Hot spots erupt in farm belt states where governors insist lockdowns aren't needed
Source: Politico
The only hospital in Grand Island, Neb., is full. The mayor has asked for a statewide stay-at-home order that the GOP governor insists isn’t needed. More than one-third of those tested for coronavirus in the surrounding county are positive — and there aren’t enough tests to go around.
Grand Island is the fourth-biggest city in a state President Donald Trump and his top health officials repeatedly name check for keeping the virus at bay without the strict lockdowns 42 other states have imposed.
Except that new cases there and in Iowa, South Dakota and other parts of the heartland are starting to spike, raising concern about new hot spots that could quash Trump’s push to reopen the economy and extend the public health crisis well into the summer.
Trump and red state governors for weeks have fairly bragged about how large parts of the farm belt have escaped the ravages of the virus without the enforced shelter-in-place policies common on both coasts. It’s still unclear whether the states actually “flattened the curve,” or if the virus just reached there later. But now, cases are erupting, threatening a local population that doesn’t always have easy access to the same health care as more urban areas. And the outbreaks are striking the heart of the nation’s farming and meatpacking industry, potentially disrupting the national distribution of food as meat processing plants close down and truckers who move food across the country are sidelined by illness.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/coronavirus-hot-spots-farm-belt-189272
= new reply since forum marked as read
You might remember Garden City, Ks. and the plot against immigrants there:
A New Documentary Shows What Happened When Garden City, Kansas, Embraced Immigrants
By Anne Kniggendorf
Published February 14, 2019 at 9:30 AM CST
A place expecting an influx of refugees has a choice to make: throw up barricades or throw open its arms. A new documentary called "Strangers in Town" shows what happened when Garden City, Kansas, chose the latter.
"One thing that's clear is that there was a group of people in the city government, the law enforcement community, the schools (and) the religious community that made an explicit decision to make this work in their town," filmmaker Stephen Lerner said on a recent edition of KCUR's Up to Date.
Garden City made national headlines after news broke that three men planned to bomb an apartment complex that housed more than 100 Somali Muslim immigrants and a mosque on the day after the 2016 presidential election. Last year, Curtis Allen, Patrick Stein and Gavin Wright were found guilty of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and conspiracy to violate the housing rights of their intended victims; Wright was also convicted of lying to the FBI. They were sentenced in January.
After residents learned of the attempted bombing, Garden City banded together to support the immigrants.
More:
https://www.kcur.org/arts-life/2019-02-14/a-new-documentary-shows-what-happened-when-garden-city-kansas-embraced-immigrants
Right-Wing Pro-Trump Extremists Found Guilty In Terror Plot To Blow Up Muslim Refugees
ByGuardians of Democracy Staff
Published on April 18, 2018
Three right-wing militiamen were found guilty on Wednesday in a plot to bomb a mosque and apartment complex housing Somali immigrants in Garden City, Kansas.
Patrick Stein, Gavin Wright and Curtis Allen were found guilty on charges of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and conspiracy against civil rights in the plot targeting Muslims refugees. Wright was also found guilty of lying to the FBI.
The HuffPost reports:
The prosecution’s case depended largely on secret recordings made by Dan Day, an FBI informant who masqueraded as a militia member, infiltrating the three men’s group for months. An undercover officer working on behalf of the FBI had also met with Stein, posing as an arms dealer who shared the group’s anti-Muslim beliefs.
Jurors were played recording after recording of the men expressing an intense hatred of Muslims, who they called “cockroaches.”
More:
https://theguardiansofdemocracy.com/right-wing-pro-trump-extremists-found-guilty-terror-plot-blow-muslim-refugees/
Anyone with an ounce of curiosity could have read national and international news sources, and as early as late January would have seen a potential problem. Then, within two weeks alarm bells should have rang across the nation.
People these days have no valid excuse. Most everyone has access to an almost infinite supply of credible information at their fingertips on smart phones, tablets, smart TVs and computers. Sadly, most just want to be entertained.
For a bitter example, I've read story after story of administrators in nursing homes say "we just didn't know about the danger", whereas any competent housing manager should have been at the forefront of educating themselves about this disease the very moment it started spreading from China.
We're now seeing massive cracks in that long-standing right-wing information bubble that's enveloped far too much of America for far too long. It's a damn shame it's taking thousands of deaths to form those fractures.
Unfortunately, our Constitution guarantees freedom of misinformation as well as freedom of truth.
KY rant done......
It allows him first out of the gate with most information since interviews with lesser politicians don't get the same attention from Americans or from the global press.
That and the fact that tRump is a master at spin, lies, bullshit and deceptions considering he's had a lifetime of practice, AND he has an entire cable TV network and several hundred right-wing talk radio and TV stations serving his daily propaganda needs.
Because of all that, I'm afraid the rest of this year will be a rough ride.......
By Erin Duffy
World-Herald staff writer 12 hrs ago
Read it here: https://www.omaha.com/livewellnebraska/health/grand-island-area-now-has-highest-number-of-coronavirus-cases-in-nebraska/article_61c7482d-3d56-5d59-a880-8aa0bf65b628.html
(snips)
Douglas County reported its first case on March 6. Hall County didn’t report its first cases until nearly three weeks later, on March 26, showing how quickly the virus has taken hold and spread in the central Nebraska region. An estimated 571,300 people live in Douglas County, roughly nine times Hall County’s population of 61,000. On a per capita basis, Hall County actually has 10 times more cases than Douglas County.
+++
Clusters of the disease have cropped up at the massive JBS USA plant, where 3,600 workers clock in for shifts cutting and packaging beef, the McCain Foods frozen appetizer factory, nursing homes and a health clinic.
Forty workers or residents at nine long-term-care centers or home health agencies have tested positive for the coronavirus, the health department said Wednesday. The actual number of people infected is hard to tell and could be even higher. Central District Health Department Director Teresa Anderson said the availability of testing in the Grand Island area remains very limited. A little more than 600 people have been tested in Hall County, according to figures from the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, compared to more than 3,800 people in Douglas.
Hall County and the city of Grand Island is about 80-miles west of Lincoln of I-80 near the middle of their farm belt, whereas Douglas County encompasses most of the city of Omaha.
Other headliners from that paper today:
* Owner of Nebraska Crossing Outlets plans to reopen mall this month amid pandemic
* CDC 'really missing the mark': Emails show UNMC doc concerned by federal virus response
* 'Our resources are being tested': Grand Island hospital's ICU is filling up fast
KY..........
