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‘A profound danger’: Experts warn against broad U.S. reopening amid COVID-19 pandemic
As states lift coronavirus restrictions, none has met federal benchmarks, a health expert warns. The COVID-19 death toll in the U.S. surpasses 73,000.
More than 40 states will have reopened their economies in some capacity by the weekend, backed by President Trump’s urging of Americans to become “warriors” and fight COVID-19 not by sheltering in place but by leaving their homes again.
But as images circulate of sunbathers returning to beaches, revelers enjoying Cinco de Mayo fun and armed protesters demanding their governors open up businesses, public health experts Wednesday presented lawmakers with their own picture of what the country's immediate future should look like.
“It’s clear to me we are at a critical moment of this fight," Johns Hopkins University epidemiologist Caitlin Rivers told the House Committee on Appropriations on Wednesday.
"We risk complacency in accepting the preventable deaths of 2,000 Americans each day, we risk complacency in accepting that our healthcare workers do not have what they need to do their jobs safely, and we risk complacency in recognizing that without continued vigilance we will again create the conditions that led to us being the worst-affected country in the world.”
Even with Trump debating Wednesday how the White House coronavirus task force would be used going forward — this week he suggested shutting down the group of advisors, before changing course — Rivers reminded the committee of the four criteria the panel said should be met before a state starts to reopen:
These striking photos reveal how California is changing
The number of new cases must decline for at least two weeks; the state must be able to perform contact tracing on any new cases; there has to be enough testing to diagnose any person with symptoms; and the healthcare system must have the capacity to treat all patients, not just those with COVID-19.
“To my knowledge, there are no states that meet all four of those criteria,” Rivers said.
The committee had already heard from Dr. Thomas Frieden, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who laid out 10 “plain truths” about the coronavirus. He predicted there would be 100,000 U.S. deaths by the end of May — the toll surpassed 73,000 Wednesday, according to Johns Hopkins University — and cautioned that this is just the beginning of a battle that could rage for not months, but years.
“We are all so impatient to restart our activities,” Frieden told the committee Wednesday morning. “Sheltering in place is a blunt but effective weapon. … We have to find balance between restarting our economy and letting the virus run rampant.
“Open-versus-closed is not a dichotomy. It’s more accurate to think of a dimmer dial than an on-off switch, with gradations to avoid undue risk. Another false dichotomy is between public health and economic security. The very best way to get our economy back is to control the virus, and economic stability is incredibly important to the public’s health.”
In the United States, every state now finds itself somewhere different than its neighbors on the reopening spectrum. A person living near a border may be able to get a haircut on one side of the state line but not the other.
Scientists say a now-dominant strain of the coronavirus could be more contagious than original
Hawaii shares no border and, after two weeks of daily reports showing new cases of coronavirus infection in the single digits, will partially reopen Thursday, Gov. David Ige said. Businesses including shopping malls, carwashes and pet groomers will be allowed to open with social distancing measures. A 14-day quarantine for travelers flying into Hawaii remains in effect.
Washington state, which was hit early by the coronavirus and moved quickly to shutter businesses and schools, reopened parks and golf courses Tuesday. State legislators filed suit to challenge Gov. Jay Inslee’s decision to keep schools, churches and nonessential businesses closed.
A similar suit was filed Wednesday against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, where armed protesters have demonstrated inside the state Capitol in Lansing.
In Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp reopened large parts of the economy April 27, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms told CNN on Tuesday that she was "disappointed" to see crowds congregating on streets to celebrate Cinco de Mayo.
In New York City, the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mayor Bill de Blasio only began to address the idea of reopening, explaining during his daily briefing Wednesday that “moderation” would be the key to success as 109 more people were admitted to city hospitals for suspected COVID-19 and 599 were being treated in intensive care units.
“You’ve got parts of the country where the cases are going up. That’s a profound danger,” De Blasio said. “This is far from over. The president needs to understand the coronavirus is not going to go away. ... He is losing touch with reality and that is very, very dangerous.”
'A pure hypocrite': De Blasio blasts Trump over coronavirus aid
De Blasio said that he is creating 10 “sector advisory councils” made up of representatives from the community at large to advise the city on the best practices for reopening when the data back up that decision.
In a move symbolic of the profound societal change COVID-19 has already created, New York City subways were shut down for several hours for the first time ever Tuesday night so that they could be properly disinfected.
De Blasio said he expected that the subway would be closed overnight for months and that the return of 24-hour service could represent something bigger about how New Yorkers have fought the virus. He said he hopes the subway will return to normal by September, when schools may open again across the city.
“That’s one of these things that will signal that New York City is back in a really strong way,” De Blasio said.
At his Wednesday morning briefing, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo displayed a graphic that showed the curve of New York City’s cases going down while the curve of the rest of the United States — removing the city’s data from the metric — was still going up.
Reopening L.A. will be slow as coronavirus cases and deaths keep mounting
And yet most of those states had decided to reopen.
“To me, that vindicates what we’re doing here in New York, which says follow the science, follow the data,” Cuomo said. “I’m focusing on the number of new cases, because with everything we’ve done, closed schools, closed businesses, everyone shelter at home, you still have 600 new cases that walk in the door yesterday. Where are those new cases coming from?”
Cuomo said hospitals have been trying to help the state answer that question recently. One early data point that was jarring: 66% of those surveyed who tested positive had been staying at home, compared with 18% coming from nursing homes. Only 4% of those infected had taken public transportation.
“There is not a group we can target with this information,” Cuomo said. “It reinforces what we’ve been saying, that much of this comes down to what you do to protect yourself. The government has done what it could, society has done everything it could; now it’s up to you.”
New York state’s death toll rose by 232 Wednesday, a larger increase than the day before, bringing the state total to more than 25,200, according to Johns Hopkins. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy announced 308 new deaths for a total of more than 8,500.
“It’s a painfully slow decline,” Cuomo said. “When people talk about how good things are going and the decline and progress, that’s all true. It’s also true that 232 people were lost yesterday, and that’s 232 families that are suffering today.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Sunday, May 3, 2020
Racism & Gang Culture Follow The Same Protocol
GANG CULTURE & RACISM FOLLOW THE SAME PROTOCOLS.
THIS MORNING I HAD THE PLEASURE OF LISTENING TO THE BREAKFAST CLUB, THE GUEST OF THE SHOW WAS NO OTHER THAN NIPEY HUSSLE HIMSELF. THE BROTHA MADE A LOT OF SINCE FROM BEGINNING TO END. ONE THING THAT HAS BEEN ON MY MIND IS HOW RACISM IS SEPERATE FROM GANG CULTURE, IN THE SENCE THAT (NO POINTING THE FINGER AT ANY GROUP, WE ALL HAVE OUR HISTORY OF S.E.O.). WITH THTA SAID LET'S START WITH THE OBVIOUS HALF OF THIS CO VERSAT[ION THAT HAS ALLOWED ALL THIS NEGATIVE ENERGY TO EXIST.
RACISM:
WHAT IS RACISM AND HOW DID IT START?
Racism in the United States
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Racism in the United States has existed since the colonial era, when white Americans were given legally or socially sanctioned privileges and rights while these same rights were denied to other races and minorities. European Americans—particularly affluent white Anglo-Saxon Protestants—enjoyed exclusive privileges in matters of education, immigration, voting rights, citizenship, land acquisition, and criminal procedure throughout American history. Non-Protestant immigrants from Europe, particularly the Irish, Poles, and Italians, often suffered xenophobic exclusion and other forms of ethnicity-based discrimination in American society until the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In addition, groups like Jews and Arabs have faced continuous discrimination in the United States, and as a result, some people who belong to these groups are not identified as white. African Americans faced restrictions on their political, social, and economic freedom throughout much of US history. East, South, and Southeast Asians have also faced racism in America.
Major racially and ethnically structured institutions and manifestations of racism have included genocide, slavery, segregation, Native American reservations, Native American boarding schools, immigration and naturalization laws, and internment camps.[note 1] Formal racial discrimination was largely banned by the mid-20th century and over time, it came to be perceived as being socially and morally unacceptable. Racial politics remains a major phenomenon, and racism continues to be reflected in socioeconomic inequality.[note 2][2] Racial stratification continues to occur in employment, housing, education, lending, and government.
In the view of the United Nations and the U.S. Human Rights Network, "discrimination in the United States permeates all aspects of life and extends to all communities of color."[3] While the nature of the views held by average Americans has changed significantly over the past several decades, surveys by organizations such as ABC News have found that even in modern America, large sections of Americans admit to holding discriminatory viewpoints. For example, a 2007 article by ABC stated that about one in ten admitted to holding prejudices against Hispanic and Latino Americans and about one in four did so regarding Arab-Americans.[4] A 2018 YouGov/Economist poll found that 17% of Americans oppose interracial marriage, with 19% of members of "other" ethnic groups, 18% of blacks, 17% of whites, and 15% of Hispanics opposing it.[5]
Some Americans saw the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama, who served as president of the United States from 2009 to 2017 and was the nation's first black president, as a sign that the nation had entered a new, post-racial era.[6][7] The right-wing populist radio and television host Lou Dobbs claimed in November 2009, "We are now in a 21st-century post-partisan, post-racial society."[8] Two months later, Chris Matthews, an MSNBC host, said that President Obama, "is post-racial by all appearances. You know, I forgot he was black tonight for an hour."[9] The election of President Donald Trump in 2016 has been viewed by some commentators as a racist backlash against the election of Barack Obama.[10]
During the 2010s, American society has continued to experience high levels of racism and discrimination. One new phenomenon has been the rise of the "alt-right" movement: a white nationalist coalition that seeks the expulsion of sexual and racial minorities from the United States.[11] In August 2017, these groups attended a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, intended to unify various white nationalist factions. During the rally, a white supremacist demonstrator drove his car into a group of counter-protesters, killing one person and injuring 19.[12][13] Since the mid-2010s, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have considered white supremacist violence to be the leading threat of domestic terrorism in the United States.[14][15]
Racism[edit]
Racism is a systematized form of oppression by one race against another. Prejudicial attitudes existed between races for thousands of years, but systematized racial oppression first arose in the 1600s. Before this, slaves in various cultures were taken without racism as the basis – slaves were usually taken as a result of military conquest. But when European traders found that their superior technology in sailing ships and firearms gave them a tremendous advantage in Africa, they began plundering Africa's wealth and taking slaves. Slavers and slave owners tried to convince themselves that their African slaves had no previous culture, that they had been living as savages, which was false. White European Americans involved in the slave industry tried to justify their economic exploitation of black people by creating a "scientific" theory of white superiority and black inferiority. One such slave owner was Thomas Jefferson, and it was his call for science to determine the obvious "inferiority" of blacks that is regarded as "an extremely important stage in the evolution of scientific racism."[16] This was the start of systematized racism in the United States.
Definition[edit]
The word "gang" derives from the past participle of Old English gan, meaning "to go". It is cognate with Old Norse gangr,[2] meaning "journey."[3] It typically means a group of people, and may have neutral, positive or negative connotations depending on usage.[4][5][6]
History[edit]
In discussing the banditry in American history Barrington Moore, Jr. suggests that gangsterism as a "form of self-help which victimizes others" may appear in societies which lack strong "forces of law and order"; he characterizes European feudalism as "mainly gangsterism that had become society itself and acquired respectability through the notions of chivalry".[7]
A wide variety of gangs, such as the Order of Assassins, the Damned Crew, Adam the Leper's gang, Penny Mobs, Indian Thugs, Chinese Triads, Snakehead, Japanese Yakuza, Irish mob, Pancho Villa's Villistas, Dead Rabbits, American Old West outlaw gangs, Bowery Boys, Chasers, the Italian Mafia, Jewish mafia, and Russian mafia crime families have existed for centuries.
The 17th century saw London "terrorized by a series of organized gangs",[8]
some of them known as the Mims, Hectors, Bugles, and Dead Boys. These gangs often came into conflict with each other. Members dressed "with colored ribbons to distinguish the different factions."[9]
Chicago had over 1,000 gangs in the 1920s.[10] These early gangs had reputations for many criminal activities, but in most countries could not profit from drug trafficking prior to drugs being made illegal by laws such as the 1912 International Opium Convention and the 1919 Volstead Act.[citation needed] Gang involvement in drug trafficking increased during the 1970s and 1980s, but some gangs continue to have minimal involvement in the trade.[11]
In the United States, the history of gangs began on the East Coast in 1783 following the American Revolution.[12] The emergence of the gangs was largely attributed to the vast rural population immigration to the urban areas. The first street-gang in the United States, the 40 Thieves, began around the late 1820s in New York City. The gangs in Washington D.C. had control of what is now Federal Triangle, in a region then known as Murder Bay.[13]
Current numbers[edit]
In 2007, there were approximately 785,000 active street gang members in the United States, according to the National Youth Gang Center.[14] In 2011, the National Gang Intelligence Center of the Federal Bureau of Investigation asserted that "There are approximately 1.4 million active street, prison, and outlaw gang members comprising more than 33,500 gangs in the United States."[15] Approximately 230,000 gang members were in U.S. prisons or jails in 2011.[15]
According to the Chicago Crime Commission publication, "The Gang Book 2012", Chicago has the highest number of gang members of any city in the United States: 150,000 members.[16] Traditionally Los Angeles County has been considered the Gang Capital of America, with an estimated 120,000 (41,000 in the City) gang members.[17]
There were at least 30,000 gangs and 800,000 gang members active across the US in 2007.[18][19] About 900,000 gang members lived "within local communities across the country," and about 147,000 were in U.S. prisons or jails in 2009.[20] By 1999, Hispanics accounted for 47% of all gang members, Blacks 31%, Whites 13%, and Asians 7%.[21]
In December 13, 2009, The New York Times published an article about growing gang violence on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and estimated that there were 39 gangs with 5,000 members on that reservation alone.[22]
There are between 25,000 and 50,000 gang members in Central America's El Salvador.[23]
The FBI estimates that the four Italian organized crime groups active in the United States have 25,000 members in total.[24]
The Russian, Chechen, Azerbaijani, Ukrainian, Georgian, Armenian, and other former Soviet organized crime groups or "Bratvas" have many members and associates affiliated with their various sorts of organized crime, but no statistics are available.
The Yakuza are one of the largest criminal organizations in the world. As of 2005, there are some 102,400 known members in Japan.[25]
Hong Kong's Triads include up to 160,000 members in the 21st century.[26] It was estimated that in the 1950s, there were 300,000 Triad members in Hong Kong.[27]
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