The brutal prioritization of profits over lives by the Biden administration, backed by the entire political establishment, is an indictment of the capitalist system. Their “herd immunity” policy is dictated, not by medical science and epidemiology, but the needs of Wall Street.
800 Migrants Cross near West Texas Border Town in Two Days
EAGLE PASS, Texas — In two separate events in as many days, nearly 800 migrants managed to cross the Rio Grande and surrender to Border Patrol. One group of nearly 400 crossed on Wednesday and another similarly sized came early Thursday.
According to a source within Customs and Border Protection, the groups were mostly Venezuelan family units and single adults. The source says daily apprehensions are on the rise as large groups in excess of 100 are crossing daily. Seven large groups were apprehended within the sector in last five days.
The increase in migrant crossings in the Del Rio Sector, which includes Eagle Pass, has resulted in the sector becoming the busiest in the nation.
Until January, the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector (RGV) in Texas held the top position in migrant apprehensions since 2013. In November 2021, the RGV apprehended an average of 1,590 migrants per day. That daily average dropped to around 700 so far in January.
The increase in crossings is alarming to the Border Patrol in the region, according to the source. The Del Rio Sector operates with one third of the staffing in the Rio Grande Valley. The source says detention and processing capacities are also less abundant.
The strain on personnel and resources needed to process the large groups of migrants has caused the agency in Del Rio to reduce routine patrols.
The source says in most cases, migrants choosing to surrender are released into the United States to pursue asylum.
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.
As Omicron rages through US workplaces, 8.8 million workers were off sick in early January
According to US Census Bureau data, 8.8 million American workers were off work, sick or taking care of ill family members in early January, the highest number since the start of the pandemic. The rise in sickness takes place under conditions in which infection and death are surging due to the highly contagious Omicron variant and virtually all mitigation measures, besides vaccination, have been removed.
The almost 9 million workers off sick amount to 6 percent of the US workforce. Another 3.2 million workers reported they were not working due to fear of contracting or spreading COVID-19, an increase of 25 percent from early December. The numbers represent a threefold increase since the arrival of Omicron.
The brutal decision by the US government and governments in Western Europe and internationally to allow the virus to spread, while abandoning most efforts to contain the disease, is having a devastating impact on broad masses of people, far beyond the daily toll of deaths and hospitalization. In the United States, which has a far more primitive level of social benefits than most European nations, the impact has been particularly dire.
COVID deaths across the US continue to rise. A researcher at Pennsylvania State University, who co-leads a team that looks at pandemic models, predicts 1.5 million Americans will be hospitalized and between 191,000 and 305,000 will die in the period between mid-December and mid-March.
The policy of allowing the virus to spread unchecked through workplaces, schools and communities is not only spreading death, but producing an economic catastrophe for millions of working-class families, who in many cases do not have paid sick days or access to health insurance coverage. Those not reporting to work due to sickness only represent a portion of those infected, as the lack of sick pay and highly restrictive sick leave policies are forcing unknown millions of infected workers to stay on the job. The mass sickness has left many businesses short-staffed, forcing those remaining to work ever longer hours, like the 12-hour days that are routine in the auto factories and oil refineries, in the midst of a deadly pandemic.
A recent decision by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reduced the mandatory quarantine time for exposed or infected individuals from 10 to five days. After the CDC decision several large employers, including Walmart and Amazon, reduced the number of guaranteed paid sick days available to their employees.
Congress mandated expanded sick leave at the start of the pandemic, but that expired December 31, 2020. The paid family and medical leave requirement in the Biden administration’s Build Back Better social spending bill appears dead in the water.
A survey conducted by Harvard University’s Shift Project last fall found that 65 percent of respondents reported they went to work despite being sick. That is a smaller figure than the 85 percent who said they went to work sick prior to the pandemic.
According to the US Census Bureau, 85 percent of civilian workers had at least one paid sick day available in March 2021. However, the availability of sick pay varies widely, with the lowest-paid workers having the least access. Among the bottom 10 percent of wage earners, only 47 percent get paid sick time. Further, many companies require workers to use paid leave days to cover time off for sickness, reducing the total vacation time they have available.
Low-paid workers are often in those occupations involving direct contact with the public, such as hotel and restaurant workers, increasing their danger of exposure and transmitting the disease.
Even if workers have paid sick time, they often face a Byzantine nightmare trying to collect. The Detroit automakers will only pay workers who quarantine after exhibiting symptoms or being exposed to an employee with COVID-19 unless they test positive for the disease. Even then it may take weeks to get paid. This further encourages workers to ignore symptoms and report to the jobs sick, leading to more infections, hospitalizations and death.
A Ford autoworker from Ohio said if a worker has symptoms or is exposed, “You go get a COVID test; you only get paid if it turns out to be positive. Pay has been received within a couple weeks. The problem is, say I have COVID, Ford hasn’t been doing a good job contact tracing. They used to do a comprehensive job, but not anymore.”
A US Postal Service worker in St. Paul, Minnesota, told the World Socialist Web Site that more than 100 out of 500 workers at his facility are currently out sick or self-isolating due to COVID-19.
“The COVID paid leave policy ended around September 2021, anyone who tests positive has to use their own annual/sick leave or leave without pay. They say they are doing contact tracing but I find that hard to believe.
“It’s only compounding an already dangerous situation; some people are choosing to come to work despite being sick because they have no annual/sick leave. Then add the fact that management isn’t enforcing the mask policy. It’s no surprise so many people are out at our facility. The union office is conveniently located inside our facility. These union stewards are fully aware of the situation unfolding. Yet all I’m hearing are crickets from that office, their indifference towards what’s happening is on full display.”
A college instructor from Pennsylvania remarked, “With COVID, even though I could teach on Zoom from home, I’m being forced to use up all my sick time and cancel classes, thus denying students the education they paid for, and using up a sick day. They’re draining your sick days, which is a reduction in their liabilities.
“They’re screwing those who don’t have any sick days and turning upside down and emptying the pockets of those who do.”
The increase in sickness has led to a rising number of new unemployment claims, which rose to 286,000 last week, up 55,000 from the week prior. That was the highest weekly number of new claims since October. The sharp rise is despite the Biden administration’s efforts to force workers back to work by allowing virtually all pandemic-related financial support, including expanded unemployment benefits, eviction bans and the child tax credit, to expire. Asked if there would be any further relief for workers impacted by COVID-19, an unnamed senior Biden administration official earlier this month told CNN, “[W]e are not going to write checks to incentivize people to sit at home…”
Economists expressed concern that the spread of sickness was deepening the labor shortage, that is, further shrinking the number of workers able and willing to risk their health during a pandemic for poverty level wages. A record 4.5 million workers quit their jobs in November. Diane Swonk, economist at accounting firm Grant Thornton, cited by the Washington Post, said, “Unfortunately, the biggest issue about Omicron is it’s no longer just fear of contagion and aversion to in-person activity, but it’s actually causing acute labor shortages from the sheer number of people who are out sick.”
Delta Airlines reported that 8,000 employees had contracted COVID-19 over the last four weeks, 10 percent of its workforce. Cases are surging in auto plants, although the true number of infections is not known since the auto companies with the support of the United Auto Workers cover up infections and deaths. Hundreds are out sick at Warren Truck and Sterling Heights Assembly, major Detroit area Stellantis plants.
Faced with a severe shortage of staff, health care providers are resorting to desperate measures that will only ensure the more rapid spread of the disease The state of California is requiring health care workers who test positive for COVID, but are asymptomatic, to report to work without any quarantine or repeat COVID-19 testing. At MultiCare Health Systems in Washington state, a hospital clinic and urgent care network, COVID-infected health care workers have been told to resume work even if they are symptomatic.
The brutal prioritization of profits over lives by the Biden administration, backed by the entire political establishment, is an indictment of the capitalist system. Their “herd immunity” policy is dictated, not by medical science and epidemiology, but the needs of Wall Street.
Hospitals across the US overflowing with COVID-19 patients
COVID-19 hospitalizations in the United States have reached an all-time high with nearly 159,000 Americans currently hospitalized with COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Across the country 21,000 people are being admitted to hospitals each day. Currently more than 26,000 patients are in intensive care units (ICUs) nationwide.
The number of hospitalizations is expected to remain high for weeks to come as they lag behind infections. Currently an average of 760,000 people are being infected with the highly contagious Omicron variant every day.
Hospitals across the US are buckling under the crush of admissions, sending out pleas for help, and in some cases shuttering doors to incoming patients as health systems reach the point of collapse. In addition to record-breaking COVID-19 admissions, systems are further strained with large portions of the health care workforce ill and on leave due to COVID-19 infections among themselves and family members.
California
In Southern California, Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center and Scripps Mercy Hospital, two hospitals near the US-Mexico border, were so overwhelmed this week that they refused to accept any more patients and declared internal disaster status.
Scripps Mercy Chief Medical Officer Dr. Ghazala Sharieff told NBC 7 that the hospital was so crowded, patients were overflowing into hallways and surgery recovery rooms. The Sharp health system noted that more than 1,000 health workers were out due to coronavirus-related reasons.
Nurse Sandra Beltran told the Los Angeles Times Thursday that at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in the Sylmar neighborhood of Los Angeles, patients were at times waiting 20 to 30 hours for a bed after arriving in the emergency room, creating a long domino effect as the systems become compounded with skyrocketing numbers of patients needing care. She also noted that “People are being seen in the hallway… It’s tiring. You’re literally, for 12 hours, going from room to room.”
Demand for emergency care has reached new heights not seen even in last winter’s devastating surge. Last week California was averaging nearly 47,000 visits a day in its emergency rooms while a year ago the figure was 32,000.
Orange County public health officials report that at least 15 child patients are battling COVID-19 at Children’s Hospital of Orange County, the “highest number ever.” Dr. Clayton Chau, director of the Orange County Health Care Agency, told a press conference this week that 14 of the 15 children hospitalized are in the intensive care unit. A third child under five died in December from COVID-19 complications.
Georgia
At Georgia’s largest hospital, workers describe a nightmare of “wall-to-wall stretchers” in the emergency room. Dr. Robert Jansen, chief medical officer at Grady Health System, where capacity is at 110 percent, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “We have no capacity left in the hospital.” The Grady Hospital has been forced to divert ambulances to other hospitals. “That has a huge impact on the rest of the city,” Jansen noted, because “Grady is the trauma center for Atlanta.”
“One of the myths we keep hearing is that it isn’t that serious,” Jansen said. “Perhaps it isn’t for some folks who are lucky. But COVID-19 is having a tremendous impact on underlying disease. For those patients who have other diseases such as heart failure, diabetes, sickle cell anemia or are immunocompromised, if they get infected, they get incredibly sick.”
A handful of top doctors in Atlanta made extraordinary pleas on Thursday to the public, stressing the need for vaccination, boosters and measures to reduce coronavirus infections. Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta physician Dr. Andrea Shane informed the public about the terrible rise in pediatric hospitalizations. “In the past three, four weeks, we’ve seen more than a hundred children with post-COVID complications,” Shane told WSB-TV, stressing, “The way to prevent MIS-C is to prevent COVID-19.”
New England
The situation has become so dire at health systems across the country that in numerous states the National Guard has been called in while states make calls for volunteers to come into hospitals.
Yesterday the Delaware Healthcare Association (DHA) issued a statewide call for volunteer signups to assist in the state’s hospitals. “In times of crisis, Americans have always come forward and pitched in,” Wayne Smith, DHA president & CEO, wrote in a statement. “The hour of need is upon us. Delaware hospitals need your help to meet the great challenge that visits us and must be met. The COVID-19 crisis strains hospital staff and resources. WE NEED YOUR HELP!”
In Maine, 169 Army National Guard members began arriving at hospitals Thursday to assist with non-clinical roles such as patient transport and cleaning.
The short staffing pertains not just to nurses who are in short supply, but entire hospital systems are breaking down as lab workers, janitorial staff and cafeteria staff go out sick. The procurement of lab results or clean linens are difficult and further delay care as patients begin to fill hallways. Patients are sometimes waiting days to be admitted and get a bed.
The situation at health systems has reached such a breaking point that numerous hospitals are making plans to convert pediatric ICUs at children’s hospitals into adult ICUs within the coming months. Tufts Children’s Hospital in Massachusetts announced yesterday that it will close down its children’s services and convert 41 pediatric beds to adult medical/surgical and ICU beds in response to “changing patient needs.”
Texas
Meanwhile, smaller cities and rural areas are crying for help as their hospitals cannot provide higher-level care which is needed for severe COVID-19 infections. In Laredo, Texas, the city’s health authority, Dr. Victor Trevino, said that his biggest concern was how the Omicron variant infects greater numbers of children under 18 and that the city still lacks a pediatric ICU. Trevino noted that a six-week-old baby tested positive for a COVID-19 infection and was being treated at an emergency room.
“We will not be able to handle another week of this without additional staff,” he told the Laredo Morning Times.
As hospitals are strained, patients in need of critical care are having to wait for long hours and even days for critical care.
Tony Tsantinis, 68, died at Harrington Hospital in Southbridge, Massachusetts, last month from COVID-19 after his kidneys started to fail and the hospital was unable to provide dialysis. What was needed was a bed that could provide a higher level of care. Seventeen other hospitals were called to see if they could treat Tsantinis, but they were all full and he could not obtain access to a bed and soon died.
His daughter Rona Tsantinis-Roy told NPR that when a doctor delivered the tragic news that her father was dead, he “literally looked me in the eyes and said this didn’t have to happen.” Her father may very well have survived if he had been able to be transferred to another hospital.
Two years after the initial discovery of COVID-19 and a year after the distribution of vaccines began, hospitals are in the worst condition they have seen. In addition to short staffing due to illness, many nurses and health care workers have resigned after years of suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
The Biden administration has not made any great effort to stop the spread of COVID-19, instead adopting the “herd immunity” policies pursued by the Trump administration. Instead of raising the alarm as the globe learned about the new Omicron variant, the ruling class insisted on the “mild” character of the variant, and have doubled down on keeping schools and workplaces open as the virus spreads like wildfire through the population. The mass illness and 2,000 lives lost each day to COVID-19 must be seen as a social crime carried out against the working class.
California: Data Suggest Omicron Coronavirus Wave Has Peaked
Data from around the State of California suggest that the state’s omicron coronavirus wave has peaked, though the infection rate remains high, hospitalizations and deaths are at near-record levels, and the virus remains highly contagious.
The Los Angeles County public health information page shows that the seven-day average of the testing positivity rate has fallen below 20%, and appears to be on a downward trajectory after a peak in the first week of January, after the holidays.
The Los Angeles Times reported that transmission rates are falling across the state, a welcome sign amid the wave:
After weeks of an unprecedented spike in coronavirus cases that challenged hospitals, schools and other institutions, there are growing indications that the surge spawned by the Omicron variant is flattening and, in some parts of California, even beginning to wane.
Health officials in San Francisco said Thursday they believe they’ve passed the peak of the latest wave. And in Los Angeles County, there’s cautious optimism that the days of exponential growth may be in the rearview mirror.
But officials warn that hospitals will continue to face significant challenges in the coming days and weeks, and that Californians need to keep their guard up.
“We can now confidently say that we are on the beginning of a downward trajectory,” said Dr. Grant Colfax, San Francisco’s director of health. According to state data, San Francisco averaged nearly 2,700 cases a day from Jan. 3 to Jan. 9 but is now averaging about 2,000 cases a day.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Mayor London Breed indicated that the latest surge appeared to have “peaked”:
San Francisco city officials said Thursday that new figures show the worst of the surge in coronavirus infections peaked earlier this month, sending case rates on a promising downward trend that could mark a turning point in the pandemic.
San Francisco logged a seven-day average of 2,164 new cases per day on Jan. 9 — a record high for the city — but the average dropped to 1,705 by Jan. 12. While more people than ever tested positive for the virus at the peak, declining numbers indicate San Francisco is on track to follow patterns elsewhere in the U.S. and world where the highly infectious omicron variant swept through populations but then rapidly dropped.
“The light at the end of the tunnel is here,” Mayor London Breed said at a news conference in front of City Hall. “We may go through another tunnel again. But know there is hope and there is light.”
At the same time, on Thursday, L.A. County reported 102 new deaths from coronavirus, “the highest number of deaths reported in a single day since March 10th, 2021.” It stressed that hospitalizations and deaths are highest among black and “Latinx” patients.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
EXCLUSIVE: Human Smugglers Earn $1B from U.S.-Mexico Border in December 2021
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