The United States healthcare system could be facing a bigger crisis than CoVID-19. While New York Governor Andrew Cuomo begs for healthcare volunteers to combat coronavirus, hospitals throughout the country are furloughing or laying off employees at the highest rate since 1990.

On April 6th, the West Virginia University Health System announced that some of their employees will see temporary 25% pay cuts during the pandemic. As the hospital system is seeing less clinical volume, WVU Health is moving people to new roles, and those who are not matched to a new role will be sent home with a 75% salary guarantee. This new policy will be reevaluated in mid-May.

Related: ABC Says Homemade Sanitizers Don’t Work For Coronavirus – We Disagree, So Here’s a Recipe

The WVU Health System hospitals are only one example of the grim reality facing many healthcare workers. According to Altarum, a nonprofit research and consulting firm…

Health care has traditionally cushioned the blow of non-health sector job losses during and immediately following economic downturns…This time, health care looks to be contributing to instead of counterbalancing an accelerating economic calamity. Health care lost 43,000 jobs this month, by far the largest monthly drop in our data series going back to 1990.”

Ani Turner, Altarum

In the case of West Virginia, the state has seen relatively few coronavirus cases during the pandemic, with the number of total reported cases in the state less than 1000. In additional cost-cutting measures, the WVU Health System will institute a hiring freeze, suspend employer match to all employee’s 403(b) for the remainder of 2020, and the health system CEO, hospital CEOs, and certain senior executives will see a 10% percent salary reduction for the next six months.

WVU Medicine employees are lucky. Workers who are sent home will still be making a significant portion of their salary. It’s likely that the employees sent home by the hospital administration will be in lower levels positions or less busy areas of the hospitals.

According to Indeed.com, people in administrative assistant and registered nurse positions at WVU Medicine make $30,000 and $51,000, respectively. Twenty-five percent of these salaries represent a significant chunk of income. Yet health system CEO, hospital CEOs, and certain senior executives are only receiving 10% pay cuts. The average CEO salary in West Virginia is $720,000. If the CEOs of the eleven hospitals in the WVU Health System make that average salary were made to take the same temporary 25% pay cut as hospital nurses and administrators, the hospital system could potentially save $1.98 million. Why are hospital workers on the front lines of our healthcare system being asked to sacrifice further when there are those in much better positions to step up financially?

Sources

• Some WVU Health employees to see temporary pay cut during pandemic – WCHS News
• Amid pandemic WVU Medicine announces executive pay cuts, salary guarantees, hiring freeze & retirement match suspensions – WBOY
• Hospital are laying off workers in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic – Vox.com

The Navajo Nation, the largest Native American reservation in the U.S., saw its first case of COVID-19 on March 27th, and since then has seen over 1,300 positive tests for the virus. Most people in the Navajo Nation live in rural areas, which should limit the spread of the virus, but the tribe is facing several challenges in dealing with the Coronavirus.

Many natives have high rates of illnesses that make the community vulnerable to COVID-19 like asthma, diabetes, and heart disease. A history of mining, especially uranium mining, on the reservation has resulted in higher rates of reproductive cancers. In addition, one in 2,000 Navajos are born with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), a genetic disorder where a child is basically born without an immune system, although mandatory screening of Navajo children at birth enables the tribe to treat the condition.

Recommended: How to Eliminate IBS, IBD, Leaky Gut 

Third World America

In addition to these health challenges, the Navajo Nation is extremely poor. The United States has an official poverty rate of 12.6 percent. The rate of poverty in the Navajo Nation for families is 46.5 percent, with 14.9 percent of people living in extreme poverty.

Amenities that Americans take for granted, like plumbing, electricity, and paved roads, are not a guarantee on the reservation. One in ten Navajos doesn’t have electricity. In Apache county Arizona where the capital of the Navajo Nation, Window Rock, is located, Native American households are 13 times more likely to lack complete plumbing. Forty percent of the Native nation does not have indoor plumbing. The CDC handwashing guidelines are incompatible with life under these conditions.

A Poor People Pandemic

The Navajo Nation government has taken steps to stop the spread of COVID-19, with President Jonathan Nez declaring a weekend curfew on April 12th, and the Navajo Department of Health mandating the use of masks outside the home on April 19th. Even with these measures, the Navajo Nation will see higher COVID-19 infection rates and deaths, much like other poor and systematically disadvantaged communities across the country.

Sources

• The Navajo Nation outbreak reveals an ugly truth behind America’s coronavirus experience – The Week
• As Coronavirus Cases Rise, Navajo Nation Tries To Get Ahead Of Pandemic – NPR
• Navajo, Hopi Nations Have High Rates Of “Plumbing Poverty” – KNAU
• A forgotten health crisis in Navajo lands – Center for Health Journalism

A new study from the Centers for Disease Control reported a 20% increase in the number of calls to Poison Control since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in January. The National Poison Data System (NPDS), CDC, and the American Association of Poison Control Centers looked at data from calls concerning cleaner and disinfectant exposure for the last three years. There were 45,550 chemical exposure calls from January to March, up 20.4% from 2019 and 16.4% from 2018.

Related: ABC Says Homemade Sanitizers Don’t Work For Coronavirus – We Disagree, So Here’s a Recipe

Bleaches accounted for the largest increase of calls among chemical cleaners, while nonalcohol disinfectants and hand sanitizers were responsible for the largest increase in disinfectant calls. Reasons for the calls included people improperly mixing bleach with other cleaners and toddlers swallowing sanitizer. Studies have linked the chemical with an increased chance of developing respiratory problems, leaving those who use the bleach more vulnerable to COVID-19.

Recommended: How To Heal Your Gut

Sources

• Cleaning and Disinfectant Chemical Exposures and Temporal Associations with COVID-19 — National Poison Data System, United States, January 1, 2020–March 31, 2020 – CDC.gov
• Americans’ Overzealous Use of Cleaning Agents Causes Spike in Poison Center Calls – Slate
• Cleaning with bleach might increase your chance of getting COPD. How worried should you be? – Popular Science

A new study from Stanford University has suggested that CoVID-19 is 50 to 85 times more common than the official numbers have shown. At the time the study was conducted, Santa Clara County had 1,094 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 50 deaths. This study posits that the number of people with the virus was from 48,000 to 81,000, based on the count of participants in the study who had antibodies for the virus.

This has implications for learning how far we are in the course of the epidemic…It has implications for epidemic models that are being used to design policies and estimate what it means for our healthcare system.”

Eran Bendavid, associate professor of medicine at Stanford University and study lead author

This is the first large-scale of this kind in the U.S., and it has yet to be peer-reviewed. Participants representative of nationwide demographics and geography were recruited through targeted Facebook ads and researchers administered a finger prick test to test for antibodies. If the study’s results are valid, that would indicate that the death rate from CoVID-19 is closer to 0.2 percent than the currently estimated rate of 4.1 percent.

It is absolutely critical that similar studies be done all around the country…It’s very clear that the virus is more prevalent in some areas than in others, and understanding the prevalence of viruses in each region is a critical step forward to making some policy.”

Jayanta Bhattacharya, a professor at Stanford and author on the study.

Other large scale studies are being conducted on healthy individuals. Both the National Institute of Health and UC Berkeley are in the process of testing 10,000 and 5,000 people, respectively.

Related:

• Economic Recession Will Likely Kill More Children Than Total Coronavirus Death Toll
• ABC Says Homemade Sanitizers Don’t Work For Coronavirus – We Disagree, So Here’s a Recipe
• Sold Out – How To Get Vitamin C (Recipe/DIY)
• Does Elderberry Increase Risk Of Death With CoVID-19?
• Coronavirus – Your Guide to the CoVID-19 Pandemic

A Montana-based judge has canceled a key permit needed by the Keystone XL pipeline. Federal judge Brian Morris ruled in favor of environmental conservation groups by revoking the projects’ Nationwide Permit 12, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had not adequately considered endangered species in the waterways the pipeline would cross. Senior Attorney for the Sierra Club, Doug Hayes, issued a statement.

The Trump administration has repeatedly violated the law in their relentless pursuit of seeing this dirty tar sands pipeline built…Today’s ruling confirms, once again, that there’s just no getting around the fact that Keystone XL would devastate communities, wildlife, and clean drinking water…It was true a decade ago, and it’s just as true today: Keystone XL would be a bad deal for the American people and should never be built.”

The Hill

Recommended: How to Eliminate IBS, IBD, Leaky Gut 

There are more hearings scheduled for this week, with Judge Morris listening to arguments from Native American peoples, who have been on the front lines of pipeline protests since Congress’ approval of the project in 2015. Judge Morris has ruled in favor of conservation before, halting construction on the pipeline in 2018 until further environmental study could be done. Environmental concerns continue to be a key part of the discussion surrounding the Keystone XL pipeline, despite the current administration’s repeated efforts to ignore them.

The Trump Administration’s ongoing effort to give out goodies to Big Oil hit another setback. Whether they like it or not, the Corps cannot skirt foundational environmental laws. And projects like the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline will remain stalled as long as the Administration keeps trying to illegally fast-track them…”

National Resources Defense Council attorney Ceceila Segal – NRDC

This ruling has not canceled the pipeline project. According to the court documents filed by TC Energy, the company sponsoring the Keystone XL, work at camps in Montana and South Dakota could start this month.

Sources:

• US judge cancels permit for Keystone XL pipeline from Canada – AP News
• Judge cancels Keystone XL pipeline permit – The Hill

Worldwide air travel volume is down with more than 8 in 10 flights canceled. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in the United States has reported a 96% drop in airline passenger volume and passenger levels are at their lowest since 1954. In spite of this, airlines in the U.S. have only canceled about 60 percent of their flights.

The evidence suggests that the number of people flying is dropping faster than the flights so there are a lot of empty planes…The airlines are left to figure this out for themselves and they are playing catch-up.”

Dan Rutherford, aviation director at the International Council on Clean Transportation

Many of these flights are mandatory, courtesy of the recent government bailout. The airline industry has been promised 50 billion of the 2 trillion dollar stimulus, also known as the CARES Act. Airline carriers are required to preserve air service as it had been on March 1, 2020. These measures are designed to ensure customers in less busy or profitable locales will be able to travel, but the environmental cost does not seem to have been part of the discussion.

Related:

• ABC Says Homemade Sanitizers Don’t Work For Coronavirus – We Disagree, So Here’s a Recipe
• Sold Out – How To Get Vitamin C (Recipe/DIY)
• Does Elderberry Increase Risk Of Death With CoVID-19?
• Coronavirus – Your Guide to the CoVID-19 Pandemic

Sources:

• Economic Recession Will Likely Kill More Children Than Total Coronavirus Death Toll
• Flying during coronavirus is nothing like it used to be. Who’s doing it? – Los Angeles Times
• Confusion Among US Airlines as Airplanes Fly Virtually Empty to Get Bailout Funds – The Air Current
• What the $2 Trillion U.S. Stimulus Package Means for Travel Businesses – Skift

The Karipuna people in the Brazilian Amazon are in isolation due to COVID-19, but the presence of loggers close to their villages is compromising their efforts to stay safe. The Karipuna Indigenous People’s Association (Apoika), Indigenous Missionary Council (Cimi), and Greenpeace Brasil have filed a joint complaint with the local federal prosecutor’s office. Multiple complaints by both Brazil and international agencies have been submitted in regards to relentless logging and land invasion in the Rondônia state where the Karipunia live. The current pandemic means the invasion of indigenous land is especially dangerous for the occupants of the land.

We are scared that one of these invaders will bring the virus inside our territory…Bolsonaro has told these people that it’s just a little flu and that they can go back to work.”

Adriano Karipuna, one of the group’s leaders – Mongabay

Recommended: Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections 

The Yanomami people in the Roraima state are experiencing the same threats. Illegal mining activity in the region has not ceased during the pandemic, and a 15-year-old Yanomami boy has died from the coronavirus.

Both the Amazon and the indigenous peoples who live there are vulnerable right now. Many native customs facilitate the spread of respiratory diseases. Other factors like poor sanitation, immune systems that are not used to contact with many modern diseases, and a lack of healthcare facilities will exacerbate the risk. Meanwhile, deforestation attempts have not slowed. Clearance rates are 10% higher this year than they were for the same period last year. In addition, deforestation figures for August 2019 to the end of March 2020 are twice the rate they were for August 2018 to the end of March 2019.

Related:

• ABC Says Homemade Sanitizers Don’t Work For Coronavirus – We Disagree, So Here’s a Recipe
• Sold Out – How To Get Vitamin C (Recipe/DIY)
• Does Elderberry Increase Risk Of Death With CoVID-19?
• Coronavirus – Your Guide to the CoVID-19 Pandemic

Sources:

• Amazon indigenous put at risk by Brazil’s feeble Covid-19 response: Critics – Mongabay
• In the midst of the pandemic, squatters and invaders approach Karipuna village – CIMI.org
• Amid covid-19, gold digging advances and approaches isolated Indians in Roraima – BBC Brasil
• Boy from isolated Amazon tribe dies of COVID-19, raising fears of devastating outbreak – Japan Times