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New Marlins GM Kim Ng inspired by women in NFL, NBA

New Miami Marlins general manager Kim Ng said she was inspired by the dozens of women who have been hired in recent years to serve as front office executives, coaches and officials in the NBA and NFL before she was hired on Friday. Photo by Joseph Guzy/Miami Marlins

MIAMI, Nov. 17 (UPI) -- Kim Ng's resume is as impressive as it gets, but the Miami Marlins' newest executive said she looked outside Major League Baseball front offices to gain the persistence needed to become the first female general manager in MLB history.

"It's a tribute to the idea that you just have to keep plowing through," said Ng, who was passed over for at least a half-dozen general manager jobs during her 30-year MLB career. She gave her perspective at a news conference Monday.
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"That's what this is. It's like what we tell the players, 'You can mope and sulk for a few days, but that's it. You have to come back,'" said Ng, who turns 52 on Tuesday.

"Yes I've been defeated and deflated numerous times, but you always still keep hoping."
RELATED Kim Ng becomes MLB's first female GM in joining Miami Marlins



Ng -- pronounced "Ang" -- began her MLB career in the early 1990s as an intern with the Chicago White Sox. She moved up to various front office roles with the White Sox, New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers. She helped to construct three World Series teams before she moved on to serve as senior vice president of baseball operations for MLB.

The Indianapolis native grew up in Queens, N.Y., and idolized Billie Jean King and fellow tennis icon Martina Navratilova through her youth. She also played stickball in the streets as a child, using manhole covers and cars for bases, and then became a successful college softball player at the University of Chicago.

"Billie Jean King fought for equality throughout her career and is still fighting today," Ng said. "Navratilova really changed the women's game and how it was played. She changed the idea of what it looked like to be a female athlete."

Ng didn't see women hired as MLB general managers when she took aim at the role, so she took inspiration from other sports leagues. She says it's now her role to be the one little girls can look up to for an attainable goal after breaking the gender barrier for MLB front offices.

"There is an adage that you can't be it if you can't see it. I guess I would suggest to them now, now you can see it," Ng said.


Congratulations Kim Ng for being named GM of the @Marlins. Having worked with Kim all these years, I'm excited to see her get this opportunity. Go Get 'Em!!! pic.twitter.com/Xz1dyXonyF— Joe Torre (@JoeTorre) November 16, 2020

Ng has seen the increase in women hired for more significant roles in other men's sports leagues.

In February, San Francisco 49ers offensive assistant Katie Sowers became the first woman to coach in a Super Bowl. In October, Jeanie Buss of the Los Angeles Lakers became the first woman controlling owner to win an NBA championship.

Dozens of women serve as assistant coaches in the NBA, NFL and MLB and many serve as officials.

"Any of the women that are out on the court, on the field or in the locker room as coaches, those are the women who are really in the trenches and have gained so much respect from the players," Ng said.

"The ones down there every single day, my admiration for them is immense. From the football coaches, the basketball coaches, they have been tremendous."

Marlins co-owner Derek Jeter also gave Ng inspiration from the field from when she watched the former Yankees captain play during her tenure with the franchise.

Ng sat alongside Jeter and fellow Marlins owner Bruce Sherman on Monday at Marlins Park for her first news conference. Her position once granted her authority over the former Yankees star, but now the roles are reversed with Jeter as Ng's boss.

"It's an exciting and special [time] for us," Jeter said Monday. "When I first reached out to Kim, through our first couple of conversations, it became evident that this was a perfect fit."

Jeter and Ng have maintained a relationship since their careers diverted from New York and they reunited in Miami. Ng said she was always inspired by Jeter's fearless playing style and sees him using that same mentality in the Marlins front office.

"I've reflected on what it took to get here," Ng said. "Something that shouldn't go unnoticed is fearlessness. Derek embodies that word.

"I was privileged and fortunate enough to watch Derek every day for four years. That was his approach to the game. He left it all out there every single day. Now with this [hire] we see it off the field."

Disease experts skeptical on safety of indoor dining at restaurants

Many restaurants have moved to outdoor dining during the COVID-19 pandemic -- including the one pictured in New York City in June -- but winter is coming, and experts question whether indoor dining can be made safe when it's too cold to sit outside. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Phot


Restaurants are under increasing pressure to provide a safe dining environment as winter approaches and the United States enters what could be the worst wave yet of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some eateries are attempting to extend outdoor dining into the colder winter months, setting up heated tents that might allow patrons to enjoy a meal without fear of contracting the coronavirus. Others are beefing up infection control measures for their indoor spaces, with better air filtration and improved ventilation.

But infectious disease experts are skeptical that dining out can be made safe during a winter COVID-19 surge without either ruining the experience for patrons or undermining the economics for the business owner.

"The fact is that anything that's done between walls indoors is high-risk, no matter how you slice it, no matter how you tent it," said Dr. Peter Katona, chair of the Infection Control Working Group at the UCLA Schools of Medicine and Public Health.

But indoor protective measures, which include mask wearing and social distancing between tables, have earned a solid track record keeping patrons safe during the pandemic, said Larry Lynch, the National Restaurant Association's senior vice president for science and industry.

"We can't find any evidence of systemic outbreaks coming from these restaurants that do follow the guidance, that are making sure their employees all wear face coverings, that their customers are wearing face coverings until they eat," Lynch said. "When we look at those restaurants that are doing it right, we aren't seeing the outbreaks taking place there."

However, the very nature of dining out makes it a risky proposition from an infection control perspective, said Joseph Allen, director of the Healthy Buildings Program at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.

"Restaurants and bars present the obvious problem that we lose one major and important control, and that is masks," Allen said. "During the act of eating and drinking, people aren't wearing their masks, so we lose source control."Taking a financial beating

Restaurants have been under severe economic strain since the start of the pandemic.

The food service industry is on track to lose $240 billion in revenue this year, according to the National Restaurant Association, and staffing remains more than 2 million jobs below pre-pandemic levels. Two out of 5 restaurant operators think they'll be out of business by February without additional federal stimulus, a September survey found.

Restaurants survived through the summer in part by providing outdoor dining areas, where the risk of infection is much lower.

"You've got a concentration of viral particles indoors. Outdoors it tends to dissipate more," Katona said. "Little air currents take the particles away. UV light probably kills the bug, to some degree."

Now restaurants are looking at enclosing those outdoor areas in heated tents, which would be a bad move, Allen said.

"That is no different than indoor dining," Allen said. "In fact it's worse because it gives the false sense that it's safe, and it's probably not even meeting the minimum ventilation rate because it hasn't been inspected or designed to code."

Lynch agrees.

"The irony of it is, you've just taken the indoor experience and moved it outdoors, and you contained it more and continued to add more risk than keeping it indoors with higher ceilings and better circulation with the HVAC [heating, ventilation and air conditioning] systems," Lynch said.

An outdoor dining area tented on three sides with one wall left open would "get pretty good air exchange," Allen said, but "it's probably a little colder in there."

The best bet would be to provide individual tents for each outdoor table, so that groups quarantined together could be kept separate from all other diners, Allen said.

"If you have separate pods, then at least then my family might be separated from your family," Allen said. "But if people are getting together with five or six friends they don't normally see, that's a risk."

Tented outdoor areas also could be made safer through the use of portable air filters, Lynch added.

"We've suggested if you're going down that path you've got to have at the very least portable air circulation units," Lynch continued. "The good news is they are coming out with units now that are relatively inexpensive that include not only the higher-level filters but also UV light built in."Controlling the indoor environment

As far as indoor dining, there are many environmental controls available that could reduce risk of transmission, said Oscar Alleyne, chief of programs and services for the National Association of County and City Health Officials.

Restaurants can increase the rate of ventilation in their buildings and install high-quality air filters that can filter viruses out of HVAC-circulated air, Alleyne said.

They also can invest in supplemental portable air cleaners with HEPA filters, cut down on occupancy, increase space between tables and strictly enforce social distancing, he said.

"If there's an intense approach on addressing environmental controls, that in and of itself would make things safer," Alleyne said.

Stepped-up environmental controls also won't break the bank, Allen added.

"Upgrading the filters costs a couple extra dollars. A good portable cleaner with a HEPA filter could be a couple hundred dollars," Allen said. "I'm not talking about million-dollar fixes."

However, reducing the restaurant's level of occupancy to acceptable levels will severely challenge its profitability, Allen said.

"If you got to the level of de-densification that would be necessary to lower risk, I don't know if that is economically viable for a restaurant," Allen said.

Restaurants have been making financial changes to deal with lower capacity, Lynch said. They've tightened their menus to reduce food waste, and have held off bringing back staff laid off during the first lockdown.

The industry continues to look for new ways to make indoor dining safer, Lynch said.

For example, the National Restaurant Association is working with a leading HVAC association about ways to further improve ventilation and air filtration in buildings, Lynch said. One idea being explored is retrofitting virus-killing UV light filters into a building's existing HVAC system, so that air is further sanitized as it is circulated.

But even if all of these measures are successfully undertaken, the human element remains a significant impediment to safety, Allen said.

"The risk levels are many in a restaurant," Allen said. "It's not just that people aren't wearing masks at their tables. It's volume and loud talking, which increases emission rates. It's alcohol consumption, which lowers inhibition. It's mixing of multiple groups at tables, if you go out with friends you're not normally quarantined with.

"It's not as simple as saying just ventilation or just masking. It's all of these, and that's what makes it such a challenge," Allen concluded.More Information

The Cleveland Clinic has more on dining out during the pandemic.

Copyright 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Bars, restaurants are COVID-19 infection hotspots, study confirms
By E.J. Mundell, HealthDay News

A new study found newly ill people without any known contact with a person with COVID-19 were almost three times as likely to have patronized a restaurant over the prior two weeks

Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

Relaxation of face mask requirements in restaurants, coffee shops and bars could make those venues prime areas for transmission of the new coronavirus, research shows.

The new study compared the behaviors of people diagnosed with COVID-19 and those without such diagnoses.

It uncovered one clear difference: Newly ill people without any known contact with a person with COVID-19 were almost three times as likely to have patronized a restaurant over the prior two weeks, and almost four times as likely to have visited a bar or coffee shop, compared to uninfected people.

The study suggests that situations "where mask use and social distancing are difficult to maintain, including going to places that offer on-site eating or drinking, might be important risk factors for acquiring COVID-19," the research team said.

The findings come at a moment when more locales are allowing eating establishments and bars to reopen. Just this week, officials announced that restaurants in New York City could serve customers again starting Sept. 30, albeit with a 25% occupancy limit.

"As we learn more about transmission, it is not surprising that activities that cannot maintain social distancing and are not amenable to mask wearing -- such as eating and drinking in close proximity to others -- would result in a higher transmission rate," said Dr. Teresa Murray Amato, who heads emergency medicine at Long Island Jewish Forest Hills, a hospital in New York City.

She wasn't involved in the new study, which was led by Kiva Fisher of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's COVID-19 Response Team. Fisher and her colleagues conducted detailed interviews with 314 U.S. adults during the month of July, about half of whom were diagnosed with COVID-19.

Comparing the activities of people who did and did not have COVID-19, the investigators found no significant differences in their patronage of venues where the use of face masks at all times was required -- activities such as taking public transportation, shopping or attending church.

Mask use was common among most of the study participants. A similar number of people with or without COVID-19 said they always wore some kind of mask or face covering when out in public -- 71% and 74%, respectively.

The only big difference in terms of behavior between the infected and uninfected groups was a visit over the prior two weeks to a bar, restaurant or coffee shop, Fisher's group found.

More than half -- 58% -- of study participants diagnosed with COVID-19 said that they'd had no close contact with a person known to have been infected with the new coronavirus. But these individuals did have 2.8 times the odds of having patronized a restaurant over the prior two weeks, and 3.9 times the odds of having been at a bar or coffee shop, compared to uninfected people.

The study wasn't able to ascertain whether participants had consumed food or drinks in an indoor or outdoor space.

"The bottom line is that many people don't put their mask back on when they aren't eating and drinking, and may be engaged in conversation," said Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency medicine physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "This very fact increases the risk of transmission, and is compounded by lack of enforcement by management at eating and drinking establishments."

Glatter also noted that ventilation within restaurants or bars is often less than adequate, and research has shown that "aerosolized droplets containing virus in normal conversation may be transmitted to others in close proximity, but may also remain suspended in air for up to 3 hours and travel as far as 13 feet during normal conversation. Such aerosolized droplets may also travel as far as 26 feet during sneezes and 15 feet during coughs."

Finally, he said, alcohol is often a factor. Drinking "makes people move closer together, speak louder," Glatter said, "thereby generating more aerosolized droplets that may contain infectious viral particles."

The study is published in the Sept. 11 issue of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on the new coronavirus.

Copyright 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved. 

G20 nations put $11 trillion into pandemic economic recovery

Nov. 19 (UPI) -- G20 countries have pumped $11 trillion into economic recovery efforts in response to the coronavirus pandemic this year, according to a report by the organization released Thursday ahead of its summit this week in Saudi Arabia.

The G20, made up of many of the strongest economic countries in the world, including the United States, said the money dedicated to help nations fight through the coronavirus and restrictions is more than twice the gross domestic product of Japan.


"The upcoming G20 Leaders' Summit will seek to strengthen international cooperation to support the global economic recovery and lay solid foundations for strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth," Saudi Arabia Finance Minister Mohammed bin Abdullah Aljadaan said in a statement.

The G20 Summit itself has been affected by the coronavirus. The event will be held mostly online Saturday and Sunday. International leaders participating will focus on continued plans for global economic recovery with the health and humanitarian challenges created by the pandemic.

The countries involved in the G20 represent roughly 80% of the world economic output, two-thirds of its population and three-fourths of international trade.

Along with the United States and Saudi Arabia, members include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Korea, Russia, South Africa, Turkey and the European Union.

"We have an opportunity to recover stronger and more sustainably from this pandemic, with greater social and economic inclusion," Aljadaan said. "Through a united global response, the G-20 is determined to continue tackling the major challenges of our time and work towards finding solutions."

COVID-19 crisis expanding gender pay gap, British study finds

Friday's study found that the retail, food services, hospitality and other female-dominated sectors have absorbed some of the largest impacts from the pandemic. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

Nov. 20 (UPI) -- Job discrimination, the collapse of the child-care sector and COVID-19's curtailing of female-dominated work has led to a wider gender pay gap in Britain and likely elsewhere, authors of a study said Friday.

The Fawcett Society marks Friday as Equal Pay Day, an observance that is made on varying dates of the year by nations and organizations. The group said in the study that 43% of all working women and half of working women of color in Britain are worried about how their jobs and promotions are affected by the pandemic, as are 35% of working men.


The report also noted that a third of working women said they have lost work due to child-care issues related to the pandemic.

"To date, there has been limited assessment by the [British] government of the impact of coronavirus policies by gender," the report states.

"There is growing evidence to suggest we may be turning the clock back, but there are also signs of hope that a more gender-equal future is possible. This report calls for action if we want that better future to be realized."

Researchers say that although the British government asked private employers two years ago to reveal gender pay information, only half of them did so.

Available data have shown pregnant women and new mothers saw a greater rate of job discrimination. Friday's report called on the British government to create laws that would give them stronger protections in the workplace.

The study also found that the retail, food services, hospitality and other female-dominated sectors absorbed some of the largest impacts from the pandemic, and women have been furloughed or lost their jobs at a disproportionate rate.

"We know that women working in these sectors are disproportionately low paid, young or migrant women," it said. "While the full redundancy fallout of coronavirus is yet to be felt, many sectors with large female workforces have seen some of the largest falls in the number of jobs."

The Fawcett Society asked the British government to conduct and publish equity impact assessments for new job support or creation plans to better serve women workers.

Managers At A Tyson Pork Plant Placed Bets On How Many Workers Would Get COVID-19, A Lawsuit Alleges

"At least one worker at the facility vomited on the production line and management allowed him to continue working and return to work the next day," the lawsuit alleges.

Salvador Hernandez BuzzFeed News Reporter
Last updated on November 19, 2020

Charlie Neibergall / AP
Managers at a Tyson Foods plant in Waterloo, Iowa, rejected pleas from local officials to temporarily shut down during the pandemic and placed bets on how many workers would end up getting COVID-19, according to a recently filed lawsuit.


The family of Isidro Fernandez, a worker at the plant who died of COVID-19, filed the lawsuit, alleging Tyson Foods downplayed the spread of the coronavirus among its workforce and incentivized employees to come in when they were sick.

"At least one worker at the facility vomited on the production line and management allowed him to continue working and return to work the next day," the complaint alleges.

Then, as workers were being infected with COVID-19, a plant manager organized a "cash buy-in, winner-take-all" betting pool to see how many workers would end up testing positive for the virus, the complaint said.

The working conditions were so dire at the Waterloo plant, attorneys for Fernandez's family allege a local sheriff said they "shook [him] to the core."

Fernandez, who died on April 20, was one of about 2,800 workers at the facility, which processes more than 19,000 pigs a day, according to the complaint.


The company did eventually shut down operations by April 22 — after all of the hog carcasses from its cooler were processed. But by then, the outbreak had spread through the workforce. Five workers at the plant have so far died, and according to the complaint, the Black Hawk County Health Department has recorded more than 1,000 infections of COVID-19 among Tyson Foods employees.

"We're saddened by the loss of any Tyson team member and sympathize with their families," the company said in a statement to BuzzFeed News about the lawsuit. "Our top priority is the health and safety of our workers and we've implemented a host of protective measures at Waterloo and our other facilities that meet or exceed CDC and OSHA guidance for preventing Covid-19."

The company initially declined to address specific allegations in the lawsuit, including the allegations a plant manager organized the betting pool. But in an additional statement Thursday, the company announced the manager, and other workers allegedly involved in the betting pool were suspended without pay.

"We are extremely upset about the accusations involving some of the leadership at our Waterloo plant," Tyson said in the statement. "We expect every team member at Tyson Foods to operate with the utmost integrity and care in everything we do. We have suspended, without pay, the individuals allegedly involved and have retained the law firm Covington & Burling LLP to conduct an independent investigation led by former Attorney General Eric Holder. If these claims are confirmed, we'll take all measures necessary to root out and remove this disturbing behavior from our company."

Tyson Foods also defended its response to the pandemic, saying it implemented a task force to address the impact of the virus, educated employees in multiple languages, and told workers to stay home if they didn't feel well.

Attorneys for Fernandez's family allege that the company did the opposite, including encouraging workers to finish their shifts when they felt sick and offering bonuses to encourage employees not to call in sick.

Fernandez's family filed the lawsuit earlier this year in state court, but the case was moved to federal court after Tyson Foods argued the plant had remained open during the pandemic at the request of President Donald Trump to preserve the food supply chain.


The amended lawsuit, which was first reported by the Iowa Capital Dispatch, include allegations that the company disregarded worker safety by not providing adequate safety equipment, making them work on a crowded floor, and incentivizing employees with $500 "thank you bonuses" to keep showing up despite being sick.

Tyson Foods said in its statement that it was one of the first companies to take workers' temperatures before coming into work. The company also said it tried to obtain face masks for its workforce before it was mandated by the CDC, and partnered with a medical clinic services company to set up a clinic on site.

Attorneys for Tyson Foods have said in federal court that company managers have "worked from the very beginning of the pandemic to follow federal workplace guidelines and has invested millions of dollars to provide employees with safety and risk-mitigation equipment."

The complaint alleges that the company failed to distribute adequate protection and only started to implement temperature checks of employees on April 6 — but even then it did not check truck drivers or subcontractors.

"By late-March or early April, Supervisory Defendants and most managers at the Waterloo Facility started to avoid the plant floor because they were afraid of contracting the virus," the complaint alleges. Instead, managers started delegating duties to "low-level supervisors."

Supervisors also told employees they had a "responsibility" to keep showing up to work "in order to ensure Americans don't go hungry."

After local inspectors visited the plant on April 10, they asked Tyson Foods officials to temporarily shut down so they could implement measures to stop the spread of the virus.

The company refused and, around that time, the plant manager "organized a cash buy-in, winner-take-all betting pool for supervisors and managers to wager how many employees would test positive for COVID-19," the complaint alleges.

By April 12, two dozen employees were taken to the emergency room of the local hospital, the complaint alleges. Supervisors were told to show up to work even when they exhibited symptoms of COVID-19. When one supervisor was leaving work to get tested another manager allegedly told him to go back to work, saying, "we all have symptoms—you have a job to do."

Tyson Foods said in its statement that officials with the Black Hawk County Health Department had declined to share information about which employees had tested positive for COVID-19. The information was provided after the onsite visit, the company said, and the plant then made the decision to "idle production and work with state and local health officials to conduct facility-wide testing."



Salvador Hernandez is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Los Angeles.

Midwest Nurses Say Their Hospitals Are On The Verge Of Collapsing — And Leaders Aren’t Listening

For Tammy Tate, a nurse at a Missouri hospital, this wave is like watching a train about to crash, knowing that it could be stopped in time — if people would listen.

Brianna Sacks BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on November 20, 2020

Courtesy of Steve Edwards
Doctors and nurses work in the COVID-19 unit at a Cox Health location in Missouri.

Cheryl Rodarmel, the chief nurse at the Research Medical Center in Kansas City, Missouri, said she is not sure how much longer she can go on like this.

The 61-year-old has loved her job for all 42 years she has been a nurse. But now, she said, the relentless influx of COVID-19 patients who have deluged her wards has her worried that her hospital system will collapse, and most of the staff along with it due to burnout and contracting the virus themselves. Meanwhile, outside the hospital, too many of her fellow residents refuse to wear a mask or otherwise protect themselves and their communities from the virus, driving infection rates ever higher.



Courtesy of Cheryl Rodarmel
Cheryl Rodarmel


“Those in positions of power are still allowing this virus to run unchecked,” she said. “If we continue like this, we won't have the nurses, beds, or ability to care for everyone.”

Across Kansas and Missouri, as intensive care units fill to capacity and beyond with patients struggling to breathe, an increasingly alarmed chorus of medical professionals are echoing Rodarmel’s worries. This week, Kansas posted a seven-day record for new coronavirus cases. In nearly two days, 5,853 people tested positive and 60 others died. In the first two weeks of November, Missouri recorded more COVID cases — nearly 60,000 — than it did during any other month since the pandemic began. The state’s current positivity rate is a whopping 27%.

“We have doctors with patients in dire circumstances with nowhere to put them except in hallways, and then they leave their hospital and go into the grocery store and people aren’t wearing masks and they’re gathering in large groups,” said Brock Slabach, a spokesperson for the National Rural Health Association in Kansas, told BuzzFeed News. “It’s a collision of two different worlds.” Tammy Tate, a nurse at a Missouri hospital, compared it to watching a train about to crash, knowing that it could be stopped in time — if people would listen.

The coronavirus is now surging through rural areas that were mostly spared when the outbreak first hit New York, California, and other densely populated areas this spring. At the same time, residents, especially in smaller communities, are refusing to wear masks and reacting with fierce anger at anyone — from their doctor to their governor — who suggests that they should.

On Wednesday, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, issued her second attempt at a mask order. The first, enacted in July, failed after most of the state’s counties balked and opted out. Republicans attacked her for trying to institute a one-size-fits-all approach. This time, she’s giving counties one week to come up with their own mask regulations; otherwise, they will have to follow the state’s order.

In neighboring Missouri, Gov. Mike Parson, who tested positive for the coronavirus in September, has repeatedly refused to enact a statewide mandate despite a recommendation from the White House’s coronavirus task force in August and ongoing pleas from the state’s medical leaders. Parson on Thursday continued to insist that a mask mandate was not necessary, even as he made a dire announcement that he is extending Missouri's emergency order through next March, saying the state remains “central to the extreme COVID-19 outbreak our country is currently experiencing.”

“Missouri is at a turning point, and if we are going to change the outcome, we must change our behavior,” he said. But he added he would not issue any orders preventing residents from gathering during the holidays, instead letting cities and counties make their own health and safety rules and telling people to take “personal responsibility.”



Steve Edwards@SDECoxHealth
140 Covid positive inpatients, 116 at Cox South, 17 Cox Branson, 4 Cox Monett, 3 Cox Barton County. 28 critical. Below is an image of the before and after COVID unit, note 6+ staff caring for one patient. Our region owes these doctors, nurses, RTs so much.02:29 PM - 17 Nov 2020
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Top health officials in his state have been begging him to take a different course. In a tweet, Steve Edwards, the CEO of CoxHealth, a large hospital system based in Missouri, wrote that while he respects the governor, “we are now under uniform threat and, like war, it requires a coordinated response.” In a Nov. 13 letter to Parson, Missouri Hospital Association President Herb Kuhn warned that “the wolf is at the door” and implored him to require all residents to wear a mask; just making comments “is not enough,” Kuhn wrote. A nurse even started her own Change.org petition, arguing that a mask mandate would help save hospitals. It has garnered nearly 6,000 signatures in a few days.

The onslaught of COVID patients has reverberated through hospitals, forcing emergency rooms to give up beds and pulling resources from pediatric units to accommodate the wave of severely ill patients. Nurses and doctors told BuzzFeed News that ventilators are again becoming scarce. At times, patients — some with serious or life-threatening conditions other than COVID — are waiting 36 hours for a bed or just flat out can’t get one. And it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find beds for them at other facilities. If the situation continues to deteriorate, many healthcare workers said, they might have to ration who gets treatment.

“Hospitals in Kansas are calling as far away as Omaha, Denver, [and] Oklahoma City to transfer them and finding they are full, too,” Slabach of the National Rural Health Association said. “It's a scramble.”


Courtesy of Cheryl Rodarmel
Nurses protest outside the Menorah Medical Center in Overland Park, Kansas.

Meanwhile, nurses say they are being “stretched as thin as possible,” as Rodarmel put it. This week, nurses at her hospital and at the Menorah Medical Center in Overland Park, Kansas, 20 minutes away, staged protests over what they say is inadequate staffing and a lack of personal protective equipment. According to the National Nurses United, Menorah and Research Medical cut their staffing budgets during the height of the pandemic, forcing nurses to take on more and more patients. Nurses at the Research Medical Center have picked up 800 additional shifts to help fill in staffing holes, while nearly 250 others have left due to burnout or unsafe working conditions, according to Rodarmel.

Her scratchy, exhausted voice breaking, Rodarmel said that after nearly 30 years working at her hospital, she’s struggled to “pull up the enthusiasm and joy that once earmarked [her] nursing career,” put on her uniform, and walk in those doors because she doesn’t know what she will be asked to do and whether she will be safe. A nurse at her hospital, after caring for a patient without proper protective gear, died in April from COVID-19, Rodarmel said.

“That should never have happened,” the chief nurse said.

Along with Rodarmel, other healthcare workers told BuzzFeed News that they are also back to reusing masks, stretching out one single-use covering for 24 hours or even days before they are able to get a new one.


It’s like going back into a war you’ve already fought — and it’s worse the second time, Tate, a nurse at another Missouri hospital, told BuzzFeed News. Eight months since the pandemic was declared, officials at her hospital are still rationing personal protective equipment, she said. Gloves are locked up and the inventory monitored. She said she gets one surgical mask for a 12- to 14-hour shift — and after she uses it three times, it’s sent off to be cleaned and then returned to be reused. At the end of each shift, she bleaches her protective face shield so she can wear it again the next day. It’s unconscionable, she said, to imagine continuing on at this rate.

“It’s never-ending,” she said. “Our task force, which is all our hospitals working together, stated that if we continue on this pace of 100-plus COVID admissions per day, our health systems will collapse by the first week in December.”

And given how devastating community gatherings linked to Halloween have been in terms of transmission, healthcare professionals said they’re bracing for the weeks after Thanksgiving.

In Missouri’s Newton County, which does not require residents to wear a mask, officials announced Tuesday that they will be using money from the federal CARES Act to pay for a mobile morgue because “area facilities are full.” The purchase was partly in response to an urgent letter from a coalition of health officials, who warned leaders in Newton County, surrounding cities like Jasper, and elsewhere in southwest Missouri that medical centers are about to hit a breaking point. Health officials, too, begged for more masks.

“More ventilators are being used in our hospitals than ever before. … Wait times in the ER are getting longer and the availability of hospital beds in our community and others are diminishing,” they wrote. “We are in a public health crisis.”


In response, several cities said they were counting on residents to do their part to keep the community safe, KOAM News Now, a local outlet, reported. On Thursday night, Larry Bergner, administrator of the Newton County Health Department, told BuzzFeed News he won’t be issuing a mask order. He still doesn’t think it’s necessary. ●



Brianna Sacks is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Los Angeles.

Immigrant Children Who Were Denied The Chance To Request Asylum Under An Illegal Rule Are Facing Deportation

"I don't want to spend another Christmas in this detention center."

Adolfo FloresBuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on November 20, 2020

Eric Gay / AP
Immigrants seeking asylum walk at the ICE South Texas Family Residential Center, in Dilley, Texas.


Twenty-eight children who have been detained in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility for more than a year could be deported after being denied the opportunity to seek asylum by Trump administration policies that federal courts have since blocked.

All of the children and their families were subjected to the Trump administration's asylum transit ban, which required immigrants to first seek protection in another country they traveled through before asking for refuge in the US.


In June, US District Judge Timothy Kelly struck down the transit ban and said the administration had “unlawfully” put the rule into effect. The rule was vacated nationwide and is no longer in effect. Then in July, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals also blocked the rule.

The rule, however, had already been applied to thousands of asylum-seekers, including the group of 28 children. So while federal courts have struck down the transit ban, judges have said they don't have the legal authority to intervene in their deportations, said Bridget Cambria, executive director of Aldea — the People’s Justice Center, which offers free legal services to immigrant families detained by ICE in Pennsylvania.

"Although the policies can be deemed illegal, the effect it has on people is not," Cambria said.

Under the transit ban policy, those who crossed through a third country, such as Mexico or Guatemala, before arriving at the southern border were denied asylum during their credible fear interviews, an initial step in the asylum process. After being denied the chance to be screened for asylum, these children and their families were subjected to expedited removal, which allows the government to deport undocumented immigrants without a hearing in front of an immigration judge.


Federal courts have said they don't have the authority to weigh in on expedited removals. As a result, judges can't stop the deportation of the 28 children, even though they've found that the policies leading to their deportations are illegal.

"All 28 of these children were banned from asylum immediately upon entering the United States because they crossed through a third country. That rule has been deemed illegal," Cambria said on a call with reporters. "And despite it being deemed illegal, the children have no recourse."

In a statement, ICE said the children and their families have all been part of a number of lawsuits against the government, as well as appeals, and continue to file new lawsuits, all of which have delayed their deportation.

"The families have been afforded extensive legal processes and have been determined to have no legal basis to remain in the United States," ICE said.

The 28 children are part of 26 families detained at two of ICE's family detention centers, the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, and Berks County Residential Center in Leesport, Pennsylvania. All of the families were granted a stay of removal by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals through Saturday.

"After that time, they will require further court order. But that's not guaranteed," Cambria said.


Charles Reed / AP

Some of the detained children spoke on a call with reporters this week and asked to be identified by pseudonyms, fearing reprisal from the government.

Alex, an 8-year-old who has been detained in Texas for more than 455 days, said it has been difficult to watch other immigrants who are no longer subject to Trump's policies leave detention while he and his family remain there.

"It is really awful, to be honest. I don't want to be here. I feel like I can't bear it anymore," Alex told reporters. "I don't want to spend another Christmas in this detention center."

The asylum transit ban wasn't the only policy the families were subjected to that was later vacated or deemed illegal by federal courts.

Ana, a 15-year-old who has been detained at the facility in Dilley for more than 437 days, had her family's credible fear interview conducted by Customs and Border Protection agents as opposed to an asylum officer. An analysis from the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan immigration think tank, from May 2019 to May 2020 found that CBP agents approved just 37% of credible fear interviews, compared to 64% among asylum officers.

"The officer said that we had no right to asylum," Ana told reporters.

The interview was also conducted within 48 hours of arriving at a detention center, the result of a US Citizenship and Immigration Services directive that credible fear interviews be conducted as quickly as possible after 24 hours of arrival to the facility. Many families were interviewed in that stretch, between 24 and 48 hours after arrival, said Shalyn Fluharty, an attorney with Proyecto Dilley, which represents some of the children. Advocates and attorneys said the directive was illegal because it denied immigrants access to counsel.


A federal judge in Washington, DC, blocked CBP officers from conducting the credible fear interviews, calling it illegal because agents do not receive the same level of training as asylum officers working for USCIS. The directive to rush immigrants through the interviews was vacated in March after a federal court concluded that Ken Cuccinelli, who issued the directive, had not been lawfully appointed to his role as acting director at USCIS at the time.

"I think that the interviews have been unfair because we had no time to talk to the lawyers," Ana said. "We had to go forward with our interview within 48 hours of arriving at the detention center, not knowing what the interview was or what we were about to face. We were sleep-deprived, tired, and still in the process of receiving medical care."

Attorneys for the children and their families said ICE can use its discretion to issue these families a Notice to Appear, a charging document issued by the Department of Homeland Security, and rescind their expedited deportations. An asylum officer at USCIS could also grant each familiy's request for reconsideration for refuge and, if the immigrants receive a positive credible fear determination, issue a notice to appear in immigration court.

Cambria said Congress should also change the provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act that limits judicial review of expedited deportations.

"We are a nation of laws. We expect these children to follow the laws, and we expect the government to follow their own laws. They didn't do it with respect to these kids," Cambria said. "These kids, they have every right to request asylum under the law."

Judge says Trump admin can't use COVID-19 to send back migrant children


A young child looks through the border fence into the United States at Playas de Tijuana in Tijuana, Mexico, on November 28, 2018. File Photo by Ariana Drehsler/UPI | License Photo

Nov. 19 (UPI) -- A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to stop its policy of immediately deporting migrant children who cross the U.S.-Mexico border without a parent, over fears they could spread COVID-19.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan issued a preliminary injunction Wednesday against the Homeland Security Department practice of using emergency health measures to send single children back across the border without first considering their humanitarian appeals.

Under the policy, the department cites the Public Health Service Act to impose stricter border controls, which allows them to send back thousands of unaccompanied children -- defying court-mandated protections.

The government said it has expelled more than 200,000 undocumented migrants since the policy began in March.

The department has argued that the expulsions are needed to protect border agents and the American public, arguing that holding unaccompanied children would spawn new COVID-19 outbreaks.

In his order, Sullivan ruled that the department must immediately halt those expulsions and denied a request that the order be delayed while the matter is litigated.

"The court agrees that the undisputed authority granted in [federal law] is extraordinary and that the COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented," Sullivan wrote. "But that is entirely distinguishable from whether or not [the law] authorizes the government to expel persons."

The American Civil Liberties Union, which sought the injunction on behalf of a migrant child, called the injunction a "critical step" in stopping the administration's "unprecedented and illegal attempt to expel children under the thin guise of public health."

"The administration's order has already allowed for the rapid expulsion of more than 13,000 children in need of protection, who were legally entitled to apply for asylum," ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, the lead attorney in the case, said.

Climate change thinning glaciers, increasing oxygen levels at Mount Everest


Researchers collected ice cores from elevations as high as 26,400 feet above sea level during the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition in the spring of 2019. Photo by Dirk Collins/National Geographic

Nov. 20 (UPI) -- Mount Everest's glaciers are thinning, its peaks are accumulating microplastics and the air surrounding the mountain hosts more oxygen than it used to have.

Those are just a few of the findings from a suite of new studies -- each detailing various effects of climate change and human activity on Mount Everest -- published Friday in the journal One Earth.

Over the last few decades, human traffic on Mount Everest has steadily increased.

More and more people are visiting the mountain's basecamp each year, and more and more climbers are attempting to summit Earth's tallest mountain. As a result, pollution is accumulating.

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According to the latest research, most of the trash is concentrated at basecamp, but scientists found microplastic pollution as high as 27,690 feet above sea level, not far from Mount Everest's peak.

Microplastic pollution in Earth's oceans has garnered a lot of scientific interest, but only a few studies have focused on microplastic pollution on land. The latest is the first to investigate microplastic pollution on Mount Everest.

During a few separate expeditions, researchers collected dozens of snow and ice samples to be analyzed in the lab.

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"I didn't know what to expect in terms of results, but it really surprised me to find microplastics in every single snow sample I analyzed," first author Imogen Napper said in a news release.

"Mount Everest is somewhere I have always considered remote and pristine. To know we are polluting near the top of the tallest mountain is a real eye-opener," said Napper, a National Geographic Explorer and scientist based at the University of Plymouth in Britain.

Cleaning up microplastics is extremely difficult, but researchers suggest more can be done to ensure visitors to Mount Everest don't make the problem worse.

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"The samples showed significant quantities of polyester, acrylic, nylon, and polypropylene fibers," Napper said. "Those materials are increasingly being used to make the high-performance outdoor clothing climbers use as well as tents and climbing ropes, so we highly suspect that these types of items are the major source of pollution rather than things like food and drink containers."

In a separate study, researchers used historic and modern satellite images to produce a timeline of glacier mass-change measurements. The data showed glaciers in the valleys surrounding Mount Everest have thinned by an average of 328 feet since the 1960s.

"The rate of ice loss in the region has consistently increased over the last six decades, and ice loss is now occurring at extreme altitudes," researchers wrote.

Rising temperatures have also led to increasing oxygen levels on Mount Everest, making it easier than ever before for climbers to summit the mountain without the help of supplemental oxygen.

Because air pressure decreases as elevation increases, oxygen becomes less concentrated as one gets farther from sea level. However, the rate at which air pressure decreases depends on temperature.

As global temperatures have climbed as a result of climate change, air pressure has increased on Mount Everest, yielding greater oxygen availability.

Much of the research detailed in the new collection of scientific papers was conducted during the 2019 National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition.

Gallup: Support in U.S. for death penalty at lowest point in decades

Support is most common among non-Hispanic Whites (61%), while fewer than half (46%) of non-Whites favor the practice, Thursday's survey shows. File Photo by Doug Smith/Florida Department of Corrections/Wikimedia Commons

Nov. 19 (UPI) -- Support in the United States for capital punishment keeps declining and more Americans now oppose the death penalty than at any point in more than a half-century, according to a Gallup survey Thursday.

The survey shows that a majority of Americans still favor executions for criminals convicted of murder, but the share (55%) is at its lowest point since 1972, when 50% said they supported the practice.

The share of Americans (43%) who said they oppose the death penalty, however, is lower now than at any point since the late 1960s, according to the poll.

Support for capital punishment reached its peak (80%) in 1994. It dipped to 66% by 2000, but climbed to 70% in the following years and again tumbled below 60% in 2017.

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"As public opinion has trended away from favoring the death penalty, state laws have also changed," Gallup wrote. "Twenty-two states do not allow the death penalty by law, with nearly half of those having enacted their current laws in the past two decades.

"Three additional states -- California, Oregon and Pennsylvania -- have laws permitting the death penalty, but their governors have issued moratoriums on its use."

Politically, Republicans comprise the greatest share (80%) of supporters over the last four years. Support is far lower among Democrats (39%) and independents (54%).

RELATED Appeals court declines to stop 2 executions, has concerns about protocol

Support is most common among non-Hispanic Whites (61%), while fewer than half (46%) of non-Whites favor the practice, the survey shows.

Age is also a major factor on the issue. Americans born before 1946 (62%) and baby boomers (59%), those born between 1946 and 1964, have supported capital punishment the most since 2017. Thursday's poll found varying support among those in Generation X (57%), those born 1965-1979, Millennials (51%) born 1980-1996 and Gen Z'ers (45%) born 1997-2002.

The Gallup survey was published on the same day the federal government is set to carry out its eighth execution of 2020. Federal executions resumed in July for the first time in 17 years.

Gallup polled more than 1,000 U.S. adults living in every state and Washington, D.C., for the survey, which has a margin of error of 4 points.