Yhteiskunta sammuu koronan myötä, rapsaa Iranista ja Italiasta + muista ongelmavaltioista

[Isotooppijalostamo]

‘War Zone’: Ambulances in N.Y.C. Are Now as Busy as on Sept. 11
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/nyre ... s-ems.html

With coronavirus cases mounting, emergency workers are making life-or-death decisions about who goes to a hospital, and who is left behind.
In a matter of days, New York City’s 911 system was overwhelmed by calls for medical distress seemingly related to the coronavirus.

Ali Watkins

By Ali Watkins

March 28, 2020

The first of many calls that night involved a 24-year-old man who had a fever, body aches and a cough that sounded like a cement mixer.

While the Brooklyn paramedics took the man’s fever — 103 degrees — they noticed frightening vitals that hinted at coronavirus: a critically low level of oxygen was flowing into his otherwise clear lungs, while his heart thumped with the intensity of a marathon runner’s. He was taken to the nearest hospital.

Then almost immediately came the next call: a 73-year-old man with symptoms similar to the young man’s. They took him to the hospital, too.

“It’s all a war zone,” one of the paramedics said.

Days later, another paramedic, Phil Suarez, was dispatched to two homes in Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood, where entire families, living in cramped apartments, appeared to be stricken with the virus.

“I’m terrified,” said Mr. Suarez, who has been a paramedic in New York City for 26 years and had assisted in rescue efforts during the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and later served in the Iraq war. “I honestly don’t know if I’m going to survive. I’m terrified of what I’ve already possibly brought home.”

ImagePhil Suarez, a New York City paramedic. “I’m terrified of what I’ve already possibly brought home,” he said.


Even as hospitals across New York become inundated with coronavirus cases, some patients are being left behind in their homes because the health care system cannot handle them all, according to dozens of interviews with paramedics, New York Fire Department officials and union representatives, as well as city data.

In a matter of days, the city’s 911 system has been overwhelmed by calls for medical distress apparently related to the virus. Typically, the system sees about 4,000 Emergency Medical Services calls a day.

On Thursday, dispatchers took more than 7,000 calls — a volume not seen since the Sept. 11 attacks. The record for amount of calls in a day was broken three times in the last week.

Because of the volume, emergency medical workers are making life-or-death decisions about who is sick enough to take to crowded emergency rooms and who appears well enough to leave behind. They are assessing on scene which patients should receive time-consuming measures like CPR and intubation, and which patients are too far gone to save.

And, they are doing it, in most cases they say, without appropriate equipment to protect themselves from infection.

The paramedics described grim scenes as New York City has become the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, with more than 29,000 cases as of Saturday, and 517 deaths.

If the rate of growth in cases in the New York area continues, it will suffer a more severe outbreak than those experienced in Wuhan, China, or the Lombardy region of Italy.

One New York City paramedic described responding to a suicide attempt of a woman who had drank a liter of vodka after her cancer treatments had been delayed, in part because hospitals were clearing their beds for coronavirus patients.

Another paramedic said she responded to so many cardiac arrests in one shift that the battery on her defibrillator died.

“It does not matter where you are. It doesn’t matter how much money you have. This virus is treating everyone equally,” the Brooklyn paramedic said.

The amount of work has been record-setting for the city’s 911 system, said Frank Dwyer, a Fire Department spokesman.

“Our E.M.T.s and paramedics are on the front line during an unprecedented time in the department’s history,” Mr. Dwyer said, adding: “They’re doing it professionally, and they’re doing it because they care about their patients. They care about this city.”

The department said it has started rationing protective gear in an attempt to stave off potential shortages. Earlier this month, the department told workers that they must turn in their used N95 masks — which filter out 95 percent of airborne particles when used correctly — in order to receive a new one.

“The department is carefully managing and monitoring usage of personal protective equipment and critical supplies to ensure we have what’s needed for this long-term operation,” Mr. Dwyer said.

Inside ambulances, on rudimentary digital screens, the dispatches are listed — call No. 2,488, sick; call No. 2,555, sick; call No. 2,894, sick with a fever. The screen goes on for rows, a catalog of the city’s ill and dying. Peppered among them are the usual every day calls still demanding attention: injuries, accidents, heart attacks.

Image
Responding to a 911 call in East Harlem on March 18.


New York City’s soundtrack has always included the sound of ambulance sirens. But now, with many of the city’s businesses closed and its neighborhoods quiet, endless wailing seems to echo through the deserted streets.

Three weeks ago, the paramedics said, most coronavirus calls were for respiratory distress or fever. Now the same types of patients, after having been sent home from the hospital, are experiencing organ failure and cardiac arrest.

“We’re getting them at the point where they’re starting to decompensate,” said the Brooklyn paramedic, who is employed by the Fire Department. “The way that it wreaks havoc in the body is almost flying in the face of everything that we know.”

In the same way that the city’s hospitals are clawing for manpower and resources, the virus has flipped traditional Emergency Medical Services procedures at a dizzying speed. Paramedics who once transported people with even the most mild medical maladies to hospitals are now encouraging anyone who is not critically ill to stay home. When older adults call with a medical issue, paramedics fear taking them to the emergency room, where they could be exposed to the virus.

One paramedic told a 65-year-old patient in Brooklyn, whom she had previously transported to the hospital for recurring issues, to stay home this time and call a doctor.

In New York City, 911 calls are handled by both Fire Department ambulances and ambulance companies staffed by area hospitals. Their duties are effectively the same: They respond to the same medical calls, largely determined by what crew is closer and which is available fastest.

Neither the city, the State Department of Health or the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have issued strict rules as to how paramedics should respond to a coronavirus call. In recent days, Fire Department policy — which applies to all ambulance crews in the 911 system — has given more latitude to paramedics to make decisions on how to handle patients they believe have the virus.

Recent guidance has also directed paramedics to wear surgical masks, gloves, gowns and eye protection for suspected coronavirus patients. N95 masks, in short supply, are only worn for certain procedures.

Since many hospitals are in dire need of personal protective equipment like N95 masks, paramedic crews employed by the hospitals also face shortages.

The Brooklyn paramedic said she had started sewing her homemade masks with bandannas and coffee filters.

Another paramedic in Brooklyn said she had been using the same N95 mask for days. Last week, as she and her partner exited an apartment building after tending to a patient, the building’s supervisor — noticing the pair’s worn equipment — met them downstairs and shoved new N95 masks and a can of Lysol into their arms.

Image
In a matter of days, New York City’s 911 system was overwhelmed by calls for medical distress seemingly related to the coronavirus.

Like doctors and nurses, many paramedics fear they are already infected and have brought the virus home to their families. On March 18, three members of the Fire Department tested positive for the virus. By Friday, 206 members had positive results.

Officials for the union that represents the city’s paramedics believe the actual number who have been infected is far higher. At a single station in Coney Island, Brooklyn, seven Emergency Medical Services workers were infected, one union official said.

At least one E.M.S. worker with the virus was in an intensive care unit last week and on a ventilator.

The growing pandemic has tested paramedics physically and mentally, said Anthony Almojera, an E.M.S. lieutenant for the Fire Department who said he cried on the job for the first time in his 17-year career.

He and his team had responded to a cardiac arrest dispatch for a middle-age woman, a health care worker, who had been infected. When paramedics arrived at her home, the woman’s husband, who was also a health care worker, said she had been sick for five days.

The husband frantically explained that he had tried to stay home and tend to his ill wife, but his employer had asked him to work because their facility was overrun with coronavirus patients.

Grudgingly, the man told the medics, he went to work. When he returned home after his shift that day, he found her unconscious in their bed. For 35 minutes, Mr. Almojera’s team tried to revive the woman, but she could not be saved.

Usually, Mr. Almojera said, he tries to console family members who have lost a loved one by putting his arm around them or giving them a hug.

But because the husband was also thought to be infected with the coronavirus, Mr. Almojera delivered the bad news from six feet away. He watched the man pound on his car with his fist and then crumble to the ground.

“I’m sitting there, beside myself, and I can’t do anything except be at this distance with him,” Mr. Almojera said. “So, we left him.”

Ali Watkins is a reporter on the Metro desk, covering crime and law enforcement in New York City. Previously, she covered national security in Washington for The Times, BuzzFeed and McClatchy Newspapers. @AliWatkins

[Isotooppijalostamo]

Health workers and unions at Madrid’s Ifema field hospital: “It’s a disaster”


https://english.elpais.com/society/2020 ... aster.html

The convention center in the Spanish capital was meant to help ease the strain of the coronavirus crisis, but staff complain it is overcrowded and poorly managed
Health workers at the Ifema field hospital in Madrid.
Health workers at the Ifema field hospital in Madrid.Chema Moya / EFE
4
Julia F. Cadenas
|
Isabel Valdés
Madrid - 30 mar 2020 - 15:36 CEST

In Pavilion 5 of the Ifema convention center in Madrid, which has been turned into Spain’s largest field hospital to manage the rising number of coronavirus patients, there is neither two meters of distance between one patient and another, nor adequate personal protective equipment. The conditions of nurses and doctors are “shameful” and they don’t even have the computer program they need to work.

This is what doctors, nurses, guards and administration staff at the center told EL PAÍS this past weekend.

“There is greater risk of contagion than of being cured in this situation. It’s a disaster,” says one nurse.

Ana González, another nurse who works a a local health center in Móstoles and in intensive care units (ICUs) in different hospitals in Madrid, went to the field hospital on Wednesday to volunteer. “The patients are overcrowded …. It looks like [a scene from a] war, there are barely two steps between beds, there is one bathroom for all the patients, and they had gone 13 days without showering until a shower was installed on Friday. There are no stands to hold up drips, we are using broomsticks!”

These are just some of the dozens of complaints from health workers. The terrible conditions faced reached their limit on Sunday, according to Spain’s CCOO labor union, which argues that the protocol for personal protective equipment is not being met, that there is overcrowding, and that the changing rooms fail all safety measures aimed at avoiding contagion and stopping the spread of the virus.
Pavilion 5 at Madrid's Ifema exhibition center on Friday.
Pavilion 5 at Madrid's Ifema exhibition center on Friday.

Up until now, the field hospital has been run by volunteers, but many are thinking of refusing to work in these conditions. On Sunday, trash bags were handed out instead of caps to protect heads, and non-protective green gowns were put on with a plastic apron.

“The waiting areas and the changing rooms are being filled up with scrubs, caps and personal protective equipment that we have been using before with infected patients. There is not even a meter of distance between one person and another,” staff have told the union. This situation breaks all safety protocols set out by the Madrid region’s public health department for health workers and non-health workers who have direct contact with patients.

“ three nights in a row and where I am there is no replacement. There are very few of us in Summa [Madrid’s emergency services] and the patients are very unwell,” says a nurse. “They are left exhausted by the fever, the diarrhea caused by [HIV medicine] Kaletra and an indescribable sadness.”

The regional government in Madrid has recognized that there was a “one-off organizational problem” on Sunday that led to complaints from professionals, but says that the field hospital is being provided with the necessary resources. “There are professionals who have decided to also cover their gowns, caps and shoes with plastic bags,” authorities added.

The CCOO union has warned that it would not allow workers to be threatened for refusing to work without adequate personal protective gear. In response, the Madrid regional government said that they had seen no evidence of such threats and encouraged staff to report such cases “because they would not be tolerated.”

Some health workers insist that the threats are real. One of them says they are “veiled but continuous.” “They don’t want people to know how things are being done and there is pressure all the time,” they explain.

The pro-public healthcare group Coordination Against Healthcare Privatization (CAS) says that “many patients from residencies were brought in directly, without a Covid-19 diagnosis” this weekend, and added that the field hospital did not have the resources needed to carry out the necessary analyses. “The computer program is not installed and there is no way of creating a patient’s history.”
Volunteers for 5,500 beds

Since the field hospital opened, 1,110 patients have been admitted and 424 have been discharged after recovering. On Sunday night 750 patients were in the hospital. The space is set to have capacity for 5,500 hospital beds and 500 intensive care beds. “But obviously they are not all there right now. Not even those that are there have the optimum conditions for patients,” says one family doctor.

Another family doctor, Carmen, 45, who works in a health center in Móstoles, received a call on Friday afternoon from her boss. They needed people at the field hospital “right away.” She told her husband, 52, who is also a doctor, and the two of them went on Saturday to Pavilion 5, the first of the three that the Madrid government converted to ease the strain on hospitals in the region.
Intensive care beds at the Ifema field hospital.
Intensive care beds at the Ifema field hospital.Ministerio de Defensa

“That first day was devastating. Nothing had been put together. It was all very makeshift, it was very cold. It is a sad site, a grey concrete hangar, with beds separated without screens, with no privacy,” says Carmen. The best part of the center was the attitude of the health workers. “We are all volunteers except for the internists who coordinate. The volunteers are very eager, we came to give it our all, to do what was needed.” But, as one nurse notes, “enthusiasm doesn’t protect you, and willpower doesn’t cure.”

That job is done by personal protective gear. Carmen arrives at 7.30am at Ifema and it takes the Samur staff at least 10 minutes to put on her four gloves, socks over her pants, fix everything in place with duct tape, a plastic suit that is “fearfully hot,” two face masks and protective facial visor “like welders wear, only transparent.” This is the highest level of protection.

“They are very heavy suits to wear, everything is tight and it’s very hot. We come out of them literally sweating. Working seven hours this way is very hard,” says Carmen.

But it is better than not having access to this equipment at all, says one nurse. “The dehydration under this weight of plastic and the marks and the injuries that it can give you, these are all things that we all want, rather than feeling completely unprotected, thinking that we are going to get infected and infect the patients.”
Prioritizing patients

Every patient at the Ifema field hospital has mild symptoms and has been transferred from a hospital in Madrid, a region which has been overwhelmed by the health crisis. When a patient arrives with more serious symptoms, or their condition worsens, the health workers have to make a decision.

“Some are transferred to ICUs in hospitals, but there are others, who because of their age or the fact they have multiple illnesses, are candidates for sedation,” says Carmen. The doctor from Móstoles explains the triage system: prioritize those with the greatest chance of survival when faced with a shortage of resources to help critical patients. “The ICU beds are limited. Sadly, you have to select patients. We can’t send patients over 90 to the ICU when a 30-year-old needs it… It’s very hard,” she says.

Enthusiasm doesn’t protect you, and willpower doesn’t cure

Anonymous nurse working at Ifema

Since she started to work at the Ifema field hospital, Carmen has discharged five patients and her husband two. On Tuesday she had to sedate an 87-year-old woman, a moment she won’t ever forget. “It’s very sad but I am happy that I made it so that she would not die alone.” A day before her condition worsened, the woman suddenly improved and asked to speak with her daughter, by gesturing to her cellphone. Hours passed and when Carmen realized she was not able to do any more for the woman, she called the patient’s daughter again. This time, so that they could say goodbye. “I wanted for her to hear her daughter’s voice before she was sedated. [During the call] the grandmother smiled occasionally. I heard that they were talking to her about her granddaughter.”

Ana González, a 22-year-old volunteer nurse, does not go home when her shift ends “I stay in case someone gets dizzy and I have to go back in.” According to González, the working hours at Ifema are set by the protective suit: between four and six hours a day with one day off a week: “And that day, we work for free.” With the protective suit on, health workers cannot go in for more than six hours. But many staff who worked last weekend say that after experiencing the conditions on Sunday they may not last a minute longer. “And we can’t allow ourselves to take sick leave,” says one health worker. “The worst is yet to come.”

English version by Melissa Kitson

[promoottori naurahtaa]

Pohjois-Korea väittää, ettei maassa ole yhtäkään tartuntaa
Pohjois-Koreassa ei ole maan korkea-arvoisen terveysviranomaisen mukaan todettu ainoatakaan koronavirustartuntaa.

– Yksikään ihminen maassamme ei ole saanut uutta koronavirusta tähän mennessä, vakuutti maan terveyshallinnon epidemiaviraston johtaja Pak Myong-su.

– Olemme tehneet ennakoivia ja tieteellisiä toimia: kaikki maahan tulleet on tarkastettu ja pantu karanteeniin. Kaikki tavarat on desinfioitu ja maarajat suljettu kuten myös lento- ja merireitit, Pak luetteli.

Asiantuntijoiden mukaan Pohjois-Korea on erityisen haavoittuva koronavirustartunnoille, koska maan terveydenhuoltojärjestelmä on surkeassa tilassa.

Yhdysvaltain armeijan Etelä-Korean joukkojen johtaja Robert Abrams sanoi viime kuussa olevansa lähes varma, että Pohjois-Koreassa on virustartuntoja. Yhdysvaltain presidentti Donald Trump on niin ikään sanonut uskovana, että maassa "on jotain meneillään", ja on tarjonnut apua

[Pasi Fist]

^---Upea linkki.

[Pasi Fist]

Sillä välin Trumpnistanissa:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fe ... y-n1174461

Feds charge man with intentionally derailing train near USNS Mercy

Authorities said the suspect told investigators he wanted to bring attention to the government's activities regarding COVID-19.

LOS ANGELES — Prosecutors charged a locomotive engineer who worked at the Port of Los Angeles with intentionally derailing a train at full speed near the Navy hospital ship Mercy because of suspicions over its activities surrounding COVID-19, according to a federal criminal complaint.

Eduardo Moreno, 44, of San Pedro, California, was charged with one count under a little-known train-wrecking statute that carries a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in the incident Tuesday, according to the 10-page criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

Moreno, who was held overnight, was turned over to FBI agents Wednesday morning. He was expected to make an initial appearance in federal court Wednesday afternoon.

Prosecutors claim Moreno ran the train off the tracks. It crashed through a series of barriers before coming to rest more than 250 yards from the Mercy in an incident that was captured on video.

Although the train leaked fuel oil, which required cleanup by firefighters and other hazardous materials personnel, no one was hurt.

A California Highway Patrol officer who witnessed the crash and took Moreno into custody told authorities that he saw the train, which is used to haul shipping cargo, smash through a barrier at the end of the tracks before it drove through several obstacles, including a steel barrier and a chain-link fence. It slid through one parking lot and another filled with gravel and smashed into a second chain-link fence, according to the affidavit.

The complaint alleges that when the officer approached him, Moreno said: "You only get this chance once. The whole world is watching. I had to. People don't know what's going on here. Now they will."

The affidavit said Moreno, who waived his right to speak to an attorney before being interviewed by investigators, admitted in two post-arrest interviews that he intentionally ran the train off the track because he wanted to bring attention to the government's activities regarding COVID-19 and was suspicious of the Mercy.

In his first interview with Los Angeles port police, Moreno acknowledged that he "did it," saying he was suspicious of the Mercy and believed it had an alternative purpose related to COVID-19 or a government takeover, the affidavit states.

Moreno also told investigators that he acted alone and had not planned the attempted attack, according to the affidavit. He said he knew that derailing and crashing the train would bring media attention and that "people could see for themselves," referring to the Mercy, according to the affidavit.

In a second interview with FBI agents, Moreno said "he did it out of the desire to 'wake people up,'" according to the affidavit. "Moreno stated that he thought that the U.S.N.S. Mercy was suspicious and did not believe 'the ship is what they say it's for,'" it said.

Ja Kansasissa FBI ampui jonkun rasisti Sakarin joka halusi sairaalaa autopommittaa.

Kuinka paljon siellä vihataan terveydenhuoltoa noin ylipäätänsä?

[I & I Spit On Their Graves]

Saiko Iran homman jotenkin haltuun vai onko siellä kaikki tilastonlaatijatkin jo kuopassa?

[superlemmikki]

Sillä välin Trumpnistanissa:

Spoiler:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fe ... y-n1174461

Feds charge man with intentionally derailing train near USNS Mercy

Authorities said the suspect told investigators he wanted to bring attention to the government's activities regarding COVID-19.

LOS ANGELES — Prosecutors charged a locomotive engineer who worked at the Port of Los Angeles with intentionally derailing a train at full speed near the Navy hospital ship Mercy because of suspicions over its activities surrounding COVID-19, according to a federal criminal complaint.

Eduardo Moreno, 44, of San Pedro, California, was charged with one count under a little-known train-wrecking statute that carries a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in the incident Tuesday, according to the 10-page criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

Moreno, who was held overnight, was turned over to FBI agents Wednesday morning. He was expected to make an initial appearance in federal court Wednesday afternoon.

Prosecutors claim Moreno ran the train off the tracks. It crashed through a series of barriers before coming to rest more than 250 yards from the Mercy in an incident that was captured on video.

Although the train leaked fuel oil, which required cleanup by firefighters and other hazardous materials personnel, no one was hurt.

A California Highway Patrol officer who witnessed the crash and took Moreno into custody told authorities that he saw the train, which is used to haul shipping cargo, smash through a barrier at the end of the tracks before it drove through several obstacles, including a steel barrier and a chain-link fence. It slid through one parking lot and another filled with gravel and smashed into a second chain-link fence, according to the affidavit.

The complaint alleges that when the officer approached him, Moreno said: "You only get this chance once. The whole world is watching. I had to. People don't know what's going on here. Now they will."

The affidavit said Moreno, who waived his right to speak to an attorney before being interviewed by investigators, admitted in two post-arrest interviews that he intentionally ran the train off the track because he wanted to bring attention to the government's activities regarding COVID-19 and was suspicious of the Mercy.

In his first interview with Los Angeles port police, Moreno acknowledged that he "did it," saying he was suspicious of the Mercy and believed it had an alternative purpose related to COVID-19 or a government takeover, the affidavit states.

Moreno also told investigators that he acted alone and had not planned the attempted attack, according to the affidavit. He said he knew that derailing and crashing the train would bring media attention and that "people could see for themselves," referring to the Mercy, according to the affidavit.

In a second interview with FBI agents, Moreno said "he did it out of the desire to 'wake people up,'" according to the affidavit. "Moreno stated that he thought that the U.S.N.S. Mercy was suspicious and did not believe 'the ship is what they say it's for,'" it said.

Ja Kansasissa FBI ampui jonkun rasisti Sakarin joka halusi sairaalaa autopommittaa.

Kuinka paljon siellä vihataan terveydenhuoltoa noin ylipäätänsä?

Ei kai siellä terveyspalveluita vihata vaan sosialismia, kuten että kaikki olisivat oikeutettuja terveydenhuoltoon.

[superlemmikki]

Saiko Iran homman jotenkin haltuun vai onko siellä kaikki tilastonlaatijatkin jo kuopassa?

Esim. Ranskassa suhteessa enemmän kuolleita ja vähemmän selvinneitä. Kuolin-%:RANSKA ~7% vs. ~6.3% IRAN. Naapurimaassaan Saksassa taas ollaan Suomen tasoilla, eli ~1.2%

[pidetään symposium]

Iran on niitä maita, joiden virallisiin lukuihin tuskin kannattaa kamalasti luottaa.

[superlemmikki]

Iran on niitä maita, joiden virallisiin lukuihin tuskin kannattaa kamalasti luottaa.

Ainakin kasvu on pysähtynyt kolmeentuhanteen päivittäiseen uuteen tapaukseen. Viikko sitten vielä uudet päivittäiset tapaukset kasvoivat sadoilla joka päivä

e. Ja siis luotan Iranin ja Pohjois-Korean lukuihin abt. yhtä paljon

[Hikinen Möhömaha]

Siellähän oli kunnon joukkohautojakin jo täytössä siinä vaiheessa kun viralliset kuolemat oli jotain 15.

[pitkät piuhat]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... s-lockdown

Singing stops in Italy as fear and social unrest mount

Three weeks on from start of lockdown, Italians are seeing that everything is not all right

A sign on a building occupied by dozens of homeless families in Rome reads: ‘Everything will be fine. With income and homes for all.’ Photograph: Simona Granati/Corbis via Getty Images

Afew days into Italy’s lockdown, people across the country sang and played music from their balconies as they came together to say “Everything will be alright” (Andrà tutto bene). Three weeks on, the singing has stopped and social unrest is mounting as a significant part of the population, especially in the poorer south, realise that everything is not all right.

“They are no longer singing or dancing on the balconies,” said Salvatore Melluso, a priest at Caritas Diocesana di Napoli, a church-run charity in Naples. “Now people are more afraid – not so much of the virus, but of poverty. Many are out of work and hungry. There are now long queues at food banks.”

There have been far fewer coronavirus deaths in Italy’s south compared with the worst-affected northern regions, but the pandemic is having a serious impact on livelihoods.

Tensions are building across the poorest southern regions of Campania, Calabria, Sicily and Puglia as people run out of food and money. There have been reports of small shop owners being pressured to give food for free, while police are patrolling supermarkets in some areas to stop thefts. The self-employed or those working on contracts that do not guarantee social benefits have lost salaries, and many small businesses may never reopen.

Paride Ezzine, a waiter in Palermo, Sicily, no longer gets his salary. “Obviously, due to the lockdown, the restaurant closed,” he said. “I have a wife and two children and we’re living off our savings. But I don’t know how long they will last. I asked my bank to postpone payment instalments – they said no. This situation is bringing us to our knees.”

The ramifications of the lockdown, which is poised to be extended until at least Easter, are also affecting the estimated 3.3 million people in Italy who were working off the books, of whom more than 1 million live across Campania, Sicily, Puglia and Calabria, according to the most recent figures from CGIA Mestre, a Venice-based small business association.

“In reality, we don’t know how many are working in the black as these numbers are only estimates,” said Giovanni Orsina, a politics professor at Luiss University in Rome. “However, a significant number of people live day to day, doing occasional jobs. There are also many shopkeepers, or professionals working for themselves, who may have moderate reserves that will run out the longer they’re in lockdown.”

Amid the brewing social unrest, the prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, said €4.3bn (£3.8bn) from a solidarity fund would immediately be advanced to all municipalities and an additional €400m would go to mayors for conversion into food stamps. But mayors have protested that the funds, especially the €400m for food vouchers, are insufficient.

“It is absolutely not enough,” said Salvo Pogliese, the mayor of Catania. “We were expecting more and I hope the government will find a way. The situation is extremely delicate as a significant part of the population has
One of the issues is that the €4.3bn was due to be given to mayors in May, and much of the funding had already been designated to be spent in other areas.

“If the government expects this money to be used to feed people, then municipalities won’t have money for other things,” said Orsina. “And the new tranche of €400m, if you divide it up between all municipalities, is peanuts. The problem has been offloaded to mayors – Italians will now go asking them for money that they can’t give. Expectations have been created that can’t be satisfied.”

There are also signs that criminal organisations are exploiting the situation. Investigations are under way into the activities of a Facebook group called “National Revolution” that has been inciting people to loot supermarkets.

“The people [behind this group] are those who, before the lockdown, made a living from house robberies and shop thefts,” said a source from the Sicily unit of Digos, Italy’s anti-terrorism police squad. “But with some of these criminal activities being on standby due to the lockdown, the only shops open to rob are supermarkets and chemists. These are people who, due to rampant poverty in the south, usually survive from criminal activities, but who are now not doing so well.”

Leoluca Orlando, the mayor of Palermo, has asked the government to establish a “survival income” for the poorest citizens owing to fears that “criminal groups could promote violence acts”.

Officials also worry that the mafia will take advantage of the rising poverty, swooping in to recruit people to its organisation. “Criminal organisations have plenty of money and people could end up working for them, and once that starts, they won’t go back,” said Orsina.

Meanwhile, taxes for small businesses have merely been suspended, not abolished, meaning owners will still have to find money for contributions at a later stage, despite losing income during the lockdown. And those who can tap into financial support are coming up against stifling bureaucracy.

“Bureaucracy is the real enemy of this country and in a crisis situation it’s impossible to solve this problem,” said Massimiliano Panarari, a professor at Luiss University. “People may have tried to keep their spirits up at the beginning of the lockdown, but now their thoughts are returning towards the bitter reality of a terribly fragile country.”

[Pasi Fist]

Sillä välin Trumpnistanissa:

Spoiler:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fe ... y-n1174461

Feds charge man with intentionally derailing train near USNS Mercy

Authorities said the suspect told investigators he wanted to bring attention to the government's activities regarding COVID-19.

LOS ANGELES — Prosecutors charged a locomotive engineer who worked at the Port of Los Angeles with intentionally derailing a train at full speed near the Navy hospital ship Mercy because of suspicions over its activities surrounding COVID-19, according to a federal criminal complaint.

Eduardo Moreno, 44, of San Pedro, California, was charged with one count under a little-known train-wrecking statute that carries a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in the incident Tuesday, according to the 10-page criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

Moreno, who was held overnight, was turned over to FBI agents Wednesday morning. He was expected to make an initial appearance in federal court Wednesday afternoon.

Prosecutors claim Moreno ran the train off the tracks. It crashed through a series of barriers before coming to rest more than 250 yards from the Mercy in an incident that was captured on video.

Although the train leaked fuel oil, which required cleanup by firefighters and other hazardous materials personnel, no one was hurt.

A California Highway Patrol officer who witnessed the crash and took Moreno into custody told authorities that he saw the train, which is used to haul shipping cargo, smash through a barrier at the end of the tracks before it drove through several obstacles, including a steel barrier and a chain-link fence. It slid through one parking lot and another filled with gravel and smashed into a second chain-link fence, according to the affidavit.

The complaint alleges that when the officer approached him, Moreno said: "You only get this chance once. The whole world is watching. I had to. People don't know what's going on here. Now they will."

The affidavit said Moreno, who waived his right to speak to an attorney before being interviewed by investigators, admitted in two post-arrest interviews that he intentionally ran the train off the track because he wanted to bring attention to the government's activities regarding COVID-19 and was suspicious of the Mercy.

In his first interview with Los Angeles port police, Moreno acknowledged that he "did it," saying he was suspicious of the Mercy and believed it had an alternative purpose related to COVID-19 or a government takeover, the affidavit states.

Moreno also told investigators that he acted alone and had not planned the attempted attack, according to the affidavit. He said he knew that derailing and crashing the train would bring media attention and that "people could see for themselves," referring to the Mercy, according to the affidavit.

In a second interview with FBI agents, Moreno said "he did it out of the desire to 'wake people up,'" according to the affidavit. "Moreno stated that he thought that the U.S.N.S. Mercy was suspicious and did not believe 'the ship is what they say it's for,'" it said.

Ja Kansasissa FBI ampui jonkun rasisti Sakarin joka halusi sairaalaa autopommittaa.

Kuinka paljon siellä vihataan terveydenhuoltoa noin ylipäätänsä?

Ei kai siellä terveyspalveluita vihata vaan sosialismia, kuten että kaikki olisivat oikeutettuja terveydenhuoltoon.

En ole varma kuinka nämä kaksi tässä alleviivattua keissiä liittyy edes kuviteltuun sosialismiin.

Tässä linkki siihen wannabe sairaalapommittajaan:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... s-missouri

[Henkkamaukka Perusjätkä]

Noiden lukujen mukaan Iranissa korona on tuonut prosentin kasvun vuosittaiseen 300 000 kuolleisuuteen. Tai no alle prosentin kun siellä kuolee yli 350 000 vuodessa. En tiedä joukkohautojen kaivamisasioista mitään.

[annan neuvon: ala nussia koiria]

toi junan kaappaaja tais olla nu metal jorkki, sen verran loco motiivi sillä