https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B0rJ6CfcuQ
Tuesday, August 25, 2020
'Responsible for National Collapse': RNC Greeted With Projections Condemning Republicans for Abandoning Jobless Workers
"It's unbearable that the Republican Party and the Trump administration are celebrating and campaigning while millions of families are suffering because they refuse to extend the $600 benefit that was keeping us afloat."
by
Jake Johnson, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/24/responsible-national-collapse-rnc-greeted-projections-condemning-republicans
On the eve of the 2020 Republican National Convention, a progressive advocacy group representing 15,000 unemployed workers on Sunday projected onto a Charlotte, North Carolina hotel the photos and stories of jobless workers struggling to meet basic needs after the GOP allowed the $600-per-week unemployment benefit boost to expire last month, slashing the incomes of some 30 million Americans.
"It's unbearable that the Republican Party and the Trump administration are celebrating and campaigning while millions of families are suffering because they refuse to extend the $600 benefit that was keeping us afloat," Cynthia Rizzo of Unemployed Action said in a statement. "I want them to see the faces of people who are struggling because of their inaction."
While the Republican convention will largely take place virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic, some Republican leaders are expected to appear physically in Charlotte, the originally planned site of the event."I can't support myself and my granddaughter on $225 a week," said Rizzo, who lives in Roxboro, North Carolina. "Republicans caused this unemployment crisis by botching the response to Covid, and then abandoned us to face eviction, hunger, and debt on our own."
Republican officials who arrived in Charlotte Sunday evening may have spotted the massive projections on building of the Hilton Garden Inn, a hotel located just blocks away from the convention site.
"I don't have any family, and few friends. Losing my job was terrifying. I don't have anyone to turn to," read one of the projections. "The only way I was able to survive was because of the extra $600."
"I worked as a server. My rent alone is more than unemployment, and my landlord isn't being understanding," read another. "I don't have money left for food, my car, my bills."
The projections come just days after the U.S. Department of Labor announced that more than a million Americans filed for unemployment benefits during the week ending August 8—just one of many signs that the economic recovery sputtering as the coronavirus continues to spread across the nation.
Earlier this month, Democratic congressional leaders and the Trump White House failed to reach an agreement to extend the enhanced unemployment benefits, allowing a key lifeline to lapse as hunger surged and tens of millions faced possible eviction. Democrats—along with economists, workers, and advocacy groups—demanded that the $600-per-week additional payments be extended while the White House and congressional Republicans pushed for a lower figure, with some saying publicly that they wouldn't mind letting the benefits expire completely.
After Congress and White House negotiators failed to strike a deal, President Donald Trump took executive action to extend the federal unemployment boost at $300 per week while requesting that cash-strapped states kick in an extra $100 per week. Experts decried the directive—which leaves out the poorest by design—as unworkable and a false promise to the millions of Americans who relied on the enhanced benefits to afford food, housing, and other necessities.
"As more details of the plan—known as Lost Wages Assistance—have emerged, so have problems with finding the funding and getting it to the hands of those who need it," the New York Times reported Sunday. "By Thursday, only one state, Arizona, had started paying out."
First Confirmed Coronavirus Reinfection Raises Immunity Concerns
Researchers in Hong Kong say 33-year-old-man is asymptomatic; immunologists call case 'no cause for alarm.'
by
Brett Wilkins, staff writer
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/08/24/first-confirmed-coronavirus-reinfection-raises-immunity-concerns
A Hong Kong man has become the first confirmed patient to be reinfected with coronavirus, raising fresh concerns Monday that immunity to the potentially deadly virus may be short-lived.
A research team at the University of Hong Kong, led by Dr. Kelvin Kai-Wang, announced on Monday that a 33-year-old man who was first infected by SARS-CoV-2 in March apparently contracted the virus for a second time while recently traveling in Europe. The confirmed reinfection suggests that some patients who recover from Covid-19 may only be temporarily immune to the virus, although scientists pointed to the fact that reinfection is common with other coronaviruses.
"This is the world's first documentation of a patient who recovered from Covid-19 but got another episode of Covid-19 afterwards," the researchers said in a statement reported by the medical news site STAT. "Our findings suggest that Covid-19 may persist in the global human population, as is the case for other common-cold associated human coronaviruses, even if patients have acquired immunity via natural infection."
While there have been several reported cases of presumed reinfection in the United States, none of these have been confirmed by testing. There have also been cases of recovered patients testing positive for the virus a second time because they still carry viral fragments, sometimes for weeks.
The New York Times reports the Hong Kong man was first diagnosed with Covid-19 on March 26. Although he suffered only mild symptoms, he was hospitalized three days later as required by Hong Kong health regulations. He was released from hospital on April 14 after testing negative twice. After returning from a trip to Spain and the United Kingdom, he again tested positive on August 15. The new test revealed he was infected with a strain of the virus that is prevalent in Europe.
Immunologists around the world said it is too soon to determine whether the Hong Kong case was cause for broader concern.
"There have been more than 24 million cases reported to date," World Health Organization coronavirus specialist Maria Van Kerkhov said at a media briefing on Monday. "We need to look at something like this at a population level."
"The second infection was completely asymptomatic—his immune response prevented the disease from getting worse," tweeted Prof. Akiko Iwasaki, a Yale University immunologist who was not involved in the research. "This is no cause for alarm—this is a textbook example of how immunity should work," she added.
However, Iwasaki said that asymptomatic carriers can still infect others with the virus, highlighting the importance of vaccine development.
"In order to provide herd immunity, a potent vaccine is needed to induce immunity that prevents both reinfection and disease," she said.
Dr. Jeffrey Shaman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University in New York, concurred with Iwasaki's assessment that the Hong Kong case is no cause for alarm. However, Shaman told the Times that "it remains very, very concerning... that we may be subject to repeat infection with this virus."
According to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center, there have been more than 25.5 million worldwide Covid-19 cases and just over 810,000 deaths as of Monday afternoon. The U.S. leads the world in both number of cases (5.7 million) and deaths (just over 177,000). The daily average number of new US coronavirus cases has been on the decline, with new reported cases over the past week averaging around 47,000 per day, down from a peak average of 67,317 on July 22, according to Johns Hopkins.
State health officials attribute the decline in new cases to safety guidelines including social distancing and wearing masks.
"Face coverings have made a difference," Washington state Health Secretary Dr. John Wiesman said last week.
However, government health officials also cautioned that although infections are trending in a positive direction, now is not the time to relax prevention and containment measures.
"This could turn around very quickly if we're not careful," warned Adm. Brett Giroir, the Trump administration physician in charge of supervising coronavirus testing. "We saw that early on after Memorial Day and the couple weeks afterward that sort of started the current outbreak."
As many schools and colleges across the U.S. prepare to re-open for fall classes, there are widespread fears that they will become the next significant incubators of coronavirus outbreaks, especially when summer gives way to autumn and temperatures begin to drop.
The Trump administration recently declared teachers to be "critical infrastructure workers," meaning that educators who may have been exposed to the virus but who show no symptoms can return to classrooms without quarantining for 14 days as recommended by public health agencies.
Many teachers have expressed serious concerns and outrage about returning to work amid a pandemic that is nowhere near under control, despite the administration's claims to the contrary. There have been numerous reports of educators preparing their wills and even writing their own obituaries as they contemplate the worst-case scenarios resulting from being forced back to work.
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