10-year-old boy battling leukemia now fighting coronavirus
(KNWA/CNN/Meredith) — A 10-year-old Arkansas boy already battling cancer is now fighting the coronavirus. He now has to delay life-saving cancer treatments.
Riley Duckworth was diagnosed with leukemia a couple of months ago, and now he’s been diagnosed with Covid-19.
Riley’s dad Jeremy Duckworth says the two are quarantined at Arkansas Children’s Northwest Hospital in Springdale. They will be stuck there until Riley’s blood counts recover.
“We cannot leave the room, not even to get food or anything,” Jeremy said. “We just take the news and do the best we can; we will be alright but it doesn’t make things easy.”
The father and son duo are spending time watching TV and playing games inside the hospital room.
Jeremy said with his son’s delayed cancer treatments, he doesn’t know what effect that will have on the cancer.
It’s a scary time for the family, but even with all they are going through, they keep positive.
“We know we’ll make it through, there are other people who have it a lot worse,” Jeremy said.
To keep their spirits up, Riley is thinking about all the things he will get to do when he gets better, like going camping.
Photo Credit: kmov.com
Brooklyn man allegedly disemboweled dad, cut off body parts
A Brooklyn man holed up in the house with his father during the coronavirus outbreak was arrested Wednesday for allegedly knifing and “badly mutilating” his dad, including by disemboweling him, police and sources said.
Following the gory murder, Khaled Ahmad, 26, allegedly left his family’s Dyker Heights home drenched in blood and went to a nearby bagel shop around 4:30 a.m., where he confessed to police officers.
“I killed my father,” Ahmad told them, according to an NYPD spokesperson.
The cops cuffed him and went to the tidy, two-family brick home on 84th Street near 14th Avenue, where they found 57-year-old Imad Ahmad dead with multiple stab wounds, police said.
“The body of the father was badly mutilated,” the spokesperson said.
Ahmad had allegedly cut off his father’s arms and part of his head, in addition to gutting him, police sources said. He had placed some of the body parts near the rest of the corpse.
He told officers that he and his dad had been trying to stay home during the pandemic, the sources said.
Cops found a large kitchen knife inside the house.
A neighbor told cops she’d heard screaming coming from the home overnight but did nothing because it was a “daily occurrence,” the sources said.
A female relative who answered the phone at the house on Wednesday evening told The Post she had no comment, before adding “This is heartbreaking.”
Ahmad was charged with murder and criminal possession of weapon. Police didn’t say what triggered the attack.
A neighbor said the father owned a supermarket in Queens and was “a very good man.”
“They were a very nice family. Very nice people. It is very strange. Very strange,” the 54-year-old said.
The murder was one of four to take place in the Big Apple over less than 12 hours beginning Tuesday afternoon.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/04/15/brooklyn-man-allegedly-disemboweled-dad-cut-off-body-parts/
Photo Credit: Gabriella Bass
Most NYC coronavirus testing done in whitest and wealthiest zip codes, Post analysis finds
Staten Islanders are getting tested for coronavirus more often than any other borough — and at twice the rate of Brooklynites and Manhattanites, an analysis of data from the city Department of Health by The Post shows.
Additionally, the paper’s analysis found that more than two-thirds of the 30 zip codes with the highest per-capita rates of testing were either whiter or wealthier — and frequently both — than the city average population.
“As the data shows, the COVID-19 crisis is hitting communities of more color the hardest – while those same communities have less testing to diagnose the virus or resources to fight it,” said Public Advocate Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn), the city’s highest-ranking elected black official. “The city needs a task force in place to rapidly implement an action plan to mitigate racial disparities in COVID-19 exposure, testing, access to resources, and fatalities.”
City officials and civil rights leaders have been sounding the alarm about COVID-19’s disparate impact on the Big Apple’s minority communities after an analysis of death certificates revealed that black and brown New Yorkers are dying at twice the rate of their white counterparts.
“There is absolutely no question that people of means have found a way to get a test during the most restrictive times and that the vast majority of people who are low income or people of color had no opportunity for testing unless they were sick enough to be hospitalized,” said Councilman Mark Levine (D-Manhattan), who chairs the health committee.
On Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced City Hall was launching a new $10 million advertising and outreach effort targeting the 88 zip codes hardest hit by the virus to try to slow the virus’s spread in minority communities.
Nearly four out of every 100 residents — 3.8 — Staten Islanders have gotten a hard-to-score test for COVID-19, far exceeding the per-capita rates in other boroughs, the paper’s analysis found.
Just 2.5 per 100 people in Queens have gotten a test, while testing is slightly more prevalent in The Bronx, where 2.9 people per 100 have been checked.
Both boroughs have been hard-hit by the outbreak and an analysis by a nonprofit news organization, The City, found that Bronxites were more likely to die of COVID-19 than residents in any other borough.
Testing rates in Brooklyn and Manhattan are even worse, averaging just 1.9 tests per 100 people — half the rate of Staten Island.
The analysis also found that Staten Island residents tested positive for the disease at a slightly higher per-capita rate than any other borough — 1.8 per 100 people. The Bronx came in a close second with 1.7 positives per 100 people.
New York’s smallest borough is home to many first responders, possibly explaining the disparity in both testing availability and the rate of positives.
But even in New York’s most tested borough — only one in every 25 people have been checked for the disease.
Additionally, the analysis revealed that 22 of the 30 most tested zip codes are either whiter or wealthier than the city’s average population.
New York’s most tested zip code per capita is The Bronx’s 10464, which includes City Island and Pelham Bay Park. Its least tested zip code was Manhattan’s 10280, which covers a swath of the Financial District that stretches from Battery Park to the World Trade Center.
The Post conducted its analysis by marrying the city’s testing data for each of its 177 zip codes with the U.S. Census Bureau’s population and demographic estimations for each zip code.
“We are deeply concerned about the disparities of the impact of this virus and are working hard to ensure the resources are available to communities experiencing the worst outcomes,” said Health Department spokesman Patrick Gallahue. “With respect to testing, we have given guidance to providers on when it is appropriate to test, however, it is ultimately the judgment of the physician.”
He added: “While we have recently expanded testing we urge providers to limit tests to seriously ill people as well as healthcare workers, first responders, and other especially vulnerable communities.”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/04/16/most-nyc-coronavirus-testing-done-in-wealthiest-zip-codes-analysis/
Photo Credit: REUTERS/Marco Bello
NYC nurse who beat coronavirus pummeled, robbed by group of thugs
A New York City nurse who recently recovered from the coronavirus was attacked on her way to work by a group of vicious youths who badly beat her and ran off with her purse, police sources and the victim told The Post.
Martha Toscano had just gotten out of the 6 train station on her way to work at Bellevue Hospital Wednesday around 10:30 p.m. when about 15 thugs ran her down and pummeled her to the ground.
“I thought they were going to kill me,” Toscano, 60, said in a phone call from her Queens studio Thursday.
“They hit me on the head, on the face, I run and fell on the floor and they keep hitting me.”
The beatdown was interrupted by three men driving down the street, who screamed “Stop it, stop it,” Toscano recalled.
“Thank God these angels came, because nobody was in the street, nobody.”
The good Samaritans pulled the woman up and tried to chase the muggers to retrieve her purse, to no avail.
Police on Thursday arrested three of the alleged assailants, including two teenage girls, aged 14 and 15, and a 19-year-old man named Deshaun Harrison. All three suspects are residents of a nearby group home run by the city’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), sources said.
Harrison — who has a lengthy rap sheet — was charged with robbery in the second degree, the sources said. An ACS spokeswoman said the agency couldn’t legally comment.
Toscano suffered scrapes and bumps all over her body but was able to escape the bruising without serious injuries.
“I have pain in all my body,” she said. “My back, my neck, bumps on my head, even on my elbows.”
The brave healthcare worker said she’d been out of work for two weeks after catching COVID-19 but had just gotten the OK to return to her job Friday.
“My first day back was Sunday… and then this,” Toscano said, breaking into tears.
Her three adult children had begged her to stop working, afraid that she would catch the deadly disease, she said.
After getting checked out at her hospital, Toscano said she returned home around 4 a.m. and had to call her landlord to get into her apartment, since her keys — as well as her ID and credit cards — were in the purse the thugs swiped.
Toscano was recovering at home with her fiance, adding that she didn’t know when she would return to work because of how terrified she was.
“I’m so afraid,” she said.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/04/16/nurse-who-beat-coronavirus-pummeled-robbed-by-group-of-thugs/
Photo Credit: nypost
Kellyanne Conway Raises Eyebrows With ‘COVID-1’ Remark On Fox News – “This is COVID-19 ― not COVID-1, folks”
Top White House aide Kellyanne Conway made a baffling ― and misleading ― statement during an appearance Wednesday on Fox News, suggesting COVID-19’s name is derived in part from the number of known coronavirus diseases.
“This is COVID-19 ― not COVID-1, folks,” Conway said during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.” “And so you would think the people charged with the World Health Organization would be on top of that.”
But COVID-19 stands for “coronavirus disease 2019” and is reflective of the year it was identified, not the number of previously documented diseases.
It seemed as though Conway, a high-ranking adviser to the president, was either alarmingly unaware of this or she feigned ignorance in front of the show’s more than 1 million average daily viewers.
In a subsequent interview on the Fox Business Network, Conway acknowledged that the disease’s name partially refers to the year 2019.
“It is called COVID-19 – not COVID-20 ― yet it took WHO until March to call it a global pandemic,” she said.
Conway later tweeted that she knows the “19 refers to the year” in response to Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), who called on her to “do better” after her “COVID-1” remark.
“Which felt better: insulting me or endorsing Bloomberg for president?” Conway tweeted at the congressman. “God bless.”
“It’s telling that you perceive the truth as an insult,” Rush tweeted back.
Conway’s eyebrow-raising comments Wednesday were part of a larger attack against the World Health Organization’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced the U.S. is placing a hold on funding to the organization while his administration investigates what he claimed was the group’s mismanagement of the crisis.
“The WHO failed in its basic duty and must be held accountable,” Trump, who has been sharply criticized for initially downplaying the threat of the pandemic, said during a news conference at the White House. “So much death has been caused by their mistakes.”
The WHO has faced criticism for being overly deferential to China, even as the country initially concealed news about the coronavirus and failed to disclose alarming data about infections among health care workers for more than a month.
The group has also lagged in making some key recommendations: Its guidelines still say people don’t need to wear face masks in public unless they are sick, while the CDC has recommended all Americans do so. What’s more, the group waited until mid-March to declare COVID-19 a pandemic, which some experts thought came too late.
However, public health experts have warned against freezing WHO funding in the middle of a pandemic.
Conway on Wednesday tore into the agency for being reluctant to support travel restrictions as the virus continues to spread across the world.
“The president took decisive and immediate action in the end of January to shut down flights from China that was criticized by the WHO, it was criticized by other people, as xenophobic and racist and ‘travel bans don’t work,’” she said. “Well, this one sure did.”
In fact, scientists believe most coronavirus cases came into the U.S. from Europe, not Asia. Trump did not impose travel restrictions on Europe until March 11.
Of the world’s more than 2 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, roughly 30% ― or about 600,000 people ― are in the U.S., making it the country with the most known infections. Spain is a distant second with more than 177,000 confirmed cases.
“Some of the scientists and doctors say there could be other strains later on,” Conway said Wednesday. “This could come back in the fall in a limited way.”
“Limited” may prove to be an understatement. Some experts have suggested a possible second wave could be even deadlier than the first. Others have suggested outbreaks will emerge sporadically until there is a vaccine.
via: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kellyanne-conway-covid-19-who_n_5e96fc65c5b65eae709d1183
Photo Credit: dailymail.co.uk
Nurses suspended for refusing to treat coronavirus patients without N95 masks
Nurse Mike Gulick was meticulous about not bringing the novel coronavirus home to his wife and their 2-year-old daughter. He’d stop at a hotel after work just to take a shower. He’d wash his clothes in Lysol disinfectant. They did a tremendous amount of handwashing.
But at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California, Gulick and his colleagues worried that caring for infected patients without first being able to don an N95 respirator mask was risky. The N95 mask filters out 95 percent of all airborne particles, including ones too tiny to be blocked by regular masks. But administrators at his hospital said they weren’t necessary and didn’t provide them, he said.
His wife, also a nurse, not only wore an N95 mask, but covered it with a second air-purifying respirator while she cared for COVID-19 patients at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center across town in Los Angeles.
Then, last week, a nurse on Gulick’s ward tested positive for the coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19. The next day doctors doing rounds on their ward asked the nurses why they weren’t wearing N95 masks, Gulick said, and told them they should have better protection.
For Gulick, that was it. He and a handful of nurses told their managers they wouldn’t enter COVID-19 patient rooms without N95 masks. The hospital suspended them, according to the National Nurses Union, which represents them. Ten nurses are now being paid but not allowed to return to work pending an investigation from human resources, the union said.
They are among hundreds of doctors, nurses and other health care workers across the country who say they’ve been asked to work without adequate protection. Some have taken part in protests or lodged formal complaints. Others are buying — or even making — their own supplies.
Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention don’t require N95 masks for COVID-19 caregivers, but many hospitals are opting for the added protection because the infection has proven to be extremely contagious. The CDC said Wednesday at least 9,200 health care workers have been infected.
Saint John’s said in a statement that as of Tuesday it’s providing N95 masks to all nurses caring for COVID-19 patients and those awaiting test results. The statement said the hospital had increased its supply and was disinfecting masks daily.
“It’s no secret there is a national shortage,” said the statement. The hospital would not comment on the suspended nurses.
Angela Gatdula, a Saint John’s nurse who fell ill with COVID-19, said she asked hospital managers why doctors were wearing N95s but nurses weren’t. She says they told her that the CDC said surgical masks were enough to keep her safe.
Then she was hit with a dry cough, severe body aches and joint pain.
“When I got the phone call that I was positive I got really scared,” she said.
She’s now recovering and plans to return to work next week.
“The next nurse that gets this might not be lucky. They might require hospitalization. They might die,” she said.
As COVID-19 cases soared in March, the U.S. was hit with a critical shortage of medical supplies including N95s, which are mostly made in China. In response, the CDC lowered its standard for health care workers’ protective gear, recommending they use bandannas if they run out of the masks.
Some exasperated health care workers have complained to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
“I … fear retribution for being a whistleblower and plead to please keep me anonymous,” wrote a Tennessee medical worker, who complained staffers were not allowed to wear their own masks if they weren’t directly treating COVID-19 patients.
In Oregon, a March 26 complaint warned that masks were not being provided to nurses working with suspected COVID-19 patients. Another Oregon complaint alleged nurses “are told that wearing a mask will result in disciplinary action.”
One New Jersey nurse who asked not to be named out of fear of retribution, said she was looking for a new job after complaining to OSHA.
“Do I regret filing the complaint? No, at least not yet,” she said. “I know it was the right thing to do.”
Some are taking to the streets.
On Wednesday, nurse unions in New York, Massachusetts, Michigan, Illinois, California, and Pennsylvania scheduled actions at their hospitals and posted on social media using hashtag “PPEoverProfit.”
Nurses at Kaiser Permanente’s Fresno Medical Center in central California demanded more protective supplies at a protest during their shift change Tuesday. The hospital, like many in the U.S., requires nurses to use one N95 mask per day, which has raised concerns about bringing the infection from one patient to the next.
Ten nurses from the facility have tested positive with COVID-19, Kaiser said. Three have been admitted to the hospital and one is in critical care, protest organizers said.
Wade Nogy, a Kaiser senior vice president, denied union claims that nurses have been unnecessarily exposed.
“Kaiser Permanente has years of experience managing highly infectious diseases, and we are safely treating patients who have been infected with this virus, while protecting other patients, members and employees,” Nogy said.
Amy Arlund, a critical care nurse at the facility, said that before the pandemic, following infection control protocols they’re currently using would have been grounds for disciplinary action.
“And now it’s like they’ve thrown all those standards out the window as if they never existed,” Arlund said. “It’s beyond me.”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/04/16/nurses-suspended-for-refusing-to-treat-patients-without-n95-masks/
Photo Credit: Lizabeth Baker Wade via AP
Stimulus checks are being spent on dildos, tigers, guns and stripper poles
Americans began receiving the first batch of coronavirus relief funds this week, and now many are taking to social media to brag about the assortment of purchases — both strange and savvy — they’ve already made with them.
While many are using the emergency cash to pay bills for necessities and living expenses, others are putting the money toward wild splurges.
Among the more trivial items people have reportedly used the extra bucks on is an inflatable dinosaur costume — although the buyer argues the $35 getup was totally worth it. “I actually have good use for it plus look at that price! I shoulda bought 2,” the proud dino suit owner tweets.
“F - - k it I’m buying a stripper pole with my stimulus check. We have to invest in our future,” tweets a future exotic dancer.
Some are jokingly planning to team up, so they can use their economic impact payments to buy a baby tiger. “Hear me out — Who wants to combine their stimulus checks with me, and we can buy a tiger,” writes one likely fan of “Tiger King.”
It’s hard to argue a canopied bed is ever essential, but one mom bought a princess-themed one for her kid. The same argument goes for a woman who used her check to buy a high-end sex toy, although she concedes she bought the stimulator only after paying off a credit card.
One hobbyist “burning through” their stimulus check indulged in paintball equipment, while another caved and bought a pricey pair of Yeezy shoes. At least one entire stimulus check, and possibly additional cash, went towards buying a Bird One e-scooter, which retails for $1,299.
Others are considering purchasing personalized insight from celebrities. “Thinking about buying myself a cameo from Big Ed with this stimulus check,” writes a fan of reality show star Ed Brown.
Another early check recipient spent her cash on a “warm and cozy” coat which, while arguably an essential buy, might be out of season.
Some opted for much more practical decisions, choosing pragmatism over indulgences.
One woman has already spent her entire check on her electric bill, car payment and a credit card bill, with enough leftover to buy tank tops and a bidet. “And just like that, it’s gone,” she tweets. Another woman treated herself to two Walmart stuffed animals after paying her water and electric bills.
Media worker Ryan Cole put his check towards paying off Sallie Mae like a boss. “Put that #Stimuluscheck to good use,” he tweets with a screenshot of his payment confirmation.
One woman chose to put part of her check back into the stock market and some in her savings for a savvy investment.
After joking she’d spent her money on a house, a good Samaritan revealed she and her boyfriend had actually both donated their checks to Feeding America.
Others are still in the planning stages for what they’ll do with the money.
“Looking forward to using my #Stimuluscheck to purchase another AR-15 and some 30rd mags,” writes one gun-lover.
For those without direct deposit, checks may not arrive until mid-August or later. You can check the status of yours and even speed up getting the dough, but be sure not to fall for these scams.
Photo Credit: nypost.com
Trump’s Failed Coronavirus Response
Some people believe Trump is doing a great job . Let me tell you something These trump fans are living in a fantasy.
Amazon fires three critics of warehouse conditions in pandemic
(Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc said on Tuesday it had fired three critics of the company’s pandemic response for workplace violations, dismissals that drew sharp words from U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and a labor coalition.
The company on Friday fired two user experience designers, Maren Costa and Emily Cunningham, for what it called repeated violations of internal policies, without specifying which ones.
The two workers, who gained prominence for pushing the company to do more on climate change, had recently made public statements questioning Amazon’s pandemic safety measures and pledging to match donations of up to $500 to support staff at risk of getting the virus.
The e-commerce giant also said it dismissed Bashir Mohamed, a warehouse worker in Minnesota, for inappropriate language and behavior. Mohamed told Reuters he had been warning colleagues about the virus and calling on management to increase cleaning; Amazon has been “tripling down on deep cleaning,” it has said in recent statements.
Their dismissals follow Amazon’s termination on March 30 of warehouse protest leader Christian Smalls on the grounds that he put others at risk by violating his paid quarantine when he joined a demonstration at Amazon’s Staten Island, New York, fulfillment center.
In statements shared with Reuters, Cunningham said she believed Amazon could play a powerful role during the crisis, but to do so, “we have to really listen to the workers who are on the front line, who don’t feel adequately protected.”
Costa said in her statement, “No company should punish their employees for showing concern for one another, especially during a pandemic!”
The world’s largest online retailer is facing intensifying scrutiny by lawmakers and unions over whether it is doing enough to protect staff from the novel coronavirus, which has infected more than 1.9 million people, including workers at more than 50 of Amazon’s U.S. warehouses, according to the New York Times.
The company has been racing to update safety protocols, distribute protective gear and keep warehouses functional as it works to ship essentials to shoppers under widespread government stay-at-home orders. Small groups of employees have staged high-profile protests at several Amazon warehouses.
Mohamed, a 28-year-old Somali-American, said his boss told him not to organize other workers at the Minneapolis-area warehouse. Once he began informing colleagues of the risks they faced from the virus, he said, Amazon started targeting him.
“They didn’t like the way I was talking,” he said.
In a statement, Amazon said, “We respect the rights of employees to protest and recognize their legal right to do so; however, these rights do not provide blanket immunity against bad actions, particularly those that endanger the health, well-being or safety of their colleagues.”
Amazon said Mohamed had also violated social distancing guidelines.
A dismissal letter Mohamed shared with Reuters did not specify social distancing but focused on his declining to talk to certain team leaders starting in early March; Mohamed alleged that before that period his manager had discriminated against him.
Public pressure on Amazon mounted on Tuesday, following five Democratic U.S. Senators who wrote to Amazon’s Chief Executive Jeff Bezos last week to request an explanation about what happened with the other fired warehouse worker, Smalls.
Sanders tweeted: “Instead of firing employees who want justice, maybe Jeff Bezos – the richest man in the world – can focus on providing his workers with paid sick leave, a safe workplace, and a livable planet.”
Athena, a labor and activist coalition, called the latest dismissals “outrageous.”
Read original article here ————————————————————————–?? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-amazon-com-warehou/amazon-fires-three-critics-of-warehouse-conditions-in-pandemic-idUSKCN21W0UI