Today's News (2020/6/4): Covid-19 Edition
Jun. 4th, 2020 05:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdYes, it's small, but, well - the pandemic isn't over! At all!
----- 1 -----
Man Behind Sweden’s Controversial Virus Strategy Admits Mistakes
By Rafaela Lindeberg
June 2, 2020, 11:25 PM PDT Updated on June 3, 2020, 3:31 AM PDT
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-03/man-behind-sweden-s-virus-strategy-says-he-got-some-things-wrong
Sweden’s top epidemiologist has admitted his strategy to fight Covid-19 resulted in too many deaths, after persuading his country to avoid a strict lockdown.
“If we were to encounter the same illness with the same knowledge that we have today, I think our response would land somewhere in between what Sweden did and what the rest of the world has done,” Anders Tegnell said in an interview with Swedish Radio.
Tegnell is the brains behind Sweden’s controversial approach to fighting the virus, and the government of Stefan Lofven has deferred to the epidemiologist in its official response to the pandemic. Gatherings of more than 50 people continue to be banned, but throughout the crisis Swedes have been able to visit restaurants, go shopping, attend gyms and send children under 16 to school.
The laxer approach to containing the virus has drawn both praise and condemnation from across the globe. What is beyond debate, however, is the effect the strategy has had on the country’s death toll.
At 43 deaths per 100,000, Sweden’s mortality rate is among the highest globally and far exceeds that of neighboring Denmark and Norway, which imposed much tougher lockdowns at the onset of the pandemic.
----- 2 -----
Tyson reinstates policy that penalizes absentee workers
By Jen Skerritt and Deena Shanker
June 3, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/tyson-reinstates-policy-that-penalizes-absentee-workers/
Tyson Foods, the biggest U.S. meat processor, will return to its pre-Covid-19 absentee policy, which includes punishing workers for missing work due to illness, the company confirmed in a statement to Bloomberg.
“We’re reinstating our standard attendance policy,” Tyson spokesperson Gary Mickelson said in an email. “But our position on Covid-19 has not changed: Workers who have symptoms of the virus or have tested positive will continue to be asked to stay home and will not be penalized. They will also continue to qualify for short-term disability pay so they can continue to be paid while they’re sick.”
In mid-March, Tyson said that it was “relaxing attendance policies in our plants by eliminating any punitive effect for missing work due to illness.” That will no longer be the case, as the company shifts back to its usual policy that discourages absenteeism through a point system.
----- 3 -----
RNC expands convention search across the Sun Belt
Jonathan Swan, Alayna Treene
Axios
4 June 2020
https://www.axios.com/republican-national-convention-host-city-search-8bad370a-488d-470e-bafe-6a66897c98e9.html
The Republican National Committee is planning site visits over the next 10 days to more than a half-dozen cities — across the South and into Texas and Arizona — as it scrambles for a new convention host, people familiar with the internal discussions tell Axios.
...
The consideration of Dallas and Phoenix come amid new polling showing Arizona — and even Texas — both of which President Trump won, could be up for grabs in November. But our sources say this polling has nothing to do with the consideration.
The reality is much blunter: They need a place that can bend over backwards to give Trump the big, boisterous crowd he wants, and they need to make it happen fast.
Between the lines: The main consideration, per one source involved in the internal conversations, is "Can we make sure the president has the event he's hoping for?"
----- 4 -----
Coronavirus: Public health experts urge police to stop using tear gas during the pandemic to prevent spread
By Emily DeRuy
2 June 2020
https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/06/02/coronavirus-public-health-experts-urge-police-to-stop-using-tear-gas-during-pandemic/
Public health experts are calling on police to stop using tear gas on people protesting the death of George Floyd.
An online petition started at the University of Washington and created with Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at UC San Francisco, opposes the use of tear gas, suggesting it could “increase risk for COVID-19 by making the respiratory tract more susceptible to infection, exacerbating existing inflammation, and inducing coughing.”
Thousands of people have poured onto streets from Walnut Creek to San Jose in demonstrations sparked by Floyd’s death and video of Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes. Those demonstrations have been met by tear gas, rubber bullets, batons and other measures from police.
While some health officials have worried the crowded demonstrations could spread COVID-19, the petition endorses the protests “as vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States.”
Ayesha Appa is an infectious disease doctor at UCSF and one of nearly 1,000 people who had signed the petition by early Tuesday.
Doctors, she said, are asked to grapple with questions about how and why patients get diseases.
“Racism is a medical problem and has to be faced,” Appa said. “You just can’t face those questions without thinking about root causes. And then when facing root causes, structural racism rises to the top.”
- Man Behind Sweden’s Controversial Virus Strategy Admits Mistakes
- Tyson reinstates policy that penalizes absentee workers
- RNC expands convention search across the Sun Belt [EDITOR: Looking for a city willing to host it Trump's way, very specifically, as if COVID-19 doesn't exist]
- Coronavirus: Public health experts urge police to stop using tear gas during the pandemic to prevent spread
----- 1 -----
Man Behind Sweden’s Controversial Virus Strategy Admits Mistakes
By Rafaela Lindeberg
June 2, 2020, 11:25 PM PDT Updated on June 3, 2020, 3:31 AM PDT
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-03/man-behind-sweden-s-virus-strategy-says-he-got-some-things-wrong
Sweden’s top epidemiologist has admitted his strategy to fight Covid-19 resulted in too many deaths, after persuading his country to avoid a strict lockdown.
“If we were to encounter the same illness with the same knowledge that we have today, I think our response would land somewhere in between what Sweden did and what the rest of the world has done,” Anders Tegnell said in an interview with Swedish Radio.
Tegnell is the brains behind Sweden’s controversial approach to fighting the virus, and the government of Stefan Lofven has deferred to the epidemiologist in its official response to the pandemic. Gatherings of more than 50 people continue to be banned, but throughout the crisis Swedes have been able to visit restaurants, go shopping, attend gyms and send children under 16 to school.
The laxer approach to containing the virus has drawn both praise and condemnation from across the globe. What is beyond debate, however, is the effect the strategy has had on the country’s death toll.
At 43 deaths per 100,000, Sweden’s mortality rate is among the highest globally and far exceeds that of neighboring Denmark and Norway, which imposed much tougher lockdowns at the onset of the pandemic.
----- 2 -----
Tyson reinstates policy that penalizes absentee workers
By Jen Skerritt and Deena Shanker
June 3, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/tyson-reinstates-policy-that-penalizes-absentee-workers/
Tyson Foods, the biggest U.S. meat processor, will return to its pre-Covid-19 absentee policy, which includes punishing workers for missing work due to illness, the company confirmed in a statement to Bloomberg.
“We’re reinstating our standard attendance policy,” Tyson spokesperson Gary Mickelson said in an email. “But our position on Covid-19 has not changed: Workers who have symptoms of the virus or have tested positive will continue to be asked to stay home and will not be penalized. They will also continue to qualify for short-term disability pay so they can continue to be paid while they’re sick.”
In mid-March, Tyson said that it was “relaxing attendance policies in our plants by eliminating any punitive effect for missing work due to illness.” That will no longer be the case, as the company shifts back to its usual policy that discourages absenteeism through a point system.
----- 3 -----
RNC expands convention search across the Sun Belt
Jonathan Swan, Alayna Treene
Axios
4 June 2020
https://www.axios.com/republican-national-convention-host-city-search-8bad370a-488d-470e-bafe-6a66897c98e9.html
The Republican National Committee is planning site visits over the next 10 days to more than a half-dozen cities — across the South and into Texas and Arizona — as it scrambles for a new convention host, people familiar with the internal discussions tell Axios.
...
The consideration of Dallas and Phoenix come amid new polling showing Arizona — and even Texas — both of which President Trump won, could be up for grabs in November. But our sources say this polling has nothing to do with the consideration.
The reality is much blunter: They need a place that can bend over backwards to give Trump the big, boisterous crowd he wants, and they need to make it happen fast.
Between the lines: The main consideration, per one source involved in the internal conversations, is "Can we make sure the president has the event he's hoping for?"
----- 4 -----
Coronavirus: Public health experts urge police to stop using tear gas during the pandemic to prevent spread
By Emily DeRuy
2 June 2020
https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/06/02/coronavirus-public-health-experts-urge-police-to-stop-using-tear-gas-during-pandemic/
Public health experts are calling on police to stop using tear gas on people protesting the death of George Floyd.
An online petition started at the University of Washington and created with Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at UC San Francisco, opposes the use of tear gas, suggesting it could “increase risk for COVID-19 by making the respiratory tract more susceptible to infection, exacerbating existing inflammation, and inducing coughing.”
Thousands of people have poured onto streets from Walnut Creek to San Jose in demonstrations sparked by Floyd’s death and video of Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes. Those demonstrations have been met by tear gas, rubber bullets, batons and other measures from police.
While some health officials have worried the crowded demonstrations could spread COVID-19, the petition endorses the protests “as vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States.”
Ayesha Appa is an infectious disease doctor at UCSF and one of nearly 1,000 people who had signed the petition by early Tuesday.
Doctors, she said, are asked to grapple with questions about how and why patients get diseases.
“Racism is a medical problem and has to be faced,” Appa said. “You just can’t face those questions without thinking about root causes. And then when facing root causes, structural racism rises to the top.”
