The Daily Moth 3-20-2020

Hello, welcome to The Daily Moth. It is Friday, March 20. Here are updates on the coronavirus pandemic.

Last night California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a statewide “stay at home” order to try and control the spread of COVID-19. This means almost 40 million Californians are expected to stay at home at all times unless they need to go out to get groceries, pick up medicine, fill up the gas, or to perform essential work. Newsom said he was doing this because there were studies that said if California did nothing different in the next eight weeks, a worst-case scenario could mean more than 25 million state residents infected. This could overwhelm healthcare services. Newsom said he will not use law enforcement to enforce the order. He has called on the National Guard to help with food bank distributions.

Today New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued a similar order, telling all New Yorkers to stay indoors as much as possible and ordered all regular businesses that don’t provide essential services to tell all their workers to work from home or to close their doors. People were told to stay at least six feet away from others. Most gatherings of any size are banned. Starting on Sunday night, any businesses that violate the order will be fined and forced to close. Individuals will not be fined.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker issued a similar “shelter in place” order for state residents and it will go in effect on Saturday. Now that we have California, New York, and Illinois issuing such orders, we can expect more states to follow suit.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered dine-in services to be suspended at restaurants and bars, for schools to be closed, and a ban on gatherings of more than 10 people.

The Trump administration announced that Tax Day, the deadline to file income tax returns, would be moved forward from April 15 to July 15. For those who are expecting a refund, they are encouraged to file taxes sooner than later.

The Labor Department said there was a 30 percent increase in unemployment claims last week. California said they typically receive 2,000 UI claims a day, but on Tuesday they received 80,000. Many people are losing their wages and financial security because of the pandemic.

Mississippi and Indiana announced they would postpone their state primaries from this spring to the summer because of coronavirus.

The New York Times reported that Spain became the second European country to report over 1,000 deaths from COVID-19 and said that the healthcare system would soon become overwhelmed. Doctors are making decisions on which patients will get help and which will be left to die. The decisions are based on whether a person is expected to live for another two years or not. There are also shortages of protective gear for health care workers and first responders.

The New York Times explained that there is a “global arms race” for a coronavirus vaccine. Scientists in China, Europe, and the United States are working hard to be the “first” to come up with something that can stop the virus. Citizens of the country that has the vaccine would be the “first in line.” China has 1,000 scientists at work in an organization affiliated with their military. President Trump wants the vaccine to be developed in America and reports say he approached a German company to possibly try and bring them to U.S., but a deal didn’t happen.

The United States and Mexico are working on an agreement to restrict nonessential travel across their border. It would be similar to the agreement in place for the U.S./Canadian border.

As of 4:30 this afternoon, there are almost 17,000 cases of COVID-19 in the United States. Canada has almost 1,000 while Mexico has over 160.

Italy is approaching 50,000 infections while Spain, Germany, and Iran have about 20,000 cases each.

https://abc30.com/6029100/

https://www.nytimes.com/.../world/coronavirus-news.html...

https://wgntv.com/.../gov-pritzker-to-issue-shelter-in.../

https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-latest-developments...

https://www.npr.org/.../u-s-mexico-planning-to-restrict...

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

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A deaf man from Buffalo, New York, David Wantuck, has been frustrated with New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo because there are no ASL interpreters during important daily briefings on the coronavirus pandemic.

He took it upon himself to do research on which states provide interpreters or not for their press briefings on COVID-19. Here is what he found.

DAVID WANTUCK:

I have seen a lot of issues this week. It has been hard on some states that does not have access to interpreters for their governor’s press conferences. Coronavirus is a very big deal. It is a national crisis right now, and a worldwide one too. They’re announcing things and there isn’t full accessibility to sign language. I decided to reach out to a few friends and family to check on what went on in their states, on whether interpreters were provided on the screen. I got some submissions with images that show that certain states did this. This is good. But the New York state never did this. I decided to do more research. How did I do it? I looked up to each state’s government and checked their news releases. I took many screenshots and video clippings of news. Many of them had interpreters present right there. It was a mix of Certified Deaf Interpreters and hearing interpreters that were provided. But New York had nothing. So, it was a total of 47 out of 50 states that provided interpreters. Three states didn’t. New York, Vermont, and Montana.

THE DAILY MOTH:

The Daily Moth did a double-check, and sure enough, 47 states and the District of Columbia provided interpreters for at least one of their COVID-19 related briefings. New York, Montana, and Vermont did not, as far as we know.

WANTUCK:

I know that many people said there are captions provided. But, keep in mind that not all deaf people have access to English language as their primary language. Many of their first language is ASL. So it is great to have an ASL interpreter there and ready to go so there is full understanding of what is going on, especially with the daily changes in news. Also, it is important to give out a positive message. Don’t post insults or send terrible messages. Keep on advocating. Tell them why you need it. Your feelings will be heard. It’s already being heard now. So keep it up.

THE DAILY MOTH:

Thank you, David, for your advocacy. He was recognized by the National Association of the Deaf yesterday in a release yesterday. NAD CEO Howard Rosenblum said he agrees with those who reached out to the NAD imploring that the White House provide an ASL interpreter for press conferences and make sure he or she is visible on screen. Rosenblum said the NAD has sent a letter to the White House. They have also sent a letter to the National Association of Broadcasters to “make sure that TV broadcasters include the ASL interpreter on the screen and fully and accurately captions for all coronavirus press conferences.”

https://www.nad.org/.../access-during-coronavirus-public.../

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That is all for today. Because we are dealing with a pandemic, I will continue to post news updates over the weekend. I will not be sending eBlasts, but you should follow “The Daily Moth” on Facebook or subscribe to “The Daily Moth” on YouTube for the latest. Have a good weekend and stay with the light!