Thread by @EvanBlake17

The #COVID19 pandemic is once again spiraling out of control, driven by the highly contagious and immune-evading Omicron #BA4 & #BA5 subvariants. North America, Europe, Brazil & Australia are at the epicenter of the latest global surge. #CovidIsNotOver 1/ wsws.org/en/articles/20…

The global 7-day average of daily new cases now stands at 661,420, a 42% increase since the trough in late May! Official new infections are rising despite the dismantling of surveillance and reporting, with test positivity rates rising in each of these countries and regions. 2/

Wastewater in Spain is at record levels! This key metric is rising rapidly in many countries. The sudden rise in test positivity rates means that unreported infections are occurring faster than those being documented by public health departments. 3/

https://twitter.com/EnemyInAState/status/1541221753564925952

In the US, where BA.4 & BA.5 account for >35% of cases, the 7-day average of daily new cases has risen by ~10% over the past week, reaching 109,105 daily new cases on Sunday. Test positivity has been >10% since mid-May and continues to rise, and deaths are once again climbing. 4/

Portugal had its 2nd largest wave of infections in early June due to #BA5, with a positivity rate >50%. 86% of Portugal’s population is fully vaccinated & 65% have had at least one booster shot, yet daily new deaths have surpassed the peak reached during the Omicron BA.1 wave. 5/

Test positivity rates are skyrocketing across the rest of Europe, with Spain reaching 30 percent, France surpassing 20 percent and Germany exceeding 40 percent by mid-June. 6/

In the UK, the 7-day average of daily new cases has jumped fourfold from a low of 4,754 per day on June 2 to 19,695 infections per day today, while hospitalizations have surged 39% in the last week & the death toll has begun to turn upwards once again. 7/

https://twitter.com/Antonio_Caramia/status/1541487749039005703

Australia has remained in a continuous undulating surge of infections since the first Omicron wave slammed into the island nation, and daily new cases are once more pushing upwards. As of yesterday, more than 3,000 are in hospitals receiving treatment. 8/

In the past 2 months, at least 4 studies have been published showing that Omicron BA.4 & BA.5 are highly resistant to immunity from the vaccines, as well as prior infection with Omicron BA.1 & BA.2. 9/ cnn.com/2022/06/22/hea…

With immunity from both vaccines and prior infection waning and pandemic restrictions totally lifted amid the summer travel season, the implication is that potentially billions of people could be infected globally in the coming weeks and months. 10/ wsws.org/en/articles/20…

Meanwhile, mainland China reported only two COVID-19 cases yesterday. The seven-day average of new COVID-19 infections has declined to just 24. Shanghai, which had defeated a difficult wave of infections last month, reported only a handful of new COVID-19 cases last week. 11/

The differences between China’s dynamic Zero-COVID policy and the imperialist nations’ demand that the working class “live with the virus” could not be more stark. 12/ wsws.org/en/articles/20…

Even without another surge of deaths, the current death rate in the US would amount to an annual death toll of at least 130,000, almost 4 times higher than an average flu season and 25X higher than China’s cumulative death toll from COVID-19. 13/ wsws.org/en/articles/20…

For the ruling elites, their inaction in addressing the pandemic is snowballing as they face continued massive labor shortages, a by-product of people sickened or debilitated by #LongCovid. 14/ wsws.org/en/articles/20…

Faced with this mounting crisis, the corporate media is issuing increasingly delusional statements on the pandemic, exemplified in a @washingtonpost Editorial Board statement Sunday titled “The pandemic is in a twilight zone. Enjoy it—but stay safe.” 15/ washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…

It states, “The pandemic has entered a twilight zone, neither causing major disruption to the nation nor vanishing. Everyone is looking forward to a summer without... terrifying case spikes… We have vaccines, antivirals & diagnostic tests in surplus.” 16/ wsws.org/en/articles/20…

Every one of these claims is false. The deepening surge in the US has disrupted all industries, particularly the airline industry. Funding for vaccines, antivirals and tests is now gone, supplies are evaporating, and not a penny more will be allocated. 17/ wsws.org/en/articles/20…

Owned by pandemic profiteer Jeff Bezos (net worth $140 billion), the Post expresses in unvarnished form the recklessness & stupidity of the American ruling class. It is these social parasites who are living in a “twilight zone” of self-delusion. 18/ wsws.org/en/articles/20…

BA.4 & BA.5 are the most contagious versions of SARS-CoV-2 so far. With world capitalism refusing to implement public health measures & providing the virus with billions of hosts, it remains fit to continue evolving into more dangerous variants. 19/ wsws.org/en/articles/20…

This evolutionary process is occurring so rapidly that vaccine makers cannot keep pace with the changes in the virus’ genomic sequence, with scientists warning that the next iteration of the COVID-19 vaccine produced by Moderna is already outdated. 20/ nature.com/articles/d4158…

The only viable pandemic strategy remains that of global elimination, which could end the pandemic in a matter of months. This entails the deployment of all public health measures, coordinated globally, to stop the spread of the virus once and for all. 21/ wsws.org/en/articles/20…

Capitalism has proven utterly incapable of mounting such a response, an historic task which falls to the international working class. Build the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees to fight for global elimination! 22/22 wsws.org/en/special/pag…