Trump’s Health Secretary Says Workers’ Home Lives, Not Working Conditions, Are Responsible For Coronavirus Outbreaks In Meatpacking Plants

Alex Azar’s comments echo those from the meatpacking industry, who say outbreaks in their plants are not their fault.

May 8, 2020

WASHINGTON — Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar blamed a rash of COVID-19 cases in meatpacking plants on workers’ personal living habits, suggesting they were contracting the disease in their communities and bringing the disease to the plant.

During a call with congressional lawmakers, the top health official expressed the need to keep plants open amid the coronavirus. His comments were first reported by Politico.

The call was about rural hospitals but veered into the Trump administration’s oversight of workplaces deemed essential. “Azar attempted to make the case that meat processing plants should be kept open and that workers are at greater risk of COVID-19 infection in their ‘home and social’ environments rather than on the job,” said Democratic Rep. Ann Kuster.

Kuster said the administration’s approach to handling COVID-19 outbreaks in essential workplaces “deeply troubling.”

Azar’s comments align with the stance of the meatpacking industry. As meat processing plants have become coronavirus hot spots, the industry has assigned blame to the living conditions of workers, not failures in workplace safety.

When the Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in South Dakota became one of the largest known coronavirus clusters in the country, with over 700 people infected, the company blamed “living circumstances in certain cultures are different than they are with your traditional American family.”

The company said many of the infected workers lived in the same building and apartment. Conversations with workers revealed Smithfield did little to inform or protect employees in the period immediately after the first case of infection was discovered.


Meatpacking industry workers are disproportionately people of color, immigrants, and people in low-income families. More than 44% of the industry is Hispanic and 25% is black, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

“President Trump and his Administration are giving more value to a piece of meat than the lives of American workers and their children,” Rep. Tony Cardenás, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus' fundraising arm, told BuzzFeed News in a statement on Friday. “Once again President Trump is ignoring science and the truth. He wants to give immunity to large food corporations and require hard-working people, some U.S. citizens, and some undocumented, to risk their lives. This is wrong, this is criminal.”

The issue, given its intersection of rights for workers and for people of color in the middle of a public health crisis, will factor into this year’s presidential campaign. Joe Biden, the likely Democratic nominee to face Trump in the general election, focused on the meatpackers Monday during a forum with the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC.

“It’s always been dangerous,” Biden said of the work. “It’s always been underpaid. And now add that to the extreme threat of COVID-19 made all the worse by fear that workers are living with every single day. They’re afraid to go to work, because what happens if they get ill, what happens if they get COVID-19? They’re afraid to stay home because of what it means for their livelihood. … They’re afraid to come home after work, because of what they might be bringing back and spread to people they love and adore. They’re afraid to seek proper medical care, because what if it meant that their immigration status is in jeopardy and be changed?”

On Friday, a Biden campaign spokesperson characterized Azar’s comments to lawmakers as an extension of an inadequate Trump administration response to the coronavirus crisis.

"Secretary Azar's comments are part and parcel of Trump and his administration's refusal to take responsibility for their abject failure on the coronavirus — a failure that has left over 75,000 Americans dead, with over a million more infected, and 33 million workers newly jobless,” the spokesperson, Mike Gwin, said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. “Essential workers, like those in meat processing plants — along with health care workers and first responders — desperately need life-saving personal protective equipment, not more excuses from Trump about why he hasn't gotten them the supplies they need to battle this virus.”

Over 10,000 positive coronavirus tests have been linked to at least 170 meat processing plants across the country.

Azar’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

UPDATE
May 8, 2020, at 11:41 a.m.
This post has been updated with comment from Rep. Tony Cardenás, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus' fundraising arm.

UPDATE
May 8, 2020, at 12:24 p.m.
This post has been updated with comment from a Biden campaign spokesperson.


MORE ON THIS
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Albert Samaha · April 20, 2020

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Brianna Sacks · April 16, 2020




Kadia Goba is a political reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Washington, DC.

Paul McLeod is a politics reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Washington, DC.

Henry Gomez is a political reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Cleveland, Ohio.

WHITE SOUTH AFRIKANER* GIVES WHITE POWER SIGN

AFP/File / Brendan SmialowskiElon Musk, pictured in March 2020,

 has called coronavirus restrictions "fascist"

Musk threatens removing Tesla from California over virus restrictions

Tesla chief Elon Musk on Saturday threatened to pull his electric car headquarters and plant out of California after local authorities kept him from resuming production due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"Frankly, this is the final straw. Tesla will now move its HQ and future programs to Texas/Nevada immediately," Musk tweeted in a long diatribe, characteristic of past online rants which are not necessarily carried out.

Referring to the California city where the cars are produced, Musk said that "if we even retain Fremont manufacturing activity at all" it will depend on "how Tesla is treated in the future."

Tesla had hoped to reopen the California factory, its only in the United States, in the beginning of May, but had been prevented by local authorities.

Musk highlighted the company's experience in China, where production of electric cars resumed after the country's COVID-19 epidemic was brought under control.

"Tesla knows far more about what needs to be done to be safe through our Tesla China factory experience than an (unelected) interim junior official," he tweeted, referencing a local-level health officer.

The irascible, outspoken billionaire, who announced the birth of a son with musician Grimes earlier this week, threatened to "immediately" sue Alameda County where the plant is located, accusing its authorities of being "irrational & detached from reality."

Its health officer, he said, had acted contrary "to the Governor, the President, our Constitutional freedoms & just plain common sense!"

Musk made headlines just over a week ago with a different Twitter rant declaring that Tesla's stock was overvalued, which sent the electric carmaker's shares tumbling more than 10 percent.

Several days prior he delivered an expletive-laden diatribe during an earnings call in which he dubbed coronavirus restrictions "fascist."

Tesla managed to post a modest but surprise $16 million in profit during the first quarter, a 33 percent jump in car deliveries and turnover that climbed 32 percent to $5.99 billion.

*MUSK BIO

https://www.ilctr.org/entrepreneur-hof/elon-musk/?gclid=CjwKCAjwqdn1BRBREiwAEbZcR5WhATYFiwtfYU5I5cETWhdX_rGrL0TqQ3IczzT9-Af860GsbmBmoRoCY8MQAvD_BwE

#METOOKOREA 

S. Korean Olympic speed skating champion guilty of sex harassment

MALE ENTITLEMENT LIKE THE BOY BANDS OF KOREA

AFP / JAVIER SORIANOLim Hyo-jun won the 1500m short-track speed skating gold medal at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics

South Korean Olympic short-track speed skating gold medallist Lim Hyo-jun was convicted Thursday of sexually harassing a fellow male athlete by pulling down his trousers, a Seoul court said.

Lim, 23, won the 1500m on home ice at the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang and also took bronze in the 500m.

But last year he was charged for forcibly pulling down the victim's clothing in front of teammates at the national training centre, and in August was banned from competition for a year.

He was fined 3 million won ($2,500) and ordered to undergo 40 hours of therapy for sex offenders, a spokesperson for Seoul Central District Court told AFP.

Reports said prosecutors had requested a prison sentence.

The South is a regional sporting power and regularly in the top 10 medal table places at the summer and winter Olympics.

But in an already intensely competitive society, winning is virtually everything in its sports community -- and physical and verbal abuse are rife.

The nation's short-track speed skating community in particular has faced several serious abuse scandals in recent years.

Last year, double Olympic gold medallist Shim Suk-hee went public with accusations her former coach sexually molested and physically abused her multiple times.

The coach was jailed for a year-and-a-half.

Also in 2019, a male skater was suspended for a month after secretly getting into the female dorm at the national training centre.

Brady, athletes demand probe over black jogger killing

NO COMMENT FROM TRUMP YET

GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File / ELSASix-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady was among the athletes who on Friday called for an investigation into the shooting death of an unarmed black jogger in a letter to US Attorney General William Barr

Tom Brady joined dozens of athletes on Friday in calling for a US federal investigation into the shooting death of an unarmed black jogger whose killing was captured on a video that triggered outrage.

A letter by the NFL Players Coalition, established in 2017 to campaign for social and racial justice, was sent to Attorney General William Barr demanding action over the slaying of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery in February.

Arbery was killed as he ran in broad daylight through a residential neighborhood in the town of Brunswick, Georgia.

The white father and son who chased Arbery and shot him, Gregory and Travis McMichael, were arrested and charged with murder on Thursday after the emergence of cell phone footage which showed the killing.

In its letter to Barr on Friday, the Players Coalition said a federal investigation was necessary to restore confidence in the justice system.

Local authorities had been criticized for their failure to arrest or charge the McMichaels prior to the release of the damning video footage.

"The local investigation into this case is marred by conflicts, inaction ... and the current prosecutor's total failure to act until social media forced his hand," Players Coalition co-founder Anquan Boldin wrote in the letter to Barr.

"The local police force can never be independent, as the elder-McMichael used to work there ... If people are to have faith in the justice system, the Department of Justice must act with the FBI leading the investigation."

Superstar quarterback Brady was among dozens of current and former NFL players who co-signed the letter along with several figures from the NBA, including Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr.

The Players Coalition letter comes after a furious outcry across the United States led by political figures, celebrities and athletes.

"We're literally hunted EVERYDAY/EVERYTIME we step foot outside the comfort of our homes!" basketball great LeBron James said on Instagram. "Can't even go for a damn jogman! Like WTF are you kidding me?!?!"

Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden also called for justice.

"The video is clear: Ahmaud Arbery was killed in cold blood," Biden wrote on Twitter. "My heart goes out to his family, who deserve justice and deserve it now."

Weight off their minds: Olympian's online workouts feed Philippines families

AFP/File / Ted ALJIBE 

Hidilyn Diaz is one of the Philippines' best known athletes

Filipina weightlifting star Hidilyn Diaz noticed live-streamed concerts were collecting money for coronavirus relief and was struck by inspiration: why not raise funds with an online workout?

Since then the Olympic silver-medallist -- and strong contender for her country's first Games gold -- has made enough money to buy food packs for hundreds of hard-hit families in the Philippines.

Diaz has done it all from Malaysia, where she was training to qualify for the now-postponed Tokyo Olympics when much of the world locked down against the virus in March.

"I thought (distribution) would be impossible because I'm not physically present," Diaz, 29, told AFP.

"It's a good thing that I have trusted friends and trusted family members who understand why we need to do a fundraising."

That circle of supporters has handed out the packages, which include vegetables, eggs and rice, to more than 400 families.

The food was bought with donations from about 50 people who joined sessions that lasted up to three hours, and gave them a rare chance to train with an elite athlete.

- 'Losing my mind' -

Diaz rose to fame in 2016 after snagging a surprise silver in the 53 kilogramme category in Rio, becoming the Philippines' first female Olympic medallist and ending the nation's 20-year medal drought at the Games.

Two years later, she won gold at the Asian Games in Indonesia.

However, her quest to qualify for Tokyo is on hold ahead of the Games' rescheduled opening in July 2021.

"I thought all the hard work would soon be over... then it was extended," she said. "But I'm still thankful I can still continue with (the training) I need to do."

Still, the lockdown broke her daily training regimen, keeping her away from weights for 14 days for the first time in her career.

"I felt like I was losing my mind already. I've been carrying the barbell for 18 years and all of a sudden it's gone. Those were the kinds of anxiety that I felt," she said.

But she got access to some equipment, and with her coach's urging, got back to work. She was relieved to find her strength was still there.

Instead of a Tokyo berth, the past months have been about a different kind of accomplishment for Diaz: helping her countrymen get through the coronavirus crisis.

Rosemelyn Francisco's family in Zamboanga City, Diaz's home town, is one of the first to get help from the athlete's initiative, and is deeply grateful.

Her family was not wealthy to begin with, and the pandemic has cost her husband his construction job.

"The food she donated has all everything we need, including eggs," said Francis

Maradona autographs shirt to help Buenos Aires poor

 AT FIRST I THOUGHT IT SAID MADONNA ......

AFP / JUAN MABROMATADiego Maradona's autographed shirt is displayed at a community eatery in Buenos Aires

Diego Maradona has lent a hand in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic in his hometown by autographing an Argentina national team jersey for a raffle.

The sale raised money for an underprivileged area on the outskirts of Buenos Aires affected by quarantine rules.

"We're going to get through it," Maradona wrote on the jersey, a replica of the one he wore when he led his country to victory in the 1986 World Cup.

AFP/File / STAFFDiego Maradona has contributed a replica of the shirt he wore in the 1986 World Cup to charity

The jersey was first offered at auction, but is being raffled to those who have given donations in an initiative that has collected hygiene products, masks and around 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of food for charity.

"Diego can't even imagine what he has done for us, it's priceless. I'll be grateful to him until the day I die," said local resident Marta Gutierrez.

In addition to the pandemic, Argentina is facing a serious economic crisis and is in laborious negotiations on debt restructuring with creditors.

US women's national team files appeal after legal setback

AFP / Lionel BONAVENTURELevinson said the women are being discriminated against because they are not getting as much as the men on a per game basis

The US women's national team on Friday filed an appeal against a legal setback in their equal pay lawsuit, saying they are being paid less than the men even though they win twice as much.

In dismissing their equal pay claim last Friday, Judge Gary Klausner said the case was unwarranted because they had previously turned down an offer in the Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations to be paid along the lines of the US men's team.

"The argument that women gave up a right to equal pay by accepting the best collective bargaining agreement possible in response to the Federation's refusal to put equal pay on the table is not a legitimate reason for continuing to discriminate against them," said USWNT spokesperson Molly Levinson on Friday night.

She listed a series of grievances in the motion to appeal which was filed in a federal district court in California and is part of a larger lawsuit for equal pay.

Levinson said the women are being discriminated against because they are not getting as much as the men on a per game basis and that making "close to the same amount" is not valid.

"Equal pay means paying women players the same rate for winning a game as men get paid," Levinson said.

"The argument that women are paid enough if they make close to the same amount as men while winning more than twice as often is not equal pay.

"The argument that maternity leave is some sort of substitute for paying women players the same rate for winning as men is not valid, nor fair, nor equal.

"Today, we are filing a motion to allow us to appeal immediately the district court's decision so that the Ninth Circuit will be able to review these claims."

The US women, who clinched back-to-back World Cup wins with victory at last year's finals in France, had based their claim for back pay in the disparities between prize money distributed by FIFA at the men's and women's World Cups.

The USWNT also takes issue with Klausner pointing out that between the years 2015-2019, the women were paid more money than the men on both a cumulative and an average per game basis.

During that period the women's national team received $24 million and an average of $220,747 per game while the men's team received payments of $18 million and $212,639 per game.

Under the current CBA, which was signed in 2017, more than half the women's team players receive an annual base salary of $167,000.

Klausner did allow some claims of gender discrimination to go ahead in areas such as travel, housing and medical support.

With attention on virus, Amazon deforestation surges

AFP/File / CARL DE SOUZABrazilian farmer Helio Lombardo Do Santos walks through a burned area of the Amazon rainforest near Porto Velho, Rondonia state on August 26, 2019

It has not gotten much attention with the world focused on coronavirus, but deforestation has surged in the Amazon rainforest this year, raising fears of a repeat of last year's record-breaking devastation -- or worse.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon hit a new high in the first four months of the year, according to data released Friday by Brazil's National Space Research Institute (INPE), which uses satellite images to track the destruction.

A total of 1,202 square kilometers of forest (464 square miles) -- an area more than 20 times the size of Manhattan -- was wiped out in the Brazilian Amazon from January to April, it found.

That was a 55 percent increase from the same period last year, and the highest figure for the first four months of the year since monthly records began in August 2015.

The numbers raise new questions about how well Brazil is protecting its share of the world's biggest rainforest under President Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right climate change skeptic who advocates opening protected lands to mining and farming.

"Unfortunately, it looks like what we can expect for this year are more record-breaking fires and deforestation," Greenpeace campaigner Romulo Batista said in a statement.

- 'Paracetamol for a toothache' -

Mato Grosso State Communication Department/AFP / Mayke TOSCANOThis photo from the state of Mato Grosso shows deforestation in the Amazon basin in the municipality of Colniza on August 29, 2019

Last year, in Bolsonaro's first year in office, deforestation soared 85 percent in the Brazilian Amazon, to 10,123 square kilometers of forest.

That loss -- nearly the size of Lebanon -- fueled worldwide alarm over the future of the rainforest, seen as vital to curbing climate change.

The destruction was driven by record wildfires that raged across the Amazon from May to October, in addition to illegal logging, mining and farming on protected lands.

The trend so far in 2020 is all the more worrying given that the usual high season for deforestation only starts in late May.

"The beginning of the year is not the time where deforestation normally happens, because it's raining, and it's raining a lot," said Erika Berenguer, an ecologist at Oxford and Lancaster Universities.

"In the past, when we see deforestation increase in the beginning of the year, it's an indicator that when deforestation season starts... you're going to see an increase, as well."

Bolsonaro this week authorized the army to deploy to the Amazon to fight fires and deforestation from May 11.

He also deployed the army last year, after facing scathing international criticism for downplaying the fires.

Environmentalists said a better plan would be to give more support to Brazil's environmental protection programs.

Under Bolsonaro, environmental agency IBAMA has faced staffing and budget cuts. Last month, the government fired the agency's top environmental enforcement officer, after he authorized a raid on illegal miners that was broadcast on television.

Another problem with the government's military strategy, said Berenguer, is that it has focused exclusively on fires.

That ignores the fact that fires are often caused by illegal farmers and ranchers bulldozing trees and then burning them, she told AFP.

Addressing only the fires "is like me taking paracetamol because I have a toothache: it's going to reduce the pain, but if it's a cavity, it's not going to cure it," she said.

- Twin tragedies -

AFP / MICHAEL DANTASA man mourns at a site where new graves have been dug for suspected and confirmed victims of the coronavirus pandemic at the Nossa Senhora cemetary in Manaus, Amazon state on May 6, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic is only making things more complicated in the Amazon region.

Brazil, which holds more than 60 percent of the Amazon, is the epicenter of the pandemic in Latin America, with nearly 10,000 deaths so far.

The state of Amazonas, largely covered in forest, has been one of the hardest hit.

With only one intensive care unit, the state has been overwhelmed by the outbreak.

There are also fears of the potentially devastating effects the virus could have among indigenous communities, which are historically vulnerable to outside diseases.

With attention, resources and lives taken away by coronavirus, the fear is that officials, environmentalists and inhabitants could have less capacity to protect the forest.

The mayor of the state capital, Manaus, Arthur Virgilio, drew a link between the two tragedies this week in an appeal for help from world leaders.

"We need medical personnel, ventilators, protective equipment, anything that can save the lives of those who protect the forest," he said.

It is unclear whether the pandemic will have an impact on deforestation, but the fact that they have surged in tandem in Brazil is cause for concern.

"There is a web of connected factors (driving deforestation), and in the context of coronavirus, things are even more worrying," Greenpeace Brazil spokeswoman Carolina Marcal told AFP.

Iraq's new govt reaches out to October protesters

IRAQI PRIME MINISTER'S PRESS OFFICE/AFP/File / Handout

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Kadhemi (L) sits next to outgoing premier Adel Abdel Mahdi during a meeting with members of the new government in Baghdad on May 7, 2020

Iraq's new government promised Saturday to release demonstrators arrested during mass protests that erupted in October and pledged justice and compensation to relatives of over 550 people killed during that unrest.

The announcement was made in a televised address following Prime Minister Mustafa Kadhemi's first cabinet meeting.

Kadhemi, who with 15 of his proposed 22 ministers won the confidence of Parliament on Wednesday evening, promised "the truth about everything that happened" during the months-long protests.

He vowed to "hold to account all those who shed Iraqi blood".

Kadhemi was Iraq's spy chief when the protests broke out and the address to the nation comes as calls spread on social media for renewed demonstrations on Sunday.

The government of his predecessor Adel Abdel Mahdi had since October repeatedly said it could not find the "unidentified gunmen" who fired on protesters who took to the streets to demand the overhaul of the political system.

At the start of the protests that would become the largest and bloodiest social movement in Iraq's recent history, many demonstrators carried portraits of General Abdulwahab al-Saadi -- a highly popular figure in the military campaign to dislodge the Islamic State from Mosul in 2017. He had been dismissed by Abdel Mahdi in September.

Kadhemi on Saturday reinstated the general as the head of counter-terrorism, putting him back in charge of units created and armed by the Americans.
The new Iraqi premier has long been seen as Washington's man in Baghdad, but he has also forged close ties with America's arch-foe Iran.

Kadhemi also called on parliament to adopt a new electoral law needed for early elections that had been promised by his predecessor.

The new government had presented itself as a "transitional" cabinet on Wednesday evening.

It rescinded a decision taken by the outgoing government just before it stepped down that blocked all state spending, including civil servants' salaries and pension payments -- relied on by one in five Iraqis.

Pensions will be paid out in the coming days, Kadhemi promised.

But an implosion of oil prices amid the coronavirus pandemic indicates that Iraq will have little option but to impose austerity policies that could give rise to renewed protests.

10MAY2020

Tests show UVC lamps could light the way in virus fight
REMEMBER TRUMPS LIGHT SOLUTION TO COVID-19

Columbia University/AFP / Manuela BuonannoThis photo taken on March 26, 2020 by Columbia University researcher Manuela Buonanno shows an experiment being conducted on the use of a special kind of ultraviolet rays against the coronavirus

Could a new type of ultraviolet lamp be used in stations, airplanes and schools to kill dangerous viruses, becoming a gamechanger in the COVID-19 fight?

Researchers at Columbia University have been working on such uses for years, and the current pandemic could confirm the value of their efforts.

UVC lamps have long been used to kill bacteria, viruses and molds, notably in hospitals and in the food-processing industry. As the coronavirus pandemic knocks world economies on their heels, this technology is experiencing a boom.

But UVC (for Ultraviolet-C) rays are dangerous, causing skin cancer and eye problems, and can be used only when no one is present.

The New York subway system, following the example of Chinese subways, plans to use ultraviolet lamps to disinfect its trains, but only during nighttime closures.

A team at Columbia's Center for Radiological Research is experimenting with so-called far-UVC, rays whose wavelength of 222 nanometers makes them safe for humans but still lethal to viruses, the center's director, David Brenner, told AFP.

At those frequencies, he explained, the rays cannot penetrate the surface of the skin nor of the eye.

That means they could be used in closed and crowded spaces where contamination risks run high, with potentially huge promise for use during the current pandemic.

In late April, President Donald Trump offered confusing remarks about somehow projecting ultraviolet rays into people's bodies to kill the coronavirus.

He appeared to be inspired by federal research on the effects of natural light on the virus -- but natural light has no UVC rays.

In 2013, the Columbia team began studying the effectiveness of far-UVC against drug-resistant bacteria. It next examined the rays' use against viruses, including the flu virus. Only recently did it turn its attention to the coronavirus.

"We were thinking, how can we apply what we are doing to the current situation," Brenner said.

But to test the impact of UVC on the extremely contagious coronavirus, the team had to move its equipment into a highly bio-secure laboratory at Columbia.

Experiments carried out starting "three-four weeks ago," Brenner said, have already made clear that UVC rays destroy the virus on surfaces within minutes.

The team next plans to test the lamps on viruses suspended in the air, as when an infected person coughs or sneezes.

Columbia University Irving Medical Center/AFP/File / -David Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University in New York, is seen in an undated photo provided by the university's medical center

In parallel, tests are being conducted to confirm that these rays are harmless to humans.

For 40 weeks now, the lab has exposed mice to far-UVC rays for "eight hours a day, five days a week, at intensities 20 times higher than we might think of using with humans."

The results?

After testing the rodents' eyes and skin, "we have found absolutely nothing; the mice are very happy -- and very cute as well," Brenner said.

The experiment is set to continue for 20 more weeks.

The findings cannot be fully validated by the scientific community until all remaining steps have been taken, even if the team has already submitted its preliminary results to the journal Nature.

- 'The world has changed' -

But the pressure to reopen the world's economies has become so enormous that factories are accelerating their production of ultraviolet lamps without waiting.

"We really need something in situations like offices, restaurants, airplanes, hospitals," Brenner said.

If UVC lamps have already been in commercial use for two or three years -- notably in the diamond industry, where they can be used to distinguish artificial from real gems -- potential clients are now legion, say companies producing them.

"We felt for a long time this is a great application for this technology," said John Yerger, the CEO of Eden Park Illumination, a small producer based in Champaign, Illinois.

But with the pandemic, "the world has changed a lot in the last three months," he added.

And the US Food and Drug Administration has relaxed its regulation of tools or agents that can be used for disinfection, encouraging manufacturers to find a solution.

"There will be thousands and thousands of these things (UVC lamps) for sure," Yerger said. "The question is, will it be millions?"

"What we are seeing is a tremendous amount of customer interest" to produce lamps for airlines, cruise ships, restaurants, movie theaters and schools, said Shinji Kameda, chief operations officer in the US for Ushio, a Japanese manufacturer.

USHIO/AFP/File / HandoutA model of a far-UVC lamp, the Care222, produced by the American subsidiary of the Japanese company Ushio, which provided the photo; far-UVC rays are being tested for their ability to kill the coronavirus

Production of its 222-nanometer lamps, sold for $500 to $800 and already used in some Japanese hospitals, will be stepped up in October, he said.

In the meantime, Brenner said he has been losing sleep.

"I spend nights thinking -- if this far-UVC project had started one or two years earlier, maybe we could have prevented the COVID-19 crisis," he said.

"Not completely, but maybe we could have prevented it being a pandemic."