Coronavirus disaster in Trump’s and Bezos’ USA

This 1 May 2020 video from the USA says about itself:

Activists Paint Message Outside Jeff Bezos’ Mansion | NowThis

Activists painted a mural outside Jeff Bezos’ house demanding the billionaire CEO do more to protect Amazon workers — 2 hours later, it was gone.

In US news and current events today, activists painted a mural outside of Jeff Bezos’ D.C. home on April 29, demanding that the CEO do more to protect Amazon workers.

Less than two hours after the mural was complete, it was washed away by a masked worker with a hose. A coalition of workers from Amazon, Instacart, Whole Foods, and others, is planning to strike on May 1. This follows a month of actions taken by front-line workers demanding, among other things, more protective gear and hazard pay.

WORKERS FORCED TO CHOOSE BETWEEN INFECTION OR LOSING UNEMPLOYMENT CHECKS Some of the millions of American workers laid off because of the coronavirus are beginning to face a tough choice — return to work and risk infection, or stay home and risk losing unemployment payments. The decision is most pressing in states where governors have started allowing businesses such as restaurants to reopen. Tyler Price, 26, was called back to his job at Del Frisco’s Grille in the Nashville suburb of Brentwood. Price says he’s “highly susceptible” to respiratory illness and was hospitalized with pneumonia as a child. [HuffPost]

MARYLAND’S GOP GOVERNOR HID TESTS SO FEDS CAN’T TAKE THEM Maryland’s Republican Gov. Larry Hogan said he’s been forced to resort to drastic measures to protect nearly 500,000 COVID-19 test kits from the federal government. The state bought the test kits from South Korea earlier this month, and the state’s National Guard is guarding them in a secret location to prevent them from being commandeered by the Trump administration. [HuffPost]

[Donald Trump’s Vice President] PENCE DONS MASK AFTER MAYO CLINIC FIASCO Meanwhile, the reporter who tweeted about the Mayo Clinic face mask fiasco says he was banned from future Pence trips. [HuffPost]

DESPITE WARNINGS, TEXAS IS REOPENING Earlier this week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued multiple executive orders that will effectively open the state for in-person business on May 1, relaxing social distancing guidelines amid the coronavirus pandemic. Soon, employees will trickle back into businesses as relaxed travel restrictions bring more people into the state. But experts fear that the state hasn’t done its due diligence in testing for COVID-19 and doesn’t have a strong enough plan to mitigate risks for returning workers, who are disproportionately Black and Latino. Governors in several other states also are relaxing restrictions as of today. [HuffPost]

PUERTO RICANS ARE STILL WAITING FOR STIMULUS CHECKS Tens of millions of people across the U.S. have received coronavirus stimulus checks from the federal government, but one group of Americans is still waiting for theirs: people in Puerto Rico. While the COVID-19 pandemic and related shutdowns have left a record number of people across the country jobless, the U.S. Treasury still has not approved a plan to distribute $1,200 relief payments to residents of Puerto Rico. [HuffPost]

FEDERAL PRISONS HAMMERED BY CORONAVIRUS The Bureau of Prisons, the largest prison system in the world’s most incarcerated nation, had a number of deep-rooted problems long before COVID-19 and recently came under national scrutiny over the death of multimillionaire sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein. The pandemic has highlighted how unprepared BOP was for such a health care crisis. At least 33 inmates in the federal system have died of the coronavirus. As of Thursday, nearly 1,700 inmates and 349 BOP staffers had confirmed cases ― and the true number is likely to be far higher. [HuffPost]