COVID-19 disaster in Trump’s USA, news

This 21 May 2020 video from the USA says about itself:

Representative Shames GOP [Republican party] for Reopening at the Risk of Low-Wage Workers | NowThis

‘You might laugh, and you might not care, but I care about the people I serve.’ — This state rep was met with boos when he stood up for service industry workers who might be asked to reopen the Pennsylvania economy without proper safety measures.

VIRUS DITHERING COST THOUSANDS OF LIVES — New disease models from Columbia University show that 36,000 fewer people would have died in the U.S. if stay-at-home measures had been imposed just one week earlier in March. And if the lockdowns started March 1 — about two weeks earlier than when most Americans started staying home — about 83% of deaths could have been avoided. [New York Times]

US health workers dying because of lack of PPE, unions charge: here.

GUARDS AND INMATES: UNPROTECTED AND OVERWHELMED Corrections officers are facing uncertainty and fear as the virus sickens prisoners and Michigan Department Of Corrections staff. As of Monday, 334 officers have been confirmed positive, though the true figure is thought to be much higher because the department has conducted limited testing. Staff say MDOC is failing to manage sick inmates in a safe way and isn’t providing enough personal protective equipment. Officials have also failed to address staffing shortages, forcing fatigued officers to work up to 25 hours of overtime weekly. When prison staff gets sick, they are using paid time off ― and if they run out, they don’t get paid. [HuffPost]

COHEN TO BE RELEASED ON HOME CONFINEMENT Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer and longtime attorney, will be released from prison early and serve the remainder of his three-year term under home confinement. Cohen will be released from a facility in New York later this week, The Wall Street Journal reported. He has served about a year of his sentence after being convicted on charges of lying to Congress and violating campaign finance laws when he directed hush-money payments to women who said they had sex with Trump. He had been scheduled to be released in November 2021. [HuffPost]

TRUMP THREATENS KEY 2020 STATES OVER MAIL VOTING President Donald Trump intensified his attacks on mail-in ballots by casting threats and falsehoods. Trump, who previously said he was “allowed to” vote by mail in Florida’s March 17 primary, has railed against Democratic-led states offering that same opportunity to their voters. Despite the risk of casting in-person ballots during the coronavirus pandemic, Trump has encouraged Republicans to fight against mail-in voting, claiming it “doesn’t work out well” for their party politically. Lately, the president and his allies have amplified the conspiracy theory that voting by mail encourages voter fraud. [HuffPost]

Trump’s vaccine chief has vast ties to the drug industry.

GOP ADVANCES JUDICIAL NOMINEE WHO CALLED AFFORDABLE CARE ACT ‘ILLEGITIMATE’ Amid a national health emergency that has left millions of Americans out of work and worrying about health insurance, Senate Republicans moved toward confirming a judicial nominee — Cory Wilson — who has called the Affordable Care Act “illegitimate,” “perverse” and “liberal-utopia-dictated healthcare.” In 2012, Wilson called same-sex marriage “an attempt to cast Republicans as intolerant, uncaring and even bigoted.” In 2016, as a state legislator, he voted for what has been dubbed the nation’s most extreme anti-LGBTQ law. [HuffPost]

In a racism-fueled pandemic, Asian Americans find healing through art and storytelling.

Indoor, high-intensity fitness classes may help spread the coronavirus. As more U.S. states reopen and people return to public life, dance fitness classes in South Korea tell a cautionary tale. By Emily DeMarco, May 19, 2020.

OUSTED DESIGNER OF FLORIDA’S CORONAVIRUS DASHBOARD WAS ASKED TO CENSOR DATA The Florida official in charge of designing and managing the state’s online dashboard of COVID-19 data says she was fired after refusing to censor and “manually change data” in order to present a picture justifying the state’s process of reopening and loosening COVID-19 restrictions. Rebekah Jones, who led a group of data scientists and public health experts at Florida’s Department of Health, announced her departure in an email to colleagues late Friday. [HuffPost]

CHURCH THAT REOPENED AMID VIRUS CLOSES AGAIN AFTER PRIEST DIES A Roman Catholic church in Texas has indefinitely suspended public Masses after the death of a priest and the COVID-19 diagnoses of five others. The Rev. Donnell Kirchner, a 79-year-old priest from Houston’s Holy Ghost Church, died on May 13 after being diagnosed with pneumonia, the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston said. Holy Ghost Church’s website says there is a possibility that the priest contracted the coronavirus before he died. [HuffPost]