Here Are Some COVID-19 Action Items For Y'all - Report On Baja Ca & Mexico From Johnny Hazard : " COVID-19 Comes To Nezahualcoyotl: A Mexican City Confronts a Pandemic"

I'm sneaking in here late to pass along some COVID-19 action items which you may be interested in.  

 ~ From  Public Citizen:

" Humanity has endured pandemics before — even without the vast medical knowledge and economic resources at our disposal today.

Yet here in America, we remain hostage to a corporate health insurance regime that further reveals its sheer immorality and unsustainability with every passing day.

The Trump administration’s own projections — leaked earlier this week — predict 200,000 infections and almost 3,000 deaths A DAY by the end of this month.

Meanwhile, millions upon millions of Americans are losing their jobs along with whatever health coverage those jobs provided.

We CAN do something about this.

Public Citizen is working with key members of Congress — including Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Pramila Jayapal (co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus) — on the Medicare Crisis Program Act and the Health Care Emergency Guarantee Act.

These two complementary bills would expand both Medicare and Medicaid so that every American has access to and can afford the health care they need right now.

Tell Congress:

Expand Medicare and Medicaid so that every American has access to and can afford health care throughout the coronavirus emergency.

Add your name.

Thanks for taking action.

Stay safe.

- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen "


(Plus it wouldn't hurt to send them a dollar - their funds are matched.)


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 ~ From Bernie Sanders:

"Marjorie -

The human suffering being experienced in our country today is more widespread and intense than at any time in modern history.

Seventy-three thousand Americans have already died from the COVID-19 virus, 33.5 million have lost their jobs, there has been a significant increase in childhood hunger and people from coast to coast are worried about being evicted from their apartments or losing their homes. This crisis is especially severe for the working class of our country, especially in Black and Brown communities.

Over the past several weeks we have asked our supporters to describe, in human terms, how the pandemic and economic meltdown has impacted them and their loved ones. We received thousands of responses, many of them almost too painful to read. 

But, if Congress is going to respond to this unprecedented crisis in a meaningful way, it needs to do something it too rarely does. Face the truth. Congress must understand the reality and pain that is being experienced in our country today.

Today I would like to share a few of those stories with you, and then ask you to tell Congress to act immediately on a new and comprehensive coronavirus relief package which includes our list of priorities as part of the bill.

Now, more than ever, it is important to remember that none of us are alone in this crisis. We are in this together.

"No job, no money, and on the verge of being homeless. Stimulus check paid the rent. I am 79 years old and must work full time. This is terribly scary. Another stimulus check is desperately needed."
- Iris from Florida

"My husband is an undocumented immigrant, he lost all three of his jobs and although I still have mine, we cannot afford to live with just my salary. We couldn't pay April's rent and will not be able to pay May's because my husband and I file our taxes together, his ITIN disqualifies us from receiving any type of government financial assistance/stimulus payments. We live in an inhumane system."
- Jimena from California

"My entire community has been impacted. Most of the factories that supply the majority of jobs here are shut down due to Covid-19. My fiance was temporarily laid off of work for three weeks (so far) from SEP Cummins Engine Plant due to their part supplier shutting down over Covid-19. My fiance has filed for unemployment, but has yet to receive any money. He has not yet received his stimulus check. We are pretty tight on money."
- Kelly from Indiana

"We've been struggling here – no sign of a stimulus check, trying to keep food on the table, unable to pay my bills because I cannot reach anyone at my debtors, I am in big trouble here. I have lost my income – because I am disabled and cannot drive, I lost my job three years ago when I became disabled, I have since tried to open my own business, and it was going great until this occured, I have a ton of product, and no sales or income coming in since the end of February. I do not receive disability from the government, because I was denied. I really need help."
- Cindi from North Carolina

"I am a primary care doctor in Minnesota. Right now I am scared for my patients. We know that millions of people in this country have lost their jobs, and because of our employer-based health insurance system, millions have lost their health insurance at a time that they need it most. I am scared for the patients who I am no longer seeing. I am devastated for my patient with diabetes who can not only no longer afford a visit, but will soon be out of his medications with no way of affording more. The absence of patients seeking care is both devastating and difficult to quantify. We can and we need to do better. We need universal access to quality health care for every person living in this country. And we need it more than ever."
- Hannah from Minnesota

"I’m a mail carrier with the USPS. Yes it’s very hard work, harder than most people think. Delivering mail, checks from the IRS, medications, packages are all things we do and that are vital to the community. If the USPS shuts down, America shuts down. There are people in rural areas who will no longer get mail. People count on us. Save the USPS, save America."
- Robin from Colorado

As Congress prepares for the next package of emergency relief legislation, it is imperative that it acts boldly to address the unprecedented crisis we are now facing. Here is a list of priorities that must be included in the bill. You can read more about them below, but first I would like to ask for your support:

Add your name to say you support our coronavirus priorities and tell Congress to include them in the next relief bill.

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Here is some of what I believe must be in the next relief bill:

1. Guarantee workers can continue to receive their income through the Paycheck Security Act

It is imperative that we protect workers during this crisis, and one of the best ways to do that is to ensure they can continue to have income and health care.

I recently put forth a proposal, together with Senators Warner, Jones, Warren, Klobuchar and Blumenthal, to ensure all workers whose jobs have been negatively impacted by the pandemic can keep receiving their pay and benefits during this crisis.

This is not a radical idea. Countries including Germany, France, Norway, Denmark and the U.K. have all successfully adopted similar programs. Now it is time for the U.S. to join them.

2. Provide universal health coverage with the Health Care Emergency Guarantee Act

Representative Pramila Jayapal and I introduced a proposal that would cover health care costs for everyone through Medicare for the duration of the pandemic.

If you are uninsured, underinsured, if you have high copayments, high deductibles, or out of pocket expenses, Medicare will cover those expenses so that everybody — regardless of their health care needs, and not just for coronavirus — will get the health care they need.

We understand that health care is a human right — it is not simply an employee benefit. And we must ensure, now more than ever, that people can access the health care, testing, and treatment they need.

3. Send $2,000 monthly payments to everyone as long as the crisis lasts

We are facing an economic meltdown the likes of which we have not seen since the Great Depression. In the last 7 weeks, more than 33.5 million people have filed for unemployment — and the actual number of people who are out of work is even higher than that.

Workers have lost income, whether they've been laid off or had their hours cut, and their bills are piling up. Congress must act immediately to get money out to workers and families as soon as possible, and those payments must be universal to avoid bureaucratic delays.

That is why we must begin issuing cash payments of $2,000 a month for every person in America to provide households with the assistance they need to pay their bills and take care of their families.

4. Adequately fund the United States Postal Service to protect it from risk of collapse and to enable everyone to vote by mail

As we experience this pandemic, it is important to remember a fundamental American institution that is on the verge of collapse and under attack by the Trump administration. And that is the United States Postal Service.

While more than 600,000 postal workers are working on the frontlines, the USPS is at serious risk of going under and is expected to lose 50% of its revenue due to the crisis.

With such a large drop in revenue, it will be unable to carry out its work.

If we do not act quickly to save the United States Postal Service, hundreds of thousands of workers will be out of a job and millions of people will struggle to get crucial deliveries such as their medication. And as we face an unprecedented challenge of getting people out to vote in this year's elections, we need the Postal Service to ensure everyone across the country can vote by mail.

5. Ensure relief is accessible to immigrants and undocumented people

One group of people who we have not focused on enough is the undocumented.

Despite the fact that they pay taxes, undocumented people and mixed-status families have been left out of the recent coronavirus relief policies passed by Congress. And if an undocumented person loses their job, they are not eligible to file for unemployment benefits.

Many undocumented people are working in jobs on the frontlines of this crisis and are putting themselves at risk everyday. And yet because of their immigration status, many are worried about going to a doctor to get tested or treated if they are experiencing symptoms.

No one — regardless of immigration status — should be worrying about how they will get food, or support their family, or get the care they need. That is why we must work to ensure the next coronavirus relief legislation will include benefits for the undocumented.

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There is much we still need to do to support those who are struggling financially or struggling to get the health care they need during this crisis, which is why I am asking:

Add your name to tell Congress to include our list of priorities in the next coronavirus relief package.

What we are experiencing right now is something that we have not experienced in the modern history of this country: a pandemic and an economic crisis, threatening the lives and well-being of millions of people.

Many people are hurting right now. But I am confident if we stand together as one people — if we do not turn to fear or panic — we will be able to address this crisis and help minimize the pain.

Let us go forward together.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders"

~~~~~ 

Conditions in Mexico:

 ~ From Counterpunch:  

(click title for link)

COVID-19 Comes to Nezahualcóyotl: a Mexican City Confronts a Pandemic

by Johnny Hazard

"One of the cities most vulnerable to Covid-19 in Mexico is Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl, often known simply as Neza, which is adjacent to the east side of Mexico City and specifically to the boroughs of Iztacalco and Iztapalapa. The latter has the highest Covid infection rate in the capital city.

Nezhualcóyotl is named for “the poet king” of the indigenous people of the region once dominated by Lake Texcoco. The lake has undergone an intentional drying process since the arrival of Cortés and his gang in 1521. The city of Neza was founded recently, 50 years ago, from a series of “informal” settlements on the sandy soils of the lake bed. It is now the most densely populated municipality in Mexico, with over 15,000 people per square kilometer, and one of the poorest in the metro area. There were, until recently, no high schools serving this city of 1.2 million people. The many young people in Neza who are well-educated, creative, and politically critical despite the lack of local infrastructure are to be admired.

Mexico’s health-care system is more public and more free than that of the U.S., but years of corrupt and negligent administration by the formerly ruling Partido de la Revolución Institucional (PRI) left the country with a fragmented public system or group of systems: one for government workers, including teachers, one for formally-employed private sector workers, one for employees of the state oil company, and one for people who fit in none of the above categories—the 40 per cent or more who work in the “informal economy”, for example. Under normal (non-pandemic) circumstances, Mexican public hospitals tend to have no waiting rooms and you needn’t bother to ask about beds for overnight visitors. Patients at these “free” facilities need to provide their own toilet paper, soap, and, what is more costly, rods, screws, and other parts needed for surgery and medications that the “free” in-house pharmacies never have in stock.

Over the weekend, rumors surfaced of a scandal at Hospital Zaragoza, located in Iztapalapa near the border with Neza. I’m not featuring statistics here because reliable ones are hard to come by; so many residents of Neza seek health care, especially now, in Iztapalapa, Ecatepec, or Texcoco that it is impossible to know. The health department spokesperson for the pandemia recommends multiplying contagion statistics by a factor of eight and a former secretary of health with a different political affiliation says it should be more like 30 or 50. A nurse who asked for anonymity appeared on a Sunday radio news program detailing horror stories at Hospital Zaragoza: that triage consists of a cop with a thermometer channeling anyone with a fever (with or without symptoms of Covid) to one area and everyone else to another. Unverified stories abound of patients going in the front door and, a few days later, out the back in body bags and into refrigerated trucks with family members not informed about what has happened. She spoke, as other health workers have, of not having masks or gloves. An agreement with the government of China has led to air shipments of hundreds of thousands of gloves and masks. The eighth of twenty such flights arrived Sunday night.


Also on Sunday, the federal government announced that an auto racing facility in Iztacalco is being converted (permanently, one would hope) into a mega-hospital.

In Neza and around Mexico, mass transit is a possible point of contagion. Most bus service is privatized and in the hands of young rogues who, because they earn their living per passenger and not through something called wages, make longstops, under the sun if possible, from time to time and let the buses fill up. Pay is in cash and hand-to-hand. (This has abated in some cities in recent years with the development of Metrobús and similar systems of limited-stop systems in which one prepays at the station and waits on a platform.) Just when you think your bus is safe because there are not many passengers, a guy comes on to yell for a few minutes about the virtues about the product that he is selling and to share his saliva with his captive audience. He probably has a disposable mask in one of three positions that in local folklore are known as the diadem, the butterfly, or the necklace.

Many communities, including Neza and about half of the 16 boroughs of Mexico City, have banned or restricted liquor sales. It’s true that people—mostly men—who drink in public tend to bunch together, to embrace or fake-fight each other, to speak loudly and close to the faces of their interlocutors, and to scoff at protective measures. Where beer is still legal, supply is limited. Governments have alternately banned and re-legalized production. To my surprise, I have seen no one with delirium tremens after several weeks of this.

Official and independent health experts believe that for this, the most populated region of Mexico, the peak days of Covid-19 suffering will be from May 4 to 20. Some statistics suggest that numbers have already gone down in Guadalajara and Monterrey.

On the border, infection is high in the maquiladoras (sweatshops) where hundreds of thousands of people in the big cities like Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez work. Many of these workers are internal migrants from the poorer central and south of the country. This will only get worse if U.S. senators John Corwyn and the always progressive Diane Feinstein have their way: they sent a letter to U.S. secretary of state Mike Pompeo asking him to pressure the Mexican government to loosen their definition of essential workers to include those who work in automotive and “defense” factories. This, in addition to prolonging the Covid crisis and its real effects on real people, will give ample margin to Trump to continue with his policy of flattering the “socialist” president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, while attacking Mexico in general."

Johnny Hazard is somewhere where the banks won’t find him, but he can often be reached at jhazard99@yahoo.com. 

~~~~~

Well, stay safe Johnny Hazard - and I really think it was tongue in cheek referring to Diane as "the always progressive" and AMLO as a "socialist", of course it was, doh.  We used to know a fellow, an old surfer named "Johnny Reckless", any relation ?

Meanwhile, Paris is going in for her surgery tomorrow, and the virus & catastrophic news is just wiping me out but I'll be back with the stats. P.S. If you click the Public Citizen link,more petitions to sign, do sign the one  telling Trump to resign - oh hell, sign 'em all !

Take care everyone.

Oh P. P.S. I am really ashamed of ordering anything from Amazon .