United States : Protest schools reopening amid covid-19 pandemic

With some public schools reopened and coronavirus cases already being reported, protesters in at least three dozen school districts across the country took to the streets Monday to demand that science and health concerns rule decisions about when and how to resume in-person learning. Trump’s demands that schools reopen while coronavirus infection rates are increasing in most states have politicized reopening decisions being made at the local and state levels. Many district leaders, including in Republican-led states, have said they are starting the school year virtually because it is too dangerous to reopen school buildings and risk the spread of the coronavirus. Still, some districts have already begun the 2020-2021 academic year by reopening school buildings, and already coronavirus cases have been reported in some of them.

In Georgia’s Gwinnett County, some 260 employees tested positive or had possibly been exposed to the coronavirus a day after teachers returned to work last week and were told to stay home. Alcoa City Schools in Tennessee recently opened, but a few days later a student tested positive for the virus. At Corinth High School in Mississippi, in-person classes started last week and within days five students tested positive for the coronavirus and others went into quarantine as a result of contact tracing, the school district said. In New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities across the country on Monday, teachers, students, parents and others protested in car caravans and street marches, demanding that health concerns and scientific findings on the spread of the novel coronavirus dictate when and how schools reopen. 

In what unions and other organizers called a national day of resistance against what they called “unsafe” school openings, protesters carried fake coffins and gravestones as well as signs demanding schools stay closed until it is safe to reopen, including New York City and Chicago, where school buildings are set to reopen soon. In Milwaukee, the Teachers’ Education Association tweeted pictures of protesters making fake gravestones that said, for example, “RIP GRANDMA CAUGHT COVID HELPING GRANDKIDS WITH HOMEWORK.” In Baltimore, teachers and students and others protested outside a Comcast building to demand the company provide improved Internet service for students. The protest occurred on the same day Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan moved to invalidate a decision made by the health department in Montgomery County that said private schools should start the academic year online, just like public schools are.

Courtesy : The Washington Post

How victims of Coronavirus die and disappear alone

Morgues and cemeteries are running out of room in some regions, and the bodies of some coronavirus victims either remain unidentified or unclaimed by family members. Traditional funerals have all but been eliminated for fear of spreading the illness, forcing mourners to grieve at a distance.

United States reaches grim milestone of 100,000 covid-19 deaths

The United States has recorded more than 100,000 deaths from Covid-19, moving past a grim milestone even as many states relax mitigation measures to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. The US has recorded more deaths from the disease than any other country in the pandemic, and almost three times as many as the second-ranking country, Britain, which has recorded more than 37,000 Covid-19 deaths. The latest count of fatalities is 100,047 according to Johns Hopkins University data. Donald Trump did not immediately react to the news. On Twitter, he posted a clip of Fox New’s Lou Dobbs calling Trump “arguably the greatest president in our history”. Earlier this month, Trump said 100,000 deaths would be “horrible”, but he claimed that actions by his administration had prevented a much higher toll.

 The virus has killed more Americans than the Vietnam and Korean wars combined, and the death toll is approaching that of the first world war, when more than 116,000 Americans died in combat. The number of fatalities in the United States is still climbing, , and federal officials warn that the likely actual toll from the coronavirus is higher than the official figure. A tracking project by the Centers of Disease Control (CDC) of “excess deaths” in each state beyond seasonal averages suggests the official count of Covid-19 deaths could leave out thousands of cases. “These deaths could represent misclassified Covid-19 deaths, or potentially could be indirectly related to Covid-19 (eg, deaths from other causes occurring in the context of healthcare shortages or overburdened healthcare systems),” the CDC said.

Americans feel economic crush of covid-19

The pandemic, along with the resultant stock market crash and other impacts, has led to increased discussion of a recession in the United States.The economy contracted 4.8 percent from January through March 2020, and the unemployment rate rose to 14.7 percent in April. The total healthcare costs of treating the epidemic could be anywhere from $34 billion to $251 billion according to analysis presented by The New York Times. 

On May 8, 2020, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 20.5 million nonfarm jobs were lost and the unemployment rate rose to 14.7 percent in April. This followed reports of weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance that increased from a typical level of around 200,000 per week through early March, to 3.3 million the week of March 21, a peak of 6.9 million (March 28), and declines each week thereafter to 3.0 million the week of May 9th. A total of 36.5 million filed for unemployment insurance from March 21st to May 9th. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that costs for unemployment insurance claims were $49 billion in April 2020, versus $3 billion in April 2019. An estimated $27 billion of the increase was due to the $600/week increase in unemployment benefits due to the CARES Act. The Urban Institute estimated that about 25 million people would lose their employer-provided health insurance if the unemployment rate rises to 20%. Of these, 12 million would obtain Medicaid coverage, 6 million would find coverage privately, and 7 million would become uninsured. 

US Deaths : Covid-19 – US Death Toll Crosses 50,000

The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus reached 50,000 on Friday, having doubled in 10 days, according to a Reuters tally. More than 875,000 Americans have contracted COVID-19, and on average about 2,000 have died every day this month. The coronavirus’s U.S. death toll surged past 50,000, marking another grim milestone in the pandemic that has upended life around the globe. Three months after the nation’s first confirmed case, the highly contagious virus has killed at an alarming rate: Just 10 days ago, the number of recorded deaths stood at 25,000. Experts have warned that the number of reported fatalities probably underestimates the true toll of covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. Amid a national debate over how to count the dead, methods have varied widely from state to state. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention initially included only those who tested positive for the virus, even with strict limitations on testing.

The Washington Post has been analyzing data from state health agencies to track every known death in the country. Of the 50,024 fatalities confirmed as of Friday, 21,283 — or about 42 percent — occurred in New York. But while the state has started to see a decrease in its confirmed daily death counts, other parts of the country are beginning to see a surge. Even as governors in multiple states eased stay-at-home orders and took other steps to restart their stymied economies, the disease’s rapid spread in urban and rural areas had led to more than 28,000 deaths outside the hot spot of New York. The second-highest death toll was being carried by New Jersey, followed by Michigan, Massachusetts and Illinois. The novel coronavirus emerged in late December as a scattering of mysterious illnesses in Wuhan, China, with symptoms ranging from coughing and fever to cases of pneumonia, kidney failure and fluid buildup in the lungs. It soon traveled the globe, triggering school closures, lockdowns and unprecedented economic disruption. Worldwide as of Friday, more than 2.7 million people had been sickened with the virus and more than 195,000 had died, according to tracking by Johns Hopkins University.