Tuesday, April 28, 2020
Coronavirus 'Effectively Eliminated' in New Zealand Following Comprehensive Approach of Jacinda Ardern's Government
The country boosted healthcare spending to allow for contact tracing and enforced a nationwide lockdown in late March.
by
Julia Conley, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/27/coronavirus-effectively-eliminated-new-zealand-following-comprehensive-approach
Five weeks after launching an aggressive nationwide lockdown to combat the coronavirus pandemic—coupled with one of the most robust economic relief packages of any country—New Zealand's government on Monday announced that the new coronavirus is currently "eliminated" in the nation.
The country's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Monday that while cases are not at zero, new cases have been in the single digits for the past several days—an "incredible" statistic, said Ardern, as other countries face thousands of new cases per day.
"We have done what very few countries have been able to do," Ardern said last week as the country was preparing to move from a Level 4 restrictions to Level 3, allowing some businesses to reopen. "We have stopped a wave of devastation."
One new case was reported Monday, as well as four "probable cases" and one new death.
"We've achieved our goal of elimination... That never meant zero but it does mean we know where our cases are coming from," Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said.
As the country reduces restrictions to Level 3, businesses that reopen will be required to maintain physical distancing rules. Schools will reopen with limited capacity, and workers will still be encouraged to work from home if they are able to. Events such as weddings and funerals will only be able to take place with up to 10 people in attendance, and public buildings such as museums, libraries, and gyms will remain shuttered for the time being.
New Zealand has confirmed a total of 1,469 cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, since the first case there was detected on February 28.
In New Zealand, home to 4.8 million, the disease has infected about 30 in every 100,000 people and has killed 19 people—fewer than one in every 100,000 people.
The numbers in the island nation contrast sharply with those in the U.S., where nearly one million people have been sickened—nearly 300 in every 100,000—and more than 50,000 people have died.
Ardern has been credited with enforcing a strict lockdown even before the disease had claimed any lives in New Zealand. Two weeks after the first case was reported, the prime minister ordered anyone entering the country to self-quarantine for 14 days. Most businesses shut down on March 23, when there were 102 cases and no deaths, and the country began enforcing Level 4 restrictons—forbidding people to leave home except for outdoor exercise nearby—on March 25.
Ardern's extreme measures were in line with the recommendations of top public health officials, including U.S. National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, who said last month that the measures most effective at slowing the outbreak would likely be seen as "too drastic" by many.
New Zealand has also been testing the public at one of the highest rates in the world, Ardern said Monday, administering nearly 124,000 tests in recent weeks with the capacity to complete 8,000 tests per day. The U.S. has increased its testing capacity in the past month, but public health experts say the severe lag in confronting the pandemic in the U.S. after the first case was reported there in January has made the disease difficult to contain.
On social media, observers noted the stark contrast between the two countries' approaches, with government watchdog Public Citizen saying the United States' response has been marked by the "unending incompetence" of the Trump administration.
New Zealand paired its orders for the country to stay at home for five weeks with a major relief package amounting to about 4% of the country's GDP—a far more significant spending plan than other wealthy countries.
The government covered wages for all New Zealanders who had to self-isolate but couldn't work from home or were caring for sick family members. Businesses were also offered subsidies to continue paying employees, and the government doubled its healthcare spending.
Public health agencies were given resources for contact-tracing to determine who ill people could have potentially spread the disease to, which hospitals received support to increase intensive care units.
"This package is one of the largest in the world on a per capita basis," Grant Robertson, New Zealand's finance minister, said in March as the package was announced.
Meanwhile in the U.S., President Donald Trump has largely left it up to states to determine how to approach lockdowns, and several states have begun reopening their economies—even though the testing rate in the U.S. is lower than New Zealand's and thousands of new cases are being reported per day.
"The earlier and more decisively governments acted, the sooner they can responsibly ease their lockdowns," columnist George Monbiot tweeted. "Unlike New Zealand's and South Korea's, our government dithered and delayed. As a result, we're now in a terrible mess."
Growing Number of COVID-19 Cases in Wisconsin Fuels National Demands for Vote-by-Mail
"Congress is running out of time to ensure that the chaos that happened in Wisconsin doesn't unfold on a national scale come November."
by
Jessica Corbett, staff writer
10 Comments
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/27/growing-number-covid-19-cases-wisconsin-fuels-national-demands-vote-mail
The increasing number of COVID-19 cases among people who voted in-person for Wisconsin's April 7 election is fueling demands for Congress to help fund the implementation of expanded vote-by-mail provisions in every state for the rest of this year, particularly for the nation's general election scheduled for November.
"So far, 36 people who tested COVID-19 positive after April 9 have reported that they voted in person or worked the polls on election day," Jennifer Miller, a spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, told Politico Monday As the outlet reported:
Miller said "several" people within that group reported additional possible exposures, making it unclear whether the election itself is responsible for their contraction of the disease. If those people contracted the virus prior to the election, they could have also spread it to others who went to the polls that day.
For that and other reasons, the figure is likely to grow in coming weeks. Forty people in Milwaukee County who participated in the election have tested positive, according to WUWM. Milwaukee Health Commissioner Jeanette Kowalik on Friday said data was still being analyzed but could be finalized by May 1.
Wisconsin's Republican legislative leaders and state Supreme Court were roundly criticized for ignoring the advice of public health officials and moving forward with in-person voting on April 7—while other states delayed their elections—as well as for quashing last-minute efforts of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to address the safety concerns about polling sites. The "civic catastrophe" and the emerging fallout have contributed to mounting calls to expand vote-by-mail nationwide.
In a statement Monday, Nancy Wang, executive director of the Michigan-based group Voters Not Politicians, pointed to the data on post-election coronavirus infections in Wisconsin as evidence that "Wisconsin lawmakers put voters' lives at risk by proceeding with in-person voting as usual during the COVID-19 pandemic, and now we are starting to see the consequences of that decision on people's lives."
Projections from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "show that COVID-19 infections will likely continue this fall," Wang added. "We must act now to protect voters in Michigan during the August and November elections. We call on our lawmakers to swiftly move to a vote-by-mail solution for our state while providing safeguards to ensure no voter is disenfranchised. During this pandemic, vote-by-mail will save lives."
A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs revealed that there is rising support across the U.S. for vote-by-mail. The polling results, published Monday, found that six in 10 Americans would support their states moving to vote-by-mail for the November election because of the pandemic.
The poll found that "Democrats are now much more likely than Republicans to support their state conducting elections exclusively by mail, 47% to 29%." The AP reported that the "wide partisan divide suggests President Donald Trump's public campaign against vote-by-mail may be resonating with his Republican backers."
Faced with intense pressure to defy Trump's baseless attacks and use federal legislation related to the pandemic to safeguard the right to vote, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said on MSNBC Monday that "in this next bill, we will be supporting vote-by-mail" to protect both public health and the "life of our democracy."
Pelosi's promise on national television was welcomed in a statement from Stand Up America founder and president Sean Eldridge, whose group has helped lead the call for Congress to provide states with at least $4 billion in funding to assist with efforts to make voting safer in the midst of the public health crisis.
"Congress is running out of time to ensure that the chaos that happened in Wisconsin doesn't unfold on a national scale come November. That's why we're grateful to Speaker Pelosi for promising to include additional election assistance funding in the next House relief package," said Eldridge.
"Democrats in the Senate should follow her lead and use their leverage to ensure states get $4 billion to expand mail-in voting, extend early voting, implement online voter registration nationwide, and protect poll workers," he added. "We cannot let Republicans or Democrats in the Senate off the hook until we have a guarantee that sufficient election assistance funding will be included in the final relief package."
Eldridge added that spending $4 billion to ensure that voters can safely cast their ballots is "a small price for Congress to pay to guarantee Americans' right to vote during this ongoing crisis."
'Irresponsible and Unethical': IRS Calls 10,000 Employees Back to Work But Will Not Provide Protective Equipment
"The IRS should not require any employees it deems essential to report to work until it is able to provide those individuals with the protective equipment they are required to wear."
by
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/27/irresponsible-and-unethical-irs-calls-10000-employees-back-work-will-not-provide
The Internal Revenue Service is recalling thousands of employees back to work at offices across the U.S. starting Monday—but the agency will not be providing staffers with personal protective equipment to help prevent the spread of Covid-19.
In an email (pdf) obtained by the House Ways and Means Committee, the IRS human capital officer last Friday informed employees that they will be required to bring their own face coverings and gloves when they return to work to perform what the agency described as "mission-critical functions."
Thousands of IRS employees have been working from home since the coronavirus pandemic forced the closure of offices around the country last month. Many other agency employees have been on paid leave because they either lack telework capacity or have jobs that must be done in person."All individuals are to wear cloth face coverings while in IRS facilities and workspaces," the email states. "Although the IRS is seeking to procure personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks and gloves, each IRS facility may not be able to initially procure the PPE for all employees immediately. Employees are therefore required to bring personal face coverings for their nose and mouth area when they come to work."
The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents IRS workers, told the Wall Street Journal that it expects around 10,000 agency employees to return to work in person at offices around the nation.
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) and Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee Chairman John Lewis (D-Ga.) said in a joint statement Saturday that "it is completely irresponsible and unethical for the IRS to demand those workers obtain their own protective equipment—this is the responsibility of the federal government to its workers."
"We find the IRS' demands of these workers especially troubling given that earlier this week, Commissioner [Charles] Rettig informed congressional staff that 100 IRS employees have been diagnosed with COVID-19, and four of the agency's employees have died due to the virus," said Neal and Lewis. "The IRS should not require any employees it deems essential to report to work until it is able to provide those individuals with the protective equipment they are required to wear."
As Government Executive reported Monday, "IRS will ask workers to come back on a voluntary basis with incentive pay, though it will subsequently require additional employees to return if a sufficient number of volunteers do not come forward."
The IRS decision to recall employees without providing safety gear comes as the Trump administration continues to face criticism for failing to provide adequate PPE to essential workers across the nation.
Last week, as Common Dreams reported, dozens of nurses gathered outside the White House to protest the administration's refusal to heed their calls for more protective equipment and stricter safety standards for employers.
In a letter to President Donald Trump earlier this month, more than 100 labor unions and advocacy groups wrote that "only the federal government has the tools available to maximize protections for these workers, yet you are failing to provide the leadership that this moment demands."
"Janitors are deep cleaning buildings, teachers' aides are delivering meals to children at home, warehouse and manufacturing workers are making and distributing essential goods, home care providers are caring for the most vulnerable, public service workers are maintaining essential services, bus operators are taking essential workers to their jobs," the letter states. "All at greater risk of contracting the coronavirus without enough PPE to lessen exposure."
'Outrageous': Bipartisan Group of Lawmakers Wants to Let Payday Lenders Obtain Small Business Loans
"Payday lenders exploit millions of working families through predatory practices. Congress shouldn't prop them up during this crisis."
by
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/27/outrageous-bipartisan-group-lawmakers-wants-let-payday-lenders-obtain-small-business
A bipartisan group of House lawmakers is pressing the Trump administration to make coronavirus relief loans meant for small businesses available to payday lenders, the financial institutions notorious for preying on desperate borrowers with deceptive advertising and exorbitant interest rates.
In a letter last week to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Small Business Administration chief Jovita Carranza, 24 Republicans and four Democrats said "small-size nonbanks" should be eligible for first come, first served Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans designed for companies with fewer than 500 employees.
"These businesses have been shut out completely from the PPP, which has forced many of them to lay off their highly trained employees who would have preferred to keep their jobs than seek government unemployment assistance," the lawmakers wrote.Politico reported that while "payday lenders weren't explicitly mentioned" in the letter, "a spokesperson for Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.), one of the lawmakers who led the letter, confirmed the intent was to include them in the request."
In addition to the two dozen Republicans, the letter was signed by Reps. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.), and Al Lawson (D-Fla.).
"This is fucking outrageous," Maurice BP-Weeks, co-director of the Action Center on Race and the Economy, tweeted of the letter.
Amanda Fischer, policy director at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, told Politico that providing small business loans to payday lenders would "supercharge inequality for the low-wage workers suffering the most from this recession."
"The companies now asking for government help are the same ones that ruthlessly pursue borrowers when they can't pay their debts," said Fischer. "Families need better unemployment insurance, additional direct payments, and forbearance on mortgage and rent—not taxpayer-financed predatory loans."
In a tweet last Friday, Fischer suggested sarcastically, "How about we give payday lenders small business loans, but we charge 480% in interest and can garnish their profits for repayment?"
The lawmakers' push to make payday lenders eligible for PPP loans came as millions of small businesses are struggling to apply for and obtain funds from the program.
On Friday, President Donald Trump signed into law a relief package that included $310 billion in additional funding for the PPP, which quickly ran out of money after millions of companies—including many large publicly traded firms—rushed to take part in the program.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) expressed opposition to providing relief to payday lenders in a tweet on Sunday.
"Payday lenders exploit millions of working families through predatory practices," said Gillibrand. "Congress shouldn't prop them up during this crisis."
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