Revealed in a new IPS briefing paper, the richest .01 percent of Americans, about 33,000 today, now pay just one-sixth of what they used to pay in tax, when measured as a percentage of their total wealth.

The top .01 percent in America is a phenomenally wealthy group. Even during America’s most egalitarian periods, the average member of the top .01 percent held over 200 times the wealth of the average American. Today, the wealth of the average top .01 percenter is nearly 1,000 times that of the average American and is closing in on one billion dollars.

Taxes on the Rich: One-Sixth of What They Used to Be – Consortiumnews

 The pandemic had infected at least 109 million people worldwide, causing over 2.4 million deaths as of mid-February. Global needs for the vaccine now greatly exceed available supply.

Vaccine developers’ refusal to share publicly funded vaccine research findings is stalling broader, affordable vaccinations which would more rapidly contain COVID-19 contagion. Avoidable delays in preventive vaccination are imposing terrible burdens on the world economy and human welfare, with economic disruption demanding more relief and recovery measures. By the end of 2021, total global capacity of the 13 leading COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers would still be well short of the needs of the world’s almost 7.7 billion people. Even if they all produce at maximum capacity, a fifth of the world’s population would not have access until 2022.

National capacities to cope with the pandemic have been largely determined by means and power. Thus, access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, personal protective equipment and other pandemic supplies has been severely lacking in most African and other poor countries.

At current vaccination rates, it would take “not one or two years, but six years” to reach 75% global coverage, currently considered the minimum to achieve ‘herd immunity’ against COVID-19.

Patent protections, vaccine production constraints and the rich country scramble will deprive more than 85 poor countries of public access to vaccines before 2023. As of 5 February, not a single dose had been administered in 130 countries with 2.5 billion people.

Of the more than 131 million doses available by 8 February, the US, China, the EU and the UK had 78%, while Africa had 0.2%! Meanwhile, the African Union has only ordered less than half of what it needs to reach herd immunity, i.e., just 670 million doses. Meanwhile, besides Brazil, other Latin American countries only have 150 million doses for less than a quarter of their population.

Rich countries continue to oppose the South African-Indian proposal to temporarily suspend relevant provisions of the 1994 World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to effectively block rapid scaling up of generic vaccine production, mainly due to vaccine suppliers’ profit maximisation, also limiting supplies and access. Meanwhile, rich countries’ grossly excessive vaccine purchases can vaccinate their residents several times over.  Cross-border enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPRs) is relatively recent. Big Pharma successfully lobbied their governments for TRIPS inclusion in the 1994 WTO founding documents. This greatly strengthened and extended IPRs transnationally.

The US will soon have enough to vaccinate its population twice over, while Canada and Australia have booked enough to protect residents several times over. Exceptionally, New Zealand – which has also ordered several times its population’s needs.  Middle-income countries have joined the scramble, making onerous direct deals with vaccine suppliers, typically on worse terms than if they had bargained collectively. Unsurprisingly, vaccine prices vary considerably, by more than 12-fold, from US$6 to US$74 per dose.

As countries have not published contract details, acceding to vaccine suppliers’ terms, lack of transparency has enabled abuses. And when forced to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests, documents are heavily redacted before release. Such limited transparency enables big power ‘vaccine nationalism’ impairs others’ access. Thus, following its spat with AstraZeneca, the European Commission (EC) banned vaccine exports to most countries outside the EU. Now, as these non-transparent deals are disputed, European politicians are threatening ‘patent grabs’. EU President Charles Michel has warned of “urgent measures” demanding compulsory licensing, provided for by the European Treaty.

This would require vaccine developers to facilitate generic production, which the developing country-backed TRIPS temporary waiver proposal seeks for all countries. Nevertheless, the EU, other rich countries and their allies still oppose the request to enable rapid scaling-up of affordable vaccine supplies.

To accelerate vaccine development, expenses and risks have been mainly borne by governments, rather than by developers or private finance. The six top candidate vaccine developers have already received over US$12 billion of public money.  Moderna received US$955 million for research and development plus a premarket purchase commitment of US$1.53 billion. In Europe, Pfizer/BioNTech got €375 million from the German government and another €100 million for debt refinancing from the European Investment Bank. Yet, despite massive public financing, vaccine developers retain the IP monopoly right to profit. Thus, the prospect of huge gains from 2021 vaccine sales revenue of almost US$40 billion is delaying progress against COVID-19. AstraZeneca promised Oxford University not to profit off any COVID-19 vaccines “for the duration of the pandemic”. However, its contracts allow it to declare the pandemic over as early as mid-2021. It could then charge higher prices for vaccines developed with public money for the university.

Vaccines produced generically at greater scale will be far more affordable, enabling more rapid containment of the contagion, infections, deaths and disruptions. Until herd immunity is achieved nationally and globally, priority in allocation should be on the basis of urgent need, rather than ability to pay or political muscle.  The TRIPS waiver proposal, still blocked by rich country governments at the WTO would enable all countries to affordably make or buy ‘generic’ vaccines. This would most effectively expedite containing the pandemic with the least loss of lives and livelihoods.

IP, Vaccine Imperialism Cause Death and Suffering, Delay Recovery | Inter Press Service (ipsnews.net)

Workers at fast-food restaurant chains in 15 cities around the US went on strike on Tuesday demanding a raise in their minimum wage to $15 an hour.

The workers at McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s, joined by home care and nursing home workers, took action.

Strikes occurred in Charleston, South Carolina; Chicago; Flint and Detroit, Michigan; Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina; Houston; Miami, Orlando, and Tampa, Florida; St. Louis; Oakland, Sacramento, and San Jose, California; and Milwaukee. 

“We hear you out there applauding essential workers. We see the big show you make of thanking us. But to be honest, that hasn’t translated into changes for my life. We were living on a razor’s edge long before Covid-19 hit South Carolina. And we’re living on it still,” said Taiwanna Milligan, a McDonald’s worker in Charleston who makes $8.75 an hour after working at the restaurant chain for eight years.

Ieishia Franceis has worked at Freddy’s Frozen Custards in west Durham, North Carolina since July 2020 and makes $9.20 an hour, explained, “Sometimes businesses get so caught up in doing business that they forget who runs their businesses. We’re going to keep fighting and not going to stop until we get all the equality we’re fighting for.” 

 47% of essential workers are in occupations where the median wage is currently less than $15 an hour. 

US workers go on strike in 15 cities to demand $15-an-hour minimum wage | Minimum wage | The Guardian

USA is the most expensive country in the world to have a baby, there is no way of knowing the bill in advance, and you can potentially be charged just for holding your newborn baby  (You can be charged $40 )

 It’s the only developed country without mandated paid maternity leave; in some states, however, short-term disability insurance covers your income for a few weeks while you recover from the birth.

Even with decent insurance, you can expect to pay a few thousand dollars out-of-pocket for an uncomplicated birth. Indeed, the cost of delivering a regular American baby is more than that of delivering a Royal baby in the UK.

 Nobody in the US healthcare system can ever tell you how much anything costs. They just tell you to call your health insurance company, who tell you to call the hospital’s billing department, who put you on hold then tell you to call your insurance company. Three weeks later, you get a bill. Even though your hospital is covered by your health insurance, one of the specialists who comes into contact with your newborn might not be. The paediatrician may be out of network so not recognised by her insurance provider and so is extra.

80% of medical bills contain errors and these almost always seem to be over-charging rather than under-charging you. 

Despite getting massively marked-up care – the USA has the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world.

My partner is pregnant – and the cost of giving birth in the US is stressing me out | Pregnancy | The Guardian

 Government failure to maintain the £20 a week Covid top-up payment for universal credit will overwhelmingly hit the incomes of working and disabled people, and put more than 700,000 into poverty, according to the Fabian Society.

If the planned cuts to universal credit and tax credits go ahead it will put 760,000 people below the poverty line over the medium term. Of these, 490,000 (64%) will be in working households where at least one adult works, many with children.

Its analysis of how the cut impacts on different households concludes that households with a disabled adult will be hit by 57% of the cuts; families with children will be hit by half ; and households where someone is a carer will be hit by 12%.

Andrew Harrop, general secretary of the Fabian Society, said: 

“If ministers cut universal credit this April, they will overwhelmingly punish working families and disabled people. People in these groups have shown huge resilience during the pandemic and have done nothing to deserve this. The chancellor’s planned cut will strip £1,000 per year from 6 million families and plunge three quarters of a million people into poverty. Some politicians like to pretend that social security is just for the workshy. But the reality is that millions of working households need benefits and tax credits to make ends meet, as do disabled people who are out of work through no fault of their own. If ministers are considering a few months’ temporary extension to the universal credit uplift, that just isn’t good enough. The 2020 benefit increase must be placed on a permanent footing.”

Cutting Covid top-up ‘will put 700,000 people into poverty’ | Universal credit | The Guardian

  Biden’s officials, fearing a surge in immigration, has sent out the message that little will change quickly for migrants arriving at the southern US border, even if there is a softer reception for them.

The World Food Programme says three million Hondurans face food insecurity, six times higher than before the hurricanes. The dual hurricanes Iota and Eta affected an estimated four million of 10 million Honduran people. 

Dana Graber Ladek, head of the International Organization for Migration office in Mexico, explained, “They’re suffering poverty, violence, the hurricanes, unemployment, domestic violence, and with that dream of a new administration, of new opportunities, they’re going to try [to migrate] again and again.”

 Food has been speculated on the financial markets for a very long time. In December, water also became a commodity which can now be traded in the Wall St futures market. Now another basic of life is being speculated over for profit and private gain – oxygen, itself.

  With most hospitals full, many Mexicans are battling COVID-19 oxygen tanks and oxygen concentrators (devices that concentrate the oxygen from a gas supply, typically the air) have become scarce, as individuals and companies are taking advantage of the pandemic and selling or renting them at extremely high prices. Others are using the situation to fraudulently sell tanks without delivering them.

In Mexico City, people have been lining up for up to five hours to refill tanks, many of which only provide a few hours’ worth of oxygen. The demand for oxygen has grown by 700 percent over the past month. Oxygen products have roughly quadrupled in prices since November. Now some companies sell industrial oxygen tanks that aren’t medical grade and thus not fit for personal use.

Profiting From Desperation: Oxygen Tanks Become an Underground Market in Mexico (truthout.org)

 People living in poverty around the world are in danger of food shortages as the coronavirus crisis continues, Agnes Kalibata, the special envoy to the UN secretary general for the food systems summit 2021, has warned, with the risk worse this year than in the period shortly after the pandemic began.

 She said, “Food systems have contracted, because of Covid-19. And food has become more expensive and, in some places, out of reach for people. Food is looking more challenging this year than last year. The main impact has been on markets, the shutdown of food markets. The lockdown has closed markets and that makes it very difficult for farmers.” She explained that “Last year, many countries used whatever opportunity they had to keep their food systems going. That is more difficult now. Food prices have increased significantly in some places.”

Kalibata highlighted the plight of African countries in particular, several of which are facing serious food price rises and shortages, exacerbated by problems such as drought predicted in east Africa, likely to affect northern Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia. “This year, the predicted drought cycle is much more serious than last year,” she said.

Other countries were also seeing prices rise, she added. “The price of food is increasing in some cases very fast, which is really challenging.” As the coronavirus pandemic and the global economic crisis it has provoked continue, more countries are likely to be drawn into difficulties, she said. “We have not been able to strengthen our reserves. Now they are under pressure.”

Munderlying problems have grown worse over the past year, as people have exhausted their reserves of food, cash and family support and now are facing a long crisis without backup.

“We are facing a greater threat this year, as economies have shrunk,” she said. “That is happening across the globe, everywhere. Countries are in a very distressed situation, and it is not getting easier – it is getting more difficult. Some countries have hung on, but for how long?”

Risk of global food shortages due to Covid has increased, says UN envoy | World news | The Guardian

 There are many media articles condemning the Chinese secrecy over the origins in Wuhan of the COVID-19 outbreak. They are accused of suppressing data concerning it and the local and national officials handling of it. Such lack of transparency has led to a number of conspiracy theories.

In contrast, the secrecy and with-holding of information by the pharmaceutical companies is treated as normal custom and practice regardless to the risk to lives patents and intellectual ownership creates. 

Wealthy nations and the vaccine manufacturers are engaged in contract disputes over supplies. Nations compete with one another for commitment by the drug corporations to fulfil their advance orders for the vaccines. 

Rich countries have ordered enough doses to vaccinate their populations three times over, while 9 in 10 people in nearly 70 poorer countries are unlikely to be vaccinated at all this year. We know that when it comes to Covid infection and prevalence, nobody is safe until we are all safe. But the efforts of almost every rich country to secure vaccines reminds us of first-class passengers receiving privileged treatment.

Getting the vaccine to the world’s poor will require an approach based on solidarity rather than competition. 

 Okonjo-Iweala, the World Trade Organization’s incoming chief on Monday warned against “vaccine nationalism’ that would slow progress in ending the COVID-19 pandemic and could erode economic growth for all countries – rich and poor.

“No one is safe until everyone is safe. Vaccine nationalism at this time just will not pay, because the variants are coming. If other countries are not immunized, it will just be a blow back,” she said. “It’s unconscionable that people will be dying elsewhere, waiting in a queue, when we have the technology.”

Okonjo-Iweala said studies showed that the global economy would lose $9 trillion in potential output if poor countries were unable to get their populations vaccinated quickly, and about half of the impact would be borne by rich countries.

“Both on a human health basis, as well as an economic basis, being nationalistic at this time is very costly to the international community,” she said.

Incoming WTO head warns ‘vaccine nationalism’ could slow pandemic recovery | Reuters