Tag: pandemic

MSNBC’s Morning Joe busts Rush Limbaugh for risking listeners’ lives by pushing coronavirus ‘lies’

AlterNet logoMSNBC’s Joe Scarborough blasted conservative broadcaster Rush Limbaugh and other “media hacks” for spreading coronavirus “misinformation” that endangers their listeners’ lives.

The “Morning Joe” host called out Limbaugh for downplaying COVID-19 by comparing it to the flu or the common cold, but then changing course as the outbreak spreads without ever acknowledging his previous claims.

“What concerns me even more right now, because, again, that was the past and we’re worried about misinformation being spread right now, but there actually have even been in the past week some of these media hacks who have been promoting more bad science, more bad medicine,” Scarborough said. “Like having entire segments suggesting that people in Middle America are basically immune to this, this is a New York problem, that this is not a problem for Middle America. Having guests on that sit back and laugh at the thought that people in Middle America need to be concerned by the coronavirus. They do need to be concerned.” Continue reading.

‘Dreamers’ fear loss of legal status as USCIS offices stay closed

DACA recipients are required to submit biometric data in person to offices closed because of coronavirus

For tens of thousands of immigrants protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the coronavirus pandemic has created additional challenges to staying in the U.S. legally.

Adrian Escarate, a 31-year-old “Dreamer” from Chile, needs to renew his DACA status before it expires in June. After sending his application in February, he received a standard response with an appointment when he could provide his fingerprints and other biometric information to a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service office near his San Francisco Bay Area home.

Then, on March 18, USCIS shut down all field offices amid the coronavirus crisis. Continue reading.

Jerry Falwell Jr.’s coronavirus response shows his staggering level of ignorance

Washington Post logoAfter learning of Jerry Falwell Jr.’s decision to partially reopen Liberty University, my thoughts turned to the biblical account of Balaam’s ass.

According to the Hebrew scriptures, the children of Israel were on the verge of engulfing another Bronze Age tribe. Lacking recourse to the United Nations, the Moabites turned to a diviner named Balaam to curse the Israelis. But on the way to the cursing, Balaam’s conveyance, an ass, saw an angel blocking the path ahead, turned hard into a wall and crushed Balaam’s foot. Unable to see the celestial creature himself, a frustrated Balaam beat his ass. But God permitted the wounded animal to speak, mock her rider and explain the divine roadblock. The eyes of a chastened Balaam were finally opened and he took the Israeli side. And the rest is Middle East history.

Students at Liberty University are more likely than most to understand the specialness of this biblical lesson. It is one of the few stories in which Falwell should not be assigned the part of an ass. For that matter, he does not even deserve the role of Balaam, who at least was open to instruction. Instead, Falwell has charged the angel straight on and — in defiance of nearly all public health experts — reopened the Liberty dorms in the middle of a pandemic. Now, according to the New York Times, at least one student has tested positive and several more have shown coronavirus-like symptoms. Continue reading.

Behind Trump’s Reversal on Reopening the Country: 2 Sets of Numbers

New York Times logoAn estimate of the number of possible deaths and polling that showed a cautious public changed, for now, the president’s approach to the coronavirus pandemic.

WASHINGTON — The numbers the health officials showed President Trump were overwhelming. With the peak of the coronavirus pandemic still weeks away, he was told, hundreds of thousands of Americans could face death if the country reopened too soon.

But there was another set of numbers that also helped persuade Mr. Trump to shift gears on Sunday and abandon his goal of restoring normal life by Easter. Political advisers described for him polling that showed that voters overwhelmingly preferred to keep containment measures in place over sending people back to work prematurely.

Those two realities — the dire threat to the country and the caution of the American public — proved decisive at a critical juncture in the response to the pandemic, his advisers said. The first of those two realities, the deadly arc of the virus, has been known for weeks even if disregarded by the president when he set his Easter target. But the second of the two upended Mr. Trump’s assumptions about the politics of the situation and restrained, for a moment at least, his eagerness to get back to business as usual. Continue reading.

Trump Suggests Lack of Testing Is No Longer a Problem. Governors Disagree.

New York Times logoThe president said on a conference call that he had not “heard about testing in weeks.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump told governors on a conference call on Monday that he had not “heard about testing in weeks,” suggesting that a chronic lack of kits to screen people for the coronavirus was no longer a problem.

But governors painted a different picture on the ground.

Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana, a Democrat, said that officials in his state were trying to do “contact tracing” — tracking down people who have come into contact with those who have tested positive — but that they were struggling because “we don’t have adequate tests,” according to an audio recording of the conversation obtained by The New York Times. Continue reading.

How the Trump Administration’s Deregulation Agenda Has Worsened the Coronavirus Pandemic

Center for American Progress logoIn 2015, Donald Trump promised: “Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now.” Yet, long before news of the COVID-19 outbreak reached the United States, the Trump administration had been dismantling policies and proposing new ones that have vastly exacerbated the coronavirus pandemic.

As the United States braces to combat a public health crisis and a severe economic downturn, it is important to note that the Trump administration’s policies have contributed to this crisis. Three years of deregulation under the Trump presidency and a botched response to the COVID-19 pandemic have in part spurred what may be one of the costliest public health crises in American history—both financially and in terms of human life. This column breaks down four of the Trump administration’s deregulatory actions that have worsened the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.

Dismantling the Affordable Care Act

More than 27 million Americans, about 9 percent of the U.S. population, have no health insurance coverage. Despite a yearslong decline in the number of uninsured Americans following the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Trump administration’s effective elimination of the law’s individual mandate, as well as other efforts to undermine comprehensive coverage, led to an increase in the uninsured rate for the first time in 10 years. At the same time, the administration has pushed to allow insurance companies to offer short-term plans with limited coverage, also known as junk plans. While these plans offer cheaper premiums, they provide limited benefits and few consumer protections; enrollees could potentially have massive bills for COVID-19 treatment. Continue reading.

Democrats eye major infrastructure component in next coronavirus package

The Hill logoWith the ink barely dry on a massive, $2 trillion coronavirus relief package, House Democrats are already laying out their targets for the next round of emergency aid, including major investments in the nation’s infrastructure systems.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), joined by several key committee chairmen, said Monday that the Democrats’ fourth phase of coronavirus stimulus would be largely focused on helping the front-line medical workers, homebound parents and patients afflicted by the deadly virus — people who may have fallen through the cracks, she said, in Congress’s earlier responses to the fast-spreading pandemic.

As an additional component, Democrats are also eyeing new funding for water, broadband, schools and other infrastructure systems that have proven insufficient, they said, in the face of the current coronavirus crisis. Continue reading.

Gov. Walz’s COVID-19 Update: March 31, 2020

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Below is an update on the COVID-19 pandemic as it pertains to Minnesota as of 7:30 PM on 3/31/2020.

Updates from the Governor

Governor Walz today signed two Executive Orders, which extend licenses for first responders and allow the medical cannabis program to continue safely serving Minnesotans during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Executive Order 20-25 extends licenses for peace officers, firefighters, and private security personnel. The Order allows professionals on the front lines combating COVID-19 to maintain their licenses and continue supporting Minnesotans during the peacetime emergency.

Executive Order 20-26 extends enrollment dates that are set to expire over the next several months for current medical cannabis patients; allows any patient to request a temporary caregiver so they are able to send someone to pick up medication on their behalf; and allows medical cannabis patients to practice social distancing with curbside delivery and telephone pharmacist consultations. This order will help keep immunocompromised individuals safe and lessen the burden on busy healthcare providers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Continue reading “Gov. Walz’s COVID-19 Update: March 31, 2020”

Report: Fox News is worried about legal action after misleading viewers about coronavirus

Vanity Fair’s Gabe Sherman: Fox News is concerned their downplaying of Coronavirus exposes them “to potential legal action” from misled viewers

JOY REID (HOST): People who are watching cable news are a lot more, you know, in the “news junkie” category right?

And then in the case of that, your choices are MSNBC or CNN or, if you’re choosing Fox, it’s because it favors the Republicans. It’s because it’s news that favors your world view. That’s why you’re watching it. So, I think that people assume that everyone knows the failures of the Trump administration in dealing with this. They’ll find out eventually when it hits them. But just in watching — depending on what you’re watching, you know more or you know less.

GABE SHERMAN (SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT, VANITY FAIR): Oh, without question, I think that has been a fixture of this presidency from day one. If you look at polls that show Republicans’ views on certain issues, it’s a completely different reality than people who gather their news from a wide array of sources. Continue reading.

Sen. John Hoffman (SD36) Update: March 31, 2020

March 28, 2020

BULLETIN: Civil Rights, HIPAA, and the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

In light of the Public Health Emergency concerning the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is providing this bulletin to ensure that entities covered by civil rights authorities keep in mind their obligations under laws and regulations that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability, age, sex, and exercise of conscience and religion in HHS-funded programs.1

In this time of emergency, the laudable goal of providing care quickly and efficiently must be guided by the fundamental principles of fairness, equality, and compassion that animate our civil rights laws. This is particularly true with respect to the treatment of persons with disabilities during medical emergencies as they possess the same dignity and worth as everyone else.

The Office for Civil Rights enforces Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act which prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability in HHS funded health programs or activities. These laws, like other civil rights statutes OCR enforces, remain in effect. As such, persons with disabilities should not be denied medical care on the basis of stereotypes, assessments of quality of life, or judgments about a person’s relative “worth” based on the presence or absence of disabilities. Continue reading “Sen. John Hoffman (SD36) Update: March 31, 2020”