Participants in the 11th Global South-South Development Expo 2022. Credit: ESCAP / Louise Lavaud

By Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, May 15 2023 (IPS)

Asia is the fastest growing and most dynamic region of the world according to a recent IMF Report; “Recovery Unabated Amid Uncertainty”. ¹

Asia and the Pacific will contribute around 70 percent of global growth this year as expansion accelerates after Covid-19 supply chain disruptions, with ongoing geopolitical turmoil and war in Europe, as well as, various hybrid over the horizon cyber and kinetic attacks targeting Indian Ocean ports and shipping.

Global economic expansion would be significantly powered by the BRICS countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, as well as the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), group that includes Indonesia.

A series of Exogenous Economic Shocks over the past four years, from terror attacks to Covid-19, and ‘climate catastrophe’ policy-mistakes, such as an overnight switch to organic fertilizer, temporarily set back the rise of these ‘emerging economies’ of the Global South on the world stage.

They are now increasingly set to lead a rebound in a Multipolar ‘Asian 21st Century’ as Euro-American hegemony wanes.

Asian Giants, China and India, have huge populations, domestic markets, resources and the civilizational weight to lead global expansion. In the West, growth is poised to decelerate as rising interest rates, trillion-dollar deficits and military budgets weigh, with Inflation high, and banking strains in the United States and Europe.

Asia Pacific growth would increase to 4.6 percent despite the somber backdrop of war and economic weakness elsewhere in the world according to the IMF report.

Strategic Sri Lanka, which staged its first sovereign Default, loosing economic policy autonomy to the Washington Twins (IMF and World Bank), ironically on the eve of 75 years of Independence, clearly needs to look to Asia and the BRICS as Cold War and Colonialism once again roil the Indian Ocean World with nuclear submarines and military bases popping up a dime a dozen these days.

Four new US bases in the Philippines were announce just last month. The country after all is a bell weather for more than fifty other Global South countries caught in post-Covid-19 Eurobond debt traps, and the Washington Twins (World Bank and IMF) ‘bailout business’.

BRICS back on Track as Empires Rise and Fall

The BRICS was strengthened with the return of President Lula da Silva to the helm in Brazil in January. These powerhouse economies are increasingly trading in their own national currencies, promoting a trend to de-dollarization that has gathered steam in the context of US debt of $ 31 trillion and sanctions on Russia last year.

The search is on for alternatives to the US dollar as the global reserve currency as the BRICS economies had outstripped the traditional economic heavyweights – the G-7.

The New Development Bank (NDB) or BRICS bank which is a multilateral development bank established by the BRICS in 2014 to finance infrastructure and sustainable development projects in the developing world is expanding at this time with Iran and Saudi Arabia set to join amid a recent China brokered peace deal to stabilize Yemen and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

The NDB launched with $50 billion in seed money as an alternative to the IMF and WB. Additionally, a liquidity mechanism called the Contingent Reserve Arrangement to support members struggling with payments was created. In 2021, Egypt the United Arab Emirates, Uruguay and Bangladesh took up shares and membership of NDB while Egypt, Algeria, and Argentina, as well as, Mexico and Nigeria are in the pipeline. ²

Nineteen countries including Indonesia had expressed an interest in joining the BRICS group of nations as it prepares to hold an annual summit in June in South Africa, which is now struck by sabotage and power-cuts

De-dollarize to decolonize

Saudi Arabia’s petro-dollar linked oil reserves had stabilized the US dollar as the Global Reserve currency for decades, but this is changing with talk of the Petro Yuan and related geopolitical developments. In the wake of the Iran-Saudi peace agreement, Syria rejoined the Arab League after a 12-year long US led regime change operation failed against Bashar al Assad.

These movements perhaps explain some of the new Cold War proxy wars and turmoil in MENA and South Asia–from Sudan, to Palestine/Israel, to Afghanistan and Pakistan as the Euro-American empire wanes at this time.

Remarkably Argentina, South America’s 2nd largest economy after Brazil, seeking alternatives to the IMF has applied for membership of the NDB. Argentina, victim of the Monroe doctrine for decades is on its 22nd IMF bailout and 9th default, as Buenos Aires was again rocked by anti-IMF protests last month.

The NDB along with the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), increasingly constitute a Global South alternative to the Washington Consensus and colonial Club de Paris dominated Bretton Woods International development and finance architecture.

Bankrupt by what metric? Beyond The myth of TINA to the IMF

Sri Lanka as an Asian country would best leverage the Asian 21st Century and the NDB, but Colombo’s Washington-backed Ranil Rajapakse regime that is responsible for the country’s first sovereign default had promoted two myths, that “Sri Lanka is Bankrupt” and “there is no alternative” (TINA) to the IMF agenda, of austerity and a Firesale of strategic assets!

Last year upon assuming office the President promised Famine and 15-hour power cuts, in a psychological operation to spread fear, and prepare the people for an IMF Firesale and the country’s asset stripping.

However, the famine and 15-hour power cuts did not materialize also given plentiful monsoon rains for hydro-power generation as the weather gods miffed the Cold War gods.

The question is: by what metric and on whose Data was the strategic county that sits on major energy, trade and undersea data cable routes deemed ‘bankrupt’? As one of South Asia’s (SAARC) wealthiest countries in terms of GDP per capita with the best social and human development indicators, Former US Ass. Secretary of South and Central Asia Alice G. Wells termed the lush and fertile tropical island, blessed with two monsoons and extensive marine and mineral resources “valuable real estate”! Others have called it an ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier.’

Whether a shortage of exorbitantly privileged US dollars is adequate to measure the ‘wealth of nations’ also given America’s 31 trillion debt is not a rhetorical or philosophical question to elicit yet another theory of value.

Rather, it flags here the failure by the Washington Consensus to make an elementary distinction between ‘illiquidity’ and ‘insolvency’ in determining the purported bankruptcy of Global South countries caught in the World Bank’s Middle Income Country (MIC) trap, to enable a Firesale of strategic assets. Does this not rather reflect great moral and intellectual bankruptcy?

Re-Orient to de-colonize in a Multipolar World

As the Asian 21st Century becomes a reality in a multipolar world where the BRICS economies have overtaken the traditional G-7 countries as the world’s engine of growth, Sri Lanka caught in a Eurobond US dollar denominated debt trap clearly needs to ReOrient as German sociologist and world systems theorist Andre Gunder Frank wrote in his acclaimed book; “ReORIENT: Global Economy in the Asian Age” (1998).

Much of Frank’s analysis finds resonance in a more recent book by Kishore Mahbubani, Former President of the United Nations Security Council, titled the Asian 21st Century.

In the context, Sri Lanka would best ban further borrowing on Eurobond markets, and engage bi-lateral lenders India and China to join hand with NDB, also to renew its Independence and sovereignty in its 75th year, and ensure calibrated exit from US dollar denominated Eurobond debt bondage.

Other countries may aid Sri Lanka’s, but only if the county leads in the search for alternatives to the IMF’s bankruptcy narratives– as Dr. Yanis Varoufakis, former Finance Minister of Greece who has extensive experience with IMF debt negotiations had noted.

Debt trapped countries the Global South and humanity are clearly at a turning point in an age of Artificial Intelligence (AI), big data mining, deep fakes, and drone surveillance by those with the technologies for global governance and control of populations.

Hence, following Elon Musk, Warren Buffet recently warned that ‘AI is a nuclear bomb’. As a genuinely multipolar world re-emerges after two hundred years of Euro-American hegemony, on the cusp of another World War, it is up to debt-trapped countries of the Global South to promote multi-polarity and respect for genuine cultural diversity.

Dr Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake is a Cultural Anthropologist with expertise in international development and political economic analysis. She was a member of the International Steering Group of the North-South Institute project “Southern Perspectives on Reform of the International Development Architecture.’ She had authored and co-edited several books, the most recent being “Multi-religiosity in Contemporary Sri Lanka: Innovation, Shared Spaces, Contestation’ Routledge (2022).

¹ https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/REO/APAC/Issues/2023/04/11/regional-economic-outlook-for-asia-and-pacific-april-2023
² https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm_y3w7x1qk
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-24/brics-draws-membership-requests-from-19-nations-before-summit#xj4y7vzkg

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Vaccine access negotiations are at critical juncture. While many countries support the intellectual property rights waiver, including the European parliament the European Union does not. Credit: PAHO/Karen González

By Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, May 19 2021 (IPS)

We went to the Kanatte cemetery, Sri Lanka’s largest, where most of us, residents of the capital city, would end up sooner or later. But it was deserted, and so we had time for a leisurely chat with some of the helpful staff there, albeit after admiring some of the grave sites and remaining beautiful trees.

As good social scientists and medical anthropologists, we were on a mission to do some qualitative research and cross-check Covid-19 quantitative data, to see if there was an increase in deaths, in the biggest city and population hub of the country.

Colombo’s cemetery was quiet, calm, green and monsoonal. It was a far cry from the overflowing cemeteries, floating bodies and weeping masses we have encountered on our television screens in narratives from New York, Sao Paulo or New Delhi, where the global Covid-19 media show has gone to town.

We were shown the red log books with the names of the deceased. We learned that over the last two weeks, there was less business, fewer funerals than in January and February this year, as there had been fewer bodies coming for burial and/or cremation during the current month of May 2021, although the country is in lockdown.

This was also corroborated by interviews at A.F Raymond Funeral Parlour, which also had less business and fewer funerals in the past couple of weeks – since May 1, 2021.

There had been a total of 35 Covid-19 positive bodies that came to Kanatte during recent weeks from May 1 to May 13 for cremation. But overall, there were fewer deaths and bodies in the current month of May than in January and February on an average day.

Yet the whole of Sri Lanka is in full blown Covid-19 lockdown at this time and arbitrary regulations are in play until the end of the month: People may go out of their homes based on their Identity Card numbers starting Monday next week.

Interviews with Senior Doctors

Although Colombo has the largest population in the country and urban areas get affected first in epidemics due to population density, a surgeon at the biggest hospital in the country – Colombo General Hospital – said in an interview they did not have a Covid-19 ward until relatively recently as PCR tested Covid-19 patients were sent to the IDH – Infectious Diseases Hospital.

In recent times PCR testing has been increased there are more people identified as Covid-19 positive in hospitals, but almost half are asymptomatic. However, PCR tests recommended by WHO deliver a high number of false positives and hence any ascription of positive results to a COVID-19 diagnosis should require the occurrence of clinical symptoms and further evaluation and confirmation by physicians, including the appraisal of distinct laboratory parameters.

About 45-50 % percent of those who test PCR positive and are kept in hospitals in Sri Lanka at this time are asymptomatic. That is, they may be hospitalized based on false positives and filling up the wards and hospitals — so what we have is a PCR pandemic?

Indeed, PCR tests for Covid-19 are now the subject of court action by a team of international lawyers challenging the test’s validity and the WHO ‘s Covid-19 ‘pandemic’ narrative, in courts in Germany and the USA.

The current much hyped “third wave” of Covid-19 in Sri Lanka at this time appears to be due to a couple of factors: 1) increased testing with PCR tests that deliver a high number of false positives and/ or asymptomatic patients. 2) the arrival of seasonal flu caused by monsoon and inter-monsoon rains which bring “flu season” in the Tropics.

PCR test positive folks who are asymptomatic are filling up hospital beds. At this time there are about 100 PCR positive patients with what are often termed co-morbidity factors or tertiary cases such as diabetes, heart disease, Kidney disease at the General Hospital of Colombo.

There are also many empty beds at the General hospital of Colombo because many people with serious illnesses do not want to go to hospital because of Covid-19 hype and fear psychosis.

What Sri Lanka has at this time appears to be a WHO recommended PCR test induced crisis and pandemic, as in other parts of the world even though PCR tests are known to be flawed and a team of international lawyers have challenged in court in Germany and the US, the WHO leader Tederos Adhanom, and the use of the PCR test to diagnose Covid-19.

No Doctors, nurses, PHIs, have died of the so called deadly Covid-19 in Sri Lanka en masse, unlike in India and some other countries. Yet, Sri Lanka is in lockdown and economy, livelihoods, and poor people’s access to wages and food and nutrition has been compromised based on dubious PCR tests.

At this time, a comparison of Sri Lanka country data, both qualitative and quantitative. show that Covid-19 is milder than seasonal flue. Over the past year there have been 850 Covid-19 deaths, ever since the World Health Organization (WHO), declared a so-called ‘pandemic’ in March 2020, after changing the definition of the word.

However, in an average year between 4,500- and 7000 die of seasonal flu in the island, according to National Data and WHO data. On an average year the highest number of deaths in the island are caused by heart attacks and the second highest number of deaths are due to Cancer in Sri Lanka. Upper respiratory tract infection due to influenza are the third highest cause of deaths in the island.

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, (IHME), at the University of Washington in Washington DC, has made projections designed to trigger a fear psychosis in Sri Lanka and predicted a daily death count over 200 by June and a total death toll of 20,000 by September 1, without any data to show how it came to such conclusions about Sri Lanka.
http://www.dailymirror.lk/news-features/Covid-number-crisis/131-211845Covid

The US Government’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has meanwhile issued a travel warning on Sri Lanka.

At this time, Sri Lanka has been shut down and citizens deprived of their collective right to assembly and education, while religious communities, Muslims and Buddhists are deprived their right to worship and celebrate Ramazan and Vesak in the month of May, based on epidemiology models devised in Washington DC at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).

It bears repeating that a country’s policy should be made on analysis of national Data, rather than based on images and narratives and epidemiology models of another country- where the US or India.

Meanwhile, certain local and national medical associations, such as the GMOA and Sri Lanka Medical Association (SLMA) and an outfit called the Institute for Health Policy, have echoed the IHEM’s fear psychosis inducing narrative by calling for island wide shut downs., although national data and the Covid-19 IFR and CFR reveals a different story – that over the last year since WHO declared a global “panicdemic” – Covid 19 is milder than flu in Sri Lanka.

It is increasingly apparent that that there is NO Covid-19 Health Emergency in Sri Lanka at this time, but there is a livelihood, poverty and inequality emergency as a result of unscientific and wrongful policies based on Covid-19 hype and misinformation by Health Authorities influenced by the WHO and Center for Disease control (CDC) and IHME in Washington which has effectively locked down large parts of the country.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s economy shrank 3.5 last year due to Covid-19 lock downs.

At this time the question arises: Why is the Sri Lanka government (GoSL) following mysterious epidemiology models generated by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) of the University of Washington?

Why is the GoSL, MOH and Covid-19 Task Force, headed by two Sri Lankan-US citizens making policy that is NOT based on national and local data and evidence, but epidemiology models developed in the US?

These so called Covid-19 policies and WHO recommended PCR testing policies and lockdowns that are also causing a plastic pandemic, medical garbage and environmental crisis are gravely detrimental to the livelihoods, economy, society and well-being of Sri Lankans, particularly poor and vulnerable communities and increasing economic inequality.

There is also the related phenomenon of LAWFARE – where law and justice systems and institutions are weaponized against core principles of justice and equality and democratic rights to assembly and free speech curtailed in the name of emergency.

Finally, questions arise as to why are the so-called opposition political parties – the United National Party, Samagi Janabla and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (UNP, SJB and JVP), which love to attack the Government policy so incapable of national data analysis and evidence -based Covid-19 policy recommendations? Are they also reading from Washington’s playbook?

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Excerpt:

A lockdown closer home. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres walking the empty corridors of the UN Secretariat building in New York in 2020. Credit: United Nations

By Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Jan 7 2021 (IPS)

The currently available Covid-19 vaccines have been authorized for ‘emergency use ‘in Europe and North America. This is due to an apparent spike in Covid-19 flu cases in the northern hemisphere as winter advances. Highly advertised vaccines are being produced and rolled out at ‘warped speed’ by powerful pharmaceutical and bio-technology companies headquartered in Euro-America although their efficacy including how long their immunity lasts is not clear.

Global media and news channels like Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN and India’s NDTV have been marketing vaccines to the world with images of Prime Ministers, Vice President elects, and a Crown Prince in the Middle East taking the jab live on television– seemingly to encourage vaccine skeptics. Vaccine nationalism is growing with is intense competition among Pharmaceutical Corporations and countries that manufacture vaccines and their local partners.

However, the country-specific quantitative and qualitative data now available for many hot and humid tropical South East Asian and African countries for the year 2020, indicate that there is NO Covid-19 emergency in a vast majority of countries in the Global South, and hence little need to rush to buy vaccines.

In Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Tanzania there is a very low incidence of Covid-19 mortality when compared to average annual rates of influenza related deaths.¹ In Cambodia and Laos there was not a single Covid-19 death in 2020, while Vietnam had 34 deaths and Thailand a country of 70 million there were 26 deaths due to the virus in the year 2020 according to the Johns Hopkins University official Covid-19 Data base.

Nor have doctors, nurses, PHIs, frontline health workers in quarantine centers lost lives in these Southeast Asian countries, indicating low severity of the disease when compared to Euro-America where lockdowns and curfews did not limit high mortality rates. Nor have industrial, manufacturing or agriculture sector workers died in numbers due to Covid-19 in Southeast Asian countries. Nor were hospitals and intensive care units (ICU), overwhelmed in these countries, where there have been fewer patients in hospitals in 2020 than previous years.

While the Covid-19 virus has spread to all parts of the Global South, it clearly has far less traction in tropical countries than in the so-called ‘first world’ (Euro-America): In Sri Lanka, a country of 22 million there were 204 Covid-19 comorbidities deaths recorded with 35,300 Covid-19 positive tests, although in a normal year between 4,000 and 6000 people die of influenza co-morbidities

The luxury 14 floor Asiri Central Hospital in the capital Colombo was closed for weeks during the first Covid-19 lockdown. In India according to WHO data published in 2018, Influenza and Pneumonia Deaths reached 616,531 or 6.99% of total deaths, while lung Disease Deaths were 819,570 or 9.30% of total deaths in 2018, but there were fewer than 150,000 Covid-19 deaths in India in 2020. ²

Given significant differences in health infrastructure between tropical countries in Global South and Euro-America, the 2020 qualitative and quantitative data clearly shows that Covid-19 is mild in the Global South, since the ‘metric that matters’ to determine the severity of an illness and make effective, targeted policy, national policy is the infection fatality rate (IFC).

However, economically, socially and politically devastating curfews, lockdowns and isolation policies were introduced in these tropical countries on the ‘advice’ of the WHO, resulting in fear, isolation, stigmatization of patients living in crowded and poor neighborhoods, and increasing poverty and inequality.

Many low income and poor countries fell into bigger debt traps and Governments were urged to sell off strategic assets while giving ‘tax relief’ to various international corporations, investors and airlines.

Low Severity of virus but a deadly policy response

The relatively low severity of Covid-19 flu in tropical Asian and African countries compared to Euro-America where the disease is severe is arguably due to several interrelated, region and country-specific contextual factors such as year round hot and humid tropical weather (above 20 degrees Celsius), that degrades the virus and its transmission; more or less universal BCG vaccination that confers innate and trained immunity against respiratory illnesses in tropical countries; national health infrastructure including BCG monitoring; and local diet and food habits.

In the temperate regions of the industrialized world, larger volumes of processed food are consumed and non-communicable diseases that constitute the co-morbidities profile for Covid-19 are more widespread than in tropical countries, especially those where rice is a staple food.

The WHO appears to have used questionable epidemiology models, metrics and as several scientists have showed flawed PCR tests that inflate the numbers and create fear psychosis while recommending lockdown in countries in the Global South rather than use country-specific data and the tried and tested Infection Fatality Rate (IFR). The WHO’s Covid-19 global pandemic narrative has been crafted on the Case Fatality Rate (CFR), rather than the IFR which is much less by orders of magnitude as the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration note.

Treat Covid 19 like a health issue and not a disaster, wrote Jay Battacharya and Sanjiv Agarwal, in July 2020. ³ Many international scientists have exposed the fact that high numbers of false positive PCR tests account for high rates of supposedly asymptomatic cases and question the Covid-19 data presented by the WHO and the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) data base.

In India highly flawed PCR tests gave up to 80 per cent false positives and a community survey was abandoned ⁴ Sri Lanka and many other impoverished countries in the South have been locked down and economically devastated based on false positive tests and a global media narrative that exaggerated the number of Covid-19 cases. This is in a nutshell is the Covid-19 scam.

‘Test, test and trace’ using flawed tests has been the mantra for a global policy of economically, socially and politically devastating lockdowns and isolation, implemented by government and military in many countries. However, these policies were not based on country specific, quantitative and qualitative Covid-19 data analysis and were counter-productive to the mental and physical health and well-being of the population.

In many countries in Southeast Asia, constantly shifting announcements of Covid-19 cases without context or comparison with new lockdowns keeps up the fear psychosis, confuses workers who worry about their and their family’s safety if they return to work. Constant uncertainty and unavailability of public transport has devastated economies, social and political activity, while distracting from analysis of the relevant data.

Hunger Virus: The deadly policy response in the Global South

It is not Covid-19 virus, but the Covid-19 infodemic, as well as, WHO-led international policy that has triggered a deep economic, social and political crisis in the Global South at this time. The call for lockdowns, curfews and stoppage of public transport systems, often implemented by militaries based on the “Global pandemic” narrative and infodemic of Covid-19 infection figures form the John’s Hopkins University data base with contradictory messages resulted in creation of Covid-19 fear psychosis and anxiety in many tropical countries where the Corona virus is mild. As a result, millions have not been able to go to work and have lost jobs and livelihoods in countries like Sri Lanka and Thailand.

As OXFAM’s ’Hunger Virus” Report noted: COVID-19 is deepening the hunger crisis in the world’s hunger hotspots and creating new epicentres of hunger across the globe. By the end of the year 12,000 people per day could die from hunger linked to COVID-19, potentially more than will die from the disease itself.

The pandemic is the final straw for millions of people already struggling with the impacts of conflict, climate change, inequality and a broken food system that has impoverished millions of food producers and workers.

The Covid-19 narrative and WHO led global policy response has increased poverty and inequality across the world and widened disparities between the Global South and north, while eroding democratic space and practices, and militarizing public life and health systems: In Sri Lanka a punishing military curfew with just 4-hours prior notice was imposed in March 2020, after which the WHO head, Tederos, called the President of Sri Lanka to congratulate him. This same policy was implemented in India a few weeks later in India, where millions of migrant workers lost jobs and many died walking hundreds of miles to get home.

Meanwhile, as OXFAM noted “those at the top are continuing to make profits: eight of the biggest food and drink companies paid out over $18 billion to shareholders since January even as the pandemic was spreading across the globe – ten times more than has been requested in the UN COVID-19 appeal to stop people going hungry.” 56 new billionaires were created in 2020.

Covid-19 reveals a deep crisis in the International Aid and Governance System

Economically, socially and politically devastating lockdowns in 2020 have wiped out development and poverty reduction gains in some of the poorest countries in the world where Covid-19 is demonstrably milder than seasonal flu. Meanwhile, all the plastic and sanitary sprays and disposable masks further contribute to the global plastic garbage and toxicity environmental crisis.

Fundamental questions arise about the integrity of data, analysis and policy “advice’ provided by WHO, the John’s Hopkins University Covid-19 Global Data base and other UN agencies. It is increasingly apparent that many of the WHO’s recommendations and policy response on Covid-19 has marginalized data, perspectives and voices from the Global South.

As Debapriya Bhattacharya and Sara Khan noted in a recent paper: “the narrative on the post-COVID world seems to be once again characterised by the usual dearth of inputs from the global South. “Even though it has been accepted time and again that actors from the Global South will be critical in shaping the emerging international development landscape, gatekeepers are yet to come out of their comfort zones and make credible space for more Southern perspectives and initiatives. The current discourse continues to have a top-down view of issues that demand more local level contextualisation and substantiation…”. ⁵

The international development policy response to Covid-19 in the global south has exposed a deep crisis in the UN led international Development Aid system dominated by OECD DAC countries and continuing structures of colonial domination in the UN system. The deliberately hyped “global pandemic” media narrative coupled with the WHO’s and JHU’s daily ‘infodemic’ of Covid-19 numbers of infections, has distracted from the metrics that matter to determine the severity of a disease in a particular county.

Science has been turned on its head, as Scientific Principles like regional Context and Comparison, and country-specific data analysis are important for evidence-based policy making, seem to have been be dis-regarded amidst the JHU infodmeic, enabling hi-jacking of national and local level policy processes in countries in the Global South, by so-called international development agencies and related Corporate actors and interest. The quarantining of healthy people in counties where data shows that there is no Covid-19 health emergency is counter to science and common sense!

Low Covid-19 rates and vaccine Colonialism: BCG versus mRNA

The WHO has promised to provide 20 percent of vaccines free to the Government of Sri Lanka, but questions are now being raised as to why national health authorities in many Southeast Asian and African countries where there is NO Covid-19 health emergency, are being urged by the WHO and UNICEF, with the World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB), providing loans to buy vaccines at this time, especially when it is claimed that there may not be sufficient doses for populations in North America and Europe where there appears to be a Covid-19 emergency?

As these vaccines have not gone through an adequate trials process and their long term impacts on populations in the Global South (where the health and nutrition statuses of people are different than in the northern hemisphere), are unknown, would it not be prudent for governments in countries where the 2020 data shows that there is no Covid-19 health emergency to await non-emergency authorization of use of these vaccines? Moreover, would not the WB and ADB loans be better spent to build back livelihoods lost due to Covid-19 curfews and lockdown policy?

On average, it takes over 5 to 10 years to systematically trial vaccines. The ultra-costly Pfizer and Biontech and Moderna mRNA vaccines, that use brand new, never before used technology, were the first to be authorized in the UK and US. The WHO’s subsequent first authorization of the Pfizer vaccine for use throughout the world has conferred ‘first mover advantage” or strong brand recognition and product loyalty on the US Govt. allied Pfizer Pharmaceutical company before other cheaper vaccine come to the market.

However, there are questions about these mRNA vaccines and suggestions that the anti-bodies they trigger may last less than 10 months, while a US nurse tested Covid-19 positive after receiving a vaccine, and another nurse in Portugal died a week after taking the vaccine.

At the beginning of the Covid-19 epidemic in Euro-America in March 2020, the WHO, contrary to many scientific studies denied outright the hypothesis that the 100-year-old BCG vaccine may be protecting populations in tropical countries with universal BCG vaccination where there were low rates of Covid-19 infections and death.

This despite the fact that numerous studies had shown that the COST-EFFECTIVE tried and tested Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG), may be useful against Covid-19 as a bridging vaccine as it protects against a broad range of respiratory tract illness in many parts of the Global South. Early BCG trials for Covid-19 adaptation seem to have disappeared from radar screens to be trumped by mRNA vaccines, as WHO contrary to many scientists had affirmed that there was ‘no evidence’ the BCG could fight Covid-19?

Are we not seeing what Naomi Klein termed “Disaster Capitalism” in her book titled “The Shock Doctrine” unfolding in Real Time? Klein uses the terms to describe the “brutal tactic of using the public’s fear and disorientation following a collective shock, be it, bio-terrorism, war, coups, market crashes or natural disasters to push through radical pro-corporate measures often called “shock therapy”. Thus, by accident or design, a disaster occurs and then the “humanitarian” business solution or cure is provided, as a total solution and complete business and profit cycle.

The WHO’s Covid-19 vaccine authorization process may reveal its cozy relationship with some big Pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer that are also backed by vaccine Czar, Microsoft’s Bill Gates. Gates Foundation is now WHO’s second largest funder, after China, since Donald Trump withdrew US funding from WHO. Gates is also promoting a shift to the digital economy and surveillance that enable gaming data analytics the world over — in competition with China’s Huawei.

The WHO-led Covid-19 policy response reveals a deep crisis in the UN and International “Aid” system that is increasingly captive to Corporate interests and great power rivalry. This issue is not new as a Transparency International’s British Branch Report has noted some years ago: “Within the health sector, pharmaceuticals stands out as sub-sector that is particularly prone to corruption.”

“There are abundant examples globally that display how corruption in the pharmaceutical sector endangers positive health outcomes. Whether it is a pharmaceutical company bribing a doctor for prescribing its medicines irrespective of a health need or a government employee facilitating the infiltration of substandard medicines into the distribution system, public resources can be wasted and patient health put at risk.”

Finally, it is highly likely that in many Tropical Asian countries may have achieved a degree of ‘herd immunity’ as the flu season at the end of 2019 had all the signs of Covid-19, also given high levels of travel and tourism to and from China in the region, but since there is no systematic anti-body testing, we do not know if this is the case.

Rather than buying vaccines it would be appropriate to conduct anti-body tests to assess how many in the population have immunities and if herd immunity has been achieved as the country-level data and statistics seem to indicate. Those who would like a vaccine may take a BCG booster.

¹ Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries and also Johns Hopkins University CSSE COVID-19 Country-specific Data.
² https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/india-lung-disease
³ https://theprint.in/health/lift-lockdowns-protect-the-vulnerable-treat-covid-like-a-health-issue-and-not-a-disaster/466786/
⁴ The COVID-19 RT-PCR Test: How to Mislead All Humanity. Using a “Test” To Lock Down Society by Dr. Pascal Sacre https://www.globalresearch.ca/covid-19-rt-pcr-how-to-mislead-all-humanity-using-a-test-to-lock-down-society/5728483
⁵ COVID-19: A game changer for the Global South and international co-operation? https://oecd-development-matters.org/2020/09/02/covid-19-a-game-changer-for-the-global-south-and-international-co-operation/

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Excerpt:

The map from the medical journal Plos Medicine displays BCG vaccination policy by country. Bacillus Calmette-Guérin vaccine is a vaccine primarily used against tuberculosis. Yellow: The country now has a universal BCG vaccination program. Blue: The country used to recommend BCG vaccination for everyone, but now does not. Red: The country never had a universal vaccination program.

By Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Apr 20 2020 (IPS)

Numerous studies in many parts of the world have linked the BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guerin) vaccination, widely used in the developing world with fewer Coronavirus cases. This is good news for countries that have universal BCG vaccination in tropical Asia and Africa.

Many of these countries cannot afford extended lock downs and curfews since the ensuring economic and supply chain disruption, loss of livelihoods, and poverty could kill more people in the long term.

Originally developed against Tuberculosis (TB), the hundred-year-old BCG vaccine offers broad protection and sharply reduce the incidence of respiratory infections, while also preventing infant deaths from a variety of causes.

According to Prof Luke O’Neill, who has specialised in the study of the vaccine at Trinity College Dublin, a combination of reduced morbidity and mortality could make the 100-year-old BCG vaccination a game-changer in the fight against coronavirus.

While there is no specific cure for Covid-19, the BCG maybe a flak-jacket against the Coronavirus. Experts note that the vaccine seems to “train” the immune system to recognize and respond to a variety of infections, including viruses, bacteria and parasites.

The vaccine is now being tested in several countries including Australia, Germany and Netherlands against the new Coronavirus – to protect frontline health workers.

In many countries of the global south’s tropical regions, Covid 19 cases and deaths are in single digits, double digits or hundreds; certainly not in the thousands, unlike in the US and EU, and other temperate regions where the Coronavirus seems more virulent.

This variation has been attributed to differences in climate, cultural norms, mitigation efforts, and health infrastructure. Research indicating that countries whose populations have high levels of BCG vaccination had significantly fewer Covid-19 deaths is highly significant.

Countries that do not have universal policies of BCG vaccination, such as Italy, the Netherlands, and the United States, have been more severely affected compared to countries with universal and long-standing BCG policies,” noted Gonzalo Otazu, assistant professor of biomedical sciences at NYIT.

BCG flattens the disease curve since countries that use BCG vaccination programs had a fatality rate of four per million people, while countries without BCG vaccination programs were 10 times more likely to die at a rate of 40 deaths per million people.

While he stressed the research was largely a statistical one and so came with caveats, there was a case for authorities moving to provide a BCG vaccine top-up for everybody age over 70. “This is feasible and should be considered.

BCG in South Asia

In South Asia, the vaccine has been universally used for decades. India and Pakistan started using BCG in 1948 and in Sri Lanka, BCG vaccination became mandatory in 1949, according to the Ministry of Health epidemiology unit. Compared to case numbers in Europe and North America, and relative to population size South Asian countries have registered low numbers and Covid 19 case load.

Three weeks after a pandemic was declared by the World Health Organization (WHO), it is increasingly clear from the Covid 19 data that Asian countries which practice universal BCG vaccination are relatively better positioned to fight Coronavirus — despite the crippling curfews that saw millions of migrant labourers walking hundreds of miles and dying in the process to get home.

In addition to BCG, hot and humid tropical weather may be another factor inhibiting the spread and strength of the Covid 19 flu in South Asia. Countries that have a late start of universal BCG policy (Iran, 1984) had high mortality, consistent with the idea that BCG protects the vaccinated elderly population.

Pakistan, a country with 200 million people that did not impose the crippling curfews that neighbouring India and Sri Lanka did, had 4,072 patients with 59 deaths on April 10. Pakistan Prime Minister, Imran Khan, sensibly pointed out that more people would die of poverty caused by lockdowns in the long run.

In Sri Lanka where a brutal curfew was imposed, there have been under 210 Covid 19 cases with 7 deaths, and India a country with more than a billion people has reported 9,000 cases over 3 weeks.

There have been only 12,434 confirmed cases in all 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states, a miniscule number compared to China, Italy, Spain and the United States, and about the same as Canada, a country of just 37.6 million compared to Southeast Asia’s 622 million.

While lack of testing may be cited as a reason for the relatively low numbers, by now – three weeks after Covid-19 was declared a global pandemic and months after the epidemic in neighbouring China – the region surely should have expected an explosion of cases similar to Italy and Spain.

Clearly in tropical Asian countries, including those with poor health systems the epidemic is far more limited.

This fact raises questions about the Indian and Sri Lankan government’s imposition of economically devastating and socially crippling curfews at the urging of the WHO and Johns Hopkins University (JHU) which is collecting Covid 19 data for a global database, while providing analysis seeming based on simulated pandemic from the mysterious EVENT 201 which was staged last October with the WHO and Gates Foundation and others modeling a fictional novel coronavirus.

WHO’s data and policy recommendations

The bad news is that the World Health Organization (WHO) which is funded by States and big pharmaceutical companies that are rushing to develop Covid 19 vaccines and make big profits,claims on its website that :

“there is no evidence that the Bacille Calmette-Guérin vaccine (BCG) protects people against infection with COVID-19 virus. Two clinical trials addressing this question are underway, and WHO will evaluate the evidence when it is available. In the absence of evidence, WHO does not recommend BCG vaccination for the prevention of COVID-19..

The WHO’s pandemic narrative and call for lockdowns to fight Covid 19 that have caused massive livelihood loss and economic meltdowns in countries like India and Sri Lanka (with the GMOA in tow), have not been modulated by the evidence that the BCG vaccine may act as barrier to the disease.

In short, while the BCG may be a ‘game changer’ in the long run, also in assisting development of herd immunity which would mitigate need for harsh curfews imposed in developing countries that cannot afford shutdowns, the WHO denies this. Heaven forbid that a BCG booster may be the solution in front of us!

There are parallels in the WHO’s denial that the anti-Malaria drug Hydroxychloroquine could be beneficial for Covid 19 patients, while pushing for development of new drugs and vaccines that would bring big profits to drug companies, although researchers in France and China had reported success with the drug.

Increasingly, questions are being raised about the WHO’s Covid19 data, models and analysis. Professor Jay Battacharya of Stanford University has noted that “the claim that coronavirus would kill millions without shelter-in-place orders and quarantines is highly questionable”.

In an interview at the Hoover Institute he observed: “there’s little evidence to confirm that premise—and projections of the death toll could plausibly be orders of magnitude too high.” Fear of Covid-19 is based on its high estimated case fatality rate—2% to 4% of people with confirmed Covid-19, according to the World Health Organization and others.

Drs. Eran Bendavid and Jay Bhattacharya argue that Covid-19 isn’t as deadly as suggested and suggest that the “extraordinary measures” being pushed by the WHO may not be justified. Their argument is that the total number of coronavirus infections is much higher than we think, which mathematically means the mortality rate is much lower.

Exaggeration using war metaphors and nationalism has characterized the WHO’s Covid pandemic narrative. However, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington School of Medicine now predicts that fewer people will die and fewer hospital beds will be needed compared to estimates from last week.

As of last week, the model predicted the virus will kill 60,000 people in the United States over the next four months – 33,000 fewer deaths than estimated last Thursday.

In India, the WHO this week was compelled to correct an exaggeration in a report that claimed that Covid19 had reached level 3 – community spread severity. In Sri Lanka several doctors have challenged Covid 19 case numbers and suggested that there is inflation and data manipulation.

We know very little about the virus, but shut down your economies –WHO

“Better to get Corona than see our harvest rotting without customers’, said a famer at the shuttered vegetable wholesale market in Dambulla, central Sri Lanka recently, indicating that there is no trade off to be made between lives and livelihoods as you cannot have one without the other especially in developing countries with high poverty rates.

Farmer suicide rates in South Asia tend to be high due to poverty and debt.

Would the WHO and its director general who called to congratulate the strongman President of Sri Lanka for imposing an indiscriminate and economically destructive month long curfew with military enforcement also count the deaths of farmers, wage-less day labourers and migrant workers who make up the greater part of the labour force who walked hundreds of miles to get home after the imposition of brutal lock downs in India with just 4 hours advanced notice?

WHO’s Covid 19 global media narrative (Al Jazeera CNN, BBC etc), has concentrated on hyping up fear psychosis and groupthink, based on data from Europe and North America, while suppressing mitigating information in the global south.

This has resulted in economically devastating policy making in India and Sri Lanka and a devil’s bargain – an attempt to trade off lives with livelihoods.

The flood of Covid data and information in the media, masks a lack of adequate data disaggregation, comparative analysis and modelling by geographic region and country, as well as, an ahistorical approach. After all, seasonal flu is known to infect over a billion people and kill as many as 750,000 people annually according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

The crippling curfews and destruction of the real economy in India and Sri Lanka reveals serious short comings in national and South Asian (SAARC) regional data analysis, planning and policy making, by the Modi and Rajapaksa governments, and allied medical associations like the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA), as well as, the failure to access regional expertise.

Claims that curfews and lockdowns cannot end until a vaccine is found, reflect bias toward big pharmaceutical companies that also fund research and the WHO, which stand to profit from a new “gold standard” Covonavirrus vaccine.

Surveillance, fear and groupthink

Although the great majority of people who get Corona virus will have mild symptom and survive well, with the creation of a Coronavirus global fear psychosis, economies have been shut down, livelihoods destroyed, and democratic rights compromised as new systems of surveillance and governance are being put in place – for patient network tracking.

In Sri Lanka a brand new USAID funded hospital exclusively for Covid 19 patients has been constructed with promised funding or USD 1.3 million at the former Voice of America compound in Chilaw, equipped with robots, and surveillance technologies “to activate case finding and event-based surveillance, with technical experts for response and preparedness.

The Covid-19 outbreak reveals how pervasive surveillance mechanisms developed in the last decade or so have become. In a strategically located country like Sri Lanka with an under-developed tech sector, foreign countries may access private data platforms via such surveillance platforms is a concern.

Meanwhile, US President Trump’s withdrawal of funds from WHO citing China bias distracts from a more substantive bias at WHO toward big drug companies and related foundations that stand to make a windfall from a Covid 19 vaccine, as well as, related data and policy manipulated that constitute a danger to the health and well-being, lives and livelihood of people everywhere.

This bias is also shared among medical associations like the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA), in Sri Lanka.

As Professor Nyasa Mboti of Free Town University, wrote: : “by its own admission, WHO seems to have declared Covid19 a pandemic IN ORDER to avert a Covid19 pandemic. This seems illogical. You cannot be in a pandemic that has not YET started, and you can only avert a crisis that has NOT YET taken place.

The current global coronavirus crisis is proof that global agencies such as the WHO can actually cause irreparable harm. Perhaps their global roles need to be called into serious question. “

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