I’m in a weak union state, so no, these guys do not make very much money, and stores keep them part time so the vast, vast majority get no benefits.
It honestly crazy how much time they have historically had to hold and contain measures in place for pandemics, yet they still manage to panic and screw up this bad
@Milee30 The fact that the state of New York has more resources or a better system/infrastructure to perform more tests than Florida is not a statement of who has more access to scarce resources. It’s a statement about Florida’s poor planning on the state and local level as compared with New York. If testing is scarce in Florida, it’s because the state and local governments in Florida have not adequately prioritized the same things New York has. But again, the federal government should be stepping up asap. And maybe Floridians (and all Americans) should reassess their priorities for the future.
Amen.
Tunisian president orders general lockdown
Tunisian President Kais Saied ordered a general lockdown, restricting public movement to counter the spread of the coronavirus.
Speaking in a televised broadcast, Saied said he was asking the majority of people to stay at home and stopping movement between Tunisian cities. So far, 39 cases have been confirmed in the Tunisia, with one death.
Saudi Arabia to borrow more to cover coronavirus response
Saudi Arabia will tap debt markets more than previously planned to help finance $32bn in economic measures to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus outbreak, the kingdom’s finance minister said on Friday.
Mohammed al-Jadaan said in a news conference broadcast on state television that King Salman had approved raising the debt ceiling to 50 percent of gross domestic product, from 30 percent, but that borrowing this year would not exceed 100 billion riyals ($26.61bn).
In dense Bangladesh, social distancing a tough task
Measures to prevent COVID-19 faces challenge in Bangladesh - one of the poorest and densest countries in the world.
by Faisal Mahmud
Dhaka, Bangladesh - The new coronavirus has forced countries around the world to adopt measures such as flight bans, mandatory lockdowns and social distancing to prevent the pandemic from spreading.
South Asian nation of Bangladesh has also followed suit, banning flights and shutting down schools and colleges but offices still remain open in one of the poorest countries in the world.
But for people in the densest country on earth, social distancing is a difficult task while commuting in crowded public transport or living in cheek-by-jowl urban slums.
Huddling inside a Tempo - a makeshift human haulier that sits up to 14 passengers - on a Dhaka road, Abdullah Yusuf was brooding on his helpless condition on Wednesday.
The 27-year-old, who works as a technician at an industrial chemical laboratory, needs to commute from his Rayerbazaar home in Dhaka to office in Tejgaon. He uses Tempo, the cheapest mode of transport, to cover some 5km (3 miles) distance between his home and office.
“People are talking about maintaining social distancing and personal hygiene to stop COVID-19 outbreak,” Yusuf told Al Jazeera. “Inside a crowded Tempo, those warnings seem futile as we don’t have any option but to sit in a cheek-by-jowl distance.”
With an income of less than $250 a month, Yusuf cannot afford to rent an auto-rickshaw or use taxi-hailing services to make the daily commute. “Our office doesn’t allow us to work from home. We need to go out every day.”
The South Asian nation with 170 million people has shut down all of its educational institutions from March 17 until March 31. The country has also banned incoming flights from the European destinations.
However, with no “total lockdown” order imposed by the government, millions of people like Yusuf are out on the roads every day, especially in the capital Dhaka - home to some 18 million people.
For a city as dense as Dhaka, maintaining social distance - as suggested by the World Health Organization (WHO) to stop the coronavirus spread - seems like a chimera.
Even staying at home is barely proven to be efficacious in Dhaka - a city with no less than 23,334 people living per square kilometre.
Nadia Tabassum Khan has been working from home for the past one week as her office, a multinational market research firm, allowed their employees to avail the facility.
“Our contractual housemaid however, is making a daily visit to our house from outside,” 36-year-old Khan told Al Jazeera.
Khan’s housemaid Sulema Begum, a 34-year-old with beetle leaf stained teeth, barely has any idea about the magnitude of coronavirus outbreak. She hardly knows about the pandemic that has infected more than 200,000 people worldwide and killed nearly 10,000 people.
In her slum at Beribandh in the south of Dhaka, where at least 20,000 people live in extremely close quarters, with most residents little aware of the threat due to the disease.
“We have seen on the TV that people are washing hands and advise everyone to do the same. A bottle of hand wash costs more than 120 takas (about $1.4). It is hard for me to afford it,” said a nonchalant Begum.
“Besides, in the slum, there is one toilet for every 10 families. We don’t even have a regular water supply in the toilet,” Begum added.
‘Can’t enforce social distancing’
Dr ANM Nuruzzaman, a physician who was earlier a director in the Directorate General of Health Service, told Al Jazeera that practising social distancing in a country like Bangladesh is “next to impossible”.
“Social distancing is a way of controlling infectious disease. But in a densely populated country like Bangladesh, you can’t enforce social distancing in many areas.”
“Especially, consider the slums in Dhaka and Chattagram where millions of people live. They are living in such close quarters that it’s unthinkable to enforce social distancing there.”
The government has said it has all the necessary preparations to tackle the COVID-19 outbreak but people have expressed concerns at the preparedness.
A physician, who wished to remain anonymous, told Al Jazeera that “extremely” limited number of testing is possibly leaving COVID-19 cases undetected in Bangladesh.
As of Wednesday, the Bangladesh government through its Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) - tested only 268 people.
The Dhaka-based IEDCR is the sole testing facility with no other hospitals - public or private - allowed to conduct coronavirus tests.
“The centralisation of detecting COVID-19 makes some sense as it is a contagious virus and without personal protective equipment (PPE) - which many hospitals don’t have - it’s not safe,” Dr Monira Parvin, head of virology department of Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH), told Al Jazeera.
“But that leaves us, who are working in hospitals, in extremely vulnerable condition as patients with symptoms of common flu and pneumonia are coming to the hospitals every day,” said Parvin. “These symptoms are similar to those observed in patients infected by COVID-19.”
‘Shortage of testing kits’
Four doctors of Parvin’s hospital were already sent to home quarantine after they handled a person who was later diagnosed with COVID-19.
Doctors in many other hospitals and private clinics are refusing to treat patients with cold and pneumonia symptoms. This has sparked anger and anxiousness among the common people.
Many people are turning to social media to share their experiences. One such Facebook post by Nurun Nahar Nowshin went viral on social media. Nowshin revealed that she made rounds of several hospitals, which refused to treat her father and instead suggested to get her father tested at the IEDCR first.
But her father passed away before the coronavirus test result arrived. Later it was known that he did not have COVID-19.
“The preparation by the government is not adequate. Why don’t they bring more kits and test more patients?” questioned Asraf-Ul-Jubair, a vexed resident from Dhaka’s Moghbazar who recently called the IEDCR.
“It’s hard to believe that only 18 persons are infected with the coronavirus in Bangladesh. If they don’t test more people, then they will not be able to find more cases,” Jubair said.
Meerjadi Sabrina Flora, director of IEDCR, said they have planned to expand the COVID-19 testing facility to few other centres.
She admitted that the IEDCR has a shortage of testing kits, adding that they would bring more kits from China very soon.
“We will conduct more tests. Our hotline is open 24/7. Any affected patients can seek help on our hotline,” she said.
Al Jazeera
Unless I’m wrong – someone please feel free to correct me – statistics show that even late closings help flatten that curve… and that’s the most we can do now.
I agree @cinnamon1212 . I thought European travel should have been shut down much sooner. It was one man returning from Italy who infected so many in New York. Returning travelers should have been quarantined for two weeks, like Israel did.
I’m not in a populous or a terribly powerful state. But we do have a governor who believes experts and scientists. And he acted in an aggressive way. (Yes, he took heat for it, too. Now people are pleased.)
Voters in states where officials have fallen short can have a say in the voting booth. This is how a democracy works. And if things remain status quo in Florida, well, then you will discover not a whole lot will change. In your state and possibly nationwide.
Just stopped by the local liquor store to get some wine (in NY). Asked if the had to shut down as per Cuomo’s order. Nope, they are considered an essential business like pharmacies and grocery stores.
Macron: We are at start of crisis
France is only at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis and is in a race to curb its progress, President Emmanuel Macron said.
“We are at the start of this crisis. We have taken exceptional measures to absorb this first wave, but we’ve started a race against the virus,” Macron said at the start of a crisis meeting at the Interior Ministry.
“We must react a great deal and reorganise ourselves at every moment. We need to anticipate.”
Russia starts testing coronavirus vaccine prototypes on animals
Russian scientists have begun testing prototypes of potential vaccines against the new coronavirus on animals in a laboratory in Siberia, Russia’s consumer health regulator said.
Scientists in the Vector State Virology and Biotechnology Centre in the city of Novosibirsk have developed vaccine prototypes based on six different technological platforms and began tests on Monday to try to work out how effective they are and in what doses they could be administered, the regulator said.
Scientists around the world have warned that the development of a vaccine is a lengthy and complex process that might only yield something for broader use in the next 12-18 months.
However, the Russian regulator said it could be possible to start rolling out a vaccine in the last three months of 2020.
Roads in Kashmir sealed off, impacting millions
Dozens of people in India-administered Kashmir say they had been prevented from leaving their neighbourhoods by police and paramilitary units.
Srinagar’s senior superintendent of police, Haseeb Mughal, told Reuters News Agency that road blockades across the valley had been imposed to prevent the spread of the virus.
“I had to take my mother to hospital in Srinagar but the police closed the road,” said Mohammed Ayub, from the nearby town of Budgam.
“I am waiting here for the last two hours. I can’t even go home now as the road is blocked due to a traffic jam.”
Muslim-majority Kashmir has been relatively unaffected by the virus, reporting its first case on Wednesday.
US governors ask Pentagon for clarification on National Guard authorisation
A group of governors in the United States has asked the defence secretary, Mark Esper, to clarify the federal government’s plan for activating the National Guard as part of the containment action against the coronavirus disease.
In a letter to Esper, Council of Governors representatives Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and Hawaii Governor David Ige, said activating the National Guard should be done in consultation with the heads of all 50 states in the US.
The governors expressed concern that in times of emergency, such as the coronavirus pandemic, the state powers over the National Guard could be taken from them.
Al Jazeera
Well that’s pretty much what the President said and he was open about it.
“Governors are supposed to be doing a lot of this work,” Trump said. “The federal government is not supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items, and then shipping. We’re not a shipping clerk.”
“They can get them faster by getting them on their own,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “In other words, go through a supply chain that they may have because the governors, during normal times, the governors buy a lot of things, not necessarily through the federal government.”
“We will be backing you, but try getting it yourselves. Point of sales, much better, much more direct if you can get it yourself,”
OK, so we should say that the people who bought 17,000 packages of hand sanitizer to resell at a profit were just smarter than the rest of us? Those dumb 83 year olds who didn’t stockpile TP and now don’t have any were just too slow to act and should use their left hand to wipe - it’s not our fault if they din’t plan better?
Nobody planned well for this, but some states are proving better than others at grabbing what they can first or squawking loudest on the news that are based in their area that they are most in need of military resources. If we’re OK with this, we should bless all the smart capitalists sitting on their stockpiles of TP and hand sanitizer. It’s the same thing.
If all we need to think about is ourselves, let the spring breakers party - after all, they’re not likely to die from this. Why should they give up their vacation?
California has millions of N95 masks in an emergency stockpile. I think I heard Newsom say last night that it was 10 million.
I don’t know whether other states have such emergency stockpiles.
Connecticut governor asks all non-essential employees to “stay home to stay safe”
From CNN’s Sheena Jones
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont has asked all non-essential employees to “stay home to stay safe” at least for the “foreseeable future.”
This announcement Friday comes after the state confirmed 194 Covid-19 cases and four deaths.
This is an executive order and businesses could be subjected to fines if they stay open, Lamont said. The order has not been officially signed yet, but will be later today and guidance will be issued, officials said at the presser.
The order is expected to go into effect by 8 p.m. ET Monday.
During a press conference on Friday, the governor called for more people to donate medical equipment to the hospitals of Connecticut, including N95 mask, gowns and gloves. The state is testing about 1,000 people per day now, Lamont said, so he expects the numbers to go up.
Lamont said about 500 retired nurses stood-up to come back to work, they are also working on getting nursing students certified to come and help at hospital.
A very “generous donor” donated millions of dollars to open 26-day care centers near or adjacent to hospitals to help ease the demand on healthcare staff, he said.
The governor also rolled out the stay home to stay safe policy to help combat the spread of Covid-19. This will require all people over 70 to stay home and to stay off public transportation.
Retail stores are not to open unless they are an essential service for at least the foreseeable future, Lamont added.
The governor said major construction projects and major manufactures are exempted from this, however he asked for all of them to be tested before and after work and no major gatherings when they are off.
Large increase in firearms purchases during pandemic contributed to background check delays
From CNN’s Devon Sayers
A large increase in firearms purchases during the coronavirus pandemic contributed to a delay in background checks for firearms, according to a statement from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
TBI processed a total of 14,657 transactions between March 12 and March 16, the statement said.
During a comparable five-day period, Feb. 13 through Feb. 17, they processed only 7,901 transactions, according to the statement.
A shortage in staff and an unplanned technical outage also contributed to the delay, the statement said.
Some US Census field operations delayed by coronavirus
From CNN’s Sarah Jorgensen
Some field operations used in the US Census have been delayed due to coronavirus, officials said during a briefing on Friday.
Al Fontenot, associate director for the Decennial Census Program, said census teams are working closely with New York and California state governments to navigate the new essential worker regulations.
Fontenot praised the “high level of dedication” of census workers during this time.
“This is not anything any of us could have anticipated or planned,” he said. “Of all of our worst nightmares of things that could have gone wrong with the census, we did not anticipate this set of actions.”
Fontenot and Tim Olson, associate director for field operations, said at this time, there is no plan to request that Congress delay the federally mandated December 31 deadline for the conclusion of the census, according to the officials.
I agree. And many experts do to. Check out this article (I recommended it earlier, but it’s good enough to share again.)
This brewery will produce hand sanitizer for Delaware
From CNN’s Tanika Gray
The state of Delaware and the Dogfish Head Craft Brewery are teaming up to make more hand sanitizer available to the state’s government, according to a statement from Delaware Gov. John Carney.
Dogfish Head will sell the sanitizer to the state of Delaware at market price, and 100% of the profits will go into a fund to support Delawareans affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, the statement said.
According to the statement, the craft brewery has dedicated its sanitizer inventory to fulfilling critical needs of the state, including providing the product to health care facilities and first responders.
“I never thought Dogfish Head would be in the sanitizer business. But this is a time of crisis, and necessity is the mother of invention,” Sam Calagione, founder of Dogfish Head, said in the statement. “It is our duty to do what we can to keep as many people safe and healthy in our community.”
Yes, I think we can all agree that too little was done too late. But that doesn’t mean that closing the borders now will be ineffective. The virus is here. But closing the borders even now will limit more carriers getting into the country and infecting more people. It’s that whole exponential thing.
No, the hand sanitizer example is not a good analogy. It assumes that each state is taking something now that could have been distributed to another state, which is not the case at all.
A better analogy would be if two states got hit with an earthquake, for instance. In State A, the state and local government had, in the years leading up to that time, been using its tax dollars on making sure its buildings were built to earthquake survival standards, educating its constituents about how to react during an earthquake, and invested in hospitals/medical schools, etc. You get the idea. In State B, on the other hand, state and local governments decided it would be better to lower taxes and not invest in the same things State A had been investing in with their own tax dollars, or it decides to invest those funds in different things. When the earthquake hits, State B is devastated, whereas State A sustains less damage, and is able to provide a higher quality of care to its constituents who are injured. Both states have the same ability to tax and spend as they choose up to the point of the earthquake. State A chose to do so in a way that is different from State B. State A didn’t take tax dollars from State B to accomplish those things. State B just made different choices. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean the federal government shouldn’t step in now to help State B (with taxes paid to it by State A’s constituents, I might add).
So your claim is that New York has been prescient enough to stockpile tests for a virus that had never before been seen?
Yeah, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
All the states are scrambling to get tests. NY, FL, WV. I’m watching the governor of Florida right now and he claims they have enough (what does that mean?) tests, but that they don’t have swabs now. FL got 3000 of those 500,000 swabs Italy sent, wonder where the rest went? Did NY go back into the past and buy those, too?
No, they were prescient enough to have the infrastructure in place, such as the research medical hospitals, which sprang into action when it became apparent this was coming.