MN Gov. Tim Walz self-quarantines after security member tests positive for COVID-19

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz put himself into quarantine Monday after a member of his security detail tested positive for COVID-19, while U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar said her husband was hospitalized with COVID-19.

The announcements followed an Instagram post by Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan late Sunday that her brother died of the disease in Tennessee.

The governor will self-quarantine for 14 days. Walz learned of the potential exposure early Monday morning and has not left his home since, his office said in a statement. He was in proximity to the individual late last week.

“The most important thing Minnesotans can do to stop the spread of COVID-19 is to stay home,” Walz said. “I’m using this as an opportunity to lead by example. Though I’m feeling healthy and not showing any symptoms, I’m going to work from home and model the protocol we are asking all Minnesotans to follow.”

Klobuchar said in a statement that her husband, John Besser, began feeling sick when she was in Minnesota and he was in Washington, and that he immediately quarantined himself. The former presidential candidate said he sought a test and chest X-ray after he began coughing up blood, and was checked into a Virginia hospital with “very low oxygen levels which really haven’t improved.”

https://www.twincities.com/2020/03/23/coronavirus-walz-self-quarantines-klobuchars-husband-hospitalized/

Fight For 15 @fightfor15: As the government debates a stimulus package, officials can either decide

Why the U.S. failed the coronavirus test

By Marcia Angell Mar 21, 2020


The coronavirus pandemic is the best argument for “Medicare for All.” As it stands, most Americans get health care only if we have insurance that will pay for it. If we don’t or we can’t afford the deductibles and copayments, too bad. Every other advanced country provides universal health care in a predominately nonprofit system.

What happens, then, when Americans develop a fever and cough? Are they likely to seek medical help, despite the hefty bills they are sure to receive, particularly if, say, the radiologist is out of network or the insurance company refuses to pay for some other reason? The new coronavirus, while highly contagious, is usually mild, so people with minimal symptoms might simply take their usual cold remedies while they go about their business and spread the infection widely.

The problem is that we treat health care like a market commodity distributed according to the ability to pay in an uncoordinated system with hundreds of commercial insurers and profit-oriented providers. Some 30 million people have no access to health care because they are uninsured, and millions more don’t use their insurance because the deductibles and copayments are unaffordable. In addition, insurers usually require patients to get their care within a narrow network of providers and exclude certain services.

The shortage of test kits for coronavirus stems from a related problem. Since there was no commercial market for them, they didn’t get made immediately. While we’ve converted health care into a market commodity, we’ve hollowed out our public health system, so it couldn’t do the job.

For all we know, the coronavirus may already have spread widely within the United States. Although it has been in other countries for more than two months, we have not really looked for it here. Until the last week in February, our premier public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, limited its diagnostic testing to symptomatic patients who had traveled to China or had contact with someone known to be infected. This is akin to looking for lost keys only under a lamppost.

https://www.santafenewmexican.com/opinion/my_view/why-the-u-s-failed-the-coronavirus-test/article_cb92b8a6-694c-11ea-80b4-078d871fd2e9.html

Amazonians United Wins PTO for all Amazon Workers

DCH1 Amazonians United
Mar 22 · 13 min read


Big change begins somewhere: an idea, a few conversations, solid people coming together, a plan, and courage. We know y’all can make big change too because we, a small crew of Amazon workers at DCH1 Chicago, just did our part to win Paid Time Off (PTO) for ALL Amazon workers. We heard that Sacramento Amazon workers started a petition for PTO. We saw pictures of them bravely walking out, demanding a meeting with their regional manager. We decided that we had to take action too. We managed to get 251 coworkers to join us in signing our PTO petition. Three crews from three different shifts turned the petition in to our top boss at three mandatory “All-Hands” meetings. More than half of our coworkers started wearing “Amazonians United for PTO” buttons at work everyday. We went up against the wealthiest man in the world and we won. We’re growing our movement, join us! This is just the beginning and this is the story of how we’ve been winning.

So why did we begin a campaign for PTO? Because we found out that Amazon was promising us Vacation Time and PTO on paper, but denying it to us in practice. Here’s what we read:

https://twitter.com/Dch1United/status/1241836307309105152

Warren @SenWarren: Earlier this week, I announced 8 requirements that we believe companies

Cathleen Decker @cathleendecker EXCLUSIVE: The Peace Corps is doing more than evacuating its 7,300

Coronavirus Could Overwhelm U.S. Without Urgent Action, Estimates Say

By James Glanz, Lauren Leatherby, Matthew Bloch, Mitch Smith, Larry Buchanan, Jin Wu and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs

March 20, 2020


The coronavirus has infected far more people in the United States than testing has shown so far, and stringent measures to limit social contact in parts of the country not yet seeing many cases are needed to significantly stem the tide of illness and death in the coming months.

Those are the conclusions of Columbia University researchers who used a New York Times database of known cases and Census Bureau transportation data to model how the outbreak could evolve based on what is known about the virus. The estimates are inherently uncertain, and they could change as America adopts unprecedented measures to control the outbreak.

But they offer a stark warning: Even if the country cut its rate of transmission in half — a tall order — some 650,000 people might become infected in the next two months.

The growth is driven by Americans with mild symptoms who are carrying and spreading the virus without being aware that they have it, the researchers say. The number of undetected cases — 11 times more than has been officially reported, they estimate — reflects how far behind the United States has fallen in testing for the virus.

New York City, Seattle, Boston and parts of California already have such large outbreaks that they will probably see significant growth even after taking extraordinary measures over the past week, the researchers say. New York City’s outbreak, the nation’s largest, grew to more than 4,000 known cases on Friday and is likely to increase many times over even in a favorable scenario.

How Control Measures Could Slow the Outbreak

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/20/us/coronavirus-model-us-outbreak.html

Make Elizabeth Warren the Coronavirus Czar

Trump isn’t up to the job of managing a crisis. We need a work-around.
By Jeet Heer
Today 10:54 am


If you judge Donald Trump’s performance as president by the lowest of low bars, there has been a slight improvement in his handling of the coronavirus crisis in the last week. He no longer suggests that talk of the virus is a “hoax” by Democrats to make him look bad. He isn’t glad-handing supporters in violation of Center for Disease Control protocol. He’s surrounded himself with experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci. He makes nods to necessary policies like social distancing.

But, evaluated by any reasonable standards, Trump is still a disaster. His daily press conferences are a farrago of untruths, a combination of outright lies and Trump misstating ideas he seems to barely understand. On Thursday’s briefing, Trump touted the existing anti-malarial drug chloroquine as a possible magic bullet, describing it as a potential “game-changer.” According to Trump, “It has shown very, very encouraging early results, and we’re going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately.” The FDA had to clarify that chloroquine still had to be tested. According to FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, “That’s a drug that the president has directed us to take a closer look at as to whether an expanded-use approach to that could be done to actually see if that benefits patients.” Dr. Fauci in an interview described evidence of the drug’s effectiveness as “anecdotal.” In other words, Trump wildly oversold medicine that hasn’t proven its effectiveness in a scientific setting.

Trump’s dishonesty is only one reason he’s the worst possible person to oversee a crisis that could kill millions and wreck the global economy. He also continues to maintain a ramshackle leadership style, with family members like Jared Kushner holding ill-defined power. According to The New York Times, Kushner is running an informal coronavirus team that is vexing government officials. The newspaper reports, “Kushner’s team is causing confusion among many officials involved in the response, who say they are unsure who is in charge given Kushner’s dual role as senior adviser and Trump family member.”

Trump is totally and irredeemably unfit for power in this crisis. This should be obvious to not just his political opponents but also Republicans in Washington, who know better than anyone else Trump’s character flaws.

The current economic crisis gives Democrats a path to change the situation. Since Democratic votes are needed for any stimulus, the party has real leverage to force changes in the White House. And given the fact that Trump’s temperamental unfitness is well known, some congressional Republicans might also be on board.

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/warren-coronavirus-czar-trump/

Abby Vesoulis @abbyvesoulis: An uninsured COVID-19 patient just got her medical bill

Nina@NinaBernstein1: "Basically, if he's not working, I'm going to eat as little as possible