Nearly one-third of America’s coronavirus deaths are residents or workers of nursing homes. This is according to data compiled by the New York Times. Their findings show that at least 27,600 residents and workers combined have passed from the Coronavirus. More than 150,000 people from nursing homes have been infected, spanning 7,700 different facilities.

While just 11 percent of the country’s cases have occurred in long-term care facilities, deaths related to Covid-19 in these facilities account for more than a third of the country’s pandemic fatalities.

One-Third of All U.S Coronavirus Deaths Are Nursing Home Residents or Workers

The elderly are more susceptible to the virus than younger people, as people with pre-existing conditions or low immune systems are more susceptible. The elderly frequently fall into those categories. Additionally, the virus is able to spread easily throughout facilities where people live in confined spaces and travel from room to room.

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Not every state has released comprehensive data on coronavirus deaths. However, the New York Times has gathered data that is available. You can read their original article down below, where their data is shown for case outbreaks.

Related: Coronavirus Has Saved Millions Of Lives

Source:

• One-Third of All U.S Coronavirus Deaths Are Nursing Home Residents or Workers -The New York Times

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) have announced that they will co-sponsor the Farm System Reform Act (FSRA) introduced by Cory Booker (D-NJ). Khanna also introduced companion legislation in the House of Representatives. The FSRA is designed to move the United States agricultural system away from factory farming by immediately stopping the construction of new factory farms, the expansion of existing farms, and phasing out the largest farms by 2040. Booker initially proposed the legislation in December of 2019, and the current pandemic-induced food system woes and COVID-19 have inspired Senator Warren and Representative Khanna to show their support for the legislation.

For years, regulators looked the other way while giant multinational corporations crushed competition in the agriculture sector and seized control over key markets…The COVID-19 crisis will make it easier for Big Ag to get even bigger, gobble up smaller farms, and lead to fewer choices for consumers….”

Senator Elizabeth Warren

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The Farm System Reform Act also includes a $100 Billion voluntary buyout program for contract farmers who want to move away from factory farming, strengthens family farmer and rancher protections, prohibits the USDA from labeling imported meat as Product of the U.S.A., and reinstitutes mandatory country of origin labeling for beef, pork, and dairy.

Our food system was not broken by the pandemic and it was not broken by independent family farmers…It was broken by large, multinational corporations like Tyson, Smithfield, and JBS that, because of their buying power and size, have undue influence over the marketplace and over public policy.”

Senator Cory Booker

Sources:

• Elizabeth Warren Backs Cory Booker’s Bill to Shut Down Factory Farms – Veg News
• Sen. Cory Booker Just Dropped a Bill That Includes First-Ever National Factory Farm Moratorium – Food and Water Watch

A recent study from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health has confirmed that gas stoves are bad for you. Gas stoves do not often have the proper ventilation required to filter the air. Data in California shows that 47% of homes had improper ventilation while 7% had no ventilation hoods at all. In California, only an estimated 35% of residents even bother to turn on their hoods. Cooking with gas stoves releases indoor greenhouse gas emissions, in which nitrogen dioxide was the worst. Nitrogen dioxide exceeded the level appropriate level set by California Ambient Air Quality Standards and the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. People don’t turn on their hoods often due to the noise. Additionally, people often don’t clean the filters in their hoods because they can be difficult to get to.

Indoor air pollutants included Carbon Monoxide, Nitrogen Oxide, Nitrogen Dioxide and particulate matter. Nitrogen Dioxide was the worst, “exceeding the level set by both the chronic California Ambient Air Quality Standards (CAAQS) ambient annual average limit of 57 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m3), and the acute National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS, set by the US EPA) 1-hour limit of 188 μg/m3 or 100 parts per billion (ppb). ”

New study confirms that gas stoves are bad for your health

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Gas is much cheaper than electricity, and more people prefer to cook with it. Despite this, numbers show that if everyone switched to clean electric alternatives, we could reduce the number of deaths by 354 a year and reduce the number of acute bronchitis by 596 cases yearly in California alone.

Source:

• New study confirms that gas stoves are bad for your health – Tree Hugger

A small cohort study in China found Sars-CoV-2 in semen, suggesting that coronavirus transmission could occur through sexual contact. Researchers tested the semen of 38 men who had tested positive for COVID-19 in China. Twenty-three patients had achieved a clinical recovery, and 15 were still in the acute infection stage. Six semen samples tested positive for COVID-19, with four positives coming from acute cases and two from recovered patients.

If it could be proved that SARS-CoV-2 can be transmitted sexually in future studies, sexual transmission might be a critical part of the prevention of transmission, especially considering the fact that SARS-CoV-2 was detected in the semen of recovering patients.”

JAMA Network

This is a very small study, and the implications of the results are unclear. Other similar studies haven’t received any positives in semen. It is also not unheard of for semen to test positive for other viruses.

However, we should not be surprised if the virus which causes Covid-19 is found in the semen of some men, since this has been shown with many other viruses such as Ebola and Zika…”

Allan Pacey, Sheffield University

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Sources:

• Scientists detect coronavirus in sperm, raising questions on sexual transmission – Mazech

The lack of tourists in Thailand has left many elephants without work. Many elephant camps are unable to feed them and have left operators with no way to take care of their charges. Elephants are an integral part of the tourist industry in Thailand, and 3,800  elephants in the country are working domesticated animals. 

The tourism industry, 20% of Thailand’s economy, has been devastated by the pandemic, and many organizations are struggling to pay for the food and handlers needed for their elephants.  An elephant eats as much as 300 kg (660 lbs) of fruits and vegetables each day. Elephants, especially in the northern part of Thailand, have been left chained up as companies deal with the lack of work for them. 

We saw the one camp [in Chiang Mai] that had closed and was basically holding all of their elephants parked on one-meter chains 24 hours a day. It’s like battery farming of chickens. Basically, you throw food at them, you scrape the dung away and that’s going to be their existence for the next three months.”

John Roberts – Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation

There aren’t many good options for out-of-work elephants. Some of them may end up working for illegal logging operations. It is also illegal to release the elephants into the wild, and national parks and sanctuaries don’t have enough resources to handle the doubling of the elephant population. Some operators have been forced to bring their elephants back to rural villages where the elephants are more able to feed off the land. 

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Sources

• Thailand’s working elephants, now unemployed due to coronavirus, trudge home to natural habitat – Abc.net.au

Over the weekend a medical researcher reportedly on the verge of a new coronavirus discovery was shot and killed over the weekend. Bing Liu, 37, was found inside his home in North Pittsburgh on Saturday. Shortly after Liu was found, the body of Hao Gu was found shot dead inside his car less than a mile from Liu’s home. Some have reported Gu shot Liu before taking his own life, reporting this as a murder-suicide. A motive is still unknown at this time.

Liu had a Ph.D. in computational science from the National University of Singapore and worked as a research associate at the University of Pittsburgh. Liu was reportedly close to making a significant discovery about COVID-19, with the university saying the following;

Bing was on the verge of making very significant findings toward understanding the cellular mechanisms that underlie SARS-CoV-2 infection and the cellular basis of the following complications,

Researcher ‘on verge of making very significant’ coronavirus findings shot to death

We will update with new information if any becomes available.

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Sources:

• Researcher ‘on verge of making very significant’ coronavirus findings shot to death-Yahoo News
• Professor researching Covid-19 was killed in an apparent murder-suicide, officials say -CNN

A lawsuit has recently been filed against a Smithfield Foods pork plant in Milan, Missouri. The pork-processing plant is accused of not adequately protecting workers during the coronavirus pandemic. Workers have reported not taking time to cover their mouths after coughing or covering their mouths after sneezing for fear of missing meat as it goes by, thus resulting in the risk of disciplinary action. The complaint was filed by an anonymous worker. Along with the health of the workers, the health of the public has also been brought into question.

Several dozen workers signed a letter that was delivered to plant management during the week of March 30 complaining of cramped conditions and a lack of protective equipment and accommodations for sick leave. It cited the company’s policy of assigning workers a disciplinary point — a tally that can lead to dismissal — if they took a day off.

Missouri Pork Plant Workers Say They Can’t Cover Mouths to Cough

Many meatpacking facilities around the country have shut down or are working at a lower capacity. Ten workers have died from the coronavirus while around 6,500 employees either contracted the virus, are showing symptoms and/or have missed work due to self-quarantine. The CDC has recommended that Smithfield facilities establish stricter social distancing regulations. Through the lawsuit, workers are requesting changes to Smithfield’s practices rather than compensation.

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Smithfield workers are not unionized. Before the Coronavirus outbreak workers reported not having enough time for bathroom breaks. Workers frequently suffered from urinary tract infections and other stress injuries.

Sources:

• Missouri Pork Plant Workers Say They Can’t Cover Mouths to Cough -Organic Consumers Association
• Missouri Pork Plant Workers Say They Can’t Cover Mouths to Cough -The New York Times