BIGGEST WELFARE STATE IN THE UNION

Texas requests federal funding to cover coronavirus testing for the uninsured

The federal funds became available in mid-March. Texas has more than 5 million uninsured residents, or about 18% of its population, a higher rate than any other state.
BY EDGAR WALTERS APRIL 16, 2020 TEXAS TRIBUNE

A Legacy Community Health clinic in Houston. 

Photo credit: Pu Ying Huang for The Texas Tribune

Texas health officials announced Thursday they have requested federal funds to expand coverage for coronavirus testing for the uninsured.

Congress voted last month to make temporary funding available to pay states’ full costs for providing testing to people who lack health insurance, but states had to opt into it.

Texas has more than 5 million uninsured residents, or about 18% of its population, a higher rate than any other state. Experts have warned that barriers keeping uninsured patients from accessing COVID-19 testing or treatment could hinder the containment of the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

In the month since the federal funding became available, a diverse group of health care interests has urged Gov. Greg Abbott to tap into it. A letter signed by more than 50 advocacy groups called on state leaders to “avoid the dangerous public health consequences if a large share of the population were left out of testing and tracking of the disease.”
“Obviously, having funding for testing is not the same as having tests, but it is an important piece of the puzzle,” said Anne Dunkelberg, a health policy expert for the Center for Public Policy Priorities, which signed on to the letter.

The health commission is “working to ensure that, to the extent possible, coverage is effective retroactively to March 18,” Texas Health and Human Services Commission spokeswoman Christine Mann said in an email.

The funding would also reimburse uninsured patients’ doctor visits associated with COVID-19 testing, Mann said.

Clinics serving low-income and uninsured Texans have paid private labs, such as Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp, for the bulk of tests they’ve ordered.

USA /CANADA
More than half of renters say they lost jobs due to coronavirus: ‘They could face housing situations that spiral out of control’

‘Low-income renters, especially those who lose employment during the crisis, will have a hard time paying back rent’

Bartender Andy Bechtol makes cocktails to go at Caffe Dante bar 

and restaurant in Manhattan on March 19 just after the city’s

 stay-at-home order where only ‘essential businesses’ are

 allowed to remain open. Getty Images


The longer some people stay at home, the more difficulty they have making ends meet.

“Low-income renters — many of whom work in service industries hit hard by the pandemic shutdown — are at high risk for eviction and homelessness during shelter-in-place measures,” according to Mary Cunningham, a fellow at the Urban Institute, a left-of-center nonprofit policy group.

The recent $2 trillion CARES Act, a federal stimulus package, “didn’t do enough to address increases in housing insecurity for the nearly 11 million low-income renter households paying more than half their income toward rent before the pandemic,” Cunningham added.

“Eventually, the rent will be due and someone needs to pay it,” she wrote. “Low-income renters, especially those who lose employment during the crisis, will have a hard time paying back rent, and they could face housing situations that spiral out of control.”

More than half (53.5%) of renters reported that they lost their job due to the measures introduced in their town or city due to the COVID-19 pandemic, concluded a survey made up of 2,775 landlords and 7,379 tenants by Avail, an online resource for landlords.



“Some cities are also requiring renters to provide documentation demonstrating that their inability to pay rent is a result of circumstances created by the coronavirus,” Avail’s report said. But 66% of renters said they did not know if their state had paused evictions or was considering such moves.

The National Multifamily Housing Council tracked data from 13.4 million apartment units and found that 31% of renters had not paid their rent in the first week of April, up from 19% for the same period in the previous month, according to a report released this week.

Some cities are also requiring renters to provide documentation demonstrating that their inability to pay rent is a result of circumstances created by the coronavirus.

“The COVID-19 outbreak has resulted in significant health and financial challenges for apartment residents and multifamily owners, operators and employees in communities across the country,” said Doug Bibby, the president of the National Multifamily Housing Council.

Almost half (46%) of renters say they have less than $500 in emergency funds, while 22% of homeowners say they don’t have enough saved to cover their mortgage payment for a month, according to a separate poll of 1,000 renters and homeowners from Clever, an online service connecting house hunters with real-estate agents.

Ben Mizes, the CEO of Clever, said the cuts in lower-paid jobs in recent months were “hurting the people who need their paycheck the most,” echoing a study by Deutsche Bank that said high-wage jobs were the least affected by the coronavirus pandemic last month.




Rafael Nunez, 30, who works as a plumber in New York City, said his boss called him on Sunday to tell him that there was not enough work. “I could be home for three weeks. I could be home for four days. I have no idea,” he previously told MarketWatch.

“I even got a piece of paper in my paycheck saying that we cannot use any vacation hours or any sick hours,” he said. “That’s really upsetting because Passover is coming up. Usually, I get paid for that with my vacation hours, and now it’s like a whole month without pay again.”

He said his savings are running out. “We’re going to pay for this month. That’s what we’re leaning towards right now. But next month is still in the air.” Nunez said his landlord had the same problems with other tenants. “They seemed like they were chickens running around with their head cut off.”

Nunez spoke to his landlord to waive late fees and avoid eviction. In the midst of COVID-19, many cities and states have issued moratoriums on evictions. The CARES Act also temporarily prohibits evictions for certain properties funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

(Jacob Passy contributed to this story.)

Rafael Nunez, a New York City-based plumber: ‘We’re going to pay for this month. That’s what we’re leaning towards right now. But next month is still in the air.’ Courtesy of Rafael Nunez

The first Earth Day 50 years ago was a shot heard around the world

Contrary to its posture today, the Nixon-led U.S. was an ardent proponent of a pivotal 1972 global conference

Children use push brooms to sweep a city park during Earth Day, New York City, 1970s. Getty Images 

CHILDREN LED THE MOVEMENT THEN AND NOW

The first Earth Day protests, which took place on April 22, 1970 brought 20 million Americans — 10% of the U.S. population at the time — into the streets. Recognizing the power of this growing movement, President Richard Nixon and Congress responded by creating the Environmental Protection Agency and enacting a wave of laws, including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act.

But Earth Day’s impact extended far beyond the United States. A cadre of professionals in the U.S. State Department understood that environmental problems didn’t stop at national borders, and set up mechanisms for addressing them jointly with other countries.

For scholars like me who study global governance, the challenge of getting nations to act together is a central issue. In my view, without the first Earth Day, global action against problems like trade in endangered species, stratospheric ozone depletion and climate change would have taken much longer — or might never have happened at all.
Alarms across the world

In 1970 governments around the world were contending with transborder pollution challenges. For example, sulfur and nitrogen oxides emitted from coal-fired power plants in the United Kingdom traveled hundreds of miles on northerly winds, then returned to earth in northern Europe as acid rain, fog and snow. This process was killing lakes and forests in Germany and Sweden.

Realizing that solutions would only be effective through common effort, countries convened the first global conference on the environment in Stockholm from June 5-16, 1972. Representatives of 113 governments attended and adopted the Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment, which asserts that humans have a fundamental right to an environment that permits a life of dignity and well-being. They also passed a resolution to create a new international environmental institution.

Contrary to its posture today, the United States was an ardent proponent of the conference. The U.S. delegation advanced a series of actions, including a moratorium on commercial whaling, a convention to regulate ocean dumping and the creation of a World Heritage Trust to preserve wilderness areas and scenic natural landmarks.


President Nixon issued a statement when the conference concluded, observing that “for the first time in history, the nations of the world sat down together to seek better understanding of each other’s environmental problems and to explore opportunities for positive action, individually and collectively.”

Other nations were far more skeptical. France and the United Kingdom, for example, were wary of potential regulations that might hamper the British-French fleet of supersonic Concorde jet airliners, which had just entered operation in 1969.

Developing countries too were suspicious, viewing environmental initiatives as part of an agenda advanced by wealthy nations that would prevent them from industrializing. “I do not believe we are prepared to become new Robinson Crusoes,” Brazilian delegate Bernardo de Azevedo Brito stated in response to calls from industrialized countries to curb pollution.

A UN agency for the environment

Largely because of U.S. leadership, industrialized nations agreed to establish and provide initial funding for what is arguably the world’s premier global environmental institution: the United Nations Environment Programme. UNEP catalyzed negotiation of the 1985 Vienna Convention and its follow-on, the 1987 Montreal Protocol, a treaty to restrict production and use of substances that deplete Earth’s protective ozone layer. Today the agency continues to drive international efforts on issues including pollution control, biodiversity conservation and climate change.


Read:Trump’s mileage-standard rollback will cost consumers and the climate, say analysts

John W. McDonald, who was director of economic and social affairs at the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs, had been circulating the idea of a new U.N. agency for the environment, and had garnered support from the Nixon administration. But creating a new international environmental institution could only happen with financial support from industrialized countries.

In an address to Congress on Feb. 8, 1972, Nixon proposed creating a US$100 million Environment Fund — close to $600 million in today’s dollars — to support effective international cooperation on environmental problems and create a central coordination point for U.N. activities. Recognizing that the United States was the world’s major polluter, the Nixon administration provided 30% of this sum over the first five years.

Over the next two decades the United States was the largest single contributor to the fund, which supports UNEP’s work worldwide. By the early 1990s, it was providing $21 million annually – equivalent to about $38 million in today’s dollars.

As I discuss in my forthcoming book on UNEP, however, after Republicans won control of both houses of Congress in 1994, the U.S. contribution dropped to $5.5 million in 1997. It has stayed at about $6 million per year since, a decrease of 84%. Today the U.S. contribution is 30% less than that of the Netherlands, whose economy is 20 times smaller.
Ceding leadership

Regrettably in my view, the United States has relinquished its longtime role as a leader on global environmental issues. President Trump has pursued what he calls an “America First” foreign policy that includes withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement and halting funding for the World Health Organization.

International problems demand global cooperation and leadership by example. Developing countries are more reticent to commit to multilateral agreements if the rich and powerful ones withdraw or defy the rules.

As political scientist and U.N. expert Edward Luck has written, the United States has swung for decades between embracing international organizations and rejecting them. When U.S. support ebbs, Luck observes, the U.N. is “in limbo, neither strengthened nor abandoned,” and the global community is less able to resolve fundamental problems.

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare nations’ inability to inspire, organize and finance a coordinated global response. No other government has yet been able to fill the void left by the United States.

I see the 50th anniversary of Earth Day as a fitting time to rethink American engagement in global governance. As President Nixon said in his speech outlining support for UNEP in 1972:

“What has dawned dramatically upon us in recent years … is a new recognition that to a significant extent man commands as well the very destiny of this planet where he lives, and the destiny of all life upon it. We have even begun to see that these destinies are not many and separate at all – that in fact they are indivisibly one.”

Published: April 18, 2020 By Maria Ivanova THE CONVERSATION

Maria Ivanova is Associate Professor of Global Governance and Director, Center for Governance and Sustainability, John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She receives funding from UNEP for research on the implementation of multilateral environmental agreements.

A COUPLE OF QUACKS
Dr. Phil’s argument for reopening the economy: ‘We don’t shut down the country’ for car accidents and swimming pool deaths

Dr. Phil McGraw and Dr. Mehmet Oz have both apologized for controversial COVID-19 comments


Dr. Phil McGraw compared coronavirus deaths to fatal swimming and auto accidents. Getty Images
Published: April 17, 2020 By Nicole Lyn Pesce MARKETWATCH.COM

Another celebrity “doctor” is suffering from foot-in-mouth disease.

Now that many parts of the country have spent more than a month sheltering in place amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a growing chorus is calling for reopening the American economy, which is stirring up arguments of how soon is too soon. And the latest voice entering the fray is TV personality and psychologist Phil “Dr. Phil” McGraw, who compared the death toll of a global pandemic that is still peaking to the annual number of deaths from … swimming.

“The fact of the matter is we have people dying, 45,000 people a year die from automobile accidents, 480,000 from cigarettes, 360,000 a year from swimming pools, but we don’t shut the country down for that.”

Contrary to McGraw’s comments, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that 36,560 people were killed in traffic crashes last year. What’s more, the CDC has reported 3,536 fatal unintentional drowning incidents (non-boating related) each year between 2005 and 2014 — a sobering number, for sure, but far short of the 360,000 a year figure cited by McGraw.

But the CDC does indeed estimate that cigarette smoking causes 480,000 deaths a year, including deaths from secondhand smoke.

McGraw also went on to hazard a guess that the lockdown will “actually create more death across time than the actual virus will itself” due to poverty and loneliness.

The economic situation is dire indeed. A record 22 million Americans have lost their jobs over the past month; nearly a third of American tenants missed their April rent payments and more than 4 in 10 Americans are feeling lonelier now than ever before as a result of social distancing during the coronavirus outbreak.

But to date, there are more than 2.17 million cases of COVID-19 worldwide, and at least 146,055 people have died, including 33,286 in the U.S., which has the highest death toll in the world. And there is still much that we don’t know about the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, including the long-term effects for the more than 554,000 people who have recovered from it. Some early studies have found lingering lung and heart damage in recovered patients.

Many critics on Twitter TWTR, +0.56% noted that besides giving largely inaccurate death toll figures, the examples that McGraw listed are not contagious diseases.

McGraw posted a video to his YouTube GOOG, +1.56% channel on Friday afternoon apologizing “if you didn’t like my choice of words“ and clarifying some of his remarks on Fox. (The comments feature was notably turned off.) “Last night I said we as a society have chosen to live with certain controllable deadly risks every day,” he explained. And he said the swimming data he cited was the World Health Organization’s global death count for swimming incidents, not U.S. numbers, admitting that swimming, car crashes and smoking “are not contagious, so probably bad examples.”

He added that, “I’m not an infectious disease doctor. I’m not a molecular microbiologist. I look at this from a human behavior, psychological standpoint.” And he said that he “100%” supports “we shut the country down to protect what is perhaps a small percentage of hose for whom the virus is most dangerous.”

Still, the online backlash got so bad that even Weight Watchers WW, +8.17% ambassador Oprah Winfrey was trending Friday, with people blaming her for exposing the public McGraw and Dr. Mehmet Oz in the first place.

Fellow “Oprah Winfrey Show” alum Oz was pressured to apologize on Thursday for suggesting in another controversial Fox interview that it may “only cost us” 2% to 3% of American lives to reopen schools.

“I tell you, schools are a very appetizing opportunity,” he initially said on Wednesday, before pivoting on Thursday to say that, “I misspoke.”

Read more:Dr. Oz apologizes for suggesting it may ‘only cost us’ 2% to 3% of American lives to reopen schools

As for Fox host Ingraham, she also spoke with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, during her show on Thursday. And Fauci called her comments likening COVID-19 to SARS and HIV “misleading.”

“I think it’s a little bit misleading maybe to compare what we are going through now with HIV or SARS. They’re really different,” Fauci said. He explained that while vaccines were not developed for those two diseases, researchers did come up with effective HIV/AIDS treatments that have saved lives, whereas SARS “disappeared.”

Farmers find ways to cope with milk prices down nearly 40% this year

THE CAPITALIST CRISIS IS OVERPRODUCTION
Pandemic forces changes in the dairy market
THEY DUMP MILK AS THE DAIRY MONOPOLIES ALWAYS HAVE, TO INCREASE PRICES

THIS WASTE OF SURPLUS THAT COULD BE USED FOR THE POOR, 

SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAMS, HOMELESS SHELTERS, ETC. 

IS  PETITE BOURGEOIS SOCIAL SABOTAGE

Cattle graze at Fernandez Ranch in Martinez, Calif. Myra Saefong/MarketWatch

Milk prices this year have more than erased the gains they scored for all of 2019, as the closure of restaurants and schools to prevent the spread of COVID-19 forced changes in the dairy market and in consumer buying behavior.

“The dairy industry remains stuck in a challenging and unfortunate position” because the processing pipeline is becoming backed up due to the abrupt loss in demand, says Rick Kment, market analyst at commodity analysis provider DTN.

Milk is a perishable product and the “ability to store it unprocessed for more than a couple of days is nearly impossible,” he says, adding that with processing plants at full capacity, farmers have had to dump excess milk.

Most-active futures prices for Class III milk DAM20, +0.16%, which is used to make most types of cheese, settled at $12.11 per hundredweight on Thursday—the lowest since September 2009. Class III milk has lost around 37% year to date, erasing last year’s 35% climb.

Meanwhile, the Thursday finish for cash-settled cheese futures CSCK20, -0.08% at $1.184 a pound was a record low based on data going back to 2010.

The impact of the coronavirus hit the dairy industry in waves, says Matt Gould, editor at newsletter The Dairy Market Analyst. The first wave was at the end of January, when the disease was rapidly spreading in China. The impact of the shutdowns there was immediately felt in the nonfat dry-milk market, says Gould.

The next wave came as states in the U.S. began to shut down, which led to a boost in purchases of pizza, he says. Pizza accounts for much of the country’s demand for cheese, which is made from milk.

Then there was a run to grocery stores, which strained the supply chain for fluid milk and saw a period of record sales for milk, butter, cheese, and yogurt. Dairy commodity prices did not initially fall, Gould says.

Read:Shuttered schools, plunging milk demand led to race among dairy farmers to tap small-business rescue program before funding ran out

But when refrigerators were restocked, consumers stopped ordering in and grocery store sales weren’t enough to offset the losses from restaurant sales, he explains.

Gould estimates domestic cheese demand loss from the food-service industry at 214 million pounds each month, which equals 2.1 billion less pounds of milk, or about 11% of all the milk produced during the month.

Gould forecasts a drop in Class III milk prices to a low of $8.95 per hundredweight in June, which he says would be a record based on data going back to 1998.

Still, the dairy industry has made moves that will lessen the blow of lost demand and the drop in prices.

Those include the dumping of excess milk at levels that are likely “substantially” larger than normally seen in the spring, when production seasonally peaks, says David Maloni, executive vice president of food-service supply-chain technology firm ArrowStream.

Cow herd “liquidation” is also anticipated in the coming months and this should “lead to much tighter milk and dairy product supplies and higher prices later this year,” Maloni says.

He also says, “U.S. dairy markets have fallen substantially below other major exporting countries’ prices,” and that should result in “better export demand in the not-so-distant future.”

An early sign of a turnaround may come from China.

“The single most important factor for dairy prices to rebound is improved buying patterns in China,” says Arun Sundaram, equity analyst at CFRA Research.

“Agricultural commodity prices should improve once we start to see greater, more consistent agricultural product purchases from China.” After its bout with the virus, the Chinese economy is beginning to open up again.

With coronavirus and locust plague, ‘nature is sending us a message,’ says UN environment head

Biodiversity matters now more than ever as pathogens more easily pass from animals to people: Inger Andersen

Demonstrators stand wearing bees masks and costumes during a 

demonstration for biodiversity in Paris last year. Getty Images

Humanity is placing too many pressures on the natural world with damaging consequences, including the deadly COVID-19 and the yet unrealized fallout from accelerating man-made climate change, says Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Programme.

She told the Guardian on Wednesday that the immediate priority was to protect people from the coronavirus and prevent its spread. “But our long-term response must tackle habitat and biodiversity loss,” she added.

“Never before have so many opportunities existed for pathogens to pass from wild and domestic animals to people,” she told the paper, adding that 75% of all emerging infectious diseases come from wildlife.

“Our continued erosion of wild spaces has brought us uncomfortably close to animals and plants that harbor diseases that can jump to humans.”

Australian bushfires, shattered heat records and the worst locust invasion in Kenya for 70 years only help convince her of the emergency.

‘[With] all of these events, nature is sending us a message. There are too many pressures at the same time on our natural systems and something has to give... And as we hurtle towards a population of 10 billion people on this planet, we need to go into this future armed with nature as our strongest ally.’— The UN’s Inger Andersen

The actor Idris Elba has suggested, somewhat fantastically, that perhaps the human race is “an infection” that Earth is trying to destroy before we destroy it. The 47-year-old British star revealed earlier this month he had tested positive for the COVID-19 virus but is recovering.

Still others track divine signals by earthly measures: ‘God help us all! The end is near!’ Mike Huckabee reacts to the closing of round-the-clock Waffle Houses around the country

Published: March 25, 2020 MARKETWATCH.COM

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=LOCUST

Politicians ban reusable grocery bags for spreading coronavirus — what’s the science say?

Shoppers need to wash their reusable bags more often, even in better times 

Part of the problem: way too infrequent washing. One study shows

 that if people regularly clean their reusable bags, 99.9% of all bacteria

 is destroyed. Getty Images

Illinois grocery stores are temporarily banning customers from bringing their own reusable bags, Gov. JB Pritzker said recently, and he is only the latest elected official across both political parties taking steps they believe will lower risk from the coronavirus pandemic.

But is leadership there and elsewhere opting for extreme caution to fight the deadly disease at the expense of science and consumer trends? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers no specific recommendations about reusable bags and coronavirus.

For Chicagoans, the tote bag ban means they can’t avoid the 7-cent tax per plastic or paper bag applied at the checkout, a program meant to reduce waste and net the cash-strapped city more than $5 million per year in revenue. The state, with Chicago pegged by the surgeon general to be another hot spot for disease spread, isn’t alone with its bag policy.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills was quick to heed the social-distancing policies that scientists overwhelmingly recommend to halt COVID-19’s spread and she moved even faster to delay the state’s soon-to-be-implemented ban on single-use plastic bags, Emily Akin, creator of the Heated environmental newsletter, stressed.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu has prohibited shoppers from bringing reusable bags to stores to protect vulnerable workers, so has Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, to name a few. As coronavirus news spread, the Wall Street Journal editorial board reupped its support of reversing plastic-bag bans and related taxation.

The newspaper isn’t the only entity leveraging the pandemic to make a policy point. Earlier this month, the Plastics Industry Association asked the Department of Health and Human Services to make a national pronouncement supporting single-use plastics and advocating against reusable grocery bags, claiming they will worsen the pandemic because they can carry and transmit coronavirus for longer.

“As the coronavirus spreads across the country, single-use plastics will only become more vital,” Plastics Industry Association President Tony Radoszewski said in a statement, citing what the trade group said are several studies in their favor. “We live longer, healthier and better because of single-use plastics.” Lauded for their relative cost and flexibility, Americans use 100 billion plastic bags a year, which require 12 million barrels of oil to manufacture, says the Center for Biological Diversity.

Related:Plastic is not the ‘enemy,’ says Shinzo Abe; Japan uses 30 billion plastic bags each year IDIOT

In work published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers tested for the coronavirus on a variety of surfaces. They found the virus was still viable 72 hours after they applied it to plastic and stainless steel, 24 hours on cardboard and just four hours on copper. The viability of the virus on cloth — used in many reusable grocery bags — was not singled out for study. Massachusetts Bureau of Environmental Health Director Jana Ferguson has said the department has seen “no scientific information specific to bags and the ability of reusable bags to be a way to spread coronavirus.”

Read:How to clean your car to reduce the risk of coronavirus

Few experts or consumers can deny that a microscopic examination of resusable bags shows that most shoppers are transporting much more than milk and eggs. But how dangerous are these bags, especially relative to other means for carrying purchases, including single-use plastic? If safety really is the issue, how do reusable bags compare to money, phones and our own hands, all of which up the risks of transmission in stores and elsewhere?

Advocates for reusable bags question the findings of a few recent studies, alleging the data have been exaggerated to fit an industry agenda. Pinning the argument to current events, such as COVID-19, reignites criticism of reusable-bag programs that undermines their long-term effectiveness, these advocates argue. “How Big Plastic is Using Coronavirus to Bring Back Wasteful Bags,” says a recent Mother Jones headline.

Among the studies against reusable bags is a 10-year-old American Chemistry Council-funded University of Arizona investigation that looked at 84 reusable bags in two states. Authors concluded that “large numbers of bacteria were found in almost all bags and coliform bacteria in half.” They did not, however, find any pathogenic bacteria or strains of E. Coli that can actually make humans sick. As Consumer Reports noted at the time: “They only found bacteria that don’t normally cause disease, but do cause disease in people with weakened immune systems.”

“A person eating an average bag of salad greens gets more exposure to these bacteria than if they had licked the insides of the dirtiest bag from this study,” Michael Hansen, a senior staff scientist at Consumers Union, said in the article. “These bacteria can be found lots of places, so no need to go overboard.”

In many cases, it’s the poor habits around using non-disposable bags that matter: if people more regularly wash their reusable bags, the Arizona study said, 99.9% of all bacteria was destroyed.

Another study, published in the international journal Food Control in 2019, found microbes capable of causing food-borne illness on the bags. This time, half the bags tested had coliform bacteria on them and some even had E. coli. No surprise, says Heated’s Akin, “because the bags had a bunch of food in them, and were not washed or sanitized.”

The studies also do not indicate that reusable bags made of plastic have a greater risk of holding the virus than single-use plastic bags, which could be infected with pathogens during transportation, manufacturing or handling.

For Akin, the debate over the efficacy of plastic-bag policies for coronavirus should continue. At the same time, discussion shouldn’t ignore other “pressing global crises,” in her opinion: climate change and ocean pollution.

Between 4.8 and 12.7 million metric tons of plastic enter the ocean each year, according to figures published in the journal Science in 2015.

PALM OIL
Cookies and wet markets: Here’s where coronavirus and climate change collide

Is palm oil as bad as cigarettes and coal in blurring the safety line between animals and humans? Analysts say ‘wet markets’ are only the tip of the issue

An orphaned orangutan is learning to fend for himself since being found wandering alone and suffering smoke inhalation from burning at a palm oil plantation in Indonesia's part of Borneo. Getty Images

Plenty of blame for the spread of the deadly coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has been leveled at the Chinese “wet markets” that offer wild animals — endangered species in some cases — as cuisine.

The cultural finger-pointing has arguably been as controversial as the practice, particularly as the pandemic has spread and governments provide varying degrees of response.

Interaction between humans and animals, often forced because of lost biodiversity, is neither exclusive to this outbreak nor likely to become less controversial absent intervention in coming years, environmentalists warn.

According to some scientists, the strain of the novel coronavirus can reportedly be tied to bats and then the pangolin, a scaly anteater that is considered a delicacy in some diets in the developing world. Studies of the coronavirus origin persist and even include so-far unproven speculation that the disease was lab-born. Sen. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican, and Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat of Delaware, are leading a group of bipartisan U.S. senators in “urgently” requesting that China “immediately” close all operating wet markets amid the coronavirus pandemic. The fresh markets are called “wet” because they sell perishable goods, distinguishing them from “dry” street markets that might sell fabrics and electronics.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that three out of every four new or emerging infectious diseases in people come from animals. Most scientists see a link between deforestation, habitat change and pandemics. From Zika to West Nile, Ebola to SARS, Nipah to COVID-19, deforestation has had a hand in many of the world’s worst viral outbreaks as lost habitat brings animals in closer contact with humans.

One sustainable-investing leader sizes up the situation in terms all consumers, across cultures, might understand: “cookies, cigarettes and coal” share the blame in bringing wild animals and humans, and their respective communicable diseases, in closer contact.

Jay Lipman, president and co-founder of sustainable asset manager Ethic, explains: the palm oil used especially in industrial baking and the tobacco grown to satisfy smoking habits which, while reduced from decades past, still enjoys strong demand in some parts of the world, are in large part to blame. Include coal-power use, particularly in parts of Asia, in his trio of violators. All require the clearing of forest habitats that force animals out of the wild into developed villages and cities. With this forced migration comes a greater chance for zoonotic or zoonosis disease spread.

Zoonotic describes an infectious disease caused by a pathogen (including bacteria, viruses and parasites) that has jumped from nonhuman animals (usually vertebrates) to humans.

“Due to anthropogenic activities, we are substantially increasing our exposure to pathogens we have never been exposed to, and thus we’re not prepared to respond to. We’re doing this in two main ways: bringing wildlife too close to us [such as markets], or us getting too close to wildlife [by way of overdevelopment],” says Daniel Mira-Salama, senior environmental specialist in the World Bank’s Beijing office.

“The second, large amplification phenomenon could be attributed to globalization: once a pathogen has spilled over to humans, and enough individuals are infected, international flights and cruises and global value chains, transport those infected individuals to all corners of the globe,” he says.

Human-animal contact through hunting and farming is a chief factor, but so are others. Poleward shifts in the geographic distributions of species, the spread of deadly forest fires in Australia and elsewhere and the bleaching of coral reefs have all been linked to climate change and pose a risk to biodiversity.



Research suggests that infectious disease outbreaks very often follow extreme weather events, as microbes, vectors (such as ticks spreading Lyme disease) and reservoir animal hosts exploit the disrupted social and environmental conditions left in their wake — these extreme weather events are only set to become more frequent as global warming’s effects are felt in communities across the world, according to some research.

Read:Why climate change is also a health care story — it’s the biggest health threat this century

“It underscores the need for the global community to protect 30% of nature by 2030, a goal more important than ever,” Monica Medina and Miro Korenha, write in their Our Daily Planet newsletter.

The effects of biodiversity loss caused by climate change will be felt much more quickly and intensely than previously thought if global warming is left unchecked, some researchers have said. Up to 50% of species are forecast to lose most of their suitable climate conditions by 2100 under the highest greenhouse gas emissions scenario, a 2°C rise, according to a 2018 study printed in the journal Science. This scenario is not a given and a change of course is still possible. The number of species losing more than half their geographic range by 2100 is halved when warming is limited to 1.5°C.

Breaking from typical biodiversity forecasts that emphasized individual snapshots of the future, two researchers at the University of Cape Town instead used annual projections of temperature and precipitation from 1850 to 2100 across more than 30,000 marine and terrestrial species to estimate the timing of species exposure to potentially dangerous climate conditions and now believe that climate change could cause sudden and simultaneous biodiversity losses.

Such losses could occur much sooner this century than had been expected, Christopher Trisos, senior research fellow at the University of Cape Town and Alex Pigo, research fellow in genetics, evolution and environment at the school, wrote in an opinion piece on The Conversation.

Abrupt biodiversity loss due to marine heat waves that bleach coral reefs is already under way in tropical oceans. The risk of climate change causing sudden collapses of ocean ecosystems is projected to escalate further in the 2030s and 2040s. Under a high greenhouse gas emissions scenario the risk of abrupt biodiversity loss is projected to spread onto land, affecting tropical forests and more temperate ecosystems by the 2050s, they argue.

Humans are at risk of sudden economic disruption absent coordinated adaptability. Sudden disruption of local ecosystems would negatively affect their ability to earn an income and feed themselves, potentially pushing them into poverty. For instance, marine ecosystems in the Indo-Pacific, Caribbean and the west coast of Africa are at high risk of sudden disruption as early as the 2030s, the researchers said. Hundreds of millions of people across these regions rely on wild-caught fish as an essential source of food.

Eco-tourism revenues from coral reefs are also a major source of income. And sudden loss of animal communities could also reduce the long-term ability of tropical forests to lock up carbon if the birds and mammals that are important for dispersing seeds are lost.

Western populations may struggle to fully understand “wet markets” and protein choices they’re not accustomed to. But, says Lipman, the behavior that can lead to mass deforestation and related biodiversity loss around the globe isn’t as “exotic” as the cultural finger-pointers may believe.

Palm oil is the most commonly produced vegetable oil in the world and is used in food items, cosmetics and biofuels. Worldwide annual production of the oil from 2018 to 2019 was nearly 81.6 million tons, according to USDA data, and is expected to reach 264 million tons by 2050, The Guardian reported in 2019.

“We love cookies. Everyone loves cookies,” says Ethic’s Lipman. “Palm oil in baked goods, palm oil in soap and detergent is common in most households, and ‘sustainable’ investors who increasingly care about biodiversity loss might take a look in their own homes and their portfolios.”

GEE MR CHRISTIE YOUR COOKIES KILL ORANGUTAN 

---30---

 

Democratic congresswoman as red states beat out blue ones for small-business aid: ‘I smell a rat’ 

   'I’m hard pressed not to think that this is political,’ House member from California says of Paycheck Protection Program data

Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier of California speaking at a House hearing last year. Getty Images

Published: April 17, 2020 By Victor Reklaitis
‘I’m hard pressed not to think that this is political. Blue states like California got a pathetic number of loans issued. Nebraska got nearly 75% of loans requested. I smell a rat with orange hair.’— Democratic Congresswoman Jackie Speier

The line above came from Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier of California as she tweeted about data showing coastal blue states mostly lagging red states in receiving loans from the Paycheck Protection Program, the government’s new coronavirus aid program for small businesses.

Nebraska has fared the best among the 50 states as businesses there have been approved to receive enough PPP money to cover 75% of the state’s eligible payroll, according to an analysis from Evercore ISI economist Ernie Tedeschi. He used the Small Business Administration’s figures for PPP loans through Monday:

North Dakota, South Dakota and Kansas also made out relatively well by that metric, while California, New Jersey and New York didn’t. That’s shown in the table above from Tedeschi, as well as in the Bloomberg News graphic below, which is based on the Evercore economist’s figures.

The loan program for small businesses initially received $350 billion in last month’s $2.2 trillion coronavirus package, known as the CARES Act, or Washington’s “Phase 3” legislation, to support the economy during the pandemic.

The SBA said the PPP ran out of money on Thursday, and Democrats and Republicans have been locked in a stalemate over replenishing it with an additional $250 billion.

The SBA didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment on Friday.

When it comes to industries and PPP loans, Tedeschi tweeted that by “potential maximum loan size, oil/gas/mining XOP, +10.11% PICK, +3.73% and accommodation/food service PEJ, +5.88% appear to be showing the strongest demand.” He said “where the SBA data get even more curious is by state,” adding that “what could be going on is that the PPP has proven more difficult for lenders to get off the ground in the hardest-hit areas so far.”

“Or it could be that states with closer community banking relationships saw an advantage in uptake in these early stages of the program when the contours and details of the program were more uncertain,” Tedeschi said on Twitter.

A NATION OF GRIFTERS

U.S. Pays High Prices for Masks From Unproven Vendors in Coronavirus Fight



Source: WS

The federal government, scrambling to find N95 masks to protect health-care workers from coronavirus infection, has placed more than $110 million in mask orders at high prices with unproven vendors, according to a Wall Street Journal review of federal contracting data.

Of the more than 20 million N95 masks the government ordered for full delivery by the end of May, at least 80% were ordered from suppliers that either had never done business with the federal government or had only taken on small prior contracts that didn’t include medical supplies, according to the data. Some of the vendors already have missed delivery deadlines or have backed out because of supply problems. The parent company of one supplier is in bankruptcy and its owners have been accused of fraud in lawsuits by multiple business partners.

The average price the government agreed to pay for masks from vendors offering quick delivery is close to $6 apiece, roughly six times the list price but in line with the current market rate. Most of the orders were placed with no-bid contracts, federal databases show. The government generally doesn’t pay for goods until they are delivered.

The Trump administration, facing criticism for its handling of the novel coronavirus pandemic, has signed more than $3 billion in pandemic-related contracts recently. That includes orders for 600 million N95 masks from major established producers like 3M Co. and Honeywell International Inc. for less than $1 each. Those orders stretch out until late 2021 but are starting to trickle in. 3M and other manufacturers are also selling many masks to hospitals through their normal distribution networks. Major vendors like these have previously been vetted and have shown their ability to deliver. A Trump administration spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

BEHIND PAYWALL
Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-pays-high-prices-for-masks-from-unproven-vendors-in-coronavirus-fight-11587218400


THE ORIGINAL STORY THE WSJ  USED AS SOURCE MATERIAL

CORONAVIRUS IN TEXAS
Someone says they have 2 million N95 masks for sale. The asking price is six times the usual cost.
As health care professionals beg for supplies to protect themselves from COVID-19 infection, a Texas company found a seller with at least 2 million masks and quietly offered them for sale at $6 each. Before the pandemic, they cost around $1.

BY JAY ROOT AND SHANNON NAJMABADI MARCH 31, 2020

An N95 respiration mask. Photo credit: REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi

Editor's note: This story has been updated with an additional statement from Hatfield and Co.

In normal times, an N95 face mask would cost a big corporation a buck or less — particularly if it ordered a million of them.

But these aren’t normal times, and the pitch from industrial supplier Hatfield and Co. to sell as many as 2 million masks to a major U.S. oil company last week wasn’t your typical offer. The Texas-based supplier wanted $6.3 million for a minimum order of 1 million masks, with an option of buying 2 million for nearly $13 million, sales documents and interviews indicate.

At a time when the new coronavirus is rapidly spreading across the country and health care professionals are desperate for these face masks — which filter out at least 95% of airborne particles — to protect sick people and themselves, critics say a price like that smacks of profiteering and price gouging by someone in the supply chain.

“You’re not just marking it up like 50 cents. This is highway robbery,” said an industry salesperson familiar with Hatfield and Co.’s pitch, who is not authorized to speak to the media and requested anonymity. “It’s just disgusting to me.”

A sales quotation provided to an oil company by Hatfield and Co. shows an offer to sell 1 million N95 masks for more than $6.3 million cash, or $6.4 million if payment was made within 30 days.

Hatfield and Co. said it did not mark up the product excessively or engage in price gouging, telling The Texas Tribune that its own supplier set the “terms and conditions” for the sale. The company declined to identify the supplier or quantify how much it stood to profit, citing its contractual agreements.

Brad Lindeman, the Beaumont-based Hatfield and Co. salesman listed as the contact for the proposed sale, said in a brief telephone interview Sunday that the company had access to an undisclosed quantity of the N95 masks that are stored in warehouses all over Texas and other states.

“There are some in Houston, Dallas, Florida and you know, I guess you would say spread out all over,” Lindeman said. “The inventories are constantly moving, so it's kind of hard to explain exactly what the quantities are."

Lindeman said a "group of doctors" has the masks but did not elaborate. He cut off an interview with a Tribune reporter after a couple of minutes and declined further comment.

On Monday morning, Hatfield's president and chief operating officer, Scott Beeman, said the masks were provided by a reseller the company had not worked with before. He added that the reseller imposed a minimum order size of 1 million masks and that its costs were reflected in Hatfield and Co.’s quotation to the oil company.

Beeman declined to identify the reseller and said he had “no way of knowing ... the veracity of the statement that [Lindeman] was told regarding a doctor or a consortium of doctors owning or having access to this material.”

“I cannot release any information about our supplier; we do have a written quotation from that company,” Beeman wrote in an email. “We will be willing to disclose that to the State’s Attorney General and/or to the head of Purchasing for our customer, so that they can both verify that there was no ‘price gouging’ involved in our pricing to the customer.”

Beeman added that Hatfield’s profit margin was “historically low for our company and was priced that way in the spirit of cooperation.” He initially didn't reveal the company's profit for brokering a sale of the masks, but said in a letter Wednesday that it was less than 3%.

The company, based in the Dallas suburb of Rockwall, does not stock N95 face masks as part of its normal line of products, Beeman said. The company sells engineering products such as filtration devices and valves for clients in the oil and gas sector and the auto industry, and to refining and power companies, according to a Bloomberg profile. Beeman said the company found a supplier for the masks at the request of a customer who wanted them immediately.

Demand for protective equipment like masks has soared since the outbreak began, exacerbated by the disruption of overseas supply chains and a flood of purchases from panicked civilians. The U.S. surgeon general has told the public to save the N95s for health care professionals who need them — “Seriously people - STOP BUYING MASKS!” he tweeted in February — but demand has pushed prices for the masks to $10, $12 or even $15.

Entrepreneurial and civic-minded Texans — from amateur seamstresses to a chocolate factory owner — have begun churning out protective equipment for health care providers. And Gov. Greg Abbott has told potential suppliers, “We’ll cut you a check on the spot.”

The manufacturer Lindeman identified as the original source of the masks — Minnesota-based 3M, one of the largest manufacturers of N95s — did not immediately return calls and emails seeking comment. Its chief executive officer, Mike Roman, has encouraged federal and state officials to crack down on price gouging and said the company has not and will not increase the price it charges for the masks “being used to help address the pandemic.”

Under the state’s price-gouging laws, it is illegal to charge “exorbitant or excessive” prices for necessities during a disaster, and Attorney General Ken Paxton has said he won’t tolerate people and businesses using the pandemic to profit.

“No one is exempt from price gouging laws in Texas, and those who violate the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act will be met with the full force of the law,” the attorney general’s office tweeted.

The state sued a Houston-area company last week that was trying to auction more than 750,000 masks online, with listings as high as $180 for a package of 16. Price-gougers in Texas can face civil penalties and be required to reimburse consumers.

The Texas price-gouging law applies to items considered to be necessities during an official emergency, like food, medicine and construction tools. Abbott declared a disaster on March 13 due to the coronavirus, and President Donald Trump declared a federal emergency that same day — two weeks before Hatfield and Co. offered its price quote to the oil company.

Consumers and small businesses can sue under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act if they believe they’ve been the victims of price gouging. They can recover up to three times their damages and attorneys’ fees. Consumers, small businesses and large corporations like the oil company Hatfield was trying to sell masks to can also complain to the attorney general, who has broad powers to sanction profiteers.

Without knowing all the details about the transaction and the suppliers, experts say it’s impossible to know whether Hatfield and Co.’s offer, or one further down the supply chain, would amount to price gouging.

The statute doesn’t define what level a markup has to reach in order for it to be considered “exorbitant or excessive.”

But a price of over $6 a mask struck Professor Emeritus Richard Alderman, director of the University of Houston’s Consumer Law Center, as high given that the masks, according to numerous online offerings and published reports, could be obtained for a dollar or less before the outbreak began.

“If the costs of materials or doing business went up substantially, that, to me, would be a mitigating factor. But … start with just looking at whether that price is excessive or exorbitant,” he said. “And for me, six times normal cost — that's 600%. I view that as excessive and exorbitant — something that they can only do because of the emergency situation.

Health care and medical supply executives suggest there’s now a booming gray market of personal protective equipment filled with middle men and fake products, and stoked by desperation from health care providers already running low on the gear. Governors have said states are bidding against one another, driving up prices, and state attorneys general have reported being inundated with complaints about exorbitantly priced items like hand sanitizer and masks. More than 30 state attorneys general urged online marketplace operators to crack down on profiteering behavior last week.

But experts say the line between supply and demand forces and price gouging can be hard to define.

Rice University professor Utpal Dholakia said thoughtfully set prices should reflect how much customers value a product — and ethics aside, it makes sense that N95s would cost more “because consumers have a higher valuation for them at present.”

“Sure, you want to take advantage of the higher customer valuation, but you don't want to exploit or abuse the customer, and especially when it's something like” a global health crisis, said Dholakia, who teaches in the graduate business school.

According to sales documents provided to the oil company by Hatfield and Co., the cash price for a million masks was $6,310,000. If the oil company wanted to pay within 30 days, it would have to cough up another $100,000 — for a total of $6,410,000, according to the document. But the company could only use credit for one of the orders.

“The second order would need to be cash upon receipt of goods,” a Hatfield and Co. salesperson wrote in a letter of terms to the oil company.

REFERENCE Read a March 27, 2020 letter of transfer sent from Hatfield and Company.
(343.2 KB) DOWNLOAD

The company also offered to share “live video” showing the product in the warehouse, a provision that the industry salesperson with knowledge of the transaction found bizarre and unprecedented.

“That’s never happened,” the person said. “How do I know the video is real?”

The salesperson said whoever got a hold of the masks “found a way to make money and, you know, I mean, that is the American entrepreneurial way. I just feel like this is not the time to do it."

US Cattle industry losses expected to quickly outpace federal aid
By Jessie Higgins

Cattle producers are putting more cows to pasture and feeding them less energy-rich diets to slow their growth as demand for beef dries up amid the coronavirus pandemic. File Photo by Gary C. Caskey/UPI | License Photo

EVANSVILLE, Ind., April 21 (UPI) -- American livestock producers will receive the lion's share of the $19 billion federal Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, with $5.1 billion earmarked for American cattle producers.

But with cattle industry losses expected to surpass $13.6 billion, according to new research from Oklahoma State University, industry leaders fear the aid will not be enough to save struggling ranchers.

"The bottom line is there will be guys in cow-calf production that at this point probably will not be able to cover their production costs," said Derrell Peel, a professor of agribusiness and an Oklahoma State University Extension livestock marketing specialist, who lead the study.

"There are some producers that will not survive this," Peel said.

Falling consumer demand for meat from Americans staying home to slow the spread of the coronavirus is at the heart of the issue.

The demand for meat initially surged in early March, when governors started to close restaurants and schools and issued the first stay-at-home orders. Consumers flooded supermarkets and stockpiled staples like meat, bread and eggs.

But that initial demand fell dramatically in the final weeks of March. American consumers had stocked up, and nationwide restaurant closures wiped out 40 percent or more of the market for beef.

Live cattle prices have fallen some 30 percent since January, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, to about 85 cents a pound from $1.20.

Now, ranchers face yet another complication -- packing plants have been closing because workers contracted the coronavirus.

JBS, an international meat processing company, announced Monday it was closing its pork processing plant in Worthington, Minn. It is the third American plant the company has shuttered amid the pandemic. The other two were beef facilities.

Smithfield Foods closed its pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, S.D., last week. Meanwhile, National Beef Packing has closed its plant in Tama, Iowa, and Cargill closed a plant in Hazleton, Pa.

"We've seen more packing plants shut down or scale back production because of sick workers," said Colin Woodall, CEO of the Denver-based National Cattlemen's Beef Association. "Now, there's a backup of cattle in the system."

That backup means some producers are struggling to sell cattle.

"Producers have adjusted as much as they can to buy time," said Jim Petrik, a South Dakota rancher who raises cattle and hogs. "You can put cattle out to pasture to feed on grass, and reduce the energy in their diets so they grow slower. But at some point, they have to be harvested."

Petrik added that the coronavirus aid will be welcomed by ranchers, but that it won't make up for all the losses.

Details of how the program will be implemented are scant, but according to U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., who is chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, ranchers might be compensated for 85 percent of their price loss between Jan. 1 and April 15.

They also might be able to claim 30 percent of their expected losses over the next six months.

Payments to producers will be capped at $125,000 per commodity, with an overall limit of $250,000 per individual or entity.

The payments are expected to begin arriving in late May or early June, Hoeven said.

"We're grateful, don't get me wrong," Petrik said. "But it's not like having our markets back. This year might be the worst we've had financially."

SEE  

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=SMITHFIELD

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=TYSON

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=MEAT+PACKING

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=COVID19


https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=JBS

Virus-Addled Meat-Packing Plant in Colorado Had ‘Work While Sick Culture,’ Authorities Say

BEEFING HARD

JBS shut their beef processing operation on April 15, but not before dozens of workers became infected and at least four died.

JBS IS THE BRAZILIAN GLOBAL MEATPACKING MONOPOLY

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=JBS

William Bredderman Researcher Apr. 18, 2020 

Matthew Stockman/Getty

A “work while sick culture” may have turned a Colorado meat-packing plant into a COVID-19 cluster, a communication from local health authorities suggests.

The Weld County Department of Public Health and Environment sent a letter to the JBS USA facility in Greeley on April 4, and referenced warnings the agency made to company officials on April 2—five days before the first reported death of one of the facility’s employees on April 7. JBS idled the beef processing operation on April 15, but not before dozens more of its 4,500 workers became infected and at least four died.

The missive from County Health Officer Dr. Mark Wallace, obtained by The Daily Beast, noted that he had brought up in the April 2 exchange that some of the plant’s laborers had reported feeling pressured to keep attendance up even when they felt ill.

Nebraskans in Virus Hot Zone ‘Terrified’ by Guv’s Decision
‘JUST LIKE TRUMP’
Marcella Mercer, Tracy Connor


“These concerns expressed to clinicians included a perception by employees of a ‘work while sick’ culture that included managers and supervisors coming to work while sick,” Wallace wrote in the letter, first reported on by local Fox affiliate KDVR.

The doctor went on to order the company to take employees’ temperatures as they arrived on site, to implement social distancing protocols, and to direct the ailing and the potentially exposed to self-isolate at home. The letter ended with a threat should JBS fail to comply.

“If I find evidence of continued violations,” Wallace wrote. “I will seek assistance from the District Attorney to consider criminal actions against you and your staff and/or the Weld County attorney to seek injunctive relief against your company.”

In a statement to The Daily Beast, JBS denied obligating or encouraging workers to show up while exhibiting symptoms.

A Sioux Falls Meat Plant Is Now Worst Virus Cluster in U.S.
SHOCKING

Emma Tucker, Rachel Olding



“No one is forced to come to work and no one is punished for being absent for health reasons. If someone is sick or lives with someone who is sick, we send them home,” said spokesperson Nikki Richardson. “The health and safety of our team members is our number one priority.”

Still, Richardson noted that the federal government has sought to keep food supply chains running amid the pandemic, which she said imposed on JBS a “special responsibility to maintain normal work schedules.”

President Donald Trump acknowledged the scale of the JBS outbreak in his April 10 press briefing, in which he lauded the local response.

“We’re looking at this graph where everything’s looking beautiful and it’s coming down and then you got this one spike,” he said. “Many people, very quickly. And by the way, they were on it, like, so fast, you wouldn’t believe it.”

The Daily Beast previously reported on an outbreak at another of the company’s facilities in Grand Island, Nebraska.

The Brazilian-based food giant, which also controls the brand Pilgrim’s Pride, has been at the center of a number of controversies and scandals. Its two top executives Joesley and Wesley Batista, whose father co-founded the company in 1953, pleaded guilty in 2017 to paying millions in bribes to nearly 2,000 lawmakers in their home country—a major development in the “Operation Car Wash” scandal that rocked the South American country.

Earlier this year, news that the firm had received $67 million in U.S. tax dollars intended to bail out struggling farmers provoked outcry. And in March, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), accused the company of taking advantage of the pandemic to underpay beef producers.


Several meat plants have been crippled by the coronavirus outbreak, including a pork facility in South Dakota, owned by Smithfield Foods, which has become the largest single-source cluster in the country.

---30---

SEE  

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=SMITHFIELD

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=TYSON

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=MEAT+PACKING

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=COVID19

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=JBS