The Daily Moth 3-10-2020
Hello, welcome to The Daily Moth! It is Tuesday, March 10. Ready for news?
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Coronavirus updates: Tuesday, March 10
There are now at least 849 cases of coronavirus in the United States.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced he would deploy the National Guard to help with a containment zone in New Rochelle, a small city north of New York City, to try and control an outbreak of coronavirus.
The zone will be within a one-mile radius of a synagogue that is believed to be the center of a cluster of coronavirus cases. Schools, temples, churches, and public spaces will be closed for two weeks.
The National Guard’s role will be to set up a satellite testing facility and help with cleaning schools and deliver food to quarantined people.
The outbreak in the area is believed to have come from a lawyer who lives New Rochelle, Lawrence Garbuz. He tested positive for the virus and is now in a hospital in critical condition. Several members of his family and a neighbor became infected and are quarantined at home. The lawyer attended a synagogue, and now the congregation is in a self-quarantine.
The lawyer’s wife, Adina, said other than Lawrence, nobody else in the family is sick other than a slight cough. She encouraged people to stay calm and be smart with good hygiene.
There are more than 170 cases of coronavirus in New York state alone.
Q13 Fox in Seattle reported that a total of 19 people have died from the coronavirus at the Life Care Center in Kirkland, which is a nursing home. 31 residents have tested positive for the virus and are still at the nursing home. There are results pending for 20 other tests. Those who tested positive will remain at the nursing home and receive care, while those who tested negative will be moved to a different area within the nursing home. There were 120 residents before the outbreak but now there are less than 60.
The New York Times reported that leaders within the nursing home industry are recommending that there be no visits for all the nursing homes in the United States.
Last night President Trump held a press conference at the White House to announce that he would meet with Senate Republicans today to discuss a payroll tax cut and bring up different proposals to help American workers who are affected by the coronavirus outbreak.
Vice President Mike Pence said the risk to the American public of getting coronavirus is still low.
The Washington Post said today’s meeting ended without any “concrete plan for crafting an economic package.” Trump said after the meeting that it was great and that there is unity and that they are working on a lot of different things. So there’s nothing proposed yet, but we may expect to see something from Capitol Hill in the near future.
Today U.S. stocks had a positive day. The DOW Jones closed up over 1,100 points, which helps to erase some of the major losses from yesterday’s 2,000 point drop.
On Friday, the Austin city government announced that SXSW, a large annual conference and festival that covers technology, music, and film, would be cancelled because of concerns over coronavirus. The festival was scheduled to start this Friday and continue until March 22. Last year there were hundreds of thousands of people who attended various parts of the festival.
The CEO of SXSW, Ronald Swenson, said they had to lay off 1/3 of their staff of about 175 employees and are facing losses of tens of millions of dollars. He said the festival does have “regular” insurance coverage but doesn’t have coverage that is specific to disease outbreaks.
The city of Austin and its hospitality industry was expecting hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue but will miss out on those dollars.
Another major music festival, the Ultra Music Festival in Miami, announced they will be postponing their festival that was scheduled for March 20-22 will be postponed to next year because of concerns with coronavirus.
Uproxx reported that neither SXSW nor Ultra are offering refunds but only exchanges for future festival dates.
The Coachella music festival in Southern California may postpone to the fall because of coronavirus. The festival is scheduled for the weekends of April 10-12 and April 17-19.
Seth Gerlis with Deafopia announced that all of their upcoming Deafopia events are cancelled because of coronavirus concerns. Gerlis said he is very sorry to have to cancel the events and would continue to host events when the coronavirus situation has gone away.’’
Both Democratic candidates Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders announced they would cancel rallies in Cleveland, Ohio tonight because of concerns with coronavirus. Both campaigns said they were advised by Ohio state officials against holding large, indoor events. Ohio will have their primaries next week.
ABC News reported that airlines in the U.S. are slashing multiple flights and freezing new hires because there is a drop in bookings and a rise in cancellations.
Southwest said the coronavirus outbreak might hurt the airline industry more than the 9/11 terror attacks. Delta said they expect 1/3 of their flight seats to be empty this month.
Delta and United will cut international flights by 20% to 25% and reduce U.S. flights by 10% to 15%.
American Airlines said they would cut international flying by 10% this summer and reduce U.S. flying by 7.5% in April and delay training of new pilots and flight attendants.
Harvard University announced that their students would have to move out of their campus houses and dorms by Sunday, March 15, which is the start of their spring break. There will no longer be classes on campus — all of the classes will be moved online for the rest of the semester.
Harvard said the goal is to minimize the need to gather in large groups and avoid prolonged time in close proximity with each other.
Multiple colleges and universities across the United States have opted to move classes online.
The entire country of Italy is on lockdown because of a severe epidemic of coronavirus with over 10,000 confirmed cases and 631 deaths. The Italian government said everyone is to stay at home and avoid non-essential travel until April 3.
All bars and restaurants will have to close at 6:00 p.m. News videos and images show empty streets in tourist areas that are usually packed with people. Reuters reported that when people on holiday went to tourist spots in Rome, they were told by police to return to their hotels. It is predicted that Italy’s economy would go down 10% to 15% with their tourism and transport sectors down 90%.
Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Wuhan — this is the sign for the city — to meet with patients and healthcare workers at a hospital. There are news reports that say the epidemic in China is showing signs of subsiding and that almost 3/4 of 80,000 infected people have recovered. Wuhan is where the COVID-19 virus first emerged from a seafood market. It is suspected that someone ate an infected bat in December, became infected, and passed it to others to create the first cluster of infected people that would spread on a global scale.
https://q13fox.com/2020/03/09/coronavirus-new-test-results-find-31-positive-cases-at-life-care-center-in-kirkland/
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/coronavirus-nursing-homes-washington-seattle.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage
https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/03/10/coronavirus-new-rochelle-containment-area/
https://www.axios.com/trump-economic-proposals-coronavirus-5ac966e9-69fd-4d95-864a-19ab288e9d1a.html
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/coachella-music-festival-postpone-coronavirus-964858/
https://ultramusicfestival.com/official-notice
Deafopia: https://www.facebook.com/1064590202/videos/10218790561049495/?id=1064590202
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/harvard-university-coronavirus-students-dont-return-after-spring-break-colleges-action/
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy/italy-in-coronavirus-lockdown-as-deaths-soar-and-economy-fades-idUSKBN20X11D
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/03/10/coronavirus-italy-china-global/5008438002/
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bernie-sanders-campaign-cancels-planned-cleveland-rally-hours-beforehand-citing-coronavirus-concerns
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Yesterday — March 9th — was the 11th anniversary of Convo’s founding. Co-founder Wayne Betts Jr. announced on Convo’s Facebook page that they are celebrating their 11th year.
Convo has been a major sponsor for “The Daily Moth” since 2017 and I am always grateful for their belief in the vision of delivering news in ASL. I started Moth in 2015 and Convo was the first company that I approached for a sponsorship relationship. A major reason why was because they are a Deaf-owned company and I just felt inspired by them.
I honestly do not know where Moth would be today if not for their enduring support. Convo has supported many other Deaf-owned businesses and I’ve enjoyed working with Convo to spotlight many of them over the years.
Convo is now encouraging people who use the service or have benefited from Convo to create a #WeAreConvo social media post to show how you use Convo in your everyday life. Convo said they would track the hashtags and do a random drawing to give the winner a surprise.
Congratulations to Convo on your 11th year milestone!
https://bit.ly/2W17Jm7
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#DeafBing
The coronavirus is almost everywhere in the world. One of the biggest pieces of advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is to wash your hands often and to not touch your face, because the virus can get in your body through the mouth, nose, or eyes.
I saw on social media some posts by deaf people who said it would be almost impossible for deaf people to not do this because of sign language. Examples are….
Parents.
Bird.
Restaurant.
Bad.
Arizona.
Ugly.
Secret.
Cold.
Wolf.
Fox.
Food.
There are so many. I’m out of hand sanitizer.
And the worst one of all is…
Deaf.
So… Is it a #DeafBing that we’re at higher risk for the coronavirus? I hope not. We’ll have to try and sign without touching the face.
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That is all for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light!