Coronavirus in the US

Parent Cafe
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Great story for CC and related to this crisis. Wake Forest grad 10 months ago. Now an Army Officer and PhD candidate pulled to join vaccine research team. This should be posted on the Wake Forrest site or is it a good school for bio student questions.

“A recent college graduate and doctoral student became the only active-duty service member to join a team of researchers in Maryland to help develop a vaccine for the coronavirus.

Army 2nd Lt. Ethan Green, a doctoral student at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, was tapped for the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) in Silver Spring, Md., dedicated to “The nature of what I’m doing, it’s an amazing opportunity, and I thank God every day that I’m doing it. It makes me really sad that I have to – I’d much rather be bored out of my mind in the lab – but it has filled me with this immense purpose,” Green told Military.com on Monday coronavirus research.

The institute launched its Emerging Infectious Disease Branch about a year and a half ago. Within that period, its researchers completed two Phase 2 clinical trials of Ebola vaccine candidates in the U.S. and Africa, conducted a first-in-human trial of a Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) vaccine, and developed, manufactured and tested a Zika vaccine.

We created this department to be already primed and ready to go," WRAIR branch director Dr. Kayvon Modjarrad told Military.com in March 4 interview.

Green graduated from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., just 10 months ago. He is the only active-duty service member on the team of coronavirus researchers at WRAIR, Military.com reported. Green said he wakes up at 2 a.m. every day and heads to the lab to harvest proteins found in the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus to be used in the vaccine for COVID-19.”

Fox News Site

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Market update

“U.S. equity markets rose Wednesday but gave up the bulk of the gains after Democratic lawmaker Sen. Bernie Sanders raised some concerns over the $2 trillion relief measure to provide aid to those most severely impacted by the COViD 19.

DOW JONES AVERAGES
21200.55
+495.64
+2.39%

S&P 500
2475.56
+28.23
+1.15%

NASDAQ COMPOSITE INDEX
7384.295089
-33.56
-0.45%

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed over 495 points higher or 2.4 percent after rising by as many as 1,300 points, or 6.3 percent.

While the S&P 500 posted a 1.1 percent gain and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite closed fractionally lower. All three of the major averages had sporadically dipped into the red earlier.

The historic package will "rush new resources onto the front lines of our nation’s health care fight, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Wednesday. “And it will inject trillions of dollars of cash into the economy as fast as possible to help Americans workers, families, small businesses and industries make it through this disruption and emerge on the other side ready to soar.”

Wednesday’s action comes after the blue-chip index soared more than 11 percent in the prior session, booking its biggest percentage gain in 87 years. The 2,113-point increase was the most ever in a single day”

Fox Business News

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I completely agree, it should be fixed and they should move on.

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So, after 4 years of asking politely for video visits implementation, it took a pandemic to get it done in one week. As of tomorrow half of the practices are fully operational converting all visits to telemedicine, most insurances are willing to pay and we made a discounted plan for cash patients, all rx including controlled substances are going online and my medical assistant will get her much needed hours to keep the salary and benefits. We estimate the hospital at full capacity w overflow between 15-25 of April and slowly decreasing by May 10. We have a back up list of physicians who can replace hospital or ER ones if they get sick but hopefully it will not get that bad.

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I don’t think it’s a problem to pay the extra money at all. In fact the administration was part of the design. Minuchin said it’s not perfect but wanted speed over design

However the basic push back is not the extra money. It’s while you are laid off, you may prefer to not return to work when you get a call to come back or perhaps not look for that next job with the same level of urgency.

I think there may be some of that but what can you do. The benefit doesn’t last for ever anyway. Most people won’t change their work ethic for 100 dollars a week.

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How about under the table workers, the millions of illegal aliens in the US who work without an official W2? Few file any taxes. Many will be seeing their incomes shrink or even disappear. Does the stimulus bill provide for cash payments to them? Will unemployment insurance extend payments to people for whom unemployment insurance premiums were never paid?

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@OneMoreToGo2021

In the hospitality business, there are many undocumented workers. On the payroll. Paying taxes. We don’t verify the SS#. This is common practice. These employees do pay taxes, get a W2, and also file.

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There are also plenty of US citizens/residents who ‘work under the table’ and don’t file. I’m guessing that they don’t get a check. Unemployment insurance will be run thru the state apparatus’.

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US hotels were mostly empty last week, new data shows
From CNN’s Aaron Cooper

New data shows nearly 70% of the hotel rooms in the United States were vacant last week, according to data and analytics group STR.

That national occupancy rate is a 56% decline from the same week last year. The average occupied room cost is about $93, also down from last year.

The San Francisco area and New York recorded the worst declines, with less than 17% of hotel rooms in both cities occupied, according to STR. That represents an 80% decrease from this time last year.

Many hotels across the country have closed entirely. One example, The Boston Harbor Hotel, a luxury property in downtown Boston, closed last Saturday, according to its website, and hopes to reopen May 18.

Coronavirus case numbers are “artificially low” due to lack of testing, Los Angeles nurse says
From CNN’s Julia Jones

Elissa Rill, an emergency room nurse at the Northridge Hospital Medical Center in South California, told CNN she believes the number of reported cases in the Los Angeles area is “artificially low” due to lack of testing.

“I have no doubt that we have sent home hundreds of probable people that have corona, but we just don’t have the resources to be able to test everyone,” Rill said, describing what she is seeing in her emergency room.
According to Rill, the two Covid-19 testing options are Los Angeles County Health and Quest Diagnosis, which are both taking about eight to 10 days to turn around a test result in her area.

“A lot of people that come to the ER just want to get swabs, and unless they have active symptoms, they don’t, because there’s just not enough test kits,” Rill said. “Right now we’re so backed up that we just, it’s impossible to just test everyone.”

Northridge Hospital, which is in Los Angeles County, has at most 30 ventilators for the entire hospital, Rill said, and most of them are already in use in the 24-bed Intensive Care Unit. Despite having an overflow ICU with capacity for eight more beds, there are not enough ventilators for every ICU bed, let alone other areas of the hospital that might need to use ventilators.

“I’m like literally in fear of what’s going to happen next,” she said.

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Top US health official: DIY masks are only necessary in “desperate situations”
From CNN’s Betsy Klein

Dr. Anthony Fauci was asked Wednesday about reports of people around the country working to sew DIY masks and whether that was safe or effective.

“You would only recommend that under desperate situations if you don’t have any masks. But what we’re seeing now is, as you’ve heard has occurred, is a rather significant inflow of masks that are coming in, that are going to be available,” Fauci said.

Fauci continued: “I mean, obviously, if you don’t have a mask and you need a mask and it’s appropriate for you then wear it, you do what you can. But I don’t see that now as a necessity given what’s going on right now.

US health expert shares a cautionary tale to reinforce social distancing guidelines
From CNN’s Betsy Klein

Dr. Deborah Birx came to the White House podium Wednesday with a personal story meant to express a dire warning to Americans shirking social distancing guidelines.

Birx said that her grandmother lived with the guilt of infecting her mother during the pandemic of 1918.

“It’s important to me personally because my grandmother, for 88 years, lived with the fact that she was the one, at age 11, who brought home the flu to her mother, Leah, for which I am named, when her mother had just delivered and her mother was succumbed to the great 1918 flu. She never forgot that she was the child that was in school that innocently brought that flu home,” she said.
Birx continued: “This is why we keep saying to every American: You have a role to protect each and every person that you interact with and we have a role to protect one another. It’s why we are social distancing, why you are social distancing, but to every American out there: when you are protecting yourself, you are protecting others. And if you, inadvertently, I know, brought this virus home to someone with a preexisting condition, I can tell you my grandmother lived with that for 88 years… This is not a theoretic, this is a reality, you can see the number of deaths that are occurring.”

Birx is the response coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force.

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Is there some national guideline for the informal MacGyvering of ventilators to serve more than one patient? I’ve seen it reported in various places, and you’d think that more hospitals would be using it, in our exigent circumstances.

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Boeing could receive billions from stimulus package
From CNN’s Gregory Wallace and Phil Mattingly

Boeing, which recently asked lawmakers for a massive financial aid package to prop up its industry, could qualify for a special $17 billion slice of the proposed $2 trillion stimulus package.

It’s not clear, however, whether the company would actually take the funds.

The aerospace giant is among the companies that would qualify for the government-backed loans reserved “for businesses critical to maintaining national security,” and the only one that has made it clear that it needs the assistance.

The company is intricately linked to both the US government and the nation’s economy. It is the country’s largest exporter, is a major government contractor, and consistently ranks among the top 10 companies lobbying federal officials, with millions spent annually.

The company has also come under scrutiny from lawmakers and the Federal Aviation Administration after two fatal 737 MAX crashes killed 346 people and internal documents showed the company mocked and belittled its regulators.

Some context: Boeing said last week that “a minimum of $60 billion” in public and private loans is necessary “to manage the pressure on the aviation sector and the economy as a whole.”

It said it would share “much of any liquidity support to Boeing” with its vast network of suppliers.

Pelosi is already thinking about a fourth coronavirus relief package, sources say
From CNN’s Manu Raju

On a series of conference calls with House Democrats today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made clear she is already thinking about the substance of the fourth coronavirus relief package that Congress will have to pass to respond to the crisis, according to sources on the calls.

She is making clear to her members who are disappointed that the pending stimulus bill did not include enough of their priorities that they will have a chance to add those provisions in the fourth package, the source said.

The comments come as Pelosi told CNN tonight that she does not think the current $2 trillion stimulus bill will help keep the economy afloat beyond a few months.

“I don’t think we have enough to go the three months,” she told CNN.

New York City hospital sets up makeshift morgues to prepare for coronavirus deaths
From CNN’s Brynn Gingras, Elizabeth Joseph, Priscilla Alvarez and Mark Morales

At New York City’s Bellevue Hospital, a makeshift morgue including tents and refrigerated trucks is being set up in preparation for what may be a surge in the need for autopsies.

"We’re in a public health crisis, and the city has declared a state of emergency. As part of that declaration, agencies like OCME have enacted emergency contingency plans to help prepare for every possible outcome,” New York City’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said in a statement to CNN.

A similar plan was utilized after September 11 attacks.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it has a request from New York and other states for assistance in mortuary operations.

“FEMA’s National Response Coordination Center (NRCC) has received requests for HHS Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Teams (DMORT) from the States of Hawaii, New York, and North Carolina. These requests are currently in the review and approval process,” a FEMA spokesperson told CNN.

New York City has longstanding contracts with companies to also provide refrigerated trucks to store bodies, but that plan has not been put in to effect just yet. If and when it is, those trucks would likely be stationed at various locations including makeshift hospitals such as the Javits Center.

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says it’s important to “recognize the good” in the stimulus package
From CNN’s Paul LeBlanc

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told House Democrats that it’s important to “recognize the good” in the $2 trillion stimulus package that’s aimed at providing a jolt to an economy struggling due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The legislation, if it passes Congress, would be the largest emergency aid package in US history. Pelosi appeared on Wednesday to be sending a message to progressives in her caucus who are criticizing the bill.

“What is important is for us to recognize the good that is in the bill, appreciate it for what it does. Don’t judge it for what it doesn’t because we have more bills to come,” the California Democrat told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room.”

“At the start of all this we had two bills, which were about emergencies … and the emergency isn’t over, but the focus was on those two bills. Now we’re mitigating for the damage of it all to the health and to the livelihood of the American people. That is in this bill. And then we will go forward for recovery. Emergency, mitigation, recovery,” she said.

Assange loses bid to be bailed over coronavirus

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Wednesday failed in his bid to be bailed after he argued that he was at risk of catching coronavirus in the British prison where he is being held, AFP reports.

In this file photo taken on 1 May, 2019 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gestures from the window of a prison van.
In this file photo taken on 1 May, 2019 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gestures from the window of a prison van. Photograph: Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP via Getty Images
“As matters stand today, this global pandemic does not as of itself provide grounds for Mr Assange’s release,” said judge Vanessa Baraitser at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

Assange is currently in the high security Belmarsh prison in south London as he fights an extradition request by the United States to stand trial there on espionage charges.

Baraitser pointed out that the 48-year-old, who followed proceedings via videolink, had already violated a bail order when he fled to the Ecuadorian embassy in 2012.

At that time, Swedish authorities were attempting to extradite him over sexual assault claims that were later dropped.

Assange’s lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, said there was currently no Covid-19 case at Belmarsh but 100 prison officers were off work and there was a “very real risk - and the risk could be fatal”. (Guardian)

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In the US, Alexandra Villarrea reports for the Guardian that during a press conference Wednesday afternoon, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio blasted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for allegedly standing in the way of real aid to New York.

De Blasio said:

It should have been one of the easiest no-brainers in the world for the U.S. Senate to include real money for New York City and New York state in this stimulus bill, and yet it didn’t happen. And we know why — because Mitch McConnell wouldn’t let it happen. I don’t understand how anybody — any public servant — could live with themselves if they deprived the cities in the middle of the biggest crisis since the great depression — deprived us, deprived our state — of the money we need.”

De Blasio took issue with the fact that New York City only got $1 billion out of the $150 billion pool of funds provided for the entire country in the Senate’s stimulus bill when New York City alone accounts for almost two-thirds of confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S.

To deal with crowd density, de Blasio said he would be removing hoops at 80 of New York City’s 1,700 basketball courts because people weren’t properly social-distancing.

He also said that he’s working to release any inmates who can be directly acted on, who don’t pose a threat to the community. By tonight, he said he will have released 200 inmates. (Guardian)

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First the government would have to put in the work to make e-verify accurate. We use e-verify as much as possible, but it’s not terrifically accurate. And as an employer, that presents a whole new set of issues because you/the potential employee has to then go through the ridiculously complicated steps to fix the e-verify results or expose yourself to a future claim that you knowingly hired someone who is ineligible to work.

I’d support requiring the use of e-verify but only if it’s made more accurate.

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US Army calls on medical retirees to help with coronavirus response
From CNN’s Oliver Janney and Ryan Browne

The US Army has reached out to retired medical personnel to possibly volunteer to support the coronavirus response effort.

In an email obtained by CNN, the Army called upon retired personnel on Wednesday looking for “voluntary recall of retired soldiers” with specific medical specialties.

“We need to hear from you STAT!” the Army said.

The Army is asking for help from retired soldiers qualified in these specialties: “60F: Critical Care Officer; 60N: Anesthesiologist; 66F: Nurse Anesthetist; 66S: Critical Care Nurse; 66P: Nurse Practitioner; 66T: ER Nurse; 68V: Respiratory Specialist; 68W: Medic.”

A spokesperson for the Army said they’re “gauging the availability and capabilities of our retired career medical personnel to potentially assist with Covid-19 pandemic response efforts if needed.”

The spokesperson made clear they do not want to interfere in any civilian medical needs, stating, “This information request will no way interfere with any care they may be providing to their communities, it is for future planning purposes only, and is completely voluntary."

“These extraordinary challenges require equally extraordinary solutions and that’s why we’re turning to you — trusted professionals capable of operating under constantly changing conditions. When the Nation called — you answered, and now, that call may come again," the email to retirees said.

Marine who works inside Pentagon tests positive for Covid-19
From CNN’s Barbara Starr

The Pentagon confirmed Wednesday a Marine who works inside the building has tested positive for Covid-19.

A defense official said the last time the Marine, an officer, was in the Pentagon was March 13. He began self-isolation on March 15. He works in the plans, policy and operations office of Marine Corps headquarters.

This is the first military person based at the Pentagon to test positive.

“A marine stationed at the Pentagon tested positive for Covid-19 on March 24. Per U.S. Centers for Disease Control guidelines, the Marine is in isolation at his home and will undergo further assessment by health professionals," the Marines said in a statement. "The Marine followed official guidance by isolating himself when his spouse began to show symptoms. Once he became ill, he contacted his assigned medical facility. His workspace has been cleaned by a Pentagon response team and a thorough contact investigation is underway to mitigate risk and preserve the health of our Marines, civilians, and families.”
Separately, a staff who works in the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center is awaiting test results, a second defense official confirmed.

It’s not immediately clear when the person was last in the command center and what part of that complex they work in.

Defense One was first to report both cases.

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The migrant laborers who pick fruit and veggies in this country live like virtual slaves, don’t have health insurance, have the experience of getting pesticide sprayed on them while they work, do not make enough to have their kids be able to do other jobs or stick around long enough for them to get a consistent education. They get paid a pittance. I think what will happen if they are not able to stick around and work is that the price of fruit and veggies will rise quite a lot.

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“nonstop coverage has led to highest overall approval ratings so far (~49%), with Gallup reporting 60% approval of his handling of the coronavirus crisis]”

Rally-around-the-flag effect. Support for the President always goes up at the start of every (non-financial) crisis where the country seems under threat. And frankly, this bump is smaller than the start of pretty much any other crisis. Wait a few months.

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We are close to passing Italy in number of cases. A few day and we will be there and by next week, we pass China’s (possibly fake) numbers. It was only just over 2 weeks ago that we “only” had 547 cases.

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Well, we do have a population nearly 6x larger than Italy…