"Banks brace for millions of small-business loan requests as Trump coronavirus plan is put to test" by David J. Lynch Washington Post, April 1, 2020
Man, have they ever been all over my Globe today.
WASHINGTON — A crush of loan applications could swamp the Trump administration’s effort to speed money to cash-strapped small businesses, complicating hopes of keeping tens of millions of Americans employed during the coronavirus shutdown, according to lenders and analysts.
Americans should be used to crushed hopes by now, and it's the souls that are next.
The administration is racing to get new ‘‘paycheck protection’’ loans approved in time to head off fresh layoffs by Main Street businesses at a time of soaring unemployment. In a notable departure, the Small Business Administration will delegate to the nation’s banks — including some of the perceived villains of the last financial crisis — authority to make $349 billion in new loans.
Only perceived villains, not real ones. Forget the mismanagement and misbehavior that led to them playing both sides of the fence before parachuting out with profits and loot. Now they will be in charge of who gets $350 billion in loot.
The program, part of the $2 trillion financial rescue legislation that President Trump signed on Friday, offers small businesses 100 percent government-guaranteed loans, which will be forgiven if the company retains the workforce it had before the pandemic.
I was starting to have reservations before he signed that piece of legi$lootive extortion, and now I'm convinced it's a mon$tro$ity.
President Trump signed the $2 trillion stimulus bill into law. (Pool/Photographer: Pool/Getty Images)
Damn criminals, each and every one of them, and you gotta love the social distancing, no?
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has promised a ‘‘very, very easy’’ process with banks starting to make loans on Friday, the first day applications can be submitted, but for the rapid-fire effort to succeed, the government must distribute in a matter of weeks more than 15 times as much money as the SBA issued through its main loan program in all of last year.
Loans to do what? Who will meet the criteria for it? What if it can't be paid back?
How is more debt, more loans going to help any but those who caused the crisis, deflated the economy, and who now stand to profit tremendously?
‘‘I can’t imagine, given the size of the program, that banks are going to be able to get this out as quickly as Treasury wants, but it’s the best option they have,’’ said Brian Gardner, managing director at the investment banking firm Keefe Bruyette & Woods.
What is he saying, the banks will be sitting on the capital?
With large swaths of the economy essentially closed by government edict, countless small companies are growing desperate for funds, even as many bankers say they lack the detailed guidance needed to administer the loans. Some lenders that are new to working with the SBA could struggle with staffing and software problems once they are approved to join the program in early April.
That is, you know, the hallmark of a dictatorship. Edicts.
Paycheck protection is the cornerstone of the administration’s effort to avoid repeating the mistakes Washington made in responding to the 2008 financial crisis. Generous bank bailouts and only scattered aid for homeowners incited bipartisan populist anger for appearing to favor Wall Street over Main Street. This time, Trump officials want to make sure that the policy response is seen to benefit average Americans more than corporate elites — and that is focusing attention on the nation’s banks.
They want it to be $een that way, but it won't be seen that way. Not when you impoverish a country and destroy people's lives and dreams to enrich the same criminal cla$$ you did before. and it sadly will not likely matter.
‘‘It’s really up to the banks to step up and get that cash to Main Street,’’ said Tom Sullivan, vice president of small-business policy for the US Chamber of Commerce.
That's where the print copy ended, and by reaction in the margin was a big UH-OH!
Business owners across the country are besieging bankers for loan information. On Monday, the National Federation of Independent Business, an industry group, had 13,000 members join an online meeting about the program. If borrower demand exhausts the $349 billion, the administration will ask Congress for more, Mnuchin has said.
Those printing pre$$ motors are going to burn out at that rate.
‘‘We’re inundated with everything from hairdressers to hardware stores to multimillion-dollar businesses,’’ said Cynthia Blankenship, corporate president of Bank of the West. ‘‘We expect to be flooded with requests, and we’re seeing that already.’’
The Grapevine, Texas-based lender has fielded calls from about 50 of its small-business clients asking to delay loan payments during the shutdown.
‘‘There’s a real desire to get it done, but the problem is, it isn’t as easy as it looks,’’ Blankenship said of the paycheck program, adding that verifying even the stripped-down paperwork could take time. Some banks may be turned off by the 0.5 percent interest rate that the standardized loans will carry, she said.
I don't think Americans are going to be in the mood to hear that, sickness be damned! If you are going to take it all away, fuck it. I'm sure a few of you will be taken along with it. The ma$ters won't care. You serve them and are disposable.
To arrest the economy’s slide, the paycheck aid must move faster than typical government programs, officials said. One-quarter of the nation’s small businesses can survive just 13 days before exhausting their cash reserves, according to a 2016 JPMorgan Chase Institute study.
Then they are already dead.
‘‘These programs don’t do any good for Americans three or four months from now,’’ Mnuchin told Fox Business on Monday.
They won't do any good weeks from now, either!
See: The list of who won’t get a $1,200 stimulus check is growing
The Washington ComPost reports that "Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said direct deposits should begin by April 17, followed by checks in the mail, but millions of other Americans are realizing that they don’t qualify for a coronavirus relief check. Most high school seniors and college students won’t get any money. The bill gives nothing to families for their children older than 16, a shock to many households already reeling from canceled graduations, and college students readjusting to life at home with so many universities shut down. Many immigrant families are also learning that they are ineligible.
Related: Some in US may not get stimulus checks until August
That is an April Fool's Joke, right?
Administration officials said they had streamlined the loan application process by abandoning the SBA’s customary requirement for borrowers to post collateral or offer a personal guarantee. Companies with fewer than 500 workers are eligible to participate and can apply by completing a two-page form, which is available at sba.gov.
The banks will not be expected to assess a borrower’s ability to repay the loan, only to establish that the business was operational on Feb. 15, said the officials, who briefed reporters on the condition that they not be identified by name.
Oh, no. This is a recipe for further disaster, and are they going to come back and want the money back like they did after Superstorm Sandy?
The SBA’s only role will be to verify that the borrower has not already received a paycheck loan, leaving the approval, disbursement, and servicing of the transaction to the financial institutions.
One senior administration official said the banks are bracing for ‘‘millions of applications’’ on Friday. ‘‘It’s going to depend on the banks,’’ said a second official, who added that loans could be approved ‘‘almost in real time.’’
Where, where?
This is crazy, folks.
We are in the HANDS of the BANKS!
The administration is trying to move quickly as parts of the economy crumble. On Tuesday, Goldman Sachs cut its forecast, saying the economy will shrink in the second quarter at an annualized 34 percent rate before rebounding. Unemployment will spike to 15 percent by midyear, the bank’s economists wrote in a client note, up from 3.5 percent in February. In comparison, the jobless rate reached 10 percent during the depths of the Great Recession in October 2009.
HOLY $HIT!
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Also see: Tho$e Needing Protection
They need it more than do you.
Related:
"US companies shed 27,000 jobs in March, according to a private survey, a figure that mostly reflected the economy as it stood before the full impact of the viral outbreak. Payroll processor ADP said small businesses took the biggest hit, losing 90,000 jobs, while medium-sized and large companies still added workers. Economists forecast that much larger job losses, probably in the millions, will be reported in the coming months. March’s figures are the first monthly job loss reported by ADP since Hurricanes Harvey and Irma slammed Texas and much of the southeast in September 2017. Just one month ago, ADP said that businesses gained a solid 179,000 jobs in February. On Friday, the government will issue its monthly jobs report, which is expected to show a loss of about 150,000 jobs, according to FactSet. That will snap a record-long streak of 113 straight months of hiring."
They are hiring at Amazon:
"Amazon’s hiring boom packed applicants into job fairs with no special precautions" by Spencer Soper and Matt Day Bloomberg News, April 1, 2020
On Mar. 18, a laid-off customer-service representative for one of the airline companies attended an Amazon.com Inc. employee orientation in Dallas. He found himself packed into a room with about 70 other applicants, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder to watch a PowerPoint presentation about what it’s like to work for the online retailer.
The man, who provided a smartphone photo to document his experience, said the event was exactly like one he attended last year for a seasonal holiday job with Amazon. In other words, there were no special precautions to keep attendees safe from the coronavirus. When the man raised concerns about the crowded conditions, he said an Amazon manager mocked him and a fellow recruit sneered.
“They made jokes and told me to leave if I was unhappy,” he said, adding that one manager said Amazon’s operations were exempt from the rules because the company is considered an essential service. “They didn’t care one tiny bit.” The former customer rep took the job but still worries about getting sick.
It's almost as if they know something you do not, and do employees know that Bezos sold $3.4 billion in stock just before Covid-19 collapse.
Amazon also ignored official social-distancing guidelines at mid-March events near Portland, Oregon, and in Kenosha, Wisc., according to two applicants. A fourth person who attended an Amazon job fair in West Jefferson, Ohio, said she was sent home and asked to return another day because the gathering was too crowded, suggesting precautionary measures are in place at least at some events or Amazon is changing its practices.
The absence of social distancing at Amazon hiring events recently made the rounds on social media. One user tweeted photos he said were taken at recent recruiting event in Los Angeles. Another complained on Twitter that the event she attended, where people were in close proximity on a line, wasn’t safe. She didn’t disclose the location. Bloomberg was unable to reach those people.
The location disclosure will one day be mandatory, and judging from the photo above, the guidelines have yet to reach the oval office.
In an e-mailed statement, Amazon said it has updated its recruiting practices to avoid large crowds and keep applicants safe, but it declined to say precisely when it made the change.
“These situations occurred two weeks ago and we’ve since moved all new hire events and orientations to virtual platforms,” Amazon spokeswoman Lindsay Campbell said. “Any situation in which teams don’t follow social distancing guidelines are immediately investigated.”
Amazon is widely seen as an indispensable service amid the pandemic, providing such essentials as food, cleaning supplies, and medicine. That hasn’t stopped critics from accusing the company of putting customers ahead of its warehouse workers. These employees aren’t simply handling essential goods but also processing returns and packing toys, clothes, and cosmetics. As more COVID-19 cases are confirmed among Amazon’s warehouse workforce, demonstrations and walkouts have erupted in the United States and Europe along with demands from lawmakers and regulators for the company to improve working conditions.
Most of us are non-essential, and could that recalcitrant workforce be an unforeseen con$equence?
On Monday, workers staged a walkout at Amazon’s Staten Island warehouse, where three more cases were reported Tuesday evening; they called for the facility to be shut down for cleaning. Hours later, workers at a Chicago depot picketed outside their facility, and in Romulus, outside Detroit, on Wednesday, a group of Amazon employees lined the sidewalk of their warehouse, complaining about a lack of transparency from management and beseeching chief executive Jeff Bezos to shut it down.
The machines can't come fast enough.
Amazon has lauded the bravery of its workers delivering essentials during the crisis and said it’s protecting them through social distancing requirements and stepped-up cleaning.
With the economy imploding, many Americans are willing to toil at an Amazon warehouse. Almost 4 in 10 would have difficulty covering a sudden $400 emergency expense, according to a survey on economic health released in May by the Federal Reserve, highlighting the precarious financial condition of many hourly workers living paycheck to paycheck. A record-breaking 3.3 million people filed jobless claims in the week ending March 21, and experts say unemployment could top 30 percent, five points higher than the Great Depression’s jobless peak.
Amazon’s March 16 announcement that it would be hiring and boosting pay represents a lifeline to thousands of people who have lost their livelihoods in the travel, leisure and hospitality industries. “There are very few jobs right now, and millions of people are going to want them,” said Fred Goff, who runs Jobcase, a job search and networking site for hourly workers. “Amazon was ahead of the curve with $15 an hour and announced temporary raises. They’re not going to have a problem hiring people.”
And what to do with the rest?
In its initial rush to hire 100,000 people to meet surging demand from customers fearful of visiting physical stores, Amazon dusted off its holiday season recruiting playbook: holding events with lines snaking through hallways and crowds packed into meeting rooms to watch videos, submit identification, and fill out paperwork. The practices violate official COVID-19 safety guidelines, which include avoiding large gatherings and maintaining at least six feet of distance from others.
Are they not even going to get fined?
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Breana Avelar (left), a processing assistant, and family members protested outside the Amazon DTW1 fulfillment center in Romulus, Mich., Wednesday. They say the company is failing to protect the health of its employees amid the COVID-19 outbreak. (Paul Sancya/Associated Press/Associated Press)
What will they do when the scab robots cross the "line?"
Maybe you get a job at NETA:
"Two employees of pot firm NETA test positive for coronavirus, making workers question protocol; State regulators say they’re looking into allegations" by Dan Adams Globe Staff, April 1, 2020
State marijuana regulators said Wednesday they are “looking into” allegations that one of the state’s biggest cannabis firms, New England Treatment Access, is failing to adequately protect its workers from the coronavirus, after employees at two of its facilities tested positive for COVID-19.
NETA, best known for its popular Brookline dispensary, confirmed that a worker at its large cultivation and processing center in Franklin and another at its Northampton dispensary were diagnosed this week with the deadly, fast-spreading disease. The Franklin facility, where the company grows various strains of cannabis and processes the plants into edibles and other products, employs more than 400 people.
The death rate is lower than seasonal flu, the authorities are presenting modeled simulation numbers as real, but the virus will be like a fungus on the cannabis business.
The sick Franklin employee, “whom we will continue to support in every way we can, practiced excellent public health and social responsibility by self-identifying symptoms, notifying their manager upon feeling ill, pursuing COVID-19 testing, taking appropriate hygienic precautions, and self-quarantining," a NETA spokesman said in a statement, adding that the Northampton worker had done the same.
While recreational marijuana sales have been shuttered by Governor Charlie Baker because of the coronavirus pandemic, medical marijuana operators such as NETA (which also serves the recreational market) have been allowed to continue to serve registered patients as an “essential” healthcare business.
Say goodbye to legal recreational, and now they know who you are!
NETA said that, per state protocols, local boards of health and the state Department of Public Health had been notified of the positive test, and insisted there was no chance the Franklin worker had contaminated products made by NETA.
The spokesman also said the company was protecting workers appropriately, including by hiring a contractor to “deep-clean” the Franklin building after learning of the sick employee, and that many employees had told management they agreed NETA’s efforts were sufficient.
However, a number of workers at the Franklin facility told the Globe that they are worried they could have been exposed to their ill coworker, including at a building-wide appreciation breakfast last week at which numerous employees were served French toast from a common table.
Workers also said the company’s social distancing guidelines are only sporadically enforced, or impractical. They described employees frequently working side-by-side and small locker rooms crowded with a dozen or more workers changing in and out of their uniforms.
The workers questioned the extent of the “deep-cleaning,” saying the facility was operated uninterrupted despite the worker’s diagnosis.
“We’ve been telling management for weeks that they have to do something about it,” said one cultivator at the Franklin building, who requested anonymity because he fears losing his job for speaking out. “We’re all piled on top of each other here. They’re more worried about money than the health of their employees and patients."
Make me wonder if he even exists at all. I put nothing past the Globe (he still writes for them).
“I don’t want to see people die because of the negligence of this company,” the cultivator added. “It’s really disheartening that I have to say that, but here I am.”
I guess he doesn't use the product, huh? Or is he just paranoid?
Asked whether managers had taken steps to identify workers who may have been in close contact with the sick Franklin employee, NETA initially said, “the local health department is the agency that identifies, with the [sick patient], any close contacts.” The company also reiterated that it has encouraged workers with symptoms to stay home (though COVID-19 patients may be simultaneously asymptomatic and contagious).
However, the company later said managers were “in touch with the employee’s co-workers who worked closely with the employee who tested positive, and they are being asked to self-quarantine.” Another group of workers that had “close contact” with the sick Northampton dispensary employee are also self-quarantining.
A spokeswoman for the Cannabis Control Commission, which regulates both medical and recreational marijuana operators, said it is "deeply concerned about COVID-19’s threats to patients, customers, employees, agency staff, and all residents of the Commonwealth. We are aware of the complaint and looking into it.”
The commission had urged marijuana companies to let sick employees stay home, step up sanitization efforts, switch to pre-orders only at their retail dispensaries, and strictly enforce distancing guidelines between and among employees and customers.
Barbara Carrapichano, a 30-year-old patient adviser at NETA’s Brookline dispensary, said the company has failed to provide masks or protective partitions to prevent transmission of COVID-19 between workers there and the medical marijuana patients they serve, some of whom have compromised immune systems.
Do you know how hard it is to get that stuff?
In addition to better protective gear, she and other workers who spoke with the Globe want NETA managers to communicate virus-related protocols better, check employees’ temperatures before they clock in, more thoroughly sanitize shared equipment such as computers, and keep workers apart, among other efforts.
“We see enough people that we could be a vector for this [virus] to spread exponentially,” Carrapichano said. “NETA has not set up an adequate response whatsoever. I have an auto-immune disorder myself and I’m putting myself at risk every time I walk through those doors. My biggest concern is the people — everyone involved."
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Related:
"Big Tobacco is one of the sectors that’s sticking to its forecasts as the coronavirus outbreak hardly dents cigarette demand — and may be leading to smokers lighting up on the job when they work at home. Imperial Tobacco, the maker of Kool cigarettes, said Tuesday the outbreak has had no material impact on its business and that current trading remains in line with expectations. British American Tobacco, whose brands include Lucky Strike and Kent, said something similar two weeks ago, when it reiterated its 2020 guidance. The resilience of an industry based on the addictiveness of nicotine contrasts with other sectors, such as alcoholic drinks and confectionery. Cigarette consumption levels are likely to remain robust as quarantined consumers may face boredom and forms of stress or anxiety, and as tobacconists stay open alongside essential shops like grocery stores and pharmacies in countries such as France."
Yeah, you can get booze and liquor but not pot.
(exhale)
"Of all the automakers that are recalling dangerous Takata air bag inflators, Mercedes is the laggard when it comes to getting repairs done. The German automaker ranks last of 16 companies tracked by the US government, finishing repairs in 40.1 percent of its recalled vehicles. All other companies are above 57 percent, with Honda leading at 88.8 percent, followed by Jaguar-Land Rover at 83.8 percent, according to an analysis of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data."
(Cough, cough, cough)
"Automakers reported a plunge in new-vehicle sales as fear of the coronavirus and stay-at-home orders kept consumers from dealerships, adding to the troubles of the country’s largest manufacturing sector. General Motors said sales fell 7 percent in the first quarter and Fiat Chrysler said first-quarter sales fell 10 percent. Both companies said a significant decline in March offset strong sales in January and February. In addition, Hyundai reported a 42 percent drop in US sales in March, and Mercedes-Benz had a 50 percent decline. Other automakers will report monthly and quarterly totals later on Wednesday. ALG, a company that tracks trends in auto sales, estimated that industrywide March sales fell 37 percent from a year ago."
They are making ventilators now anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5FPPoLqkCk
Finally, the family home now looming in his headlights:
"A measure to stop evictions starts moving on Beacon Hill, but both housing advocates and landlords say the legislation doesn’t go far enough" by Tim Logan Globe Staff, April 1, 2020
The state Senate is poised to vote soon on a bill that would stop many evictions in Massachusetts during the coronavirus crisis, but advocates for both tenants and landlords say the legislation doesn’t go far enough to deal with the challenges facing many renters.
A key Senate committee voted unanimously on Tuesday night to advance the bill, which would block many court-ordered evictions for 90 days and prevent landlords from charging late fees for missed rent payments tied to the COVID-19 crisis. It could go before the full Senate by next week, and, if approved, would then go to the House and — assuming passage in that chamber ― to Governor Charlie Baker’s desk.
How long will that take, and will you still have a home by then?
“We’re trying to keep people in their homes,” said Senator Brendan Crighton, who is leading the bill’s push in the Senate. “It’s a public health issue right now. We can’t be telling people, ‘Stay in your homes,' and on the other hand be pushing them out into the street.”
Well, we have been ordered into them.
The measure arrives as April rent checks are due for many tenants across the state, and amid growing cries for help from community groups and advocates who fear the coronavirus crisis and resulting widespread job loss could put thousands of families at risk of losing their homes. In that context, said Lisa Owens, executive director of the Boston-based tenant advocacy group City Life/Vida Urbana, the measure falls short.
Why can't they wait like the rest of us?
Practically speaking, most evictions are on hold. State housing courts are only hearing emergency cases until at least April 22. A more aggressive bill, filed last month in the House, would institute a full moratorium on evictions for as long as Massachusetts is under a state of emergency. It was referred on Monday to the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Housing.
Oh, that can't last then.
Landlord groups have blasted that measure, which they say could create criminal penalties for landlords who initiate eviction proceedings. The Senate bill, one group said Wednesday, is more palatable, even if it fails to address the root of the region’s looming rental crisis: The fact that many people simply won’t be able to pay their rent until the economy recovers.
Maybe some $lumlords should be penalized.
“Long-term, we’re going to deal with the aftermath,” said Doug Quattrochi, executive director of MassLandlords. “Under this, when the state of emergency ends, you can start evicting people again. But I don’t think anyone expects the economy will just go back to the way it was before. It’ll take years for people to get back on their feet.”
One possible solution, Quattrochi said, could be state funding to cover unpaid rent. That would protect tenants from eviction while providing landlords with income. His group is trying to rally support for that idea on Beacon Hill, though no legislation has yet been filed. Other groups, including the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations — which represents nonprofit affordable housing developers — are calling for boosts to state rental assistance programs.
Then the millionaires better start paying up because the rest of us won't be able to fund it. We will be needing it.
“We also want to make sure that we don’t have a wave of evictions the moment the moratorium is lifted,” wrote Joe Kreisberg, president of MACDC, in an e-mail.
Crighton acknowledged that not everyone is satisfied with the Senate bill, but he said it’s an effort at consensus that can pass quickly, far faster than the typically years-long process involved in getting a law through on Beacon Hill.
Yeah, it's amazing how they can get things done when needed.
“We recognize the urgency of situation,” he said. “Not everyone is going to be 100 percent happy with this, but we need to keep people in their homes.”
That is their overriding concern, to keep you imprisoned in there.
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Renters' rights groups rallied outside the State House in January. (Lane Turner/Globe Staff/The Boston Globe)
It's also a coronavirus free-zone, isn't it?
"Loan applications to purchase homes declined for a third straight week to the lowest since November 2016 as coronavirus mitigation efforts stymied house hunting. The Mortgage Bankers Association’s purchase index dropped 10.8 percent in the period that ended March 27 after tumbling 14.6 percent — the worst two weeks since May 2010, data from the Washington-based group showed Wednesday."
The Globe says renters and homeowners need immediate protections, and look who rids to the re$cue:
"Bank of America said it has agreed to allow 50,000 mortgage customers to defer payments for three months because they’ve lost income as a result of the pandemic. The borrowers have all kinds of home loans, including some that are not federally backed, said Bill Halldin, a spokesman for Bank of America. To qualify for the government forbearance program, passed last week by Congress as part of the stimulus package, homeowners must contact their lenders and request help. It’s for people who have a hardship because of COVID-19, but it doesn’t require proof."
The most vulnerable amongst us:
"Anticipating surge, Boston area facilities moving residents and patients to set up coronavirus recovery centers; Spaulding, AdviniaCare join effort to relieve burden on hospitals" by Robert Weisman Globe Staff, April 1, 2020
As hospitals brace for a surge in coronavirus patients in the coming weeks, two Boston-area health care facilities are racing to repurpose their operations to admit recovering COVID-19 patients too sick to go home or return to senior care residences.
That's going to be the narrative, and thanks for the warning.
Spaulding Hospital in Cambridge and the AdviniaCare nursing home in Wilmington are moving more than 130 nursing home residents and rehab patients to other sites. The goal is to create dedicated space for COVID-19 patients who are discharged from Boston area hospitals, yet who may still be contagious and in need of oxygen, physical therapy, and other support, but the relocations are already prompting protests from advocates and the families of residents of these facilities, who say the plans may traumatize and endanger fragile seniors.
All part of the Trauma-based Mind Control Psychological Operation, and people are naturally fighting back.
Four groups that advocate for nursing home residents are calling for a halt to the transfers, which are among the first of an expected wave of such consolidations of patients and nursing home residents statewide. In a letter Tuesday night to Massachusetts Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders they objected to the plans and demanded a meeting with state officials.
“It’s a nightmare,” said Arlene Germain, policy director of the Massachusetts Advocates for Nursing Home Reform. “It’s like an eviction. I don’t see the need. There are so many options in Massachusetts with dormitories, athletic fields and empty nursing homes. It’s a recipe for disaster,” but nursing homes are under pressure to help hospitals and segregate healthy residents from recovering COVID-19 patients.
The evil state puppets and their ma$ters simply do not care!
AdviniaCare in Wilmington is the first nursing home in the Boston area to agree to become a recovery center and will begin moving its residents out of the 142-bed facility to other sites in the next few days. Chris Hannon, chief operating officer of the Wilmington nursing home’s parent company, Norwood-based Pointe Group Care, said the decision was not easy to make, but it seemed necessary.
“We understand the challenges it presents to residents and families," he said, "but we felt it was the best and only decision we could make given the insurmountable health crisis.”
It's insurmountable?
Then LET'S ALL GO OUTSIDE and CONGREGATE!
AdviniaCare disclosed the move late Tuesday night, only hours after the operator of the state’s first planned recovery center, Beaumont Rehabilitation and Skilled Nursing Center in Worcester, acknowledged that a resident it was preparing to move had tested positive for the virus.
Plans to complete Beaumont’s relocation of 147 residents have been delayed as the patient remains isolated there while others on the same floor are tested for the novel coronavirus.....
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Beaumont Rehabilitation and Skilled Nursing Center began moving its residents this week so the facility could become a recovery center for COVID-19 cases, but stopped when a person tested positive for coronavirus. A second facility, AdviniaCare, announced late Tuesday it would begin moving its patients to make room for COVID-19 patients. (David L. Ryan/Globe Staff).
Where are they taking them (ever see Soylent Green?), and believe it or not, this page A1 article says:
"Precisely how many outbreaks are underway at places that house the state’s most vulnerable residents — or where — is unknown, because the state so far has declined to release that information, leaving families and the public in the dark, even as the facilities block access to visitors. Asked about the lack of reporting, state officials said they are now working to make the information public....."
Another WTF moment!
A sign in an upper floor window at the Jack Satter House in Revere, where five residents have died in a coronavirus outbreak. The state says it is working to release information about COVID-19 cases at facilities that house and care for seniors. (John Tlumacki/Globe Staff)
Oh, now I'm convinced of the veracity of this cowflop as the doctors argue that in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, we must have those serious illness conversations:
"Braemoor Health Center is a modest nursing home in Brockton, licensed to care for 120 residents, but Larry Lipschutz, who owns the property, was able to wring $1.8 million in pay out of it last year, according to state records. His son, Avi “Zisha” Lipschutz, who holds the state license to run the nursing home, extracted nearly $900,000 from Braemoor as payments to a realty company and four management firms he owns. As the owners were taking hundreds of thousands of dollars out of Braemoor, the nursing home racked up three and a half times as many health and safety problems as the state average, federal documents show. Over the past year, a portrait has emerged of substandard care in many of the nursing homes run by Braemoor’s owner, Synergy Health Centers. Poor treatment of patients’ festering pressure sores. Medication errors. Inadequate staff training. Now, a Globe investigation shows that as father and son were paying themselves handsomely, Synergy apparently provided false information when applying for nursing home licenses. Synergy’s cofounders, through their public relations firm, declined to respond to a detailed list of questions about the company’s operations and owners. Requests for interviews made in person at the company’s New Jersey headquarters and with a company lawyer went unanswered. Three former Synergy employees describe Zisha Lipschutz as an ardent New England Patriots fan and high-energy boss. One former employee and one current worker said Lipschutz would rally his managers during meetings by quoting or showing scenes from “Mad Men,” a TV series about a 1960s-era Madison Avenue advertising firm. The former employees and the current employee declined to be identified because they still work in the nursing home industry and said they feared that being identified could affect their careers. The related management and realty companies associated with the nursing homes Zisha Lipschutz and Newmark co-own took in more than $7 million in 2014, according to a review of financial records Synergy filed with Massachusetts regulators. Both men received bachelor’s degrees in Talmudic law, according to resumes included in their state nursing home licensing application and verified by the Globe. Two other former staffers described coveted Patriots playoff tickets Synergy bought in January 2013 — one month after acquiring its first facility in Sunderland. The company spent roughly $25,000 on a suite at Gillette Stadium and invited local doctors and nurses to help woo more business for its new facility, the staffers said. “It really offended me because I had to do battle to get basic nursing supplies,” said one of the former staffers who still works in the industry and asked to remain anonymous. In the months following that playoff game, the company cut back on the quality of adult diapers and fresh fruit at its Sunderland facility, according to a former volunteer state ombudsman and government records, and was cited by state investigators for more than a dozen violations......"
That's who is running the nursing homes and taking care of your beloved old folks.
Related:
VC firm Flagship Pioneering raises $1.1b for biotech startups, despite reeling economy
Wow! How many mortgages could they pay off with that?
"Flagship intends to use the $1.1 billion to create companies that reflect several priorities, including scientific discovery through artificial intelligence and the development of medicines to address health problems before they escalate. "The current COVID-19 crisis deeply underscores the essential need for a comprehensive health security initiative to complement our current health care system,” Afeyan said. The latest fund-raising haul comes after Flagship raised $1.08 billion last year and early this year. The firm plans to use that money for companies that Flagship has launched but that need more venture capital and private investments before they can sell stock in an initial public offering. Since its founding, Flagship has raised $4.4 billion, of which more than $1.9 billion has been deployed to start and grow companies. The fund-raising announcement was a glimmer of good news for an industry that has been buffeted by the epidemic. Many drug makers have postponed or canceled drug trials, in part because they didn’t want to expose patients to the new coronavirus....."
Noubar Afeyan of Flagship Ventures at Moderna Therapeutics in Cambridge. (Lane Turner/Globe Staff)
I gue$$ I would be $miling, too, as Eli Lilly and Co., of Indianapolis, Boston-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and Moderna are al$o $et to benefit.
Time to start scolding people:
College age spring break students in Pompano Beach, Fla., in early March. (Julio Cortez/Associated Press)
"Go home!: My walks have become daily exercises in self-control, lest I throttle somebody" by Yvonne Abraham Globe Columnist, April 1, 2020
My walks have become daily exercises in self-control, lest I throttle somebody.
Strolling these days is like a cross between ballet and math. There are constant calculations as we do this slow dance around one another: Is there room on this sidewalk for both of us to keep a safe distance? How wide an arc shall I describe around that frenetic toddler? Shall I cross to the other side of the street to avoid this person, or will they? We both step off the curb, step back, chuckle, and go on our ways. We’re looking after each other, and ourselves. It’s nice.
I feel sorry for her.
Until they appear. The knuckleheads, galumphing all over our careful calibrations. I’d give them a good shake, if I were reckless enough to get near them.
Not anymore.
They are generally teens, traveling in packs of five or seven or more, slow-rolling on bikes or boards, hanging off each other. Or eight of them are standing together at the top of a trail in the woods, yukking it up as, shoulder to shoulder, they watch their drone fly overhead. Or they’re at the playground, bumping up against each other under a hoop, competing for a ball, slathered in sweat.
Save it for the elites, and they can't play hoop now.
Kids this age were supposed to be famous for living almost entirely online. Now they suddenly can’t resist being in each others’ actual presence?
She is like an old man yelling at kids because the ball went in his yard.
Like those empty-headed kids on spring break ― the ones who defied warnings, crammed together on Florida beaches, then carried the coronavirus back to their communities — they act as if they were invincible, and everybody in their lives was, too. Of course, it didn’t help that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and others refused to take the threat seriously.
DeSantis has got his mind right thanks to Trump, and what proof does she have that those kids carried it back to their communities?
She, of course, has none. This is just a lecturing, moralizing screed from somebody who is on their high hor$e!
Being the deeply flawed mother of an almost-teen myself, I am generally loath to criticize other people’s parenting. There’s only so much you can control when your kid is big enough to run her own social life. You can’t watch them every second, and plenty of teenagers are heeding the increasingly urgent pleas to stay home or keep a safe distance, but now I’m 100 percent judging the rest of you. Keep your nondistancing kids inside, people!
Oh, she is a Jewi$h mother scolding us all.
Pfft!
Every day, this catastrophe brings new horrors. Some of it is just short-sightedness, and not just among younger people, but some of it is something more sinister, and more lasting. We no longer live in the world of New York Senator Patrick Moynahan, who said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” For weeks, the president and his acolytes have conjured their own facts on this pandemic, and millions of their devotees have believed them. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, they played down the dangers of coronavirus, called warnings a hoax, repeatedly claimed it was under control.
Incredibly, this has dissolved into her waging a political cudgel.
They turned social distancing into a political act, another front in the culture wars. A poll conducted in mid-March found that Republicans who had watched Fox News were less likely to practice distancing, but people are dying even in communities that hang on the president’s every word, and it’s going to get undeniably worse. It’s too late to avoid a catastrophe, but we may yet save lives: Do the dance, make the calculations, steer clear, and if you won’t do that, then for heaven’s sake — and everybody else’s — stay home.....
The Globe mu$t be jealou$ of Fox.
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She needn't worry; I will be giving her a wide, wide berth.
People all over the country are putting stuffed bears in their windows so kids can go out and look for them in a neighborhood scavenger hunt. (Lane Turner/Globe Staff)
Grace McGregor, her husband Mark, and her children Clara and Abram (Lane Turner/Globe Staff)
Houses in Hyde Park held bears. (Lane Turner/Globe Staff)
Macklin and his mom wave to his friends as they drive by. (Lane Turner/Globe Staff)
One of Macklin Boyd's friends yells "happy birthday!" from a drive-by birthday parade. (Lane Turner/Globe Staff)
Okay, grab your pillow, it's time for bed.
Maybe they can track down those teen scofflaws, 'eh?
Governor Baker spoke at a briefing on the state's response to COVID-19 at the State House March 30. (Sam Doran/Pool)
"Governor Baker is launching a major effort to trace infected people’s contacts. Some say it might be too late" by Kay Lazar and Matt Rocheleau Globe Staff, April 1, 2020
The SOS sent out weeks ago by community leaders across Massachusetts was blunt: They couldn’t possibly track and trace everyone with COVID-19 in time to isolate the infected and stop the swift-moving virus. They just didn’t have enough staff or expertise, they told state health officials, and they sorely needed help.
Now, Governor Charlie Baker is poised to announce in coming days an initiative that would enlist more than 1,200 public health college students to answer that call. The AmeriCorps-style program was hatched by a coalition of public health groups and academic leaders working with the state, and they are pinning their hopes on students easing the burden on local health boards by collecting information from people potentially infected by each COVID-19 patient, but with hundreds of new COVID-19 cases reported each day in Massachusetts, the effort may be a bit late, say some public health specialists who are skeptical that ramped-up contact tracing will have much of an impact.
That looks like, smells like, and tastes like a DRAFT!
“Three weeks ago this would have been helpful,” said Dr. Shira Doron, an infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center.
“It’s so pervasive now, and if you have symptoms, you likely have it,” she said. “You have all these people at home, hopefully being told by their doctors or the CDC to stay home, so what is the point?”
To crash the economy and enact police state measures.
At least one large public health agency has thrown in the towel on tracing, saying it’s too late and too difficult to track individual cases. The health department in Orange County, Calif., announced March 20 that it was shifting away from “labor-intensive contact tracing" to a “more effective strategy” of trying to protect the region’s most vulnerable residents, elders and those with chronic health conditions, but leaders here say the practice may still be a catalyst in Massachusetts’ effort to curb coronavirus.
Sigh.
Nate Horwitz-Willis, who is helping to lead the charge, said reaching residents who are unaware they had close contact with an infected person might help convince them to take extra precautions, and maybe think twice about going out to get groceries and risk exposing others to infection.
“I will be damned if we throw in the towel," said Horwitz-Willis, an assistant professor of public health at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. “We just can’t do that.”
Health officials define close contact as being within six feet of an infected person for an extended period of time, generally 15 minutes or more, or being coughed or sneezed on by someone with COVID-19.
Contact tracing has been used globally to help contain outbreaks of other infectious diseases, including the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa and the increasingly common clusters of measles across the United States. In each instance, public health officials scramble to identify, isolate, and treat anyone who may have had close contact with an infected person.
You might want to keep your distance just in case.
In mid-March, a coalition of public health groups issued a pointed plea to the Baker administration. They noted: “Many local health officials on the front lines of this epidemic have experienced unclear and inconsistent guidance that undermines their ability to provide coherent, high quality public health information to community residents.”
They urged the administration to provide infectious disease specialists to help local health boards prioritize contact tracing, “determine who needs to be quarantined or isolated and for how long, and identify patterns of spread that can help slow the epidemic.”
Within two days, Horwitz-Willis said, state health officials were working closely with local health boards. The coalition sent out a survey, asking municipalities for details on what types of help they needed with contact tracing.
They also linked up with more than a half-dozen colleges, seeking volunteers among students in public health programs. Within 24 hours, more than 800 students had signed up, Horwitz-Willis said. That then ballooned to 1,200 who have agreed to staff phones and help track down potentially infected people by interviewing each person with a newly confirmed case of COVID-19.
Do you get a Scarlet Letter or Star of David with it?
Even before the pandemic, local health boards were ill-equipped for such a job. A report last summer by state and local public health experts painted a bleak picture, describing local boards as unprepared to handle medical disasters. Many scrape by with tiny budgets and staffs, and overall, Massachusetts’ local public health system, comprised of hundreds of independent municipal boards, is more fragmented than any other in the country and has failed to keep pace with national standards, the report said.
Yeah, that makes me want to run out to the doctor, and once again we see the flower of corruption in full bloom here in Ma$$achu$etts!
Ruth Mori, president of the Massachusetts Association of Public Health Nurses, said local health departments are working long hours, having to piece together confidential information about infected patients. These networks can stretch far and wide, well beyond each community’s borders, because a person’s contact circles often cross city and town lines. "Contact tracing in general with communicable disease is always important,” she said.
What are they doing with all that information, because the state isn't releasing any.
The situation with COVID-19 is so fluid that health specialists say there may not be a clear threshold for when local governments or states should graduate from trying to contain the disease with contact tracing to mitigating the severe impacts.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, chief of infectious disease at Massachusetts General Hospital, said tracing could be particularly helpful in communities or regions where the disease is still not yet widely detected.
“Doing this belt-and-suspenders approach now may also help have people prepared for when we go back to work,” Walensky said.
Barbara Ferrer, director of Los Angeles County’s health department, said she has 800 staffers hunting for the contacts of infected people, yet Ferrer, who previously led Boston’s Public Health Commission, said because of delays in testing results there and still-growing numbers of positive tests, they had to make some concessions last week. Now, her workers track down only contacts who are at the highest risk for serious illness, including the elderly and the homeless.
And Trump thought impeachment was a witch hunt!
“It’s a work in progress, at best,” Ferrer said. “If you look around the world, the countries who are doing better have never dropped their ability to identify contacts. We are going to try to do this to the best of our ability for as long as possible.”
Will they scream at you like a pod person?
--more--"
"In Boston, arrests continue to dip as pandemic rages on" by Danny McDonald Globe Staff, March 31, 2020
Amid the ongoing coronavirus menace, criminal arrests have continued to dip in Boston, with the number of people taken into custody recently by the city’s police department down by nearly 60 percent compared to last year.
Last week, between March 22 and 28, there 69 arrests by the department, according to Boston police Sergeant Detective John Boyle. Last year for those dates, Boston police arrested 167.
Earlier in the month, between March 11 and 18, Boston police made 123 arrests, versus 243 during the same period last year.
Domestic violence calls are up, but the Globe doesn't seem to care about that.
The recent numbers come during a time of significant restrictions to everyday life as government authorities look to slow the spread of COVID-19. On Tuesday, Governor Charlie Baker extended his order to close nonessential businesses and his stay-at-home advisory to May 4.
State Senator William Brownsberger, a Belmont Democrat whose district includes part of Boston, welcomed the news that arrests in the city are down. He said reducing populations in jails is imperative during the current pandemic.
“Jails are one of the hardest places in which to control infection because you have a lot of turnover in the population, a lot of people coming in and out and being confined,” he said.
Sort of like a revolving door.
Thomas Nolan, a retired Boston police officer who now teaches criminology and criminal justice at Emmanuel College, said he thinks the arrests trend in Boston would likely be found in cities across the United States in the time of COVID-19.
He said it might indicate that police recently are less inclined to engage with the public, which he said “was not necessarily a bad thing,” given the dangers of the pandemic. He also noted that “obviously there are far fewer people out in the street” because of the coronavirus.
You won't get shot.
Nolan said he was interested to know whether crime reported to police increased during periods where there were less arrests.
“If the answer to that is ‘no,’ then one could fairly question: Is this a bad thing?” he said.
He suggested that arresting fewer people may be a model authorities consider once this crisis is over.
“If we did it during the pandemic, if we were able to keep communities safe while arresting fewer people, maybe that’s a strategy we can adopt moving forward,” he said.
Once they get the tracking chip in you, yeah.
The pandemic has changed some law enforcement practices. The Middlesex district attorney’s office, which represents the state’s most populous county, has called for arrests to be made only when there is no other option, and the head of the State Police has directed troopers to increase reliance on court summonses and mailed citations for some offenses.
Don't run a red light if they let you out!
In Boston, meanwhile, police are holding roll calls outside when possible and telling officers to complete reports where they can maintain social distancing, among a host of other measures being implemented to prevent the spread of coronavirus within the ranks.
The department said Monday that 19 Boston police officers and three of its civilian employees have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
There is only one $egment of the population that is immune.
Also on Tuesday, the state’s highest court heard arguments on whether to release certain categories of inmates in Massachusetts in an effort to combat the spread of coronavirus in prisons and jails.
--more--"
Boston Police. (Aram Boghosian/For The Boston Globe/File)
Order in the Court:
"All state trials in Mass. postponed until at least May 4" by Matt Berg Globe Correspondent, April 1, 2020
Continuing efforts to protect the public from COVID-19, the Supreme Judicial Court issued an order Wednesday postponing all state trials to May 4, at the earliest.
The order came one day after Governor Charlie Baker extended his previous order that limited gatherings to 10 people or fewer, also lasting until May 4.
The high court’s order, which takes effect Monday, repeals and replaces two previous orders that restricted the number of people allowed in a courthouse, according to a statement from the SJC.
All civil and criminal trials which were scheduled to begin on or before May 1 will be delayed “unless the trial is a bench trial in a civil matter and may be conducted otherwise than in-person by agreement of the parties and of the court,” officials said.
Justice delayed is justice denied.
Courthouses will remain closed to the public “except to conduct emergency hearings that cannot be resolved virtually," the statement said.
I wonder what would be those.
The offices of court clerks, registers, and recorders will continue to work, the statement said. These duties include scheduling and facilitating hearings, issuing orders, answering questions from legal professionals and the public, and performing other necessary tasks.
All business except the filing of pleadings and other documents will be done virtually.
Starting Thursday, a public help line will be available for non-emergency court matters, the statement said. People can get assistance with questions regarding their cases or navigating the court system.
UNREAL!
For emergency assistance, the public should call local clerks’ or registers’ offices, officials said. Phone numbers can be found on the state’s courthouse locator page.
“Emergency matters include: emergency protection and harassment prevention orders; arraignments of new arrests; bail reviews; dangerousness hearings; mental health commitment orders; care and protection orders; and other matters,” the statement said.
With courts closed, the help line “will also serve as a backup resource in the event a Clerk’s or Register’s office is closed or otherwise unable to assist in an emergency,” Trial Court Chief Justice Paula Carey said in the statement.
Representatives of District Court, Boston Municipal Court, Superior Court, Probate and Family Court, Juvenile Court, Housing Court, Land Court, and the Probation Service will be on the line to help callers.....
The right to petition means call your government?
That means no more redress!
--more--"
Also see:
"For only the second time in its nearly 30 year history, Olin College of Engineering has a new president. Gilda Barabino, an administrator at City College in New York, will become Olin’s first woman and person of color, to lead the private engineering school, an Olin spokeswoman said. Barabino, who starts July 1, is a scholar well known for research into sickle cell disease, is currently the dean of The Grove School of Engineering and the Daniel and Frances Berg Professor at The City College of New York. Olin’s Board of Trustees unanimously chose Barabino because of her work at City College, where she is credited with doubling the student retention rate, developing several master’s degree programs and increasing diversity within the administration and faculty, according to the statement. Ken Stokes, chairman of Olin’s board of trustees, called Barabino “an extraordinary academic leader,” who will develop “ . . . new learning approaches and to inspire lasting change in the design and delivery of engineering education beyond our campus.” In the statement, Barabino said her connection to Olin was immediate.“ I am looking forward to working with this deeply collaborative community as Olin’s next president to help shape the future and the face of engineering education,” she said. "
That gets you into your ComfortZone so you can recover.
