I will be the first to admit I hadn't thought much about another technological upgrade at all; however, now I'm finding the very symptoms that I thought were the natural ebb and flow of life could possibly be caused by the endless array of wireless radio waves that cover us and are invisible (like COVID-19!). I'm not sick, not at all, but the thought has crossed my mind in the last few days regarding how wired is this planet. This planet has never been so wired, with all the radio waves and beams being shot all around you, every second of every day. That can't be good for human health or DNA structure. That leads to other aspects of the pre-designed agenda, tests and vaccines, stay inside coupled with AI, even the chemtrail program as conduits for electronic signals, and we begin to go to a very dark place, a place where a massive electronic control grid exists above you and a chip inside you can be tracked at all times. He will literally see you when you're sleeping. It's beyond 1984 and a Brave New World.
If my preaching isn't enough, have a look at this admittedly long Icke video (over 2 hour interview):
https://www.bitchute.com/video/H4W7FwBy0Ukh/
One must give credit where credit is due for bringing it to the attention of everyone, and one also must admit that he has been on the cutting edge forefront of the 5G dangers due to personal expertise in the field. In other words, an expert.
While there, he also directs you to another site regarding the fallibility and fraud within the testing itself. That is important to remember as we go forward because, according to the authorities and pre$$, every death is now from COVID and they will test and retest until that damn test comes back positive -- which it will because it isn't designed to detect "COVID-19," it is designed to detect any trace of flu in the DNA or detects what is naturally-occurring in all our bodies. The damn thing is so devious and so evil it's almost beyond belief. Even I, who have been doing this a long time, am having trouble coming to grips with the absolutely psychopathic evil coming from the top of the pyramid and their political minions.
Anyhow, I have had my say for now and what I now direct you to is how -- when what has been outlined above is taken into consideration -- is how all of this reporting falls into line. I had casts doubts on the repurposing lately, readers, but today's Globe removed all doubts. They are doing this thing. Now. Time to wake up.
(On a side note, I have been up since about a quarter-to-five and it's a quarter-to-eight now. The trains in town have not stopped running. They haven't come up this way, but I can hear a lot of action down south)
"Hospitals brace for a surge of coronavirus patients, but how accurate are the projections?" by David Abel Globe Staff, April 8, 2020
At some point over the next two weeks, hospitals across Massachusetts are expected to confront a significant surge in the number of coronavirus patients, putting their capacity under enormous strain and potentially claiming thousands of lives.
I don't want to be marking this up as much as usual, to be honest. I could because every p[arargrpah of promoted propaganda demands its own response, but it's so time consuming. Maybe I leave more to the reader to discern and limit the bolding to serious, serious points.
The bleak projections about the coming wave, however, vary significantly. Some of that uncertainty is due to limited testing across the state, and the unknown extent of the population that has been infected. There’s also the question of how effective social distancing has been in curbing the virus’s spread.
They lay the groundwork for whatever narrative they want to push, with an escape clause for themselves on the significantly varying projections(?) and questioning the effectiveness of forcibly separating us all.
At a news conference this week, Governor Charlie Baker said the expected surge could come as early as Friday, citing infectious disease models that seek to predict the contagion’s trajectory despite limited and rapidly changing information.
Is that what the simulated script is calling for, or are those just what's expected?
What if they are reacting to a crisis that does not exist?
“I don’t know exactly what the slope of this line ultimately looks like or how far out it goes,” Baker said, “but based on all the modeling our folks have done, by April 10, we need to be in a position to presume we’re going to see a fairly significant increase in hospitalizations.”
At a news conference on Wednesday, he added, “We’re continually reviewing the modeling, but right now we see evidence that we’re still on the upward slope of this pandemic.”
That evil creature comes from the bowels of the healthcare indu$try and is in bed with Big Pharma, so we will find no quarter there.
Officials at the state Department of Public Health have based their models on the experience of Wuhan, China, the initial epicenter of the coronavirus, where there was an average of an eight-day delay from the onset of symptoms to an admission to a hospital.
“The main takeaway is that in Wuhan, very effective social distancing measures [delayed] the cases per day by onset of symptoms within a week, but cases diagnosed, hospitalizations, and the corresponding bed-surge peak were not seen for two weeks or more after social distancing went into effect,” said Ann Scales, a spokeswoman for the department.
Related: "The lifting of Wuhan’s lockdown will be a crucial test for China, which is driving a narrative of triumph over the pandemic amid accusations it manipulated virus data and concern the highly contagious illness isn’t fully stamped out. Still, Wuhan’s emergence from an outbreak that overwhelmed its hospital system and left over 2,500 dead provides a blueprint — and a sense of hope — for other cities currently under lockdown and grappling with still peaking infection rates. Among those catching flights out were a group of doctors and nurses from northeastern Jilin province, who had traveled to the embattled city to shore up the local health-care system, part of the tens of thousands of medical workers from around the country that were sent in to help....."
Also see: Chaos, joy at Wuhan airport as doctors take flights out
You didn't have to tell us twice, dammit.
If you are hungry for more you can see what was reported by the Globe yesterday.
A month ago, Massachusetts had just eight confirmed cases and no known deaths. On March 24, a stay-at-home advisory took effect, shutting down large swaths of the economy. By Wednesday, with 87,511 people tested, the state reported 16,790 positive cases for the virus, 433 of whom had died, but the state’s models could be underestimating the severity of the peak, as well as its duration.....
Could be overestimating it, too.
A Boston EMS ambulance crew wheeled in a patient to Massachusetts General Hospital from their ambulance on Wednesday. (John Tlumacki/Globe Staff)
That scary photo greeted me on the turn-in, and it's part of the drill; however, that does not mean they are not carrying through with the plan.
Recently updated models from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation suggest that the state’s death toll will peak on April 18, when there will be an estimated 213 COVID-19-related deaths, with more than 150 lives lost per day over the following week. A day before, the institute estimated there would be as many as 373 deaths a day at the peak, with more than 300 lives lost per day over the following week. On the same day, that model suggests the state will need 8,028 hospital beds for COVID-19 patients — 3,180 more than typically exist — and 1,873 intensive care beds, or 1,596 more than typically exist. By August, if the institute’s model is accurate, nearly 5,625 people in Massachusetts are expected to die from the virus. By contrast, the state model projects a maximum of about 4,300 could die.
Scales declined to comment directly about the institute’s estimates. “There are hundreds of models out there,” she said. “We are building as much capacity as we can . . . and will continue to do so.” The state’s models, she added, are based on confirmed cases, not the actual number of people who have been infected.
Pick one.
“We don’t feel overwhelmed yet,” said Dr. Paul Sax, clinical director of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s division of infectious diseases, but much of the hospital has been reserved for coronavirus patients, and intensive care beds are filling up.
I thought they had been.
Sax said he hopes the hospital has enough ventilators and protective equipment for its staff, but that depends on how long the surge lasts, and how bad it ultimately gets, he said. “There are a lot of unknowns,” he said. “We’ve never seen anything like this before.”
That last paragraph is important.
They need ventilators.
Why?
Because people can't breath?
Why wouldn't they be able to breath when most allegedly recover from COVID-19, whatever it is?
The doctor has never seen anything like it, huh?
--more--"
I'm told these are just what the doctors ordered:
A simulation was set up in a makeshift hospital room to properly train paramedics as UMass Memorial Health prepared for the field hospital at the DCU Center in downtown Worcester. (Erin Clark/Globe Staff).
Translation equipment, EKGs and blood pressure monitors waited to be used in the field hospital at the DCU Center in Worcester. (Erin Clark/Globe Staff).
"Pop-up hospitals in Massachusetts set to open this week to handle influx of coronavirus patients; A Worcester location will accept patients Thursday, followed by sites in Boston and on the Cape" by Priyanka Dayal McCluskey Globe Staff, April 8, 2020
WORCESTER — This city’s convention center typically draws vibrant crowds for trade shows and exhibitions, but seemingly overnight it now looks ready to handle a pandemic.
I had mentioned just recently that I failed to see evidence of them doing it because there had been no reports, but there they are doing it.
It's been an honor for you, reader, to have taken the time to read me. I don't know how much longer I will be here.
Row after row of hospital beds line the 50,000-square-foot floor. Cabinets along the perimeter hold critical drugs and medical supplies. A trailer of portable showers stands at one end of the room, a movable X-ray machine at another.
This MASH-style field hospital in the DCU Center will be ready to accept its first patients Thursday — one of three pop-up hospital sites to treat the fast-rising numbers of people in Massachusetts sickened by coronavirus.
So that is why M*A*S*H was rerun the last couple of years before abruptly disappearing from the vast wasteland that is the televiZion schedule. They wanted to get people accustomed to a draft during war time and make the military seem fun!
A larger site at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in the Seaport is also expected to be ready this week, though it’s not yet clear when the location will accept patients. A third site is planned for Joint Base Cape Cod.
We will all "test positive," and this is pure evil.
The pop-up hospitals are designed for people who have tested positive for COVID-19 and are sick enough that they need to be monitored by doctors and nurses, but not so ill that they need critical care. By treating less acute patients at these sites, hospitals will have more space to treat seriously ill patients, including those who need ventilators to help them breathe.
Worcester paramedic Deanne Chase, left, received instructions from UMass Memorial Flight Medic and Simulation Educator Jorge Yarzebski on how to use a computerized device to aid in intubating a medical dummy. (Erin Clark/Globe Staff).
Are you going to comfortable with those aliens poking and prodding you?
I wonder if he knows Colleen Smith.
The Boston field hospital will have 1,000 beds, half of them designated for the homeless. Partners HealthCare is managing the site and is seeking volunteers to sign up for 12-hour shifts at the convention center. Cape Cod Healthcare will manage the Cape location but has not said when it will be ready.
I'm just sitting here wondering why the healthcare conglomerates are furloughing and laying off workers, but now they want volunteers?
Who wants to volunteer(?) to go into those germ receptacles?
Is there PAY involved?
“This work is incredibly important because our modeling predicts an increase in the number of patients that will need medical attention or post-acute care in the coming weeks,” said Brooke Karanovich, spokeswoman for the state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services. "More than 20 other states have set up field medical facilities or other alternative care sites.”
The rapid effort to build the Worcester field hospital involved hundreds of people from city, state, and federal agencies, and the private UMass Memorial Health Care system. It began last week when beds and other supplies from the federal government arrived, and members of the Massachusetts National Guard began assembling them. Staff from UMass Memorial have been supplying the medical equipment.
“It looks different, feels different in here,” said Dr. John Broach, a disaster medicine specialist at UMass Memorial and medical director for the Worcester field hospital, “but in terms of medical care, we’re planning on making it identical [to] care that people receive in the hospital.”
While traditional hospitals are not yet full, these field hospitals are critical to the state’s strategy of increasing capacity to manage the expected surge in patients. State officials expect these locations will add 1,500 to 2,000 beds.
The "surge" is going to be when they turn on the 5G!!
That's why they are doing this. This is REAL!
Field hospitals have been part of the strategy in other hard-hit areas, from Wuhan, China, to New York City. In addition to treating patients who need hospital care, the sites can serve as observation units for patients who are recovering from the virus but not yet ready to go home.
“The creation of field hospitals is an important piece of the puzzle in generating overall capacity,” said Dr. Thomas Tsai, assistant professor at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Tsai and his colleagues have projected that Massachusetts could see a surge of coronavirus patients that far surpasses the number of hospital beds in the state — but the models don’t account for changes over the past few weeks to increase hospital beds and to slow the spread of the virus through social distancing.
Individual hospitals have also taken steps to expand capacity, particularly for patients who need intensive care, for example, by converting recovery rooms into intensive care units.
“The hope is that we may never see the surge that will require us to use the field hospitals, but it’s important for us to have them in place, because there’s a lot of uncertainty around the hospitalization rate,” Tsai said.
In Worcester, the convention center was transformed in about 10 days. The site has 216 beds — metal cots with slim black mattresses — each in a 10-foot-by-10-foot square. Thin black screens serve as walls to give patients some privacy. There is no natural light. The setup is spare, though staff are working to provide patients some small comforts, such as iPads to help them pass the time.
No natural light or fresh air?!
That will KEEP PEOPLE SICK, and the CONFINED QUARTERS will CAUSE CONTAGION as they KEEP YOU BUSY on your iPad, which will at least have 5G speed capability (who benefits from this $ick $hit again?)!
These people ARE EVIL BEYOND BELIEF!!
The only word I can think of is SATANIC!
Turning an exhibition hall into a hospital involved several logistical challenges, including how to provide oxygen to patients and how to monitor their vital signs. UMass Memorial officials hired contract workers to install oxygen tanks outside the building and pump the oxygen through tubes to the patients inside. They purchased wearable biosensors that will allow nurses to keep track of patients’ heart rates on Bluetooth-connected screens.
Hired contract workers?
From who?
The vast room has been converted so it has negative air pressure to control the spread of germs.
Okay, I need to stop here and address the lack of oxygen thing and the failure of vital organs along with the negative air pressure (the air literally being sucked out of your lungs as the techs work their 5G iPads and computers for care):
"Even as hospitals and governors raise the alarm about a shortage of ventilators, some critical care physicians are questioning the widespread use of the breathing machines for Covid-19 patients, saying that large numbers of patients could instead be treated with less intensive respiratory support. If the iconoclasts are right, putting coronavirus patients on ventilators could be of little benefit to many and even harmful to some. What’s driving this reassessment is a baffling observation about Covid-19: Many patients have blood oxygen levels so low they should be dead, but they’re not gasping for air, their hearts aren’t racing, and their brains show no signs of blinking off from lack of oxygen. That is making critical care physicians suspect that blood levels of oxygen, which for decades have driven decisions about breathing support for patients with pneumonia and acute respiratory distress, might be misleading them about how to care for those with Covid-19. In particular, more and more are concerned about the use of intubation and mechanical ventilators. They argue that more patients could receive simpler, noninvasive respiratory support, such as the breathing masks used in sleep apnea, at least to start with and maybe for the duration of the illness. That would help relieve a shortage of ventilators so critical that states are scrambling to procure them and some hospitals are taking the unprecedented (and largely untested) step of using a single ventilator for more than one patient, and it would mean fewer Covid-19 patients, particularly elderly ones, would be at risk of suffering the long-term cognitive and physical effects of sedation and intubation while being on a ventilator. None of this means that ventilators are not necessary in the Covid-19 crisis, or that hospitals are wrong to fear running out, but as doctors learn more about treating Covid-19, and question old dogma about blood oxygen and the need for ventilators, they might be able to substitute simpler and more widely available devices. An oxygen saturation rate below 93% (normal is 95% to 100%) has long been taken as a sign of potential hypoxia and impending organ damage. Before Covid-19, when the oxygen level dropped below this threshold, physicians supported their patients’ breathing with noninvasive devices such as continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP, the sleep apnea device) and bilevel positive airway pressure ventilators (BiPAP). Both work via a tube into a face mask....."
That is a recent report from a Globe appendage, and they are basically saying we will all need to be in oxygen masks (the ruling cla$$ that foisted this monstrosity on humanity will never want for air)!
Beyond that, they are pointing out the lack of oxygen intake -- what 5G has been shown to inhibit from humans due to its frequency or whatever -- is SO LOW that the PATIENTS should be DEAD!
Please keep that information in mind as we proceed downward, as they reassess whether there is enough air for all of us.
Computers were delivered from empty wings of UMass Memorial Medical Center, a couple of miles away, where elective surgeries and nonurgent appointments have been canceled. Meals will be cooked at the medical center and delivered to the DCU Center. Colorful signs, marking patient units and nurses’ stations, came from a local print shop.
If they had an empty wing at the hospital, why would they need to convert the convention center?
EVIL!
Dr. Eric Dickson, chief executive of UMass Memorial Health Care, estimated the nonprofit health system is spending at least $10 million to set up the site.
How many employees have been furloughed due to the cancelling of "elective and non urgent(!!): surgeries? Who decides that?
None of it would matter if the hospital could not find enough health care professionals to work here, but so far, officials are confident they have enough staff — a combination of doctors and nurses from UMass Memorial, nursing students, medical students and recent graduates, and recently retired health care workers.
“We got 1,000 people who volunteered to work for us,” Dickson said during a visit to the field hospital this week. “I thought this was going to be a bigger problem.”
Really?
Who hired the flash mob and crisis actors?
As many as 200 workers will staff the site during each shift — if it fills up. They all will wear protective equipment, including masks, gowns, and gloves, when they’re around patients, in the area known as the “hot zone.”
The facility will have a few ventilators and paramedics experienced with intubation in case a patient’s condition deteriorates. Anyone who needs to remain on a ventilator would be transferred to a nearby ICU.
Jessie Kibbe set up work stations in the field hospital. (Erin Clark/Globe Staff)
Worcester city officials initially considered using the student dorms at Worcester State University as a potential hospital site, but they quickly dropped the idea. Patients would be behind doors and across different floors, making it difficult for health care providers.
Yeah, screw the privacy and comfort of the patients they allegedly care so much about!
Let's put them/us on slim black mattresses in a 10-foot-by-10-foot square with thin black screens serve as walls and no natural light, but with some small comforts such as an iPad to help them pass the time.
You know, the lack of natural light is going to be a major health problem.
It's almost as if THEY WANT US TO BE SICK and DIE!
Hospital and city officials concluded that the city-owned DCU Center, with its open layout, would be the best option. The Baker administration backed the plan.
The project has required public officials and health care providers to make quick decisions without dwelling on the details of how to divide responsibilities or costs. For example, they hastily purchased a generator to ensure the field hospital would have a backup power supply.
That always results in DISASTER!!
"I don't know who's paying for the backup generator. I don't know if I'm paying for that, or somebody else," said Worcester City Manager Edward M. Augustus Jr. "We approached this as: 'Just do it. If this is what has to be done, just do it.' " We wanted to get this thing done and be ready, before the peak hit.”
In other words, he got himself rolled!
--more--"
(flip below fold)
Ten-hut!
"Staffing issues still plague Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke despite National Guard presence and state assurances" by Hanna Krueger Globe Staff, April 8, 2020
For a week, caregivers at the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke battled the fast-moving contagion, unprotected and severely outmanned, but last Monday, when state officials learned of the deadly outbreak and took control of the elder care facility, help finally arrived.
You don't want that kind of "help."
Droves of National Guard soldiers unloaded boxes of face shields and surgical gowns and began to administer tests for the coronavirus that had swept through the state-run home, killing nearly a dozen veterans and infecting scores more, but a week later, the situation remains bleak, workers at the home say. Nurses still report dire staff shortages and quarantine violations.
Upon the turn-in I was greeted with this:
Nurses say the crisis has deepened despite the efforts of the National Guard. (Suzanne Kreiter/Globe staff)
State officials said they did not learn about the severity of the outbreak until five days after the first casualty on March 24, when an anonymous tipster and the union raised alarm. Governor Charlie Baker immediately placed the facility’s superintendent, Bennett Walsh, on paid administrative leave and hired former prosecutor Mark Pearlstein to investigate the home, the events that led to the outbreak, and why the home failed to notify public health officials as conditions worsened.
Cover-up in progress.
Baker appointed Val Liptak, chief executive of Western Massachusetts Hospital, as interim superintendent of the facility and deployed a National Guard contingent to expedite coronavirus testing, distribute personal protective equipment, and relieve overburdened nurses.
He/she is there to clean things up.
Despite the leadership overhaul and an influx of aid, the crisis has deepened. Twenty-seven veterans have now died, at least 20 due to the coronavirus, and 62 others, many with preexisting conditions that make them highly vulnerable to the disease, have tested positive. Eighteen others are being retested.
Union leaders and workers have said managers exacerbated the outbreak by combining units to conserve staff and putting residents with symptoms in close proximity with the healthy.
Such lapses have continued in recent days, nurses said. In at least one unit, uninfected residents share a three-stall bathroom with residents who have tested positive. A spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Health and Human Services said Monday that “clinical command is enforcing quarantine zones for COVID-19-positive residents,” but declined to respond directly to reports of the shared bathroom.
Again, this test are not COVID-19 specific and detect natural antibodies and immunities that are then declared positive by these evil agenda-pushers.
They ARE getting rid of all the "useless eaters," folks.
With staffing levels critically low, caregivers who have tested positive continue to work in units with veterans who have managed to stay infection-free, according to three employees and two union officials.
In an internal e-mail sent Friday, Debra Foley, communications director of the facility, told all staff who had tested positive but were asymptomatic to continue showing up for work, despite studies that have shown asymptomatic people can still transmit the virus and cause severe cases in those they infect.
You see the agenda, you know what it is.
On Wednesday, the Executive Office of Health and Human Services acknowledged that the return-to-work chart Foley had sent out neglected to say that positive but asymptomatic staffers should wait seven days after testing to return to the facility. A new e-mail making that clear was sent out Wednesday.
That clears up everything!
The office said the policy was based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines that permit asymptomatic health care professionals to return to work if “options to improve staffing have been exhausted.” The office also said staffers who meet that criterion will only work with COVID-19 patients.
While the National Guard deployment has helped stabilize the situation to a degree, the staffing shortages have also led to a breakdown in communication between the facility and the families of the veteran residents, who haven’t been able to visit since March 14 and were kept in the dark as fatalities mounted. Nurses buzz through the home to the ceaseless sound of ringing telephones as family members try desperately to reach their loved ones. “Our phones, they don’t stop ringing,” said the nighttime nurse, echoing the reports of two other nurses on different units, “but there is just so much going on.”
But they care about us all so much, that's why they are doing all this, why they destroyed your livelihood and the economy, etc, etc, because they love us so much.
If they love us so much, why have they allowed things to get so bad while filling their pockets with loot and privilege?
SUPPORT the TROOPS?
Susan Regens-Burger was one of those callers. Last Thursday, her family had plans for a Zoom call with her 99-year-old father, John MacKay, a World War II veteran who has tested positive. They waited for a half-hour, but he never joined. The staffer who had set up the call had fallen ill. On Sunday, Regens-Burger couldn’t reach anyone. Finally, on Tuesday, she received a callback. Her father’s oxygen level had dropped from a cautiously safe 94 to the dangerous territory of 89.
Let me catch my breath and I will go on.
“I think I’ve aged myself 10 years in a week,” she said. Her family had plans to celebrate MacKay’s 100th birthday on May 15. His life has included an Air Force tour in Burma, a career as a social studies teacher, and time spent cleaning up after five daughters like “a janitor in a sorority house.” Now Regens-Burger doubts MacKay will make it to May.
I would doubt it, too, and reading that brings a tear to my eye.
As for the Zoom, it's helping to keep grandparents and grandchildren connected in new ways (from a distance, yes, but that 5G will get you their faster) even if the report card from Zoom University portends a future that is much murkier than any of us could imagine. Looks like they failed in the privacy and security subjects, but let there be no mourning the senior year of 2020 (in more ways than one) for there is no need for Beacon Hill to cancel MCAS or the Boston-state school partnership because the decisions are best left to the state’s education commissioner.
Meanwhile, the remaining staff who have tested negative for the virus so far worry that their luck will soon run out. “Each morning you basically go, ‘I’m gonna get it,’ ” one nurse said. “It’s just a question of how bad.”
A nursing assistant from the facility is currently on a ventilator in a nearby hospital’s intensive care unit from complications of COVID-19, according to Cory Bombredi of Service Employees International Union Local 888, which represents the home’s employees.....
Knowing that oxygen deprivation is an aspect of 5G and that entire $y$tem is being set up to keep us housebound forever, there will no longer be a need for you to own a car. That is why the US government just made a $490 million deal with GM for emergency ventilators. The labor force must be tran$formed with the wheat separated from the chaff, and it is not just GM. Tesla and Apple are being converted as well. Expect some recalls, but the air will be cleaner because there will be no one left (it's the worst-ever free-fall collapse, worse than Sept. 11, 2001) to board the planes.
Related: Arlington residents pay tribute during funeral parade for Air Force veteran without kin
She died of, you guessed it, COVID.
Same as the 94-year-old master jazz guitarist and the elite ’70s character actor most famous for The Candidate and Continental Divide, as well as the 100-year-old astronomer who was complaining about the 5G Tesla satellites.
Of course, there are others who likely died from other causes, such as Linda Tripp, a key figure in Clinton impeachment (another Clinton body bag) or the great-grandson of RFK (message to Jr, don't vaxx nostalgic).
Related (B1):
"State moving forward with nursing home relocation, despite problems; New coronavirus cases and deaths reported at long-term care facilities" by Robert Weisman Globe Staff, April 8, 2020
State officials are pressing ahead with a plan to designate nursing homes across Massachusetts as treatment centers for recovering COVID-19 patients despite infection outbreaks at the first three homes that agreed to relocate residents to accommodate patients discharged from hospitals.
Recovering patients still needing oxygen and other support began arriving at Beaumont Rehabilitation and Skilled Nursing Center in Worcester on Monday even as residents who tested positive for the coronavirus remained quarantined on another floor in that facility, a state spokeswoman said.
Take a deep breath -- if you can!
Meanwhile, at least three sites on the South Coast and Cape Cod are being converted into recovery centers, including two former New Bedford nursing homes that are empty and being furnished with equipment.
Because none of us will be able to breath when they flick the switch.
Governor Charlie Baker said Wednesday that the state hopes the new “step-down facilities” will handle about 1,000 patients who’ve been released from critical care before they return home.
Baker administration officials have set aside $30 million to compensate operators that repurpose their nursing homes. The aim is to ease the burden on hospitals during the expected surge in patients between April 10 and April 20, but plans to move residents to nearby facilities are encountering growing protests from families and advocates for residents, and on Wednesday, the state chapter of the senior advocacy group AARP, which works closely with state officials on a range of issues, expressed concern about the involuntary moves.
And if the surge doesn't happen, these people have been inconvenienced beyond belief and had their lives totally upended -- while being deprived of family!
EVIL!
“Transfer [of residents] without offering appropriate and effective counseling and planning can lead to isolation and despair and the lack of predictability maximizes fear and anxiety,” the group wrote in a letter to Baker.
I'm glad the AARP is at least raising some concerns!
Not all of the new recovery sites will involve relocating residents. Residents being relocated to make room for COVID-19 patients are a top priority for testing by National Guard lab technicians. The new state guidance calls for residents who test positive to be isolated from those testing negative, meaning they’d be likely to remain in place if their facility is relocating residents.
Two other nursing facilities, AdviniaCare in Wilmington and Fairview Commons in Great Barrington, halted their plans to move out residents after clusters at both sites tested positive for the virus. Beaumont, the first home to agree to become a recovery center, had already moved about 120 residents last week when residents preparing to move tested positive.
AdviniaCare, where 77 residents have tested positive, still plans to convert to a recovery center, said David Ball, a spokesman for its Norwood-based parent company Pointe Group Care, but he said the timetable isn’t clear. He said it plans to relocate residents who test negative while isolating those testing positive in the building.
Nursing homes continued to report new or expanded COVID-19 outbreaks Wednesday. Ball confirmed that seven residents who tested positive at AdviniaCare have died, all of whom were receiving end-of-life care before they were tested.
In a joint statement Wednesday evening, Wilmington town officials and state legislators representing the town said they have been “closely monitoring conditions" at AdviniaCare and are working " to provide any and all appropriate resources to support the health and safety of patients and staff at the site."
I'm sure that makes everyone feel better!
Five residents died and 28 tested positive at the Alliance at West Acres nursing home in Brockton, according to a statement by its parent company, Alliance Health and Human Services, based in Southborough, and at Mount Saint Vincent Care Center in Holyoke, part of a chain of Catholic nursing homes operated by Trinity Health of New England, eight residents tested positive, said Christine Looby, a spokeswoman.
Management at the Mary Immaculate nursing home in Lawrence, which last weekend said six residents had tested positive, declined Wednesday to release the number of positive cases. Its director said the home reports the information to state officials — who haven’t disclosed site-specific data — but would not release it publicly.
Why?
As part of a plan to pump $800 million into financially strapped Massachusetts health care providers, announced by Baker on Tuesday, state officials said $80 million will be directed to nursing facilities. Of that total, the officials said, $50 million will go to all nursing sites and $30 million to those becoming dedicated recovery centers “to support their capacity to care for COVID-19 patients," but the plan to relocate old and frail residents at some of the nursing homes has come under increased scrutiny.
That looks like bribe money to keep everybody quiet about the quiet hospitals and neglected care.
In a letter to the governor, Paul Lanzikos, a former Massachusetts secretary of elder affairs, last week wrote that “even in the best of circumstances, transfer of nursing residents is psychologically and physically traumatic.”
I think that is the whole point of this exercise, and why should the elderly be exempted by the psychopaths?
AARP called on the Baker administration to release information on senior care facilities that have seen cases of COVID-19.
“Caregivers and family members need and deserve to have this information for their own health decisions and as they consider possible next steps and interventions for their loved ones,” the organization wrote.....
Baker doesn't care.
--more--"
Related:
State releases sparse coronavirus race and ethnicity data, making virus’s impact hard to assess"
Put that in the grocery cart for later, and even condo and apartment buildings have turned into towers of fear (like 9/11!).
That last Globe link was from an article by the in$ulting eliti$t Beth Teitell as she searches for a bottle of Purell. She is the one who reported asked "Is it petty to gossip about your husband during a pandemic, answering technically, yes, but with the whole family home all day, every day, for every meal, and with some people talking very loudly on conference calls, and every day both a weekend and a workday, and restaurants closed, and the sudden mandate to home-school, many moms are so burdened they can’t help themselves. A mere few days into the great shut-in, the whispered gripes were flooding in like grandparents not listening to their kids’ coronavirus lectures and lying about going to the grocery store and pretending they weren’t playing bridge because the original helicopter parents won’t be grounded because they are now Boomer Teenagers or Disobedient Parents or Senior Delinquents proving ungovernable. She is the same one who slung such sh!t as the mask is on and don't happy, be worry (be afraid of your own children, folks, and rush them off to school as fast as you can).
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Here is what the Globe brought home in their shopping cart:
"After worker’s death, grocery stores lay out measures to keep shoppers, staff safe under new state rules" by Travis Andersen Globe Staff, April 8, 2020
I'm told it's a "whole new order" in the printed headline and turn-in banner.
One day after state officials released updated safety rules for grocery stores amid the COVID-19 pandemic, leading supermarket chains on Wednesday laid out a number of measures they’re taking to protect customers and staff.
They release plenty of guidelines but no data!
The measures were announced amid growing fears among employees about contracting the coronavirus. Over the weekend, 59-year-old Vitalina Williams, who worked at a Market Basket in Salem and at a Lynn Walmart, succumbed to COVID-19.
Or something.
In a statement Wednesday, Walmart said Williams “was adored by her Walmart family and will be greatly missed. Our hearts go out to her family.”
Market Basket had previously said that the “entire Market Basket community is deeply saddened” by Williams’s death and offering “support to her family and co-workers during this difficult time.”
Related:
"She appears to be the first grocery store worker in Massachusetts to have died from the virus. Her death comes as grocery store workers demand more protection, including masks and gloves, to protect them from the public amid the pandemic. Williams worked part-time at Market Basket, and full-time at Walmart, where her duties included checking shoppers’ receipts at the front door to make sure they matched their purchases, he said. His wife, an immigrant from Guatemala, was generally healthy, despite working two jobs, David Williams said, but he wonders if her immune system lately wasn’t as strong as it could have been. “She’s always been susceptible to laryngitis when she would get a cold,” David Williams said. David Williams, who stocks shelves at the Market Basket in Danvers, said his wife first experienced symptoms of COVID-19 around March 25. The next day, she came home from her job at Walmart early because she was feeling ill, and she did not return to either job afterward, he said. On March 27, she was resting more comfortably and felt better during the daytime. She took a turn for the worse overnight and was hospitalized on March 28, he said. After she was admitted to the hospital, she was quickly connected to a ventilator, so she was unable to speak by phone, and he was unable to visit her, David Williams said. “The last time I saw her as a conscious human being was when she was sitting in a chair in the emergency room being interviewed by the nurse,” he said by telephone Tuesday evening, “and I had to leave because I wasn’t allowed to stay.” It is not known where Vitalina Williams contracted the coronavirus that as of Tuesday had claimed 356 lives in Massachusetts and sickened more than 15,000 residents......"
That story is absolutely tragic, and situation many of us may soon find ourselves!
He wasn't allowed to stay and had to leave, huh? The husband?
I would also like to point out that, while tragic, that woman's death is no more tragic than the stacks of corpses that are ignored in places like Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, and Palestine, where no one in western leader$hip or media seems to care.
Sorry for filling up the Basket the Globe has ignored since the non-union walkout and strike(?).
Market Basket said it has been “constantly refining our operations focused on the health and safety of our customers and associates.” The company said in a statement that on April 2 it began limiting the number of shoppers in stores and has made gloves available to workers. Market Basket is also providing masks to workers and installing plexiglass shields at checkouts.
Those things will never come down, at least until the stores close and all food is delivered by robots, along with medicine. You will never have to leave the house again.
Also on Wednesday, Walmart spokeswoman Anne Hatfield said that the company has implemented a number of precautions at its stores, including taking temperatures of all employees and asking them about symptoms on a short questionnaire at the start of their shifts. If a worker has a temperature of 100 degrees or higher or answers yes to any of the questions, they can’t work, and, Hatfield said, the company has developed an emergency leave policy specifically for the pandemic that applies to all full-time, part-time, and temporary employees.
I hope it's worth it.
In addition, she said, masks and gloves are being distributed to all stores for employee use, plexiglass guards have been installed at checkout counters and pharmacies, high-traffic areas such as self-checkout lanes are being cleaned regularly, shopping carts are being wiped down after each use, signs and floor markings have been added to remind customers about social distancing, and stores are limiting the number of patrons allowed inside at any given time.
In a separate statement Wednesday, Stop & Shop, which operates 134 Massachusetts locations, said it’s “making every effort possible to maintain a safe environment for our associates and customers.”
The company listed a number of safety measures it has rolled out, including aisles that are one-way traffic only; obtaining KN95 masks for workers, thousands of which have already been delivered to staffers in Greater Boston; barring the use of reusable bags; installing plastic guards at registers and pharmacies; marking floors with tape at each register to keep customers six feet apart; temporarily closing deli counter service; opening every other register lane when possible to create further social distancing; and reserving shopping hours from 6 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. for customers over 60.
I don't want to go over there anymore.
Stop & Shop also listed what it called “robust” cleaning procedures, such as sanitizing high-touch areas; having workers wash hands at more frequent intervals and use hand sanitizer on a regular basis; ensuring workers have access to disinfecting wipes, gloves, and hand sanitizers; making disinfecting wipes available at store entrances so customers can wipe down carriages, hand baskets, and ScanIt! electronic devices before use; suspending all self-serve options like olive bars, wing bars, salad bars, hot bars, and coffee bars; and hiring a third-party cleaning company to allow for a “dedicated” cleaner at each store from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
That must be why there are none of those products on the shelves!
A number of other supermarket chains that operate in Massachusetts have posted similar materials on their websites, and many of the measures mirror the state Department of Public Health rules issued Tuesday.
They were released in an effort to “clarify” an earlier order from the state commissioner of public health, Dr. Monica Bharel, regarding safety protocols at food stores, said a written copy of the guidance from the agency.
I'm glad to see that essential person has recovered and is back to work without having been placed in a pop-up hospital!
All grocery stores must limit occupancy to 40 percent of maximum capacity, but stores with a maximum occupancy of 25 persons or fewer are exempt, but local boards of health should consult with smaller stores to ensure appropriate protections are in place, the state said.
In addition, store staff must monitor the number of customers entering and exiting to demonstrate compliance with the 40 percent order, and no local health board is permitted to enforce a different limit.
That is Soviet Union circa the 1990s, folks.
Enjoy, America!
BJs Wholesale Club recently announced that no more than 20 percent of a store’s capacity will be allowed inside at any time.
What if it is bad weather outside?
If lines form outside stores, the state guidelines said, staff should monitor them to ensure customers are staying at least six feet away from each other, and if long lines form or “other physical security concerns arise, local law enforcement should be notified and consulted.”
Yeah, be a good East German!
Someone is actually arguing that supermarket clerks and other low-wage workers have joined the pantheon of American heroes, and quotes none other than Henry Ford to make her argument!
The DPH also advised local health boards not to issue rules on which products grocery stores can or can’t sell, or how items can be displayed. If health boards have concerns about certain products, they should consult with store operators to discuss the “value of special safety protocols to reduce risk.”
--more--"
How long until those social distance lines turn into riots?
At least the tech jobs are safe, right?
"More job cuts hit Boston’s tech sector as coronavirus effects spread; Restaurant software developer Toast joins EzCater, others in big hits to workforce" by Janelle Nanos Globe Staff, April 8, 2020
The economic shock from the COVID-19 pandemic is now reaching deeper into Boston’s once-booming tech industry, with two of the region’s most promising companies announcing layoffs and furloughs of employees in recent days.
Toast, the maker of popular software and systems used by the restaurant industry, said late Tuesday that it was laying off over 1,000 employees, reducing its workforce by about half through layoffs and furloughs. The company said that restaurant revenues have declined by 80 percent since state and local officials began shutting down businesses nationwide, and “our success is tightly coupled with the success of the restaurant industry."
The slice of Toast has been burnt!?
The company, which provides management software to restaurants, announced a $400 million Series F funding round and a $4.9 billion valuation in February.
Another fast-growing firm, EzCater, also announced late Tuesday that it would be laying off 400 workers. The Boston-based company, which facilitates catering orders for business meetings, has been valued by its investors at more than $1 billion and had 900 workers prior to the layoffs.
You will have to find another caterer then.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday morning, Wayfair, the online furniture retailer that has become the city’s most successful consumer-tech company, disclosed more details about a half-billion debt investment it received from two private equity firms earlier in the week. SEC filings from Wayfair indicate that the housewares company has taken on a $535 million loan from Great Hill Partners and Charlesbank Capital Partners. The deal gives the investors two seats on the company’s board of directors, giving the cash-burning enterprise access to funds at a time when the stock market is struggling.
They have never made a profit, and the housing market is collapsing with the rest of the economy.
While the money bolsters Wayfair’s balance sheet, it will also dilute somewhat the power of cofounders Niraj Shah and Steve Conine, who also serve as cochairs of the board of directors. The pair recently oversaw a round of layoffs in February that affected 550 workers, 350 of which were in Boston.
The pandemic has caused many established and profitable tech companies to reset expectations for Q1 and all of 2020, said Ben Rose, the president of Lexington-based Battle Road Research, and that’s making it that much harder for startups or companies that have gone public but are still bleeding cash.
“Tech unicorns that are unprofitable will have difficulty accessing the public markets, as investors fear their business models will not prove out," he said. “Wayfair is an example of an unprofitable tech company,” he added, which is why it needed to approach private investors who are going to ask for a guarantee of a higher rate of return in exchange for taking on greater risk; however, Rose said he’s more optimistic that profitable companies that are growing organically — instead of through acquisitions — will have the best shot at going public once the coronavirus fear subsides.
The terminology makes you sick.
In a letter to staff, Toast chief executive Chris Comparato wrote that the company had tried to support restaurants that were among the first businesses to be closed in the shutdowns, issuing credit to customers and creating free access to online ordering, but that took its toll on Toast itself, Comparato said. The company had been seeing such significant growth last year that it was in the process of scaling up hiring, “but with limited visibility into how quickly the industry may recover, and facing slower than anticipated growth," he wrote, "we now find ourselves in the unenviable position of reducing our headcount.”
That's $tale now.
The company has frozen hiring, pulled back on offers, halted merit increases, and will reduce pay of senior executives. It said it will offer a severance package, benefits coverage, mental health support, and an extended window during which departing employees can purchase vested stock options.
Why would employees being let go want to invest in the company's stock?
Are these guys IN$ANE?
EzCater was even more blunt, saying in a statement, “There is not enough sugar on the planet to sugarcoat this: we’re a company that feeds meetings, and meetings are not happening much right now.”
Meanwhile, the region’s consumer-facing tech firms serving the travel industry have already been hit hard as many of these companies provide accommodations for corporate offices, which are now closed as employees work from home. Lola.com, Zipcar, Hopper, and Wanderu have all cut back workers as travel restrictions have decimated the industry. At Logan Airport, the number of passengers fell by 93 percent between March 23 and 29, compared to the same period last year, according to the latest Massport data.
Then why can't we breath easier?
Corporate catering startup Alchemista and smart water-machine maker Bevi are among the other startups that have also laid off or furloughed workers, citing the shutdown of the office market.
Bevi chief executive Sean Grundy said the company let go of 33 employees in March, putting the company’s headcount at 120. Before the pandemic, the company had raised $60 million in venture capital funding.
“We get real-time information on how the machines are being used, and over 90 percent of our machines are off right now,” Grundy said. “Our risk models never included the possibility that literally the whole world would stop going to work one day — that is a pretty out-there scenario.”
Some have been planning that "out-there scenario" for a long time, and some knew ahead of time and sold their stock!
He realizes that all companies are thinking about how to save money, and hesitant to sign new contracts and sign up for new expenses, but he’s hopeful that the tech industry will rebound and offer an opportunity for innovation.
“If this pandemic continues for, say, a year, and work from home mandates get extended, I think entrepreneurs will find innovative business models and adapt to this new lifestyle,” Grundy said.
Yeah, we will all just adapt!
Semyon Dukach said he doubts the pandemic will have as large an impact on the city’s startup scene as when earlier bubbles burst.
“The first couple of weeks were the worst, people were panicked,” said Dukach, a tech investor who runs One Way Ventures and previously led the Techstars Boston startup program. “If you’re in restaurants or hotels, you’re going to be hurting. If a funding round falls through, you might do a layoff,” but, he said, “in tech, most people grow fast" and run the operation at a loss. "You raise money from investors periodically. You’re much better off than a restaurant, or any business that operates on a margin.”
I'm sure the "investors" love reading that!
"I don't think it'll affect tech as much as in 2000," he said, referring to the dot-com bust. "Tech valuations will come down a bit, but they're not going to collapse."
Many tech startups he knows have applied for federal stimulus money through the Paycheck Protection Program. “A bunch said they’re already approved," he said. "It’s massive.”
Then they were one of the "lucky" ones!
--more--"
Better hurry up and file an unemployment claim because the fund is quickly running dry!
This thing is going to turn bad very, very quickly, folks.
Related: Waltham biotech lands big partnership with Roche
Netted them and chief executive Michael Gilman a cool $190 million.
Block evictions during the crisis, or just delay them?
Lawmakers must decide, and they better hurry up. The next rent check is due at the end of the month!
This is same thing that happened in 2008-2009, when all the banks robosigned the foreclosure deals and stole people's homes from them to balance their bottom lines with tangible assets. Deja vu!
Also see:
"Students who live at LightView Apartments, a private residential complex built on Northeastern land across from campus to house the university’s undergraduates, say they are caught in a financial bind....."
They talked to a Ms. Olivia Stieler von Heydekampf, 21, a junior at Northeastern, and this guy:
Brennan Balasubramaniam, a Northeastern senior, is unhappy about having to pay rent through mid-August now that there is little chance for him to sublease his apartment. (Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff)
They also cancelled April vacation, but what does it matter? You are at home anyway.
Something stinks in that room:
"Recreational marijuana companies sue Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker over shutdown; Lawsuit comes despite new CCC order allowing some businesses to sell inventory to medical dispensaries" by Dan Adams Globe Staff, April 8, 2020
A group of marijuana businesses and consumers sued Governor Charlie Baker on Wednesday, saying his decision to shut down recreational cannabis operations amid the coronavirus pandemic was an illegal overreach that will cost thousands of jobs — and endanger public health by forcing consumers into the illicit market.
The suit was filed in Suffolk Superior Court on behalf of five licensed marijuana operators and Stephen Mandile, an Army veteran and Uxbridge selectman. Mandile said he relies on cannabis to treat serious injuries he sustained in the Iraq War but fears losing his federal benefits if his name appears in a database of medical marijuana patients, since the drug remains illegal under US law.
So Baker doesn't support the troops, does he?
“We know there are thousands of other patients in the Commonwealth that rely on the [recreational] market for their medicine,” said Adam Fine, an attorney with Vicente Sederberg, one of two law firms involved in the suit. “You couple that with a nascent industry that doesn’t have access to federal relief, and which has also proven itself to be highly compliant with regulations, and you see it’s irrational to keep these businesses shut down."
Uh, yeah. Despite the voters' wishes, you will never see recreational pot in Ma$$achu$Etts ever again.
In March, Baker deemed medical marijuana operations “essential” and has allowed them to continue serving certified patients, but despite heavy pressure from a coalition of 30 state legislators and marijuana industry groups, he has said reopening recreational retailers is a “nonstarter,” because they draw too many out-of-state visitors at a time when public health officials are urging less travel.
Crap excuse.
“Making [recreational shops] available to anybody from the Northeast would cut completely against the entire strategy we’re trying to pursue here in Massachusetts to keep people safe,” the governor reiterated at a press conference Wednesday. When a reporter asked whether sales could be restricted to Massachusetts residents, Baker responded sternly that he was focused on handling an expected surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations, “which is going to involve trying to save the lives of tens of thousands of people," but a diverse group of entrepreneurs trying to enter the industry after a protracted and expensive licensing process say they’re now in imminent danger of failing, in part because cannabis firms are not eligible for the emergency federal loans available to other businesses, and in the two weeks since recreational firms were ordered to cease operations, companies have laid off or furloughed hundreds if not thousands of workers.
That's what Baker wants, and don't you dare argue with Charlie!
So they didn't protect YOUR paycheck, huh?
“After a very quiet winter off-season, to be completely shut down is really tough for us,” said Nicole Campbell, the owner of the Green Lady marijuana store on Nantucket, where there are no medical dispensaries.
The lawsuit came even after the Cannabis Control Commission announced late Tuesday that it is permitting recreational marijuana suppliers to sell their products to medical cannabis dispensaries.
The commission on Tuesday also announced marijuana companies will now be required to file a report with the agency when any employees test positive for COVID-19. Last week, two employees of New England Treatment Access came down with the virus, prompting an outpouring of complaints from other workers that the company was doing too little to protect them.....
They just complained themselves out of work, and it begs the question: what $ectors have NOT BEEN HIT by COVID-19?
--more--"
Related: Expansion of liquor licenses in Boston
It's facing pushback from a restaurant group, but they are all going out of business anyway.
Has to be run by the City Council first:
"Amid pandemic, Walsh unveils $3.6 billion budget proposal" by Danny McDonald Globe Staff, April 8, 2020
With the city staring down economic troubles brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, Mayor Martin J. Walsh is proposing a $3.65 billion budget for the next fiscal year, calling for a 4.4 percent budgetary bump that will include increased funding for education, housing, and public health, but with the city, state, and country in the midst of economic upheaval, some called Walsh’s plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1 optimistic and said it may have to be pared down.
Is Marty drinking again?
The city, said City Councilor Kenzie Bok, has not started “to scratch the surface of the economic recovery” aspect of the crisis. She thought the revenue projections in the proposed budget “are very optimistic and I think the administration knows and we all know we will have to revisit it.”
Some things never fucking change!
Given the pandemic, the city has pushed back the property tax bill deadline a month, and authorities will continue to monitor taxpayers’ ability to foot such bills during the public health crisis, said Justin Sterritt, the city’s budget chief. The city’s property tax base typically grows in a consistent and stable way each year, he said. Still, with the pandemic, there are questions about state aid, and there are other revenue streams, like taxes for restaurant meals, hotels, even jet fuel, that have plummeted.
They are all drying up thanks to this self-inflicted controlled demolition of livelihoods!
The pandemic has caused the city to careen from an unprecedented economic boom to unprecedented challenges, said Pam Kocher, the president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, an independent watchdog.....
Self-inflicted to fulfill the wishes of psychopathic madmen and women.
--more--"
Mayor Martin J. Walsh. (Matthew J. Lee/Globe staff)
Why did the word thief just cross my mind?
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Maybe more money than expected will come in:
"Stocks shot to a 3.4 percent gain on Wall Street Wednesday as investors chose to focus on the optimistic side of data about the coronavirus outbreak’s trajectory. It was the latest about-face in a brutally volatile stretch for the US stock market, which has flip-flopped from gains to losses for six straight days. On Tuesday, stocks had been headed for a similar gain, only for it to disappear in the last minutes of trading. The market’s upward swings have recently been bigger than the downward moves, though, amid signs that deaths and infections may be nearing a peak or a plateau in some of the world’s hardest-hit areas. Some investors are envisioning the other side of the economic shutdown that’s gripping the world as the authorities try to slow the spread of the virus....."
Up again today, too, yaaaaaay!
"SBA official blasts big banks over failure to quickly distribute loans" by Aaron Gregg and Renae Merle The Washington Post, April 8, 2020
Big banks that received taxpayer bailouts during the global financial crisis a decade ago are now too slow in helping small businesses seeking assistance through a $349 billion emergency lending program, a high-level Small Business Administration official said in a recorded teleconference obtained by The Washington Post.
What a $hock!
Some banks ‘‘that had no problem taking billions of dollars of free money as bailout in 2008 are now the biggest banks that are resistant to helping small businesses,’’ SBA Nevada district director Joseph Amato said in Monday teleconference about the Paycheck Protection Program.
Amato’s comments offer a rare candid glimpse at the frustrations of federal officials working with thousands of banks to ramp up one of the most ambitious economic stimulus programs in American history.
The $laves angry with their ma$ters?
Or is this just a charade for public consumption?
During the teleconference, Amato acknowledged the SBA had struggled to launch the emergency lending program, which is meant to be a lifeline to millions of small business owners during the economic collapse caused by the coronavirus, but big banks had not done enough to help the program and small businesses, he said.
‘‘There is really no risk to the bank,’’ Amato said of the lending program. ‘‘It just comes down to . . . the same banks that literally took billions of dollars with one page from [former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson] are the ones saying the documentation isn’t clear enough for them.’’
Why am I not $urprised?
SBA officials did not immediately provide a comment for this story.
Then they did later, so why isn't it included?
Or did they never reply and the pre$$ account is a distortion?
The Trump administration has acknowledged minor glitches with the program but has touted it as a success and praised the banking industry’s work.
I can't take them anymore, either.
‘‘I think overall the banks have done a phenomenal job, some of them are further ahead’’ than others, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said during a CNBC interview Wednesday morning.
The administration has asked Congress for an additional $250 billion to fund the program, which has received unprecedented demand. ‘‘I want to assure all small businesses out there, we will not run out of money. . . . If you don’t get a loan this week, you will get a loan next week or the following week. The money will be there,’’ Mnuchin said.
It doesn't matter how much money you print for loans when people will never be able to repay them.
The Paycheck Protection Program is key to the Trump administration’s efforts to blunt the economic fallout from the coronavirus, but the program, which launched last Friday, has been beset with technical problems and got off to a slow start after the Small Business Administration and Treasury Department didn’t release the final rules until hours before it was set to launch.
Almost as if it was planned that way!
Several of country’s largest banks didn’t immediately participate in the program, saying they needed more time to understand how it would operate, and others limited applicants to companies they already had a relationship with, leaving thousands of small businesses scrambling to find a lender.
Bank of America was alone among big banks to begin processing applications last Friday, earning it praise from President Trump, but the bank angered thousands of small business owners by initially only taking applications from customers it was already lending to. By Wednesday, the bank said it had received 250,000 applications from small businesses seeking about $40 billion; it didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Good thing Trump is running against a dead man walking. If the opponent is coherent at all Trump will lose (not that it will really matter. Both parties are on board).
Citigroup, meanwhile, still isn’t taking applications.
Demand for the program also quickly overwhelmed some lenders. Wells Fargo never formally began taking applications, but by Monday morning, said so many people had expressed preliminary interest that it had already reached the $10 billion cap it had set for loans under the program.
Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, said some big banks were putting ‘‘crazy restrictions’’ on who could apply for a loan through the program, he said in a Twitter video last week.
Go get 'em, Marco!
--more--"
Did you know they had a mid-size business $lu$h fund?
"Fed to Give Details on Mid-Size Business Lending This Week" by Saleha Mohsin Bloomberg News, April 8, 2020
The Federal Reserve will announce details this week on a lending program for midsized businesses hurt by the coronavirus, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said.
Congress directed the Fed to create the so-called Main Street lending program as part of a $2.2 trillion economic rescue package, signed into law last month.
The lending facility is for companies with more than 500 employees that are disqualified from small business loans and too small for federal loans reserved for larger companies.
“We’ve been actively working on this for the last week, having daily calls with the Fed,” Mnuchin told CNBC on Wednesday. “We hope to have an announcement this week with the details on that and get it up and running as soon as we can.”
He is everywhere, with no Trump administration shit sticking to him, ever notice that?
Mnuchin previously has said the legislation unlocks as much as $4 trillion of liquidity for the market. The programs are backed by an additional $425 billion.
The Fed announced the Main Street program on March 23, Since then, officials have said that it remains in the design phase though they are working hard to stand it up. Boston Fed chief Eric Rosengren said on April 1 it was likely “another couple” of weeks away.
--more--"
Meanwhile, you are still waiting for your Chump change:
"Mnuchin says direct deposits out next week for virus aid" by Lisa Mascaro and Jill Colvin Associated Press, April 8, 2020
WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has told House Democrats that direct deposits to Americans will begin next week under the coronavirus aid package.
Mnuchin also told lawmakers that $98 billion has been approved for small business retention under a program the Trump administration wants Congress to bolster with another $250 billion in a vote expected Thursday.
The comments were made during a conference call with lawmakers briefed by Mnuchin, Vice President Mike Pence, and the administration’s coronavirus task force, according to a person unauthorized to discuss the private call and granted anonymity.
Congress is debating the contours of the next potential coronavirus aid package as President Trump seeks $250 billion for small businesses and Democrats propose tacking on another $250 billion for small communities, protective gear, and food stamps.
The question now is whether and how quickly Congress and the White House can agree to it.
Pence convened private conference calls Wednesday with House Republicans and Democrats, in separate sessions with the administration’s coronavirus task force, as all sides appear to agree that more aid is needed.
Mnuchin’s assessment to the Democrats appears to address head-on concerns that the small business aid was riddled with problems and not getting into the hands of those who need it most.
He told them that the loans have been approved so far by 3,600 lenders. It was not clear, however, how much of that money was now actually out the door.
Nor in whose pockets it was stuffed.
Lawmakers have raised concerns that the $1,200 direct payments to Americans could be delayed for months for those who do not have direct deposit through Treasury.
The check won't be showing up until September, so pinch your pennies while the banks and well-connected corporations get trillions.
In the morning call with Republicans, Pence and the GOP leaders made a push for the small business Paycheck Protection Program and ensuring it receives all necessary additional funds, according to a Republican aide unauthorized to discuss the call and granted anonymity.
The GOP leaders were in agreement about quickly approving more funding for the program, the aide said.
At the same time, Mnuchin also spoke by phone to Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, who told the secretary about Democrats’ “very reasonable and needed” proposal, said Schumer’s spokesman, Justin Goodman.
‘‘We hope our Republican colleagues will support this ‘Small Business Plus’ proposal tomorrow in the Senate,” he said.
The pandemic crisis is ransacking communities large and small, and Washington is poised to go beyond the $2.2 trillion package approved just two weeks ago. Similar calls with senators are expected to follow.
Despite the urgency of action, Congress appears headed for a showdown ahead of a vote Thursday.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s decision to rush Trump’s request for small business aid to a vote, with just 48 hours notice and without input from Democrats, threatened a fragile alliance for bipartisan action.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Schumer swiftly outlined their own priorities in a Wednesday statement.....
They want this, they want that, and as for Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, she and Sanders ran for president and lost to JOE BIDEN! Case closed (she never endorsed Bernie, either).
--more--"
Related:
Bernie Sanders drops out, clearing the way for Joe Biden
He has pretty much hit bottom with me.
Am I disappointed? Yeah. Am I surprised? No.
I'm now told that Bernie and company must rally hard around Joe Biden, to which I responded no fucking way.
Time to mail in the rest of this:
"Trump rails against supposed dangers of mail-in voting as coronavirus spreads" by Joseph Marks Washington Post, April 8, 2020
President Trump railed Tuesday against expanding voting by mail to keep US citizens safe during the coronavirus pandemic, calling the process ‘‘horrible,’’ ‘‘corrupt,’’ and prone to widespread fraud.
It’s a controversial marker for the president to set down when many states have had to delay their primary elections because of fears that in-person voting could spread the virus, and it puts him at odds with congressional Democrats pushing for billions in federal money to ensure no-excuse absentee voting for all Americans in November — as well as many Republican state officials in places like Georgia and West Virginia that are rushing to broaden mail-in voting during the pandemic.
I agree with Trump. Mail-in votes are ripe for fraud.
Trump’s pointed criticism could cast doubt on the validity of mail-in balloting for some of his supporters and make it awkward for Republican state officials who want to pursue the strategy in case in-person voting is still a problem in November.
‘‘Mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country because they’re cheaters,’’ Trump said during his daily coronavirus news conference, though there is no evidence that mail-in voting substantially increases fraud. In fact, election security hawks may be pleased to see an all-paper ballot election that by nature limits the hacking and other dangers of an electronic process.
Just because the Washington ComPost says it doesn't make it true, and the entire election would be invalid were it a mailed-in ballot.
Nonetheless, the president went on to charge that widespread voting by mail would lead to thousands of forged ballots, but the president defended his own decision to vote by mail in Florida, saying out-of-state mail votes are more acceptable and suggesting his absentee ballot was better verified than others.
The declarations came the same day Wisconsin held a primary election bedeviled by closed polling sites, long, snaking lines and voters who said they were forced to show up at the polls after absentee ballots they requested after the pandemic struck never arrived.
Related:
"Across Wisconsin on Tuesday, voters had an impossible decision to make: whether to risk their health and possibly their lives to cast a ballot, or stay away and miss exercising a fundamental right of democracy. The conservative-learning state Supreme Court declined to delay the election, despite a statewide order from the Democratic governor telling people to stay home and avoid crowds to contain the spread of the highly infectious disease. Going forward with the election was especially problematic in the state’s largest city, Milwaukee, where roughly 4 in 10 residents are Black. The city of 590,000 has suffered roughly half the state’s coronavirus deaths, many of them minorities. Officials closed all but five of the city’s 180 polling places, forcing thousands of voters to congregate at only a handful of voting sites....."
WTF?
Was social distancing observed?
Wisconsin is the only state with an April primary that didn’t delay voting because of the pandemic. The election went forward after the Republican-led legislature and state Supreme Court blocked efforts by Democratic Governor Tony Evers to postpone voting. That prompted Democrats to accuse Republicans of forcing voters to risk their health to exercise their democratic rights. They also fretted that if the federal government doesn’t move fast, it could result in millions of Americans being disenfranchised in November.
Oh, now they are care about constitutional rights, and I really no longer give a fuck about the wrestling match.
Trump has also played into Democrats’ fears, seeming to suggest during an earlier news conference that voting by mail would favor Democrats and that if he had agreed to Democrats’ demands for $4 billion for voting by mail and other reforms in the recent $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill, ‘‘you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.’’
That's a given. The Democrats have come a long way regarding vote fraud since the days of W. Bush.
Trump Tuesday described alleged instances of absentee voter fraud where ‘‘you get thousands and thousands of people sitting in somebody’s living room signing ballots.’’
There’s no evidence at all of absentee voter fraud on that scale, and states that vote entirely by mail range from left-leaning Washington and Oregon to conservative Utah. Absentee voting is at the center of a handful of voting fraud scandals, however, most notably during a 2018 North Carolina congressional race, which led the State Board of Elections there to order a new vote and produced criminal charges against a Republican operative among others.
But there is evidence of some, huh?
Trump also charged, incorrectly, that Evers tried to delay the vote only after the president endorsed the Republican in a hotly contested state Supreme Court case. In fact, Evers pushed to delay the election before Trump’s endorsement and has been seeking other remedies — including sending mail-in ballots to all registered voters, but he is barred from acting without the legislature.
Don't you love liars calling someone else a liar?
Democrats were able to secure only $400 million with no mandates on how states must spend the money in the stimulus bill. A Senate bill mandating nationwide access to absentee ballots and expanded early voting days sponsored by Democratic Senators Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Chris Coons of Delaware hasn’t won over any Republicans. Wisconsin officials don’t plan to release results in the race until Monday.....
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Maybe you can vote on your way to work:
"Trump administration eyes loosening rules to allow some to return to work" by Zeke Miller, Deb Riechmann and Mike Stobbe Associated Press, April 8, 2020
WASHINGTON — In a first, small step toward reopening the country, the Trump administration could relax coronavirus guidelines to make it easier for Americans who have been exposed but have no symptoms to return to work, particularly those in essential jobs.
PFFFT!
The proposed new guidelines are in the works even as the nation mourns some 13,000 deaths from the virus and grapples with a devastated economy and medical crises from coast to coast. Health experts continue to caution Americans to practice social distancing and to avoid returning to their normal activities. At the same time, though, they are planning for a time when the most serious threat from COVID-19 will be in the country’s rear-view mirror.
Nothing will ever be normal again, you bastards!
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said if the existing guidelines asking people to practice social distancing through the end of April are successful in halting the spread of the virus, more relaxed recommendations could be in order.
He can stay the f*** away from me, that's for sure. Sick genocidal psychopath!
Fauci said he was up until the early hours Wednesday morning, sitting in the West Wing with other members of the White House COVID-19 task force. He said they’re trying to dovetail public health concerns with practical steps that need to be in place when the 30-day guidelines end at the end of the month so the nation can “safely and carefully march toward some sort of normality.”
F*** off!
If by fall, things start to return to normal, Americans will still need to wash their hands frequently, sick schoolchildren should be kept home, and people with fevers need to refrain from going to work, Fauci said during an online interview Wednesday with the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Yeah, by fall the Tom Brady abandonment will have been provided context and solid answers as the Globe tells you what he said.
People also should never shake hands again, Fauci said, only half-jokingly.
What about $port$man$hip after the lo$$?
“I mean it sounds crazy, but that’s the way it’s really got to be,” he said. “Until we get to a point where we know the population is protected” with a vaccine.
The sick goddamn f***!
He wasn't really joking, either. That's another pre$$ distortion as they run cover for these monsters!
Fauci said he hoped the pandemic will prompt the US to look at long-term investments in public health, specifically at the state and local level. Preparedness that was not in place in January needs to be in place if or when COVID-19 or another virus threatens the country.
“We have a habit of whenever we get over a challenge, we say, ‘OK, let’s move on to the current problem,’ ” he said. “We should never, ever be in a position of getting hit like this and have to scramble to respond again. This is historic.
‘‘When you see what happened and is happening to New York City, that’s beyond sobering. That’s really terrible.”
Uh-huh.
F***ing little weasel!
Under the expected new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people who have been exposed to someone who was infected would be allowed back to work if they are asymptomatic, take their temperature twice a day, and wear a face mask, said a person familiar with the proposal under consideration. The person described the proposal on the condition of anonymity because the draft had not been finalized.
President Trump is itching to get people back to work and businesses reopened after taming the virus.
Yeah, he sees his presidency going down the tubes and his legacy being worse than Hoover!
Conservative voices, for their part, are pushing for an economic and social restart, urging Trump to overrule health officials.
“At some point, the president is going to have to look at Drs. Fauci and Birx and say, we’re opening on May 1,’’ Fox commentator Laura Ingraham tweeted. ‘‘Give me your best guidance on protocols, but we cannot deny our people their basic freedoms any longer.”
That's where the printed copy locked it down.
The guidelines would not be a foolproof guard against spreading infection. Recent studies have suggested that somewhere around 10 percent of new infections might be sparked by contact with individuals who are infected but do not yet exhibit symptoms. Scientists say it’s also possible that some people who develop symptoms and then recover from the virus remain contagious, or that some who are infected and contagious may never develop symptoms.
In an interview last week with a radio station in Atlanta, CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield cited an estimate that 25 percent of infected people might not have symptoms. During a press briefing on Sunday, Fauci said between 25 percent and 50 percent of infected Americans are not exhibiting symptoms. He added: “That is an estimate. I don’t have any scientific data yet to say that.”
Yeah, who cares if the alleged experts are spewing sh!t!!
As of Wednesday, the US had more than 400,000 confirmed cases of infection.
Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, says people have been following the 30-day guidelines on social distancing and is hopeful the country will have fewer than the 100,000 to 240,000 deaths health officials had earlier projected.
She is an evil bitch!
Reminders of the pandemic, however, will linger. Under the new guidelines being considered, facial masks will be commonplace at work and businesses will be taking their workers’ temperatures for signs of fever.
I'd rather be unemployed then.
Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, chimed in with a cautionary tweet from the sidelines, writing: “Social distancing bends the curve and relieves some pressure on our heroic medical professionals, but in order to shift off current policies, the key will be a robust system of testing and monitoring – something we have yet to put in place nationwide.”
Yeah, f*** him!
For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death.
Everything above to the top of this post now seems like an official overreaction, or there are more nefarious and evil plans afoot.
--more--"
Related:
"President Trump says coronavirus “must be quickly forgotten” after the economy reopens. In a Wednesday morning tweet, Trump encouraged Americans to forget about the coronavirus once the country’s economy reopens, making only a passing mention of the massive loss of life that is expected to result from the pandemic....."
Trump thinks “our Economy will BOOM, perhaps like never before,” and maybe the man really is non compos mentis.
Also see:
Arkansas' mayors denied lockdown power
Gov. Tim Walz said Wednesday he is extending Minnesota’s stay-at-home order until May 4
Meanwhile, Ohio governor DeWine is urging everyone to stay out of churches and love their neighbor while Cuomo touts social distancing in New York.
"The United States on Wednesday again was headed toward the highest daily death toll in any nation during the global coronavirus pandemic: At least 1,804 deaths reported as of Wednesday evening, nearing a record set just a day before. Authorities said that these deaths are a lesson of early missteps in how the nation dealt with the virus, a lagging indicator of infections that Americans failed to stop three or four weeks ago before widespread ‘‘social distancing’’ was implemented. They believe that Americans now have largely learned enough to slow the outbreak’s painful toll. The state with the largest number of announced deaths Wednesday again was New York, home to 35 percent of all American infections and about 43 percent of fatal American cases. It reported 779 daily deaths from the virus. New Jersey and Connecticut, where New York’s outbreak has spilled across state lines, both also reported record death totals. So did California, one of the first states to be hit, but new COVID-19 infections appear to be leveling off or declining in some hard-hit parts of the country, possibly an indication that the American outbreak is nearing its peak. A computer model of the pandemic lowered its awful projections for the virus again on Wednesday, predicting 60,000 American deaths this year, down from 92,000 a few days ago. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, said Wednesday that his state had set records for infections and deaths from the virus. In Maryland, new infection numbers jumped by 25 percent in one day. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, said the Washington, D.C., region is just starting to climb. The American outbreak of COVID-19 is by far the largest of any country in the world — according to official figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University — with more than 423,000 infections, almost three times the number of cases reported by second-ranking Spain, which has 146,000. Worldwide confirmed infections crested 1.5 million on Wednesday (Washington Post)."
"New data released Wednesday reinforced the fearsome nature of the virus, deflating hopes that it is not as serious among younger adults or that it would have a summer offseason. A Washington Post analysis found that at least 759 people under age 50 have died of the virus in the United States — shattering the once-common assumption that this is a disease that threatens just the old and infirm. Children are still largely spared, and young adults are still more likely to recover than the elderly, but it appears age is less of a shield than previously imagined. ‘‘A very fit 30-year-old triathlete is just as vulnerable as a chess-playing 45-year-old who gets no exercise,’’ said Shawn Evans, an emergency physician at a hospital in La Jolla, Calif. Another study, by a panel convened by the National Academy of Sciences, found that the virus is not likely to wane significantly in the summer, when much of the country sees significantly higher temperatures. President Trump had said in February that the virus ‘‘will go away in April’’ when traditional flu season ends, but, the academy panel said, that idea should be treated with caution. Even if the virus does spread more slowly in hot weather, they said, it is still armed with an enormous advantage: Most humans have no immunity to it (Washington Post)."
And keeping us away from each other doesn't allow us to build up immunity!
EVIL!
I'm also sick of the mixed messages from the pre$$!
"To curb the coronavirus spread, Los Angeles has embarked on a massive effort to bring thousands of homeless people off the streets and into hotels to protect them and others from infection. California Governor Gavin Newsom said last week that money from the federal government would help pay for at least 15,000 hotel rooms during the pandemic, but Los Angeles County, with the state’s largest concentration of homeless people at some 60,000, has set its own goal of 15,000 rooms. “We’re going big in LA,” said Heidi Marston, interim director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. “We based our goal on what the need is here.’’ The homeless population is particularly at risk. Many transients already have health problems such as heart disease or diabetes, and live in conditions that do not permit hand washing and social distancing. The hotel rooms set aside under the state’s Project Roomkey are reserved for the most vulnerable of the county’s homeless population, Marston said. These include people over 65 and those with underlying health conditions who don’t have symptoms but are at high risk for hospitalization if they contract the virus. The first hotel opened Friday in Los Angeles. A total of 1,340 beds at 15 sites across the county are expected to be ready by the end of this week (Associated Press)."
They could have done all that before, they didn't need the coronavirus to do it.
Now for the other coast:
"At least 41 transit workers have died, and more than 6,000 more have fallen sick or self-quarantined. Crew shortages have caused over more than 800 subway delays and forced 40 percent of train trips to be canceled in a single day. The average wait for some trains, usually four minutes, is 40 minutes. Since the coronavirus pandemic engulfed New York City, it has taken a staggering toll on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the agency that runs the subway, buses, and commuter rails and is charged with shuttling workers — such as doctors, nurses, and emergency responders — who are essential to keeping the city functioning (New York Times)."
They were able to make the stop in Brooklyn:
Members of the Orthodox Jewish community gather on April 8, 2020 in Brooklyn, New York as the Passover holiday starts Wednesday evening and runs to April 16, 2020. - Churches will be empty this Easter and Passover festivities will also take place behind closed doors owing to the COVID-19 lockdown. Christians will be obliged to turn to services broadcast on television or over social media this year owing to the coronavirus and Jews will mark the Passover holiday in their own homes rather than as communities. (Photo by Angela Weiss / AFP) (Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
I'm sure they will have a full spread.
"UN health agency on defensive after Trump slams it on virus" by Jamey Keaten Associated Press, April 8, 2020
GENEVA — In a heartfelt plea for unity, the World Health Organization’s chief sought Wednesday to rise above sharp criticism and threats of funding cuts from President Trump over the agency’s response to the coronavirus outbreak.
The vocal defense from the WHO director general came a day after Trump blasted the United Nations agency for being “China-centric” and alleging that it had criticized his ban of travel from China as the COVID-19 outbreak was spreading from the city of Wuhan.
He is a little to sensitive about that, as if the bug -- if it exists at all -- came from the US biological lab at Fort Detrick.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, an Ethiopian and the WHO’s first African leader, projected humility and minimized his personal role while decrying invective and even racist slurs against him amid the organizaiton’s response. He dodged questions about Trump’s comments, while acknowledging the agency was made up of humans “who make mistakes,” and insisted his key focus was saving lives, not getting caught up in politics.
“No need to use COVID to score political points. You have many other ways to prove yourself,” Tedros said. “If you don’t want many more body bags, then you refrain from politicizing it.”
That guy has been accused of allowing three separate cholera epidemics in Ethiopia. Probably why he got the WHO job.
Avoiding any direct mention of Trump, Tedros’s comments testified to the often-delicate task faced by UN leaders when criticized by member states. That challenge is especially difficult with the United States, the biggest donor to the world body and its offshoots.
The number 2 funder is none other than BILL GATES!
He OWNS the WHO!
Why would my pre$$ leave that out?
WHO Europe regional director Hans Kluge said that with the pandemic at an acute stage, “this is not the time to cut back on funding.”
At the White House on Tuesday, Trump first said the United States would “put a hold” on WHO funding, and then revised that to say, “We will look at ending funding.” He took aim particularly at its alleged criticism of the US ban on travel to and from China.
“The WHO . . . receives vast amounts of money from the United States,” Trump said, “and they actually criticized and disagreed with my travel ban at the time I did it, and they were wrong. They’ve been wrong about a lot of things.”
Generally, the WHO has been careful not to criticize countries on their national polices, and it was not immediately clear what specific criticism Trump was alluding to.
Trump’s remarks came as many governments, particularly in Europe, have started to brush aside, ignore, and criticize WHO recommendations on issues of public policy, like whether travel restrictions are warranted or whether the public should wear masks.
Like who?
"Austria is allowing small shops to resume business after Easter. Denmark is reopening nurseries and primary schools. The Czech Republic is planning to lift a travel ban. Gingerly, and with plenty of caveats, some corners of Europe are tiptoeing toward a loosening of the strict lockdown measures that have been in place for close to a month to slow the spread of the coronavirus, idling economies and leaving citizens in an uneasy limbo of social isolation, but even as the number of new infections appears to be plateauing in several European countries, the message from leaders is clear: The next phase is not a return to normality. It is learning how to live with the pandemic — possibly for quite a long time. European governments are eager to give their citizens a sense of hope and to reboot economic activity, too, but overshadowing that desire is the risk of unleashing a second wave of mass infections. How soon is too soon to allow the resumption of some activities — and which activities — is the overriding question..... (New York Times)."
Time to hang the leaders from the lampposts, sorry. Evil scum, all of them.
The United States contributed nearly $900 million to the WHO’s budget for 2018-2019, according to information on the agency’s website. That represents one-fifth of its total $4.4 billion budget for those years. The United States gave nearly three-fourths of the funds in “specified voluntary contributions” and the rest in “assessed” funding as part of Washington’s commitment to UN institutions.
In its most recent budget proposal from February, the Trump administration called for slashing the US assessed funding contribution to the WHO to $57.9 million.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reiterated later Wednesday that the United States was reevaluating its WHO funding. At the same White House briefing, Trump laid more criticism on the WHO, saying other countries give substantially less than the United States, singling out China. “That’s not good. Not fair, not fair at all,” he said.
Trump said the WHO “got it wrong” in response to the coronavirus.
Some world leaders and UN officials rallied around Tedros and the agency, insisting a worldwide public health crisis was no time to reduce the budget of the entity working to coordinate an often-disjointed international response.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the WHO “is absolutely critical to the world’s efforts to win the war against COVID-19” and must be supported. Once the pandemic ends, he said, there must be an investigation into how it emerged and spread so quickly as well as into the reactions of all those involved in the crisis so lessons can be learned.
The chair of the African Union’s commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, wrote on Twitter: “Surprised to learn of a campaign by the US govt against WHO’s global leadership. The African Union fully supports WHO and Dr. Tedros.”
In a video call Wednesday with Tedros, French President Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed “his belief that the WHO is key to respond to the crisis,’’ in reference to Trump’s comments, Macron’s office said.....
--more--"
Related:
Trump’s team finds new ways to harm our health
Also see:
That is an advertisement for the Bo$ton $peakers $eries, which are thought-provoking evenings of diverse opinions and world perspectives, and how about that wonderful fella with the nice smile on the far left there?
He's speaking in October during the second wave of this sh.... sigh.
Meanwhile, a lower half of the page advertisement for Wild Arbor Liqueur appears on page A10, and they tell you to "indulge with a clear conscience."
Boston Pops cancels its 2020 spring season
The horn section is huffing and puffing and can't get any air!
John Krasinski’s ‘Some Good News’ applauds the Pats, reunites ‘Hamilton’ cast
I don't like Jim Halpert anymore.
David Ortiz has a message for Boston
This is our f***ing city?
Chelsea, city of the working Latino immigrant, emerges as a COVID-19 hotspot
I wonder if she is still delivering papers.
Pope creates new commission to study women deacons
Good idea, less perversion.
EU court rules Poland must suspend disciplinary panel for judges
Time to leave the EU. Even Poles are smart enough to see that.
Watchdog links Syria to deadly 2017 nerve-agent attacks
They watchdog is the completely discredited OPCW!
That's odd; my pre$$ never covered those whistleblowers!
"More than six weeks after Saudi Arabia reported its first case, the coronavirus is striking terror into the heart of the kingdom’s royal family. As many as 150 royals in the kingdom are now believed to have contracted the virus, including members of its lesser branches, according to a person close to the family. King Salman, 84, has secluded himself for his safety in an island palace near the city of Jiddah on the Red Sea, while Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, his son and the 34-year-old de facto ruler, has retreated with many of his ministers to the remote site on the same coast where he has promised to build a futuristic city known as Neom. The sickness in the family may also shed new light on the motivation behind the speed and scale of the kingdom’s response to the pandemic. Its rulers began restricting travel to Saudi Arabia and shut down pilgrimages to the Muslim holy sites of Mecca and Medina even before the kingdom had reported its first case, on March 2. Authorities have now cut off all air and land travel into or out of its borders and between internal provinces. They have placed all of its biggest cities under a 24-hour lockdown, and they have indicated they are likely to cancel the annual hajj pilgrimage this summer that draws 2.5 million Muslims to Mecca and has taken place every year since 1798, when Napoleon invaded Egypt. State media reported Wednesday that the king suspended final rulings and judicial orders on visitation rights of children of separated parents, and ordered a number of prisoners released. Saudi officials also announced the kingdom and its allies would observe a unilateral cease-fire in the war in Yemen starting at noon Thursday, a move motivated by fears of the virus spreading and that could pave the way for ending the brutal five-year-old conflict (New York Times)."
How ironic!
God surely works in mysterious ways!
First, he condemns to sickness the most odious regime on the face of the planet (the King is already demented and sick and I bet he will die of COVID), and by doing so, a WAR may END!
I suppose there are silver linings to viruses after all!
As for heads of state who may be sacrificed like a lamb:
"British Prime Minister Boris Johnson remains in intensive care with the coronavirus but is improving and sitting up in bed, a senior government minister said Wednesday, as the UK recorded its biggest spike in COVID-19 deaths to date. Johnson, the first world leader diagnosed with the disease, has spent two nights in the ICU at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London. That glimmer of good news came as the number of COVID-19-related deaths in Britain approached the peaks seen in Italy and Spain, the two countries with the greatest number of fatalities. Britain’s confirmed death toll reached 7,097 Wednesday, an increase of 938 from a day earlier. Italy recorded a high of 969 deaths on March 27 and Spain 950 deaths on April 2. The toll in the UK included the first eight doctors or doctors-to-be publicly reported to have died after catching the virus in Britain’s National Health Service, according to a New York Times report. All eight are immigrants — from Egypt, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Sudan — attesting to the extraordinary dependence of Britain’s treasured health service on workers from abroad (Associated Press)."
I guess he is going to make it, unlike those in Ecuador:
"Bodies left out on sidewalks. Authorities struggling to keep track of deaths. Funeral parlors, out of coffins, using cardboard boxes made by companies that package bananas and shrimp. The calamity unfolding in Ecuador’s business capital, Guayaquil, offers an ominous look at how officials’ ability to respond to the pandemic in Latin America can be dangerously hamstrung by the inequality, weak public services, and fragile economies that mark much of the region. A country of 17 million, Ecuador has one of the highest official rates of infections, and deaths, per capita in Latin America. It is still unclear why it has been affected so deeply. Some specialists believe that the virus may have traveled along the country’s deep migratory links with hard-hit Spain and Italy, then spread as Ecuador lagged in adopting social distancing. Ecuador’s death count rose to 220 on Tuesday, with 182 other cases listed as “probable” but unconfirmed — higher than its larger and more populous neighbors Peru and Colombia. Ecuador’s president, LenĆn Moreno, has warned that the real figure is much higher but that because testing is limited the true extent of infections is impossible to determine (New York Times)."
That explains the trouble we are having at home.
Related:
"The body was wrapped in a plastic tarp, swollen, already attracting flies. He had been a neighbor, a man Rosangelys Valdiviezo passed while walking home from work, though they’d never exchanged words. Now he lay in front of his home, one of an untold number of bodies cast out in the streets of Guayaquil, Ecuador, a sweltering South American city being ravaged by the novel coronavirus. Valdiviezo, a 30-year-old seafood worker, said the body had lain out in the tropical heat for six days. ‘‘I am very afraid,’’ said Valdiviezo, a Venezuelan migrant who moved to Guayaquil, by telephone. ‘‘I’m terrified of dying so far from home.’’ Ecuador’s largest city, a commercial center of nearly 3 million, is emerging as the epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak in Latin America. Conditions reported in local news accounts, social media, and telephone interviews document fly-covered bodies on sidewalks in the poverty-stricken metropolis and corpses left inside homes for days. Ecuador confirmed its first case of COVID-19 on Valentine’s Day: a 71-year-old Ecuadoran woman who arrived in Guayaquil after a visit to Spain. Since then, the crisis has ballooned, jumping to more than 2,200 cases, or roughly 70 percent of Ecuador’s total, far surpassing the numbers in Quito, the capital."
That is what New York City will soon look like.
Also see:
"The Trustees of Reservations plans to reopen 76 historic, cultural, and agricultural sites across the region Thursday to offer residents more opportunities to spend time outdoors while working to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, the Boston-based organization said Wednesday....."
Yeah, thanks for letting us go visit the lands that we own.
"A car slammed into a multi-family home in Roxbury Wednesday morning, severely damaging the building and displacing eight people, Boston firefighters said. A small SUV slammed into the front of a home at 122 Calumet St. at about 9:45 a.m., firefighters said. Four multi-family homes on the street, including the one that was struck, had to be evacuated because the crash ruptured a gas line, firefighters said. Sharon Galloway, a spokeswoman for the Boston Fire Department, said the male driver was the only person in the car at the time. He got himself out of the vehicle but was taken to the hospital for unknown injuries, she said. Eight people who lived in the home that was struck by the car have been displaced until it can be repaired, since the foundation was severely damaged by the SUV, firefighters said. The cause of the crash remains under investigation....."
"Police have identified and issued a warrant for the arrest of a man who was caught on video defacing the door of a Brookline synagogue with an anti-semitic message before pausing to admire it early Sunday, officials said. “While the investigation is ongoing, at this time we believe that we know the identity of the subject captured on film,” Brookline Police Chief Andrew Lipson said in a statement. Surveillance footage outside the Chabad Center on Harvard Street showed the man, dressed in a blue skull cap and dark glasses with a cigarette in his mouth, scrawling the message on the door around 2 a.m. Sunday. As he began to leave, the man turned around and stared at the message for several seconds, seemingly admiring his work. The suspect “defaced the property with anti-Semitic graffiti, written in Russian,” police wrote in a Facebook post. “A symbol was drawn above the words which closely resembled a swastika.” Brookline police are investigating the incident, officials said. “We appreciate your patience as we move forward with this investigation, and wish you all a healthy and peaceful Passover and Easter season,” police said."
Why no name?
Haverhill man, 18, charged with murder after stabbing victim dies
He was arraigned by teleconference, so there is no longer a right to confront your accuser in open court!
Seeing as the Constitution is now history:
"In 1942, during World War II, some 75,000 Philippine and US defenders on Bataan surrendered to Japanese troops, who forced the prisoners into what became known as the Bataan Death March; thousands died or were killed en route.
What the United States did to Japan was far worse. The reason so few surrendered is because Americans killed them, and then we dropped two atomic bombs on them when it wasn't necessary in what are the two single greatest war criminal acts in all history.
In 1968, funeral services, private and public, were held for Martin Luther King Jr. at the Ebenezer Baptist Church and Morehouse College in Atlanta, five days after the civil rights leader was assassinated in Memphis.
That anniversary went by with nary a peep from the pre$$ this year!
In 1969, Harvard students took over University Hall, one of the college’s oldest buildings, to demand the university end its ROTC program as the war escalated in Vietnam. (The next day, university administrators called in city and State Police, who used billy clubs and mace to remove the demonstrators.)
Yeah, we are a fry cry from those days.
In 1979, officials declared an end to the crisis involving the Three Mile Island Unit 2 nuclear reactor in Pennsylvania, 12 days after a partial core meltdown.
What about Fukushima?
In 1983, the space shuttle Challenger ended its first mission with a safe landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
Isn't that the one that blew up in 1986?
Or was that 2003?
In 1992, former Panamanian ruler Manuel Noriega was convicted in Miami of eight drug and racketeering charges; he served a 17-year US prison sentence.
One of George H. W. Bush's war crimes.
In 1996, Dan Rostenkowski, the once-powerful House Ways and Means chairman, pleaded guilty to two mail fraud charges in a deal that brought with it a 17-month prison term. (Rostenkowski served 15 months and was pardoned by President Clinton in 2000.)
Rostenkowski was exposed because he crossed the Lobby.
In 2003, jubilant Iraqis celebrated the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime, beheading a toppled statue of their longtime ruler in Baghdad and embracing US troops as liberators.
That celebration was a STAGED EVENT, like what I get so often in my pre$$!
Last year, Israelis voted in an election that would bring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a historic fifth term.
Who won?
