CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Lawsuit accuses 16 major universities, including Yale and Northwestern, of illegally collaborating to limit students' financial aid
asheffey@businessinsider.com (Ayelet Sheffey) 

© Provided by Business Insider Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, in 2015. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo

A suit accuses 16 universities of illegally restricting financial aid, The Wall Street Journal said.

It said schools, including Yale, illegally weighed students' abilities to pay when determining aid.

The plaintiffs seek damages and an end to schools' collaboration in calculating financial need.

A new lawsuit accuses major universities, including Ivy League schools, of engaging in illegal behavior that restricts students' access to federal aid.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that five former students were suing 16 schools in the US, including Yale, Georgetown, and Columbia, accusing them of engaging in price-fixing and unfairly cutting off some students from financial aid by collaborating on financial-need calculations.

The Journal reported that schools are legally allowed to collaborate on their financial-aid formulas, but the lawsuit said the schools weighed the students' ability to pay in some situations, which is not permitted under the law. Attorneys in the suit said more than 170,000 former students who received partial financial aid from the 16 schools could be eligible to become plaintiffs in the case.

Other defendants in the lawsuit include Northwestern University, Brown University, the University of Chicago, Dartmouth, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"While conspiring together on a method for awarding financial aid, which raises net tuition prices, defendants also consider the wealth of applicants and their families in making admissions decisions," Eric Rosen, a partner at one of the firms that filed the suit, told The Journal.

Representatives for all of the mentioned schools either declined to comment on pending litigation or did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

There's historical precedent for the type of anticompetitive behavior accused in the lawsuit. In 1991, all members of the Ivy League were charged with price-fixing, which is when competitors get together to set the price of a product, often making prices higher for consumers. As a result, Congress passed legislation that exempted those schools from antitrust violations as long as the collaborations on aid were need-blind — meaning not taking into account the student's ability to pay. This led to the creation of the 568 Presidents Group, a group of universities that meets a few times a year to discuss aid calculations on a need-blind basis.

But the new lawsuit argues that schools are collaborating on financial aid and admissions practices that aren't completely need-blind.

"Under a true need-blind admissions system, all students would be admitted without regard to the financial circumstances of the student or student's family," the lawsuit said. "Far from following this practice, at least nine Defendants for many years have favored wealthy applicants in the admissions process."

The Journal reported that the lawsuit is seeking damages and a permanent end to the schools' collaboration in determining and awarding financial aid.

GM recognizes California's right to set emissions rules, in reversal from Trump era

General Motors completed a full reversal of its support for the Trump administration's stance on emissions on Monday as it recognized California's right to set vehicle emissions standards and rules. In a letter sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom and Liane Randolph, the chair of the California Air Resources Board, the automaker affirmed its commitment to a zero-emissions future while recognizing the state's authority.

© Provided by Roadshow GM is now backing California. General Motors

The move places GM on the list of "CARB-aligned OEMs," so the state will be able to purchase GM vehicles for government fleets. The company also affirmed support for CARB goals and attested it will support the state's regulations.

The reversal comes after GM notably sided with the Trump administration as the government and state battled over California's rights to set its own emissions standards. GM, along with other automakers such as Toyota, preferred a single national standard. In late 2020, shortly after President Joe Biden's election, GM withdrew support from the Trump administration to strip California of its emissions-setting capabilities. Cross-town rival Ford, notably, did not back the Trump administration.

"GM is proud to share California's vision of an all-electric future with zero emissions," Omar Vargas, GM vice president and head of Global Public Policy, said in a statement.

"GM is joining California in our fight for clean air and emission reduction as part of the company's pursuit of a zero-emissions future," Gov. Newsom said in his own statement. "This agreement will help accelerate California's nation-leading commitment to tackling the climate crisis. We welcome GM in our clean vehicle revolution."

Under the Biden administration, the US will adhere to stricter fuel economy standards that reverse cuts made under President Donald Trump. Biden also targets 50% of new vehicles sold to be electric cars by the end of this decade. Locally, in California, the state plans to ban the sale of new cars with an internal-combustion engine by 2035.

A White House economist says it's a 'Great Upgrade,' not a Great Resignation, as workers quit for higher pay
insider@insider.com (Juliana Kaplan,Madison Hoff) 

© Provided by Business Insider Fast food workers and activists demonstrate outside McDonald's downtown flagship restaurant on July 31, 2014 in Chicago, Illinois. Scott Olson/Getty Images

National Economic Council Deputy Director Bharat Ramamurti said that workers are experiencing a "Great Upgrade."

Ramamurti was referencing the elevated number of workers quitting low-wage work and job switching.

The country seems to be grappling with a wage shortage as workers leave behind low paying jobs for better prospects.

A record-breaking number of workers quit their jobs in November — and the White House is celebrating.

That's because workers in the lowest-paying sectors decided to throw in the towel and bid goodbye to their old jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' latest data release. In leisure and hospitality alone, a record 1 million workers quit their job. At the same time, hiring boomed and job openings fell slightly, suggesting that workers weren't permanently leaving the workforce, but rather job switching.

National Economic Council Deputy Director Bharat Ramamurti tweeted out a chart from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute that showed how quits were elevated in lower-paying sectors. The chart in particular compared the rates of quits and hires by industry:

"Workers are quitting to go take new, better-paying jobs. It's not the Great Resignation -- it's the Great Upgrade," Ramamurti wrote. He said that it's "exactly the kind of economy" President Joe Biden said he wanted to create.

The ongoing pushback against a wage shortage, as workers leave low-wage jobs for higher-paid work, comes after decades of stagnant and declining wages.

"I think it's very good that we're seeing wage growth in our country," Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh told Insider last week. "I think it's good, particularly on our low income workers."

Indeed, workers with less than a college degree have seen their wage expectations skyrocket up, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Survey of Consumer Expectations Labor Market Survey. The lowest wage they'd be willing to accept for a new job has grown by about 16.5% from November 2019 to November 2021. Nick Bunker, an economist at Indeed, pointed out on Twitter that the entire increase in how much workers expect from a new job has been driven by workers with less than a college degree.

"It's time for employers to realize that it's frontline workers like us who keep the doors open — and if they want us to keep showing up they need to respect us, protect us and pay us what we deserve," Maribel Cornejo, a McDonald's worker and leader with the Fight for $15 in Houston, Texas, previously said in a statement to Insider.

But even as wages rise and workers act with their feet to drive up pay, the federal minimum wage has not increased since 2009. It remains at $7.25 an hour. A push last year to raise it to $15 an hour as part of Biden's American Rescue Plan ultimately failed, with eight moderate Democrats voting against the proposal.

"I'm hopeful that we can get the $15 an hour minimum wage through the Congress," Walsh said. "It's a baseline wage for workers."

What the public keeps getting wrong about pedophilia


Alia E. Dastagir, USA TODAY
Mon, January 10, 2022

Pedophilia is viewed as among the most horrifying social ills. But scientists who study the sexual disorder say it is also among the most misunderstood.

When most of the public thinks of pedophilia, they assume it's synonymous with child sexual abuse, a pervasive social problem that has exploded to crisis levels online. Researchers who study pedophilia say the term describes an attraction, not an action, and using it interchangeably with "abuse" fuels misperceptions.

The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders said pedophilia is defined by “recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children.“ Scientists have in recent decades improved their understanding of pedophilia's causes, prenatal and early childhood risk factors as well as how pedophiles can better control impulses.

One of the most significant findings is that scientists who study the disorder say pedophilia is determined in the womb, though environmental factors may influence whether someone acts on an urge to abuse.

"The evidence suggests it is inborn. It's neurological," said James Cantor, a clinical psychologist, sex researcher and former editor-in-chief of, "Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment." "Pedophilia is the attraction to children, regardless of whether the (person) ever ... harms."

Not all people who sexually abuse children are pedophiles. Some pedophiles never abuse children, experts say, and some people who sexually abuse children do not sexually prefer them, but use them as a surrogate for an adult partner. They may be disinhibited and anti-social, with impulse control problems.

Sexual abuse at camp: Three victims, the man they call a pedophile and the lifelong impact of child sexual trauma

"There are child molesters and pedophiles. If you think of Venn diagrams, there's a lot of overlap," said Anna Salter, a psychologist, author, and internationally recognized expert who has done over 500 evaluations of high-risk sex offenders. "There are the people who are sexually attracted to children ... (and then) there are some people who molest kids who are not pedophiles. They molest kids because of anger. They molest kids because they're scared of adult women. They molest kids to get revenge, but they don't actually have an age preference for prepubescent children."

CHILD MOLESTERS /MURDERERS  INDIGENOUS CHILDREN 

'This is not something that people choose'

Michael Seto, forensic research director at the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group in Canada, said there is more neuroscientific knowledge of pedophilia than ever before. MRI research is showing how sexual interests develop in the brain.

"I think as a field, we've accepted the idea that this is not something that people choose," Seto said.

Seto said pedophilia is something people are born with or at least have a predisposition to. Evidence shows men are more likely to have pedophilia than women. This aligns with research showing men are more likely to have other paraphilias, including exhibitionism, voyeurism and sadism. Men are also more likely than women to commit criminal acts.

Research also offers insights into risk factors. Seto said men with pedophilia have a much higher incidence of early childhood head injury. One study on diagnosed pedophiles showed they are more likely to report their mothers had received psychiatric treatment, which suggests the disorder may be influenced by genetic factors.

Pedophiles and the choice to abuse

Salter said when she conducts trainings, she often asked the audience, "How many of you have ever had an inappropriate sexual thought?"

If no one raises their hand, she tells them they're in denial.

"Of course, people have had inappropriate sexual thoughts. You may be attracted to your wife's sister. You may be attracted to a 16-year-old postpubescent babysitter. It doesn't mean you act on it," she said. "Pedophiles may not have control over the fact that they are attracted to kids, but they are responsible for whether they do or don't act on it."

Salter's conceptualization of the dynamics of sexual abuse involves a motor and brakes. Many people experience inappropriate sexual thoughts (the motor) but there are brakes (empathy, for example) that keep someone from acting on them. For a pedophile, the motor is their sexual attraction to children, but they can still use brakes to stop from abusing.

Salter said more research is needed to understand why some pedophiles do not act on their attractions, but her clinical observations suggest at least some pedophiles with bad brakes are raised in homes where they were mistreated or neglected. There is also a genetic component, as some pedophiles show psychopathic traits.

The controversy over 'destigmatizing pedophilia'

An academic at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, who talked about “destigmatizing pedophilia” and referred to pedophiles as "minor-attracted people" resigned in November following outcry over the phrase. Allyn Walker argued destigmatizing the attraction would allow more people to seek help and ultimately prevent child sexual abuse.

The Child Protection System is used to track down and convict individuals and networks that sexually exploit children.

There is growing support in the field for Walker's point of view. While Cantor said there's no treatment that can turn a pedophile into a non-pedophile, pedophiles can be taught self-control and compensatory strategies, which he said is more likely if they're under the care of a professional. He argues that pedophiles need to be able to access therapy, which can be difficult since those afflicted may be ashamed to seek help or worried about being reported to the authorities if they do.

Josh Duggar's sex abuse allegations: Why treatment in this area is complex, controversial

"Where do you want the person? Therapy is where he should be going, and all we've done is make it very, very difficult for a pedophile to get that," Cantor said. "Which to me is insane. It makes the problem worse."

Salter said while pedophiles do not choose their attractions, she does not believe those who offend are being punished unfairly. Treatment should be encouraged, but without minimizing the impact abuse has on victims' lives.

"It's a choice to act on child molestation," she said. "We don’t need to say, 'Offending isn’t so bad. It really isn’t your fault. ... You really couldn’t control it. You are a victim of a punitive society.' We need to say, 'Offending is devastating. It damages the lives of victims. It has damaged your life. You can learn to control yourself. You have the capacity to do better.'"

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Pedophiles: We all think we understand pedophilia. What we get wrong,

END THE MONARCHY 
Not another 70 years: Republicans seek to douse Queen Elizabeth celebrations

Mon, January 10, 2022, 6:48 AM·1 min read

LONDON (Reuters) -British republicans said on Monday they would launch a campaign to end the monarchy in the run-up to celebrations to mark Queen Elizabeth's 70 years on the throne.

Elizabeth, 95, the world's oldest and longest-reigning monarch, will mark her seventh decade as sovereign next month and on Monday Buckingham Palace detailed plans for four days of celebrations for her Platinum Jubilee in June.

But anti-monarchy group Republic used the occasion to say it would begin a "Not Another 70" campaign to call for an end to the historic institution.

"While a vocal minority will want to celebrate the queen's seventy year reign, we must all start looking to the future. The prospect of King Charles is not a happy one, and there is a good, democratic alternative on offer," Republic's Graham Smith said.

"It's time to have a serious debate about our constitution, accept that Charles is not the best the country has to offer, and that as a nation we are quite capable of choosing our head of state."

Polls indicate the vast majority of people in Britain support the monarchy and the queen herself is hugely popular. But there is not as much support for her eldest son and heir Charles, and surveys suggest there is growing republican sentiment among younger Britons.

IMPERIALISM THE HIGHEST STAGE OF  CAPITALI$M
JD.com opens robotic shops in the Netherlands as Chinese e-commerce giant tests new model in Europe

Mon, January 10, 2022

JD.com, the second-largest e-commerce platform in China, has opened two "robotic" shops in the Netherlands as it tests a new shopping model in the European market.

Branded as Ochama, combining the concepts of "omnichannel" and "amazing", the stores merge online ordering with pickup shops where robots prepare parcels for collection and home delivery services are offered, the company said in a statement late Monday.

This is the first time that the Beijing-based tech giant, founded by billionaire Richard Liu Qiangdong, has opened a physical retail store in Europe, and the first two shops will be in Leiden and Rotterdam. It plans to open another two stores in Amsterdam and Utrecht in the near future, according to the statement.

Tencent to offload its US$16 billion stake in e-commerce player JD.com

"With rich experience in retail and cutting-edge logistics technologies that the company has accumulated over the years, we aspire to create an unprecedented shopping format for customers in Europe with better price and service," said Pass Lei, general manager of Ochama at JD Worldwide.

The stores will offer consumers fresh and packaged food, household appliances, beauty, mother and child products as well as fashion and home furnishings through Ochama's app. At the pickup shops, a fleet of robots including automated ground vehicles (AGV) and robotic arms, will pick, sort and transfer the goods to customers.

The move represents the latest effort by a Chinese e-commerce firm to crack overseas markets amid fierce competition and tighter regulations at home. While JD.com has remained largely unscathed by the central government's crackdown on the technology sector over the past year, it remains under pressure along with competitors such as Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the Post, to find new markets to offset slower consumer spending growth at home.

Tencent Holdings last month divested most of its stake in JD.com, saying the e-commerce firm had grown to the point where it no longer requires Tencent's financial backing. Martin Lau, Tencent's president who had served as a board member at JD.com since 2014, also stepped down.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2022 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2022. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

The world's largest condom maker had a surprisingly bad pandemic

Samanth Subramanian -

Early in the covid-19 pandemic, Karex Berhad, the Malaysian company that makes one out of every five condoms sold worldwide, said it was bracing for double-digit growth in demand. The rationale was understandable: governments were asking people to work from home, after all, and no one wanted to have children during these uncertain times, Goh Miah Kiat, Karex’s chief executive, said in March 2020.

© Provided by QuartzCondoms being tested at the Karex condom factory in Pontian, Malaysia

Instead, Karex’s sales have dropped 40% over the past two years, Goh said in a recent interview with Nikkei—to the extent that Karex, which ordinarily produces 5.5 billion condoms a year, is starting to manufacture rubber gloves to boost its revenues. You’d assume, he said, that people at home “had nothing [to do] but have sex, right?” But covid-19 upended this expectation, just as it did so many others. Having safe, recreational sex during the pandemic was, it turned out, not easy when the world was being locked down.

The biggest buyers of condoms are governments and non-profits

It wasn’t just Karex; other condom companies watched their sales slump as well. Laxman Narasimhan, the chief executive of Reckitt Benckiser, the British manufacturer of Durex, was already discovering in April 2020 that, between fewer hook-ups, increased anxiety levels, and a decrease in “the number of intimate occasions,” condom purchases were declining as well. Worldwide, a number of studies found that sexual activity declined as the pandemic wore on.

Condom sales were also impacted not just by psychological shifts but also by new logistical hurdles. The shutdown of hotels and motels doomed holiday sex, staycation sex, infidelity sex, and several other kinds of extra-domestic intimacy; Goh pointed out that couples living in crowded homes often resort to hotels to find time with each other as well. For sex workers, business dried up.

Just as crucially, governments and aid agencies temporarily stopped buying and distributing condoms as part of sexual health programs. “For instance, in the United Kingdom,” Goh said, “the NHS [National Health Service] shut down most nonessential clinics because of covid, and sexual wellness clinics which hand out condoms were also closed.”

In aggregate, governments and non-profits buy billions of condoms every year. China gives out 1 billion free condoms annually, for instance, as part of its family planning program. The city of New York gives away more than 30 million condoms and other safe-sex products every year. In 2016, UNAIDS called for donors to aim to buy and distribute 20 billion condoms a year in low- and middle-income countries by 2020. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation, in 2018, distributed 600 million condoms in 37 countries; the same year, the International Planned Parenthood Federation disbursed another 300 million.

The suspension or slowdown of such programs during the pandemic contributed, in 2020, to Karex’s first full-year loss since it went public in 2013. And 2022 will restore some of the sector’s sheen only if it includes far fewer viral surges and lockdowns. Ironically, it appears, the condom industry’s best hopes for a rebound lie in people getting out of their bedrooms more.

EdTech Firm Fires 60,000 in Worst Cuts Since China Crackdown



Sarah Zheng
Mon, January 10, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc. fired tens of thousands of employees, the biggest layoffs disclosed since China embarked on a wide-ranging crackdown on private enterprises more than a year ago.

Yu Minhong, founder and chairman of the Chinese tutoring giant, revealed in a WeChat post over the weekend that the company dismissed 60,000 workers in 2021 and saw revenue fall 80% after ending all K-9 tutoring services following Beijing’s overhaul of the the $100 billion after-school education sector last July. Even after the cuts, the company still has about 50,000 employees and teachers, Yu said in a separate post Monday.

The revelation underscores the widespread disruption wrought by Beijing’s unprecedented decision last summer to outlaw profits in swathes of the after-school education industry -- upending a market estimated at $100 billion at its peak. The three biggest operators in the space -- including New Oriental and TAL Education Group -- together once employed more than 170,000 but total numbers are estimated in the millions given the hundreds of private firms that vied for students in a fragmented and under-regulated arena.

“In 2021, New Oriental encountered too many unforeseen events from factors such as policy, the pandemic, and international relations,” Yu wrote. “Much of our business remains in a state of uncertainty.”

Once one of China’s leading private education providers, New Oriental saw 90% of its market value wiped out last year after Beijing banned tutoring companies from making profits and raising capital. A combination of severance payments, tuition refunds and terminated leases for teaching sites cost the firm nearly 20 billion yuan ($3.1 billion), Yu said in the post.

Operating losses may be wider than expected at $500 million in the fiscal year ending in May, said Catherine Lim, a senior industry analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence. New Oriental and rival TAL could see losses extend to 2024 as government-imposed price controls on classes and bans on weekend and holiday lessons handicap revenues, she wrote in a research note.

New Oriental has sought to increase investments into businesses targeting college students and overseas Chinese markets, while exploring new areas such as live-streaming and the sale of agricultural products. Finding a new direction will be a focus in 2022, Yu said, adding that he took part in a one-hour live broadcast last week that sold nearly 200,000 books.

The regulatory shifts in the edtech space, mirroring a broader sweeping crackdown on Chinese internet companies, have forced major players to adapt to survive, including by expanding non-academic curricula and providing some after-school classes for free. Rivals have also trimmed their workforces, with ByteDance Ltd. firing at least hundreds last year. Beijing-based TAL cut 90,000 jobs, local media outlet Late Post reported without saying where it obtained the information.

On Dec. 31, local regulators in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai unveiled their pricing standards for nonprofit K-9 tutoring, signaling that a relaunch of online classes could be imminent. Fees for online classes are guided at 20 yuan per session, with companies allowed to charge a premium of no more than 10%.

New Oriental is among at least 10 firms, including ByteDance and Tencent Holdings Ltd.-backed Yuanfudao, that have obtained licenses to offer online classes, according to a Caixin report.

New Oriental’s Hong Kong-listed stock tumbled as much as 3.7% in early trading Monday before reversing losses.

(Updates with New Oriental’s current workforce in second paragraph)

ANOTHER CANADIAN FIRST

Omicron was in Nova Scotia wastewater before it was identified in South Africa
Jessica Mundie 

POSTMEDIA

© Provided by National Post A pop-up COVID-19 testing site on the Dalhousie University campus in Halifax on Nov. 23, 2020.

New data from researchers at Dalhousie University show that Omicron was in Nova Scotia wastewater weeks before it was identified by the province — and even before the new COVID-19 variant was reported by South Africa.

Graham Gagnon, professor, and director of the Centre for Water Resource Studies confirmed in an email that: “Our team detected Omicron , retrospectively, in Nova Scotia wastewater in mid-November and will be able to provide further information in the future.”

The first case of Omicron in Nova Scotia was confirmed on Dec. 13, just a few weeks after it was reported in South Africa on Nov. 24.

Gagnon’s team has been testing wastewater from Nova Scotia’s four main treatment plants since December 2020. They have also been testing wastewater from the student residences at Dalhousie’s campus.

This type of testing will become a critical tool in tracking the spread of COVID-19 in the coming months as access to PCR testing across the country is becoming increasingly limited, said Mark Servos, professor and researcher in the biology department at the University of Waterloo. His lab is currently surveilling wastewater in the Peel, York, and Waterloo regions of Ontario.

“As Omicron continues, the wastewater is going to respond by going up or going down and that’s what is going to help inform our policy people,” he said.

Currently, in Ontario, PCR testing is available only for symptomatic high-risk individuals and those who work in high-risk environments. This means it is going to be harder to get an accurate picture of who has COVID, especially because Omicron is so easily transmissible, said Servos.

In wastewater, Servos said they were able to see how fast each variant took to become dominant in the province.

“Alpha took a couple of months to take over, Delta took a month and a half, and Omicron took almost two weeks.”

In Alberta, where PCR testing is also limited, researchers are monitoring wastewater across the province for the spread of COVID-19 and its variants.

Casey Hubert, associate professor in the department of biology at the University of Calgary and one of the leads on a wastewater monitoring project in Calgary, said that wastewater testing has been able to tell researchers what is happening a week before it is reported.

“Wastewater really provides that kind of early warning signal that precedes the case counts,” he said.

Albertans can use a dashboard set up by Hubert’s team to monitor the amount of COVID-19 in the wastewater across the province. This is a helpful tool, said Hubert, because with less testing there is less accurate information being given about how many people may have the virus.

While wastewater testing has been successful in some provinces, not all public health units are seeing the benefits.

In Quebec, where PCR testing is limited to those in high-risk settings and northern and remote communities, Santé Quebec decided to not extend the funding for a project that tested wastewater in the province.

The project, CentrEAU-COVID run by researchers at Polytechnique Montréal and McGill University, tested water in areas around Montreal and Quebec City. The decision to stop funding was made the same week the Omicron variant was detected in the province.

Dominic Frigon, one of the coordinators on the project, said their project was conducted mostly during the third wave of the pandemic in Quebec. In Montreal, the number of cases was not changing drastically per day, said Frigon, which made the wastewater data flat, while in Quebec City the number was going up rapidly and the data reflected this.

“Because this data was fairly new, we had a hard time explaining to public health why this data was useful,” said Frigon.

Without wastewater testing, Frigon said that public health will be missing out on important data that indicates whether cases are rising or declining.

“We would have a better picture of this if we were testing,” he said.

When interpreted properly, and in collaboration with other public health measures like PCR testing, Servos said that wastewater testing can be a useful tool in the short-term and long-term monitoring of the pandemic.

Other countries struck by Omicron kept their death tolls low. 

The US is looking different.

Marianne Guenot,Shayanne Gal
Mon, January 10, 2022

A person gets a COVID-19 vaccination on January 7, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.

Mario Tama/Getty Images


Countries where Omicron surged early have seen a relatively low burden of deaths so far.

Lower population age or high vaccination coverage likely helped keep the death toll low.

But early data suggests that the situation may be different in the US, experts warn.

It has been over four weeks since Omicron started hitting South Africa, Denmark, and the UK.

In spite of the number of infections breaking all prior records, deaths in these three countries have remained much lower than in previous waves.

Some experts have warned, however, that early data suggests the situation might be different in the US.

"The US Omicron wave is worse (for hospital admits, ICU) than what we've seen in UK, Denmark," said Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Institute, in a tweet Friday.

Judging from the early data, the three non-US countries with advanced Omicron waves had significant mitigating factors which the US does not share and may leave it more exposed.

"In general, outcomes appear to be far less severe than in previous waves, through a combination of an inherently milder variant, and greater protection of the population through vaccination and prior infection," Sir David Spiegelhalter, a statistician the University of Cambridge, told Insider in an email.

This is "a great relief," he said.

Here are charts for each nation to show what is going on.
South Africa: younger population

South Africa's Omicron-driven wave likely reached its peak in December, but deaths remained remarkably lower than in previous waves, as can be seen below.

The crux might be that the country "has a much younger population than Europe," said Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the UK's University of East Anglia, in an email to Insider.

COVID-19 has generally hit older people harder, so that could explain the overall mildness of this wave, even though only 26% of people in South Africa have gotten two doses of vaccine.

South Africa's population is also thought to have had high levels of immunity from exposure in previous waves, given the poor availability of vaccines there.
The UK and Denmark: higher booster uptake

In the UK and Denmark, the death toll has also remained low.

An uptick in the last weeks could be due to delayed registration of deaths over the holiday period rather than a genuinely worsening situation, Hunter said.

Here, the low mortality could come down to the booster shots.

Uptake of the shots has been high in both countries: 69% of all people have received two doses and 52% have gotten three in the UK, while, 79% have gotten two doses and 53% three in Denmark.

One study from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) found that protection from two shots against hospitalization from Omicron waned from about 72% to about 52% over 24 weeks from the second dose.

But a third dose of vaccine brought that protection back up to 88%, per the study.

There is still some uncertainty as to whether that trend will continue in other parts of Europe, Hunter said.

He said deaths among people over 60 tend to lag behind cases by about a week since younger people are more likely to have seen the virus first in this wave.
US: low booster uptake, ICU rates rising

In the US, deaths haven't risen, but they haven't gone down either.

Numbers of COVID-19 patients in ICU are also rising steeply, with about 22,600 COVID-19 patients in ICU on Jan 7.

This isn't a far cry from the pandemic record high, which stands at about 28,900, per Our World In Data.

It is prompting some experts to question whether the paradigm might be different in the US.

Like Topol, Scott Gottlieb, former director of US Food and Drug Administration, noted that hospitalizations and deaths seem more pervasive than elsewhere. The "decoupling" of hospitalizations and deaths from case numbers "isn't as strong as UK, perhaps due to lower US vax/booster rates," he said in a tweet Sunday.

62% of the US population has gotten two doses, but only 22% of the whole population has gotten three. That's only about 50% of eligible adults, per Gottlieb.

Within the US, New York, Boston, and Chicago — which were all hit early on — have so far not shown strong signs of decoupling, The New York Times reported.

Director Rochelle Walensky told Fox News on Sunday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is keeping a close eye on deaths and that more data should give a clearer impression.