Worker at NYC hospital where nurses wear trash bags as protection dies from coronavirus

THE BEST HEALTHCARE MONEY CAN BUY

By Ebony Bowden, Carl Campanile and Bruce Goldin NY POST March 25, 2020 

The shortage of safety gear at one Manhattan hospital is so dire that desperate nurses have resorted to wearing trash bags — and some blame the situation for the coronavirus death of a beloved colleague.


A stunning photo shared on social media shows three nurses at Mount Sinai West posing in a hallway while clad in large, black plastic trash bags fashioned into makeshift protective garb.
One of them is even holding the open box of 20 Hefty “Strong” 33-gallon garbage bags they used to cloak themselves.
“NO MORE GOWNS IN THE WHOLE HOSPITAL,” the caption reads.
“NO MORE MASKS AND REUSING THE DISPOSABLE ONES…NURSES FIGURING IT OUT DURING COVID-19 CRISIS.”
The caption includes such hashtags as #heftytotherescue, #riskingourlivestosaveyours and #pleasedonateppe, with the “ppe” referring to “personal protective equipment.”

Meanwhile, staffers at the hospital near Columbus Circle on Wednesday tied the lack of basic supplies there to the death of assistant nursing manager Kious Kelly, who tested positive for coronavirus about two weeks ago.

Kelly, 48, was admitted to Mount Sinai’s flagship hospital on the Upper East Side on March 17 and died Tuesday night, the workers said.

“Kious didn’t deserve this,” one nurse said. “The hospital should be held responsible. The hospital killed him.”

Another nurse described “issues with supplies for about a year now,” during which it got “to the point where we had to hide our own supplies and go to other units looking for stuff because even the supply room would have nothing most of the time.”

“But when we started getting COVID patients, it became critical,” the nurse said.

The nurse sources said they were using the same PPE between infected and non-infected patients and, because there were no more spare gowns in the hospital, they took to wearing trash bags to stop the spread of infection.Enlarge ImageNurses at Mount Sinai West, where Kelly worked, are being forced to wear trash bags due to the lack of protective gear there.Facebook

“We had to reuse our masks, gowns and the [face] shield,” one nurse said. “We were told, ‘You get one for the entire time until this is over.’”

The nurse also said various items, including masks, wipes and Purell hand sanitizer, began “disappearing through the night.”

A spokesman for the hospital strongly disagreed, when contacted Wednesday, that they did not have the proper equipment and were not protecting their staff.

Another nurse described Kelly as “a brother to me.”

“He was willing to help others in need, especially in this coronavirus outbreak,” the nurse said.

Kelly’s younger sister, Marya Sherron of Indianapolis, confirmed his death to The Post and said he had informed her of his illness about 10 days earlier.

“He told me he had the coronavirus,” she said. “He was in ICU but he thought he was OK. He didn’t think it was serious as it was.”

Sherron — who said she “absolutely” believed her brother was infected at the hospital — said he had “severe asthma” but was otherwise healthy.

Kelly had trouble talking due to the disease, so the siblings communicated by text until his condition worsened and he stopped responding about a week ago, she said.

“I tried to get him several times but I was told by the doctors that he was on a ventilator,” she said.

Sherron said she was told on Monday that he might not pull through, and that he died about 11 p.m. Tuesday.

“We are broken,” she said.

Sherron also said she wanted the city to know “what an amazing person my brother was” and to “hold the powers that be accountable.”

“Our nurses and medical staff need protection and no one is fighting for their safety,” she said.

In a prepared statement, Mount Sinai said of Kelly’s death, “We are deeply saddened by the passing of a beloved member of our nursing staff.”

“This growing crisis has already devastated hundreds of families and turned our frontline professionals into true American heroes,” the hospital network said.

“Today, we lost another hero — a compassionate colleague, friend and selfless caregiver.”

In January, Kelly was featured by Mount Sinai on its website, which quoted a letter in which he was hailed as an “angel” by Joseph Fuoco, whose late mom, Camile Fuoco, underwent almost four years of breast cancer treatments before her death at Mount Sinai West last summer.

“Assistant Nurse Manager Kious Jordan Kelly, RN, showed my mom and us empathy and compassion that helped us get through the weekend and what was to come,” Joseph wrote.

“He went above and beyond and is an asset to the hospital.”

VIDEO

Whistleblower doctors say coronavirus reinfection even deadlier

'Plz Cancel Our Cleaning': Virus Leads Many to Cast Aside Household Help

Miriam Jordan and Caitlin Dickerson, The New York Times•March 26, 2020

People wait in line outside the Pasadena Community Job Center in Pasadena, Calif., on Thursday, March 19, 2020. (Jenna Schoenefeld/The New York Times)

PASADENA, Calif. — Late last week, Maria Zamorano, 50, picked up her cellphone to check her messages. “Hi, plz cancel our cleaning for tomorrow,” said one. “Maria, I’m going to have to cancel tomorrow’s cleaning. Thank you,” said another.

The housekeeper had received similar texts all week, every one of them a cancellation from homeowners on whom she depends to make a living — swabbing their toilets, vacuuming their carpets and shining their floors.

“I’ll go crazy with despair,” said Zamorano, just before another text popped up on the screen. “Oh my God, she canceled, too,” she said, glaring at the device in a pink leather wallet that matched her pink nails. That message summed up the uncertain outlook: “Once the country is healthy from the virus, we can reschedule. Please be safe.”

Household help, often performed by unauthorized immigrants like Zamorano, has become a fixture of American homes. In a thriving economy, even middle-class families have been able to hand off their mops, brooms and lawn mowers to low-paid workers from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and other countries. With reliable caregivers at home, many dual-income couples have raised children while building high-powered careers.

The coronavirus crisis is compelling many families to reassess. Concerns about the safety of an outsider entering their homes coupled with financial instability have prompted even the well-heeled to dispense with their help, and severance payments are a rarity.

Unlike their employers, unauthorized workers cannot collect unemployment or benefit from a government bailout. They are part of the bustling informal economy, typically paid cash and off the books for the essential work they do. Without paid sick leave, remote work capability and access to jobs, they become uniquely vulnerable.

From New York to Los Angeles, families have handled their help in different ways as they hunker down in their homes. Some have decided they cannot live without their help; a few feel committed to paying them while asking them not to come to work and still others have simply told workers to stop coming.

When Mayra Brito was hired in Austin, Texas, as a nanny and children’s Spanish teacher for two families — one middle-class, with four children, the other a wealthy couple who both work in technology — her employers had meticulously called each one of her references. They asked to meet in person and one family took her on an informal driving test. It felt like applying for a job at a company. But there were none of those formalities last week, she said, when both families told her to stay home indefinitely without pay because of the threat of COVID-19.

Brito had worked for one of the families for two years, the other for six months. In letting her go without confirming if or when she might have a job again, one set of parents said they were concerned about the health of their youngest child, a 9-month-old baby. The other said they wanted to keep the children’s aging grandparents who live with them safe.

“I understand their reasons,” Brito said, “But what I don’t understand is why they didn’t say, ‘We’re going to pay you at least half while you’re at home because we’re not letting you work.’”

She has since fielded requests from one of the families to do video calls because their children miss her. The parents did not offer to compensate her for the calls.

Out of nearly 11 million unauthorized immigrants, about 7.6 million are part of the American workforce, according to the latest figures from Pew Research Center, in 2017. The service industry employs more unauthorized immigrants than any other, but they are also overrepresented in sectors like agriculture, construction and manufacturing. In almost every city in America, they are the backbone of the workforce of nannies, housekeepers and gardeners who keep households running.

They are also among the country’s most vulnerable workers. Because they lack legal status and a formal employer-employee relationship, they are unlikely to qualify for government relief.

For many workers in the country illegally, instability is a fact of life, and abruptly losing a job is not uncommon. But rarely have they faced the loss of so much of their work at once.

Not all employers are dumping their household help.

Maya Brenner, a jewelry designer and mother of three in Los Angeles who employs a nanny full time and a housekeeper twice a week, has asked her nanny to limit her travel to Brenner’s home and back to her apartment, except for outings to the grocery store wearing an N95 mask and gloves. Brenner allowed her housekeeper, whom she has employed for 12 years, to stay on the job after she agreed to move into their guesthouse.

“I don’t know if she is going out to local stores, speaking with neighbors,” Brenner said. “I can’t control all of that. Right now, so we can catch our breath, she’s living here.”

Brenner said she may have to dip into her savings to keep things afloat. Her partner, Dustin Lancaster, runs 12 restaurants and bars that are now shuttered. “I think we can all do this for two months,” she said. “Financially, we don’t know what it will look like keeping them employed down the road.”

Julie Lynn, a film producer in Los Angeles, said that she was sending her nanny of 15 years checks, “as if she was here working with us.”

“I honestly don’t know how we could, in good conscience, do anything else,” she said.

But such arrangements appear to be the exception.

On the LA Nanny Network, a Facebook group, the fallout from the virus has been a hot topic. Last week, a nanny posted that her employer had dismissed her. In the comments, other nannies chimed in: “I got laid off too.” “They laid me off with zero money.’’ “Six years with the same family…they told me not to come and they won’t pay me.”

Silvia and Alfonso, unauthorized immigrants from Mexico who asked to be identified only by their first names, thought they had built a stable life in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She cleaned a different house every day. He worked two restaurant jobs, one as a dishwasher, the other as a cook. Between them, they earned $1,200 a week.

A few years ago they bought a three-bedroom mobile home, which they finished paying off last year, though that still left them with a $650 monthly parking fee in the trailer park.

Feeling flush, they splurged on two used jeeps in good condition for which they are paying monthly. They bought a new dining room set on an installment plan. Silvia decided to fix her teeth, she said, another expense.

Then came the coronavirus. In short order, Silvia lost three out of five clients. Alfonso was sent home at least for a month.

“We never had any money left to save, but we always had enough to cover our expenses.” said Silvia, 43.

A week later, one more client had canceled. “I don’t know how we will pay our bills,” Silvia said. “I hope no one takes us to court.”

On the country roads of South Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, Patricia Toriz drove around desperately on a recent evening, using up precious gas reserves, to look for work. She visited three fruit packing factories. All of them turned her away because she was unauthorized.

Toriz, who has lived in the United States for 14 years, has lost all her work — with the two families whose homes she cleaned weekly and at the small restaurant where she was a server, which closed.

“I’m a trustworthy person, who goes to clean and leaves,” she said of the families. “I have known them for years, but unfortunately, because of all this, they made the decision that they want me out of their house.”

Toriz lives in a two-bedroom apartment with four children. The older three, who were helping her pay the $600 monthly rent and two car payments, also lost their restaurant jobs because of the virus.

On a recent day, the family packed into the car to buy bread, bologna, milk and eggs. “Only the cheapest things possible,” Toriz said. “We’re not spending anything extra. We can’t.”

In Southern California, 50-60 unauthorized workers typically gather at dawn each day at the Pasadena Community Job Center, where homeowners drop by to hire help to move furniture, pull weeds and make minor repairs.

By 10 a.m., the men and women are often all gone, especially come March, when the days grow warmer and longer. But by lunchtime on a recent day, not a single employer had shown up. Workers, who stood outside because of restrictions on group gatherings, soon dispersed.

“Painting a room, tiling a bathroom, gardening, I’m up for it all,” said Carlos Moreno, 49, a single father of two young teenagers born in the United States. But two homeowners for whom he had been scheduled to do work had just canceled.

“Right now, I don’t have any savings. I’m thinking of calling some former employers to see if they’ll hire me,” he said. “When you have children, you can’t be jobless.”

Zamorano, the housekeeper, was also at the day laborer center.

On a good week, she said, she usually makes $800 cleaning houses; on a bad week she earns $400. These days, her only income is the $100 a week coming from a longtime employer, the only one so far who promised to pay despite canceling.

That morning, the center informed the assembled workers that it would be closing for the foreseeable future. Instead, it would begin operating as a food bank. Zamorano managed to get hired to deep-clean the tables, floors and countertops. “I need to be busy,” she said, brandishing her business card: “Maria’s Cleaning Services 7 days a week.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2020 The New York Times Company

Why are so few Germans dying from the coronavirus? Experts wonder
BECAUSE THEY HAVE MERKEL NOT TRUMP
Carlo Angerer and Alexander Smith, NBC News•March 25, 2020

MAINZ, Germany — While countries around the globe struggle to cope with the death, panic, restrictions and economic dislocation wrought by the coronavirus pandemic, a different picture has emerged in Germany.

Experts are scrambling to figure out why the country has around 34,000 confirmed infections — the fifth most in the world — but far fewer deaths than other countries.

There have been 172 recorded coronavirus deaths in Germany. That's just 0.5 percent of the total cases, higher than for the seasonal flu but drastically lower than Italy's soaring case death rate of almost 10 percent.

In fact, no other major country comes close to Germany. By comparison, the United States has about 55,000 recorded cases, and around 1.4 percent of those, about 800 people as of Wednesday, have died.

Experts have a number of theories about why Germany appears to be such an outlier, but they are cautious about holding up the country as an example during what is still likely to be the early stages of the pandemic.

"I would be happy if we can come back in two months' time and still be able to talk about what Germany did right," said Hajo Zeeb, a professor at the Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology. "But right now it's simply too early to say that."

What is known is that Germany, with 82 million people, has recorded more cases per capita than Iran, France and the U.S.

But in contrast to countries like Italy and the U.K. and large parts of the U.S., it has not shut down daily life, although it has banned public gatherings of more than two people. Its chancellor, Angela Merkel, tested negative but has isolated herself awaiting further results after one of her doctors became infected.

Germany is also better equipped than most countries when it comes to health care. It has 28,000 intensive care beds, considerably higher than the European average. Because it was not hit as early as Italy and elsewhere, it has also had time to prepare.
I

mage: Angela Merkel (Michel Kappeler / Pool via Reuters)

But many experts believe that the main reason behind its relatively low death rate is the large number of tests it has been able to conduct.

The government has not released official figures, but it says it has the capacity to test about 160,000 people every week.

As well as potentially helping identify and slow the spread of the contagion, widespread tests are likely to detect more mild cases that are going unrecorded in other countries, according to Dr. Mike Ryan, health emergencies director at the World Health Organization.

"They've had a very aggressive testing process," Ryan said at a briefing last week. "So the number of tests and the number of confirmed cases may be detecting more mild cases as a proportion of overall cases — that's an important determination."

Image: Testing in Munich (Matthias Schrader / AP)

The thinking is that other countries may be catching only the more severe cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, a larger proportion of whom are likely to die. Germany's death rate is effectively watered down, the theory goes, because its figure takes account of the many mild cases missed by other nations.

This question drives at the heart of a huge unknown in the coronavirus crisis: How many people have been infected but don't know it? Getting closer to that figure will give experts and officials a better idea how deadly the outbreak really is — more like Germany or more like Italy?

"The numbers we're getting from the other countries have probably overestimated the infection fatality rate, so that's Italy, Spain, France, the U.K. and the U.S., because there is not enough testing," said Miguel Hernan, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard University.

"Having said that, the 0.4 percent we're seeing in Germany is strikingly low when you compare it with other countries with similar health care systems and even more testing, like South Korea," he added.

Despite its large number of tests, experts still "believe there is a lot of underdiagnosis also in Germany," according to Sabine Gabrysch, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health. "We mostly only test those who had contact with confirmed cases or traveled to risk areas."

The reason experts are cautious about lauding Germany is that many tests were conducted on patients with mild or even asymptomatic cases — people who may deteriorate in the coming days and weeks.

"Our epidemic is still earlier than South Korea's and Italy's," Gabrysch said. "The severe cases and deaths will still go up in Germany over the next few days until we hopefully see an effect of the control policies put in place."

The data may be skewed even further because of how Germany and Italy conduct post-mortem examinations.

"The Italians test deceased persons who had specific symptoms and bring them into the statistics — we in Germany do not," said Dietrich Rothenbacher, a professor at the Institute for Epidemiology and Medical Biometry at Ulm University.

"It's a complex scenario," he said. Rothenbacher feels strongly that before any solid comparison can be made between countries, "the first step would be to obtain comparable numbers."

Another possible factor is that most of Germany's cases have been among younger people. The median age of those infected is 47, compared to 63 in Italy.

It appears that Germany's high number of cases was initially fueled by younger people returning from skiing holidays in neighboring Austria and Italy, the country's epidemiologists say. That seems to have spread further as those people attended a series of carnival celebrations held in many German towns and cities in February.

That's in contrast to Italy, where some researchers think the high number of younger people living with elderly relatives may have put those more vulnerable to the infection at greater risk.

Download the NBC News app for full coverage and alerts about the coronavirus outbreak

Nevertheless, there is still the fear in Germany that if the outbreak does start to spread among older circles, the country could also see a spike in deaths. Already, one nursing home in Würzburg, a city in Bavaria, has had 37 residents test positive and nine of them die.

The nursing home's first case was reported on March 8, when the number of confirmed cases was about 1,000 in Germany. Since then, 33 of its 58 staff members have tested positive, and officials are working to find out how the infection found its way inside.

"We are doing our best," Michael Schwab, a doctor at the nursing home, said in a statement. "Even when the high risk of infection is one of our biggest challenges."

And finally, in a complex, fast-moving situation that's still likely in its infancy, there are few experts who do not discount pure chance when it comes to Germany's successes so far.

"I think what we're seeing is a mix of factors," said Zeeb of the Leibniz Institute. "We have a well-prepared health service, but also we have been lucky."

Carlo Angerer reported from Mainz, and Alexander Smith reported from London.

USA
Coronavirus job losses hit these states the hardest, according to record unemployment claims

Zack Guzman Senior Writer,Yahoo Finance•March 26, 2020

Coronavirus job losses hit these states the hardest, according to record unemployment claims the economy and businesses reopened

The impact of the economic shutdown in the U.S. caused by the COVID-19 pandemic was revealed Thursday when the latest tally of Americans applying for unemployment benefits spiked to 3.28 million — the largest number ever recorded in history.

That weekly number quadruples the prior record and dwarfs, by far, the largest halt to employment seen during the 2008 financial crisis. Single weekly jobless claim numbers never topped 700,000, until now.

But digging further into the disastrous 3.28 million headline number reveals a slowdown that hit some states harder than others, and reveals why President Trump might be so eager to see businesses reopen in some communities sooner rather than later.

Key swing states, which Trump won by the slimmest margins in 2016, showed some of the largest percentage increases in unemployment applications for the week ending March 21. Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania each reported a jump in weekly unemployment applications that surpassed 2,300%.
The largest ever U.S. spike in unemployment claims was not universally felt across the country, according to state level data. Utah only saw claims increase week-over-week by less than 1%, while Louisiana, a state that went into lockdown due to coronavirus, saw applications spike more than 3,000%.More

On a percentage basis, New Hampshire suffered the worst spike in unemployment claims, up more than 3,300% from just 641 claims the week prior to top 21,000 weekly claims at last clip. Conversely, Utah, which hasn’t been hit with as many reported cases of coronavirus as other states, only saw jobless claims rise by less than 1%.

The Department of Labor release noted the coronavirus crisis and shutdown was a large cause of job losses in a number of states, including Nevada and New Jersey. Earlier this month, casinos in Las Vegas announced they would be shutting down to prevent the spread of new cases, causing some companies to let a swath of workers go.

The unprecedented national spike in more Americans applying for unemployment benefits, however, reveals the magnitude of the economic shutdown at hand. It also explains why the Senate moved with record speed to approve a $2 trillion stimulus bill, and why Obama’s former top economist Jason Furman said it still might not be enough.

“I do think the impact of Covid-19 and the economic impacts are probably going to change everyone’s playbook a bit,” said Mike Ryan, UBS Global Wealth Management Americas chief investment officer, highlighting the fact it could embolden the Trump administration to seek memorializing its corporate and personal tax cuts.

For the most part, however, polling has revealed approving or disapproving of Trump’s handling of the the coronavirus crisis has thus far remained a partisan exercise. According to a Monday Monmouth University poll, about 90% of Republican voters say he’s doing a good job, compared with just 20% of Democrats. The numbers overall reveal about a 50% approval rating of his job handling the outbreak so far amongst all voters.

Whether that number changes as more Americans lose their job as a result of more businesses shutting down as coronavirus cases spread remains to be seen. For now, it’s clear that the virus is hurting some states more than others.

Zack Guzman is the host of YFi PM as well as a senior writer and on-air reporter covering entrepreneurship, cannabis, startups, and breaking news at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @zGuz.

YOU CANNOT KILL COVID-19 WITH A GUN

Are Guns 'Essential' in the Virus Era? Americans Stock Up as States Differ

Dan Levin,The New York Times•March 26, 2020

A gun shop in Charlotte, N.C., where the owner says sales of firearms have soared in recent weeks, on March 11, 2020. (Logan R. Cyrus/The New York Times)

Groceries. Gasoline. Medical care. Marijuana, in some places. All have been designated essential to society in more than a dozen states that have ordered many other businesses to close.

But what about guns?

Firearm and ammunition sales have soared in recent weeks, so clearly, some Americans want them. A gun industry association is lobbying federal and state governments to categorize firearm manufacturers and dealers as critical infrastructure, complaining that FBI background checks are slowing things down as more people try to purchase weapons.

But officials have been split over whether gun stores and ammunition dealers can remain open alongside pharmacies, gas stations and laundromats, leading to confusion and legal challenges as at least 19 states have issued some form of stay-at-home orders. In Ohio, Illinois and Michigan, gun stores have been deemed essential. In New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, they have not.
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In Los Angeles, where long lines of customers have been stretching out the door of some gun shops over the past few weeks, the county sheriff ordered his deputies to make sure they were closed after 10 million residents were ordered to stay at home starting last weekend. But on Tuesday, after the county’s top lawyer said the shops could stay open, the sheriff reversed his decision.

The patchwork of policies and shifting interpretations have highlighted the question of what is truly an essential business during the pandemic, with lobbyists and guns rights advocates arguing that even a public health emergency shouldn’t restrict the Second Amendment.

“People want to exercise their God-given right to bear arms and protect their families,” said Mark Oliva, a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry association lobbying for special protection for dealers and manufacturers.

But advocates for stricter gun safety measures argue that a run on gun stores could itself pose a public health concern if new buyers aren’t trained properly, new guns aren’t stored safely and background checks aren’t completed.

“Guns will not make Americans safer in the face of COVID-19,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety.

Underscoring the concerns, several recent gun-related incidents have been linked to fears surrounding the pandemic.

Police in Alpharetta, Georgia, on Sunday arrested a man they accused of pointing a gun at two women wearing medical masks and gloves because he feared he might contract the coronavirus. A man in New Mexico was charged last week with the accidental shooting death of his 13-year-old cousin with a gun he told police he was carrying “for protection” amid the outbreak. And in Maine, a man with a felony conviction who claimed he needed guns to protect himself during the outbreak was charged with illegally possessing a firearm.

As some states have moved to close gun shops alongside other businesses, they have faced quick legal challenges.

In Pennsylvania, gun rights advocates filed lawsuits to block Gov. Tom Wolf’s order that labeled gun stores as nonessential. Although a divided state Supreme Court dismissed the legal challenge, the governor on Tuesday allowed gun shops to reopen with protocols on social distancing.

On Monday, a federal lawsuit in New Jersey challenged Gov. Phil Murphy’s order for gun stores to close, which also prompted the State Police to shut down the state’s background check website.

Demand for firearms has been growing throughout the coronavirus outbreak, with widespread reports of firearms and survival gear flying off the shelves, including in California, New York, Washington state, Alabama and Ohio. Data from the FBI show a sizable increase in background checks for gun purchases since the start of the year, though other factors, such as the national political campaign and gun control efforts by some state legislatures might have also played a role.

But as states began preparing for lockdowns on March 16, criminal background checks soared 300% compared with the same date in 2019, according to federal data shared with the National Shooting Sports Foundation. Since late February, roughly twice as many background checks have been conducted as during the same period last year, the group said.

The FBI would not comment on those figures, but said in a statement that the background check system remained fully operational and asked for the public’s patience “during this period of national emergency.”

When Illinois issued an order on March 20 to close essential businesses, it included gun shops among the exemptions allowed to stay open. Since then, Second Amendment Sports, a gun shop and shooting range in McHenry, Illinois, has been busy, said the store’s owner, Bert Irslinger Jr., who called sales over the past 10 days “the best we’ve ever had.”

Registration for shooting courses has also been high, he said. “We saw classes filling up fast, so we offered other dates and times so we could keep classes small” to follow social distancing guidelines, Irslinger said. “We’re no different than any other industry where practice makes perfect.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2020 The New York Times Company

SEE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/03/coronavirus-prompts-run-on-guns-in-us.html 


https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/03/you-cannot-kill-covid-19-with-gun-are.html

Republicans block most aid to help states plan for presidential election amid coronavirus pandemic

BECAUSE THEY WANT PERPETUAL RULE AND PERPETUAL POWER


Jon Ward Senior Political Correspondent,Yahoo News•March 25, 2020

Voting reforms left out of the $2 trillion rescue package


But key lawmakers vowed to keep pushing for a series of measures that would prepare the country for an election

WASHINGTON — Voting reforms that would make it much easier to cast ballots by mail in the fall presidential election were left out of the $2 trillion rescue package that was unveiled Wednesday, but key lawmakers vowed to keep pushing for a series of measures that would prepare the country for an election in the likely scenario that the coronavirus will still be a major presence in the country.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said that while the $400 million included in the current package is “a step in the right direction,” it fell well short of what they and other Democrats had pushed for.

The money included for now will be available to states “to increase the ability to vote by mail, expand early voting and online registration and increase the safety of voting in-person by providing additional voting facilities and more poll workers,” one House Democratic staffer told Yahoo News.

But it’s a fraction of the $4 billion that House Democrats had pushed for. Those measures, along with the reforms in the “Natural Disaster and Emergency Ballot Act” proposed by Klobuchar and Wyden, would radically expand the ability of Americans to vote by mail in this fall’s elections, and would also expand early voting for up to two weeks prior to Election Day.

It’s still not clear where the country will be with the coronavirus pandemic in November, but one thing is certain: There won’t be a vaccine. Given that reality, these moves would be aimed at avoiding any kind of large gatherings at polling places this fall, to help prepare states for a nationwide election with outbreaks still happening.

“In times of crisis, the American people cannot be forced to choose between their health and exercising their right to vote,” Klobuchar and Wyden said in a statement. “We must enact election reforms across the country as well as secure more resources to guarantee safe and secure elections. We will continue to fight to pass the Natural Disaster and Emergency Ballot Act of 2020 to ensure every eligible American can safely and lawfully cast their ballot.”

Election workers in Miami, March 17, 2020. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/AFP)

On Monday, Wyden told reporters on a conference call that “it’s either going to be vote-by-mail or nothing if we have to deal with a worst-case scenario.”

Klobuchar announced Monday that her husband, John, had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Among Republicans who actually run elections at the state and local level, there is growing recognition of the need for such planning. A number of Republican elections officials signed a letter to Congress this past weekend calling on lawmakers to “include substantial funding in the coronavirus stimulus package so that we have the ability and resources to ensure that our voters can participate safely and with confidence in our elections.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had proposed $140 million in the current package for elections, but state and local officials said this was “simply not enough.”

The idea of broadening access to voting by mail has yet to be embraced by Republican politicians in Washington. No GOP members of Congress have backed the reforms, and some hard-line Republicans have railed against the idea.

Conservative think tankers said universal mail voting would “make it easier to manipulate election outcomes and commit fraud.”

“The next president would be determined by ballots that have been marked behind closed doors by who knows who, perhaps collected and dropped in the mail (or not) by another who knows who, and then swiftly processed by the U.S. Postal Service, the same organization that routinely delivers us our neighbor’s mail,” wrote Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation and J. Christian Adams of the Public Interest Legal Foundation.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., tweeted that “universal vote by mail would be the end of our republic as we know it.”

The Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit advocacy group at New York University, has already warned that Congress is wasting precious time by not immediately deploying resources to plan for the fall.

“They need the money now,” Wendy Weiser, director of the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, told the Washington Post. “If we wait a couple of months, it will be too late. They won’t be able to use it effectively or make the changes needed to avoid significant chaos on Election Day.”

The Brennan Center has released a detailed plan for how to safeguard the ability of all citizens to vote in the fall without fearing contagion of the coronavirus. Their proposal estimated a cost of at least $2 billion, and includes conservative cost estimates for each provision: between $54 and $89 million for printing mail-in ballots, $413 million to $593 million for prepaid postage, $82 million to $117 million for secure drop boxes and $120 million to $240 million for equipment to facilitate a massive influx of mail-in ballots.

“Implementing that plan,” the Brennan Center said, “must begin now.”

EXCLUSIVE-U.S. slashed CDC staff inside China prior to coronavirus outbreak
By Marisa Taylor, Reuters•March 25, 2020

WASHINGTON, March 25(Reuters) - The Trump administration cut staff by more than two-thirds at a key U.S. public health agency operating inside China, as part of a larger rollback of U.S.-funded health and science experts on the ground there leading up to the coronavirus outbreak, Reuters has learned.

Most of the reductions were made at the Beijing office of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and occurred over the past two years, according to public CDC documents viewed by Reuters and interviews with four people familiar with the drawdown.

The Atlanta-based CDC, America’s preeminent disease fighting agency, provides public health assistance to nations around the world and works with them to help stop outbreaks of contagious diseases from spreading globally. It has worked in China for 30 years.


The CDC’s China headcount has shrunk to around 14 staffers, down from approximately 47 people since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, the documents show. The four people, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the losses included epidemiologists and other health professionals.

The material reviewed by Reuters shows a breakdown of how many American and local Chinese employees were assigned there. The documents are the CDC’s own descriptions of its headcount, which it posts online. Reuters was able to search past copies of the material to confirm the decline described by the four people.

"The CDC office in Beijing is a shell of its former self," said one of the people, a U.S. official who worked in China at the time of the drawdown.

Separately, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the global relief program which had a role in helping China monitor and respond to outbreaks, also shut their Beijing offices on Trump’s watch. Before the closures, each office was staffed by a U.S. official. In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture(USDA) transferred out of China in 2018 the manager of an animal disease monitoring program.
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Reductions at the U.S. agencies sidelined health experts, scientists and other professionals who might have been able to help China mount an earlier response to the novel coronavirus, as well as provide the U.S. government with more information about what was coming, according to the people who spoke with Reuters. The Trump administration in February chastised China for censoring information about the outbreak and for keeping U.S. experts from entering the country to assist.

“We had a large operation of experts in China who were brought back during this administration, some of them months before the outbreak,” said one of the people who witnessed the withdrawal of U.S. personnel. “You have to consider the possibility that our drawdown made this catastrophe more likely or more difficult to respond to.”

The White House declined to comment or respond to questions from Reuters regarding the U.S withdrawal of staff in China.

The CDC did not respond to detailed questions submitted by Reuters about the cuts. It has insisted its staffing levels did not hinder the U.S. response to the coronavirus.

“There are many factors that go into decisions around staffing,” the CDC said in a statement.

Some health experts were skeptical that more CDC employees operating inside China would have made a difference in stemming the outbreak. Beijing has been widely criticized for silencing its own public health officials who warned of a deadly new respiratory disease emanating from the Chinese city of Wuhan and surrounding Hubei province.

“The problem was China, not that we didn’t have CDC people in China,” said Scott McNabb, a former CDC epidemiologist who is now a research professor with Emory University. He pointed to China’s censorship as the main culprit in the spread of the pandemic, which has infected at least 435,470 people worldwide, killed 19,598 and upended the global economy.

China’s embassy in Washington, D.C. declined to comment.




SHUTTERED OFFICES

The NSF closed all foreign offices in 2018, according to spokesman Robert Margetta. He said the agency planned on “sending teams on short-term expeditions around the world to find ways to increase international collaborations.”

A USAID spokesman said the decision to shutter its Beijing office was “due to significantly decreased access to Chinese government officials as well as the Agency’s position that the Chinese model of development is not aligned with U.S. values and interests.”

The USDA confirmed that it moved a manager position out of Beijing. A spokesman said the department has retained an office in China that employs eight people: five Americans and three Chinese. The office monitors animal disease and helps resolve “trade-related issues as they occur at Chinese ports of entry,” the spokesman said.

Reuters first reported about changes to CDC staffing in China on Sunday. The news agency revealed that the Trump administration had eliminated the position of a U.S. trainer of Chinese field epidemiologists, who were deployed to the epicenter of outbreaks to help track, investigate and contain diseases.

In a press briefing on Sunday, Trump criticized the Reuters story as “100 percent wrong.” Yet the CDC acknowledged the position had been cut. The agency said the decision was made because of China’s “excellent technical capability,” and said the elimination of that post did not hamper the U.S. effort to respond to the coronavirus outbreak.

The CDC staffing documents newly reviewed by Reuters show a sharp decline in the overall number of employees at the agency in Beijing, with 33 out of 47 positions lost.

The documents show the breakdown between American and Chinese staffers. The number of so-called American “assignees” declined to three positions from eight at the outset of the administration. Positions lost included medical epidemiologists and other experts in infectious diseases.

The biggest cuts were to positions filled by Chinese employees on the U.S. payroll, down to around 10 from 40 over the same period. Many of those local hires included medical and disease experts, according to the people who spoke with Reuters.

“Local staffers stayed even longer at the CDC and had a real depth of knowledge,” one of the people said. “There’s a loss of deep expertise and institutional knowledge.”

The CDC told Reuters the three Americans currently on staff in China are a country director, an influenza expert and an information technology expert. A temporary deputy director arrived recently, and that job will be filled permanently, the agency said in a statement. In addition, two Chinese staffers continue to work on specific public health areas, including the training program, according to the statement.

The shuttered USAID and NSF offices in China also had a role in building scientific relationships and combating global disease, according to the four people familiar with the situation.

USAID’s Beijing office, which was staffed by a senior U.S. officer and two Chinese employees, was working on initiatives including multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and malaria, the people said. The office closed in 2019.

The NSF office was once led by Nancy Sung, a respected American scientist who was a key link between the U.S. and Chinese scientific communities, according to the U.S. government official who spoke with Reuters. The office also employed two local staffers.

“She had far more contacts than most of us,” said the official, who had been in China at the time and was familiar with her role. “She could have helped maintain vital channels of communication between the two countries which to this day is greatly curtailed.”

Sung, who is now with the NSF in the United States, declined to comment about the closure of her office in 2018 and referred questions to the agency’s public affairs office.




'WITHOUT BENEFIT TO THE U.S.'

The changes came amid escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing. Trump has long complained that China has stolen millions of American jobs and intellectual property, charges the Chinese government has rejected as baseless. The countries have slapped billions in tariffs on each other’s goods. Now their leaders are battling to control the narrative over the pandemic. Trump has called it the “Chinese virus” to keep the focus on China’s role in unleashing the pandemic. China, meanwhile, is trying to assert global leadership by providing aid to Italy and other hard-hit countries.

Over the last two years, the White House has pushed U.S. agencies with a presence in China to de-fund programs there along with the positions to manage them, according to the U.S. official who spoke to Reuters.

The source said Terry Branstad, the U.S. ambassador to China and a former Republican governor of Iowa, tried to remind the White House of the importance of the U.S. presence in China but was told to “get with the program” by an administration official.

“The White House saw the relationship as one-sided and without benefit to the U.S.,” the source said.

Branstad did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

After Reuters’ story about the elimination of the key CDC position in China ran on Sunday, Trump’s re-election campaign seized on it for fundraising. In a mass email to supporters, it accused Trump's critics of “siding with the Chinese” and helping Beijing with a “cover-up.”

The CDC on Monday told Reuters that Redfield had decided to add a global health threats program director to its China staff.

“At the request of Dr. Redfield, CDC is continuing to look long term at possible additions to enhance CDC’s 30 plus year presence in China,” the statement said.

(Reporting by Marisa Taylor in Washington; Editing by Marla Dickerson)

White supremacist, 36, is shot and killed by FBI after plotting to BLOW UP a Missouri hospital with a truck bomb because the federal government was too slow to react to the coronavirus crisis

Timothy Wilson, 36, was shot and killed by the FBI after he plotted to blow up a hospital in near Kansas City

The FBI targeted Wilson who they say was a potentially violent extremist whose hatred was fueled by religion, racial animosity, and government distrust

The FBI attempted to serve Wilson with a warrant as he was picking up what he believed to be a truck bomb but actually wasn't

Wilson was motived by religion, racial animosity, and distrust of the government, according to the FBI 

Wilson wanted to inflict 'severe harm and mass casualties', according to the FBI

By TAUREN DYSON FOR DAILYMAIL.COM 26 March 2020

A man was shot and killed by the FBI on Tuesday after plotting to blow up a hospital in frustration to government's response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Timothy Wilson, 36, was shot after the FBI attempted to serve him a warrant in Belton, Missouri. Wilson was rushed to a nearby hospital when he died from his injuries.

The FBI had been tracking Wilson for months after they pinpointed him as a potentially violent extremist, driven by racial animus, religious zealotry, and distrust of the government.
FBI kill man suspected of plotting domestic terror attack

Wilson had planned on using the 'vehicle-borne' explosive mechanism to blow up a hospital near Kansas City.

He purposely targeted a hospital treating people suffering from coronavirus to inflict 'severe harm and mass casualties.'

The FBI says Wilson was armed when they attempted to arrest him. At the time, he was picking up what he thought was a truck bomb but wasn't actually a bomb.



The FBI shot and killed Timothy Wilson, 36, after he planned to blow up a hospital in the Kansas City area due to the slow response to the coronavirus pandemic


Timothy Wilson lived with his grandmother (pictured right) at a house in Belton, Missouri

Wilson was shot and killed by FBI agents while trying to pick up what he thought was a bomb truck at this facility

This sign near a highway in Kansas City asks people to stay home to stop spread of coronavirus


Kansas City has a 30-day mandatory 'stay-at-home' order in place requiring all residents to remain in their homes during that time

According to the agency statement, Wilson grew frustrated with federal government efforts to slow coronavirus and 'decided to accelerate his plan to use a vehicle-born improvised explosive device in an attempt to cause severe harm and mass casualties.'

As of Wednesday March 25, 2.30pm central time, Missouri had 356 cases of coronavirus and eight deaths from the virus, according to the Missouri Health Department.

Kansas City currently has a 'stay at home' order in place to curb the spread of coronavirus.

Nanny alum Fran Drescher calls for a 'general strike' against the 'ruling class elite' in anti-capitalist post

By CASSIE CARPENTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM 26 March 2020

The day after millionaire pop star Britney Spears called for a 'redistribution of wealth,' The Nanny alum Fran Drescher voiced her own anti-capitalist political views via Twitter.

The Queens-born 62-year-old - who's said to have a $25M fortune - 'agreed' with a post from Labor Strikes Back account calling for a 'general strike' against the wealthy ordering employees to return to work amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

'I agree. Capitalism has become another word for Ruling Class Elite!' Fran - who boasts 1M social media followers - wrote on Tuesday.

Outspoken: The day after Britney Spears called for a 'redistribution of wealth,' The Nanny alum Fran Drescher voiced her own anti-capitalist political views via Twitter (pictured Sunday)

'When profit is at the [expense] of all things of true value, we gotta problem.'

Drescher added: 'When [you] make kindness and compassion your compass you don't need a label of socialist or capitalist. You simply do the right thing! That's the golden rule baby!'

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TheThe two-time Golden Globe nominee proudly considers herself an 'anti-capitalist' who's a registered Democrat but identifies with the Green Party.

'I really think we need a new hybrid of systems. I'm not anti-making-money, don't get me wrong. I don't think making money is a bad thing, per se,' Fran explained to Vulture back in 2017.



'Capitalism has become another word for Ruling Class Elite!' The Queens-born 62-year-old 'agreed' with a post calling for a 'general strike' against the wealthy ordering employees to return to work amid the COVID-19 pandemic

'You don't need a label of socialist or capitalist': Fran proudly considers herself an 'anti-capitalist' who's a registered Democrat but identifies with the Green Party

$25M fortune: The two-time Golden Globe nominee is in quarantine with her beloved dogs inside her ocean-front home in Malibu where she has a regular table at Nobu, and she also owns an apartment in Manhattan just off Central Park (pictured February 26)
Fran Drescher says Cardi B targeted for 'The Nanny' reboot

'But it has to be calibrated within the spectrum of what's a true value. What I really tell people is, you might be the first ones at a global-warming rally, but meanwhile, do you know what's in your investment portfolio? We need to not be supporting these companies at all.'

Drescher is in quarantine with her beloved dogs inside her ocean-front home in Malibu where she has a regular table at Nobu, and she also owns an apartment in Manhattan just off Central Park - according to The Cut.

The two-time Emmy nominee has been teasing some sort of 'surprise announcement this week' regarding her nineties sitcom, which is currently streaming on the Roku Channel and Cozi TV.

Fran (born Francine) got her big break playing the nasal-voiced bridal shop salesgirl-turned-careworker Fran Fine for six seasons on CBS spanning 1993-1999.


'Stay tuned!' Fran has been teasing some sort of 'surprise announcement this week' regarding her nineties sitcom, which is currently streaming on the Roku Channel and Cozi TV
Fran Drescher stars in '90s sitcom The Nanny

Semi-autobiographical: Drescher got her big break producing and playing the nasal-voiced bridal shop salesgirl-turned-careworker Fran Fine for six seasons on CBS spanning 1993-1999

Drescher created and produced the semi-autobiographical series with her openly gay ex-husband Peter Marc Jacobson, whom she divorced in 1999 after 20 years of marriage.

The uterine cancer survivor currently plays broke and immature actress Debbie Klein, who moves in with her son (Adam Pally), in the 11-episode sitcom Indebted, which airs Thursdays on NBC.

Fran also promotes alternative, holistic approaches like medicinal marijuana through her non-profit organization, Cancer Schmancer Movement, which she founded in 2007.

Hospitals Need Cash. Health Insurers Have It.
by Sean Nicholson and David A. Asch March 25, 2020

Anton Petrus/Getty Images

We’ve made our coronavirus coverage free for all readers. HBR

U.S. hospitals are battling Covid-19 on many fronts: Scrambling to create new intensive care unit beds, trying to secure scarce medical equipment to protect their patients and their workforces, training staff on novel treatment protocols, and hiring more nurses. In order to divert resources to the patients in the greatest need — and to protect the safety of the patients who can wait — hospitals are also postponing non-emergency care, cancelling elective procedures and, in general, halting the very activities that used to keep them in business.

Beaumont Health CEO John T. Fox, for example, estimates that by canceling 80% of their surgery and imaging volume, their revenue will fall by $1 billion to $2 billion this year (20% to 40% of their annual total) as they shift from high-revenue surgical and related procedures to caring for increasing numbers of medical inpatients for whom reimbursement is lower. Peter Banko, president and CEO of Centura Health, likewise sees up to $1.5 billion of the system’s $4 billion revenue base put at risk by the cancellation of elective cases. A 2011 study highlighted the financial importance of surgical patients to hospitals: while only 29% of U.S. hospitalizations involved surgery, these cases accounted for 48% of hospital costs and, therefore, potentially an even greater percent of revenues. Even if hospitals decide to continue with revenue-generating elective surgeries, they may not be allowed to: six states and two cities have placed moratoriums on elective surgeries, and more are likely to follow.

Without any action, hospitals will burn through their cash. Price gouging of 200% for common products such as masks and gloves is now the norm. Financially weaker health systems may soon be unable to meet payroll or pay for their essential supplies. Based on data from 2018, a 25% drop in revenue would entirely eliminate the current assets (cash or assets that could be turned into cash within one year) for 25% of California hospitals.

Our hospitals are facing a financial crisis just when we need them the most during this unprecedented health crisis. The Senate bailout appears to allocate $130 billion to hospitals as Medicare’s contribution (and the federal portion of Medicaid), and provide $150 billion to state and local governments, some of which may be channeled to hospitals as the states’ component of Medicaid’s contribution. Private insurers should step in to do their part. And they need to step in right now.

Health insurers manage our premium dollars. Private insurers collect premiums from employers, employees, and self-insured workers, and they use that money to pay care providers when they deliver services to us. Medicare and Medicaid likewise collect taxes which they use to pay providers for services delivered to the elderly, disabled, and lower-income individuals. Insurers are the stewards of our money. It isn’t their money.

So the question is: How would Americans like health insurers to use our health care premium dollars? Surely the answer is to direct that money to the front lines to ameliorate this health crisis.

Health insurers can help save lives by announcing immediately that they will transfer our premium dollars and taxes to providers on the front lines. This will allow providers to focus on saving lives rather than worrying about making payroll or paying for supplies.

On the first day of each month, and until the crisis abates, government and private health insurers should send each provider in their network one-twelfth of the total amount that the insurer paid the hospital or physician in 2019. This is not a loan to keep those hospitals afloat. Nor is it an advance payment for care that will be delayed. This is payment today for the services these hospitals are providing today.

Why? Because we use health insurance as a way to pay hospitals and doctors for doing what we need them to do. And right now, they are doing just that. They are not doing what they usually do — delivering the routine or emergency care that creates billing codes and insurance reimbursement — but they are doing something just as important and just as connected to the fundamental purpose of health insurance.

Health insurers have already budgeted this money and have already collected it. We are asking them to pay it up front so it can be put to good use now. Of course, insurers may face their own financial problems, especially as the pandemic strains state governments, if employers terminate their policies, or if laid off employees forego their portion of the premium. Payments may need to be adjusted to reflect these possibilities. But we should recognize that in contrast to hospitals, health insurers run a largely variable-cost business. If they lose enrollees and premiums, their costs will also fall by 80 to 85 cents on the dollar — the amount of the premium that is directed to providers of care. They are more resilient.

Alongside the many heartwarming stories of people acting selflessly to help their fellow citizens are disheartening stories of people or companies trying to profit excessively on the health crisis. Health insurers are not in this latter group, but they do potentially face a windfall because the high clinical costs of caring for infected patients is almost certainly more than offset by the reduced costs from other care foregone. Those extra funds shouldn’t be theirs; they were there for our health care, and our health care system needs them now.

Editor’s Note: This article was updated on March 25, 2020 to include information on the Senate bailout.



Sean Nicholson, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management at Cornell University, the Director of the Sloan Program in Health Administration, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.


David A. Asch, MD, MBA is the John Morgan Professor at the Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School and Director of the Center for Health Care Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania.