Rising financial distress in Australia triggers surge in calls to suicide hotline

Taylor Bennington & Maya Hunt

Recent statistics from Lifeline, one of Australia's leading crisis support and suicide prevention services, reveal a significant increase in demand for their non-profit services in the first five months of 2023.

Unemployed workers registering to receive social welfare outside Centrelink office in Sydney in 2020.

During this period, Lifeline received an average of 3,000 calls per day, nearly 500 more than over the same period in 2019. Of these calls, approximately 50,000 were related to financial distress, averaging around 331 callers per day, surpassing the 2019 figure of 36,000 calls or 238 per day. Lifeline emphasises, however, that the number of individuals seeking help due to financial stress is likely even higher, as many callers are unable to articulate the specific reasons for their crisis.

In February 2022, Lifeline expanded its services to include a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week online chat and texting service. These additional services have also experienced an increase in demand, with Lifeline reporting an average usage of 682 times per day this year. Moreover, data from Lifeline’s search engine reveals that in January there were more than 26,000 searches for assistance and support, the organisation’s highest monthly tally.

Lifeline receives just 70 percent of its funding from governments, and relies on volunteer workers. The Herald Sun last Saturday reported that around 200,000 calls to the hotline go unanswered each year—in the state of Victoria, 360,000 calls are made to Lifeline each year but only 12 percent of these are answered.

Lifeline’s chief research officer, Dr. Anna Brooks, earlier this year highlighted the impact of rising interest rates on mortgage and rental costs. She explained: “Financial stress and uncertainty can contribute to mental ill health. There is also evidence to suggest that people can experience distress and suicidal thoughts when facing financial stress and uncertainty.”

Sophie Hattch, a 27-year-old Lifeline volunteer crisis supporter taking incoming calls, told the Sydney Morning Herald: “Mental health support has always been expensive, but the difference now is that people are struggling so much more to pay for the bare minimum. People are calling who have had to move away from their family and support networks because they can’t get a rental property, or they can’t afford one, and it feels anecdotally that there are more people calling with those kinds of issues. Before, it really was a small part of the population.”

Other mental health services have noted similar trends to those reported by Lifeline. A recent survey conducted by the Beyond Blue mental health support organisation found that over one-third of respondents indicated that financial pressures negatively affected their mental health in the past year.

The National Debt Helpline has also experienced a significant surge in calls, with a nationwide rise of 30 percent compared to the same period in 2022. In the Australian Capital Territory and Victoria, the number of calls received by the help line doubled compared to last year.

The cost of essentials such as food, energy and housing prices has significantly increased beyond the official inflation rate of 7 percent. The impact on working class households has been exacerbated by the Reserve Bank of Australia’s series of interest rate rises. For those with a $500,000 mortgage, interest rate hikes have slashed monthly disposable income by $1,200, marking the most significant cut to living standards since World War II.

Research published last year by Beyond Blue found that individuals facing financial difficulties are more than twice as likely to experience psychological issues compared to those who are not. The reverse is also true—people experiencing mental health problems often experience financial stress as a result, due to unemployment and challenges managing budgets.

Young people are especially affected. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has reported that the annual prevalence of mental ill health among 16 to 24 year olds surged from 26.4 percent in 2007 to 39.6 percent in 2020-21, marking an extraordinary rise of 50 percent in just over a decade. Tragically, this has led to a rise in people taking their own lives. Last year’s Australian Institute of Health and Welfare “Deaths in Australia” report showed that between 2018 and 2020 suicide was the leading cause of death among people aged 15–24, at 38 percent of total deaths, and for people aged 25–44, 22 percent of total deaths.

A research study published July 12, analysed suicide data in Australia between 2004-2016 and reported “clear evidence” of a causal connection with unemployment and underemployment. The paper, “Unemployment and underemployment are causes of suicide,” found that approximately one in ten deaths were directly due to what the University of Sydney researchers termed labour under-utilisation.

They explained: “Unemployment and underemployment are associated with multiple potential risk factors for poor psychological health, including financial hardship and poverty, lower self-perceived social status, and reduced social network size and availability of social (practical and emotional) support.”

The researchers added, in an accompanying commentary, “A direct causal relationship between unemployment and suicide demands a re-evaluation of policies, a prioritisation of full employment, adequate social safety nets to prevent poverty, mental-health system reform, and greater urgency in shifting to a wellbeing economy.”

In reality, successive Labor and Liberal-National governments at both the state and federal level have slashed social services, eroded real wages and job security, and privatised and cut to the bone the provision of healthcare, including mental health.

Earlier this year, the Australian Labor Party cut funding to mental health services, and in the May federal budget, the right-wing Albanese-led Labor government made significant cuts of $11 billion to the annual health budget. These actions have further exacerbated the already strained state of mental health support in the country. At the same time, the Labor government is implementing regressive “stage three tax cuts” that overwhelmingly favour Australia’s affluent minority, and is committing hundreds of billions of dollars for nuclear-powered submarines in preparation for an aggressive, US-led war against China.

China slowdown worsens

Nick Beams

The latest data from China show the slowdown in the world’s second largest economy, reflected in significant deflationary trends, is not abating. Moreover, it is in danger of missing the already low official target of 5.5 percent growth this year.

A worker assembles electronic devices at an Alco Electronics factory in Houjie Town, Dongguan City, in the Guangdong province of China. [AP Photo/Ng Han Guan]

According to official figures released on Monday, the economy grew by 6.3 percent in the second quarter compared to a year ago. However, that figure was below expectations and conceals, rather than reveals, the actual situation because a year ago Shanghai and other cities were in a COVID lockdown.

A more accurate assessment is provided by the quarterly data. These show that growth was only 0.8 percent in the second quarter compared to 3.2 percent in the first three months of the year.

The downward pressures go across the board: weakening spending after the initial boost following the lifting of anti-COVID measures; deflationary pressures throughout the economy; continuing problems in the housing and real estate markets; and falling export revenues.

Retail sales rose by only 3.1 percent in June compared to a year earlier, down from 12.7 percent increase for May.

Louis Kuijs, chief Asia Pacific economist with S&P Global Ratings told Bloomberg: “What we all expected was a consumption and service-led recovery. If that is sputtering, then there’s no engine left for the recovery.”

The extent of deflation was highlighted by a report in the Economist magazine. It noted that China’s “nominal” growth, that is growth before adjusting for inflation, was weaker than the inflation adjusted figure. Generally, it is the other way around.

“It suggests that the price of Chinese goods and services is falling. Indeed, it implies they fell by 1.4 percent in the year to the second quarter, which would be the sharpest drop since the global financial crisis.”

Consumer prices did not rise at all in the year to June and producer prices, those charged by factories, fell by 5.4 percent.

The Chinese economy is also being hit on the international front. The rise in interest rates by the major central banks is bringing a slowdown in demand for its exports. In June they fell by 12.4 percent in dollar terms, the largest year-on-year decline since the start of the pandemic.

The situation is not likely to improve as the global economy weakens with the International Monetary Fund forecasting world economic growth of only 2.8 percent this year, amid predictions that it could be even lower.

A comment by David Lubin, the head of emerging markets at the global financial firm, Citi, published in the Financial Times, detailed some significant trends in world trade.

He noted that, according to Citi data, the annual growth of import volumes turned negative last year and has continued negative so far this year and there were “few reasons to think things will improve.”

According to Lubin, global economic growth will come in at about 2.3 percent this year. Next year “will almost certainly be weaker than this, not least because big central banks are, in effect, aiming to induce slowdowns to regain control over inflation.”

This would create a more hostile environment for trade, he wrote, noting that “the last time the world saw two consecutive years of sub-2.5 percent growth was in the wake of the financial crisis.”

China is facing added pressure because of the trade and tech wars being waged against it by the US. Washington claims its bans on high-tech exports to China are only aimed at a narrow range of technologies that have military applications and are not directed at the broader economy. It says it wants to lessen tensions, but its actions speak louder than words.

In comments delivered during the Group of 20 finance ministers meeting in India earlier this week, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that her recent visit to Beijing had been aimed at putting the relationship with China on a “surer footing.”

But at a later press conference she ruled out removing or even relaxing the tariffs imposed on Chinese goods by the Trump administration.

“The tariffs were put in place because we had concern with unfair trade practices on China’s side and our concerns with those practices remain,” she said.

Faced with a worsening international environment, the Xi Jinping regime is seeking to lift domestic demand. However, the kind of stimulus measures it employed in the past, in response to the global finance crisis, are no longer available because of the growth of debt.

After it removed all measures against the spread of COVID, Beijing expected there would be an uplift in the economy. But after the economy grew faster than expected in the first three months of the year there was a sharp slowdown as retail sales, investment and property sales dropped.

According to a recent note by Citi analysts: “China is on the brink of a self-fulfilling ‘confidence trap’ as the initial reopening impulse starts to fade.”

The all-important property market is showing the same trend as the rest of the economy. Earlier this year it appeared to be recovering from the swathe of defaults by real estate companies and uncompleted housing projects as home buyers came back into the market.

The revival appears to be short-lived. The price of new homes fell in May. According to the China-focused consultancy firm Gavekal Dragonomics, property sales are now 70 percent of where they were in 2019 and housing starts have fallen to 40 percent of that level.

A survey conducted by the Japanese financial firm Nomura told the same story. It found that property transaction volume as measured by floor space fell by 19.2 percent year-on-year in June following a 3.5 percent decline in May.

Last November the government took measures to try to boost the property sector, which it continued earlier this month by easing rules for the extension of debts.

However, according to a report in the Financial Times, “its efforts have so far failed to revive market activity.”

Asia property analyst Andrew Lawrence, at the financial firm TS Lombard, told the FT: “What we’re seeing is a complete lack of trust emerging in the Chinese property sector.”

The report said so far government measures of support had only been directed to so-called “high quality” developers, leaving those that have defaulted and are caught up in restructuring operations to fend for themselves.

“The funding model for Chinese developers is broken,” Lawrence said, “and there isn’t anything to replace it. Ultimately they’re going to get to the point where they’ve got nothing to sell and they’ve got no revenue.”

In the face of the worsening economic situation, the official line is that China is not facing deflation. In a press conference held in the wake of data showing consumer prices were flat, the deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China Liu Guoqiang said China was not in deflation and “won’t show signs of deflation in the second half of this year.”

Amid the slowdown, one issue that will be causing concern in ruling circles is the increase in youth unemployment that is hitting highly educated graduates from universities and colleges who cannot obtain decent-paying jobs in their chosen field.

The jobless rate for those aged 16 to 24 in the urban areas hit a new record high of 21.3 percent in the June quarter. The official response is that they should “work hard” and take those jobs that are available. This response does not sit well with young graduates whose families have spent considerable amounts of money to secure their education and who have studied hard but who find there is nothing for them when they seek employment.

Germany’s new strategy: Preparing for war against China

Peter Schwarz

A Leopard 2 tank is pictured during a demonstration event held for the media by the German Bundeswehr in Munster near Hannover, Germany, Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2011. [AP Photo/Michael Sohn]

The German government adopted a China strategy for the first time on Thursday. The aim of the 64-page document is to reduce the German economy’s dependence on China in preparation for war against the rising Asian economic power.

In the coalition agreement between the Social Democrats (SPD), Liberal Democrats (FDP) and Greens, before taking office, China was still described as a “partner, competitor and systemic rival”. Since then, the China strategy states, “the elements of rivalry and competition in our relationship have increased”. Embedded in deceitful rhetoric about “Western values”, “liberal democracy” and “human rights”, the strategy document develops a whole bundle of economic and political measures against China.

In order to reduce dependence on China, supply and value chains are to be “diversified” and “secured in the long term through broader risk diversification”; the German government supports “the German economy in developing diversified, sustained sources of supply” in other countries.

In order not to become dependent on Chinese technologies in “key areas”, “key technologies are to be identified at an early stage”. The German government wants to invest more money in its own “research, development and innovation” and withdraw funding from “projects with China in which knowledge transfer is likely”. The risks facing German companies active in China will no longer be covered as before.

The EU’s “trade policy instruments” are to be further developed to restrict trade with China. Direct investments by European companies in China are to be reviewed and stopped if necessary. “With the investment review, we protect independence in security-critical areas and areas relevant to the supply of the population, protect the defence capability of Germany and its allies, and strengthen the technological sovereignty of Germany and the EU”, the paper says.

Exports to China are also to be restricted. “In order to avoid longer-term security risks for Germany, the EU and allies through exports of new key technologies, the federal government is committed to the further development of the lists of goods in the international export control regimes”. This is to be applied, in particular, to the areas of “cyber security and surveillance technology”.

Fewer Chinese components are to be used in “critical infrastructures,” such as mobile phone networks. Corresponding regulations should also be developed for “non-IT products”.

“Resilience against hybrid threats in politics, business, science, and society” is to be increased. “Chinese disinformation campaigns”—for example, “in connection with China’s policy on Hong Kong and Taiwan” and “Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in violation of international law”—are to be combated at all levels.

The publication of the China strategy was preceded by months of disputes within the coalition. With a trade volume (imports and exports) of €299 billion last year, China is Germany’s most important trading partner. Especially for the German car industry, which employs around 800,000 people, China is the largest sales market. An abrupt break in economic relations would therefore have devastating economic consequences.

The employers’ associations, in particular, warned against a too confrontational course and found an ear with Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP). Employers’ President Rainer Dulger complained of Germany’s “moral policy” in dealing with China. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Economics Minister Robert Habeck (both Greens), on the other hand, urged a harder line.

The Greens are pioneers of a so-called “values-based” foreign policy that uses human rights issues to justify trade war measures and wars. Yet the “values” proclaimed only apply to rivals and opponents, not to allies like Egyptian butcher Abdel Fatah El-Sisi, Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman or Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is responsible for bloody pogroms. The red carpet is rolled out for them in Berlin. Criminal wars do not fall into this category either, if they are led by NATO, the US or other allies.

The China strategy now published is a compromise. This is the meaning of the constantly repeated formula that it is about de-risking, not decoupling.

The business associations signaled their agreement. BDI President Siegfried Russwurm said that they shared the assessment of the government, but that as the second largest market in the world, China remained an absolutely central economic partner. DIHK President Peter Adrian called the strategy a good approach and called for additional public funds to open up new sales, procurement or investment markets.

China strongly condemned the strategy. It will “only achieve the opposite of what was intended” and “create man-made risks”, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin. “Clamouring over the so-called competition of systems, interests and values goes against the trend of the times and will only exacerbate divisions in the world.”

The formula of de-risking instead of decoupling is ultimately just a matter of pace. The confrontation with China follows an inescapable logic. After siding unreservedly with the US in the proxy war against Russia and taking a leading role in NATO’s deployment in Eastern Europe and the rearmament of Ukraine, the German government is also swinging on to the US line against China, which has declared the country its most important strategic adversary and is systematically preparing a war against China.

“German security is based on the EU’s ability to act and its internal cohesion, the consolidation of the trans-Atlantic alliance, our deep friendship with France and the close and trusting partnership with the US”, the China strategy states. “China’s antagonistic relationship with the US is at odds with these interests”.

Not only the US and Germany, but also all other imperialist countries are swinging towards a nationalist policy of war and economic war in the face of the deepest crisis of world capitalism.

In 1933, when a similar development was taking place on the eve of the Second World War, Leon Trotsky wrote in Nationalism and Economic Life:

“Only 20 years ago all the schoolbooks taught that the mightiest factor in producing wealth and culture is the world-wide division of labor lodged in the natural and historic conditions of the development of mankind. Now it turns out that world exchange is the source of all misfortune and all dangers.”

And he warned, “Nationalism ... preparing volcanic explosions and grandiose clashes in the world arena, bears nothing except ruin.” This was confirmed only six years later with the outbreak of the Second World War.

Greek coastguard tried to tow hundreds of migrants to Italy, capsized the vessel

Martin Kreickenbaum

On June 14, a fishing vessel carrying hundreds of refugees, the Adriana, sank off the Greek port city of Pylos. Roughly 600 people, including children, drowned. An investigation by German regional broadcaster NDR, the Guardian, the research agency Forensis and the Greek organization Solomon has now come to the clear conclusion that the Adriana was towed by the Greek coast guard towards Italian waters and then, when this was unsuccessful, capsized.

[AP Photo//Hellenic Coast Guard via AP]

The search team spoke to 26 survivors, evaluated the available court records and examined the logbook entries of the ships involved. The Coast Guard ship 920 reached the Adriana, which had just received water, food and fuel from the tanker Faithful Warrior, on June 13 at 10:40 pm. Video footage shows that the completely overloaded Adriana was already listing dangerously by this point, and that an immediate rescue action should have been initiated.

The Adriana had been drifting for hours due to a broken compass and lack of fuel, propelled only by the current. But after the arrival of the Greek coast guard, she again moved at a steady speed towards Italy. Survivors report that the coast guard led them, claiming that an Italian coastguard ship was already waiting for them.

Around 1:40 am on the morning of June 14, the Adriana stopped, apparently the engine had failed again. Then it moved a few hundred meters to the east, which cannot be explained by wind or current. Eyewitnesses report that after the renewed engine damage, masked men from the Greek coast guard ship boarded the vessel and attached a rope to the bow of the Adriana.

It is fitting that the coast guard ship 920 had left Chania in Crete and, according to the logbook entry, had taken a four-member team of the KEA stationed in Chania on board. The KEA is a military unit that specializes in carrying out dangerous operations at sea.

The coast guard claims that the rope was attached to stabilize the Adriana. However, Stefan Krüger, an expert on ship safety, expressed strong doubts about this version to the NDR. “This kind of listing momentum, which you certainly bring on with such a tow, does not lead to the ship being stabilized.” Krüger rather believes “that the motivation was to tow the ship because the engine no longer worked.” Only a short time after the tow rope was attached, the Adriana capsized.

Two survivors, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of the Greek authorities, told the BBC about how the capsizing occurred. “They fixed a rope from the left. Everyone went to the right side of our boat to balance it out. The Greek ship quickly moved away and tipped our boat. They took it with them for a long time.”

Another survivor told the Guardian that Greek soldiers had attached the rope and the Adriana had been pulled for about 10 minutes. “I felt that they tried to push us out of the Greek water so that their responsibility ends.” Other survivors said the Adriana suddenly moved forward “like a rocket” even though the engine was not running.

The fact that the version of the Greek coast guard does not correspond to the actual course of events is also evidenced by the testimony of the survivors before the investigating judge, who is examining the sinking of the Adriana. According to this, the statements recorded and published by the coast guard were made under pressure and manipulated.

As the Guardian reports, the statements made by two survivors of different nationalities, according to the coast guard, surprisingly agree word for word: “We were on the boat that was old and rusty with too many people … That's why it capsized and eventually sank.”

But under oath before the prosecutor, the same survivors days later blamed the Greek coast guard for the sinking. A survivor who told the coast guard in his testimony that the trawler capsized because of its age and overcrowding later testified, “When they boarded the boat (and I'm sorry to mention that), our boat sank. I think the reason was the towing by the Greek boat.”

Survivors told the BBC that they were intimidated by the coast guard. Whenever it was said that the Greek coast guard had caused the capsizing, they were told to shut up. “You have survived death! Stop talking about the incident! Don't ask any more questions about it!” they were told.

Other incidents demonstrating that the Greek coast guard was never interested in rescuing the refugees have come to light. The European border protection agency Frontex also remained idle, although it was informed at an early stage that there was an urgent case for a naval rescue.

According to information from the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, the boat was first sighted by Italian authorities at 6:51 a.m., according to an internal Frontex document. Frontex previously claimed to have only learned about the overloaded ship at 9:47 am through a reconnaissance drone. In fact, as early as 8:51 a.m., the sea rescue center in Rome alerted both Frontex and the control center in Piraeus, from where rescue operations of the Greek coast guard are controlled. The information also reportedly included the fact that two children had died on board the fish trawler.

Nevertheless, it took hours for the Greek coastguard ship 920 to leave Crete. It remains unclear why boats located much closer in Kalamata, Pylos or Patras were not alerted and sent. Speaking to the Guardian, a member of the Greek coast guard expressed his complete incomprehension that a rescue operation had not been initiated immediately: “It was a situation in which you send everything you have. The trawler was clearly in need of help.”

Clearly, however, the Greek authorities were more concerned with bringing on board members of the KEA stationed in Chania in order to remove the ship from Greek waters. An actual rescue operation was therefore not planned at any time.

The Greek coast guard has since confirmed that it was informed by Italian authorities at an early point. Greece's newly appointed migration minister Dimitris Kairidis said in Brussels that “an independent judicial investigation” is underway. If someone is found guilty, “there will definitely be consequences.” “Until then, we should not jump to conclusions or bow to political pressure,” he added.

Frontex has initiated its own pro forma investigation of the sinking. But at the same time, the EU Commission continues to back the investigations of the Greek authorities. These, however, focus on the nine Egyptians arrested after the shipwreck, who allegedly steered the boat and distributed water and food.

The Egyptians are accused of belonging to a human smuggling ring and causing the capsizing of the ship. If convicted, they face life imprisonment. Survivors reported to the BBC that the Coast Guard forced them to refer to these nine as masterminds and people smugglers. “The Greek authorities detained them and wrongfully accused them of covering up their own crime,” one survivor said.

The sinking of Adriana, which killed more than 600 refugees, was evidently an act of mass murder, committed either deliberately or by failing to provide assistance, for which the EU is responsible.

Germany’s hospital “reforms”: Another blow to healthcare

Markus Salzmann

The German federal government, together with the 16 states, has now agreed on key points for the hospital “reforms” proposed by Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (Social Democratic Party, SPD). These so-called reforms will lead to unprecedented hospital closures and significantly worsen healthcare provisions for working people.

German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach prior to the weekly cabinet meeting at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, February 1, 2023. [AP Photo/Michael Sohn]

In December, the expert commission appointed by the Ministry of Health presented its draft proposals. The commission was headed by Professor Boris Augurzky of the Rheinisch-Westfälisches Wirtschaftsinstitut (RWI) and Reinhard Busse, Professor of Health Care Management at Berlin’s Technical University, both of whom have been calling for the large-scale closure of hospitals for years. This draft has now essentially been passed after some squabbling with the state governments. Only Bavaria voted against, Schleswig-Holstein abstained.

The reform was “a kind of revolution,” Lauterbach asserted after agreement was reached. In future, hospital financing is to be linked to the quality of services and no longer to the number of treatments carried out. Allegedly, this will make per-case flat rates less important, and hospitals will be paid for providing good services.

Payment based on flat rates per case were introduced in 2004 by the then SPD-Green coalition government as part of its socially regressive “Agenda 2010” policies, a process in which Lauterbach was significantly involved. Together with the transformation of hospitals into profit-oriented and partly private companies, these measures contributed to the deterioration of health care and the intolerable working conditions in hospitals and clinics. In the name of the alleged “abolition of flat-rate payments per case,” Lauterbach is now striking the next blow against public healthcare.

To measure the performance of hospitals, uniform “performance groups” with minimum requirements are to be defined. As Lauterbach and other advocates of the reforms keep repeating, this is to ensure that complex treatments, such as those for cancer or strokes, are only carried out in clinics that are appropriately equipped and staffed.

Contrary to the protestations, this will in no way lead to better care, because not an additional cent will be made available, as would be urgently needed for the necessary equipment or sufficiently well-paid staff. In fact, it will only lead to the closure of departments or entire hospitals, as the German Hospital Association and numerous other experts have long protested. Only in exceptional cases do exemption rules apply in this matter, and these only for a limited period.

It also remains completely open how long waiting times at specialised high-performance clinics will be and who will have privileged access to them. In the UK, where the Sunak Tory government is in the process of killing off the National Health Service, it is already almost impossible for seriously ill patients without expensive private insurance to get a timely appointment for treatment, leading to unnecessary deaths.

Another central aspect of Lauterbach’s reforms are so-called “retention fees.” Up to now, hospitals have only been paid for cases treated; in future, an average of 60 percent of the costs are to be covered by the retention fees. According to Lauterbach, this would relieve economic pressures and secure the existence of hospitals despite lower case numbers.

This is pure eyewash. The money will still be linked to the number of treatments, because flat rates per case are not being abolished, but at best supplemented. At the same time, the total volume of funds, which is far too low, will not change at all. Lauterbach had stated from the beginning that no additional money would flow into hospital financing.

Moreover, there is still no concrete information on how these flat rates will be calculated. They will not be ring-fenced, which means private hospital groups, for example, can use them to pay dividends to their shareholders.

There was no agreement yet on the classification of hospitals into care levels, as proposed by the expert commission. Lauterbach wants to regulate this centrally and publish the corresponding data in January next year. “Materially,” the level classification was not important, so the Länder (federal states) did not have to adopt it, Lauterbach said. The Länder are resisting this and insist on their own criteria.

Free Democratic Party (FDP) health politician Lars Lindemann explained what was behind the plans to publish so-called quality data for hospitals. “We need a great deal of openness about what certain structures in the hospital sector are capable of,” Lindemann said. Hospitals that could not provide certain services at a certain level of quality would have to stop doing so in case of doubt and leave the field. “That is painful, but that is the way it is.”

The federal and state governments, on the other hand, agreed that hospitals would not receive any financial aid until the reforms came into force on January 1, although this was urgently needed.

Hospitals are confronted with enormous price increases. The coronavirus subsidies have expired and due to the glaring shortage of nursing staff, numerous beds or entire wards have had to remain closed. Never have so many hospitals in Germany been in the red as today.

When asked whether, in view of this situation, the federal government should not provide emergency aid, Lauterbach stated coldly: “I can’t give any hope there,” adding that no funds had been earmarked for this in the federal budget.

In fact, the cuts in the health budget for the coming year are staggering. From €64.4 billion [$US72.1 billion] in 2022 and €24.5 billion in the current year, it will drop to €16.2 billion next year. It will thus be cut to a quarter within two years. The money will be used directly for military rearmament.

The fact that numerous hospitals will slide into insolvency this year due to the refusal to provide aid is a political calculation. This is intended to accelerate the closures demanded by Lauterbach and the expert commission.

The German Hospital Association (DKG) predicts a wave of bankruptcies already for the current year. “We run the risk that ten to 20 percent of hospitals will then have to file for insolvency,” says the DKG. The deficits burdening hospitals will add up to €15 billion by the end of the year. The Association of Municipal Hospitals is warning of up to one hundred insolvencies this year.

According to a survey by the Baden-Württemberg Hospital Association (BWKG), 77 percent of the state’s hospitals say they expected to incur a deficit this year. That is significantly more than last year, when 62 percent were in the red. The total deficit last year was about €500 million, this year an €800 million minus is expected.

The agreement between the federal and state governments shows that all the establishment parties support the hospital closures and cuts. The Left Party’s criticism of the key points is therefore hypocritical and abhorrent.

“The hospital reform is so poorly crafted that the entire sector is unsettled,” complained Tobias Schulze, health policy spokesman for the Left Party in the Berlin state assembly. In addition to this harmless criticism, the party presented its own health policy concept at the end of last week. But it failed to mention that Thuringia and Bremen, where the Left Party either provides the state prime minister or is involved in the state government, have spoken out in favour of the reforms.

What is known so far about the Left Party’s concept does not go beyond empty promises. According to its paper, hospitals should work according to the principle of self-cost recovery, i.e., they would be reimbursed for the costs incurred. The prerequisite for this would have to be that the respective providers signed up to a collective agreement with the unions, the Left Party argues. The experience of recent years shows that this has nothing to do with ensuring adequate working conditions. At the Charité hospital in Berlin, for example, nursing staff fought for months for better working conditions—despite being covered by collective agreements—and were sold out by the Verdi union and the SPD-Left Party-Green state executive.

The demand for the “insourcing” of outsourced hospital departments is also hypocritical. Not only did the Left Party in Berlin outsource many areas 20 years ago to save money, but the subsequent insourcing only served the purpose of cementing poor wages in place.

Under the slogan “remunicipalisation of private hospitals,” the Left Party now pretends that it wants to stop the further privatisation of health facilities. But the question of whether remunicipalisation means the expropriation of the private health corporations was explicitly denied by party leader Janine Wissler.

On the first year of astronomical discoveries by the James Webb Space Telescope

Bryan Dyne

Wednesday marked the first anniversary of the start of science operations of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the most powerful space-based astronomical observatory ever launched. It is jointly operated by NASA, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) and has, over the past year, already provided countless insights into the natural world, from inside the Solar System to the farthest reaches of the Universe.

The first anniversary of JWST was celebrated with the release of new data of the star-forming region Rho Ophiuchi. It is the nearest such cloud complex to Earth, about 390 light years away by the most recent estimates (a mere 3.7 million billion kilometers or 2.3 million billion miles), and one of the most studied. The image from the telescope shows about 50 very young stars, all 1 million years old or less (compared to our Sun’s age of 4.6 billion years), all of which are about the mass of the Sun.

Rho Ophiuchi is a relatively small stellar nursery located only 390 light years from Earth. The cloud complex has been studied numerous times because of its proximity and the fact that all the stars are very young, 1 million years old or less, providing insight into the properties of our own Solar System when it was forming more than 4.6 billion years ago. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan (STScI)

Many of the objects imaged are known as T Tauri stars, which shine not as a result of nuclear fusion in their core, but because of the radiation powered by the gravitational contraction of the star which is steadily shrinking. After about 100 million years, they will have shrunk enough to raise the temperature in their core to the level where nuclear fusion from hydrogen to helium will commence, beginning their life as a main sequence star, the stable mature form in which the star will spend most of its life.

The dark areas are thick clouds of dust, so dense that not even the specialized instruments of JWST can capture light emitted from inside them. The large red streams, sometimes called Dark River clouds or Rho Ophiuchi Streamers, consist of molecular hydrogen and are often formed when a newborn star finally emits enough radiation to fling off its natal cocoon of dust and send out jets of material into deep space.

Some of the stars in the image also have signs of protoplanetary disks, potential future planetary systems still being formed.

The latest image from JWST reaffirms what a group of NASA, ESA and CSA researchers said last year when the telescope was fully commissioned, that “almost across the board, the science performance of JWST is better than expected.”

Data from the JWST instruments NIRCAM and MIRI were combined to study the protoplanetary system around the star d203-506 revealing the presence of the molecule methyl cation, which is theorized to play a key role in the construction of complex organic molecules. Credits: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb), the PDRs4All ERS Team

Another recently imaged protoplanetary disk, that surrounding the star d203–506 in the Orion Nebula, was recently confirmed using JWST data to have the molecule methyl cation (CH₃⁺). While CH₃⁺ was first predicted to be involved in interstellar chemistry in the 1970s, it was only first detected using the telescope’s MIRI and NIRCam instruments. Initial results were released at the end of June.

Carbon compounds are carefully studied because they form the basis for all known life, and CH₃⁺ is particularly important because it does not react with hydrogen, which is most of the visible universe, but does react with a wide range of other molecules, indicating it could be a catalyst for the emergence of other molecules and more complex structures, such as amino acids and proteins, and ultimately the emergence of organic life.

The analysis of CH₃⁺ also provides insight into the contradictory nature of ultraviolet light in the formation of planetary systems. Those wavelengths of light are known to be very destructive when they interact with organic molecules (which is why too much sunlight, part of which is in the ultraviolet spectrum, produces sunburns and, in extreme cases, skin cancer). Ultraviolet light is however also known to scour young planetary systems, including our own. The current research sheds light on the contradictory nature of ultraviolet light being detrimental to existing organic molecules, but also necessary to form the building blocks to make those molecules in the first place.

The lead investigator of this study, Olivier Berné of the University of Toulouse, France, elaborates, “This clearly shows that ultraviolet radiation can completely change the chemistry of a protoplanetary disc. It might actually play a critical role in the early chemical stages of the origins of life by helping to produce CH₃⁺—something that has perhaps previously been underestimated.”

Abell 2744 has been studied by Hubble in the past, but never with the breadth and depth produced by the JWST. Each object in the photo is a galaxy, with light having traveled across the Universe to Earth for between 350 million years and more than 13 billion years. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ivo Labbe (Swinburne), Rachel Bezanson (University of Pittsburgh), Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

JWST has also continued to study distant galactic clusters. In February, the telescope was used to take a deep field of Abell 2744 (nicknamed Pandora’s cluster), which involved a total of 30 hours of observing time with the NIRCam instrument. The cluster itself is made up of at least four separate galactic clusters that initially collided some 350 million years ago, and have since produced a whole host of exotic phenomena that astronomers are still trying to uncover.

Similar to other galactic clusters, the colossal gravity of Abell 2744 also acts as a lens for the light of other, even more distant objects that are behind Abell 2744 relative to Earth. In total, JWST imaged more than 50,000 sources of infrared light at once, all of them either galaxies or galactic clusters from far back in cosmic history. There are at least two candidates from which light has traveled for more than 13 billion years (in astronomical terms, a redshift greater than 10) before being collected by JWST, providing insight into galactic formation in the earliest epoch of the Universe.

Earth’s planetary neighbors in the outer Solar System have also been studied by JWST. During its commissioning, the telescope observed Jupiter and its moons Europa, Thebe and Metis to test its capabilities to track moving targets. Another imaging campaign of the Jovian system was undertaken, this time including the moons Amalthea and Adrastea, as well as Jupiter’s rings and aurora.

A composite of infrared images of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune taken by the JWST, all of which reveal new properties about the planets of the outer Solar System. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

The observatory has also produced the most high-resolution infrared images of Uranus and Neptune, which have been intermittently observed by Hubble and ground-based observatories for years, and only visited once each for close inspection by the spacecraft Voyager 2 in 1986 and 1989, respectively. As JWST is viewing both in infrared light, it has provided new information about the structure of each planet’s ring system and the respective atmospheric dynamics.

The most recently released image from the outer Solar System was of Saturn, in late June. In contrast to the bright hues of images taken by the Cassini spacecraft, JWST in infrared sees Saturn as extremely dark, surrounded by extraordinarily bright icy rings. Some of the more interesting discoveries include the dark clouds in the planet’s northern hemisphere, which may be the result of planet-scale waves in Saturn’s atmosphere, a phenomenon not seen before.

A treasure trove of even more data has been collected over the first year of JWST’s operation, much of which is summarized in various press reports by the European Space Agency. It is to the immense credit of the tens of thousands who operate the telescope and process the data that so much has been achieved in so little time. Each new image provides further insight for humanity’s understanding of the natural world and our place within it. We eagerly await further discoveries.

As ninth COVID wave sweeps Japan, wastewater data show another surge beginning in the US

Benjamin Mateus

Over the past three weeks, wastewater data monitoring COVID-19 provided by Biobot has shown a 50 percent increase in viral transmission in the US, a significant increase, which indicates that the country may be in the initial stages of yet another wave of the pandemic.

Based on estimates by scientist and disease modeler J.P. Weiland, these wastewater data indicate that at present there are now roughly 280,000 daily infections. In other words, roughly one in every 1,180 people in the US is being infected each day and one in every 118 people is currently infected with COVID-19, given that the average infection lasts roughly 10 days.

[Photo: Twitter @Jpweiland]

Given the complete scrapping of official COVID-19 testing and data collection by public health officials and reporting on the pandemic by the media, reliance on the efforts of individual scientists has become indispensable.

The latest summer wave of infections is not only limited to the United States, as another surge is now underway across Japan and China’s second wave of mass infections has only just begun to ebb.

The Japanese health ministry recently stated that the average number of COVID-19 cases reported through their 5,000 sentinel surveillance designated medical institutions has seen cases rise four-fold since the first week of May into the first week of July. The figures for Okinawa prefecture, the epicenter of the current wave, are seven-fold higher than the national average.

Shigeru Omi, president of the Japan Community Health Care Organization, and previous regional director of the Western Pacific Regional Office for the World Health Organization (WHO), said during a press conference last month, “A ninth wave may have started. As people have been increasingly in contact with others, the rise in infections is as expected. I don’t know if the number of infected people will surpass that of the eighth wave, but we should focus on reducing the number of deaths and ensuring the continuity of social activities.”

In other words, Japan will continue to follow the “herd immunity” policy whereby economic relations are prioritized above public health, while giving lip service to protecting the elderly and vulnerable from severe infections.

In Hokkaido, Japan’s second largest island and northernmost prefecture, five high schools had to close this past week due to COVID infections. Looking across 221 medical institutions, there had been a 10 percent rise in cases from the previous week with the highest number of cases in Fukagawa and Sapporo. Local officials are concerned that school festivals scheduled for the past weekend will ignite more cases for these “indoor events.”

In Yaeyama Prefecture, which are the remotest islands in Japan and sit southwest of Okinawa, the main hospital located in Ishigaki, the political and cultural center of the islands, is having to restrict normal services like surgeries and basic medical procedures to accommodate for the care of patients suffering from severe COVID infections. About 10 percent of the 600 staff have also been placed on medical leave as they deal with their own COVID-19 infections.

In Okinawa prefecture, the situation remains at a crisis level in which medical centers are at or near capacity and sick and ailing patients cannot find transportation or available medical centers for treatment.

The Okinawa Times, a local newspaper, recently reported that at the Yuai Medical Center in Tomigusuku City, “An elderly person collapsed and appeared to be unconscious.” The fire department requested a physician on the scene and the head of the emergency department came to tend to the patient. Such incidents where an emergency medical team are called to the scene have jumped five-fold and are very taxing in a limited-resource center like Okinawa.

Dr. Masanao Yamauchi told the local paper, “I don’t want to see anything like last summer, where I repeatedly refused to accept them [emergency cases].”

As one nurse admitted, these cases may be related to COVID-19, but they no longer test or examine asymptomatic people and prioritize care to those with high severity. Dr. Yamauchi added, “It’s like walking through a tunnel with no exit in sight. … To be honest, it would be physically and financially easier not to see the coronavirus, but I can’t say that.”

Other prefectures on Japan’s third largest island, Kyushu, are reporting rising COVID infections, including Kagoshima, Miyazaki, Kumamoto and Saga. In July 2022, the surge of the BA.5 Omicron subvariant had seen daily infections exceed 260,000 per day across Japan. Currently, Omicron XBB.1.5 and XBB.1.16 are the two dominant subvariants, as is the case in many countries globally.

In line with the WHO’s abrupt and unscientific declaration of an end to the Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) in early May, the Japanese government rapidly moved to downgrade the surveillance category of COVID-19 from a Class 2 to a Class 5 disease, equivalent to a seasonal influenza. This prompted a shift to sentinel surveillance in which case counts are no longer reported, similar to recommendations that were made by the European and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

[Photo by Our World in Data / CC BY 4.0]

In effect, rather than tracking and tracing daily COVID infections and hospitalizations, the impact of the pandemic will only be measured through monitoring rates of cases at designated medical systems. The details of the infections and their outcome will not be available for public health systems to monitor, which function to promote the policy of “forever COVID” that has morphed into “forget COVID.”

Indeed, a look at the “Our World in Data” website on the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan shows an abrupt end to “daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases” on May 10, 2023, just as cases were beginning to climb. It is evident that the current and ongoing wave of infections was well underway when all real-time surveillance was abruptly ended.

Across Japan, Summer 2022 saw more than 10,000 official COVID deaths. By May 2023, when all serious tracking of the pandemic ended, close to 75,000 Japanese had officially died. Estimates of excess deaths associated with the pandemic now stand at just over 220,000, roughly triple the official figure, with the majority occurring in the last 12 months during the Omicron reign of the pandemic.

These trends have considerable consequences for Japan. Given that the country had initially taken a limited mitigationist approach against infections at the start of the pandemic, this has also meant that the seroprevalence of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in the population has remained considerably lower than those in Europe and North America by nearly half the rate.

According to Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare, by February 2023 as much as 42.3 percent of Japan’s population had previously been infected, compared to 76 percent in the UK. This meant that the population as a whole, especially the elderly and immunocompromised, have remained far more susceptible to COVID infections with Omicron.

This only further underscores the complete negligence on the part of the WHO and the global declaration of the end of the pandemic. Variant evolution is continuing unabated, with the current waves in Japan and the US driven by recombination XBB variants. In effect, global public health agencies like the WHO, CDC and others are letting the firefighters go home while smoldering embers continue to burn in the dry arid forests.

By June, Omicron XBB subvariants grew to account for 95 percent of global SARS-CoV-2 in circulation, while new subvariants are emerging. In Australia, the XBC subvariant, which has a Delta-like mutation, is on the rise. EG.5, the XBB.1.9.2 subvariant with an S:F456L mutation that confers increased immune escape, is now the fastest-growing lineage globally. First sequenced in Indonesia in February 2023 and first observed in the US in March 2023, it grew to account for 5 percent of all variants by June.

The variant XAY, first identified in South Africa in June 2022, is a recombinant of Delta and Omicron which began making its way into Europe in early 2023, in particular Denmark. By the end of March, GL.1 and XAY.1.1.1.1, each with two additional mutations, appeared in Spain and by May had been transmitted to Portugal, Ireland, England, Wales, Austria and Italy.

However, due to drastically reduced sequencing globally, it is becoming more difficult to follow viral evolution, like chasing footprints in a heavy snowfall.

Without a concrete effort to divert more resources to viral sequencing and tracking, and given the complete abandonment of public health, the situation in Japan is emblematic of the present danger in the current state of the pandemic. Indeed, it may be a harbinger of shifts in the pandemic’s trajectory that could put millions of people at peril throughout the world.

These warnings are not mere hyperbole and fear mongering. They have been arrived at by a careful analysis of the pandemic from its earliest days and the criminal response enacted by capitalist government to the dangers these pathogens pose. The precautionary principle informs social response to such pathogens and other social threats.