The Guardian and KHN release new figures showing the harsh toll that the pandemic is taking on the frontline health workers
Nearly 600 frontline healthcare workers have died of Covid-19, according to Lost on the Frontline, a project launched by the Guardian and Kaiser Health News (KHN) that aims to count, verify and memorialize and every healthcare worker who dies during the pandemic.
Continue reading...Health workers are facing layoffs, furloughs and cuts to salaries and schedules in response to declines in revenue
Maureen Zeman was a registered nurse for 29 years at a hospital in San Jose, California, before she was laid off with dozens of other nurses despite the coronavirus pandemic.
Dozens of states across the US have issued orders to halt elective medical procedures as part of emergency shutdowns to curb the spread of Covid-19. As a result, hospitals and medical treatment clinics across the US are implementing layoffs, furloughs, and cuts to salaries and work schedules in response to declines in revenue.
Continue reading...In just three months, the coronavirus has turned the world upside down. But how did it play out so quickly? We take a look back to where it all began – from its origins in south east Asia, to its acceleration across Europe and the US. As the infection rate increased and countries went into lockdown, people began to find imaginative and inspiring ways of coping with our new reality
Continue reading...Report warns of White House and states competing for supplies as president focuses on counter-narcotics operations at briefing
Donald Trump has admitted the US government’s emergency stockpile of protective equipment is nearly exhausted because of the extraordinary demands of the coronavirus pandemic.
The shortage was first reported by the Washington Post, which said the supply of respirator masks, gloves and other medical supplies was running low.
Continue reading...Figures go against Trump talk of restarting economy, as other countries tighten controls
The United States could become the new centre of the global coronavirus pandemic, according to the World Health Organization, which said case numbers were rising quickly there even asDonald Trump talked of re-opening the country for business.
“We are now seeing a very large acceleration in cases in the US. So it does have that potential [to become the centre of the pandemic],” the WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said.
Continue reading...Lower court’s ruling that individual mandate was unconstitutional to be reviewed after 19 Democratic states appealed the decision
US supreme court to hear third Affordable Care Act challenge
The US supreme court has announced it will hear a case on whether a part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is unconstitutional. A decision is not expected until after the 2020 election.
In December, a federal appeals court ruled that the ACA’s individual mandate, which requires every American to have health insurance, was unconstitutional. The ruling cast doubt upon the rest of the law, which is known colloquially as Obamacare.
Continue reading...The pioneers who struggled for legalisation in the 60s are seeing the same battles being fought all over again
The telephone sat in the dormitory hallway, and when it rang it might have been for any of the residents – young women in their teens and early 20s, all students at the University of Chicago. Calls came from family and friends and boyfriends, from colleagues and classmates and clubs. But sometimes the voice at the end of the line would ask for “Jane”.
This was 1965, and in Chicago the social justice movement was gathering pace – a new era that encompassed civil rights, student rights, women’s rights and resistance to the war in Vietnam. Among those involved was Heather Booth, a 19-year-old social sciences student from New York. Booth had spent the summer of 1964 in Mississippi, volunteering as part of the Freedom Summer project, an attempt to register as many African American voters as possible. It was an experience that had galvanised her and taught some valuable lessons: “One is that if you organise, even in what seem like the most hopeless circumstances, you can change the world,” she says. “Number two: sometimes you have to stand up to illegitimate authority.”
Continue reading...Whistleblower tells Guardian of growing alarm over secret transfer of medical history data, which can be accessed by Google staff
A whistleblower who works in Project Nightingale, the secret transfer of the personal medical data of up to 50 million Americans from one of the largest healthcare providers in the US to Google, has expressed anger to the Guardian that patients are being kept in the dark about the massive deal.
Related: Mick Mulvaney drops impeachment lawsuit but will not comply with House subpoena – live
Continue reading...Joe Biden was the central target as 10 Democratic presidential candidates took the stage for the second debate in Detroit on Wednesday, with rivals attempting to knock the former vice-president from his frontrunner status.
Unlike last month’s debate in Miami, however, where Biden visibly struggled to defend his decades-old record, this time Biden was ready for the fight.
Continue reading...The setup looked potentially hostile but became a free, hourlong commercial for the Sanders candidacy, broadcast to Fox viewers
At every turn they clapped and cheered, enamored with the candidate’s prescriptions for universal healthcare, a humane attitude toward immigrants and the rejection of climate change denialism.
Bernie Sanders was the candidate, and the people clapping and cheering were audience members who turned out in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, for a televised town hall on Monday night sponsored by none other than Fox News.
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The Oklahoma Democratic Party’s headquarters were vandalized with anti-semitic graffiti early on Thursday morning, KFOR.com is reporting.
“Employees of the building on NW 37th and Classen Blvd reported Swastika drawings, neo-Nazi messages, and death threats spray painted in the parking lot and on the door of the property,” KFOR said.
It’s upsetting to the extent that our culture now and our country, it drives people to this type of expression [...] It encourages people to speak out violently. It’s clearly a crime. It’s clearly a hate crime.
Kirsten Gillibrand, senator for New York and Democratic presidential hopeful, released her tax returns yesterday – the first candidate for president to do so.
The return showed that she earned about $218,000 in 2018: $167,634 from her salary and $50,000 from book sales. The New York Times reported that Gillibrand paid $29,170 in federal taxes.
Continue reading...Ernest Quintana’s family knew he was dying of chronic lung disease when he was taken by ambulance to a hospital, unable to breathe. But they were devastated when a robot machine rolled into his room in the intensive care unit that night and a doctor told the 78-year-old patient by video call he would likely die within days.
“If you’re coming to tell us normal news, that’s fine, but if you’re coming to tell us there’s no lung left and we want to put you on a morphine drip until you die, it should be done by a human being and not a machine,” his daughter Catherine Quintana said.
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