All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

The U.S. Is Running Out of Masks and Gloves Again as Coronavirus Cases Spike

“I’m not going to tell you we’re able to meet all demand, but there’s significantly less unfulfilled orders today than in April,” Rear Adm. John Polowczyk, whom Trump put in charge of coronavirus-related supplies, told the Washington Post “I have not found a hospital system that is in threat of running out. … I don’t have the sense of there being severe shortages.”

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The U.S. is experiencing a coronavirus deja vu.

Just like in early March, cases are spiking across the country, hospitals are overwhelmed, testing is lagging, and the White House doesn’t have a concrete plan to address the situation.

And just like in the early days of the outbreak, the country is once again running out of gowns, masks, gloves and other personal protective equipment (PPE).

On Wednesday, speaking at White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing, Vice President Mike Pence claimed that PPE supplies remain “very strong” but in the same breath, he said the Trump administration is now encouraging healthcare workers “to use some of the best practices” to “preserve and reuse” face masks and other protective equipment.

While the White House claims there are no “severe shortages” of PPE, health care professionals including doctors and nurses in hospitals and clinics across the country are telling a very different story.

In Texas, which is experiencing one of the biggest spikes in COVID-19 cases of any state, doctors at a hospital in Houston are being told to reuse single-use N95 respirator masks for up to 15 days before throwing them out.

The National Nurses United, the country’s largest organization of registered nurses, found 85% of members were forced to reuse disposable N95 masks while treating coronavirus patients.

The country’s second-largest nursing organization, the American Nurses Association, found 79% of its members were asked to reuse masks and 45% reported PPE shortages at their facility.

But it’s not just hospitals that are suffering from significant shortages of supplies.

The American Medical Association told the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that centers providing primary care, chemotherapy, and minor surgeries have struggled to reopen because they are unable to secure PPE.

Last week the AMA called for more transparency on PPE supplies in a letter to the emergency agency, saying that there is a “lack of data to help us ascertain whether the central problem is in the availability of raw material, production backlogs, gaps in the distribution systems, or some combination of all three.”

The AMA sent a second letter to Pence last week, urging the White House to invoke the Defense Production Act to compel manufacturers to make more N95 masks and gowns.

Healthcare workers are among the worst-hit groups by the coronavirus. Almost 100,000 have been infected and at least 500 have died, according to incomplete data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The real number is thought to be much higher.

Part of the problem is simply finding suppliers to fill the orders of PPE. Last month Washington state’s Democratic governor, Jay Inslee, said officials had struggled to find suppliers — either domestic or international.

A report from FEMA last month showed a worrying shortage of medical gowns and no increase in production of PPE since March, when doctors and nurses were reduced to wearing trash bags to protect themselves.

In a letter to Trump last month, Inslee said he has tried to buy $400 million in equipment, but that only 10% of orders have been filled

Inslee urged trump to “use the Defense Production Act to increase domestic PPE production necessary to meet current and projected needs for all workers in all sectors.”

The U.S. passed 3 million confirmed coronavirus infections on Wednesday, with states like Texas, California, Florida, and Arizona reporting major increases in cases. In Tulsa, a senior health official said Wednesday that a Trump rally in the city in late June “more than likely contributed” to a spike in cases there.

But despite the growing case numbers, rising death total, and increasingly vocal concern among health professionals about PPE shortage, the Trump administration still appears to be burying its head in the sand, with no concrete plans to address the crisis.

Instead, Trump is pushing to reopen the economy and falsely claiming that the spike in new cases is simply down to increased testing. And the man charged with organizing the nation’s PPE supplies is following suit.

I’m not going to tell you we’re able to meet all demand, but there’s significantly less unfulfilled orders today than in April,” Rear Adm. John Polowczyk, whom Trump put in charge of coronavirus-related supplies, told the Washington Post “I have not found a hospital system that is in threat of running out. … I don’t have the sense of there being severe shortages.”

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Cover: Shania Dod, right, collects a sample at a United Memorial Medical Center COVID-19 testing site Wednesday, July 8, 2020, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Florida voters with felony convictions ask justices to intervene in voting-rights dispute

Florida voters with felony convictions ask justices to intervene in voting-rights dispute

With the deadline to register to vote in Florida’s August primary election 12 days away, a group of Florida voters and civil rights groups today asked the Supreme Court to reinstate a ruling by a federal trial court that struck down a state law that requires Florida residents who have been convicted of a felony to pay all court fees and costs before voting. An order by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit that put the trial court’s ruling on hold, the voters argue, “creates chaos and confusion about who can and cannot vote, where a wrong guess creates the risk of criminal prosecution.” The potential impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling is immense, the voters add, for three-quarters of a million Floridians who may now be uncertain about their eligibility to vote as a result of the 11th Circuit’s order.

In November 2018, voters in Florida adopted an amendment to the state’s constitution that allows people with prior felony convictions to vote once they complete “all terms of their sentence including parole or probation.” Seven months later, the state’s legislature passed a law that conditioned the right to vote for former felons on the payment of all court costs, fees and fines. Voters challenged the law, arguing (among other things) that it is unconstitutional because it discriminates on the basis of wealth. A federal district court agreed and temporarily blocked the state from enforcing the law. The 11th Circuit upheld that ruling in February.

After a trial, the district court issued a new ruling in May that concluded that the law also violates the U.S. Constitution’s 24th Amendment, which bans poll taxes. Moreover, the district court added, it could take years for the state to determine how much would-be voters must pay before they can vote – which in turn deters voters from registering at all, out of fear they will be charged with voter fraud if they make a mistake. Florida appealed again to the 11th Circuit, which on July 1 granted the state’s request to have the full court hear the case and to put the district court’s ruling on hold while the appeals proceed.

In their filing today, the voters urged the Supreme Court to lift the 11th Circuit’s stay and reinstate the district court’s ruling. Citing the court’s 2006 decision in Purcell v. Gonzalez, which stands for the principle that courts should be wary about making changes in the run-up to an election, the voters complained that the 11th Circuit’s order “has created triple the ‘confusion and consequent incentive to remain away from the polls’” as the Supreme Court found in Purcell. And it did so, the voters continued, “just three weeks before the registration deadline for the August primary” and “after vote-by-mail applications were already received and just as ballots were mailed to overseas voters.” The Florida primary is on Aug. 18, and the registration deadline is July 20.

In a statement, Paul Smith of the Campaign Legal Center, which represents the voters, urged the justices to “allow the District Court’s order to remain in effect as the State’s appeal is reviewed. Florida’s voters have spoken,” Smith continued, “loud and clear—nearly two-thirds of them supported rights restoration at the ballot box in 2018. This case is about the bedrock principle that voting rights cannot be reserved for those who can afford to pay for them.”

The voters’ request in Raysor v. DeSantis will go to Justice Clarence Thomas, who fields emergency applications from the 11th Circuit. Thomas can act on the request on his own or, as is more likely, refer it to the whole court.

This post was originally published at Howe on the Court.

The post Florida voters with felony convictions ask justices to intervene in voting-rights dispute appeared first on SCOTUSblog.

Black Activists Warn that Facebook Hasn’t Done Enough to Stop Racist Harassment – Mother Jones

“People get blocked all the time for just saying the word ‘white,’” Faison recently reiterated. “It’s all still the same.” Meanwhile, Facebook has allowed threats against Faison and BLM activists to remain up. In early June, one man whose page appears dedicated to harassing BLM activists, posted a video of Faison with an all-caps message: “I WOULD LOVE TO WAKE UP TO THE NEWS THAT SOMEONE OFFED THIS EVIL BITCH.” As one commenter on the BLM Sacramento Facebook page wrote, “Facebook is so ridiculous. I reported his page and profile and the crazy posts hes made and everything came back as meeting community standards. HOW? What he said about Tanya is basically a death threat.” It’s not clear if Facebook ultimately took any action, but at some point the harasser changed “offed” to “offended.” The post remains up, and in context, the threat remains clear. Another post last month by the same harasser read that “I’d like to give a shout out to all the good people that have been making looters disappear and never be seen again.” The message, which was followed by an emoji of two beers clinking together, was set against a skull-theme backdrop. It is still up.

Such threats, coupled with activists’ own pages and posts coming down or being deleted, “hinders the work” of racial justice organizers, Faison says. “If they’re not able to go on social media, they can’t go live when something’s happening. It impacts what we’re doing. It impacts it in a huge way because we use social media platforms to inform people.” The number of videos of police brutality that went viral during the first weeks of the protests make it clear that access to social media is, indeed, crucial to such activists.

 

Source: Black Activists Warn that Facebook Hasn’t Done Enough to Stop Racist Harassment – Mother Jones

America’s international students are facing deportation. This is a disaster | Gayatri Devi | Opinion | The Guardian

The threat to evict international students from our campuses appears to be an attempt to financially blackmail universities already poised on the edge of precarity brought about by the pandemic, as well as an attempt to exploit the pandemic to kick non-white immigrants out of the country.

Education should not be used to exclude and disenfranchise students. These extreme F-1/M-1 visa restrictions are an act of blatant educational discrimination. There should be no difference between a citizen student and an international student. The absence of either is of imminent concern.

 

Source: America’s international students are facing deportation. This is a disaster | Gayatri Devi | Opinion | The Guardian

Revealed: legislators’ pro-pipeline letters ghostwritten by fossil fuel company | US news | The Guardian

The records, obtained by the watchdog group the Energy and Policy Institute and provided to the Guardian, show that three North Dakota state legislators and a Williams county, North Dakota, commissioner signed and mailed letters to Ferc and the US army corps of engineers that reproduced word-for-word letters sent to them by MDU Resources’ political strategists.

Source: Revealed: legislators’ pro-pipeline letters ghostwritten by fossil fuel company | US news | The Guardian