| A timeline of Trump's missed opportunities on coronavirus Posted: 08 Apr 2020 12:32 PM PDT  As the deadly coronavirus outbreak rapidly spread across America in February and March, President Trump repeatedly asserted that "nobody could have predicted something like this." But a review of government records shows that repeated warnings were issued to the White House and went unheeded.
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| Coronavirus is ushering in a new wave of racially motivated attacks, warns intelligence bulletin Posted: 08 Apr 2020 07:46 AM PDT  Federal agencies are concerned that domestic extremists could use the coronavirus pandemic to attack Asians and Jews, according to a joint intelligence bulletin obtained by Yahoo News. That bulletin mirrors what organizations that monitor online hate content are also finding.
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| Doctors rethinking coronavirus: Are we using ventilators the wrong way? Posted: 08 Apr 2020 05:37 AM PDT  As hospitals and health care workers grapple with a shortage of supplies, some doctors are raising questions about how ventilators are currently being used on coronavirus patients — and whether they may actually be doing more harm than good.
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| Crew member of cruise ship with virus cases dies in Florida Posted: 09 Apr 2020 02:19 PM PDT  A crew member who was hospitalized for days after two ill-fated cruise ships with coronavirus patients were finally allowed to dock in Florida has died, officials said. Broward County Medical Examiner Craig Mallak on Thursday confirmed the death of Wiwit Widarto, 50, of Indonesia. The man died Wednesday, six days after the Zaandam and a sister ship docked in the Fort Lauderdale port after spending two weeks at sea rejected by South American ports, said Holland America Line spokesman Erik Elvejord.
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| U.K. truck driver pleads guilty in deaths of Vietnamese migrants found in container Posted: 08 Apr 2020 09:50 AM PDT  Victims died of a combination of a lack of oxygen and overheating in an enclosed space, police said.
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| Pakistan shoots down Indian drone as Kashmir tensions rise Posted: 09 Apr 2020 12:19 AM PDT  Pakistan's army said Thursday it had shot down a small Indian surveillance drone in Kashmir, as tensions rose over continued cross-border shelling in the disputed territory. "This blatant act was aggressively responded to by Pakistan Army troops shooting down Indian quadcopter," the statement read. An Indian army spokesman said the drone "is not ours".
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| 'Alexa, help me': A nursing home patient begged her Amazon Echo for help dozens of times before dying of COVID-19 Posted: 09 Apr 2020 07:42 AM PDT  The woman's sister found more than 40 recordings on her Echo made in her final days, and decided to publicize them to show the brutality of the virus.
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| Wuhan ends its coronavirus lockdown, but another Chinese city shutdown emerges Posted: 08 Apr 2020 08:22 AM PDT  The Chinese city where the new coronavirus emerged ended its more-than two-month lockdown on Wednesday, even as a small northern city ordered restrictions on residents amid concern about a second wave of infections.
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| 'A silent explosion': Coronavirus deaths in U.S. climb past 16,000 Posted: 09 Apr 2020 11:13 AM PDT  COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. surpass 16,000. In New York, new hospitalizations slow, affirming signs that stay-at-home orders are slowing coronavirus spread.
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| New Yahoo News/YouGov coronavirus poll shows Americans turning against Trump Posted: 08 Apr 2020 01:13 PM PDT  The new survey found that Americans increasingly blame Trump for the vast scale of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak.
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| Japan to Pay Companies to Move Production Out of China Posted: 09 Apr 2020 01:06 PM PDT  Japan will devote more than $2.2 billion of its coronavirus economic stimulus package to incentivize its manufacturers to move their production out of China as relations fray between the neighboring countries in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.The record stimulus plan provides $2 billion for manufacturers to transfer production to Japan and over $216 million to help companies move production to other countries. Imports from China, Japan's biggest trading partner, were down by nearly 50 percent in February as facilities in China closed while the coronavirus ripped through the country.A state visit to Japan by Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier this month — the first such visit in about a decade — was postponed indefinitely last month amid the coronavirus pandemic."We are doing our best to resume economic development," Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Wednesday of Japan's decision during a press conference in Beijing."In this process, we hope other countries will act like China and take proper measures to ensure the world economy will be impacted as little as possible and to ensure that supply chains are impacted as little as possible."Politicians in Japan and the U.S., among other countries, have placed blame on China for failing to respond strongly during the early days of the coronavirus outbreak and concealing the scale of the threat from other nations. Despite recent developments, Japan has donated masks and personal protective equipment to China."Since the outbreak of the epidemic, the Japanese government and people have expressed sympathy, understanding and support to us," Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying said in early February.As of Thursday, Japan had more than 4,700 confirmed cases of coronavirus and at least 85 deaths from the respiratory illness.
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| This is what I want my friends to do if they have COVID-19 symptoms and are asked to go to the ER Posted: 08 Apr 2020 06:20 AM PDT  As a frontline infectious diseases doctor, this is what I want my friends and neighbors to do if they have COVID-19 symptoms and are asked to go to the emergency room.
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| Hamas arrests Gaza activists after Zoom call with Israelis Posted: 09 Apr 2020 09:06 AM PDT  Hamas-run security forces have arrested several peace activists in the Gaza Strip on treason charges after they took part in a web conference with Israeli activists, officials said Thursday. The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said the activists are accused of "holding a normalization activity with the Israeli occupation." "Holding any activity or contact with the Israeli occupation under any cover is a crime punishable by law and a betrayal for the people and their sacrifices," it said in a statement.
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| Coronavirus cuts short Princess Cruises' 'Love Boat' world cruise, ship heads to Los Angeles Posted: 08 Apr 2020 05:22 PM PDT  Most passengers disembarked in Australia, but some who couldn't fly home are riding the ship to Los Angeles
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| Linda Tripp: Woman who revealed Clinton-Lewinsky scandal dies Posted: 09 Apr 2020 02:44 AM PDT  Linda Tripp, who disclosed Bill Clinton's White House affair with Monica Lewinsky dies, aged 70.
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| Nimitz Becomes 4th Aircraft Carrier with COVID-19 Case: Report Posted: 08 Apr 2020 05:06 PM PDT  Politico reported Tuesday that a sailor on board the carrier Nimitz (CVN 68) has tested positive for COVID-19.
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| New single-day record for NY virus deaths but hospitalizations fall Posted: 09 Apr 2020 01:16 PM PDT  America's coronavirus epicenter of New York recorded a new single-day high of 799 COVID-19 deaths Thursday but Governor Andrew Cuomo said the rate of hospitalizations continued to fall. Cuomo said 799 people died in the last 24 hours, outdoing the previous high of 779 announced on Wednesday, but added that the curve was flattening because of social confinement measures. "We had a 200-net increase in hospitalizations, which you can see is the lowest number we've had since this nightmare started," Cuomo told reporters, adding that intensive care admissions were also at the lowest yet.
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| Exclusive: Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, in solitary confinement Posted: 09 Apr 2020 12:23 PM PDT  Cohen, 53, was transferred on Wednesday to a Special Housing Unit at Otisville Federal Correctional Institution, a disciplinary section of the prison, the sources said. Until now, Cohen had been housed in a minimum-security camp at Otisville, which is about 70 miles (110 km) northwest of New York City.
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| Bernie Sanders, Sellout Posted: 09 Apr 2020 10:46 AM PDT  Yesterday, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders officially dropped out of the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Despite early successes in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, Sanders failed to put up much of a fight against Joe Biden after the latter convincingly won South Carolina. And so, for the second campaign in a row, he has come up short against a weak but well-known presumptive front-runner.In the not-too-distant past, this would have depressed me. When Sanders announced his 2016 presidential campaign, I had never heard of him, but he didn't take too long to figure out. On economic questions, he was among the left-most political figures ever to achieve prominence in America, and was clearly proud of it. On other issues, he strayed from left-wing orthodoxy in some interesting ways. He evinced a skepticism of open borders and increased immigration that occasionally made him sound downright Trumpy. He had a surprisingly decent record on gun rights. And above all, he actually seemed to believe what he said, which I found a breath of fresh air when juxtaposed with the obfuscation and opportunism of his opponent, Hillary Clinton.Four years later, my view of the Sanders phenomenon has changed completely. I do not now mourn the end of Sanders's candidacy, because in his second run for the White House he proved himself to be just another politician: He deemphasized or outright jettisoned his politically inconvenient stances in pursuit of power, while remaining true to a core far-left agenda that, in the absence of that aura of integrity, seems far scarier than it did four years ago.It was always one of the more striking aspects of Sanders's rhetoric that he could sound like an immigration hawk. In a 2015 interview with Vox, he famously called open borders a "Koch brothers proposal":> It would make everybody in America poorer — you're doing away with the concept of a nation state, and I don't think there's any country in the world that believes in that. If you believe in a nation-state or in a country called the United States or UK or Denmark or any other country, you have an obligation in my view to do everything we can to help poor people. What right-wing people in this country would love is an open-border policy. Bring in all kinds of people, work for $2 or $3 an hour, that would be great for them. I don't believe in that. I think we have to raise wages in this country, I think we have to do everything we can to create millions of jobs.To be fair, Sanders wasn't necessarily getting immigration-policy advice from Mark Krikorian. He represented an older strain of left-wing thought that argued against immigration from the perspective of labor unions concerned about multinational corporations and undercut wages. But nevertheless, when he spoke of the issue, he could sound surprisingly like Donald Trump, then rampaging his way through the Republican primaries.That Bernie Sanders is gone now. His 2020 platform called for "breaking up ICE and CBP and redistributing their functions to their proper authorities," unilaterally reinstating President Obama's DACA and DAPA programs, and decriminalizing illegal immigration, among other things. For the most part, he became difficult to distinguish from his Democratic opponents on immigration, except insofar as some of them chased after him as he moved left in the hope of capturing more votes. Thus did this unconventional aspect of his public persona recede.The story on gun rights is much the same. Vermont is caricatured as a semi-socialist state, and maybe the caricature is accurate. But it also has relatively loose gun laws, and a high rate of per capita firearm ownership. As a representative of the state in various capacities, Sanders has compiled a record that reflects this. The National Rifle Association helped him first win election to the House in 1990, where he would vote against the 1993 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. As a senator, he has supported bills that would allow firearms in checked bags on Amtrak trains. And after the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, Sanders said, "If you passed the strongest gun-control legislation tomorrow, I don't think it will have a profound effect on the tragedies we have seen." Though this record was a source of consternation for an otherwise adoring left in 2016, and was fodder for Hillary Clinton's campaign, he didn't run away from it then.Four years later, the story was very different. A watershed moment came during a February Democratic primary debate, when he was asked about his past vote to protect gun manufacturers from lawsuits pertaining to the use of guns in shootings. "I've cast thousands of votes, including bad votes," Sanders said. "That was a bad vote." His 2020 platform proposed a buyback program for guns and a ban on assault weapons. In a fitting bookend to his elective career, it also demanded that Democrats "take on the NRA and its corrupting effect on Washington." Once again, Sanders had tacked left under pressure in search of votes, willingly abandoning a unique part of his persona to the political needs of the moment.Shorn of the ideological heterodoxies that made him appealing, Sanders was reduced to his essence as a crusader for hard-left economics. When, in 2015, he argued that, "You don't necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm-spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country," I still regarded his economic platform as a quirk that might inspire him to join with fiscally conservative Republicans to, say, cut corporate welfare. But it wasn't a quirk at all: He recently expressed disgust at the idea that someone might make money developing drugs to fight the novel coronavirus.Meanwhile, in his second campaign certain aspects of Sanders's record that were always there for those who wanted to see them became impossible to ignore. We knew in 2016 that, as mayor of Burlington, the just-married Sanders had visited the Soviet Union on a mission to procure a Soviet sister city that doubled as his honeymoon. Those facts would be more forgivable if he had not offered unqualified praise for Cuban "literacy programs" and the economic progress of Communist China in 2020.In 2016, smitten with the heterodox left-populist gadfly I thought I'd found, I either did not realize the currency that Sanders's economic views had in the Democratic Party or did not anticipate the extent of the foothold they would gain in it. This is due mostly to young voters, who in a 2019 Gallup survey thought almost equally well of capitalism and socialism (51 percent to 49 percent). Sanders consistently garnered more support than Clinton from this group in 2016. In 2020, he maintained that support to a certain extent, though it didn't translate into actual votes as easily as it had before. Both times around, the center of the Democratic Party, such as it is, held. But the young democratic socialists uncovered by his campaigns continue to maintain that they are the future of the party's politics, and of the country's.If they are right, we can be sure that they won't remember the Bernie Sanders whom I, as an outside conservative observer, once found somewhat compelling. For that Sanders held certain views they would abhor, views that he changed or abandoned when it became politically expedient. And that may be the most disappointing thing about Sanders: In the end, he stands revealed as just another guy all too happy to tell people what they wanted to hear.
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| The coronavirus probably started spreading in Wuhan far earlier than Chinese authorities reported — here's the more likely timeline Posted: 09 Apr 2020 08:55 AM PDT  The first cases of COVID-19 in China popped up weeks before December 31, the date health authorities reported the first cluster of cases.
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| Philippines backs Vietnam after China sinks fishing boat Posted: 08 Apr 2020 03:51 AM PDT  The Philippines on Wednesday expressed solidarity with Vietnam after Hanoi protested what it said was the ramming and sinking of a Vietnamese fishing boat by a Chinese coast guard ship in the disputed South China Sea. The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila expressed deep concern over the reported April 3 sinking of the boat carrying eight fishermen off the Paracel Islands. China claims virtually the entire South China Sea and has built several islands equipped with military installations in the area, one of world's busiest shipping lanes.
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| Jerry Falwell Jr. says warrants are out for 2 journalists after critical stories on coronavirus decision Posted: 08 Apr 2020 05:57 PM PDT |
| Italian cemeteries can't keep up with deaths from pandemic Posted: 09 Apr 2020 11:52 AM PDT  In Bergamo, a city in Northern Italy, bodies are being kept in a makeshift morgue, unrefrigerated.
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| Two suspects arrested after Wisconsin doctor and husband were 'targeted' and killed, police say Posted: 08 Apr 2020 07:23 AM PDT  Two suspects were arrested Friday after the double-homicide of Beth Potter, 52, and Robin Carre, 57.
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| Top House Republican says it's 'disgusting' Democrats want mail-in voting funding in the next coronavirus bill Posted: 09 Apr 2020 12:49 PM PDT  House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) isn't too worried about democracy right now.As Congress discusses further relief bills amid the COVID-19 pandemic, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has insisted they include funding for mail-in ballots through the primaries and November election. But McCarthy slammed that demand as "disgusting" on Thursday, even after Wisconsin's pandemic primary proved problematic just days earlier."You want to hold up the bill because you want to change election law for November, because you think that gives you some political benefit?" McCarthy told Politico and other reporters during a press call. "That's disgusting to me," he continued, saying Democrats should worry about "the health of the nation" and "our economy" instead."The health of the nation" is exactly what Democrats say they are trying to address in funding mail-in voting. The current system relies on in-person voting — something that isn't safe amid the COVID-19 pandemic's stay-at-home orders and social distancing guidelines. Wisconsin displayed how untenable the in-person voting system is on Tuesday when hundreds of polling sites had to close, in-person turnout plunged, and voters were forced to wait for hours in socially distanced lines. Absentee ballot returns skyrocketed, but many people in Wisconsin reported they didn't receive them in time to cast their votes.Without a provision for remote voting in Congress, every coronavirus relief package can be held up with a single sign of opposition. That's what happened Thursday to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) $250 billion small business loan package as Democrats demanded more accountability and an additional $250 billion in funding for health care facilities and local and state governments.More stories from theweek.com Biden is the weakest major party nominee in recent history — but that might be the point Biden pledges to lower Medicare age and reduce some student debt in olive branch to Sanders supporters 4 important parenting lessons from life in lockdown
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| NYC Is Taking Hundreds of Body Bags Out of Houses—and Soon They Will Be Counted Posted: 08 Apr 2020 11:21 AM PDT  The coronavirus death count in New York City, already unfathomable, is expected to surge in the coming days as officials begin including people who have been dropping dead at home without an official diagnosis.Emergency Medical Service data first reported by Gothamist suggests the undercount of individuals who have likely died from the virus is massive. On Tuesday alone, 256 people were pronounced dead at home across the five boroughs. Until this month, about 25 people in New York City were found dead in their homes on a typical day, suggesting that most of Tuesday's calls were related to the outbreak that has already killed over 5,400 people across the state and infected 140,386 more. According to New York City Fire Department data obtained by The Daily Beast, first responders have reported 2,192 "dead-on-arrival" calls over the last two weeks. On average, the department handled about 453 of those calls over the same period last year. That data also showed that the number of cardiac or respiratory arrest calls has exploded, from 20 to 30 a day at the end of March and the beginning of April in 2019, to 322 on one day in April in 2020—with more than 100 calls every day since March 28. While 30 to 50 percent of those calls ended in a death in 2019, more than 50 percent of those calls have ended in a death every day since March 22 this year, with the percentage steadily rising to 75 percent as of April 5.'New York Is in Crisis': Cuomo Pleads for Help as State Suffers Worst Single-Day Death Toll "Every person with a lab-confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis is counted in the number of fatalities, whether they passed away at home or in a hospital," a spokesperson for the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said in a statement to The Daily Beast. "The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) and the NYC Health Department are working together to include into their reports deaths that may be linked to COVID but not lab-confirmed that occur at home." They did not specify when the city will begin reporting that data, but the decision to include the possible virus-related fatalities comes after Gothamist's report about at-home deaths that were likely related to the disease and not included in the city's reports.While New York City reported over 400 coronavirus deaths in less than 24 hours on Wednesday, that number did not include those who died in non-hospital settings without a formal lab diagnosis.While initially refusing to discuss his administration's reporting system, Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday agreed the city should include home deaths to give an accurate account of the tragedy ravaging the city. He acknowledged that a "vast majority" of deaths at home are "coronavirus related.""The blunt truth is coronavirus is driving these very tragic deaths," de Blasio said on CNN. "We're talking about something like 100, 200 people per day. Don't take this disease ever lightly because the real death toll is even higher."The mayor added that New York—currently the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States—has seen more deaths in the "last couple of days" than "the number of people who died in the World Trade Center."State and city officials are still struggling to track the number of coronavirus cases, as officials believe there are a number of individuals infected with the virus who have not, or cannot, be tested. One emergency room doctor told The Daily Beast that his hospital is "aggressively sending people home." "Being in the hospital is not going to change their course of illness," the physician said, indicating the hard choices medical professionals face during this pandemic.De Blasio said that he was hopeful the virus was starting to slow after seeing indications that the city's overwhelmed hospital system was seeing fewer admissions—until he learned that hundreds of people are dying in their homes without seeking medical care. NYC Is on the Brink as Patients Flood Hospitals Already 'Under Siege'"We never saw anything like this in normal times," he added. "We have to acknowledge that, and say this is further evidence of just how destructive this disease is."On Wednesday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that 779 more people had died across the state, marking the second day in a row that the Empire State saw an increase in deaths related to the pandemic."If the hospitalization rate keeps decreasing the way it is now, then the system should stabilize these next couple of weeks, which will minimize the need for an overflow that we have built into the system," Cuomo said, adding that "the number of deaths, as a matter of fact, will continue to rise as those hospitalized for a longer period of time pass away." The death toll has already overwhelmed city hospitals and morgues. To deal with the flood of bodies, 45 refrigerated trucks have been set up across the five boroughs, some of which are already full, and a temporary morgue has been erected outside Bellevue Hospital in Midtown Manhattan. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said last week that New York will also receive 250 ambulances, about 500 EMTs and paramedics, and 85 more refrigerated trucks to help with the overload. On Monday, de Blasio, who'd previously refused to detail any plans for mass burials, said that the city has contingency plans in place if needed to bury COVID-19 victims in temporary plots on Hart Island, which has been used as New York's potter's field for 150 years, until morgues and cemeteries can handle the influx. "We're going to try and treat every family with dignity, respect, religious needs of those who are devout, and the focus right now is to try to get through this crisis and obviously also put all of our energy and resources into saving those we can save," de Blasio said. "That's how we're going to go about it. We'll have the capacity for temporary burials. That's all I'm going to say."Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Trump Slammed the WHO Over Coronavirus. He's Not Alone. Posted: 08 Apr 2020 11:46 AM PDT  President Donald Trump unleashed a tirade against the World Health Organization on Tuesday, accusing it of acting too slowly to sound the alarm about the coronavirus. It was not the first time in this pandemic that the global health body has faced such criticism.Government officials, health experts and analysts have in recent weeks raised concerns about how the organization has responded to the outbreak.In Japan, Taro Aso, the deputy prime minister and finance minister, recently noted that some people have started referring to the World Health Organization as the "Chinese Health Organization" because of what he described as its close ties to Beijing. Taiwanese officials say the WHO ignored its early warnings about the virus because China refuses to allow Taiwan, a self-governing island it claims as its territory, to become a member.Critics say the WHO has been too trusting of the Chinese government, which initially tried to conceal the outbreak in Wuhan. Others have faulted the organization and its leader, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, for moving too slowly in declaring a global health emergency.The WHO, a U.N. agency, has defended its response, saying Wednesday that it alerted the world to the threat posed by the virus in a timely manner and that it was "committed to ensuring all member states are able to respond effectively to this pandemic."The agency's defenders say that its powers over any individual government are limited, and that it has done the best it can in dealing with a public health threat with few precedents in history.There will be time later to assess successes and failings, "this virus and its shattering consequences," the United Nations secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, said Wednesday in a statement praising the WHO as "absolutely critical" to vanquishing COVID-19.Here's why the WHO is coming under attack.The WHO has not pushed China on early missteps.When cases of a mysterious viral pneumonia first appeared in Wuhan in December, Chinese health officials silenced whistleblowers and repeatedly played down the severity of the outbreak.Even as late as mid-January, as the virus spread beyond China's borders, Chinese officials described it as "preventable and controllable" and said there was no evidence it could be transmitted between humans on a broad scale.The WHO endorsed the government's claims, saying in mid-January, for example, that human-to-human transmission had not been proved.Critics say the organization's repeated deference to Beijing exacerbated the spread of the disease. A group of international experts was not allowed to visit Wuhan until mid-February."They could have been more forceful, especially in the initial stages in the crisis when there was a cover-up and there was inaction," said Yanzhong Huang, a global health expert specializing in China at Seton Hall University.Huang noted that during the SARS epidemic in 2002 and 2003, which killed more than 700 people worldwide, the WHO pushed the Chinese government to be more transparent by publicly criticizing it for trying to conceal the outbreak.At one point during the SARS epidemic, officials at hospitals in Beijing forced SARS patients into ambulances and drove them around to avoid their being seen by a visiting delegation of WHO experts, according to reports at the time.WHO officials were slow to declare a public health emergency, critics say.Even as the virus spread to more than half a dozen countries and forced China to place parts of Hubei province under lockdown in late January, the WHO was reluctant to declare it a global health emergency.WHO officials said at the time that a committee that discussed the epidemic was divided on the question of whether to call it an emergency but concluded that it was too early. One official added that they weighed the impact such a declaration might have on the people of China.After the United States announced a ban on most foreign citizens who had recently visited China, the WHO again seemed to show deference to Chinese officials, saying that travel restrictions were unnecessary. The group officially called the spread of the coronavirus a pandemic March 11.Some experts argue that the institution's delay in making such declarations deprived other countries of valuable time to prepare hospitals for an influx of patients."It reinforced the reluctance to take early strong measures before the catastrophe had actually landed on other shores," said François Godement, senior adviser for Asia at Institut Montaigne, a nonprofit group in Paris. "The WHO's tardiness or reluctance to call out the problem in full helped those who wanted to delay difficult decisions."The WHO defended its actions, saying Wednesday that it had "alerted member states to the significant risks and consequences of COVID-19 and provided them with a continuous flow of information" ever since Chinese officials first reported the outbreak Dec. 31.Guterres of the United Nations said, "It is possible that the same facts have had different readings by different entities." He added in his statement: "Once we have finally turned the page on this epidemic, there must be a time to look back fully to understand how such a disease emerged and spread its devastation so quickly across the globe and how all those involved reacted to the crisis."China's influence at the WHO is growing.China's leader, Xi Jinping, has made it a priority to strengthen Beijing's clout at international institutions, including the WHO, seeing the U.S.-dominated global order as an impediment to his country's rise as a superpower.China contributes only a small fraction of the WHO's $6 billion budget, while the United States is one of its main benefactors. But in recent years, Beijing has worked in other ways to expand its influence at the organization.The government has lobbied the WHO to promote traditional Chinese medicine, which Xi has worked to harness as a source of national pride and deployed as a soft-power tool in developing countries, despite skepticism from some scientists about its effectiveness.Last year, the WHO offered an endorsement of traditional Chinese medicine, including it in its influential medical compendium. The move was roundly criticized by animal welfare activists, who argued that it could contribute to a surge in illegal trafficking of wildlife whose parts are used in Chinese remedies.China has sought to promote traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of symptoms of the coronavirus both at home and abroad. Last month, the WHO was criticized after it removed a warning against taking traditional herbal remedies to treat the coronavirus from its websites in mainland China.China's role at the WHO will probably continue to grow in the coming years, especially if Western governments retreat from the organization, as Trump has threatened."This is part of China's efforts to more actively engage in international institutions," said Huang, the global health expert. "It will not please every country or every actor, but it's going to affect the agenda of the WHO."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Head of Global Strike Command Wants to Make Air Force Bombers Even More Lethal Posted: 09 Apr 2020 01:07 PM PDT  The Air Force plans to have 165 to 175 bombers in its inventory once the B-21 Long Range Strike Bomber comes online.
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| Hawaii mayor calls Fla. man accused of violating quarantine rule a 'covidiot' Posted: 08 Apr 2020 04:26 AM PDT  A Hawaiian mayor has labeled a Florida man a "covidiot" after he was accused of trying to avoid a mandatory traveler quarantine.
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| Do men fare worse with COVID-19? Posted: 08 Apr 2020 04:18 AM PDT  In Italy, an analysis of more than 127,700 COVID-19 cases found that 52.9% of all infected people were men and 47.1% women.
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| Walmart Says It Will Invest $425 Million to Expand Presence in Wuhan over the Next Five Years Posted: 09 Apr 2020 08:53 AM PDT  Walmart's China branch announced at an investment conference hosted by the Wuhan city government on Wednesday that it was committing 3 billion yuan ($425 million) to expand its presence in the origin point of the coronavirus pandemic over the next five years.According to Walmart China, the company will be putting up at least four new Sam's Club stores, 15 additional shopping malls, and more community stores in the capital of China's Hubei province. The U.S.-based retailer already has 34 stores and two distribution centers in the city, where the global coronavirus pandemic first emerged in December.Wern-Yuen Tan, President and CEO of Walmart China, announced the decision in collaboration with Wuhan's municipal government, saying "the framework marks a new milestone between the two parties and a new beginning for a win-win situation."Wuhan ended its city-wide lockdown on Wednesday, after 76 days of mandatory shutdown, despite fears that the city was still hosting many asymptomatic cases. City residents have dismissed the official death toll of approximately 2,500, while U.S. intelligence concluded last week that the city has been lying about its number of cases.The corporate response to China's handling of the coronavirus has been mixed. The American Chamber of Commerce polled 119 companies last month on their China outlook, with 40 percent saying they would maintain their planned levels of investment in China this year, while 24 percent said they plan to cut investment. A third said it was too early to determine coronavirus's impact.U.S. lawmakers have grown increasingly critical of the U.S.'s over reliance on China in recent months, especially relating to medical supplies — with experts suggesting that "thousands" of basic pharmaceuticals are sourced in China.Last month, Representative Jim Banks (R., Ind.) warned that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's proposed stimulus package did not address U.S. dependence on Chinese supply chains, despite bipartisan concerns about the issue.Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) also proposed a phase-four relief package last week that promoted bringing "critical supply chains back to this country from China and elsewhere and to encourage domestic production."
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| Young people, who are least likely die from the coronavirus, should be released early from the UK's lockdown to help the economy, a new paper said Posted: 09 Apr 2020 08:26 AM PDT  The paper, from the UK's University of Warwick, says the economic benefit is worth the health risk, since young people are less vulnerable anyway.
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| Pope hails priests, health workers as 'the saints next door' Posted: 09 Apr 2020 11:23 AM PDT  Pope Francis on Holy Thursday hailed priests and medical staff who tend to the needs of COVID-19 patients as "the saints next door." Francis celebrated the Holy Week evening Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, which was kept off-limits to the public because of restrictions aimed at containing the spread of the new coronavirus. The pope began his off-the-cuff homily by honoring the memory of priests who gave their lives in service to others, singling out those who died after tending to sick people in Italy's hospitals.
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| More than half of Americans think China should pay coronavirus reparations, poll shows Posted: 08 Apr 2020 08:08 AM PDT  Americans have turned some of their bipartisan ire amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic toward Beijing, a new Harris Poll survey released Wednesday shows.Per the poll, nearly 90 percent of Republicans believe China, where the coronavirus originated, is responsible for the spread while two-thirds of Democrats surveyed said the same. There's a little more discrepancy across party lines when it comes to how Chinese President Xi Jinping and his government should reckon with their role in exacerbating crisis, but more than half of Americans believe Beijing should pay some form of reparations to other countries.> NEW: > > -77% blame China for coronavirus including more than two-thirds (67%) of Democrats> > -71% say American companies should pull back manufacturing in China> > -69% support Trump's tougher trade policies with China> > -54% say China should pay reparationshttps://t.co/ExK5hf0Lrd> > — Alberto E. Martinez (@albertemartinez) April 8, 2020Among GOP voters, 71 percent think China has a responsibility to compensate other countries for the damage the pandemic has caused. Fewer than half of Democrats agree with that sentiment, but the 41 percent who do is not an insignificant amount.The Harris Poll was conducted online between between April 3-April 5. A nationally representative sample of 1,993 U.S. adults was surveyed. No margin of error was reported. Read more at The Washington Post and take a look at the full poll results here.More stories from theweek.com Biden is the weakest major party nominee in recent history — but that might be the point The coming backlash against the public health experts Senate Democrats block McConnell's $250 billion small business loans bill, demanding double funding
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| Thousands of People in Dorms Pose New Challenge to Singapore Virus Fight Posted: 09 Apr 2020 06:31 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Tightly packed dormitories housing thousands of foreign workers have emerged as one of Singapore's biggest challenges in its fight to contain the spread of the coronavirus.The city state reported its highest daily increase of infections Thursday, and more than 200 of the 287 new cases were linked to foreign worker dormitories that house mainly low-wage workers in construction and other sectors. Those groups now account for about a quarter of the country's 1,910 cases.Authorities have moved swiftly to isolate the clusters. Two dormitories that together house almost 20,000 people were on Sunday designated by the Ministry of Manpower as "isolation areas" after new, linked virus cases emerged, while two more dormitories were gazetted this week. Residents were ordered to stay in their shared rooms for two weeks, but would still receive wages as well as deliveries of food and other essentials."It is honestly a difficult situation," said Leong Hoe Nam, an infectious diseases physician at Singapore's Mount Elizabeth Hospital, who drew comparisons to cruise ships like the Diamond Princess, where about 700 of its roughly 3,700 passengers were infected with Covid-19. "This is going to be a big mess."For Singapore, a country that has been championed by health officials for its methodical virus response since the outbreak began, the move to quarantine potentially exposed workers living in close proximity has raised questions about whether the conditions will allow for social distancing -- one of the key strategies utilized around the world to contain the outbreak's spread."To try and sort this out, they need to remain in the rooms for weeks with no interactions," Leong said, adding that Singapore would have to also navigate language barriers and cultural differences among the workers.Adequate social distancing is already a challenge for those who don't live in worker dorms. The government gave out more than 7,000 warnings to people who didn't observe rules on the first day of a month-long so-called "circuit breaker" that has seen schools and most workplaces closed. The prime minister warned Thursday that people are still not doing enough to stay apart from one other.Key WorkforceForeigners make up about 38% of Singapore's overall workforce, including foreign domestic workers, according to government figures through the end of last year. They have an outsize share in the construction industry, where three of every four workers is foreign, while foreigners account for about half of Singapore's manufacturing workforce and 30% in services.A fixture in industries that depend on low-wage workers, there are more than 200,000 migrants from across Asia who live in 43 dormitories in Singapore, Minister of Manpower Josephine Teo wrote in a Facebook post on Monday, noting there was "no question" standards in dormitories should be raised. Singapore charities that support migrant workers say they have seen 10 or more people share a single room.With the coronavirus ravaging much of the planet, crowded spaces like these "pose transmission risks for everyone," the World Health Organization said."When people are in quarantine, physical distancing becomes even more challenging," a WHO spokesman wrote by email. "In such conditions, it's especially important to follow guidance on regular hand washing, respiratory etiquette and other practices to keep people healthy and prevent disease spread."Singapore is providing on-site support, including food and essential supplies while preventive measures are being put in place in the dormitories, the spokesman wrote.The government has so far closed non-essential amenities such as gyms and libraries, prevented inter-mingling between blocks, staggered meal and recreation times. It's also established basic health care facilities at two of the dormitories, while the authorities are seeking to whittle down the number of residents in affected blocks. Some healthy foreign workers operating in essential services have been moved to vacant public housing apartments.Meanwhile, Singapore has also deployed its army doctors, medical military experts and medics at the dormitories to take care of foreign workers who are unwell or infected, according to a Facebook post by Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen.Singapore is not the only country with coronavirus clusters in foreign worker residences. In Malaysia, the government on Tuesday imposed an "enhanced movement control order" on two apartment facilities in Kuala Lumpur that house some 6,000 residents after 15 people tested positive for the virus, Defense Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said on Wednesday. 97% of the residents are from abroad, mostly India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, he said.Crowded SpacesWith 38 confirmed cases currently, the purpose-built workers accommodation Westlite Toh Guan was among the two facilities to be isolated in Singapore on Sunday. There, a total of 6,800 residents are spread across 687 apartment units with an average of eight to 10 occupants per room, according to emails with Centurion Corporation, which owns the buildings. The units include bathrooms, a kitchen, showers and dining space.Like the other gazetted dormitories, residents there have received care packs consisting of masks, thermometers and hand sanitizer, and "after some initial hitches" meals are being delivered in a timely fashion, according to a government statement on Tuesday.Ah Hlaing, a Burmese caregiver at a daycare center for the elderly who shares an apartment at the dormitory with about 10 people, said after initially being upset over the new rules, she acknowledges they are necessary.She was "upset because we can't go out and have to stay in the room," Ah said, adding she has had access to the essentials including food and sanitary products. "We have to accept now that at this time, we can't do anything."Some rights groups have expressed concern the government is not doing enough."The key vulnerability, crowding, is not really being addressed with sufficient determination," said Alex Wu, vice president at Transient Workers Count Too, a registered charity that helps low-wage migrant workers. "Infectious diseases thrive through human proximity. In fact, requiring workers to stay in their rooms except for occasional periods will intensify contact, not reduce it."(Updates with new infection data in second paragraph)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Woman gives birth standing with trousers on while detained at US-Mexico border Posted: 09 Apr 2020 02:20 PM PDT  A woman suffering flu-like symptoms gave birth standing and fully clothed while detained near the Mexican-US border, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.The Guatemalan woman, 27, was being processed at the Chula Vista Border Patrol Station near San Diego when her complaints of pain and pleas for help were allegedly ignored by agents, according to a complaint filed on Wednesday by the ACLU and Jewish Family Service of San Diego with the US Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General.
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| White Supremacist Groups Are Recruiting With Help From Coronavirus – and a Popular Messaging App Posted: 08 Apr 2020 01:42 PM PDT  As COVID-19 spreads around the world, white supremacist groups are seizing onto it to recruit and spread misinformation
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| Brazil lockdowns, attacked by Bolsonaro, begin to slip Posted: 09 Apr 2020 10:38 AM PDT  Lockdowns in Brazil's largest cities to slow the coronavirus outbreak are beginning to slip, according to new data this week seen and analyzed by Reuters, with more people leaving their homes as President Jair Bolsonaro continues to criticize the measures. State governments in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo have expressed growing concern as their social isolation orders lose effectiveness, even as the outbreak spreads to nearly 16,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and 800 deaths. Mayors and governors trying to keep Brazilians indoors have struggled against Bolsonaro's repeated attacks on the social distancing measures, which he described as "poison" that could kill more through economic hardship than the virus itself.
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| Liz Cheney Calls WHO’s Tedros ‘A Puppet of the Chinese Communist Party’ Posted: 09 Apr 2020 07:21 AM PDT  Representative Liz Cheney (R., Wyo.) slammed the World Health Organization's director general Tedros Adhanom for being "a puppet of the Chinese Communist Party" over the organization's response to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.Cheney, speaking to radio host Hugh Hewitt, cited Tedros's kowtowing to Chinese authority in the wake of the outbreak, despite multiple reports detailing how Chinese government officials failed in their response."The fact that the head of the WHO was unwilling to say, for example, yes, it's right to cut off travel from China, was unwilling to acknowledge that there was, you know, community transmission, has been touting the Chinese Communist Party line from the beginning of this, tells you that he absolutely should go," Cheney stated. "And again, you know, we're in a situation where having somebody who is a puppet of the Chinese Communist Party running the WHO is costing lives around the world. And in order for that organization to play anywhere near the role we need it to play, it needs a new director, certainly."Beijing silenced Wuhan laboratories which had realized in December that the coronavirus was related to the deadly SARS virus from 2002-2003, and continued to claim that coronavirus could not be transmitted from human-to-human for weeks after evidence of that fact emerged.The WHO parroted Beijing's line on January 14, tweeting that there was "no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus." The WHO also defended China's multiple drastic alterations to its coronavirus case count, and has not criticized Beijing for refusing to count asymptomatic cases until April 1. Multiple reports have detailed how China backed Tedros's bid for WHO director general in 2017, after he had worked closely with Beijing as Ethiopia's health minister.On Wednesday, Tedros defended his leadership and the response to the virus, warning that U.S. lawmakers were "politicizing" the pandemic."Please, unity at national level. No using COVID for political points," he said. "And then second, honest solidarity at global level and honest leadership from the U.S. and China . . . We shouldn't waste time pointing fingers. We need time to unite."Tedros also added that he was being personally attacked with "racist comments.""I can tell you personal attacks that have been going on for more than two, three months. Abuses, or racist comments, giving me names, black or Negro. I'm proud of being black, proud of being Negro," he stated. "I don't care, to be honest . . . even death threats. I don't give a damn."President Trump hammered the WHO on Tuesday, tweeting that the organization "really blew it."> The W.H.O. really blew it. For some reason, funded largely by the United States, yet very China centric. We will be giving that a good look. Fortunately I rejected their advice on keeping our borders open to China early on. Why did they give us such a faulty recommendation?> > -- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 7, 2020Cheney is not the only lawmaker to single out Tedros for criticism. Last week, Senator Martha McSally (R., Ariz.) called him "a communist" and said Tedros "needs to step down."
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| South Korea reported that 51 coronavirus patients' infections went away then 'reactivated' But it's unlikely the virus has a dormancy period. Posted: 09 Apr 2020 04:48 PM PDT  Health authorities said 51 COVID-19 patients in recovery tested negative then positive again within a "relatively short time." It's not clear how.
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| Smithfield temporarily shuts pork plant due to coronavirus Posted: 09 Apr 2020 09:24 AM PDT  A Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in South Dakota will temporarily close for cleaning after more than 80 employees were confirmed to have the coronavirus, the company announced Thursday. Smithfield Foods plans to suspend operations in a large section of the Sioux Falls plant on Saturday, then completely close on Sunday and Monday. Smithfield Foods CEO Kenneth Sullivan said in a statement that the plant dishes out nearly 18 million servings of meat per day.
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| Senate Democrats block McConnell's $250 billion small business loans bill, demanding double funding Posted: 09 Apr 2020 08:24 AM PDT  Senators will either have to return to Washington or get negotiating to get the next round of coronavirus relief funding flowing.With just four senators in the chamber on Thursday, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) blocked a unanimous voice vote in favor of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's $250 billion small business loans bill. Cardin called the bill a "political stunt," and reiterated congressional Democrats' demands for greater accountability and diversity in how the bill would be spent.Cardin's opposition didn't come as a surprise, seeing as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) unveiled Democrats' demands for the bill on Wednesday. They'd like to see that $250 billion doubled, with an extra $100 billion going to hospitals, community health centers, and health systems; $150 billion for state and local governments; and an additional 15 percent support added to SNAP food stamp benefits. They also demanded that half of the small business loans "serve farmers, family, women, and minority and veteran-owned small businesses and nonprofits in rural, tribal, suburban, and urban communities."Senators have largely scattered back to their home states amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Without a provision for remote voting, any actions Congress wants to take have to be done without opposition.More stories from theweek.com Biden is the weakest major party nominee in recent history — but that might be the point Biden pledges to lower Medicare age and reduce some student debt in olive branch to Sanders supporters 4 important parenting lessons from life in lockdown
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| CDC releases data of worst U.S. coronavirus cases Posted: 09 Apr 2020 04:34 PM PDT  The CDC gathered data on those who were hospitalized from COVID-19 in 14 states from March 1-30, in efforts to get a clearer picture of those infected who needed the most serious medical care.
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| US criticizes WHO for ignoring Taiwan virus warnings Posted: 09 Apr 2020 05:09 PM PDT  The United States on Thursday accused the World Health Organization of putting politics first by ignoring early coronavirus warnings by Taiwan, which voiced outrage over criticism from the UN body's chief. President Donald Trump has gone on an offensive with threats to withhold funding for the WHO, which is at the forefront of fighting the pandemic that has infected more than 1.5 million people worldwide since emerging in Wuhan, China late last year. Critics say that Trump's sudden threats against the WHO amount to a political ploy to find a foreign scapegoat as he comes under fire for not doing more to prepare for and control COVID-19, which has killed about 15,000 people in the United States.
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| Black People Know: The Coronavirus Is No Great Equalizer Posted: 08 Apr 2020 01:47 AM PDT  As an African-American, I always anticipated that the COVID-19 pandemic would disproportionately hit my community, and other communities of color the hardest. It was never an if, but a when. COVID-19 does not see race, color, or nationality; but it does attack the vulnerable and require the collective will of a society to stop. Communities of color have always been excluded, exploited, and vulnerable to attack in America, so it was inevitable that the coronavirus would come for us. Tragically, our society still needs data to prove the possibility of the inevitable, and now the data is pouring in.On CBS This Morning on Tuesday, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who is black, acknowledged that African-Americans are at a higher risk of COVID-19 due to systemic inequalities. He talked about how he is prediabetic, has heart disease, high blood pressure, and asthma—and he attributed his ailments to the "legacy of growing up poor and black in America."'I Could Get the Virus If I Vote': Wisconsin's Terrifying Election DayAdams was born in 1974, and is clearly a smart, hard-working, and accomplished man. He's worked his way out of poverty, but the poverty he was born into and that makes him more vulnerable to the coronavirus is the legacy of Jim Crow and systemic racism. This was an intentional impoverishing and enfeebling of the black community that still poses a life-threatening danger to even the most accomplished African-Americans.In Louisiana, about 70 percent of the people who have died from COVID-19 are black despite only accounting for a third of the state's population. Just this morning my mother sent me a text message telling me that our family friend Orlando (Skip) Wright, who lives in Louisiana, died from COVID-19. My mom has known him since they were both children growing up in the segregated South. They even went to prom together, long before she met my father.In Chicago, 72 percent of those who have succumbed to COVID-19 are African-American, despite making up less than a third of the population. And the majority of Chicago's black population is concentrated on the South Side that has been a historically underfunded and neglected part of the city.In Milwaukee, another segregated Midwestern city, African-Americans make up less than 30 percent of the population, but account for nearly 75 percent of the deaths.Last week, The Atlantic reported that COVID-19 is especially lethal in the South, due to the endemic poverty of the region and the ensuing health complications such as obesity, heart and lung disease, and hypertension. These lethal threats are especially high amongst the black community in the South. None of this data should be a surprise because since the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade, the white-dominated South has based its way of life around legitimizing the impoverishment, malnourishment, and oppression of black people.Yet the legacy of America's previous horrors, only partially accounts for today's tragedy. Incompetent Republican governors, such as Brian Kemp of Georgia and Ron DeSantis of Florida, have been slow to act and have left their states increasingly vulnerable. Last Thursday, Gov. Kemp publicly stated that he had only recently become aware that asymptomatic people could spread the coronavirus.Republican ignorance combined with their dislike of universal health care creates an inevitable crisis that will disproportionately harm communities of color. Kemp's negligence, which is so egregious that is should be considered criminal, reflects nearly the entirety of the Republican response to this crisis at the state and federal level.Additionally, communities of color often fill the jobs that municipalities deem "essential" such as mailmen, and garbage collectors. They are unable to stay at home, and potentially expose themselves to the virus every day despite being the most susceptible to dying from COVID-19.The horrors of the past combined with the inequality and ignorance of the present creates a life-threatening crisis within the black community that Chicago's mayor Lori Lightfoot describes as "breathtaking." And while the numbers are breathtaking, they should not be shocking. The alarming number of African-American COVID-19 deaths represents an American-made tragedy created by our society's systematic disregard for black life.Just as data confirms the possibility of the inevitable, data can also provide Americans with the information to change our status quo and create a more equitable society.Right now a group of Democratic lawmakers, Sens. Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren; and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, are calling on the department of Health and Human Services to provide comprehensive racial data regarding the spread and impact of COVID-19."Any attempt to contain COVID-19 in the United States will have to address its potential spread in low-income communities of color, first and foremost to protect the lives of people in those communities, but also to slow the spread of the virus in the country as a whole…. This lack of information will exacerbate existing health disparities and result in the loss of lives in vulnerable communities," they warned in a letter sent to HHS.The tragedy befalling America's black community is both American-made, and impairing our capacity to prevent the virus spreading. Yet despite the importance of this information to protect black, and all Americans, no one expects the Trump administration to act on this vital need. But Joe Biden must act.Biden was left for dead in the presidential race, but his support amongst black voters catapulted him to an almost insurmountable delegate lead in less than a month. Black voters could put him in the White House, but we will need to know that he has our back during a time of crisis.Biden needs to join forces with his fellow Democrats and get vocal about how the pandemic is disproportionately harming communities of color, and what he plans on doing to address this crisis.The disparity in death rates does take your breath away. But if the end result remains inaction from both sides of the political aisle and a continued normalization of systemic inequality, America may never recover from COVID-19.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| East Coast faces thunderstorm threat; tornadoes, snow in weekend forecasts Posted: 09 Apr 2020 09:18 AM PDT  Dangerous weather is expected for Easter Weekend — and snow is in the forecast for New England.
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