More Than 1 in 4 US COVID Deaths Have Occurred on Biden’s Watch
Fails to capitalize on success of Trump vaccine
More than 25 percent of Americans killed by COVID-19 have died on President Joe Biden's watch, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis.
Of the 551,638 total COVID-related deaths in the United States, nearly 142,000 of them have occurred since Biden was inaugurated on Jan. 20. On average, just over 2,000 Americans per day have died from COVID-19 during Biden's presidency.
By comparison, zero Americans died from COVID during the first 10 weeks of Donald Trump's presidency. The high number of deaths on Biden's watch have occurred even with the stunning success of the COVID-19 vaccines developed during the Trump administration.
WFB PRESENTS: BIDEN COVID DEATH TRACKER
Since Trump left office, most mainstream media networks have abandoned their thorough and often hysterical obsession with COVID-related deaths. A number of other crucial "accountability" projects have been scrapped as journalists readjust their definition of "speaking truth to power."
CNN, for example, has been been "afflicting the comfortable" with headlines such as: "Infrastructure was a Trump punchline but is a window into Biden's soul." Biden's first official press conference, a painfully bumbling affair, featured precisely zero questions about the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, Biden's dog continues to reflect poorly on his owners by wreaking havoc on the White House. Alas, our nation's journalists are too busy jumping the COVID vaccination line to notice, much less care.
Epidemiologist warns that the fourth COVID-19 surge is under way in United States
Leading US epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy in Minneapolis, gave a stark warning of a devastating new stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in interviews Sunday on two national television networks.
Dr. Osterholm explained the context and real dangers hinted at in the statement by Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, when she declared last Monday that she was afraid and felt a sense of “impending doom” about the pandemic.
On Sunday, speaking with host Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press,” Osterholm said, “At this time, we are in a category five hurricane status with regard to the rest of the world. At this point, we will see in the next two weeks the highest number of cases reported globally since the beginning of the pandemic … I think it was a wake-up call to everyone yesterday when Michigan reported 8,400 new cases and we are now seeing increasing numbers of severe illnesses, ICU [cases] and hospitalizations in individuals who are between 30 and 50 years of age who have not been vaccinated.”
After discussing the concerns posed by the rise in more virulent and immune-evading variants, Osterholm explained, “Chuck, I’m even more worried what’s coming down the pike over the next several years. Right now, if you look at vaccine distribution around the world, ten countries have received about 80 percent of the vaccines. Thirty countries haven’t seen even a drop of it. If we continue to see this virus spread across low- and middle-income countries unfettered, they are going to spit out variants over the course of the next years that can in every and each instance challenge our vaccines. This is why we need not only a US response, but we also need a global response to get as many people vaccinated.”
Globally, the number of cases of COVID-19 is approaching 132 million, and the number of deaths over 2.8 million. The seven-day average in daily cases and fatalities has climbed to 581,000 and more than 10,000, respectively. With 40 million total cases, Europe sees more than 3,000 deaths per day with the total number of fatalities approaching one million. Poland, Turkey, and Ukraine face severe struggles as they are in the worst phase of their surges. India’s COVID-19 cases are rapidly accelerating and will exceed 100,000 new cases per day this week, the country's highest total during the pandemic. Brazil appears to have reached its peak with 3,000 deaths per day.
Meanwhile, the US seven-day average has been slowly rising, with over 66,000 new cases per day. Cases in the upper Midwest and Northeast have public health officials worried. Speaking on Fox News, Osterholm was blunt in dismissing the actions of state and federal governments in relaxing restrictions and reopening schools, particularly in light of the spread of new variants like B.1.1.7.
“We are the only country in the world right now experiencing this increasing number of cases due to this variant and at the same time, opening up, not closing down," he told host Chris Wallace, who seemed taken aback by the forthright warning. “The two basically are going to collide, and we are going to see a substantially increased number of cases.”
Osterholm continued, “I understand the absolute resistance in this country even to consider that and you know—it's kind of like trying to drink barbed wire—but the bottom-line message of the virus is it’s going to do what it’s going to do, and we are going to have to respond somehow.” He added that this might involve pulling “back on some of the restrictions that we’ve loosened up on.”
This resistance derives primarily from the drive by the US ruling elite, backed by both capitalist parties and the corporate media, to force children back to school and their parents back to work, in order to produce profits for the capitalist class.
Osterholm, who served as a member of President Biden’s COVID-19 transition advisory board, has been phased out since his blunt warning in January that the drop in coronavirus cases was “the eye of the hurricane” and not genuine progress. This warning is now being tragically confirmed.
The epidemiologist focused much of his discussion on the danger that B.1.1.7 was more dangerous to children than the initial form of the virus. “They are now, as kids, getting infected at the same rate that adults do,” he explained. “They’re very effective at transmitting the virus. Just in Minnesota in the last two weeks we’ve had 749 schools with cases.” he said.
According to the Washington Post’s vaccination tracker, approximately 106 million people have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, accounting for just 32 percent of the population. Seventeen percent have been fully vaccinated. By comparison, Europe has barely vaccinated ten percent of its people.
The steep rise in cases in the Midwest and Northeast is predominately being driven by COVID-19 cases in children, which has been driven by the rabid school reopening campaign.
According to the Michigan Department of Health and Humans Services, cases among younger children have increased by 230 percent since February 19. Minnesota’s state epidemiologist Dr. Ruth Lynfield confirmed that the B.1.1.7 had a higher attack rate among children compared to earlier versions. “We certainly get the sense that the youth is what we might refer to as the leading edge of the spread of the variants,” she said.
The Massachusetts health department reported that the most significant number of new COVID-19 infections in the last two weeks were among children and teens. Concerns are also being raised that the infections with the B.1.1.7 variant lead to a higher burden of illness among children.
There are now 12,505 cases of B.1.1.7 variants detected across all US states and territories (this refers only to cases identified through genetic testing, which accounts for only a tiny fraction of total cases. The CDC now estimates that the B.1.1.7 version of the coronavirus is the predominant strain across areas representing two-thirds of the US populace.
Bloomberg stated on Friday, “The CDC identified five of 10 regions Friday, saying they include much of the Eastern seaboard, from New York south to Florida, as well as the Midwest and most of the sunbelt. About 220 million people, or two-thirds of the US population, live in those five regions.” This makes up 26 percent of cases nationally. Additionally, it should also be noted that 353 cases of the B.1.351 variant first seen in South Africa have been detected across 31 states, while the P.1 variant first seen in Brazil has rapidly spread across 22 states with 224 cases detected.
Throughout the month of March, Osterholm was warning that the American people “are walking into the mouth of this virus monster as if somehow, we don’t know it’s here, and it is here.” This is an apt description of an historic crime, one being committed against the American people by the US ruling class and its political servants.
The coronavirus is an existential threat that brings with its dire consequences to the working class. It is critical to appreciate that the emergence of the new variants is not merely the escalation of the present pandemic but the rise of a new pandemic with the more dangerous characteristics.
The ruling elites have repeatedly shown that their concerns for profits determine their response to the pandemic. They care nothing for the life of working people.
It is critical that working people assimilate the lessons and experiences gained over the last year and recognize that they are the only force capable of bringing this pandemic to an end, by casting off the shackles of the capitalist mode of production, which is ultimately the cause of this present pandemic. This means the building of an independent movement of the working class for socialism.
Health care worker burnout rising sharply: “Every day we’re expected to do more in less time”
Data from the third NurseGrid survey was recently released, showing that nurses’ sense of well-being has significantly declined throughout the pandemic. Notably, rates of self-reported burnout swelled to 61 percent, a sharp increase from 25 percent in September. The December survey results also show that more than 20 percent of nurses report that they plan to leave bedside nursing or leave nursing entirely by 2021.
The recent data compiles survey answers from December 9-18, 2020. The aim of the third survey was to update the first two surveys (completed in April and September of 2020) and draw out trends in nurses’ mental health as the pandemic continues to rage.
NurseGrid is an application widely used by nurses across the country to access work-related information, such as scheduling and communicating with co-workers. It was used as a platform for the survey in collaboration with the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN). The sample size for the third survey was 10,017 nurses.
The three NurseGrid surveys bring out changes in nurses’ main concerns throughout the progression of the pandemic. In April, the survey showed nurses mainly concerned about shortages of PPE and ventilators, whereas in December a majority of nurses reported concerns centered on shortages of nurses and ICU beds. However, PPE remains a concern with only 42.7 percent of surveyed nurses reporting an adequate supply of PPE. Many nurses are still forced to reuse hospital-provided PPE or purchase their own PPE.
While the research included in this article relates to nurses, nurses are just one subset of the health care workforce. Health care workers function as a team, and COVID-19 has affected everyone, from environmental services to staff physicians to transport workers.
On a Facebook group of certified nurse assistants (CNAs), a recent discussion of burnout brought the aforementioned data to life. All names have been changed to protect their identities.
Grace, a CNA at a long-term care facility, wrote: “Every day we’re expected to do more in less time. Getting more and more short staffed by the day. There’s a big division between nurses and CNAs at my workplace, the aides get treated like crap. ... We have mandatory overtime. We’re in low census, but it seems like the highest resident count we have ever had because all the residents we have are in need of so much help.”
Another CNA, in the same Facebook thread, added: “Burnout is everywhere. I might be looking into a career change. I love what I do ... but I feel like I’m not making a difference.” Others in the discussion expressed a similar desire to leave their jobs or careers entirely.
Burnout is a phenomenon characterized by emotional exhaustion, lack of motivation and feelings of frustration. In the 1980s, researchers Christina Maslach and Susan E. Jackson were the first to quantify burnout, developing a scale called the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). The MBI is widely used today in multiple variations. Maslach’s definition of burnout is widely understood today as a state of mind developed over time in response to excessive stress at work, characterized by feeling emotionally drained, having a detached response to other people and lacking interest in improving work performance.
While greatly exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the issue of burnout among health care workers is not new. A theoretical review published in 2020 summarized findings from 91 different peer-reviewed papers on burnout in nurses from 1976 to 2019. Authors found that high workload, value incongruence, low control over the job, low decision latitude, poor social climate/social support and low rewards are predictors of burnout.
The entire review can be read here, but for the purposes of this article, only a few of the theorized causes of burnout—patient requirements, value congruence and workload—will be discussed.
Four of the reviewed papers investigated the relationship of burnout to patient characteristics/requirements. Overall the papers found that nurses were more likely to report being emotionally exhausted and growing cynical when taking care of suffering patients or patients with complex needs. Caring for a high number of patients, who are dying or have decided to withdraw life-sustaining treatment, was also shown to result in higher burnout scores.
Seven of the eight studies on value congruence—the extent to which a person’s personal principles line up with the requirements of the job—showed an inverse correlation with burnout. Low value congruence tended to predict burnout, in accordance with the MBI.
High workload has a high association with the development of emotional exhaustion. Twelve of the 13 studies that focused on high workload found this connection. Poor staffing levels, often causing high workload for those nurses left on the floor, was also independently shown to predict burnout in 12 of the 15 studies focused on staffing.
The voices of health care workers confirm that COVID-19 greatly exacerbated conditions that research has shown may lead to burnout. In Facebook discussions, health care workers described witnessing high rates of death, being overwhelmed by the care of very complex patients in COVID ICUs, feeling ethically and morally exhausted as they are unable to care for patients properly due to lack of time or staff, working longer hours with less staff and taking on higher patient loads. In many cases health care workers must take on the additional role of support or comfort for scared, lonely and dying patients unable to see family members as a result of restricted visitation.
In a respiratory therapist (RT) group on Facebook, Martha, a retired respiratory therapist from Kansas with over 40 years’ experience, described the workday for an RT before COVID-19. “We [RTs] are always multitaskers—in any given day we work ED, NICU, ICU, med-surg, oncology, PACU, etc. There are maybe 3–4 staff members or even just one person sometimes covering all those areas. We run the gamut of the hospital or facility every day. ... Our daily patient loads per shift consist of many patients sometimes 30–40 different patients per shift that we each see multiple times per shift.”
In her comments she insisted that the entire hospital staff was affected by the additional stress brought on by COVID-19—from environmental services, laundry workers and kitchen staff to nurses and transport workers.
Martha closed her statement: “Hardest of all, [RTs] are too many times the last voice a patient hears before we extubate them and let them go. So after all the other things we do, end of life care is added to the list—we are seeing/doing way too much of that and it takes a toll. Covid just added to the myriad of reasons healthcare workers burn out.”
Jamie, a CNA, expressed similar feelings of emotional and physical exhaustion. “I’m really burnt out. So overworked and underpaid. We’re having to work one aide to 30–40 residents a day ... and having to help other units as well because it’s been so hard on all of us that many are so tired and overworked that people are calling off or quitting. Most of us are so anxious before we go into work ... we feel sick and dizzy.”
Jamie works in a nursing home and stated that with the onset of COVID-19, staffing became much worse as co-workers fell ill or quit in order not to put their families at an increased risk of contracting the deadly virus.
She also described how patient care suffers as a result of COVID-19 and burnout of health care staff, a phenomenon which is backed by the results of the aforementioned theoretical review. Evidence from 17 of the included studies pointed to the negative effects of burnout on patient care. Areas of patient care including safety, adverse events, medication errors, patient falls, patient dissatisfaction, and family complaints are possibly increased on units or in facilities where staff suffer from high levels of burnout. This, in turn, has the potential to further increase burnout, disturbing health care workers who joined the medical field to help patients.
“The residents seem to be weaker and like they’re giving up because they don’t have anything to look forward to now that families aren’t allowed in,” Jamie wrote.
“Even housekeeping isn’t getting done because nobody wants to go into sick people’s rooms to clean and there is nobody in laundry anymore so rags and clothes etc. aren’t getting washed. We’re wiping people with pillowcases and sheets. It’s quite sad really. I feel like before COVID all of us were at least not overworked. Being overworked on top of being underpaid on top of no staff is killing us and making the patients suffer.”
Obscene global vaccine profiteering by pharmaceutical companies
Last week, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told a private Zoom meeting of backbench Tory MPs, “The reason we have the vaccine success is because of capitalism, because of greed my friends… It was giant corporations that wanted to give good returns to shareholders. It was driven by big pharma.”
His obscene comments sum up the response of the ruling elite to the pandemic—an opportunity for profiteering on a huge scale, aided and abetted by imperialist governments that have protected Big Pharma’s monopoly profits.
The reality is that the pharmaceutical companies were initially not interested in vaccine development. Zain Rizvi of the advocacy group Public Citizen told the Financial Times that the “immense scarcity” of vaccines was directly attributable to Big Pharma being “missing in action” as the coronavirus pandemic took off. The drug companies had years ago cut back on vaccine research and development in favour of blockbuster drugs to treat cancer and rare diseases, though the likelihood of a pandemic had long been discussed.
Even after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11 last year, three of the largest corporations, GSK, Sanofi and Merck, that dominated the vaccine market, were reluctant to get involved. They calculated that the pandemic would have run its course before a vaccine was ready and demonstrating once again the degree to which public health needs take second place to profits.
As the BBC reported in December, “Initially firms didn't rush in to fund vaccine projects. Creating vaccines, especially in the teeth of an acute health emergency, hasn't proved very profitable in the past.”
It was only after the governments of the European Union (EU), UK and US and agencies offered funding, including the main cost of running the “Phase 3” trials, assuming most of the risk in the process, that the industry started work on vaccine development, making rapid progress.
The profit gouging also began in earnest.
The US alone poured in an unprecedented $14 billion via Operation Warp Speed even though six of the Big Pharma, excluding Moderna, had combined revenues last year of $266 billion and profits of $46 billion, an 18 percent profit margin, and could easily have funded it themselves.
While GSK, Sanofi and Merck received over $2 billion from the US government to support the production of vaccines, Merck pulled out after disappointing early test results. GSK and Sanofi are working jointly on a vaccine. According to the People’s Vaccine Alliance, they are largely sitting on the sidelines, planning to produce Covid-19 vaccines for only 1.5 per cent of the global population in 2021.
Of the major vaccine producers, only Pfizer has a successful vaccine, produced jointly with the German company BioNTech using the new messenger RNA technology that requires storage at ultralow temperatures. The other major producers are new entrants to the field, the US-based biotech companies Moderna, whose vaccine also uses the RNA technology, and Novavax, whose vaccine can be stored in a normal refrigerator.
Moderna, the most expensive vaccine, received $2.5 billion from the US government. The campaigning group Public Citizen argues that this means, “Taxpayers are paying for 100 percent of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine development. All of it.” With the US government subsequently buying or reserving up to 500 million doses, Moderna is likely to make a whopping $8 billion profit.
While BioNTech/Pfizer’s vaccine was privately funded, the company received a €100 million development loan from the European Development Bank as well as a €365 million euro grant from the German government to help with manufacturing costs.
Public monies funded not only the development of the vaccines but also, via the universities and public laboratories, much of the science underpinning the vaccines. Crucially, all the vaccine development teams benefited from the initial research carried out by Professor Zhang Yongzhen at the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre where he had sequenced thousands of previously unknown viruses. The Centre made the first genomic sequencing of the COVID-19 virus freely available on the open-source site virological.org on the very day that Wuhan recorded its first Covid death. It was the release of Covid’s genetic code that allowed University of Oxford, Moderna and BioNTech to design their vaccines in short order.
The companies have made a killing from massive pre-orders by governments, far larger than their population requirements, even before their vaccines had obtained regulatory approval. The US government made $1.95 billion and $1.53 billion pre-payments for the BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna vaccines respectively through Operation Warp Speed, in effect an interest free loan.
But that was not enough for Big Pharma. They lobbied hard to guarantee monopoly profits by insisting the World Trade Organisation reject India and South Africa’s call to waive patent protection for the vaccines and to allow developing countries to manufacture or import generic versions. Pfizer boss Albert Bourla said, “At this point in time, I think it’s nonsense, and… it’s also dangerous”.
The US, the EU and the UK fell in line. Similarly, the companies sought and got legal indemnities from the governments protecting them in the event of problems with the vaccine, while ensuring that their contracts remained secret.
All this translates into massive profits for the pharmaceutical corporations. BioNTech/Pfizer is expected to make $4 billion profit on $15 billion sales at around $19 a shot, a profit margin of nearly 30 percent according to the Financial Times, as the company strikes hard bargains with rich and poor countries alike. Moderna is projected to make $8 billion profits on sales of $18.4 billion with at least 700 million pre-ordered vaccines in 2021 at between $25 to $37 a shot. The company says production costs are just 20 percent of sales revenues. The ultimate beneficiaries are the giant investment funds that hold the companies’ shares.
As well as profits, the companies have had a massive free advertising campaign as their jabs have made them household names, while the science underpinning the vaccines can be put to treating and profiting from other diseases. Furthermore, according to figures from Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, should the advanced countries decide to offer annual booster jabs to cope with new, more resistant variants, as they do for flu, the pharmaceutical companies are set to rake in a further $10 billion or more a year.
The one company that bucked the trend was AstraZeneca, which is selling its jab at between $2 and $4 a dose after entering into an agreement with the University of Oxford that restricted its prices. Not having developed a vaccine of its own, it bought the rights to the jab developed by the university’s Jenner Institute, paying the university $90 million and a 6 percent share of future royalties. The university’s spinout company, whose directors include the leaders of the vaccine development team Professors Sarah Gilbert and Adrian Hill, will get 24 percent of the university’s share.
The scientists had initially wanted their vaccine to be produced on a non-exclusive, royalty-free basis, with the director of the Jenner Institute telling the media, “I personally don’t believe that in a time of pandemic there should be exclusive licenses.” He was echoing the words of Dr Jonas Salk, the inventor of the polio vaccine, who refused to patent the jab. When asked, “Who owns this patent?”, Salk famously replied, “Well, the people I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”
In the event, the University of Oxford, stating that it needed to organize a massive global roll-out, entered into an exclusive deal with AstraZeneca, which agreed to sell the vaccine on a not-for-profit basis, claiming “We are absolutely committed to make the vaccine available to as many countries as possible at no profit during the period of the pandemic to support broad and equitable access around the world.”
Forgoing profits in the short term was viewed as good public relations and in any event ran counter to the terms of the deal that were not made public. According to the Financial Times, the contract allows the company to make 20 percent above the cost of manufacturing the vaccines and can raise the price when it deems the pandemic to be over, any time after the end of July. While these conditions appear to apply to the UK and EU, the company is also selling the vaccine to poorer countries, including Bangladesh, South Africa and Uganda, at higher prices.
Nevertheless, the AstraZeneca jab is the cheapest on the market, with the US corporation Johnson & Johnson more expensive despite also selling its vaccine at “cost price” during the pandemic, which is why the AstraZeneca vaccine has far larger shots under contract than any other vaccine producer. Its vaccine became the vaccine of choice for the world’s poorest countries and the WHO’s Covax scheme, particularly since it does not require storage at low temperatures.
Their prices at $2-$4 are far lower than Sanofi/GSK’s vaccine at $9.19, Pfizer/BioNTech’s at $14.59 and Moderna’s at $18, according to the pricelist negotiated by the EU. Other countries, including the US, are paying far higher prices, with the Pfizer jab reportedly costing $39 per person. While AstraZeneca’s expected profits are unknown, sales of $6.4 billion in 2021 and a 20 percent profit margin implies profits approaching $1.3 billion.
Unquestionably, AstraZeneca’s undercutting of the market has incurred the wrath of its rivals, causing uproar in France, Germany and the US. The EU threatened a ban on the export of the vaccine, yet another instance of the vaccine wars fueled by the conflicting interests of the rival companies, the major imperialist countries, as well as their rivals and client states.
The unrestrained drive for profits has put vaccines out of reach for most of the world’s population and will serve to massively increase global death rates as more virulent mutants proliferate.
The disastrous response of all the major capitalist powers and the pharmaceutical industry to the global COVID-19 pandemic confirms the necessity of abolishing the capitalist system that subjugates human health and every other basic need to private profit. The international working class must intervene to expropriate the pharmaceutical giants and every major industry sector, transforming these monopolies into publicly-owned and democratically-controlled utilities to serve the needs of humanity.
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