Honduran government delivers food to 3.2 million people amid coronavirus lockdown

Armed Honduran soldiers began delivering food to some 3.2 million people on lockdown in their homes on Wednesday, part of the government's efforts stop the spread of coronavirus in a nation with few resources and a limited public health system.

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Accused Christchurch shooter changes plea to guilty: media reports

The Australian man accused of the attacks on two New Zealand mosques last year entered a surprise guilty plea in a Christchurch court on Thursday to 51 charges of murder, local media reported.

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Cuomo rips Senate's coronavirus stimulus bill as just 'a drop in the bucket'

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) is no fan of the Senate's coronavirus relief bill.Cuomo in his daily press briefing on Wednesday ripped the new $2 trillion economic stimulus package from the Senate responding to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, saying it would be "terrible for the state of New York" because the $3.8 billion it offers the state government is far too little. He also said the $1.3 billion New York City would get in the bill, which Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) negotiated, is insufficient. "That is a drop in the bucket as to need," Cuomo said, explaining New York is facing a revenue shortfall of up to $15 billion while swiping the coronavirus package as offering "quote-unquote relief." New York has reported by far the highest number of coronavirus cases in the United States with more than 30,000 as of Wednesday. The governor has taken his concerns about the stimulus package to the House of Representatives, he explained."We need the House to make adjustments," Cuomo said. "...I'm telling you, these numbers don't work, and I told the House members that we really need their help." Later in the press conference, Cuomo again called the bill "troublesome" and reiterated, "We need more federal help than this bill gives us. The House bill would have given us $17 billion. The Senate bill gives us $3 billion. I mean, that's a dramatic, dramatic difference." > Cuomo says the Senate's $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill would be "terrible" for New York, with only $3.8 billion for the state and $1.3 billion for New York City. "$3.8 billion sounds like a lot of money....that is a drop in the bucket, as to need." https://t.co/OsrqPNm9RO pic.twitter.com/bZRy2VHnIk> > -- CBS News (@CBSNews) March 25, 2020More stories from theweek.com Elton John to host 'Living Room Concert for America' with stars performing from home Why a GOP argument about unemployment insurance probably doesn't make much sense A G-7 joint statement on coronavirus failed because the U.S. insisted on calling it the 'Wuhan virus'

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Why are so few Germans dying from the coronavirus? Experts wonder

"I would be happy if we can come back in two months' time and still be able to talk about what Germany did right," one expert said.

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Some parents say they're not homeschooling during the coronavirus pandemic because it's too stressful

About 30 million US children are out of school due to the coronavirus. Many parents say it's unreasonable to expect them to become teachers overnight.

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A San Francisco man delivered toilet paper to his friend via drone amid the city's shelter-in-place order directing residents to stay inside to contain the coronavirus

As San Francisco lives through a shelter-in-place order to contain the coronavirus, people are getting creative with how they keep supplies stocked.

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Sanders, AOC Threaten Delays on $2 Trillion Economic Stimulus

Senator Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) on Wednesday both threatened a possible delay in voting on the massive $2 trillion economic-stimulus package working its way through Congress.Sanders objected to an amendment proposed on Wednesday afternoon by Senators Ben Sasse (R., Neb.), Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), and Tim Scott (R., S.C.) that would cap unemployment benefits at a worker's previous salary level.“I cannot at the last minute allow some right-wing senators [to] try to undermine the needs of workers and think they are going to get away with that,” Sanders told the New York Times. He added that he would vote for the stimulus if the group of Republicans dropped their proposed amendment, and called the current draft of the bill “far superior” to Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell's (R., Ky.) original draft.“The reason I know I’m right is that Bernie Sanders has just threatened me,” Graham countered in an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity. “This is Bernie Sanders on steroids. . . . He could not win at the ballot box, but he’s winning in this bill.”Sasse told National Review that the Republican senators worry the text of the bill allows workers to make more money “by being unemployed than if the employer-employee relationship were maintained.”Meanwhile, Ocasio-Cortez said she may request a “recorded vote” on the stimulus in the House, which would force House members currently not in Washington, D.C., to return to vote in person. She has said she is worried the stimulus will favor large corporations at the expense of workers.“With the health risks of travel, there is no easy choice here,” Ocasio-Cortez told CNN. “But essential workers are showing up and putting their health at risk every day, and if the final text of a bill is set up to hurt them, [a recorded vote] may be something we have to do.“House speaker Nancy Pelosi favors holding a vote by unanimous consent, in which case one House member could block the bill's passage by voting against.

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Cuomo Says Stimulus Not Enough as New Yorkers Flood 911

(Bloomberg) -- With New York City residents dialing 911 for medical services at a rate not seen in nearly two decades, Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio said lawmakers in Washington weren’t doing enough to respond to the spiraling coronavirus crisis.Cuomo has been the chief outside-the-Beltway critic of the Trump administration’s response as New York has added thousands of new coronavirus cases every day. The peak of infection is still about three weeks away, Cuomo said, and city and state authorities are racing to add capacity to handle as many as 140,000 cases.In a sign of the grim calculus facing officials, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration is preparing refrigerated trucks and shipping containers to store bodies if morgues get full. Also on Wednesday, the Four Seasons New York hotel said it would make its rooms available at no charge to medical personnel, in response to the governor’s plea for help.Cuomo, in his daily briefing on the outbreak on Wednesday, called out lawmakers in Washington, saying the stimulus package working its way through Congress was inadequate and “terrible” for his state.The proposed $2 trillion in aid includes $3.8 billion for New York state and $1.3 billion for New York City, Cuomo said, which he called a “drop in the bucket.” Lost tax revenue will cost Albany as much as $15 billion, Cuomo said.De Blasio said he’ll press Trump to provide more aid.”They gave us less than 1% of the money they were giving out to cities and states, and we have a third of the cases in the nation,” he said during a call with the media on Wednesday. “That’s just immoral.”Cuomo has demanded that Trump invoke his national-security authority to speed production of ventilators and other medical equipment. He has also said that helping New York would also help other regions where the outbreak probably will flare up next.“The apex highpoint will be sequential across the country,” Cuomo said. “We’re asking the country to help us, we will return the favor.”The crisis was upon the city, with emergency calls spiking. By Tuesday, the volume was higher than on any day since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to Oren Barzilay, the president of a local of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees that represents paramedics and dispatchers.Barzilay attributed the surge to respiratory symptoms consistent with Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.Cuomo reported 5,146 new confirmed cases of the virus, for a total of almost 31,000. There were nearly 3,000 new cases in New York City, for a total of almost 18,000.Some news was hopeful. In spite of the skyrocketing numbers, Cuomo offered data showing that the health system has been able to handle the crisis so far.Only 3% of infections, fewer than 900, have required intensive care with ventilator support, below the state’s current capacity of 3,000 beds -- with the ability to quickly add as many as 14,000 ventilators from a stockpile.Slowing DownAlso, the restrictions on daily life in New York have slowed the increase in hospitalizations. About 12% of confirmed coronavirus patients need hospitalization, he said, compared with 23% on March 18. The decrease could be attributed partly to expanded testing that has detected mild infections not requiring in-patient care.“This is a very good sign and a positive sign. Again, I’m not 100% sure it holds or it’s accurate, but the arrows are headed in the right direction,” Cuomo said.The state hasn’t had to call on volunteer medical staff. For the near future, medical workers have enough masks, gloves, gowns and other equipment to protect them, Cuomo said. And at the current rate, the governor said he doesn’t anticipate having to make the grim choice of prioritizing ventilator assignments.Still, the governor said the state ultimately expects to be slammed with 140,000 infections, with as many as 40,000 requiring intensive care. The peak expected in about three weeks could outpace the state’s ability to treat them, he said.In the event that morgues are overrun, the city medical examiner and Emergency Management department have devised a so-called mass fatality management plan to be distributed to hospitals, according to city disclosures.Morgue Space in Virus-Hit NYC Boosted With 45 Cooler TrucksOfficials have purchased 45 refrigerated tents and trailers to catch any overflow of coronavirus fatalities from the five morgues, according to Aja Worthy-Davis, a spokeswoman for the Office of Chief Medical Examiner.The plan includes detailed specifications for refrigerated mobile units, called body collection points, as well as a checklist of requirements that must be met by funeral directors and next of kin before bodies can be released for burial.Workers have already erected a large tent and installed trailers by the morgue in lower Manhattan, Worthy-Davis said.“We’re putting them out near major hospitals as a precautionary measure to prepare for the worst-case scenario,” Worthy-Davis said. “We very much hope we don’t need them.”(Updated with de Blasio’s comment in sixth 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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Pence again touts chloroquine as coronavirus treatment after it's linked to deaths

Vice President Mike Pence touted a potentially unsafe COVID-19 treatment on Tuesday even after it had been linked to deaths.Pence, who's been leading the White House's response to the new coronavirus, appeared for a Fox News town hall on Tuesday. That's where Dr. Mehmet Oz asked him about the malaria drug chloroquine that's been discussed as a potential treatment for the new coronavirus, and Pence seemed more than hopeful about the drug's prospects."There's no barrier to access chloroquine in this country. We're looking to add to that supply," Pence said of the drug. "We are engaging in a clinical trial" with the intent to make chloroquine available "for off-label use." But when asked if he'd take chloroquine if he became infected with COVID-19, Pence only said he'd follow the advice of his physician, even after repeated prodding from Oz. That cautious part of Pence's response was left out of a clip shared by the Trump campaign.Pence's chloroquine confidence comes after President Trump repeatedly touted the drug's potential in a Monday night press conference. After that, Nigeria reported two fatal overdoses of chloroquine and implored its citizens not to use the drug, which "will cause harm and can lead to death." A man in Arizona died and his wife was hospitalized after ingesting a form of chloroquine that's used to clean fish tanks. The woman said she got the idea from Trump.More stories from theweek.com Biden doesn't want another primary debate: 'We should get on with this' Britney Spears calls for wealth redistribution, general strike on Instagram Nearly half of New York City's coronavirus cases found in adults under 45

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Three Nuns Left to Handle Nearly 100 Seniors Presumed to Have Coronavirus in NJ Care Home

Nearly 100 residents of a nursing home in New Jersey are presumed to have the novel coronavirus after 24 residents tested positive and many others started exhibiting symptoms. All 94 residents of the St. Joseph’s Senior Home in Woodbridge were being transported by bus with the help of workers wearing full-body protective gear to a CareOne home roughly 30 miles away on Wednesday.“The hardest part is knowing that they probably don’t understand the weight of the problem, so they feel abandoned,” Henryka Roman, the daughter of a 94-year-old St. Joseph’s resident, told The Daily Beast. Her mother, Maria Zygmaniak, tested positive for the coronavirus after exhibiting symptoms such as a fever and cough. Zygmaniak, who has been a resident at the home for seven years, only speaks Polish. “She is in stable condition now, but who knows if she is going to survive this. We are not able to see her, and she probably doesn’t understand why we can’t see her,” Roman said.Relatives of residents told The Daily Beast that the facility contacted them recently to let them know that someone connected to the home had been admitted to the hospital and had later developed coronavirus symptoms. When that person tested positive, residents and staff in the home were also tested. It’s not clear how the first patient contracted the virus.New Jersey health officials said that many of the residents and roughly a dozen staff members began experiencing flu-like symptoms, leaving only three nuns to care for all of the senior home’s residents. “This may result unfortunately and ultimately with the closure of that facility, a facility that has cared for the most vulnerable population in Woodbridge and the surrounding area for decades,” said New Jersey Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli. “With the employees ill and now quarantined, and the inability to get the adequate staff to give the residents the care they deserve... that’s why I said the ultimate result may be closure,” she added. According to an assessment by Medicare, St. Joseph’s had a five star overall rating with a four star rating for staffing per nursing home resident, which is determined as “above average.”One relative, whose 92-year-old mother is a resident at St. Joseph’s, told The Daily Beast that the home had been “phenomenal” at dealing with the outbreak and he hoped it didn’t shut down permanently.“There’s a reason why they are so highly rated,” the relative, who asked for his name to be withheld, said. “They are incredibly caring and very good at what they do... I would, in an instant, get my mom back into the facility once it re-opened.”He said his mother had tested positive for coronavirus but was showing no symptoms other than a mild fever, and was in good spirits in hospital. “She’s 92 but she’s incredibly healthy so I’m hoping she will be one of the patients who’s fine with this,” he said.“To me, the most important thing about this is it’s just a very clear indication of how incredibly contagious this is,” he added.Woodbridge Township Mayor John McCormac told The Daily Beast that six of the 11 first cases of the virus in Woodbridge were St. Joseph’s residents. “Ultimately, they called the state for help last week, and nurses were assigned there from CareOne this past weekend. They started showing up over the weekend, and as of yesterday the decision was made to close the facility.”“Everyone began the monumental task of moving 79 residents on six medical buses,” the mayor added. “There’s people in wheelchairs and walkers, and they have attachments for IV’s. It’s an amazing logistical challenge.”Since the coronavirus arrived in the United States, nursing homes have emerged as epicenters of an illness that puts those over the age of 60 at particularly high risk. The Life Care Center in the Kirkland community of Seattle, Washington was the first nursing home to be hit by the crisis, resulting in 35 deaths. Federal investigators found that employees who had the virus continued to show up for work and spread it to residents in other facilities as they helped manage the outbreak, the Associated Press reported.“Nursing homes would always have been ground zero, but given we already have huge staffing shortages, this will be magnified,” David Grabowski, a Harvard Medical School professor told the AP, citing a 75 percent staffing shortage in nursing homes nationwide. “It could be worse for today’s nursing homes than ever.”One Mask Only: Coronavirus Docs and Nurses Forced to Make Terrifying CompromisesThe coronavirus has swept through several other facilities in states across the country, including Washington, Illinois, New Jersey, and others. Thirty-three patients and 13 staff members were infected at Chateau Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in nearby Chicago. Employees of the Illinois facility had reportedly complained about a lack of protective gear and supply shortages amid the outbreak, including a certified nursing assistant, Tonya Davis, who said they gave her “just gloves,” according to the Chicago Tribune.New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Wednesday confirmed the state’s biggest spike in cases over a 24-hour period with 800 new cases, bringing the total to almost 3,700. The death toll from the virus in New Jersey stood at 44 on Wednesday.“I want to give a shout out particularly to CareOne,” Murphy said on Tuesday. “This started to unfold on Friday night and it was a battle over the whole weekend,” he added, referencing the virus-stricken senior home. 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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Trump wants to reopen the US economy on Easter because he'd like 'packed churches all over our country' despite massive public health risk

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that experts believe New York's coronavirus outbreak will reach an apex in 14 to 21 days. Easter is in 19 days.

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New York: Cuomo says early signs show coronavirus distancing may be working

* Governor: efforts seem to have slowed rate of hospitalization * ‘Single greatest challenge’ is state’s severe lack of ventilators * Coronavirus – latest US updates * See all our coronavirus coverageNew York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, has said officials are seeing very early signs that physical distancing may be starting to slow the spread of coronavirus in his state, but cautioned that the number of cases is still rising significantly and hospitals would soon be overwhelmed.The New York City metro area accounts for 60% of new Covid-19 cases in the US. Despite that, Cuomo said it was encouraging that hospitalizations were projected to double every 4.7 days on Tuesday, compared with Monday, when the number was doubling every 3.4 days, and Sunday, when the figure was every two days.“The arrows are headed in the right direction, and that is always better than the arrows headed in the wrong direction,” Cuomo said at a press conference Wednesday.But the virus still continues to spread quickly, and Cuomo said the “single greatest challenge” New York faces right now is a severe lack of ventilators, essential equipment for patients with potentially fatal Covid-19 infections. He said New York needs 30,000 ventilators but only has 4,000 in the current system.Cuomo said the state has purchased 7,000, and the federal government has now provided 4,000 as high-tier officials start to recognize New York’s crisis. Cuomo has said doctors would start trialling the use of one ventilator for two patients.New York City on Wednesday took further steps to decrease the density of people, announcing that some roads would be shut to cars to allow pedestrians to use them, and encouraging social and physical distancing to be observed in playgrounds. Sports that involve “close contact” such as basketball should also be avoided.Cuomo warned that if these measures to reduce the density did not work on a voluntary basis, then the city would make the guidelines mandatory.The moves came after Dr Deborah Birx, part of the White House coronavirus taskforce, said on Tuesday that about 56% of all the cases in the US, and 60% of new cases, are in the New York metro area. Mike Pence called on people who have recently left New York for other parts of the country to self-quarantine for 14 days.The vice-president said: “We have to deal with the New York City metropolitan area as a high-risk area.”Donald Trump tweeted on Wednesday that he had a good conversation with Cuomo, who later thanked Trump and his team for their cooperation. The tone was a considerable change from Tuesday, when Cuomo had fiercely criticized the federal government’s response to the pandemic and balked at Trump’s suggestion that restarting the economy superseded public health concerns.While Trump has said he would like to see parts of the US economy reopening for business by April, and see churches packed by Easter Sunday, on 12 April, New York officials have implemented extreme social distancing measures, having non-essential employees work from home, shuttering schools and only allowing restaurants to provide takeout and delivery.Still, more than one in every thousand New York residents has tested positive for the virus. The state confirmed 30,811 cases and 285 deaths as of Wednesday morning; 12% of cases have required hospitalization.New York’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, said: “The world we knew is gone. And it’s not coming back, not for the next few months. That’s the blunt truth. We’re gonna lose some people.”New York state accounts for roughly 7% of all confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide, and De Blasio said it was likely more than half of all New Yorkers will get Covid-19. New York City alone tallied 17,856 cases and 199 deaths. The large number of cases could be attributed to New York’s large testing numbers – it is testing more people per capita than South Korea.New York officials are scrambling to equip hospitals with basic necessities to combat the virus. The hospital system has been given a mandate to increase capacity by at least 50%, but even if all hospitals doubled their capacity, the state would still be 34,000 beds short to accommodate projected numbers once the outbreak reaches its peak in the coming weeks.There is also a severe shortage of space in intensive care units, where the most critical patients access ventilators. Right now, New York can support 3,000 ICU beds, but Cuomo said the hospitals will need 40,000 ICU beds – a more than 1,200% increase.The Jacob Javits Center – a landmark convention center in midtown Manhattan – is being repurposed as a temporary hospital for Covid-19, along with four other sites selected by the army corps of engineers. But those new facilities will only inject a few thousand hospital beds into the wider network.“The inescapable conclusion is that the rate of infection is going up,” Cuomo said at a press conference a day earlier, on Tuesday. “It is spiking. The apex is higher than we thought, and the apex is sooner than we thought. That is a bad combination of facts.”Scott Weisenberg, an infectious diseases expert at NYU Langone, said hospitals are trying to create additional capacity with more beds and increased staffing. But he cautioned that a return to normalcy in a few weeks’ time would be completely inappropriate, at least in New York.“I would just say I would be very cautious about trying to reopen society too soon,” he said. “Or you’ll end up paying for it with a lot more cases and more deaths that could have been prevented.”

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Judge: Tekashi 6ix9ine probably belongs at home, not jail

The judge who sentenced the rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine to prison said Wednesday he would have ordered home confinement instead if he had known about the coronavirus in December. U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer commented in a written order even as he rejected a lawyer's request that the 23-year-old performer, whose real name is Daniel Hernandez, be confined at home for the remaining four months of his two-year prison term. Engelmayer said he “could not have known that the final four months of Mr. Hernandez's sentence would be served at a time of a worldwide pandemic to which persons with asthma, like Mr. Hernandez, have heightened vulnerability.”

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Millions wake up to tightening lockdowns as restrictions lift in pandemic's origin

Residents of Wuhan will be allowed to travel out of the province for work as early as Wednesday.

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Airlines and Government Considering Shutting Down Virtually All U.S. Domestic Passenger Flights

Domestic passenger flights in the U.S. could shut down almost completely, either voluntarily or by government order as the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread across the country, discouraging and disrupting air travel.Major U.S. airlines have begun putting a plan in place for potentially shutting down nearly all domestic passenger flights as anemic ticket sales cause unheard of situations such as a flight from LaGuardia Airport in New York City to Washington D.C. with only three passengers aboard.Meanwhile, the White House is weighing ordering the same move but has not made a final decision, the Wall Street Journal reported.On Monday, American Airlines and United Airlines had canceled upwards of 40 percent of previously scheduled flights, according to data from Flightaware.com, a flight tracking site.Air traffic control facilities have also faced staffing emergencies as cases of employees with coronavirus disrupted operations in at least 11 facilities, including the John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia airports in New York, and other airports in Virginia, Long Island, Illinois, Delaware, Las Vegas, Indianapolis, and Chicago.Airlines are projected to lose up to $113 billion in revenue and demand for flights worldwide is expected to decline for the first time since 2009 during the recession, according to the International Air Transport Association."The turn of events as a result of [the coronavirus] is almost without precedent. In little over two months, the industry's prospects in much of the world have taken a dramatic turn for the worse," Alexandre de Juniac, the chief executive of IATA, said in a statement earlier this month. "It is unclear how the virus will develop, but … this is a crisis."

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The coronavirus outbreak could shut down the post office in less than 3 months, lawmakers say

Any disruption to the US Postal Service could also hamper efforts for Americans to vote by mail in the November election.

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Coronavirus: US man dies after taking drug he thought stopped virus

Health officials are warning people not to self-medicate with the common malaria drug.

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U.S. could become coronavirus epicenter: WHO

The United States has the potential to become the new epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic due to a "very large acceleration" in infections there, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.

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Los venezolanos que emigran dejan atrás a casi un millón de niños

By Unknown Author from NYT en Español https://ift.tt/3aoAxJC

For now, New Yorkers cannot get evicted if they don’t pay their rent.

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Here’s a Coronavirus Quiz

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City residents use the Nextdoor app to be neighborly (but distant).

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Lessons From Lockdown

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