Category Archives: Essential Businesses

Iowa tells workers to return to their jobs or lose unemployment benefits, despite warnings that reopening could lead to a 2nd wave of infections

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https://www.businessinsider.com/iowa-tells-workers-return-to-work-or-lose-unemployment-benefits-2020-4?fbclid=IwAR3OghoKRKsPt9JVz4TIsn_Qv5im_ZPaCmzPenmsEFgJR80YXbFJ2QWrxpE

Iowa tells workers to return to work or lose unemployment benefits ...

  • Iowa is preparing to partially reopen 77 counties on Friday.
  • The state said furloughed employees who refuse to return to work that they would lose their unemployment benefits — and Gov. Kim Reynolds said it could disqualify them from future unemployment benefits.
  • However, a group of experts advised the governor last week not to loosen restrictions and said the state has not reached its peak of infections and deaths.

As Iowa prepares to partially reopen on Friday, the state has told furloughed workers that they will lose their unemployment benefits if they refuse to return to work.

The Des Moines Register reported that businesses like restaurants, bars, retail stores, and fitness centers would be allowed to reopen at half capacity starting on May 1. Gov. Kim Reynolds said the 77 reopening counties either have no cases or are on a downward trend.

Iowa Workforce Development, a state agency that provides employment services for individual workers, said an employee’s refusal return to work out of fear would be considered a “voluntary quit” — which would mean they could no longer receive unemployment benefits. The announcement applies to workers across the state.

Ryan West, the deputy director of Iowa Workforce Development, told Radio Iowa that there were some exceptions, such as workers diagnosed with COVID-19.

The Iowa Workforce Development website prompts employers to fill out what it calls a Job Offer Decline Form for employees who refuse to return to work. The governor has said that opting not to go back to work could disqualify employees from future unemployment benefits.

Business Insider’s Andy Kiersz reported that 232,913 Iowans filed for unemployment between March 15 and April 18, which is 13.5% of the state’s labor force.

Last week, seven epidemiology and biostatistics professors from the University of Iowa advised the governor not to loosen social-distancing restrictions, KWWL reported. They wrote a research paper for the governor after they were commissioned by the Iowa Department of Public Health.

“We observe a huge range of possible outcomes, from relatively low fatalities to catastrophic loss of life,” the paper said.

The scientists said there was still “considerable uncertainty” over how many deaths the state may eventually have; the projections range from 150 to over 10,000 deaths.

“We have found evidence of a slowdown in infection and mortality rates due to social distancing policies, but not that a peak has been reached,” the paper said. The professors said that did not mean measures should be eased: “Therefore, prevention measures should remain in place. Without such measures being continued, a second wave of infections is likely.”

 

 

 

Schools are essential. Don’t rule them out.

Posted on by • Posted in Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Children's Health, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Essential Businesses, Essential Workers, Health Policy, Infection Control, Infectious Virus, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Safety, Public Schools • Leave a comment

Schools are essential. Don’t rule them out.

Teach Your Children Well - Crosby Stills Nash and Young (Ukulele ...

It remains to be seen just how much President Trump’s extension of social distancing guidelines in the United States until April 30 defers the debate over when to safely restart the economy, allowing policymakers to focus on how to ramp up the testing and PPE availability to do so. When the time comes, they also need to contemplate the question asked by Aaron Carroll in the March 17th New York Times, “Is closing the schools a good idea?”

The question was not rhetorical. It cited the food insecurity addressed by school lunch and breakfast programs as well as the physical safety provided, particularly for homeless children. While New York City schools are providing 3 meals/day for children who need, child protective services in many regions are already seeing 50% declines in reporting of child abuse and neglect. With families stressed economically and confined to home without supervision, that is not good news since neglected or abused children are often only identified at school. In this week’s New Yorker Peter Hessler writes anecdotally about 2 suicides in youth attributed to the lockdown in China, matching that country’s total number of pediatric deaths thus far due to SARS-CoV-2 in the literature.

When we think of flattening the curve to protect the most vulnerable in society, our minds jump to the very old and the very young. Evidence from previous influenza pandemics supports our instincts. But SARS-CoV-2 appears different. Not only has critical illness in children in China and Italy been extremely rare, in both countries children make up only 1% all cases.

Even in New York state, where younger age groups seem to have been hit harder than in Italy, children still only represent 2% of cases. Finally, in a country like Iceland, which has tested a large proportion of its population, including many without any symptoms at all, children under 10 years old make up only 2% of the cases. It is these numbers that beg examination of one of Dr. Fauci’s hypotheses in the New England Journal of Medicine – that “children are less likely to become infected.”

The first SARS-CoV pandemic in 2002-2003 documented 135 pediatric cases, or only 1.7% of the 8098 reported worldwide to the World Health Organization (WHO) by the time it was declared contained, with no deaths and only 1 reported case of transmission of the virus from a pediatric patient. The WHO January 2020 Situation Update for the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), another coronavirus, shows children and adolescents to be similarly disproportionally unaffected. A Japanese study of transmission in close contacts of known positive coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) patients demonstrated a much lower attack rate amongst children than adults.

And according to the Report of the WHO-China Joint Mission on COVID-19, no one performing case tracing on the ground in China could “recall episodes in which transmission occurred from a child to an adult.”

Singapore has been lauded for its ability to mitigate the COVID-19 outbreak. Its rigorous implementation of control measures has included opening (and re-closing, next on April 8th) schools concurrently with other activities. Perhaps, as speculated by Dr. Dale Fisher, an infectious diseases specialist from Singapore who served as a member of the WHO-China Joint Mission, “children… don’t amplify the transmission. They are kind of bystanders while it goes on.”

If true, schools should be among the first US institutions re-opened, not the last. They are at least as essential as liquor stores and gun shops.

 

 

 

Religious groups battle orders to close services

Posted on by • Posted in Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Coronavirus, Essential Businesses, Health Policy, Infection Control, Infectious Virus, Pandemic, Public Health, Public Safety, Separation of Church and State, Unconstitutional • Leave a comment

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/491019-several-religious-groups-challenge-stay-at-home-orders-calling?rnd=1586023992

Coronavirus | Hong Kong church streams mass online to prevent ...

Several places of worship across the country are holding religious services for their congregations, and some are directly challenging state and local stay-at-home orders amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Most of the country is under a stay-at-home order, but a few of the 38 states that have issued such statewide restrictions have designated religious services as “essential,” which allows people to gather in larger groups to worship.

While many religious denominations have transferred their services online, some leaders say their in-person gatherings should be considered “essential.” Two pastors who held services this week have been arrested.

Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne was charged with misdemeanor counts of unlawful assembly and violation of public health rules in Florida’s Hillsborough County after running services for hundreds of worshipers at the River at Tampa Bay Church.

The Liberty Counsel, which has represented evangelical Christians on the issue of religious liberty, is representing the pastor. Mat Staver, the group’s founder and chairman, said Hillsborough County’s stay-at-home order was unconstitutional.

The county’s order says businesses not listed as exempt can remain open if they can keep a physical distance of six feet between people, he said. The River enforced social distancing rules for its service and purchased a $100,000 purification system.

“So there are ways in which you can balance the constitutional right to exist with protecting the health and welfare and safety of the people. And this church did that and yet it got punished,” Staver said.

Staver also pointed out that some congregants do not have internet access, saying they need religious services and a community to deal with the stress of the pandemic.

Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said during a Monday press conference that Howard-Brown was acting out of a “reckless disregard for human life.”

But two days after Howard-Browne’s arrest, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) issued a statewide stay-at-home order that specifically exempted religious services. 

Eleven states, out of the 38 that have issued statewide stay-at-home orders, have granted exemptions for religious gatherings: Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Kentucky, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Wisconsin. 

Almost a fifth of respondents to a poll last week said they were still attending religious gatherings in person, BuzzFeed News reported.

Another pastor, Tony Spell, was arrested after operating services in Central, La., for the Life Tabernacle Church. He was charged with six counts of violating the governor’s executive order. Louisiana has not exempted religious gatherings.

Pastor Juan Bustamante of City On A Hill Church in Houston filed a petition in the Texas Supreme Court, along with two pastors and a conservative activist, asking for Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo’s stay-at-home order to be adjusted to classify religious services as essential.

Bustamante said places of worship should be designated as essential at a time when people are losing jobs and some are on the verge of suicide. The pastor said he has taken precautions for his congregation of 100 to 120 people, such as splitting services into three services, with some outside, to limit the virus’s spread.

“When people say that the church isn’t essential, I mean, I don’t really believe they know the extremity or the effect that it has on our communities,” he said. “I believe that our community suffers most when our churches are closed.”

Days after the lawsuit was filed, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) declared religious services essential in his order recommending people stay at home. 

Rachel Laser, the president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, called the religious exemptions “unconstitutional” and ”immoral” because religious institutions in these states are being treated differently than secular groups. 

“They’ve got it backwards because the Constitution requires that religious and secular institutions be treated the same,” she said.

Religious freedom experts agreed that the state laws regulating religious meetings during a pandemic do not violate the First Amendment because the government has a “compelling interest” to protect the public health of the country.

Benjamin Marcus, a religious literacy specialist at the Religious Freedom Center at the Freedom Forum Institute, said executive orders would violate the First Amendment if they forbade groups from gathering online or if law enforcement “disproportionately targeted” certain groups.

“If they allowed nonreligious communities to gather in large groups but not religious communities or vice versa, then that would be a different kind of scenario where they would be favoring religion over nonreligion or vice versa,” he said.

Luke Goodrich, the vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said every constitutional right has its limits and that most courts would support the government in these cases as the orders appear not to target specific groups.

He cautioned that people should avoid “crying wolf” on religious freedom violations because it could inhibit freedom in the long run.

“It’s really important to be able to distinguish between a real threat to religious freedom and a mere shadow of a threat,” he said. 

Leana Wen, an emergency physician and public health professor at George Washington University, said the public health guidelines require more than solely staying six feet apart, with mandates of no gatherings of more than 10 people.

“Viruses do not — they do not distinguish between what kind of gatherings they are, so there should be no exceptions because there are no exceptions,” she said. “Nature does not offer exceptions either.”

More than 40 attendees of a March 15 service at one Pentecostal church in Illinois have developed coronavirus symptoms, with at least 10 testing positive for COVID-19 and at least one person dying, the Chicago Tribune and The Christian Post reported.

Vice President Pence, a devout Christian, has encouraged Americans to avoid church services with more than 10 people.

“We really believe this is a time when people should avoid gatherings of more than 10 people,” he said on ABC News’s “Nightline” on Wednesday. “We continue to urge churches around America to heed to that.”

 

 

 

Immigrants on the front lines

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Essential Businesses, Essential Workers, Front Lines, Health Policy, Immigrant Workers, Pandemic, Supply Chain • Leave a comment

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Immigrants on the front lines in the coronavirus fight - Axios

 

New data provided to Axios spells out just how outsized a role immigrants play on the high- and low-skilled ends of the economy keeping Americans alive and fed during the coronavirus crisis, Axios’ Stef Kight reports.

By the numbers: Immigrants make up an estimated 17% of the overall U.S. workforce. But the analysis by New American Economy (NAE) shows they’re more than one in four doctors, nearly half the nation’s taxi drivers and chauffeurs and a clear majority of farm workers.

  • Reporting to work in hospitals, restaurant kitchens, cabs or the fields — for jobs deemed “essential” by the government — many documented and undocumented workers are putting themselves at higher risk of COVID-19 infections.

Be smart: The share of immigrants in some health care roles are higher in states that have been hit hardest by the virus.

  • More than a third of California nurses are immigrants, as well as 29% of nurses in New York and New Jersey, according to NAE data.

Between the lines: A large percentage of farm workers, who help maintain food supplies, are unauthorized immigrants, as the New York Times reported.

  • Immigrants make up a small percentage of delivery workers nationwide, but one-third of delivery workers in New York are unauthorized immigrants, NAE director of quantitative research Andrew Lim told Axios.
  • The $2 trillion aid package does not include assistance for unauthorized immigrants.

 

 

 

 

As coronavirus spreads, so do reports of companies mistreating workers

Posted on by • Posted in American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), Bad Employer Behavior, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Coronavirus, Essential Businesses, Health System, Healthcare Ethics, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Labor Union, Paid Time Off (PTO), Pandemic, Public Health, Public Safety, Vulnerable Populations, Worker Rights, Workflow Environment, World Health Organization (WHO), Wrongful Dismissal • Leave a comment

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Workers complain of mistreatment as they try to cope with the ...

From nurses to retail salespeople, workers are walking off the job and facing retribution for speaking out.

She could wear her protective mask while seeing her patients. Many were, after all, elderly, with respiratory problems, susceptible to getting severely sick from the novel coronavirus. And so Laura Moreno, a nurse in Oklahoma City, wanted to protect them — as well as herself and her 12-year-old daughter, who has asthma and a thyroid condition.

She could not, however, wear her mask in the hallways, or the cafeteria or any of the hospital’s common areas, because her supervisors told her it would scare patients. “I was told if I wanted to wear a mask, I would not be working there,” she said. “So I said I’m not willing to put my life at risk, and my contract was terminated.”

Since the viral pandemic started ravaging the country in recent weeks, workers, unions and attorneys are seeing a dramatic rise in cases they say illustrate a wave of bad employer behavior, forcing workers into conditions they fear are unsafe, withholding protective equipment, and retaliating against those who speak up or walk out.

Moreno’s case was one of many that her attorney, Rachel Bussett, and her colleagues at the National Employment Lawyers Association have been inundated with as workers grow increasingly fearful of retribution from, as Bussett said, “employers who value the economy over people.”

A handful of workers at a McDonald’s outside San Francisco walked off the job to protest the lack of safety measures. So did about 50 workers at a Perdue chicken plant in Georgia, as well as workers at Instacart and Amazon, while the companies said they were taking steps to ensure their employees’ safety and well-being. (Amazon’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post.)

Meanwhile, employees at several major retailers have circulated petitions urging the companies to close their stores and protect workers. And some workers have said they were fired outright for speaking their minds and pushing companies to look after them.

The complaints come as the virus’s toll mounts and health officials warned that extreme measures, such as lockdowns, would continue. On Sunday, health officials said social distancing guidelines would remain in place through April, and President Trump said the nation “will be well on its way to recovery” by June 1, not Easter, as he had said previously.

“This is a situation we’ve never had to deal with before,” said Heidi Burakiewicz, a D.C. attorney and a member of the employment lawyers association. “We’re doing everything we can to help these employees — not just about protecting jobs. But people’s lives are at stake, and people should never have to be faced with questions about whether they need to risk exposing themselves and their families or losing their jobs.”

The designations for “essential” businesses can vary by state but generally include supermarkets, pharmacies, hardware stores, auto repair shops and the defense industry.

Workers at a number of large retailers — such as craft stores, video-gaming shops and office supply chains — have questioned their employers’ decision to stay open despite stay-at-home orders across the country.

“It is unnecessary and unsafe to be open during a PANDEMIC,” Staples employees wrote in a petition. “We are not an essential store and corporate is fighting and begging to stay open, claiming Staples is essential and putting employees and their families at risk. Staples should temporarily close stores and pay their employees for the time being.”

Staples spokeswoman Meghan McCarrick said the company is “an essential provider of business and educational materials and products, household goods and cleaning supplies.” She said that an intensive care unit at a Baltimore hospital recently purchased ink and toner for a printer at Staples, while a hospital in Virginia bought webcams to set up remote telemedicine offices.

Last week, the Federal Bureau of Prisons turned away employees who said they had taken pain medications such as Advil, Tylenol or Motrin within four hours of reporting for work. That meant guards with balky hips or bad backs were forced to take sick leave, even if they had no fever or other symptoms of the virus, union officials said.

“You have unqualified people asking questions that are medically related,” said Sandy Parr, a union official. “They’re sending people home just because they took Motrin, which is decreasing the staff available to work — and that increases the danger.”

After guard workers complained and The Post inquired about the measure, the Bureau of Prisons said last week that it was discontinuing the practice.

Across the country, some health-care facilities are hoarding masks, goggles and gloves — forcing some workers to bring in their own, use the same equipment again and again, or go without.

“It’s in cabinets locked away, collecting dust while people need it now,” said Rebecca Reindel, the safety and health director of the AFL-CIO, who said the union has raised the issue “in every avenue we can.”

Moreno’s concern wasn’t the availability of the equipment — only her ability to use it. A contract nurse at Select Specialty Hospital, she felt she needed to wear a mask at all times, especially given that the patients she was treating were particularly susceptible to the worst effects of the virus. The hospital’s website says it provides “specialized care for patients with acute or chronic respiratory disorders. Our primary focus is to wean medically complex patients from mechanical ventilation and restore independent breathing.”

The state is under a “safer at home” order, which directs people over 65 and those with underlying medical conditions to stay home and limits gatherings to no more than 10 people, among other restrictions.

On Wednesday, however, Moreno was told her contract was being terminated because the hospital did not want her wearing a mask in common areas of the hospital, she said. But by the next afternoon, after The Post had contacted the hospital, she said hospital officials “had completely changed their tune” and decided to allow nurses to wear masks throughout the hospital and not just in patient rooms.

On Friday, she went back to work. In an email, a hospital spokeswoman said, “The nurse is still engaged with us and her upcoming scheduled shifts have been confirmed.”

The policy change “feels wonderful,” Moreno said, “because I know I will be protected and my friends and co-workers will be protected.”

Kevin Readel, another nurse in Oklahoma City, said he was fired for a similar reason — but in his case it was for insisting on wearing a mask while with patients.

He said he was told “point blank that I can’t wear a mask” because it “could cause fear and anxiety amongst the other nurses and the patients.”

He filed a suit against the Oklahoma Heart Hospital South for wrongful termination, claiming that “the hospital was more concerned about the perception of due diligence than actually performing due diligence.”

A spokesman for the hospital said he could not comment on pending litigation but said the hospital’s “entire focus is on making sure we protect the safety of our patients and health care professionals in preparation for an expected surge in COVID-19 patients. As part of our preparation, we are strictly complying with the guidelines on the personal protective equipment set forth by the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control.”

Lauri Mazurkiewicz, a nurse who lives outside Chicago, grew nervous when she was repeatedly exposed to patients diagnosed with covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. “This is so contagious. It’s spreading so fast. I need an N95 mask,” she said, referring to a specialty mask worn by many health-care workers.

She happened to have an N95 and began wearing it during her rounds at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, she said, but was told the hospital was prohibiting the use of N95 masks and using regular surgical masks instead.

She sent an email warning her colleagues that those masks were less effective. She was fired shortly afterward — the result, she alleged in a lawsuit against the hospital, of her attempts to “disclose public corruption and/or wrongdoing.”

A spokesman for the hospital declined to comment on the specifics of her complaint in the lawsuit, but said it is “committed to the safety of our employees who are on the frontlines of this global health care crisis.” He added that it follows “CDC guidance regarding the use of personal protective equipment for our health care providers.”

In a statement Monday, the American College of Emergency Physicians said it was “shocked and outraged by the growing reports of employers retaliating against frontline health workers who are trying to ensure they and their colleagues are protected while caring for patients in this pandemic. … Not only does this type of retribution remove healthy physicians from the frontlines, it encourages others to work in unsafe conditions, increasing their likelihood of getting sick.”

In the retail sector, employees at Michaels crafts stores said they were told the company’s shops would remain open because they serve “people who are bored at home” and double as UPS drop-off sites, according to an employee at a Phoenix store who is awaiting results for a coronavirus test.

The worker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, has been home with a low-grade fever, cough and chest pain but says store managers have not been supportive.

“Every time I call in sick, there’s just an incredibly disappointed sound on the other end,” she said. “This is not an essential business — nobody in the history of mankind has ever dropped dead from boredom. They need to close their doors.”

Anjanette Coplin, a spokeswoman for Michaels, said its stores provide necessary products and services for parents and small-business owners. “We want to support and remain a lifeline for the teachers, parents and small businesses who rely on Michaels and our products to enable creative learning,” she said. Michaels is offering curbside pickup and has temporarily closed locations in certain states, including California, New York and Pennsylvania.

JoAnn craft stores, GameStop, Office Depot and Guitar Center have also come under fire for keeping stores open. A spokesman for Office Depot said the company is not requiring retail employees to come to work if they are not comfortable. Guitar Center, which furloughed 9,000 workers on Monday, said it is following state and local rules regarding store closures. JoAnn and GameStop did not respond to requests for comment.

In Plain City, Ohio, workers at a TenPoint Complete call center who administer automotive surveys by phone have been instructed to report to work even after the state issued a stay-at-home order, according to one employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feared reprisal.

Her work, she said, consists of calling customers to ask about their experience at the body shop.

“This is not an essential job,” she said.

TenPoint Complete did not respond to a request for comment.

Even as other department stores, such as Nordstrom and Kohl’s, have temporarily shut their doors and kept paying their workers, Dillard’s has kept locations operating where government authorities allow it, making it one of the few remaining mall-based stores to remain open despite the pandemic, employees say.

That has sparked concern from employees, social media outrage by community members and a petition drive urging it to close that alleges, “Unlike other retailers who care about the safety and well-being of their employees and the guests they serve everyday, Dillard’s is choosing to run a blind eye in order to keep money funneling into their greedy pockets.”

Some employees who work for the company expressed fear about the stores remaining open, saying that they have been offered no assurances of pay if their stores close and that they had to pay more for their health insurance as their hours were cut.

One full-time Dillard’s employee based in Colorado, who requested anonymity to preserve her job, said that before her store closed in the middle of last week, she tried to use the vacation time she has accumulated to take off two weeks, but was told she couldn’t because the store was short-staffed. Her store has since closed because of local restrictions for nonessential businesses, and she said they were not being paid during the closure, other than for earned vacation leave. They have received little clear information about whether they would get their jobs back when the stores reopened, she said.

An employee in her 60s based in southwest Florida said she has not yet accumulated any paid time off, so if she were to get sick, she would have no paid leave. “They say you’re more than welcome to stay home, but that’s, of course, without pay,” at least for her.

She said the company has done little to directly encourage social distancing from customers making purchases. “They’re just telling us to relay to customers — politely — to stand back,” she said, but not putting up signage or tape to mark where customers should stand. “They are providing us at each register with a little small bottle of hand sanitizer. Mine has about a quarter of it left.”

In an email, Julie Johnson Guymon, a company spokeswoman, said “direct communication” with associates began Monday. In an earlier statement, she said Dillard’s is “fully cooperating with any government directives in our markets and promptly closing under those guidelines. Importantly, we are strictly following CDC guidelines for the safety of our associates and the customers who choose to visit us where open. No associate who is uncomfortable working is required to do so. We believe continuing to operate using current safety standards is the best thing we can do long term for our associates and for the economy.”