FOR PROFIT HEALTH CARE USA KA-CHING

America's biggest health insurers have been so profitable during the coronavirus that one is already giving cash back to customers, while hospitals lose billions

BIDEN WALL ST DEMOCRATS BACK BIG INSURERS AGAINST MEDICARE FOR ALL

Lydia Ramsey BUSINESS INSIDER MAY 7, 2020

Crystal Cox/Business Insider


While many healthcare companies have taken financial hits amid the coronavirus pandemic, health insurers have managed to stay afloat.

A review of the largest publicly-traded health insurers' first-quarter results for 2020 show that most have weathered the initial weeks of the pandemic financially, maintaining their financial guidance for the year.

The insurers have been boosted in large part by paying out fewer medical claims as hospitals have deferred surgeries and visits, a trend insurers expect to see continuing in the second-quarter of 2020.

 
Health insurers responsible for covering the cost of healthcare for Americans find themselves in a curious spot during the coronavirus pandemic.

Even as some hospitals are overwhelmed with coronavirus patients, the insurers are posting strong profits. The six largest publicly traded insurers made $8.6 billion in profit combined from their health plan businesses in the first three months of 2020.

Health insurers are saving a significant amount of money because many people aren't getting other types of costly care, such as surgeries and procedures. That means the insurers are doing well financially, despite taking measures to waive costs associated with testing and treatment for the novel coronavirus.

Hospitals, on the other hand, are struggling. Caring for coronavirus patients is far less lucrative than the surgeries that have been put on hold, and the facilities expect to lose close to $203 billion in revenue between March and June. Companies that make medical devices are seeing their business disrupted, too.

A survey conducted by Boston Consulting Group found that there's been a 60% decline in medical procedures across the US. By BCG's calculations, procedure volumes will continue to be 30% lower than they were before the pandemic over the following 12-18 months. 

Because so many Americans get insurance through work, many of those people now have to get insurance from the individual exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act or through Medicaid. They can also pay the full price for their work-based coverage via an option called COBRA. Others might not be able to pay premiums on their existing health plans. 

While reporting their first-quarter earnings, the insurers shared a snapshot of how their businesses fared through the early days of the pandemic and what's ahead for the rest of the year:

Humana beat estimates in late April based on its growth in membership for its Medicare Advantage plans. It maintained its annual financial guidance. It made $1 billion in adjusted pre-tax income. 

Cigna, reported having a "strong" first quarter of the year, also maintaining its financial guidance. Its insurance business made $1.2 billion in adjusted income from operations. 

CVS Health, which owns the health insurer Aetna, grew its business in the first-quarter of 2020. It left its 2020 guidance unchanged. Its healthcare benefits segment made $1.1 billion in operating income. 

Anthem, the $69 billion health insurer that offers health plans under the Blue Cross and Blue Shield brand in 14 states, beat on revenue projections for the first quarter and upheld its projections for 2020. It made $1.8 billion in operating gain from its health plan business. 

UnitedHealth Group, which operates the biggest health insurer in the US, in April didn't change its 2020 guidance, maintaining a forecast for net earnings per share between $15.45 and $15.75. Its insurance arm made $2.9 billion in earnings from operations. 

Centene, the largest Medicaid insurer, raised its revenue guidance amid the pandemic, citing higher unemployment in the US. The insurer made $476 million in adjusted net earnings in the first quarter.

UnitedHealth on Thursday said it was providing $1.5 billion worth of support for customers by way of discounts to their premiums and waiving of copays for doctors' visits. Some of the moves were required by rules that require health insurers to refund customers when they make too much money, but UnitedHealth said "the vast majority" are not. Humana also said it's giving members free primary care, behavioral health and telehealth visits for the rest of the year.

CVS Health noted that it saw a 30% drop over the last two weeks of March and through April in discretionary or deferred care. In places around the country that have started to lift the shelter-in-place orders, visits to the doctor have started to tick back up, CEO Larry Merlo told Business Insider. But it won't be as straightforward as resuming visits — people have to feel comfortable stepping into a doctor's office or hospital.

"There's an element of consumer behavior that is in play here as it relates to discretionary care," Merlo said. "When will people be comfortable doing whatever it was, that they would have done had the pandemic never occurred. It's hard to gauge that trajectory. It's a real unknown at this point."

In the second-quarter, CVS expects to spend the least on medical care in 2020, with spending picking up again in the second half of the year.

"We do expect that to pick back up as we move forward through the balance of the year," Merlo said.

Jeff Bezos has become too removed from employees to see what's really going on, say the fired Amazon tech workers who inspired a VP to publicly quit

FIRST IT WAS WAREHOUSE WORKERS, NOW ITS ENGINEERS, 

THORESTEIN VEBLEN THOU ART AVENGED 

Julie Bort BUSINESS INSIDER 

Axel Springer/Blue Origin/ Business Insider

Maren Costa and Emily Cunningham, the two fired Amazon tech workers at the center of a PR firestorm, spoke to Business Insider about their experiences at the ecommerce giant. 

Costa and Cunningham were leaders of an internal group of Amazon employees protesting the company's treatment of its warehouse workers. The group also called for Amazon to take more urgent action on climate change.

The two say they were both fired on the same day and at the same time for violating Amazon's external communications and non-solicitation policies. Soon after they were fired, Costa and Cunningham organized a protest of Amazon. 

The firing of Costa and Cunningham, and the protests that followed, caused Amazon VP Tim Bray, a highly-respected coder, to resign and publicly condemn the company.

The entire episode has led to an upswing in Amazon engineers speaking out against their employer's tactics, even as state attorneys general start looking for answers. 

The fired workers, one of whom has been with Amazon for 15 years and has internally worked on many changes, say the whole situation is caused by one thing: Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has become too insulated from his own company.

At 3 p.m. Pacific Time on April 10, Maren Costa — a user experience designer and 15-year veteran of Amazon with 9 patents pending — joined a video call with her boss's boss. The invite, sent to her last minute, was odd: It didn't have a subject line. 

It wasn't unusual to speak to him on a video call with the company still on work-from-home orders so she didn't think much about it until she logged on and saw an HR person had joined the call.

The HR person said: "You have been warned in the past for breaking the external communication policy and you continue to break policies including the no solicitation policy, and by doing so you have decided to end your employment with Amazon, effective immediately," Costa told Business Insider, remembering the conversation.

She was instructed to box up any company property, send it back to Amazon and the call was ended.

"I worked at Amazon for 15 years and was fired in one phone call and I didn't even get to say a word," Costa says.

Amazon tech employee Emily Cunningham says she was also fired from Amazon, on the same day and time, for the same reasons.

Maren Costa YouTube/Amazon Employees for Climate Justice"I got a meeting invite at 2:45 for a 3 o'clock call with my director," Cunningham said. She couldn't make the meeting and replied asking for a later date — only to discover that she had been cut off from Amazon's network at 3 p.m. At around 4, she got a call from an HR person that lasted about 60 seconds, she says, where she was informed that she was fired for violating corporate policies.

The external communication policy forbids Amazon employees from speaking publicly without getting authorization from the company beforehand. It was updated in January, 2019, after an employee activist group was formed to push Amazon towards adopting a more aggressive climate change policy.

Both Cunningham and Costa were leaders of that group, known as Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (AECJ).

The group was supported by hundreds of other Amazon tech workers, some of whom publicly signed open letters in support. They staged events, got media coverage, and successfully influenced Amazon to embrace a set of new climate-related policies — although the company didn't bend to all their demands. After AECJ began its campaign, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos also announced a plan to spend $10 billion of his own money funding climate science work.

AECJ's activism expanded into supporting the company's army of warehouse workers when story after story reported on a grueling work environment. Then COVID-19 struck, and AECJ pushed Amazon to do more to protect warehouse workers as some of those workers complained the company was not doing enough to protect them. US warehouses workers now account for at least 600 cases and three deaths, as Business Insider previously reported.

So what prompted Amazon to fire Costa and Cunningham when it did? The pair tell Business Insider that they believe it was sparked by something that happened earlier that same day: Another Amazon engineer, a member of AECJ who had given the company his two-week notice, sent out a calendar invitation to thousands of his coworkers — inviting them to an event to listen to warehouse workers speak about their experiences amid the pandemic.

Amazon deleted the event from employees' calendars. Not long after, Costa and Cunningham got their mysterious meeting invitations. The company also fired two warehouse workers who had protested conditions, over what it said were unrelated violations of corporate policies.

The firings has led to an uproar this week, even as the company draws more attention from governmental authorities. On Wednesday, a group of lawmakers sent a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos asking him to explain the firings of Costa, Cunningham and the warehouse workers.

Costa and Cunningham tell Business Insider that they believe the whole situation is really caused by one thing: Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has become too insulated from his own company.

Amazon declined to comment for this story.
Shocked to the core

Cunningham was saddened, but not surprised, at being fired. She had formed AECJ to "make Amazon a better company," she said — and had been prepared to lose her job over it. If her children ever asked her what she had done to help stop the climate crisis, she wanted to have an answer.

But Costa, who had been with Amazon for a decade and a half, says that she was shocked to the core. When she joined AECJ, she thought that Amazon would listen and work with the group. She remembers telling colleagues: "We can totally do this. Amazon has always been receptive. If you have good ideas and you have the data, people will listen, resources will come," she recalled.

Costa says that in her 15 years there, she's successfully used Amazon's internal mechanisms to advocate for change "many times in the past."

Emily Cunningham YouTube/Amazon Employees for Climate Justice

The group wanted Amazon to commit to reducing its carbon footprint, and fast enough to keep pace with the recommendations of climate scientists.

AECJ also wanted Amazon's cloud arm, Amazon Web Services, to stop helping the major oil companies in the extraction process. The group hoped Amazon would drop Big Oil, in the same way that Google employees pressured Google Cloud into forgoing weapons-related work for the Pentagon.

Members of the group scheduled meetings with Amazon higher-ups like the director of sustainability, "but every internal avenue we tried was met with silence and dead ends," Costa said.

So AECJ fired up a Twitter account, wrote public letters, scheduled public protests, and shared their opinions on the matter with the press.

And they won some significant victories. Amazon promised to become net zero carbon across its businesses by 2040, — which, the company points out, is a decade ahead of the Paris Agreement. But 2040 was a decade later than the deadline that AECJ was pushing for.

By comparison, in January, Amazon's Seattle-based rival Microsoft promised to be carbon negative by 2030, more in line with AECJ's hope for Amazon.
A VP quits in solidarity

Once fired, Costa and Cunningham turned their attention into throwing a full-blown, all-day protest event on Friday, April 24, a couple of weeks after news had circulated that they had been terminated. They lined up 30 speakers including climate scientists and several Amazon warehouse workers.

One particularly moving story came from a New York-based warehouse worker who described how Amazon management was slow to tell some employees about new coronavirus cases in their facility — but got much better about it in the wake of a walkout protest in March.

Hundreds of people joined the live protest event, and thousands more watched it online. The audience included one Amazon's most famous engineers, Tim Bray, a vice president with the rare title of distinguished engineer. Bray is revered in the coding world as the inventor of XML, a special language for web pages that became wildly popular with companies sharing documents over the web.

On Monday he made international headlines when he publicly quit, citing the firings of Costa, Cunningham and the warehouse workers after watching the protest event as his reason for leaving.

"Management could have objected to the event, or demanded that outsiders be excluded, or that leadership be represented, or any number of other things; there was plenty of time. Instead, they just fired the activists," he said, explaining that he, too, tried discussions through regular channels before he quit.

"Firing whistleblowers...is evidence of a vein of toxicity running through the company culture," he wrote, saying he was sad to be walking away from a job that he loved. He said that quitting cost him about $1 million.

And the reverberations continued. Brad Porter, a VP and engineer at Amazon, responded to Bray's criticisms, calling them "deeply offensive to the core." Porter argued that Amazon "has responded more nimbly to this crisis than any other company in the world." Amazon says that it's spending billions to protect its workers with everything from buying millions of masks, doing temperature scans, reducing workloads to maintain social distancing, to developing its own COVID tests.

But there's simmering unrest among Amazon's engineering ranks. Anton Okmyanskiy, a principal engineer at Amazon Web Services, wrote on LinkedIn that he was inspired by the resignation of the well-respected Bray, and suggested that "Amazon stay ahead of anger-driven regulatory enforcement by becoming a leader on social justice issues. It is time!"

And programmers this week were openly calling on Amazon engineers to quit on a thread on Hacker News, a popular online hangout for tech workers. This came after someone posted that some Amazon engineers were so upset they want to help the warehouse workers organize, but were afraid of being fired if they did.
Where's Jeff?

In Costa and Cunningham's view, this is all a sign that CEO Jeff Bezos, now the wealthiest man in the world who owns multiple mansions and is building his own space program via his company Blue Origin, has become out of touch with ordinary people, especially his own employees.

Costa believes that Amazon as a company has drastically changed from her early days. CEO Jeff Bezos is famously fascinated with the concept of "Day 1," the notion that even a company as big as Amazon needs to stay as small and scrappy as a brand-new startup on its first day of business. "Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death," Bezos is widely quoted as saying.

In Costa's view, this whole episode is a sign that "Amazon has become a Day 2 company," and that "they've lost that innovative, excited, brave and bold, let's make history attitude."

Costa remembers the early days when the company would send tech workers "to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with warehouse workers to get packages out to customers on time." She says that it was an exciting time, when the whole company would pull together for a common goal.

Indeed, Amazon used to require every Level 7 tech employee and above (which is to say, its more senior staff) to spend two days working in the warehouses as part of their training, according to one long-time Amazon engineer.

But as Amazon has grown into a massive conglomerate — a major retailer, private-label manufacturer, cloud computing provider, and Hollywood producer — Bezos has seen his fortune and fame grow, and is now the richest man in the world.

"Jeff has become so removed from normal human beings," Costa says. His "blind spots" are the lives of his employees and customers, she believes. She points to his recent visit to an Amazon warehouse, where the arrival of the mask-wearing CEO was treated as a special PR event, rather than a normal part of his daily duties as chief executive.

Meanwhile, AECJ's activism continues to have ripple effects pushing Amazon towards even more scrutiny.

For instance, New York Attorney General, Letitia James said last month that the firing of an activist warehouse worker at a Staten Island facility could have violated labor laws, and she has called on watchdogs to open an investigation.

Amid the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, attorneys general from 14 states are questioning Amazon's sick leave policies for warehouse workers. And in France, Amazon shut down its distribution centers after courts ruled it was not allowed to continue to have warehouse workers working to sell non-essential goods.

Are you an Amazon insider with insight to share? Contact Julie Bort via email at jbort@businessinsider.com or on encrypted chat app Signal at (970) 430-6112 (no PR inquiries, please). Open DMs on Twitter @Julie188. 

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Over 600 Amazon warehouse workers at 148 facilities could have gotten COVID-19, but total numbers are hard to determine because Amazon hasn't been telling its warehouse workers about all cases, multiple employees say

For the first time, customers can't — or won't — pay their cloud software bills, which could forever change the once-reliable subscription model

Arizona, which is about to reopen, told its virus experts to stop making projections after they suggested the outbreak there has not yet peaked

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey. Ross D. Franklin/AP

Arizona ended the work of a team of scientists who predicted that the peak of its outbreak had not yet arrived.

The experts, from Arizona universities, were making models for the state, and had predicted that the peak could come on May 22 or later.

But the state's health department stopped their work hours after Republican Gov. Doug Ducey announced some businesses can reopen this week, ABC 15 Arizona and the Arizona Republic reported.

The state now says it will rely on other sources of information and on federal modelling.

Arizona ended its work with a team of experts who predicted the virus has not yet peaked in the state, even as the governor moves to lift restrictions.

ABC 15 Arizona and the Arizona Republic reported that that the state's health department asked its modeling team to stop their work on Monday night, the day before President Donald Trump visited the state.

The order came hours after Doug Ducey, the state's Republican governor, announced that he was lifting some restrictions on businesses, including salons and restaurants, in the coming days.

He said he had "confidence that we are going in the right direction."

But the modeling team, made up of at least 23 volunteer experts from Arizona State University and the University of Arizona, had predicted in late April that peak of the outbreak in the state hasn't arrived yet — and could come on May 22 or later.

The University of Arizona. Nagel Photography/Shutterstock

In an email seen by ABC 15, Steven Bailey, Arizona Department of Health Services' bureau chief for public health statistics, said in an email to the modeling team: "We've been asked by Department leadership to 'pause' all current work on projections and modeling."

He said the team may be reassembled in late summer or early fall, but did not give a reason for why the team's work was being stopped, ABC 15 reported.

Officials in Arizona said they would use other information, including information from federal agencies, both The Washington Post and the Arizona Republic reported. The federal projections are not available to the public.
CORONAVIRUS LIVE UPDATES 8 hours agoLatest news

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An inside look at the world of American concierge medicine, which has remained immune to the nationwide COVID-19 testing shortage.

The CDC wrote a report with advice on safely reopening public places amid a pandemic. But the Trump administration said it 'would never see the light of day.'

US weekly jobless claims hit 3.2 million, bringing the 7-week total to more than 33 million.

Arizona ended the work of a team of scientists who predicted that the peak of its outbreak had not yet arrived.


Dr. Cara Christ, director of the state Department of Health Services, told the Arizona Republic: "We just asked them to take a pause for a little bit."

"We are continuing to get updated FEMA models and we think that that is really representative of where we are."

The move comes as Trump pushes for states to reopen, even while acknowledging that this could lead to a higher death toll.

Ducey, the state's governor, had previously extended a stay-at-home order to May 15. He changed course on Monday May 4, announcing that he would let businesses open before then.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey talks to officials during the coronavirus outbreak in Phoenix in March 2020. David Wallace/The Arizona Republic via AP

Experts are concerned at the ending of the modelling team. Josiah D. Rich, an epidemiologist at Brown University, told the Post that "the approach seems to be 'Shoot the messenger — and quick.'"

Bailey, the Arizona health official, had previously said that the researchers would have "full, unfettered access to confidential . . . data from the Department," the Post reported.

"This is a situation that is unprecedented in living memory, and it is going to become rapidly more dire in the coming days," he wrote in previously unreported correspondence.

"I cannot, therefore, overemphasize the importance of what we are requesting here."

Bailey declined to comment to the Post.

Some essential workers are making less money than people getting unemployment benefits — and they're demanding hazard pay

Barbara Corbellini Duarte and Lauren Shamo

Some essential workers are frustrated they have to work for low pay during the coronavirus health crisis

In some cases, people receiving unemployment benefits earn more money than trade workers who are still on the job.

Lawmakers have proposed awarding essential workers hazard pay — additional payment for working under dangerous conditions.

Getting sick, missing paychecks while recovering, and returning to work through the pandemic is still a reality for many Americans like Bailey Delaplaine.

But she feels forgotten.

Delaplaine's work as a welder at a steel factory in upstate New York has been deemed essential during the coronavirus pandemic. But many people collecting unemployment in her state are bringing in more money than she does.

"I am still mad that people are sitting at home not doing anything, making more money than me. It's not right. I'm sorry," Delaplaine told Business Insider Today. "It's just not right that we have workers that are going out in this mess to do work essentially for the economy. Give us something for going out in this stuff."

Delaplaine makes $513 per week welding parts for construction and roads.

Meanwhile, many people who've been laid off or furloughed in New York state are earning about double that, thanks to the extra $600 per week from the federal stimulus package.

Now, Delaplaine is among a growing number of essential workers who are burning out and feeling left behind.

"I don't feel like I'm recognized at all. I'm getting nothing," she said. "I'm not even getting a 'thank you' for going to work in this.
Her frustration motivated Delaplaine to create a Facebook group last month called "Give Essential Workers Essential Pay."

goLatest newss decline.The group now has over 700 members, many of them essential workers who want the government to give them hazard pay — additional income for those still working during the health crisis.

Welder Bailey Delaplaine is among a growing number of essential workers who are frustrated by low pay during the coronavirus health crisis. Tim Freccia for Business Insider Today

So far, the federal government has approved trillions in relief funds for several parts of the economy, but none of it has gone to essential workers risking their health during the pandemic.

Senate Democrats proposed a "Heroes Fund" in early April that would give an additional premium of about $13 an hour for some essential workers through the end of 2020. But it's unclear if workers like Delaplaine would qualify — the proposal doesn't specifically cover trade workers like Bailey and her boyfriend, who works in construction.


More recently, Sen. Mitt Romney introduced the "Patriot Pay" proposal, which would give some essential workers an additional $12 an hour through the end of July. It's also unclear whether workers like Bailey would qualify under Romney's proposal, as the proposed list of essential industries only includes hospitals, food distributors and processors, and health manufacturers.

Still, the odds of all essential workers receiving hazard pay are slim.

States across the country are emptying their funds to pay the millions of newly unemployed people. New York, where Bailey lives, is at risk of running out of unemployment money in a matter of weeks. And funds in 21 states were already below the minimum threshold to pay benefits.

Meanwhile, Delaplaine is falling behind on her bills. She was sent home for two weeks at the end of March because she was coughing and had lost her sense of taste — two symptoms common of COVID-19.


She never got tested, because without shortness of breath and a fever, her case wasn't considered severe. But those two weeks without pay have taken a toll.

"I'm behind on my gas and electric right now. Thank goodness they're not shutting people off because of this," she said. "I believe our Spectrum bill is overdue. My student loans that are $90 a month, I've just kind of put those on hold because I like eating more than paying my student loans."

Her Facebook group has become the one place she feels heard.

"We're just looked over right now and it's not right. We all deserve recognition," Delaplaine said. "And whenever I see a welder or a landscaper or any anybody in a blue collar trades position on the page, I make sure I react to their comment, react to their posts. And I'm like, yes. As a fabricator, I am here for you. I am fighting for you. I'm on your side."

OOPS
The head of Sweden's no-lockdown coronavirus plan said the country's heavy death toll 'came as a surprise'

Sinéad Baker May 6, 2020

The epidemiologist Anders Tegnell of the Public Health Agency of Sweden at a coronavirus press conference in Solna, Sweden, in March. 

JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP via Getty Images

The head of Sweden's coronavirus response said in a new interview that the country's high death toll had "come as a surprise" and was "really something we worry a lot about."
The state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell told "The Daily Show" that the Swedish strategy had still been successful in many ways.

But he said the no-lockdown strategy was not a conscious decision in favor of more deaths — instead he said the outsize toll was not part of the plan.
About half of Sweden's deaths have been in nursing homes, which prohibit visitors. Tegnell said health officials had thought it would be easier to keep the disease away from them.

The man leading Sweden's coronavirus response says the country's elevated death toll "really came as a surprise to us."

Dr. Anders Tegnell, Sweden's state epidemiologist, appeared on "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah" on Tuesday, when he described the country's controversial approach.

"We never really calculated with a high death toll initially, I must say," he said.

"We calculated on more people being sick, but the death toll really came as a surprise to us."

As of Tuesday, Sweden reported more than 2,700 COVID-19 deaths and more than 23,000 infections. That death toll is far higher than its Nordic neighbors' and many other countries that locked down.

Tegnell with Trevor Noah on "The Daily Show." 

YouTube/The Daily Show with Trevor Noah

Tegnell said there were good points to Sweden's unusual strategy, which largely relies on people to socially distance without fixed rules

The architect of Sweden's decision not to have a coronavirus lockdown says he still isn't sure it was the right call

Sinéad Baker May 4, 2020

People enjoying the spring weather in Stockholm on April 22

 despite the coronavirus pandemic.

 ANDERS WIKLUND/TT NEWS AGENCY/AFP via Getty Images


The architect of Sweden's unusual coronavirus plan says he still isn't sure it was the right call not to introduce a lockdown.

The state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet he was "not convinced at all" and his team was constantly examining how it was going and what else should be done.

He also said it was important to "be humble all the time because you may have to change," according to The Independent.

Sweden has introduced only a handful of rules and has left places like parks and restaurants open, but its death toll is much higher than neighboring countries'.

The scientist behind Sweden's controversial coronavirus plan says he is still not sure whether the country made the right decision by not implementing a lockdown.

"I'm not convinced at all," Anders Tegnell, Sweden's state epidemiologist, told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet on Friday, adding that the country's Public Health Agency — where he works — was constantly monitoring the situation.

"We are constantly thinking about this … What can we do better and what else can we add on?" he said, according to The Independent.

"I think the most important thing all the time is to try to do it as well as you can, with the knowledge we have and the tools you have in place. And to be humble all the time because you may have to change."

The state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell at a press conference 

in Solna, Sweden, on March 12. 

JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP via Getty Images
Sweden has attracted international attention and scrutiny for choosing to rely on citizens' sense of public duty and trust that they'll practice social distancing even without a host of rules meant to keep people apart.

People in Sweden are urged to stay apart, but shops, restaurants, bars, parks, and elementary schools are still open, with the limited rules including a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people, a ban on visits to care homes, and restaurants kept from serving customers who aren't seated.

If Sweden's plan proves successful, it could serve as evidence that other countries might have dealt with the virus without devastating their economy and keeping people inside.

But whether it has been successful is up for debate: The country's death toll is far higher than that of many other countries that introduced harsher restrictions.

People in Stockholm on April 21. Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images

UN chief says pandemic is unleashing a `tsunami of hate'

EDITH M. LEDERER,Associated Press•May 7, 2020

FILE - In this Dec. 17, 2019 file photo, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attends the UNHCR - Global Refugee Forum at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. When financial markets collapsed and the world faced its last great crisis in 2008, major powers worked together to restore the global economy, but the COVID-19 pandemic has been striking for the opposite response. The financial crisis gave birth to the leaders’ summit of the Group of 20, the world’s richest countries responsible for 80% of the global economy. But when Guterres proposed ahead of their summit in late March that G-20 leaders adopt a “wartime” plan and cooperate on the global response to suppress the virus, there was no response (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, File)

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday the coronavirus pandemic keeps unleashing “a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering.”

The U.N. chief said “anti-foreigner sentiment has surged online and in the streets, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have spread, and COVID-19-related anti-Muslim attacks have occurred.”

Guterres said migrants and refugees “have been vilified as a source of the virus -- and then denied access to medical treatment.”

“With older persons among the most vulnerable, contemptible memes have emerged suggesting they are also the most expendable,” he said. “And journalists, whistleblowers, health professionals, aid workers and human rights defenders are being targeted simply for doing their jobs.”

Guterres appealed “for an all-out effort to end hate speech globally.”

The secretary-general called on political leaders to show solidarity with all people, on educational institutions to focus on “digital literacy” at a time when “extremists are seeking to prey on captive and potentially despairing audiences.”

He called on the media, especially social media, to “remove racist, misogynist and other harmful content,” on civil society to strengthen their outreach to vulnerable people, and on religious figures to serve as “models of mutual respect.”

“And I ask everyone, everywhere, to stand up against hate, treat each other with dignity and take every opportunity to spread kindness,” Guterres said.

The secretary-general stressed that COVID-19 “does not care who we are, where we live, what we believe or about any other distinction.”

His global appeal to address and counter COVID-19-related hate speech follows his April 23 message calling the coronarivus pandemic “a human crisis that is fast becoming a human rights crisis.”

Guterres said then that the pandemic has seen “disproportionate effects on certain communities, the rise of hate speech, the targeting of vulnerable groups, and the risks of heavy-handed security responses undermining the health response.”

With “rising ethno-nationalism, populism, authoritarianism and a push back against human rights in some countries, the crisis can provide a pretext to adopt repressive measures for purposes unrelated to the pandemic,” he warned.

In February, Guterres issued a call to action to countries, businesses and people to help renew and revive human rights across the globe, laying out a seven-point plan amid concerns about climate change, conflict and repression.

TRUMP CONFUSES OBAMA WITH OLD MOTHER HUBBARD

Trump claims he inherited a 'bare' national stockpile. Former Obama officials beg to differ

Jane C. Timm, NBC News•May 6, 2020

President Donald Trump has repeatedly complained that he inherited an empty national stockpile from the Obama administration, hamstringing his pandemic response because of a lack of emergency supplies.

"The cupboard was bare. The other administration, the last administration, left us nothing," Trump told ABC News' David Muir on Tuesday. "We didn't have ventilators. We didn't have medical equipment. The tests were broken — you saw that. We had broken tests. They left us nothing. We've taken it and we've built an incredible stockpile, a stockpile like we've never had before."

It's a sweeping claim Trump has made several times when faced with criticism that the government was slow to help states hit hard by the coronavirus and in dire need to supplies like personal protective equipment for front line workers and ventilators for an influx of patients — and one that former Obama administration and past news reports dispute.


Former federal officials argue that the Trump administration dropped the ball on stocking up at the first signs of a pandemic. (We've previously fact checked Trump's claim of a broken test — it's false.)

"It's not accurate to say the shelves were empty," said Dr. Nicole Lurie, who was assistant secretary of health and human services for preparedness and response under Obama.

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NPR toured one of the Strategic National Stockpile's warehouses in June 2016, describing a massive warehouse with rows of supplies, including ventilators; it noted a locked section for addictive medicines and a freezer full of temperature-controlled supplies. According to the report, an official valued the stockpile at $7 billion.

Vice toured the same year, reporting that the warehouse it visited "looked like a prepper's Ikea, with row after row of containers filled with mystery medications and equipment."

It's true that the stockpile wasn't as full as officials might have liked.

Lurie and Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency under Obama, both aknowledged that congressionally ordered budget cuts had depleted the stockpile's reservecs. The Washington Post reported that 85 million N95 masks that were deployed from the stockpile during the swine flu crisis weren't replenished, for example.

But they said the Obama administration had put detailed plans and systems in place — for both refilling the stockpile and stocking up quickly in the event of a pandemic — that weren't maintained or used by the Trump administration.

"When we left, there was a pandemic plan," Lurie said. "There was a checklist about where you're supposed to do when. All of that stuff was in place, and it was quite comprehensive. That plan should have been activated that first week in January, and if you look at Rick Bright's whistleblower complaint, you see multiple attempts to do that."
She said that the Obama administration had left a crucial contract in place to speed the 

Fugate said the stockpile was supposed to be the first line of defense — not the only resource in an emergeproduction of masks but that the contract was dropped after Trump took office in 2017. Another plan created under the Obama administration that would have developed reusable masks was deployed too late to boost current efforts, she said.
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The stockpile was "never envisioned to be stocked with everything you'd need to stock a pandemic-impacted country, but [they] were seen as the first out-of-the-door packages," he said. "Then you'd look at federal procurement."

Fugate recalled a transition exercise he participated in with the incoming Trump administration that simulated a government response to a potential pandemic.

It was "really just trying to walk them through how the processes were set up," he said. "It wasn't trying to tell them 'here's what you have to do.' It's 'here is how the system is set up.'"

But at the end of the day, Fugate said, "when you take over as the new administration, you own everything."

Muir pressed Trump on the fact that the pandemic hit three years into his term and he was still invoking his predecessor in response to criticism. Trump again sought to cast blame elsewhere.

"I'll be honest, I have a lot of things going on," Trump said. "We had a lot of people that refused to allow the country to be successful. They wasted a lot of time on Russia, Russia, Russia. That turned out to be a hoax. Then they did Ukraine, Ukraine, and that was a total hoax. Then they impeached the president of the United States for absolutely no reason."

Trump Wants a Quick Reopening. Data His Own White House Is Examining Shows It Could Be a Disaster

Erin Banco,The Daily Beast•May 6, 2020

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One of the studies that the Trump administration is relying on as it moves ahead with plans to reopen the U.S. economy warns that even if states take the necessary steps to ease social distancing restrictions, counties across the country—both big and small—will see a significant spread of coronavirus.

The study, which was put together by PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, is in the hands of top coronavirus task force officials and people working with the team, sources confirmed to The Daily Beast. It projects that if officials move too quickly and too aggressively to reopen in mid May, individual counties could witness hundreds, if not a thousand-plus, more coronavirus cases reported each day by August 1. Just two weeks more social distancing, the study projects, could reduce infections substantially—with potentially hundreds of thousands of fewer cases if the projections are conservatively expanded out to all 3,000-plus counties across the country.

The modeling shows that those counties exist in various parts of the country, in both urban and rural communities. In almost all cases, counties would see notably fewer cases per day if they waited to ease social distancing restrictions until June 1, according to the study’s projections. The model also suggests that states moving to ease restrictions should consider allowing individual counties to craft their own policies. Under the projections, one county could experience significantly different daily case numbers than others in the state—even those nearby—merely by continuing to adhere to social distancing protocols.

“There’s going to be transmission if people stop sheltering in place,” Dr. Rubin, the director of PolicyLab at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said in an interview. “It’s not that all [counties] are safe to reopen. Every area is extremely sensitive to the amount of distancing you’re doing. The more cautious you are the better.”

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Two administration officials who have seen the PolicyLab study say it is one of the few being seriously considered by the Trump coronavirus task force and that the White House is using it to inform how they advise governors on easing social distancing restrictions. One other official said it is “one of a number of studies and data” that the administration is looking at in the process of safely reopening the country.

The study’s findings raise questions about the White House’s push to shift the focus of its coronavirus response away from combating and mitigating the disease and more towards managing it. In recent days, President Donald Trump has talked about reorienting his coronavirus task force towards reopening the economy and insisted that the shift in focus could happen without putting additional lives at risk.

The data put together by PolicyLab suggests it’s not quite so risk-free. The authors laid out a variety of projections, including what would happen if there was roughly 33 percent less social distancing than prior to the pandemic. Such a percentage decrease, they calculated, would represent people in the county going “roughly halfway back to normal travel (pre-epidemic) to non-essential businesses” like bars and gyms.

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Under their projections, if starting on May 15 residents in Los Angeles county were to conduct 33 percent less social distancing, the coronavirus daily case count would jump from about 471 cases to 1,467 by August 1. Similarly, Illinois’s Cook County, where Chicago is located, would see daily coronavirus case numbers spike from 626 to 2,494 between May 15 and August 1.

Among officials working with the president’s coronavirus task force, projections like these have sparked fears that states will ignore warnings and move too quickly to completely reopen their economies, prompting coronavirus case numbers and related deaths to continue to rise. That’s already happening in states such as Kansas and Nebraska, according to publicly available data from the state’s health departments.

A similar study reported by The Washington Post and The New York Times this week shows the coronavirus daily case count surging as high as 200,000 by June 1. The report includes stamps from the Center for Disease Control, Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Homeland Security. But officials inside the administration have said the study was not vetted before release.

Unlike that study, Rubin’s study looks at the disease’s impact locally. His modeling case counts for individual counties as a way to show how smaller communities might begin to think about reopening.

“I think what people are taking from the study is that it is OK to have selective strategies for reopening,” Rubin said, adding that the study is still in progress and currently under peer review.

The study looks at the coronavirus epidemic across 260 counties throughout the country. The team used publicly available data to model how social distancing, population density, and daily temperatures affect the number and spread of coronavirus infections over time across a county. It accounts for population characteristics, such as age, health insurance status, and smoking prevalence and uses cellphone movement data to include factors related to social distancing.

The model illustrates four scenarios in which social distancing practice reduces from its current national average of 70 percent, back to either 50 percent or 33 percent. It also considers two options for reopening: May 15 or June 1.

If Cook County were to conduct 33 percent less social distancing (or, put another way again, bring its economy roughly halfway back to normal) starting on June 1, as opposed to May 15, it would see its daily case numbers go up to 701 by August 1 instead of 1,868. Los Angeles County would experience a similar phenomenon with its daily case numbers increasing up to 383 by August 1 if it were to bring its economy roughly halfway back to normal starting on June 1, instead of 1,467 if it did so from May 15.

The model identifies social distancing as the most important factor in reducing transmission, but does not take into account what happens when people start ramping up commuting or flying, Rubin said.

“The outcomes and the forecasts… transfer responsibility back to the individual and the businesses,” he said.

Three senior Trump administration officials acknowledged that the White House and the coronavirus task force have been working with doctors at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia in drafting guidelines for reopening the country. One official said the task force is particularly interested in the study’s findings that rising temperatures appear to be reducing the risk for large second peaks of coronavirus cases during the summer in many locations. But Rubin says that will only be the case as long as states move forward with reopening cautiously.

“No place, including those more rural areas, is immune from the effects of this virus,” Rubin said. “Temperature alone is not going to solve the problem.

--With reporting by Asawin Suebsaeng

Researcher 'on verge of very significant' coronavirus findings shot to death
A medical researcher said to be on the "verge of making very significant" coronavirus findings was found shot to death over the weekend in Pennsylvania, officials said.

Image: Bing Liu (University of Pittsburgh)


Tim Stelloh and Doha Madani, NBC News•May 5, 2020
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Bing Liu, 37, a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, was found dead Saturday inside a home in Ross Township, north of Pittsburgh, the Allegheny County medical examiner said.

He had been shot in the head and the neck, the agency said.

An hour after Liu's body was discovered, a second person, Hao Gu, 46, was found dead inside a car less than a mile away, the agency said.

Ross Township police Detective Sgt. Brian Kohlhepp told NBC News that the men knew each other. Investigators believe Gu killed Liu before returning to his car, where he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Police believe the deaths occurred on Saturday after a "lengthy dispute regarding an intimate partner," according to the Ross Police Department Wednesday.

"We have found zero evidence that this tragic event has anything to do with employment at the University of Pittsburgh, any work being conducted at the University of Pittsburgh and the current health crisis affecting the United States and the world," police said.

The investigation has been forwarded to federal authorities because neither of the men were U.S. citizens.

Liu, who earned a Ph.D. in computational science from the National University of Singapore, worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University before becoming a research associate at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

In a statement, the University of Pittsburgh described him as an excellent mentor and prolific researcher who had co-authored more than 30 papers. His work focused on systems biology.

"Bing was on the verge of making very significant findings toward understanding the cellular mechanisms that underlie SARS-CoV-2 infection and the cellular basis of the following complications," the school said. "We will make an effort to complete what he started in an effort to pay homage to his scientific excellence."

Russian coronavirus doctors are mysteriously falling out of ...

https://www.vox.com › coronavirus-russia-doctors-windows-death

1 day ago - Three Russian doctors working to treat coronavirus patients have ... fell out of a window during a conference call at her hospital and died on May 1 after ... the coronavirus, she was hospitalized at the Federal Scientific Clinical ...

Doctor Who Sounded Early Alarm on Coronavirus Dies at 34 ...

https://time.com › World › COVID-19

Feb 7, 2020 - Whistleblower Doctor Who Sounded Alarm on Coronavirus Dies in China ... At the end of December, several weeks into a mysterious disease ... He was reportedly diagnosed with the coronavirus after treating an infected glaucoma patient. ... Science · History · Newsfeed · Sports · Magazine · The TIME Vault ..

The final results are in: Finland's basic-income trial found people were happier, but weren't more likely to get jobs


Business Insider•May 6, 2020

Juha Jaervinen, a participant in Finland's basic income experiment, rides on a rented bike in April 2018..

Gregor Fischer/DPA/Getty Images


The final results of a basic-income study in Finland found people were happier but not likelier to get a job after given free money.

2,000 unemployed people were given $600 each month for two years.

The study drew criticism from some experts for its design.

The idea of basic income has gained renewed interest during the pandemic with millions people out of work and national economies thrown into tailspins.

The final results were published on Wednesday for a landmark two-year basic-income study conducted in Finland: Participants were happier when given free money, but they were not any more likely to land a job.

Bloomberg reported that the findings align with the initial results released in early 2019. More than 2,000 unemployed people aged 25 to 58 were randomly selected and given a monthly stipend of 560 euros (or $600).

"This was a big carrot, and we can see it didn't fully work," Kari Hamalainen, chief researcher at the VATT Institute for Economic Research, said on a livestream, according to the outlet.

During the first year, roughly 18% of the participants were able to get jobs — around the same rate as the control group. The following year saw 27% of people working, slightly higher than the control group.
But the study drew criticism from other basic-income researchers for containing what they characterized as serious flaws in the experiment's design that skewed conclusions, Business Insider's Aria Bendix reported in December.

They pointed out the subjects in the study had to waive other benefits to get the money, and researchers rushed the experiment under political pressure.

The idea of basic income has gained renewed interest during the coronavirus pandemic. Millions of jobless people are relying on social safety nets that vary greatly from one country to the next. Spain, for example, is seeking to implement a basic income scheme to supplement the income of its poorest citizens.

Three million people are expected to benefit under a program that's rolling out this month, Reuters reported.

In the US, federal efforts have focused on aiding Americans after they lose jobs and their health insurance with it. That's in stark contrast to European nations like Denmark, which is subsidizing shuttered businesses to keep workers on payrolls.

Nearly 150 million Americans are also slated to get one-time stimulus checks up to $1,200. Some Democrats, like Sen. Bernie Sanders, are calling for recurring payments to cushion devastated household finances during the pandemic.