Saturday, July 4, 2020
Newer variant of COVID-19-causing virus dominates global infections
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200702144054.htm
Research out today in the journal Cell shows that a specific change in the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus virus genome, previously associated with increased viral transmission and the spread of COVID-19, is more infectious in cell culture. The variant in question, D614G, makes a small but effective change in the virus's 'Spike' protein, which the virus uses to enter human cells.
Bette Korber, a theoretical biologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and lead author of the study, noted, "The D614G variant first came to our attention in early April, as we had observed a strikingly repetitive pattern. All over the world, even when local epidemics had many cases of the original form circulating, soon after the D614G variant was introduced into a region it became the prevalent form."
Geographic information from samples from the GISAID COVID-19 viral sequence database enabled tracking of this highly recurrent pattern, a shift in the viral population from the original form to the D614G variant. This occurred at every geographic level: country, subcountry, county, and city.
Two independent lines of experimental evidence that support these initial results are included in today's paper. These additional experiments, led by Professor Erica Ollmann Saphire, Ph.D., at the La Jolla Institute, and by Professor David Montefiori, Ph.D., at Duke University, showed that the D614G change increases the virus's infectivity in the laboratory. These new experiments, as well as more extensive sequence and clinical data and improved statistical models, are presented in the Cell paper. More in vivo work remains to be done to determine the full implications of the change.
The SARS-CoV-2 virus has a low mutation rate overall (much lower than the viruses that cause influenza and HIV-AIDS). The D614G variant appears as part of a set of four linked mutations that appear to have arisen once and then moved together around the world as a consistent set of variations.
"It's remarkable to me," commented Will Fischer of Los Alamos, an author on the study, "both that this increase in infectivity was detected by careful observation of sequence data alone, and that our experimental colleagues could confirm it with live virus in such a short time."
Fortunately, "the clinical data in this paper from Sheffield showed that even though patients with the new G virus carried more copies of the virus than patients infected with D, there wasn't a corresponding increase in the severity of illness," said Saphire, who leads the Gates Foundation-supported Coronavirus Immunotherapy Consortium (CoVIC).
Korber noted, "These findings suggest that the newer form of the virus may be even more readily transmitted than the original form -- whether or not that conclusion is ultimately confirmed, it highlights the value of what were already good ideas: to wear masks and to maintain social distancing."
Research partners from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Duke University, and the University of Sheffield initially published work on this analysis on the bioRxiv site in an April 2020 preprint. That work also included observations of COVID-19 patients from Sheffield that suggested an association of the D614G variant with higher viral loads in the upper respiratory tract.
"It is possible to track SARS-CoV-2 evolution globally because researchers worldwide are rapidly making their viral sequence data available through the GISAID viral sequence database," Korber said. Currently tens of thousands of sequences are available through this project, and this enabled Korber and the research team to identify the emergence of the D614G variant.
GISAID was established to encourage collaboration among influenza researchers, but early in the epidemic the consortium established a SARS-CoV-2 database, which soon became the de facto standard for sharing outbreak sequences among researchers worldwide.
The study, "Tracking changes in SARS-CoV-2 Spike: evidence that D614G increases infectivity of the COVID-19 virus" was supported by the Medical Research Council (MRC) part of UK Research & Innovation (UKRI the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR); Genome Research Limited, operating as the Wellcome Sanger Institute; CoVIC, INV-006133 of the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Mastercard, Wellcome; private philanthropic support, as well as the Overton family; a FastGrant, from Emergent Ventures, in aid of COVID-19 research; and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Interagency Agreement No. AAI12007-001-00000, and the Los Alamos Laboratory Directed Research and Development program.
Additional study authors included S. Gnanakaran, H. Yoon, J. Theiler, W. Abfalterer, N. Hengartner, E.E. Giorgi, T. Bhattacharya, B. Foley, K.M. Hastie, M.D. Parker, D.G. Partridge, C.M. Evans, T.M. Freeman, T.I. de Silva, C. McDanal, L.G. Perez, H. Tang, A. Moon-Walker, S.P. Whelan, C.C. LaBranche.
Story Source:
Materials provided by DOE/Los Alamos National Laboratory. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
B. Korber, W.M. Fischer, S. Gnanakaran, H. Yoon, J. Theiler, W. Abfalterer, N. Hengartner, E.E. Giorgi, T. Bhattacharya, B. Foley, K.M. Hastie, M.D. Parker, D.G. Partridge, C.M. Evans, T.M. Freeman, T.I. de Silva, C. McDanal, L.G. Perez, H. Tang, A. Moon-Walker, S.P. Whelan, C.C. LaBranche, E.O. Saphire, D.C. Montefiori, on behalf of theSheffield COVID-19 Genomics Group. Tracking changes in SARS-CoV-2 Spike: evidence that D614G increases infectivity of the COVID-19 virus. Cell, July 2, 2020; DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.06.043
Dems Are Helping Liz Cheney Fortify Her Dad’s Endless War Policy
The first rule of Democratic Party politics should be: never work with a Cheney on war policy. The second rule should be: don’t ever ignore the first rule. Ever.
David Sirota
Jul 3
The poisoned apple didn't fall far from the tree...
It’s not every day that you wake up in your blue state and learn that one of your newly elected Democratic congresspeople is joining with a Cheney to try to prolong the longest war in American history. But that’s what happened this week, when Colorado’s freshman Democratic Rep. Jason Crow teamed up with Republican Rep. Liz Cheney to advance legislation that would make it more difficult for any president to draw down troop deployments in Afghanistan.
I live in the same media market as Crow’s district. I can tell you that his 2018 campaign was focused on gun control. It was not a campaign promising voters that he would go to Washington to immediately make common cause with Liz Cheney, and help her efforts to glorify and fortify her daddy’s policy of endless war. But that’s exactly the goal of his bill, which was attached to this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
“Crow’s amendment would block funding to dip below 8,000 troops and then again to below 4,000 troops unless the administration certifies that doing so would not compromise the U.S. counterterrorism mission in Afghanistan, not increase risk for U.S. personnel there, be done in consultation with allies, and is in the best interest of the United States,” the Hill reports.
Never Work With A Cheney On War Policy
The first rule for every incoming freshman Democrat in Congress should be that you never work with a Cheney on war policy. The second rule for every freshman Democrat should be: re-read the first rule and make damn sure to follow it. As Adam McKay’s film Vice reminded us, Cheney initiatives that may seem superficially reasonable when calmly uttered by a Cheney usually have an insane ulterior motive.
In this case, that truism applies: The Crow-Cheney legislation may sound like it includes reasonable requests, but they are designed to make the Afghanistan deployment permanent. In practice, nobody can predict with 100 percent certainty what will ensue once a 19-year military occupation ends.
What we can know is that it’s a bad idea to continue a policy that isn’t working -- and there’s plenty of evidence that it isn’t.
“The War Had Become Unwinnable”
Last December, the Washington Post published its Afghanistan Papers report noting that military planners hid “unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.”
That same month, the New York Times reported: “The cost of nearly 18 years of war in Afghanistan will amount to more than $2 trillion (and) there is little to show for it….The Taliban control much of the country. Afghanistan remains one of the world’s largest sources of refugees and migrants. More than 2,400 American soldiers and more than 38,000 Afghan civilians have died…the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction described counternarcotics efforts as a ‘failure.’”
Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna -- a co-chair of Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign -- is trying to build a bipartisan coalition against the Crow-Cheney legislation. It’s a worthy effort, but as The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald notes, it may be overpowered.
“This left-right anti-war coalition is no match for the war machine composed of the establishment wings of both parties and the military and intelligence community that continue to use selective, illegal leaks to sabotage any plans to reduce the U.S. military presence around the world,” he writes. “That the Democrats have spent a full decade desperately recruiting former military and intelligence officials to serve as their Congressional candidates has only made the party even more militaristic...It should come as absolutely no surprise that House Democrats are finding common cause with Liz Cheney and other GOP warmongers to block any efforts to reduce even moderately the footprint of the U.S. military in the world or its decades-long posture of endless war.”
House and Senate Democrats could still use their power to strip the Crow-Cheney amendment out of the final NDAA. Keep your eye on whether or not they do.
HISTORY PROVIDES CLUES INTO ISRAEL’S WEST BANK ANNEXATION
By Miko Peled, Mintpress News.
July 2, 2020
https://popularresistance.org/history-provides-clues-into-israels-west-bank-annexation/
Learning From The Past.
Since 1948, Israel has annexed, occupied, taken, destroyed, built, and renamed everything from individual homes and property to public spaces, to historic monuments. And it has no intention, or reason, to stop.
Palestine has been annexed, occupied, stolen, and Palestinians have been dispossessed, exiled, caged, detained, subjected to an apartheid regime, and killed by the state of Israel for over seven decades. Every few years the world wakes up to protest some aspect of Israeli apartheid, occupation, or a massacre, and then it returns safely to its deep slumber.
Every so often, Israel manages to awaken the angst of the European Union and other international organizations with some announcement or another, a murderous attack on Palestinians, a declaration of annexation or “sovereignty,” and then, as if under the influence of a spell, the angst disappears just as fast as it arose. What usually follows is a long procession of world leaders coming to visit Israel or inviting the Israeli prime minister to their capital to bestow their love and respect for him and the so-called Jewish State.
This time seems to be no different. The Israeli annexation of the Palestinian Jordan River Valley has brought about the world’s displeasure. “A violation of human rights,” says Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. We hear that it is a violation of international law and the end of the prospect for peace, as though this is unprecedented and as though it was unexpected. It has long been clear that Israel would annex part of the West Bank, and it was obvious that the Jordan River Valley – the eastern part of the West Bank – was the most likely to be first.
Annexing the entire eastern part of the West Bank means Palestinians will be cut off from the international border with Jordan and will be surrounded by Israel on all sides. Israel wants access to that land, which currently provides West Bank Palestinians some 50 percent of their agricultural products, and wants complete access to the Jordan River.
What It Will Mean
What exactly is the declaration of sovereignty and annexation? No one seems to know for sure. Israeli military experts admit they were not informed as to the details of the move. Israeli politicians are vague and Palestinians, well, no one talked to them, and in any case, people in positions of power don’t care what they think.
Saeb Erikat, who still holds to the title of Palestinian Chief Negotiator, said in an interview with the Israeli television channel Ynet, that “the situation is very severe.” “I have never seen it more severe than I see it now.”
Much of the Israeli press is focused on what the potential Palestinian response may be, and particularly if Israelis should expect violence. Considering the fact that for over seven decades now, Palestinians have been on the receiving end of Israeli violence, it is a cynical thing to ask. According to leaks from a meeting of Israel’s top security chiefs though, the answer to that question is unclear. While the army and Shabak (Israel’s secret police) chiefs claim there will be a violent reaction and that Israelis will see “terrorism” rise, the Mossad chief claims that scenario is unlikely. Either way, Israel never cared much for what Palestinians think and is not concerned with their reactions.
Knowing all too well where his support lies in the United States, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech to Christians United for Israel (CUFI). CUFI is amongst the largest pro-Israel groups in the United States. Netanyahu spoke of the annexation of in biblical terms. He spoke of biblical lands and what he called “Israeli sovereignty over Jewish communities.”
He also made the point that these areas are also a part of what he called, “Christian identity,” and part of “Our common civilization.” His speech, like previous comments he’s made on the topic, did not clarify what the annexation will entail.
Who Wants Annexation?
Israel’s most influential political block, known as the Right Block, wants all of the Palestinian West Bank to be annexed and for Israeli sovereignty to be declared on all of its Jewish settlements. Israel’s political right is made up largely, though not exclusively, of religious Zionists, and settling the West Bank is their number one priority. Annexation will not only give them a political boost, it will make the construction of new Jewish settlements much easier. Whereas today, construction of new Jewish settlements in the West Bank must be approved by the prime minister, Israel’s declaration of sovereignty would make it a matter for local councils.
Learning From The Past
In 1948, the Western part of Jerusalem was conquered by Israeli forces and Palestinian residents were forcibly exiled. Not a single Palestinian was permitted to remain or return and overnight, the city became the capital of Israel. The world stood still then, and it stood still when the eastern part of the city was taken in 1967.
Then, in 1980, Israel announced its sovereignty over East Jerusalem, or in other words, annexed the eastern part of the city. The UN Security Council reacted by passing resolution 476, which among other things reaffirmed that “acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible.” The resolution stated that the Security Council was “Gravely concerned over the legislative steps initiated in the Israeli Knesset with the aim of changing the character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem.” Furthermore, it stated that it “Strongly deplores the continued refusal of Israel, the occupying Power, to comply with the relevant resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly.” It also reiterated that “all such measures which have altered the geographic, demographic and historical character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem are null and void and must be rescinded in compliance with the relevant resolutions of the Security Council.”
A year later, in 1981, Israel declared its sovereignty over the Syrian Golan Heights. The UN security council passed resolution 497 which states, among other things, that it is once again “Reaffirming that the acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible, in accordance with the United Nations Charter, the principles of international law, and relevant Security Council resolutions.” The Security Council declared that it “Decides that the Israeli decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction, and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void and without international legal effect. It even “Demands that Israel, the occupying power, should rescind forthwith its decision.” Israel, of course, did not adhere to the UN resolutions, and no action was taken to sanction Israel.
There Is No Israel Proper
In 1948, the Zionist movement created the state of Israel in Palestine. By year’s end, 78 percent of Palestine had become Israel, and close to one million Palestinians were forcibly exiled. The rest of Palestine became Israel in 1967. Israel has annexed, occupied, taken, destroyed, built, and renamed everything from individual homes and property to public spaces, to historic monuments. And it has no intention, or reason, to stop.
The issue at hand is not a “proper Israel” doing something that is illegal. It is an illegal entity that has planted itself in Palestine continuing its pursuit of illegal activity. The race to create the mythical Greater Israel in Palestine, with the new temple in place of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in its center has been going on in full force. It is a never-ending project that is well funded, well planned, and very well executed. Only isolation, boycotts sanctions, and divestment have the ability to stop it and to save Palestine.
BOLIVIA: AÑEZ WANTS TO JAIL THE FAVORED CANDIDATE IN THE COMING ELECTIONS
By Ernesto Reyes, Resumen English.
July 2, 2020
https://popularresistance.org/bolivia-anez-wants-to-jail-the-favored-candidate-in-the-coming-elections/
Bolivia’s de facto president, Jeanine Añez, is losing more and more of her mask obscuring democracy that, with the complicity of the United States and the European Union, she had to put on to justify the violent overthrow of Evo Morales in November of last year.
Now, in a fragrant demonstration that in Bolivia there are no constitutional guarantees and that persecution is the rule of order, a coup is being prepared against the presidential candidate of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), Luis Arce Catacora.
In a confirmation of the validity of the lawfare method (judicial war) against popular leaders, the legal form of this anti-democratic political decision is the criminal complaint filed this Tuesday before the Public Prosecutor’s Office against Arce for the alleged economic damage he caused to the State by setting up the Gestora Publica for the administration of workers’ social contributions.
This is not the first time that a position of aggression has been assumed against the MAS candidate since he returned to Bolivia after a brief stay in Mexico. On the same day of his arrival in La Paz on January 28, at the El Alto airport, he was given a summons to testify in the case of the Indigenous Fund. This Tuesday the action is more convoluted at a time when Morales’ former economy minister is leading the entire field of candidates for president in the upcoming elections scheduled for September 6.
Anez’s action is not, however, a surprise. The de facto government is doing everything in its power to extend its illegal takeover last November 12, 2019, after a meeting between the ambassadors of the European Union, Leon del Torre, and Brazil, Octávio Henrique Dias GarcÃa Côrtes, and other political and civic organizations celebrated at the Bolivian Catholic University (UCB) facilities to give some legitimacy to the coup. It was not surprising that a few hours later the governments of the United States and Brazil recognized the de facto president.
The most supportive weapon for the extensionist aspirations of Añez and her collaborators is the coronavirus epidemic, whose expansion until now has not been able to be controlled due to the absence of any coherent government plan and the enormous deficit of respirators and biosecurity material, amid allegations of corruption in the purchase of this vital equipment.
The reaction of Arce and MAS and the measures he will take in legal terms are not yet known, but social organizations have already been preparing to resist the intention of the de facto government to ban MAS from participating in the elections.
The government’s repressive policy has not changed one iota since the coup d’état and it is likely that the mounting of “false positives” will continue to rise to justify a new wave of violence. What has changed is the social willingness, mainly of the social organizations, which are in a stage of re-composition and becoming increasingly cohesive, to demand the general elections be held as scheduled.
WORKERS FILED MORE THAN 4,100 COMPLAINTS ABOUT PROTECTIVE GEAR
By Christina Jewett and Shefali Luthra and Melissa Bailey, Kaiser Health News.
July 2, 2020
https://popularresistance.org/workers-filed-more-than-4100-complaints-about-protective-gear/
Some Still Died.
COVID-19 cases were climbing at Michigan’s McLaren Flint hospital. So Roger Liddell, 64, who procured supplies for the hospital, asked for an N95 respirator for his own protection, since his work brought him into the same room as COVID-positive patients.
But the hospital denied his request, said Kelly Indish, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 875.
On March 30, Liddell posted on Facebook that he had worked the previous week in both the critical care unit and the ICU and had contracted the virus. “Pray for me God is still in control,” he wrote. He died April 10.
The hospital’s problems with personal protective equipment (PPE) were well documented. In mid-March, the state office of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) received five complaints, which described employees receiving “zero PPE.” The cases were closed April 21, after the hospital presented paperwork saying problems had been resolved. There was no onsite inspection, and the hospital’s written response was deemed sufficient to close the complaints, a local OSHA spokesperson confirmed.
The grief and fear gripping workers and their families reflect a far larger pattern. Since March, more than 4,100 COVID-related complaints regarding health care facilities have poured into the nation’s network of federal and state OSHA offices, which are tasked with protecting workers from harm on the job.
A KHN investigation found that at least 35 health care workers died after OSHA received safety complaints about their workplaces. Yet by June 21, the agency had quietly closed almost all of those complaints, and none of them led to a citation or a fine.
The complaint logs, which have been made public, show thousands of desperate pleas from workers seeking better protective gear for their hospitals, medical offices and nursing homes.
The quick closure of complaints underscores the Trump administration’s hands-off approach to oversight, said former OSHA official Deborah Berkowitz. Instead of cracking down, the agency simply sent letters reminding employers to follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, said Berkowitz, now a director at the National Employment Law Project.
“This is a travesty,” she said.
A third of the health care-related COVID-19 complaints, about 1,300, remain open and about 275 fatality investigations are ongoing.
During a June 9 legislative hearing, Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia said OSHA had issued one coronavirus-related citation for violating federal standards. A Georgia nursing home was fined $3,900 for failing to report worker hospitalizations on time, OSHA’s records show.
“We have a number of cases we are investigating,” Scalia said at the Senate Finance Committee hearing. “If we find violations, we will certainly not hesitate to bring a case.”
A March 16 complaint regarding Clara Maass Medical Center in Belleville, New Jersey, illustrates the life-or-death stakes for workers on the front lines. The complaint says workers were “not allowed to wear” masks in the hallway outside COVID-19 patients’ rooms even though studies have since shown the highly contagious virus can spread throughout a health care facility. It also said workers “were not allowed adequate access” to PPE.
Nine days later, veteran Clara Maass registered nurse Barbara Birchenough texted her daughter: “The ICU nurses were making gowns out of garbage bags. … Dad is going to pick up large garbage bags for me just in case.”
Kristin Carbone, the eldest of four, said her mother was not working in a COVID area but was upset that patients with suspicious symptoms were under her care.
In a text later that day, Birchenough admitted: “I have a cough and a headache … we were exposed to six patients who we are now testing for COVID 19. They all of a sudden got coughs and fevers.”
“Please pray for all health care workers,” the text went on. “We are running out of supplies.”
By April 15, Birchenough, 65, had died of the virus. “They were not protecting their employees in my opinion,” Carbone said. “It’s beyond sad, but then I go to a different place where I’m infuriated.”
OSHA records show six investigations into a fatality or cluster of worker hospitalizations at the hospital. A Labor Department spokesperson said the initial complaints about Clara Maass remain open and did not explain why they continue to appear on a “closed” case list.
Nestor Bautista, 62, who worked closely with Birchenough, died of COVID-19 the same day as she did, according to Nestor’s sister, Cecilia Bautista. She said her brother, a nursing aide at Clara Maass for 24 years, was a quiet and devoted employee: “He was just work, work, work,” she said.
Responding to allegations in the OSHA complaint, Clara Maass Medical Center spokesperson Stacie Newton said the virus has “presented unprecedented challenges.”
“Although the source of the exposure has not been determined, several staff members” contracted the virus and “a few” have died, Newton said in an email. “Our staff has been in regular contact with OSHA, providing notifications and cooperating fully with all inquiries.”
Other complaints have been filed with OSHA offices across the U.S.
Twenty-one closed complaints alleged that workers faced threats of retaliation for actions such as speaking up about the lack of PPE. At a Delaware hospital, workers said they were not allowed to wear N95 masks, which protected them better than surgical masks, “for fear of termination or retaliation.” At an Atlanta hospital, workers said they were not provided proper PPE and were also threatened to be fired if they “raise[d] concerns about PPE when working with patients with Covid-19.”
Of the 4,100-plus complaints that flooded OSHA offices, over two-thirds are now marked as “closed” in an OSHA database. Among them was a complaint that staffers handling dead bodies in a small room off the lobby of a Manhattan nursing home weren’t given appropriate protective gear.
More than 100 of those cases were resolved within 10 days. One of those complaints said home health nurses in the Bronx were sent to treat COVID-19 patients without full protective gear. At a Massachusetts nursing home that housed COVID patients, staff members were asked to wash and reuse masks and disposable gloves, another complaint said. A complaint about an Ohio nursing home said workers were not required to wear protective equipment when caring for COVID patients. That complaint was closed three days after OSHA received it.
It remains unclear how OSHA resolved hundreds of the complaints. A Department of Labor spokesperson said in an email that some are closed based on an exchange of information between the employer and OSHA, and advised reporters to file Freedom of Information Act requests for details on others.
“The Department is committed to protecting America’s workers during the pandemic,” the Labor Department said in a statement. “OSHA has standards in place to protect employees, and employers who fail to take appropriate steps to protect their employees may be violating them.”
The agency advised its inspectors on May 19 to place reports of fatalities and imminent danger as a top priority, with a special focus on health care settings. Since late March, OSHA has opened more than 250 investigations into fatalities at health care facilities, government records show. Most of those cases are ongoing.
According to the mid-March complaints against McLaren Flint, workers did not receive needed N95 masks and “are not allowed to bring them from home.” They also said patients with COVID-19 were kept throughout the hospital.
Filing complaints, though, did little for Liddell, or for his colleague, Patrick Cain, 52. After the complaints were filed, Cain, a registered nurse, was treating people still awaiting the results of COVID-19 diagnostic tests — potentially positive patients ― without an N95 respirator. He was also working outside a room where potential COVID-19 patients were undergoing treatments that research supported by the University of Nebraska has since shown can spread the virus widely in the air.
At the time, there was a debate over whether supply chain breakdowns of PPE and weakened CDC guidelines on protective gear were putting workers at risk.
Cain felt vulnerable working outside of rooms where COVID patients were undergoing infection-spreading treatments, he wrote in a text to Indish on March 26.
“McLaren screwed us,” he wrote.
He fell ill in mid-March and died April 4.
McLaren has since revised its face-covering policy to provide N95s or controlled air-purifying respirators (CAPRs) to workers on the COVID floor, union members said.
A spokesperson for the McLaren Health Care system said the OSHA complaints are “unsubstantiated” and that its protocols have consistently followed government guidelines. “We have always provided appropriate PPE and staff training that adheres to the evolving federal, state, and local PPE guidelines,” Brian Brown said in an email.
Separate from the closed complaints, OSHA investigations into Liddell and Cain’s deaths are ongoing, according to a spokesperson for the state’s Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity.
Nurses at Kaiser Permanente Fresno Medical Center also said the complaints they aired before a nurse’s death have not been resolved. (KHN is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.)
On March 18, nurses filed an initial complaint. They told OSHA they were given surgical masks, instead of N95s. Less than a week later, other complaints said staffers were forced to reuse those surgical masks and evaluate patients for COVID without wearing an N95 respirator.
Several nurses who cared for one patient who wasn’t initially suspected of having COVID-19 in mid-March wore no protective gear, according to Amy Arlund, a Kaiser Fresno nurse and board member of the National Nurses Organizing Committee board of directors. Sandra Oldfield, a 53-year-old RN, was among them.
Arlund said Oldfield had filed an internal complaint with management about inadequate PPE around that time. Arlund said the patient’s illness was difficult to pin down, so dozens of workers were exposed to him and 10 came down with COVID-19, including Oldfield.
Lori Rodriguez, Oldfield’s sister, said Sandra was upset that the patient she cared for who ended up testing positive for COVID-19 hadn’t been screened earlier.
“I don’t want to see anyone else lose their life like my sister did,” she said. “It’s just not right.”
Wade Nogy, senior vice president and area manager of Kaiser Permanente Fresno, confirmed that Oldfield had exposure to a patient before COVID-19 was suspected. He said Kaiser Permanente “has years of experience managing highly infectious diseases, and we are safely treating patients who have been infected with this virus.”
Kaiser Permanente spokesperson Marc Brown said KP “responded to these complaints with information, documents and interviews that demonstrated we are in compliance with OSHA regulations to protect our employees.” He said the health system provides nurses and other staff “with the appropriate protective equipment.”
California OSHA officials said the initial complaints were accurate and the hospital was not in compliance with a state law requiring workers treating COVID patients to have respirators. However, the officials said the requirement had been waived due to global shortages.
Kaiser Fresno is now in compliance, Cal/OSHA said in a statement, but the agency has ongoing investigations at the facility.
Arlund said tension around protective gear remains high at the hospital. On each shift, she said, nurses must justify their need for a respirator, face shield or hair cap. She expressed surprise that the OSHA complaints were considered “closed.”
“I’m very concerned to hear they are closing cases when I know they haven’t reached out to front-line nurses,” Arlund said. “We do not consider any of them closed.”
Nine days later, veteran Clara Maass registered nurse Barbara Birchenough texted her daughter: “The ICU nurses were making gowns out of garbage bags. … Dad is going to pick up large garbage bags for me just in case.”
Kristin Carbone, the eldest of four, said her mother was not working in a COVID area but was upset that patients with suspicious symptoms were under her care.
In a text later that day, Birchenough admitted: “I have a cough and a headache … we were exposed to six patients who we are now testing for COVID 19. They all of a sudden got coughs and fevers.”
“Please pray for all health care workers,” the text went on. “We are running out of supplies.”
By April 15, Birchenough, 65, had died of the virus. “They were not protecting their employees in my opinion,” Carbone said. “It’s beyond sad, but then I go to a different place where I’m infuriated.”
OSHA records show six investigations into a fatality or cluster of worker hospitalizations at the hospital. A Labor Department spokesperson said the initial complaints about Clara Maass remain open and did not explain why they continue to appear on a “closed” case list.
Nestor Bautista, 62, who worked closely with Birchenough, died of COVID-19 the same day as she did, according to Nestor’s sister, Cecilia Bautista. She said her brother, a nursing aide at Clara Maass for 24 years, was a quiet and devoted employee: “He was just work, work, work,” she said.
Responding to allegations in the OSHA complaint, Clara Maass Medical Center spokesperson Stacie Newton said the virus has “presented unprecedented challenges.”
“Although the source of the exposure has not been determined, several staff members” contracted the virus and “a few” have died, Newton said in an email. “Our staff has been in regular contact with OSHA, providing notifications and cooperating fully with all inquiries.”
Other complaints have been filed with OSHA offices across the U.S.
Twenty-one closed complaints alleged that workers faced threats of retaliation for actions such as speaking up about the lack of PPE. At a Delaware hospital, workers said they were not allowed to wear N95 masks, which protected them better than surgical masks, “for fear of termination or retaliation.” At an Atlanta hospital, workers said they were not provided proper PPE and were also threatened to be fired if they “raise[d] concerns about PPE when working with patients with Covid-19.”
Of the 4,100-plus complaints that flooded OSHA offices, over two-thirds are now marked as “closed” in an OSHA database. Among them was a complaint that staffers handling dead bodies in a small room off the lobby of a Manhattan nursing home weren’t given appropriate protective gear.
More than 100 of those cases were resolved within 10 days. One of those complaints said home health nurses in the Bronx were sent to treat COVID-19 patients without full protective gear. At a Massachusetts nursing home that housed COVID patients, staff members were asked to wash and reuse masks and disposable gloves, another complaint said. A complaint about an Ohio nursing home said workers were not required to wear protective equipment when caring for COVID patients. That complaint was closed three days after OSHA received it.
It remains unclear how OSHA resolved hundreds of the complaints. A Department of Labor spokesperson said in an email that some are closed based on an exchange of information between the employer and OSHA, and advised reporters to file Freedom of Information Act requests for details on others.
“The Department is committed to protecting America’s workers during the pandemic,” the Labor Department said in a statement. “OSHA has standards in place to protect employees, and employers who fail to take appropriate steps to protect their employees may be violating them.”
The agency advised its inspectors on May 19 to place reports of fatalities and imminent danger as a top priority, with a special focus on health care settings. Since late March, OSHA has opened more than 250 investigations into fatalities at health care facilities, government records show. Most of those cases are ongoing.
According to the mid-March complaints against McLaren Flint, workers did not receive needed N95 masks and “are not allowed to bring them from home.” They also said patients with COVID-19 were kept throughout the hospital.
Filing complaints, though, did little for Liddell, or for his colleague, Patrick Cain, 52. After the complaints were filed, Cain, a registered nurse, was treating people still awaiting the results of COVID-19 diagnostic tests — potentially positive patients ― without an N95 respirator. He was also working outside a room where potential COVID-19 patients were undergoing treatments that research supported by the University of Nebraska has since shown can spread the virus widely in the air.
At the time, there was a debate over whether supply chain breakdowns of PPE and weakened CDC guidelines on protective gear were putting workers at risk.
Cain felt vulnerable working outside of rooms where COVID patients were undergoing infection-spreading treatments, he wrote in a text to Indish on March 26.
“McLaren screwed us,” he wrote.He fell ill in mid-March and died April 4.
McLaren has since revised its face-covering policy to provide N95s or controlled air-purifying respirators (CAPRs) to workers on the COVID floor, union members said.
A spokesperson for the McLaren Health Care system said the OSHA complaints are “unsubstantiated” and that its protocols have consistently followed government guidelines. “We have always provided appropriate PPE and staff training that adheres to the evolving federal, state, and local PPE guidelines,” Brian Brown said in an email.
Separate from the closed complaints, OSHA investigations into Liddell and Cain’s deaths are ongoing, according to a spokesperson for the state’s Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity.
Nurses at Kaiser Permanente Fresno Medical Center also said the complaints they aired before a nurse’s death have not been resolved. (KHN is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.)
On March 18, nurses filed an initial complaint. They told OSHA they were given surgical masks, instead of N95s. Less than a week later, other complaints said staffers were forced to reuse those surgical masks and evaluate patients for COVID without wearing an N95 respirator.
Several nurses who cared for one patient who wasn’t initially suspected of having COVID-19 in mid-March wore no protective gear, according to Amy Arlund, a Kaiser Fresno nurse and board member of the National Nurses Organizing Committee board of directors. Sandra Oldfield, a 53-year-old RN, was among them.
Arlund said Oldfield had filed an internal complaint with management about inadequate PPE around that time. Arlund said the patient’s illness was difficult to pin down, so dozens of workers were exposed to him and 10 came down with COVID-19, including Oldfield.
Lori Rodriguez, Oldfield’s sister, said Sandra was upset that the patient she cared for who ended up testing positive for COVID-19 hadn’t been screened earlier.
“I don’t want to see anyone else lose their life like my sister did,” she said. “It’s just not right.”
Wade Nogy, senior vice president and area manager of Kaiser Permanente Fresno, confirmed that Oldfield had exposure to a patient before COVID-19 was suspected. He said Kaiser Permanente “has years of experience managing highly infectious diseases, and we are safely treating patients who have been infected with this virus.”
Kaiser Permanente spokesperson Marc Brown said KP “responded to these complaints with information, documents and interviews that demonstrated we are in compliance with OSHA regulations to protect our employees.” He said the health system provides nurses and other staff “with the appropriate protective equipment.”
California OSHA officials said the initial complaints were accurate and the hospital was not in compliance with a state law requiring workers treating COVID patients to have respirators. However, the officials said the requirement had been waived due to global shortages.
Kaiser Fresno is now in compliance, Cal/OSHA said in a statement, but the agency has ongoing investigations at the facility.
Arlund said tension around protective gear remains high at the hospital. On each shift, she said, nurses must justify their need for a respirator, face shield or hair cap. She expressed surprise that the OSHA complaints were considered “closed.”
“I’m very concerned to hear they are closing cases when I know they haven’t reached out to front-line nurses,” Arlund said. “We do not consider any of them closed.”
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