Big Time News Blog: 04/21/20

Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Coronavirus outbreak at migrant shelter in Mexico linked to U.S. deportee

At least 14 other migrants at the shelter were infected in a scenario long feared by Mexican health authorities.

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Hospitals are seeing heart attack and other emergency patients drop off over coronavirus fears

The coronavirus pandemic is creating a "silent sub-epidemic" of its own, The Washington Post reports.When doctors look around their hospitals, especially around New York City and other major metropolitan areas, they see nothing but coronavirus patients. But those beds are usually filled with patients being treated for other emergencies, leaving some doctors wondering where the heart attack and stroke patients have gone.Dr. Harlan M. Krumholz explicitly asked this question in an April 6 op-ed for The New York Times. At Yale New Haven Hospital where he works, Krumholz said at the time he had "almost 300 people stricken with COVID-19, and the numbers keep rising — and yet we are not yet at capacity because of a marked decline in our usual types of patients." Krumholz's hospital has never been so empty, he said.Cardiovascular surgeon John Puskas said the same of his unit in New York City's Mount Sinai hospital. Nearly all of his 60-bed cardiac unit is filled with coronavirus patients, but "even those left almost speechless by crushing chest pain weren't coming through the ER," the Post writes. People with "inflamed appendixes, infected gall bladders, bowel obstructions and, more ominously, chest pains and stroke symptoms," have all gone missing, the Post reports via physicians and early research. The explanation is devastatingly simple, Puskas said: "Everybody is frightened to come to the ER." Read more at The Washington Post.More stories from theweek.com Excess mortality data suggests as many as 25,000 uncounted coronavirus deaths The Navajo Nation outbreak reveals an ugly truth behind America's coronavirus experience Georgia's dangerous coronavirus experiment

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AOC deletes tweet saying she ‘loved’ to see US oil prices at record-low after being accused of cheering job losses

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has deleted a tweet that celebrated the crash of the oil market which said: "You absolutely love to see it."As the price of US oil dropped to minus $37 a barrel on Monday, the Democrat had said on Twitter that the crash was an opportunity to ‘save the planet’.

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Trump’s WHO attacks: Fair criticism or scapegoating?

President Trump has called for cutting off funding for the World Health Organization over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Are his criticisms fair or is he searching for someone else to blame?

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United Auto Workers union backs Democrat Biden for president

The United Auto Workers union is endorsing Democrat Joe Biden for President. The roughly 400,000-member union says in a statement Tuesday that the nation needs stable leadership with less acrimony “and more balance to the rights and protections of working Americans.” The union says Biden has committed to reining in corporate power over workers, encouraging collective bargaining, and making sure workers get the pay, benefits and protections they deserve.

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‘Safest Place in the World’ Cruise Ship Finally Docks in Italy

ROME–When the Costa Deliziosa drops anchor in the northern Italian port of Genoa on Tuesday, it will mark the end of a travel era. The 12-deck cruise ship is the last major passenger vessel on any sea anywhere in the world to make final landfall with passengers after completing a voyage. On Monday, the only other ships at sea still with passengers came into harbor—the MSC Magnifica docked in Marseille, France, and the Pacific Princess docked in Los Angeles. Meet the Insane People Still Planning Cruise Ship VacationsBut, like the other ships, the Deliziosa’s last port of call is important for another reason than just marking the end of cruising as we know it. The ship set sail on Jan. 5, back in a pre-pandemic world, and doesn’t have a single case of COVID-19 onboard among the remaining 1,631 passengers and 900 crew members. For the last two months, since the pandemic all but killed the cruise industry, Deliziosa’s passengers and crew members have been living in a safe bubble. The ship has only been allowed to disembark passengers twice in the last two months, on March 14 in Australia and Monday in Barcelona when more than 400 passengers disembarked. During the 115-day voyage, that was scheduled to end April 26 in Venice, three people were airlifted off the ship for health reasons, but none of them tested positive for COVID-19, making the vessel one of the safest places on earth right now—at least until it docks. “I want to stay on the ship, it is much safer here,” an Italian passenger named Flavia, who does not want her last name made public, told The Daily Beast by Twitter message. “Imagine stepping onto land after being so safe and getting the virus right away! We have all asked if we could just stay on the ship.”The Deliziosa visited five continents and seven seas, but most of its 40 scheduled stops across 18 countries were canceled as the virus took hold. Supply stops and technical checks were made offshore, and no one who wasn’t a passenger or crew member was allowed on or off the ship for any reason at all. Sportswriter Carlos Paya, who got on the ship in Venice, Italy, said it was a “stroke of luck” he and his wife chose the lengthy holiday and escaped the worst of the pandemic. When he finally disembarked in Spain on Monday night, he said it was like stepping into a time warp. “We followed the situation on television, on the news, but the impact on arrival is tremendous. We were in a paradise and we saw that the world was turning into a hell,” he told AFP upon arrival. “My heart sank when I stepped outside in Valencia, the empty streets, without people… in a way it was beautiful, but seeing it like that makes your heart sink.” The cruise industry has been especially hard hit since the pandemic began, with the most famous ship of them all, the Diamond Princess with its more than 712 COVID patients and nine deaths even garnering its own category on various contagion counters. At least 17 cruise ships have had multiple positive cases since the pandemic began and the Centers for Disease Control issued a “no sail” order and more than 100 passenger-less ships of various sizes are now off U.S. waters with 80,000 crew members who aren’t allowed to disembark. A further 20 ships are docked in U.S. ports with crew members from other countries prohibited from getting off the ships.Carnival, the world’s largest operator which runs its flagship line as well as Costa Cruises, Holland America Line, and Princess Cruises, has said it needs $6 billion to keep the company afloat until the pandemic is over. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control extended its “no sail” order in the U.S. until the end of the pandemic is eventually declared. Other popular cruise destination countries, including Italy, have also instituted similar restrictions, that will keep the ships anchored for the foreseeable future. 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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The IMF says governments should consider new wealth taxes to raise cash from the rich as coronavirus slams the global economy

In recent years, the IMF has shifted its focus from tax cuts and recommended policies aimed at reducing income inequality.

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Trump news – live: President accused of ‘taking advantage of coronavirus crisis’ by suspending immigration as Georgia leads reopening of states

Donald Trump has announced he is suspending all immigration to the US because of the coronavirus crisis, a move to “protect jobs” with 22m people already out of work, his executive order denounced by critics as both an act of partisan opportunism and an attempt to distract from his blundering response to the pandemic.“This action is not only an attempt to divert attention away from Trump’s failure to stop the spread of the coronavirus and save lives, but an authoritarian-like move to take advantage of a crisis and advance his anti-immigrant agenda,” responded congressman Joaquin Castro.

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110 arrested over latest deadly lynch mob attack in India

2 police officers have also been suspended after viral videos showed them unable or unwilling to control the mob, apparently fuelled by a rumor.

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Mexico can't stop drug cartels from handing out virus aid

Mexico’s president acknowledged Monday that drug cartels have been handing out aid packages during the coronavirus pandemic, and called on them to stop. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said such handouts have occurred “in several places,” but said the government can’t stop the practice. “It is something that happens, it cannot be avoided," López Obrador said.

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Could an old vaccine be a godsend for new coronavirus?

Using the oral polio vaccine could prevent or reduce the spread of COVID-19 to immunized individuals.

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Ancient marine crocs adapted like whales to ocean life - only earlier

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Air conditioning spread the coronavirus to 9 people sitting near an infected person in a restaurant, researchers say. It has huge implications for the service industry.

As restaurants slowly reopen, they will likely have to reduce capacity, and patrons may have a limit on how long they can stay and eat.

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Barr Is Doing the Dirty Work as Trump Gambles With Our Lives

Donald Trump is calling for his followers to LIBERATE the states from the social-distancing measures that are staving off an even greater coronavirus death toll. Trump’s enforcer, Attorney General Bill Barr, is now poised to support Trump’s call for insurrection by turning to the federal courts—seeded with a legion of newly installed right-wing jurists—to undermine critical public-health protections on his boss’ behalf. If Barr and Trump get their way, the states will soon be “opened up” to the virus, and thus to a massive number of needless deaths. While Trump began openly attacking his own social-distancing guidelines over the past week, Barr has been doing so for some time. During an April 8 interview on Fox News, the AG described the steps belatedly taken to limit spread of the virus as “draconian.” He also said that “after April 30,” the Department of Justice would begin to scrutinize such “restrictions on our liberty” more closely. Republicans Cheer as Trumpist Judge Launches Holy War Against GovernmentDays later, some of the same big-money donors that had funded the Tea Party began fabricating a movement that responded to Trump’s recent tweets by sending small numbers of protesters to mass at various statehouses to decry the public-health regulations that Trump claims are intended to undermine Americans’ constitutional rights.Last Friday, members of a group founded by former Reagan Attorney General Edwin Meese wrote to Barr, asserting that states are engaged in “rampant abuses of… civil liberties” that raise “serious concerns about violating the basic protections and rights guaranteed under the United States Constitution” and asking the DOJ to “undertake immediate review of all the orders that have been issued by the states and local governments” to protect against the spread of the coronavirus.The federal government virtually never engages in such an intrusive, nationwide review of state and local health regulations, let alone emergency regulations that were imposed at the express request of the president for the purpose of saving lives in the midst of a raging pandemic. Furthermore, Barr is a charter member of the Federalist Society, which supplied the president with the names of many of the young extremist lawyers who Trump and Mitch McConnell have been packing onto the federal judiciary. These conservatives have long claimed to be champions of “states’ rights” and opponents of earlier “activist” judges who, they claimed, were far too willing to interfere with state governance in the name of constitutional and civil rights. Yet there is every reason to believe that Barr, as well as many of the judges Trump has placed on the bench, will enthusiastically comply with the new call to undertake an offensive against states’ emergency health measures.In fact, as the activists noted in their April letter, Barr has already taken to the courts to oppose a local coronavirus health regulation. On April 14, well before the expiration of Trump’s own call for strict social-distancing measures during the “30 days to stop the spread,” the DOJ intervened in a Mississippi case to support a challenge to a municipal regulation barring “drive-in” church services.In the face of the DOJ’s action, along with pressure from the state’s GOP governor, the defendant city relented and allowed the services to proceed. While the danger posed to public health in that case may well in fact have been limited, the message was clear: Instead of supporting state and local efforts to protect citizens from the virus, the federal government is now arrayed to oppose them.The DOJ’s intervention in Mississippi immediately followed a Kentucky case in which a newly installed judge, who Trump has already nominated for a seat on the elite D.C .Court of Appeals, grandstanded by issuing an emergency ruling against a Louisville prohibition on a church’s worship practices. The judge took the time to write a lengthy opinion containing an impassioned screed against the city’s purported intrusions upon religious freedom, but not to hear evidence from the city before issuing his emergency order. As the city later demonstrated, the church actually had a recent history of flaunting social-distancing practices and endangering its parishioners.Then on Saturday, yet another recent Trump appointee to the federal bench took a further whack at a critical public-health regulation, issuing an emergency order nullifying the application of Kansas Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s ban on gatherings of more than 10 people at church services. The order came after Kansas’ own Supreme Court had declined to grant similar relief at the request of representatives of the state’s GOP-controlled legislature. The federal judge’s order recited a set of safety precautions that the church claimed it would follow, but offered no explanation for the judge’s choice to override the existing rules which—as explained—were grounded in guidance offered by Trump’s own public-health professionals. Both rulings came after religious gatherings across the country have already served as deadly vectors for the spread of the coronavirus—and as Trumpist lawmakers are planning further judicial interventions of their own. The speaker of Wisconsin’s state assembly—last seen dressed in full hospital garb telling voters they were perfectly safe standing to cast ballots in an election the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and then the U.S. Supreme Court, outrageously refused to delay—is now threatening to bring a lawsuit to nullify that state’s stay-at-home rules. And GOP legislators in other states are following Trump’s and Barr’s calls by threatening similar litigation and other challenges, in some cases only days after authorizing their governors to take emergency measures to protect the public from the pandemic.The spectacle of having judges second-guessing the determinations of state health professionals serves Barr and Trump’s broader goal: to undermine the legitimacy and authority of governors, some of them Democrats in swing states, who have received far more robust public support for their effective responses to the pandemic than Trump has for his catastrophically late efforts. Barr’s efforts now to undermine the authority of governors is of a piece with his past work undermining the legitimacy of his own Justice Department, as well as the nation’s intelligence community and diplomatic corps, to help Trump escape the consequences of his criminal conduct during Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and then his scheme to pressure Ukraine to announce an investigation of his 2020 rival, Joe Biden. Yet while Barr’s past efforts to shred public confidence in governmental institutions have done a great deal of damage to the nation, the attorney general’s latest effort to misuse the authority of the law, and of the federal courts, to help Trump out of a political jam is likely to have more immediate, and fatal, consequences.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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North Korean media silent on Kim's whereabouts as speculation on health rages

North Korean state media made no mention on Wednesday of new appearances by leader Kim Jong Un, a day after intense international speculation over his health was sparked by his absence from a major celebration last week.

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Trump immigration ban to last 60 days, target those seeking permanent residency

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday his new U.S. immigration ban would last 60 days and apply to those seeking 'green cards' for permanent residency in an effort to protect Americans seeking to regain jobs lost because of the coronavirus.

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Exclusive: Venezuela Socialists, opposition leaders begin secret talks amid pandemic, sources say

Allies of both Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his bitter foe, opposition leader Juan Guaido, have secretly begun exploratory talks as concerns grow about the possible impact of the spread of the coronavirus, according to sources on both sides.

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