Workers die in extreme heat during China’s summer

Lily Zhao

Amid the hottest summer in over six decades in China, reports of workers’ deaths and injuries due to heatstroke emerged around the country. The deaths, which were entirely preventable, are an indictment of the Chinese government and its failure to end the often onerous and dangerous conditions in which workers are forced to toil.

Low-paid workers transporting goods on tricycle carts in Beijing, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022. [AP Photo/Andy Wong]

The three deaths examined below provoked widespread discussion and criticism on social media in China. However, the death toll and the impact of the extreme heat on the working class would have been far larger.

Construction worker in Xi’an

On July 5, Wang Jianlu, a 56-year-old construction worker from Xi’an, capital of the northwestern Shaanxi Province, fainted due to a heatstroke on his way home and was declared dead the next morning in the hospital. His body temperature reached 43°C (109.°F) when he was taken to the hospital and the cause of his death was determined to be multiple organ failure due to extreme heat.

Before coming to Xi’an, Wang was a peasant in Ningqiang County on the southwestern corner of the province. More than a decade ago, Wang left home and went to work on construction sites in Xinjiang Province so that he could send more money to his children. He was only able to come home for a month or two around the New Year. His cousin took care of his children while he was away.

In 2015, Wang’s son was admitted to a university but gave up the opportunity so as to start working and share the family’s financial burden. Wang’s son took part in the National College Entrance Examination again this year and was able to get into another university. To help pay for his son’s college study, Wang left for Xi’an to find work about a month before his death.

Wang worked as a temporary worker on construction sites and was paid one to two thousand RMB (about $US200) monthly for living expenses. His real wage, which was supposed to be more than this meager “stipend,” would not be calculated until the end of the year. Often this wage was in arrears.

In Wang’s case, by the time of his death, his 60,000 RMB wage from 2021 was still in arrears. He received a mere 260 RMB ($US36) for his nine hours of work, just before he passed out from the heat.

Wang lived an austere life in Xi’an, renting a room in an urban village (a working class neighborhood, usually very crowded with limited infrastructure) for 260 RMB a month. When his family collected his belongings after his death, there was virtually nothing in the room except for a fan, which he had only bought after repeated urging by his family.

During the previous month, Xi’an had experienced the hottest June ever since 1951. The day before the incident, the highest temperature reached 39°C (102.2°F) with a humidity around 50 percent. This hot, oppressive weather was exacerbated by the terrible working conditions at the construction site. Wang had worked in a basement from 6:30 a.m. removing wooden frames from just-molded concrete.

A fellow worker of Wang’s commented that despite the slight rain before July 5, they hardly felt any drop in temperature in the basement. The concrete itself released a lot of heat into the room.

Initially, the construction company refused to pay any compensation to the family, insisting that they had held no responsibility as Wang fainted on his way home not at work. Even if Wang’s family filed a case for labor arbitration, Wang had no legal employment relation because he was temporary and had signed no contract. The media mentioned that the company had contemptuously expressed disbelief that one could die of heat.

Wang’s tragic death triggered widespread comment on social media and anger that workers were being forced to work in excessive heat. Only after public criticism widened did the construction company finally agree on July 17 to pay Wang’s funeral expenses and compensation to his family. The amount remains unknown.

Freight handler in Zhejiang

On the night of July 14, Zhang Gongqian, a 34-year-old freight handler passed away in his rented home in Yuyao, a city in the southern province of Zhejiang.

Two days before his death, Zhang was feeling unwell and showing symptoms of heat stroke. He considered taking a few days off but was told by his supervisor that part of his salary would be deducted.

Zhang attempted to “pull through” despite his physical discomfort. At one point, Zhang even vomited the heatstroke medicine he just consumed. His work intensity remained extremely high even though the temperature was around 40°C (104°F ). The next morning, he was found dead on his bed by his fellow workers.

Zhang worked as a freight handler for more than five years. From 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day, he and his coworkers would load and unload heavy items such as air conditioners or refrigerators at a train station, making roughly 6,000 RMB ($870) a month.

He lived a frugal life so as to send money to his wife and young daughter. His rented room was has just 12 square-meters. Despite the extremely hot and humid weather in Yuyao, he only had two old fans in the room.

After his death, the logistics company refused to compensate his family because Zhang died neither during work hours nor at the workplace. His wife thought about applying for an autopsy to determine if the cause of death was heatstroke. However, she was informed that even if the cause of death could be determined, labor arbitration still would not recognize his death as work-related.

After weeks of negotiation and with the intervention of the local government, the company eventually agreed to pay 83,000 RMB ($12,000) out of “humanitarian considerations.”

Dish-washing worker in Henan

Wei Qiaolian, 54, was a dish-washing worker in Kaifeng, Henan in central China. Not long after she left the factory on the afternoon of June 25, she fainted in the street. After struggling for days in a hospital ICU, Wei died from multiple organ failure induced by heatstroke.

A former worker at the same factory commented that the shop floor, with only one air conditioner, was very hot in the summer. Where Wei worked was particularly oppressive with the stench of rotten food. Workers did not have any time off on weekends or national holidays. One day not at work was a day without pay. There was no contract or insurance of any kind.

The company was highly exploitative. Workers had to hand in their cell phones when coming into work. They often had to work overtime but were only paid if they worked a full extra hour. Work hours are also uncertain. Workers were on call 24/7.

Wei thought about quitting in early May because she was overworked and exhausted. However, the management told her that it would take a month for her resignation to be approved. If she left sooner, the company would withhold her wages from the previous 18 days. She made just 3,000 RMB ($435) a month.

On the day she collapsed, Wei called her husband during her lunchbreak and told him that she felt unwell and wanted to take the afternoon off. Her supervisor forced her to stay on the job till at least 3:30 p.m. Her workload was even greater than usual as the factory was understaffed. Wei felt very ill around 3 p.m. and was allowed to rest in an air-conditioned office. She left for home an hour later and passed out outside the company’s front door.

The company only paid for a fraction of her medical expense and this with multiple delays. Management then stopped payments altogether, claiming there was no point anymore in trying to save her. After Wei’s death, the company gave her family 230,000 RMB out of “humanitarian considerations,” but of that 140,000 RMB went on hospital bills.

The three tragedies have striking similarities: low wages, being forced to stay on the job despite feeling unwell, poor living conditions, no contract and the criminal disregard of the employer for the life and health of the workers. These deaths provide a glimpse into the appalling conditions facing broad layers of workers.

On July 15, a road worker in Hubei laying asphalt died of heatstroke after working in high temperatures for multiple days. He was feeling sick the night before his death but was still assigned work.

In early July, several truck drivers in Henan, Zhejiang and Shaanxi provinces reportedly passed out due to the heat. Another truck driver in the southwestern city of Chongqing was found dead in his driving seat. On that day, the local temperature remained above 30°C (86°F) throughout the evening.

Tower crane workers have also suffered. Throughout the summer, multiple reports emerged in Shandong, Guangdong, Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces of crane workers who had either passed out or were literally paralyzed in their seats.

The deaths were all avoidable. According to a regulation published by State Administration of Work Safety and All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) in 2012, no outdoor work should take place once the temperature is above 40°C. When the temperature is between 37° and 40°, there should be no outdoor work during the hottest three hours of the day and no-one should work more than six hours outside.

Many companies simply ignore the regulation and treat workers’ lives as expendable. Nor is the regulation ever seriously reinforced by the state apparatus. Despite the illness and deaths of many workers, no company management has been even fined or warned, let alone charged.

The drive for profit by companies operating with the complicity of the government and the state apparatus is now being compounded by the impact of global climate change.

The intensity of the heat wave during the summer of 2022 was at the highest level since China started systematic record-keeping in 1961. The number of consecutive days with a maximum over 32°C (89.6°F) also reached a record high.

The hardest hit region was the southwestern province of Sichuan and the adjacent city of Chongqing. Areas of Chongqing suffered under temperatures over 40°C for more than a week. The electric grid came under immense pressure as it depends upon usually abundant hydroelectric power. As rivers dried out in the heat, there was a power crunch when local residents especially needed air conditioning.

Over a million excess deaths in Britain due to decades of social inequality

Robert Stevens

Several reports published in Britain over the last few years attest to the fact that staggering levels of social inequality, fueled by austerity policies, have claimed the lives of around a million people.

Earlier this month a paper led by the University of Glasgow and the Glasgow Centre for Population Health (GCPH), found as a “a conservative estimate” that there were 334,327 excess deaths beyond the expected number in England, Wales and Scotland over the eight-year period from 2012 and 2019. GCPH is a partnership between NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Glasgow City Council and the University of Glasgow.

A homeless man near Euston railway station in London [Photo: WSWS]

The report by authors David Walsh, Ruth Dundas, Gerry McCartney, Marcia Gibson and Rosie Seaman, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, notes, “Mortality rates across the UK stopped improving in the early 2010s, largely attributable to the “UK Government’s austerity policies which have cut both the income of the poorest and a range of important public services.”

It states, “Such policies—introduced from 2010 onwards, and following ‘the great recession’ of 2008—have removed billions of pounds from both social security and vital services, and have thus particularly impacted on poorer, more vulnerable, populations. Similar adverse effects of austerity measures on population health have been seen in other high-income countries.”

The study presents important information but is weakened by several factors. It identity politics slant is expressed in the title of the report, “Bearing the burden of austerity: how do changing mortality rates in the UK compare between men and women?” The word “class” is not mentioned once.

Even on this question, the report’s “overall findings and implications” state that “Compared with what previous trends predicted, an additional c.335,000 deaths were observed across Scotland, England and Wales between2012 and 2019.” The majority of these deaths were for men and “analyses of trends showed very few differences in break points between men and women.” Only among “those living in the most deprived 20% of areas in Scotland and England” did “mortality rates between 2010 and 2019 increased to a greater degree among women compared with men.”

Summarizing their findings, the GCPH states, “Without support, people have been swept up by a rising tide of poverty and dragged under by decreased income, poor housing, poor nutrition, poor health and social isolation – ultimately leading to premature death, now quantified by this new study.”

Prof Ruth Dundas, Professor of Social Epidemiology at the University of Glasgow, said, “This study shows that in the UK a great many more deaths are likely to have been caused by UK Government economic policy than by the COVID-19 pandemic. We need to reverse the austerity policies and protect the income, and therefore the health, of the poorest and most vulnerable in our society.”

A section of the 500-metre-long National Covid Memorial Wall in May 2021, which had 150,000 hearts on representing the number of people who have lost their lives to COVID. The wall is opposite the Houses of Parliament in London. In the months since the UK death toll has risen to above 200,000. [Photo: WSWS]

There is no genuine separation between the policies enacted by the ruling class in the years preceding the pandemic, leading to such a vast loss of life, and the social murder carried out during three years of the pandemic since. In its assessment of the mass deaths inflected globally as the result of the almost completely unhindered spread of COVID-19 , the International Committee of the Fourth International explained from its outset, “The response to the pandemic would be determined by pre-existing social conditions.”

These were “decades of unending war, financial parasitism, deindustrialization, the corporatist degeneration of the unions, the evisceration of democratic rights, and the cultivation of far-right politics…”

In 2010, Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron ushered in the “age of austerity”. His agenda had already been set by the Brown Labour government, which set in place a trillion-pound bailout of the banks and corporations following the 2008 global financial crash.

This brutal policy of profits before lives was deepened during the pandemic, as the ruling elite declared that nothing could be done to stop the spread of COVID. “It’s not possible to stop everybody getting it and it’s also actually not desirable because you want some immunity in the population,” said Chief Scientific Officer Sir Patrick Valance, with then Tory Prime Minister Boris Johnson declaring that everyone “could take it on the chin, take it all in one go and allow the disease, as it were, to move through the population.”

This has resulted so far in the deaths of over 200,000 people, with hundreds of thousands more suffering from the debilitating impact of Long COVID. Those hardest hit were the working class and poorest, with the most deprived communities were more than twice as likely to die as those in the wealthiest districts, and males in manual jobs four times more likely to die than those in professional occupations.

The Glasgow research builds on a body of work proving the link between entrenched social inequality and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. In 2019, a study by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) revealed that the reversal of public health initiatives since 2012 led to 130,000 preventable deaths.

In 2021, The BMJ Open journal published findings from the largest study yet of its kind into the cost in human lives of the savage austerity spending cuts. Researchers from the Centre for Health Economics at the University of York found that a combined impact of cuts to healthcare, public health and social care in the four years between 2010 and 2014, resulted in 57,550 more deaths than would have been expected.

The most ground breaking study, “Premature mortality attributable to socioeconomic inequality in England between 2003 and 2018: an observational study”, by the University College London was published in 2019 in The Lancet Public Health. It found that between 2003 and 2018, a staggering 877,000 people died as the result of rocketing social inequality. The authors concluded that “nearly 900,000 deaths in England could have been avoided in a more equal society, according to a UCL study of 2.5 million premature deaths over the last 16 years.” Over the 16 years, the number of deaths annually averages 54,812. This is significantly higher than the 41,790 annual average of the GCPH.

The researchers utilised Office for National Statistics on all deaths between the ages of zero and 74 in England between 2003 and 2018. Mortality rates were calculated for 33,000 neighbourhoods, graded in terms of levels of deprivation.

As a result of de-industrialisation, most of the urban areas of Britainwith many in the north of England, Scotland and Wales—are now wastelands. The report notes, “Northern towns and cities had the highest number of premature deaths associated with social inequality. In Manchester, Blackpool and Liverpool, there was more than double the number of premature deaths than in the best-off parts of the country. Cambridgeshire, Dorset and Hampshire had the lowest number of premature deaths.”

Lead author, Research Fellow Dan Lewer (UCL Epidemiology & Health Care), commented, “We have known for a long time that poverty and inequality have a major effect on people’s health and life expectancy. Our study shows how this translates into actual numbers of deaths. If everyone in England had the same mortality rate as people living in the best-off areas, there would have been 877,000 fewer premature deaths between 2003 and 2018. That’s one death every 10 minutes.”

Tens of thousands of young children were killed as a result. Lewer said, “When we look at the figures across the life-course, we show that there could have been 22,000 fewer deaths in children aged under 10 if everyone had the same life chances as the best-off.”

An important aspect of the UCL report is that seven of the years it covers were during the 1997-2010 Tony Blair/ Brown Labour governments. Today, both main parties of the ruling elite are united in their determination to shift the entire burden of the economic crisis onto the working class, which can only result in an intensification of social inequality and its attendant deadly impact.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has committed the party to taking office “determined to reduce debt as a share of our economy. Every policy we announce will be fully costed… That’s what responsible government looks like.”

As COVID surges in Germany, studies show more risks from infections for children

Tamino Dreisam

As a massive coronavirus wave develops in the autumn and hospitalization rates skyrocket, more and more studies are revealing the dangerous consequences of COVID infection, even for children.

The number of coronavirus infections in Germany has increased exponentially in recent weeks, with more than 100,000 people becoming infected daily. On Thursday alone, 145,000 infections were reported to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). Just a week ago, an average of “only” 62,000 people were being infected every day. According to official figures, 1.4 million people in Germany are currently infected: about one in 60 inhabitants.

The actual figures are much higher. Only positive PCR tests are included in the RKI statistics. However, many people do not take a PCR test after a positive lateral flow test. The testing infrastructure and mandatory testing have been almost completely scaled back. The high positive test rate of 47.8 percent gives an indication of the high number of unreported cases.

As the number of infections increases, the number of those who experience a severe illness also skyrockets. The adjusted hospitalization incidence rate is now almost 20 per 100,000 inhabitants, which corresponds to 15,000 hospitalizations per week, meaning it has doubled in less than two weeks. At latest count, the number of people being treated in intensive care is 1,706.

The German Hospital Association (DKG) warns of hospitals becoming overloaded. Compared to the previous week, bed occupancy for those with COVID “increased by 50 percent,” the chairman of the board Gerald Gaß told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland. Things will be “extremely difficult in the weeks ahead,” he said.

The drastic situation is the result of the government’s policy of deliberately allowing the contagion to run wild. With the current Infection Protection Act, which came into force on October 1, the federal coalition government has eliminated almost all remaining protective measures. New measures—most notably lockdowns, such as the closure of schools—are now prevented by the law.

The president of the Standing Conference of State Education Ministers, Karin Prien (Christian Democratic Union, CDU), recently emphasized that as in all other areas of life, the motto “living with the virus” now applies to schools as well.

Recent studies on the long-term consequences of a coronavirus infection, especially for children, have revealed the criminal results of this policy. A recently published study by the Erlangen University Hospital, which examines the long-term consequences of COVID infections in children and adolescents, concludes that minors experience enormous changes to their lungs due to infection.

Through examinations with a special MRI, researchers determined that in study participants the air and blood flow of the lungs no longer functioned properly. “In the recovered group, the V/Q (ventilation/perfusion) ratio was 62 percent, and in the group with Long COVID, it was 60 percent—both a significantly lower value than the ratio of 81 percent in the healthy control subjects,” explained Dr. Ferdinand Knieling, a specialist in paediatrics and adolescent medicine at the Children’s Hospital at Erlangen University Hospital.

This means that the air and blood flow of those infected was significantly lower than in uninfected children and adolescents. How long ago the infection had occurred did not matter, according to Dr. Knieling; lung function was lower in all cases.

Another recent study by the University Hospital of Düsseldorf and health insurer AOK found that children from poor families had a significantly higher risk of contracting severe COVID-19 than children of wealthy families.

The study looked at the period from the beginning of the pandemic to July 2021, before the start of the Delta wave. Data from nearly 700,000 children and adolescents insured via the AOK were included, with 1,600 of them (0.2 percent) being hospitalized due to coronavirus.

The study found that children whose parents were unemployed or had low-paying jobs were 1.4 times more likely to be hospitalized. For children living in a deprived neighbourhood, the risk is as much as three times higher. Both figures are independent of pre-existing conditions—i.e., they emerge from social conditions.

The study is a follow-up to one in which the AOK looked at the risk of severe illness among the long-term unemployed in the early months of 2020. Using data from 1.3 million insured persons, the study concluded that recipients of unemployment benefit have a 17.5 percent increased risk of coronavirus-related hospitalization. Recipients of the lower unemployment benefit have an 84 percent increased risk. The results are independent of age and gender in both cases.

Official RKI figures also show a clear link between social status and deaths from COVID-19. During the second coronavirus wave in the winter of 2020/21, an average of about 45 out of 100,000 men and 30 out of 100,000 women died in wealthier population groups, whereas nearly 80 out of 100,000 men and about 40 out of 100,000 women died in poorer population groups.

“Social disparities have a significant impact on health outcomes. This is also evident in the Covid pandemic. But an individual’s health should not depend on social status,” Günter Wältermann, CEO of AOK Rheinland/Hamburg, said after the first study was published. “We have known for a long time that poverty and health are linked,” said Prof. Nico Dragano of Düsseldorf University Hospital.

In fact, poor men live on average 10 years less than rich ones. For women, the figure is eight years. Poor people also suffer more frequently from diabetes, cardiovascular disease and other illnesses. They often do not have the means to obtain adequate or optimal medical treatment.

The pandemic has significantly exacerbated the class issues in health. Workers live predominantly in cramped housing conditions. Working from home is not possible for many, without a suitable room, sufficient space and adequate IT equipment, or a job that can be done remotely. The trade unions have also played a crucial role in forcing workers back to workplaces in unsafe conditions, where coronavirus outbreaks occur regularly.

In the last week alone, the RKI recorded 65 outbreaks in workplaces and 45 outbreaks in training centres. However, due to a lack of infrastructure and recording capabilities, the actual numbers are far higher.

The increasing knowledge about the dangerous consequences of COVID infections and the again exploding infection and death figures underline the criminal character of the policies of the ruling class: The health and life of the population are being sacrificed to capitalist profit interests. In Germany alone, more than 150,000 people have already succumbed to the virus.

Ahead of winter surge, CDC covers up COVID-19 variant data

Benjamin Mateus

On Friday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its variant monitoring graphs to show that the highly contagious and immune-evasive descendants of the Omicron BA.5 subvariant, known as BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, now account for a combined 11.4 percent of all sequenced variants.

However, the “update” came one day after epidemiologist Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding tweeted these same data, which he noted were leaked to him from a “CDC-insider source” which informed him that the CDC had been sitting on this crucial information regarding the state of the variants in the US. After Feigl-Ding’s tweet went viral, garnering over 10,000 likes and over 5,000 retweets within hours, the CDC was forced to release the data publicly.

This is among the most significant cover-ups by the foremost health agency in the US since the start of the pandemic. It is clear that the CDC deliberately concealed this vital information from the public for weeks, as part of the relentless propaganda campaign by the Biden administration and the corporate media to falsely claim that “the pandemic is over.”

It remains unclear what exactly transpired within the CDC to account for their about-face. However, the timing of the CDC release one day after the anonymous leak suggests that the upper ranks within the CDC, including Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, are attempting to control the nature of these revelations and cover up the fact that the status of these new variants had been known.

The screenshot below from the CDC’s variant monitoring graph, dated October 13, 2022, shows no BQ variants listed.

Screenshot of CDC Variant Monitoring Graph taken on October 13, 2022 (Source: Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding)

On October 14, 2022, the updated graph notes the presence of these newer variants as far back as mid-August, with BQ.1 exceeding one percent of all sequenced variants on September 24 and BQ.1.1. reaching that threshold by the week of October 1. By the CDC’s rules, they have to break out these newer strains from all the ones being tracked and list their frequency.

Screenshot of CDC Variant Monitoring Graph taken on October 14, 2022 (Source: Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding)

This is no simple oversight or an issue of incompetency on the part of the CDC, which has decades of experience in surveillance and monitoring. The BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 subvariants are being closely tracked in Europe and are contributing to the current fall-winter surge across the continent, with scientists throughout the world warning of the dangers of these and numerous other Omicron subvariants. The World Health Organization (WHO) has listed BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 as dangerous, closely followed subvariants.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser who was in all likelihood privy to the CDC’s cover-up, appeared on CBS News on Friday to explain that these latest versions of Omicron worry health officials and scientists because they are more effective at evading medications currently being used to manage infections. Specifically, the monoclonal antibody drugs Evusheld and Bebtelovimab do not work on these latest variants, threatening tens of millions of immunocompromised individuals in the US and internationally.

Dr. Fauci said we need to “keep our eye out” for emerging variants despite reportedly low cases and hospitalizations. He added, “When you get variants like that, you look at what their rate of increase is as a relative proportion of the variants, and this has a pretty troublesome doubling time. That’s the reason why people are concerned about BQ.1.1, for the double reason of its doubling time and the fact that it seems to elude important monoclonal antibodies.”

Given the willful omission of the actual state of variants in the US, it brings into stark relief the CDC’s announcement last week that they are shifting from daily to weekly reporting of COVID-19 infections and deaths. Additionally, the CDC is slated to reassume responsibility for reporting COVID-related hospitalizations, which will have immense implications given their duplicitous and anti-scientific behavior.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the CDC has accommodated guidance and response to the diktats of policymakers who receive their orders from the corporations and financial oligarchy. This was true with Robert Redfield under former President Trump as much as it is with Rochelle Walensky under President Biden, who is now overseeing a homicidal “forever COVID” policy.

The suppression of data on the dangerous BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 variants took place in the weeks leading up to the US midterm elections and under conditions in which the bivalent booster campaign drive has been woefully anemic, with experts warning of a harsh winter of COVID-19 and flu waves. Pediatric hospitals across the country are already overwhelmed by the early appearance of RSV and other respiratory and gastrointestinal viruses that are sickening children en masse.

The corporate media has remained dutifully silent on the cover-up of the variant data. Not one outlet has taken the CDC to task to address their discrepancies and obligation to report, and this news report is the first to even acknowledge the fact that the data were leaked by Dr. Feigl-Ding the day before being publicly released by the CDC.

Only principled scientists and health experts using their social media platforms have courageously kept the public abreast of these developments, often with the threat of censorship and backlash from right-wing sources. The World Socialist Web Site encourages scientists, health experts, and rank-and-file workers at the CDC and other public health agencies to contact us and share vital information necessary for the public’s safety. Your anonymity will be protected.

The data emerging about infection rates with the BQ.1.1 variant in particular indicates it is highly transmissible and immune evasive, as it appears to outmaneuver every other subvariant. In the United Kingdom, BQ.1.1 is doubling every week, spreading twice as fast as its relative, BA.2.75.2. Based on epidemiological projections, the next wave of infections driven by these variants is expected to reach peak acceleration by the Thanksgiving holidays, when millions of Americans will be traveling to visit friends and relatives.

In this regard, the current developments with the pandemic in Europe have immediate significance.

Europe has once more assumed the dubious distinction as the epicenter of the post-BA.5 wave of COVID infections, in what experts have termed a “variant soup.” For the first time in the pandemic, it not a question of which Omicron subvariant will become the next dominant strain, but rather how many subvariants will be in circulation at any one time and how this will contribute to predicting the beginning and end of one surge before the next one arrives.

The BQ.1 strain has also reached 10 percent of all sequenced infections in Bavaria, Germany, where COVID-19 cases are accelerating rapidly following the massive Oktoberfest festival. Confronting a mounting health crisis, Germany’s health minister Karl Lauterbach has called for reinstituting mask mandates and “stepping-up measures” to mitigate against the current surge that is overwhelming health centers, with COVID-19 hospitalizations at pandemic highs. On October 11, more than 15,000 people were admitted to German hospitals, while ICU admissions have exceeded the BA.5 peaks, reaching levels last seen during the BA.1 and BA.2 waves last winter.

Further fueling the crisis are high staff shortages that lead to delays in care and treatment. Hospitals will once more have to postpone lifesaving procedures and surgeries to accommodate the infected. The scientific head of the intensive care register of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI) told Redaktions Netzwerk Deutschland, “In some regions of Bavaria, Hesse, and in several cities in NRW, we already have hotspots where there are hardly any free intensive care beds anymore because the staff is often symptomatic [with infection]… We will have to adapt to this in many other parts of Germany in the coming weeks.”

CEO Gerald Gab told a local German media outlet, “We are approaching extremely difficult weeks nationwide and not only in Southern Germany.” He noted a “devastating triad of staff shortages, economic pressure due to inflation and bureaucracy. All this together will lead to hospitals having to postpone services and temporarily deregister departments.”

The new XBB subvariant is also worrisome in Asia, where is has taken hold in Singapore just a few weeks after the end of the BA.5 surge. The meteoric rise in new infections in Singapore is comparable to the rate of infections in Europe, in particular Germany and France, where the projections in new daily cases are expected to exceed the peaks reached with BA.5 in July, less than three months ago, despite high population immunity with prior vaccinations/boosting and previous infections.

Health officials in the city-state have lifted the last remaining mitigation measures as they have started administering the new Moderna bivalent boosters. Approximately 15 percent of the country’s new cases are reinfections. Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said, “If you start to see 50 percent getting it a second time, you’re going to have a wave.” Hospitalization rates have been climbing in line with case rates.

Despite these developments, nearly every country outside China has remained staunchly resistant to addressing the latest wave of COVID-19, refusing to systematically track and trace the growing number of infections. Though there were more than three million official COVID-19 infections documented across the globe last week, as the WHO noted at their press conference, these are considered vast undercounts due to the systematic dismantling of all COVID-19 testing and tracking.

Given these developments, nephrologist and internist Dr. Satoshi Akima of Australia recently tweeted, “From the ranks of rapidly emergent novel variants will emerge a catastrophic new wave of mass death on a large scale. It’s not a matter of if but when. Act now to save lives. Else start writing more ‘we could never have predicted this,’ speeches today.”

Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO technical lead for COVID-19, recently stated that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is still transmitting at an “intense rate”, noting that more than 300 Omicron subvariants are now being tracked. However, with sequencing data on new strains down by more than 90 percent in recent months, she compared it to chasing shadows. It would be more appropriate to describe it as a collage of dangerous shadows evolving simultaneously that have evolved to become ever more infective and developing more immune escape capabilities.   

SARS-CoV-2 convergent lineages. Source tableau public by Raj Rajnarayanan.

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) estimates that current projections of the real number of daily new infections globally are up 14 percent from two weeks ago and approaching 20 million infections per day, with peaks of 45 million daily infections expected by the end of December. The unhindered spread of the virus, the result of deliberate policy decisions made by nearly every capitalist government, are giving the “variant soup” billions of hosts in which the virus will continue to evolve.

In short, the world is entering the next COVID-19 winter storm blindfolded and poised for even greater disaster.

New Zealand local elections highlight growing opposition to Labour government

Tom Peters

New Zealand’s local council elections, held throughout the country from mid-September to October 8, resulted in defeat for mayoral candidates aligned with the Labour Party-Greens government.

Numerous media pundits described the outcome as a shift to the right, but the vast majority of people saw no compelling reason to vote for anyone. Nationwide, turnout was just 36 percent, a record low, down from 42 percent in the 2019 elections.

Auckland's defeated mayoral candidate Efeso Collins alongside Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, October 4, 2022. (Source: Jacinda Ardern Facebook page)

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern sought to downplay the results, telling Radio NZ she does not see the results as a “simple straight reflection” of opposition towards her government. Speaking to TVNZ, she expressed concern about the low turnout, suggesting lamely that postal voting might be a “barrier” to participation, because fewer people are accustomed to using the postal service.

In fact, the defeat of prominent Labour-backed candidates obviously reflects mounting hostility towards the Ardern government, which is presiding over soaring social inequality, record levels of homelessness and a homicidal policy of mass COVID infection. In the absence of any genuinely left-wing alternative, conservative candidates were the main beneficiaries, for now.

At the national level, polls show support for the Labour Party has slumped to around 35 percent, about the same as the opposition National Party. The government, like others throughout the world, seized on the pandemic to hand over tens of billions of dollars to big business and the banks, fueling rampant inflation and social inequality.

Meanwhile, COVID has been allowed to spread everywhere after the government scrapped its previous zero COVID policy in late 2021 and dismantled almost all public health measures. The virus has killed more than 2,000 people.

In the most significant mayoral contest, in Auckland, Efeso Collins lost by about 50,000 votes to National Party-aligned Wayne Brown, who became the front-runner after far-right businessman Leo Molloy and other candidates dropped out of the race. Collins had been endorsed by Ardern and Labour, the Greens and the trade unions. In the capital, Wellington, the Greens’ Tory Whanau was elected mayor, but Labour’s candidate, Paul Eagle, suffered a resounding defeat, finishing in fourth place.

Dunedin’s incumbent mayor Aaron Hawkins, from the Green Party, lost to rival independent councillor, Jules Radich, who received more than twice as many votes. Christchurch, Nelson, Invercargill and Rotorua all elected self-styled conservative mayors.

Rotorua, which normally votes Labour, has been at the centre of a major scandal centred on the government’s failure to address homelessness. The state has crammed thousands of impoverished families into the city’s motels, which have been converted into “emergency housing,” which is typically unsafe and overcrowded.

In Auckland, New Zealand’s biggest city with nearly a third of the country’s population, only 31 percent of eligible people voted for the council. In the Manukau ward, an area with 180,000 residents, covering much of working class South Auckland, turnout was even lower at just over 21 percent.

Collins, previously a councillor representing Manukau, was promoted as a champion for this community, with a campaign largely based on highlighting his Samoan and Tokelauan background. A Labour Party statement in February said: “The party sees a Collins mayoralty as historic, and would represent the first Pacific mayor of the city.” Collins told the Spinoff around the same time that former US President Barack Obama “really resonated with me and I guess him being an African American president, a leader of colour, I can relate to that.”

The failure to generate support on the basis of racial identity politics will be viewed with concern by the Ardern government, which boasted after the 2020 election that it had 10 MPs from Pacific Island backgrounds, Labour’s biggest-ever Pacific caucus. Labour has for decades highlighted increasing racial and gender diversity at the top of society as a means of diverting attention from the widening gulf between rich and poor that cuts across all national and ethnic groups.

Oxfam this month ranked New Zealand 136th least equal in terms of wealth distribution, out of 161 countries. Food prices have soared by 8.3 percent in the past year, the biggest increase since 2009, and charities throughout the country have reported an explosion in demand.

While a small number of Maori and Pacific Islanders have been elevated into parliament, council chambers, academia and corporate boardrooms, the vast majority remain among the most impoverished sections of the working class. The Equal Opportunities Commissioner’s Pacific Pay Gap report, released on October 12, found that on average Pacific men are paid 19 percent less than Europeans and Pacific women are paid 25 percent less.

South Auckland, which has the city’s largest concentration of Pacific Islanders, has been one of the areas worst-affected by the pandemic and the social crisis. The local Middlemore Hospital is perhaps the most overcrowded and rundown in the country. The government estimated last year there were more than 7,800 homeless people in South Auckland alone.

Collins’ campaign did not offer anything to meaningfully address this crisis. His main pledge was for free public transport, but he made clear that this would be funded by diverting hundreds of millions of dollars from other areas of spending.

Collins repeatedly emphasised his willingness to work collaboratively with big business and right-wing councillors. He touted his record of working alongside outgoing Labour Party mayor Phil Goff, who responded to the pandemic by slashing more than 600 council jobs and raising rates. In June 2020, Collins declared: “Unfortunately, there’s going to be cuts to our services, possibly cuts to jobs, and a whole range of things.”

Collins was incapable of presenting a convincing alternative to his main rival, incoming mayor Wayne Brown, a property developer and former director on several corporate boards, including energy companies Transpower and Vector and state broadcasters TVNZ and Maori TV. A feature of the various mayoral debates was Collins and Brown declaring their friendship.

Brown foreshadowed deeper cuts to spending and policies to encourage business owners and developers like himself. During one New Zealand Herald-hosted debate, Brown boasted about his record of slashing $100 million in operating costs from Auckland Hospital when he was chairman of the District Health Board in the early 2000s.

The pro-government Daily Blog reacted with rage to Brown’s victory, which editor Martyn Bradbury blamed not on Labour’s right-wing policies but on “the boomer generation [seeking] to hold onto their privilege and power.” In an effort to whip up racism, he also asserted that the “Chinese-Auckland electorate of 200,000” was “quietly instrumental” in the election outcome. Bradbury supports Labour’s military spending and integration of New Zealand into the US war drive against Russia and China.

In fact, to the extent that Brown received any support beyond the richest Auckland residents, he did so by exploiting anger with the Ardern government. During one televised debate, he declared: “I think we’ve got to boot the government out of Auckland. Their job is to send us the money, not tell us how we live in our city.”

Brown, however, won with just over 180,000 votes in a city of 1.65 million people, reflecting widespread opposition to the whole political establishment. As political columnist Bryce Edwards noted, “most elected local politicians… have a legitimacy problem, supported by very few voters.”

US rehearses dropping nuclear bombs in Europe

Andre Damon

On Monday, the NATO military alliance will hold a training exercise, known as Steadfast Noon, in which US B-52 bombers and F-16 fighters will simulate dropping atomic bombs over Europe amid a deepening nuclear standoff with Russia.

The training exercise comes just ten days after US President Joe Biden warned of a nuclear “apocalypse,” saying the risk of nuclear war is the greatest since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

“This is the exercise that practices NATO’s nuclear strike mission with dual-capable aircraft and the B61 tactical nuclear bombs the US deploys in Europe,” wrote Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists.

The aircraft will rehearse dropping B61 “tactical” thermonuclear bombs, each of which is up to 20 times more powerful than the weapon that destroyed Hiroshima in World War II, killing as many as 126,000 civilians.

A B-52 bomber releases a bomb during a training operation.

While nuclear training exercises are usually presented as routine, nonthreatening, and not targeting any specific country, this year NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg made clear that the exercise is intended as a threat to Russia.

In a speech that mentioned Russia five times, Stoltenberg announced, “Next week, NATO will hold its long-planned deterrence exercise, Steadfast Noon.” He added, “Russia knows that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

As of 2019, the United States had 150 “tactical” nuclear warheads stationed throughout Europe as part of the NATO nuclear arsenal, including in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.

On Sunday, one day ahead of the scheduled nuclear drill, China told its citizens living in Ukraine to evacuate the country, citing the “grave security situation.”

In June, the NATO alliance published a document pledging to “deliver the full range of forces” needed “for high-intensity, multi-domain warfighting against nuclear-armed peer-competitors.”

In announcing the Steadfast Noon exercise, NATO said the training flights include  “14 countries and up to 60 aircraft of various types, including fourth and fifth generation fighter jets, as well as surveillance and tanker aircraft.” It added that “US B-52 long-range bombers” will “fly from Minot Air Base in North Dakota” to take part in the exercise.

The flights will take place “over Belgium, which is hosting the exercise, as well as over the North Sea and the United Kingdom.”

NATO added, “No live weapons are used,” which is a relief because the weapons involved in the drill would irradiate several hundred square miles and disperse fallout in multiple countries.

On October 7, President Joe Biden said the world is at risk of nuclear “Armageddon,” implying that the rapid escalation of the war in Ukraine could lead to nuclear war between the United States and Russia.

“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Biden said.

Biden added that he did not think “there’s any such thing as the ability to easily (use) a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.”

In February, he warned that sending offensive weaponry to Ukraine would trigger “World War III.” Since that time, the US has sent hundreds of armored vehicles, advanced long-range missile systems, and other high-end weapons to Ukraine.

In an article published last week in Politico, former CIA Director Leon Panetta wrote that the US intelligence agencies believe the odds of the war in Ukraine spiraling into a nuclear war are as high as one in four.

“Some intelligence analysts now believe that the probability of the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine has risen from 1-5 percent at the start of the war to 20-25 percent today,” Panetta wrote.

On Friday, the Guardian reported that governments are making plans to prevent “panic” should the war in Ukraine escalate into a nuclear conflict. “West makes plans to avoid panic if Russia uses nuclear bomb in Ukraine” was the headline of its report, which cited an unnamed official as saying that governments are carrying out “prudent planning for a range of possible scenarios.”

The NATO nuclear exercise is set to occur at virtually the same time that Russia carries out its “grom” nuclear exercise. While NATO has been loudly announcing its nuclear bombing exercises, no similar announcement has come from Russia.

That has not, however, prevented NATO officials from vocally denouncing the as yet unannounced Russian exercise as a provocative escalation.

An unnamed US official told Reuters, “Brandishing nuclear weapons to coerce the United States and its allies is irresponsible.”

He added, “We think nuclear saber rattling is reckless and irresponsible. Russia may choose to play that game – but we won't.” The US official said this just days before Washington planned to fly bombers to Europe to practice dropping nuclear bombs.

Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign policy chief, last week threatened to “annihilate” the Russian military if nuclear weapons were used in Ukraine, saying, “Any nuclear attack against Ukraine will create an answer, not a nuclear answer, but such a powerful answer from the military side that the Russian Army will be annihilated.”

On October 7, the same day as Biden’s comment about nuclear Armageddon, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, at a meeting of an Australian think tank, called for NATO to carry out preemptive strikes on Russia to prevent the “possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons.”

“What should NATO do? Eliminate the possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons,” Zelensky said. “We need preventive strikes, so they know what will happen to them if they use nukes, and not the other way around.”

In this super-heated atmosphere, the US-led nuclear training exercise raises the prospect of a major miscalculation. It is a well-known fact that the annual NATO Able Archer exercise during the Cold War almost led to a full-scale nuclear war in 1983, when the leadership of the Soviet Union became convinced that the United States was actually going to launch a nuclear attack.

The night the world almost ended - BBC REEL

The Washington Post noted that Soviet bomber crews “were ordered to load nuclear bombs on one squadron of aircraft in each regiment, and aircraft were placed at ‘readiness 3,’ meaning a 30-minute alert.”

In February 2021, the Historian's Office of the US State Department declassified a letter by S. Lieutenant General Leonard H. Perroots that made clear Soviet forces had responded to the US buildup by loading nuclear warheads onto their bombers, and that if the United States had responded in kind, it could have triggered a nuclear war.

After being publicly released, the Perroots memo was taken offline by the State Department and a judge ruled that it should be reclassified as secret.

Chinese Communist Party congress convenes amid slowing economy and war threats

The 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) opened yesterday in Beijing with a speech from President Xi Jinping. The congress is likely to conclude with the installation of Xi as CCP general secretary for a third term—a break from the two-term norm established after the death of Mao Zedong.

Chinese President Xi Jinping waves as he leaves the opening ceremony of the 20th National Congress of China's ruling Communist Party, Sunday, Oct. 16, 2022. [AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein]

The congress takes places amid a rapidly escalating US-led military build-up and aggressive confrontation with China, as well as an economic slowdown and mounting domestic social tensions. The gathering is being closely watched by the ruling elites in the US and internationally for any signs of internal divisions that can be exploited.

Xi spoke in the most general terms of the party’s need to navigate “abrupt changes” in the international situation and to be ready to weather “high winds and dangerous storms.” He made no direct reference to the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine or indeed to the US, which just imposed potentially crippling bans on the export of advanced computer chips and chip-making equipment to China.

In a pointed indirect reference, however, Xi declared: “China ... resolutely opposes all forms of hegemony and power politics, opposes the Cold War mentality, opposes interfering in other countries’ domestic politics, opposes double standards.” The comments reflect a recognition in the CCP leadership that the US is determined to use all means, including military, to prevent China from challenging American global domination.

Just as the US goaded Russia into invading Ukraine, so Washington is seeking to provoke China into using military force to integrate Taiwan with the Chinese mainland. The Biden administration, following Trump, has increasingly undermined the One China policy under which the US de facto recognised Beijing as the legitimate government of all China including Taiwan.

By strengthening US political and military ties with Taipei, Biden is threatening to bring the island, which is strategically and economically vital for China, within Washington’s sphere of influence. The US calculates that a war with Taiwan can be exploited to weaken and destabilise China, as Washington has done with Russia in Ukraine, as part of its broader ambition to dominate the Eurasian landmass.

Xi said China was seeking “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan, but would “not exclude the use of force as a last resort.” In a barely-veiled criticism of the US, he added: “Resolving the Taiwan question is a matter for the Chinese, it is a matter that must be resolved by the Chinese.” While the US media cast the comments as “aggressive,” the remarks were a rather bland restatement of China’s longstanding position in the face of ongoing US threats and provocations over Taiwan.

On domestic issues, Xi defended China’s record on suppressing the COVID-19 pandemic. Beijing is under considerable pressure from the US and other major countries to end its public health restrictions and adopt the murderous “let it rip” policy of other governments. To do so in China would result in millions of deaths and many more cases of debilitating long-COVID.

Xi hailed the success of the “all-out people’s war on the virus,” which had “protected the people’s health and safety to the greatest extent possible.” He gave no indication that the government intends to relax its “zero-COVID” policy that has come under fire in social media commentary reflecting the frustrations of sections of business and middle-class layers hostile to the restrictions.

Last week, in a rare public protest, two large banners were hung from a bridge in Beijing opposing the zero-COVID policy and calling for the removal of “dictator and national traitor Xi Jinping.” One of the banners declared: “Say no to Covid test, yes to food. No to lockdown, yes to freedom.”

However, China’s COVID policy, based on widespread testing and contact-tracing, vaccination, targeted lockdowns and the isolation of those infected, has been widely supported in China despite inconveniences and bureaucratic excesses. It has demonstrated that the virus could be eliminated if such measures were implemented internationally.

Significantly, Xi made no criticism of the criminal character of the herd immunity policy implemented by governments in the US and elsewhere. As it manoeuvres on the international stage, the CCP has no intention of campaigning for an international strategy of elimination. Rather, even as the US imperialism intensifies its aggressive confrontation, Beijing is still seeking an accommodation with Washington.

After presiding over four decades of capitalist restoration, the CCP continues to attempt to dress up its pro-market program under the fraudulent banner of “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” It does so to claim the heritage of the 1949 Chinese revolution, which is still broadly viewed as a huge progressive step forward for working people. Having abandoned socialism in all but name, the CCP has rested on the claim to be looking after the people’s welfare and cannot afford to be seen to be allowing millions to perish from COVID-19.

Sustained high economic growth over decades has lifted most Chinese out of absolute poverty but has also opened up a huge social divide between rich and poor. China’s growth has now plunged amid a mounting international crisis of capitalism compounded by the COVID pandemic and the US-NATO war against Russia. The Chinese economy also has been hit by US trade tariffs and economic sanctions, imposed under Trump and maintained and widened under Biden.

The latest World Bank forecast for China’s growth in 2022 is just 2.8 percent—the lowest in decades and well below the 8 percent level that the CCP regards as essential for low unemployment and social stability. In July, the official unemployment rate, which only covers urban areas, was 5.4 percent, but the youth jobless rate hit a record of 19.9 percent. The mounting economic problems and social crisis are leading to growing social tensions that will inevitably erupt in the not-too-distant future.

Behind the façade of party unity, the social tensions also will be expressed in factional in-fighting within the CCP. The elevation of Xi as the indispensable “core” of the party and government and the endless promotion of “Xi Jinping thought” enshrined in the party constitution at the last congress is a sign of weakness, not strength. The regime is relying on a political strongman in a bid to hold the party together in the face of mounting threats, both of war abroad and economic and social crisis at home.

For his part, Xi has sought to consolidate his position through a sweeping anti-corruption campaign that has investigated millions of officials and removed or sidelined key rivals and threats. Over the past decade, Xi has strengthened his grip on government through the appointment of powerful leading small groups to oversee all areas of government policy. He is also chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission. As a result, few surprises are likely. After the CCP’s week-long congress, held largely behind closed doors, Xi is likely to be re-elected as party general secretary and will retain the post of Chinese president at the National People’s Congress next March.