The #BA2 Omicron subvariant now accounts for over a third of all sequenced infections globally and is fueling a new wave of the #COVID19 pandemic. This has gone almost entirely unreported as all media attention has been diverted to the #UkraineWar 1/ wsws.org/en/articles/20…
The most significant hotspot is now #HongKong, where per capita rates of infections and deaths have dwarfed all previous surges in every country in the world. 2/
The 7-day average of daily new deaths/million people in Hong Kong reached 29.18 Monday. This is nearly triple the US peak of 10.22 and higher than the previous world record of 26.2 set in Peru on April 23, 2021. COVID-19 deaths in Hong Kong continue to rise exponentially. 3/ 
Significantly, BA.2 with an I1221T mutation on the spike protein accounts for 100% of all sequenced infections in Hong Kong. The city is a canary in the coal mine for the next stage of the pandemic, in which the BA.2 subvariant is forecast to become dominant worldwide. 4/
Contrary to the narrative spun by the corporate media that COVID-19 is now “endemic” and a stable “new normal” has been reached, reality has come crashing down once again in the third year of this unprecedented crisis. #CovidIsNotOver 5/ wsws.org/en/articles/20…
Only 37 days after official global infections reached a peak of 3.44 million on January 24, 2022, the decline abruptly stopped at 1.48 million on March 2 and is once again rising steadily, marking the start of the latest global surge of the pandemic. 6/
BA.2 is now dominant in 34 of 75 countries being monitored by covariants.org. It accounts for >40% of infections in 7/10 countries with the most daily new cases: Vietnam (42%), Germany (63), Russia (41), Netherlands (53), UK (57), Austria (40) & Malaysia (73) 7/
Hospitalizations in England rose sharply by 15.6% last week across all age groups, with a staggering 26% rise among children ages 6-17. In the United States, BA.2 is rising exponentially, with the Northeast region experiencing the most rapid growth. 8/
https://twitter.com/Antonio_Caramia/status/1501275583212367879
Scientist @yaneerbaryam, a co-founder of @TheWHN, a global coalition of scientists and community groups that advocates for a policy of eliminating COVID-19 worldwide, recently spoke with @WSWS_Updates on the dangers of BA2 & the viability of elimination 9/ wsws.org/en/articles/20…
Summarizing the results of a study on BA.2, he noted that “BA.2 transmits 40 percent faster than BA.1," “is much more severe” than BA.1 & “infection by BA.2 is resistant to previous infection by BA.1.” 10/ biorxiv.org/content/10.110…
He said, “BA.2 is different enough from BA.1 that it should be given... its own Greek letter... But that’s politically not very comfortable, because people are declaring this to be over and having a new Greek letter would... require us to reevaluate what’s going on.” 11/
Indeed, the rapid spread of BA.2 takes place under conditions in which almost every country except China has scrapped all remaining mitigation measures to slow the spread of COVID-19. The shortsightedness and stupidity of these efforts now stands fully exposed. 12/
In the US, this process has been led by the Biden administration and White House COVID Response Coordinator Jeff Zients, a multimillionaire who amassed between $10.4 million and $28 million in 2020 alone after the CARES Act bailout of Wall Street. 13/ wsws.org/en/articles/20…
Working closely with the White House is Ezekiel Emanuel, who co-authored a paper published January 6, 2022, titled “A National Strategy for the ‘New Normal’ of Life With COVID.” On Sunday, a 136-page elaboration of this paper was published. 14/ wsws.org/en/articles/20…
Seeking to justify the ending all COVID-19 testing and contact tracing, Emanuel’s “Roadmap” is the antithesis of the “dynamic zero” strategy pursued in China which has stopped repeated outbreaks and reduced deaths to only 2 people since May 2020. 15/ wsws.org/en/articles/20…
The evolution of #Omicron and its BA.1 and BA.2 subvariants is the product of the capitalist response to the pandemic, which has subordinated public health to the profit interests of the ruling elite. 16/
Refusing to implement the measures necessary to contain and ultimately eliminate the virus in each country, the ruling class has spawned the Frankenstein’s monsters of Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and now Omicron, with each one worse than its predecessor. 17/ wsws.org/en/articles/20…
The long-term consequences of these socially criminal policies are incalculable. Every study on Long COVID reaffirms the horrific character of this disease and the necessity for its elimination worldwide. 18/
https://twitter.com/KunstJonas/status/1500744620233347075
A UK Biobank study found that those with mild infection sustained brain tissue injury 5 months post-infection, with damage consistent with a decade of aging. Dementia & memory loss may be long-term ramifications of a percentage of COVID-19 infections. 19/ nature.com/articles/s4158…
BA.2 fundamentally refutes all claims that COVID-19 will evolve into a gentler virus akin to the flu or common cold. Such claims have always been soporifics meant to disarm an increasingly militant working class that has been traumatized by the devastation of the pandemic. 20/
Having committed sociocide through the “herd immunity” and “vaccine-only” strategies implemented over the past two years, the ruling elites in the US and across Europe have steeled themselves for even greater crimes in a potential Third World War with nuclear-armed Russia. 21/
The war itself, which broke out at the peak of the Omicron surge in Ukraine and Russia, will greatly exacerbate the spread of COVID-19. Over 2 million Ukrainian refugees have fled the country, packed into overcrowded trains and subways, creating a massive super-spreader event 22/
In its response to the pandemic and conflict with Russia over Ukraine, the ruling class has proceeded with extraordinary recklessness. But it is a recklessness rooted in class interests. 23/
The capitalist media operates under the delusion that if it does not report on the pandemic, then it does not exist. But for the vast majority of the population, the pandemic has had and is continuing to have catastrophic consequences. 24/
The most critical task is to build a unified mass movement of the international working class to stop the drive to #WorldWarIII and initiate a global #WarAgainstCOVID. 25/ wsws.org/en/articles/20…
In his interview, Dr. Bar-Yam emphasized, “It is easier now to do elimination than previously. Technology is improving. Our understanding has grown exponentially.” He added, “We must simply decide to do it, and then we will be in a much better shape.” 26/ wsws.org/en/articles/20…
Only through the combined deployment of every available public health measure on a world scale will COVID-19 be eliminated and the pandemic brought to an end. 27/ wsws.org/endcovid
This requires a direct struggle against the capitalist system & the establishment of a world socialist society, to put an end to war & needless deaths from #COVID19 and initiate a development of human culture on the basis of social equality. 28/28 wsws.org/join
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