Coronavirus News Items: Fri 27.Mar.2020 v2

Miscellaneous News

  • Trudeau announced that they are raising the payroll subsidy from 10% to 75% and making it retroactively effective as of March 15
  • The Bank of Canada announced it was lowering the prime interest rate to 0.25% and starting a program of bond buying [QE: Quantatative Easing]
  • The White House is “putting on hold” the movement of US troops to the Canadian border
  • @CBCIndigenous: First Nations can now delay elections during COVID-19 pandemic, says federal minister https://ift.tt/33OcNw7

Items

NYT: The Road to Coronavirus Hell Was Paved by Evangelicals

Trump’s response to the pandemic has been haunted by the science denialism of his ultraconservative religious allies.

The Syllabus: The Politics of COVID-19, Readings #10 - Coronavirus Readings by The Syllabus

The most important contributions on the political, economic, and social effects of the unfolding crisis.

  • Topics: Anthropocene, Capitalism, Democracy, Context, Class & Labour, Economic Policy, Tech, Public Sphere, Academic, Public Health, Future, International, Social Toll

Link to 5 more articles per category

Tweet: twitter.com/CBCAlerts…

@CBCAlerts: Donald Trump signs order directing General Motors to start making ventilators. Defense Production Act allows government to direct companies to produce needed goods. As recently as last night, Trump was downplaying need for ventilators, but now he accuses GM of ‘wasting time.’

twitter.com/CBCAlerts…/photo/1

27.Mar.2020 16:24

NRT: Researchers working on “last resort” ventilator

According to a story from City News in Calgary, Mark Ungrin of the University of Calgary and Mike Lipsett, a mechanical engineering professor at the University of Alberta, are working on creating an emergency pandemic ventilator – a modern-day “iron lung” which was used during the polio pandemic.

The machine, unlike a ventilator that blows air into the lungs, will reduce the pressure around a body to help a patient breathe.

According to the Calgary Herald, the two have combined a high-powered vacuum cleaner with hoses, a bucket and other readily-accessible parts to roughly simulate the life-saving devices so crucial to treating the effects of the respiratory pathogen sweeping the planet.

Politico: GOP governor breaks with Trump: ‘We’re not going to be up and running by Easter’

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker said Friday his state will not be back to normal by Easter, bucking President Donald Trump’s suggestion that the country could loosen social distancing guidelines by the April 12 holiday amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“The information we’re getting from public health experts and from health care providers here in Massachusetts — yeah, no,” Baker, a Republican, said during a Friday morning press conference in Boston. “We’re not going to be up and running by Easter, no.”

NYT: Coronavirus Fact Check: Analyzing the Patterns in Trump’s Falsehoods

For months, the president has downplayed the severity of the pandemic, overstated the impact of his policies and potential treatments, blamed others and tried to rewrite the history of his response.

Updated: 28.Jan.2020 01:08 EST