7 First Alert Forecast 5 p.m. Update, Friday March 12

7 First Alert Forecast 5 p.m. Update, Friday March 12

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    Amit Dave via ReutersThe COVID-19 crisis in India has hit a new low as corrupt scammers are now prowling social media for desperate patients who are willing to pay a premium for hospital bed space and black market drugs. 50 Million People Allowed at Superspreader Festival so Modi Can Secure the Hindu VoteVideo of an undercover sting operation in the Indian city of Rajkot showed a hospital worker selling a hospital bed to a desperate woman whose relative needed critical care. “I won’t take anything less than Rs 9,000,” the worker said, which is about $120. “You will get the bed in 30 minutes.” The family negotiated down to Rs 8,000 and the man called someone inside the hospital who finalized the deal. Within an hour, the sick patient is whisked through a back door of the hospital, skirting the 50 or 60 waiting cars in front. So desperate is the need for coveted hospital space that scenes like this are reportedly playing out across the country as overwhelmed hospitals grapple with a tsunami of patients, critical supply shortages and an obvious lack of vigilance. Indian Hospitals Run Out of Oxygen After Foreign Sales BoomPolice uncovered the deal after following the initial exchange on social media, where many patients are pleading for help. Hospitals have also used social media platforms to plead for supplies like oxygen and drugs. India, which is the world’s largest producer of generic drugs, has also reached a critical shortage of remdesivir and favipiravir, which have both had moderate success in treating COVID-19 patients. Raman Gaikwad, an infectious diseases specialist at Sahyadri Hospital in the western city of Pune, told the Indian Express that remdesivir manufacturers were ordered to cease production in January because of decrease in infections. When the latest wave hit, they were left with severe shortages. “One solution to this crisis was to create a stockpile of antiviral drugs when cases were low,” Gaikwad told the paper. “But that did not happen.”A network of activists, including YouTuber Kusha Kapila, have joined together to try to source and share information on hospital bed availability, pharmacy supplies and food delivery to help people stay away from price gougers on the black market. One of the activists told AFP that there is a new request for help every 30 seconds. An investigation carried out by media outlet India Today trailed a black market ring selling remdesivir for six times the market price. Payments had to be made in cash and the patients were told the drug—which the World Health Organization has said doesn’t even work—would be smuggled out of the hospital. Patients were given injections upon delivery of the cash. On Thursday, India reported a record-breaking 314,000 new COVID-19 infections, the most recorded anywhere in the world since the pandemic began."Covid-19 has hit this country with a ferocity not seen before...but not unexpected either". WARNING - this is a very distressing but necessary report from @yogital, Fred Scott and Sanjay Ganguly on the human catastrophe unfolding in #Delhi. Please watch #CovidIndia #BBCNewsTen pic.twitter.com/A5Pi1nwd0n— Nicola Careem (@NicolaCareem) April 21, 2021 Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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  • Chauvin Verdict Brings the Police Relief and Some Resentment

    MINNEAPOLIS — It was shortly after 4 p.m. Tuesday, and all chatter ceased in the roll-call room for the Fourth Police Precinct in North Minneapolis. Everyone’s attention was glued to the television on the wall. Then came the verdict: Derek Chauvin was guilty on all counts, including murder, for killing George Floyd last May. The station house stayed silent, the officers processing what the verdict meant after a year of tension and conflict, said Inspector Charles Adams, the precinct’s commanding officer. “It was just like, wow,” Adams said. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times For him, it was a relief — he felt that Chauvin had been wrong and that his actions, kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes, cast a negative light on policing. But the verdict did little to end months of upheaval and anxiety in his profession. “So much is being thrown at us as law enforcement officials,” Adams said. “We’re unsure how we’re going to police in the future.” Police chiefs and unions across the country condemned Chauvin’s actions and applauded the jury's verdict, but not always with the same zeal or for the same reasons. Some said they hoped it would restore faith in the criminal justice system. Others said it would help keep the peace. And still others indicated that it would clear the way for “honest discussion” about policing. The feelings of rank-and-file officers were more complicated: a mix of relief, resentment at being vilified alongside Chauvin and unsettling thoughts of themselves in his shoes. “They’re thinking, ‘Man, I’ve got to think long and hard before I get out of my car and get into something I don’t have to get into,’ ” said Jim Pasco, the executive director of the national Fraternal Order of Police. In the Minneapolis station house, Adams heard of remarks from a few rank-and-file officers who believed the defense’s argument that drugs killed Floyd and that Chauvin had followed his training. “Some just think he got a raw deal,” Adams said. “But there’s a lot of them who think he was guilty, too.” The full extent of the fallout for Chauvin will be known June 16, when he is scheduled to be sentenced. He is being held alone in a cell in a maximum-security prison in Oak Park Heights, Minnesota, a Twin Cities suburb. He is allowed out for exercise for only an hour each day. Even then, he is kept away from other inmates. Prison officials said Chauvin was being kept in solitary for his own safety. Outside the Twin Cities, in rural communities where “Back the Blue” banners hang in storefronts, Chauvin’s trial at times seemed a world away. There, largely white police departments patrol largely white communities, and residents are often friends or relatives of law enforcement officers. In Gilbert, Minnesota, a community of about 2,000 three hours north of Minneapolis, Ty Techar, the police chief, said he watched only about an hour of the trial and 30 seconds of the body-camera footage. While he said that what Chauvin did would be unacceptable in his department, he stopped short of saying he agreed with the verdict. “For me to sit here and make a judgment on whether he got a fair trial, I don’t know all the evidence,” he said. “I haven’t looked at it closely enough.” He added: “Is it second-degree murder or manslaughter? I don’t know much about the case.” Police unions historically have been the staunchest defenders of officers, even those accused of wrongdoing. They did not defend Chauvin, but some used the verdict as an occasion to criticize public figures who have scrutinized the police. The Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis said in a statement that it wanted “to reach out to the community and still express our deep remorse for their pain” and that “there are no winners in this case.” “We need the political pandering to stop and the race-baiting of elected officials to stop,” the statement said. “In addition, we need to stop the divisive comments and we all need to do better to create a Minneapolis we all love.” Police and union officials have argued that the consistent pressure some community members and elected leaders place on law enforcement can be a detriment. In Minneapolis, there are several efforts to significantly downsize the Police Department and create a new public safety division. The governor of Minnesota has come out in support of a bill to limit police traffic stops for minor infractions. The Justice Department on Wednesday announced a broad civil rights investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department. Adams said that several officers were now hesitant to perform even some of the most basic duties like traffic stops, worrying that such situations might escalate and get them in trouble. In New York, a union leader seemed to play on such anxieties. “It is hard to imagine a tougher time to be a member of the law enforcement profession,” Ed Mullins, the president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, wrote in a letter after the verdict was announced. He warned members that their every action was being recorded and that “scores of attorneys” were eager to sue them. “Our elected officials are complicit in perpetuating the myth that we are the enemy,” he added. Attitudes like that, activists said, speak to the resistance of law enforcement to be held accountable and allow police abuses to continue. Some police officials said the backlash to Chauvin’s actions actually provided an opportunity to improve. “I think it takes us a step closer toward reform,” said Michael S. Harrison, Baltimore’s police commissioner. “It doesn’t make it harder to do our jobs. It makes it where we have to train better, and use best practices and we have to do our job the right way.” The guilty verdict was a significant reminder for officers to stay within their training, said Rick Smith, the police chief in Kansas City, Missouri. “I think officers understand that going outside the norms leads to potential issues,” he said. “And this one highlighted that in the hundredth degree across the nation.” Adams said he believed that the judicial process ultimately helped the profession regain some of its credibility. Nine current and retired members of the Minneapolis Police Department testified against Chauvin at trial, including the police chief. That testimony, Adams said, showed the public that Chauvin was not representative of the Minneapolis police. The prosecution’s assertion during closing arguments that its case was against Chauvin, not the police, also helped, he said. After Chief Medaria Arradondo testified that Chauvin acted outside of department policy, Adams said he texted him to say he was proud to belong to his staff. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. © 2021 The New York Times Company

  • White House COVID Team Struggles to Explain Why We Need Masks Outside

    BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via GettyAs the nation passes President Joe Biden’s ambitious goal of 200 million vaccinations in his first hundred days in office with more than a week to spare, and as the “dark winter” the president forewarned gives way to summer, more and more vaccinated Americans are itching to get back to some imitation of normalcy. And for many of them, “normal” looks like being able to go outside without wearing a mask.But despite a growing scientific consensus that the risk of infection outdoors is negligible in most realistic settings, the White House’s COVID-19 task force has remained publicly adamant that the public keep wearing masks outside—at least for now.“Let’s get to the 100 days,” Andy Slavitt, the White House’s senior advisor for COVID-19 response, told reporters on Monday when asked whether the president’s call for 100 days of mask-wearing might be reconsidered anytime soon. “You know one thing about President Biden: He follows the science, he listens to his scientists, and we’ve got 12 more days to go until we get there. So please mask up, everybody, because it does save lives.”At this point, nearly all of us have thought it. It’s first thing in the morning or late in the evening. After a brutal winter and an unending March 2020, you’re enjoying a break from the inside of your home by taking a stroll outside, enjoying the increasingly tempting spring weather by walking your dog or sipping a “walktail.” Slowly, you realize two things: there’s hardly a person in sight, much less within six feet of you, and that you’re still, somehow, wearing a mask.Twenty-six states require people to wear masks in public to one degree or another, as well as the District of Columbia, where the National Park Service has recently erected all-caps signs in public parks tut-tutting residents for gathering outside without masking up. But the public health consensus has shifted around how and where a person is most likely to contract the not-so-novel coronavirus—the days of spraying takeout pizza boxes with Everclear are mercifully behind us—and outdoor spread is extremely unlikely.“There’s really very limited evidence to suggest that outdoor transmission plays any significant role in SARS-CoV-2 transmission,” said Dr. Tim Brewer, a professor of epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Brewer, who has advised the World Health Organization and the CDC, pointed to a meta-analysis published by the Journal of Infectious Diseases in February that suggested that even if outdoor transmission does contribute to the COVID-19 pandemic, “it probably plays a very limited role.”So why the disconnect?“The reason public health authorities are insisting on universal masking outdoors is because they are thinking in terms of the population, not the individual,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. “If an unvaccinated person sees a lot of people failing to mask up, it will be tempting to do the same. And that would be dangerous.”To put it bluntly, Gostin said, the government is asking the people who have already played by the strictest rules to keep doing so—even if the rules don’t make sense for them, specifically.“It is hard to make a nuanced case that vaccinated people needn’t wear masks while unvaccinated individuals still have to,” Gostin said. “It is far easier, and more effective, to make a blanket rule that applies to everyone in a public space.”Part of the hesitancy is that COVID-19 infection numbers and daily death rates, while dramatically lower than the peak of the third wave, remain stubbornly steady despite a massive vaccination campaign that this week expanded to include every American over the age of 16. Combined with fear of vaccine-dodging variants and increasing concern that vaccine supply is on the verge of outpacing vaccine demand with only one-third of adult Americans fully inoculated, the White House’s COVID-19 team is holding fast.Michigan Parents Stage Protest to Let Their Kids Go Maskless at School During COVID Surge“I appreciate that everybody’s getting tired of this pandemic—we’ve been in it for over a year, and we’re ready to move on with our lives,” Brewer said. “I think what the task force is grappling with is that our case numbers and now our deaths have stabilized a little bit… The fact that we were making progress for about two and a half months and then we seemed to stop, I suspect that’s what’s leading to the recommendations.”But as more Americans begin to thoughtfully examine the straightforward weirdness of wearing a mask while walking to a restaurant or a bar, only to take it off when entering an indoor space where aerosolized transmission is at a much higher risk, continued messaging from the government about required outdoor mask-wearing risks turning people off the entire enterprise.In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Wednesday, Slavitt acknowledged that the continued insistence on outdoor masking may not be in step with the reality on the ground.“How much longer do I need to wear a mask outdoors by myself? How does it make sense for me to wear a mask walking down the street by myself?” Tapper asked, noting that he has been fully vaccinated for more than two weeks, long after the point when Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, indicated that people “do not carry the virus”—a statement that was later walked back. “I mean a lot of this is confusing to people. They hear, ’wait, I get vaccinated, and I still have to do all this stuff.’”Slavitt called the issue of wearing masks outdoors while being allowed to take them off inside restaurants and bars “reasonable questions,” and suggested that at long last, the government may soon be willing to answer them.“I think they’re in the process of putting together further guidance,” Slavitt said, admitting that while the CDC is “not always going to be as fast as everybody wants them to be,” he is “quite confident that over the next couple of weeks and months those questions will be answered, those guidelines will absolutely loosen.”Some states aren’t in the mood to wait, however. On Wednesday, Gov. Gary Cooper of North Carolina issued a stick-and-carrot statement promising that the state’s mask mandate would be lifted entirely once two-thirds of the state’s citizens are vaccinated—the kind of reward that could make a huge difference in combating growing vaccine hesitancy.“Public health officials should hold out the hope and expectation that in the near future vaccinated individuals can enjoy the outdoors without wearing a mask,” Gostin said. “That would comport with scientific findings showing the risk is negligible.”Dr. Anthony Fauci, the president’s chief medical adviser and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told reporters this week that “we all want normalcy in America” like other countries have begun to experience, pointing to Israel’s decision to rescind its outdoor mask mandate on Sunday.But, Fauci said, pointing to a graph showing that nearly two-thirds of Israelis had received at least one dose of the vaccine, “the highway to that normalcy is vaccination.”“We can get there,” Fauci said. “And every single day, as we get 3 to 4 million people vaccinated, we get closer and closer to that normalcy.”In the meantime, though, the social science of setting a good example may outweigh the hard science showing that outdoor exposure isn’t as much of a risk.Brewer, for example, still wears a mask when he walks his dogs in the morning, despite being fully vaccinated and despite his dogs’ leashes providing a helpful six-foot measuring stick.“I do that as much to set as an example, as because of concern about risk,” Brewer said. “The chances are extremely low that I would become infected, especially now that I’m vaccinated… Really, I do it to set an example.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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