F. Douglas Stephenson | People Are Dying: Why Are We Waiting for Medicare for All?

29 March 20

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F. Douglas Stephenson | People Are Dying: Why Are We Waiting for Medicare for All?

F. Douglas Stephenson, The Gainesville Sun
Stephenson writes: "Even with the dangerous coronavirus pandemic, big insurance and big pharma continue opposing legislation for the new Medicare for All."
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A subway rider wears a mask, March 20, 2020. (Brittainy Newman/NYT)

More Americans Should Probably Wear Masks for Protection
Knvul Sheikh, The New York Times
Sheikh writes: "As the coronavirus pandemic rages on, experts have started to question official guidance about whether ordinary, healthy people should protect themselves with a regular surgical mask, or even a scarf."
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The White House at night. (photo: Susan Walsh/AP)

Trump Suggests He Can Gag Inspector General for Stimulus Bailout Program
Charlie Savage, The New York Times
Savage writes: "When President Trump signed the $2 trillion economic stabilization package on Friday to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, he undercut a crucial safeguard that Democrats insisted upon as a condition of agreeing to include a $500 billion corporate bailout fund."

EXCERPT:

Under the law, the inspector general, when auditing loans and investments made through the fund, has the power to demand information from the Treasury Department and other executive branch agencies. The law requires reporting to Congress “without delay” if any agency balks and its refusal is unreasonable “in the judgment of the special inspector general.”

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Governors across the country, including Michigan's Gretchen Whitmer, have repeatedly called on President Donald Trump to use the Defense Production Act. (photo: David Eggert/AP)

ALSO SEE: Trump Approves Michigan Disaster
Declaration After War of Words With Governor

Michigan Governor Claims Federal Government Told Medical Vendors 'Not to Send Stuff Here'
Aaron Keller, Law and Crime
Keller writes: "From there, Trump shifted his attention to Gov. Whitmer: 'our governor of Michigan, I mean, she's not stepping up, I don't know if she knows what's going on, but all she does is sit there and blame the federal government. She doesn't get it done. And we send her a lot. Now she wants a declaration of emergency, and we'll have to make a decision on that.'"
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"What happens when you are trapped at home with your abuser?" (photo: Getty Images)

When Home Isn't Safe: Shelter-in-Place Is Putting Domestic Violence Survivors in a "Dire Situation"
Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "This is really a dire situation for a lot of victims across the country. What we've been hearing is that we have had situations where the survivor is trying to leave, but shelters are currently not doing intakes, or they're full. They cannot go to their family members or their friends' houses in fear of exposure."
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An aerial view of a deforested plot in the Amazon, near Porto Velho in Rondônia state, Brazil. (photo: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters)

Brazil Scales Back Environmental Enforcement Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
Reuters
Excerpt: "Brazil will reduce efforts to fight environmental crimes during the coronavirus outbreak, despite concerns that reduced protection could lead to a surge in deforestation."
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Waves lap over a dead gray whale at Limantour Beach on May 23, 2019, in Point Reyes Station, Calif. Whales are again washing up dead in Mexico, but California's stay-at-home requirements have prevented researchers from documenting what is happening in the state.' (photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Whales Are Dying, but Numbers Are Unknown. Coronavirus Has Stalled Scientific Fieldwork
Susanne Rust and Rosanna Xia, Los Angeles Times
Excerpt: "As gray whales began their northern migration along the Pacific coast, earlier this month - after a year of unusually heavy die-offs - scientists were poised to watch, ready to collect information that could help them learn what was killing them."

s gray whales began their northern migration along the Pacific coast, earlier this month — after a year of unusually heavy die-offs — scientists were poised to watch, ready to collect information that could help them learn what was killing them.

The coronavirus outbreak, however, has largely upended that field work — and that of incalculable other ecological studies nationwide.

A large network of marine biologists and volunteers in California normally spend this time of year keeping an eye on gray whales, documenting their numbers and counting strandings as the leviathans swim from Mexico to the Arctic.

Scott Mercer, who started Point Arena’s Mendonoma Whale and Seal Study seven years ago, said the watch was called off Wednesday, as he and his wife were told by a local sheriff to disperse and go home.

“I guess two people are now considered a public gathering,” he said, with a wry chuckle.

In Los Angeles, Alisa Schulman-Janiger said she had to shut her survey down March 20, meaning this will be the first time in 37 years that data on the northern migration will not be complete.

“We had to,” said Schulman-Janiger, director of the Los Angeles chapter of the American Cetacean Society. “We couldn’t hazard anybody’s health.”

Up and down the West Coast and beyond, field research on a variety of endangered, threatened and migrating species has ground to a halt. Plovers? Abalone? They are on their own now, as scientists are forced to stay at home.

Schulman-Janiger said that before her work was called off, she had noticed an unusually early migration, with several skinny whales.

Even more alarming, she said, were observations of moms with very small calves — baby whales that, to her eye, looked too small to be making a 5,000-mile trip north.

“They looked like newborns,” she said. “Like what you’d typically see in December or January. Not calves who’d just spent months nursing in the lagoons, getting stronger and bigger.”

Last year, 215 gray whales were stranded on North America’s Pacific coast as they migrated north, sparking a federal investigation into this unusual die-off event.

This year, 49 have been stranded, so far, in Mexico.

As local authorities close a growing number of parks and beaches, notifications and alerts about whale strandings and sightings will become increasingly erratic, she said, making it harder for researchers to know what is happening.

“Field teams may or may not respond to strandings and entanglements depending on the location and personnel availability,” said Michael Milstein, spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, adding that the agency is advising its partners “to follow the guidance provided by local, state, and federal authorities.”

It’s not just whales.

Hundreds of environmental and ecological monitoring projects are now on pause, creating marked data holes in several long-term analyses. And in some cases, there’s been a halt in the protection and vigilance of some endangered species, including the snowy plover.

The timing couldn’t be worse.

“It’s springtime,” said Andrea Jones, Director of Bird Conservation for Audubon California, noting this is when many birds nest and migrate. Research teams are stuck indoors, as are thousands of volunteers who take part in Audubon Society bird counts, vital for judging the health of annual bird migrations.

Elsewhere, in research labs and aquariums across California, scientists are scrambling to adjust their projects and conservation efforts — many of which are time sensitive to the seasons.

Plans to cull an ambitious number of purple sea urchins — aggressive creatures that have devoured the kelp forests in Northern California and crowded out most all other life on the seafloor — for instance, is in limbo pending stay-at-home restrictions.

Every University of California campus has closed its labs, and California’s coast and ocean research efforts have largely been suspended. Coastal officials have also lost critical assistance from numerous universities and colleges in monitoring the state’s fisheries and marine protected areas.

“The lack of data impacts everything from fisheries management to assessing the effectiveness of our marine protected area network,” said Mark Gold, executive director of the state’s Ocean Protection Council.

“The biggest challenge we’re facing is the planning for the unknown. So many ‘what ifs’ need to be considered,” Heather Burdick, director of marine operations at the Bay Foundation, said Wednesday.

The Bay Foundation, a research nonprofit, is usually out on the water several times weekly to restore kelp and feed the endangered species that scientists have been trying to reintroduce into the ocean. “Our team … call today was focused on contingency plans for contingency plans,” she said.

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