Caribbean American Weekly - Issue 101

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ISSUE 101 VOLUME 18

June 25, 2020

SERVING THE CARIBBEAN AND HISPANIC COMMUNITIES!

Police Violence Is a Public Health Crisis. Here’s How to End It.

BY HANNAH L. F. COOPER, SCD, AND MINDY THOMPSON FULLILOVE, MD Who Could be Joe Biden’s Running Mate? ....33

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xcessive police violence has become an inescapable reality in the United States. Some of us have learned to scan the sidewalks and streets for officers from the moment we lock our door behind us to the moment we reach our destination. Some of us breathe a sigh of relief when friends and family make it home, unharmed by police. All of us have witnessed on our screens, frame by frame, day after day, the horrors of police killings of civilians who offered little or no threat to them.

These horrors have been compounded by continued on page 11

Washington, D.C. / USA - May 31 2020: Justice for George Floyd Protest DC Editorial credit: Johnny Silvercloud / Shutterstock.com

Dr Barbot Speaks on Health Care Post COVID-19 ....8

Trump’s Latest Immigration Ban ....21

Caribbean Among Countries Unfairly Targeted by US Senators over Cuba

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BY SIR RONALD SANDERS

Congresswoman Yvette Clarke’s Election Statement ....22

T

hree US Senators, who have done little to advance the interests of the Caribbean and with whom requests for meetings by many Caribbean ambassadors are usually shunted to their staff, are now proposing US government punishment for Caribbean countries that request assistance from Cuba for medical personnel.

Sir Ronald Sanders

continued on page 10

Brian Figeroux, Esq., Member, American Immigration Lawyers Association

FDA Hand Sanitizer Warning

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he Food & Drug Administration (FDA) advises consumers not to use any hand sanitizer manufactured by Eskbiochem SA de CV in Mexico, due to the potential presence of methanol (wood alcohol), a substance that can be toxic when absorbed through the skin or ingested.

FDA has identified the following products manufactured by Eskbiochem: •All-Clean Hand Sanitizer (NDC: 74589-002-01) •Esk Biochem Hand Sanitizer (NDC: 74589-007-01) •CleanCare NoGerm Advanced Hand Sanitizer 75% Alcohol (NDC: 74589-

008-04) •Lavar 70 Gel Hand Sanitizer (NDC: 74589-006-01) •The Good Gel Antibacterial Gel Hand Sanitizer (NDC: 74589-010-10) •CleanCare NoGerm Advanced Hand continued on page 22

Rihanna Named Most Popular Artist ....23

CARIBBEAN ROUNDUP Caribbean Consulates Anguilla 845 Third Avenue New York, N.Y. 10022 Tel: 212-745-0200 Antigua & Barbuda 305 East 47th Street, Suite 6A New York, N.Y. 10020 Tel: 212-541-4117 The Bahamas 231 East 46th Street New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-421-6420 Barbados 820 Second Avenue, 5th Floor New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-551-4325 Belize 675 Third Avenue, Suite 1911 New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-593-0999 Dominica 800 Second Avenue, Suite 400H New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-949-0853 Dominican Republic 1500 Broadway, Suite 410 New York, N.Y. 10036 Tel: 212-599-8478 Grenada 685 Third Avenue, Suite 1101 New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-599-0301 Guyana 308 West 38th Street New York, N.Y. 10018 Tel: 212-947-5119 Haiti 815 Second Avenue,6th Floor New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-697-9767 Jamaica 767 Third Avenue, 2nd Floor New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-935-9000 Martinique 444 Madison Avenue, 16th Floor New York, N.Y. 10022 Tel: 212-838-6887 Montserrat 845 Third Avenue New York, N.Y. 10022 Tel: 212-745-0200 Panama 1212 Avenue of the Americas, 20th Floor New York, N.Y. 10036 Tel: 212-840-2450 St. Kitts & Nevis 414 East 75th Street, 5th Floor New York, N.Y. 10021 Tel: 212-535-5521 St. Lucia 800 Second Avenue, 9th Floor New York, N.Y. 10007 Tel: 212-697-9360 St. Maarten 675 Third Avenue, Suite 1807 New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 800-786-2278 St. Vincent & The Grenadines 801 Second Avenue, 21st Floor New York, N.Y. 10017 Tel: 212-687-4981 Trinidad & Tobago 125 Maiden Lane, 4th Floor New York, N.Y. 10038 Tel: 212-682-7272 For more Consulate information go to www.cawnyc.com/directory

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US Warns TT Businesses: Comply with US Sanctions on Venezuela

BY CALVIN G. BROWN WIREDJA.COM

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ORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago (T&T): The United States has subtly implied that Trinidadian Businesses could face retaliation from the that country if they failed to comply with the economic sanctions that the US has unilaterally imposed on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

At an online meeting of the American Chamber of Commerce (Amcham) meeting, the US principal deputy assistant secretary, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, Julie J Chung, warned T&T businesses that they must comply with US sanctions on Venezuela.

"The purpose of our sanctions is to identify those entities that are providing material support to the illegitimate (Venezuelan President Nicolas) Maduro regime." She also said, "It is critical that the Trinbagonian business community track and comply with US sanctions to the full extent possible."

Chung said Venezuela's general election in 2018 was illegitimate and left the presidency vacant. She said Maduro refused to transfer power peacefully to the president of the National Assembly, plundered Venezuela’s wealth for private gain, impoverished its people and caused one of the largest forced displacements in

Julie Chung

recent history.

Identifying T&T as one of the countries in the region where Venezuelan migrants have gone, Chung said this is not an adhoc US government policy decision.

She said, "Our goal in Venezuela is clear." She explained that goal included new presidential and national assembly elections under conditions recognized internationally as free and fair and a gradual lifting of sanctions so that the new government will be allowed to function.

"Until that time, however, our sanctions remain in place, and I know the Trinbagonian business community is concerned about the reputational risk caused by sanctions."

Amcham CEO Nirad Tewarie told Newsday, the impact of breaching sanctions, regardless of one's philosophical view on them, could be severe.

"Having sanction-breaking companies operating here would make the overall

business environment more difficult."

Tewarie also observed, "From a pure business perspective, the risk does not outweigh the reward. Therefore, companies should heed the advice."

While Amcham is not aware of any company that is seeking to do business with the Venezuelan government or any of its entities, he said, "The sanctions do not preclude businesses here from doing business with the private sector of Venezuela."

Referring to the arrest of three Venezuelan DirecTV executives earlier this month after the Dallas-based company left Venezuela, citing US sanctions against the government, Tewarie said this should be "enough of a warning of the risks of being in the orbit of the Venezuela state, even if conducting legitimate business."

Former energy minister Kevin Ramnarine said the US is sending signals to TT that "we ought to be careful in our dealings with the Maduro regime." He said while some people will claim TT is a sovereign nation, "We must also remember the US is also a sovereign nation and can decide to trade or not to trade with other countries."

Ramnarine added that the US is "our largest trading partner, the source of most of our food imports and home to hundreds of thousands of our citizens."l

Jamaica’s Workforce Training Program to Bolster Tourism Recovery

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INGSTON, JAMAICA: Jamaica’s workforce training program is being hailed as a resounding success. The free online programs offered by the Jamaica Centre for Tourism Innovation (JCTI), in partnership with the National Restaurant Association, the American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute, the

University of the West Indies Open Campus and HEART National Service Training Agency, trained more than 8,000 tourism workers over a 12 week period. Courses were designed to enhance the skills of hospitality workers, deliver internationally recognized certifications, and educate the workforce on the new health and safety protocols that

were rolled out with the June 15 reopening of the island’s tourist industry.

“Jamaica’s extraordinary workforce has been essential to our success as a soughtafter vacation destination. We applaud the more than 8,000 individuals who took advantage of the online training program,” said Donovan White, Jamaica’s Director of Tourism. l

Dominica Featured Among "COVID-19: Top 15 Best Recovering Countries Worldwide"

I

n a recent article published by iunera.com, the OECS Member State of Dominica was singled out as the top performer in Covid-19 recoveries for the Americas, with Barbados coming in second and Uruguay in third position.

Using Time Series Data Analysis, the online journal looked at Covid-19 data analytics to identify which countries are close to a full recovery.

This was done by breaking down the analysis by each major region of the world; Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania. Under each region category you will find listed the top 3 Covid-19 recovery countries with the best performance.

Country performance is rated on an

Activepercent sum scale of 0 to 100; a rating of 0 indicating the location being completely free of the virus and a rating of 100, the highest possible score in terms of impact severity indicating that the location is critically affected by the

virus.

The online journal noted that, although a second wave of the Covid-19 Coronavirus is a possibility, for now the 15 highlighted countries are showing the best results and hope.l

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THOUGHTS

Window Dressing, Or The Road to Change?

TEAM My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. —Hosea 4:6 Publisher I.Q. INC. Managing Editor & Editor-in-Chief

Pearl Phillip Legal Advisor Brian Figeroux, Esq. Assistant Editor Marilyn Silverman Graphic & Website Designers Praim Samsoondar Anvaar Sabirov Interns Sharif Tyler Casey Tong

Editorial credit: Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock.com

BY DEBRA ADAMS SIMMONS, HISTORY EXECUTIVE EDITOR

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ope infused last week’s broad Juneteenth celebrations and U.S. Supreme Court decisions protecting nearly 700,000 “Dreamers” from deportation and the civil rights of America’s LBGTQ communities.

Statues fell, flags with Confederate symbols came down, portraits of house speakers who served in the Confederacy were removed from the U.S. Congress.

Venerable brands, which have long used labels such as Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben’s, announced an end to faces on food boxes and bottles that were born in racist stereotypes. Longtime companies that worked with slavers and profited from them, such as Lloyds’ of London, apologized to the Black community and promised to make amends.

Are these moves, prompted by the nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd and so many others, just the leading edge of overdue changes in America and abroad? Or simply window dressing; quick, relatively minor fixes to buy time while momentum for change runs high?

The court's 5-4 decision keeps intact for now the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects immigrants brought to the U.S. as children from deportation. (Below, students at Whittier College, now one of the more diverse colleges in the nation, celebrate their graduation in 2018). The court also

voted 6-3 that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects gay, lesbian and transgender employees from discrimination in the workplace.

We spoke with Opal Lee, 93, who saw major success this year in her decadesold campaign to make Juneteenth a national holiday. “We’re gonna go through struggle after struggle until we come to the Promised Land. You gotta have some hope, because hopelessness wears you out, it drains you,” Lee told Rachel Jones for Nat Geo. “Even though there’s still much work to be done, we have to celebrate the freedom that we have. That’s what Juneteenth is about: celebrating freedom each step of the way.”

These are attempts to remember, recognize, repair, and rebuild a nation stunted by injustice—and unequal treatment of its people, historian Thomas J. Sugrue tells us. There is an unusual focus, as unemployment has soared and the distractions—say, sports or nightlife—have been curtailed, amid the deadly coronavirus pandemic. The recent decisions by the military not to keep taking to the streets against its own people and of the Supreme Court to protect marginalized communities may bolster the movement.

Yet, American history, from the start, has been filled with ugly chapters where mass murders and thievery froze progress, as DeNeen L. Brown notes for Nat Geo. “The solidarity of today’s protesters transcends the bloody racial divides of

the past and may be a springboard for more sweeping reforms,” Sugrue writes for Nat Geo. “It remains to be seen if the uprisings of 2020 will resolve the longstanding issues of racial injustice fought again and again on America’s streets, but when many races march together rather than face off, the arc of history may be bending toward justice again.”

The man who immortalized the “arc of history” phrase, Martin Luther King, Jr., concerned himself in his final years with economic fairness. Yet the gulf remains.

These startling charts via the New York Times are a starting point for anyone who doesn’t understand privilege, literally from the cradle (maternal mortality) to the grave (life expectancy).

Yes, it might erase a stain on American history to rename Selma, Alabama’s Edmund Pettus Bridge from a former Ku Klux Klan grand dragon to Rep. John Lewis, who was beaten to near death there on a 1965 march to allow America’s rights for all. (Pictured above, Lewis with the Rev. Jesse Jackson and other civil rights leaders on a reenactment of the march in 1985).

At the same time, the next weeks could focus on ways, as King tried, to save and to better the lives of tens of millions of Americans for the decades to come. A group of academics and organizers, in an op-ed, seemed a bit in awe of the broadbased support so far. “Their stunning faith in the possibilities of American democracy will be their gift to both our ancestors and our descendants.”l

Contributors Jennine Estes Erin Telesford Janet Howard Mary Campbell Tarsha Gibbons Travis Morales Email info@myiqinc.com Telephone 718-771-0988 Website www.cawnyc.com

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CIVIL RIGHTS

The SCLC Conference is Organizing a Leadership Summit to Address Racism in America TLANTA: Dr. Charles Steele, Jr., president and CEO of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), announced that the civil rights organization is organizing a major summit of leaders to help America find a cure for racism.

Dr. Steele, who heads the legendary civil rights organization co-founded and first led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said the SCLC will be calling on members of Congress, the leaders of major corporations, including those in health and science, as well as social justice leaders, religious leaders and people of wealth and influence, who have voiced support for reform in America’s law enforcement agencies and other major departments in Washington and around the nation that have been vestiges of racism.

The summit, he said, will follow the blueprint set by Dr. King, whose leadership was key to the successful civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. The date, for the summit, has not been determined, but Dr. Steele said it will take place this summer.

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This call to action, Dr. Steele said, stems from the tragic and unjustified fatal shooting of Rayshard Brooks Friday night in Atlanta by a policeman. Brooks, 27, was shot in the back as he walked away from officers who were called to the scene of a Wendy’s restaurant where he had fallen asleep in his car. The arrest allegedly turned into a scuffle. Minutes later, Brooks was dead. The killing, Dr. Steele said, is another vivid example of the entrenched institutional racism within law enforcement and other systems in the

United States that have oppressed blacks and other people of color for four centuries. The fact this senseless shooting occurred while the nation is still healing from social unrest from the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer last month is mindboggling, he said, and American must address racism just like it is attacking the deadly coronavirus.

“Until we cure this disease of racism, there will be more Rayshard Brooks, George Floyds, Breanna Taylors, Laquan

McDonalds, and Trayvon Martins,” Dr. Steele said. “The killings will continue to occur, because people of color, particularly African Americans, are under siege due to racism. Just like we are searching for a vaccine for Covid-19, we must find a cure for racism. This is dangerous, not only to America, but the world is looking for the United States to lead the way for freedom. You look at the United Kingdom and throughout Europe, South America and Japan, and the people are marching for their societies to respect and protect black lives. We need to find the cure to eradicate racism in society.

We must convene leaders to the table to address this disease now. We will do our part to start this conversation and present solutions.”

He added, “If we don’t find a cure for racism, our world will be destroyed. Like the virus, it will spread and consume all of us, and we will experience our world coming to an end.”

America, Dr. Steele said, has failed to weed out racism, because the nation was built on racism. It started with Europeans continued on page 5

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CIVIL RIGHTS Leadership Summit/ continued from page 4 taking over the American soil from the natives. With illegal slavery, he added, it became a part our institutions and every aspect of society.

“Individuals have this virus,” Dr. Steele said. “It has spread heavily within law enforcement. It is a part of our communities, and it comes in all forms of discrimination. The impact is not always physical like police brutality. The system is killing blacks and other people of color by denying them access to capital. If you do not have access to money, you will eventually do something wrong. You will either destroy yourself with violence by committing some criminal act, or you will starve to death. You will have a domestic violence case within your family. It comes down from the federal government and is now institutionalized within our society. It has been designed to keep people of African American descent and other ethnicities at the bottom of society.”

Dr. Steele said America should have solved this problem in the 1960s during the turbulent civil rights era led by Dr. King, who was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

“Wisdom comes from history,” Dr. Steele said. “Wisdom comes from learning from our mistakes. We made a mistake in 1960s when we did not include measures outside of integration. We did not include access to capital. We did not include reparations. We must have repa-

Editorial credit: Tverdokhlib / Shutterstock.com

rations with the understanding that African Americans have always been behind the eight ball. We are playing on a football field, and we cannot get beyond the five-yard line when white society is scoring touchdowns from the advantages they received from starting with free labor for centuries. We are on the field, but we cannot advance and catch up with the current system in terms of economic empowerment and economic development.”

With leaders in business, politics, sports, and entertainment calling for reform at all phrases of society, Dr. Steele said maybe we have a chance to get it right this time.

“I see hope with the marches, but we must move beyond marches and promises from corporate America and others,”

Dr. Steele said. “Now, we have to get to the table and make concrete changes. But no changes will happen without a concrete understanding the history of how we received the freedoms we have today, which are constantly under attack with the current Supreme Court and other institutions, which have gutted civil rights laws and progress made over the past 50 years. As a society, we are better off than we were 400 years ago when blacks were shackled down in slavery, but we have a very long way to go, and we will never eradicate this disease I call racism until we rebuild the structures that continue to oppress us and keep blacks and people of color at the bottom.

We must reform agencies like the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S

Business Administration, and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and all the policies that allows racism to spread and take the life out of our society. If we do not address this now, we will not have a strong American society.”l ABOUT THE SCLC: Established in 1957, the SCLC, whose first president was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is an international organization made up of chapters and affiliates with programs that affect the lives of all Americans: north, south, east, and west. Its sphere of influence and interests has become international in scope because the human rights movement transcends national boundaries. For additional information about the SCLC, visit www.nationalsclc.org.

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6

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS

NYS Legislators Urge Governor Cuomo to Extend Eviction Moratorium Beyond June 20th

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ew York, NY: A group of 56 New York State legislators urged Governor Cuomo to prevent an imminent mass housing crisis by extending the eviction moratorium order, protecting all tenants for the duration of the COVID-19 crisis. The group, led by State Senator Brian Kavanagh, Chair of the Senate Housing Committee; Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal, Chair of the Assembly Committee on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse; Assemblymember Steven Cymbrowitz, Chair of the Assembly Committee on Housing; and State Senator Gustavo Rivera, Chair of the Senate Committee on Health, sent a letter to the Governor noting that the original eviction moratorium order he issued in March was due to expire on June 20th. A second order issued in May, and set to replace the existing order after June 20th, significantly diminished the protections available to tens of thousands of tenants who have struggled to pay their rent, or whose leases may have expired during the economic shutdown.

The group also expressed concern over the Office of Court Administration’s decision to reopen

Housing Court. They urged the Governor to put an immediate pause on all non-emergency housing legal proceedings, and to direct New York Civil Courts to immediately stop “virtually” processing any eviction cases.

“Given the depth of the crisis, we are extremely concerned about mass evictions and displacement after June 20.

Right now, New Yorkers should not have to worry about their most basic needs, like housing. All of their focus should be on the health and safety of their loved ones,” the group wrote.

The letter goes on to say that unlike the initial order, which protected ten-

ants from eviction and relieved the physical danger of contracting or spreading the virus that families would face were they forced into a crowded courthouse or displaced from their home, the new order puts the onus on tens of thousands of tenants who will be required to prove their need in order to be protected.

It also notes that the order fails to protect tenants who are sued in holdover cases that landlords may bring to evict those with expired leases. The new order therefore puts all tenants at risk of eviction and increases their risk of contracting the deadly COVID-19 virus, first from overcrowded courts and“Given the depth of the crisis, we are extremely concerned about mass evictions and displacement after June 20. Right now, New Yorkers should not have to worry about their most basic needs, like housing. All of their focus should be on the health and safety of their loved ones,” the group wrote.

The letter goes on to say that unlike the initial order, which protected tenants from eviction and relieved the physical danger of contracting or spreading the virus that families would face were they forced into a crowded courthouse or displaced from their home, the new order puts the onus on tens of thousands of tenants who will be required to prove their need in order to be protected.

It also notes that the order fails to protect tenants who are sued in holdover cases that landlords may bring to evict those with expired leases. The new order therefore puts all tenants at risk of eviction and increases their risk of contracting the deadly COVID-19 virus, first from overcrowded courts and ultimately, for many, from shelters and homelessness.

“Given the unimaginable and unprecedented loss we’ve already faced as New Yorkers, we urge you to issue an order protecting ALL tenants, extending a universal eviction moratorium for the duration of the crisis,” the group said in the letter.

“New Yorkers shouldn’t have to choose between their health and their homes,” stated State Senator Brian Kavanagh. “This is not the time to ease

up on the actions that helped keep New Yorkers out of harm’s way. We need the Governor to amend the extended moratorium before the Housing Court reopens.”

“The COVID-19 crisis continues for millions of New Yorkers who cannot afford to pay their rent and are terrified of what will happen to them and their families the day after the eviction moratorium ends,” said Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal.

“You cannot quarantine safely at home if you are homeless. Allowing landlords to evict tenants en masse during a global pandemic is not good for public health and will not help to make landlords whole. In addition to becoming sick themselves or losing loved ones to the virus, COVID-19 has caused millions of New Yorkers to lose their jobs.”

"Tenants who have been struggling with financial insecurity during this global crisis should not have to worry about being cast out from their homes at a time when so many other larger issues, like health and safety, clearly should take precedence," said Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz, Chair of the Assembly's Housing Committee. "I join my colleagues in asking that Governor Cuomo issue an eviction moratorium that protects all New York tenants for the duration of the crisis and order the court system to fully close for all eviction proceedings."

"The COVID-19 crisis has dealt a devastating financial blow to many New Yorkers, especially those in lowincome communities, with many of them losing their jobs and their ability to cover basic needs including rent.

While the current eviction moratorium was welcomed by tenants across the State, it is certainly not enough given the severity of this crisis,” said State Senator Gustavo Rivera. “If the State lifts this moratorium, a floodgate will open that will be too difficult to contain and will put hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers at risk of eviction and homelessness. We must prioritize the safety and health of all New Yorkers by fully extending our State's eviction moratorium and halting all evictions."

Before the virus, more than half of all renters in New York were considered rent-burdened. Since mid-March, nearly 885,000 private sector jobs have been lost in New York City and the state is currently grappling with a 14.2% unemployment rate.

“As New Yorkers struggle to put food on the table, mourn the loss of loved ones, and find ways to make it out to work every day in the middle of a pandemic, we hope the last thing they will have to worry about is losing their home,” stated the group in the letter. l

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Your answers cannot be shared with your landlord, ICE, or any law enforcement agency.

You don’t need a paper form.

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CORONAVIRUS

8

New York State Health Care Post COVID19 Pandemic

BY LINDA NWOKE SPECIAL TO CAW

T

he month of April was a critical month for most New Yorkers, memories of frantic sounding sirens wailed down the almost empty streets, serving as evidence of the dire situation in New York as the virus ran rampage on and off the streets into homes and corners. Over eighty percent of issues covered in the news-media focused on the pandemic. It was tough, and the level of anxiety was very high.

Fast track this scenario to June, and the narrative has changed significantly.

There is a lull in an atmosphere that feels pregnant with hope and repressed energy, although tinged with a little bit of concern as the world awakens from forced slumber. The media has moved on to covering issues on recovery and the next steps post-COVID. New York took a beating from the onslaught, exerting unimaginable pressure on everything – people and systems alike. One of the notable system worse hit during the period was the healthcare sector: Patients, family members, health

workers, clinics, and hospitals; with daily heart-wrenching decisions on saving lives from a place of inadequacy ranging from medical supplies, testing materials, instruments, and personnel. Some resulted in the high number of deaths attributed to extraneous factors like inequalities borne from institutional injustice in the country, sector, and communities.

The skewed nature of healthcare delivery revealed the massive gaps in the industry with the potential of having a lasting effect on the patients, the community, and health care providers. While the pan-

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demic brought to the fore existing challenges post-COVID 19, it presents an opportunity to address and rectify some of the issues, before the next round of outbreak, which experts say will happen, later in the year.

Next steps for the New York State Health Care Post COVID-19 In a webcast panel discussion, organized

by Crain's New York Business on June 16, a set of New York healthcare experts discussed life after COVID-19, the changing impact of the pandemic on healthcare in the tri-state area.

Fred P. Gabriel, the Publisher/Executive Editor, Crain's New York Business, moderated the online session with five healthcare experts. While delivering the opening keynote, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, MD Commissioner, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene talked about the tracking and importance of public health indicators.

The Commissioner said that "over 200,000 New Yorkers were diagnosed with COVID-19, and 21,000 individuals died as a result of the virus." Figures touted by the media over the past couple of weeks. She also confirmed that the pandemic disproportionately affected Hispanics/Latinos and Blacks and Brown New Yorkers. She explained that patients from these ethnic groups died at twice the rate of whites in New York.

According to her, "confirmed the longstanding racial disparities which are attributable to structural racism. Besides, the pandemic revealed the lapses within the structures, especially the absence of coordination between the state health care system and the primary healthcare providers who operate within the communities."

She further explained that the pandemic revealed a lot of health care disparities, especially with primary care. They were not factored into the management plan equation; thus, they were not provided the required financial support needed to operate, explicitly promoting payment regulations around telemedicine, accessing personal protective equipment, and general support. As a result, major hospitals became overwhelmed during the pandemic.

Despite all these challenges, the

Commissioner said, they were able to manage the situation through technology, especially multilingual technology. They conducted town halls and run campaigns to raise awareness, engage social service partners, and use direct mailing and robocalls to reach community members.

This approach made up the equity action plan that maximized opportunities for the underserved, underrepresented community members to access the health care support needed.

Post COVID-19, it is evident that health care cannot return to 'business as usual.' There are several strategies being implemented in response to the new 'normal' of health care delivery and management. According to the Commissioner, these approaches entail "rethinking the system with an emphasis on exploring ways to help people gain access to care in a different way that will keep them safe, while simultaneously addressing issues of health and equity alongside linguistic and cultural differences."

To reiterate some of the issues mentioned, Dr. Jacqueline Delmont, Chief Medical Officer, SOMOS Innovation LLC, emphasized the role of technology moving forward. As a practitioner, she claimed that using portals for communication, employing user-friendly support, and creating awareness of the new way of health care management and support are suggestions for the new face of health care delivery after the pandemic.

However, she also raised similar concerns over the payment of this new way of providing services and delivery- support. One of the matters included how to ensure that telemedicine payment becomes a permanent approach considered by the health care management and stakeholders and that access to people who can provide support for the new telemedicine model needs to be resolved.

Addressing the issue of Primary Care Support in New York, Louise Cohen, Chief Executive Officer, Primary Care Development Corporation, noted that primary care in the post COVID era needs a new perspective towards global payment. Secondly, an immediate change in the New York State regulatory environment, which proved that it could be fast-moving as seen during the pandemic, is required, especially as "practitioners need capital to renovate, update and make them appropriate to operate."

Additional suggestions from Dr. Adam Reed Stracher, Chief Medical Officer and Director of the Primary Care Division, Weill Cornell Physician Organization, stressed sustained changes that need to occur in a spectrum. These changes ranged from payment for telemedicine, phone-calls, improved payment systems, and providing grants for implementation as suggestions for success during the period. continued on page 10

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WHAT IS MULTISYSTEM INFLAMMATORY SYNDROME IN CHILDREN? Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) is a new health condition associated with COVID-19.

SEEK CARE IF YOUR CHILD HAS PERSISTENT FEVER PLUS ANY OF THESE SYMPTOMS: Irritability or decreased activity Abdominal pain, diarrhea, or vomiting Conjunctivitis, or red or pink eyes Red, cracked lips or bumpy tongue Swollen hands or feet Lack of appetite Rash IF YOUR CHILD IS SEVERELY ILL, GO TO AN EMERGENCY ROOM OR CALL 911 IMMEDIATELY. For more information, call 311 or visit nyc.gov/coronavirus.

Bill de Blasio Mayor Oxiris Barbot, MD Commissioner

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CARIBBEAN SPECIAL REPORT Unfairly Targeted continued from page 1 The three Senators are all members of the Republican Party. Two of them represent Florida – Marco Rubio and Rick Scott – and the other, Ted Cruz, is a Senator from Texas. Senators Rubio and Cruz have strong Cuban heritage and are known to be virulently opposed to the Cuban government. Senator Scott is a former governor of Florida and has been a senatorial representative of the State since 2019, having run a campaign wooing the significant Cuban-American population.

On June 17, the three Senators introduced in the US Senate, the “Cut Profits to the Cuban Regime Act”, which, if it is adopted, will penalize any government, worldwide, that contracts with the Cuban government for the provision of medical personnel. Since many Caribbean governments have such contracts with Cuba, they all stand to be targeted.

Among the measures that the Bill, sponsored by the three Senators, seeks to impose are “a requirement that the Department of State publishes the list of countries that contract with the government of Cuba for their medical missions program”, and that the contracts be considered “as a factor in considering that country’s ranking for Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report”.

In other words, these three US Senators are seeking to disregard the sovereign

Senator Cruz

right of other countries to enter arrangements with Cuba. In any event, a principle of international law and norms is being casually disdained, as if the rights of States do not matter.

The Senators also show a remarkable indifference to the critical public health emergency confronted by all Caribbean countries, particularly now in the seemingly endless era of the COVID-19 pandemic and its disastrous effects.

Had the three Senators considered a discussion with Caribbean representatives before they introduced their Bill, they would have learned that, for many countries of the Caribbean, the presence of Cuban medical personnel has made a huge and beneficial difference to their capacity to manage COVID-19 and its spread. It is no exaggeration to say that, without the Cuban medical personnel, the medical system of several Caribbean countries would have collapsed.

The Senators would also have been reminded that the United States, despite

Senator Rubio

all its great resources, found it difficult – and are still finding it difficult – to respond to the demands that the pandemic has placed on its public health system.

If the US cannot cope, how would any objective person believe that the Caribbean can do so without help?

Further, the Senators might have considered what assistance the US provided to the region in terms of the medical personnel that they urgently needed and continue to need.

Senator Scott is reported to have said that “Any country that requests medical assistance from Cuba is aiding their human trafficking efforts”, because, in his view, Cuban medical personnel sent abroad are “forced labour”. Caribbean countries have had no experience that substantiates this opinion. Indeed, Cuban medical personnel have conducted themselves with professionalism, integrating well with local medical teams, and passing on their knowledge and experience.

Caribbean countries have no basis for believing that the medical personnel are “forced labor”. But, if the government of any country believes this claim to be true, there are international bodies to which it can be taken, and evidence proffered in support of a decision to uphold the allegation. Caribbean representatives would have encouraged the Senators to pursue such a definitive course of action, which all governments would have respected. One attempt to internationalize this claim by a private Europeanfunded group came to nothing.

Had they had the chance to do so, Caribbean representatives would have reminded the three Senators that COVID-19, in addition to being a public health emergency, is wrecking the

10 economies of Caribbean countries, some more severely than others but all without exception. They are now confronted with their greatest economic challenge.

Government revenues have dropped drastically, expenditures have increased extraordinarily, and employment and poverty are expanding rapidly. In all this, there has been a poor response from richer countries that could have helped.

The Caribbean needed to get COVID19 under control not only to save lives in their communities but also to salvage their economic prospects, now and in the future.

Cuba has provided Caribbean countries with medical assistance for over 30 years; the present contingent of Cuban personnel is not a new development.

These arrangements have been formally negotiated and set out in contracts.

Further, Caribbean governments have knowledge of the circumstances of Cuban medical personnel because, for three decades, Caribbean doctors have trained in Cuba on scholarships that richer neighboring states have not offered.

Until and unless other governments step up to help, Caribbean governments will be constrained to get assistance from where they can, including Cuba.

The Senators would also have been advised that most Caribbean countries have worked closely and well with the US government to curb human trafficking. An attempt to mar this cooperative work by introducing a political dimension to it – particularly a very narrow one – would be tragic.

The hemisphere – like the rest of the world – needs cooperation in improving the human condition; what it does not need is coercion for political purposes.

A Caribbean conversation with the Senators would be welcome.l About Sir Ronald Sanders Sir Ronald Sanders is Ambassador of Antigua and Barbuda to the United States and the Organization of American States. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London and at Massey College in the University of Toronto.

New York State Health Care Post COVID-19 Pandemic/ continued from page 8

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Noting the impact of regulatory issues towards the successful execution of a better healthcare service, some of the recommendations made include the need to repair the public health infrastructure deliberately. Also, developing the right model towards managing home care services and improving behavioral health, particularly, identifying how to treat patients without exposing them to the dangers of contracting COVID -19.

Conclusively, health care management, and delivery post-COVID-19 is changing. Telemedicine is the new normal that will drive operations, "because it meets people where they are, leveling the playing field and removes the barrier of traveling." However, the experts, especially the practitioners, quickly mentioned that it does not deliver all aspects of care management. Still, it reduces the amount of time that the patient will spend in the

medical facilities (except patients that require hospitalization and physical contact), and lessens risk.

Ultimately, there is a need to balance telemedicine and in-person health delivery. Some of the next steps towards this include providing financial support to the primary care practitioners, increasing access to technical support for upgrading to the new way of operation, supporting patients with reliable monitoring tools, and adequate training, especially those with long term health conditions. A combination of patient-driven health care, reformed payment regulatory policies, upgraded technology, increased awareness, behavior change communication, and newly skilled personnel will ensure that the health care sector is well prepared to address the fallout of COVID19 and in the future.l

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11

END POLICE BRUTALITY Police Violence/ continued from page 1 the repeated judicial exoneration of the police. One innocent pedestrian looking over his shoulder, one sigh of relief, perhaps even one unprovoked police killing, might be an acceptable “trade off” for a safe society. When whole communities are terrorized, and thousands of people – disproportionately Black men – are killed by police without cause and without legal consequence for the perpetrators, we must question what our policing is all about….

Distorted policing places burdens of excess morbidity and mortality on marginalized communities. It also creates alienation and terror that shake the foundational unity of our society. A “twofaced government” – with one aspect for the rich and another for the poor – is as much an oxymoron as a “two-faced friend.” The serious effects on the nation’s health are what bring public health scholars, like ourselves, to the conversation about next steps.

Examining the problem from the perspective of public health, we argue that there is a deeply engrained “toxic triad” of marginalization, distorted policing, and violence. This toxic triad is a very stable, pathological social system that will not yield to a “magic bullet,” a single intervention of some kind, like implicit bias training or the establishment of the civilian review board. There is, however, a way forward that can work.

Rodrick and Deborah Wallace, preeminent human ecologists, have observed that there are no magic bullets that will solve complex problems, but there are “magic strategies” [that] address the problem at multiple levels of scale and in multiple systems. They have enabled us to combat the power of the tobacco market, and protect the public from the effects of smoking. They have helped us contain the harms of complex parasites that attack millions of people a year. It is through the development of such a magic strategy that we can shift from distorted policing to “public safety policing,” which is the name we are giving guardianship policing for all…

We classify policing as a key social determinant of population health and disease. We argue that policing power fully affects “the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age.” This paradigm asks us to consider the extent to which the nature of policing varies according to whether communities are inside or outside the state’s protective circle. [It] demands that we consider the extent to which policing creates inequities in experiences of violence and in other health outcomes. It asks that our analysis extend beyond policing to recognize that policing itself is a product of broader social forces….

For the most part, policing is problematic, not because of isolated decisions made by “bad apples,” but because of decisions made at much higher levels of the government and social system. These decisions are made to enforce the goals of the powerful, for example, to keep people in slavery, or take land from

number of components.

First, it is essential that we have fair laws. Second, once we have fair laws, it is essential that all people who break laws face the same punishments. We must have protections so that poor and marginalized people are not subjected to a harsher system of justice than what the rich and the police experience. Third, everyone should understand what guardianship is so that the police will have the support of the society. Finally, police should be applauded for the acts of heroism and everyday helpfulness they enact.l Editorial credit: a katz / Shutterstock.com

indigenous people. Such actions violate basic human rights. They also endanger society by dividing us from one another and impeding our decision-making. The solution lies only partly among the police officers: although they can choose a path to making public safety real for all, due to pressures from above they have difficulty staying on that path. The larger part of the solution is our collective vision for the kind of society we want to have.

The field of public health’s expertise, workforce, and commitment can help to shift us from distorted, two-faced policing to guardianship for all. One contribution is public health’s ability to name and frame a problem, using the tools of human and urban ecology, quantitative epidemiology, and qualitative methods.

Another contribution is our deepening commitment to fight structural violence to ensure health for all. A third contribution is our experience with extremely complex situations.

We often find that the pieces of a magic strategy that seem most costly and most difficult to achieve are the very pieces that solve many problems and create a foundation for a great leap forward in the society’s functioning. Synergies can be a very important part of this process. For example, the US Task on Community Preventive Services has recommended nurse home visitation, an intervention in which nurses visit newborns and their families, to ensure vaccination. But nurse home visitation also turns out to prevent domestic violence, improve school readiness, and support infant nutrition. This simple intervention ensures that the first phase of early child development unfolds in the best possible manner. While nurse home visitation might be marginally cost effective – or even expensive – when taking one of these outcomes into account, by the time all of the improvements in child welfare and family functioning are added together, the intervention saves society money and prepares children for a lifetime of productivity. It takes imagination and practice to see how this works, but this is the great promise of magic strategies and why it is worthwhile to break out of silos.

To move away from distorted policing, the magic strategy we propose addresses three major areas: preparing police forces to end distorted practices and enact public safety for all people, thus bringing everyone into the protected circle of guardianship; protecting civil

rights and the Constitution; and overcoming the resource deprivation of marginalization. Like the investment in nurse home visitation, the price tag may seem high, but we will solve so many problems at one time that the results will amaze us….

Police officers perform many essential services, and these are desired by the citizenry. A large majority wants our society to feel healthy and united. We are for policing that advances these goals. In this book, we have named this guardianship. Based on the data we have reviewed, we suggest that the quest to implement the guardianship model has a

Excerpted the permission of the authors and their publisher from Enforcers to Guardians: A Public Health Primer on Ending Police Violence by Hannah L. F. Cooper, ScD, and Mindy Thompson Fullilove, MD. Copyright Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020. The authors and publisher have made this book available for free download on Project Muse.

Hannah L.F. Cooper is a professor and vice-chair in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University.

Mindy Thompson Fullilove is a professor Urban Policy and Health at the Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment at The New School.

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12

FAMILY MATTERS

The Importance of Play: How Fathers Can Use Play to Promote Development

BY JANETTA DEPPA

W

hen thinking about play, a person may picture children having fun, using their imaginations, and passing time lightheartedly.

While play is all of these things, it is also very important for a child’s development. In fact, play is so vital that it is recognized by the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights as a right of every child worldwide.

The act of play fosters a child’s development by providing opportunities to refine motor skills, solve problems, and take initiative while interacting with their environment and with other people.

Unstructured play helps children develop executive functioning skills, which can affect their ability to make decisions, be organized, regulate emotions, and pay attention, even into adulthood. Play can also help children (and adults who play with them) to more effectively deal with stress by regulating the body’s stress response.

Additionally, playtime represents a fantastic opportunity for fathers to interact in meaningful and positive ways with their children. Through play, fathers are

offered a glimpse into the way their child views the world. This can also help parents understand how to better interact and communicate with their children, especially children who are not typically very vocal or expressive.

Fathers who play with their children can foster learning and relationship building at any point in their child’s life.

Providing a small amount of guidance to your child while playing–without taking control or being overly restrictive–can help a child to master skills quicker than they’d be able to if they were playing alone. Such skills include leadership, decision making, resilience, communication, creativity, and focusing on a task.

Fathers can also support playtime via scaffolding, which is a form of teaching that allows children to build upon what they already know. For instance, imagine your child has learned to stack blocks on top of one another. When you play with your child, you can encourage them to try stacking the blocks in different and creative ways. You can work with them to build a taller structure or ask them to imagine what the blocks represent to them. This challenges them while providing a safe and supportive learning environment.

Additional ways fathers can promote development through play include: nPay attention to your child’s interests

and passions during playtime and respond with positive encouragement. nGo along with the flow of the game by letting your child take initiative and be the leader. nEncourage curiosity and imagination by not imposing strict rules or guidelines. nPromote skill development by encouraging your child to do activities that refine motor skills (such as crawling) or mental skills (such as counting). nAsk open-ended questions! This helps build critical thinking skills, a highly sought skill in the work world!

Examples can be “what happens when we do this ____?” or “what does this remind you of?” nHelp your child stay focused.

Encourage your child to stay focused on a task to improve concentration and resiliency (though, the timeline of their ability to focus will vary depending on your child’s age, the time of the day, and other factors such as hunger). nProvide time for unstructured play.

While some extracurricular, planned activities are beneficial, children also need downtime, which gives them the opportunity to be creative and build brain continued on page 13

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13

FAMILY MATTERS

Can I Get Social Security Benefits from My Ex-Spouse Even If It’s Not in My Divorce Decree?

BY GINITA WALL, CPA, CFP®

Q

uestion: I recently heard that I may be entitled to collect Social Security benefits when I retire based on my ex-husband’s earnings. But I looked at my divorce decree and it doesn’t say anything about it. Did I miss the boat?

Answer: Here’s some good news about your divorce. If you were married to your ex-spouse for ten years before your divorce became final, you are entitled to Social Security benefits based on his earnings by operation of federal law.

That means it doesn’t have to be addressed in your divorce papers to be effective. Those benefits are called “derivative benefits,” and they equal one-half of your ex-husband’s benefits.

You may apply to the Social Security Administration for derivative benefits on your ex’s earnings record if you: nAre at least 62 years old, and your exspouse is also nAren’t remarried nWould receive less Social Security without the derivative benefits on your own

Don’t worry if your ex threatens to keep working in order to thwart your ability to claim benefits against his record. These are empty threats. It isn’t necessary for him to retire for you to begin collecting.

How Derivative Benefits Work Here’s another piece of good news.

Unlike other pensions, the derivative Social Security benefits you receive will be based on your ex-spouse’s entire earnings record, not just his earnings during the time you were married.

The Social Security benefits you receive won’t reduce the amount he receives. If he’s remarried, it won’t reduce what his current wife is entitled to receive. And if he has a new family, it won’t reduce the amount his young children receive either.

You can only receive one Social Security check, so if your own earnings record entitles you to more money than the derivative benefits, you’ll collect benefits based on the highest amount to which you are entitled.

If you have more than one ex-spouse, and you were married to each of them for ten years or longer, you’ll collect

whichever earnings record gives you the higher benefits.

Be aware that if you are a government employee, your Social Security benefits will be reduced by a portion of any government pension that you are receiving based on your own earnings. However, if you receive a government pension because an ex-spouse worked for the government, it won’t affect your ability to collect Social Security. l Ginita Wall is the co-founder of WIFE.org and a nationally recognized expert on the subject of women and money. Named one of the 250 top financial advisors in the country

by Worth Magazine seven years in a row, she has authored eight books and numerous booklets on personal finance, including The ABCs of Divorce for Women.

The Importance of Play/ continued from page 12 cells! Two hours of unstructured play per day is shown to predict changes in brain weight and efficiency, including an ability to problem solve and to be socially active. Unstructured play includes activities where there are no rules and children can make up as they go along.

Allowing children to pretend play, or make up games, or simply play with an object, like blocks, are great examples of unstructured play.

Have fun exploring with your child through play and learn about the world through their eyes!l This article was written by Janetta Deppa at ICF on behalf of the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse under contract to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance.

Deppa has five years of experience integrating evidence-based evaluations within the social services field. At ICF, Ms. Deppa frequently uses her skills in qualitative and quantitative evaluation and writing to inform projects related to workforce gap assessments, vulnerable populations, childcare availability, and family self-sufficiency. She was previously a Fulbright Scholar and holds a Master of Science from the London School of Economics.

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MONEY MATTERS

14

What Do Struggling Small businesses Need Most? Time – and Bankruptcy Can Provide It

BY BROOK GOTBERG & PAIGE MARTA SKIBA THE CONVERSATION

T

he coronavirus pandemic and lockdown forced nearly a third of all small businesses in the United States to close. Some have shut down for good – one estimate puts the percentage at almost 2%, or over 100,000 so far.

Those that remain and are gradually opening up must navigate a host of restrictions, including limits on customers, who themselves may be reluctant to get a haircut, dine out or engage in other activities that put them near others.

Even in parts of the country that haven’t yet experienced a lot of COVID-19 cases, businesses have reopened to significantly smaller crowds, imperiling their survival.

What these businesses need most right now is time – breathing space that temporarily freezes expenses while letting them continue to operate and figure out a plan to keep going. In many cases, that means declaring bankruptcy.

While bankruptcy is often associated with going out of business, it’s also meant to help viable companies develop a path back to profitability. The problem is bankruptcy law doesn’t provide enough time to do this in the middle of a pandemic. Ongoing health concerns will likely subdue economic activity for who knows how long, even as bills and other costs pile up.

As bankruptcy scholars, we believe there’s a way to fix this.

Job creators Small businesses – specifically, those with fewer than 20 employees, like your local restaurant, nail salon and pet sitter – make up roughly 90% of all private companies and account for nearly two-thirds of all new jobs created in the U.S. The temporary or permanent closures of so many contributed considerably to the historic levels of unemployment experienced in April and May. To save small businesses and the millions they employ, Congress created the

Paycheck Protection Program, which can lend as much as US$659 billion. But businesses must use most of the proceeds for payroll. Companies still have to pay rent, utilities, insurance premiums and a host of other ongoing costs. While some have been able to defer these expenses, they can’t do so forever. Businesses will eventually be forced to deal with unpaid, unmet obligations.

Some businesses may have enough savings to ride out the pandemic or can access fresh capital from owners – who often wipe out their personal savings, including retirement funds, in the process. But for so many others, the crush of past-due expenses will threaten their ability to continue to operate, even if the business model is sound overall.

Bankruptcy to the rescue While bankruptcy usually serves as an organized way to close down permanently, it can also be used to hold off creditors while a company restructures its debts and continues operations under Chapter continued on page 15

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15

MONEY MATTERS Time and Bankruptcy/ continued from page 14 11. Upon filing, an automatic stay on collection efforts goes into effect, which prevents eviction, foreclosure or repossession of inventory and equipment while the business comes up with a plan.

For many businesses struggling in the aftermath of COVID-19, however, the issue is not a backlog of debt but simply a lack of immediate revenue to make short-term obligations, especially rent and payroll. And there’s really no knowing how long revenue will remain below normal, with concerns that infection rates are soaring in parts of the country that are opening up.

Until recently, very few small businesses were able to reorganize successfully under Chapter 11, opting instead to find alternative solutions under state law or to simply go out of business altogether. Last year, Congress made it a little easier for companies with less than $2.7 million in debt to navigate bankruptcy successfully, by reducing the regulatory burdens and offering more support.

But, even after lawmakers increased the debt ceiling to $7.5 million as part of their coronavirus response, small businesses still don’t have what they need most right now: time.

In bankruptcy cases, debtors are required to adhere to extremely strict time frames, many of which are accelerated for small businesses. Upon filing, debtors are required to meet with the court quickly to present a proposed plan

for how they expect to be profitable going forward. Debtors have 90 days to come up with a plan, under which they can repay most creditors slowly – over the next three to five years.

There’s an important exception, however, for rent payments. If debtors wish to retain their leases, they need to pay timely rent going forward immediately after filing – and have to repay all past-due rent in full as soon as their plan is confirmed. In other words, while there’s some wiggle room with other past-due bills, such as wages, utilities and even taxes, there’s a hard deadline with rent, which for many is the largest expense of all.

These time frames and special rules regarding rent were drafted with a normal, functioning economy in mind, and did not take into account the disruption caused by a global pandemic.

Respite needed A recent proposal delivered to Congress by a group of bankruptcy scholars – including us – recommended giving

small businesses affected by the global pandemic extra time during the bankruptcy process.

The proposed changes would freeze bill collection as normal, but also freeze court proceedings for the next six months – a desperately needed respite after which the long-term effects of the pandemic may be better understood.

This recommendation would encourage landlords to negotiate with debtors by providing debtors with court-mandated breathing room to escape the otherwise inflexible provisions surrounding rent.

It is our hope that this would afford such businesses the time and space they need to remain the backbone of the U.S. economy.l Brook Gotberg is an Associate Professor of Law, University of MissouriColumbia. Paige Marta Skiba is an Economist, Professor of Law, Vanderbilt University.

Article published on June 18, 2020.

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FOCUS: GUYANA

16

Court Rules Only Valid Votes Should be Submitted

BY WIREJA NEWSDESK/DEMERARA WAVES

G

EORGETOWN, Guyana (June 22, 2020): The Guyana Court of Appeal delivered its ruling in the election declaration matter filed by concerned citizen Eslyn David who was disturbed that the Guyana Elections Commission was moving to declare the elections without taking into account and acting on the anomalies uncovered during the vote recount.

The Court of Appeal ruled by majority that it does indeed have jurisdiction to hear an election declaration case involving the Guyana Elections Commission, (GECOM), and furthered interpreted that more votes are cast means more valid votes are cast.

In his dissent from the three-judge panel, on the point of whether the Court of Appeal has jurisdiction, Justice of Appeal Rishi Persaud said the Court is “without jurisdiction” based on Article 177 of Guyana’s constitution. He said that Article refers to after a President is elected, and therefore the motion by David was “simply premature.”

Justice Persaud said he was unable to find any law showing that GECOM can pursue any evidential-based investigation

or annul an election other than by an election petition at the High Court.

Both Justice Brassington Reynolds and Justice of Appeal, Dawn Gregory ruled that the court does indeed have jurisdiction to hear the matter.

President of the Court, Justice Dawn Gregory in her assessment and ruling in determining “more votes cast” means “more valid votes”, said the Court has interpretation jurisdiction and was therefore within its right to offer the interpretation of the words sought by the applicant.

This has effectively sent the issue back to the Guyana Elections Commission for them to determine the issue of credibility as set out in the Elections Recount Order, using valid votes.

The Chief Elections Officer’s observation report refers to a total of 185,000 votes that were not tainted by alleged voter impersonation and other irregularities.

An application for a three-day stay of the orders was granted by the Court, but all the other request for orders were refused.

Justice Reynolds said GECOM had a responsibility to determine the final credible count based on quantitative and qualitative assessments of the observation report, in keeping with provisions of the

GECOM CEO Submits Report. Jagdeo Appeals

BY CALVIN G. BROWN WIREDJA.COM

G

EORGETOWN, Guyana (June 23, 2020): Following upon the ruling by the Court of Appeals on Monday, Guyana’s Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield has submitted his Elections Report. It shows that a tally of all the valid votes cast on March 2, 2020 reveals that A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) has won the 2020 General and Regional Elections.

According to the CEO’s Report, the APNU+AFC secured 171,825 valid votes while the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) raked in 166,343

Guyana’s Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield has submitted his Elections Report.

(APNU+AFC) has won the 2020 General and Regional Elections. Photo:jawired.com

President of the Court, Justice Dawn Gregory; Justices of Appeal Brassington Reynolds and Rishi Persaud. Photo:jawired.com original order and in the final paragraph of the amended order.

Justice Reynolds ordered that more votes cast in article 177(2b) be interpreted to mean more valid votes cast in keeping with the meaning of the gazette recount Order Number 60, noting that the special regime was created by the Gazetted recount order.

The Appeal Court Justice said there were separate elections for the President and the National Assembly although they are held at the same time.

He explained that the National Assembly Validity Elections Act applies only to the election of members of the National Assembly, not the President and that Parliament consists of the President and the National Assembly.

Justice Reynolds said that Article 177(4) establishes a separate exclusive jurisdiction in respect of the validity of an election of a president and interpretation of the constitution as it relates to an election of the President.l

valid votes.

Lowenfield says there were only 344,508 valid votes cast at the March 2 General and Regional Elections.

A total of 3,001 votes were rejected, and when taken together with the valid votes cast, the CECOM CEO records show that there were only 347,509 votes cast at the highly controversial elections held more than three months ago.

In his tabulation, the Chief Elections Officer allocated 33 seats in the National Assembly to APNU+AFC, 31 to the PPP/C and one seat to the Joined Lists comprising A New and United Guyana (ANUG), Liberty and Justice Party (LJP) and The New Movement (TNM).

PPP Attorneys-at-Law Anil Nandlall said the GECOM Chairman cannot act on the report because the Guyana Court of Appeal granted a three-day stay of its order adding that “The Chair has no other alternative but to reject that report.”

The People’s Progressive Party (PPP)

wants the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) to block the Chief Elections Officer and the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) from declaring the results of the March 2, 2020 polls.

PPP General Secretary, Bharrat Jagdeo, in affidavit, asked the CCJ to restrain GECOM from taking any further steps to determine whether the recounted votes as tabulated by the Chief Election Officer constitutes “a final credible count”.

He also wants the regional court to prevent GECOM from otherwise enquiring into the validity or credibility of the tabulated votes pending the determination of its application to the CCJ and the Appeal for which special leave is sought.

The PPP said the party did not apply for leave to appeal to the Caribbean Court of Justice by first applying to the Court of Appeal in Guyana because the matter is urgent.l

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17

EDUCATION

What the Supreme Court’s DACA Ruling Means for Undocumented Students and the Colleges and Universities They Attend

BY SAYIL CAMACHO THE CONVERSATION

E

ditor’s note: The Supreme Court voted, 5-4, on June 18, 2020 that the Trump administration can’t immediately end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, also known as DACA. Sayil Camacho, a Vanderbilt University postdoctoral fellow who studies immigrants, answers four questions about how the decision will affect undocumented students and higher education.

1. What’s DACA, and what did the majority say in its ruling?

President Barack Obama signed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive memorandum on June 15, 2012 to provide 1.2 million undocumented young people with two-year work permits and temporary relief from deportation. Since this program went into effect, approximately 800,000 undocumented immigrants have obtained DACA status, including about 643,000 with it today.

The permits are renewable 120 days before the expiration date as long as the DACA program is in place.

Studies have shown that DACA has improved the chances for undocumented people to complete high school, go to college, attend grad school and get higher-paying jobs.

On Sept. 5, 2017, President Donald Trump declared that his administration would phase the DACA program out.

Subsequently, several lawsuits were filed challenging DACA’s termination. On June 28, 2019 the Supreme Court agreed to consolidate and consider three of these cases.

In this single ruling nearly a year later, a majority of the justices deemed the legal process Trump used in his attempt to end DACA to be “arbitrary and capricious.” They ruled that his administration lacked a clear rationale for ending the DACA program.

2. What does this mean for undocumented students?

This ruling means that undocumented young people who have obtained permission to stay in the country through DACA – often called Dreamers – can keep their DACA benefits – including temporary work permits and relief from deportation. For undocumented students, this means that they can continue to work, stay in school, pursue careers and remain with relatives who live in the United States.

Today, an estimated 1.1 million undocumented children live in the United States, according to data drawn from the Census Bureau. This number includes about 100,000 undocumented students who graduate from high school every year. The most recent estimates indicate

Editorial credit: Sheila Fitzgerald / Shutterstock.com

that approximately 450,000 undocumented immigrants are enrolled in colleges and universities, including some 45,000 pursuing advanced degrees.

The court battle over whether Trump had the power to end DACA in the way that he attempted to do it also discouraged many undocumented people from applying.

But the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency is still accepting and approving DACA applications from anyone who needs to renew their status or is seeking protection from deportation.

ties will keep trying to meet the growing needs of their undocumented students, even if Trump keeps trying to end DACA. Some of the ways schools can do that is by paying DACA application and renewal fees, providing free on-campus legal aid and offering access to mental health counselors.

The DACA program was always intended as a temporary policy that might allow young people who arrived in the

United States as children the opportunity to stay and build their adult lives here.

Eventually, the undocumented – and everyone else in the United States – will need a longer-term solution.l

Sayil Camacho is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Peabody College of Education and Human Development, Vanderbilt University

3. How has higher ed dealt with DACA? Many colleges and universities have special resource offices or designated staff trained to support undocumented students. Some schools are seeking to address issues that prevent them from affording college.

Targeted policies, such as letting undocumented residents pay in-state tuition, giving the undocumented access to financial aid and ensuring that undocumented applicants may apply for scholarships, can make a big difference.

4. Does this mean undocumented students no longer have to fear deportation?

No. Regardless of their immigration status, undocumented students have to wake up every morning not knowing whether they can stay in this country. Trump and other officials in his administration have signaled that they intend to renew their efforts to end this program. For undocumented immigrants, obtaining DACA status has always involved trusting the U.S. government not to deport them when they came out of the shadows and officially acknowledged their status.

The precise numbers are unclear, but studies indicate that there are between 11 and 22 million undocumented people in the United States. Without comprehensive immigration reform, they will continue to live in fear.

I hope that many colleges and universi-

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HOT TOPIC

18

“Fire Through Dry Grass”: Andrew Cuomo Saw COVID-19’s Threat to Nursing Homes. Then He Risked Adding to It.

BY SEBASTIAN ROTELLA, JAMES BANDLER & PATRICIA CALLAHAN PROPUBLICA

O

n April 3, Stephanie Gilmore, a 34-year-old nurse working at the Diamond Hill nursing home in Troy, New York, was summoned to a supervisor’s office. The home’s administrator and nursing director were there to relay some distressing news.

Gilmore said they told her that a resident in the home had recently gone to the hospital, where she tested positive for COVID-19. The resident was set to return to Diamond Hill, making her the first confirmed COVID-19 case at the 120-bed facility north of Albany.

The risks to the home’s staff and other residents were obvious: The virus was ravaging nursing homes across the country.

But the week before, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his health commissioner, Howard Zucker, had all but made such discharges mandatory. If a hospital determined a patient who needed nursing home care was medically stable, the home had to accept them, even if they had been treated for COVID-19.

Moreover, the nursing home could not test any such prospective residents — those treated for COVID-19 or those hospitalized for other reasons — to see if they were newly infected or perhaps still contagious despite their treatment. It was all laid out in a formal order, effective March 25. New York was the only state in the nation that barred testing of those being placed or returning to nursing homes.

In the weeks that followed the March 25 order, COVID-19 tore through New York state’s nursing facilities, killing more than 6,000 people — about 6% of its more than 100,000 nursing home residents. In all, as many as 4,500 COVID19 infected patients were sent to nursing homes across the state, according to a count conducted by The Associated Press.

The state declined to say if it knew how

Governor Cuomo Editorial credit: Hans Pennink / Shutterstock.com

many COVID-19 patients had been sent or returned to Diamond Hill. Officials with Diamond Hill refused to disclose the number.

By June, 18 of Diamond Hill’s residents had died from the virus and 58 had been infected. At least 50 of the facility’s more than 100 workers had also been sickened with COVID-19.

As Deaths Mounted at Diamond Hill, New COVID-19 Patients Were Transferred In States that issued orders similar to Cuomo’s recorded comparably grim outcomes. Michigan lost 5% of roughly 38,000 nursing home residents to COVID-19 since the outbreak began.

New Jersey lost 12% of its more than 43,000 residents.

In Florida, where such transfers were barred, just 1.6% of 73,000 nursing home residents died of the virus. California, after initially moving toward a policy like New York’s, quickly revised it. So far, it has lost 2% of its 103,000 nursing home residents.

The decision by Cuomo and Zucker, whose department regulates all nursing homes in the state, drew fire as soon as it was announced from medical experts, nursing home operators and the families of residents. Cuomo himself had said protecting nursing home residents was the state’s top priority, once calling the threat “fire through dry grass.”

Steve McLaughlin, the county executive where Diamond Hill is located,

viewed the state’s directive as madness and chose to defy it, refusing to allow any COVID-19 patients to be returned to, or placed in, the one nursing home run by the county. The 320-bed facility, Van Rensselaer Manor, has not seen a single COVID-19 death.

Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy have defended their approach as a way to open up crucial beds at a moment when it appeared hospitals would be overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients needing intensive care.

Charles Branas, who leads the epidemiology department at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, said he could appreciate New York state’s concern about a shortage of hospital beds in hard-hit areas.

“The New York state advisory looks like it was intended as a ‘reverse triage’ strategy to clear acute and critical care hospital beds, regardless of whether those beds had people with COVID-19 or not,” Branas said. “Possibly, the positive trade-off they had in mind with the policy was that more lives would be saved with additional open critical care beds than would be lost in transfer to nursing homes.”

But Branas said he believes the policy could well have increased New York’s COVID-19 death toll by a magnitude that will be determined by future researchers.

“If you introduce 4,500 people sick with a potentially lethal disease into a vulnerable and notoriously imperfectly monitored population,” he said, “people are apt to die.”

Former employees and families of patients portray Diamond Hill as a case study of a facility ill-prepared to cope with the complexities of containing the virus. The day Gilmore was told of the resident with COVID-19, she said she was also told that the information should not be shared with other staffers or patients — the management didn’t want to provoke panic. Gilmore said she refused to go along and was later fired.

Three days after Diamond Hill was informed of its first case, six other residents tested positive, suggesting the virus

had been present at the home for days, maybe weeks. The resident with COVID-19 who was returned to the home might have provided more fuel for the virus’s spread.

Gilmore said the home made inadequate adjustments to try to care for its residents’ safely. The COVID-19 patients were not isolated in a separate unit, and the facility lacked adequate protective gear for staff, she said. Gilmore and county officials said staffers who’d been exposed were encouraged to break their quarantines and return to work.

All told, the virus has claimed the lives of nine women and nine men at Diamond Hill, three younger than 60, three older than 90. Among those lost: a church deacon, a bowling alley manager, a former nurse and a beloved grandfather called Pop Pop by his grandchildren.

“Uncalled for, unnecessary, should never have occurred, and wouldn’t have but for a tragically misguided order from the state,” McLaughlin, the Rensselaer County executive, said of the outcomes at Diamond Hill.

The state Health Department said its personnel visited the home at least twice in April as part of broader efforts to track and control the virus inside the state’s nursing homes. They deemed Diamond Hill capable of caring for its residents.

Documents show Zucker, the health commissioner, was fully aware of events at Diamond Hill and reassured local leaders that the department had offered help moving patients to other facilities, but was told it wasn’t needed.

Cuomo and Zucker, after escalating criticism, revoked the March 25 directive on May 10.

The Cuomo administration would not say who conceived of the order or answer the question of whether it believed the order had led to additional deaths. The administration said the Health Department was conducting “a thorough review” of COVID-19’s impact on nursing homes.

“Science will determine whether the spread in nursing homes came as a result continued on page 19

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19

HOT TOPIC Fire Through Dry Grass/ continued from page 18 of returning residents or from asymptomatic staff who were already there,” said Jonah Bruno, a spokesman for the New York Health Department.

Officials have said the directive was based on federal guidance saying that nursing homes could accept residents with COVID-19 as long as they had enough personal protective equipment, could disinfect medical equipment regularly, could limit the movement of patients, could house them in their own rooms if necessary and meet other requirements. It’s not clear, however, who in New York was responsible for assessing this — the discharging hospitals, the receiving nursing homes or the state.

The state Health Department said Diamond Hill instituted “universal isolation precautions” but did not explain what that meant. The state also said the home ceased taking COVID-19 patients in late April but did not say what led to that development.

A complicating factor in evaluating the effect of the March 25 directive is that the state Health Department did not track in real time what happened when COVID-19 patients were transferred from hospitals to nursing homes. One senior nursing home industry official said the state Health Department didn’t even begin comprehensively counting COVID-19 deaths in these facilities until

well into April, although the department has disputed that claim.

Bruno said the agency had adjusted the way it tracked deaths as the pandemic progressed. He added that the state did hundreds of safety checks on homes throughout the state and cited scores for various shortcomings. But he would not say if that information had been shared with the hospitals and families making decisions about the suitability of homes to receive COVID-19 patients.

Diamond Hill sent ProPublica a statement saying that its management team had taken over the facility recently, and that it had taken dozens of measures to protect the facility from the coronavirus, informed residents and their families of the presence of the virus, and worked with the county and state to keep patients and staff safe. The facility appears to have changed its name recently to Collar City Nursing and Rehabilitation. The statement did not answer questions about Gilmore’s specific allegations, citing “labor laws.”

“Despite our stepped up efforts, the stealth virus entered our community in early April likely through someone who appeared perfectly healthy,” the statement said. “While we were likely successful in delaying infections and reducing spread, like thousands of other skilled nursing facilities affected, we were not able to fully quash the virus.”

In an interview, Ari Grinspan, Diamond Hill’s CEO, declined to respond to questions about the state’s March 25 order,

the home’s preparedness or the deaths of specific residents.

“Now is not the time for a facility to be in the spotlight,” he said. “It gives others the chance to pick on you.”

“There will be a time when the pandemic mercifully ends, that we can talk on the record about the role of facilities and the government in what has happened.”

Stephanie Gilmore, a former nurse at Diamond Hill. (Kholood Eid for ProPublica)

“It Was Chaos” Gilmore started work at Diamond Hill on Oct. 31, 2019, months before the first virus case was reported in the United States. Even then, she said, the facility was in “damage control” mode.

Family members visiting a patient with dementia on her 74th birthday found her in a bed soiled with urine and feces. The state Health Department investigated, citing the home for failing to provide basic care, and the family shared pictures with the media.

Diamond Hill’s owners brought in new managers, Gilmore among them, but in retrospect, she said, the move was mainly for optics. “So they could tell the news we have new management,” she said.

Gilmore saw no sign of meaningful improvement. She and another former nurse told ProPublica the facility was chronically short of staff and equipment.

Sometimes the facility had as few as four aides and one nurse looking after as many as 80 patients on a single floor, continued on page 20

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HOT TOPIC Fire Through Dry Grass/ continued from page 19 each suffering a variety of ailments that screamed for attention — incontinence, dementia, basic mobility.

In late February, she recalled an elderly patient being admitted from a local hospital. Gilmore said she told the administrators the resident needed a special oxygen delivery device to stay alive.

Diamond Hill didn’t have one, but the administrators took the admission anyway. Gilmore and another former Diamond Hill nurse said the patient died the next day.

Diamond Hill did not respond to questions about that patient.

As the coronavirus began to grip New York City, 162 miles south of Troy, Gilmore’s concerns intensified. On March 13, she hammered out an email in all capital letters to the owners of the company, with the subject line: ATTEMPTING TO DO THE IMPOSSIBLE! “As a nursing professional, it’s unsafe to admit residents into the facility when we are critical with staffing and unable to care for the residents already in the building… I have tried to assist in any way that I can, however I am being stretched way too thin,” she wrote.

Gilmore told ProPublica she advocated in meetings for hiring roughly 20 additional aides and six nurses.

Grinspan, the home’s CEO, attempted to reassure her, she said.

“We are working feverishly on hiring and bettering the situation, while we hope our appreciation to you and your peers are known,” he said in an email back.

Gilmore thanked him, but the situation only got worse. She said she checked in as many as five new patients per day coming into the facility’s 40-bed rehabilitation unit from all over the capital region. To her, it seemed only a matter of time before the virus began to spread in a facility already straining to provide proper care.

In reviewing paperwork for new residents, she became even more troubled.

There was no indication whether incoming patients had ever been tested for the coronavirus.

Gilmore said her superiors brushed off her concerns, offering vague promises to isolate new residents. She saw little evidence that the home had the space or staff to do that.

Then came the April 3 meeting with her superiors about the woman who was diagnosed with COVID-19. With the request to keep it secret, her frustration boiled over.

“We aren’t going to tell the direct care staff that they were exposed?” she said she asked.

“No,” she recalled her bosses saying.

“We don’t want to cause a panic.”

“I was like, well, we can’t do that,” she said. She thought it might be against the law.

Diamond Hill, in its statement to ProPublica, said it alerted all residents, their families and the state Health Department of any coronavirus infections in a timely and responsible manner.

But Gilmore said she left her boss’s

20 Phillips and Testo said that if Gilmore hadn’t spoken up, the outbreak underway at Diamond Hill might have escaped scrutiny for far longer.

“Without those calls to us, the state never would have investigated,” Phillips said. “She was worried that the administration was not being forthcoming with information we needed.

So she took it upon herself to alert us.”

This is an excerpt. Read the full story at www.cawnyc.com office and called the county Health Department herself. By coincidence, she reached Shannon Testo, a registered nurse in charge of communicable disease testing. Testo, who also spoke to ProPublica, told Gilmore that she had tried to contact Diamond Hill earlier that day.

She needed the administrators there to tell her who the positive patient had been in contact with, but she told Gilmore the home’s administrators had stopped returning her calls.

Gilmore gave Testo a handwritten list of staff that had treated the patient. She was on it. Testo told her she would have to quarantine herself for 14 days.

Gilmore signed an order from the county promising to do so.

Later that day, Diamond Hill’s management circulated a memo to staff members informing them that the home had its first coronavirus case and that many of them had been exposed.

Several staffers called out sick. Some, like Gilmore, also quarantined themselves at the county’s request.

After Gilmore’s call, Testo and Lisa Phillips, the county Health Department’s director of patient services, said they reported the situation to the state Department of Health, which then tested 30 randomly selected residents on April 6 using the limited number of tests available at the time. The county said at least six tests came back positive. The state told ProPublica it tested 26 residents and three came back positive.

Testo and Phillips said they tried to trace the contacts of the six positive patients, but Diamond Hill declined to answer their questions.

“With other facilities, the administrators gave us all the information we needed about who the positive patients may have had contact with,” Phillips said.

“But Diamond Hill, they kept telling us that the staff was protected, they had PPE, and therefore they had no contact, but then we started getting calls from other people who worked there saying they did not have PPE.” Testo and Phillips also said they later received reports from Diamond Hill employees that the administration tried to entice their employees to return to work before they completed their 14-day quarantines.

“They were offering Dunkin’ Donuts gift cards to staff members who were sick but had no fever,” Testo said.

Diamond Hill did not respond to the county’s specific claims about how it managed the outbreak, but it insisted in its statement that it had cooperated with both the state and county to combat the virus’s spread.

Gilmore said she twice received requests from Diamond Hill administrators to come back to work in spite of the

county’s order that she stay home. She tested negative for the coronavirus and returned to work on April 13. When she came back into the nursing home, she could not believe her eyes.

The facility had fewer staff than ever, but more patients. Gilmore said at least four aides and two nurses, including one who handled infection control, had quit.

Others called out sick for fear of exposure. Those who continued working often had no protective gear. Patients who had the coronavirus were housed right next to those who did not, or even in the same room. “It was chaos,” she said.

“Their system was that they would keep everyone new to the facility in isolation for seven to 14 days, but some of them are not coherent,” Gilmore said.

“They have dementia, and they were just wandering around.”

At that point, Gilmore said Diamond Hill’s corporate parent, the WeCare Centers, dispatched a new nurse manager to help bring some sense of order to the growing crisis. Gilmore said the new manager made things worse by continuing to insist that the facility was doing just fine.

She said she complained to him and then sent another email to Grinspan, the CEO, which she shared with ProPublica.

“I would not have reached out, if this didn’t require immediate attention,” she wrote. “These issues have been a problem since before this covid situation. The staff are coming to me with concerns... about residents covid status being withheld and PPE. The state already has issues with the way the facility handled the situation.”

“I have seen nurses come and go as fast as they came due to a lack of staffing, support and appreciation,” she said.

Gilmore said she was fired on April 15, two days after she sent her email to Grinspan.

She said she was told that she was not management material and was in fact “anti-management.”

To the surprise of Testo and Phillips, even as the case counts and staff complaints grew at Diamond Hill, state health officials seemed fine with allowing more COVID-19 patients to be discharged to the facility. The county officials said they were on weekly conference calls with the state Health Department and the home’s top administrators throughout April.

“They were telling the state that they were able to take more patients and the state wasn’t getting involved. We didn’t necessarily agree, because we were getting calls from their staff saying they were in crisis mode,” Phillips said. The state’s people raised no objections, however. “They were saying, ‘If the [hospital] feels it’s safe to discharge residents there and they say they can accept the

patient, then that is their decision.’”

Documents show that Zucker, the health commissioner, said the facility had been assessed multiple times during April and into early May, and that no deficiencies were found.

“We have been in frequent communication with Diamond Hill nursing and rehabilitation center and they have attested to the Department that they are in full compliance with state and federal guidelines and have stated unequivocally that they are in need of no further assistance at this time,” Zucker wrote in a May 10 letter to McLaughlin, the county executive.

Gilmore described her experience on local television and has filed a complaint against her managers at Diamond Hill with the New York State Division of Human Rights, alleging employment discrimination.

ProPublica shared Gilmore’s story with the state Health Department. In a statement, it said that it had no record of her complaint, but that her “allegations would be unacceptable if true.”

Phillips and Testo said that if Gilmore hadn’t spoken up, the outbreak underway at Diamond Hill might have escaped scrutiny for far longer.

“Without those calls to us, the state never would have investigated,” Phillips said. “She was worried that the administration was not being forthcoming with information we needed. So she took it upon herself to alert us.”

The calls to the state came too late for Cynthia Falle, 73, a quadriplegic woman who had spent three years at Diamond Hill.

In mid-March, she contracted pink eye and showed other signs of failing health.

Her family said they urged the administration to test her for the coronavirus.

Twice, the facility refused, insisting a test was unnecessary and all she needed were antibiotics.

Her brother, Robert Falle, said that he complained to the state Department of Health, and that by late March the department had ordered Diamond Hill to test her. The facility told Sandra Wood, Falle’s niece, the test had been done on April 4, and that on April 6 it had come back negative.

On April 13, a deteriorating Falle was taken to Samaritan Hospital. Wood said the hospital staff told her records they received from Diamond Hill did not reflect a COVID-19 test of any kind.

Wood said Falle was tested at Samaritan, the result was positive and she was dead within a week.

Diamond Hill did not respond to questions about Falle’s care.

Falle had been diagnosed with cerebral palsy at age 3 and eventually lost the ability to move her limbs, yet her family said her life remained remarkably full until COVID-19 took it away. She’d fallen in love, traveled with her partner of 38 years, became a church deacon and worked with health care professionals to improve care for people with disabilities.

“Cindy will be remembered for her indomitable spirit, sense of humor, love, genuine interest in the people she knew and her amazing ability to thrive even under what many would consider insurmountable odds,” her obituary read.l

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IMMIGRATION

21

Statements on New Executive Order Slashing Legal Immigration

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ashington, DC: President Trump signed an order temporarily preventing foreign nationals with H1B, L-1, H2B, or J-1 status from entering the United States. The new restrictions would last at least until the end of the year and will not apply to visa-holders already in the U.S., or those outside the country who have already been issued valid visas, and some categories of foreign nationals (e.g., healthcare workers).

The executive order appears to build on Trump’s existing immigration bans, including 2017’s Muslim Ban and the more recently enacted order placing a 60day ban on green cards for most immigrants due to the coronavirus crisis. While the White House’s justification for these immigration restrictions centers around protecting American workers, experts are skeptical that the restrictions will help the millions of Americans searching for work.

In fact, studies reveal that immigration actually leads to wage and job growth.

After Trump announced the executive order, Steve Choi, Executive Director of the New York Immigration Coalition, issued the following statement: "One more desperate reach into the grab-bag of pointless immigration bans by

our flailing President. When you’re a xenophobe contending with a cratered economy, a pandemic where you let more than 120,000 people die, and uprisings sent you hiding in a bunker, the only thing you can do is a pivot to your usual playbook of blaming immigrants for your immense failures. Suspending immigration hurts American businesses, who are already struggling during COVID-19, forcing them to lose many skilled and essential workers when they are needed the most.

More than ever, we need a President who offers viable solutions to keep us safe and healthy, while growing our economy and creating jobs. We also need our national leaders—including House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Schumer—to pass the HEROES Act so that every locality and all the peo-

ple within them have the resources they need to ensure the health and safety of their families now and into the future."

FWD.us President Todd Schulte issued the following statement on the extension and expansion of President Trump’s executive order dramatically limiting immigration: “On the heels of a major loss at the Supreme Court—which sided with the overwhelming majority of the American public to reject President Trump’s efforts to deport DACA recipients - President Trump is once again attempting to shift blame to immigrants to distract from his terrible failure to handle the COVID-19 crisis.

“Massive restrictions to legal immigration—including restricting immigrants who contribute to medicine, science, and research in the United States, and who are

working as we speak to develop treatments for coronavirus and other deadly diseases—will not only hinder efforts to save lives, but will prevent job creation and hurt our economy as our country struggles to recover. Bipartisan majorities in Congress have repeatedly rejected the President’s multiple attempts to cut legal immigration. This is a full-frontal attack on American innovation and our nation’s ability to benefit from attracting talent from around the world.

“Three years ago, when unemployment was at 4%, the President proposed the RAISE Act, which attempted to slash legal immigration by more than 50%.

Today, with unemployment at more than 13%, the President is enacting the same cuts through executive order. Both times they—against all actual evidence— claimed they were necessary for economic growth and to help native-born Americans. Economic conditions have changed dramatically, but the administration’s efforts to radically restrict legal immigration have remained constant.

“The Trump administration should stop trying to create and exploit crises to enact the largest cuts to legal immigration in a century. This is deeply harmful to America.” l

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IN THE NEWS

22

Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke's (NY-9) Statement on Preliminary Primary Election Results

A

s of June 24th, 2020 at 10am EST, Congresswoman Clarke is leading the polls with 62.3% of

the vote “Last night, the people of the 9th district of New York made their voices heard by turning out and voting. While we still must take into account the number of absentee ballots that must be counted, I am confident that the results will be in my favor and I am more motivated than ever to fight for my community in Washington.

In that spirit, this week I will be going back to work. While my campaign remains on the ground to ensure that

Congresswoman Clarke

every eligible voter has been granted an opportunity to vote, I will return to Washington to vote on a groundbreaking police reform bill this week followed by laying the foundation for the recovery with a new green infrastructure package.

I want to thank all of my constituents, both those that voted for me and those that went in another direction.

Regardless of the outcome, I hope that I have served you well during my time in Washington. If given the opportunity to return, I will do everything in my power to ensure that every constituent of the 9th District feels like they have a representative they can believe in.” l

Windrush Generations Matter UK: Collective Responsibility and Collaboration for Growth

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indrush Generations Matter UK 2020 celebrated Caribbean American Heritage Month with Dr Claire Nelson and Mark Milward. The purpose of the event was to provide a historical perspective on the Windrush Scandal and to recognize the significant contribution made by Caribbean Communities to Britain.

There was a wide range of topics covered that demonstrated senior level experience and insight into areas including mental health and spiritual care, community economic wellbeing, and youth development, members of the Home Office Windrush Taskforce also joined the dialogue. There was a recognition that celebration of anniversaries and ini-

tiatives that focused on community empowerment were important such as UN International Decade for People of African Descent, Windrush Day Thanksgiving in the Family and the Caribbean Day on August 1.

The overall aim is to create a lifelong skills legacy for inclusive, peaceful, caring and enterprising clusters within neighborhoods for youth development, community economic wellbeing and civic engagement.

Windrush Generations Matter UK 2020 was hosted by Rudi Page, CEO, MCW London. Page can be contacted at rudi@makingconnectionswork.com or www.makingconnectionswork.com l

FDA Hand Sanitizer Warning/ continued from page 1

Substantial methanol exposure can result in nausea, vomiting, headache, blurred vision, permanent blindness, seizures, coma, permanent damage to the nervous system or death. Although all persons using these products on their hands are at risk, young children who accidently ingest these products and adolescents and adults who drink these products as an alcohol (ethanol) substitute, are most at risk for methanol poisoning.

On June 17, 2020, FDA contacted Eskbiochem to recommend the company remove its hand sanitizer products from the market due to the risks associated with methanol poisoning. To date, the company has not taken action to remove these potentially dangerous products from the market. Therefore, FDA recommends consumers stop using these hand sanitizers and dispose of them immediately in appropriate hazardous waste containers. Do not flush or pour these products down the drain.

FDA reminds consumers to wash their hands often with soap and water for at

Sanitizer 80% Alcohol (NDC: 74589005-03) •CleanCare NoGerm Advanced Hand Sanitizer 75% Alcohol (NDC: 74589009-01) •CleanCare NoGerm Advanced Hand Sanitizer 80% Alcohol (NDC: 74589003-01) •Saniderm Advanced Hand Sanitizer (NDC: 74589-001-01) FDA tested samples of Lavar Gel and CleanCare No Germ. Lavar Gel contains 81 percent (v/v) methanol and no ethyl alcohol, and CleanCare No Germ contains 28 percent (v/v) methanol.

Methanol is not an acceptable ingredient for hand sanitizers and should not be used due to its toxic effects.

Consumers who have been exposed to hand sanitizer containing methanol should seek immediate treatment, which is critical for potential reversal of toxic effects of methanol poisoning.

Rudi Page

least 20 seconds, especially after going to the bathroom; before eating; and after coughing, sneezing, or blowing one’s nose. If soap and water are not readily available, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend consumers use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains at least 60 percent ethanol.

FDA remains vigilant and will continue to take action when quality issues arise with hand sanitizers. Additionally, the agency is concerned with false and misleading claims for hand sanitizers, for example that they can provide prolonged protection such as 24-hours against viruses including COVID-19, since there is no evidence to support these claims.

To date, FDA is not aware of any reports of adverse events associated with these hand sanitizer products. FDA encourages health care professionals, consumers and patients to report adverse events or quality problems experienced with the use of hand sanitizers to FDA’s MedWatch Adverse Event Reporting program. l

43 Reggae Protest Songs for Your Black Lives Matter Playlist

BY STEVE JAMES, JAMAICANS.COM

R

eggae music has always been at the forefront of protest music for social justice and racial equality.

“Get Up Stand Up” by Bob Marley is one of the first songs that may come to mind when you think of reggae protest songs however there are many others.

Here are 43 Reggae Protest Songs to your Black Lives Matter playlist: 1. Black Pride – Kofi 2. African Tears – Peter Hunnigale 3. Heathen – Coco Tea 4. Protect Us Jah – Morgan Heritage 5. I am Vex – Garnett Silk 6. Fundamental Principles of Life – Nereus Joseph 7. Bodyguard- Steel Pulse 8. Klu Klux Klan- Steel Pulse 9. Declaration of Rights – Mighty Diamond 9. Can You – Brian & Tony Gold 10. War – Bob Marley 11. Arise Blackman – Peter Tosh 12. 400 Years – Peter Tosh 13. Equal Rights – Peter Tosh 14. Them Haffi Get a Beaten – Peter Tosh 15. Get Up Stand Up – Peter Tosh 16. Crisis – Bob Marley & The Wailers 17. So Much Trouble in the World – Bob Marley & The Wailers 18. Revolution – Bob Marley & The Wailers 19. Revolution – Lloyd Brown 20. Guiltiness – Bob Marley & The Wailers 21. Hammer – Bob Marley & The Wailers 22. Rebel Music (3 O’Clock Road Block) – Bob Marley & The Wailers 23. Another Song – Lloyd Brown 24. We Need a Revolution – Lloyd Brown 25. Choice of Color – The Heptones 26. Fire Burning – Bob Andy 27. Unchained – Bob Andy 28. Malcolm X – Dennis Brown 29. Black Man Hear Cries out – Junior Delgado 30. Murderer – Buju Banton 31. Come Down Father – Beres Hammond 32. Black Man Live Up – Vivian Jones 33. Black Man’s Paradise – Morgan Heritage 34. Cry of My People – Garnett Silk 36. I Can’t Breathe – Kabaka Pyramid 37. I Can’t Breathe – Queen Ifrica 38. Truths & Rights – Protoje & Mortimor 39. Camera Show – Protoje 40. Slave Mill – Damian ‘Junior Gong’ Marley 41. Just a Little Peace – Peter Hunnigale 42. Do You Pray – Beres Hammond 43. The Jury – Scion Successl Steve James is a Freelance photographer/journalist, podcaster, and radio host of Real Rock on Newstalk93m in Jamaica.

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nHEALTH

nENTERTAINMENT

nRELATIONSHIPS

nRECIPES

Koffee Featured in Teen Vogue Magazine, New Collab with John Legend

BY DENISE LEE JAMAICANS.COM

J

amaican reggae and dancehall singing sensation, Koffee, is featured in the June 2020 issue of Teen Vogue magazine. The multi-faceted artist talks about her new music, her Jamaican homeland, and addresses rumors of an upcoming project with superstar, Rihanna.

Koffee has an impressive list of credits to her name. Now 20-years-old, at the age of 19 she was the youngest artist to top the Billboard Reggae Album Chart with her first EP “Rapture,” that debuted at No. 1. At the 62nd Grammy Awards, she became the first solo female to win a Grammy for Best Reggae Album – and the youngest.

She’s also drawn the attention of other established artists, including John Legend. She’ll be one of five artists featured on his next studio album set for a June 19, 2020 release. Koffee has performed with contemporary legends at the Rebel Salute reggae festival and appeared in the video “Throne” where she takes viewers on a tour of Spanish Town. Jordan Peel selected her “Toast” track for his 2019 horror film “Us.” Born Mikayla Simpson in Spanish Town, Jamaica, she was raised by a single mother. Her father relocated to New York in the U.S. when she was an infant.

A woman of many talents, the artist is

MOVIE OF THE MONTH

nSPORTS

nHOROSCOPE

Rihanna Named Most Popular to Listen to During Sex...

O

ne of Rihanna’s many hits is Sex With Me. Seems like people are taking this song to bed. She also famously sang that she had found love in a hopeless place. And Rihanna is clearly helping others find love, as it has been revealed she is the most popular female artist to listen to during sex.

A new survey carried out by lingerie brand Pour Moi has revealed that Spotify users have been getting down to Work to the Barbados-born singer's R&B inflected pop. Data has also revealed that the songs most listened to during solo sex are I Touch Myself by Divinyls and Sex With Me by Rihanna.

It comes as Rihanna proved herself to

Rihanna

be a woman of all talents as she, in a joint effort with Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and his #StartSmall initiative, put forth $15 million from her nonprofit, The Clara Lionel Foundation. The effort comes amid the times of social unrest and the coronavirus pandemic.l

Koffee

also a rapper, DJ, songwriter, and guitarist. She began singing in church and taught herself to play guitar when she was 12. Koffee released her debut single “Burning” in 2017 and was signed by Columbia Records in 2019.

Now in quarantine in Jamaica due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she’s taking a well-deserved break but continues to work on new music, her next project, and she’s eager to return to the stage.

Koffee’s music has highlighted issues of importance to Jamaicans and poses solutions to those problems. Above all, she promotes positivity and peace.l Information and Photo Source: Koffee Facebook Page, Teen Vogue Magazine

F

rom Academy Award® Winner Spike Lee comes a New Joint: the story of four African-American Vets — Paul (Delroy Lindo), Otis (Clarke Peters), Eddie (Norm Lewis), and Melvin (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) — who return to Vietnam. Searching for the remains of their fallen Squad Leader (Chadwick Boseman) and the promise of buried treasure, our heroes, joined by Paul's concerned son (Jonathan Majors), battle forces of Man and Nature — while confronted by the lasting ravages of The Immorality of The Vietnam War. l

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LOVE & RELATIONSHIPS

25

Grief of Divorce: Steps to Cope and Overcome it

BY RINA PODOLSKY, ESTES THERAPY

T

he end of a relationship can feel like the end of life as you knew it.

It is common to experience a sense of chaos, a lack of control over your own path. There are different circumstances that will impact how you experience divorce; the length of the marriage, whether there are children from the relationship, the reason for the relationship ending, if you are the one who is making the decision to end it, whether it was unexpected or the divorce is coming after many years of the couple experiencing ongoing struggles in the relationship. However, everyone will experience a grieving process after the end of a long term relationship, even the person who is choosing to leave the marriage.

According to Elisabeth-Kubler-Ross there are 5 stages of grief: Denial, bargaining, anger, depression and acceptance. In my work with people who are dealing with the impact of a divorce I have noticed that like with any type of grief, each person has their own time frames and pace as they go through these stages however most people will experience all five stages at least at some point.

The sense of grief is more far reaching than what we anticipate. People describe

feeling like they are going through different grieving processes at once: they are grieving the relationship, the loss of a best friend, partner in parenting, the loss of the family unit, the loss of a future they had anticipated – what life was going to be like as they grew old together. There are other secondary losses such as loss of the family home. There is often a loss a friendship with some mutual friends, a loss of family –as in you no longer feel you are a part of your partner’s family. This list goes on. In truth, there is also a loss of your own identity; and before you get to a place where you can re-build yourself, you go through the impact of the losses and its accompanying grief.

Just like with other grieving processes there are certain things that you need to

understand and that you can do to help along your healing: Be Patient with your process There is not a set timeline and not a single way to go through the grieving process, as a matter of fact, the five stages we mentioned earlier, don’t happen in a linear fashion, you can go through the anger stage multiple times and each time it might have a different duration and intensity, there were days where clients cycled through all five stages in about half an hour and it repeated itself multiple times in that same day, other times they felt they were firmly planted in denial or depression for what felt like weeks.

I find it helpful to think of grieving as a layered process. The initial layer is one

where the emotions are more intense.

After the shock wears off, later layers feel like the emotions are sometimes very intense but dissipate faster, and sometimes they are longer lasting but very faint in their intensity. Just accept that for now, you will be experiencing waves of emotion that will hit and then leave.

They will hit like a wave sometimes in the least expected moments. This brings me to the next point…

Accept the emotions, don’t try to avoid them or push them away.

The emotions you are going through right now can be overwhelming. As matter of fact they are sometimes accompanied by physical sensations and even physical pain. It is a natural response for continued on page 26

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SPORTS Jamaican Taekwondo Athlete Accepted at Princeton

BY DELANO GEORGE BELL JAMAICANS.COM

J

amaican-born Brandon Sealy’s physical skills helped him emerge as the first Jamaican to win two consecutive gold medals at world taekwondo competitions. In 2020, his considerable academic skills are taking him to Princeton University.

Sealy will begin his freshman year at Princeton in the fall of 2020. It marks the culmination of years of balancing martial arts training and schoolwork while exceling at both. He credits his success to the support of his parents and his long-time taekwondo instructor, Master Tony Byron.

Sealy also had offers from Brown, Cornell, and the University of Chicago.

He chose Princeton as he felt it would best further his goal of becoming a cardiothoracic surgeon. Born in Jamaica, the world-level competitor is currently living in the U.S and even though he missed parts of his school terms to compete in

taekwondo competitions, his grades never faltered.

The athlete won his first gold medal representing Jamaica at the Pan American Open in 2018. His skill level enabled him to compete at the senior level at the age of 16 and he took home a bronze in 2017 at the Pan American Open Championship.

He earned a second gold at the Taekwondo Canada Open held in British Columbia, beating out contenders from Chile and the United States in a nail-biting finish, despite his opponents’ larger size. Following the win, he took a victory lap draped in the Jamaican flag.

Sealy’s current trajectory has him positioned as a possible qualifier for the Olympics at the Tokyo Games that have been postponed for July 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though he was disappointed, Sealy isn’t discouraged. The Ivy League-bound athlete continues to train at least six days each week and will be ready to represent Jamaica to the best of his ability.l

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26 Grief of Divorce: Steps to Cope and Overcome It continued from page 25

There is research that ranks divorce as one of the most stressful life events, second only to losing a long term spouse or life partner to death.

(Dohrenwend et al., 1978; Holmes and Rahe, 1967; Gahler, 2006). humans to try to avoid pain. However, one of the causes of anxiety during the process of grief comes from us trying to push away what we need to allow to be there, even when it is unpleasant and overwhelming.

Think of emotions as intense energy. If you try to push it away it will find a different channel to come out and sometimes with greater force. When you feel a wave of sadness, don’t push it away, don’t try to ignore it by distracting yourself. Instead, allow yourself to feel what sad feels like. Pay attention to how your body is feeling. Is it your chest? Your stomach? You can choose to give that emotion a name. Perhaps right now it feels like despair. Just let it be there. If tears come, let them flow. People resist the emotions and tears out of fear that if they allow them to start, they will never stop, and they will be consumed by them.

This is a normal fear. Allow yourself to feel it. Start allowing your emotions right there with the fear itself. Know that emotions DO pass. They have a beginning, a peak, and an end. It will dissipate, and as they pass through, they will start losing their fierceness.

Be aware of not judging your emotions Accept that it is there and let it be there.

This also means that you do not judge yourself for having these emotions. You are NOT your emotions. Get curious about them, accept them, and let them pass whenever they are done.

With anger, there is a significant difference between allowing the anger to be there and acting on the anger. If you are feeling angry you can hit a pillow, you can scream out, write about it, or find different safe ways for the anger to have a positive outlet. During a divorce it is easy to fall into turning the ex-partner into our receptacle for all our anger. That only serves to make things more complicated. This common trap only brings us very temporary relief, and long-term damage and hurt.

Don’t isolate yourself One of the common reactions during times of sadness and depression is to go into what feels like our protective shelf.

However, we need the exact opposite.

During these trying times we need community, we need human connection.

Reach out to the people who love you.

During the divorce you might have lost part of that community but get close to the people who are still here for you. It is also a great time to start building a new

community. Look for support groups for people who are grieving or who are going through the end of a long-term relationship. Look for groups of people who share one of your interests and meet with them on a regular basis.

For the sake of clarity, I am not recommending that you join a dating site –not just yet- or that you initiate a new relationship at this point. I actually suggest you hold off on starting a new relationship until your grief process is at a later stage.

Take care of yourself Many of my clients come in and tell me they forget self-care. They share how they are struggling to eat, sleep, and just get through the basic functions of the day. The problem is that if you don’t start forcing yourself to make strides, even if they are small steps at first, the harder it will be for you to get back to regular functioning. Make sure you are forcing yourself to have regular food intake – even if they are smaller somewhat healthy nibbles and not full meals. Try to get to bed at the same time every night and don’t fall into looking at your cell phone once in bed. Add exercise at least 4 times per week and add any other activities that have helped you get through difficult times in the past. These can be anything from journaling, creating and listening to a specific play list of happy music, deep breathing, using mindfulness throughout your day, having meaningful moments with friends and loved ones, meditation, yoga, etc.

I know that it is hard to believe at this time, but I know that many of my clients have found it helpful to remind themselves that this is one more experience in life and they trusted me when I tell them that I have seen plenty of people come out of it. So, tell yourself: this too shall pass. In the meantime, remember that there is help out there, reach out. There are many options from individual to group therapy that can help you get through this.l

Rina Podolsky is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist at Estes Therapy.

She works with individuals and couples facing loss, grief, and relationship struggles. She also works with grieving marriage loss. Rina has advance training in Emotionally Focused Therapy with couples, and offers therapy in both Spanish and English.

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27

TRAVEL & LIFESTYLE

Is It Safe to Stay in a Hotel, Cabin or Rental Home Yet? Before you book There’s no way to make a stay 100% safe, but there are certainly ways to make a stay safer. Remember each lodging scenario is different; for example, unlike hotels or rental homes, campgrounds typically have only shared bathrooms.

But wherever you may stay, start by checking out the establishment’s website, or call to ask what management is doing to reduce transmission risk.

BY ELIZABETH MARDER & PALOMA BEAMER, THE CONVERSATION

A

fter nearly three months of quarantine, millions of Americans are ready to travel – an overnight trip, a weekend getaway, a summer sojourn. With states reopening, that’s now possible, with a caveat. Before coronavirus, few people likely thought twice about staying in a hotel room, rental home or cabin in the woods. But now, we have to factor in the potential for coronavirus exposure. Even if you’re OK with the travel risks taking you to your destination – plane, train or automobile – what about the risks of the destination spot itself?

We are both exposure scientists. One of us feels comfortable booking a “no-contact” stay; the other still isn’t sure whether to take an overnight trip anytime soon. But we agree on two things: Traveling these days brings increased risk, yet ways exist to minimize that risk.

The issues Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance is clear that travel heightens your chance of getting or

spreading COVID-19. The travel industry is taking this seriously. Both the American Hotel & Lodging Association and Vacation Rental Management Association have released best practice guidelines and standards.

No matter what type of stay you’re planning, the primary concern is coming into close contact (less than six feet) with an infected person. That probability is higher when you travel. Keep in mind a person with COVID-19 can spread the virus before developing symptoms.

From the start, you must assume that everyone around you may be infected.

Including yourself.

Contact with contaminated surfaces is of less concern, but still something to consider. We are learning more about the potential for infections from them, but we do know coronavirus has been detected on guest room surfaces. Try to minimize your contact with surfaces – tabletops, chairs, bathroom sinks, duvet covers – that haven’t been cleaned or disinfected.

A further complication: The pattern and extent of COVID-19 can vary between communities, even in the same region.

Laws and public health guidelines vary as well, so make sure you check for updates before traveling.

Make sure to ask about: nAir quality. Cleaning with approved products should be frequent. Ask if hand washing or hand sanitizing stations are available in common areas. Engineering controls, like increasing air exchange or HEPA filters in the ventilation system, should be in place. If that’s not the case, consider bringing a portable air purifier with a HEPA filter. On the low-tech side: Can windows be opened for better air flow? A fan can help bring in more outdoor air and increase the mixing rate if used near an open window. nNo-contact options, like digital keys. nPolicies on masks and health screenings for guests and staff. continued on page 28

GET A FREE COVID-19 TEST Stop the spread. Get tested. Hit accept.

If you test positive for COVID-19, the Test & Trace Corps will call you to offer additional FREE resources and other support.

NYC.gov/COVIDtest

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There are practical tools that everyone can use to improve their mental health and increase resiliency regardless of the situations they are dealing with.

VISIT MHANATIONAL.ORG/MAY FOR TOOLS2THRIVE.

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29

BOOKS Safe to Travel?/ continued from page 27

Reading for Summer

‘New Book Inspires Readers to Look Beyond … Ocean of Pain to Horizon of Purpose

L

AKEHURST, N.J.: As a lover of poetry and the wonders of the natural world, debuting author Annie Mac integrates the two to create a devotional that will bring inspiration to a vast array of readers.

“Look Beyond … Ocean of Pain to Horizon of Purpose” (published by WestBow Press) is a book written in poetic format that aids in readjusting one’s focus to view his or her life within the context of purpose rather than that of the trials or pain. This 31-day devotional provides scripture and short anecdotes that encourages reflection and self-evaluation — two key components of changing the way people view themselves and situations.

“Many of us look inward for victory but if God does not dwell in us then the victory is temporary and fleeting,” the author reminds. “This book will appeal to readers because it connects our

nIs the rental business limiting capacity to promote distance? That is, are they booking only every other room? And are they preventing one-night stays, which would bring in more people and therefore introduce more risk? Avoid lodgings with same-day turnovers.

humanity in trials and victories. It is an inspirational work that motivates [readers] to transcend the difficult moments, or walk through the trials and if the legs fail to simply look beyond.”

The publication of “Look Beyond …

Ocean of Pain to Horizon of Purpose” aims to direct readers to the source of true wholeness, complete joy and unending hope found in a relationship with God. Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.l About the Author Annie Mac, a native of the island of St. Lucia, is a writer who uses her own experiences as a Christian, woman, mother, daughter, wife, friend, sister and educator to influence her writing. She believes that though life can inflict many forms of pain and suffering, if people look beyond, they will find purpose.

Are you looking to get into the health & wellness business?

Strategies for a safer stay Once you’ve determined the management is doing all it can, you need to do all you can to minimize exposure. Wear a face covering and practice social distancing in common areas. Minimize time in enclosed, less ventilated spaces, like elevators. Avoid contact with “high-touch” surfaces in shared spaces, like the elevator call button, door handles, and dining tables and chairs; they are less likely to have been disinfected between each individual’s touch. Wash your hands or use hand sanitizer after spending time in common areas. If gyms and pools are open, remember to social distance, wear your mask, and wipe down equipment before and after use.

Use plastic zip bags for personal items that others may handle. That includes your driver’s license, credit card and key.

Bring extra bags to put these things in after you disinfect them. Handle your own luggage, or arrange for no-contact delivery.

Disinfect surfaces following CDC guidance. If housekeeping is available, opt out. Request that decorative pillows and duvet covers be removed before your arrival.

Lowest-risk options for dining: bring your own food or do room service or nocontact delivery. Outdoor dining can be a reasonable option, but if you dine inside, make sure there’s reasonable ventilation and adequately spaced tables.

Bring enough masks or face coverings for each day, or bring detergent to wash between uses. You’ll also need hand sanitizer or hand wipes, a surface disinfectant, paper towels and disposable disinfectant wipes.

All this helps, but remember: Even doing everything on this substantial list still may not eliminate your chance of getting the virus. The bottom line is, we don’t recommend nonessential travel for everyone right now. You may need a vacation, but COVID-19 never takes one.l Elizabeth Marder is Chair of Communications and Outreach for the International Society of Exposure Science, a not-for-profit organization.

Paloma Beamer is President of the International Society of Exposure Science, a not-for-profit organization and receives funding from NIH, EPA, Agricola Alta Pozo Manuel and the Pima County Health Department.

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June is Men's Health Month awareness | prevention | education | family

01

Eat Healthy. Start by taking small steps like saying no to super-sizing and yes to a healthy breakfast. Eat many different types of foods to get all the vitamins and minerals you need. Add at least one fruit and vegetable to every meal.

100%

Women are 100% more likely than men to visit the doctor for annual exams and preventive services.

1 2 in

1 in 2 men are diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime compared to 1 in 3 women.

02

Get Moving. Play with your kids or grandkids. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Do yard work. Play a sport. Keep comfortable walking shoes handy at work and in the car.

Most importantly, choose activities that you enjoy to stay motivated.

1994

On May 31, 1994 President Clinton signed the bill establishing National Men’s Health Week.

“Recognizing and preventing men’s health problems is not just a man’s issue. Because of its impact on wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters, men’s health is truly a family issue.”

Congressman Bill Richardson (May 1994) In 2000 there were fewer than 80 men for every 100 women by the time they reach age 65 – 74.

80

03

Make Prevention a Priority.

Many health conditions can be prevented or detected early with regular checkups from your healthcare provider. Regular screenings may include blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose, prostate health and more.

Online Resources Men’s Health Month menshealthmonth.org Men’s Health Network menshealthnetwork.org Get It Checked getitchecked.com Talking About Men’s Health Blog talkingaboutmenshealth.com Women Against Prostate Cancer womenagainstprostatecancer.org

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31

HEALTH

Make a Decision to Quit Smoking

M

any ex-smokers say quitting was the hardest thing they ever did. Yet millions of people have been able to do it—and you can, too.

One of the first steps is to learn why you feel like you need to smoke. Once you understand why you smoke, you can prepare yourself to find the best ways to quit. Build a Quit Plan to help you identify your smoking triggers, learn about managing cravings, and explore different quit methods.

Withdrawal One of the main reasons smokers keep smoking is nicotine. Nicotine is a chemical in cigarettes that makes you addicted to smoking. Over time, your body gets used to having nicotine. However, the more you smoke‚ the more nicotine you need to feel normal. When your body doesn't get nicotine, you may feel uncomfortable and crave cigarettes. This is called withdrawal.

It takes time to get over withdrawal.

Most physical symptoms go away after a few days to a week, but cigarette cravings may stick around longer. There are ways you can be prepared for withdrawal.

Triggers When you smoke, certain activities, feelings, and people become linked to your smoking. These may "trigger" your urge to smoke. Try to anticipate these smoking triggers and develop ways to deal with them: nGo to places that don't allow smoking.

Shops, movie theaters, and many restaurants are now smokefree. nSpend more time with non-smokers.

You won't want to smoke as badly if you are around people who don't smoke. nKeep your hands busy. Play a game on your phone, eat a healthy snack, or squeeze a stress ball.

UNLOCK

nTake a deep breath. Remind yourself why you want to stop smoking. Think of people in your life who will be happier and healthier because you decided to quit.

Consider Using a Quit Smoking Program Quit smoking programs help smokers understand and cope with problems they have when trying to quit. The programs teach problem-solving and other coping skills. A quit smoking program can help you quit for good by: nHelping you understand why you smoke.

nTeaching you how to handle withdrawal and stress. nTeaching you tips to help resist the urge to smoke.

Get started using a quit program today: nTry a text message program. Sign up for SmokefreeTXT online or text QUIT to 47848. nDownload a smartphone app. Our free apps help you track cravings and understand your smoking patterns. nVisit Smokefree on social media. Grow your support network and stay connected. nTalk to an expert at a quitline. Call the National Cancer Institute Quitline at 1877-44U-QUIT (1-877-448-7848) Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. or find your state’s quitline by calling 1-800-QUIT-NOW (1-800784-8669). nChat with a quit smoking counselor.

LiveHelp is Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Eastern time.

LiveHelp is also available in Spanish.l Content provided and maintained by Smokefree.gov and the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health. Read Annette’s story at www.cawnyc.com

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ELECTIONS 2020

33

Who Could Be Joe Biden’s Running Mate?

BY ANTHONY ZURCHER NORTH AMERICA REPORTER, BBC NEWS

D

uring the final Democratic primary debate in March, Joe Biden pledged that if he were to win the party's presidential nomination, he would choose a woman as his running mate.

A lot has happened since then, not the least of which is Biden securing the required Democratic Convention delegates to become his party's presumptive nominee. Even before that point, however, speculation swirled around a dozen or so contenders to be Biden's running mate.

Buzz around the various candidates has risen and fallen as the nation has been buffeted by a viral pandemic, economic disruption and mass protests and racial tension.

If the former vice-president follows through with his pledge, it would mark only the third time a major party has selected a woman for the number two spot — four years after Hillary Clinton became the first woman to be a presidential nominee.

The move would suggest the Democrats are looking to secure the advantage they have among female voters according to polls, and perhaps insulate Biden from allegations that he engaged in unwanted physical contact with women.

Biden has said he will announce his choice in early August. In the meantime, here are the current top contenders - and how they stack up.

Kamala Harris Kamala Harris is widely considered the front-runner. She has a resume that includes time in the US Senate and as California's attorney general, as well as San Francisco's district attorney. She has a diverse background, with a mother from India and father from Jamaica.

She's at least been somewhat vetted by the national media, given that she ran for president last year and was considered, for a time, as a top-tier candidate.

She did have a dust-up with Biden in the first primary debate last June, where she suggested his past views against desegregating schools through mandatory busing was hurtful, but that was a lifetime ago in modern US politics.

Harris brings access to California money (she raised $2m for Biden in a recent virtual event), she's quick on her feet, and she would satisfy those who are calling for Biden to add a black woman to the ticket. She has won praise from a wide range of Democrats for being an outspoken advocate for police reform during the recent mass demonstrations.

Biden-Harris felt like the obvious ticket a year ago — and it still does.

Gretchen Whitmer Just a few months ago, there wasn't a lot of buzz around Gretchen Whitmer, a for-

Kamala Harris

Elizabeth Warren

Stacey Abrams

Keisha Lance Bottoms

Tammy Duckworth

Kyrsten Sinema

Democratic Presidential Nominee, Joe Biden featured with possible women candidates for vice-president. In March, Biden pledged that if he were to win the party's presidential nomination, he would choose a woman as his running mate. mer state legislator in her second year as Michigan's governor. Then the coronavirus pandemic hit, and she became the face of her state's response, which included occasional criticism of what she viewed as the federal government's lackluster handling of the outbreak. That made her a target for Donald Trump's vitriol — and elevated her national profile.

Her decision to enact sweeping social distancing and business-shutdown measures as Michigan became one of the top US hotspots of the coronavirus outbreak also led to several angry conservativeorganized protests in her state, boosting her standing among Democrats.

In 2016 Hillary Clinton narrowly lost Michigan to Donald Trump — one of the upsets that helped decide the election. If Biden hopes to avoid a similar outcome, he might decide to put a Michigan native on the ticket.

Tammy Duckworth Tammy Duckworth, the junior senator from Illinois, has a CV that jumps off the page. She lost both her legs when the Army helicopter she was piloting was shot down by insurgents in Iraq. She stayed in the military and retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel, before becoming an assistant secretary in President Barack Obama's Department of Veteran Affairs.

Duckworth served in the House of Representatives and then won her Senate seat in 2016. She is the first ThaiAmerican woman elected to Congress, as well as the first double-amputee woman.

In 2018 she became the first woman to give birth while serving in the Senate.

Illinois is a safe Democratic state, but its proximity to key Midwest battlegrounds — as well as her middle-of-the-

road politics — could make her an attractive pick for Biden.

Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warren's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination is a story of what might have been. Her "I have a plan for that" mantra seemed to strike a chord with Democrats, and she led the polls for months in mid-2019, drawing enthusiastic crowds and cruising through the early debates with seeming ease. Then her support faded, as many progressives drifted back to Bernie Sanders, while moderates opted for younger candidates like Pete Buttigieg.

Many progressives expected her to endorse Sanders when she dropped out of the race in early March, so her decision to hold back may have earned her some appreciation from the Biden team.

Now they have the opportunity to return the favor by offering Warren the running-mate spot. While there was some friction between the Sanders and Warren camps, Warren would still be a significant signal that Biden wants to reach out to his party's left wing — and govern as more of a progressive than he let on during the campaign.

With the nation facing a serious economic crisis, Warren could lend some liberal policy heft to the Democratic ticket.

Tammy Baldwin Four years ago, Hillary Clinton was lambasted for never campaigning in Wisconsin during the general election, then losing the pivotal state to Donald Trump as her Midwest Democratic "blue wall" crumbled. Democrats have pledged not to repeat that mistake, going so far as to pick Milwaukee as the site of their

(now delayed) national convention.

If Biden wants to lean into the whole "don't ignore Wisconsin" theme, he couldn't do much better than to pick an actual Wisconsinite as his running mate.

Tammy Baldwin is in her second term as one of the state's senators, having served in the House of Representatives for 14 years prior to that.

Her selection would also be historic, as she would become the first openly gay person to serve on a major party's ticket just as she became the first openly gay member of the Senate. In a season where Pete Buttigieg, who is also gay, proved to be a potent electoral force in Democratic politics, there may be particular appeal for such a move.

Kyrsten Sinema There's a line of thought among Democrats that this election's Wisconsin is not, in fact, Wisconsin, it's Arizona.

The desert state, they say, will be the "tipping point" that delivers the election to Biden, freeing him from worrying about fickle Wisconsin voters. Polls suggest Biden's brand of political moderation, combined with Donald Trump's divisive rhetoric on immigration, have the state leaning toward the Democrats.

One strategy for securing that lead would be to put an Arizonan on the ticket.

In 2018, Kyrsten Sinema became the first Democrat to win an Arizona Senate seat in 30 years. She's young, telegenic and politically centrist — perhaps too centrist, according to the party's leftwing activists.

She is a bit quirky — turning heads recently when she wore a purple wig on the floor of the Senate. It could present a continued on page 34

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ELECTIONS 2020

34

Joe Biden’s Running Mate?/ continued from page 33 beneficial contrast with the often-staid Biden.

If Biden picks her as his running mate, she would make history as the first openly bisexual person on a presidential ticket.

Val Demings Last year, Val Demings was a littleknown Democratic back-bencher in Congress. Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave her a high-visibility role as one of the impeachment managers — the congressional equivalent of prosecutors —during Donald Trump's January Senate trial.

Even before the mass protests over the death of George Floyd made racial justice a top issue among voters, the black former chief-of-police from Orlando, Florida, was on the Biden team's radar as a possible vice-presidential pick. Now she's getting more than just a passing mention.

Cutting against her is her relative lack of political experience and low name recognition. But if Biden feels she can hold up under the intense scrutiny of being on a national ticket, she could be the woman for this particular national moment - and a signal that Biden is serious about making tackling racism and police reform his top issues.

Michelle Lujan Grisham During the primaries, Hispanics were consistently one of Biden's weakest voting blocs. In states like California, Texas and Nevada, liberal champion Bernie Sanders outpaced Biden among a demographic that is well represented in numerous states that will be battlegrounds in the November general election.

If Biden decides he needs to shore up his support among one of the fastestgrowing segments of the US electorate, New Mexico's first-term governor Michelle Lujan Grisham is the most obvious choice for a running mate now that Senator Catherine Cortez Masto has said she's not interested.

Unlike Masto's Nevada, New Mexico is a reliable Democratic state in presidential races, with few electoral votes. Lujan was comfortably elected governor after Republicans held the office for two terms, however. The 60-year-old Lujan previously served in Congress and as her state's health secretary — a helpful CV entry in the pandemic age.

Stacey Abrams Stacey Abrams doesn't have much of a traditional political CV for a vice-presidential pick. She spent 10 years as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives. She ran and narrowly lost the 2018 race to be the state's governor — a defeat she attributed, in part, to what she alleges was voter suppression by her Republican opponent.

What Abrams has, however, is a voice that has resonated powerfully with much of the Democratic base. Her activism on voting rights has helped boost it as an issue for the party. She gave the Democratic response to Donald Trump's

Tammy Baldwin

Gretchen Whitman

Michelle Lujan Grishman

Val Demings

Susan Rice 2019 State of the Union Address, making her the first black woman chosen for the task.

Unlike her rivals, Abrams has actively campaigned to be Biden's vice-presidential pick — a move that has elicited cringes from some, while others see it as refreshing honesty. Abrams is a rising star within the party, the face of a demographic segment of the Democratic Party that has traditionally been underrepresented in leadership positions. Even if she doesn't become the pick, the early buzz around her has helped advance the prospects of all the black women under Biden's consideration.

Keisha Lance Bottoms The nationwide protests over George Floyd's death while in the custody of Minneapolis police gave a handful of big-city mayors a national platform, as they dealt with difficult issues of racism, law enforcement and civil unrest in their jurisdictions. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, in particular, proved particularly adept at balancing official responsibilities while expressing her personal experiences as a black woman raising four children in these turbulent times.

A heartfelt Vice interview, in which she explained the challenge of having to tell her 12-year-old son not to play with toy guns lest he provoke an incident with police, was praised as both raw and powerful.

A first-term mayor would be an unconventional pick for Biden, but Bottoms is

Michelle Obama from Georgia — a traditionally conservative state that is trending toward being an electoral battleground. She's also won praise from Democrats for waging political battles with the state's Republican governor over when and how to ease business closures and shelter-in-place orders during the coronavirus pandemic.

Susan Rice Susan Rice is a bit of a surprise entry on this list, given that she has no experience holding elected office or campaigning in general, and is a relative unknown for most Americans. The diplomat is wellknown to Biden, however, as she served in the Obama White House with him as national security adviser after a stint as the US representative to the United Nations.

If Rice is the pick, she could play a key role in a Biden foreign policy team, suggesting that international relations will be a focus for his administration.

Rice was a lightning rod for criticism during her Obama years, however.

Republicans accused her of deceiving the American public about the reasons behind the 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi that resulted in the death of the US ambassador to Libya and three other Americans.

Reports that the Biden team has already vetted Rice for the vice-presidential slot suggests the campaign is casting a wide net in looking for a black woman running mate.

Michelle Obama The traditional first rule for selecting a vice-president is to do no harm. Given that the choice doesn't offer much of a boost to the ticket, the theory goes, it is better to pick someone safe, who minimizes the risk of embarrassment and won't overshadow the presidential nominee.

Most of the other candidates on this list fall somewhere on the "very safe" to "mostly safe" spectrum. Former US First Lady Michelle Obama is in a category by herself.

She's beloved by a large swathe of the American public and is a near universally recognizable figure. Yes, she might steal the stage from Biden, but what better way for Biden to cast himself as the continuation of Obama's presidential legacy than to put his wife on the ticket?

A Biden-Obama ticket would electrify the Democratic base — particularly black voters who turned out in record numbers for Obama-Biden in 2008 and 2012.

The only kink in such a bold plan is that Michelle Obama has shown less than zero interest in entering politics. In her autobiography she frequently complained about the toll her husband's political career took on her life and marriage — and she seems very happy to have those travails in the rear-view mirror. l Who is your pick? Share your choice at www.cawnyc.com

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