health

Little Village Covered In Dust During Respiratory Pandemic

April 14, 2020 Mauricio Peña, Block Club Chicago. Educate! Coal, COVID-19, Environment, health

Chicago, IL - City officials on Sunday sought to lay the blame for the massive dust cloud that descended on Little Village on a “dishonest” developer that demolished an old coal plant smokestack the day before. But the city had an active role in the demolition, Mayor Lori Lightfoot acknowledged, by approving permits and overseeing the work Saturday. In the midst of managing the city’s battle against the deadly coronavirus “literally robbing people of their ability to breathe,” Lightfoot had to scramble to contain the damage from Saturday’s emergency. Activists had begged the city not to allow the demolition, but it instead proceeded with representatives from the city’s Department of Health, Buildings and Fire Department on hand to watch.

Gig Workers Fight Back: ‘We Don’t Want To Deliver COVID-19 With Your Groceries’

April 13, 2020 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG. Podcast COVID-19, Gig Workers, health, Worker Rights and Jobs

The economy has shut down considerably in the United States so that people can shelter in place and slow the spread of COVID-19, but not all workers are able to do so. Essential workers include those who work in the food industry, not only the producers but also grocery store workers. One group of workers that is in high demand is the personal shopper who will buy what people order and deliver it to their homes. Shipt Shoppers, who do this work, have had pay cuts and are not being provided with what they need to protect themselves and their customers from contracting COVID-19. We speak with Robin Pape, a gig worker who is helping to lead the fight back to demand that Shipt Shoppers are protected and compensated for the hazardous work they are doing. Their fight is representative of what many essential workers are facing during the pandemic.

COVID-19 Reaches US Slaughterhouses

April 12, 2020 Martha Rosenberg, Counterpunch. Educate! COVID-19, Factory Farming, health, Meat

Meat giant JBS USA Holdings closed its Souderton, Pennsylvania slaughter operation. Tyson Foods closed its Columbus Junction, Iowa pork slaughterhouse. Pennsylvania-based Empire Kosher Poultry temporarily closed its doors and Sanderson Farms asked employees at its Moultrie, GA slaughter operation to stay home. COVID-19 has hit U.S. slaughterhouses big time. In addition to management-ruled closures, employees have also walked out because of the growing number of COVID-19 infected employees and the risks on site. In the midst of human deaths and hunts for ventilators, media are not focusing on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic but they should. The tiger that tested positive for COVID-19 at the Bronx Zoo is a grim reminder that civet cats hosting a bat virus caused the original SARS virus and outbreak according to the Journal of Virology and COVID-19 is actually named SARS-CoV-2.

Federal Prison Factories Kept Running As Coronavirus Spreads

April 11, 2020 Cary Aspinwall, Keri Blakinger, and Joseph Neff, The Marshall Project. Educate! COVID-19, health, Prison Labor, Prisoner rights

As the coronavirus spread across the country, Patrick Jones kept reporting to his job in the textile factory at the federal prison in Oakdale, Louisiana. He’d worked there for years, sewing tidy buttonholes on government uniforms. Though the highly contagious virus was creeping into prisons by mid-March, Jones and his fellow inmates were working without masks, according to interviews with family and prisoners who knew him. He collapsed on March 19 and was taken to a hospital. About a week later, he died from COVID-19. Shortly after his death, the pandemic’s first in a federal Bureau of Prisons facility, the agency announced a nationwide 14-day “lockdown,” saying inmates would be mostly kept in their cells to decrease the spread of the virus.

Federal Judge Orders ICE To Release Four Immigrants At Risk Of COVID-19

April 10, 2020 The Lawyer's Committee For Civil Rights. Create! COVID-19, health, ICE, Immigrant Rights

San Francisco - A federal judge has ordered the release of four immigrants detained in two ICE detention centers in California on the grounds that their age and medical conditions make them especially vulnerable to the potentially fatal COVID-19 infection. “None of these [individuals] is in a position to meaningfully limit his exposure to COVID-19 while at Yuba or Mesa Verde,” Judge Chesney affirmed in a ruling Wednesday. The judge’s decision came in response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU Foundations of Northern California and Southern California, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, and Lakin & Wille LLP. “Immigration detention is unnecessary generally, but now with COVID it is putting people at risk,” said Shelly Clements, the wife of Charles Joseph, one of the plaintiffs ordered released. “I feel blessed that my husband is coming home.”

Zimbabwe: Protests Over Coronavirus Fears

April 9, 2020 By MacDonald Dzirutwe, Reuters. Resist! COVID-19, health, Sanctions, Zimbabwe

Customs officials at the country’s biggest airport have also stopped reporting for work, fearing exposure to the coronavirus and a lack of measures to prevent its spread, their union said. The virus has killed one person from three confirmed cases in Zimbabwe, although the opposition and critics of President Emmerson Mnangagwa accuse his government of under-reporting the number of cases. The government denies this and Health Minister Obadiah Moyo says the government has set aside resources for the purchase of protective equipment. “Our members think the government is not taking them seriously. We can’t afford to lose nurses to this serious pandemic,” Enoch Dongo, secretary general of the 18,000-member Zimbabwe Nurses Association said.

This Is A Global Pandemic – Let’s Treat It As Such

April 9, 2020 Adam Hanieh, Verso Books. Strategize! COVID-19, Global South, health, Pandemic, Poverty

In the face of the COVID-19 tsunami, our lives are changing in ways that were inconceivable just a few short weeks ago. Not since the 2008-2009 economic collapse has the world collectively shared an experience of this kind: a single, rapidly-mutating, global crisis, structuring the rhythm of our daily lives within a complex calculus of risk and competing probabilities. In response, numerous social movements have put forward demands that take seriously the potentially disastrous consequences of the virus, while also tackling the incapacity of capitalist governments to adequately address the crisis itself. These demands include questions of worker safety, the necessity of neighbourhood level organising, income and social security, the rights of those on zero-hour contracts or in precarious employment, and the need to protect renters and those living in poverty.

Food Safety Groups Warn Of Looming Zoonotic Pandemic Due To New USDA Rule

April 9, 2020 Andrea Germanos, Commondreams. Resist! Food and Agriculture, health, USDA

Food safety advocates warned Monday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's newly implemented rules for pig slaughter are setting the stage for a potential public health disaster—including the possibility of another infectious disease that could come from animals. At issue is the New Swine Inspection System (NSIS), which the USDA finalized in October. Touted by the federal agency as a "modernization" effort, the regulation sparked immediate fears and lawsuits by watchdog groups over its elimination of kill speed limits and weakening of the inspection system. As NBC News previously reported: The new rule will let factory workers, rather than USDA inspectors, remove unsuitable carcasses and trim defects in plants that opt into the new inspection system.

National Security Or Human Security?

April 9, 2020 Leonard Eiger, Popular Resistance. Create! health, National Security, Nuclear Weapons, Pandemic

Crazy times! As we move through this time of health and economic crisis I find myself reflecting on the importance and power of language. Trump recently said of the fight to deal with COVID19 that it is “our big war... It's a medical war. We have to win this war. It's very important.” And yet, this sort of rhetoric is nothing new. Presidents have long declared wars – J Edgar Hoover on crime, Lyndon Johnson on poverty, Richard Nixon on drugs, and now Trump's war on a virus. We know how well how those previous “wars” have gone. And now we face a crisis that is harming people and devastating our economy, while we would have been far better prepared to protect lives had we invested proactively in public health programs.

How The Rich And Powerful Put Their Wealth Above Public Health

April 7, 2020 Gin Armstrong, Eyes On The Ties. Educate! Billionaires, COVID-19, health, wealth inequality

While millions are facing health and financial uncertainty and unemployment rolls are reaching record levels due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, a small group of wealthy elites are thriving. Not only do the rich and powerful seem to have access to otherwise near-impossible to obtain COVID-19 testing and enjoy better access to healthcare, they are also self-isolating at swanky vacation estates in the Hamptons, the Catskills, and Sun Valle – or, like billionaire David Geffen, on lavish private yachts. All the while these billionaires and multi-millionaires are figuring out ways to maintain their wealth and even profit at the expense of everyone else who is struggling to stay afloat. Indeed, as J.C. Pan wrote for The New Republic: “The malfeasance of the ruling class has reached such a level of absurdity that it almost feels as if they’re trying to summon a mob.”

Activists Place Symbolic Body Bags At Entrance To Trump Golf Course

April 6, 2020 Refuse Fascism. Resist! COVID-19, health, Mike Pence, Trump

Pine Hill, NJ - “The Trump/Pence response to the COVID-19 pandemic – the actions, lies and inaction – is killing people and threatening humanity,” said Samantha Goldman, Refuse Fascism after helping place symbolic body bags at the entrance to the Trump National Golf Club in Pine Hill, New Jersey following a car caravan throughout Philadelphia demanding Trump/Pence Out NOW! “This is an emergency. This fascist regime poses a danger to humanity. Trump has blood on his hands.” They said, “Most importantly, we demand the immediate removal of Trump & Pence.” RefuseFascism.org calls for non-violent, mass, sustained protest at the soonest possible time, with the demand #TrumpPenceOutNOW.

Impact Of COVID-19 On Prisons

April 5, 2020 the Prison Policy Initiative. Create! COVID-19, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Decarceration, health, Prisoner rights

Prisons and jails are amplifiers of infectious diseases such as COVID-19, because the conditions that can keep diseases from spreading - such as social distancing - are nearly impossible to achieve in correctional facilities. So what should criminal justice agencies be doing to protect public health? On this page, we're tracking examples of state and local agencies taking meaningful steps to slow the spread of COVID-19. (So far, however, no state or municipality has implemented all of our five key policy ideas, nor met the demands issued by various organizations nationwide.) Can't find what you're looking for here? See our list of other webpages aggregating information about the criminal justice system and COVID-19.

Workers Walk Out, Building Momentum Toward General Strike

April 4, 2020 Candace Bernd, Truthout. Resist! COVID-19, health, Strike, Workers

Essential workers at Instacart, Whole Foods, Amazon and General Electric are staging protests and walking off the job in droves across the U.S., demanding increased protections and pay as they continue to face disproportionate risks and increasingly perilous working conditions amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Thousands of workers for the San Francisco-based Instacart, a popular U.S. grocery delivery service app, went on strike Monday for better pay and health protections as they face soaring demand to deliver groceries and other essentials to people on lockdown amid shelter-in-place orders. As Instacart orders in many parts of the country are backed up by as much as a week as demand has spiked, many of the company’s full-service shoppers — who are classified as independent contractors — say they are not being provided with adequate paid sick measures, hazard pay or supplies to meet challenging delivery schedules while staying safe.

Coronavirus, Drugs, And The Future Of Festivals

April 3, 2020 Emanuel Sferios, DanceSafe.org. Educate! COVID-19, Drug use, health, Pandemic

As the founder of DanceSafe, I have worked in public health for over twenty years. I’ve seen firsthand how public policy decisions directly affect people’s lives. Take drug prohibition, for example: Last year approximately 70,000 Americans died as a result of prohibition and the unsafe drug supply it creates, a more than threefold increase since the year 2000. Conversely, countries like Portugal, who decriminalized all drugs, have reduced their drug-related fatality rates by half. And Switzerland, who took it a step further by implementing widespread opioid maintenance programs (including heroin maintenance) saw a 64% drop in overdose fatalities. Proper public health policies, enforced by law, can mean the difference between life and death. This is true when it comes to drug use, and it is true for pandemics like COVID-19.

Pandemic Protections Must Extend To People In Prison

April 3, 2020 Amani Sawari, Sawarimi.org. Organize! COVID-19, health, Prisons, State Initiatives

Over the past month as the Coronavirus pandemic has swept across the United States, precautions have been made to protect residents including enhancements to operational capacity of health care facilities, closing of non-essential business and the establishment of statewide lockdowns that mandate individuals to self-quarantine. Unfortunately these provisions have not extended far enough to protect incarcerated citizens, many of whom have family members and allies on the outside that have demanded action be taken to protect people in prison. In order to combat the lack of action taken by state governors, slow moving legislation has been introduced in multiple states. In Massachusetts HD.4963: An Act regarding Decarceration and COVID-19, demands that people who pose no threat to the community be released, including those serving time for simple possession of controlled substances, detained because they cannot afford bail under $10,000 and over the age of 50, who are according to the CDC medically vulnerable.

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