The 2016 provision also requires that infection preventionists receive specialized training and that all long-term care facilities employ a specialist at least part time. The specialists are responsible for ensuring that nursing home staff properly clean their hands, disinfect surfaces and follow other protocols, helping to prevent both residents and health care providers from becoming infected.

The provision took effect last November despite the Trump administration’s objections, but the administration has continued working to reverse it.

In a plan unveiled last July, the Trump administration proposed eliminating the requirement that nursing homes employ infection specialists at least part time, citing the “excessive administrative burden” on long-term care facilities, as well as potential confusion about the definition of “part-time.” Instead, the administration proposed requiring only that infection preventionists spend “sufficient time at the facility.”

Life Care Center of Kirkland — the skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility linked to four coronavirus deaths in Washington — declined to specify whether it had an infection prevention specialist on staff. A spokeswoman for Life Care Center referred NBC News to a statement released Monday that said the facility was “following infection control recommendations, including proper hand-washing techniques and wearing masks, gowns and gloves when caring for any symptomatic patients.”

The Florida Department of Health announced on Tuesday that another person in Florida has tested 'presumptive positive' for the coronavirus. Two others have already been confirmed with the virus, otherwise known as COVID-19.

The new patient is the second in Hillsborough County where a woman is currently quarantined with the coronavirus.

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Testing 'presumptive positive' means the patient has tested positive for COVID-19 through state laboratories. The Centers for Disease Control must then confirm the findings.


According to the Florida Department of Health website, there are now 16 pending testing results and 24 negative testing results. There are currently 247 people under public health monitoring.

Texas counties with largest minority population growth saw 2.5M new residents and 542 closures. Whiter areas had just 34. https://www.salon.com/2020/03/03/voter-suppression-plain-and-simple-texas-closed-hundreds-of-polling-sites-in-black-latino-areas/

Texas has shuttered more polling places than any other state since 2012 and most of the closures disproportionately hit black and Latino areas, according to a new analysis by The Guardian.

Texas has closed 750 polling locations since 2012, the Leadership Conference Education Fund, a civil rights group, reported last year. The state had one polling place for every 4,000 residents in 2012, but that number rose to 7,700 residents by 2018. The Guardian's analysis found that the overwhelming majority of closures came in areas that saw the largest increase in black and Latino residents.

The 50 counties that saw the highest growth in black and Latino population had 542 polling sites close between 2012 and 2018, while the 50 counties with the lowest black and Latino population growth saw just 34 closures. The closures came despite the population in the top 50 counties rising by 2.5 million while the 50 counties that had just 34 closures saw their population fall by 13,000.

"This is voter suppression — plain and simple," said the progressive advocacy group MoveOn.

The moves are likely to worsen Texas' already-low turnout rates, advocates warned, despite changing demographics and large growth in black and Latino areas.

BOCA RATON -- The NHL is "starting to explore contingency plans" should the coronavirus become a more significant health threat in North America ahead of the 2019-20 NHL playoffs, deputy commissioner Bill Daly told ESPN on Monday.

Daly did not rule out several options, such as postponing or canceling games, or even playing games in empty arenas.

"I think it's very unlikely -- knock on wood, I'm hopeful -- that we would progress to a stage where we have to consider something that dramatic," Daly said. "But certainly everything is possible, and we have to look at all possible contingencies. If it gets to that point, we will be ready."

The NHL, however, is unlikely to make a trip to China next season, as hoped. The league played preseason games in China in 2017 and 2018, but missed this past fall because of logistical issues with booking arenas. While the NHL was optimistic about a return ahead of the 2020-21 season, Daly said the outbreak has made it difficult to firm up plans.

The Chinese government has facilitated the mass transfer of Uyghur and other ethnic minority1 citizens from the far west region of Xinjiang to factories across the country. Under conditions that strongly suggest forced labour, Uyghurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 83 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen.

This report estimates that more than 80,000 Uyghurs were transferred out of Xinjiang to work in factories across China between 2017 and 2019, and some of them were sent directly from detention camps.2 The estimated figure is conservative and the actual figure is likely to be far higher. In factories far away from home, they typically live in segregated dormitories,3 undergo organised Mandarin and ideological training outside working hours,4 are subject to constant surveillance, and are forbidden from participating in religious observances.5 Numerous sources, including government documents, show that transferred workers are assigned minders and have limited freedom of movement.6

China has attracted international condemnation for its network of extrajudicial ‘re-education camps’ in Xinjiang.7 This report exposes a new phase in China’s social re-engineering campaign targeting minority citizens, revealing new evidence that some factories across China are using forced Uyghur labour under a state-sponsored labour transfer scheme that is tainting the global supply chain.

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Since 2017, more than a million Uyghurs and members of other Turkic Muslim minorities have disappeared into a vast network of ‘re-education camps’ in the far west region of Xinjiang,11 in what some experts call a systematic, government-led program of cultural genocide.12 Inside the camps, detainees are subjected to political indoctrination, forced to renounce their religion and culture and, in some instances, reportedly subjected to torture.13 In the name of combating ‘religious extremism’,14 Chinese authorities have been actively remoulding the Muslim population in the image of China’s Han ethnic majority.