Facebook’s metaverse has become a $1 trillion headache

news.com.au
27 Oct, 2022 

Meta has taken a gamble and so far it’s been a US$676 billion (NZ$1.1 trillion) mistake.

In October last year, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg changed the social media platform’s name to Meta and introduced the metaverse.

But now, a year later, the company is haemorrhaging money; Meta has shed an eye-watering US$676b ($1.1t) in market value this year.

Read More Mark Zuckerberg's pain is your pain too: NZ Super Fund's tech portfolio tanks

The tech platform is now well and truly out of the ranks of the world’s 20 most valuable companies, according to Bloomberg.

The failed metaverse experiment came into stark reality this week when Meta announced its results for the latest quarter, which sent the market into a meltdown.

Meta reported on Thursday (AEST) that its profit more than halved to US$4.4b ($7.5b) in the third quarter from US$9.2b ($15.7b) a year earlier.

That means they made US$4.8b ($8.1b) less in that period than the year before.

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Meta’s shares tumbled 25 per cent, its worst one-day drop since February. And critics think the metaverse is mostly to blame.

Rachel Foster Jones, a thematic analyst at GlobalData, told the Guardian UK: “Meta has put its entire business on the line for the metaverse, which still doesn’t exist, and the gamble is not paying off.”

According to reports released by the company, Meta has continued to pour money into the alternate reality venture though it has yet to pay off.

“I get that a lot of people might disagree with this investment,” Zuckerberg said of the metaverse.

So far this year, Meta has spent US$9b ($15.3b) on Reality Labs, which is involved in creating the metaverse.

Of that US$9b ($15.3b), US$4b ($6.8b) was used up in the last three months alone.

That arm of the company spent US$10b ($17b) last year but they’ve already indicated there are more funds in the pipeline.

“We do anticipate that Reality Labs losses in 2023 will grow significantly year-over-year,” the company said.

Meta has also spent more than US$100b ($170b) on research and development into the metaverse while it splashed US$15b ($25.6b) into product development in the past 12 months.

The firm has indicated it will start to “pace” its expenses into the project after 2023 to “achieve our goal of growing overall company operating income in the long run”.

Meta logo on screen of mobile phone. Photo / Supplied

At the moment, however, the cash is being happily burnt through.

During a conference call recently, Zuckerberg said spending on Reality Labs was only going to get worse as they were about to launch a new virtual reality headset. On top of that, costs are snowballing as they have to pay staff working on the metaverse, including engineers.

Analysis from Bloomberg found that Zuckerberg, 38, has endured “the single biggest hit” out of the world’s billionaires in the past 13 months.

At time of writing, the Silicon Valley executive holds a net worth of US$38.1b ($65b).

While that’s a lot of money, it’s a stark figure when you consider that Zuckerberg’s fortune peaked at US$142b ($242b) in September last year.

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That represents a wipe-out of more than US$100b ($170b) in the past 13 months.

There was a time when Zuckerberg was the third-richest person in the world, behind only Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.

At time of writing, he ranked 23rd.

The same could be said for his company. Meta used to be the sixth-biggest US company by market capitalisation, worth a whopping US$1t ($1.7t) at the beginning of 2022. Now it’s worth a quarter of that, at US$260b ($443b), coming in at 27th in the world.

Zuckerberg holds around 350 million shares in Meta.

FAUX NEWZ SAYS THIS IS A BAD IDEA

Homeless Los Angeles man builds wooden house on Hollywood Boulevard sidewalk: 'Gives me empowerment'

Louis Casiano - Yesterday 

A homeless man in Los Angeles has built a small wooden house with wheels on busy Hollywood Boulevard amid frustrations with the city asking him to take down his tent

The man, who goes by "Q," told Fox Los Angeles he constructed a house on wheels using wood tossed away from construction sites and help from friends.

He was offered temporary housing from the city but declined, saying he prefers a makeshift home over a temporary stay at a hotel.

"It kind of gives me empowerment," he said. "I don't think that I'm bothering anyone here."


A homeless man has constructed a wood home in the middle of a sidewalk on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. KTTV© KTTV

The home is propped up by metal carts and batteries with potted plants and a tapestry on the outside. He said he uses a generator placed on the outside of the home for his electrical needs.

"I feel good," Q said. "I feel like I'm, you know, kind of being an example for people that's in my situation. Letting them know that just because you are living on the streets doesn't mean that you have to just let go of everything."


A homeless man who calls himself "Q" speaks to local media asking about a small wooden home he constructed on a sidewalk. KTTV© KTTV

Fox News has reached out to the Los Angeles Police Department and city leaders. Police told Fox Los Angeles they cannot do anything about the situation unless someone is blocking a sidewalk, active driveway or business.

"He hasn't bothered anyone, and honestly I'm glad that it's right there because I honestly feel safer with him there," Rance Shaw of City Vibes Coffee told the station. "It feels like he knows what he's doing, and he's not here to hurt anyone."

Q told the news outlet he's from the Midwest, is an Army veteran and has been in Los Angeles for three months.

He said he plans to move the home with a dolly on Friday.


The front of a makeshift home on Los Angeles. KTTV© KTTV

Homelessness in Los Angeles County has been a top issue for residents and lawmakers for years. In the city of Los Angeles, 41,980 people were classified as being homeless, while countywide, 69,144 homeless were counted, according to figures released in September.

‘I didn’t know you could get fired for being unhappy in the workplace’: Worker says she was fired for ‘being unhappy’

Rachel Kiley - Yesterday 

A TikToker is opening up about the unexpected reason she says her job gave for firing her earlier in the month, and viewers are really feeling it.


Provided by Daily Dot

Employers in the United States have loved moaning about how nobody wants to work these days, something that is extremely suspect, at best, and disputed anecdotally by people working multiple jobs, spending months sending out applications, and repeatedly pointing out that working conditions are often to blame for poor employee retention.

That said, one would think employers would be keen to hold on to any workers they can, if it’s allegedly so difficult to find new ones.

That wasn’t what @stoneypnw experienced when her job working for an RV company allegedly cut her loose… for being unhappy.

“I got fired today because they said, ‘We know you’re not happy here, so we’re going to let you go,’” she recounted incredulously on TikTok. “I didn’t know you could get fired for being unhappy in the workplace.”





While the TikToker seemed surprised at the turn of events, a number of viewers expressed they actually dealt with similar situations.

“I was once fired for the same reason and ended up winning a lawsuit against them for unfair dismissal,” @mhm.agency wrote, while another TikToker said the same thing happened to her sister.

Others found it just as wild as @stoneypnw, with @larshoneybuns cheekily observing, “If that’s the case then they should probably just let everyone go who has a job ever.”

“That’s code for ‘you complain about accurate things too much,’” suggested @tyrilean.

“They really said…we could try and make it a better environment and try to understand why you’re unhappy but instead?? Let go,” @skyysayss chimed in.

In a follow-up video, @stoneypnw insisted there was nothing else she had done to constitute a “full story” of what actually caused her to get fired, although she did note the company was trying to cut hours, suggesting there may have been financial issues at play.

“My manager pulled me into a meeting room and said, ‘Can I talk to you?’ HR comes in, and they say, ‘We know you’re not happy here, so we’re going to cut ties. We’re going to pay you for the rest of today, tomorrow, and Wednesday, and you can go back your stuff,’” she recalled. “And I said OK, and I packed my stuff. That’s all that happened. It’s really not deeper than that.”

The Daily Dot has reached out to @stoneypnw via TikTok comment.

The post ‘I didn’t know you could get fired for being unhappy in the workplace’: Worker says she was fired for ‘being unhappy’ appeared first on The Daily Dot.

Russia's anti-satellite threat tests laws of war in space
By Joey Roulette - Yesterday 

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a payload of 53 Starlink satellites lifts off from Launch Complex 39A© Reuters/STEVE NESIUS

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Russian official's threat this week to "strike" Western satellites aiding Ukraine highlights an untested area of international law, raising concerns among space lawyers and industry executives about the safety of objects in orbit.

"Quasi-civilian infrastructure may be a legitimate target for a retaliatory strike," senior foreign ministry official Konstantin Vorontsov told the United Nations, reiterating Moscow's position that Western civilian and commercial satellites helping Ukrainian's war effort was "an extremely dangerous trend."

No country has carried out a missile strike against an enemy's satellite. Such an act during the war in Ukraine could sharply escalate tensions between Russia and the United States.

"This threat has brought us to a brink that we've never been to before," said Michelle Hanlon, co-director of the University of Mississippi School of Law's Air and Space Law program. "There’s always been a sense that this could happen, but never has somebody actually said that they might do that out loud.”

Ukraine's military relies heavily on Elon Musk's SpaceX for broadband internet beamed from its low-Earth orbiting Starlink satellite network. U.S. firms like Maxar are capturing images of the war from satellites in orbit. And tens of thousands of communications devices in Ukraine rely on U.S. satellite communications giant Iridium's satellite network.

"It's really irresponsible to talk about shooting anything down in space for any reason," Iridium chief executive Matt Desch told Reuters. "Space has gotten to be quite messy."

"If somebody starts shooting satellites in space, I'd imagine it would quickly make space unusable," Desch said.

Musk and SpaceX did not respond to emailed requests for comment. The billionaire briefly caused alarm this month by saying he could no longer afford to keep funding Starlink service in Ukraine, a position he quickly reversed.

Related video: Russia threatens Western satellites over Ukraine
If Western satellites are used to aid Kiev, then Russia might
Duration 1:25
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Under the laws of armed conflict, a Russian strike on a private U.S. company's satellite could be seen as an act of war to which the U.S. could respond, Hanlon said.

White House spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday that any attack on U.S. infrastructure would be met with a response but he did not go into detail.

"The legal aspects of all this are really murky at the moment," said Brian Weeden, a space policy analyst at the Secure World Foundation. "We don’t have any examples of wartime uses of force against satellites - there’s really nothing to go off of."

COMPLICATED CALCULUS

Whether a Russian anti-satellite strike would violate the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, such as its prohibition on placing weapons of mass destruction in space, is debatable, lawyers say. The Liability Convention of 1972, to which Russia is also a signatory, stipulates that countries must pay compensation for any damage caused by its space objects.

Last year Russia demonstrated a direct-ascent anti-satellite missile on one of its old satellites in orbit, blasting it to smithereens. Since Russia's Feb. 24 invasion into Ukraine, Western officials and companies have accused Moscow of repeated attempts to hack and jam satellite internet signals over the region.

Anti-satellite missiles have been widely condemned by the West and astronomers for creating hazardous orbital debris that endangers critical space infrastructure, from crewed space stations to GPS networks that millions of consumer and government platforms around the world rely on.

The only other countries to have conducted direct-ascent anti-satellite missile tests are the United States - which last demonstrated an anti-satellite weapon in 2008 - China, and India.

Vorontsov did not single out any companies in his comments to a U.N. panel on Wednesday. But SpaceX's Starlink has stood out as a persistent target for Russia, which has attempted to signal-jam the network's signals during the war, Musk has said.

A network of thousands of interconnected satellites encircling Earth like Starlink have been championed by the U.S. military as being resilient to potential anti-satellite attacks that could only target a small portion of the network without fully disabling it.

"It complicates the calculus for the enemy," Lieutenant General Philip Garrant, the U.S. Space Force's deputy chief of strategy and operations, told Reuters. "If there's lots of satellites, they don't know which one to target."

SpaceX's Starlink network consists of roughly 3,000 satellites, and there are several dozen commercial U.S. imagery satellites eyeing Russia and Ukraine.

"Destroying one or two, or even a dozen, isn’t gonna have much effect," Weeden said.

(Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Mary Milliken and William Mallard)

After Biden pledges to codify Roe, Pence reminds Americans how dangerous Republicans really are


Kerry Eleveld
Daily Kos Staff
Wednesday October 19, 2022 · 


President Joe Biden told attendees at a Democratic National Committee event Tuesday that he would fast-track passing a national abortion rights measure if Democrats strengthened their majorities in Congress this fall.

“If we do that, here’s the promise I make to you and the American people: The first bill I will send to the Congress will be to codify Roe v. Wade," Biden said to the crowd at the Howard Theatre in Washington, D.C. "And when Congress passes it, I’ll sign it in January, 50 years after Roe was first decided the law of the land,” Biden added.

Former Vice President Mike Pence took Biden’s pledge as his cue to remind voters that Republicans are unwaveringly committed to banning abortion nationwide.

"I’ve got news for President Biden," tweeted Pence. "Come January 22nd, we will have Pro-Life majorities in the House and Senate and we’ll be taking the cause of the right to Life to every state house in America!"

That's not just news for Biden, that's a warning to blue-state Democrats everywhere who perhaps feel deceptively insulated from the extremist bans red-state Republicans are unleashing on their constituents.

Republicans absolutely plan on banning abortion nationwide if they are given the keys to Congress and the White House. Pence views retaking the House and Senate this November as a first step in the Republican march toward inserting the government into every pregnancy-related decision people make in this country—from family planning to how and when they conceive to the reproductive health care decisions they make along the way.

Republicans aren't keeping this under wraps. Whether it's Sen. Lindsey Graham's 15-week national abortion ban or Pence's rallying cry, Republicans are making it plain. Biden reminded Americans of that during his DNC speech.

"I want to repeat it again: The only sure way to stop these extremist laws that are—put in jeopardy women’s health and rights is for Congress to pass a law," Biden said.

"Right now, we’re short a handful of votes," Biden continued. "If you care about the right to choose, then you got to vote. That’s why, in these midterm elections, it’s so critical to elect more Democratic senators to the United States Senate and more Democrats to keep control of the House of Representatives."

Biden also reminded the audience that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito dared women to vote if they didn't like the Supreme Court decision he penned, writing, "Women are not without electoral or political power.”

Biden called the statement "extraordinary," adding with a chuckle, "Let me tell you something—the Court and the extreme Republicans who have spent decades trying to overturn Roe are about to find out. Just take a look at what happened in Kansas. And come this November, we’re going to see what happens all over America, God willing."

The contrasting visions for America being laid out by Democrats and Republicans couldn't be more stark. Republicans, wielding the structural advantages of a flawed electoral system, plan to end Americans' privacy rights and broadly insert government into people's most closely guarded personal decisions.

Democrats seek to safeguard those very same personal decisions in every way possible by codifying Americans' privacy rights into federal law.

You can help make this a reality by simply voting and voting early. Get friends and elders to the polls. If you're older, call your kids and grandkids to make sure they vote. If you're younger, host a voting party where you and your friends fill out your ballots together. Let’s do this

 

 

China’s 'toilet revolution': How activists are hiding messages of protest in public spaces

When a lone protester hung up banners criticising the Chinese government just days before the 20th Communist Party Congress kicked off, he started a quiet but national revolution. Although the original activist’s whereabouts are now unknown, citizens have been spreading his message discreetly, from graffiti in public toilets to stickers on buses, to Airdrops of messages criticising the Chinese president. 

"Xi Jinping is an emperor with no limits,” reads the message printed in black letters on a small white sticker, which has been appearing on bus handrails, on billboards and on the saddles of bikes for hire across China. 

'I don't dare to make large banners'

Our Observer, L, put stickers up around his town. For safety reasons, he didn’t want to share the name of his town publicly. 

 
'It takes a lot of courage and ingenuity to protest in this way'

 I have a pocket label printer, it is cheap to buy on Taobao, less than 100 yuan [Editor's note: Taobao is the Chinese equivalent of Amazon. 100 yuan is approximately 14 euros]. And the palm of your hand is about the same size.

I generally stick to places with more foot traffic, but people rarely pay attention. There are a lot of shared bicycles parked on the street. If you want to ride a bike, you have to scan the QR and check of the condition of the vehicle: this is the time to notice my banner.

At first, I was very nervous and scared. Then I slowly adapted. I usually stick more than 10 per day. 

In China, expressing disagreement with the government can result in a prison sentence, especially if your comments are about the president, Xi Jinping. 

As a result, any kind of public opposition to the government is rare. That made it all the more shocking when, on October 13 – just three days before the start of the 20th Communist Party Conference – an activist, later identified as "Peng Lifa", hung two banners on one of Beijing’s main roads criticising “dictator Xi Jinping" and the health situation in the country. 

The activist was later arrested. For the time being, no one knows what happened to him. All of the photos and comments about the protest have been censored on Chinese social media. But that hasn’t stopped people from spreading his message.

>> Read more on The Observers: 'Remove the dictator Xi Jinping': Images show rare protest in Beijing

One of them is our Observer, who started to stick his protest stickers around town shortly after Lifa’s protest.

I think the hero of the four-way bridge is too brave, too tragic. The biggest regret is that he did not evacuate in time, or he just did not want to evacuate. I don't have the guts to do that.

I don't have huge power, but I do have tiny power. I don't dare to make large banners, but I dare to make small ones. I carefully evaluated that such small banners are very difficult to trace and very easy to operate.

The initiative has gotten a lot of traction on Twitter. It was even shared by Fengsuo Zhou, who, back in 1989, led the protests in Tian’anmen Square as a student activist.

Our team spoke to Fengsuo Zhou. He said that the person behind the sticker initiative shared his idea as part of a Twitter discussion involving more than 600 people who wanted to find a way to help to spread Peng Lifa’s message. 

The pocket printer is easy to carry and hide from cameras; printing is fast, immediate, making it the best choice for sticking posters in public spaces. But I wouldn't be surprised if China eventually bans pocket printers.

Given the pervasive surveillance in China, it takes a lot of courage and ingenuity to protest in this way. 

Many are inspired by Peng Lifa, the Sitong Bridge protester. He sent the message that you can always find a way to do something with careful planning if you are brave enough.

The 'toilet revolution'

Photos documenting other messages of support for Peng Lifa’s message have been circulating online. US media outlet Vice reported that someone on the Shanghai metro used Airdrop, an iPhone function that enables someone to send images wirelessly to nearby phones, to send anti-Xi Jinping messages to everyone around them.

Other photos have documented messages of opposition in Chinese public toilets. 

On Twitter, people have been calling the appearance of all of these messages of opposition in public spaces the "toilet revolution".

These images show the toilets in Beijing’s film archives. The graffiti and posters call on people to oppose the regime, spreading the message of the lone protester who hung banners along a main street in Beijing on October 13.

These photos are said to have been taken in Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu. But they are difficult to geolocate because they are close-up images of interior spaces. We did note however that the signs that appear in some of the photos are written in Simplified Chinese, which is only used in continental China. 

'The banners really expressed what an average Chinese person now in China really thinks'

The Instagram account "Citizens Daily" has collected a bunch of these images, many of which were sent to them directly (as opposed to being posted on social media). Valentina (not her real name) is one of the Chinese students who runs this account. Most of them, like Valentina, live outside of China. 

People sent us the photos and we asked if it’s okay to share their location. We did not call for any resistance within China. We applaud people that are willing to risk their safety and we are happy to help give them a platform, but since our conception we have never encouraged people to engage in risky resistance activities if they are still living in China.

The first, second and tenth images were taken in Chinese toilets, according to “Citizen daily”.The graffiti and posters have taken up the message of Peng Lifa. They are critical of the government and its management of Covid and have called for the end to Xi Jinping’s rule.

The resentment people feel towards Xi Jinping I feel is pretty universal in China. Personally I’ve not met anyone in real life that doesn’t have complaints towards him or the zero-Covid policy. So I feel like the banners really expressed what an average Chinese person now in China really thinks, things they cannot say in public or even think about because of their fear for the possible retaliation from the regime.

Valentina says that most of the protest images shared on Citizens Daily come from students who live abroad. "Citizens Daily" said that there have been messages of protest against the Chinese regime popping up on the campuses of 320 universities around the world. She says that these acts of protest are not without risk for Chinese people living abroad, because they have family back in China and also might return to the country one day. 

After the Sitong Bridge incident, we started to receive photography and posters from Chinese studying or working overseas, airing support for that anonymous citizen. So we made a few posters to call forth more submissions. Apparently it’s a hit. To date we are only receiving more and more. And the level of creativity is simply amazing. People are getting really brave and passionate.

'The fight is still going on and we are not alone'

People’s creativity is endless. I’m sure even if all the methods we know about now gets banned we can come up with new ways to get our message across. It will be hard but it will be possible. 

I think it’s essential to archive our efforts to keep reminding everyone that the fight is still going on and we are not alone. We have many people fighting with us. 

 

Musk's SpaceX Is Becoming NASA's Favorite Contractor

SpaceX, founded in 2002, eclipsed several much older traditional contractors with historical ties to NASA in only twenty years.

by Stephen Silver


October 28, 2022 

In big news for Space X, Elon Musk’s aerospace company has now moved into the second spot for NASA vendors, as first reported on Twitter by Aviation Week and Space Technology’s Irene Klotz.

In the Fiscal Year 2022, more than $2 billion was obligated to SpaceX, which placed it second behind the California Institute of Technology, with $2.68 billion, due to Cal Tech housing the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The former number two, Boeing, moved down to the third spot, with $1.7 billion obligated, while Lockheed Martin was fourth, with $1.335 billion. SpaceX becomes NASA's largest for-profit, non-academic vendor.

Jacobs Technology, Orbital Systems, KBRWhyle Technology Solutions, Science Applications International, Aerojet Rocketdyne, and Johns Hopkins University took the rest of the top ten.

In FY 2021, the top six were the same, except Boeing, placed second and SpaceX third. But SpaceX received an additional $400 million in contracts in the most recent fiscal year than it did in the previous one. SpaceX, founded in 2002, eclipsed several much older traditional contractors with historical ties to NASA in only twenty years.

How did SpaceX rise so high? Ars Technica analyzed it.

“On the one hand, the ascension of SpaceX to the No. 2 spot on NASA's contractor list represents a major shakeup in the order of things. For a long time, NASA's human spaceflight and exploration programs were dominated by Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Aerojet, Northrop Grumman, and a handful of other traditional defense aerospace contractors,” the site said.

“However, it should come as no surprise that a company that has recently delivered the most services—and, arguably, value—to NASA should start to receive a large share of its contract awards. This has been most notable with SpaceX's performance on Commercial Crew, NASA's program to buy transportation services from private companies to bring its astronauts to and from the International Space Station.”

That site added that NASA gave both SpaceX and Boeing contracts in 2014 for spacecraft, with Boeing receiving more, but that it was SpaceX who got to the International Space Station first.

Teslarati had more to say.

“Saved by the infusion of resources, SpaceX successfully debuted Falcon 9 in June 2010 and began operational ISS cargo deliveries under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program in October 2012. Aside from a survivable engine failure on CRS-1 (2012) and one catastrophic Falcon 9 failure on CRS-7 (2015), NASA and SpaceX’s CRS cooperation has been a thorough success. SpaceX is just a few weeks away from CRS-26, which will likely become Cargo Dragon’s 26th successful ISS cargo delivery in 10 years,” the site said.

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.

Image: Reuters.

 PERSPECTIVE

The crisis in US children’s hospitals and the need for socialist public health

Evan Blake@evanblake17

WSWS.ORG

Over the past month, children’s hospitals across the United States have entered an unprecedented crisis. They are being inundated with a wave of infants and toddlers hospitalized with a range of respiratory illnesses, well before the normal peak in December. The most common source of hospitalizations is currently respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), but rhinovirus, enterovirus, adenovirus, the flu and COVID-19 are also implicated, and there are reports of children infected with multiple of these viruses simultaneously.

From coast to coast, pediatric hospitals have reached or exceeded capacity, with three-quarters of all pediatric hospital beds in the US now occupied. Entire states are near capacity, including Rhode Island (99 percent of all pediatric hospital beds filled), Texas (91 percent), Missouri (89 percent) and others.

Seattle Children’s Hospital reports that its emergency room (ER) is now at 200 percent of capacity. At Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, the largest pediatric hospital in California, the past few days have seen a doubling of visits to the ER, with wait times also doubling to up to six hours. Other major cities with pediatric hospital bed and staffing shortages include Chicago, New York City, New Orleans, Detroit, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Baltimore, Austin and more. Many families have had to drive for hours or fly to other states when the pediatric hospital in their region has reached capacity.

At Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford, Connecticut, officials are considering whether to ask the National Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) to set up a field tent on the hospital’s lawn to care for an overflow of children with RSV. Catherine Morgan, a mother from nearby Meriden whose two-month-old son Grant was just hospitalized with RSV at Connecticut Children’s, told local news, “Once we got inside, there’s gurneys throughout the hallways with families just waiting for a room.”

Speaking on the terrifying progression of her son’s illness, Morgan said, “It’s very scary. Respiratory distress is very concerning. He has such little lungs and can’t really breathe. … Within four hours he was using his whole body to breathe. It makes me tear up thinking about it.”

Throughout the country, thousands of children are undergoing the trauma of hospitalization, which studies have shown can have long-term ramifications. Their parents and caregivers are sitting nervously by their side, holding their children, or turned away from hospitals which lack enough staff.

The only comparable mass child hospitalization of this dimension took place last January, as the supposedly “mild” Omicron variant hospitalized an average of 914 children daily and killed over 200 children that month alone.

Experts warn that in the coming weeks, expected surges of the flu and COVID-19—for both of which most children remain unvaccinated—will cause a “triple threat” that will strain pediatric hospitals past their breaking point.

RSV is a seasonal virus which can cause pneumonia and bronchiolitis in young children, severely impacting their ability to breathe, and can be life-threatening. It has historically caused an average of 58,000 hospitalizations and up to 500 deaths per year in children under 5 years old, along with 177,000 hospitalizations and 14,000 deaths annually among adults 65 and older. Collectively, respiratory pathogens are among the worst killers in the world, with the World Health Organization (WHO) finding they cause the highest global burden of disease measured by years lost through death or disability.

Almost all of the media coverage has sought to blame the present crisis on mitigation measures put in place in 2020 to limit the spread of COVID-19, including lockdowns, masking, remote learning and social distancing, which built up a so-called “immunity debt” among infants who were not exposed to RSV and other viruses. This unscientific term is a red herring meant to deflect blame from those who bear political responsibility for the current catastrophe.

In reality, the surge of these respiratory viruses is the direct consequence of the “forever COVID” policy now pursued by the Biden administration and every state government, which over the past year have systematically dismantled all anti-COVID mitigation measures. Unlike in 2020 and 2021, this school year began with the lifting of mask mandates in every major school district across the US, allowing all respiratory pathogens to spread unchecked among over 50 million children, most of whom were immunologically naive to many respiratory viruses due to masking and social distancing. Despite numerous warnings, nothing was done to prepare for the present surge.

Immunologist Dr. Anthony Leonardi, who has consistently spoken out against the “herd immunity” COVID-19 policies which have led to the mass infection of children, recently wrote on the concept of “immunity debt,” concluding, “We mustn’t delude ourselves into thinking infections actually confer a benefit or are a debt that must be paid. They are more like a tax we make the children pay for our civilization not being developed enough to prevent viral illnesses that hospitalize thousands of children per year.”

Dr. Leonardi also called attention to the growing body of research demonstrating that COVID-19 can cause significant damage to one’s immune system.

According to the latest estimates from the CDC, 86.3 percent of the US child population has likely been infected with COVID-19 at least once. Even if only a tiny percentage of these 62 million children now have damaged immune systems, it is very likely a contributing factor to the current surge of child hospitalizations. Many professionals have noted that healthy children who normally would not suffer severe disease are being hospitalized by RSV and other viruses.

Map showing the estimated percentage of the child population infected in each US state. [Photo: CDC]

In the winter of 2020-21, RSV, the flu and most other respiratory pathogens were nearly eliminated in numerous countries, a remarkable but unintended byproduct of the limited masking and social distancing then in place. During that winter, only one child died from the flu in the US, and this week in 2020 saw only 10 confirmed RSV infections, compared to over 7,000 last week.

Chart showing the number of confirmed weekly RSV infections in the US, from October 2020 to the present. [Photo: WSWS]

One of the greatest scientific breakthroughs during the pandemic was the early recognition that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is transmitted almost entirely through tiny aerosols that people emit through talking, singing and even just breathing, which then linger in the air for minutes or even hours at a time. Proving that SARS-CoV-2 is airborne prompted further investigation into other pathogens, including RSV, which had been shown to be airborne as early as 2016.

In a rational society, this scientific knowledge would have prompted the largest renovation of global infrastructure in history, in order to modernize buildings with high quality air filtration and ventilation systems. Instead, the science was suppressed and distorted by nearly every government and public health agency in the world, above all, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Fundamentally, the science of airborne transmission shifts responsibility for viral transmission from the individual to the social level, placing the onus on governments to clean the air in all public spaces. But under capitalism, even this minimal encroachment on private profit is beyond the pale.

In a remarkable press conference Wednesday, White House COVID Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha stated that COVID-19 “is purely airborne,” the most open acknowledgment of airborne transmission by any White House official. He then falsely counterpoised COVID-19 to RSV, which he implied could be curtailed simply by hand washing and “keeping kids home when they are sick,” an impossibility for most working class families. When asked by a reporter whether parents should give their children masks to protect themselves from RSV and other respiratory illnesses, Dr. Jha refused to do so.

The same processes are unfolding globally. In Ontario, Canada, where all anti-COVID mitigations have been dropped, pediatric hospitals are also being inundated with RSV and other respiratory pathogens, while school teachers are no longer allowed to even report likely COVID-19 infections in their classrooms.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that capitalism is thoroughly hostile to the principles of public health which prove that SARS-CoV-2, RSV, the flu and numerous other pathogens can be eliminated globally through a massive expansion of testing, modernized contact tracing, access to health care, the renovation of infrastructure, temporary paid lockdowns and more.

The “infection tax” on children and all of society is being imposed by the capitalist class, which views the working class as nothing more than fodder for exploitation, whose “nonproductive” lives should be cut as short as possible.

Through their policies, the capitalists have nearly destroyed health care systems throughout the world. In the US alone, an estimated 333,942 health care providers left the workforce in 2021, while a recent survey found that more than one-third of nurses plan to leave their current roles by the end of the year. The same process has unfolded in schools, the key centers for viral transmission throughout the pandemic, with huge shortages of educators across the US and internationally.

In response to the inflationary crisis triggered by the unending pandemic and the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the working class is entering into struggle throughout the world. This developing international class struggle must become the basis for the fight to stop the pandemic, end the war, and massively expand public health and all other social services. Only through the socialist overturn of existing property relations can mankind rebuild society and guarantee the universal right to a decent, long life free of poverty and disease.

New Zealand leader Ardern makes rare trip to Antarctica

By NICK PERRY

TODAY

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New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, looks around Ernest Shackleton's Nimrod Expedition hut at Cape Royds on Ross Island in Antarctica, Thursday, Oct. 27, 2022.

 (Mike Scott/NZ Herald via AP, Pool)

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern appeared awestruck Thursday to be standing in the Antarctic hut of explorer Ernest Shackleton.

“I think when you’re a kid and you read stories about Shackleton, you’d never imagine you’d have the opportunity to come. So, I feel pretty lucky,” she said from inside the hut that was built more than a century ago. “It’s a cool place.”

Ardern this week is making a rare visit by a world leader to Antarctica, to see firsthand the research taking place on global warming and to mark the 65th anniversary of New Zealand’s Scott Base, which will be demolished in a few years to make way for a rebuild.

Ardern’s visit comes as delegations from 26 nations and the European Union meet in Australia to decide the future of Antarctica’s pristine waters.

Conservationists say new marine protected areas and rules to prevent overfishing in Antarctica are desperately needed, but that Russia could use its veto-like powers to once again block progress.

Russia last year rejected the toothfish catch limits proposed by the commission’s scientists, and the U.S. says this year that Russia and China have been blocking progress on creating new marine protected areas, although the U.S. aims to work toward a resolution with China. The motivation for Russia, which did not respond to requests for comment this week, remains unclear.

Ardern’s trip has highlighted some of the challenges of visiting the icy continent. Her first flight in a military cargo plane was turned around after about two hours on Tuesday due to strong winds and deteriorating weather, making her part of what’s informally known as the “boomerang club.”

She made it to Antarctica the next day, accompanied by a single pool journalist whose photos and videos can take many hours to transmit overnight due to the tenuous internet capacity. She is due to return home Saturday.

Ardern said the scientists and crew on Antarctica have noticed the effects of global warming over the past five years, including observing sea ice cracking and moving, and glaciers and icebergs changing.

She said it was important for New Zealand to maintain a leadership role on the continent.

“We’re in a period where internationally you see that parts of the world are becoming increasingly contested, and Antarctica is part of that, too,” Ardern said.

Standing in the hut, Ardern said that Irish-born Shackleton and his British expedition had tried to reach the South Pole, but that he was remembered more for his extraordinary leadership and saving the lives of his men. She said she didn’t exactly draw parallels with her own leadership.

“I don’t think I can quite compare government with the hardship and endurance of Antarctic exploration,” she said, adding with a laugh: “But some days.”