Tourists who may have contracted the virus due to an outbreak at an alpine ski resort are trying to. Officials in Austria are facing a class action lawsuit involving up to 2,500 tourists over an outbreak in a popular winter sports destination, Nadine Schmidt writes.
The world's largest lockdown is having a dramatic impact on pollution in India.
As farmers enter critical planting and harvesting times, fears are mounting that the pandemic could cause devastating food shortages around the globe. Farms need skilled laborers to work the fields, and a reliable supply chain to deliver their goods — but the outbreak has put both at risk, Danielle Wiener-Bronner writes.
Iceland is carrying out wide-scale testing on its population. Here's what they've learned.
Another chilling development-- A nurse on the front lines in Chicago tried to wear her own N95 to work while caring for COVID patients (when it wasn't supplied to her) & she was told by management she would not be allowed to. She quit her job.
Despite having committed to transferring 2,000 ventilators to the Department of Health and Human Services, the Pentagon has not shipped any of them because HHS has not told them where to ship them. When HHS was confronted with the story, they said they wanted to wait until they determined where the devices would be needed most. Somewhere in the U.S., someone surely died without access to a ventilator.
To make matters worse, thousands of ventilators provided from the federal stockpile were delivered last week-- the problem is that they didn't work. It turns out the contract to maintain the government's stockpile of ventilators lapsed late last summer, and a contracting dispute meant that a new firm did not begin its work to repair the units until late January, when it was too late.
A Trump official was speaking to a counterpart in the Thailand government last week in order to obtain protective equipment. The official asked the Thais for assistance-- only to be informed by the puzzled voices on the other side of the line that a U.S. shipment of the same supplies-- the second of two so far, was already on its way to Bangkok (from the U.S.)! That's right-- we were sending them the things were asking for.
Trump has said he has now frozen exports of such supplies, but Forbes reported that despite the announced ban, roughly 280 million masks in U.S. warehouses were purchased by foreign buyers on one day alone. FEMA fold Forbes that it "has not actively encourage or discourage U.S. companies from exporting overseas."
And despite all this, Trump appears to be distributing desperately needed funding and supplies with an eye on his election prospects, not based on actual need. Florida, which is governed by Trump ally Ron de Santis (and who finally issued a statewide stay-at-home order after much outcry) has been getting all the emergency supplies it has requested (unlike other states). And why is that? The Washington Post quoted a White House official: "The Presidents knows Florida is so important to his re-election."
And now Trump is continuing his retaliation against anyone that could hold him accountable for his incompetence and inaction. Trump preiviously fired the Intelligence Community Inspector General who reported the Ukraine whistleblower complaint; he public smeared the HHS Inspector General for reporting supply shortages at hospitals; and he now has removed the Inspector General overseeing the taxpayers' $2 trillion coronavirus relief fund.
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