In Berlin Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, it is just under 1,600; in Bremen, 1,477; in Frankfurt am Main, 1,080; and in Hamburg, 1,056.

This mass infection is deliberate, open and ruthlessly enacted. Governments at the federal and state levels are responding to the explosion in case numbers not with the necessary protective measures, but by doubling down on the policy of contagion. They expect the working population to bear the consequences.

Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (Social Democratic Party, SPD) summed up these consequences in Bild am Sonntag, saying, “We are facing very difficult weeks in Germany.” He warned that the situation in clinics would worsen, and pointed out that although it was now mainly the younger people with many contacts who were falling ill, once more older people become infected the number of admissions would increase, not only in intensive care units but throughout hospitals as well. “There is a threat of entire departments closing,” Lauterbach said. “Mass infection means that hundreds of thousands will become seriously ill and we will again have to mourn many thousands of coronavirus deaths.”

Lauterbach describes the consequences of his own policy. Already, hospitals and ICUs are facing massive overload as rising patient numbers coincide with high absenteeism due to infections among hospital staff. More and more nurses are deciding to leave the profession because of the constant overwork and poor pay.

On Monday, state health ministers decided to change the coronavirus testing strategy in response to the high incidence rates. They no longer want to make the PCR tests available to everyone. Only “symptomatic individuals and, where appropriate, vulnerable groups” are to get them, according to minutes of the decision.

At Friday’s press conference, Lauterbach and the leader of the Robert Koch Institute, Lothar Wieler, explained that health authorities were in some cases so overtaxed that they could keep up neither with testing nor reporting. Instead of massively expanding laboratory capacity, testing is being restricted. In the future, even if Germany’s coronavirus app signals red (contact with the virus), only the less reliable rapid antigen test will be used, if any test at all.

The government’s reaction is telling. On January 7, federal and state governments decided to “adapt” quarantine regulations to the high incidence figures, in other words, to shorten them dangerously. They did so in response to committees of experts that predicted that the explosive spread of the pandemic could cripple the functioning of society as a whole. They anticipate that staff at hospitals and nursing homes, schools and public transportation, garbage collection, energy plants, etc., could be absent en masse due to COVID infections.

In practice this policy means sending sick and/or contagious people and their contacts to work. “Colleague’s dad is positive. Colleague, because boosted, is not allowed to quarantine. Colleague works with us in confined space for four days. Colleague becomes positive. We are not allowed to go into quarantine because we are boosted. Why is our health care system so screwed!” writes a user on Twitter.

To help impose this criminal policy on the population in the midst of the pandemic, the media has been claiming for days that the Omicron variant, while highly contagious, is less dangerous, and even “mild.” It is the long-awaited opportunity that will allow society to “live with the virus.”

This propaganda has even been taken up by Charité virologist Dr. Christian Drosten, part of the government’s expert committee, who is succumbing more and more to political pressure. When asked by the Tagesspiegel am Sonntag, “We all will and must be infected with SARS-Cov-2 sooner or later?” Drosten replied, “Yes, we have to pass through this straight, there is no alternative.” Omicron has “reduced disease severity,” he said. More vaccination is still needed, he said, but, “Now would be a chance, assuming broad immunity.”

In contrast, US epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding issued a firm warning about the dangers of the policy of “living with the virus.” On Twitter, Feigl-Ding wrote: “#Omicron is a potentially really dangerous Trojan horse. It lulls people into complacency but eventually hits them hard with #LongCovid!!!”

Feigl-Ding participated in the World Socialist Web Site’s global webinar in October, where leading scientists argued for the elimination of the coronavirus. Feigl-Ding condemned private-sector control of vaccine production and distribution, as well as governments’ overall response to the pandemic. “We now know well,” Feigl-Ding said, “that the political forces that are for the policy of ‘opening up’ the economy, for the spread of the virus, the mass infection and ‘living with the virus,’ obviously don’t give a damn about scientific arguments.” He concluded that, as a result, around the world “we will still be counting bodies” for months to come.

A recent study at Mainz University Hospital demonstrated the long-term effects the coronavirus can have on those infected, including children and adolescents. According to the study, up to 40 percent of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 will still suffer six months later from symptoms such as fatigue, disturbed sense of taste and smell, exhaustion, poor concentration and poor performance. This gives a sense of the consequences that the current deliberate mass infection in schools will have on the entire younger generation.

In the third year of the pandemic, it has become clear that the lives, health and well-being of the working population count for nothing to those in power. The pandemic cannot be defeated without taking up the struggle against the prevailing social system, the capitalist profit economy.

Just recently the latest Oxfam study confirmed that profits and stock prices are rising in parallel to counts of deaths and infections. “For billionaires, the pandemic is a gold rush,” writes the Tagesschau. The social divide is wider than ever.

Resistance is growing to the deliberate infection of the population. Greek students occupying their schools inscribed on their banners, “We will not allow you to play with our health and lives as if they don’t count!” Hundreds of schools are occupied in Greece. At the same time, students and teachers are protesting in US cities. For the first time, elementary school teachers in France have organized a national strike, and students in Austria called for a school strike on January 18.

Resistance is also growing in Germany. The courageous protest of a 13-year-old schoolgirl in the city of Hagen has triggered a wave of solidarity across the country. On Twitter, the hashtags #Nichtmituns (not with us) and #Wirstreiken (we are striking) are trending. Medical students in several cities have called for “Impfen-statt-Schimpfen” (vaccination instead of complaining) rallies against the right-wing “walks,” i.e., unregistered protests. Demonstrations in solidarity with nursing staff have taken place in Dresden, Hildesheim, Karlsruhe and elsewhere just in recent days.

UK social care driven to the point of collapse by Omicron wave

Stephen Alexander

Social care services have all but collapsed amid a preventable wave of coronavirus, which the Westminster government and its counterparts in the devolved administrations have allowed to spread uncontrolled through workplaces and the general population.

As recorded daily cases surged to over 200,000 in early January, residential care homes and domiciliary care services have been hit by acute staff shortages, with large numbers infected and forced to self-isolate. The sector is also seeing high rates of long-term sickness due to staff burnout and mental health problems related to the pandemic. Thousands of care workers are leaving the sector for better paid and less stressful jobs at supermarkets and warehouses.

In this April 20, 2020, photo, nurses guide a resident at Wren Hall nursing home in the central England village of Selston. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

A total of 122 care home operators in England declared a “red alert” due to staffing shortages last week, with 13,500 workers off with COVID. Staff absence rates in some hotspots in the north of the country and parts of London were as high as 22 percent. Similar figures were revealed by a survey of the not-for-profit sector conducted by the National Care Forum (NCF), which found coronavirus-related absences running at 14 percent on top of staff vacancies of 18 percent.

A growing number of care homes have declared COVID outbreaks, forcing them to limit new admissions and visits. In Scotland, where 150 residential care workers are testing positive for coronavirus every day, a third of care home facilities (933) are now restricting visits due to positive cases among staff and residents. The number of care homes declaring emergency outbreak measures—tightly restricting visits to end-of-life scenarios and other emergencies—has quadrupled in a week from 45 to 181.

The ability of the Omicron variant to more effectively evade immunity means COVID-19 deaths have begun to rise again in care homes despite high levels of vaccination. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), 122 residents died of the virus in England and Wales in the week ending January 7—almost double the 65 deaths in the preceding week.

Reports of neglect due to the staffing crisis are widespread as staff shortages mean some residents receive inadequate support for their basic needs such as personal care, drinking and eating.

Yesterday, the Guardian reported that one in five homes specialising in dementia care are rated either “requires improvement” or “inadequate” by the Care Quality Commission.

Stephen Chandler, president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, warned “Even before Covid-19 and Omicron, adult social care was struggling with severe funding and workforce challenges… Every day we are rationing care in ways that we never have before… with obvious concerns that this will lead to people becoming isolated and, ultimately, to the loss of lives.”

The situation in domiciliary or home care is equally devastating.

Nearly 9,000 people are presently waiting for home care services across 96 local councils in England, according to a Freedom of Information request by the Observer. The number of unmet home care hours has risen from 15,905 in April 2021 to 60,664 in December. Two-thirds of providers are presently refusing new requests from eligible families as they are unable to find staff to fulfil them. Thousands of existing contracts have been handed back to local authorities by private providers, leaving masses of vulnerable individuals and their families without home support for months.

Caroline Abrahams, Age UK’s charity director, told the Guardian, “This inevitably means that growing numbers of older and disabled people are going without the care and support they need, and that where unpaid carers are helping their loved ones, they are being forced to do more for longer, unaided and with no chance of a break.”

“The prospects for anyone who is waiting for care and on their own, without family or other support, are extremely grim”, she continued, “one has to wonder how some of these people are managing to carry on at all.”

How many may have already died due to inadequate home care services is not yet known, but ONS data reveals that there were more than 70,000 excess deaths in private households in England and Wales over the 18 months between March 7, 2020, and September 17, 2021, compared to the previous five years.

The profound dislocation of social care is heightening the already unsustainable pressure on overwhelmed National Health Service (NHS) hospitals. As many as 90 percent of patients eligible for discharge are unable to secure appropriate intermediate or long-term care services, and thus thousands cannot be discharged to residential care or their own homes. This is preventing new hospital admissions and means that the huge backlog of deferred treatments due to the pandemic has continued to grow, reaching an unprecedented 6 million in England alone.

In response, the Conservative government has pursued a range of inadequate measures which will in fact exacerbate the crisis.

These include the relaxation of outbreak management rules for care homes from 28 to 14 days, allowing care homes, as well as hospices, to open to new referrals earlier following a declared outbreak. The government has also reduced the quarantine period for infected people to just five days, which will inevitably lead to people reporting for work in care homes and hospitals while still infectious.

Several NHS trusts are now discharging patients into makeshift care facilities in local hotels. These are being staffed by private healthcare companies, which have poached scarce health workers from Spain, Greece and Africa after the Johnson government belatedly added care workers to the Shortage Occupation List in December. This provides a temporary exception to Britain’s draconian immigration regime, allowing foreign nationals to work in the sector for up to 12 months. It is doubtful, however, whether this will do anything to relieve the severe staffing crisis as most social care providers pay far lower than the income threshold required for entry into the country.

Meanwhile, local authorities are appealing to untrained council workers in “noncritical” services to volunteer to relieve care homes. Criminal record and background checks have been waived by council chiefs, who have promised only that volunteers will always be supervised by qualified staff members.

There is a growing concern among public health experts that alongside frequent spikes in deaths due to COVID-19, the disintegration of health and social care services will begin to mount up an even greater death toll than the virus itself.

As the BMJ (formerly, British Medical Journal ) reported January 14: “With the current surge of the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, we have again acted with too little control, too late. That large parts of the health and care system will be overwhelmed is now inevitable, and in this wave particularly, covid deaths may only be a lesser part of the subsequent avoidable mortality.

“The current overwhelming of the health and care system, and the further disruption to come, as cases and staff absences rise potentially into late January and early February 2022, is now likely to generate more avoidable deaths from non-covid causes than from covid. The risk and reality of this effect is not being clearly communicated in the public domain as part of the UK’s ‘pandemic related mortality’ reporting.”

Like the crisis in the NHS, the calamity unfolding in the social care sector must be laid at the door of the Johnson government and its herd immunity policy, whose actions earlier in the pandemic turned care homes into killing fields. Its Health and Social Care Bill currently going through parliament will meanwhile ensure that poorer pensioners bear a greater cost of their care than the wealthy. The elderly, disabled, and those in need of long-term care are regarded by the ruling elites everywhere as a drain on resources and profits for which the pandemic offers them a remedy—mass death.

Further slowdown in Chinese growth

Nick Beams

China’s economy is continuing to slow, according to the latest GDP data released this week. It adds to fears that lower Chinese growth will impact on the global economy where key sectors of industry are increasingly unable to function because COVID infections have been allowed to “let rip” by governments elsewhere.

In the fourth quarter of last year, China recorded an annual growth rate of 4 percent, its lowest rate for 18 months. While the figure exceeded the forecast of economists, it was well below the 6.5 percent annual growth rate for the corresponding period in 2020.

A man wearing a protective mask walks in front of an electronic display board in the lobby of the Shanghai Stock Exchange building in Shanghai, China, Friday, Feb. 14, 2020. (AP Photo)

Signs of nervousness on the part of government and financial authorities are evident in the decision by the People’s Bank of China to cut a key lending rate for the first time since April 2020 at the start of the pandemic.

Releasing the data, the head of the National Bureau of Statistics, Ning Jizhe, said China had sustained the steady growth of the national economy. He noted, however, that “the domestic economy is under the triple pressure of demand contractions, supply shock and weakening expectations.”

These issues were reflected in the data. Industrial production rose by only 4.3 percent in December last year compared to 7.3 percent in the same month in 2020. In the fourth quarter of 2021, property investment, one of the key drivers of Chinese economic growth, fell by 7.7 as a result of the financial problems surrounding Evergrande and other major real estate companies.

Retail sales rose by only 1.7 percent year-on-year in December, the lowest rate in 14 months.

A Financial Times editorial sounded a worried note on the international effect of the Chinese slowdown.

“Any sustained chill in Chinese expansion,” it said, “will have a global impact: according to IMF numbers, China is the biggest contributor to global GDP and was set to account for more than one-fifth of the total global growth in the five years to 2026.”

The effects of a slowing Chinese economy are already apparent. An article in the Wall Street Journal noted that in November German exports to China fell by 4.2 percent year-on-year, equivalent to $10.1 billion. The auto industry has been hard hit with Volkswagen reporting that sales in China, its largest market, were down by 37 percent year-on-year in the last quarter of 2021.

A continuing theme in the financial media has been that Chinese government policies—the pursuit of “zero COVID” stringent public health measures and the crackdown on the activities of high-tech companies as part of a “common prosperity” drive—are constricting economic growth and the profits of foreign investors.

In an address to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual meeting being held virtually this year, Chinese President Xi Jinping sought to address concerns in financial markets on the latter issue.

“The common prosperity we desire is not egalitarianism,” he said. “We will first make the pie bigger and then divide it properly through reasonable institutional arrangement. As a rising tide lifts all boats, everyone will get a fair share of development, and development gains will benefit all our people in a more sustainable and equitable way.”

The crackdown, particularly on fintech companies, has already led to the loss of billions of dollars on the stock markets for Chinese and foreign investors, leading to uncertainty in financial circles.

Seeking to ease those concerns, Xi said: “All types of capital are welcome to operate in China, in compliance with the laws and regulations, and play a positive role for the development of the country.”

On the issue of COVID, where China is coming under pressure to drop its elimination program because of its effect on global supply chains, Xi called for equitable distribution of vaccines to close the immunisation gap.

“Strong confidence and co-operation represent the only right way to defeat the pandemic. Holding each other back or shifting the blame would only cause needless delay in response and distract us from the overall objective.”

Xi’s remarks exhibited considerable concern about the state of the world economy, even as he maintained that China’s economy remained “resilient,” with “sufficient potential” as its long-term prospects remained positive.

He told the WEF meeting various risks had to be resolved to “promote the steady recovery of the world economy.”

“The global industrial and supply chains have been disrupted. Commodity prices continue to rise. Energy supply remains tight. These risks compound one another and heighten the uncertainty about the economic recovery,” he said.

Xi also referred to the risks posed by the moves by major central banks, led by the US Fed, to tighten interest rates in response to rising inflation and called for the maintenance of stimulatory monetary policies.

“If major economies slam on the brakes or make major U-turns in their monetary policies there will be negative spillovers. They would present challenges to global economic and financial stability and developing countries would bear the brunt.”

This danger has already begun to emerge, even before there is any increase in interest rates.

The Financial Times this week reported that a group of 74 low-income countries face an increase of almost $11 billion in their debt repayments this year, a rise of 45 percent over 2020.

President of the World Bank, David Malpass, warned that “the risk of disorderly defaults is growing,” saying: “Countries are facing a resumption to debt payments at precisely the time when they don’t have the resources to be making them.”

While Xi expressed confidence in China’s prospects, there are clearly concerns in ruling circles about the worsening global economic environment and its political and social effects.

These were voiced in a commentary, reported by Bloomberg, published by the Central Political and Legal Affairs Committee, a Chinese Communist Party body, on the eve of Xi’s address to the WEF meeting.

It pointed to “shrinking demand, supply shocks and weakening expectations.”

“With the economic downturn, some deep-seated problems may surface,” it said. “If economic and financial risks are not handled properly, they can be easily transmitted to social and political realms.”

Nearly 1 million US children were infected with COVID-19 last week

Nancy Hanover

Nearly one million US children were infected with COVID-19 last week, according to statistics released by the American Academy of Pediatricians (AAP) on Tuesday. The 981,488 new pediatric cases shatters previous records. It is four times higher than the number recorded at last year’s winter peak, triple the number of new cases from two weeks prior, and a 69 percent increase over the week ending January 6, when cases leaped by a then-staggering 580,000.

The exponential leap in pediatric cases was accompanied by nearly 2,000 new child hospitalizations last week, double the growth in the number of children now fighting for their lives in hospital beds from the week prior. As students were forced back into school buildings following the Christmas holidays, cases predictably skyrocketed, but the unprecedented scale has crushed healthcare systems nationally. During two short weeks, the US has experienced 11 percent of all child COVID-19 infections to date.

The death of a child is the most unspeakable horror, one that is now striking several American families every day. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the pediatric death total is now 1,127, while the AAP has a significantly lower count of 762. Data sets from the CDC and AAP suffer due to the deliberate lack of reporting by state and local health departments and the refusal of the Biden administration to make these numbers mandatory.

AAP data showing drastic growth of child cases

In response to the horrific reality they confront in overcrowded, poorly-ventilated schools that are now hotbeds of infection, students have organized in an effort to save their lives and those of their families, teachers and communities by walking out across the US, from New York City to Chicago to Boston to Oakland and Redondo Beach, California over the last week.

Following the remote work action by courageous Chicago teachers, educators are likewise increasingly demanding the closure of unsafe schools and building Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committees throughout the country. Growing numbers are seeking to break the straitjacket of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and National Educators Association (NEA), which have demanded passive compliance with the Biden administration’s school reopening policies.

Among the children whose lives were prematurely cut short last week was 17-year-old Taigan Bradford. A senior at Kalamazoo Central High School, she died on Tuesday, January 11, after a nearly two-month fight against COVID-19. Taigan had plans to attend Kalamazoo Valley Community College for nursing after graduating.

Taigan Bradford

After her death, Taigan’s mother urged the district to close buildings and return to synchronous virtual learning. She related to local news media MLive that her daughter told her frequently about other students not wearing their masks properly in school or on the bus. Bradford pointed out that schools cannot keep up on the number of positive cases or properly keep buildings clean. Kalamazoo Public Schools reported 64 new student and 13 staff cases on January 17, bringing the total cases to 875.

In South Dakota, a second child died from COVID-19 in the last two weeks. A boy between zero and nine years old from Minnehaha County succumbed on Tuesday, January 18. The previous week, a baby less than one year old from Pennington County died. The state has only recorded 27 cases of Omicron, yet has already lost two young souls.

Some of the faces of children #SoulsLostToCovid

Not only is there a chronic underreporting of cases and deaths across the US, but these deaths are often acknowledged only weeks or months later. Among those reported last week was the October death of a Houston child, listed as “under 10” and the city’s youngest virus victim. She is one of 4,000 Houstonians who have died from COVID-19.

Just reported was the passing of Stephen Wagner, 10, a Maryland fourth-grader who played the viola in his elementary school’s Strings and Chorus group, and enjoyed trucks, fishing and bowling. Stephen died December 27 from COVID-related complications. “He made friends very easily, had a lot of friends. [He was] very well-liked by all of his teachers and the staff at the school,” Anne Arundel County Public Schools spokesman Bob Mosier said.

Stephen Wagner, 10

The family, like so many others, struggled to pay hospital and funeral expenses and posted an appeal for help on GoFundMe. According to the Maryland Department of Health, there have been four COVID-19 deaths in children ages zero to nine, and nine deaths in children ages 10 to 19. Over the past month, COVID-19 cases in children aged zero to nine increased by 40 percent, with 17,379 cases in that period, and cases of children aged 10 to 19 increased by 38 percent to 25,102 cases.

On Tuesday, the Erie, Pennsylvania, Department of Health also announced that a teenage boy died from COVID-19, the county’s first COVID-19 pediatric death. The hospital which treated the unnamed teenager has admitted 13 children with COVID-19 so far in January, more than in previous months, while Erie County hospitals overall are treating more COVID-19 patients now than at any time during the pandemic. The county’s 14-day moving average of daily COVID-19 hospitalizations set a record on Wednesday at 126.1.

The Erie teenager’s death follows that of Pennsylvania high school student Alayna Thach, 17, who died December 13, sparking a sickout among educators in the Philadelphia area.

The surge of child infections and hospitalizations is now taking place throughout the US, with the West seeing the most dramatic rise in cases last week. According to CALmatters, California has now tallied nearly 850,000 cases of COVID among kids ages zero to 17 since the beginning of the pandemic. Of those, 44 have died, equivalent to an entire school bus filled with kids. Pediatric hospitalizations have surpassed records set during last winter’s surge, reaching a high of 90 pediatric admissions in one day on January 4, according to the California Department of Public Health.

Child deaths are also on the rise internationally. A child from Calgary, Canada between five and nine years old with no pre-existing conditions was one of 23 COVID-19-related deaths over the past three days reported by the province of Alberta, where hospitalizations have soared to over 1,000. Physicians there say the highly infectious Omicron variant is sending more children to hospital than in previous waves. UNICEF has posted a total of 12,300 worldwide pediatric deaths, acknowledging the vast undercount due to a widespread lack of reporting around the world.

It is both callous and criminal that the Biden administration, the unions and the media offer the public endless lies about “safe schools,” “mild disease,” and the claim “there is no money” to financially support the population during a lockdown to stop the spread of the virus.

The need to expose the truth was highlighted by Dr. Mark Kline, a physician-in-chief at Children’s Hospital in New Orleans, who told NBC news, “It seems like people have tried to downplay the significance of the disease in children. We’ve spent two years rebutting myths pertaining to COVID and children, that it’s ‘harmless’ for children. It’s not.”

According to a recent study which Kline co-authored, roughly half of children hospitalized with COVID-19 needed help breathing, and nearly a third were placed in intensive care. The study also noted that a third of the 915 patients were otherwise healthy, without any underlying health problems that would have put them at greater risk.

Long term health degradation associated with Long COVID is estimated to affect up to one in seven children. On January 14, the CDC additionally published a study on the increased risk of diabetes for child COVID-19 survivors, which found, “The increased diabetes risk among persons aged less than 18 years following COVID-19 highlights the importance of COVID-19 prevention strategies in this age group.” This is an ominous warning because of the long-term implication of diabetes to overall health.

Physicians across the country are raising the alarm bells. The brief statements which follow paint a picture of the prevalence of the disease and the intensity of the struggle by healthcare workers to save lives against many odds:

• Dr. David Kimberlin, a co-director of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, told NBC News, “The rate of cases in my portion of Alabama is like a rocket ship. It reflects how much virus is out there in the community. With that, we’re going to see increasing hospitalization numbers.” The number of children being hospitalized with COVID-19 in Alabama continues to set new records, as cases in K-12 schools have been skyrocketing. There were 16,035 new cases in Alabama schools last week, a 445 percent increase from the previous week.
• Dr. Chethan Sathya, a pediatric surgeon at Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New York, told NBC that “literally every child” whom he and his team operated on or treated otherwise over the weekend was COVID-19-positive.
• At Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, positive cases among patients went from zero in early December to 70 a month later, pathologist-in-chief Dr. Jim Versalovic told the Texas Tribune. He added that child hospitalizations broke all previous pandemic records and at “breakneck speed.” He cautioned against assuming that omicron is less serious for children, stating, “We cannot say that this is milder for children because it is, frankly, early.”

Joint Japan World Bank Group Scholarship Program 2022/2023

Application Deadline: 28th February 2022

About Scholarship: The Joint Japan World Bank Graduate Scholarship Program (JJ/WBGSP) is open to women and men from developing countries with relevant professional experience and a history of supporting their countries’ development efforts who are applying to a master degree program in a development-related topic.

After earning their degree, developing country scholars commit to return to their home country to use their new skills and contribute to their countries’ social and economic development.

Type: Masters

Selection Criteria: Eligible applications are assessed according to three main factors: academic excellence, professional experience, and relevance of program of study. Priority is given to candidates from the public sector with a high potential to impact the development in their own countries after completion of their studies

Eligibility: Details on Eligibility Criteria for each call for applications are provided in that call’s Application Guidelines, and these detailed eligibility criteria are strictly adhered to. No exceptions are made.

Broadly speaking, Developing Country nationals must:

• Be a national of a World Bank member developing country;
• Not hold dual citizenship of any developed country;
• Be in good health;
• Hold a Bachelor’s (or equivalent) degree earned at least 3 years prior to the Application Deadline date;
• Have 3 years or more of recent development-related work experience after earning a Bachelor’s (or equivalent) degree;
• Be employed in development-related work in a paid full- time position at the time of submitting the scholarship application.  The only exception to this criterion is for developing country nationals from a country that will be on the updated list of Fragile and Conflict States provided to applicants in the Application Guidelines for each call for scholarships.
• On or before the Scholarship Application Deadline date, be admitted unconditionally (except for funding) for the upcoming academic year to at least one of the JJ/WBGSP preferred university master’s programs and located outside of the applicant’s country of citizenship and country of residence listed at the time the call for scholarship applications open.
• Not be an Executive Director, his/her alternate, and/or staff of any type of appointment of the World Bank Group or a close relative of the aforementioned by blood or adoption with the term “close relative” defined as: Mother, Father, Sister, Half-sister, Brother, Half-brother, Son, Daughter, Aunt, Uncle, Niece, or Nephew; *Please note: All eligibility criteria are strictly adhered to. No exceptions are made.
• Eligibility criteria WILL NOT change during an open call for applications. However, this information is subject to change between the close of one application process and the opening of the next.

Number of Scholarships: Several

Joint Japan World Bank Group Scholarship benefits: The JJ/WBGSP scholarship provides annual awards to cover the cost of completing a master’s degree or its equivalent. The awards are given for one year and, provided that the academic program is longer than one year, may be renewed for a second consecutive year or a portion thereof, subject to satisfactory academic performance in the first year and the availability of funds.

The scholarship provides benefits for the recipient only, covering:

• economy class air travel between the home country and the host university at the start of the study program and one return journey following the end of the overall scholarship period. In addition to the ticket, scholars receive a US $500 travel allowance for each trip;
• tuition and the cost of basic medical and accident insurance usually obtained through the university;
• a monthly subsistence allowance to cover living expenses, including books.

Duration: The proposed program of study should start during the academic year 2021/2022 for a maximum duration of two years.

Eligible Countries: Developing countries

To be taken at (country): One of the preferred universities (see in Program Webpage Link below)

How to Apply for Joint Japan World Bank Group Scholarship: Applicants are strongly encouraged to use the online application form available in  English, French, or Spanish.

It is very necessary to go through the instructions in ALL application documents before applying.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Programme (CADFP) 2022/2023

Application Deadline: 28th February 2022

Offered annually? Twice in the year

Eligible Countries: African-born academics currently living in the United States and Canada and working in higher education.

To be taken at (country): Fellows will engage in educational projects proposed and hosted by faculty of public or private higher education institutions in the following CCNY partner countries: Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda

About the Award: The Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Programme (CADFP) is a scholar fellowship programme for educational projects at African higher education institutions for African researchers in diaspora. Offered by IIE in partnership with the United States International University-Africa (USIU-Africa), the programme is funded by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY). In the first two years of the programme, the CADFP supported 110 short-term faculty fellowships for African-born academics. The programme exemplifies CCNY’s enduring commitment to higher education in Africa. IIE manages and administers the programme, including applications, project requests and fellowships.

Eligible Project Activities: 

• curriculum co-development
• research collaboration
• graduate student mentoring and training

Type: Research, Fellowship

Eligibility: To be eligible for the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Programme , a scholar must:

1. Have been born in any African country, as evidenced by the biographical data in the scholar’s passport;
2. Live in the United States or Canada;
3. Hold a terminal degree; and
4. Be employed at an accredited college or university.

Scholars may hold any academic rank, but postdocs are not eligible.

As part of the application, scholars submit personal statements and information about their academic qualifications, disciplinary expertise and administrative experience.  A letter of recommendation from a Dean (or from an administrator of equal or higher level) from the scholar’s current institution is required.

Selection Criteria of Project: 

• Specific activities are proposed to collaborate on research, curriculum co-development and/or graduate student teaching, training and mentoring.
• Strong project concept and rationale are provided; project demonstrates innovation.
• Project Request clearly indicates what has been done by the institution on the proposed topic(s), the resources of the host institution, the problem to address, the goals of what to change or improve, the gaps and the anticipated specific role of the Diaspora Fellow in the proposed activities.
• Clear mission of what the host institution wants to accomplish through project visit is articulated, and justification is provided on reasons to partner in the effort with a Diaspora scholar.
• The proposed scholar’s discipline, subfields, areas of expertise, experience and motivation for applying are well-suited to the success and impact of the project.
• Evidence of relevant experience by the proposed scholar in each requested project activity is demonstrated.
• The proposed project must have the potential for impact
• If potential impact of longer term project will take more time to be realized or evaluated, explanation is provided on how initial impact of project visit will be measured or how it is expected to contribute to larger goals.

Value of Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Programme: For the fellowship, the African Diaspora Fellow will receive

1. a $150/day stipend
2. visa costs (if required)
3. supplemental health insurance coverage
4. round-trip international air travel and ground transportation costs to and from the scholar’s home to the North American airport
5. potential opportunities to apply for supplemental funding to cover knowledge production activities and workshop attendance.

Duration of Fellowship: Fourteen to Ninety days

How to Apply for Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Programme: Go here to apply

Please visit Review Process and Criteria and How to Apply for African Institutions for more information on how the program operates.

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Amid record infections, Argentina’s Peronist President scraps measures to contain COVID

Eduardo Parati

Argentina is experiencing its largest outbreak of COVID-19 infections since the pandemic began, driven by the spread of the new Omicron variant. On Friday, January 14, the country set a record of 139,853 infections in a single day. This number is more than three times higher than the previous wave’s record of 41,080 cases, registered in May 2020.

Until December, the average number of daily cases in Argentina was less than 2,000. In the period between January 6 and 12, the country recorded a total of 749,022 new infections, more than double the previous week with 359,456 infections. A week ago, the test positivity rate was 66 percent, indicating a high level of underreporting.

In the province of Buenos Aires, which has accounted for 40 percent of the country’s total daily cases, hospitals are admitting an unprecedented number of new patients. The health care system is on the verge of collapse, with 20 to 25 percent of hospital staff sent home during the past week with coronavirus infections.

In response to the ominous situation, the Peronist government of President Alberto Fernández is relaxing measures to control the pandemic. Health minister Carla Vizzotti and the media are promoting the narrative that the new variant is “mild,” following the campaign of the ruling classes around the world to justify keeping the economy open during the global COVID-19 outbreak.

Argentina's President Alberto Fernández (Wikimedia Commons)

This nefarious campaign is being promoted in unity with the Argentine right wing that Fernández feigns to oppose. Last Thursday, the former health minister in Mauricio Macri’s reactionary administration, Adolfo Rubinstein, was invited by La Nación to advocate for the same idea of a “mild” Omicron. On the same day, 128,402 new cases were registered in Argentina, part of the unprecedented escalation of infections in the country.

Expressing the indifference of the ruling class to the infection and death of millions of people, Rubinstein pointed out that “three out of every four [COVID-19] hospitalizations are of non-vaccinated people, or people with incomplete vaccination schemes.” He concluded, “Eventually, all people will be vaccinated, or they will be infected.” This statement summarizes the policies being adopted by the Peronist government.

At the end of last year, when the country was already facing a vertical growth of the infection curve, Fernández declared to the press that he would not make any change in coronavirus restrictions. He stated: “We have extended the health emergency, but we will not implement new measures.” Following the measures implemented by the American CDC, Argentina immediately announced the revision of the quarantine time for people infected with COVID-19, which was reduced from ten to seven days.

On January 10, Vizzotti stated in an interview that “the increase in the number of infections is not being accompanied by an increase in hospitalizations, given the widespread vaccination of the population.” This irresponsible statement, with the objective of disorienting and breaking the population’s awareness, clashes with reality. The explosion of ICU admissions taking place in Europe and the United States today is a picture of what the coming weeks will be like in Argentina and Latin America as a whole.

Vizzotti also declared that she would meet with “experts” during the week to decide on the withdrawal of the quarantine requirement for people who have come into direct contact with infected people, and that one of the criteria for the decision will be its economic impact. The minister explained the central importance of maintaining economic activities for the Fernandez administration, referring to the industrial region of Cordoba where employers are advocating that they only perform tests at the factory doors, excluding any kind of quarantine.

Serving the murderous capitalist interests, the Peronist government announced the end of quarantine for vaccinated people who entered in direct contact with infected individuals, limiting testing to the ones “with incomplete vaccination scheme (a single dose).” Currently, 74.1 percent of the population is vaccinated with two doses, or nearly 90 percent of adults, and only 17.3 percent have received a booster shoot. With Omicron highly transmittable among vaccinated people, this means that millions of workers will be forced to frequent workplaces where people have tested positive, ensuring that warehouses, factories, shopping malls, schools, and other places become centers for the spread of the super infectious variant.

The new measure adopted by Fernández’s government is not based on any scientific analysis of Omicron. Many experts have already warned about the promotion of the fraudulent idea of a “mild” Omicron, and even with the low number of tests, the government itself is forced to admit the mass infection in the face of record cases. The massive number of infections taking place will be enough to cause an unprecedented increase in hospitalizations in the coming weeks and push the health care system over the edge.

The policy of “herd immunity” being adopted in practice by the Argentine government aims to ensure that workers continue to provide profits for large corporations, regardless of the massive deaths that it will cause. Similar policies are being implemented by governments throughout Latin America, which is experiencing the worst outbreak of infections since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to AFP, between January 7 and 13 the region had a record average of 300,000 daily cases, more than double the number reported during the previous wave.

Line for COVID testing in Buenos Aires (Credit: Gustavo Amarelle-Telam).

Peru, the country with the highest per capita death rate in the world, set a record of daily cases on Saturday, with 49,745 new infections—almost four times higher than the previous record of April 2021. The government of Pedro Castillo, proclaimed, alongside Fernández in Argentina as representative of a new wave of the “Pink Tide” in Latin America, responded to the situation with indifference. Health Minister Hernando Cevallos pointed out that the increase in deaths, from 30 to 60 compared to the previous day, showed that “lethality has not been substantially modified” with the Omicron variant, and announced that he would decrease the isolation time for asymptomatic people.

Bolivia is also experiencing an overwhelming explosion of COVID-19 infections. The country began December with an average of about 1,000 cases a day and has already surpassed the average of 11,000, with 14,461 cases reported last Saturday. Jeyson Auza, the health minister of the administration of Luis Arce of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), limited himself to pointing out that people being hospitalized or dying “are those who did not get vaccinated.”

Whether in the governments openly promoting the “herd immunity” strategy, like that of fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, or in countries ruled by the bourgeois parties fraudulently posing as “left,” the policies in response to the pandemic put the interests of the capitalist oligarchy above saving the lives of the working class.

Oxfam report highlights widening pandemic inequality in Asia

Nick Beams

A report issued by the British-based international aid agency Oxfam last week has highlighted the rapid escalation of economic and social inequality in the Asia-Pacific region during the COVID-19 pandemic, documenting how a handful of the ultra-wealthy have directly benefited from the suffering of millions.

The investigation found that 20 new “pandemic billionaires” had been created over the past two years with their fortunes coming from the manufacture of equipment, pharmaceuticals and services needed in response to COVID.

Pakistani brick factory workers at a kiln in Mandra, near Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Thursday, December 23, 2021. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

They were part of a broader trend. The number of billionaires in the Asia-Pacific, the report said, “has expanded significantly since the pandemic began” reaching 1,087 in November 2021, an increase of almost one-third on pre-crisis figures.

“Even more striking,” the report continued, “is the extreme and increased concentration of wealth at the top during this prolonged health and economic crisis.” At the end of last year, the richest 1 percent owned more wealth than the poorest 90 percent in the region, with the billionaires increasing their wealth since the start of the pandemic.

The additional wealth they have accrued in this time, $1.88 trillion, is more than double the total wealth of the poorest 20 percent of the population.

The rise in the number of billionaires went across the board. For example, in Australia there were 31 billionaires in March 2020, holding wealth of $95 billion. By November last year this had risen to 47, holding $204 billion.

In China, the increase was from 387, holding $1.177.5 trillion, to 556, holding $2.31 trillion. In India, one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic, the number of billionaires went from 102 to 142 with their combined wealth rising from $312.6 billion to $719 billion. Indonesia saw an increase in the number of billionaires from 15 to 21 with their combined wealth rising from $53.7 billion to $91 billion. Data from other countries in the region told the same story.

The bulk of the increase in wealth occurred in the first phase of the pandemic. Between March and December 2020, when the equivalent of 147 million full-time jobs were lost in the region, the billionaires saw their wealth rise by $1.46 trillion—enough to provide a salary of almost $10,000 for each worker who had lost their job.

“The wealth of Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest man, increased so quickly between March and October 2020 that he made enough money to cover the annual wages of all 195,000 employees of his company, Reliance Industries, every four days,” the report noted.

This rapid concentration of wealth into the hands of a tiny elite is the continuation of a trend going back more than three decades. It is a product of a social counter-revolution which was initiated following the liquidation of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the abandonment by governments around the world of social reformist policies, above all in the sphere of health.

As the report stated: “Since the 1990s, neoliberal policy, a failing global tax system and unequal pay and reward, have channeled income and wealth into the hands of an elite few. Between 1987 and 2019, the number of billionaires in Asia skyrocketed from 40 to 768.”

This massive diversion of wealth left a health system unable to deal with the impact of the pandemic.

“Longstanding underinvestment and poor government oversight of the public health system has led to an inadequate and unequal public health response to the pandemic of many countries” with the high levels of out of pocket (OOP) expenses on healthcare in the region creating great health inequalities exacerbated by the pandemic.

In 2017, the report noted, OOP payments accounted for more than 60 percent of health spending in Pakistan, Cambodia, India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar, with 13 percent of Asian households already experiencing “catastrophic” spending on health care before the pandemic hit.

India is a particular case in point. Its health system “suffers from chronic underinvestment and great inequality which played a significant role in facilitating the spread of the virus” having the “fourth-lowest health budget in the world and a large private for-profit healthcare sector” with more than 70 percent of healthcare spending having to be met by individuals.

The crisis of the region’s public healthcare systems, exacerbated by COVID, is severely affecting other areas. The report said that “in regions most affected by HIV, TB and malaria, such as South Asia, the knock-on effects of COVID-19 on these three diseases in terms of deaths could outweigh the direct impact of the virus itself.”

Vaccine nationalism, pursued by the major capitalist countries, is also having a devastating impact. As of November 2021, only 47 percent of the region’s population had received two shots with more than one third having received no vaccine at all. In Bangladesh and Myanmar, two thirds of the population were entirely unvaccinated.

In October 2021, 74 percent of Pfizer’s vaccines were going to high-income countries with the figures for Moderna at 82 percent. Just 1.5 percent and 3.4 percent were due to be distributed to the COVAX program for the delivery of supplies to developing countries.

It noted that Pfizer and Moderna expect to make a pre-tax profit of $34 billion in 2021–2022, equivalent to $1,000 a second. But attempts to secure the right for poorer countries to manufacture the vaccines through a patent waiver “look unlikely to succeed” with such initiatives having been “blocked at the WTO [World Trade Organisation] and the Ministerial [Conference] planned for November 2021 has been indefinitely postponed.”

Like other similar reports, the Oxfam analysis is marked by the stark contrast between the devastating facts and figures it presents and the completely empty policy prescriptions it advances based on appeals to the ruling elites to change course.

In its conclusion it begins by making the correct point that “crises shape history.”

But it goes on to maintain that “2022 could be the year that Asia chooses to break forever with a neoliberal agenda that has undermined its tax revenues and hollowed out public spending on crucial sectors. It could be the turning point that sees the region adopt a truly progressive agenda that puts the needs of many before the profit and extreme wealth of the few.”

Reading such lines, one wonders whether the authors actually believe them because the facts they present demonstrate conclusively there will be no policy reversal within the framework of the existing socio-economic order of capitalism based on the accumulation of profit.