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You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / COVID-19 Coronavirus Update (Domestic) – Monday/Tuesday, March 30/31

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update (Domestic) – Monday/Tuesday, March 30/31

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This post is in: ,

Retweeted by James Palmer, Deputy editor at Foreign Policy, ex-Beijing :

Elsewhere in the same city:

Now she tells us (them):

Color me dubious, but manufacturing capacity is capacity:

Not sure if Michigan is the first state to decide against reopening schools before September; doubt they’ll be the last:

Florida Man –


Not hardly, per the Guardian:

… Four people have died, eight people have tested positive for Covid-19 and about 200 people are ill with flu-like symptoms on the Zaandam, which has hundreds of British, American and Australian holidaymakers on board, many of whom are elderly.

Both ships are travelling towards Florida but on Monday, governor Ron DeSantis said passengers cannot be “dumped” in his state and cast further doubt over whether ships would be allowed to dock, dismissing those on board as mostly “foreigners”.

A meeting of Broward county commissioners will take place on Tuesday to discuss whether the vessels should be allowed into port in Fort Lauderdale…

Reader Interactions

37Comments

  2. 2.

    WereBear

    I will be forever thankful that, whatever else I managed in my hodge-podge “career,” it did land me in a state and an employer who didn’t make me play “your money or your life.”

    I don’t know how much my unemployment will turn out to be, but at least I will be getting something.

  3. 3.

    Dan B

    Samaritan’s Purse executive director is Franklin Graham.  He is demanding that medical personnel at the tent hospitals in Central Park let patients know if they are sinners, ie. LGBT, or not chaste, and they will go to damnation.  Or words to that effect.

  4. 4.

    David C

    For XKCD, why is the bacteriophage doing all the talking? They don’t infect humans… ;-)

  6. 6.

    OzarkHillbilly

    NYT: N.Y. Hospitals Face $400 Million in Cuts Even as Virus Battle Rages

    For the last few weeks, Dr. David Perlstein has been scrambling to find more beds and ventilators, knowing that the coronavirus outbreak, which has filled his Bronx hospital with more than 100 patients, will undoubtedly get much worse.

    Then a week ago, Dr. Perlstein, the chief executive officer of St. Barnabas Hospital, was given some disturbing news by a state senator: His hospital could soon lose millions of dollars in government funding.

    The funding cut was proposed by a panel that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo convened earlier this year, before the virus had reached the United States, to rein in the state’s growing Medicaid program by identifying $2.5 billion in savings.

    But the timing of the proposals, which were released in mid-March and include about $400 million in cuts to hospitals, was a blow to the morale of many hospitals and medical workers on the front lines of the fight against a ruthless virus that has infected tens of thousands in New York.
    “It’s a shot in the gut,” Dr. Perlstein said. “During a time I need to commit all the energy I have to really save lives and expand access and not skimp on resources, now I have to worry about how we’re going to continue to pay our bills.”

    Asked about the proposed cuts, the governor said on Saturday that hospitals would receive a windfall from the $2 trillion federal stimulus package, which provides over $150 billion in grants to hospitals fighting the virus across the country.

    “The places that are getting the most funding now because of what the federal government did are the hospitals,” Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, said. “They are doing better than anyone else.”

    He then said, as he has before, “The state has no money.”

  7. 7.

    Chyron HR

    Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to end Michigan school year due to coronavirus; seniors graduate, others move up

    Isn’t that how Harry Potter got his degree?

  9. 9.

    mrmoshpotato

    Wasn’t the Iran Hostage Crisis used to ratfuck Carter?  Or am I not remembering history correctly?

  12. 12.

    Rusty

    Started my new job yesterday.  Had a letter from the company saying I was an essential employee, just in case I was stopped.  Met with my new boss who came in just for that, signed some paperwork for HR (everything at a distance and a disinfected pen), got a computer and spent a few hours having it configured by tech staff working from home.  A conference call with new colleagues to figure out how to get me started working remotely. Got a swipe card, a parking pass, shown my office, and five hours after beginning out the door to not return for probably a month, maybe more. Welcome to starting in a pandemic.  But a job! A job!  The last four months has been some of the most stressful in my life and really rough on the marriage and family.  Nothing for months, a burst of interviews and and some offers, and then deep uncertainty the offer would stand as the pandemic exploded here.  Less money, two states away, a weekend dad for maybe two years as we get the next one out of high school and figure out how and when of selling and buying a house in the economic chaos.  Lots of stress to come.  But a job!  A job!  Mid 50’s and found a job!

  15. 15.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Rusty: Congrats. My 40 yo SiL also just got a job after some months in the unemployment line. Pretty much the same experience as you. Months of nothing, than a flurry of interviews, several offers, ending with a job. Fortunately, his is in town.

  16. 16.

    la caterina

    @Rusty: Good on you!  I got a job in my 50’s too.  Still at it and wouldn’t trade it for anything.  Enjoy the paycheck!

  18. 18.

    Patrianakos

    @Dan B:The patients, or the caregivers? In any case, I really doubt that Mr. Graham is going to visit Central Park to check.

    Factio Republicana delenda est.

  19. 19.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The frontline in the battle against coronavirus has shifted a couple of hundred yards down the main road through the Kansas city of Wellington.
    Two weeks ago, as the virus crept closer and people in other parts of the state started dying, the owners of the city’s only hospital thought it a good time to close down with just a few hours’ notice on the grounds the facility was losing money.

    “We lost our hospital abruptly and without warning,” said Dr Lacie Gregory, a family practitioner in Wellington. “Even as the healthcare providers here in town, we did not hear that it was closing until it was a done deal. We received a text message from the director of nursing saying as of now there’s no hospital. So really, really unfortunate timing.”

    That has left Gregory and a small group of other doctors and nurse practitioners at the city’s Family Care Center at the forefront of preparing for the coming pandemic with little guidance and not much equipment.
    ………………………..
    The doctors improvised, setting up a separate drive-thru clinic at the back of their building for people complaining of coughs, fever or showing other symptoms of Covid-19. But even finding the protective equipment for the physicians handling those patients is a challenge.

    The county’s emergency management office in Wellington has put in orders for masks, visors and gowns but been told by the state that only part of the request will be delivered. So far nothing has arrived.

    The doctors at the health centre went looking elsewhere. At the local farmers cooperative they found masks designed to protect workers on the city’s grain elevator from dust. At another store they bought face shields farmworkers use when working with chemicals. They are not medical grade but better than nothing. The doctors still face a shortage of gowns and gloves.

    “It’s been really frustrating. It’s been what we have been able to piece together,” said Gregory. “All of us as physicians are reading and researching and relying on colleagues across the country for information on where they are getting equipment and what’s working for them. This is going to overwhelm our system and we won’t be ready to to treat people. We won’t have the resources to treat people.”

    The makeshift clinic is seeing about 20 people a day but even then there is only so much they can do. The director of the Sumner county health department, Laura Rettig, said that at any one time it has only a handful of coronavirus test kits for the entire county of 25,000 people. They have to be sent to the state laboratory and the results take days.

    Only the best healthcare in America Land of the Free, Home of the Dead.

  20. 20.

    WereBear

    @mrmoshpotato: I think that was the one who declared the Way It Works:

    tRump parrots back Fox News talking points, and the cult followers exclaim, “That’s just what I was thinking! Let’s follow him through the gates of hell.”

  21. 21.

    Anne Laurie

    @mrmoshpotato: Wasn’t the Iran Hostage Crisis used to ratfuck Carter? Or am I not remembering history correctly?

    Yes, it was.  Carter did have a rally after the hostages were seized, but before the ill-fated attempt to rescue them failed catastrophically.

    Right now, Repubs are gleefully predicting that ‘patriotic’ Americans won’t dump the sitting President during a national crisis.  That didn’t work for Carter — who was genuinely well-intentioned! — and neutral observers have already pointed out that Trump’s recent ‘rally’ is pathetic by historical standards.

    Come November, odds are unfortunately strong that every voter will know of at least one person who died during the pandemic… and too many of us will have lost someone close to us.  This won’t deter the MAGAt Base, because they’re death cultists, but then again they look to lose a proportionately greater percentage of their voting ranks, so…

  23. 23.

    WereBear

    @OzarkHillbilly: Jayzus Haploid Keerist on a pogo stick. Really.

    Thanks to following links here and there, I have been keeping up with the situation in Kansas. Which is, as seen in your excerpts, utterly dismal.

    People in mental agony as they try to keep the money coming in without killing themselves. High vulnerability people with their lives because so many businesses playing Oligarch games with their employees.

    I was sent home and thought I could keep my job all the way through, but with the local economy completely collapsing around its income stream, some of us were furloughed, like me, because my maintenance job could be paused. Others got their hours and paychecks cut.

    And we’re the lucky ones, because we’re in NY.

    Florida is already out of Hieronymus Bosch when it comes to labor abuse. And it will get worse.

  24. 24.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Anne Laurie:

    This won’t deter the MAGAt Base, because they’re death cultists, but then again they look to lose a proportionately greater percentage of their voting ranks, so… 

    Letting our Rethuglican state governments leave us to die to own the libs.

  26. 26.

    Barbara

    @Rusty: Congrats! Stay safe!  I know the anxiety your kids must be feeling first hand. Still some of the worst memories of my life.

  28. 28.

    Geminid

    @Anne Laurie: Re Trump popularity bump: a WSJ/NBC poll from September stuck with me. There was the typical ~45% approve, ~52% disapprove on the question of job as president. But the question of personally like/dislike showed that 69% disliked Trump. The previous high was a 45% dislike for Bush in 2005, during the Iraq war and right after Katrina. Told me that a lot of supporters were fair weather fans, and that he had a very small reservoir of good will.

  29. 29.

    Kirk Spencer

    @Rusty: gods I feel you, it’s been six years (sometimes feels like yesterday) since I did that dance.

    Good luck for the future.

  31. 31.

    Ken

    Not sure if Michigan is the first state to decide against reopening schools before September

    I think Kansas announced they wouldn’t be re-opening until fall.  It sounds like Michigan went further, and cancelled the rest of the academic year.  I believe Kansas is using distance learning.

    Here in Illinois the last two weeks overlapped spring break in most districts, and from conversations with friends who are teachers, the other week was devoted to review lessons.  They will be starting to teach new material soon.

    BTW they had the review lessons on hand because of the “polar vortex” last year, which shuttered many schools for a week.

  32. 32.

    Benw

    @Rusty: congrats!

    Spouse and I are lucky AF we have flexible jobs that already involved remote work ability, but it was still an unusual relief to see the paychecks clear this week! Whew

  33. 33.

    joel hanes

    and the political damage will be more like Iran Hostage Crisis for Carter

    This is a catastrophe several orders of magnitude greater than the Iran hostage crisis, will kill more Americans than a great war, and Trump’s handling of it was actively harmful for a long time, before it became grossly negligent, and then blundering, incompetent, and criminally grift-seeking.

    The political damage should be more like the end of Mussolini.

  34. 34.

    glc

    Quoting the alt text from xkcd:

    We are not trapped in here with the coronavirus. The coronavirus is trapped in here with us.

  35. 35.

    lumpkin

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Wasn’t the Iran Hostage Crisis used to ratfuck Carter?  Or am I not remembering history correctly?

    There have long been allegations that representatives for Reagan met with representatives from Iran before the election and promised a better deal if they held the American hostages until after the election. Obviously done to insure that Carter would lose. I’ve also read that the illegal sale of missiles to Iran to finance the Contras was part of the payoff.

  36. 36.

    MoCA Ace

    @Rusty:

    Congrats on the new job.  Best of luck to you and the family.

    I’m at about 90% work-from-home now.  Wife is essential (pharmacy manager) but I wish she wasn’t.

  37. 37.

    Parfigliano

    School year in NM cancelled.  They tryin to formulate plan regarding Seniors and graduation.

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