A coronavirus pandemic reality check
Around the world, from North America to Asia, governments are abandoning all measures to stop the spread of COVID-19, reopening schools and workplaces and encouraging mass gatherings. To justify these measures, the media endlessly promotes the false claim that the coronavirus pandemic is effectively over.
The reality is quite the opposite. In the past seven days, there have been more than 620,000 new cases recorded in the US and at least 10,000 official deaths as a result of the pandemic. Worldwide, the number of new cases grew by more than 2.8 million and nearly 48,000 human beings were added to the tally of the dead. As it has been since it first emerged, the virus continues to be a mortal threat for every person on the planet.
Such figures did not stop the New York Times from publishing an opinion piece on Thursday by Paul Krugman titled, “What if Things Are About to Get Better?” According to Krugman, the ongoing colossal loss of life should merely be viewed as the end of “the summer of our discontent,” as worded by the Times columnist. That nearly 86,000 people died in the US between June 21 and September 22, including more than 160 children, is of no consequence.
Instead, Krugman argues that because of a relative drop in cases in the US and limited vaccine mandates by the federal government and various corporations, the population “can feel fairly safe going back to the office, going out to eat and—most important of all—sending their children to school.” Moreover, workers must overcome their “unwillingness” to “engage in risky activities” and simply accept reopenings and the tens of thousands of premature deaths they will inevitably cause.
The Times piece also ignores the inconvenient fact that there is still no vaccine for children under 12, meaning that tens of millions of infants and school children are still vulnerable to the pandemic. Data from the American Academy of Pediatrics shows that hundreds of thousands of children are infected each week, alongside rising hospitalizations. The vast majority of these infections are caused by what Krugman views as “most important,” children being back in schools.
There is also no consideration of the spread of the pandemic in other countries. Eastern Europe continues to be one of the hardest hit regions. Poland has suffered more than 11,000 new cases and 175 new deaths in the past week, both figures up 50 percent from the week before. Ukraine has had a similar spike, reporting more than 82,000 new cases and nearly 1,700 dead over the last seven days. In Romania, cases have jumped to 89,000 every seven days, a 28 percent increase, while deaths have climbed to 1,762 per week, a 49 percent increase.
Even in Germany, often hailed as a model for Europe’s pandemic response, both new cases and deaths have risen by about 25 percent during the last seven days compared to the preceding seven days. Official figures of cases and deaths over the past week climbed to 68,000 and 400, respectively.
One of the worst hit countries is Russia, where cases and deaths have spiked sharply in recent weeks. Daily new cases have been rising in the country since mid-September and are approaching the peak seen last December. As a result of this surge, a record 6,400 deaths were reported in the country last week.
Other countries that have seen a rise in their case and death counts include Sudan and Somalia. In both African countries, which have suffered greatly over many years as a result of indirect or direct US military interventions, the number of new reported cases has more than tripled. Deaths over that same period more than doubled in Sudan and increased by more than a factor of five in Somalia.
Among the many consequences of the hundreds of thousands of new cases each day will be the emergence of new and more infectious variants of the coronavirus, including the possibility of one wholly resistant to the vaccine. Such a variant, even under Krugman’s Panglossian prognosis that the pandemic is ending in the US, would inevitably restart the waves of infection and death workers are still living through.
America’s financial oligarchy has blinded itself to these dangers, focusing instead on more completely reopening the economy. The latest stage of the reopenings in the US has been the resumption of in-person mass cultural events. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra, where musicians last year were forced to take a 20 percent pay cut after its performances were canceled, has again begun full-capacity in-person concerts. The Boston Symphony Orchestra similarly began to have in-person performances at the end of September.
This is an international phenomenon. The United Kingdom will on October 11 remove 47 countries from its “red” list of countries where travel is unsafe, including world pandemic hot spots India and Brazil. Bali (the resort island in Indonesia), India and Vietnam are all slated to loosen their own travel restrictions. Vietnam, which has suffered the vast majority of its 800,000 coronavirus cases and 20,000 coronavirus deaths since July, is beginning domestic flights and is planning to fully reopen for the summer 2022 tourist season.
In Pakistan, all educational institutions are slated to reopen even though there are still more than 1,200 new cases and more than 30 new deaths each day.
The argument that it is the appropriate time to reopen because cases are falling is all the more homicidal and fallacious given that even as cases have dipped slightly in the US, the rate of infection is still higher than during every other part of the pandemic except the highs of last November, December and January. And there has been a systematic effort, beginning with then-President Donald Trump and continuing under Joe Biden, to cover up the actual number of cases, including by limiting testing and contact tracing and the outright falsification of data.
Workers should also remember that similar arguments that reduced case numbers mean it is safe to reopen the economy have been used before. It was federal policy under the Trump administration, developed in the wake of the initial lockdowns in March 2020. The slight drop in cases in April, combined with claims that enough personal protective equipment and other critical devices such as ventilators had been stockpiled, was used in late April and May to reopen auto plants and other areas viewed as critical to the American economy.
The results were predictably disastrous. A second wave in the summer saw tens of thousands more deaths, followed by some limited lockdown measures. Those were lifted after it was proclaimed that the increase in testing and the development of therapeutics meant that it was safe to reopen. What followed was the most severe spike in cases and deaths seen in the US and worldwide to date.
Workers must fight to eradicate COVID-19. An initial expression of this perspective has been voiced by UK parent Lisa Diaz, who organized the first global school strike against unsafe reopenings during the pandemic on October 1 and has called for a second. “Given that our politicians are doing nothing to protect us, I propose another school strike,” she declared. “Let’s send a powerful message, a global message, that we will not let our children be collateral damage. They shouldn’t be sitting ducks.”
This initiative expresses broad sentiments in the working class, expressed in one form by the fact that Diaz’s latest call for action got more than 42,000 views in 24 hours. Millions are looking not merely to abate the worst of the pandemic, but for a scientifically grounded strategy to end almost two years of needless suffering and death.
The objective basis for such a strategy will be presented at the October 24 meeting “How to end the pandemic: The case for eradication,” organized by the World Socialist Web Site and the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees. Scientists and workers will present the state of the pandemic and explain the need to eradicate COVID-19 worldwide. All those looking for the way to save lives should share the event as broadly as possible and register today.
164 children killed by COVID-19 across the US over the past two months
The latest American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) report shows that 22 children died from COVID-19 across the US during the week ending October 7, bringing the country’s official pediatric death toll to 542 since May 2020. Coinciding with the bipartisan push to fully reopen schools this fall, 164 children have died from COVID-19 over the past two months alone, with an average of 20 child deaths each week or roughly three each day.
The AAP report notes that last week there were 148,222 official COVID-19 infections among children in the US, a slight decline from the previous week but still as high as during the major surge of infections last winter. A closer look at the data shows that the only significant decline in cases occurred in the South, where cases dropped from an estimated 75,000 to 50,000 cases, still horrifically high numbers.
Ongoing infection in children has had devastating reverberations for families, including child deaths as well as hospitalizations and deaths among family members. A recent study revealed that an estimated 140,000 children in the US have lost a caregiver to COVID-19 since the pandemic began, while the global figure stands at more than 1.56 million.
The latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that there is currently a seven-day average of 188 new pediatric hospitalizations for COVID-19 every day across the US. Additionally, in recent months there has been an acceleration of pediatric hospitalizations for Multi-System Inflammatory Syndrome in children (MIS-C), a condition which causes major inflammation of different parts of the body, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes or gastrointestinal organs, and usually appears six to eight weeks after initial COVID-19 infection.
The CDC reports that there have been 1,217 cases of MIS-C since June 2, raising the total number of cases to 5,217 since May 2020. To date, there have been 46 reported MIS-C deaths. Doctors have been warning about an increase in MIS-C cases following the ongoing explosion of infections among children since the summer months and in particular after schools fully reopened. Between July and August, the number of daily MIS-C cases nearly doubled, according to CDC data.
The official figures make clear the immense impact of COVID-19 on children, but they are undoubtedly a significant undercount. There are entire states that either do not report age distribution of cases, hospitalizations, or deaths, or have changed the parameters of their reporting, effectively downplaying the impacts of the virus on children.
According to the AAP, Texas, Alabama and Nebraska recently stopped reporting child COVID-19 cases in their state data. Michigan, Montana, New York (excluding New York City), Rhode Island, Utah and West Virginia do not report the age distribution of deaths in their state data. Any child deaths that have occurred in these states are not included in the AAP cumulative death toll.
Added to the lack of systematic reporting of COVID-19 data among children across the US, there is no robust testing of symptomatic and asymptomatic cases among youth or real contact tracing measures to identify cases and the breadth of community spread.
Children under 13 years old are still not eligible for vaccination, presenting immense dangers for millions of children who have been herded back into classrooms with no real protections in place and under conditions of high community spread.
Attempts by the Biden administration, state officials, the unions, and the mainstream media to assuage real concerns of parents fearful of their children contracting COVID-19 by promoting the roll-out of a vaccine as early as next month has come too little too late. If an emergency vaccine is available a month from now, children will not be fully vaccinated until weeks later, at which point over 100 more children will have died from COVID-19 and hundreds of thousands more will have been infected.
The impact of school reopenings has been most disastrous in the South, where “herd immunity” advocates have entirely scrapped mitigation measures such as masks, while opposing vaccine mandates. The region accounts for 14 of the 22 child deaths from COVID-19 in the latest APP report.
In Tennessee, there were three reported child deaths this past week alone. Local news reports show at least 23 school employees have died in the state since August when schools began reopening. Data from the Tennessee Department of Health shows there were approximately 5,000 more COVID-19 infections in August and September than the four-month previous winter surge among Tennessee residents age 20 or under. In neighboring Georgia, more than 30 school employees have died of COVID-19 since the start of the school year in July.
In Florida, the reopening of schools has been catastrophic. Florida Education Association’s “Safe Schools Report” notes that 24 children and 102 school employees have died from COVID-19 since July alone. The Florida Department of Public Health has logged 209,535 cases among children since August 1.
Texas has reported an astonishing 88 total child deaths since May 2020, the highest number of any state. At least nine child deaths have been reported since late September. On October 6, 16-year-old George Moralez, a student at Connally High School in Waco, Texas, died from COVID-19. He became the fourth person to die from the virus in the school district since the school year began in August. On October 1, Richardson Independent School District in Richardson, Texas confirmed that Berkner High School junior Shanya Maggie and Christa McAuliffe Learning Center teacher Eroretta Piashik both died from COVID-19.
In Democrat-led districts and states that reopened with promises that limited mitigation measures would prevent COVID-19 outbreaks in schools, the reality is that hundreds of thousands of children have been infected this semester. Even these measures are being rolled back as cases steadily rise. Significantly, the APP report noted that there were 45,000 COVID-19 cases among children in the Midwest last week, over 17,000 in the Northeast and over 37,000 on the West Coast, parts of the country largely run by the Democratic Party.
In New York City, the largest school district in the country with roughly 1.1 million students, 4,335 students and staff have tested positive for COVID-19 since schools reopened September 13. This figure is known to be a vast undercount, as only 10 percent of the New York City student body is tested once per week. Although a City Council hearing in October revealed a coordinated cover-up by the administration of Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio, the Department of Education has still not revealed the exact enrollment for this school year because they fear exposing the large number of parents who are refusing to send their children into unsafe schools.
The explosion of cases and deaths among children in recent months corresponds directly to the full reopening of schools and has fueled growing opposition among parents, educators and students in the US and internationally. On October 1, a global school strike initiated by British parent Lisa Diaz was met with a huge international response, prompting her to issue a call for a second global school strike to be held this Friday, October 15.
Over the course of the pandemic, educators and parents have formed rank-and-file committees across the US and globally in opposition to the deadly reopening of schools. These committees, affiliated with the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC), are fighting to close schools and nonessential workplaces as part of a broader strategy aimed at the eradication of COVID-19. This must be combined with the combined deployment of all public health measures, including mass testing, contact tracing, the isolation of infected patients, masking, a globally-coordinated vaccination program, and more.
Over the coming week, rank-and-file committee meetings will be held in the South, on the West Coast, and in New York City, Pennsylvania and Michigan to build awareness of and interest in the upcoming October 24 webinar hosted by the IWA-RFC and the WSWS, “How to end the pandemic: The case for eradication.” All educators, parents and workers who seek to end the pandemic and save lives should take part in these committee meetings, register to attend the October 24 event and build for it as widely as possible.
Over 140,000 US children have lost a parent or caregiver to COVID-19
A study released Thursday in the journal Pediatrics found that “from April 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021, over 140,000 children in the US experienced the death of a parent or grandparent caregiver” due to COVID-19. The results follow the July release of a study in The Lancet by the same lead author, Dr. Susan Hillis, which estimated that the same figure globally stood at 1.56 million children through the end of April 2021.
These staggering figures underscore the immense scale of the tragedy that has swept across the globe during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the US, nearly one in four of the 621,656 deaths from COVID-19 by June 30 were those of parents or caregivers to children.
The latest study notes, “the lives of these children are permanently changed by the deaths of their mothers, fathers, or grandparents who provided their homes, needs, and care,” adding, “Loss of parents is associated with mental health problems, shorter schooling, lower self-esteem, sexual risk behaviors, and risks of suicide, violence, sexual abuse, and exploitation. Loss of co-residing grandparents can impact psycho-social, practical, and/or financial support for grandchildren. After a caregiver’s death, family circumstances may change, and children may face housing instability, separations, and lack of nurturing support.”
The level of trauma inflicted on an entire generation of young people is unfathomable. While the ruling elite and their media endlessly repeat the mantra that everyone must “learn to live with the virus,” in reality more and more families are being ripped apart as nearly 7,000 people continue to die from COVID-19 worldwide each day.
Every child’s needless loss of a parent is a life-altering event, the vast majority of which have not been written on or covered by the corporate media. Some of those which have been covered offer a glimpse into the social crisis confronting these youth.
In late August, five children from Yucaipa, California, were orphaned after both their parents, Davy and Daniel Macias, died from COVID-19 in the same week. Their entire family was infected with the virus during a vacation, with the children recovering but their parents becoming steadily more ill. The children, with the eldest only 7 years old, now live with their grandparents. Terry Seri, Daniel Macias’s sister-in-law, told local press that they “spend a lot of time at night looking for mom and dad.”
Also in August, in Mississippi, a 32-year-old mother of a newborn child died from COVID-19 only months after her husband succumbed to the virus, leaving the baby girl orphaned. In neighboring Alabama, a single mother of seven is now raising 12 children on her own after her sister and brother-in-law died from COVID-19 in the same month, orphaning their five children. In Michigan, seven children were orphaned in early September after their mother, Charletta Green, died from COVID-19, and their father Troy, who also had COVID-19, died from a heart attack that began shortly after he learned that his wife was taking a turn for the worse.
Given the lack of comprehensive testing and contact tracing, there is no way to measure the precise number of infections that have been caused by the reopening of schools before COVID-19 was contained. However, multiple studies and analyses of government data have shown strong correlations between school reopenings and surges of the virus in their surrounding communities. Undoubtedly, a substantial number of the parents and caregivers who have died from COVID-19 were infected by their children who had been compelled to return to unsafe schools.
Capitalist politicians throughout the world have pushed to reopen schools by cynically professing their concern for the mental health and well-being of children who struggled with remote learning. In reality, school reopenings were always driven by the needs of the corporations to have parents back at work producing profits. Just as these same politicians continuously cut education and social spending and never cared about the well-being of children before the pandemic, so, today, they have no concern for the mental health of millions of children whose parents and caregivers have died from COVID-19.
There is enormous opposition within the international working class to the pandemic policies implemented by the ruling elites, and a growing desire to fight for the eradication of COVID-19 worldwide. This found powerful expression in the October 1 global school strike initiated by British parent Lisa Diaz. Throughout the week leading up to and including October 1, the primary hashtag for the event—#SchoolStrike2021—was used over 26,000 times in dozens of countries around the world.
Asked about the studies on children who have lost parents and caregivers to COVID-19, Diaz told the World Socialist Web Site, “The governments and those who need us to keep working go on and on about mental health. But there’s a severe risk of the parents dying, which will have a far greater impact on children’s mental health than remote learning for a couple months. These children now have to live with the thought that they might have accidentally killed their parents. If schools can’t be open and safe, if there’s going to be any kind of transmission in schools, they need to be shut down.”
In addition to the loss of their parents and loved ones, children themselves can be severely impacted and die from COVID-19. Recent studies indicate that roughly one in seven infected children develops Long COVID, suffering debilitating symptoms months after infection. Last week, 22 children died from the virus in the US, bringing the cumulative pediatric death toll to 520. COVID-19 is now the leading cause of death among children in Brazil, with 1,518 children ages 10-19 dying from the virus in the first half of 2021. During a major surge of the Delta variant in Indonesia this summer, over 700 children died from COVID-19 in July alone.
It is no exaggeration to state that the future of an entire generation now hangs in the balance. If the strategies of “herd immunity” or its variant of enacting limited mitigation measures remain dominant worldwide, COVID-19 will continue to spread through schools, factories and other workplaces, with millions more people dying and masses of children scarred for life.
The only scientifically-grounded and viable strategy for putting an end to this needless suffering and death is one which aims at the global eradication of COVID-19. This entails a globally-coordinated vaccination program, mass testing, contact tracing, the safe isolation of infected patients, masking and the deployment of all other public health measures in every country. Wherever the virus is spreading, schools and nonessential workplaces must be temporarily closed until daily new cases are brought to zero, with workers and small business people guaranteed full income protection during lock-downs.
Outlining the scientific basis for these measures and how they can be implemented will be the central focus of the October 24 meeting organized by the World Socialist Web Site and the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees, “How to end the pandemic: The case for eradication.” A panel of distinguished scientists and workers will review the present state of the pandemic and chart a course to eradicate COVID-19 worldwide. All those who wish to fight for this program to save lives should register today, invite your coworkers, friends and family, and share the event widely across social media.
A study released Thursday in the journal Pediatrics found that “from April 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021, over 140,000 children in the US experienced the death of a parent or grandparent caregiver” due to COVID-19. The results follow the July release of a study in The Lancet by the same lead author, Dr. Susan Hillis, which estimated that the same figure globally stood at 1.56 million children through the end of April 2021.
These staggering figures underscore the immense scale of the tragedy that has swept across the globe during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the US, nearly one in four of the 621,656 deaths from COVID-19 by June 30 were those of parents or caregivers to children.
The latest study notes, “the lives of these children are permanently changed by the deaths of their mothers, fathers, or grandparents who provided their homes, needs, and care,” adding, “Loss of parents is associated with mental health problems, shorter schooling, lower self-esteem, sexual risk behaviors, and risks of suicide, violence, sexual abuse, and exploitation. Loss of co-residing grandparents can impact psycho-social, practical, and/or financial support for grandchildren. After a caregiver’s death, family circumstances may change, and children may face housing instability, separations, and lack of nurturing support.”
The level of trauma inflicted on an entire generation of young people is unfathomable. While the ruling elite and their media endlessly repeat the mantra that everyone must “learn to live with the virus,” in reality more and more families are being ripped apart as nearly 7,000 people continue to die from COVID-19 worldwide each day.
Every child’s needless loss of a parent is a life-altering event, the vast majority of which have not been written on or covered by the corporate media. Some of those which have been covered offer a glimpse into the social crisis confronting these youth.
In late August, five children from Yucaipa, California, were orphaned after both their parents, Davy and Daniel Macias, died from COVID-19 in the same week. Their entire family was infected with the virus during a vacation, with the children recovering but their parents becoming steadily more ill. The children, with the eldest only 7 years old, now live with their grandparents. Terry Seri, Daniel Macias’s sister-in-law, told local press that they “spend a lot of time at night looking for mom and dad.”
Also in August, in Mississippi, a 32-year-old mother of a newborn child died from COVID-19 only months after her husband succumbed to the virus, leaving the baby girl orphaned. In neighboring Alabama, a single mother of seven is now raising 12 children on her own after her sister and brother-in-law died from COVID-19 in the same month, orphaning their five children. In Michigan, seven children were orphaned in early September after their mother, Charletta Green, died from COVID-19, and their father Troy, who also had COVID-19, died from a heart attack that began shortly after he learned that his wife was taking a turn for the worse.
Given the lack of comprehensive testing and contact tracing, there is no way to measure the precise number of infections that have been caused by the reopening of schools before COVID-19 was contained. However, multiple studies and analyses of government data have shown strong correlations between school reopenings and surges of the virus in their surrounding communities. Undoubtedly, a substantial number of the parents and caregivers who have died from COVID-19 were infected by their children who had been compelled to return to unsafe schools.
Capitalist politicians throughout the world have pushed to reopen schools by cynically professing their concern for the mental health and well-being of children who struggled with remote learning. In reality, school reopenings were always driven by the needs of the corporations to have parents back at work producing profits. Just as these same politicians continuously cut education and social spending and never cared about the well-being of children before the pandemic, so, today, they have no concern for the mental health of millions of children whose parents and caregivers have died from COVID-19.
There is enormous opposition within the international working class to the pandemic policies implemented by the ruling elites, and a growing desire to fight for the eradication of COVID-19 worldwide. This found powerful expression in the October 1 global school strike initiated by British parent Lisa Diaz. Throughout the week leading up to and including October 1, the primary hashtag for the event—#SchoolStrike2021—was used over 26,000 times in dozens of countries around the world.
Asked about the studies on children who have lost parents and caregivers to COVID-19, Diaz told the World Socialist Web Site, “The governments and those who need us to keep working go on and on about mental health. But there’s a severe risk of the parents dying, which will have a far greater impact on children’s mental health than remote learning for a couple months. These children now have to live with the thought that they might have accidentally killed their parents. If schools can’t be open and safe, if there’s going to be any kind of transmission in schools, they need to be shut down.”
In addition to the loss of their parents and loved ones, children themselves can be severely impacted and die from COVID-19. Recent studies indicate that roughly one in seven infected children develops Long COVID, suffering debilitating symptoms months after infection. Last week, 22 children died from the virus in the US, bringing the cumulative pediatric death toll to 520. COVID-19 is now the leading cause of death among children in Brazil, with 1,518 children ages 10-19 dying from the virus in the first half of 2021. During a major surge of the Delta variant in Indonesia this summer, over 700 children died from COVID-19 in July alone.
It is no exaggeration to state that the future of an entire generation now hangs in the balance. If the strategies of “herd immunity” or its variant of enacting limited mitigation measures remain dominant worldwide, COVID-19 will continue to spread through schools, factories and other workplaces, with millions more people dying and masses of children scarred for life.
The only scientifically-grounded and viable strategy for putting an end to this needless suffering and death is one which aims at the global eradication of COVID-19. This entails a globally-coordinated vaccination program, mass testing, contact tracing, the safe isolation of infected patients, masking and the deployment of all other public health measures in every country. Wherever the virus is spreading, schools and nonessential workplaces must be temporarily closed until daily new cases are brought to zero, with workers and small business people guaranteed full income protection during lock-downs.
Outlining the scientific basis for these measures and how they can be implemented will be the central focus of the October 24 meeting organized by the World Socialist Web Site and the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees, “How to end the pandemic: The case for eradication.” A panel of distinguished scientists and workers will review the present state of the pandemic and chart a course to eradicate COVID-19 worldwide. All those who wish to fight for this program to save lives should register today, invite your coworkers, friends and family, and share the event widely across social media.
“Any society should protect its children”
Opposition builds as Washington state school reopenings fuel surge of COVID-19
In line with the demands of the Biden administration, state officials and school boards in Washington state forced the full reopening of schools this fall. In doing so, they falsely claimed that mitigation measures and vaccines would ensure that schools were safe havens from COVID-19. Nearly two months into the semester, the reality of high case rates, pediatric infections, and hospital capacity has exposed the so-called “safe” return to in-person schools promoted by the Democratic Party and teachers unions as a lie.
In September, King County, the largest county in Washington with a high percentage of people fully vaccinated, reported 11 outbreaks in K-12 schools and seven outbreaks among child care and extracurricular locations. The Seattle and King County Public Health site reports that King County is at a high level of community transmission. Last week, 50 percent of outbreaks in Pierce County, the second largest county in WA, were in the K-12 and child care settings.
According to the Washington Department of Health, the latest seven-day case rate for children ages 4-10 years old is 183.8 per 100,000 people, while the rate stands at 198.6 for children ages 11-13, and 192 for children ages 14-19. These case rates are the highest of all age groups.
COVID-19 case rates have been on the rise statewide since August and have stayed at a high level of transmission, making the situation worse than the third wave last winter. The seven-day case average in Washington in September averaged around 3,000 cases. According to the Washington Department of Health, hospital admissions continued to increase over the month of September and recently peaked at a level 60 percent higher than in the winter of 2020. Although admission rates appear to be slightly declining, hospitals across the state are operating at full capacity and projections suggest that high levels of occupancy are likely to persist through the fall.
While pediatric cases had previously been lower in Washington state before schools and businesses were fully open, the latest data shows that one in four new COVID-19 cases are now among children. Washington has had 893 children hospitalized with COVID-19 symptoms and 13 children die from the virus.
Regional data is consistent with the rise in pediatric cases nationally. Despite the insistence from local school officials, politicians, and union bureaucrats that transmission is not likely to occur in schools, the rise in infections coincides precisely with the return of children to classrooms.
Although many pediatric cases are asymptomatic or mild, that is not the case for all infected children. There is not enough information about how this virus effects children to fully grasp how many will develop severe COVID-19 or long-term symptoms. With children 0-11 still not eligible for vaccination and vaccination rates in Washington for children 12-17 only around 50 percent, outbreaks and hospitalizations will continue in this population.
Commenting on this, an educator in Washington told the World Socialist Web Site, “A logical society does not tell a 10-year-old, who can’t be vaccinated, that they have to be in a classroom during a pandemic. Any society should protect its children. If the social structure isn’t accomplishing that goal, it has failed.”
Teachers and students were forced back into classrooms by agreements negotiated between Washington Education Association (WEA) affiliates and local school boards, typically including vague language for safety measures like “quality ventilation,” “social distancing when possible,” and mask requirements, which are meant to slow down the rate of infection but not eliminate transmission. However, the measures are not consistently implemented and enforced, and in some rural Republican-led districts, mitigation measures are being dropped altogether to accelerate the spread of the virus.
Many teachers report that even the measly requirement of three feet of social distancing is impossible to maintain and enforce throughout the school day. Kids naturally gravitate towards one another and when they are in the hallways and eating lunch, they often do not keep distance. Additionally, many teachers report on social media that it is difficult for kids to keep their masks on all day and that while they do their best to remind students, the numbers show that these mitigation measures are not enough to keep kids safe.
Parents in Washington are keeping track of the numbers and are deeply scared for their children. One parent who is fighting a battle to keep her child out of schools told the WSWS, “COVID, and Delta specifically, has increased to a higher point than it was last fall and winter, when in-person learning was closed. I feel strongly that we could see a spike.
“The first student death in our district happened the same week schools opened. I thought that would be a big alarm, forcing the district to say we need to shut down, but it didn’t. It shows why eradication is needed, reopening caused the current state of high transmission. As an educator and parent, I don’t need to look at more graphs. The environment is very high-risk. With restaurants, non-essential businesses, we saw the increase in cases. Just look at that timeline. When mandates are dropped, cases increase.”
While the pandemic is far from over, the Democrats refuse to take the essential steps to protect the public, instead promoting solely vaccines and mask-wearing. No one has peddled these insufficient mitigation measures and the unsafe reopening of schools harder than American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten. She has consistently backed the Biden administration’s insistence that schools must remain open and has applauded the most meager of measures, including Biden’s recent “Six-Part Covid-19 Action Plan,” which outlines the administration’s commitment to the reopening of schools and forcing workers back to their jobs, regardless of community spread and how much it leads to infection and death.
In opposition to this policy, which demands that workers “learn to live with the virus,” educators and parents in Washington, across the US and globally are increasingly determined to eradicate COVID-19 and put an end to the needless suffering and deaths of millions.
Eradication measures include the universal deployment of every possible public health measure, including the short-term closure of schools and nonessential workplaces, a globally-coordinated vaccination program, mass testing, contact tracing, masking, the safe isolation of infected patients, and more.
An educator in Washington commented on the fight for eradication, stating, “Eradication is possible and it is necessary. Science has proven that this virus, like all viruses, will continue to mutate to provide better propagation, and will thus become more transmissible, finding ways to evade natural immunities and vaccinations. To eradicate the virus will be hard work and we must all make sacrifices, but it has proven itself as a viable strategy in New Zealand and China.
“Canceling public events and gatherings, closing non-essential workplaces, and using technology to remain connected with each other, in addition to vaccinations, treatments, masking and social distancing when staying at home isn’t possible, will reduce opportunities for COVID to spread and continue mutating. It is clear that these sacrifices can be borne by the working class; although communities want to gather, people recognize the need to protect one another. That is fundamental to human civilization. It is also clear that the ruling class will not bear those sacrifices. It challenges their power and profits and growth. They will not concede but must be compelled by the just demands of the united working class.”
In order to put an end to the pandemic, the working class must understand the science of the pandemic and the policy of eradication. For this reason, the WSWS and the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) are hosting a webinar with leading scientists on Sunday, October 24, to discuss these issues and chart a path forward. All parents, educators, students and workers in Washington should register today and invite your coworkers, friends and family to attend.
Opposition builds as Washington state school reopenings fuel surge of COVID-19
In line with the demands of the Biden administration, state officials and school boards in Washington state forced the full reopening of schools this fall. In doing so, they falsely claimed that mitigation measures and vaccines would ensure that schools were safe havens from COVID-19. Nearly two months into the semester, the reality of high case rates, pediatric infections, and hospital capacity has exposed the so-called “safe” return to in-person schools promoted by the Democratic Party and teachers unions as a lie.
In September, King County, the largest county in Washington with a high percentage of people fully vaccinated, reported 11 outbreaks in K-12 schools and seven outbreaks among child care and extracurricular locations. The Seattle and King County Public Health site reports that King County is at a high level of community transmission. Last week, 50 percent of outbreaks in Pierce County, the second largest county in WA, were in the K-12 and child care settings.
According to the Washington Department of Health, the latest seven-day case rate for children ages 4-10 years old is 183.8 per 100,000 people, while the rate stands at 198.6 for children ages 11-13, and 192 for children ages 14-19. These case rates are the highest of all age groups.
COVID-19 case rates have been on the rise statewide since August and have stayed at a high level of transmission, making the situation worse than the third wave last winter. The seven-day case average in Washington in September averaged around 3,000 cases. According to the Washington Department of Health, hospital admissions continued to increase over the month of September and recently peaked at a level 60 percent higher than in the winter of 2020. Although admission rates appear to be slightly declining, hospitals across the state are operating at full capacity and projections suggest that high levels of occupancy are likely to persist through the fall.
While pediatric cases had previously been lower in Washington state before schools and businesses were fully open, the latest data shows that one in four new COVID-19 cases are now among children. Washington has had 893 children hospitalized with COVID-19 symptoms and 13 children die from the virus.
Regional data is consistent with the rise in pediatric cases nationally. Despite the insistence from local school officials, politicians, and union bureaucrats that transmission is not likely to occur in schools, the rise in infections coincides precisely with the return of children to classrooms.
Although many pediatric cases are asymptomatic or mild, that is not the case for all infected children. There is not enough information about how this virus effects children to fully grasp how many will develop severe COVID-19 or long-term symptoms. With children 0-11 still not eligible for vaccination and vaccination rates in Washington for children 12-17 only around 50 percent, outbreaks and hospitalizations will continue in this population.
Commenting on this, an educator in Washington told the World Socialist Web Site, “A logical society does not tell a 10-year-old, who can’t be vaccinated, that they have to be in a classroom during a pandemic. Any society should protect its children. If the social structure isn’t accomplishing that goal, it has failed.”
Teachers and students were forced back into classrooms by agreements negotiated between Washington Education Association (WEA) affiliates and local school boards, typically including vague language for safety measures like “quality ventilation,” “social distancing when possible,” and mask requirements, which are meant to slow down the rate of infection but not eliminate transmission. However, the measures are not consistently implemented and enforced, and in some rural Republican-led districts, mitigation measures are being dropped altogether to accelerate the spread of the virus.
Many teachers report that even the measly requirement of three feet of social distancing is impossible to maintain and enforce throughout the school day. Kids naturally gravitate towards one another and when they are in the hallways and eating lunch, they often do not keep distance. Additionally, many teachers report on social media that it is difficult for kids to keep their masks on all day and that while they do their best to remind students, the numbers show that these mitigation measures are not enough to keep kids safe.
Parents in Washington are keeping track of the numbers and are deeply scared for their children. One parent who is fighting a battle to keep her child out of schools told the WSWS, “COVID, and Delta specifically, has increased to a higher point than it was last fall and winter, when in-person learning was closed. I feel strongly that we could see a spike.
“The first student death in our district happened the same week schools opened. I thought that would be a big alarm, forcing the district to say we need to shut down, but it didn’t. It shows why eradication is needed, reopening caused the current state of high transmission. As an educator and parent, I don’t need to look at more graphs. The environment is very high-risk. With restaurants, non-essential businesses, we saw the increase in cases. Just look at that timeline. When mandates are dropped, cases increase.”
While the pandemic is far from over, the Democrats refuse to take the essential steps to protect the public, instead promoting solely vaccines and mask-wearing. No one has peddled these insufficient mitigation measures and the unsafe reopening of schools harder than American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten. She has consistently backed the Biden administration’s insistence that schools must remain open and has applauded the most meager of measures, including Biden’s recent “Six-Part Covid-19 Action Plan,” which outlines the administration’s commitment to the reopening of schools and forcing workers back to their jobs, regardless of community spread and how much it leads to infection and death.
In opposition to this policy, which demands that workers “learn to live with the virus,” educators and parents in Washington, across the US and globally are increasingly determined to eradicate COVID-19 and put an end to the needless suffering and deaths of millions.
Eradication measures include the universal deployment of every possible public health measure, including the short-term closure of schools and nonessential workplaces, a globally-coordinated vaccination program, mass testing, contact tracing, masking, the safe isolation of infected patients, and more.
An educator in Washington commented on the fight for eradication, stating, “Eradication is possible and it is necessary. Science has proven that this virus, like all viruses, will continue to mutate to provide better propagation, and will thus become more transmissible, finding ways to evade natural immunities and vaccinations. To eradicate the virus will be hard work and we must all make sacrifices, but it has proven itself as a viable strategy in New Zealand and China.
“Canceling public events and gatherings, closing non-essential workplaces, and using technology to remain connected with each other, in addition to vaccinations, treatments, masking and social distancing when staying at home isn’t possible, will reduce opportunities for COVID to spread and continue mutating. It is clear that these sacrifices can be borne by the working class; although communities want to gather, people recognize the need to protect one another. That is fundamental to human civilization. It is also clear that the ruling class will not bear those sacrifices. It challenges their power and profits and growth. They will not concede but must be compelled by the just demands of the united working class.”
In order to put an end to the pandemic, the working class must understand the science of the pandemic and the policy of eradication. For this reason, the WSWS and the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) are hosting a webinar with leading scientists on Sunday, October 24, to discuss these issues and chart a path forward. All parents, educators, students and workers in Washington should register today and invite your coworkers, friends and family to attend.
No comments:
Post a Comment