Tuesday, April 28 coronavirus updates
Hello, welcome to The Daily Moth! It is Tuesday, April 28. I had several meetings today that took up my regular news schedule, so I am doing today’s in a simple video. Here are coronavirus news briefs.
A dog in Chapel Hill, North Carolina tested positive for COVID-19. The family of the dog (a mother, father, and son) all tested positive so they tested their pug and sure enough, it was positive. It’s the first infected dog in the U.S. There have been cases of cats testing positive a few weeks ago.
The Centers for Disease Control announced six new symptoms of COVID-19 in addition to fever, cough, and difficulty breathing. The six are: chills, repeated shaking with chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat, and new loss of taste or smell.
There are now over 1 million cases of COVID-19 in the United States.
President Trump will sign an executive order to order meat processing plants to remain open so the nation’s meat supply would not be impacted. Trump also wants the plants to be protected from liability if a worker becomes infected. There have been several meat processing plants shut down across the nation with CEOs issuing dire warnings of disruptions to the food supply chain. Union groups representing workers said there needs to be more safeguards for workers. About 20 workers have died from COVID-19 and about 6,500 became sickened. I did an interview with two deaf workers from a Smithfield meatpacking plant a couple of weeks ago. One contracted COVID-19 but was recovering well.
Many Americans have received stimulus checks, but many are still waiting. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, it could take from a few weeks to a few months to receive them. The Social Security Administration alerted people today that if you receive SSI and have children under 17 to go to the IRS website “now” and enter information to receive $500 per eligible child. There are news reports that say some stimulus checks have arrived into dead people’s bank accounts. The checks are based on tax returns from 2018 and 2019, and the IRS does not have “real-time” data for those who are deceased. Another major issue with the stimulus payments is that Americans who are married to undocumented immigrants who file joint tax returns using a taxpayer identification number are not eligible to get stimulus money. This affects about a million Americans.
There was sad news from New York City — a ER doctor, Dr. Lorna M. Breen, committed suicide. She worked at a Manhattan hospital and treated many patients infected with COVID-19. She became infected herself and stopped working for a week and a half to recover. She then went back to work, but stopped working again and was with her family in Virginia and then took her own life. The doctor’s father said she had extreme emotional toll from what she saw happening to sick and dying patients.
JetBlue announced they would require all passengers to wear masks starting on May 4. The mask must cover their nose and mouth from check-in, boarding, the flight, and deplaning. JetBlue said wearing a mask protects yourself and those around you.
Vice President Mike Pence visited a Mayo Clinic building in Minnesota today and was criticized for not wearing a mask even though the facility requires all individuals to wear a mask. Pence said he didn’t want to wear a one because he wanted to look at health care workers in the eye and say thank you.
In funny news, a reporter for ABC was caught wearing only boxers or very short shorts when giving a report from home. I’ll admit I sometimes wear shorts when giving Moth reports, but I am proud to say I’ve never been caught on camera! I’m wearing jeans right now and I’ll prove it to you.
That is all the news updates for today. I’ll be back to delivering normal top stories and Deaf News tomorrow. Have a good evening and stay with the light!
https://www.wral.com/coronavirus/nc-coronavirus-live-updates-april-27/19073293/
https://apnews.com/67cb4bad7ffe500beabdf8e7e7efea5d
https://twitter.com/SocialSecurity/status/1252654652501483521
https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2020/04/23/dead-people-are-receiving-1200-stimulus-checks-from-the-irs-reports-say/
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/nyregion/new-york-city-doctor-suicide-coronavirus.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/us/coronavirus-updates.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage
https://fox4kc.com/news/reporter-went-on-air-wearing-a-suit-coat-and-no-pants-not-realizing-everyone-could-see-his-legs/
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/28/847570879/pence-responds-to-critics-after-not-wearing-face-mask-at-mayo-clinic