Was a ‘Sacrifice the Weak’ Sign Shown at a COVID-19 ‘ReOpen Tennessee’ Rally?

A person reportedly was seen holding up such a sign.

DAN EVON PUBLISHED 24 APRIL 2020 SNOPES

Image via Screenshot

Claim
A picture shows a person holding a "Sacrifice the Weak" sign at a rally urging the state of Tennessee to re-start its economy amid COVID-19 lockdown orders.

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In April 2020, an image supposedly showing a person holding a “Sacrifice the Weak” sign at an anti-COVID-19-lockdown rally in Tennessee went viral on social media:



This is a genuine screenshot of a news broadcast from the anti-lockdown protest in Tennessee on April 20, 2020. The “Sacrifice the Weak” sign is real, although we can’t say for certain whether this protester was holding this sign in earnest, or displaying it ironically as a way to mock these protests.

This screenshot comes from a WKRN broadcast featuring reporter Elizabeth Lane. Here’s the full video of Lane’s report. The “Sacrifice the Weak” sign can be seen around the 1:40 mark:

Our coverage of an anti-shutdown rally in Tennessee is getting a lot of attention. Here’s my full report below ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/50lnAahuPL
— Elizabeth Lane WKRN (@elizabethlanetv) April 22, 2020


Lane said that she didn’t notice the sign while reporting on the “ReOpen Rally” in Tennessee and only noticed the sign after it was brought to her attention on social media. Lane said that some people had asked if the protest sign was “satire” but said she did not have an answer:

This is the protestor drawing the most attention. I’m getting lots of questions — we did not speak with her & did not see her sign until this screenshot was taken. Many people have emailed asking if this was satire, perhaps. To those questions, I do not have answers. pic.twitter.com/GkPKboTVQQ
— Elizabeth Lane WKRN (@elizabethlanetv) April 22, 2020


This “Sacrifice the Weak” sign can also be seen in a broadcast from ABC News Channel 9.

TENNESSEE IN PROTEST: Even with the announcement to start re-opening the state's economy on May 1, Governor Bill Lee has been facing some sharp criticism for not starting the process immediately. https://t.co/Pn3jY7k85S

— WTVC NewsChannel 9 (@newschannelnine) April 21, 2020

Coronavirus: Conspiracy Theories and Fake Videos Fuel Rise in Islamophobia

Stereotypes fueled by conspiracy theories, memes and fake videos create the perfect climate for the demonization of Muslims.

THE CONVERSATION PUBLISHED 24 APRIL 2020

COVID-19 HAS LEVELED THE PLAYING FIELD WE ARE ALL
WEARING FACE COVERINGS JUST AS SOME MUSLIMS DO

This article is republished here with permission from The Conversation.

Communities coming together to help those in need has been a strong theme of the COVID-19 pandemic. But at the same time that many people are seemingly appreciating those around them, our new research has found that COVID-19 has led to a rise in online Islamophobic hate speech.

My colleague, Roxana Khan-Williams, and I have examined the impacts of COVID-19 on social media. We’ve found that COVID-19 has been used by the far-right to peddle Islamophobic hate.

Our study provides a snapshot of the type of language used online about Muslims and COVID-19. And what we’ve found is that stereotypes fuelled by conspiracy theories, memes and fake videos create the perfect climate for the demonisation of Muslims.

One video, for example, shared on the Tommy Robinson News channel on the messaging app Telegram, alleges to show a group of Muslim men leaving a secret mosque in Birmingham to pray. Despite the fact the video is fake and West Midlands Police have confirmed the mosque is closed, it has been watched over 14,000 times.
At risk of attacks

As someone who has spent their academic career researching Islamophobia, I am not surprised or shocked to see this level of vitriolic hate. But it does demonstrate how quickly the internet can act as an echo chamber – and how easily such narratives become normalised.

Even more worrying, is that this type of Islamophobic bigotry found on social media reinforces the “them versus us narrative” by using issues such as deprivation, poverty, social cohesion and social mobility as a Muslim problem. Indeed, many of the online posts we analysed targeted Muslims because of social and economic issues. All of which leaves Muslims more at risk of Islamophobic attacks when lockdown lifts.

The tweet below, for example, specifically labels Muslims as “muzrats”, a word used to describe Muslims as vermin and a disease.

We also found that levels of Islamophobia increase around certain events. Ramadan, for example, seems to have led to a wave of conspiracy theories around Muslims – with claims the virus is likely to spread around this time.

We also found the depiction of British Muslims on social media was synonymous with “deviance” and being a “problem-group”. And that a number of fake news stories featured claims that Muslims are flouting social distancing measures to attend mosque. One picture, for example, taken outside a Leeds mosque appears to show Muslims breaking the rules of lockdown, despite this having been taken two weeks before the official lockdown began.

In another example of fake news, a Twitter user claimed to have spoken to his local mosque in Shrewsbury. The user claimed to be “horrified” to find out this mosque was still open, adding that people inside could be “super spreaders” of the virus, and urged the police to act. The police have confirmed, however, that there is no mosque in Shrewsbury.

Similarly, a picture emerged on Twitter that seemed to show Muslims praying on the streets of central London and not adhering to social distancing rules. Again, the story was debunked as the picture had been taken several weeks ago.
‘Muslims are the enemy’

The problem with such disinformation is that it can lead to wider retribution against Muslims. On one Facebook post, for example, messages from users indicated they wanted Muslims “off the streets!!”, another added that Muslims are “praying in groups then driving taxis afterwards”.

We also found evidence of users focusing on grooming events in Rotherham to call British Muslims “deviant”. Another user stated that “all over the world these ignorant religious idiots are responsible for spreading this further”. This led to wider dehumanising language around wanting British Muslims to go “back home”.
THANKS TO COVID-19 FACE COVERINGS ARE NOW THE NORM

EVEN IN QUEBEC!!!

Evidence suggests that BAME people seem to be the most impacted by COVID-19. Figures show that 35% of almost 2000 patients in intensive care units are from a BAME background, compared to 14% of the UK population. And the sad truth is that, as we fight the pandemic offline, a pandemic is also spreading online.

Social media companies must do more to tackle this and remove posts that are clearly using dehumanising language. If not, the risk is that this could escalate to attacks and incidents when restrictions on movement are lifted.


Imran Awan, Professor of Criminology, Birmingham City University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

#TyphoidMary – Now a Hashtag – Was a Maligned Immigrant Who Became a Scapegoat

The popular – and mistaken – beliefs about Mary Mallon came primarily from media accounts published during her lifetime.

THE CONVERSATION PUBLISHED 24 APRIL 2020

Image via Getty Images

This article by Katherine A. Foss is republished here with permission from The Conversation.

The country’s most notable healthy carrier of a deadly disease, Mary Mallon, is back – not in person, but as a hashtag: #TyphoidMary.

In the current pandemic, people may unknowingly harbor and spread the coronavirus before they feel sick, largely because it has an incubation period of between two and 14 days. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now says that one in four people could be asymptomatic carriers, never showing symptoms even as they infect others.

But there are also those who, knowing they could be carriers, refuse to cover their mouths or practice social distancing. They include the spring breakers who crowded Florida beaches and the protesters gathering in some state capitals.

Mary Mallon, known as Typhoid Mary, was until now the most prominent example in the U.S. of the unknowing disease carrier. She spread typhoid fever to at least 53 people, causing three deaths between 1900 and 1915.
But Mallon has long been unfairly characterized as knowingly spreading the deadly disease she carried. Her memory has been resurrected recently, largely on Twitter, as a shorthand description of those who intentionally infect others with the coronavirus, #TyphoidMary.

As the author of “Constructing the Outbreak: Epidemics in Media and Collective Memory,” I can attest to the media’s past and continuing distortion of the Mary Mallon case. It’s unfair to Mallon to attach her name to such consciously bad behavior.

Mary Mallon, the healthy carrier 

Story from The Evening World, April 1, 1907, which used an alias for Mallon’s last name.
Library of Congress

Contrary to popular belief, Mallon never perceived herself to be contagious. During her famous trial of 1909, newspapers quoted her saying, “I was cook for Mr. Stebbins’ family and other families, and nobody fell sick while I was there.”

Like many people in her era, Mallon could not fathom that a healthy-looking person could transmit disease. Throughout her life, she swore her innocence, claiming that she had never had the disease.

The popular – and mistaken – beliefs about Mallon came primarily from media accounts during her life. But the mischaracterization of Mallon continued long after.

HAD SHE ONLY BEEN A COOK FOR A POOR FAMILY NO ONE WOULD HAVE KNOWN OR CARED

Mallon unknowingly spread typhoid fever through the dishes she prepared, mostly for wealthy families in New York. In the summer of 1906, she cooked for the Warren family at their rental house at Long Island’s Oyster Bay. From Aug. 26 through Sept. 3, typhoid fever struck six out of 11 members of the household.

The homeowners hired George Soper, a self-proclaimed “sanitary engineer,” to investigate. He eventually traced the Oyster Bay outbreak to the new cook, along with typhoid at six of her other places of employment.

Soper’s discovery prompted the New York City Health Inspector Dr. Josephine Baker and the police department to take Mallon by force to a nearby hospital.

Against her will, she underwent multiple physical examinations that included stool samples, which revealed the Salmonella typhi bacteria. Mallon was then quarantined at North Brother Island, a refuge for those ill with tuberculosis and other contagious diseases, for two years without a charge or trial.

Mallon hired attorney George O’Neill, who petitioned for her release on June 28, 1909. Before a judge, she testified that she was healthy and had never made others ill. The judge denied her request on the grounds that she was a threat to public health and ordered her to continue living isolated at North Brother Island.

Illustration from the New York American of Mary Mallon, known pejoratively as Typhoid Mary, breaking skulls into a frying pan. New York Public Library


Becoming ‘Typhoid Mary’

Approximately 400 other healthy carriers had also been identified in New York at the time of Mallon’s trial. Unlike Mallon, they were not arrested, tried and imprisoned for years.

It was Mallon’s status as a poor, Irish immigrant woman that made her susceptible to becoming the city’s scapegoat. Soper himself initially described her as “an Irish woman about 40 years of age, tall, heavy, single.” Newspapers treated Mallon as either a “germ receptacle” or as a wild animal to be contained. “Woman ‘Typhoid Factory’ Held As a Prisoner,” stated one headline. “Witch In N.Y.” read a Tacoma Times headline. The story included this description of Mallon: “Legendary witches of old used to build red fires…and brew deadly potions…But poor ‘Typhoid Mary’… requires no cauldron. She manufactures WITHIN HERSELF the evil potions which she spreads about.”

Facts about the case came from Soper and public health authorities to medical journals and newspapers, mentioning her ethnicity, appearance and marital status. Such characteristics were not identified in stories of other healthy carriers. Mallon was never interviewed and therefore did not get to give her perspective, other than in reprinted segments of a single letter to her attorney, in which she declared her innocence.

Government officials and the media justified Mallon’s loss of civil liberties by framing her as a particular danger to public health, more than other healthy carriers.

Her infamous nickname, coined at a 1908 medical conference and then repeated in an edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, shifted Mallon’s public persona from human incubator to villain – an image introduced in the New York American newspaper on June 20, 1909.

The headline “‘Typhoid Mary’: The Extraordinary Predicament of Mary Mallon, a Prisoner on New York’s Quarantine Hospital Island,” extended over a full-page drawing of a cook sautéing a cluster of skulls in her cast-iron skillet. This introduction forever cemented the misconception that Mallon’s disease transmission was murderously intentional.

From that point, news stories compared “Typhoid Sally,” “Diphtheria Mildred” and other healthy carriers to “Typhoid Mary.” While some were briefly detained at hospitals after unintentionally causing outbreaks, no one was treated as poorly as Mallon.

Perpetuating ‘Typhoid Mary’
Mallon was finally released in 1910. With a lack of options (and without an understanding of healthy carriers), Mallon began cooking again, this time at restaurants, hotels and, lastly, the Sloane Hospital for Women. When more than 20 cases of typhoid erupted at the hospital, authorities identified Mallon as the source.

On March 26, 1915, the New York City Department of Public Health escorted Mallon back to North Brother Island. She lived and worked at the hospital there until she died in 1938. There is no record of typhoid outbreaks during her stay.

Even after her final detention and death, newspapers and popular culture perpetuated the misconception that Mallon infected people intentionally, channeling her natural poison (typhoid) through the food she cooked. Books like “Terrible Typhoid Mary: A True Story of the Deadliest Cook in America,” television references and the eponymous comic book character have preserved this image of a villainous Mallon.

Across media platforms, “Typhoid Mary” is still casually applied to contemporary menaces of public health, ignoring the ethically dubious practice of blaming healthy carriers and Mary Mallon’s persecution as a poor immigrant at the turn of the 20th century.


Katherine A. Foss, Professor of Media Studies, Middle Tennessee State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

El Salvador student takes to treetops to pick up signal for online classes

Nelson Renteria

ATIQUIZAYA, El Salvador (Reuters) - When Alexander Contreras and his father planted a guava tree next to their house in rural El Salvador six years ago, he never dreamed that beyond providing shade and food, it would become key to his college education.
Alexander Contreras sits on a tree to receive a university class on his cellphone because it is the only place where he has signal during a quarantine throughout the country, as the government undertakes steadily stricter measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Atiquizaya, El Salvador April 17, 2020. Picture taken April 17, 2020. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas

But since the government of President Nayib Bukele suspended in-person classes a little over a month ago to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, 20-year-old Contreras has been climbing to the top of the tree to get the signal he needs to connect to his online university classes.

Unable to log on from the humble, dirt-floor home he shares with his parents and five other relatives, Contreras said he was frustrated because he knew the clock was ticking and thought he might have to drop a class or even miss the whole school year.

“I told myself I had to find a solution, and thank God I did. I saw the tree and I thought if I climb to the top the signal will probably reach me,” the communications student said.

Scaling the tree was enough to pick up a weak signal in the poor Atiquizaya municipality, about 84 kilometers (52 miles) west of capital city San Salvador.

So Monday through Thursday Contreras has been climbing the tree with a cellphone and headphones in hand, mask on face, perching between two branches for up to four hours at a time to take classes in design, journalism and marketing.

Last week, Bukele shared photos on social media of Contreras studying in the tree and ordered Innovation Secretary Vladimir Handal to contact the young man.

“Connect a device to get him a free and good broadband signal. Tell him I say congratulations,” Bukele wrote in a Twitter post that has garnered over 56,000 likes.

Now, Contreras can take classes from his living room after Bukele’s government sent him a WiFi device, a laptop and a new cellphone.

Others sent Contreras gifts after seeing his photo: a desk, chair, lamp, and a fan to help ease the scorching heat.

“Being up there is very uncomfortable. Sitting for so long... the sun, the heat. I’m going to be a little more comfortable now,” said Contreras.

NO FRIEND OF PUTIN
Ex-Georgian president Saakashvili poised for another political comeback in Ukraine

Ilya Zhegulev

KIEV (Reuters) - The former president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, said on Wednesday he had been invited to become deputy prime minister of Ukraine in charge of driving reforms, in what would mark another comeback for the maverick politician.
FILE PHOTO: Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili arrives in Kiev as his supporter shows the decree of the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, which restores Saakashvili's citizenship, at Boryspil International Airport outside Kiev, Ukraine May 29, 2019. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

One of the most recognizable leaders in the post-Soviet world, Saakashvili was brought in to run the southern Odessa region of Ukraine in 2015 but fell out with the president at the time, Petro Poroshenko.

Saakashvili said he had been invited to join the government of the current president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, whose candidacy he backed in last year’s election.

He will join at a time when Ukraine faces a recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic, and the government is trying to secure an $8 billion loan package from the International Monetary Fund that is contingent on Kiev’s reform performance.

“It is a great honour for me to receive from President Zelenskiy an offer to become deputy prime minister of the Ukrainian government for reform,” Saakashvili wrote on Facebook.

“We have a very difficult period ahead ... we now have more than ever to be courageous in our decisions and reforms.”

David Arakhamia, the head of Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People faction, told Reuters that parliament could vote on Saakashvili’s appointment on Friday.

Arakhamia said Saakashvili was suited to a broad-ranging role in fighting corruption and that his abilities had not been properly used in Ukraine before.

Zelenskiy’s office said the president had met Saakashvili to discuss Saakashvili’s vision of how he might help Ukraine’s development.

“Mikheil Saakashvili is well known in the international arena and has already demonstrated experience of the successful implementation of reforms,” his office said.

Saakashvili had been hired to run Odessa five years ago based on his track record of fighting corruption as president of Georgia after the 2003 Rose Revolution.

He resigned as governor in 2016 and accused Poroshenko of corruption, which Poroshenko denied.

The Ukrainian authorities stripped Saakashvili of his citizenship when he was abroad, but he barged his way through a checkpoint at the Polish border to get back into Ukraine in September 2017. He was deported five months later.

Saakashvili returned to Ukraine last year after Zelenskiy restored his citizenship in one of his first official acts as president.

Alexander Rodnyansky, an economist at Britain’s Cambridge University and former adviser to the Ukrainian government, told Reuters Saakashvili’s arrival would be positive for reforms.

“I have always respected Georgia’s experience and the reforms that it has carried out, and I hope that this will not break any political balances,” he said.

One in three UK households expects to need state help to weather coronavirus: survey

Cyclists are seen wearing protective face masks in Battersea Park during the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in London, Britain April 21, 2020. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez

LONDON (Reuters) - One third of British households said they were likely to need government support within the next three months to weather the coronavirus outbreak, according to a survey that reveals growing pessimism about job security and the health of the economy.

Research firm Kantar said 44% of those working believed their job was less safe than it was 12 months ago, the highest recorded measure since it began the survey in August 2011.

Confidence in the health of the British economy had also slumped since the country was put into effective lockdown in March, with 65% of people stating the economy was doing worse than 12 months ago, Kantar said on Wednesday.


Britain’s budget forecaster has said economic output could plunge by 35% in the April-June period and 2 million people could lose their jobs due to the impact of the virus.

The government has launched an economic rescue package totalling more than half a trillion dollars that includes paying up to 80% of salary costs to minimise redundancies and guaranteeing up to 80% of bank loans to small businesses.

The public widely supported intervention, the survey found, with 84% of people either agreeing or strongly agreeing that the government should help people and business affected by coronavirus, whatever the cost.


Six in 10 people said the government was handling the coronavirus crisis fairly or very well, helping boost support for Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservatives to 54%, up 4 percentage points since March, while three in 10 said it was handling it fairly or very poorly.

Craig Watkins, UK chief executive of Kantar’s Public division, said: “These findings show that there is a growing majority who believe the government is handling the crisis well and a strong public belief that supporting people and business during this time should be a priority, no matter the cost.”

Kantar interviewed 1,118 adults online between April 16 and April 20 for the survey.

Exclusive: Trial of Gilead's potential coronavirus treatment running ahead of schedule, researcher says

GILEAD WAS ALREADY TESTING THIS DRUG FOR OTHER PURPOSES

ITS EFFICACY IS STILL IN DOUBT DUE TO LACK OF TESTING

GILEAD IS PROFITEERING

Deena Beasley

(Reuters) - A key U.S. government trial of Gilead Sciences Inc’s experimental coronavirus treatment may yield results as early as mid-May, according to the study’s lead investigator, after doctors clamored to enroll their patients in the study.



FILE PHOTO: An ampule of Ebola drug remdesivir is pictured during a news conference at the University Hospital Eppendorf (UKE) in Hamburg, Germany, April 8, 2020, as the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues. Ulrich Perrey/File Photo

Preliminary findings from the randomized trial of the antiviral drug remdesivir, begun in February by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), could come even sooner, lead researcher Dr. Andre Kalil told Reuters in an interview. There are currently no approved treatments or vaccines for COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the new virus that has killed over 190,000 people globally, according to a Reuters tally.

Remdesivir has drawn tremendous attention as a therapy with the potential to alter the course of the disease, based on anecdotal reports that it may have helped some patients.
Those hopes were dampened somewhat on Thursday, when details from a Chinese remdesivir trial in patients with severe COVID-19 inadvertently released by the World Health Organization suggested it provided no benefit.

Gilead pushed back on that interpretation saying the study, which was stopped early due to low patient enrollment, cannot provide meaningful conclusions.

Other reports have provided reason for optimism.

Doctors at Houston Methodist Hospital told Reuters that since March 23, they have treated 41 mostly severely ill COVID-19 patients with the drug. None have died and half are back home. But they and other doctors contacted by Reuters said they need much more information than the few details available from the Chinese trial and anecdotal reports on its emergency use in the United States to form a view on remdesivir.

They emphasized a need to see how patients on remdesivir fare compared to those who do not receive the therapy in a rigorous clinical trial at different stages of illness to know whether and under what circumstances it may provide benefit.

The NIAID trial “has all the necessary scientific standards that are really going to help us define if this drug works or not,” said Dr. Kalil, a professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. It is a randomized, double-blind study in which half the patients were given the drug and the other half a placebo. Enrollment in the trial closed on Sunday, but has far exceeded initial goals of 400 to 500 patients, he said. The investigator would not disclose total enrollment, but the latest public update says trial size may exceed 800 patients. The NIAID trial is designed to show whether remdesivir, when given to patients with a range of disease severity, improves outcomes such as length of hospitalization, need for mechanical ventilation and survival. Dr. Kalil declined to comment on precisely how much of an improvement on those metrics is needed to deem the trial a success and the drug a viable treatment. “We are looking for not only a statistical difference, but also for a meaningful clinical improvement,” he said. “We expect to have results sometime from mid- to late May.”

Gilead on Thursday said it expected results from the NIAID trial in late May. The company’s shares, up more than 20% so far this year due largely to remdesivir prospects, were 1.7% higher at $79.10 on Friday.

A lack of hard evidence has given U.S. medical associations, as well as the National Institutes of Health, pause. They have not recommended remdesivir to treat COVID-19.

The Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA), which represents more than 12,000 U.S. specialists, said it will make a formal recommendation once the entire body of evidence for remdesivir is available.

Dr. Rajesh Gandhi, an infectious disease physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston who helped draft the IDSA guidelines, explained that most patients with COVID-19 will recover with little or no medical care. He is awaiting more clinical trial data before remdesivir can be deemed a useful therapy.

 EARLY INTERVENTION?

In general, doctors say they would expect remdesivir to work better if given early in the course of the disease. The drug, which previously failed as a treatment for Ebola, is designed to keep a virus from replicating in the body and overwhelming a patient’s immune system.

“You can put out a campfire, but once it becomes a wildfire it’s hard to control,” said Dr. Kevin Grimes, an infectious disease specialist at Houston Methodist, which is participating in Gilead studies.

Gilead is leading its own trials of remdesivir, which is given to hospitalized patients as an intravenous infusion: One in patients with severe disease and the other in patients with more moderate symptoms.

The company expanded the number of patients it would enroll in the severe disease trial to 6,000 from 2,400, and expects results at the end of April. But that study does not compare remdesivir to another treatment or placebo.

The medical news website STAT last week reported that nearly all participants in Gilead-sponsored studies at a University of Chicago hospital saw rapid recoveries in fever and respiratory symptoms, and many were discharged in less than a week. The New England Journal of Medicine previously published an analysis showing that two-thirds of a small group of severely ill COVID-19 patients improved after treatment with remdesivir.

But it is impossible to know whether those outcomes can be attributed to the drug in the absence of a control group that did not far as well, since so much is still unknown about this new virus.

Still, these reports provide reason for hope given the desperate need as the virus rampages around the globe.

“We were asked to participate in this trial and we jumped at it,” said Grimes. “We see people that are getting sicker and then they get better.”

---30---

In four U.S. state prisons, nearly 3,300 inmates test positive for coronavirus -- 96% without symptomsLinda So, Grant Smith

(Reuters) - When the first cases of the new coronavirus surfaced in Ohio’s prisons, the director in charge felt like she was fighting a ghost.

“We weren’t always able to pinpoint where all the cases were coming from,” said Annette Chambers-Smith, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. As the virus spread, they began mass testing.

They started with the Marion Correctional Institution, which houses 2,500 prisoners in north central Ohio, many of them older with pre-existing health conditions. After testing 2,300 inmates for the coronavirus, they were shocked. Of the 2,028 who tested positive, close to 95% had no symptoms.

“It was very surprising,” said Chambers-Smith, who oversees the state’s 28 correctional facilities.

As mass coronavirus testing expands in prisons, large numbers of inmates are showing no symptoms. In four state prison systems — Arkansas, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia — 96% of 3,277 inmates who tested positive for the coronavirus were asymptomatic, according to interviews with officials and records reviewed by Reuters. That’s out of 4,693 tests that included results on symptoms.

The numbers are the latest evidence to suggest that people who are asymptomatic — contagious but not physically sick — may be driving the spread of the virus, not only in state prisons that house 1.3 million inmates across the country, but also in communities across the globe. The figures also reinforce questions over whether testing of just people suspected of being infected is actually capturing the spread of the virus.

“It adds to the understanding that we have a severe undercount of cases in the U.S.,” said Dr. Leana Wen, adjunct associate professor of emergency medicine at George Washington University, said of the Reuters findings. “The case count is likely much, much higher than we currently know because of the lack of testing and surveillance.”


Some people diagnosed as asymptomatic when tested for the coronavirus, however, may go on to develop symptoms later, according to researchers.

The United States has more people behind bars than any other nation, a total incarcerated population of nearly 2.3 million as of 2017 — nearly half of which is in state prisons. Smaller numbers are locked in federal prisons and local jails, which typically hold people for relatively short periods as they await trial.

State prison systems in Michigan, Tennessee and California have also begun mass testing — checking for coronavirus infections in large numbers of inmates even if they show no sign of illness — but have not provided specific counts of asymptomatic prisoners.

Tennessee said a majority of its positive cases didn’t show symptoms. In Michigan, state authorities said “a good number” of the 620 prisoners who tested positive for the coronavirus were asymptomatic. California’s state prison system would not release counts of asymptomatic prisoners.

Each state manages multiple prison facilities. Ohio, for instance, has 49,000 prisoners in 28 facilities. A total 3,837 inmates tested positive for the coronavirus in 15 of those facilities. But the state has not yet provided results on symptoms for 1,809 of them and did not identify the total number of tests conducted across the prison system.

Arkansas and Tennessee have also taken a targeted approach by conducting mass testing in several of their facilities. Michigan, North Carolina, California and Virginia have started with one facility each.

Most state prisons did not provide the age or other demographic details of those who tested positive for the coronavirus, which has killed more than 200,000 people globally, including more than 53,000 in the United States.

VAST UNDERCOUNT
Reuters surveyed all 50 state prison systems. Of the 30 that responded, most are only testing inmates who show symptoms, suggesting they could be vastly undercounting the number infected by the coronavirus.

Florida and Texas, whose inmate populations are bigger than Ohio’s, report a combined total of just 931 cases — far fewer than the 3,837 inmates who tested positive in Ohio. New York, the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, has reported 269 positive cases among 51,000 inmates. All three states are testing only symptomatic prisoners.

“Prison agencies are almost certainly vastly undercounting the number of COVID cases among incarcerated persons,” said Michele Deitch, a corrections specialist and senior lecturer at the University of Texas. “Just as the experts are telling us in our free-world communities, the only way to get ahead of this outbreak is through mass testing.”

Prison officials in Florida and Texas said they were following guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention along with state health officials when testing only inmates showing symptoms of the virus. New York’s Department of Corrections said its policy of only testing prisoners who show symptoms was “reflective of testing procedures in the general public.”

Tennessee took an aggressive approach after a dozen inmates tested positive at the Bledsoe County Correctional Complex in the city of Pikeville last week. The state’s Department of Correction has tested 3,503 prisoners at Bledsoe, the Northwest Correctional Complex and the Turney Center Industrial Complex.

As of Friday, 651 were positive, and most of them were asymptomatic, the department said.

“It’s what makes the pandemic more difficult to manage,” said Marc Stern, former medical director for the Washington State Department of Corrections and a faculty member at the University of Washington’s School of Public Health. “There are a whole lot of people who are asymptomatic.”  




FILE PHOTO: The exterior of the Marion Correctional Institution where there have been positive cases of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Marion, Ohio, U.S., April 22, 2020. REUTERS/Dane Rhys

After a recent spike in cases at the Neuse Correctional Institution in Goldsboro, North Carolina, state correctional officials tested all 723 prisoners last week. Of the 444 who were infected by the virus, 98% were asymptomatic, the state’s department of public safety said. One inmate has died at the prison.

Similarly, mass testing at two Arkansas prisons — the Cummins Unit in the city of Grady and the Community Correction Center in the state capital Little Rock — found 751 infected inmates, almost all of them asymptomatic, the state corrections department said. It did not provide the total number of inmates who were tested.

Arkansas’ prisons have faced contagious disease outbreaks before, such as scabies and chickenpox, but those episodes were easier to manage because inmates showed overt symptoms, said Arkansas Department of Corrections spokeswoman Dina Tyler. “But with this virus, you have no idea because so many are asymptomatic. It makes it very challenging to contain,” she said.
‘24-HOUR TURNAROUND IS CRUCIAL’

Michigan’s Lakeland Correctional Facility houses some of the state’s oldest and most medically frail prisoners. When coronavirus cases surged, the prison saw a spike in infections and deaths. As of April 23, nine Lakeland inmates had died from COVID-19, accounting for a third of the deaths across Michigan’s 29 state prisons.

Nearly half of Lakeland’s 1,400 prisoners suffer from chronic underlying health conditions, according to state data. Many are in wheelchairs, and the minimum-security facility in southern Michigan has its own geriatric unit for its large elderly population.

On Tuesday, the prison tested all 400 inmates in the geriatric ward and plans to test the rest of the facility by the end of the week. Of the 971 tested so far, 642, or about 66%, were positive. A state official declined to disclose how many were asymptomatic.

“We know mass testing is going to make our numbers spike and might make us look bad,” said Chris Gautz, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections. “But I don’t think there’s another prison system in the country that doesn’t have large numbers. They just might not be testing as rigorously as we are.”


All tested inmates are quarantined in their rooms or units pending the test results, which usually come back in a day, he said. “The 24-hour turnaround is crucial” because once an inmate tests negative, they can return to the general population, he said.

In the seven state prison systems conducting mass tests, 49 inmates have died.

As the coronavirus spreads behind bars, rights groups and public defenders say they fear more will succumb, and have pressed for the release of nonviolent older and medically high-risk inmates. While thousands have been let out, crowded, often unsanitary conditions have raised concerns that jails and prisons could become vectors for the disease.

“They’re worse than landlocked cruise ships,” Stern, the corrections expert, said, referring to stranded cruise ships that have been overwhelmed by coronavirus infections.


Linda So reported from Washington and Grant Smith from New York. Additional reporting by Brad Heath. Editing by Jason Szep

'I do feel afraid': Indian workers disinfect coronavirus hotspots
DALITS AKA THE UNTOUCHABLES SUBJECTED TO HAVING TO DO THIS WORK BECAUSE OF HINDU FASCISM, CASTISM AND RACISM 

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - One recent morning in his two-room New Delhi home, sanitation worker Dev Dutt Sharma drank tea before putting on an orange jacket and bidding goodbye to his two sons, wife, and elderly mother.

He rode his motorbike to government offices in South Delhi, where he suited up in protective gear and strapped a container full of disinfectant on his back.

Then he ventured out to disinfect some of Delhi’s crowded slums and neighborhoods deemed at risk from the coronavirus, which has infected more than 20,000 people and killed 652 in India.

“I do feel afraid, because I have a family,” said Sharma, 38, who is one of more than 3,500 workers usually tasked with combating malaria for the South Delhi Municipal Corporation.

“But then I think that, along with my own family, I will also save other families.”

The plight of India’s under-protected medical workers has drawn widespread attention, but workers disinfecting cities are also at risk as they venture into designated containment zones.

“Wherever we get more than three or four cases from a single locality, we are taking special measures in those areas,” said N.R. Tuli, a doctor in charge of disinfections in a South Delhi area.

Such measures boost sanitation and strengthen awareness of government actions, said virologist Shahid Jameel.

“The latter increases the level of trust that is so important for people to follow instructions,” added Jameel, the chief executive of health charity the Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance.

India’s population of 1.3 billion has been subjected to one of the world’s toughest lockdowns, confining people to their homes except for trips to buy food and medicine until May 3.

To help rein in the virus, Sharma disinfects as many as 80 homes a day. But when the work ends, anxiety returns to haunt him.

“When I come back home, I also feel, ‘What if this virus is inside me and might get transmitted to my children?’,” he said. “But we are helpless, we have to perform our duty.”

On the margins of Paris, the food bank queues grow longer

Yonathan Van der Voort

CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS, France (Reuters) - The queue for the food bank snaked for hundreds of metres, out of the shuttered marketplace bordered by tower blocks and down the side of a four-lane highway on the outskirts of one of Europe’s wealthiest cities.
Residents line up during a food distribution by volunteers from ACLEFEU association in Clichy-sous-Bois near Paris during a lockdown imposed to slow the rate of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in France, April 22, 2020. REUTERS/Charles Platiau

In Paris’s depressed suburbs, the number of people relying on food handouts is soaring as a strict coronavirus lockdown plunges France into its deepest recession since World War Two.

Many worked in the grey economy before the outbreak, and now receive little protection from France’s generous welfare state.

“There were lots of women who worked looking after children... There was a whole economy based on getting by,” said Bachir Ghouinem, volunteering at the food bank in Clichy-sous-Bois, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the city centre.


“So as everything stopped what did people find themselves with? Nothing.”

He and other volunteers would end up handing out sugar, pasta, cheese, milk and fresh fruit and vegetables - most donated by local stores rather than large retail chains - to around 1,600 families during the day, twice the number expected.

Clichy-sous-Bois is part of the Paris banlieues, the low-income districts that encircle the city. Unemployment among its largely immigrant population was already well above the national average before the epidemic struck.

Queueing for food, Nathalie Barlagne, 46, said she had lost her job as a creche assistant before the crisis.


She had never before needed to rely on charity to support her family but could no longer afford her food bill after local markets closed. “Now we have to shop in supermarkets and it’s very expensive,” she said.
“WE’RE ALL HERE FOR THE SAME REASON”

As the queue lengthened, Mohamed Mechmach, founder of local charity ACLEFEU, urged those in line to respect social distancing rules.

“Otherwise we won’t be able to keep doing what we’re doing,” he told the crowd. “The prefect will just say ‘Stop everything’. That would be a shame. We’re all here for the same reason.”

In the banlieues, the strict curbs ordered by President Emmanuel Macron to try to contain the epidemic have exacerbated deep-seated social tensions.


Slideshow (11 Images)

Cramped social housing, workers with frontline jobs and a restless younger generation have turned some into hotspots of infection and unrest. Violence hit several neighbourhood for five straight nights over the past week.

Due west of Clichy-sous-Bois in another suburb, Argenteuil, Kante Sakho’s charity was delivering food parcels to households. He says he is shifting 600 a week, and is barely able to keep up with demand.

Some recipients were illiterate and unable to fill out the mandatory government forms justifying movement outside the home. Others were families struggling to feed their children three meals a day after schools shut down.

“Since the coronavirus outbreak, there’s a lot more poverty,” Sakho said.


Reporting by Yonathan Van der Voort; Writing by Richard Lough; editing by John Stonestreet