US Largest Public Utility To Outsource Hundreds Of Jobs Amid Covid-19
Despite Trump’s ‘America First’ policy, the Tennessee Valley Authority is outsourcing hundreds of federal jobs overseas.
Sunday, May 10, 2020
World Food Programme head warns Covid-19 pandemic could provoke 'famines of biblical proportions'
08/05/2020
THE INTERVIEW © FRANCE 24
By:Marc Perelman
By:Marc Perelman
The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) is warning of potential famines of "biblical proportions" as the Covid-19 pandemic affects countries in an already dire situation. In an interview with FRANCE 24, the United Nation's WFP Executive Director David Beasley said he was especially worried about a breakdown in the supply chain that allows his agency to provide food to dozens of millions of people around the globe.
WFP head David Beasley expressed confidence that donor nations would respond to a $4.7 billion fundraising call launched this week by the UN to help those in need, despite the recession hitting many rich countries. He also stressed that top Trump administration officials and key US congressional leaders had reassured him that they understood the need to maintain funding for the food emergency.
However, he called on "the world's billionaires" to do more, saying, "It's time for you to step up in a way you've never stepped up before; people are in need ... this is a one-time phenomenon and we need your help."
He warned that the situation in Africa was likely to become much worse in the coming weeks, in large part because of the economic collapse provoked by the Covid-19 pandemic. "Almost a quarter of a billion people will be marching towards starvation because of the economic deterioration from Covid, wars, conflicts... It is a perfect storm. I do wish I were exaggerating, but we are really looking at what could be famines of biblical proportions in multiple countries, and especially in Africa," Beasley told FRANCE 24's Marc Perelman.
WFP head David Beasley expressed confidence that donor nations would respond to a $4.7 billion fundraising call launched this week by the UN to help those in need, despite the recession hitting many rich countries. He also stressed that top Trump administration officials and key US congressional leaders had reassured him that they understood the need to maintain funding for the food emergency.
However, he called on "the world's billionaires" to do more, saying, "It's time for you to step up in a way you've never stepped up before; people are in need ... this is a one-time phenomenon and we need your help."
He warned that the situation in Africa was likely to become much worse in the coming weeks, in large part because of the economic collapse provoked by the Covid-19 pandemic. "Almost a quarter of a billion people will be marching towards starvation because of the economic deterioration from Covid, wars, conflicts... It is a perfect storm. I do wish I were exaggerating, but we are really looking at what could be famines of biblical proportions in multiple countries, and especially in Africa," Beasley told FRANCE 24's Marc Perelman.
TRUMPETTES IN THE LAND OF OZ
Arrests, conspiracy theories at Australia anti-lockdown protest
10/05/2020
Arrests, conspiracy theories at Australia anti-lockdown protest
10/05/2020
An anti-lockdown protester holds placards on the steps of Victoria's state parliament in Melbourne William WEST AFP
Melbourne (AFP)
Ten people were arrested and a police officer injured Sunday at an anti-lockdown protest in Melbourne, where demonstrators claimed coronavirus was a government-engineered conspiracy designed to control the population.
About 150 protesters rallied outside Victoria's state parliament to protest against a shutdown aimed at stemming the spread of COVID-19, while also peddling conspiracy theories about the virus.
Most Australian states and territories have begun easing restrictions, but Victoria has delayed relaxing its measures amid an outbreak at a Melbourne slaughterhouse that caused a spike in new cases.
In scenes reminiscent of anti-lockdown protests in the United States, demonstrators carried placards reading "fight for your freedom and rights", and directed their ire at the founder of Microsoft, chanting "arrest Bill Gates".
Fano Panayides, 37, said he was sceptical of the government declaring the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, saying he believed it was a cover for authorities to gain greater control over the population.
"If this thing was half as deadly as they said it was, with half the population out there still working -- even with the lockdown orders -- this thing would've spread like wildfire through Australia. There'd be no stopping it," he told AFP.
Health experts credit Australia's success in curbing the spread of COVID-19 to an effective nationwide shutdown.
A spokeswoman for Victoria police said 10 people were arrested at Sunday's rally, mostly for breaching social distancing and stay-at-home orders.
"Three of the offenders will also be charged with assaulting a police officer, and another offender will be charged with discharging a missile after allegedly throwing a bottle at police," she said.
The spokeswoman added that police were working to track down other protest attendees, who could face Aus$1,600 fines for breaching coronavirus shutdown rules.
Australian chief medical officer Brendan Murphy said there was "a lot of very silly misinformation out there", including that the virus was linked to 5G.
"I have unfortunately received a lot of communication from these conspiracy theorists myself. It is complete nonsense. 5G has got nothing at all to do with coronavirus," he said.
Australia has recorded about 7,000 cases of COVID-19 and less than 100 deaths from the virus.
Melbourne (AFP)
Ten people were arrested and a police officer injured Sunday at an anti-lockdown protest in Melbourne, where demonstrators claimed coronavirus was a government-engineered conspiracy designed to control the population.
About 150 protesters rallied outside Victoria's state parliament to protest against a shutdown aimed at stemming the spread of COVID-19, while also peddling conspiracy theories about the virus.
Most Australian states and territories have begun easing restrictions, but Victoria has delayed relaxing its measures amid an outbreak at a Melbourne slaughterhouse that caused a spike in new cases.
In scenes reminiscent of anti-lockdown protests in the United States, demonstrators carried placards reading "fight for your freedom and rights", and directed their ire at the founder of Microsoft, chanting "arrest Bill Gates".
Fano Panayides, 37, said he was sceptical of the government declaring the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, saying he believed it was a cover for authorities to gain greater control over the population.
"If this thing was half as deadly as they said it was, with half the population out there still working -- even with the lockdown orders -- this thing would've spread like wildfire through Australia. There'd be no stopping it," he told AFP.
Health experts credit Australia's success in curbing the spread of COVID-19 to an effective nationwide shutdown.
A spokeswoman for Victoria police said 10 people were arrested at Sunday's rally, mostly for breaching social distancing and stay-at-home orders.
"Three of the offenders will also be charged with assaulting a police officer, and another offender will be charged with discharging a missile after allegedly throwing a bottle at police," she said.
The spokeswoman added that police were working to track down other protest attendees, who could face Aus$1,600 fines for breaching coronavirus shutdown rules.
Australian chief medical officer Brendan Murphy said there was "a lot of very silly misinformation out there", including that the virus was linked to 5G.
"I have unfortunately received a lot of communication from these conspiracy theorists myself. It is complete nonsense. 5G has got nothing at all to do with coronavirus," he said.
Australia has recorded about 7,000 cases of COVID-19 and less than 100 deaths from the virus.
COVID Bailout Cash Goes To Big Players That Have Paid Millions To Settle Allegations Of Wrongdoing
2020/5/9
©Kaiser Health News
The Trump administration has sent hundreds of millions of dollars in pandemic-related bailouts to health care providers with checkered histories, including a Florida-based cancer center that agreed to pay a $100 million criminal penalty as part of a federal antitrust investigation.
At least half of the top 10 recipients, part of a group that received $20 billion in emergency funding from the Department of Health and Human Services, have paid millions in recent years either in criminal penalties or to settle allegations related to improper billing and other practices, a Kaiser Health News review of government records shows.
They include Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute, one of the nation’s largest U.S. oncology practices, which in late Aprilsaid it would pay a $100 million penalty for engaging in a nearly two-decade-long antitrust scheme to suppress competition. A top Justice Department lawyer described the plot as “limiting treatment options available to cancer patients in order to line their pockets.” The company, which is required to pay the first $40 million in penalties by June 1, received more than $67 million in HHS bailout funds.
HHS distributed emergency funding to hospitals and other providers to help offset revenue losses or expenses related to COVID-19. In April, it distributed the first $50 billion based on providers’ net patient revenue, a calculation that gives more money to bigger systems or institutions charging higher prices.
Companies that have attested to receiving payments as of May 4 collectively received roughly $20 billion. The list is likely to change in the coming days as other companies confirm they’ve received money.
In total, the CARES Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump in March, provides $100 billion in emergency funding. Subsequent coronavirus relief legislation added another $75 billion. Money has also been steered to hot spots with high numbers of COVID-19 patients, rural health care providers and the Indian Health Service.
Of the companies documented to date, other top recipients ― including Dignity Health in Phoenix, the Cleveland Clinic, Houston’s Memorial Hermann Health System and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston — have paid millions in recent years to resolve allegations related to improper billing in federal health programs, false claims to increase their payments or lax oversight that enabled employees to steal prescription painkillers.
Dignity Health, one of the largest hospital systems in the West, received $180.3 million in HHS bailout funds, making it the top recipient listed. It has settled civil accusations by DOJ that it submitted false claims to Medicare and TriCare, the military health care program.
The Cleveland Clinic, which in 2015 paid $1.74 million to settlefederal allegations that it mischarged Medicare for costly spinal procedures to increase their billings and has entered into other similar settlements, received $103.3 million from HHS, the second-largest amount.
Memorial Hermann Health System and Massachusetts General Hospital received more than $93 million and $58 million, respectively. In 2018, Memorial Hermann paidnearly $2 million to the government to settle allegations that it improperly billed government health care programs by charging for higher-cost services when patients only needed lower-cost outpatient services.
Massachusetts General Hospital in 2015 paid the federal government $2.3 million to settle allegationsthat lax oversight enabled hospital employees to steal thousands of prescription medications, mostly addictive painkillers, for personal use.
Malcolm Sparrow, a professor at the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government, said the HHS methodology for its general distribution of relief funds is “a little bit worrying.”
“If you peg the amount based on historical volume and you’ve got good reason to believe that historical volume is inflated due to fraud and abuse, the irony is that they get more money because they’re more dishonest,” Sparrow said. “But you can’t prove that in a short period of time.”
Public tolerance for fraud and abuse naturally rises during times of emergency, Sparrow said, and now is not the time to revisit historical decisions to determine which companies are entitled to federal relief based on legal issues.
“I think that’s a tough case to make,” he said.
HHS has criteria for disqualifying providersfrom receiving bailout money. But even the strongest condition carries a broad caveat: None of the funds may be used for grants to any corporation convicted of a felony criminal violation within the preceding two years ― unless officials have decided that it is not necessary to prohibit them from doing business with the federal government.
“It’s sort of a high bar” for someone to be disqualified for this money, said Roger Cohen, a health care lawyer at Goodwin who specializes in fraud and anti-kickback law.
The Florida oncology provider has been charged with a felony and admitted to an antitrust crime, however federal prosecutors agreed to defer any prosecution and trial because a criminal conviction would have “significant collateral consequences” for its patients, the DOJ said.
Beyond that, HHS in its terms states that providers have to certify that they are not excluded from participating in federal health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid and have not had their Medicare billing privileges revoked.
The HHS Inspector General has the authority to exclude practitioners and health care companies for a wide variety of reasons — including a conviction of fraud ― but it’s highly unusual for the federal government to do so with large institutions, experts say.
“I imagine there would be hesitancy to exclude the provider,” Cohen said. “I think you’d have concerns about interrupting access to care.”
An HHS spokesperson declined to comment on its existing allocations but said the department has rules in place to recoup funds and address fraudulent activity if necessary.
“Failure to comply with any term or condition is grounds for HHS to recoup some or all of the payment from the provider,” the spokesperson said.
In a statement, Florida Cancer Specialists signaled it intended to use the funding.
“During this health crisis, we have continued to keep the doors of our more than 80 facilities open to ensure that cancer patients have access to care and treatment,” Thomas Clark, the company’s chief legal officer, wrote in an email. “We plan to use these funds, if needed, in accordance with government guidelines to continue providing affordable, safe and high-quality cancer care.”
Dignity Health said, “We have had to bear significant costs to prepare for and manage the pandemic in our communities even as patient volumes have been dramatically reduced across our hospitals.”
In October 2014, Dignity agreed to pay $37 millionafter the Department of Justice alleged it admitted patients to 13 of its hospitals in California, Nevada and Arizona who could have been treated on a “less costly, outpatient basis.” The civil case involved patients treated for elective heart procedures, such as pacemakers and stents, and other conditions. The company did not acknowledge wrongdoing in settling the case.
“Charging the government for higher-cost inpatient services that patients do not need wastes the country’s vital health care dollars,” acting Assistant Attorney General Joyce Branda for the Justice Department’s Civil Division said at the time. “This department will continue its work to stop abuses of the nation’s health care resources and to ensure patients receive the most appropriate care.”
Dignity said that independent annual audits were conducted after the False Claims Act settlement in 2014 and “no additional concerns were raised related to this issue.”
Massachusetts General Hospital and Memorial Hermann did not respond to requests for comment. The Cleveland Clinic confirmed the amount of money received from HHS but declined to comment further.
Kaiser Health News(KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundationwhich is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
©Kaiser Health News
The Trump administration has sent hundreds of millions of dollars in pandemic-related bailouts to health care providers with checkered histories, including a Florida-based cancer center that agreed to pay a $100 million criminal penalty as part of a federal antitrust investigation.
At least half of the top 10 recipients, part of a group that received $20 billion in emergency funding from the Department of Health and Human Services, have paid millions in recent years either in criminal penalties or to settle allegations related to improper billing and other practices, a Kaiser Health News review of government records shows.
They include Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute, one of the nation’s largest U.S. oncology practices, which in late Aprilsaid it would pay a $100 million penalty for engaging in a nearly two-decade-long antitrust scheme to suppress competition. A top Justice Department lawyer described the plot as “limiting treatment options available to cancer patients in order to line their pockets.” The company, which is required to pay the first $40 million in penalties by June 1, received more than $67 million in HHS bailout funds.
HHS distributed emergency funding to hospitals and other providers to help offset revenue losses or expenses related to COVID-19. In April, it distributed the first $50 billion based on providers’ net patient revenue, a calculation that gives more money to bigger systems or institutions charging higher prices.
Companies that have attested to receiving payments as of May 4 collectively received roughly $20 billion. The list is likely to change in the coming days as other companies confirm they’ve received money.
In total, the CARES Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump in March, provides $100 billion in emergency funding. Subsequent coronavirus relief legislation added another $75 billion. Money has also been steered to hot spots with high numbers of COVID-19 patients, rural health care providers and the Indian Health Service.
Of the companies documented to date, other top recipients ― including Dignity Health in Phoenix, the Cleveland Clinic, Houston’s Memorial Hermann Health System and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston — have paid millions in recent years to resolve allegations related to improper billing in federal health programs, false claims to increase their payments or lax oversight that enabled employees to steal prescription painkillers.
Dignity Health, one of the largest hospital systems in the West, received $180.3 million in HHS bailout funds, making it the top recipient listed. It has settled civil accusations by DOJ that it submitted false claims to Medicare and TriCare, the military health care program.
The Cleveland Clinic, which in 2015 paid $1.74 million to settlefederal allegations that it mischarged Medicare for costly spinal procedures to increase their billings and has entered into other similar settlements, received $103.3 million from HHS, the second-largest amount.
Memorial Hermann Health System and Massachusetts General Hospital received more than $93 million and $58 million, respectively. In 2018, Memorial Hermann paidnearly $2 million to the government to settle allegations that it improperly billed government health care programs by charging for higher-cost services when patients only needed lower-cost outpatient services.
Massachusetts General Hospital in 2015 paid the federal government $2.3 million to settle allegationsthat lax oversight enabled hospital employees to steal thousands of prescription medications, mostly addictive painkillers, for personal use.
Malcolm Sparrow, a professor at the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government, said the HHS methodology for its general distribution of relief funds is “a little bit worrying.”
“If you peg the amount based on historical volume and you’ve got good reason to believe that historical volume is inflated due to fraud and abuse, the irony is that they get more money because they’re more dishonest,” Sparrow said. “But you can’t prove that in a short period of time.”
Public tolerance for fraud and abuse naturally rises during times of emergency, Sparrow said, and now is not the time to revisit historical decisions to determine which companies are entitled to federal relief based on legal issues.
“I think that’s a tough case to make,” he said.
HHS has criteria for disqualifying providersfrom receiving bailout money. But even the strongest condition carries a broad caveat: None of the funds may be used for grants to any corporation convicted of a felony criminal violation within the preceding two years ― unless officials have decided that it is not necessary to prohibit them from doing business with the federal government.
“It’s sort of a high bar” for someone to be disqualified for this money, said Roger Cohen, a health care lawyer at Goodwin who specializes in fraud and anti-kickback law.
The Florida oncology provider has been charged with a felony and admitted to an antitrust crime, however federal prosecutors agreed to defer any prosecution and trial because a criminal conviction would have “significant collateral consequences” for its patients, the DOJ said.
Beyond that, HHS in its terms states that providers have to certify that they are not excluded from participating in federal health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid and have not had their Medicare billing privileges revoked.
The HHS Inspector General has the authority to exclude practitioners and health care companies for a wide variety of reasons — including a conviction of fraud ― but it’s highly unusual for the federal government to do so with large institutions, experts say.
“I imagine there would be hesitancy to exclude the provider,” Cohen said. “I think you’d have concerns about interrupting access to care.”
An HHS spokesperson declined to comment on its existing allocations but said the department has rules in place to recoup funds and address fraudulent activity if necessary.
“Failure to comply with any term or condition is grounds for HHS to recoup some or all of the payment from the provider,” the spokesperson said.
In a statement, Florida Cancer Specialists signaled it intended to use the funding.
“During this health crisis, we have continued to keep the doors of our more than 80 facilities open to ensure that cancer patients have access to care and treatment,” Thomas Clark, the company’s chief legal officer, wrote in an email. “We plan to use these funds, if needed, in accordance with government guidelines to continue providing affordable, safe and high-quality cancer care.”
Dignity Health said, “We have had to bear significant costs to prepare for and manage the pandemic in our communities even as patient volumes have been dramatically reduced across our hospitals.”
In October 2014, Dignity agreed to pay $37 millionafter the Department of Justice alleged it admitted patients to 13 of its hospitals in California, Nevada and Arizona who could have been treated on a “less costly, outpatient basis.” The civil case involved patients treated for elective heart procedures, such as pacemakers and stents, and other conditions. The company did not acknowledge wrongdoing in settling the case.
“Charging the government for higher-cost inpatient services that patients do not need wastes the country’s vital health care dollars,” acting Assistant Attorney General Joyce Branda for the Justice Department’s Civil Division said at the time. “This department will continue its work to stop abuses of the nation’s health care resources and to ensure patients receive the most appropriate care.”
Dignity said that independent annual audits were conducted after the False Claims Act settlement in 2014 and “no additional concerns were raised related to this issue.”
Massachusetts General Hospital and Memorial Hermann did not respond to requests for comment. The Cleveland Clinic confirmed the amount of money received from HHS but declined to comment further.
Kaiser Health News(KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundationwhich is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
Saturday, May 09, 2020
Testing uneven, or nonexistent, at meatpacking plants with COVID-19 outbreaks
2020/5/9 18:31 (EDT)
©Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
Workers trim beef at the Tyson Fresh Meats plant in Dakota City, Neb. in 2012.
- Keith Myers/Kansas City Star/TNS
MINNEAPOLIS — Nearly two weeks after President Donald Trump proclaimed that meat processors should remain open, thousands of U.S. meatpacking workers are still not being tested for the coronavirus.
Pork, beef and poultry laborers have been asked to return to fast-moving, shoulder-to-shoulder meat-cutting lines with no clear idea of who does or does not carry the virus. Across the country, meat factories have been the scenes of the largest outbreaks in the country.
“It really is a death march going into those facilities until workers can be tested,” said Joe Enriquez Henry of the League of United Latin American Citizens, a group that’s communicating with meatpacking workers in Iowa and fighting for their protection.
“We can’t solve this until everyone is tested,” he said. “That’s the clear thing that needs to happen, and it’s not happening.”
The only guidance from the federal government has been that meat processors should “consider” tests. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue wrote a letter to governors last week urging that meat plants remain open, but he didn’t mention testing workers.
That’s left meat processors with no obligation to test for COVID-19, even as many thousands of workers have been infected and the death toll among and around them is rising. In Minnesota, the spouse of a worker at a Jennie-O turkey plant in Melrose died last week.
Meat processors, who were quick to applaud the president’s order that they stay open, continue to shutter plants because of outbreaks. Last week, at least 10,000 hogs a day were being euthanized in Minnesota because of a lack of slaughterhouse capacity.
Some of the plants that remain open are running at reduced capacity because of absenteeism. Workers are afraid to go to work.
On her own
Jomari de Jesus is a Honduran asylum-seeker and mother of two who works for a contractor that cleans a Jennie-O turkey processing plant in Willmar.
For $14 an hour, seven hours a day, five days a week, de Jesus is one of 105 cleaning workers in her department. Her responsibility is to sanitize an area the size of a small apartment, including machines that process turkeys into ground meat.
She started feeling ill on April 11. “I felt like I was smelling cigarette smoke and I don’t smoke,” she said.
A stomachache, diarrhea, headaches, fever and cough followed. She thought maybe it was all caused by the cleaning chemicals. Then on April 21, one of her co-workers fainted and was taken away in an ambulance.
“I told my supervisor after the woman fainted that I wanted to go home because we were scared we might be sick too. He approved that we could go home but if we didn’t show any signs of illness to come back to work,” de Jesus said. “He did not encourage us to go to the doctor. He said we were just scared.”
She hasn’t worked since, and on her own initiative, de Jesus called the hospital, explained her symptoms and was tested for COVID-19 on April 24. Three days later, she learned she was positive and went into quarantine.
De Jesus said she has not been paid by her employer while she was isolated at home and caring for her two children. She does not have health insurance, she said, and paid $115 from her own pocket for the coronavirus test.
Austin-based Hormel Foods, which owns the Jennie-O plant in Willmar, has been testing employees, but de Jesus isn’t sure what the policy is for her employer, the cleaning company.
“I think it should be obligatory to be tested,” she said.
Hormel “encourages” returning employees to get tested for COVID-19, and as testing availability has increased, “we have been able to move more swiftly to encourage team members to get tested,” the company said in a statement to the Star Tribune.
The food company decided about a week ago to conduct mass testing at its turkey plants in Willmar and Melrose for all employees and third-party contractors who regularly work at the factories.
“Our company covered the cost,” a Hormel spokesman said.
JBS ‘reluctant to test’
Two-thirds of the workers at the JBS plant in Worthington were tested when the facility was idled two weeks ago, but that was at Gov. Tim Walz’s insistence.
“The governor wanted everyone in the plant to be tested,” said Kris Ehresmann, infectious disease director for the Minnesota Department of Health. “JBS was reluctant to test everyone. They had reservations.”
The Health Department ended up testing about 1,400 of the plant’s 2,200 workers, coordinating with local public health authorities and Sanford Health. Minnesota taxpayers will foot the bill.
Systematic testing of employees has not occurred at a similarly sized JBS pork plant in Marshalltown, Iowa, where at least dozens of workers have fallen ill from the virus. Ken Lyons, chairman of the Marshall County Board of Health, said last week he has not known the case count at the plant for three weeks.
JBS, which has put in place a long list of new safety measures in Worthington, did not respond to the Star Tribune’s questions about coronavirus testing.
Testing is “a point in time,” said Ehresmann, of the state Health Department. “All a negative test means is that today — at this point — you don’t have evidence of COVID-19.”
Employers must conduct continuous, rigorous screening of their workers in addition to giving them continued access to testing, she said.
Patchwork policies
The other companies with dominant meatpacking presence in the Upper Midwest are Smithfield and Tyson, and their testing of employees varies by location.
“I am not sure who has been testing and who has not, nor how they have been doing the testing,” said Sarah Little, a spokeswoman for the North American Meat Institute, a trade group for meatpackers.
The United Food and Commercial Workers union has called for daily testing of meatpacking workers, but that is some way off. Many plants are not testing workers at all.
Smithfield is trying to reopen its Sioux Falls, S.D., pork plant where more than 800 workers have tested positive, but any new testing is “on a voluntary basis,” the company said in a statement. The state of South Dakota is paying for the tests.
A Smithfield plant in Denison, Iowa, has been the scene of an outbreak and is running at reduced capacity because of absenteeism.
The mayor of Denison, Pamela Soseman, said last week that Smithfield “did not respond” when she asked the company to request rapid test kits from the state.
But on Friday afternoon she spoke with representatives from the company, and Smithfield workers are now being encouraged to sign up for testing at a drive-through site in town. Testing is not mandatory.
Smithfield said Friday in a statement to the Star Tribune that it has worked with the state of Iowa and local public health authorities “to make testing available for free to all Denison employees” of the company.
Tyson Foods, which has suffered outbreaks at several plants in Iowa, Nebraska and elsewhere, did not respond to a request for comment.
Silent USDA
Local news reports indicate workers are being tested in Dakota City, Neb., where a Tyson beef plant has been shut down, but not in Independence, Iowa, where Tyson has a dog-treats factory with an outbreak.
A spokeswoman for the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which represents thousands of poultry-processing workers in the southeastern United States, said testing is not occurring “to our knowledge” at any of the plants where it represents workers. A least three workers have died from COVID-19 at a Tyson plant in Camilla, Ga., where the union represents 2,000 workers.
The USDA has given processors little instruction for reopening a plant that has been idled, including testing guidelines.
“The information we have gotten from the USDA has been very limited,” said Thom Petersen, Minnesota’s agriculture commissioner. “It has been very general — things we are already doing in Minnesota.”
Perdue, the U.S. secretary of agriculture, has told meat and poultry processors to use an interim guidance for the industry published last month by the CDC and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
That document’s only reference to testing says, “Facilities should consider the appropriate role for testing and workplace contact tracing of COVID-19-positive workers in a worksite risk assessment.”
The USDA did not respond to the Star Tribune’s questions about testing at meatpacking plants.
———
©2020 Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
MINNEAPOLIS — Nearly two weeks after President Donald Trump proclaimed that meat processors should remain open, thousands of U.S. meatpacking workers are still not being tested for the coronavirus.
Pork, beef and poultry laborers have been asked to return to fast-moving, shoulder-to-shoulder meat-cutting lines with no clear idea of who does or does not carry the virus. Across the country, meat factories have been the scenes of the largest outbreaks in the country.
“It really is a death march going into those facilities until workers can be tested,” said Joe Enriquez Henry of the League of United Latin American Citizens, a group that’s communicating with meatpacking workers in Iowa and fighting for their protection.
“We can’t solve this until everyone is tested,” he said. “That’s the clear thing that needs to happen, and it’s not happening.”
The only guidance from the federal government has been that meat processors should “consider” tests. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue wrote a letter to governors last week urging that meat plants remain open, but he didn’t mention testing workers.
That’s left meat processors with no obligation to test for COVID-19, even as many thousands of workers have been infected and the death toll among and around them is rising. In Minnesota, the spouse of a worker at a Jennie-O turkey plant in Melrose died last week.
Meat processors, who were quick to applaud the president’s order that they stay open, continue to shutter plants because of outbreaks. Last week, at least 10,000 hogs a day were being euthanized in Minnesota because of a lack of slaughterhouse capacity.
Some of the plants that remain open are running at reduced capacity because of absenteeism. Workers are afraid to go to work.
On her own
Jomari de Jesus is a Honduran asylum-seeker and mother of two who works for a contractor that cleans a Jennie-O turkey processing plant in Willmar.
For $14 an hour, seven hours a day, five days a week, de Jesus is one of 105 cleaning workers in her department. Her responsibility is to sanitize an area the size of a small apartment, including machines that process turkeys into ground meat.
She started feeling ill on April 11. “I felt like I was smelling cigarette smoke and I don’t smoke,” she said.
A stomachache, diarrhea, headaches, fever and cough followed. She thought maybe it was all caused by the cleaning chemicals. Then on April 21, one of her co-workers fainted and was taken away in an ambulance.
“I told my supervisor after the woman fainted that I wanted to go home because we were scared we might be sick too. He approved that we could go home but if we didn’t show any signs of illness to come back to work,” de Jesus said. “He did not encourage us to go to the doctor. He said we were just scared.”
She hasn’t worked since, and on her own initiative, de Jesus called the hospital, explained her symptoms and was tested for COVID-19 on April 24. Three days later, she learned she was positive and went into quarantine.
De Jesus said she has not been paid by her employer while she was isolated at home and caring for her two children. She does not have health insurance, she said, and paid $115 from her own pocket for the coronavirus test.
Austin-based Hormel Foods, which owns the Jennie-O plant in Willmar, has been testing employees, but de Jesus isn’t sure what the policy is for her employer, the cleaning company.
“I think it should be obligatory to be tested,” she said.
Hormel “encourages” returning employees to get tested for COVID-19, and as testing availability has increased, “we have been able to move more swiftly to encourage team members to get tested,” the company said in a statement to the Star Tribune.
The food company decided about a week ago to conduct mass testing at its turkey plants in Willmar and Melrose for all employees and third-party contractors who regularly work at the factories.
“Our company covered the cost,” a Hormel spokesman said.
JBS ‘reluctant to test’
Two-thirds of the workers at the JBS plant in Worthington were tested when the facility was idled two weeks ago, but that was at Gov. Tim Walz’s insistence.
“The governor wanted everyone in the plant to be tested,” said Kris Ehresmann, infectious disease director for the Minnesota Department of Health. “JBS was reluctant to test everyone. They had reservations.”
The Health Department ended up testing about 1,400 of the plant’s 2,200 workers, coordinating with local public health authorities and Sanford Health. Minnesota taxpayers will foot the bill.
Systematic testing of employees has not occurred at a similarly sized JBS pork plant in Marshalltown, Iowa, where at least dozens of workers have fallen ill from the virus. Ken Lyons, chairman of the Marshall County Board of Health, said last week he has not known the case count at the plant for three weeks.
JBS, which has put in place a long list of new safety measures in Worthington, did not respond to the Star Tribune’s questions about coronavirus testing.
Testing is “a point in time,” said Ehresmann, of the state Health Department. “All a negative test means is that today — at this point — you don’t have evidence of COVID-19.”
Employers must conduct continuous, rigorous screening of their workers in addition to giving them continued access to testing, she said.
Patchwork policies
The other companies with dominant meatpacking presence in the Upper Midwest are Smithfield and Tyson, and their testing of employees varies by location.
“I am not sure who has been testing and who has not, nor how they have been doing the testing,” said Sarah Little, a spokeswoman for the North American Meat Institute, a trade group for meatpackers.
The United Food and Commercial Workers union has called for daily testing of meatpacking workers, but that is some way off. Many plants are not testing workers at all.
Smithfield is trying to reopen its Sioux Falls, S.D., pork plant where more than 800 workers have tested positive, but any new testing is “on a voluntary basis,” the company said in a statement. The state of South Dakota is paying for the tests.
A Smithfield plant in Denison, Iowa, has been the scene of an outbreak and is running at reduced capacity because of absenteeism.
The mayor of Denison, Pamela Soseman, said last week that Smithfield “did not respond” when she asked the company to request rapid test kits from the state.
But on Friday afternoon she spoke with representatives from the company, and Smithfield workers are now being encouraged to sign up for testing at a drive-through site in town. Testing is not mandatory.
Smithfield said Friday in a statement to the Star Tribune that it has worked with the state of Iowa and local public health authorities “to make testing available for free to all Denison employees” of the company.
Tyson Foods, which has suffered outbreaks at several plants in Iowa, Nebraska and elsewhere, did not respond to a request for comment.
Silent USDA
Local news reports indicate workers are being tested in Dakota City, Neb., where a Tyson beef plant has been shut down, but not in Independence, Iowa, where Tyson has a dog-treats factory with an outbreak.
A spokeswoman for the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which represents thousands of poultry-processing workers in the southeastern United States, said testing is not occurring “to our knowledge” at any of the plants where it represents workers. A least three workers have died from COVID-19 at a Tyson plant in Camilla, Ga., where the union represents 2,000 workers.
The USDA has given processors little instruction for reopening a plant that has been idled, including testing guidelines.
“The information we have gotten from the USDA has been very limited,” said Thom Petersen, Minnesota’s agriculture commissioner. “It has been very general — things we are already doing in Minnesota.”
Perdue, the U.S. secretary of agriculture, has told meat and poultry processors to use an interim guidance for the industry published last month by the CDC and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
That document’s only reference to testing says, “Facilities should consider the appropriate role for testing and workplace contact tracing of COVID-19-positive workers in a worksite risk assessment.”
The USDA did not respond to the Star Tribune’s questions about testing at meatpacking plants.
———
©2020 Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
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
Smithfield Foods Is Blaming “Living Circumstances In Certain Cultures” For One Of America’s Largest COVID-19 Clusters
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.
Smithfield Foods Is Blaming “Living Circumstances In Certain Cultures” For One Of America’s Largest COVID-19 Clusters
Albert Samaha · April 20, 2020
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.
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
*MUSK BIO
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.
#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
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
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
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