PRB Policy Communication Fellowship 2021/2022

Application Deadline: 10th December 2021.

Eligible Countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Haiti, India, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Rwanda, Senegal, South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Yemen, and Zambia.

About the Award: The PRB Policy Communication Fellows Program seeks to train the next generation of leaders shaping policy in their countries. The fellowship is hosted in partnership with African research and advocacy experts to encourage South-South collaboration and knowledge exchange.

The year-long fellowship program engages participants through a blended learning approach. Fellows are required to attend a weeklong training workshop, complete instructional curricula online, and submit assignments throughout the fellowship.

Eligible Fields of Research: 

• Family planning and/or reproductive health (FP/RH).
• Contraceptive use/behavior.
• Maternal and child health (MCH), specifically family planning/MCH integration.
• Population growth.
• Adolescent reproductive health.
• Poverty, health equity, and connections with reproductive health.
• Gender issues, specifically gender-based violence (GBV), early marriage, and male engagement in family planning.
• Population, health, and environment interrelations.

The goals of the Policy Fellows program are to:

1. Understand the process by which research informs the policy environment.
2. Learn how to communicate research to policy audiences in a way that encourages action.
3. Improve participants’ communication skills using a variety of formats and platforms.

The Policy Fellows program, initiated in the 1980s, has close to 400 alumni. Policy Communication Alumni Fellows are highly respected in the field and actively engaged in advocacy work. The program aims to bridge the gap between research findings and the policy development process. While research often has profound policy implications, it must be communicated effectively to a variety of non-technical audiences in order to have an impact.

Type: Research, Fellowship

Eligibility: 

• All participants must be citizens of developing countries that are supported by USAID population and health funding.
• In addition, participants must be currently enrolled in doctoral programs at reputable academic institutions, and between their 3rd and 5th year of studies.
• PRB gives priority to applicants whose dissertation research is focused on the topic areas noted above and who are in an early stage of their career.
• This program takes place in English, and applicants must demonstrate that they can effectively communicate their research in English through their application materials.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of PRB Policy Communication Fellowship: 

• Fellows will learn, firsthand, local advocacy priorities and policy landscapes and how to tailor their research messages to relevant policy audiences. Fellows are mentored throughout the program on different strategies to effectively communicate their findings to non-technical audiences.
• The Policy Fellows program is committed to providing an enriching, cutting-edge experience for participants that reflects the diverse and constantly evolving landscape of policy and communications.
• PRB covers travel, lodging, and per diem expenses for each Fellow to attend the workshop.
• Policy Communication Assignments: During the 2021-2022 academic year, Fellows will apply the skills learned at the workshop to prepare written assignments and an oral presentation for policy audiences, based on their dissertation research. Throughout the assignments, Fellows will receive individual feedback from policy communication experts on their work.

Duration of Program: 1 year

How to Apply for PRB Policy Communication Fellowship: Applicants must submit the following to PRB and AFIDEP:

• A cover letter stating why you wish to participate in this program.
• An application form. Application-Form-2021-22.pdf
• An updated resume with a full list of educational and other professional activities.
• A two- or three-page summary of the applicant’s dissertation research.
• Two letters of reference sent directly from the person writing the reference (via e-mail).

Application forms, program information, and answers to common Frequently Asked Questions about the program can be found on AFIDEP and PRB’s website.

Completed applications, letters of reference, or questions about the program should be sent via e-mail to: policyfellows2021@afidep.org.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Belgium ARES Masters and Training Scholarships 2022/2023

Application Deadline: 28th January 2022 at 12pm

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Students from African and  developing countries

To be taken in: Belgium

About the Belgium ARES Scholarship: Each year, the Academy of Research and Higher Education (ARES) grants an average of 150 fellowships in the framework of the Masters and 70 fellowships in the framework of the internships to the nationals of the countries of the South.

Eligible Countries: Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cuba, Ecuador, Ethiopia (only for courses in English ), Haiti, Indonesia, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Peru, Philippines, DR Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Vietnam.

Accepted Subject Areas (Masters): 

• Master of Specialization in Development, Environment and Societies
• Specialization Master in Human Rights
• Master of Specialization in Aquatic Resource Management and Aquaculture
• Master of Specialization in Risk and Disaster Management
• Specialized Master in Integrated Management of Health Risks in the Global South (IManHR)
• Specialized Master in International Development
• Master of Specialization in Transfusion Medicine
• Specialized Master in Microfinance
• Master of specialization in integrated production and preservation of natural resources in urban and peri-urban areas
• Specialized Master in Public Health Methodology
• Master of Science in Public Health – Methods of Research Applied to Global Health
• Master of Science and Environmental Management in Developing Countries
• Specialized Master in Transport and Logistics

Accepted Subject Areas (Training): 

• Internship in control and quality assurance of medicines and health products
• Research Initiation to Strengthen Health Systems
• Internship in Geographic Information System
• Internship in secondary resource development for sustainable construction
• Methodological internship in support of innovation in family farming

Type: Masters, Training

About the Belgium ARES Scholarship: Within the framework of the Belgian policy for development cooperation, the Minister for Development Cooperation and the Directorate-General for Development Cooperation entrust the Belgian Higher Education Institutions with the preparation of Postgraduate Programmes (Advanced Masters) and Training Programmes that are specifically oriented towards young professionals from developing countries.

International Courses and Training Programmes are part of the global study programmes of the Higher Education Institutions. They are open to all students who satisfy the conditions of qualification, but aim at proposing training units that distinguish themselves by their openness towards specific development issues.

Eligibility: The following will apply for the selection of holders of scholarships:

1. Originally from a developing country. To be eligible, applicants must reside and work in their own country at the time of filing;
2. Only nationals of the following countries are eligible to apply for scholarships ARES: Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cuba, Ecuador, Ethiopia ( only for courses in English ), Haiti, Madagascar, Morocco, Niger, Peru, Philippines, DR Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Vietnam ;
3. Either under the age of 40 for courses and under 45 for training periods at the start of training;
4. Either holds a diploma comparable to a diploma of the second cycle of Belgian university education. However, for certain types of training, different requirements may be set out, which will be specified below;
5. Demonstrates a professional occupation in a developing country of at least two years after completing his / her second cycle or three years after the end of his / her studies when the candidate holds a post-graduate diploma a university in an industrialized country;
6. A good knowledge of written and spoken French. For courses organized in another language, it is necessary to have a good knowledge of the language of the course, written and spoken. The candidate will also be asked to commit to learning French in order to participate in everyday life in Belgium;
7. Apply for a single training

Selection Criteria: 

• The academic curriculum
• For courses, priority will be given to candidates who are already holders of a diploma third cycle, save in exceptional circumstances duly justified in the application.
• Priority will be given to candidates who have not already received a grant in Belgium.
• Professional experience
• Belonging to a partner institution: The commitment of the candidate in development activities
• Nationality requirements
• Gender equality
• The future reintegration prospects

Number of Scholarships: Belgium ARES grants 150 scholarships for participation into the masters and 70 scholarships for participation into the training programmes.

Value of Belgium ARES Scholarship: Travel (internal and external), Monthly living allowance, Indirect mission costs, Installation costs, Tuition fees, Registration fee, Insurance costs, Housing allowance, Allowances for dependents, Return fees, In 1st session completion bonus (June).

Duration of Scholarship:  For the duration of the program

How to Apply: Would you like to submit an application form and receive a grant? Are you unsure about your eligibility?

Follow these guides :

• 01/ Procedure for submitting applications
• 02/ Admissibility criteria
• 03/ Application form

It is important to go through the Application requirements and procedures on the Scholarship Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Important: Applying for a Belgium ARES Masters and Training scholarship is absolutely free of charge. ARES does not charge any fee at any stage of the application or selection process. You may raise any question or concern about persons or companies claiming to be acting on behalf of ARES and requesting the payment of a fee by emailing ARES at maryvonne.aubry[at]ares-ac.be.
Any application containing cash will be automatically rejected.

German government rejects lockdown despite spread of Omicron variant

Gregor Link

The global spread of the more infectious Omicron variant of the coronavirus coincides in Germany with a wave of infections from the Delta variant which is more catastrophic than ever before in the course of the pandemic. While daily new infections reached record levels of over 75,000 a day last week, infections with the new variant have already been found among travelers returning from South Africa in the states of Hesse, Lower Saxony, North-Rhine Westphalia, and Bavaria.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Wikimedia Commons)

The situation in the hospitals is already totally disastrous. Of the 4,459 COVID intensive care patients nationwide, more than half are on ventilators. According to the Divi intensive care register, there are 27 children among the intensive care patients and their number has recently increased exponentially. Since the beginning of the pandemic, a total of 138,567 people have been treated with COVID-19 in an intensive care unit.

The official number of COVID-19 deaths in Germany has now surpassed 100,000. In the past week alone, 470,000 people were newly infected and 1,790 died. There are currently between 200 and 300 deaths every day. In many hospitals, the intensive care units are at their limit. Seriously ill and intubated patients have to be relocated nationwide by specially converted Airbus A310 and A400M military aircraft, because they can no longer be cared for in neighbouring federal states.

Last weekend alone, 80 people from Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia were flown out to the north and west of the country by air force troop carriers. As a nurse told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland group of newspapers, decisions have to be made that amount to a “creeping triage.”

The Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that normal operations can no longer be maintained in more than 75 percent of all hospitals in Germany. Planned operations are being postponed. The Hamburg intensive care doctor Stefan Kluge described conditions as “latent triage,” because it is “not about hip operations, but, for example, urgent vascular operations in which an aneurysm could burst.”

The internist Michael Hallek (University Hospital Cologne) already told the Ärzteblatte a week ago that “soft triage” is taking place, which “occurs, for example, when a heart attack patient who cannot find a hospital with a free intensive care bed is driven around for an hour in an ambulance.”

With the mobilization of the German army, the federal and state governments are reacting to the consequences of their own policies of mass infection and spending cuts. While the health authorities of North Rhine-Westphalia approve carnival celebrations and soccer games with tens of thousands of participants without masks, hospitals in Berlin and Brandenburg are on the verge of collapse. It has long been foreseeable that due to the current COVID-19 infection numbers, thousands more patients will require hospital care, which will involve relocation, including to other European countries.

Virologists, epidemiologists and medical professionals have been warning of such a scenario for months. Several weeks ago, they issued a damning letter urgently demanding “early action” in order to prevent a further increase in COVID-19 infections. “The actual fourth wave has now begun,” stated the head intensive care physician Christian Karagiannidis, one of the first signatories, as early as October 21.

But instead of organizing a hard lockdown to prevent further infections, the government declared the maintenance of public life and economic activity to be its top priority and thus approvingly accepts the deaths of hundreds of thousands more people.

The tone was set by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who appealed for people to get vaccinated and “voluntarily” restrict their contacts in a guest article for the Bild, “so that schools and day care centres do not close again, so that we do not have to shut down public life completely.” On Friday, Steinmeier said in an address to the German Schoolmasters’ Congress, “It must now be our top priority to keep day care centres and schools open.”

This policy of mass infection, pursued by all parties, is in direct contradiction to all the findings of serious scientists.

“With such high numbers, short-term effects would only be expected in the event of a total lockdown,” affirmed Professor Markus Scholz, epidemiologist at the University of Leipzig. School lessons in their current form are “a major pandemic driver,” according to Scholz, who insisted, “Hard lockdown and schools closed—only that can help.”

Even the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, which is considered to be close to the government, issued a statement on Saturday calling for “immediate action” to be taken to achieve “significant contact reductions” and for the school holidays to be brought forward. In addition, a “nationwide reestablishment of vaccination centres” and a “further strengthening of outreach vaccination offers” is necessary so that “by Christmas, in addition to first and second vaccinations, around 30 million third doses are possible.”

In order to end the “exponential increase in new infections,” the scientists concluded, it is necessary “to significantly reduce the number of contacts for a few weeks from the beginning of the coming week.” This must “also apply to vaccinated and recovered people who ought to receive a booster vaccination during this time.”

But the members of the planned traffic light coalition government made it clear again last week that they do not intend to do anything to even mitigate the looming wave of mass deaths. Free Democrats (FDP) general secretary Volker Wissing referred on Friday to the “toolbox of the federal states”—which the Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and FDP had restricted by voting to amend the law just days earlier.

Green Party co-leader Annalena Baerbock said they would wait ten days to “watch” the progress of the pandemic and vaccinations. No immediate measures are necessary, she added, but merely a further meeting between heads of the federal and state governments.

There is growing resistance among workers and young people to this criminal policy, which consciously gives the profits of the economy priority over the lives of the population.

“Steinmeier appeals to ‘voluntary action’ and the traffic light coalition watches people die,” wrote Twitter user Andrea Z. in a popular post. “We are not people; we are numbers, and we must pay. End of story. They send us into the pandemic with as little hesitation as they used to send us into wars. It’s the same terrible kind of person.”

The paediatrician Dr. Werner explained, “Tens of thousands of children are infected with COVID - because their infection protection is not taken care of! In my 25 years as a paediatrician, there has never been an infectious disease that made so many children so seriously ill in such a short period of time. The house is on fire and the infection of children must not go on like this! Paediatricians and parents must stand together.”

Carsten, a supporter of the fight for safe education, remarked on the amendment of the Infection Protection Act by the traffic light coalition: “There is a direct causal relationship between the prohibition of efficient non-pharmaceutical measures such as contact restrictions and the number of deaths from SARS-CoV-2. Greens, SPD and FDP should be on trial for a crime against humanity.”

As for the German courts, however, they declared shutdowns and curfews unconstitutional during the pandemic and played a central role in even removing mask mandates in school classrooms.

Partial lockdown in Slovakia and Czech Republic following record COVID-19 infections

Markus Salzmann

After a partial lockdown had already been imposed in Austria, stricter measures and contact restrictions were also imposed in Slovakia and the Czech Republic last week. This is against a background of the rapid spread of coronavirus infections, with new highs almost every day, which was made possible by the criminal reopening policies of the governments.

Slovakia recorded 14,402 new infections on Saturday. The previous record of 13,266 infections had been reported earlier in the middle of the week. In the country of just 5.4 million people, 1.13 million have now been officially infected and 14,177 have died as a result. Not even 43 percent of the population is fully vaccinated.

Nurses transport a COVID-19 patient in Ceska Lipa in the Czech Republic (AP Photo/Petr David Josek, File)

The situation in the neighbouring Czech Republic is similarly dire. As of Friday, the number of new infections was 27,793, nearly double those at the peak of the last wave in March this year. With 2.09 million registered infections, about 20 percent of the population has now contracted the virus. That does not take into account the number of unreported infections. On Friday alone, 120 people died, bringing the total death toll to 32,642. Again, experts expect the death toll to continue to rise as the vaccination rate stands at a low 59 percent.

On Thursday, a two-week partial shutdown went into effect in Slovakia, announced the day before by the right-wing government in Bratislava. Restaurants and stores selling nonessential goods are to remain closed during this period. At the same time, an emergency law will once again come into force that provides for restrictions on free movement. For example, people are only allowed to leave their own homes to go to work, visit the doctors or hospitals and go shopping. Taking walks is also allowed.

Until recently, the government of Prime Minister Igor Matovic had opposed implementing any further protective measures and allowed the virus to spread freely. The governing parties OĽaNO, Za ludi and SaS, are all right-wing, pro-business parties. The fourth coalition member, Sme Rodina (We Are Family), led by businessman Boris Kollar, is also far to the right and maintains close ties to coronavirus deniers and right-wing extremists.

Only after the country’s hospitals collapsed did the coalition decide to take this step. Hospitals are at full capacity, with 3,200 COVID-19 patients. Tomas Sulik, head of intensive care medicine at the hospital in Trencin, a town near the Czech border, sees the country on the brink of a humanitarian disaster, according to Tagesschau. In fact, triage, the selection of which patients do not receive life-saving treatment and which do, is already underway. “For now, we are only selecting patients who are severely poly-morbid and have no longer perspective of surviving on the ventilator. We are on the edge of triage.”

In addition, there is a severe shortage of staff. A result of frustration felt among physicians and nurses after recent waves, says Peter Vislolajsky, head of the physicians’ unions. “We are now short more than 1,300 nurses who have left the healthcare system. And hundreds of experienced physicians have also left. We have less capacity today than we did during the COVID surge last winter.”

Clearly, the measures being taken are far from sufficient to significantly curb the incidence of infection. Despite the dramatic situation, which has been exacerbated by the spread of the new Omicron variant, the government continues its profits-before-lives policy undeterred.

After just 10 days, the measures adopted are to be reviewed and possibly lifted. Businesses and schools will remain open without restrictions. In recent weeks, it has become clear that classroom instruction in schools is one of the main drivers of the pandemic. The tests that are now mandatory for schoolchildren will do little to change this.

Slovak Economic Minister Richard Sulik (SaS) made clear that the government will stick to its homicidal policies. “Schools will be the last to be closed. We insist that they remain open,” he declared.

Earlier, a consortium of health experts had called for a three-week lockdown and the closure of schools. They stated, “The epidemic situation in Slovakia is critical and is reaching the level of a humanitarian crisis.”

Health care in the Czech Republic is also on the verge of collapse, with a seven-day incidence rate of over 1,200 per 100,000 inhabitants. The number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals is over 6,000.

In several parts of the country, no more patients can be cared for. The situation is particularly extreme in the border regions with Austria and Slovakia, the only countries with an even higher infection rate per capita. Here, only acute emergencies have been treated for weeks. On Thursday, 19 seriously ill patients had to be transported from Brno to the capital Prague, 200 kilometres away.

In view of this situation, the government of Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, which was voted out of office last month and is now only in office on a caretaker basis, has again declared a 30-day state of emergency.

Since Thursday, bars and clubs have had to close at 10 p.m. and Christmas markets are not permitted to open. Sports and cultural events are only allowed with up to 1,000 participants. In addition, a vaccination requirement for certain occupational and age groups could be decided next week.

Schools in the Czech Republic are also remaining open and work can be undertaken in factories without restrictions and any significant protective measures. This further encourages the spread of the virus. On Saturday, it became known that a case of the Omicron variant had probably occurred for the first time in the Czech Republic. The sample came from the PCR test of a woman who entered from Namibia via South Africa.

Scientists and medical experts had warned multibillionaire Babiš and his government about the consequences of the policy of keeping the economy open. His party ANO, the Social Democrats (CSSD) and the Communist Party (KSCM), however, pushed it through without any qualms—and with disastrous consequences. The government faced a reckoning in the October elections. All three parties lost massive numbers of votes, with CSSD and KSCM no longer represented in parliament.

On Sunday, President Milos Zeman appointed the conservative Petr Fiala as the new Czech prime minister. Zeman took the oath of office behind a transparent screen at Lany Castle near Prague, having tested positive for COVID-19 shortly before. The 77-year-old Zeman had been in hospital for 46 days.

Fiala’s new five-party government had made clear before taking office that it would immediately lift the state of emergency and all related restrictions. In other words, it will continue the criminal policies of the previous government with even greater brutality.

The government includes the right-wing conservative Alliance of Civic Democrats (ODS), Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) and TOP-09, as well as the Pirate Party and the Stan Mayoral Party. Representatives of the ODS said they would intervene in the pandemic at most “regionally” and would not declare a nationwide state of emergency. Fiala ruled out closing schools during his term. Future Health Minister Vlastimil Valek (TOP-09) categorically opposed mandatory vaccination and lockdowns. In addition, all restrictions on the unvaccinated that have been in place until now are to be completely lifted.

This cold-blooded policy of deliberate mass infection, which will cause thousands more deaths, follows the coalition agreement signed by the parties early last week. Fiala announced sharp austerity measures across the board, centered on massive pension cuts. The money saved is to go directly into rearmament. The new government aims to spend 2 percent of GDP on military procurement from 2025.

The coalition is expressly committed to greater integration of the country into the EU and NATO. The Pirate Party in particular is calling for a more aggressive policy toward Russia and China. Pirate Party leader Jan Lipavsky, who has been tapped as foreign minister, stands for a foreign policy modelled on that of Poland and the Baltic states. He is calling for strict sanctions against Russia and threatens the use of the military.

G7 health ministers agree to do nothing over Omicron variant threat

Robert Stevens

The health ministers of the seven major imperialist powers met yesterday in what was trailed as an “emergency meeting” in light of “the new Omicron Covid-19 variant spreading across the world.”

The online session was attended by representatives from United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan, plus a guest from the European Union.

The G7 health ministers meeting, along with Stella Kyriakides, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety (credit: Stella Kyriakides/Twitter)

A concluding statement declared in its first paragraph, “The global community is faced, at a first evaluation, with the threat of a new, highly transmissible variant of COVID-19, which requires urgent action.” But the ministers agreed to do virtually nothing to prevent the spread of Omicron.

The rest of the communiqué, just five paragraphs and less than 200 words long, consisted of a series of pat phrases. One could almost hear their feet dragging as the ministers declared “strong support to set up an international pathogen surveillance network within the framework of the World Health Organization (WHO).”

All agreed with the “strategic relevance of ensuring access to vaccines” and “providing operational assistance, taking forward our donation commitments, and tackling vaccine misinformation, as well as supporting research and development.”

The Omicron variant has now been detected in at least 17 countries, including five of the G7 nations. Japan and the US are the only exceptions—with the US likely due to its poor testing system. Along with Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Italy, the new variant has been found in Denmark, Hong Kong, Israel, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Botswana, South Africa, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands.

There will be no “urgent action” by any of the G7 or other capitalist powers to stop this spread.

• In the United States, with almost 50 million total COVID cases and whose official death toll passed 800,000 yesterday, President Joe Biden said with criminal complacency, “Sooner or later we’re going to see cases of this new variant in the United States,” but it “is a cause for concern, not a cause for panic”. Biden declared that his administration would not implement “shutdowns or lockdowns,” vowing to “reopen our country ... reopen our businesses” and … “reopen our schools.”
• In Britain, the Johnson government’s herd immunity policy has seen over 10.1 million infected, (almost 15 percent of the population) and more than 167,000 people dead. Eleven cases of the Omicron variant have been detected so far, including six cases in Scotland. Health Minister Sajid Javid, who convened the G7 meeting, told MPs afterwards only that the UK’s vaccination and booster programme would be stepped up.
• In Canada (over 1.7 million cases and almost 30,000 deaths), virtually all non-pharmaceutical anti-COVID-19 public health measures have been withdrawn, facilitating the widespread transmission of the virus. At least six possible cases of Omicron have been detected in the last 48 hours. Dr Malgorzata Gasperowicz, a developmental biologist, tweeted on Sunday, “Waves don’t come by themselves. Bad policies make waves.”
• In France (7.6 million cases and 118,894 deaths), eight possible cases of Omicron have been detected. The virus has been allowed to run rampant, with 31,600 COVID-19 cases recorded Sunday and 37,218 Monday. All flights have been suspended from southern Africa but only until December 1.
• In Germany (5.8 million cases and 101,558 deaths) sitting Chancellor Angela Merkel and her successor Olaf Scholz are waiting until today before holding talks over possible further restrictions. On Monday, Germany saw another weekly infection rate record, with 452.4 per 100,000 people contracting the virus.
• Italy passed five million COVID cases over the weekend and has seen 133,739 deaths. The 82,131 cases over the last seven days were a 25 percent increase over the previous week. According to Bloomberg, “The first Italian to test positive for the omicron variant had a negative test before his flight and moved around Italy for days before his diagnosis…” The man arrived in Rome on November 12, travelled to his home in a town north of Naples and then flew to Milan for a previously scheduled medical exam. The other five members of his family have also tested positive for COVID.
• In Japan (1.7 million cases and 18,358 deaths) cases ran rampant under the previous government of Yoshihide Suga. Japan hosted the Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo, despite widespread opposition and warnings from medical experts. Less than a month ago, Japan eased travel rules for foreigners and reduced the quarantine period from 14 to 10 days for those vaccinated. With the news of the circulation of the Omicron mutation, Suga’s successor Fumio Kishida authorised the closure of Japan’s borders from Tuesday.

Speaking to the World Socialist Web Site yesterday, immunologist Dr Anthony Leonardi, warned, “The Omicron variant is probably everywhere, and it now has a huge capability to mutate… As it outpaces Delta, it’s going to create even more infections. It’ll therefore evolve even faster than Delta. But you never know because any one of these variants can now get into an immunocompromised person and just do some fantastic evolution.”

The callous indifference of the practitioners of herd immunity internationally was summed up in the comments of UK Health Minister Javid. Speaking to the media Sunday—after Prime Minister Boris Johnson had revealed the previous day that cases of Omicron were circulating in Britain and that masks would be required in shops and on public transport from today—Javid said that there was no need for any extra restrictions to be implemented. “If one was to make decisions like that, it would have to be done very, very carefully. We’re not there yet. We’re nowhere near that.”

The G7 statement concluded with a declaration amounting to a collective shrug. “Ministers committed to continue to work closely together, with WHO and international partners to share information and monitor Omicron. Ministers committed to meeting again in December,” without a date even being specified.

This mirrors Saturday’s statement by Johnson who told everyone that the situation would be reviewed in three weeks and that all should continue to act as normal and prepare for a Christmas that “will be considerably better” than last year.

These are policies aimed at the deliberate further mass infection of the population, motivated by ensuring that the profits of big business are in no way curtailed during the busy holiday season.

Even as the G7 meeting proceeded, it was reported that Spain and Sweden had found cases of Omicron and that pockets of infection not linked to travel had been detected in Scotland and Portugal.

The Johnson government has pursued a homicidal policy against schoolchildren, with the virus allowed to spread freely among the youngest in society for the bulk of the pandemic. 113 children are dead as a result. Hundreds of thousands of children have been forced out of classrooms due to illness and needing to self-isolate. Among the first cases of Omicron in Britain was one traced back yesterday to a primary school in Essex, England.

Even as they feign concern over the spread of Omicron, the political representatives of the capitalist class will move rapidly to tear up even the mildest regulations they have been forced to put in place. Speaking to MPs Monday, with many baying for restrictions to be permanently shelved, Javid insisted, “If it emerges that this variant is no more dangerous than the Delta variant, then we won’t keep [these] measures in place for a day longer than necessary.”

Fracturing Australian government effectively closes down parliament

Mike Head

Beset by internal revolts, mounting social tensions and the arrival of the highly-transmissible Omicron variant of COVID-19, the Liberal-National Coalition government yesterday moved to virtually shut down parliament for the next eight months.

Scott Morrison (Wikimedia Commons)

The government’s disarray was underlined when it released next year’s proposed parliamentary schedule. This allows only 10 or 14 sitting days for the entire first half of 2022, depending on when Prime Minister Scott Morrison calls a federal election, which must be held before the end of May.

By bringing forward the date for the annual budget from May to March 29, the government narrowed down its options for holding an election. It must now announce an early election in January, to be held in March before the budget, or delay as long as possible, making the call after the budget, which would mean an election in May.

Either way, the timetable seeks to effectively prevent parliamentary sessions, which might not resume until August if the election were conducted in May. At the same time, a succession of bills that the government had previously touted as major legislation are being put on hold, or hived off to parliamentary committees, until after an election.

This includes bills to give religious bodies the legal power to disregard anti-discrimination laws, to set up a token anti-corruption commission that will protect politicians from scrutiny, to force social media companies to identify people posting allegedly defamatory comments, and to introduce historic anti-democratic vote ID provisions.

With seven Coalition MPs having already voted against the government on various measures last week, and numbers of others still refusing to vote for any government legislation, the Coalition has essentially lost its majority, producing another “hung” parliament.

Staggering from crisis to crisis, the government is anxious to avoid any parliamentary debate that would further expose the rifts tearing it apart. It is also extending the sidelining of parliament since the pandemic erupted in early 2020. Parliament barely sat that year, displaced by an unelected “National Cabinet” of federal, state and territory leaders, most from the Labor Party.

This week marks the end of the last two-week parliamentary session for 2021, during which several months-long breaks also occurred between parliamentary proceedings.

There is no guarantee that this government will last until an election. Morrison hopes to become the first prime minister to survive for a full three-year term since John Howard lost his own seat in the Coalition’s landslide defeat in 2007. But the events in Canberra are an intensification of the instability of the parliamentary order over the past decade, during which social inequality has soared, working class conditions have worsened and the dangers of war and global warming have escalated.

While the opposition Labor Party has criticised the lack of parliamentary sitting days for 2022, it is providing bipartisan support to the fracturing government on all the major fronts, and equally trying to prevent any public debate. Typically, Labor’s caucus decided today not to oppose the supposed “religious discrimination” bill if the government brings on a vote, while saying Labor would reserve its position until after a parliamentary committee report in February.

In particular, Labor supports the government’s determination to push ahead with fully “reopening” the economy for the sake of corporate profit despite the worsening global pandemic and rapid emergence of Omicron infections in Australia.

Likewise, Labor fully supports the signing of the AUKUS pact that underpins accelerated preparations for a catastrophic US-led war against China, the pouring of billions of dollars into the pockets of the corporate elite throughout the pandemic, and the fraud that government and corporate pledges of zero carbon emissions by 2050 will avert the climate change disaster.

This bipartisan front extends to trying to prop up the increasingly discredited and distrusted political establishment itself. With media polls showing Labor’s popular support still languishing at the historic lows of the 2019 federal election, despite disintegrating support for Morrison and the Coalition, Labor helped the government impose new anti-democratic electoral laws.

These laws, rushed through parliament jointly by Labor and the Coalition in August, set an abrupt three-month deadline for the deregistration of all parties without seats in parliament unless they submit to the election authorities the names and details of 1,500 members—trebling the previous requirement—by December 2.

Above all, these laws are directed at preventing the rising social, economic and political discontent from taking a more conscious form in support for the alternative socialist perspective and policies advanced by the Socialist Equality Party (SEP). If the SEP is deregistered, it will be unable to stand candidates under the party’s name in the looming election, identifying them as genuine socialist representatives.

This is under conditions in which the rapid spread of the Omicron variant around the world, and in Australia, will intensify the opposition in the working class, already seen especially among anxious and angry teachers, parents and healthcare workers.

Despite a media propaganda campaign, promoting individual “freedom,” there is deep hostility to the deadly risk to health and lives presented by the demand of big business and its media and political mouthpieces that the population, young and old, must learn to “live with” COVID-19, no matter what terrible mutations inevitably emerge.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, the leader of the agribusiness and mining-based National Party, blatantly advanced the government’s pro-business agenda yesterday. “We can’t just shut down every time there’s a new variant, because there’s going to be new variants, and they’re going to continue on,” he declared. Otherwise “the economy won’t work.”

New South Wales Liberal-National Premier Dominic Perrottet had a similar message. “We need to learn to live alongside the virus and to live alongside the various strains of the virus that will come our way,” he said.

In other words, people must “live with,” or die with, the pandemic, no matter how deadly the mutations become.

That is Labor’s policy too. Victorian Labor Premier Daniel Andrews today took a further step toward meeting the demands of the financial markets by insisting that vaccine mandates would be temporary. He boasted that “just over a few weeks ago, we took all the rules off pretty much except for masks in a number of sensitive settings.”

The worldwide emergence of Omicron is a devastating indictment of these policies, which are being pursued by capitalist governments on every continent. Their refusal to take the necessary, and scientifically proven, measures to eliminate the virus, and their profit-driven rush to prematurely reopen economies has turned the globe into a COVID-19 incubation dish, not least in the poorest countries with the worst public health resources of all.

Nevertheless, Australia’s governments are pushing ahead with reopening international and domestic borders, and lifting all basic safety measures, even mask-wearing and contact tracing. That is despite potentially fatal and long-lasting Delta infections still running at more than 1,000 a day nationally because of these criminal government responses.

These governments are defying the latest warning issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Contrary to all the unsubstantiated misinformation being propagated by governments and the media about Omicron being a “mild” variant, the WHO said yesterday it was already clear that Omicron would produce a “very high risk” of infection surges that would overwhelm public hospitals, leading to increased morbidity and mortality, regardless of any change in the severity of the virus.

Propped up by the complicity of Labor and the trade unions—which are trying to keep suppressing the resistance of workers—the Morrison government is desperately attempting to impose the further economic restructuring demanded by the corporate boardrooms.

Representing the largest corporations operating in the country, Business Council chief executive Jennifer Westacott issued a statement yesterday demanding that the federal, state and territory governments “stay the course” on reopening, in order to give “businesses clarity and certainty.” She insisted: “That means no state-wide lockdowns and domestic border closures that throw peoples’ lives into chaos.”

After a meeting of its national security cabinet last night, the Morrison government confirmed that it would not reverse the “reopening roadmap,” except to “pause” for 14 days, until December 15, the return of overseas workers and international students, and a planned “travel bubble” with Japan and South Korea.

Chinese study warns ending zero-COVID policy would be “a great disaster”

Peter Symonds

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on China would have been “disastrous” if the country had followed the “herd immunity” and “opening up” policies adopted by the United States and European countries, according to a paper published by China’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention last week.

Mass COVID-19 testing in Beijing on Oct. 29, 2021. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

The group of mathematicians, who produced the report, concluded: “Even in a highly underestimated outbreak scenario under the most optimistic assumptions, once China adopts the control and prevention strategies of some typical western countries, the number of the daily new confirmed cases in China would likely rise up to hundreds of thousands of cases, and among which more than 10,000 cases would present with severe symptoms.”

By contrast, the number of confirmed cases in China on Saturday in the current widespread outbreak was just 23—down from 25 the day before.

The paper warned that “severe cases would exceed the peak number nationwide in early 2020 within 1–2 days, which would have a devastating impact on the medical system of China and cause a great disaster within the nation.”

The vast majority of China’s total of 127,764 confirmed cases and 5,697 deaths occurred when authorities were wrestling with the outbreak of an unknown severe respiratory disease in Wuhan in the early months of 2020, which was finally successfully suppressed. Subsequent outbreaks have all resulted from the entry of infected individuals from outside China.

To make their estimates, the mathematicians used a well-known epidemiological model to calculate case numbers if China had followed the policy of the reference countries. The estimates were based on conservative assumptions—that the population densities, vaccination coverage and vaccine efficacy for China were the same as the other countries.

The calculated figures are thus a “plausible lower bound.” China’s higher population densities, lower vaccination coverage and less effective inactivated vaccines mean that the case numbers would be even higher.

The results are staggering. With the US as the reference country, China would expect the number of daily cases to exceed 637,000. Based on an analysis of the ratio of cases to severe cases in a recent COVID-19 outbreak in Yangzhou, the paper concluded that daily severe case numbers if China followed US policies would be more than 22,000.

The results for the other reference countries—the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Israel—were similar with huge numbers of daily cases and severe cases. The lowest estimate for the UK was still in the hundreds of thousands—275,000 daily cases with nearly 10,000 daily severe cases.

The mathematicians concluded that China should not adopt the “living with the virus” policy that has been implemented by governments around the world with disastrous results. The figures are not only a warning of the dangers of China abandoning its zero-covid strategy, but an indictment of the murderous policies adopted by virtually every other government.

The total number of cases and deaths to date based on the World Health Organisation (WHO) for the other countries considered in the study are as follows:

The United States: 47,837,599 cases and 771,919 deaths
The United Kingdom: 10,146,919 cases and 144,775 deaths
France: 7,388,196 cases and 116,427 deaths
Spain: 5,131,013 cases and 87,955 deaths
Israel: 1,342,439 cases and 8,189 deaths

If the mathematicians had done their estimates in reverse—that is, had calculated the daily and cumulative cases and serious cases for all of the reference countries if they had adopted China’s zero-covid policy—then the vast majority of the more than a million deaths in those five countries would not have taken place.

With a total population less than half that of China, it would certainly be reasonable to expect the cumulative death toll of the five countries to be less than that of China—currently 5,697. That figure is exceeded every week in the United States.

Undoubtedly, the consequences of the criminal “herd immunity” policy were calculated behind closed doors in Washington, London, Paris, Madrid and Tel Aviv but never made public. The priority of the governments was “open up” in line with the demands of the financial and economic elites—in other words, to put profit ahead of the lives and health of working people.

Now the same governments are responding to the emergence of the new Omicron strain that appears to be more transmissible and deadly than the Delta strain with the same criminal indifference for the terrible death toll that it will exact.

Moreover, the Western media is pressing for China to end its zero-covid strategy—firstly, because it is disrupting China’s huge manufacturing export industries on which the world economy relies, and secondly, because it too graphically exposes the homicidal policy of “living with the virus.”

A growing stream of articles and comments in the US and international media attempts to discredit the zero-covid policy by focusing on the inconveniences posed by mass testing and contact tracing, limitations on travel and public health restrictions. While acknowledging the broad popular support inside China for the government’s policy, articles play up limited complaints that mainly come from elements of the upper-middle class. At the same time, other articles hammer away at the economic impact of the restrictions.

In a thinly-veiled criticism of China, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken gushed with praise for South Africa last weekend for its quick identification of the Omicron variant and “its transparency in sharing this information, which should serve as a model for the world.” Along with its promotion of the lie that COVID-19 emerged from a Wuhan laboratory, the US has repeatedly blamed China for its supposed “lack of transparency”.

In reality, Chinese scientists very rapidly identified the virus that caused the disease and its full genetic sequence. Chinese health authorities quickly provided that information to the WHO which was the basis of its warnings to other countries. The highly transmissible and deadly character of the virus was well known to governments around the world as well as the measures taken in China to suppress it.

The Trump administration deliberately ignored and downplayed the dangers for weeks, resulting in the very fast spread of the virus once it emerged in the US. The limited public health restrictions followed by the lifting of those measures under pressure from big business—a policy continued by the Biden administration—have led to a horrendous death toll, unparalleled except in the time of war.

While Blinken praises South Africa’s rapid response and transparency, the Biden administration, along with most governments around the world, has again chosen to downplay the likely consequences of the Omicron variant. Other than a restriction on travelers from southern Africa, none of the necessary public health measures have been implemented—a decision that can only accelerate the current wave of infections and deaths.