The CDC cover-up of Omicron XBB.1.5 and the growing winter COVID surge

Evan Blake

Last week, it was revealed that over the past month the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) concealed the fact that a dangerous new variant of the coronavirus, known as the Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant, has rapidly become dominant across the United States.

On December 29, epidemiologist Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding leaked CDC data showing that XBB.1.5 was already dominant in the US. After this Twitter thread went viral, on the following day the CDC updated its COVID-19 variant dashboard with the exact data that Dr. Feigl-Ding had leaked. This same process unfolded between October 13-14, 2022, at which time Dr. Feigl-Ding leaked CDC data showing that the Omicron BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 subvariants were becoming dominant, which was then confirmed by the CDC the following day under growing public pressure.

After both leaks, the CDC has issued no public statement and the corporate media has dutifully omitted the very fact that there was a cover-up, with the World Socialist Web Site the only outlet that has made this clear.

The new XBB.1.5 variant, which now accounts for 40.5 percent of all sequenced COVID-19 infections in the US, rose to dominance more quickly than any other variant since Omicron first spread globally in November 2021. The XBB.1.5 variant is believed to have evolved in New York in October and is fueling a wave of infections and hospitalizations throughout the Northeast region, with hospitalization rates among people aged 70 and older approaching pandemic highs in some states. This age group already accounts for over 90 percent of all COVID-19 deaths in the US.

Due to the dismantling of PCR testing and the promotion of at-home rapid tests, which are not tallied by the government, official figures on infections in the US are now totally inaccurate. Wastewater data, however, show that the US is presently mired in the second-worst surge of infections of the entire pandemic, which is being driven by XBB.1.5 in the Northeast region.

Multiple scientists raised alarm bells about XBB.1.5 throughout December and earlier, with the variant earning the nickname “Kraken.” A recent blog post by scientist Dr. Eric Topol describes the biological characteristics of XBB.15 and the research that scientists have done so far.

In short, XBB.1.5 is believed to be the most immune-evasive variant to date, meaning that vaccinations and prior infection offer virtually no protection against breakthrough infection or reinfection. It has also been shown to bind more tightly to the hACE2 receptor, which scientists believe will make it more infectious than any previous variant.

Expressing her concern over XBB.1.5, Dr. Akiko Iwasaki, one of the world’s top immunologists who has led pioneering research on Long COVID, tweeted on Monday, “Please protect yourselves and others by wearing N95 masks. I am truly concerned about the #longCOVID wave that follows this infection.”

In a follow-up tweet, Dr. Iwasaki elaborated that the features of XBB.1.5 “will increase tropism and possibly persistence in cell types that are long lived,” meaning that the likelihood of developing Long COVID after infection with XBB.1.5 could be higher than previous variants.

One scientist, whose models on the spread of XBB.1.5 were correct throughout December, created the visualization below to show the likely timeline of the coming wave. They estimate that by the end of January, XBB.1.5 will account for over 75 percent of all infections throughout the US, at which point the nationwide surge will be in full swing.

Loading Tweet ...

Tweet not loading? See it directly on Twitter

Furthermore, the US-grown XBB.1.5 variant is being exported globally, as shown in the visualization below. It has been detected across Europe, as well as in India, Australia, Colombia, China and other countries, with scientists predicting that it could become dominant globally

Loading Tweet ...

Tweet not loading? See it directly on Twitter

Given what scientists have learned about the dangers of COVID-19 reinfections, as well as breakthrough infections, this potential global surge would have immense societal repercussions. Masses of people could be infected or reinfected with COVID-19, causing spikes in hospitalizations and deaths, and compounding damage to the overall health of the population.

Under these conditions, the deliberate withholding of data on XBB.1.5 from the public ranks among the most significant cover-ups in the history of the CDC or any other global public health agency. There is no innocent explanation for the CDC cover-ups in December or October, which were clearly deliberate and intended to prevent any public alarm that might disrupt the holiday shopping and travel season.

Three years into the worst pandemic in a century, the CDC stands totally discredited as a public health agency. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been increasingly politicized, tailoring science to match all the lies of both the Trump and Biden administrations, in order to suit the needs of Wall Street and corporate America.

Over the course of 2022, the CDC deepened its antiscientific policies, publishing guidelines that discouraged the safe isolation of infected patients, masking and other critical mitigation measures, while manipulating data to match Biden’s lie that “the pandemic is over.”

Throughout December, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky and White House COVID Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha remained silent on the clear dangers of the XBB.1.5 variant and the pandemic more generally.

On December 30, Walensky broke her silence with a tweet stating, “We can’t stop the spread of #COVID19.” She praised the CDC’s new policy requiring that all travelers from China must test negative for COVID-19 within two days of flying to the US. The same policy stipulates that the agency will conduct more genomic sequencing from China and other countries, ostensibly to “decrease the chance for entry of a novel variant of concern.”

Walensky’s tweet, released the day after Dr. Feigl-Ding’s leak of the CDC data on XBB.1.5, was roundly denounced for its hypocrisy and implicit xenophobia against China. Some have speculated that the new CDC policy itself, released a day before the data on XBB.1.5 was leaked, could have been in preparations for a crude attempt to foist blame onto China for the emergence of XBB.1.5.

Walensky’s claim that “We can’t stop the spread of COVID-19” also provoked a flood of hostile comments, indicating the continued opposition that exists to the “herd immunity” policy now in place internationally.

In order to maintain the status quo and prevent the growth of an organized movement of workers and scientists to stop the pandemic, the powers that be rely on a layer of affluent official scientists in the government and media to promote misinformation and cultivate a sense of apathy in the population, in order to implement their criminal pandemic policies. In the US, Drs. Walensky, Jha, Anthony Fauci and others lead this work. In Germany, virologist Dr. Christian Drosten stated in December that the pandemic is “over,” prompting politicians from numerous parties to call for the ending of all mitigation measures in the new year. The same coordinated lies and deception have been pushed internationally.

The relentless propaganda campaign in the West itself had an impact within China, where sections of the middle class and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) bureaucracy became increasingly convinced that Omicron is “mild” and Zero-COVID must be scrapped. The encirclement of China with a global “forever COVID” policy, combined with relentless economic and geopolitical pressures, prompted the CCP to lift Zero-COVID, unleashing a tidal wave of infections and deaths throughout the country.

In the World Socialist Web Site’s 2023 New Year statement, Joseph Kishore and David North warned:

The lifting of Zero-COVID in China and the adoption of a “forever COVID” policy marks a new and potentially even more dangerous stage in the pandemic. Scientists have warned that mass infection increases the likelihood that new variants will evolve. The world’s capitalist ruling elites are playing Russian roulette with society, raising the danger that a more infectious, immune-resistant and deadly variant could unleash an even more lethal global wave of infections.

At this point, the XBB.1.5 variant does not appear to be more lethal than prior variants, but only time will tell. The warnings that it could be more likely to cause Long COVID are ominous, as there are already hundreds of millions of people globally suffering from this affliction.

Germany’s president and chancellor beat the drum for Ukraine war and invoke national unity

Peter Schwarz

The continuation of the Ukraine war and the invocation of the unity of the nation were the focus of the traditional Christmas and New Year speeches of the German president and chancellor.

New Year’s address by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Christmas address by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Olaf Scholz, both Social Democrats, advocated continuing the Ukraine war until Russia’s complete defeat, even if this entailed enormous social and economic costs and the risk of nuclear war. Both invoked the “cohesion” and “togetherness” of society in seeking to pass on the disastrous consequences of the war to the mass of the population.

Steinmeier, who delivered the Christmas address, sanctimoniously declared, “This year, our most ardent wish is probably that peace will reign again.” Only to immediately add, “But this peace is not yet tangible.” It had to be “a just peace” that did not reward land grabbing, he said. Until then, “it is an imperative of humanity that we ... stand by those who are attacked,” he said.

In plain language, this means that Germany and NATO will continue to escalate the war with billions in arms deliveries and military support until Russia capitulates. According to experts, this could take two to three years and claim hundreds of thousands more victims. The risk of the war spreading to the whole of Europe and involving the use of nuclear weapons is being deliberately accepted.

Scholz was even more explicit in his New Year’s address. Several times, he repeated the phrase “the turn of the times,” which he had employed in the spring to justify increasing the arms budget by €100 billion and vowed, “We will continue to support Ukraine.” He claimed that thanks to the “cohesion and strength” of our “dear fellow citizens,” Germany “has not bowed to Russia,” and praised the unity of the European Union and NATO.

Steinmeier also praised his “dear compatriots,” going on to say, “You are feeling the consequences of this war, especially the economic consequences. But you bear the burdens because you are not indifferent to the fate of Ukrainians; because you care about their struggle for freedom; because you express solidarity and compassion.”

Ukraine was “standing its ground with great courage. Europe is standing together. And our country is once again rising above itself in the challenge,” Steinmeier continued. This year, he said, had shown that “together we can get through this period.” His Christmas wish was “that we strengthen everything that unites us.” These are outright lies.

Firstly, NATO is no more concerned with freedom and democracy in Ukraine than it was in its previous wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, where it devastated entire countries, killing millions and driving countless more to flee. NATO deliberately provoked the Ukraine war by systematically advancing eastward, supporting the 2014 coup in Kiev, and arming the Ukrainian military since then, and is now using this to bring Russia to its knees.

Ukraine itself is also a valuable prey. Not only is it rich in coal and gas reserves, but it has critical raw materials—lithium, cobalt, titanium, beryllium and rare earths—worth an estimated €6.7 trillion, according to the Brussels-based Carnegie Endowment think tank.

This does not at all justify the Putin regime’s military attack. It is playing into NATO’s hands and strengthening the most reactionary forces—in both Ukraine and Russia. But the main initiative for the war came from NATO, which does not want it to end until it achieves its goal.

The aggression with which the ruling class is proceeding, echoing Hitler’s plans for conquest, is shown in an interview with Stefan Meister, the Russia expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), published by newsweekly Der Spiegel in its latest issue.

Meister accuses previous German governments of having adopted the “convenient but false interpretation of history” that “there could be change through rapprochement, in the style of Willy Brandt.” At least 80 percent of the German elites had “collectively lied to themselves” and expanded their dependency on Russia.

What was needed, he said, was “a genuine long-term Russia policy” that was “ultimately about regime change in Moscow.” This required leadership, Meister said, rather than a “system of systematic irresponsibility” in which political elites were afraid of “electoral risks,” i.e., facing the will of the voters.

Secondly, the German population is not, as Steinmeier and Scholz claim, united behind the war. Large sections of it are sceptical or opposed to it. Conversely, the war and the incessant war propaganda in the media serve to intimidate and suppress the growing opposition to war and social inequality.

For decades, a tiny minority has shamelessly enriched itself at the expense of the majority. According to the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), the richest 10 percent in Germany own more than two-thirds of all wealth, while the entire poorer half owns only 1.3 percent. The real incomes of the poorest 10 percent have risen by only 5 percent since 1995, while those of the richest 10 percent have increased by 40 percent.

The Ukraine war is accelerating this divergence of income and wealth. The trade unions, which support the government’s war policy, have signed collective bargaining agreements cementing wage “increases” far below the rate of inflation, which was 10 percent in 2022 and will average 7.2 percent in 2023, according to Bundesbank estimates. Added to this are skyrocketing energy costs and unaffordable rents. For the younger generation, in particular, the future looks bleak, even if they have studied for years.

Steinmeier and Scholz invoke the “cohesion” of society primarily because they fear open class struggles. Scholz spent much of his New Year’s speech enumerating the support programs the government has put together to dampen the rise in prices somewhat. But they are nothing more than a drop in the ocean and, in any case, largely benefit the wealthy and the corporations, which are making record profits despite the pandemic and the war.

The Süddeutsche Zeitung also fears a rebellion against war and social inequality. “There is still a majority in this country for financial support for Ukraine, for sanctions against Russia, for arms deliveries,” comments its former editor-in-chief Kurt Kister. “But if acclimatisation, loss of trust and personal disadvantages grow in the second year of the war, things may look different in December 2023.”

In the existing political system, this growing opposition to social inequality and war finds no expression. All parties in the Bundestag (federal parliament), from the Left Party to the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens to the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU), support the war course.

A record year of death: Who were the victims of police violence in the US in 2022?

Niles Niemuth

Police in the United States killed at an unprecedented rate in 2022, taking the lives of at least 1,176 people, for an average of 3.2 deaths every day, according to a year end tally by Mapping Police Violence. There were just 12 days where police did not kill someone. People were killed in every state by local and state police, county sheriffs’ deputies and federal agents. 

Killed by the police in 2022: Left, Clesslynn Jane Crawford, age 2; Top Right, Jayland Walker; Bottom Right, Maggie Dunn (17) and Caroline Gill (16) [Photo: Family photo/Family photo/Brusly High School]

While African Americans continued to be killed by the police at a rate disproportionate to their share of the population, accounting for nearly a quarter of killings in 2022, as in previous years, victims were of every race and ethnicity, with those classified as white accounting for the largest number of deaths.

It was also a deadly year for migrants encountering border police. There were at least 40 fatal encounters with Customs and Border Protection agents, according to a tally maintained by the Southern Borders Communities Coalition, the highest total for any year tracked by the group except for 2021. 

Despite the grim, nearly daily occurrence of murders and homicides by the police, cops continued to kill with impunity, almost never facing criminal charges or significant disciplinary action. Police officers were criminally charged in just ten cases last year, less than 1 percent. 

Those who face punishment after killing someone, typically paid leave and slap on the wrist, are quickly returned to the streets. Las Cruces Police officer Jared Cosper was returned to duty just a few months after he shot and killed 75-year-old Amelia Baca in the doorway of her home in April, 2022. A still unidentified Jacksonville, Florida sheriff’s deputy has remained on the job and faced no charges or disciplinary action despite killing Kevin Mahan, a 43-year-old white man who was suffering from a mental health emergency in April.  

The details of police killings largely go unnoticed in the national media, with only brief local reports, which uncritically reproduce the official police account, often full of lies and obfuscation, thus giving a glimpse into the deadly reality of policing in America. 

A selection of killings last year gives a sense of the reign of terror being waged by police forces across the country:  

• One of the first people to be killed in 2022, was James Williams, of Canton, Ohio. The father of six was shot and killed by police officer Robert Huber without warning while ringing in the New Year with his family with celebratory gunfire in their fenced-in backyard. 

• Jayland Walker was killed in Akron, Ohio, on June 27, 2022, in a hail of 90 police bullets after a car chase and brief pursuit on foot. His death sparked multiple nights of protests demanding an end to police violence, which were met by brutal police repression. The eight officers who shot him have not officially been named or charged, and were put on paid leave before returning to desk duty in October. 

• One of the oldest victims of the year, 82-year-old Jose Antonio Suarez, was killed by police in Margate, Florida on March 27. Police claim that he was pointing a gun at people and firing it into the ground. When he allegedly pointed the gun at officers they opened fire, killing him on the spot. 

  “He was a frail old man. He was 82. He was hard of hearing,” Suarez’s son told CBS4, noting that the elderly man had recently been under intense stress. 'His wife has dementia, his bathrooms, he had mold in the house that was making him and his wife ill, he was stressed out about that. He had been reaching out to us for a month. He said he didn't feel well. He wanted to die. He even went to the doctor and said he wanted to die. He wanted to catch COVID.”

• The youngest recorded victim of the year was two-year-old Clesslynn Jane Crawford, killed by a police bullet during a shootout between her father and officers in Baxter Springs, Kansas. 

• Thomas Siderio, Jr., 12, was shot in the back in March as he ran from plainclothes cops in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The cop who killed him, Edsaul Mendoza, has been charged with first and third degree murder and is set to go to trial this year. This marks the first time in the history of the city that an officer will face first-degree murder charges. 

• Dakota L. Coleman, 27, was killed during a traffic stop in Oconto, Wisconsin. According to police she approached the sheriff’s deputy with a knife and did not comply with his order, so he shot and killed her. According to a friend, Coleman, who was homeless, had been in an abusive relationship with the vehicle’s driver and had discussed leaving him just two weeks before she was killed.

• Among the final tragedies of the year were the deaths of Maggie Dunn, 17, and Caroline Gill, 16. The pair of high school students was killed when Addis, Louisiana, officer David Cauthron, 42, slammed his police cruiser into their vehicle during a high speed pursuit on New Year’s Eve. Dunn and Gill, both cheerleaders, were mere bystanders, having nothing to do with the allegedly stolen vehicle Cauthron and other officers were recklessly pursuing. Dunn’s brother, Liam Dunn, a college student at University of Louisiana at Lafayette, was also in the struck vehicle and has been left in critical condition. Cauthron was arrested Sunday on two charges of negligent homicide and one charge of negligent injuring. 

Nearly three years since the mass protests triggered by the murder of George Floyd by four police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the reign of police violence continues unabated. Groups like Black Lives Matter which present police killings solely as a racial issue promote “community oversight” and “racial equity” as solutions, which has meant in practice the enrichment of a narrow layer of middle class minorities. The leaders of Black Lives Matter have enriched themselves off popular anger against police violence, signing lucrative corporate deals and buying themselves mansions, while the families of the victims of police violence languish.   

Meanwhile the Democrats and Republicans continue to work to outdo one another on their support for the police. The latest federal budget signed by President Joe Biden includes more $1.3 billion for local police agencies, including $324 million in grant money for the hiring of 1,800 new officers across the US. Meanwhile, Republican-controlled legislatures have passed laws which restrict the ability of people to film and protest police brutality. 

The record level of police violence in 2022 makes clear that the police, as Friedrich Engels explained, are “special bodies of armed men,” established and maintained to defend the capitalist system and the inequality which it creates. In their defense of private property the police target the working class, in particular the most vulnerable—the poor, the homeless and the mentally ill. The most backward fascist and racist elements are deliberately cultivated within their ranks to suppress any sign of opposition from workers. 

Putting an end to police killings is not a matter of reform but of ending the system which has produced historic levels of inequality and violence, and reorganizing society to meet the needs of the working class rather than a privileged few at the top.

German government plans to remove all coronavirus protections

Tamino Dreisam

In an interview with Tagesspiegel towards the end of December, virologist Christian Drosten declared that in his view, the pandemic in Germany was “over.” Within a very short time, politicians from all major parties took this as an opportunity to call for the removal of the remaining protective measures.

Virologist Christian Drosten [AP Photo/Markus Schreiber]

Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (Liberal Democratic Party, FDP) wrote on Twitter: “We are in an endemic state. As a political consequence, we should end the last #Coronavirus protections.” FDP deputy chairman Wolfgang Kubicki told Tagesspiegel that there was no basis for “any [...] restriction of fundamental rights to contain the coronavirus” and called on the federal and state governments to end their limited protective measures as soon as possible.

Green Party health politician Janosch Dahmen also joined in the propaganda in Tagesspiegel about the end of the pandemic: “At the moment, there is much to suggest that the coronavirus is hardly changing and that its currently still strong spread will finally decrease significantly with the end of this winter.”

Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (Social Democratic Party, SPD), whose position is generally portrayed in the media as more moderate, in fact fully endorses this narrative. In an interview with broadcaster ZDF’s heute journal news programme, he stated:

It is true that we are now moving into an endemic state. That is, the waves that are coming now no longer cover the entire population, but only the parts that are not sufficiently vaccinated or have previous damage. So, a big wave that would cover the whole population again is not to be expected at the moment. The new variants are not as contagious or as dangerous as they appeared to be in the laboratory a few months ago. This defuses the situation somewhat.

At the same time, Lauterbach knows exactly how dramatic the situation is: “We still have full hospitals at the moment, even children can’t be cared for well. We have a high excess mortality rate; people die every day from coronavirus who didn’t necessarily have to die.”

In this situation, however, Lauterbach is not suggesting taking serious measures to save lives and prevent hospitals from collapsing. He simply advocates postponing the lifting of all measures for a few weeks. This is completely in line with his previous policy. Lauterbach himself actively promoted and implemented the almost complete winding down of protective measures as Minister of Health.

Support for the lifting of the remaining measures is also coming from the opposition. The Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) are calling for a special conference of federal and state governments at the beginning of January at which the last protective measures—such as mandatory mask wearing in doctors’ surgeries and hospitals and on public transport (in most states)—are to be lifted.

The CDU/CSU’s parliamentary health spokesperson Tino Sorge told RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland (RND): “It is time to declare the pandemic finally over. The coalition [government] can no longer shirk this above all political decisions.”

Apart from a few exceptions, the obligation to wear a mask and quarantine must be replaced in the New Year by recommendations, demanded Sorge. Europe was returning to normality, only the coalition government did not have the courage to do so, he said. “A conference of the chancellor with the heads of the state governments at the beginning of January would be the appropriate format to coordinate such a step together with the federal states,” the CDU politician said.

Contrary to government and opposition claims, however, the pandemic is by no means over. Currently, more than 100 people are dying from COVID on average every day in Germany and hospitals are on the verge of collapse. The adjusted hospitalization rate is 15 (per 100,000 inhabitants), which corresponds to almost 12,500 hospitalizations per week.

Intensive care units have been filling up for weeks, with 1,230 people currently receiving intensive care. Only 9.3 percent of intensive care beds are currently free. Ten percent is considered the threshold value for the responsiveness of hospitals, below which it should not fall.

The president of the German Society for Internal Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, Christian Karagiannidis, warned that the situation will worsen. “We will certainly have regional bottlenecks [on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day], but not across the board,” he said in an interview with RND. “I’m more concerned about January and the mood that’s resonating right now. Hospitals will be running at full capacity in January, and staff are slowly starting to resign under the constant burden.”

Additionally, a growing staffing shortage is putting a strain on hospitals. In the last two years alone, he said, hospitals have lost 25 percent of high-care intensive care beds because of a lack of staff. “It’s an illusion to think those beds will ever be reinstated,” Karagiannidis said. This capacity has been lost forever, “This is the new reality for which we have to find a solution.”

However, the consequences of the pandemic still go far beyond the immediate situation in the hospitals and the number of deaths. Even seemingly harmless infections attack organs and can seriously damage them. Hundreds of thousands of people in Germany are already struggling with the consequences of Long COVID. Life expectancy has fallen by half a year and excess mortality is reaching record levels.

In the future, the murderous “herd immunity” policy of allowing the virus to rip through the population, which has already led to more than 160,000 deaths in Germany alone, is to be implemented even more brutally. In addition to the planned elimination of protective measures, numerous vaccination centres will also be closed in 2023. Yet more than one in five people are still not vaccinated. Only 63 percent of the population has received one booster vaccination, and only 15 percent has received two.

The impact of China abandoning its Zero COVID policy, which Western governments and the media have long called for, can now be added to this. The ever-escalating COVID disaster and the rapid infection of millions of people with the virus threaten to lead to the emergence of new more infectious, dangerous, and resistant variants.

Homeless deaths surged across the US in 2022 due to extreme weather, economic hardship

Linda Rios

Numerous states throughout the US witnessed a sharp rise in the number of homeless and deaths of people experiencing homelessness in 2022.

David Cooper huddles up with gloves, hand warmers and layers of blankets in an attempt to stay warm while living on the street as temperatures with wind chill hovered in the single digits in Portland, Ore., on Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022. [AP Photo/Claire Rush]

Due to the lifting of eviction moratoriums put in place at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the soaring prices in the cost of living, the ranks of the homeless and those living in precarious conditions are swelling, putting tens of thousands at risk of a premature death. According to the Becker Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago, 500,000 to 600,000 people in the US experience homelessness on any given night; approximately one-third of them sleep on the streets.

Strong winter storms over the last two weeks and extreme weather throughout the year made environmental conditions deadly for those living unsheltered and in substandard housing.

The recent storms that battered the eastern half of the US have claimed the lives of nearly 60 people, some of whom were homeless and found in snow banks or in vehicles. One of the homeless victims, 57-year-old Charles Wilson Ligon Jr., was attempting to make it home to his family in Tennessee from Louisiana on foot. He was found by hunters in southern Mississippi last Monday morning frozen to death.

Many homeless shelters saw a sharp rise in the number of people they served in December due to the harsh winter conditions.

“It’s very worrisome. We know people die in these conditions,” Burke Patten, communications manager for Night Ministry, a Chicago nonprofit that shelters nearly 6,000 people experiencing homelessness, told The Guardian.

Warming shelters have become places of refuge for the homeless, but many of them do not open their doors until the temperature drops to 32-30 degrees Fahrenheit, already dangerous considering that hypothermia and frostbite can set in at 50 degrees. The National Weather Service warned that last week’s cold front could see temperature drops of 20 degrees or more in just a few hours.

Kyle Knutson, the Social Services Director at The Salvation Army in Corpus Christi, Texas, told local news station KIII that nearly half of the 43 official homeless deaths in the city this year were the result of cold weather.

However, the winter weather this year was only one of a number of causes of death for the homeless. In many states, the death count was higher than in previous years. Causes of death in addition to exposure to the elements include overdose due to substance use, homicide and treatable health conditions.

December 21 is recognized annually as National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day, a tribute to those who have died while experiencing homelessness and whose lives and passing might otherwise have gone unrecognized. Vigils were set up around the country in communities large and small to remember those who lost their lives this year.

On the West Coast and throughout the Midwest, records were set in the numbers of deaths of the homeless population.

In Seattle and King County, Washington, more than 270 people died this year, the highest number recorded in 20 years, ranging in age from 2 to 80 years old. 

While making up 12 percent of the country’s population, California now accounts for 30 percent of the homeless population, with the US Department of Housing and Community Development estimating that over 172,000 residents experienced homelessness this year alone. California also saw the country’s largest increase in its homeless population over any other state. 

In Southern California, recorded deaths among the homeless population in San Diego County increased over 7 percent from 2021 to a total of 574 deaths, up from 536 last year and 357 the year before. Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles, saw 158 homeless residents die last year while Santa Barbara on the central coast lost 38 in the last two years.

In San Francisco, over 200 people died in 2022, many from accidental drug overdoses. Last April, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health found that nearly 2,000 homeless people died between April 2020 and March 2021, marking a 56 percent increase in deaths compared to the previous year before the pandemic began.

In Maricopa County, Arizona, the death toll has also risen for people who experienced homelessness. The more than 700 people who died without permanent shelter in 2022 represented a 42 percent increase over 2021. Another 450 people could be added to that figure, although local law enforcement has not determined whether those people were homeless. 

Lisa Glow of Central Arizona Shelter Services told 12 News, “We really are at a crisis… The lack of shelter is leading to those increased street deaths. We’ve even had babies die in the streets, a lot of seniors dying on the streets.”

The number of deaths of homeless people increased in the Denver, Colorado metro area as well, with 263 total recorded last year; however, local agencies state that these figures are incomplete due to incomplete record keeping. Other cities in Colorado also saw increased numbers of deaths, mostly due to sub-zero conditions, although some were the victims of violent attacks. Many of them were in their 40s. Others died due to opioid use, specifically from the use of fentanyl.

The nation’s capital, Washington D.C., recorded 77 homeless deaths last year, but this figure does not account for additional autopsies that remain to be completed by the medical examiner’s office, which has a 90-day delay in reporting. According to the Washington Post, D.C. appears to be on track to exceed the 100-deaths mark, after recording 180 deaths in 2020 and 138 in 2021.

A study conducted by The Guardian and the University of Washington found that from 2016 to 2020, the deaths of people experiencing homelessness in the US rose by 77 percent, representing at least 18,000 deaths.

Regardless of the location of death, a clear fact remains: The life of the average American is seen by the capitalist ruling elite as dispensable, expendable, and holds no value except when it can be exploited for profit.  

The explosion in the rise of homelessness itself has been caused by a multitude of  factors. Millions of Americans have been pushed to the brink of or directly into the path of impoverishment and ruin by the bipartisan attack on living standards and social programs over the past 40 years; successive bailouts of corporations and banks overseen by both Democratic and Republican administrations, of which the burden of paying for them has been placed on the backs of the working class; the countless sellouts and betrayals by rotten corporatist union bureaucracies; trillions of dollars spent to build up the military and wage endless wars which have given way to the US-NATO proxy war against Russian in Ukraine.

The ruling class’s disregard for human life is most naked in the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Where Trump openly threw caution to the wind in terms of a policy to fight against and contain the spread of the virus, Biden rode in on a wave of popular optimism that he would “follow the science” if he were elected president.

As the last few years have proved, the Biden administration has done anything but keep this promise, declaring the pandemic over while eliminating public health measures such as enforcing lockdowns, requiring the wearing of masks, social distancing and quarantining those who are sick or exposed. The consequences have been the official deaths of over one million people in the US and over 20 million worldwide, and even such ghastly figures are widely known to be vastly undercounted.

New Zealand’s COVID wave continues over holiday season

John Braddock

New Zealand is now into its third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and, as is the case internationally, the holiday season is posing the danger of an even greater surge. A majority of cases are in the urban centres of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

Medical staff test shoppers who volunteered at a pop-up community COVID-19 testing station at a supermarket carpark in Christchurch, New Zealand, 2022. [AP Photo/Mark Baker]

On December 30 there were 3,812 COVID cases announced, 767 down on the day before. The seven-day running average was at 3,471, but the week before Christmas it had risen to 5,157. With people away on holiday, reporting is likely to have dropped away.

About 30 percent of all cases are reinfections, which increases the risks of a person developing debilitating Long Covid. The young are being primarily hit by reinfections/ In the 10–19 years age group, 41 percent of cases are reinfections and 46 percent hitting the 20–29 group.

Active COVID cases are running highest among the 20–29 and 30–39 age groups. While 84 percent of the eligible population has received a first vaccine dose, just 54 percent has had one booster. With second boosters rationed and unavailable to those deemed younger or healthy, just 14 percent of the population has had one.

According to one modelling expert, the official infection figures are likely to be lower than the actual number of cases circulating in the community. Dion O'Neale told Radio New Zealand that about two-thirds of cases would go unreported, because people who were asymptomatic would not be testing. “Around 30 to 40 percent of infections are asymptomatic,” he said.

Admissions to hospitals, including ICU, have been increasing since early October, peaking in the week prior to Christmas. There were 732 people in hospital last week with 16 in ICU, and thousands more at home in isolation. Because hospital admissions usually lag by a couple of weeks, doctors are warning the early new year threatens to be another “crunch time” for the overburdened health system.

The escalating COVID-19 death rate, which began rising in late October after 7 fatalities during the first week of that month, has been consistently high throughout December. It rose to 78 in the week to December 28, up from 64 the week before, including a child aged under 10.

According to data to the end of November, measured by mortality and age-standardised, COVID-19 in New Zealand has cost five to six years of public health improvements during 2022.

Despite the surge in cases and the mounting death toll, the Labour-led government and corporate media continue to insist that the pandemic is over. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern scrapped New Zealand’s zero-COVID policy in October 2021, at a time when the country had experienced just 32 deaths. The government imposed the program of mass infection that had already killed millions of people worldwide.

Virtually all public health measures have since been overturned, with the death toll soaring to nearly 2,500 people in the past year. The figure will soon reach 2,779, equaling the number of New Zealand soldiers killed at the battle of Gallipoli in World War I. While this event is commemorated as a national tragedy at annual Anzac Day ceremonies, deaths from COVID are now totally ignored by the political establishment.

Underscoring the government’s reckless adoption of the “living with COVID” policy, Ardern told the Woman’s Weekly in early December this would be the first Christmas in three years “where we haven’t had COVID hanging over us.” After criticism from several experts, Ardern claimed she had been “misinterpreted,” declaring: “This is the first summer where there hasn't been the risk of border closures, gathering limits, cancellations of large-scale events. We do, however, continue to have COVID amongst us.”

Ministry of Health data released before Christmas showed school teachers and child carers had the highest COVID-19 rates among all occupational groups. The data, produced by the ministry as part of its Public Health Risk Assessment of COVID report, was only released after a request under the Official Information Act.

According to the report, teachers had the highest rates of infection at 41 percent, followed by 38 percent of child carers, while hospitality workers were third at 36 percent. Occupations in the health sector ran between 30 and 33 percent, mainly because masks and other personal protective equipment were widely used within the sector.

Epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker said the data showed the education sector was highly exposed to COVID-19 with lower protection than others. Teachers were exposed to groups with a slower vaccine roll-out, for example five to 11-year-olds, who became eligible last January, and were not consistently mandated to wear masks, increasing the risk for COVID to spread, Baker said.

Culpability for the dire situation in the schools rests with the teacher unions, the NZ Educational Institute (NZEI) and Post Primary Teachers Association (PPTA). Both organisations initially opposed demands to close the schools then later shepherded teachers back into them when big business and the government decreed shut-downs should end.

Neither union has mounted any campaign, or called strike action, to protect the health and safety of teachers and students. Following the initial outbreak in March 2020, the PPTA opposed calls from teachers and health workers for schools to be shut, with the union’s president Melanie Webber absurdly declaring that they were “safe places.”

Schools fully reopened for most of 2022. Over the winter, teachers expressed anger and said they felt unsafe in their classrooms as case numbers soared. Schools stated that they were at “breaking point” with many staff off sick. Records show that on one day in March 2022 over 250,000 children were absent. Schools were left to decide individually how they would deal with the spread of the virus.

Internationally, reopening schools was a key demand of the financial and business elite, forcing parents to return to work so that the extraction of profits from the working class could fully resume. However, during the deepening crisis mid-year, in an interview with NewstalkZB, on July 25 Webber repeated the false propaganda that schools were “safe,” preposterously claiming that “a lot of transmission is actually happening outside of schools rather than within schools.”

Health experts are already expressing concern over the situation that is likely to develop when schools return after the holiday break. Epidemiologist Amanda Kvalsvig and a team at the University of Otago last week repeated a call they had made, unsuccessfully, at the beginning of 2022 for an urgent “COVID Action Plan for Schools.”

The existing policy, the group declared, “isn’t following #Covid science, exposing students, staff, and their families to an array of preventable risks.” Amid the recent surge, children were not required to isolate if a close contact at school was a confirmed case, and schools were not required to inform parents when there had been a positive case in their child’s class.

Kvalsvig tweeted on December 28; “How will NZ children fare in winter 2023? The answer is not in viruses and bacteria, but in policy. We hope to hear an announcement that ‘protecting children’s right to life, health, and education is paramount,’ backed up with guidance and resources for schools and families.”

She warned; “If, however, we hear that ‘The most important outcome is face-to-face learning and closing schools is a last resort,’ the decision is business as usual and children are going to be collateral damage. We know already from NZ 2022 and N hemisphere winter what that looks like.”

Appeals to the government and ruling elite are, however, futile. The policy of “herd immunity,” which prioritises profits over public health, is backed by the entire political establishment. Heading into the fourth year of the pandemic, schools and other worksites will become super-spreaders of COVID and an influx of other severe illnesses, all hitting the working class hardest.

Lula is inaugurated as Brazil’s president amid deep crisis of bourgeois rule

Tomas Castanheira

Luis Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers Party (PT), was sworn in Sunday as Brazil’s president alongside his vice-president, Geraldo Alckmin. The inauguration ceremony took place under conditions unprecedented in the 40 years since the end of the US-backed military regime that dominated the country from 1964 to 1985.

Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, reviews the troops during Inauguration Day, Brasilia, January 1, 2023. [Photo: José Cruz/Agência Brasil]

The inauguration ceremony took place in Brasilia in the absence of Lula’s predecessor, the former fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro, as well as his vice president, Gen. Hamilton Mourão, who refused to hand over the presidential sash symbolizing the transfer of power to the elected government.

Alongside his Liberal Party (PL), which has the largest delegation in Brazil’s Congress, Bolsonaro refused to acknowledge his defeat at the polls, which he falsely claimed were rigged. In the two months since the election results were announced, the incumbent president has fomented a violent fascist movement calling for a military coup to stop the supposed rise of “socialism” in Brazil.

Far from a passive agent, the Brazilian military directly participated in these conspiracies against the democratic system. The Ministry of Defense, headed by conspiracist Gen. Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, fueled the far-right movement with false allegations of a “relevant risk to the security of the [electoral] process” supposedly identified in a military investigation.

Reportedly, the commanders of the three Armed Forces were divided over whether to give direct support for contesting the elections which they openly discussed with the fascistic president. Even though they did not decide on open support for Bolsonaro’s coup attempt, they officially legitimized the fascist demonstrations as a “popular movement” and used the threat of insubordination to extend their political control over the elected government.

The inauguration speeches made by Lula Sunday had the central aim of convincing the Brazilian population that this monumental political crisis was nothing more than a nightmare that is now finally over.

Lula began his first speech, before Congress, with an extraordinary acknowledgment. He said, “Never have the resources of the state been so misappropriated for the benefit of an authoritarian project of power. Never has the public machine been so derailed from republican controls. Never have voters been so constrained by economic power and by lies disseminated on an industrial scale.”

In his second speech, addressed to the audience gathered at the Esplanade of Ministries, the president-elect acknowledged another monstrous aspect of the Brazilian reality. Speaking of the brutal extent of social inequality in the country, Lula mentioned the figures: “700,000 Brazilians killed by COVID. 125 million suffering some degree of food insecurity, from moderate to very serious. 33 million going hungry.”

The recognition that an authoritarian project, sponsored by powerful economic interests, was able to take over the state machine and promote the social murder and mass misery of its population can only mean that the current political and social regime in Brazil has totally lost its historical legitimacy. But this is not the conclusion drawn by Lula and the PT, who serve the same social class responsible for these barbaric crimes.

Lula reaffirmed his inalienable commitment to the profit interests of the capitalist class, affirming that Brazil has “sufficient technical, capital, and market capacity to resume industrialization and the supply of services at a competitive level” and that the country “can and should be at the forefront of the global economy.”

Promoting the thesis that the mortal economic and political crisis facing the Brazilian working class should be attributed exclusively to Bolsonaro and a few rotten apples, Lula promoted himself as the representative of a “broad democratic front” that brings together the entire rotten bourgeois political system.

He declared in his speech to Congress: “I understood, from the beginning of the journey, that I should be a candidate for a broader front than the political camp in which I was formed, maintaining a firm commitment to my origins. This front was consolidated to prevent the return of authoritarianism to the country.”

In his speech to the public, Lula called for a “broad front against inequality, involving society as a whole,” “workers” and “businessmen.”

These hypocritical appeals are a dirty disguise for promoting the continuation of capitalist attacks and an amnesty for state forces that are co-responsible for Bolsonaro’s crimes and who continue to foment dictatorial plots.

The cabinet formed by the PT in the image of its fraudulent “broad front” included nine representatives of the openly right-wing Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), União Brasil (Brazil Union) and the Social Democratic Party (PSD).

Less than seven years ago, the MDB was responsible for promoting the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, which the PT classifies as a coup d’état. União Brasil is the product of a recent merger of the very party that elected Bolsonaro in 2018, the Social Liberal Party (PSL); and the Democrats, direct heirs of Arena, the party of the military dictatorship.

But the PT is still seeking to further expand its political alliances in the far-right camp. The newly sworn-in Minister of Institutional Relations, Alexandre Padilha, a historical figure in PT governments, declared on Sunday: “We will talk to the parties that were Bolsonaro’s support base and that, in a first moment, may signal that they belong to the opposition.”

According to Padilha, by approving the budget amendment proposed by the transitional government, “the National Congress gave a demonstration at the end of the year that there is neither direitão (right-wing) nor esquerdão (left-wing) nor a centrão (center).”

Padilha is promoting a unity of interests sought by the PT precisely with the Congress dominated by the PL, which did not recognize Lula’s victory and seeks to build itself as a distinctly fascist party personally led by Bolsonaro.

The PT’s aim to amnesty the Armed Forces, deeply implicated in the conspiracies against democracy, was made clear by the inauguration speech of Defense minister José Múcio Monteiro, on Monday.

To a restricted audience, composed mainly of military personnel and their families, Múcio affirmed that “Brazil and its Armed Forces”—responsible for a bloody 21-year dictatorship and the exportation of dictatorial regimes throughout the South American continent—“have always positioned themselves in favor of peace, democracy, and respect for institutions.”

Múcio declared his “admiration for all those who preceded me, especially General Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, whose courtesy and efficiency [sic] in the most harmonious process of government transition.”

The fact that the defense minister chosen by Lula dedicates his mandate to General Nogueira, one of the main agents of Bolsonaro’s dictatorial conspiracy, reveals the mortal crisis of the newly inaugurated PT government.

Marcelo Kanitz Damasceno, upon assuming on Monday the command of the Air Force, the military branch considered to be the most aligned to Bolsonaro, confirmed the military’s expectation of deepening its political domination of the state during the PT administration. “I am absolutely convinced that the Armed Forces will continue to enjoy the strategic projects of the Presidency of the Republic and the Ministry of Defense, as well as gentle and harmonious treatment in defense matters,” Damasceno said.

Seeking to mask the reactionary character of its new government, which already begins as the most right-wing in its history, the PT launched a determined turn to identity politics.

Lula gave special emphasis in his speech to the public on the creation of the ministries of Racial Equality, Indigenous Peoples, and Women, which will supposedly be responsible for overcoming “the backwardness of more than 350 years of slavery.”

Two of these ministries have been assigned to figures linked to the pseudo-left Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL), originally created as a supposed “left opposition” to the PT. The first of them was assumed by Anielle Franco, sister of the murdered PSOL councilwoman in Rio de Janeiro, Marielle Franco. The second went to Sônia Guajajara, vice-presidential candidate for the PSOL in the last presidential elections.