It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
The coronavirus pandemic might make buildings sick, too William Rhoads, Research Scientist, Virginia Tech, Andrew J. Whelton, Associate Professor of Civil, Environmental & Ecological Engineering, Purdue University, and Caitlin R. Proctor, Lillian Gilbreth Postdoctoral Fellow, Purdue University, The Conversation•April 21, 2020 Discolored water can be caused by heavy metals, such as iron or copper. Iron can also act as a nutrient for organisms to grow in the pipes. Kyungyeon Ra/Purdue University, CC BY-ND
While millions of people are under orders to stay home amid the coronavirus pandemic, water is sitting in the pipes of empty office buildings and gyms, getting old and potentially dangerous.
When water isn’t flowing, organisms and chemicals can build up in the plumbing. It can happen in underused gyms, office buildings, schools, shopping malls and other facilities. These organisms and chemicals can reach unsafe levels when water sits in water pipes for just a few days. But, what happens when water sits for weeks or months?
There are no long-term studies of the risks and only minimal guidance to help building owners prepare their water for use again after a long shutdown.
As researchers involved in building water safety, we study these risks and advise building owners and public officials on actions they can take to reduce the potential for widespread waterborne disease. A new paper highlights these issues and our concerns that the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders may increase the chance of harmful water exposure when people return. What happens when water gets old?
Just like food that sits in a refrigerator for too long, water that sits in a building’s pipes for too long can make people sick.
Drinking this water is a problem, but infections can also result from inhaling harmful organisms. This occurs when water splashes and becomes an aerosol, as can happen in showers, hot tubs and pools and when flushing toilets or washing hands. Some of these organisms can cause pneumonia-like diseases, especially in people who have weakened immune systems.
Water inside a building does not have an expiration date: Problems can develop within days at individual faucets, and all buildings with low water use are at risk. Keep the water flowing
To avoid water issues, “fresh” water must regularly flow to a building’s faucets. Most U.S. water providers add a chemical disinfectant to the water they deliver to kill organisms, but this chemical disappears over time.
Medical facilities, with their vulnerable populations, are required to have a building water safety plan to keep water fresh and prevent growth. Schools, which have long periods of low use during the summer, are advised to keep water fresh to reduce water’s lead levels.
Health agencies in the U.S., Canada, England, Europe and somestates have released recommendations in recent weeks, advising that building water be kept fresh during COVID-19 stay-at-home orders. There’s some debate over the best way to do that, but the core message is the same: Do not let water sit in buildings.
Faucets, water heaters and softeners, appliances such as refrigerators, toilets and other water systems, including cooling towers, all need to have water turnover. Some of these can require specialized attention. Faucet aerators should be removed because they accumulate materials and slow down the flow.
How long flushing takes depends on the building’s piping design, devices and the speed of water exiting the faucets. All buildings are different.
It took more than 80 minutes of flushing to draw fresh water to the farthest faucet of one 10,000-square-foot building. In another building, it took 60 minutes just to get fresh water from the water meter to the basement of a building 30 feet from the street. A single large building may take hours or days to clear. Easier to avoid contamination than clean it up
For building managers who haven’t been running the water during the pandemic, the water sitting in pipes may already have significant problems. To perform flushing, safety equipment, including masks, currently in short supply, might be needed to protect workers.
A slow “ramp-up” of the economy means buildings will not reach normal water use for some time. These buildings may need flushing again and again.
Shock disinfection, adding a high level of disinfectant chemical to the plumbing to kill organisms living in it, may also be necessary. This is required for new buildings and is sometimes done when water in new buildings sits still for too long. Cut-open shower pipes reveal a biofilm with metal deposits. Caitlin Proctor/Purdue University, CC BY-ND
Inexpensive chemical disinfectant tests can help determine if the water is “fresh.” Testing for harmful organisms is recommended by some organizations. It can take several days and requires expertise to interpret results. Metals testing might be needed, too. Public health departments can provide specific recommendations for all of these actions and communication of risks. The need for standards and water safety
Water left sitting in the pipes of buildings can present serious health risks.
Standards are lacking and very much needed for restarting plumbing and ensuring continued water safety after the pandemic passes.
Right now, building managers can take immediate action to prevent people from becoming sick when they return.
Este artículo se vuelve a publicar de The Conversation, un medio digital sin fines de lucro dedicado a la diseminación de la experticia académica. Lee mas:
Caitlin R. Proctor receives funding from Purdue University College of Engineering, the National Science Foundation, and Warm Springs Foundation.
Andrew J. Whelton receives funding from the US National Science Foundation (CBET 2027049), US Environmental Protection Agency (R836890), Warm Springs Foundation, and Water Research Foundation.
William Rhoads receives funding from the National Science Foundation (CBET 1706733). He is affiliated with the American Waterworks Association.
Higher death rate for malaria drug touted by Trump: coronavirus study
April 21, 2020 By Agence France-Presse A malaria drug widely touted as a potential cure for COVID-19 showed no benefit against the disease over standard care — and was in fact associated with more deaths, the biggest study of its kind showed Tuesday.
The US government funded analysis of American military veterans’ treatment courses was posted on a medical preprint site and has not yet been peer reviewed.
The experiment had several important limitations, but adds to a growing body of doubt over the efficacy of the medicine that counts President Donald Trump and right wing news channel Fox News among its biggest backers.
Researchers looked at the medical records of 368 veterans hospitalized nationwide who either died or were discharged by April 11.
Death rates for patients on hydroxychloroquine were 28 percent, compared to 22 percent when it was taken with the anti-biotic azithromycin — a combination favored by French scientist Didier Raoult, whose study on the subject in March triggered a surge of global interest in the drug.
The death rate for those receiving only standard care was 11 percent.
Hydroxychloroquine, with or without azithromycin, was more likely to be prescribed to patients with more severe illness, but the authors found that increased mortality persisted even after they statistically adjusted for higher rates of use.
Other drawbacks include the fact that the study did not assign people randomly to groups, because it was a retrospective analysis meaning it looked back on what had already happened.
In addition, the results are hard to generalize because the population was highly specific: most of the patients were male, with a median age over 65, and black, a group that is disproportionately affected by underlying illnesses like diabetes and heart disease.
There was no added risk of being on ventilator among the hydroxychloroquine only group, leading the authors to suggest that increased mortality among this group might be attributable to side-effects outside the respiratory system.
Previous research has found that the medicine is risky for patients with certain heart rhythm issues and can cause blackouts, seizures or at times cardiac arrest in this group.
Hydroxychloroquine and a related compound chloroquine have been used for decades to treat malaria, as well as the autoimmune disorders lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
They have received significant attention during the novel coronavirus pandemic and have been shown in lab settings to block the virus from entering cells and prevent it replicating — but in the pharmaceutical world, “in vitro” promise often fails to translate into “in vivo” success.
The true answer can only be determined through very large, randomized clinical trials that assign patients to receive either the drug under investigation or a placebo.
Several of these are underway, including notably in Europe, Canada and the United Kingdom.
“How about real clinical trials?” Cornyn tweeted, quoting an AP report stating the study “was not a rigorous experiment, but it is “the largest look so far of hydroxychloroquine with or without the antibiotic azithromycin for COVID-19.” Given this and other studies clinical trials would likely lead to increased deaths.
A study of chloroquine in Brazil was stopped after patients suffered heart problems. A French study found hydroxychloroquine offered no benefits.
Earlier in the day Cornyn tweeted about a separate study he said that “showed that 9 of 10 patients had an underlying medical condition.”
#COVIDー19 The data showed that 9 of 10 patients had an underlying medical condition, including: —Hypertension: 49.7% —Diabetes: 28.3% —Chronic lung disease: 34.6% —Cardiovascular disease: 27.8% —Obesity: 48.3% https://t.co/YjabN89Bwc — Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) April 21, 2020
His remarks were not met with praise.
What is your point here. That those people deserved to die? — Joe Lockhart (@joelockhart) April 21, 2020
wow, sucks to be them, right, senator? — Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) April 21, 2020
Well, luckily none of these things exist in Texas, which has the highest % of ppl lacking health insurance in the country (nearly 1 in 5), a number you’d like to make much, much larger by trying to eliminate the ACA pre-existing-condition protections — Cliff Schecter (@cliffschecter) April 21, 2020
‘Listen… and take action’: In front of White House, nurses read names of colleagues who have died from Covid-19 April 21, 2020 By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
“We are here because our colleagues are dying. I think that right now people think of us as heroes, but we’re feeling like martyrs. We’re feeling like we’re being left on the battlefield with nothing.”
Dozens of nurses gathered outside the White House Tuesday and—while wearing face masks and adhering to social distancing guidelines—read aloud the names of 50 fellow healthcare workers who have died of Covid-19 in an effort to pressure Congress and President Donald Trump to provide frontline workers with adequate protective equipment.
“We’re tired of being treated as if we are expendable.” —Deborah Burger, National Nurses United
“We’re demanding that the Trump administration and the U.S. Congress listen to these names, all dedicated nurses who have left families, friends, and colleagues behind,” said Melody Jones, a member of National Nurses United (NNU), the union that organized the demonstration. “Listen to their names and take action.”
“Let us remember and honor the ultimate sacrifice these nurses paid, mourn their passing, and recommit ourselves to fight like hell for the living,” said Jones.
This morning nurses protested for PPE – in front of the White House.
They read the names of healthcare workers who have given their lives trying to save others from COVID-19.
NNU, the largest nurses union in the U.S., has for weeks been urging the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to enact an emergency temporary standard to ensure that all healthcare workers have the protective equipment they need to do their essential jobs safely. The Labor Department agency has thus far refused to act on the nurses’ demand.
“We are here because our colleagues are dying,” one nurse who participated in Tuesday’s demonstration told MSNBC. “I think that right now people think of us as heroes, but we’re feeling like martyrs. We’re feeling like we’re being left on the battlefield with nothing.”
Nurses hold a protest at the White House to call attention to healthcare workers nationwide who have been infected with COVID-19 and demanding the Trump administration provide more protective gear. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo
An analysis released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that more than 9,200 healthcare workers have tested positive for the novel coronavirus as of April 9. The CDC acknowledged that the number “is likely an underestimation.”
“We’re tired of being treated as if we are expendable,” NNU president Deborah Burger told the Washington Post. “If we are killed in this pandemic, there won’t be anybody to take care of the rest of the sick people that are going to come.”
“Everybody says they love nurses, they want to protect us,” said Burger, “but we still don’t have the safety gear that we need.”
Watch the demonstration:
Nurses protest in front of White House
The National Nurses United union protested at the White House on Tuesday calling for President Donald Trump to invoke the Defense Production Act to produce more PPEs, including N95 masks.
Nurses hold photos of fellow healthcare workers who have died from COVID-19. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo
Nurses protest for protective equipment at White House
April 21 (UPI) -- Nurses protested Tuesday at the White House to demand President Donald Trump use the Defense Production Act to produce personal protective equipment in response to COVID-19.
The nurses are members of National Nurses United, the largest nurses union in the United States.
While practicing social distancing, they read aloud the names of U.S. nurses who have died of COVID-19.
The protest aims "to call attention to the tens of thousands of health care workers nationwide who have become infected with COVID-19 due to lack of personal protective equipment," the union said in the statement.
In response, nurses have been demanding that "Trump use his authority under the Defense Production Act to order the mass production of PPE, including N95 respirators, face shields, gowns, gloves and shoe coverings, as well as ventilators and COVID-19 testing kits," the union said. "NNU is calling on Congress to mandate the DPA's use to produce the equipment and supplies health care workers need to care for COVID-19 patients as well as to conduct mass testing that is required to control the spread of the virus."
Trump invoked the DPA in late March to push General Motors to produce ventilators and has also used it more recently for COVID-19 testing swabs, but he has urged hospitals and states to take the lead in getting other supplies.
The NNU petitioned the Trump administration's Occupational Safety and Health Administration in early March for an emergency temporary standard to provide healthcare workers "optimal PPE," the union added, but never received a response.
"With no federal health and safety standard, nurses and other health care workers in many hospitals across the country have not been provided with adequate PPE to protect them from exposure to the virus," the union statement said.
Now, "the NNU is demanding Congress include a mandatory OSHA emergency standard in its next COVID-19 legislative package," the union statement said.
Violence flares in tense Paris suburbs as heavy-handed lockdown stirs ‘explosive cocktail’April 21, 2020 By Agence France-Presse
Three nights of unrest in the French capital’s northern suburbs have stoked fears of a major flare-up in deprived neighborhoods where weeks of lockdown have exacerbated the simmering tensions between restless youths and police.
Six weeks into France’s nationwide lockdown, Zouhair Ech-Chetouani is an increasingly worried man. In more than 20 years of social work, the community leader says the restive northern suburbs of Paris have never felt quite so tense.
According to Ech-Chetouani, the strict confinement rules to halt the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, coupled with tough policing enforcing those rules, have mixed up an “explosive cocktail” in areas already blighted by poverty, unemployment and now a worsening health crisis.
“The spark has been lit,” he says, referring to the unrest that has swept through several northern suburbs of Paris in recent nights.
The trouble in Villeneuve-La-Garenne first flared late on Saturday after a motorcyclist collided with the open door of an unmarked police car during a pursuit. Witnesses said the officers had deliberately opened the door into the motorcyclist’s path, a claim denied by police.
The skirmishes lasted into the early hours of Sunday before calm was restored but unrest broke out again the following two nights, spreading to other suburbs north of Paris. Police said fireworks were aimed at them and several cars were torched while officers fired tear gas to disperse the troublemakers.
A history of violence
Relations between police and residents have long been a fraught issue in France’s economically poor and ethnically diverse suburbs, where men of African and North African origin complain about being routinely stopped and searched simply because of the colour of their skin.
A study by France’s National Centre for Scientific Research has shown that blacks are 11.5 times more likely to be checked by police than whites, and those of Arab origin are seven times more likely.
In what has become a depressing cycle of violence and resentment, such routine checks can lead to violent altercations and eventually riots, a daunting prospect the French government is desperate to avoid as it grapples with a health emergency.
When President Emmanuel Macron imposed a nationwide lockdown starting March 17, police officers privately expressed concerns that tough restrictions on public life could amplify tensions and spark unrest.
In late March, the satirical weekly Le Canard Enchainé, a leading source of investigative journalism, reported that the Interior Ministry had quietly asked police chiefs to adopt a light touch as they seek to enforce the lockdown in restive suburbs so as not to inflame tensions.
However, activists on the ground say the police approach has been anything but light.
Disproportionate force
On the first day of confinement, the Seine-Saint-Denis department northeast of Paris – home to France’s poorest districts – accounted for 10 percent of all fines handed out for breaching the lockdown despite comprising just over 2 percent of the country’s population.
Since then, videos of heavy-handed arrests have circulated widely on French social media, along with calls for revenge.
“You’re much less likely to see police fining and harassing parents who play with their children in the Bois de Boulogne,” says Echi-Chetouani, referring to the park that borders the 16th arrondissement (district) of Paris in the French capital’s affluent west.
The social worker says the situation has considerably worsened since the start of the lockdown, which he argues has only heightened a sense of power and impunity among the police.
“When there are people out in the streets, police abuses are less likely to go unnoticed,” he explains. “But with residents locked up at home, the police have become more violent and arbitrary.”
He adds: “Of course, most officers do their work conscientiously. But it only takes a few bad apples eager to settle scores for things to get out of hand very fast.”
In late March, a coalition of rights groups including Human Rights Watch released a statement denouncing the police’s “unacceptable”, “illegal” and “sometimes dangerous” practices.
“The current state of sanitary emergency should not be in breach of the rule of law and does not justify discriminatory checks or unjustified and disproportionate force,” the statement read.
Police unions, which did not return FRANCE 24’s requests for comment, have rejected the accusations, noting that officers are constantly targeted and provoked by youths in tense suburbs.
‘All we got was an order to stay home’
Critics of police tactics say they reflect a wider failure to take into account the specificities of the impoverished and densely populated suburbs as they grapple with the twin challenges of a health emergency and home confinement.
While Seine-Saint-Denis was hit by Covid-19 later than other territories, health officials have since declared it one of four French departments suffering from an “exceptional” spike in deaths.
The combination of large families in cramped quarters and the lack of doctors and hospital beds has left the local population particularly exposed to the virus. And while many Parisians fled to countryside homes or switched to working from home, the capital’s poorer suburbs have supplied most of the workers who keep the metropolis running.
“Nurses, cashiers, caregivers, street cleaners, security agents, delivery men… Basically all the people who prop up the country today, all those who hold the front line and put themselves in danger, they come from the working-class districts, from [Seine-Saint-Denis]!” said Stéphane Peu, a local communist lawmaker, in an interview with Le Monde.
The French newspaper notes that several other factors conspire to make the coronavirus lockdown more challenging in banlieue high-rises than elsewhere in France, including the dearth of food outlets. In northern Bondy, for instance, there is just one supermarket for a population of 21,000.
Seine-Saint-Denis is also home to France’s youngest population, with 30% of inhabitants aged under 20.
“By and large, the lockdown is being respected in the suburbs, but there comes a point when restless youths in overcrowded homes need a breath of fresh air,” says Echi-Chetouani, lamenting the authorities’ failure to prepare for lockdown.
“There has simply been no outreach, no attempt to explain to the locals how the virus spreads and why social distancing is important to protect vulnerable family members,” he adds. “All we got was an order to stay home, followed by repression.”
Police clash with residents in Paris suburbs amid lockdown
Issued on: 20/04/2020
The tensions were ignited in the early hours of Saturday when a motorcyclist was injured during a police check GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT AFP ALL VIDEOS ARE AT THE END Paris (AFP)
Police fought running battles overnight in Paris's low-income northern suburbs with residents alleging heavy-handedness by officers enforcing France's strict coronavirus lockdown.
Residents burned trash and cars and shot fireworks at police, who responded with rubber bullets and tear gas in the suburbs of Villeneuve-la-Garenne and Aulnay-sous-Bois, witnesses and police said on Monday.
The tensions were ignited in the early hours of Saturday when a motorcyclist was injured during a police check in Villeneuve-la-Garenne, prompting about 50 angry bystanders to gather.
A police statement said the group targeted officers with "projectiles" in a near two-hour standoff.
The motorcyclist, 30, was hospitalised with a broken leg and had to undergo surgery after he had crashed into the open door of a police car.
Residents allege the door was opened deliberately so that the rider would smash into it.
The man will lodge a complaint against the officers, his family and a lawyer told AFP, while prosecutors have opened an investigation.
By Monday morning, calm had returned to Villeneuve-la-Garenne after a second night of riots marked by suburban fires and explosions, an AFP journalist observed.
The trouble had also spread to nearby Aulnay-sous-Bois, where police claimed they were "ambushed" by residents in a district of dense, high-rise social housing of mainly immigrant occupants who claim they are regularly the victims of harsh police treatment.
Police said they were targeted by residents using fireworks as projectiles. Four were arrested.
- 'Confinement and tensions' -
After the motorcyclist was injured on Saturday, rights group SOS Racisme issued a statement calling on authorities to shed full light on the incident, and urging police restraint "in this time of confinement and tensions".
Earlier this month, prosecutors opened an investigation into the death in detention of a 33-year-old man arrested for allegedly violating the home confinement measures imposed by the government to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Police said the man resisted arrest. According to his sister, he had suffered from schizophrenia.
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said Sunday police had carried out 13.5 million checks since the lockdown started on March 17, with people allowed outside only for essential purposes, and then with a self-certified letter explaining their reasons for leaving their home.
More than 800,000 people were written up for violations.
Several complaints of brutality were lodged against French police during recent months of pension reform protests and "yellow vest" anti-government rallies.
Anti-lockdown riots break out in Paris amid anger at police 'heavy-handed' treatment of minorities after Macron extends social distancing to fight COVID-19 until May 11
Tear gas and baton charges were used by police in northern suburb of Paris
Squads of Republican Security Company officers were called in to tackle dissent
Comes after 30-year-old motorcyclist was critically injured by police car
Riots have broken out in Paris amid anger over police 'heavy-handed' treatment of ethnic minorities during the coronavirus lockdown.
Police used tear gas and baton charges in Villeneuve-la-Garenne, northern Paris, in the early hours this morning as fireworks exploded in the street.
Armed police were seen moving through the area as groups of protesters congregated.
It comes after a 30-year-old was critically injured in the neighbourhood in a collision with an unmarked police car.
President Emmanuel Macron has extended France's social distancing measures until May 11. Its daily death toll from the virus fell to the lowest level in three weeks today as 395 deaths were recorded, bringing the total to 19,718, though deaths are typically under-reported over the weekend. Riots have broken out in the Parisian suburb of Villeneuve-la-Garenne following allegations of heavy handedness against ethnic minorities by police forces. (Pictured: An officer asks a journalist to step back in the suburb early on Monday morning) A firework explodes in the middle of the street in the French suburb early this morning
Des unités de police répondent aux feux d’artifices par des tirs de grenades lacrymogènes.#VilleneuveLaGarennepic.twitter.com/A7CP6hRCjS— Taha Bouhafs (@T_Bouhafs) April 19, 2020 Protesters fired fireworks at buildings and into police officers in early hours of this morning A car waits at a cross roads in the neighbourhood as fireworks explode overhead Overnight anti-lockdown riots in Paris suburb leave streets on fireFireworks dyed the sky red above the Parisian suburb early this morning, videos posted on social media show.
Bins were also filmed blazing and filling the air with smoke as armed police moved into the area.
Videos of the trouble posted by the French journalist Taha Bouhafs, who is from an Algerian background, includes one of him being manhandled by police – leading to allegations of racism.
Mr Bouhaf’s earlier images show tear gas canisters being fired by the police, who were hit my numerous fireworks.
The early morning violence followed prosecutors opening an enquiry after a 30-year-old motorcyclist was critically injured following a collision with an unmarked police car in Villeneuve-la-Garenne.
Friends of the victim, who have not been named, claimed the incident on Saturday night was an example of police heavy-handedness against ethnic minority communities during the lockdown.
‘The very badly injured man comes from an Arab Muslim background,’ said a source close to the case.
‘He is critical in hospital, and people in the area have reacted very badly to what has happened.’
A local police spokesman said: ‘Police and their reinforcements have been the target of rioters, who have thrown stones and fireworks.
‘The violence started in Villeneuve-la-Garenne and has spread to other towns and estates nearby.’
Protesters let off fireworks. The riots were triggered after a 30-year-old man was severely injured in a collision with an unmarked police car in the area Police threw tear gas and baton charges as they moved to disperse protesters in the area A police officer was seen carrying a large gun as they moved through the neighbourhood
Last week prosecutors in Béziers, in the south of France, announced that officers were facing criminal charges after a father-of-three died while under arrest for breaching the Coronavirus lockdown.
Three officers were videoed dragging Mohamed Gabsi, 33, along the ground during a curfew.
They are suspected of ‘intentional violence by a public official leading to manslaughter’ and ‘non assistance of a person in danger’.
The offences come with a potential combined prison sentence of 15 years plus, said local prosecutors.
The case is particularly sensitive because Mr Gabsi was a Muslim, and Béziers is run by a far-Right mayor who is supported by the National Rally party, which used to be called the National Front.
Mr Gabsi had suffered a heart attack by the time he arrived at a local police station, and witnesses saw two of the officers sitting on top of him in their patrol car.
Mr Gabsi’s suspicious death follows numerous complaints about police racism as forces across France enforce one of the strictest lockdowns in Europe.
A spokesman for France’s Human Rights League described the death of Mr Gabsi, who was from an Arab background, as a ‘scandal that shows how the poor are being killed’ by the lockdown. French journalist Taha Bouhafs, who is from an Algerian background, is manhandled by police Two officers hold the journalist's arms behind his back. He was reporting on the protests
France on Tuesday reported a total of 19,718 deaths from coronavirus since the start of the health emergency. A total of 152,894 cases have also been detected in the country.
Its stringent lockdown measures are 'working', Prime Minister Edouard Philippe told a press conference today.
French authorities have said they will publish plans for ending the lockdown 'within two weeks', and begins to air their strategy 'in the coming days'.
'It is likely that we are not going to see an end to confinement that would happen in one move everywhere and for everyone,' Mr Philippe said, revealing details of the strategy.
The French lockdown could lead to a 10 per cent contraction in the French economy this year.
PARIS - On a national discrimination hotline that she helps manage, Rafaelle Parlier hears troubling reports: a veiled woman fined by police for using her veil as a face mask, and a man of North African descent similarly sanctioned for picking up his wife, a nurse, from her hospital shift — although both had appropriate justifications.
“These are practices we usually denounce,” said Parlier, who works for anti-discrimination coalition En finir avec les contrôles au faciès (End Racial Profiling). “The confinement just makes it easier.”
A woman walks in front of a hotel of the Accor group in Paris, April 16, 2020, during a nationwide confinement to counter the coronavirus. The Accor facilities are taking in people with COVID-19 who show no symptoms but risk infecting others.
If COVID-19 touches all of France, its effects are not being felt equally. Poor, ethnically diverse residents are suffering disproportionately, rights activists and local officials say. The fallout varies, from reports of police intimidation and violence to more arduous conditions under lockdown and potentially more coronavirus cases than elsewhere in the country.
“The problem with this epidemic is that it underscores all the other pre-existing inequalities,” said Laurent Russier, mayor of Saint-Denis, a working-class Paris suburb with a large immigrant population. “And Saint-Denis is marked by sharp inequalities.”
Few areas manifest the national disparities more sharply than the broader Seine-Saint-Denis department, France’s poorest region, where Russier’s town is located. A recent government report found a sharp spike in deaths during the last half of March, when the COVID-19 lockdown began — higher than in neighboring departments.
While the government has not linked the uptick to coronavirus, local officials list a raft of underlying weaknesses in the banlieues, as the gritty, working-class suburbs are called.
Disparities ‘that kill’
In an op-ed piece, Russier joined a half-dozen mayors and elected officials in outlining several disparities “that kill” in the Seine-Saint-Denis department — in justice, security, health, education and jobs.
While some Parisians headed to country houses to wait out the pandemic, and a number are telecommuting for work, many of Russier’s residents have "front-line" jobs as health aides, supermarket cashiers and delivery workers, sometimes without protective masks. Peeling housing projects sometimes pack large, intergenerational families into tiny, unhealthy spaces, creating coronavirus clusters in some cases.
“So if someone catches COVID-19 in an apartment that’s multigenerational, the contagion is more rapid,” Russier said, “and the confinement is harder.”
Some banlieue graveyards report they are close to saturation, a situation that has not been helped by the recent uptick in deaths.
“Usually, I sign three or four burial certificates a week. But over the last few weeks, I’m signing three or four a day,” Sylvine Thomassin, mayor of another working-class suburb, told Le Monde newspaper.
FILE - A family watches French President Emmanuel Macron's televised speech, April 13, 2020, in Lyon, central France. Macron announced an extension of France's nationwide lockdown until May 11.
The message seems to have hit home with the French government. Addressing the nation Monday, President Emmanuel Macron — who has earned underwhelming marks for addressing banlieue grievances — promised nearly $1 billion more in financial aid for poor families.
France’s banlieues have long been considered flashpoints for unresolved social and economic grievances. In 2005, they exploded into rioting — a theme of the recent hit movie “Les Miserables” — revealing the tense and violent relationship between police and banlieue youngsters.
Old story, new context Today, the coronavirus simply offers a new context for discriminatory treatment, some activists say. Several videos posted on social media show police slapping and otherwise harassing youngsters for allegedly violating tough lockdown measures. In some cases, the young people have filed legal complaints.
“The issue of police violence is not new. It’s the usual targets, this time with the pretext of enforcing the confinement,” said Lanna Hollo, senior legal officer with the Open Society Justice Initiative in Paris.
"There are young people terrified to go out,” she added. “They may be the ones charged with the shopping or who have to go to work, and they’re afraid of being abused.”
In the Seine-Saint-Denis department, mayors and other officials say residents are largely following lockdown measures. Russier is among them.
But he denies excessive police behavior — at least in his town.
"There are some youngsters who don’t respect confinement, in some cases, defiantly,” he said. “But police are being careful. The idea is to avoid confrontation. They are very, very vigilant not to pour oil into the fire.”
FRANCE DISPATCH NEW YORK TIMES
‘Like a Prison’: Paris Suburbs Simmer Under Coronavirus Lockdown
A combination of cramped quarters, economic stress and accusations of police abuse is inflaming tensions in the poorer districts around the city.
Clichy-sous-Bois, an eastern suburb of Paris, is one of four French areas hit by “an exceptional excess” of coronavirus deaths, France’s national health director said Tuesday night.Credit...Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
By Adam Nossiter Published April 10, 2020 Updated April 13, 2020
CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS, France — The young men, immigrants with no papers and nowhere to go, chatted at close quarters outside the shopping strip, social distancing be damned. Above loomed the shabby facade of one of France’s most notorious housing blocks, packed with families waiting out confinement.
The pain of the moment is concentrated in this dense, impoverished district of the Paris immigrant suburbs, one of four French areas, including Paris and Alsace, hit by “an exceptional excess” of coronavirus deaths, France’s national health director said this week.
Much of Paris — perhaps a quarter of the population — packed up and went off to the countryside when the French government announced strict confinement rules on March 16. But just across the line in Seine-Saint-Denis, France’s poorest department, people didn’t have that choice.
Inside the Paris city limits, the streets are now as quiet as any French provincial town on a Sunday; in the suburbs the streets are mostly empty too. But the apartments are full.
Handing out food on Tuesday.Credit...Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
The grim and tired faces of the residents, lining up to get into the post office or the supermarket in the worn shopping strip, tell the story: small public housing apartments packed with families, jobs that have disappeared and an aggressive police force clamping down on youth restless with the confinement rules.
The combination of cramped quarters, acute economic stress and tough policing has made Paris’s poorer suburbs a more dangerous place for the virus to spread, as well as a special source of tension during the epidemic.
Relations between residents and the police, with their undercurrent of racial discrimination, are often fraught even in the best of times, and the current lockdown is not one of them.
Over and over, residents compared the confinement rules to conditions in a prison, and they charged that the police were taking advantage of their mandate to keep the streets clear by harassing, even beating, youths, no questions asked. Some are warning that the pressures are ripe to explode.
“We’ve got a lot of young people in big families, shut up in tiny apartments, and it’s difficult to close them up like that,” said Bilal Chikri, a filmmaker who lives in the neighborhood. “There’s a lot of clashes with the police, lots of police missteps, lots of abuse of power.” The approach has left residents vulnerable to both the police and the virus. Paris had 732 virus deaths compared with 402 in Seine-Saint-Denis as of April 8, but the city has half again the population of the suburb, where many of the metropolis’s cashiers, deliverymen, transit workers, nurses and couriers live.
“This is getting really tough,” said Larry Karache, an out-of-work shopkeeper, standing outside Chêne Pointu, the housing project where France’s 2005 urban riots were born, and which was depicted in last year’s hit film “Les Misérables.” “We’re actually in prison here.”
“People can’t support their families anymore,’’ he added. “And with the cops now, it’s all about score-settling.” A residential compound reflected in a window of a food donation outpost.Credit...Mauricio Lima for The New York Times The stresses, from a lack of money and small spaces, were accumulating.
“It’s like a prison. There are three of us in two rooms,” said Drissa Fofana, an out-of-work construction worker. “But we’ve got to accept it. If this goes on, the little that we’ve got saved up will be all gone,” he said.
Another resident, Mama Traoré, echoed the complaint. “It’s hard,” she said, grimacing as she bent over her shopping cart outside the post office at Chêne Pointu. “I’ve got four kids and three rooms. Too small. With all the noise, I’ve always got a headache.”
Outside the apartment blocks, small groups gather, here and there, mostly at bus stops. But the wide streets are largely quiet.
“On the whole, people are respecting the confinement rules,” said Hamza Esmili, a sociologist who has studied the Paris suburbs. “There isn’t a sort of collective indiscipline about it.”
“But the illness has the potential to continue spreading,” Mr. Esmili warned.
The real danger comes not from people congregating outside, but from the cramped apartments where extended families are packed. “On the exterior, the confinement is being observed,” said Frédéric Adnet, head of emergency services in the Seine-Saint-Denis department. “It’s not there that the problem is playing out.”
Playing at a housing complex.Credit...Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
“We’re seeing whole families arrive in the emergency rooms,” he said. “There’s familial contamination. People live, five or six, in little, little apartments.”
Paris had its exodus to country homes. “We didn’t see that in the Seine-Saint-Denis,” Mr. Adnet said. “They don’t have country homes here. So we didn’t benefit from that drop in the population.”
In the last few days the pressure on the area’s three public hospitals has eased a little, officials said. But the tension inside the tired old apartment blocks is spilling into the streets.
The French police have come down hard, in the accounts of several residents, responding to perceived lapses in the confinement rules with beatings, harassment, humiliation and intimidation.
A coalition of rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, denounced “unacceptable and illegal behavior” by the police in the Paris suburbs in a March 27 statement, saying the health crisis “doesn’t mean a break with the rule of law and doesn’t justify discriminatory checks or unjustified force.”
It noted that these abuses “are common, and rarely punished” in France.
Inside a residential building.Credit...Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
A leading police union, in a post on Twitter, called the residents’ accounts “fables,” and blamed them on “little Dzerjinskis” — a reference to a celebrated Bolshevik revolutionary — who are “holed up in the Latin Quarter, or their country homes.”
But the accounts are consistent, widespread and tied to the French government’s confinement rules. Since March 17 authorities have demanded a self-signed interior ministry release form giving one of four preapproved reasons for being outside.
In the Paris suburbs, if the police catch you without the form, or if there is an error on it, you are in trouble, residents said.
“The police just jump in, just like that, with force,” said Fiston Kabunda, who works as a mediator for the city of Clichy-sous-Bois. “There’s no discussion.”
“It’s an abuse of power: ‘We’re going to beat up some black and Arab,’” he added.
“Look, it’s like this: The police come, and they start to beat up on the kids,” he said. “They’re not even checking them. It’s brutality, no questions asked.”
A spokesman for the police prefecture of Paris, which is responsible for Seine-Saint-Denis, said the police would not comment on accusations that were “not specific.”
A commercial area in Clichy-sous-Bois.Credit...Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
Mr. Chikri, the filmmaker, said he had forgotten his release form in his car when a group of police surrounded him last week, threw him to the ground, handcuffed him, kicked him and squeezed his carotid artery. “You can stuff your release form,” the police told him, Mr. Chikri recalled.
“With these guys, it’s all hatred and violence,” he said.
The police in Paris did not respond to a specific inquiry about Mr. Chikri’s accusations.
In a video widely circulating on French social media, a young man in the suburb of Les Ulis can be heard screaming in pain during a police “check” for a missing release form.
“He was savagely beaten with truncheons, fists and kicks until he fell to the ground, but the punishment continued,” said a criminal complaint filed on behalf of Sofiane Naoufel El Allaki, a 21-year-old deliveryman for Amazon, by a Paris human rights lawyer, Samim Bolaky.
“The screams of Mr. El Allaki penetrated the whole neighborhood,” the complaint said.
“This is not about confrontation,” Mr. Bolaky said. “This is not urban violence. The streets are deserted. They didn’t even ask him for his release form. He didn’t resist at all.”
The police in the Essone department, where the incident took place, did not respond to a specific inquiry about Mr. El Allaki’s claims. Mr. El Allaki’s case is one of several involving police violence being investigated by prosecutors.
Mr. Esmili, the sociologist, warned that the way the authorities were enforcing the lockdown was only reinforcing the worst expectations of many in France’s poorest areas.
“Look, the state is completely ignoring how people live in these neighborhoods,” he said. “Its only response to them is an excess of authoritarianism. And the people are beginning to understand, the only response is police force.”
Clichy-sous-Bois is in Seine-Saint-Denis, France’s poorest department.Credit...Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
Constant Meheut contributed reporting.
Adam Nossiter is the Paris bureau chief. Previously, he was a Paris correspondent, the West Africa bureau chief, and led the team that won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for coverage of the Ebola epidemic. A version of this article appears in print on April 11, 2020, Section A, Page 5 o
The Quiet Hand of Conservative Groups in the Anti-Lockdown Protests
Groups in a loose coalition have tapped their networks to drive up turnout at recent rallies in state capitals and financed lawsuits, polling and research to combat the stay-at-home orders.
WHITE People protested at the Washington State Capitol in Olympia on Sunday. Organizers see the events as unifying social and fiscal conservatives as well as civil libertarians.Credit...Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
WASHINGTON — An informal coalition of influential conservative leaders and groups, some with close connections to the White House, has been quietly working to nurture protests and apply political and legal pressure to overturn state and local orders intended to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Groups in the loose coalition have tapped their networks to drive up turnout at recent rallies in state capitals, dispatched their lawyers to file lawsuits, and paid for polling and research to undercut the arguments behind restrictions that have closed businesses and limited the movement of most Americans.
Among those fighting the orders are populist groups that played pivotal roles in the beginning of Tea Party protests starting more than a decade ago, such as FreedomWorks and Tea Party Patriots. Also involved are a law firm led partly by former Trump White House officials, a network of state-based conservative policy groups, and an ad hoc coalition of conservative leaders known as Save Our Country that has advised the White House on strategies for a tiered reopening of the economy.
The initiatives, powered by a mix of grass-roots activism and well-funded groups with ties to the White House, are emerging as President Trump is pushing governors to open their states, with one eye on his own re-election prospects.
The effort picked up some influential support on Tuesday, when Attorney General William P. Barr expressed concerns about state-level restrictions potentially infringing on constitutional rights, and suggested that, if that occurred, the Justice Department might weigh in, including by supporting legal challenges by others. Separately, in Wisconsin, Republicans in the state legislature sued to block the Democratic governor’s order extending stay-at-home rules through May 26.
Those helping orchestrate the fight against restrictions predict the effort could energize the right in the same way the Tea Party movement did in 2009 and 2010. But the cause has yet to demonstrate that kind of traction. Polls show a majority of Americans are more concerned about reopening the country too quickly than they are about the damage to the economy. And coronavirus protests have drawn smaller crowds ranging from a few dozen to several thousand at a rally in Michigan last week.
Conditions are hardly ideal for a protest movement related to the virus. In addition to the health risks, demonstrators potentially face legal exposure for violating the very measures they are protesting. Plus, some key Republican leaders have embraced the types of restrictions being targeted, while powerful grass-roots mobilizing groups, including those spearheaded by the billionaire activist Charles Koch, have so far not embraced the protests.
Still, the fight has emerged as a galvanizing cause for a vocal element of Mr. Trump’s base and others on the political right. Organizers see it as unifying social conservatives, who view the orders as targeting religious groups; fiscal conservatives who chafe at the economic devastation wrought by the restrictions on businesses; and civil libertarians who contend that the restrictions infringe on constitutional rights.
“Groups are united in purpose on this,” said Noah Wall, advocacy director for FreedomWorks, which in 2009 organized a Tea Party protest that drew tens of thousands of people or more to Washington. He described the current efforts as appealing to a “much broader” group. “This is about people who want to get back to work and leave their homes,” he said.
More than 10 protests are planned for this week, Mr. Wall said, adding that elected officials “are going to see a lot of angry activists, and I think that could change minds.”
Trump merchandise was for sale at a protest in Harrisburg, Pa.,
on Monday.Credit...Rachel Wisniewski/Reuters
The protests mostly appear to have been organized by local residents, and are framed primarily as pushback against what they view as government overreach. But some rallies have prominently featured iconography boosting Mr. Trump and Republicans and denouncing Democrats, as well the occasional Confederate flag and signs promoting conspiracy theories.
As was the case with the Tea Party movement, established national groups that generally align with the Republican Party have sought to fuel the protests, harnessing their energy in a manner that can increase their profiles and build their membership base and donor rolls.
Nonprofit groups including FreedomWorks and Tea Party Patriots have used their social media accounts and text and email lists to spread the word about protests across the country.
Most of FreedomWorks’s 40 employees are working remotely on the effort, helping to connect local protesters and set up websites for them. The group is considering paid digital advertising to further increase turnout, and has been conducting weekly tracking polls in swing suburban districts that it says show support for reopening parts of country. It is sharing the data with advisers on the president’s economic task force and other conservative allies on Capitol Hill.
While social media has been a key platform for organizing the protests, those efforts have drawn scrutiny. Facebook removed some posts devoted to the protests on Monday for encouraging violations of social distancing laws. And similarities in online organizing efforts behind different protests have sparked accusations that they are not, in fact, organic grass-roots campaigns, but “astroturfing” efforts that are manipulated by Washington conservatives to appear locally driven.
Organizers of recent protests in Oklahoma acknowledged that FreedomWorks helped arrange the events and said they hoped the “rolling protests,” which were intended to keep people in their vehicles, helped Mr. Trump politically. But they stressed that the events reflected real concerns from real people about the economic damage inflicted by mitigation measures.
Carol Hefner, an Oklahoma co-chair of Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign who helped organize a protest last week in Oklahoma City, cited the state’s flat terrain as a factor in any decision to ease restrictions. “We have a lot of wind and the wind has pretty much helped us here,” she said. “We are in a much better position than many of the other states to go ahead and open back up.”
Ronda Vuillemont-Smith, an Oklahoma HVAC contractor who helped with the capital rally and another one on Monday in Tulsa, said she encouraged protesters to remain in their vehicles. But Ms. Vuillemont-Smith, who serves on FreedomWorks’s activist advisory council, added, “I see absolutely no risks whatsoever” for open-air protests. “We are adults. We assume personal responsibility for the decisions that we make,” she said.
The Oklahoma organizers and Mr. Wall, as well as the White House and the Trump campaign, said there was no coordination between the protests and Mr. Trump’s team.
Ronda Vuillemont-Smith, who helped with two protests in
Oklahoma, said she encouraged protesters to remain in
their vehicles.
Credit...Matt Barnard/Tulsa World, via Associated Press
But the protests coincide with messages from Mr. Trump, and have been helped and organized by his supporters, some of whom have begun new ventures to advance the cause.
One of them is Reopen America Political Action Committee, which aims to bring small business owners to Washington to lobby lawmakers to reopen, starting with a 24-hour rally at the White House on May 1 — the target Mr. Trump set for reopening.
The group, which was created this month, has yet to report any financial activity. But its founder, Suzzanne Monk, who is active on Twitter with the handle @Trumpertarian, called the idea for the rally “pushback against these governors who want to stay shut down far beyond their economic capacity to do so.”
Support for the protests features more direct ties to the White House than simply support for Mr. Trump. The administration recently formed an advisory group for reopening the economy that included Stephen Moore, the conservative economics commentator. Mr. Moore had been coordinating with FreedomWorks, the Tea Party Patriots and the American Legislative Exchange Council in a coalition called “Save Our Country,” which was formed to push for a quicker easing of restrictions.
At the same time, Mr. Moore was communicating with a group of local activists in Wisconsin involved in organizing a protest at the State Capitol set for Friday. On a conservative YouTube program that went online the day Mr. Trump named him to the task force, Mr. Moore said he had “one big donor in Wisconsin” who had pledged financial support for the protesters, telling him, “‘Steve, I promise, I will pay the bail and legal fees of anyone who gets arrested.’”
In an interview with The New York Times, Mr. Moore declined to identify the donor, but said, “I do think you’re going to see these start to erupt.”
He said he would probably turn down an invitation to speak at the protest in Wisconsin, because “it’s important that no one be under the impression that it’s sponsored or directed by national groups in Washington.”
A legal offensive against the restrictions is also being waged by groups and individuals supportive of Mr. Trump.
Mr. Barr’s comments on Tuesday came a few days after a letter sent by groups including FreedomWorks, Tea Party Patriots and the anti-abortion-rights group Susan B. Anthony List urging the Justice Department to consider intervening to block restrictions that the officials said were unconstitutional infringements on civil liberties.
Lawyers aligned with socially conservative causes have filed their own lawsuits against governors.
Many are focused on allowing smaller churches to keep holding services, but the objections cover a range of other activities. In Michigan, a lawsuit is challenging provisions of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s executive order banning travel to vacation homes and gatherings of non-household members.
People protested from their cars outside California’s Capitol building in Sacramento on Monday.Credit...Josh Edelson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A law firm that advises the Trump Organization, Michael Best & Friedrich, is representing members of a new protest group in North Carolina called ReOpenNC. Michael Best’s ranks include the former Trump chief of staff Reince Priebus, the former deputy White House counsel Stefan C. Passantino and the current senior counsel at the Trump campaign, Justin Clark.
ReOpenNC had told its members that a “generous donor” had arranged to pay for buses to bring protesters to Raleigh from around the state. But, in a sign of how loath the groups are to be viewed as “astroturf” creations, the group said it had scrapped the plan when a news station, WRAL, asked about it. (Afterward, a former defense contractor and perennial North Carolina political candidate, Tim D’Annunzio, stepped forward on Facebook to say he was the donor and was still hoping to run the buses.)
On Friday, Anthony J. Biller, a Raleigh-based lawyer with Michael Best, wrote to Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, on behalf of a ReOpenNC’s co-founder, Kristen Elizabeth, and a member who was arrested at a protest last week, seeking dismissal of the charges. In an interview, Mr. Biller said he hoped the state would agree to allow ReOpenNC to demonstrate safely without fear of arrest, adding, “What is sufficient safety to buy toilet paper at Costco should be sufficient safety to practice one’s fundamental rights, particularly about these issues.”
He said that he was working pro bono but that there was “no coordination with the Trump administration, as some bozos have implied.”
One force in conservative politics that has kept its distance from the stay-at-home protests is the network of groups backed by the billionaire Mr. Koch. The largest Koch-backed group, Americans for Prosperity, which played a leading role in facilitating the Tea Party movement, has remained on the sidelines of the coronavirus protests.
GoDaddy records show that a public relations firm tied to the Koch network, In Pursuit Of LLC, registered the domain name “reopenmississippi.com.” An official said the group had planned to use the site to highlight a nuanced approach being developed by the network to reopen the economy while balancing health concerns.
“The question is — what is the best way to get people back to work?” said Emily Seidel, the chief executive of Americans for Prosperity. “We don’t see protests as the best way to do that,” she said, adding that “the choice between full shutdown and immediately opening everything is a false choice.”
Ken Vogel covers the confluence of money, politics and influence from Washington. He is also the author of “Big Money: 2.5 Billion Dollars, One Suspicious Vehicle, and a Pimp — on the Trail of the Ultra-Rich Hijacking American Politics.” @kenvogel • Facebook
Jim Rutenberg is a writer-at-large for The Times and the Sunday magazine. He was previously the media columnist, a White House reporter and a national political correspondent. He was part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2018 for exposing sexual harassment and abuse. @jimrutenberg
Lisa Lerer is a reporter based in Washington, covering campaigns, elections and political power. Before joining The Times she reported on national politics and the 2016 presidential race for The Associated Press. @llerer
