Local groups in Portland have joined a national effort to print face shields for medical workers using 3D printers. The local maker community and tech companies have taken on the challenge of using open source designs to print these essential supplies. They are organizing through the website masks for docs dot org.
It’s been twelve years since the housing market crash and the great recession in the US. Over the past ten years, the number of jobs created has increased each month, making a gradual upward slope. The last month has wiped out the entire ten years of job gains. Over the last month, twenty two million Americans have filed jobless claims. This is equal to the number of jobs created over the past ten years – twenty two million jobs.
COVID-19 has claimed two more lives in Oregon, raising the state’s death toll from 72 to 74, the Oregon Health Authority reported at 8 a.m. today. The Oregon Health Authority also reported 66 new cases of COVID-19 as of 8 a.m. today, bringing the state total to 1,910. The Oregon Health Authority says that they have increased testing, but are still way behind in the number of tests available. The Authority says that testing is a key strategy for understanding the transmission of the virus and population prevalence of disease.
As of April 17th, Oregon’s positive testing result has remained fairly consistent at about 5% of tests performed; as compared to the national average of 17.6%.
A handful of protesters in different cities over the last few days calling for an end to the stay-at-home orders have topped the news headlines, despite their small numbers and connections to fringe groups on the far right.
In Denver Colorado yesterday, a small group of frontline healthcare workers dressed in scrubs stood in the middle of the street to block hundreds of right-wing protesters traveling to one of these right-wing protests. Video clips emerged on Twitter showing right-wing demonstrators screaming and honking at the nurses as they calmly stood their ground in the street. The healthcare workers—who have months of firsthand experience with the effects of Covid-19 – told reporters that the protesters defying the stay-at-home guidance were quote “very aggressive” toward them.
Trump, meanwhile, encouraged the protests, which health care professionals say are ill-advised and irresponsible. He published on Twitter a slogan associated with the protests, and said he thought the protesters were quote “great people”.
The failure of the federal government to prepare for or coordinate the massive effort needed to deal with this pandemic has left states scrambling, with regional coalitions forming between states in the Midwest, and in the Pacific northwest. When health officials in Massachusetts were forced to find their own suppliers in China for protective equipment for their healthcare workers, the shipment was blocked at the port of entry by Homeland Security officers, who seized the equipment. This is one of many such stories that author Steven Marche describe as a snapshot of a system in breakdown.
In New York, the epicenter of the pandemic in the US, doctors and nurses have been reported to be wearing trashbags, and re-using disposable gowns and masks.
Bernie Sanders has stated that this crisis has laid bare what he calls the quote “cruelty and absurdity” of the U.S. healthcare system. In a talk on Sunday, he also called for ending "starvation wages" and guaranteeing decent-paying jobs to those who can work; ensuring all Americans receive a quality education from childcare through graduate school; and "a massive construction program that ends homelessness and allows all of our people to live in safe and affordable housing.
As the 50th anniversary of Earth Day is set to be celebrated this Wednesday, Sanders stated that We must make certain that our communities are free of pollution in our air and water, and that we lead the world in combating the existential threat of climate change.
Meanwhile in Oregon, the state has deployed the National Guard to distribute protective gear to nursing homes – where the majority of the state’s seventy four deaths from the coronavirus have occurred. Governor Kate Brown said this morning that 400,000 surgical masks and other pieces of protective equipment are being distributed to long-term care facilities in Oregon.
She said the rapid distribution of masks, gloves and face shields will reach all of the state’s nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, but did not say just how quickly the distribution would be completed.
In other Oregon news, the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down the state’s non-unanimous jury system. Oregon was the last state in the country to allow non-unanimous juries, in which two of the twelve jurors could disagree with a verdict and it would still be approved.
Oregon voters in 1934 approved a constitutional amendment creating the state’s non-unanimous jury system. According to the Oregonian, Legal scholars argue Oregon’s law at the time aimed to silence immigrants and religious minorities in the state who sat on juries.
The non-unanimous jury system has been criticized as racist and discriminatory in both policy and practice. Yet it has remained Oregon law since 1934. The US Supreme Court ruled today in a 6 to 3 decision that the practice violates the US constitution, which calls for unanimous jury consent in criminal cases.
A reminder to all our listeners that the Governors of Oregon and Washington have issued executive orders for all residents to stay home unless doing essential work or going out to make essential purchases. This helps slow the spread of this virus, and appears to be working in both states – as long as people continue to follow the orders to remain home and stay separated from other people.
- KBOO