[News] Coronavirus

A place to discuss the now-global coronavirus outbreak.

I missed this in the news yesterday...

A 5-4 Supreme Court ruling has rejected a request from a California church to block limitations on the number of people who could attend religious services during the coronavirus pandemic.

Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the liberals on the bench, and wrote separately to explain his vote.

“Although California’s guidelines place restrictions on places of worship, those restrictions appear consistent with the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment,” Roberts wrote.
“Similar or more severe restrictions apply to comparable secular gatherings, including lectures, concerts, movie showings, spectator sports, and theatrical performances, where large groups of people gather in close proximity for extended periods of time."

I mean, duh!
That had to go all the way to the Supreme Court?

fangblackbone wrote:

I mean, duh!
That had to go all the way to the Supreme Court?

Bad mood snark.

Spoiler:

It has 'religion' on it. That's right up there with 'guns' or 'antipathy toward people who aren't like them.'
Those words are real clingy and only the Supreme Court can have anything to say about that because Freedom(tm).

It didn't "go all the way" to the SC, Fang. It was sent there directly as an emergency appeal, because otherwise it would have passed through the court system with no resolution until it hit the Supremes again in, oh, 2022 or so...

Sometimes it's good to have that quick resolution to avoid lots of copycat cases winding through the courts for years.

That should not have been a 5-4 decision.

A Denver high school teacher who survived COVID-19 after weeks of being put in a medically induced coma got his first bill. It was for $840,386.94. $250,000 were for medicines alone. He expects his total bill will be north of $1.5 million.

The average salary of teachers in the district he works at is $61,926.

I am sure the district has great insurance and he will be on the hook for that old thing

Trump on March 11 wrote:

Earlier this week, I met with the leaders of the health insurance industry who have agreed to waive all copayments for coronavirus treatments, extend insurance coverage to these treatments, and to prevent surprise medical billing

Stengah wrote:
Trump on March 11 wrote:

Earlier this week, I met with the leaders of the health insurance industry who have agreed to waive all copayments for coronavirus treatments, extend insurance coverage to these treatments, and to prevent surprise medical billing

About as solid and his agreements to pay contractors.

In an intersection of the two major news stories of the day, I worry how much Covid-19 may be (likely is) spreading in the police brutality protests.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

In an intersection of the two major news stories of the day, I worry how much Covid-19 may be (likely is) spreading in the police brutality protests.

Oh, we're (as a country) screwed.
I fully understand and support the protestors ignoring most health guidance (especially once the police engage), but this will not be good in a few weeks. The disease already has worse affects on PoC communities.

Yes, You Can Be Fired For Getting COVID-19

Under the FFCRA, employees can get time off only for a reason directly related to COVID-19, and the law exempts employers with more than 500 employees, likely because many large companies already offer paid sick days—though perhaps not two weeks’ worth. What’s more, companies with fewer than 50 employees can qualify for exemptions if it would “jeopardize the viability of the business.” This rips open a major loophole that could leave millions of workers without paid leave. According to an analysis by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, these exemptions mean only 47 percent of private-sector workers will have guaranteed access to coronavirus-related sick leave. For example, many grocery-store chains and meatpacking plants, where infections have been rampant, have more than 500 employees. Many health-care workers are exempt from the law as well.
farley3k wrote:

Yes, You Can Be Fired For Getting COVID-19

Under the FFCRA, employees can get time off only for a reason directly related to COVID-19, and the law exempts employers with more than 500 employees, likely because many large companies already offer paid sick days—though perhaps not two weeks’ worth. What’s more, companies with fewer than 50 employees can qualify for exemptions if it would “jeopardize the viability of the business.” This rips open a major loophole that could leave millions of workers without paid leave. According to an analysis by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, these exemptions mean only 47 percent of private-sector workers will have guaranteed access to coronavirus-related sick leave. For example, many grocery-store chains and meatpacking plants, where infections have been rampant, have more than 500 employees. Many health-care workers are exempt from the law as well.

That says nothing about getting fired. Please report things correctly. Enough BS floating around as is.

You are correct the part I quoted didn't. The article does.

Under the FFCRA, employees can get time off only for a reason directly related to COVID-19, and the law exempts employers with more than 500 employees, likely because many large companies already offer paid sick days—though perhaps not two weeks’ worth. What’s more, companies with fewer than 50 employees can qualify for exemptions if it would “jeopardize the viability of the business.” This rips open a major loophole that could leave millions of workers without paid leave.
In March, I wrote about a Walmart employee in Washington State who was fired because he had used up all his attendance “points” recovering from what he believed was COVID-19, a situation Walmart declined to comment on. In April, a grocery-store employee in Indiana claimed she was fired for staying at home with a potential case of COVID-19. (She sued, and the case was settled.) A 58-year-old nursing-home worker in St. Louis kept coming to work long after she developed symptoms of COVID-19, because she was told she wouldn’t be paid otherwise, her family told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She died a few weeks ago.
The Families First Coronavirus Response Act is an example of an unfortunate truth in health-care policy: Even when things get better for working-class people, they usually don’t get completely better. In spite of this new law, workers’ right to stay home if they catch COVID-19 varies widely among states, only some of which have their own paid-leave laws, and from employer to employer. There’s little clarity for workers on exactly what they’re entitled to, and when.
One reason it’s hard to know the exact number is that the cases of sick employees losing their jobs are not always clear-cut. For example, in March two Colorado beef-plant employees said they were fired after they stayed home sick with COVID-19 symptoms. But the plant said they were fired because they failed to show up for work for three days and did not contact the company about their absences—not because they got COVID-19.

“Employers have gotten smart, and they don’t say, ‘I’m firing you because you’re asking for too many accommodations,’” says Jenna M. Rangel, a plaintiff’s employment lawyer in California. Instead, employees might start to be treated unfairly relative to others, or their previously stellar performance might suddenly be deemed lackluster.

So yes you can be fired for getting COVID-19 in many, many situations.

Maryland began reopening on May 7.

Today, my live in nephew returned from work early. I asked him why and he said they shut down the worksite because 10 people on it were hospitalized over the weekend with Covid.

Yay.

Well, that’s about 10 days of exposure for you... Sigh.

All the states reopening too early, and now the protests... June could be very bad...

JC wrote:

All the states reopening too early, and now the protests... June could be very bad...

So the new plan is to flatten the curve by having a continuing series of events that cause a plateau.
Early June will be up from the openings in May.
Later June and early July will be the protests.
Late July and August will be from 4th of July events, because you can guess how people will act for that.

Can a ibuprofen variation help with COVID-19?

https://www.technologynetworks.com/d...

The study aims to reduce respiratory failure with COVID-19, which may decrease the need for more aggressive intervention such as ventilation, and decrease the length of hospital stay. The leaders of the study say that this trial will help to refine treatment for COVID-19, as an approach distinct from either vaccines or anti-viral drugs being researched by other groups.

Looks like the guy responsible for the misguided Swedish policy of "herd immunity" admits that it was a disaster.

Well he will get it right during the next pandemic!

Paleocon wrote:

Looks like the guy responsible for the misguided Swedish policy of "herd immunity" admits that it was a disaster.

No, he says they did the right thing, but maybe should have done just a little less of it.

Malor wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

Looks like the guy responsible for the misguided Swedish policy of "herd immunity" admits that it was a disaster.

No, he says they did the right thing, but maybe should have done just a little less of it.

He got "a little less of it" because Swedes weren't stupid enough to go with it entirely and it still f*cked his country up.

Paleocon wrote:
Malor wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

Looks like the guy responsible for the misguided Swedish policy of "herd immunity" admits that it was a disaster.

No, he says they did the right thing, but maybe should have done just a little less of it.

He got "a little less of it" because Swedes weren't stupid enough to go with it entirely and it still f*cked his country up.

Unfortunately the damage is done and all my fight leaning friends use it as an excuse to open'r up! To hell with care look at Sweden!

Paleocon wrote:

Looks like the guy responsible for the misguided Swedish policy of "herd immunity" admits that it was a disaster.

Leaks are starting to show that the danish CDC was advising the danish government to basically do the same as Sweden did ("Not worth the cost to close down the country" etc. in early March).
We wont ever know if they would have changed that early opinion quickly as the impact became more clear (whereas Sweden has kept their no lockdown stance), since our government pretty much told them immediately that they wouldn't listen to that kind of advice at all.

Malor wrote:

No, he says they did the right thing, but maybe should have done just a little less of it.

Yep, also this. He is hardly admitting anything. Like he has previously said he regretted how the virus spread in nursing homes, but seeming not admitting that there might be a slight connection between the two.

Shadout wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

Looks like the guy responsible for the misguided Swedish policy of "herd immunity" admits that it was a disaster.

Leaks are starting to show that the danish CDC was advising the danish government to basically do the same as Sweden did ("Not worth the cost to close down the country" etc. in early March).
We wont ever know if they would have changed that early opinion quickly as the impact became more clear (whereas Sweden has kept their no lockdown stance), since our government pretty much told them immediately that they wouldn't listen to that kind of advice at all.

Malor wrote:

No, he says they did the right thing, but maybe should have done just a little less of it.

Yep, also this. He is hardly admitting anything. Like he has previously said he regretted how the virus spread in nursing homes, but seeming not admitting that there might be a slight connection between the two.

Take the W. "Mistakes were made" is the closest a right wing nutbag will ever come to saying "I f*cked up".

I am not sure that Swedish guy is a right wing nutbag (though maybe he is :D).

I had a conversation this morning with someone who works in a local hospital. According to her, the covid ward has only a few patients, but they're running out of a lot of PPE, and the hospital's epidemiology team's internal data for my county shows a steady uptick in our R0 numbers. Based on their numbers, they're modeling either a large spike in the fall or spikes equivalent to what we've seen so far in recurring waves through 2022. There's one "slow burn" model where the numbers stay fairly low, but that would require social distancing of 65% or greater; they're showing us at 40% and falling sharply.

Again, these are local numbers from my community based on data collected in the hospitals. They may or may not be relevant to your area.

That’s a good point. Have countries continued to produce and stockpile PPE in order to prepare for the next wave of infections?

I'm sure other countries have...