Study provides a genetic explanation for asymptomatic COVID infection

Bill Shaw

An international collaboration of researchers recently published a study that conclusively demonstrated a biological explanation for how a human genetic variation known as the HLA-B*15:01 allele results in a much higher likelihood of asymptomatic infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The study not only found a strong association of the HLA-B*15:01 allele with asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, it also subsequently elucidated the biological mechanism that explains the association.

‘HLA’ stands for ‘human leukocyte antigen’ and thus HLA genes are directly involved in human immune responses to infection (‘leukocyte’ is the medical term for the white blood cells that fight infections in the body). Prior research on viral infections has shown that varying HLA alleles are associated with differential responses and outcomes to infections with human immunodeficiency viruses and hepatitis viruses.

The researchers first studied the association with carrying at least one HLA-B*15:01 allele and the odds of having an asymptomatic infection. They demonstrated the association in one dataset, and then confirmed it in an additional two datasets. These “replication cohorts,” as they are called, are a key methodology in genetic and genomic studies and strengthen the results of the study considerably.

Across all three cohorts—the initial cohort and two replication cohorts, a meta-analysis showed that individuals with an HLA-B*15:01 allele were 2.55 times more likely (95% confidence interval of 1.73 to 3.77) to experience asymptomatic infection than individuals without HLA-B*15:01. In the first cohort, individuals who were homozygous—that is, they had two HLA-B*15:01 alleles—were 8.58 times more likely to have an asymptomatic infection.

Overall, the researchers found that 20 percent of individuals with asymptomatic infection were carriers of HLA-B*15:01 versus 9.4 percent of symptomatic individuals. This finding was replicated in both additional cohorts, with rates of 17 percent of asymptomatic versus 7 percent of symptomatic, and 25 percent asymptomatic versus 9.4 percent of symptomatic as carriers, respectively.

The researchers went on to show that no other HLA allele was significantly associated with asymptomatic infection. Furthermore, they looked at interactions among HLA alleles by studying all possible pairs of HLA alleles. They found that only one such pairing was significantly associated with asymptomatic infection: the pair of HLA-B*15:01 and HLA-DRB1*04:01. Individuals with this pairing were 3.17 times more likely to have asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, suggesting that the effect of HLA-B*15:01 is enhanced by additionally having HLA-DRB1*04:01.

a) DSF plots showing the normalized fluorescence intensity versus temperature for HLA-B*15:01 in a complex with the NQK-Q8 (purple) or NQK-A8 (orange) peptide measured at concentrations of 5 μM and 10 μM. n = 2 biologically independent experiments performed in duplicate, represented by the different lines. b) Superimposition of the crystal structures of HLA-B*15:01 (white cartoon) in a complex with either the NQK-Q8 (purple stick) or the NQK-A8 (orange stick) peptide. [Photo by Augusto, D.G., Murdolo, L.D., Chatzileontiadou, D.S.M. et al. / CC BY 4.0]

The researchers subsequently went on to demonstrate the biological mechanism by which such protection of HLA-B*15:01 carriers occurs. This work is an enormous strength of the study and makes its results even stronger.

At a high level, the mechanism is that individuals with HLA-B*15:01 who were previously exposed to seasonal, pre-pandemic coronaviruses had memory T cells which were highly activated by SARS-CoV-2 proteins. This “cross-reactivity” was mediated by two SARS-CoV-2 proteins, NQK-K8 and NQK-A8, and it was specific to prior exposure to seasonal coronaviruses OC43-CoV and HKU1-CoV.

The fact that the T cells were highly reactive means that they divided rapidly, making copies of themselves for distribution throughout the body to recognize and neutralize virus and virus-infected cells. Early activation of memory T cells is thus associated with rapid clearing of infection and reduced duration and severity of illness.

The researchers demonstrated such T cell reactivity from blood specimens they had taken from participants prior to the onset of the pandemic. This showed that memory T cells sensitized to proteins from seasonal coronaviruses OC43-CoV and HKU1-CoV reacted strongly to the NQK-K8 and NQK-A8 proteins of SARS-CoV-2. By using samples obtained prior to the onset of the pandemic, the researchers left no chance for bias or contamination by “apparently” unexposed individuals who had really been exposed to SARS-CoV-2.

The researchers then were able to study the three-dimensional conformation of the peptide transcribed from HLA-B*15:01 —also called HLA-B*15:01—in combination with the NQK-K8 peptide and with the NQK-A8 peptide of SARS-CoV-2. They demonstrated that HLA-B*15:01 clearly binds both NQK-K8 and NQK-A8 at its major binding site, necessary to induce an immune reaction of the T cell.

Furthermore, the three-dimensional conformations of HLA-B*15:01/NQK-K8 and HLA-B*15:01/NQK-A8 are nearly identical, with a deviation metric of only 0.08 Angstroms (10-10 meters) at the cleft in HLA-B*15:01 where it binds each peptide. This means that the binding of either peptide will produce a highly similar immune response.

It is notable that NQK-K8 differs from the peptide of OC43-CoV and HKU1-CoV by only one amino acid (the basic building block of peptides). Also, NQK-K8 is conserved (the same) across all variants of SARS-CoV-2, including the XBB variant that until recent weeks was predominant globally. Thus, the results of the study are applicable across all variants of SARS-CoV-2 up to and including XBB.

This study adds to the irrefutable evidence that asymptomatic infection occurs, and it is convincing evidence that individuals’ genetic makeup is a significant factor in whether they experience asymptomatic infection. Given that asymptomatic individuals are a known significant source of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, this study further justifies properly executed lockdowns, masking, and social distancing measures as necessary components of an overall COVID-19 eradication program.

Also, asymptomatic infection is not consequence free. One study that pooled results from multiple previous studies found that 17 percent of asymptomatic individuals had at least one long-term sequelae at one year after infection. That means that between 1 in 5 and 1 in 6 individuals who had no symptoms of their acute SARS-CoV-2 infection are impacted longer term.

Ultimately, the study adds to the growing evidence of the ruling class’s criminality in implementing a series of reckless policies designed to maximize the production of profits, not aimed at the eradication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Netanyahu government set on provoking all-out Israeli war with Palestinians

Jean Shaoul

In the face of Israel’s escalating political crisis, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing for an all-out confrontation with the Palestinians.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF), police and settler groups are mounting near daily attacks on towns and villages in the West Bank. These are consciously designed to incite retaliatory attacks and thereby create a climate of fear and apprehension within Israel as means of deflecting explosive social tensions and political opposition to Netanyahu’s government outwards against a “common enemy”.

Israeli soldiers patrol an area damaged bay fires from torched vehicles during a rampage by settlers in Hawara, near the West Bank city of Nablus, Wednesday, March 1, 2023. [AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed]

At the same time, Netanyahu is ramping up his rhetoric against Iran and its allies in Syria and Lebanon. Blaming “Iran and its cancerous proxies” for instigating attacks in the West Bank, occupied illegally since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war in defiance of international law and UN resolutions, he hopes to derail the protest movement opposed to his far-right government’s efforts to grant itself dictatorial powers, and to unite Israelis amid the threat of a wider war.

Last week he declared, “Hamas and other Iranian proxies understand very well that we will fight with all means against their attempts to promote terrorism against us—in the West Bank, in Gaza, and anywhere else.”

On Sunday, he repeated the message, saying, “I would also like to appeal to the citizens of Israel: We are facing waves of terrorism, both internal and external. These are not simple times; these are challenging times. We need to unite our forces against terrorism, against the crime in the Arab sector, and against the external and internal threats that are being organized, to a large extent, by Iran via its proxies. If we stand together, we will prevail. This is my call to all members of the government, MKs [legislators], and all Israeli citizens.”

Netanyahu’s declarations came after Saleh al-Arouri, a spokesperson for Hamas, the bourgeois clerical group that controls Gaza and has a following in the West Bank, said in a televised interview on Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen, that any resumption by Israel of targeted killings of Hamas leaders or attempts to take control of the al-Aqsa mosque compound in East Jerusalem—called for by Netanyahu’s fascistic coalition partners—could spark a “regional war.”  He warned, “The all-out war will be a defeat for Israel.”

Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Shia Islamist party Hezbollah, warned that any attempt by Israel to target a senior Hamas member living in Lebanon would be met with a “severe reaction.”

The attacks on Israelis by Palestinians determined to resist Israel’s brutal suppression have followed mass search and arrest operations by the IDF in towns and cities across the West Bank, supposedly under the full control of the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas. Soldiers have closed towns and villages and placed their inhabitants under a curfew.

These almost daily operations in search of individuals alleged to have killed Israelis—26 Israelis, including six children, have been killed so far this year—have killed at least 206 Palestinians, 170 in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and 36 in Gaza, including 35 children, and injured hundreds more with live bullets and tear gas since the start of 2023.

IDF executions have now been “normalized” as state-sanctioned policy. The army’s murderous brutality not only goes unpunished but is belittled by Israel’s extremist politicians who declare that the IDF is not doing enough to deter the “terrorists.” Netanyahu and his security chiefs are running a campaign of vilification against IDF chief of staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, with the prime minister’s son Yair sharing a post, later deleted, calling Halevi the worst army chief in history.

Last week, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, the fascistic leader of Jewish Power, speaking on television, lamented Halevi’s “lack of the necessary powers to protect Israeli citizens” and called for a return to consistent targeted assassinations and the denial of entry permits for Palestinian workers.

Ben Gvir wants a law which gives police the power to jail Israeli citizens without trial or charge, as is the practice in the West Bank, alongside a “national guard” under his control. He has overseen a crackdown on Palestinian prisoners—at least 1,500 Palestinians are held in Israeli jails—including the storming of a prison in the Negev and the forcible removal of 75 prisoners from their cells and their relocation, prompting hundreds of political prisoners to threaten a hunger strike.

The actions of Israel’s police are no less barbarous than those of the army. Last week, Orwah Sheikh Ali, a 22-year-old Palestinian from the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem, reported in the Magistrate’s Court in Jerusalem that his face had been branded with the Star of David, Israel’s national symbol, after his arrest for drug dealing, a charge he denied, and detention in a police station where he was brutalized and tortured, including having a plastic bag placed over his head.

Ben Gvir also claimed that Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s “problematic” policies in the West Bank had left settlers “sitting ducks”. He declared in a brazen display of the government’s apartheid policy, “My right, my wife’s right, my kids’ right to move around freely on the roads of Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] is more important than that of the Arabs.”

Under the physical protection of the army and with political encouragement from Israel’s ultra-nationalist politicians, settler vigilante groups have carried out a daily campaign of harassment, intimidation and violence in the West Bank, aimed at driving Palestinians off their land and into neighbouring countries—a repeat of the ethnic cleansing carried out by Israeli forces between 1947-49 when more than 700,000 Palestinians were forced to flee their homes.

According to UN statistics, settler attacks have been on the rise since 2016, with 228 attacks last year leading to casualties. This year, settlers have killed at least eight Palestinians, up from five in the whole of last year, injured hundreds more and inflicted damage and destruction of Palestinian homes, property and agricultural land.

Earlier this month, Ben Gvir praised two settlers accused of killing Qusai Jamal Maatan, a 19-year-old Palestinian, in the West Bank village of Burqa as “heroes” and said that anyone defending themselves against “stone throwing” should “receive a commendation.” So embarrassing were Ben Gvir’s comments that Israel’s paymasters in Washington felt obliged to condemn his “racist rhetoric,” describe Maatan’s killing a “terror attack” and make a pathetic plea for “full accountability and justice.”

Bezalel Smotrich, finance minister and leader of the fascistic Religious Zionism Party, leapt to Ben Gvir’s defence, accusing the US of hypocrisy and saying, “The United States is in no position to go after Israel on human rights issues given how its army acted in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US shouldn’t be preaching to Israel about morality.”

Netanyahu’s plans for war against the Palestinians that risk a far wider regional conflagration cut across the Biden administration’s efforts to bring Saudi Arabia on board his anti-Iran alliance (the Abraham Accords) and to disrupt Riyadh’s growing relations with China. On Monday, Smotrich warned that despite being willing to reach a breakthrough in normalization talks with Saudi Arabia, the government would not agree to any pro-Palestinian “gestures” in exchange for a future agreement.

Further upsetting Washington’s plans to promote normalization between Israel and other Arab countries is the turmoil in Libya where there have been widespread protests reflecting deep-seated hostility to the suppression of the Palestinians.

Protests erupted after Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen announced that he had met his Libyan counterpart Najla el-Mangoush in Rome last week in a meeting he described as “historic” and “the first step of ties between Israel and Libya.” Libya’s Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeiba—backed by the US against the rival government based in Benghazi that is supported by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Russia—was forced to deny he had authorized the meeting and sack el-Mangoush, who has fled to Turkey.

New Zealand criminal investigation into systemic migrant worker exploitation

John Braddock

A New Zealand criminal investigation and government inquiry have been forced after dozens of migrant workers were discovered crowded inside a squalid three-bedroom home in south Auckland earlier this month. 

New Zealand Immigration Minister Andrew Little speaks to a group of migrant workers stranded without jobs at a meeting in Auckland. [Photo: Facebook/Labour MP Phil Twyford]

Newshub reported on August 14 that the workers paid thousands of dollars for employment agreements with local recruitment contractors, but since arriving three months ago they had received no work or pay. The men called police after their food ran out and they had to resort to begging.

“Forty men were crammed into the filthy, overcrowded three-bedroom home in Auckland for months on end, sharing a single shower and cooking over one stove,” the report stated. “Three days, we don’t have nothing to eat, only just drinking water. No food, nothing,” Indian migrant Prasad Babu said.

The men paid tens of thousands of dollars each for job offers and signed contracts with New Zealand recruitment contractors. “[They] took $20,000 from us to get a job. Why did [they] promise us you can give a better life here? There is no better life here,” Babu said. “Like beggars, we are going to the temple and eating the food there,” he explained. 

Following the initial report, several similarly horrific stories emerged. Immigration officials began investigating four more Auckland properties housing dozens more victims. “In Papakura,” Newshub reported, “at least 20 more migrants were shoved into a grotty, run-down three-bedroom property. There was an overflowing rubbish bin, one toilet, and one shower.”

A total of 115 migrants from India and Bangladesh have so far been found living in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions in six houses across Auckland. In one case, a business couple have been using their former home to house up to 30 migrant workers. The tenants, who rent “beds” at $160 each per week, said there were no smoke alarms and sometimes no electricity. The wealthy owners of the $2.97 million property are reportedly major donors to the conservative opposition National Party. 

Elsewhere, Karen Gibney, president of the Latin American Community in Tauranga, told the New Zealand Herald on August 22 that about 200 people from Chile, Colombia, Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia had paid between $4,000 and $10,000 for visas and employment agreements to work with construction company Buildhub. Many have received hardly any work or pay since arriving and some said they are “living like strays” and begging for food.

Two Chinese building workers interviewed by TVNZ last week said they had paid $16,000 to an agent to be employed on the redevelopment of Waikeria Prison near Hamilton, with promises they could eventually qualify for residency and bring their families. The pair were paid just $25 an hour and after eight weeks were suddenly sacked by the subcontractor via text message while still owed pay.

The migrants all entered the country through the Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV) scheme, introduced under pressure from big business last May, following the abandonment of COVID public health measures, to boost the labour supply. The Labour government boasted that its “immigration reset” would help build a “high wage, high skill economy.” 

AEWV was, officially, meant to streamline the work visa system by inviting employers to apply for accreditation to hire overseas workers. Immigration NZ (INZ) then issues visas for workers who are linked with an “approved” employer. INZ has approved nearly 81,000 visas among about 27,900 accredited employers.

Under the scheme, migrants are tied to particular employers, creating the conditions for mistreatment and even slave-labour conditions. Unable to quit for fear of invalidating their visas and often with no avenue of complaint, they are frequently forced to work and live in illegal and subhuman conditions.

Immigration lawyer Alastair McClymont told Radio NZ that employers only had to self-declare they were financially sustainable and operating proper wage and time records. “So you can make one dollar’s profit, and then bring in $600,000 worth of migrants,” who are then “dumped on the street with no jobs and no income,” he said.

According to a Stuff article on August 23, concerned INZ staff said employers were being allowed to bring in migrants without any paperwork or financial checks, even when immigration officers feared jobs may be fake, paid for with illegal premiums, or the migrants were at risk of exploitation. 

Stuff was told only two employers have been declined accreditation. One INZ worker said: “Now what we have is thousands of migrants exploited and potentially thousands of businesses that shouldn’t have got accreditation.”

INZ currently has164 active investigations underway. After initially denying any links between the Auckland cases and increased migrant exploitation, following “serious concerns” raised by an INZ whistleblower, Immigration Minister Andrew Little ordered a review of the scheme. Public Service Commissioner Peter Hughes promptly declared the “assurance review” would only check the policy was working as intended, rather than assessing the policy itself.

Migrant exploitation is an entrenched feature of New Zealand capitalism. Economics commentator Bernard Hickey has called the proliferation of scams a sign of the country’s “churn and burn” economy, describing it as the “Dubai of the South Pacific” for allowing “fraudulent agents and fly-by-night firms to bring in desperate and poor workers with suggestions of high-paid jobs and residency, only to pull the rug out from under their feet and leaving them indebted and even more desperate.” 

Workers in the Recognised Seasonal Employer program, introduced by the then Labour government in 2007, which brings Pacific Islanders in on temporary visas to work in the horticulture industry, were subjected to conditions akin to “modern slavery,” according to a Human Rights Commission report last December. The report cites numerous instances of basic human rights breaches, including in workers’ dire accommodation and authoritarian employer supervision. 

At the same time, politicians continually scapegoat migrants for social problems including the housing crisis, inequality and pressure on public services. Labour assumed office in 2017, in coalition with the anti-Asian NZ First, promising to halve immigration numbers, then around 70,000 a year. 

Labour has continued a cruel policy of deportations, including for people who “overstay” the term of their visa or who commit trivial breaches of their visa conditions. In early 2021, thousands of migrants and their supporters held a series of protests, including in India, over the government’s inhumane policies.

The systemic exploitation of immigrant workers is a vast global enterprise under capitalism, carried out by ruthless employers and unscrupulous agents, imposed by accommodating governments of all stripes. In the interests of profits, low pay, temporary work, summary sackings, ditching of basic rights and miserable living conditions are all on the agenda of every ruling elite as the economic crisis intensifies.

The political lessons of the 2023 Thai election

Ben McGrath & Peter Symonds

More than three months after Thailand’s May 14 general election, a new prime minister, Srettha Thavisin, a wealthy property magnate from the Pheu Thai Party (PT), was chosen on August 22 with the backing of a coalition that includes both the country’s pro-military parties. The Pheu Thai’s embrace of the military, which ousted it in two coups in 2006 and 2014, marks its complete abandonment of any pretentions to represent a democratic alternative.

Thailand's Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, arrives at Pheu Thai Party headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand, Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023. [AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit]

The entire election process under the constitution imposed by the military junta in 2017 was anti-democratic from beginning to end. The prime minister and therefore the government is not chosen by the elected lower house, but by a joint sitting with the upper house appointed entirely by the military. The Move Forward Party, which won most seats, was blocked by the military appointees and its leader subjected to trumped-up charges in the Constitutional Court.

Similar moves were taken against Pheu Thai which won a majority of seats in the 2019 election. The protracted mass protests dominated by young people, which erupted after the 2014 coup leader Prayut Chan-o-cha was reinstalled as prime minister and targeted the opposition parties, were suppressed by force.

That the military has allowed its bitter political enemy, Pheu Thai, to form government speaks to the fear throughout ruling circles that a repeat of the 2020-21 protests would involve sections of the working class under conditions of deepening economic and social crisis. The party has now ditched campaign promises not to form a coalition with the military’s parties and will work with them to impose an agenda of austerity on working people and suppress any opposition.

As for the Move Forward Party, which capitalised on the previous protests, and advanced, at least in words, proposals for limited democratic reforms, it has accepted its sidelining with barely a murmur of protest. While it formally voted against the new prime minister to maintain its oppositional posturing, Move Forward mobilised no opposition or demonstrations to the anti-democratic outcome of the election.

Both Pheu Thai and Move Forward have done their utmost to confine any opposition within the straitjacket of parliament and the courts—a system rigged by the military to favour Thailand’s traditional elites centred on the monarchy. Both parties were founded by business tycoons and represent dissident sections of the Thai capitalist class seeking to assert their interests against the stifling domination of the conservative establishment.

For many young people, workers and rural poor who voted for Pheu Thai and Move Forward in the hope that they represented a progressive alternative that would guarantee democratic rights and improve living standards, the election outcome is a bitter disappointment. It is necessary to understand why this has occurred and, above all, what is the political road forward.

In his Theory of Permanent Revolution elaborated more than a century ago, Leon Trotsky explained that no section of the bourgeoisie in countries of a belated capitalist development, including its so-called democratic and liberal wings, was capable of leading a political struggle for the basic democratic aspirations and social needs of the masses.

Unlike the classic bourgeois democratic revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe and America, the weak capitalist class in countries like Russia confronted a powerful working class that threatened its very existence. Invariably, when confronted by a mass movement, even the liberal bourgeoisie sides with reaction against working people.

Trotsky established that as a result of this, the democratic tasks necessarily fall to the working class, leading the rural masses. The working class carries this fight using its own class methods as part of the struggle for socialism. That political struggle on the national arena necessarily extends internationally as a component part of the world socialist revolution.

The Theory of Permanent Revolution provided the theoretical basis for the 1917 Russian Revolution led by Trotsky and Lenin that brought the first workers’ state to power and provided an enormous impetus to the fight for socialism internationally. The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 was bound up with its degeneration under the Stalinist regime that usurped power from the working class and, based on the anti-Marxist perspective of “Socialism in One Country,” was responsible for terrible defeats of the international working class.

Permanent Revolution was confirmed in the negative countless times in the course of the 20th century, not least in Asia, where the Stalinist parties repeatedly subordinated the working class and peasantry to one or other supposedly progressive wing of the bourgeoisie. The Stalinist two-stage revolution—first the democratic revolution under the leadership of the bourgeoisie, then the fight for socialism in the distant future—inevitably produced a disaster.

Nowhere were the consequences more tragic than in Indonesia where the Stalinist Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) promoted the peaceful road to socialism and kept workers shackled to President Sukarno by promoting the illusion that he would defend their democratic and social rights.

Yet, as the Theory of Permanent Revolution explains, this “progressive bourgeoisie” was incapable of defending democratic rights. In promoting Sukarno, the PKI opened the door for the 1965-66 CIA-backed military coup that resulted in the systematic slaughter of up to a million workers, peasants and PKI members.

Thailand is no exception. Time and again, the weak and venal ruling class has resorted to the military to crush any threat to its rule by the working class and rural masses. On each occasion, the parties representing the so-called progressive wing of the bourgeoisie shamelessly capitulated leaving working people to their fate.

Billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra established Pheu Thai’s forerunner, Thai Rak Thai, in 1998 as a political vehicle to prosecute his interests and gained a following by pledging to ameliorate the impact of the Asian Financial Crisis on working people. He came to power in 2001 and provided hand-outs to villages and state-funded health care. Thaksin rapidly came into conflict with the conservative establishment concerned that he was stoking demands for social improvements that could not be met and which he would be unable to control.

The Thai Rak Thai government was ousted by the military in 2006 which Thaksin did little to oppose. He fled the country after he was convicted on trumped-up corruption charges. The coup opened up a period of political instability which continues today. Popular opposition to the persecution of Thaksin and his party and the continuing attacks on basic democratic rights erupted in protracted mass demonstrations in 2010 of his Red Shirt supporters to which the military ultimately responded by firing on a mass protest in Bangkok, killing 91 people and injuring thousands more.

The military and its backers will not hesitate to do so again. The flagging Thai economy and growing social tensions, which are part of the global crisis of capitalism, will inevitably lead to an eruption of the class struggle as is the case around the world. At this stage, the ruling class is relying on Pheu Thai to use its residual political influence to contain the opposition as it emerges. If it fails to do so, other means including the use of military force will be used.

Ruling class propaganda on the “end of the pandemic” falls apart

Benjamin Mateus & Evan Blake

In recent weeks, the reality that the COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing and remains very dangerous has broken through the propaganda of governments, public health agencies and the corporate media, who have falsely proclaimed the pandemic over.

At last week’s World Health Organization (WHO) press briefing, COVID-19 Technical Lead Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove was forced to admit that millions of people across the globe are being infected each week based on the limited data available on cases and hospitalizations. Just three months after the WHO unscientifically ended the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) declaration, which prompted numerous countries to dismantle their surveillance systems, Dr. Kerkhove warned that tracking emerging threats will become much more difficult if not impossible, while noting that the virus will continue to mutate and could become more lethal.

According to the WHO briefing, only 103 out of 234 countries and territories are reporting COVID-19 cases, 54 are reporting deaths, 19 are providing hospitalization data and 17 are reporting ICU admissions. Additionally, according to GISAID, in the month of August global genomic surveillance produced less than 7,000 sequences of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, just 1.6 percent of all cases sequenced in August 2022.

Presently, the Omicron EG.5 subvariant, nicknamed “Eris,” is dominant globally. In China, it now accounts for 71.6 percent of all sequenced cases, up from less than one percent in April. In the United States, Eris and FL.1.5.1, another concerning variant, now make up 34 percent of all sequenced cases and are expected to dominate all other variants in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, Omicron BA.2.86, dubbed “Pirola,” which many scientists are deeply concerned about because it possesses more than 30 new mutations on its spike protein, has been labeled a Variant Under Monitoring (VUM) by the WHO. Just in the past two days, the variant has been detected in Germany, Spain and Portugal, bringing the total number of countries where it is known to be spreading to 10.

Given the collapse of surveillance globally, the only available means to estimate the ongoing impact of the pandemic are wastewater tracking, official hospitalization figures and excess death estimates, which collectively provide only a pale reflection of reality.

In the US, wastewater figures have more than tripled over the past two months, with one scientist calculating that roughly 580,000 Americans are now being infected with COVID-19 each day. Weekly hospital admissions for COVID-19 were over 15,000 for the week ending August 19, the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This figure is nearly triple the low of 6,461 just six weeks prior and will continue to rise in the weeks ahead.

Globally, there continue to be 11,100 excess deaths attributable to the pandemic each day—a 42 percent increase in the past four months—with the cumulative total now standing at a staggering 24.8 million, according to The Economist.

The latest summer COVID-19 surge is now intersecting with the global reopening of schools after summer and winter breaks, which will only fuel community transmission. Combined with influenza and RSV, there will likely soon be a deluge of reports of this triple viral threat inundating hospitals operating with dangerously low staffing levels and exhausted workers.

School districts in Kentucky and Texas have had to close their doors a few days or weeks after reopening, due to large numbers of students and educators infected with COVID-19. Hospitals and colleges have been compelled to reintroduce mask mandates in Georgia, New York, California and other states.

In this context, and over two months after this major pandemic wave began, the New York Times published an article Monday headlined, “Not Over Yet: Late-Summer Covid Wave Brings Warning of More to Come.”

The article was effectively a form of damage control, as the outlet has been at the forefront of downplaying the ongoing dangers of COVID-19 and almost entirely dropped coverage of the pandemic after the WHO and Biden administration ended the PHEs in May.

Needless to say, the Times neglected to remind its readers that just over a month ago it published an article by David Leonhardt—among the most notorious pandemic minimizers—falsely claiming that “the pandemic is finally over.” As with that article, the latest piece by Julie Bosman omits the critical terms “variant,” “viral evolution,” and “Long COVID.”

In opening her article, Bosman acknowledges that a “late-summer wave of coronavirus infections has touched schools, workplaces.” Noting the recent rise in COVID-19 hospitalizations, she adds that “local government experts warned the public to brace for even more COVID-19 spread this fall and winter.”

The article furthers the Times’ role in downplaying the ongoing dangers of the pandemic, in particular for hundreds of millions of elderly and immunocompromised people globally.

Ignoring the fact that the overwhelming majority of schools still lack adequate ventilation systems to protect against COVID-19 and therefore remain centers of viral transmission, Bosman cites Hedy N. Chang, the executive director of Attendance Works, who opposes the basic public health practice of keeping sick children at home. Chang states, “We actually have to shift norms again, to being judicious and thoughtful about when we keep kids home, and only keeping them home if we think it’s truly a problem.”

This dovetails with the criminal policy now in place in Los Angeles schools, in which children sick with COVID-19 and other illnesses are being encouraged to attend school.

Finally, as if bringing an expert witness to the stand to justify their crimes, Bosman quotes Northwestern Memorial Hospital pulmonologist Dr. John M. Coleman, who states on cue, “Moving forward, we have to learn to live cohesively with Covid. Covid is always going to be around.”

The Times then advances the essentially eugenicist policy of the Biden administration, in which millions of elderly and immunocompromised Americans are being left to fend for themselves. Summarizing the sage wisdom of Dr. Coleman, Bosman writes, “People who are hospitalized for Covid now tend to have pre-existing conditions or suppressed immune systems that make them more susceptible to severe symptoms.”

For these tens of millions of at-risk individuals, the Times and their learned doctor give the following medical advice: “Particularly for people who already have health risks, he said, it is crucial to receive the new booster this fall, wash hands frequently and wear a mask if feeling unwell.”

In other words, amid a major wave of the pandemic the Times is telling its readers to get a booster shot that will not be available for weeks, wash their hands to protect against an airborne pathogen, and wear a mask once infected instead of to prevent such infections. Such patently unscientific advice only underscores their role as a purveyor of propaganda.

Furthermore, the attempt to downplay the dangers posed by COVID-19 by suggesting only those with “pre-existing conditions or suppressed immune systems” are susceptible to more severe forms of COVID-19 is not only eugenicist but patently false.

In a recent report by Harvard biostatistician, Dr. Edward Goldstein, PhD, published in Epidemiology and Infection, comparing Omicron infections and influenza in the same period in late 2022 and early 2023 in France, he found the risk of death from SARS-CoV-2 to be four times higher.

Just days before the Times article was published, noted Long COVID researcher Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly and his team at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, published their latest study focusing on the impacts of Long COVID two years after infection.

They found that in non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients, risk of death remains elevated up to six months and risk of hospitalization for 19 months. Two years in, coagulation disorders, pulmonary disorders, fatigue, gastrointestinal disorders, musculoskeletal disorders, diabetes and other sequalae remain increased, “suggesting a longer lasting risk horizon for these organ systems,” according to Al-Aly.

For those who were hospitalized for their infection, risk of death and hospitalizations remained elevated compared to non-infected controls at two years. Of the 80 types of sequelae being measured, which involved every organ system, 65 percent remained at elevated risk after two years.

The authors conclude, “Measures to reduce the risk of post-acute and long-term sequelae in people with SARS-CoV-2 infections should remain the foundation of public health policy. … It is clear that the burden of health loss will not only impact patients and their quality of life but also potentially contribute to a decline in life expectancy, and may impact labor participation, economic productivity and societal well-being.”

The horrific realities of the “forever COVID” policy are becoming increasingly evident to masses of people globally, as hundreds of millions of working people and their families face an array of health consequences and maladies that not only shorten their life spans but make miserable the years that are afforded them. Their ranks will only grow with each new wave of the pandemic.

The emergence of the highly mutated Pirola variant demonstrates that SARS-CoV-2 remains quite fit to continue mutating. The unprecedented spread of this virus into nearly 8 billion hosts in just over three years underscores the critical point that the pandemic has far more breathing room than most were willing to imagine at the outset.

School systems in the United States experience surge in COVID-19 and other illnesses as classes resume

Harvey Simpkins

As school systems across the United States return from summer vacation, COVID-19 is once again surging, leading to the temporary closure of some school systems in Texas and Kentucky. Cases will only continue to rise as more school systems, including New York City, open after Labor Day.

Elementary School students in Camden, South Carolina on September 15, 2021. [AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins]

Last week in Kentucky, Lee County School District and Magoffin County Schools both closed due to large numbers of COVID-19 cases. In Magoffin County, attendance fell to 83 percent during the third week since returning from summer break, leading to the decision to switch to remote schooling at the end of last week.

“We’re seeing a lot of illness being reported consistent with COVID and influenza,” Scott Lockard, a public health director in Kentucky, told ABC News. “Lee County had a surge of cases and attendance dropped below the threshold needed to stay open, so they closed.”

Runge Independent School District in Texas, which has 195 students, closed from August 22–29 and canceled all extracurricular activities due to a sharp rise in COVID-19 among staff, with 10 out of the district’s 43 staff members testing positive as of August 21.

Hawaii, one of the few states to continue to report in some capacity on COVID cases among students and staff, has similarly seen a growing uptick in reported cases since schools reopened for students on August 7. In South Carolina, Richland School District Two canceled a pair of football games after players from a varsity and junior varsity high school team experienced a surge in cases.

According to infectious disease modeler J.P. Weiland, based on COVID-19 wastewater monitoring data from Biobot Analytics for the week ending August 24, there are currently about 580,000 new infections each day in the United States, with one in every 57 people currently infected. Although COVID cases have appeared to reach their summer peak, health experts warn that with schools opening the surge can continue into the fall and winter months.

For the week ending August 19, the CDC reported that new hospitalizations for COVID-19 jumped 18.8 percent, with admissions having increased every week since June 24. Among adolescents aged 12 to 15, reports of COVID-19 emergency room visits nearly doubled from the week prior, reaching levels not seen in a year among this age group.

According to the CDC, deaths from COVID-19 in the United States for those aged 0–17 now stand at 2,305. COVID-19 is the leading cause of death in children caused by any infectious or respiratory disease, far outpacing the flu and pneumonia. Children, like the rest of the population, are also suffering from Long COVID in large numbers, with a July 2023 study published in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, finding that 16 percent of those infected experienced one or more persistent symptoms at least three months after infection.

A wide range of studies has also found that COVID-19 can cause long-term damage to nearly every organ in the body, including the brain, heart, lungs and kidneys. It has also been linked to diabetes and a range of cardiovascular events, from heart attacks to strokes. A September 2022 study from the Journal of Medical Virology found a 30 percent increase in heart attacks among people aged 25 to 44 during the first two years of the pandemic.

In the face of the latest surge in COVID-19, and the obvious dangers to the population from infection which remain, the Biden administration continues its policy of indifference. Not only have they not lifted a finger to protect schools and their communities against the ongoing flood of infections, neither have the promises to clean the air in these public spaces through infrastructure renovations been realized.

This is in keeping with Biden’s decision to end the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency in May, which eliminated the last vestiges of government assistance during the pandemic and forced the population to accustom itself to coexisting with a rapidly mutating pathogen.

With the expiration of the public health emergency, tests, treatments and vaccines are no longer free or easily accessible and individuals are now left to the profit-seeking whims of insurance and pharmaceutical companies for these necessary measures. There is also currently no updated vaccine available to deal with the continuing evolution of the virus.

Biden’s decision to let the disease run rampant, with no protections offered to the working class, is consistent with his approach to the pandemic since taking office and on par with the capitalist tenet that profits will always be prioritized over life and well-being.

Just a month into his tenure, without any scientific basis, he falsely told a second-grade student in a February 2021 CNN town hall, “You’re not likely to be able to be exposed to something and spread it to mommy or daddy.” In fact, study after study have pointed to the opposite.

One of the latest studies published in the JAMA Network Open in June showed that 70.4 percent of transmissions in a cohort of 166,170 households originated with a child. The study also noted the strong connection between in-person schooling and rises in within-household transmission.

“[W]e found that children represented the majority of index cases after schools reopened in both the 2020–2021 and 2021–2022 school years. However, these transmissions decreased during summer and winter school breaks, which is consistent with prior studies showing school attendance associated with increased respiratory viral spread, and school holidays with decreased spread.”

The teachers’ unions likewise continue to play their pernicious role in facilitating the spread of COVID-19 in schools. The American Federation of Teachers last posted something on its website related to the pandemic in April, when it highlighted statements from its president, Randi Weingarten, to Congress in which she dishonestly claimed that “[O]pening schools safely—even as the pandemic surged—guided the AFT’s every action.”

In fact, Weingarten and the AFT systematically beat back opposition from rank-and-file teachers who opposed returning to unsafe schools. Most notoriously, in January 2022, at the height of the massive wave caused by the Omicron variant when millions were getting infected each day, the Chicago Teachers Union, affiliated with the AFT, forced teachers to return to work despite a vote by 73 percent of teachers to not return to unsafe schools after winter break.

Likewise, the AFT has not made any meaningful demands on the Biden administration or the Democratic-controlled Congress to allocate all necessary funds to make every public school safe for in-person learning, including through upgrading HVAC systems, installing high-quality air purifiers in every classroom, and the installation of UV technology. Such technological upgrades would severely curtail the spread of COVID-19, if not eliminate it entirely.

Similarly, National Educators United (NEU), a pseudo-left pressure group within the AFT and the National Education Association, has remained almost completely silent on the pandemic since the Democrats took over the White House. Their one and only action on the pandemic since Biden became president occurred in late January 2021, when they launched a petition to keep schools open in the midst of the Omicron surge, only calling for mitigations such as testing and the use of high-quality masks.

More than two-and-a-half years later, with schools again opening in the midst of another COVID surge, NEU echoes the teachers’ unions, President Biden and both political parties in ignoring the disease and its attendant dangers to teachers and students. Even calls for basic mitigation measures, such as the use of high-quality masks, contact tracing, and testing of potentially exposed students, have been dropped.

The effect of the bipartisan decision to let the virus rip, backed by the unions and pseudo-left groups like the NEU and the Democratic Socialists of America, is that large portions of the population have been misled into believing that the pandemic is over. With schools reopening and even the most minimal mitigations no longer in place, the stage is set for yet another completely avoidable wave of severe disease and death.

Eni MINDS Scholarships (Master In Natural Resources Development And Storage) 2024

APPLICATION DEADLINE:

4th September 2023

Tell Me About Award:

We are looking for young graduates in Engineering, Physics, Mathematics, Geology and Geophysics, interested in attending the 2nd level Specializing Master MiNDS’ programme in Natural Resources Development and Storage realized by Eni in partnership with Politecnico di Torino, that aimed to develop professionals on a strategic vision, in the medium and long term, of the Energy sector, and specialize them on topics related to innovative technology and cutting-edge digital solutions to promote the energy transition in the traditional energy sector.

The Eni Master’s, organised in collaboration with the Politecnico di Torino, will be renewed from academic year 2023-2024 to offer a high standard of excellent training, developing the latest skills to respond to the current and future challenges of the Energy sector, and has become MiNDS: Master in Natural Resources Development and Storage.

The aim is to provide students with specialist skills and a 360° view of the energy industry, with a special focus on Natural Resources and Energy Transition, which can be used in practice in the sector.

Through the acquisition of integrated technical skills (energy storage, CCUS, geothermal energy, circular economy and sustainability, digitalization, etc.) to be combined with the traditional skills model of the Energy sector, we intend to encourage the entry into the labor market of highly qualified young people who are able to give immediate application of the knowledge acquired.

WHICH FIELDS ARE ELIGIBLE?

Master of science degree in Energy and Nuclear, Aerospace and Space, Chemical, Civil, Mechanical and Environmental Engineering, Computing, Physical-Mathematical Models for Industrial Engineering; Materials Engineering; Physics; Mathematics; Geological and Geophysical Science, awarded within September 30th, 2023;

TYPE:

Second Master’s

Who Can Apply?

The Specializing Master’s programme is intended for candidates with the following requirements:

• – Energy and Nuclear, Aerospace and Space, Chemical, Civil, Mechanical and Environmental Engineering, Computing, Physical-Mathematical Models for Industrial Engineering;
   – Materials Engineering;
   – Physics;
   – Mathematics;
   – Geological and Geophysical Science.
• final mark no lower than 100/110 or equivalent
• Age under 30 at 31 December 2023.
• excellent knowledge of English which will be assessed during the selection process (for non-Italian candidates a good knowledge of the Italian language is considered an essential prerequisite for the admission. Eni will assess the candidate’s level of proficiency during the interview).

WHERE WILL AWARD BE TAKEN?

Politecnico di Torino, Italy

HOW MANY AWARDS?

Not specified

What Is The Benefit Of Award?

The Program includes 8 months of classroom at Politecnico di Torino (with lessons by Eni/Politecnico di Torino) + 4 months of internship at Eni.

Eni provides scholarships of € 1.500 per month to all participants.

At the end of the course, participants receive a 2nd-level Master’s diploma in Natural Resources Development and Storage (MiNDS) from the Politecnico di Torino.

The enrolment fee for the Master’s will be paid for all students directly by Eni to the Politecnico di Torino.

HOW LONG WILL AWARD LAST?

13 months. 9 months study + 4 months internship.

How To Apply:

Applications are open until 4 September 2023 at 2:00 p.m. (Italian time); read the call for applications and apply.

Selection tests will take place online and/or at the company’s premises approximately by the end of September 2023. Applicants who meet the requirements will be informed about the selection process and further instructions by email.

Visit Award Webpage for Details