Socialist Demands for the COVID-19 Crisis

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Re: Socialist Demands for the COVID-19 Crisis

Post by blindpig » Mon Nov 29, 2021 3:03 pm

COVID: Unclear if Variant Omicron More Transmissible or Severe

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A man wearing a face mask walks past a bus in London, Britain, on Nov. 24, 2021. | Photo: Xinhua

Published 28 November 2021 (16 hours 22 minutes ago)

All variants of COVID-19, including the Delta variant that is currently dominant worldwide, can cause severe disease or death, in particular for the most vulnerable people, and thus prevention is always key.

It is not yet clear whether the Omicron COVID-19 variant is more transmissible, or causes more severe disease compared to other variants including Delta, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday.

WHO said it's not yet clear whether Omicron is more easily spread from person to person compared to other variants, even though the number of people testing positive has risen in South Africa where this variant was involved.

It's also not yet clear whether Omicron causes more severe disease, but preliminary data suggests that there are increasing rates of hospitalization in South Africa, which however may be due to increasing overall numbers of people becoming infected.

WHO confirmed that there is currently no information to suggest that symptoms associated with Omicron are different from those from other variants, as understanding the level of severity of the Omicron variant will take days to several weeks.

All variants of COVID-19, including the Delta variant that is currently dominant worldwide, can cause severe disease or death, in particular for the most vulnerable people, and thus prevention is always key.

However, WHO said preliminary evidence suggests there may be an increased risk of reinfection with Omicron, but information is limited. More information on this will become available in the coming days and weeks.

It added that current PCR tests continue to detect Omicron, while further studies are still going on to understand how the Omicron variant will impact on available vaccines and treatments to COVID-19.

WHO classified on Friday the latest variant B.1.1.529 of SARS-CoV-2 virus, now with the name Omicron, as a "Variant of Concern" (VOC).

According to WHO's definition, a VOC, with a degree of global public health significance, demonstrates one or more of mutational changes, such as increase in transmissibility or detrimental change in COVID-19 epidemiology, increase in virulence or change in clinical disease presentation, and decrease in effectiveness of public health and social measures or available diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics.

WHO has since called on countries to enhance surveillance and sequencing on circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants, submit complete genome sequences and metadata to a publicly available database, and report initial VOC cases or clusters to WHO.

It has also recommended field investigations and laboratory assessments to better understand potential impacts of the VOC on COVID-19 epidemiology, the effectiveness of public health and social measures and antibody neutralization.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/COV ... -0007.html

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US Scrambles To Take Actions Over Omicron's Chilling Effect

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Tourist area in New York, U.S., Nov. 28, 2021. | Photo: Twitter/ @rupinder_hardy

Published 29 November 2021 (30 minutes ago)

President Biden announced his country will impose travel restrictions on eight African countries including South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi.


The newly-discovered Omicron variant of COVID-19 in South Africa has raised fears about the global trajectory of the pandemic, while some countries including the United States have raced to impose travel restrictions on southern African countries.

On Friday, U.S. President Joe Biden announced that his country will impose travel restrictions on eight African countries including South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi. Except for this "precautionary" measure, Biden again urged Americans and people around the world to get vaccinated against the virus.

Australia and Japan are also among the latest nations on Saturday to either halt flights to the region or announce mandatory quarantines and screenings. The World Health Organization (WHO) said there was preliminary evidence that the Omicron variant was more transmissible than the Delta one. Meanwhile, Belgium, Israel and Botswana also detected first cases of the new variant.

"Although scientists were still figuring out the exact effects of the variant's many mutations, its discovery highlights the continued threat posed by an evolving virus to the world's emergence from the pandemic," reported The Wall Street Journal on Friday.

U.S. officials have spoken with scientists and leaders in South Africa to learn more about Omicron. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that Omicron hadn't been identified in the United States.


The WHO labeled Omicron a "variant of concern," a designation given to variants like Delta that require close scrutiny from public health officials. Preliminary evidence suggested that Omicron may increase the risk of reinfection relative to other variants of concern. South African researchers identified the first Omicron case on Nov. 9, then reported the variant to the WHO on Wednesday. Scientists are hopeful that they spotted the variant early, since the majority of known cases are still concentrated in southern Africa.

"Scientists are still waiting on lab studies to determine how well coronavirus antibodies -- either from natural infection or vaccines -- hold up against Omicron. They're also watching carefully to see how quickly the variant spreads across the globe, particularly in countries with higher vaccination rates," reported Business Insider on Saturday.

Moderna, BioNTech-Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson all said that they're testing how well their vaccines protect against Omicron. Merck said in a final analysis of a clinical trial, its antiviral pill reduced the risk of hospitalization and death among high-risk COVID-19 patients by 30 percent, down from an earlier estimate of 50 percent.

"News of the Omicron variant, which has an unusually high number of mutations, will certainly throw a spanner in the works for the Biden administration as the president struggles with flagging approval ratings and a pessimistic view of the economy," reported CNN on Friday. "The administration will need to work quickly to get ahead of the new variant."

The pandemic is far from over, and after nearly two years and more than 775,000 deaths, many Americans are traumatized and on edge, said the television network, adding that with the variants stymying hopes of a full recovery, "it has become increasingly difficult to embrace any good news, as fear and uncertainty continue to dictate so much of our lives.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/US- ... -0003.html

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Expert: China capable of dealing with new variant
By Zhou Wenting in Shanghai | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2021-11-28 16:40

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A healthcare worker conducts a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) COVID-19 test on a traveler at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg on November 27, 2021, after several countries banned flights from South Africa following the discovery of a new COVID-19 variant Omicron. A flurry of countries around the world have banned ban flights from southern Africa following the discovery of the variant, including the United States, Canada, Australia,Thailand, Brazil and several European countries. [Photo/Agencies]

The new COVID-19 variant Omicron, which the World Health Organization has termed a "variant of concern" and is more transmissible than the dominant Delta strain, will not have a major influence on China at the current phase, Zhang Wenhong, a Shanghai doctor widely known for his pandemic fight, wrote on his Sina Weibo on Sunday.

"China's current strategies of rapid response and dynamically zeroing cases will be able to cope with various types of variants of the novel coronavirus," wrote Zhang, leader of the Shanghai team of experts in the clinical treatment of novel coronavirus pneumonia cases.

"China is currently accelerating building up scientific support, including reserves of effective vaccines and drugs as well as public health and medical resource that can support China's large-scale opening to the world and empower the country to deal with normalized pandemic fight in the next stage," he wrote.

With science and solidarity, the country will cope with the Omicron variant properly just as how it has done with Delta, said Zhang, who is also director of the infectious diseases department at Huashan Hospital Affiliated with Fudan University.

Zhang wrote that it will take the world around two weeks to see whether the new variant will pose threat to the vulnerable immunity of population that has taken shape in some societies initially.

He also explained why some countries, such as the United Kingdom and Israel, have tightened up pandemic prevention restrictions on inbound travelers.

"Over 80 percent of the citizens in those two countries have been fully vaccinated. If the new variant is able to break through the immune barriers there, the world may have to change its COVID-19 vaccination mechanism – adjusting it to something like the influenza vaccination, which requires researchers to device a new vaccine according to the virus' mutation each year," he wrote.

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20211 ... 77f24.html

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Omicron variant: South Africa being 'punished' by international community, says Dirco

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Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor.

*The international community is "punishing" South Africa, Dirco has said.
*This comes amid a slew of travel restrictions following the identification of the Omicron variant.
*The WHO has urged countries to not impose travel restrictions in a knee-jerk reaction.


South Africa is being "punished" for identifying the new Omicron Covid-19 variant, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) has said in a statement.

The department said South Africa should be applauded for identifying the new variant, instead of being shut out by the international community.


Several countries and regions instituted travel restrictions and cancelled flights since the announcement of the new Omicron variant, including the UK, US and EU.

South African scientists announced the new variant on Thursday, after it was traced during genome sequencing.

"New variants have been detected in other countries. Each of those cases have had no recent links with southern Africa. It's worth noting that the reaction to those countries is starkly different to cases in southern Africa," said Dirco.

"This latest round of travel bans is akin to punishing South Africa for its advanced genomic sequencing and the ability to detect new variants quicker. Excellent science should be applauded and not punished."

According to the statement, the government was aligning itself with a call by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to international leaders, imploring them not to "engage in knee-jerk reactions" and impose travel restrictions.

WHO Head of Emergencies Michael Ryan stressed the importance of waiting for more data on the Omicron variant.

We've seen in the past, the minute there's any kind of mention of any kind of variation and everyone is closing borders and restricting travel. It's really important that we remain open, and stay focused," Ryan said.

Dirco said South Africa's capacity to test and its ramped-up vaccination programme, backed up by a world class scientific community, should give its global partners the comfort that the government was doing "as well as they are in managing the pandemic".

Dirco Minister Naledi Pandor, said: "Whilst we respect the right of all countries to take the necessary precautionary measures to protect their citizens, we need to remember that this pandemic requires collaboration and sharing of expertise. Our immediate concern is the damage that these restrictions are causing to families, the travel and tourism industries and business."

https://www.news24.com/news24/southafri ... o-20211127

"No good deed goes unpunished."
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Socialist Demands for the COVID-19 Crisis

Post by blindpig » Tue Nov 30, 2021 3:29 pm

ABOUT OMICRON AND CUBAN VACCINES: WHAT BIG PHARMA (DOESN'T) WANT YOU TO KNOW
29 Nov 2021 , 12:53 pm .

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All for profit, there is news that Big Pharma most likely does not want you to know (Photo: Andrea Velázquez / El Ceo)

Omicron is the latest buzzword, sounding both obituary and apocalypse, signifying greater global panic amid a pandemic that has already caused enough havoc in almost every corner of the globe, even if it is the letter O in Greek to name it. Immediately after being reported, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared its concern about the new variant of SARS-CoV-2 and now thinks that its transmission globally will be high.

In a press release published on November 26, the WHO clarified that:

"Variant B.1.1.529 was first reported to WHO on November 24, 2021. The epidemiological situation in South Africa, the notifying country, has been characterized by the presence of three peaks of reported cases, the most recent due to , mainly, to the delta variant. In recent weeks, the number of infections has increased considerably, coinciding with the detection of variant B.1.1.529. The first known case of infection by this variant was confirmed in a sample taken on November 9, 2021 ".

That is, omicron would be present for at least a month in South Africa.

"Variant B.1.1.529 has a large number of mutations, some of which are worrisome," says the organization.

The statement adds that preliminary evidence suggests a higher risk of reinfection with this variant and that, furthermore, the number of omicron cases appears to be increasing in almost all South African provinces: "(…) variant B.1.1.529 has been detected at a higher rate than those that have caused previous outbreaks, which indicates that it may grow more rapidly. "

This concern is not related to international media reports, which, being a variant of rapid infection and transmission, does not seem to have a direct impact on the health collapse of hospitals and public and private medical institutions in South Africa, or in other countries where the new variant has been detected.

Rather, it seems that in that African country the management of the pandemic is going through a better time than at the beginning of the year, when in effect the national health system was collapsed due to the infection and massive transmission of the variants that were of concern at the time.

The fact that there are several visible mutations within this new variant probably means that it must have evolved two to three months ago, according to Professor Francois Balloux of the UCL Genetics Institute, based on studies surrounding the behavior of the virus.

For now, some questions remain that will not be answered for about three to four weeks as the investigations continue:

*How fast does this variant actually spread?
*Is it more contagious?
*Does it cause a more serious illness?
*Is it more deadly?
*How well do current vaccines hold up?

What spreads in media and social networks is only uncertainty. Some governments of central capitalism are already taking measures before the omicron report in their respective countries and due to the connectivity between some African countries with North America, Europe, Asia and Oceania, while other rulers have decided first to evaluate the behavior of the new variant before making hasty decisions.
The Spectator Index
@spectatorindex
Confirmed cases of Omicron variant of coronavirus:

- South Africa
- Botswana
- UK
- Netherlands
- Germany
- Hong Kong
- Italy
- Belgium
- Israel
- Denmark
- Austria
- Czech Republic
- Australia
- Canada
11:51 PM · Nov 28, 2021
2.3K
See the latest COVID-19 information on Twitter

This is the case of Venezuela and also that of Mexico. In the North American country, President Andrés López Obrador declared "that we should not be scared" by the information that is running through the media "because there is a lot of uncertainty and unconfirmed information, there is no solid information if this variant is more dangerous than the other variants, that does not exist".

For its part, the Presidential Council Against Covid-19 and the National Scientific Council will evaluate the corresponding to take the appropriate measures, informed President Nicolás Maduro.

VACCINES, CUBA AND MORE QUESTIONS

With what is known about omicron, the main vaccine producers in the world already have the prospect of generating an explicit vaccine for this variant.

Pfizer / BioNTech advised that they will have their respective doses ready in 100 days . For its part, the Gamaleya Institute, creator of Sputnik V, explained that "it has already proceeded to develop a new version of the Sputnik vaccine, adapted to the omicron variant", which will be ready in 45 days.

However, the data collected so far indicates that the vaccines available in the world could have a positive effect in the case of contagion with the omicron variant. Although the potential risk of the new variant "of concern" should not be underestimated , according to the WHO, it does turn out that the topic is overstated, especially by the corporate media.

Not in vain, both the Mexican and Venezuelan president called for calm to await the results of the evaluations and the corresponding investigations. Especially considering that in the countries of the Global North, where they are resuming social quarantine measures and other rigid health mechanisms, they are experiencing an unprecedented advance of techno-fascism (to read about the vaccination passports in countries of central capitalism, we recommend this column of our researcher Eder Peña).

The issue also leads to raise, for example, the tension between the anti-vaccine discourse, which is widely accepted in the United States and Europe among several powerful political and economic groups, and the vaccination imposition promoted by Big Pharma that many States they are taking it not as a health recommendation for the population but as coercion and a method of apartheid . This in a world in which the majority of vaccines, around 70%, are distributed among the richest countries, while those of the Global South have the crumbs left by those of the North.


The alternative to this scenario of neoliberal totalitarianism is represented by the countries that are fighting the pandemic with minimal resources and from an emancipatory point of view. This is the case of Cuba, which has produced two high-impact vaccines not only domestically in the Greater Antilles but also internationally.

While there is an incessant circulation of information and propaganda around omicron, the fact that the journal Nature , an important scientific publication, released the results of a trial certifying the efficacy of drugs against COVID-19 has gone unnoticed. 19 developed by Cuba, highlighting that the island took a great step in Latin America by creating its own vaccines.

The text outlines the statements of Craig Laferrière, head of vaccine development at Novateur Ventures in Toronto, Canada, who explained that Cuban vaccines differ from messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna, because they are a protein-based and do not need to be kept at extremely low temperatures, facilitating their distribution in remote areas.

Likewise, Nature highlighted the perseverance of the Finlay Institute and the other state biotechnology centers of Cuba that, from the beginning of the pandemic, began to develop their own vaccines until they made at least one of them effective.

This strategy yielded great results, since Sovereign 02 managed to achieve 90% efficacy against covid-19 and Abdala an effectiveness greater than 92% in phase III trials, with a sample of more than 48,000 participants.

The island has already asked the WHO for its approval for emergency use and they emphasize that this is an important step so that they are available throughout the world and their export is not limited only to Venezuela, Vietnam, Iran and Nicaragua.

On the other hand, the scientific journal The Lancet published last September the results of a Phase 1 clinical trial of Sovereign 02, where it points out that the vaccine demonstrated safety and high levels of neutralizing antibodies in subjects aged 19 to 59 years, convalescing from covid-19.

The acknowledgments by the respective publications could be a first step in accelerating the international agreements between Cuba and the rest of the countries for one of the most effective drugs against the coronavirus, with the island being one of the largest exporters of medical and medicinal assistance. in the world, under the banners of solidarity and anti-capitalism.

In this way we can ensure that not everything is bad news regarding the pandemic, because there is also something to think about that better times are coming with countries like Cuba at the forefront of scientific management of the pandemic. This is news that Big Pharma probably doesn't want you to know about. All for profit, as this cartoon sentences:

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https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/so ... -que-sepas

Google Translator

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Cuba Records Lowest Number of Active COVID-19 Cases of the Year

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In spite of the high number of recoveries, and in order to maintain epidemiological control and the country's public health achievements, officials reminded to the need to stay aware and continue protecting vulnerable populations. | Photo: Twitter/@EmbaCubaNorueg

Published 29 November 2021 (14 hours 45 minutes ago)

With a total of 863 active cases reported yesterday, Cuba registers the lowest figure for this indicator in 2021.


As reported today by the national director of Epidemiology of the Ministry of Public Health (Minsap), Dr. Francisco Durán García, 467 fewer active cases were identified in the week of November 20-27 than the previous week, and figures of less than 1,000 active cases in a day were recorded for the first time.

"This says a lot about the number of patients recovered and the decrease in the number of those diagnosed in a day, which is what we are working for," said Durán García.

In the usual Monday television appearance, the specialist informed that a high number of tests continue to be processed and pointed out that 136,823 samples were studied from November 20 to 27, which represents some 4,719 more than the previous one.

After the analysis of the tests, 1,418 positive cases of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, were identified during the week, which shows a reduction of 646 confirmed cases.

The head of epidemiology also pointed out that the month of November registered a decrease in the number of positive cases, with a total of 9,586 confirmed cases, compared to the 66,150 diagnosed in October.

He pointed out that the number of pediatric cases also decreased, with 204 positive cases during the week, compared to 345 cases in the same period of the previous year.

Durán García regretted that from November 20 to 27 there were five deaths due to COVID-19, although he remarked that this figure shows a decrease in fatalities.


"130 new cases of #COVID19 confirmed, for a cumulative 962,350. 863 active cases. 838 stable patients. 13 patients in critical condition. 12 patients in serious condition. 8,300 deaths. 953,130 patients recovered. 2 evacuated."

He highlighted that 192 discharges were granted yesterday, and stressed that 99 percent of all those infected have recovered.

In spite of the high number of recoveries, he warned that the importance of the disease cannot be underestimated, in order to continue preserving the control and achievements in the country.

Regarding the new variant of the virus identified in 14 countries named Omicron, the expert detailed that it is one of the five considered of concern due to its great contagious capacity.

In this context, he informed that Cuba will start applying, as from December 4, new measures in the control of international travelers.

He explained that people coming from countries where cases of this new variant have been identified must present their vaccination card and a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test with negative results.

Similarly, a PCR test will be performed upon arrival, and they will have to undergo a mandatory seven-day quarantine; on the sixth day they will undergo another test, and if it is negative they will be discharged.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Cub ... -0015.html

By way of comparison, South Carolina averaged about 580 cases/day over the last three days. SC has a higher overall death count too.

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WHO Assembly Seeks ‘Pandemic Treaty’ Amid Omicron Concerns

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People walk past a sign to notify visitors of COVID-19 measures at a market, Berlin, Germany, Nov. 15, 2021. | Photo: Xinhua

Published 30 November 2021

"The world needs a new accord on pandemics: our current system disincentivizes countries from alerting others to threats that will inevitably land on their shores," WHO Director pointed out.

On Monday, a special session of the World Health Assembly (WHA) kicked off amid growing concerns over the latest Omicron coronavirus variant, where the participants aim to negotiate a new "pandemic treaty."

The WHA May session this year decided to set up a working group to consider the findings and recommendations of a number of panels and committees on global preparedness for and response to COVID-19 before starting their discussions on Monday on the potential new "legally binding agreement between nations."

"COVID-19 has exposed and exacerbated fundamental weaknesses in the global architecture for pandemic preparedness and response," World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, adding that "the best way we can address them is with a legally binding agreement between nations, an accord forged from the recognition that we have no future but a common future."

The new "pandemic treaty" is expected to address COVID-19 as a crisis of solidarity and sharing. "The lack of sharing of personal protective equipment, tests, vaccines, technology, know-how, intellectual property and other tools hindered our collective ability to prevent infections and save lives," Tedros said, noting the lack of a consistent and coherent global approach has resulted in "a splintered and disjointed response, breeding misunderstanding, misinformation and mistrust."

The WHA special session coincides with the emergence of the highly mutated Omicron virus variant, which was designated by the WHO as a "variant of concern" (VOC) just three days ago. Though the WHO has said it is not yet clear whether Omicron is more transmissible or causes more severe disease than the other known variants, including Delta, concerns over its impact on the efficacy of existing vaccines and treatments have been growing.


A number of countries have already introduced entry bans on travelers from South Africa, where Omicron was first confirmed on Nov. 9 and has been identified in multiple European countries, including Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Portugal, and Sweden.

Portugal's National Institute of Health Doctor Ricardo Jorge (INSA) on Monday confirmed 13 cases of the Omicron variant in Portugal among players and staff members of the football club Belenenses SAD. The INSA said that the samples were collected and analyzed on Sunday, and that one of the players who tested positive had recently returned to the country from South Africa.

In Germany, the COVID-19 seven-day incidence rate climbed to a new all-time high of 452.4, up from 386.5 a week ago, the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases announced on Monday. German virologist Christian Drosten told the broadcaster ZDF on Sunday that he was "quite concerned at the moment. I am surprised to see so many mutations in the virus."

Polish Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said on Monday that the country's government is set to announce new restrictions to cope with the new variant, including tightened flight rules on seven southern African nations.

"Omicron demonstrates just why the world needs a new accord on pandemics: our current system disincentivizes countries from alerting others to threats that will inevitably land on their shores," said Tedros.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/WHO ... -0001.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Socialist Demands for the COVID-19 Crisis

Post by blindpig » Wed Dec 01, 2021 4:11 pm

With Vaccine Fairness China And Russia Are Beating The 'West'

For a moment I thought that I had caught the Associated Press in reporting a wrong number.

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But in fact both headlines are right.

Xinhua - Xi announces supplying Africa with additional 1 bln COVID-19 vaccine doses, pledges to jointly implement nine programs

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday announced that China would provide an additional 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Africa and pledged to jointly implement nine programs on China-Africa future cooperation.
...
To help the African Union (AU) achieve its goal of vaccinating 60 percent of the African population by 2022, President Xi announced that China would provide another one billion doses of vaccines to Africa, including 600 million doses as donation and 400 million doses to be provided through such means as joint production by Chinese companies and relevant African countries.
"In addition, China will undertake 10 medical and health projects for African countries, and send 1,500 medical personnel and public health experts to Africa," Xi added.

By Nov. 12, 2021, China had provided over 1.7 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to more than 110 countries and organizations, including 50 African countries and the AU Commission.

Associated Press - China to donate 600 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Africa https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ch ... ar-AARhpqg

China has pledged to donate 600 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccines to Africa as the world grapples with the unequal distribution of the shots between rich and poor countries.
Chinese President Xi Jinping made the promise Monday in a video speech to the opening ceremony of a China-Africa forum on economic cooperation.

He said China will supply 1 billion doses in all. The other 400 million are to come through other routes such as production by Chinese companies in Africa.

Both headline can be justified. While Xinhua highlights the top number the AP emphasizes the donation.

China is putting the 'west' to shame with its donations and the additional vaccine doses it distributes. In exchange it will surely receive some good will:

Cavince Adhere, a Kenya-based international relations scholar, said the COVID-19 pandemic has served to highlight the strong partnership between China and Africa in the health sector.
"China now ranks as the top supplier of COVID-19 vaccines to Africa and a strong advocate for intellectual property liberalization to allow African countries to manufacture the commodities and further save their population and economies from the impacts of the global health crisis," Adhere added.

The 'west' is not only donating or otherwise distributing too little but it is also acting in an extremely egoistic way:

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There is a higher percentage of people in rich countries who have received booster shots than have received any vaccination at all in the low-income world.

This while boosters are not necessary except for people in certain risk groups. (The bodies B and T memory cells have been trained during the first and second vaccination and will produce a high number of antibodies should an infection occur.)

That President Biden announced booster for everyone is actually a scandal:

The White House, which claimed to follow the science, did not follow the science but pharma lobbyists. It announced that everyone would get a third shot before the FDA had collected data on third shots, discussed the issue, and made a decision on it.
...
The head of the FDA vaccine office and her deputy resigned in protest over the White House announcement as there is not nearly enough data to justify a third vaccine shot. Scientifically there is simply no compelling reason for a third dose. The White House will now have to walk back its statements on the issue.
China has also supported attempts to suspend the patents on the vaccines so that they can be produced everywhere. The U.S. and some European countries are still dragging their feet over it:

Ahead of World Trade Organization meetings next week, 15 human rights and medical groups are urging President Joe Biden to push for an emergency intellectual property waiver for COVID-19 vaccines.
In a letter to Biden, they called the waiver “a moral imperative” that would help get more doses of the vaccine to low-income countries.

Though Biden has supported a waiver in the past, advocates — including Doctors Without Borders and Amnesty International — say he hasn’t put enough pressure on pharmaceutical companies and others who want to protect this lucrative IP.

Those calling for a waiver say it’s long overdue.

Compelling companies like Pfizer and Moderna to share vaccine formulas, they say, could have expanded manufacturing in low-income countries — including South Africa and India, which asked for a waiver last year.

In a critique of Biden's Summit for Democracy the Chinese and Russian ambassadors to the U.S. point to where it is lacking:

Democracy is not just about domestic governance; it should also be reflected in international relations. A truly democratic government will support democracy in international relations. It will not foster hegemony and division abroad while building democracy and unity at home. The path to prosperity of nations goes through respectful cooperation with each other, despite some differences in views on particular issues.
...
International affairs should be handled in accordance with the principles of extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits, and decided in the spirit of true multilateralism. There should be a more inclusive global governance, not something like “might makes right.” Seeking supremacy and putting oneself always first are acts of hegemonism and unilateralism, and are obviously anti-democratic.
...
Faced with an array of global challenges, countries urgently need to strengthen coordination and cooperation for common progress. Especially today when the international community needs to improve cooperation between all countries to counter the pandemic of COVID-19, foster economic development, and neutralize cross-border threats.
China and Russia call on countries: to stop using "value-based diplomacy" to provoke division and confrontation; to practice mutual respect and win-win cooperation in international relations, and to work for harmonious coexistence between countries with different social systems, ideologies, histories, cultures, and development levels.

China and Russia seem to live up to this while the 'west' is regrettably missing.

Posted by b on November 30, 2021 at 17:23 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/11/w ... .html#more

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As omicron variant spreads, China senses vindication over ‘zero covid’ strategy

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People descend on an escalator at a Shanghai subway station on Nov. 30. China has stuck to a policy of trying to eliminate the coronavirus. (Aly Song/Reuters)

By Christian Shepherd and Lyric Li
Yesterday at 3:06 a.m. EST

As countries begin to reinstate border restrictions over concerns about the omicron coronavirus variant, China is celebrating its decision to stick with strict limits on international travel as part of a “zero covid” strategy.

Omicron, first identified in southern Africa, has been labeled a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization, because early test results indicate it is more transmissible than the delta variant. Experts urge caution, but warn against panic, as more studies are conducted to determine the variant’s virulence.

Before the detection of omicron, Beijing’s steadfast commitment to a policy of eliminating the coronavirus had made the country an outlier amid a global shift toward gradually opening borders and mitigating the spread as vaccination rates rose.

Now, as nations reverse gear and reinstate border restrictions, Chinese officials are claiming, with a hint of schadenfreude, that their approach was right all along, brushing aside the idea of drastic changes to combat omicron.

In China, 300 coronavirus cases means public shaming, marooned travelers and a nationwide dragnet

Zhong Nanshan, a leading infectious-disease expert and government adviser, said in an interview with local media that China is unlikely to take significant action while it waits for more test results. An official statement on omicron released by the National Health Commission on Monday declared that China’s approach for preventing a relapse still works.

The delta variant’s arrival in China this year sparked a debate among Chinese experts about whether it was time to abandon “zero covid” and shift to a mitigation strategy to avoid economic and social disruption every time the virus breached the country’s defenses.

Complaints of rolling lockdowns upending daily life in hard-hit locations like the southwestern border town of Ruili fueled a sense that China would soon need to accept coexistence with the virus.

Although 76 percent of the country’s population is fully vaccinated, China is likely to keep its zero-covid strategy “until officials are more confident that widespread infection wouldn’t strain health care resources or until it becomes untenable in the face of a more transmissible variant,” Mark Williams, chief East Asia economist at Capital Economics, said in a note Monday.


A study released by China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention last week weighed strongly in favor of not changing course when it found that adopting a mitigation strategy would result in severe cases exceeding the early 2020 peak within one to two days and have “a devastating impact on the medical system of China and cause a great disaster.”


Residents line up for nucleic acid tests during a round of mass testing following new coronavirus cases in Manzhouli, in China’s Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, on Nov. 29. (Reuters)
“For the time being, we are not ready to embrace ‘open-up’ strategies,” it concluded.

“The policy of encircling and eliminating covid is an indispensable tool for China to keep the pandemic at bay,” Wu Zunyou, the Chinese CDC’s chief epidemiologist, told a conference organized by financial media outlet Caijing on Sunday.

Wu estimated that China had prevented up to 260 million infections and 3 million deaths by refusing to adopt the more flexible approach taken by countries such as the United States and Britain.


Strict quarantine on entry into China and the zero-tolerance policy should stay in place until at least winter or spring, because China cannot afford to “overturn” its past successes by making a mistake, he said.

For some Chinese commentators, being right about covid policy is more than a victory for public health; it’s a question of competing political systems, and the omicron variant only serves to bolster propaganda claims of the Chinese Communist Party’s superiority.

China isn’t ready to live with the coronavirus

As the idea of living with the virus has become more common in Europe and North America, “Western media have maliciously smeared China’s ‘dynamic zero covid’ policy, believing that the costs of this approach were too high and could not be sustained. This point of view is totally incorrect,” a commentary in the People’s Daily Overseas Edition, an official party newspaper, said on Tuesday.


To be effective, China’s mass lockdowns, swab testing and contact tracing required ensuring public buy-in, but “Western countries’ comparative difficulty in implementing quarantine policies, a major setback to epidemic prevention, is fundamentally due to differences in governance systems,” wrote Zhou Xinfa, the article’s author, a scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Criticism after omicron’s arrival of wealthy countries’ “vaccine nationalism” is also a potential boon for China’s ambition to be seen as a leading provider of doses to low- and middle-income countries.

At the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation on Monday, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that an additional 1 billion doses of Chinese vaccines would be provided to Africa within the next year, including 600 million as donations, in an effort to “heal the immunity gap” on the continent.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/as ... story.html

Methinks the WP doth protest too much and flails at China feebly. Objective observers have long said that the 'Chinese method' is the only one that works, humanely and economically. But too great disruption of the money train, even for a couple months, much less be seen adopting 'commie' practice, is unimaginable to societies ruled by capitalists.

It works in China because China has a government that has earned the people's trust.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Socialist Demands for the COVID-19 Crisis

Post by blindpig » Fri Dec 17, 2021 2:34 pm

Want to know how to beat COVID? Look at China
December 17, 2021 Scott Scheffer

Image
Guangzhou International Health Station, a complex built for accommodating international travelers, in southern China’s Guangdong province.
The world is now nearing the end of the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The United States has the highest death toll in the world – 823,390 as of Dec. 16.

With all the scientific resources available, and billions of dollars in the vaults of the richest capitalist class in history, the U.S. should have been able to succeed in a vaccination campaign and treat everyone before they were infected. Vaccines should have made their way throughout the world, including the global south where the challenges of poverty magnify the horrors of the pandemic.

Instead, the White House and U.S. intelligence agencies have taken their cue from the Trump administration and continued apace with a manufactured narrative that slanders and blames China for the pandemic. Their goal is to cover up the global calamity created by the giant multinational corporations they serve and turn people’s attention away from the incredible success of the Chinese socialist public health system in fighting the pandemic.

An internet search for death statistics or other COVID related metrics outside China is heartbreaking. India lost 476,000 people, in Brazil 617,000 people died, and Mexico suffered 297,000 COVID fatalities. The list of countries that have suffered staggering loss and grief is a long one. Those countries that have been brutalized by imperialism for more than a century have been ravaged, as have oppressed and impoverished communities within the U.S. The pandemic has revealed the entrenched racism and neglect of people of color within U.S. borders, while vaccine nationalism has exposed the genocidal treatment of the global south.

To date since the beginning of the pandemic, only 4,849 COVID deaths have occurred in China. Since April 24, only three people have died. That is astounding. As of this writing there have been 265,713,467 cases and 5,260,888 deaths from COVID-19 worldwide.

China’s success was due in part to the great deal of research and experience that followed the outbreaks of the SARS and MERS epidemics. But even more, it is the reality of the Communist Party of China being in the leadership instead of a government run exclusively by and for a tiny handful of billionaires.

At the beginning of the outbreak in February and March of 2020, before COVID-19 became a pandemic, the CPC moved decisively and locked down the city of Wuhan, which has a population of 11 million people. The scale of the quarantine was unprecedented and set the tone for how the CPC and the Chinese people have carried out their incredible “People’s War” ever since.

The Western press often describes it as “authoritarian” and “ruthless.” Human Rights Watch attacked it as a violation of freedom. The campaign was and is, in fact, extraordinarily humanitarian, incredibly efficient and a technological marvel.

Drones for health, not war

The world’s first major deployment of drones — other than their use by the imperialist U.S. military to murder thousands of people in Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere — was launched in Wuhan. Drones and robots were deployed that could detect people with fevers while hovering, remotely disinfect hospitals, and make announcements to ensure quarantine restrictions were followed.

Robots delivered food and supplies to people’s doorsteps. No one lost pay or lost their job.

Two hospitals were literally constructed in a matter of days and other pre-existing buildings were modified and put to use for treatment of COVID patients. Here again, drones hovered over the construction sites to provide light so that construction crews could work 24-hours-a-day.

Thousands of medical volunteers traveled from faraway areas of China to help in Wuhan and other places as the disease spread. Videos were produced and spread on social media to update the population about safety measures and how to get help. Scientists mapped the genome of the virus and shared it with the world within 11 days.

After more than two months of sharply increased cases and more than 3,000 deaths, the casualty numbers diminished. But no one in China dropped their guard in the interest of reopening the economy as happened with successive waves of the outbreak in the U.S. Sporadic outbreaks saw more lockdowns – none at the same scale as that in Wuhan, but always announced quickly when there was an uptick in cases.

The lockdowns were a great economic sacrifice. But there were no demonstrations demanding the lockdowns end as there were in major capitalist countries. The Chinese leadership made sure everyone would receive income, there were absolutely no evictions, and there were no job losses.

The 5,000-room Guangzhou International Health Station

The CPC still maintains a goal of zero COVID infections as the Omicron variant is surging in many parts of the world. A 5,000-room quarantine facility in Guangzhou, equipped with 5G communication technology and a robot delivery system for food and other essentials, was finished last month.

The housing is spread over an area as big as 46 soccer fields and is the first in the plans for a chain of similar facilities to house people traveling from abroad. The entire complex was built in less than three months, a feat that would be astonishing anywhere else. Considering the construction of the hospitals in just days at the beginning of the pandemic, it is not surprising.

China’s determined campaign to beat the pandemic is international in scope. In spite of the astonishing success of this People’s War, Chinese leaders, researchers, virologists and epidemiologists know that defeating a pandemic requires complete global cooperation.

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2021/ ... -at-china/

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Why Cuba Does Not Have an Anti-Vaccine Movement
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on DECEMBER 16, 2021
Marc Vandepitte, Toon Danhieux

Increasingly, large sectors of the European population, and in the US to a lesser extent, openly express their distrust towards their government’s policies to combat COVID-19. The reaction of the traditional policy is one of panic and is characterized by paternalism and repression: general obligation to vaccinate and restricting freedom of movement. This is not the way to build support among the population. This will require, at the very least, listening to the fears and concerns of the unvaccinated. But there are other elements at play as well. The comparison with Cuba is interesting.

Distrust in the government

Many unvaccinated people rightly doubt the competence and/or good faith of their governments that now want to vaccinate everyone as soon as possible. It is not so incomprehensible.

European countries have been improvising since March 2020. There is no uniformity or logic in policies to attack the COVID-19 pandemic. With similar contagion rates the measures differ greatly from one country to another.

In Belgium, where I live, as in other countries in Europe, the improvisation was incomprehensible. The Belgian government waited until mid-March before taking action. That was a month and a half too late. If they had taken action earlier, the rate of spread would have been much lower and thousands of deaths from COVID-19 would have been avoided. And they don’t seem to learn from their mistakes. The response to each new wave of COVID-19 comes too late.

Although experts had been warning about it for years, the Belgian government was not prepared for a pandemic. At first it said that the masks were useless, because they were not (yet) available due to mismanagement. Then, suddenly, they became mandatory.


In September 2021 the measures were relaxed in Belgium with worse figures, while in the Netherlands they were tightened with better figures. How does one explain that? In Belgium seven health ministers have to agree in order to implement a new policy. At the same time, governors and mayors introduce stricter or more permissive rules and party presidents polish their image at the expense of public health.

When that distrust reaches the streets and social networks, the far right just has to stick the ball upside down. They attract to their side those who are legitimately disgruntled just by showing empathy with their distrust of the government. Their goal, of course, is not to demand more democracy for the voiceless. History teaches us why the goal of the far right is to hasten the formation of an authoritarian regime that will completely shut out these people and push to the extreme the exploitation of everything and everyone by the 1%.

The anti-COVID-19 measures in many European countries were and still are a huge chaos. But, in reality, the distrust is much deeper. In the previous big crisis, the banking crisis of 2008, it was also the citizens who paid the price. The banks that had speculated with our money got away with it and were saved. And we ordinary people paid the bill. It is obvious, and for good reason, there is such distrust in the government’s ability to manage a crisis.

And in Cuba?

As early as January 2020, almost two months before the politicians in Europe got into action, the Cuban government launched a national plan to combat the coronavirus. Massive information campaigns were launched in working-class neighborhoods and on television. There were no contradictory governments, no seven health ministers who had to agree, and no discussions about mandatory masks.

The government acted decisively and did everything possible to nip the virus in the bud. No easy promises saying that we were going to regain the ‘kingdom of freedom’ thanks to vaccines, no letting go of the reins too quickly, due to electoral motives or lack of political courage, but firm measures. Here are some examples. Tourism, the main source of income but also of contagion, was stopped immediately. Children from the age of six are obliged to wear masks. When it became clear that schools were also important foci of contagion, Cuba switched to home education, with very good support from school television, among other things.


“By properly informing the population about health risks, Cubans understand the importance of staying at home. They know how the disease is transmitted, and they take responsibility for their own health and that of their relatives and neighbors,” says Aissa Naranjo, a physician in Havana.

Health care in Cuba focuses mainly on prevention and is highly decentralized. Each neighborhood has its own polyclinic and there is a strong bond of trust between the local population and health personnel. Since March 2020 almost 30,000 ‘contact tracers’ have gone door to door, to the farthest corners of the island, to check each family to see if one of its members was infected. University students were mobilized to assist in this screening. In Belgium, the detection was carried out by anonymous people in call centers, which does not exactly inspire confidence.

In the meantime, everything was focused on the development of vaccines against the coronavirus. In March 2021, three vaccines were already in the testing phase. Cuba currently has five vaccines of its own, one of them for children as young as two years old.

The differences in COVID policies between Cuba and Belgium are also reflected in the figures. In Cuba there were 146 COVID-19 deaths at the end of 2020. In Belgium, with the same number of inhabitants, the figure was almost 20,000. That was before the Delta variant. Cuba did not arrive in time. Its own vaccines were only finished three months after the Delta variant began to proliferate. Rapid vaccination in Belgium, starting in late 2020, has significantly reduced the number of deaths caused by the Delta variant, at least in the early stages.

In Cuba the Delta variant actually arrived too early; there were no vaccines at the time. The peak of infection occurred in July. This caused many deaths and shook the health system. This precarious health situation added to the severe economic problems resulting from the U.S. economic blockade, loss of tourism and rising food prices. As a result, there was much discontent among the people. Through social networks, an attempt was made from the United States to stir up this discontent and channel it into protests. The attempt ended up failing.

Once the vaccination campaign began in Cuba, the results were spectacular. On September 20, at the beginning of the campaign, there were still more than 40,000 new infections and 69 deaths daily. Today there are around 60 new infections and one death per day. In Cuba, children from the age of two are also vaccinated. On December 2, 90% of Cubans had received their first dose. This is the second highest percentage in the world, after the United Arab Emirates, and the highest in Latin America. In Belgium we are at 75%.

Distrust of big pharma

Many unvaccinated people in Europe find it suspicious that the government provides vaccines free of charge. They have to pay more and more for other drugs. Health care costs patients more and more every year and now suddenly we all “have” to get vaccinated for free. Is there nothing behind it? Does it make you a conspiracy theorist if you ask this question?

People know that big pharma only looks at profits and does not always take people’s safety seriously. Between 1940 and 1980 millions of expectant mothers took DES (diethylstilbestrol) against miscarriages and in the 1960s they were prescribed Softenon against the dizziness of pregnancy. These decisions produced thousands of deformed babies. In the United States, Purdue Pharma, owned by the wealthy Sackler family, until recently sold the potent painkiller OxyContin, knowing full well that it is highly addictive.

Purdue is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans and the addiction of millions. Fentanyl, invented by Paul Janssen of the Belgian pharmaceutical giant of the same name (now part of Johnson & Johnson), is also a highly addictive painkiller that was freely available in the United States and heavily promoted. Johnson&Johnson was convicted of liability in this case.

People also know that pharmaceutical companies are charging too high prices for their COVID-19 vaccines and are heavily subsidized by the government, but are allowed to keep billions in profits. When these same companies then say that another booster shot is needed, this understandably arouses suspicion, even if the need is scientifically correct.

What about Cuba?

There is no private pharmaceutical industry in Cuba. All vaccines against COVID-19 are manufactured by government-owned biomedical laboratories. Eighty percent of the vaccines used in the country’s vaccination programs are manufactured domestically. You won’t find outrageous prices or usurious profits there

From infancy, the entire population is vaccinated against a range of diseases, just as here in Europe. This is one of the main factors behind the very rapid increase in life expectancy in Cuba in recent decades. Life expectancy in Cuba is higher than in the United States and infant mortality is lower. In recent months it has been shown that vaccines are also very effective. So it is not surprising that any Cuban person not only trusts his or her national pharmaceutical companies, but is proud of them.


Distrust in science

Real science and pseudoscience are often used to advertise all sorts of things here in Europe: food supplements, perfect diapers, hair growth products, supersonic cell phones…. As a result science has lost much of its status for many people. Frequent research and large-scale frauds (think dieselgate) make people even more suspicious.

In addition, many people leave secondary or higher education without being able to understand statistics or their representation in articles. “There are as many vaccinated people as unvaccinated people in the hospital, aren’t there?” All this explains why large groups of people are attracted to obscure theories or at least want to take them seriously because they think “they” are trying to make us believe something. That “they” want to force us to comply with a number of things: COVID passport, vaccinations, etc. “They” is, then, an amalgam of politicians, experts and the media.

And in Cuba?

In Cuba people face professional publicity only very sporadically. Science reaches people through education -of high quality- and non-commercial media. Even before the first infection, it was explained to all Cubans on television what COVID-19 is, how the pandemic developed worldwide, what can be done about it and, consequently, what measures were to be taken.

The Cuban population knows that their scientists are working for the common good of their country. The population sees it almost every year, for example, in the preventive evacuations of towns and cities in hurricane paths, drawn by the best meteorologists in the world. It saw how HIV was quickly contained with a strong commitment to prevention, how dengue and Zika are treated in a scientific, efficient and transparent manner, resulting in a minimum number of victims.

Distrust in solidarity

Effective pandemic management presupposes solidarity. The majority of the population, who personally have little to fear from the disease, must show solidarity with minorities of (very) old and physically weak people. Vaccination is important for a normal man or woman, and also for children, to reduce the circulation of the virus in the community as soon as possible in favor of the weakest. Most people – also in Europe – consider that a sufficient reason to participate. This also applies to compliance with safety measures.

It is really surprising that there are not more people in Europe saying, “I am healthy and strong enough, I don’t need a vaccine, the rest has to do their own thing.” The whole commercial and neoliberal culture here reminds people on a daily basis of their duty to develop, to do better and better in life, i.e. to

become richer. The ideal is absolute autonomy, not to depend on others; much less on the ‘State’, otherwise one is a freeloader. The unions are then seen as the protectors of these ‘freeloaders’. The State must be degreased, social and health care must be cut back. This is not exactly a culture that fosters solidarity.

And in Cuba?

Cubans are not in a situation of competition or ‘every man for himself’. The Cuban population knows from experience that only together can they face the country’s great challenges. Overcoming problems together is what they are used to, unfortunately today more than ever. Helping neighbors, cleaning the neighborhood together, holding meetings and making decisions together in the workplace, etc., is their way of life.

Solidarity is part of their DNA. For decades they have been sending doctors, nurses and teachers to the rest of the world. A small country of eleven million inhabitants, with ten times less resources than Belgium, sent doctors to fight COVID as far away as Italy.

This attitude and way of life is another reason why there are few or no anti vaccine people in Cuba.`

Source: Alainet, Translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2021/12/ ... -movement/
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Re: Socialist Demands for the COVID-19 Crisis

Post by blindpig » Sat Dec 18, 2021 3:14 pm

Image
The following infographic includes the actual number of lives that could have been saved.

The U.S. experience: racism and COVID-19 mortality
Posted Dec 17, 2021 by Martin Hart-Landsberg

Originally published: Reports for the Economic Front (December 15, 2021 )

Are you searching for a way to highlight the negative consequences of racism? Try this: Justin M. Feldman and Mary T. Basset, in a recently published study, found that if everyone living in the United States, aged 25 years or older, died of COVID-19 at the same rate as college-educated non-Hispanic white people did in 2020, 48 percent fewer people would have died, 71 percent fewer people of color would have died, and 89 percent fewer people of color aged 25-64 would have died.

The study

Feldman and Basset used a newly available public data set on COVID-19 mortality—one that allowed them to group the deaths of all persons in the United States, aged 25 years or older, by age, sex, race and ethnicity, and educational attainment—to test 3 hypotheses:

*That “racial and ethnic minority populations would experience higher age-adjusted COVID-19 mortality rates than the non-Hispanic white population.”
*That “within racial and ethnic groups, age-adjusted COVID-19 mortality rates would be highest among those with the lowest educational attainment.”
*That “racial and ethnic inequalities in COVID-19 mortality rates would remain when comparing within levels of educational attainment.”

Finally, as highlighted above, they also estimated the number of deaths that would have occurred if each racial and ethnic population group had “the same cumulative mortality rate as the group that, theoretically, has the most racialized socioeconomic privilege: college-educated non-Hispanic white individuals. We did this by multiplying each stratum’s populations size by the mortality rate observed among college-educated non-Hispanic white individuals of the same age and sex.”

Results

The results of their first hypothesis test—to determine whether racial and ethnic minority populations experience higher age-adjusted COVID-19 mortality rates than non-Hispanic whites—are illustrated in the figure below. As we can see, in each of the three age groupings, racial and ethnic minorities, with the exception of the Asian population, experienced significantly higher mortality rates than non-Hispanic whites.

Image

For those aged 25 and over, the cumulative 2020 mortality rate per 100,000 population was:

*334.5 for American Indian or Alaska Native
*110.9 for Asian
*237.9 for Black
*265.2 for Latinx or Hispanic
*356.9 for Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander
*116.4 for white

Not only did all the racial and ethnic populations, with the exception of Asians, experience far higher COVID-19 mortality rates than did whites, their respective rates were at least twice that of whites.

The results of their second hypothesis test—to determine whether for all population groups, age-adjusted COVID-19 mortality rates were highest for those with the least formal education—are shown in the following figures. And as we can see, the highest age-adjusted mortality rates were in fact experienced by those with no college experience.

Image

At the same time, looking across populations, we can again see the destructive impact of racism. For those aged 25 or older, white men with the least education died at a rate of 199.7 per 100,000 population. This was roughly the same as the mortality rates of college-educated non-Hispanic Black men (199.4 per 100,000 population), college-educated American Indian or Alaska Native men (196.3 per 100,000 population), and college-educated Latino men (198.6 per 100,000 population), and significantly lower than that of college-educated Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander men (259.6 per 100,000 population).

The results of their third hypothesis test—to determine whether racial and ethnic inequalities in COVID-19 mortality rates remain even after adjustment for educational levels—are illustrated in the figures below. The black horizontal line at 1.0 represents the mortality rate of non-Hispanic whites, with the error bars showing 95 percent confidence intervals. A mortality rate ratio of greater than one means that a racial or ethnic subgroup has a higher mortality rate than the educational equivalent non-Hispanic white subgroup.

[img]https://mronline.org/wp-content/uploads ... 3.png.webp

As we can see, almost all subgroups (54 of 60 age-sex-race-education subgroups, with ages either 26-64 or 65 and over) experienced higher mortality rates than their non-Hispanic white counterparts. “The only groups with lower mortality than non-Hispanic white individuals were: older Asian women of all 3 education levels, younger Asian women in the lowest education category, older Asian men in the highest education category, and older Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander men in the highest education category.”

The results for those 26-64 years of age are especially striking. Despite adjusting for educational attainment, most racial and ethnic subgroups experienced mortality rates two to eight times greater than their white counterparts. This extreme divergence in COVID-19 mortality rates can only be understood in light of the country’s long history of racially motivated policies and the resulting extreme differences between most whites and people of color in earnings, wealth, quality of housing, access to health care, and conditions of employment.

The size of this divergence does not mean that we should dismiss the challenges facing many non-Hispanic whites. Their mortality rates are no gold standard. Tragically, however, the racism that underpins this divergence also continues to be a major driver of white support for politicians who oppose policies that could help reduce mortality rates and improve living and working conditions for most workers, like the establishment of a single-payer healthcare system. The cost of racism remains extremely high in this country.

https://mronline.org/2021/12/17/the-u-s-experience/
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Re: Socialist Demands for the COVID-19 Crisis

Post by blindpig » Tue Dec 21, 2021 2:36 pm

US Health Infrastructure Once Again Unprepared for COVID-19 Surge
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on DECEMBER 20, 2021
Natalia Marques

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New Yorkers are now having to face hours-long lines in the cold for COVID-19 testing, potentially exposing themselves to others carrying the virus.

In the nation with the highest number of COVID-19 deaths, people in the US are confronting a third wave of coronavirus cases as the Omicron variant surges through the country.


In the United States, daily COVID-19 cases have nearly doubled since October. The sudden surge has put a massive strain on the country’s already inadequate COVID-19 testing apparatus. Across the country people have reported facing waiting several hours to get tested, if they manage to get a test at all.

Although the US overpurchased and hoarded vaccines when they first became available, guaranteeing residents relatively easy access to vaccinations, the percent of fully vaccinated people in the country still sits at 62%. Furthermore, the recent Omicron variant appears to be more transmissible than prior variants even among the vaccinated.

Another aggravating factor in the situation has to do with the country’s private healthcare system and the underfunded public health sector. The burden of COVID-19 testing and vaccinations has largely fallen on pharmacy megacorporations like CVS and Rite-Aid, rather than public health facilities.

Pharmacists at these corporations have reported being overworked and burnt out from working extra hours, taking fewer breaks, and dealing with abuse from customers who are angry over the inefficiencies. Some pharmacists, fed up with long hours, low pay, and abuse from customers, have taken to social media, calling for protest measures such as taking a “sick out”, in which multiple workers call in sick at the same time in order to put pressure on the company for better working conditions.

New York City back in the spotlight

New York City, which was the “epicenter of the epicenter” of the virus during the first wave of the pandemic, is an important case study in the US response to the Omicron surge. During the first wave of the pandemic, the city of eight million made headlines globally as it struggled to respond to the raging pandemic. Images circulated of mass graves used to bury the city’s victims of the virus, of cooling trucks stationed outside hospitals filled with dead bodies, and of exhausted healthcare professionals in overwhelmed ICU units.

Last Friday, New York State recorded the highest number of cases on a single day during the whole pandemic. Today, despite the traumatic experiences endured by many New Yorkers during the height of the pandemic, city officials remain underprepared. The city government led by Mayor Bill de Blasio, closed testing sites due to lack of demand on the cusp of the Omicron surge. Michael Katz, who runs NYC Health & Hospitals, defended the decision to roll back on tests: “I’m sorry that demand was so enormous over the last few days. We did not anticipate so much news about omicron, we did not anticipate that the supply chain would run out of the home tests.”

As a result, New Yorkers are now having to face hours-long lines in the cold for COVID-19 testing, potentially exposing themselves to others carrying the virus. Urgent care centers and mobile testing sites alike are running out of testing capacity well before their official closing times, sending away many who desperately need tests. More and more pharmacies are running out of at-home rapid tests, leaving pharmacists to deal with abuse from angry customer

New York City is overwhelmed, but for the United States, this may be only the beginning. The major metropolitan area has a 70% vaccination rate. As Omicron surges through the rest of the country, where there are lower vaccination rates due to the popularity of anti-vaccine propaganda or a lack of resources, some physicians worry about the overburdening of hospitals which will inevitably cost lives.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2021/12/ ... -19-surge/

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‘The Cuban Soberana vaccine is not due to a miracle but the consequence of political decisions’
December 21, 2021 Maurizio Coppola

Image
Giuliano Granato, national spokesperson of Potere al Popolo, was one of the Italian volunteers participating in the clinical trial SoberanaPlusTurin. Picture: Maurizio Coppola.

“Do you know the difference between our Soberana vaccine and Pfizer?” With this question, Dr. Vicente Vérez Bencomo, general director of the Cuban Finlay Institute for Vaccines, welcomed the Italian delegation for the clinical trial called SoberanaPlusTurin in La Pradera, the international health center inaugurated in Havana in November 1996.

SoberanaPlusTurin is the name of the observational clinical trial with 35 volunteers from Italy previously vaccinated in Europe who received a single dose of the Cuban vaccine SoberanaPlus as a boost. The observational study of the SoberanaPlus vaccine authorized by the Cuban regulatory entity CECMED (Centro para el Control Estatal de Medicamentos, Equipos y Dispositivos Médicos) seeks to evaluate its reactogenicity and immunogenicity in adult subjects resident in Italy.

This clinical trial, the first of its kind on the Caribbean island, is the result of an important and deep international scientific collaboration in the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic, mainly between the Finlay Vaccine Institute of Cuba, the Amedeo Di Savoia Hospital of Turin, and the Italian Agency for Cultural and Economic Exchange with Cuba (AICEC).

A people’s vaccine

Dr. Vicente Vérez Bencomo’s answer was direct and clear: “Pfizer developed a commodity to sell to the governments and make big profits; the collateral effect was that the populations were partially protected from the virus. In Cuba, we developed a vaccine to protect our people and we are succeeding. If we will be able to earn some money from our work, obviously we will be happy to invest it in new public research.”

Even without a prevailing mandatory vaccination, by the end of November 2021, almost 10.2 million Cubans have received at least one dose of vaccine (practically 100% of the vaccine-eligible population). Of these, over 9.2 million have received the second dose and 8.7 million Cubans (78%) have received the third dose. 82.1% of the total Cuban population (9.18 million people) has even completed the entire vaccination schedule (two doses of Soberana02 and one dose of SoberanaPlus or three doses of Abdala).

This is not only a higher vaccination rate compared to other low-income countries around the world, where on an average, only 2.8 per cent of the population was vaccinated by the end of November. It is also a higher vaccination rate compared to developed countries in the global North. And Cuba has also already started its booster vaccination program. By the end of November, over 311,000 people had received a fourth vaccination. As scientific studies show, this Cuban vaccination scheme has a protective effect of 92.4 percent.

The vaccine alone was not enough to bring the virus under control. Stringent containment measures – wearing masks, strict adherence to physical distancing, and a radical lockdown until November 15, 2021 – were necessary to control the spread of the virus. As a result, Cuba recorded only one death linked to COVID-19 in the last week of November and a transmission rate of less than 1%. Even today, despite low numbers, rules to minimize transmission of the virus are respected across the island.

What exactly is Soberana?

Soberana Plus is designed for people recovering from the virus or who have already been given another vaccine. Soberana is a protein vaccine, unlike Pfizer or Moderna, which use mRNA technology. Cuba has thus used a conventional technology based on the platform of already known vaccines for the development and production of its own vaccine. This means that in Cuba, traditional technology is used to put a small piece of the virus – the so-called “spike” – into the vaccinated person, who then produces the necessary antibodies. The mRNA vaccines, on the other hand, provide the ‘instructions’, the body learns them and raises the antibodies.

Studies carried out so far show that Soberana Plus is an absolutely effective vaccine. It builds up a very high wall of antibodies, both in those who have already been infected and recovered, and in those who have received other vaccines. Soberana Plus is also effective against the Beta and Delta variants, the former being extremely aggressive and the latter now being the worldwide dominant variant. Moreover, clinical studies showed that the vaccine has almost no side effects: less than 1% of the vaccinated population suffers from fever, reddening of the injection site, general malaise, and/or erythema.

From the perspective of global control of COVID-19, the Cuban vaccine has two other key advantages. First, its production costs are extremely low. This means that the vaccine can potentially be produced in any corner of the world (Iran is already producing a vaccine based on Cuban technology), even in countries whose per capita healthcare expenditure is less than $20 per year, which would be as much as the cost of a single Pfizer vaccine dose. Second, the Soberana vaccine has no special logistical requirements; no advanced or costly technology is needed to store and transport the vaccine.

Soberana was designed as a children’s vaccine

There is more: Cuba is the country furthest ahead in the vaccination campaign for the pediatric population. It has already vaccinated more than 2 million children and adolescents aged between 2 and 18. Indeed, Soberana02 is a product originally designed for children. While at the beginning of the pandemic, experts and governments around the world were rushing to say that the virus would not affect children, scientists in Cuba were working to ensure that none of them actually died or were intubated because of COVID-19. “For us it was clear that no child should die from COVID-19. That’s why a vaccination program for children that was planned in detail was of central importance,” explained Ricardo Pérez Valerino, Head of International Relations at the Finlay Institute.

Pérez Valerino added, “It’s true, children cope with the virus better than adults, but they are vectors of the disease. Our grandparents, adults were getting sick and sometimes the virus was carried by their grandchildren and children. At the same time, however, we started to see that even the youngest children were getting sick. So the ideal thing was to have a vaccine that worked and was safe for our children too.”

In Western countries today, new infections are actually increasing in the younger population, which led to school closures in Germany, Italy and other countries. In the United States, for example, children accounted for 25.1% of the weekly reported COVID-19 cases in November 2021. In Italy, more than 30% of new Corona cases around the same time were currently in minors, with children between 6 and 11 years of age particularly affected. Many Western countries – above all the US and Italy, but also other countries in the European Union – have already started vaccinating minors.

Cuba is also a pioneer in this respect. First of all, a vaccine against Sars-Cov-2 was developed on the basis of vaccines already used in infants, which reduced the health side effects and problems of the new vaccination to practically zero and strengthened parents’ confidence in the new vaccine. Second, the entire population – including children – was integrated into the vaccination campaign from the very beginning, which can be defined as forward-looking in view of the latest developments in the pandemic.

International cooperation against the pandemic

“The Cuban vaccine and its vaccination campaign are not the result of any miracle, but the consequence of political decisions,” said Fabrizio Chiodo, an Italian scientist who collaborates with the Cuban Finlay Institute in developing the vaccine and is part of the clinical collaboration between Cuba and Italy. He added, “If in the global struggle against the pandemic we are looking to Cuba and to its vaccines today, it’s because Cuba was visionary in developing a public healthcare system and public biotechnological research.”

Public versus private is not simply an ideological question. The small Caribbean island, under a blockade for more than 60 years, was able to develop three vaccines and two vaccine candidates in a very short time because Cuba didn’t surrender itself to the logic of multinational corporations and Big Pharma, but invested in public healthcare and educational and research systems which guaranteed top quality professionals.

In mid-September 2021 – shortly after the start of the vaccination program on the island – Cuba applied for approval of its vaccine at the World Health Organization (WHO). For the international recognition of Soberana, the Cuban government deliberately decided against applying for approval at the European Medicines Agency EMA and the US Food and Drug Administration FDA. The rejection of the Chinese Sinovac and the Russian Sputnik by EMA and FDA are proof that these agencies make political decisions. However, in the perspective of global cooperation against the pandemic, in Cuba, only the WHO is recognized as a multilateral, neutral body.

Cuba’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic is thus a lesson for the whole world: it puts people’s health before private profits, promotes international cooperation and strictly rejects trade wars between states and multinational corporations. It would therefore be a fatal mistake to disregard the Cuban experience with regard to a globally united fight against COVID-19.

The author is one of the participants in the clinical trial mentioned in the story.

Source: Peoples Dispatch

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2021/ ... decisions/

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The Omicron Shame: Why is the World Punishing Instead of Helping Africa?
December 20, 2021
By Ramzy Baroud – Dec 13, 2021

The decision by several governments across the globe to institute travel bans on seven African countries, starting on November 27, due to the discovery of a new Covid-19 variant, Omicron, was perceived to be hasty in the eyes of some and fully justifiable on medical grounds, in the view of others. However, the matter is hardly that of a difference of opinion.

The swiftness of choking off some of Africa’s poorest countries, including Botswana, Lesotho and Zimbabwe, is particularly disturbing if placed within a proper context concerning the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the Global South, generally, and Africa, in particular.

“I’ve decided we’re going to be cautious,” United States President Joe Biden told reporters on November 26, to explain the new travel restrictions imposed by Washington. “We don’t know a lot about the variant except it is a great concern, seems to spread rapidly.”

Although stated in polite and diplomatic terms, the rationale by mostly Western governments to prevent citizens from these seven African countries is reminiscent of the January 2017 decision of former US President Donald Trump to prevent citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries – three of them from Africa – to enter the US based on the flimsy and, of course, outright racist logic, that by doing so, the US would be able to fix its problems.

At the time, Trump made a call for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on”.

The South African Foreign Ministry immediately lashed out at the groundless decision to isolate the country before even understanding the nature of the new variant. In fact, at the time, and until the writing of this article, not a single death has been directly linked to Omicron. Compare this to the Delta variant, which was first discovered in India and rapidly spread in the United Kingdom, generating much death and devastation, yet compelling no immediate decisions to isolate Delta-infested countries.

“Excellent science should be applauded and not punished,” South Africa’s foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that the travel bans were “akin to punishing South Africa for its advanced genomic sequencing and the ability to detect new variants quicker”.

Speaking to the BBC, top African Union official, Ayoade Alakija, asserted, and rightly so, that the spread of the new variant is the direct consequence of the deep inequality that characterized the fight against the pandemic from its very onset.

“What is going on right now is […] a result of the world’s failure to vaccinate in an equitable, urgent and speedy manner. It is as a result of hoarding [of vaccines] by high-income countries of the world, and, quite frankly, it is unacceptable,” Alakija said, adding that “these travel bans are based in politics and not in science”.

In fact, helping Africa in its critical fight against the pandemic should have been done in a more systematic fashion as part of an inclusive global strategy. Alas, little of that has transpired. From the very start, rich countries like the US, European states, China and Japan had provided financial packages to keep their economies afloat. At times, they provided direct financial support to all of their citizens to make up for the rising unemployment and prolonged closures. Africa, due to pre-existing global inequality and widespread poverty, could not afford such luxuries. Worse, African countries were the last to receive life-saving vaccines.

Instead, the access to vaccines in Africa was perceived as a form of charity, relegated to a discussion pertaining to the kindness and goodwill of rich Western countries. Disappointingly, the main counter-measure to the deep inequalities, which placed Africa at its current economic disadvantage in the first place, was represented by the COVAX program, sponsored by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), World Health Organization (WHO) and the Vaccine Alliance (GAVI), among other charities.

COVAX, which was launched in April 2020, was triumphantly described as an effective platform “to accelerate the development and manufacturing of COVID-19 vaccines, and guarantee fair and equitable access for every country”.

Twenty months later, one can effortlessly observe that COVAX failed in its mission to provide poor and developing countries with protection from the pandemic. This is not a judgment on the structure, conduct or sincerity of COVAX, but an indictment on those who insist that one can apply the same standards of economic and social exploitation on a deadly pandemic that does not differentiate between race, nationality or class.

“As richer countries roll out booster shots, 98% of people in low-income countries remain unvaccinated. Covax […] has contributed just 5% of all vaccines administered globally and recently announced it would miss its 2 billion target for 2021,” Rosa Furneaux and Olivia Goldhill wrote in a recent article published in Quartz.

According to data published by Reuters, in Lesotho – one of the African countries targeted by the new travel bans – only 14.5 percent of the total population is fully vaccinated. Zimbabwe and Botswana are only a few steps ahead, with percentages of 22.6 and 29.4 respectively, still quite far from the target herd immunity threshold that was initially estimated to be about 60 to 70 percent of the population.

Nearly two years have elapsed since the Covid pandemic struck, yet the world insists on facing a global crisis with nationalistic and politically-driven solutions. The fact that we continue to struggle against the virus and its variants indicates that the traditional thinking has completely failed. For the pandemic to be finally defeated, we need to abandon the mindset of rich vs. poor and north vs. south. For the world to be saved, all of us have to be saved collectively.

https://orinocotribune.com/the-omicron- ... ng-africa/
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Re: Socialist Demands for the COVID-19 Crisis

Post by blindpig » Wed Dec 22, 2021 2:19 pm

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Cuba now exporting Covid vaccines
Originally published: Morning Star by Andreas Knobloch (December 2021 ) | - Posted Dec 22, 2021

AS RECENTLY as August and September, Cuba had to cope with the most severe Covid outbreak to date, which pushed the health system to breaking point.

Since then, the number of infections on the island has declined significantly.

For the first time this year, the number of active cases has fallen below 1,000–and the trend is still downward.

Currently, between 150 and 200 COVID-19 cases are recorded per day nationwide. This is also down to the ongoing vaccination campaign. Almost 90 per cent of the population is now fully vaccinated.

Cuba is not only the only country in Latin America that has its own Covid vaccines, but is also one of the countries with the highest vaccination rates worldwide.

This cannot be appreciated enough, Manuel Vanegas Ayala, representative of the Swiss non-governmental organization Medi-Cuba Suisse, told the author in Havana.

It’s so easy to say that Cuba has its own vaccines–as if that were as simple as going out for a beer somewhere.

It was the “result of an incredible effort by the country, by its scientists and by the people who participated in the clinical trials.”

In Vanegas Ayala’s view, Cuba could “sell itself even better to the world” with this achievement.

In view of the U.S. blockade and the economic crisis, it is “incredible that a country can produce its own vaccines under these conditions.” Many wealthier countries have not been able to do this.

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, Cuba has refused to import vaccines from multinational pharmaceutical companies or join the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Covax programme, through which vaccines are distributed worldwide.

Instead, the country focused on developing its own vaccines. The Cuban vaccines are conjugate vaccines, in which a combination of proteins triggers a strong immune response.

Soberana 02 uses a variant of the spike protein of Sars-CoV-2 that is responsible for invading body cells.

The technology has been tried and tested for decades and is used in several vaccines, for example to vaccinate young children.

“There are international initiatives that I respect tremendously. Whether I believe in them is another question,” Vicente Verez Bencomo, director-general of the Finlay Institute for Vaccines in Havana, told the journal Nature.

We wanted to rely solely on our own abilities to vaccinate our population, not on the decisions of others. And life is proving us to be correct.

Vaccine stocks were being hoarded by rich countries, he said, so many poorer countries were struggling to access vaccine doses.
Cuba was able to step into the breach.

The state-owned company Bio Cuba Pharma says it has an annual production capacity of 100 million doses for Abdala, Soberana 02 and the booster dose Soberana Plus.

A state-of-the-art biotech complex has just been inaugurated in the Mariel Special Development Zone just outside Havana.

The new facility can produce 30 million doses of Abdala in six months, according to its director Catalina Alvarez Irarragorri.

Currently, Abdala and Soberana 02 are being tested by experts from WHO.

An official worldwide approval by the UN organisation would facilitate international marketing.

But even without this, some countries are already showing interest in the Cuban vaccines, and supply contracts have already been signed.

At the end of September, Cuba sent a first batch of five million doses of Abdala to Vietnam.

Venezuela and Nicaragua are also being supplied with several million doses of Abdala and Soberana 02 respectively.

In January, Vietnam and Venezuela also plan to start producing Abdala themselves.

Iran is also producing the Soberana 02 vaccine, having previously conducted phase III clinical trials in the country.

Cuban vaccines could also soon be produced in Argentina and Mexico.

As is clear from this list of countries, geopolitics is also playing an important role here.

Cuba expert Jennifer Hosek from Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada, even fears that a kind of new cold war is developing in the distribution and recognition of vaccines.

She says:

I think it’s very questionable whether this is really about the effectiveness of a particular vaccine or about the geopolitical relations between the countries concerned.

This article by Andreas Knobloch, who is based in Havana, was first published in Neues Deutschland on November 29 2021 and was translated by John Green.

https://mronline.org/2021/12/22/cuba-no ... -vaccines/

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Abdala, with three doses, demonstrates 92.28% efficacy
Communist Party First Secretary and President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, on behalf of Cuba, congratulates researchers who in 13 months achieved a global milestone

Author: Leticia Martínez | informacion@granma.cu

Author: René Tamayo León | internet@granma.cu

june 22, 2021 08:06:44

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Photo: Estudio Revolución

A three-dose regimen of the Abdala candidate vaccine has demonstrated an efficacy of 92.28 percent, placing it well above the World Health Organization (WHO) requirement of at least 50 percent, to be recognized as an anti-COVID-19 vaccine.
Over the course of 48 hours, from Saturday to Monday, Cuba, a small, poor country, has shaken the world, noted Party First Secretary and President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, in a meeting, yesterday afternoon, with researchers at the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), where Abdala was developed.

The President decided to meet with the scientists after learning about the efficacy analysis of Abdala at Monday's meeting of the government’s COVID-19 prevention and control group.
He had visited the Finlay Vaccine Institute on Saturday, after learning that its Soberana 02 candidate vaccine, with just two doses, had demonstrated 62% efficacy - without a third booster dose of Soberana Plus, which should produce an superior response.
Abdala's efficacy places it among vaccines with the best results in the world, which have all been produced in the principal laboratories of the most developed countries with financing of hundreds of millions and billions of dollars, something that for Cuba is impossible, even more so given the tightening of the economic, commercial and financial blockade during the pandemic.
Dr. Marta Ayala Avila, CIGB director, explained that efficacy is the most important objective of any vaccine. "It is its effect in real life," she stated.

In presenting the findings, she highlighted the work of the teams of scientists who conducted Phase I/II and III clinical trials in Santiago de Cuba, Bayamo, Guantanamo and Havana, and thanked the 48,000 volunteers who participated in the study.
The final analysis of Abdala's efficacy in preventing symptomatic cases of COVID-19, which was conducted by an independent group led by the Institute of Cybernetics, Mathematics and Physics, showed not only a response to the initial strain of SARS-CoV-2 (DG614G), but also the Alpha, Beta and Gamma mutations, she explained.
Dr. Ayala recalled that the clinical trial included a placebo group and a vaccinated group, with three administrations over a period of 0-14-28 days. She noted that the studies continue, that new evaluations and conclusions will continue to be drawn.
She also highlighted the work of the Immunoassay Center, AICA Laboratories and other scientific centers, as well as t Public Health workers, who conducted a rapid, high quality vaccination process, difficult to achieve in other countries around the world.
The researchers, she added, are gratefully dedicating this accomplishment to Comandante en jefe Fidel Castro Ruz, founder of the CIGB, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, Party First Secretary Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, and the center’s pioneer scientists.
After listening to the findings, the First Secretary commented, "One feels proud to be Cuban and to have compatriots like you."
The results are really impressive, he reiterated and recalled the early days of the pandemic, when "I was convinced that poor countries were not going to have access to vaccines within a short period time, that the rich world was producing to prioritize the rich.
"This is why I asked our scientists (to assume the task), with the conviction, with the certainty that we could do it, that it was necessary to have Cuban vaccines to be sovereign in this situation, as well."
We, he added, are among the few who, having the vaccines to resolve Cuba's problems, are thinking about how, with these same vaccines, we can solve the problems of millions in the world, and above all of the millions who have less and live today in tremendous uncertainty caused by the disease.
"On behalf of Cuba, congratulations," Díaz-Canel concluded, thanking the CIGB researchers who have worked on the creation of Abdala, meeting the highest standards as an anti-COVID-19 vaccine.

http://en.granma.cu/file/img/2021/06/me ... 028607.jpg

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Cuban vaccine Abdala produces strong immune response in children and adolescents

An increase of 99.15% in antibody titers was noted in children three to 11 years of age, while 12 to 18 year-olds experienced an increase of 98.28%, during a clinical trial with more than 500 participants conducted in Camagüey

Author: National news staff | informacion@granma.cu

december 6, 2021 10:12:23

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Photo: Ismael Batista

A high number of IGG anti-RBD antibody titers, equivalent to four or more times that seen before immunization, was observed following the administration of the Abdala vaccine in Cuban children and adolescents, during the Ismaelillo pediatric clinical study.
The Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), developer of the immunogen, reported on Twitter that seroconversion levels were significantly higher after vaccination in the age groups studied.
More than 500 children and adolescents participated in the clinical trial, conducted in Camagüey. An increase of 99.15% in antibody titers was noted among those between three and 11 years of age, while 12 to 18 year-olds experienced an increase of 98.28%.
The research was carried out over a three month period and officially concluded on October 13. Among its preliminary results, it was reported that more than 80% of the adverse side effects noted were mild, and other data gathered was comparable to that of adults, collected in other studies, thus demonstrating that the vaccine is safe and effective.
On October 27, after analyzing the results of the clinical trial, the Center for State Control of Medicines, Equipment and Medical Devices (Cecmed) authorized emergency use of the Cuban vaccine Abdala vaccine in the pediatric population between 2 and 11 years of age.
The regimen indicated involves a three-dose schedule, with 14-day intervals between each administration. Children two years of age and above were included in this approval, considering the information provided by the manufacturer, which justified their inclusion, Cecmed stated.
In the general population, phase iii clinical trials of the Abdala vaccine have shown efficacy of 92.28% in preventing symptomatic cases of Covid-19.

https://en.granma.cu/cuba/2021-12-06/cu ... dolescents

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Cuba expands studies of lingering after-effects of COVID-19

Nearly one million Cubans have suffered a case of COVID-19, and given the after-effects of the disease, their full recovery is a priority for the country

Author: René Tamayo | internet@granma.cu

december 8, 2021 11:12:17

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The ingenuity and innovative capacity of Cuban science have been key to the medical attention provided COVID patients. Photo: Estudio Revolución

Nearly one million Cubans have suffered a case of COVID-19, and given the after-effects of the disease, their full recovery is a priority for the country.
A study on the comprehensive rehabilitation of patients with post-COVID-19 sequelae, conducted at the 10 de Octubre Surgical Clinical Hospital, was the focus of attention during a meeting, held the last week of November, of Cuban scientists and the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez.
These gatherings have become regular events over the past two years, with scientists and experts involved in research and technological innovation reporting on their work in the battle against the coronavirus.
MSc Yulmis Rodríguez Borges presented partial findings of the study, which included patients who had discharged from the hospital at least two weeks, after testing negative for the virus, who experienced moderate disability as a result of symptoms associated with the disease, among other inclusion criteria.
More than 70% were individuals between 50 to 59 years of age or 60 years and over, reflecting the vulnerability of these sectors of the population, long after being infected.
Among the most frequent symptoms reported by the convalescents were severe exhaustion and fatigue during walking and daily activities, shortness of breath, anxiety, joint pain (dorsal, lumbar, shoulders, knees), insomnia and sleep disorders, depression, voice abnormalities and difficulty swallowing.
The results showed that 90% experienced severe exhaustion and fatigue during walking and daily activities; 70% shortness of breath; and 65% anxiety. Radiologist reported that 81.7% showed ground-glass opacity, and 71.7% had x-rays indicating fibrotic tracts in the lungs. One hundred percent experienced a decline in health-related quality of life indicators.
Rodriguez reported that, after the protocol intervention, functional capacity for daily activities and walking improved in most patients; shortness of breath decreased in 100%, and health-related quality of life indicators increased in seven of eight categories.
He emphasized that the findings validate the need to continue providing follow-up attention to these patients and evaluate their evolution in all the areas identified, over the coming months,
Given the potential impact of the study, the President asked about efforts to disseminate the results.
Dr. Leovy Edrey Semino García, the Ministry of Health’s director of Rehabilitation, explained that this is an example of what is being done across the country to treat the lingering after-effects of COVID-19. Work is underway to improve the care provided these patients, making it more comprehensive, re-evaluating programs, which go beyond physical rehabilitation. We are also investigating the main disabling symptoms and early signs of problems, he added, in order to provide more timely care to these patients, almost one million Cuban men, women, and children.
“While we are evaluating convalescents with different after-effects, from mild to severe," Dr. Semino continued, "We are also conducting other studies, including those of persons who were not infected, but suffered the effects of prolonged confinement, especially older adults.”
The President insisted on the importance of reaching all convalescents with after-effects. This work requires a multidimensional approach, he said, and should include coordination with the Sports, Recreation and Physical Education Institute (Inder) to provide patients differentiated attention in the areas of physical culture and sports, promoting differentiated exercise programs for older adults and others.

https://en.granma.cu/cuba/2021-12-08/cu ... f-covid-19

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As vaccinations lag behind, COVID-19 cases exceed 9.2 million in Africa

To understand the systemic issues hampering Africa’s efforts against the pandemic, Peoples Dispatch interviewed Dr. Ahmed Kalebi, president of the East African Division of International Academy of Pathology (IAP), and members of the People’s Health Movement, Prof. Leslie London and senior lecturer Lauren Paremoer from the University of Cape Town

December 22, 2021 by Pavan Kulkarni

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With both Delta and Omicron variants spreading across Africa, which is currently facing the fourth wave of the pandemic, the total cases of COVID-19 detected on the continent crossed 9.2 million on December 21. This is an increase of 52,308 cases in the 48 hours. In total, 226,047 deaths have been reported while 8,344,234 people have recovered.

The real extent of the spread is bound to be many times higher. The WHO had estimated based on an analysis in October that the real number of infections in Africa was “seven times more” than the reported cases. The same analysis also concluded that two-thirds of the deaths due to COVID-19 remain unreported.

Official data not only understates the extent of the spread, but also paints a misleading picture when it comes to the concentration of cases in different parts of the continent. With 3,316,585 registered cases in South Africa as on December 21, official data shows that over a third of all the cases on the continent are concentrated in this country, followed by Morocco with 952,916 cases, Tunisia (721,103), Libya (382,341), Ethiopia (377,056) and Egypt (376,233).

Nigeria, which has the continent’s highest population – about four times that of South Africa both in terms of numbers and density – ranks a distant eighth with only 225,255 reported cases. This is because “testing in Nigeria is way below par being one of the lowest per capita testing in Africa while testing in South Africa is way above the continent’s average,” Dr. Ahmed Kalebi, president of the East African Division of International Academy of Pathology (IAP), told Peoples Dispatch.

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“The reasons for this disparity include the state of the health systems and funding for the COVID-19 testing. Nigeria has virtually dismal COVID-19 public health response,” he said. “Without accurate and updated data including on testing, genomic surveillance and hospitalization rates, the approach to dealing with the pandemic in Africa is like a rudderless ship sailing in uncharted waters. That is the sad reality,” he added.

Leslie London, professor of public health at the University of Cape Town and an active member of the People’s Health Movement South Africa (PHM SA), added, “Without accurate data, it is hard to know the burden of the disease, how effective your strategies are, where to target them, whether vaccination is working, etc. All of these are key questions and if you don’t have a good handle on infection (rates), and rely on hospital admission data, you are clearly limited.”

However, despite the lack of reliable data on infections, an accelerated and systematic vaccination campaign can still be effective in combating the pandemic, argues Lauren Paremoer, also an active member of PHM SA and senior lecturer in the Political Studies Department of University of Cape Town.

“Even if African states have inaccurate data on COVID-19 prevalence, they do have fairly accurate data on the proportion of adult citizens in their population,” she told Peoples Dispatch, explaining that this is the key information needed to undertake a vaccination campaign.

The vast majority remain unvaccinated as richer countries continue to hoard
The main impediment in the way of the vaccination campaign remains the acute shortage of vaccine supply in Africa due to hoarding by wealthier countries. As of December 14, only two of the 55 African countries, the small islands of Mauritius and Seychelles, had successfully vaccinated 70% of their populations, which is regarded as the minimum required to control the pandemic. Vaccinating 70% of Africa’s population requires 1.6 billion more doses, which will not be available any time soon.

A pandemic assessment by WHO last week calculated that at the current pace, the 70% mark may not be reached until August 2024, almost two years later than May 2022 which was set by WHO as the global target deadline to reach this level of coverage. WHO has set a minimum 40% vaccination target for all countries by the end of this year. Only six African countries have met this target.

With only 8.64% of the continent’s population fully vaccinated and 12.57% vaccinated partially, the vast majority of the continent remains unvaccinated and highly vulnerable to the new waves expected to emerge. Only 20 of the African countries have been able to vaccinate at least 10% of their population.

“We’ve known for quite some time now that new variants like Beta, Delta or Omicron could regularly emerge to spark new outbreaks globally, but vaccine-deprived regions like Africa will be especially vulnerable,” Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, said last week.

“In a world where Africa had the doses and support to vaccinate 70% of its population by the end of 2021—a level many wealthy countries have achieved—we probably would be seeing tens of thousands of fewer deaths from COVID-19 next year,” he said.

Earlier this month, WHO’s director of the Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals, Kate O’Brien, warned that even though the supply is increasing, vaccine hoarding by wealthier countries in light of the new variant may reverse any hope offered by ramped up production.

“As we head into whatever the Omicron situation is going to be, there is risk, that the global supply is again going to revert to high-income countries hoarding vaccines to protect, you know, in a sense, in excess their opportunity for vaccination and a sort of ‘no-regrets’ kind of approach,” she said.

This policy of hoarding by Western governments to protect their own populations is “not going to work from an epidemiological perspective, it is not going to work from a transmission perspective unless we actually have vaccines going to all countries, because where transmission continues… that’s where the variants are going to come from,” she stressed.

In addition to ramping up vaccine supply to Africa, Moeti also stressed on the need to “intensify our focus on other barriers to vaccination,” including the lack of “cold chain capacity” and other equipment.

Successful vaccination campaign needs holistic approach
Due to shortage of cold chain capacity, accessibility of vaccines remains restricted in large parts of even those countries that have received the required doses for their population, explained Dr. Kalebi. “In many of the countries where vaccines have been received.. you find large parts of the country still lacking access to vaccines because of lack of infrastructure and logistics,” he said.

“For example, in Kenya, the Pfizer vaccine is only available in select centers in the capital city of Nairobi because of the -80 degrees freezers and special syringes/needles being unavailable (outside). Even for the other vaccines that require -20 freezers, the distribution of the vaccines is limited to areas with the cold-chain and therefore many parts of the country are excluded from the vaccine coverage.”

The lack of cold-chain services and other equipment and facilities required for a successful vaccination program is a problem that cannot be solved in isolation from the broader issue of infrastructure deficits on the continent.

“Without addressing the broader social determinants of health – such as electricity and water supply, public transport and specialized transport for people who cannot move around easily, and safe and conveniently located vaccination sites, vaccination efforts will be difficult,” Paremoer said.

“Addressing these broader infrastructural issues is crucial for improving health outcomes generally. With the increased commercialization of basic goods and services like electricity and water, many communities are struggling to access these services which are crucial to daily activities – bathing, cleaning, food preparation, internet and phone connectivity – which are the cornerstones of psycho-social and physical welfare.”

IMF’s prescription to African governments led to contraction of health budget amidst pandemic
A comprehensive approach to the pandemic which addresses the broader weaknesses of the healthcare system and underdeveloped infrastructure requires a commitment of significant resources from the budget. Most African governments, under the thumb of the IMF, remain hesitant to do so.

After a meeting in Senegal’s capital Dakar earlier this month, IMF’s managing director Kristalina Georgieva said that she was “encouraged by the commitment of Ministers from the region to pursue well-targeted policies consistent with the maintenance of macroeconomic stability and a robust medium-term reform agenda.”

“The countries in the region,” she reiterated, “should continue to address the health crisis, while ensuring that policies are well-targeted and consistent with the maintenance of macroeconomic stability.”

“The above language asks the governments to prioritize the well-being of abstractions like “economic indicators” instead of the well being of actual people,” said Paremoer.

IMF’s prescription for macroeconomic stability, in South Africa for instance, has “despite the pandemic, translated into a contraction of the budget allocated to the health sector, the phasing out of state-sponsored bursaries for nursing students, and the continued exploitation of the community of health workers who are poorly paid and have very difficult working conditions,” Paremoer added.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2021/12/22/ ... in-africa/
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Re: Socialist Demands for the COVID-19 Crisis

Post by blindpig » Thu Dec 23, 2021 3:48 pm

Biden says he's making 500 million COVID test kits available for free but hasn't even signed a contract to buy them or set up website to order them: Johns Hopkins expert says 'that's not a plan - it's a hope'

*Biden accused of issuing a 'hope' rather than a plan by Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins
*'If those tests came in January and February, that could have an impact, but if they are spread out over 10 to 12 months, I'm not sure what kind of impact it is going to have,' the expert said
*It is not even known how many tests will be immediately available or how quickly they can be shipped out
*Amazon, Walgreens and CVS this week imposed limits on how many tests each customer can buy
*Comes amid warnings that Covid could infect 140m between January and March - 60% of all Americans
*But despite the gloom the new British studies give Biden - who has promised no lockdowns - fresh optimism
*Scientists at Imperial College London found the chance of having to stay in hospital overnight 40% lower
*Second study from Scotland on Wednesday said risk of being hospitalized with Omicron was 65% less likely

By RONNY REYES FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

PUBLISHED: 00:32 EST, 23 December 2021 | UPDATED: 07:16 EST, 23 December 2021

Joe Biden has promised to deliver 500 million Covid tests but hasn't even signed a contract to buy them or set up a website so that people can place orders.

'That's not a plan - it's a hope,' Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told The New York Time.

'If those tests came in January and February, that could have an impact, but if they are spread out over 10 to 12 months, I'm not sure what kind of impact it is going to have.'



It is not even known how many tests will be immediately available or how quickly they can be shipped out to American homes, according to new projections from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

Amazon, Walgreens and CVS this week imposed limits on how many tests each customer can buy because of the surging demand.

It comes amid warnings from US experts that the virus could infect 140 million people between January and March - 60 percent of all Americans.

America is currently averaging 148,384 daily cases, a 23 percent increase from two weeks ago, and Omicron cases have increased by 19 percent day-over-day to about 2,084.

The new variant now accounts for 73 percent of new cases in the US and pushes Europe to the brink of fresh lockdowns.

But despite the gloomy outlook, Biden - who has vowed to avoid lockdowns - can be buoyed by recent British studies showing the new variant is milder.

Imperial College London on Wednesday found that Omicron is 40 percent less likely to lead to serious illness than the Delta variant.

Another study by the University of Edinburgh suggested that the new variant could slash hospitalisations by as much as 65 percent.

Both studies underlined, however, the importance of vaccines with the Imperial study stating the risk of hospitalization for an unvaccinated person was just 10 percent lower for Omicron than with Delta.

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Joe Biden announced that the government would provide 500 million free rapid at-home tests for Americans during his Tuesday speech, but the contracts to provide the tests have yet to be signed as the nation braces for a COVID surge in the coming weeks

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IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON: Researchers at Imperial College London found Omicron is 10 per cent less likely to cause hospitalisation in someone who has never been vaccinated or previously infected with Covid than with Delta. Hospitalisation is up to 20 per cent less likely in the general population — including those who have been infected or vaccinated — and 45 per cent less likely for at least a night

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UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH: University of Edinburgh researchers found the risk of being hospitalised with Omicron was 65 per cent less with Omicron than with Delta. Graph shows: The rate of hospitalisation in different age groups for Delta (green) and Omicron (red) cases in Scotland

The warning comes as Dr Anthony Fauci this week urged Americans to disinvite unvaccinated people from Christmas gatherings as the fast-spreading COVID-19 Omicron variant fuels a surge in infections nationwide.

'We're dealing with a serious enough situation now that if there's an unvaccinated person, I would say, 'I'm very sorry, but not this time. Maybe another time when this is all over,'' said Fauci in an interview with MSNBC on Tuesday night.

The study by Imperial, one of Britain's leading universities, found that for someone who has been recently infected, the chance of hospitalisation was slashed by 69 per cent in both vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

The finding may explain why in South Africa — where up to 70 per cent of people have immunity from prior infection but only a quarter are jabbed — is seeing daily hospitalisations stall at less than 400.

Professor Neil Ferguson said: 'You can see in London, we are getting a lot more people hospitalised. Not for very long, probably not with very severe illness.

'And that's not a reflection of Omicron versus Delta — that was already true for Delta infections, that they're less severe than they were last year because there's a lot of immunity in the population.

'The challenge is, if there's enough of them it still poses quite a challenge to the NHS. We're not talking about anything like what we saw last year with over-flowing intensive care units and ventilator beds.'

The notoriously gloomy expert confirmed he expected the Omicron wave to be milder, with patients discharged from hospitals quicker and fewer Covid deaths, but warned there could still be significant pressure on the National Health Service (NHS).

He also warned that if infections are 40 per cent higher than they were with Delta then that could offset any reduction in severity.

The data came just moments after a similar study conducted in Scotland found the risk of being hospitalised with Omicron was 65 percent less than with Delta.

University of Edinburgh researchers said Omicron was as severe as Delta they would have seen around 47 people in hospital in Scotland, yet so far there are only 15.

Dr Jim McMenamin, the national Covid incident director for Public Health Scotland, labeled the findings a 'qualified good news story', but said that it was 'important we don't get ahead of ourselves'.

He said: 'The potentially serious impact of Omicron on a population cannot be underestimated.

'And a smaller proportion of a much greater number of cases that might ultimately require treatment can still mean a substantial number of people who may experience severe Covid infections that could lead to potential hospitalisation.'

But Professor Mark Woolhouse, of the University of Edinburgh, said it was heavily caveated at the moment. The data is based on a small number of cases and didn't have much data on those most at risk, the over 65s.

As COVID cases soar across the U.S., health experts have predicted things will get worse in 2022 as the Omicron variant is expected to cause 140 million new infections from January to March, infecting 60 percent of all Americans, the majority of which will be asymptomatic cases.

Researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington updated their COVID-19 model and expect the virus to hit the US hard come January, peaking at 2.8 million new cases a day by January 28.

'We are expecting an enormous surge in infections ... so, an enormous spread of Omicron,' IHME director Dr. Chris Murray said told USA Today.

'Total infections in the U.S. we forecast are going from about 40 percent of the U.S. having been infected so far, to having in the next two to three months, 60 percent of the U.S. getting infected with Omicron.'

Despite the surge, experts believe the new infections will ultimately lead to fewer deaths and hospitalizations than the deadly Delta variant, as Omicron is believed to be a more infectious but less severe variant.

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Along with the at-home testing plan, the US has bolstered its COVID testing sites across the US ahead of the holiday. Pictured, Washington DC residents waiting in line for tests on Wednesday

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The warnings of colossal infections mean that Biden's testing pledge is more important than ever.

Dr. Michael Mina, another epidemiologist and former Harvard professor who previously urged for expanded test, said the government's plan would likely take two to three months distribute tests.

'Had this been started a long time ago, maybe things would be a bit different,' said Mina, who recently became the chief science officer of eMed, which distributes at-home tests.

'But this is where we are now, and we kind of have to deal with it.'

Biden's plan could also face competition from state and local governments who thought of free at-home testing first.

In Maryland, Gov. Larry Hogan announced the state was partnering with Abbott Laboratories, a major manufacturer of rapid at-home tests, to deliver 500,000 tests to residents.


Colorado also began free testing distribution in October, as did dozens of cities in Massachusetts under the state's free testing program.

Abbott Laboratories spokesman John Koval said in a statement that the company is seeing an 'unprecedented demand' for these tests and that the company was 'sending them out as fast as we can make them.'

It comes as a stark difference from when the company had to destroy millions of tests in August over low demand just before the deadly Delta surge.

Biden had come to office vowing to expand testing for Americans to curb the spread of COVID, but his administration later focused primarily on the vaccination effort,

'Testing unequivocally saves lives, and widespread testing is the key to opening up our economy again,' Biden had said in June 2020 before the administration let testing fall to the wayside.

Now the need for testing come as confirmed Omicron cased to 2,084, up from 1,781, as of Wednesday morning, but that number represents only the tiny fraction of infections that are DNA sequenced.

Deaths have stabilized, with America averaging around 1,300 deaths per day - a steady figure for the past week and down slightly from two weeks ago. Encouraging new data from a leaked British study suggests that Omicron infections are less severe than prior variants.

On Tuesday, the US recorded 172,072 new cases - down from 253,954 on Monday - and 2093 deaths in a single day. The US recorded 1,513 deaths the day earlier. Since the start of the pandemic, the US has recorded 51.2 million COVID-19 cases and 810,045 deaths.

The White House also noted that it increased other testing methods in past months, including sending out 50 million free tests to community health centers.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the 500 million tests are the 'biggest purchase that we have don to date.'

'It certainly represents a significant commitment, a recognition by the president that we need to be doing more,' she said.

Psaki's comments come after she previously mocked the idea of sending out at-home tests nationwide on December 6.

'Then what happens if you — if every American has one test? How much does that cost, and then what happens after that?,' she said at the time.

Psaki was slammed by medical professionals for appearing to mock the idea. Other nations, including those in Europe and Asia, send out at-home, free tests.

'Should I have included that additional context - again and that answer is yes,' Psaki said on Tuesday. 'Going back I wish I would have done that.'

Her regret came the same day President Joe Biden announced a plan to ship 500 million COVID at-home tests to Americans in the new year and as people experience long lines and testing shortage ahead of the holiday season.

Two weeks ago, Psaki was criticized by medical experts for mocking a reporter who questioned her about at home testing.

NPR's Mara Liasson, on December 6th, asked the White House press secretary why the government would not simply give out the tests free of charge to everyone, as is done in countries like the UK, Germany and South Korea.

Psaki met the NPR correspondent's suggestion with apparent contempt, saying in response with a sarcastic smirk: 'should we just send one to every American?'

'Maybe,' Liasson shot back, before again trying to point out the example of other countries, only to be cut off by Psaki.

'Then what happens if every American has one test? How much does that cost, and then what happens after that?' the White House spokesperson demanded.

Liasson replied: 'I don't know. All I know is that other countries seem to be making them available...in greater quantities, for less money.'

The testy briefing room back-and-forth quickly caught the attention of doctors and public health experts, who wasted no time raking Psaki over the coals for what one commenter described as her 'terrible, flippant, wrong' response.

'Actually stunned by this response by the @PressSec @WHCOVIDResponse @WhiteHouse,' tweeted Rick Bright, CEO of the Rockefeller Foundation. 'We should remove all access barriers to rapid tests. They're too expensive, in short supply & adding extra insurance barriers isn't the answer. Yes, mail them to all Americans.'

Gregg Gonzalves, a Yale University researcher did not mince words, writing in a tweet: 'this answer was terrible, flippant, wrong. Rapid tests are hard to get, expensive & could be a key intervention in fighting #COVID19. Other countries have figured out better ways to get these tools into the hands of their citizens. Do better.'

Dr Craig Spencer, Director of Global Health in Emergency Medicine at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, pointed out that the US government has already spent billions of dollars of vaccines, so 'tests should be no different.'

President Biden, meanwhile on Tuesday, tried to calm American fears about a pandemic surge just in time for Christmas.

'This is not March 2020,' he said, citing the fact that 61.5% of Americans are vaccinated and the country is better prepared.

He once again pleaded with the unvaccinated to get their shots.

He even credited former President Donald Trump, who said publicly that he got his own booster shot.

'It may be one of the few things he and I agree on,' Biden quipped.

Biden also acknowledged it can be hard to get an appointment for COVID testing – coughing into his hand as he made the point, as well as at another point during his remarks.

He spoke to Americans' frustration with yet another surge. 'We'll get through this,' he said from the State Dining Room of the White House.

He began his remarks by acknowledging 'how tired, worried and frustrated I know you are. I know how you're feeling. For many of you, this will be the first or even the second Christmas where you look across the table being an empty kitchen chair there. Tens of millions have gotten sick, all experienced upheaval in our lives.'

But he said the nation was 'tougher' than COVID, 'because we have the power of science and vaccines to prevent illness and save lives.'

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Americans have been experiencing long lines and delays in getting tested for COVID ahead of the holidays

As COVID cases soar across the U.S., health experts have predicted things will get worse in 2022 as the Omicron variant is expected to cause 140 million new infections from January to March, infecting 60 percent of all Americans, the majority of which will be asymptomatic cases.

Researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington updated their COVID-19 model and expect the virus to hit the US hard come January, peaking at 2.8 million new cases a day by January 28.

'We are expecting an enormous surge in infections ... so, an enormous spread of Omicron,' IHME director Dr. Chris Murray said told USA Today.

'Total infections in the U.S. we forecast are going from about 40 percent of the U.S. having been infected so far, to having in the next two to three months, 60 percent of the U.S. getting infected with Omicron.'

Despite the surge, experts believe the new infections will ultimately lead to fewer deaths and hospitalizations than the deadly Delta variant, as Omicron is believed to be a more infectious but less severe variant.

The number of daily COVID cases is expected to more than double come January, with the Omicron variant predicted to cause about 140 new cases come March 2022 +32
The number of daily COVID cases is expected to more than double come January, with the Omicron variant predicted to cause about 140 new cases come March 2022

Daily deaths are expected to increase as well and peak at around 2,800 deaths by mid-February. The rate is predicted to be lower than last year's winter surge +32
Daily deaths are expected to increase as well and peak at around 2,800 deaths by mid-February. The rate is predicted to be lower than last year's winter surge

+32
The projections showed deaths increasing from the current 1,500 a day throughout January before peaking at around 2,800 deaths a day in mid February.

It's less than the more than 3,000 daily deaths recorded in January 2021.

Because the majority of those infected won't feel sick or get tested, the researchers warned that the total infections will be underreported, predicting that only about 400,000 new cases will be reported every day as opposed to the more than a million.

Murray said that while the forecast may be pessimistic, it is within the area of possibility based on the current information scientists have on the Omicron variant, which now accounts for 73 percent of new cases in the US.

The good news, however, is that Omicron's hospitalization rate is about 90 to 96 percent lower than Delta, which rampaged through much of the US in August.

'In the past, we roughly thought that COVID was 10 times worse than flu and now we have a variant that is probably at least 10 times less severe,' Murray said. 'So, omicron will probably … be less severe than flu but much more transmissible.'

But other experts said it was too soon to make a judgment on Omicron and feared the variant might end up causing the biggest surge the U.S. has ever scene.

'With omicron, we are seeing lots of infections, we are already seeing hospitalizations and – even though it takes time to die – we are already seeing deaths,' Dr. Daniel Griffin, chief of infectious diseases at ProHealth Care and a clinical instructor of medicine at Columbia University, told USA Today.

'It will take a little more time to know for certain about any relative severity as well as cross protection for reinfection with other variants after omicron infections.'

'Nothing's been good enough': Joe Biden slams his own administration's response to COVID and lack of test kits - but claims 'nobody saw it coming' about Omicron
President Joe Biden criticized his administration's own handling of the coronavirus pandemic, admitting the response hasn't been 'good enough' as the Omicron variant spreads like wildfire, leading to a massive surge of cases ahead of Christmas.

Biden, 79, echoed Vice President Kamala Harris' claim that no one saw Omicron coming, but said they were always alive to the possibility of new variants.

When asked by ABC's David Muir on Wednesday how the administration had failed to see Omicron coming, Biden laughed.

'How did we get it wrong?' the president responded. 'Nobody saw it coming. Nobody in the whole world. Who saw it coming?'

Muir replied: 'Did the administration not expect that there could be moments like this one where you'd have a highly transmissible variant around the corner?'

Biden said: 'It was possible, and it's possible there could be other variants that come along.

'That's possible.

'But what do you plan for? You plan for what you think is available.

'That is the most likely threat that exists at the time and you respond to it. And I think that that's exactly what we've done.

'And that's - for example, Omicron is spreading rapidly, but the death rates are much, much lower than they were.

'This is not March of 2020. This is a very different time that we're in now.'

Biden said: 'Omicron only really came on the scene just before Thanksgiving. We weren't talking about Omicron six months ago.

'But it's just recent.

'And so we are chasing Omicron.

'But the fact of the matter is, you're chasing whatever comes on the scene that hadn't, wasn't there before, and this wasn't there this last summer for example.'

Muir pressed Biden on whether the administration had failed the American people.

'We're nearly two years into this pandemic, you're a year into the presidency. Empty shelves and no test kits in some places – three days before Christmas when it's so important. Is that good enough?' Muir asked the president, in an interview that aired on Wednesday evening.

'No, nothing's been good enough,' Biden replied.

'But look, look where we are,' he added of the progress.

'Last Christmas we were in a situation where we had significantly fewer people vaccinated, emergency rooms were filled, we had serious backups in hospitals that were causing great difficulties.

'We're in a situation now where we have 200 million people fully vaccinated. And we have more than that who have had at least one shot – and we're getting these booster shots, as well.'

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Asked if it was a failure of his administration, Biden replied: 'I don't think it's a failure.'

He said: 'I think it's - you could argue that we should have known a year ago, six months ago, two months ago, a month ago.'

But he did express some regret about not ordering the rapid, at-home tests sooner.

'I wish I had thought about ordering' 500 million at-home tests 'two months ago,' he told Muir.

In July, Biden told the country that a corner had been turned in the fight against COVID.

He said he did not regret the comments, and stressed that it was an ongoing fight.

'How are we going to do this? Are we certainly going to be able to overcome the Delta - excuse me, the virus, COVID-19?

'The answer is: the expectation is yes, because we have the best scientists in the world.

'We move so rapidly compared to other countries.

'But we don't know, we don't know for certain, so that's why.'

On Tuesday, Biden announced new measures to address the prevailing coronavirus pandemic as the latest variant interrupts thousands of Americans' holiday plans.

During his remarks Tuesday and in his interview that aired Wednesday, the president assured vaccinated Americans who test negative that they can safely celebrate Christmas with their families this year, claiming the spike in cases is not indicative of another lockdown to come.


'The docs who advise me on this are still saying if you are tested, if you know where you are in terms of having gotten your shots, there's no reason you can't get together with your family and your friends.

'And we couldn't do that last Christmas,' Biden told Muir.

Asked why there was no vaccine mandate to get on a plane, Biden said he had considered it, but ruled it out.

'It's been considered but the recommendation I've gotten, it's not necessary,' Biden said.

'Even with omicron. That's the recommendation I got so far from the team.'

The president acknowledged during his Tuesday remarks that it can be hard to get an appointment for COVID testing – coughing into his hand as he made the point, as well as at another point during his remarks.

The administration, however, is facing backlash as a shortage of coronavirus testing kits ensued just as Omicron spread through the country and as thousands get ready to travel to see their families for Christmas this week.

The White House claims it didn't predict the Omicron variant and holiday surge.

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Massive lines have formed around the country for Americans to receive free at-home rapid COVID testing kits ahead of the holidays. Pictured: City residents wait in line in Philadelphia for their kits

Biden praised in his interview the 200 million Americans who are fully vaccinate

Cases have been surging in several hot spots, including Hawaii, Florida, Texas and New York as the Omicron variant spreads like wildfire across the country

Biden snapped when asked Tuesday if it was a failure that more tests weren't available after experts who have advised the administration for months warned the nation needs a surge of kits.

'No, it's not,' he shot back. 'Because COVID is spreading so rapidly – notice it just happened almost overnight, just in the last month.'

In his July 4 speech on the South Lawn of the White House, Biden said the country was 'closer than ever' to gaining independence from COVID.

'Do you think you over-promised?' Muir asked.

'No, we were closer to ever,' Biden said. 'But, there's a lot we don't know.'

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(much more...)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... pread.html

Edited for excessive imagery.

There they go again: Dems promise what they cannot deliver as long as it sounds good. How long...?

Gotta wonder if daily Mail gives such extensive and damning coverage on their own covid sinkhole...
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Re: Socialist Demands for the COVID-19 Crisis

Post by blindpig » Wed Dec 29, 2021 3:39 pm

The Federal Government's Covid Failure Becomes Even More Apparent

Today I was busy with medical issues. Nothing bad to report on my side. But I feel somewhat sad for the people in the U.S. who's health get screwed by its 'elite' over and over again.

Seven days ago the CEO of Delta Airlines asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to cut quarantine time for Covid breakthrough cases:

Delta Air Lines Inc's chief executive asked the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday to shrink quarantine guidelines for fully vaccinated individuals who experience breakthrough COVID-19 infections, citing the impact on the carrier's workforce.
CEO Ed Bastian, along with the company's chief health officer and a medical adviser, asked in a letter to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky seen by Reuters that the agency's recommended quarantine period for anyone who tests positive with a breakthrough COVID-19 infection be reduced to five days from the current 10.

The letter suggested that individuals could end isolation with appropriate testing.
...
"With the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, the 10-day isolation for those who are fully vaccinated may significantly impact our workforce and operations," Bastian wrote. "Similar to healthcare, police, fire, and public transportation workforces, the Omicron surge may exacerbate shortages and create significant disruptions."
...
Delta said that "as part of this policy change, we would be interested to partner with CDC and collect empirical data."


The CDC immediately set off to do what the business side of the U.S. told it to do. Yesterday it changed its guidelines for recommended isolation and the quarantine period:

Given what we currently know about COVID-19 and the Omicron variant, CDC is shortening the recommended time for isolation from 10 days for people with COVID-19 to 5 days, if asymptomatic, followed by 5 days of wearing a mask when around others. The change is motivated by science demonstrating that the majority of SARS-CoV-2 transmission occurs early in the course of illness, generally in the 1-2 days prior to onset of symptoms and the 2-3 days after. Therefore, people who test positive should isolate for 5 days and, if asymptomatic at that time, they may leave isolation if they can continue to mask for 5 days to minimize the risk of infecting others.
Additionally, CDC is updating the recommended quarantine period for those exposed to COVID-19. For people who are unvaccinated or are more than six months out from their second mRNA dose (or more than 2 months after the J&J vaccine) and not yet boosted, CDC now recommends quarantine for 5 days followed by strict mask use for an additional 5 days. Alternatively, if a 5-day quarantine is not feasible, it is imperative that an exposed person wear a well-fitting mask at all times when around others for 10 days after exposure. Individuals who have received their booster shot do not need to quarantine following an exposure, but should wear a mask for 10 days after the exposure. For all those exposed, best practice would also include a test for SARS-CoV-2 at day 5 after exposure. If symptoms occur, individuals should immediately quarantine until a negative test confirms symptoms are not attributable to COVID-19.


These recommendation are:

*way too differentiated and thereby confusing. Only the first sentence up to but excluding the word 'asymptomatic' will be followed.
*not based on science as the infectious period of Covid cases varies over a relative wide range and can be even more than ten days after symptom onset.
*misses the use of tests after the five day period.
*does not mention the varying quality of different masks and does not recommend the use of K95/FFP2 masks which are the only ones that should be used by likely infectious persons.

The recommendations give backing to businesses who tell their workers to come to work even when sick.

They go far beyond what the Delta CEO asked for. The three points set in bold in the first quote above get ignored in the CDC recommendations.

The U.S. doctors and scientist I follow on Twitter all disagree with the CDC.

Jerome Adams @JeromeAdamsMD - 13:50 UTC · Dec 28, 2021
Regardless of what CDC says, you really should try to obtain an antigen test (I know- easier said than done) and confirm it’s negative prior to leaving isolation and quarantine.
There’s not a scientist or doctor I’ve met yet who wouldn’t do this for themselves/ their family.
Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH @ashishkjha - 13:48 UTC · Dec 28, 2021
While new CDC isolation guidelines are reasonable, here's what I would have done differently
1. Required a neg antigen test after 5 days
2. Had different guidelines for vaccinated (contagious for shorter time) versus unvaccinated
3. Specified higher quality masks
Short thread ...
Eric Topol @EricTopol - 14:50 UTC · Dec 28, 2021
The data that supports the new @CDCgov 5 day isolation period without a negative test


Topol's tweet has a picture of an empty paper attached to it.

The often quoted Angie Rasmussen is livid:

Dr. Angela Rasmussen @angie_rasmussen - 15:34 UTC · Dec 28, 2021
Once again, @CDCgov outdoes itself by taking what might be a reasonable policy (test to leave isolation) and removing the part that makes it reasonable (the testing part). This is reckless and, frankly, stupid.
Mandatory 10-day isolations could be reduced if a person tests negative sequentially. Example: 2 negative tests 24 hr apart beginning on day 5. But just assuming that people with no symptoms aren’t shedding shitloads of virus? CDC, where have you been this entire pandemic?

SARS-CoV-2 spreads readily from people without symptoms. That’s a key reason why the pandemic has been so hard to contain. @SaskiaPopescu and I reviewed this nearly A YEAR AGO, long before omicron befouled our holidays.
SARS-CoV-2 transmission without symptoms
...
I’m very disappointed with yet another failure to actually use evidence in formulating recommendations. I’m very disappointed in @CDCDirector @RWalensky’s leadership, which has been at best erratic and at worst nonexistent.

Actual public health leadership means not putting business interests first during a public health crisis with policies you just pulled out of your ass. It’s callow, it is devastating to public confidence, and it’s going to blow up when omicron cases continue their meteoric rise.

This isn’t changing policy to reflect the changing evidence. This is caving to business interests with a nakedly evidence-free one-size-fits-all solution that was probably cooked up in lieu of the will to actually increase testing availability to make test-to-release possible.


Angie gets political:

We all had such high hopes for the Biden administration’s pledge to let science lead the way out of this pandemic. Those hopes have been dashed repeatedly by the lack of follow through on any of the promises made regarding the pandemic.
A year later, we still don’t have enough tests, 40% of people are unvaccinated, there’s no national mask mandate or vaccine mandate, and the country is ablaze with omicron. It didn’t have to be this way and wouldn’t be if @POTUS kept his promises.


Well Angie, its the system that is sick and not the man at the top.

In a phone call with governors Biden yesterday rejected all responsibility:

Republicans wasted no time slamming Joe Biden after the flip-flopping president said 'there is no federal solution' to combatting COVID-19 on Monday.

The CDC changes will ease COVID-related flight cancellations as sick flight personal will be able to help spread the virus even when they don't like to do so:

"We said we wanted to hear from medical professionals on the best guidance for quarantine, not from corporate America advocating for a shortened period due to staffing shortages,” said Association of Flight Attendants-CWA International President Sara Nelson following the CDC announcement shortening the recommended quarantine duration from 10 days to five days.
“The CDC gave a medical explanation about why the agency has decided to reduce the quarantine requirements from 10 to five days, but the fact that it aligns with the number of days pushed by corporate America is less than reassuring,” Nelson said.


The CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have had so many screw ups during the pandemic that one must doubt their usefulness.

Recently the FDA authorized and even praised Pfizer's Paxlovid anti-Covid drug. But its use is seriously in doubt:

When Paxlovid is paired with other medications that are also metabolized by the CYP3A enzyme, the chief worry is that the ritonavir component may boost the co-administered drugs to toxic levels.
Complicating matters, the drugs that pose interaction risks are widely prescribed to people at the greatest risk from Covid because of other health conditions.

The medications include, but are not limited to: blood thinners; anti-seizure medications; drugs for irregular heart rhythms, high blood pressure and high cholesterol; antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications; immunosuppressants; steroids (including inhalers); HIV treatments; and erectile dysfunction medications.

The half of the U.S. population that is most in danger due to Covid will not be able to take Paxlovid as it already uses incompatible medications.


The CDC is still unable to track the number of Omicron cases. Today it admitted that it (again) screwed up its own statistic:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention significantly revised its model of the breakdown of Covid-19 variants on Tuesday, estimating the Omicron strain accounted for about 58.6 percent of U.S. cases as of Dec. 25.
The public health agency’s previous estimate that the rapidly spreading variant accounted for 73.2 percent of cases nationwide on Dec. 18 is now revised down to 22.5 percent — a significant drop that falls outside the agency's earlier 95 percent prediction interval, or likely range where future analysis will fall, of 34 to 94.9 percent of all cases.
...
The U.S. is now recording more than 206,000 daily Covid-19 infections — a number that is rapidly growing. Americans continue to travel at high levels through the holidays: more than 2 million people flew yesterday, according to Transportation Security Administration data.


Tomorrow the number of new Cocid cases per day in the U.S. will likely exceed the previous record.

Omicron guarantees that the next few month will be a wild ride. But no matter how high the number of cases will be the U.S. the federal government and its institutions will do nothing about it. They have been proven to be incapable for systemic reasons independent of their leadership. It does not have to be that way but I see no one who is trying to change that.

To be clear. I am not worried for myself. I am vaccinated and was boostered today. But I worry about those who for whatever reason are not vaccinated. And about those who will get sick with non-Covid issues and who will have difficulties to find an empty hospital bed while Omicron rushes through. Good luck to them.

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(Like all Covid threads this one too will get policed to eliminate promotions of drugs that are not useful and arguments not based on science.)

Posted by b on December 28, 2021 at 19:56 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/12/t ... .html#more

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WHO Warns About the Fast Spreading of Omicron Strain

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The WHO express its concern about the fast spreading of the Omicron variant. Dec. 28, 2021. | Photo: Twitter/@WHO

Published 28 December 2021

On Tuesday, the World Health Organization expressed its concern about the Omicron variant leading to a congestion in the healthcare system, as the countries reinforce their anti-COVID measures and France reaches a new record of daily cases.


With the reinforcement of anti-COVID measures around many countries and the new record of daily COVID-19 cases in France, the World Health Organization expressed its concern about a possible collapse of healthcare systems.

The rebound in COVID-19 cases has led many countries to reinforce the restrictions, from the economic sector to the social, aimed at controlling the spread of the virus. France reported on Tuesday the highest number of cases in 24 hours since the start of the pandemic.

To contain the number of infected, the country's authorities demanded companies have employees working from home at least a few days a week. On the other hand, in the U.S., the isolation period was reduced for asymptomatic cases.

Germany established restrictions for the second year in a row, which included closing nightclubs, discos, and forced sports competitions behind closed doors. Even with a smaller number of infected per day, China continues with its "zero Covid" strategy, which demands staying at home in many parts of the city of Yan'an.

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The 13 million people in the city of Xi'an and the hundreds of thousands of affected residents faced a six-day stay at home, as China battled with the highest infected daily cases ever in 21 months. Still, China's numbers are very low compared to many other industrial nations.

The Netherlands and Switzerland reported on Tuesday that the Omicron strain has become dominant in their countries, as it is a highly transmissible strain.

Catherine Smallwood, WHO Europe's Covid Incident Manager, said that Omicron's fast growth "will still result in large numbers of hospitalizations, particularly amongst unvaccinated groups, and cause widespread disruption to health systems and other critical services."

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/WHO ... -0014.html

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Xi'an boosts measures to fight latest outbreak
By ZHENG CAIXIONG | China Daily | Updated: 2021-12-28 10:58

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Residents queue up for nucleic acid test in Xi'an, Northwest China's Shaanxi province, Dec 23, 2021. [Photo/Xinhua]

Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province, has tightened control measures to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus after the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the city continued to witness sharp growth.

No vehicles, except those engaged in pandemic control and livelihood support, were allowed on the roads since Monday.

Zhang Bo, deputy director of Xi'an city health commission, said the metropolis reported 150 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Sunday, pushing the city's total number of coronavirus patients to 635 by the end of Sunday.

It was the second day that Xi'an reported more than 150 confirmed cases in a single day.

The new reported cases-78 men and 72 women-included two children aged under three and 12 seniors over 60, Zhang said at a news conference on Monday.

All residents are required to stay at home unless they have to go out for nucleic acid testing, according to a notice issued by the city's public security bureau. The previous policy that allowed one person from a family to buy daily necessities every two days was suspended until further notice.

Those who violate the COVID-19 policies will be punished, with a maximum of 10 days in detention and a fine of 500 yuan ($78), the notice said.

Zhang said Xi'an added 35 medium risk areas on Sunday, and the city now has 150 medium-risk areas, plus a high-risk one.

To detect those infected, the city has started a new round of mass nucleic acid testing beginning on Monday.

More than 31,000 medical staff have been sent to 5,077 sample collecting centers citywide to help identify possible patients and asymptomatic carriers, he said.

As of 4 pm Monday, 6.42 million residents have had their samples collected.

The big increase of COVID-19 patients in Xi'an has brought the total number of confirmed cases in Shaanxi province to 651 by the end of Sunday.

Ma Guanghui, deputy director of Shaanxi Provincial Health Commission, said Shaanxi province reported 598 confirmed cases in the previous week, with the youngest only six months old and the oldest over 90, he said.

Gene sequencing of 137 patients in Shaanxi has indicated that the Delta strain of the virus is similar to imported cases from an international flight from Pakistan that arrived in Xi'an on Dec 4.

Ma said more confirmed cases were expected as the province expands nucleic acid testing and screening in the days to come.

He urged residents to actively cooperate in the fight against the pandemic and not to panic.

He also urged Xi'an residents not to leave the city if unnecessary.

Wei Xiaoli, deputy director of the Xi'an center for disease control and prevention, said the sharp increase in the number of confirmed cases detected in the previous two days was due to the increase of nucleic acid tests.

Zhang Boli, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, forecast the Xi'an outbreak might reach a turning point in the second half of January and be put under control before the Chinese New Year in early February.

Moreover, he urged relevant departments in Xi'an to go all out to prevent the epidemic from spreading to rural areas and beyond the city.

Shi Bingyin, a professor with the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, said most of the patients in this round of outbreak have only mild symptoms or are asymptomatic carriers.

That indicated the domestic vaccines have played an effective role, he added.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202112/2 ... 7ddfc.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Socialist Demands for the COVID-19 Crisis

Post by blindpig » Tue Jan 04, 2022 2:18 pm

A socialist plan to defeat COVID-19
Liberation StaffDecember 29, 2021

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This article originally appeared in the print edition of Liberation News

Workers across the country are wondering with increasing desperation: Will the COVID crisis ever end? Two years after the first case of the virus was detected, society is becoming increasingly, bitterly divided over how to address this crucial question. All the while the death toll continues to mount.

The situation is not hopeless. Although right wing demagogues have slowed the vaccination process and intensified the spread of the virus by sowing doubt about the most basic public health measures, it is still possible to end the pandemic.

We can look at other countries for examples of why this is true. Socialist countries like China and Cuba have successfully contained COVID, despite huge difficulties. Even though it was the country where the virus struck first, China prevented its uncontrolled spread through a massive, centralized public health response that included guaranteeing workers the necessities of life like food and shelter. Adjusted for population size, the death toll in the United States is approximately 850 times higher than in China.

Cuba is a small island nation that is blockaded by the most powerful empire to ever exist — the United States. Even though it faces tremendous difficulties acquiring the medical supplies and other basic goods it so badly needs, life is now returning to normal in the country. By mid-November, 92 percent of the population had been fully vaccinated, using vaccines developed by Cuban scientists. Schools reopened and public gatherings no longer pose a threat to people’s health.

These countries were able to achieve these results because they followed an approach that prioritized preserving life above all else. But that has never been the goal of the United States’ COVID response. The U.S. ruling class has one main objective in mind: re-open the economy at full capacity as quickly as possible so that they can keep making profits.

A section of the U.S. capitalist class came to the conclusion that the best way to accomplish this was to minimize or outright deny the existence of the problem. The leading proponent of this approach was then-president Donald Trump, who was joined by right wing state and local officials like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott along with a whole host of far right media pundits and agitators. They promoted the view that COVID was little worse than the common cold, that wearing a mask was a violation of one’s freedom, and that vaccines were unnecessary or unsafe. Just show up to work and go about your daily life like normal, they urged workers, and don’t worry about the hundreds of thousands of deaths taking place all around you.

Some have even outrageously argued that taking such a position is pro-worker. They make the case that lockdown measures, the closure of schools and restrictions on travel deprive workers of income and crucial services. But this accepts the false dilemma imposed by the capitalist class. There is no reason that these public health measures cannot be taken while simultaneously guaranteeing housing, an income, and other social rights for the working class. More than enough resources in society exist. It could be taken from the 650 billionaires in the United States who became $2 trillion wealthier over the course of the pandemic.

At this point, rebuilding public trust in absolutely essential health measures like fully vaccinating the entire population will be a tremendous challenge. Many people are understandably distrustful of a government that has so completely abandoned them during this crisis, especially Black, Latino and Indigenous workers whose communities have long suffered from racist medical malpractice. The only way this can realistically be turned around is if massive programs are initiated to meet the needs of the working class, which would serve as an unmistakable signal that a completely new approach to tackling the pandemic has been adopted.

The government should immediately wipe out the rent debt accumulated by tenants and mortgage payers to landlords and banks, and issue an indefinite nationwide freeze on evictions. There should be an income guarantee for workers and small businesses where lockdowns become necessary to contain the disease’s spread. Likewise, there should be income guarantees for parents who need to stay home with their children because in-person schools or daycare centers are closed. Big pharmaceutical corporations are rightfully hated and distrusted by the people because of their long history of price gouging, deceit and corruption. They should be nationalized under the people’s control to make it clear that the vaccines are safe and not being rushed into use to maximize profit.

It will take tremendous struggle to achieve these and other essential measures, but that is far preferable to surrendering to the virus and all the death and suffering that goes with it.

https://www.liberationnews.org/a-social ... -covid-19/

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COVID-19: What Cuba has accomplished
Liberation StaffJanuary 1, 2022

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Socialist Cuba, despite the 60-year U.S. economic blockade, has made remarkable achievements in combating COVID-19. Cuba has:

*Developed its own vaccines
*Begun sharing these vaccines with other countries
*Achieved a vaccination rate of over 90%, from 2-year-olds and up
*Safely reopened schools to all children Nov. 15, 2021
*Deaths per 100K: 73.31

Let’s compare this success story to the U.S., the richest and arguably most powerful nation:

*Vaccine rates nationally hovering around 61.9%
*A violent, right-wing “anti-vax” movement agitating against basic public health
*COVID vaccines developed with public funds for private profit
*Vaccine hoarding holds back distribution to the global south for profit
*New surges lead to overcrowded hospitals and a crisis of medical worker burnout
*Deaths per 100K: 240.18

Why is this the case?

Cuba began to create a rational COVID plan based on a scientific understanding of the virus, right from the start. They promoted accurate information about how to protect oneself and one’s community against spread of the virus. They went to work in early 2020 on developing their own vaccines in their renowned biotechnology institutes. Despite the importance of tourism to their economy, the government shut down tourism to prevent infection.

When it became clear that schools needed to be closed for the safety of all, the government provided consistent educational services via lessons on television. The entire health care apparatus in the country directed its attention to supporting the health of the people. When the vaccines finally became available, despite many challenges including a shortage of syringes due to the US Blockade, people were able to access the vaccines without obstacles and willingly went to get vaccinated. A major international solidarity campaign was undertaken to donate millions of syringes to Cuba, from Canada, the United States and European countries. As a result the schools are now open, tourism has resumed, and the number of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID have dropped dramatically.

This remarkable achievement rests on a foundation of socialist development. The Revolution has prioritized education, from the literacy campaign to advanced education at all levels. The Revolution has prioritized health care, resulting in a universal, accessible and completely free healthcare system. Years ago, Cuba made a conscious choice to develop a biotechnology industry, which was able to rapidly implement a plan leading to not one but five vaccines. Mass literacy and high educational levels mean in addition that the Cuban population understands scientific concepts.

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Cuba’s vaccination campaign was launched massively in July.It took about two months to show dramatic effects. On September 19 for instance, there were more than 8,500 new infections and dozens of deaths per day. As vaccination took hold, the COVID-positive numbers began to drop every day starting October 1. By mid-December, the daily new cases did not reach above 80. Despite the increase in cases the last week of December, only 19 people died in all of that month. This is likely because the high rate of vaccination is preventing severe illness in breakthrough illnesses.

Cuba has also had a consistent lower rate of mortality in COVID cases thanks to early medical intervention in positive cases. The mortality rate on December 31 for Cuba was 0.86% vs 1.89% in the world, and 2.31% in the rest of the Americas.

Children are also vaccinated from the age of two. As of December 6, some 90% of Cubans had received their first dose. This places the island second only to the United Arab Emirates in terms of vaccination rates. No other country in Latin America has such a high vaccination coverage. No other country in Latin America has produced its own vaccine.

Why there is no anti-vax movement in Cuba

And yet it is not simply the existence of well-educated, well-trained scientists, doctors and nurses. To defeat a pandemic requires a collective effort. Cubans accepted the restrictions needed to stop the spread of the virus not only because they have an accurate scientific understanding of the virus. They also feel a social responsibility to prevent its spread by social distancing, masking and getting vaccinated. Cubans are not fed a steady diet of individualism at all costs, instead, values of solidarity are instilled in them. That means making sacrifices to help others.

In addition, Cubans trust their government: not only because the government works to provide health care, education, housing, food, but because the government is always upfront and honest with the people. The people understand that the government is not some entity distinct from the people, it IS the people.

In the United States, most people have good reason to lack trust in both the government and the mass media. In similar fashion, people in the U.S. have good reason to distrust the for-profit healthcare establishment and the pharmaceutical industry. This understandable mistrust has been weaponized when combined with racist ideologies and extreme individualism fueling a movement against vaccination, masking and other public health measures.

The false freedom of capitalism means that right-wing politicians and major capitalists are allowed to propagate dangerous falsehoods about COVID and the vaccine, and even threaten scientists and experts who counter anti-scientific myths. Trump as president railed day after day against experts’ advice, helping to create great mistrust of the vaccine, and causing needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

The Florida and Texas governors banned mask mandates in their states, even in primary schools! Tesla owner Elon Musk called California Gov. Gavin Newsom a fascist for imposing limits in public sites and worksites. A recall effort was quickly mounted because of his stance, and the top contender promised to ban mask mandate in the state if Newsom had lost.

The mistrust and individualism of millions of U.S. people has grown on top of a lack of scientific literacy. The U.S. education system is well known to be underfunded. Public school curricula are determined state by state and can be influenced by political processes. While this has come to the public’s attention most recently in the fight over the alleged teaching of Critical Race Theory in schools, the politicization of education has also negatively impacted science and health curricula, even leading to the failure in some locales to teach basic evolutionary theory, which is essential for understanding how a virus mutates.

COVID-19 in third year highlights United States’ capitalist health care crisis

The U.S. is the only developed country that does not have a universal health care system, but instead ties medical insurance to employment. Some 40 million Americans have no coverage at all. Eight-out-of-ten of these are working class people or their dependents. The health care coverage of others is so poor that they don’t seek out the medical attention they need because they can’t afford the thousands of dollars in yearly deductible payments.. And many immigrants, especially the undocumented, don’t use the health system for fear of deportation. They are also denied eligibility for the Affordable Care Act.

Controlled by insurance companies, health maintenance organizations, pharmaceutical manufacturers, medical-device producers, hospital systems and other private corporations, health care, and its fee-for-service model, is a commodity to be sold to those who can afford it. Health care has become a scattered array of often unconnected services, where each service provider seeks to charge the highest price that they can. Expensive cures and costly designer medications are prioritized over basic healthcare because they bring in more money.

Today, the U.S. spends more on health care than any developed nation, but this hasn’t brought good health. On the contrary, there has been an across-the-board decline in well-being, health and life expectancy, and a widening in the wellness disparities between rich and poor.

It is no secret that the U.S. health care system is badly broken. How can it be fixed? There is an excellent model in Cuba. Why look to Cuba, a “lesser developed” country, given the “advanced” state of U.S. medical knowledge for cures?

We should look to Cuba because Cuba has:

*Lower infant mortality than the U.S. In recent years, Cuba’s infant mortality rate — a little more than 4 deaths per 1,000 births in 2016 — is lower than in the United States, (5.6 per live births), and is among the lowest in the world. Unfortunately, Cuba just reported that of the 99,093 births in 2021, the infant mortality rate rose to 7.6 deaths. This was mainly due to pregnant women suffering from COVID, that in turn led to premature births, and a number of early induced births to save the life of the COVID-positive mothers and the baby.
*Higher life expectancy. Cuba’s life expectancy (80.62 years) is higher than the U.S. (78.69 years).
*More doctors per person. Cuba has 9 doctors per 1,000 inhabitants,) the highest number in the world, while the U.S. has 2.9 MDs for every 1,000 people.
*And accomplishes this for less money. Cuba’s $6,928 per capita for healthcare is 73.68% lower than what is spent per person on healthcare than the
United States.

Where spending less brings much, much more

We should look to Cuba because, despite extremely limited resources due to economic sanctions imposed by the United States for almost 60 years, Cuba has managed to guarantee access to care for all segments of the population.

We should look to Cuba because its health delivery system shows that efficient health care can be provided at much less cost to the people when the focus is on primary care and prevention.

We should look to Cuba because learning how to do more with less, we can have the best of both worlds – the current U.S. advances in cures combined with the Cuban integrated health care model. We should look to Cuba because even under a very difficult situation, socialism means a better future for people.

https://www.liberationnews.org/covid-19 ... rationnews
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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