Tag Archives: Coronavirus

On the road through a pandemic, some truckers fear for their lives

By Andrew Hay

LAS VEGAS, N.M. (Reuters) – At a truck stop here, a driver sprays his shoes with disinfectant to protect himself and his partner from coronavirus, another laughs and sees no threat, while a veteran trucker says he’s heading for the hills, in fear for his life.

They are some of the millions of U.S., Canadian and Mexican truckers tasked with hauling food and goods to keep grocery stores stocked and essential services running as over half the U.S. population is told to stay home to stop the virus’ spread.

In a windy truck park by the side of an eerily quiet Interstate 25, drivers hold up masks and gloves given them by loved ones for protection. Others say they don’t need them for a “virus panic” created by the media.

Like nearly all these truckers, Marvin Gakin, 71, is determined to keep working. He hauls beef and pork and recognizes his essential role if Americans are to eat.

“I’ve had pneumonia four times, so it would kill me, and I’m very cautious, but I want to keep doing this job,” said Gakin, of Chamberlain, South Dakota, cleaning his hands and credit card with disinfectant wipes after buying a sandwich.

Keeping rest stops like this one open is essential for truckers, whose biggest challenge these days is finding food and bathrooms as retail businesses shut down, said Sean McNally, a spokesman for the American Trucking Associations.

HOAX?

Here on the edge of the Southern Plains, where drivers can be heard speaking in English, Spanish and French, two truckers from Canada try to keep their cab safe as they head to Arizona to pick up Mexican lettuce.

“I’m not scared, we’re doing what we can so this doesn’t overwhelm us,” said a Canadian driver, spraying disinfectant on his passenger door handle as his co-driver sat nearby, holding up company-supplied masks.

Truckers from nearby Texas are not so worried.

“I think it’s bullshit. The news media made it worse than it is, and I’m not the only one who thinks that,” said Floyd Smith, out of Dallas, Texas, joking with a fellow driver as they cleaned windshields on their Peterbilt trucks. “I don’t think it’s dangerous.”

Still, the drivers from Texas said they were staying away from people and washing their hands more often. None of the U.S.-based drivers had been provided masks, gloves or disinfectant by their employers.

“A lot of these truck drivers are saying ‘I’m not going to get it,'” said Brad Turner, 63, of Golden, Colorado, taking a break in his cab with his dog. “They still have that idea it’s a hoax.”

Turner, a life-long smoker who owns his rig, said his pediatrician son told him to get away from people as he would die if he caught the virus. So he left his trailer behind and was heading south to hole up in New Mexico.

“I’m not risking my life over it,” said Turner, who planned to stay with a childhood friend near Albuquerque. “I was hauling a lot of imported wine to Denver, and people can live without wine.”

(Reporting by Andrew Hay in Las Vegas, New Mexico; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Dan Grebler)

U.S. senators look to quickly pass massive coronavirus bill, head home

By David Morgan and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. senators will vote on Wednesday on a $2 trillion bipartisan package of legislation to alleviate the devastating economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, hoping it will become law quickly.

Top aides to Republican President Donald Trump and senior Senate Republicans and Democrats said they had agreed on the unprecedented stimulus bill in the early hours of Wednesday, after five days of marathon talks.

“We’re going to pass this legislation later today,” Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said after the deal was announced early on Wednesday.

The Senate was due to convene at 12 p.m. EDT (1600 GMT), though timing of the vote was unclear. Trump supports the measure, the White House said.

“We’re really looking forward to this vote today so that he can sign it into law,” White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said on Fox News.

The massive bill is expected to include a $500 billion fund to help hard-hit industries and a comparable amount for direct payments of up to $3,000 apiece to millions of U.S. families.

It will also include $350 billion for small-business loans, $250 billion for expanded unemployment aid and at least $100 billion for hospitals and related health systems.

It would be the largest rescue package ever approved by Congress and the third such effort to be passed this month.

“We have greatly strengthened the bill and we’re proud of what we’ve done,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said on CNN. He said he thought the chamber would pass the legislation on Wednesday.

The package aims to flood the U.S. economy with cash in a bid to stem the impact of a pandemic that has killed more than 730 people in the United States and infected more than 53,470, shuttered thousands of businesses, thrown millions out of work and led states to order 100 million people – nearly a third of the population – to stay at home.

Wall Street on Wednesday extended its massive bounce from the previous session after Congress reached the deal on the package. All three major U.S. stock indexes were up in early trading.

The bill is expected to pass the Republican-led Senate easily, more so because Republican Senator Rand Paul, the only senator to vote against an earlier round of emergency virus funding, may be unable to vote after testing positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

It also must pass the Democratic-led House of Representatives. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who proposed a more far-reaching rescue package, did not say whether she would support the Senate version.

“House Democrats will now review the final provisions and legislative text of the agreement to determine a course of action,” she said in a statement.

House members left Washington 10 days ago, but the lower chamber could quickly pass the bill without requiring them to return if all members agree to do so. If just one of the chamber’s 430 members objects, that could lead to delays.

It also must be signed by Trump, who said on Tuesday he wanted Americans to end “social distancing” restrictions intended to slow the spread of the virus and return to work by Easter, April 12.

That concerned health officials, who fear ending the lockdown too soon could bring more virus-related deaths.

 

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and Patricia Zengerle; Writing by Andy Sullivan and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Jonathan Oatis)

Factbox: What’s in the nearly $2 trillion U.S. Senate coronavirus stimulus?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Tuesday was negotiating a nearly $2 trillion emergency bill that aims to counter some of the economic toll of the coronavirus pandemic.

The talks were still in flux after Democrats pushed back against initial Republican drafts of the bill, and officials in both parties said final numbers would be known only after disputes are resolved.

Below are some details under negotiation, which would need to be passed by the Republican-controlled Senate and the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives before going to President Donald Trump for his signature:

– About $500 billion in direct payments to people, in two waves of checks of up to $1,200 for an individual earning up to $75,000 a year. Additional payments for families with children could push the total to $3,000 for a family of four, according to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who has played a key role in the negotiations.

– Up to $500 billion in “liquidity assistance” for distressed industries. The amount allocates up to $61 billion for passenger and cargo airlines and contractors, including $32 billion in grants and $29 billion in loans, people briefed on the matter said.

A senior administration official said there was agreement the $500 billion fund should have an inspector general as well as an oversight board, with lawmakers selecting members of the board.

Also, the Treasury secretary would have to provide testimony to the board on transactions, and there would be restrictions on things like stock buybacks and chief executive pay at companies that received help.

– Some $350 billion in loans to small businesses, according to Republican Senator Marco Rubio, chairman of the Senate Small Business Committee.

– Up to $130 billion for hospitals. Republicans said on Monday they have agreed to $75 billion. Hospitals sought $100 billion, and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said on a conference call Tuesday he believed Democrats had secured $130 billion, according to a person familiar with the call.

– Some $250 billion for expanding unemployment insurance. Republicans say they agreed to that in response to Democratic demands.

– Over $10 billion for drug development, and $4 billion for masks, gloves, gowns and ventilators, Republican Senator Steve Daines said.

– Schumer expressed confidence that Democrats had secured $150 billion for state and local governments, the person familiar with the call said.

– The White House has proposed $45.8 billion for federal agencies; both Democrats and Republicans want more.

– House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, unveiled her own lengthy, $2.5 trillion proposal on Monday. It included billions to help states conduct elections by mail.

Pelosi’s bill also would make coronavirus treatment free for patients, and raise the direct cash payments to individuals to $1,500 each instead of $1,200 as in the Senate plan.

Pelosi’s proposal has $500 billion in grants and loans for small businesses, $200 billion for state governments, $15 billion for local governments, $150 billion for hospitals, and $60 billion for schools and universities, a Democratic summary said. It has $61 billion in grants and loans for airlines, but requires air carriers receiving aid to cut their carbon emissions in half by 2050, the summary said.

(Reporting by Susan Cornwell, David Morgan and David Shepardson; Additional reporting by Tracy Rucinski in Chicago; Editing by Scott Malone, Peter Cooney and Bernadette Baum)

Tempers flare in Italy as coronavirus toll keeps climbing

Tempers flare in Italy as coronavirus toll keeps climbing
MILAN (Reuters) – From insults for dog walkers to furious local officials telling residents to stay home and people from other regions to stay out, Italians’ forbearance is fraying as their coronavirus epidemic enters its second month.

As Italy’s death toll has climbed past 5,000 and overtaken even China’s, early scenes of communal singing from balconies are giving way to muttered asides and resentment against those seen to be flouting bans on public gatherings.

“I’m getting word that someone is having a graduation party,” Vincenzo De Luca, governor of the southern Campania region around Naples, raged on Facebook. “We’ll send in the carabinieri (paramilitary police), we’ll send them in with a flamethrower!”

A video compilation of furious and often foul-mouthed rants from mayors exasperated at undisciplined locals playing table tennis in the open or going for walks outside has been shared tens of thousands of times.

There has also been bitterness at people trying to leave the worst-affected regions of northern Italy for the south, which has so far had fewer cases, but has health services that are much weaker than those in rich regions such as Lombardy, where the crisis erupted a month ago.

Nello Musumeci, governor of the island of Sicily, at Italy’s southern tip, said on Monday that too many people were crossing from the mainland and Sicilians were not willing to be “slaughtered”.

Opinion polls show widespread support for Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s government, which has imposed ever tighter travel restrictions and stepped up calls for people to stay at home.

But at the same time, some officials worry about the fraying tempers.

The mayor of Turin, Chiara Appendino, said she received reports every day of people being insulted from nearby balconies or photographed and put on social media, including in one case, a supermarket employee going to work.

“We can’t allow ourselves to be infected by the virus of rage, she told the daily La Repubblica.

The term “untori” (“plague spreaders”), a reference to sinister figures blamed for spreading disease in “I promessi sposi” (“The Betrothed”), a literary classic taught to generations of Italian schoolchildren, has made a return as the search for scapegoats has flared.

Nathalie Sitzia, mayor of the town of Casaletto, near where the virus first appeared in a small town outside Milan, said the climate of general suspicion was being fed by fear.

“Today people are afraid of everything, people report their neighbours when they take the dog for a walk,” she said.

“We were used to hearing bells for the dead ring once a month from our church. Hearing them every day is terrible, psychologically.”

(Reporting by Emilio Parodi, Gianluca Semeraro, Elisa Anzolin, James Mackenzie; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Italian coronavirus cases seen “10 times higher” than official tally

By Crispian Balmer and Angelo Amante

ROME (Reuters) – The number of coronavirus cases in Italy is probably 10 times higher than the official tally, the head of the agency collating the data said on Tuesday as the government readied new measures to force people to stay at home.

Italy has seen more fatalities than any other country, with latest figures showing that 6,077 people have died from the infection in barely a month, while the number of confirmed cases has hit 64,000.

However, testing for the disease has often been limited to people seeking hospital care, meaning that thousands of infections have certainly gone undetected.

“A ratio of one certified case out of every 10 is credible,” Angelo Borrelli, the head of the Civil Protection Agency, told La Repubblica newspaper, indicating he believed as many as 640,000 people could have been infected.

After four weeks of steep increases in deaths and cases, the growth rate has eased since Sunday, raising hopes that the most aggressive phase of the contagion might be over.

“The official numbers of the last two days indicate a slowdown in the epidemic,” said Giorgio Gori, the mayor of Bergamo, a small city in the northern region of Lombardy that has suffered the heaviest death toll in the country.

“I am being cautious because I do not want to delude myself, but at the same time I have a lot of hope that two whole weeks of lockdown plus increasingly restrictive measures are producing results,” he told a group of foreign reporters.

The government has shut down all non-essential business until April 3 and the cabinet was due to meet later on Tuesday to tighten the screws still further, including hiking fines for people violating the shutdown to up to 4,000 euros ($4,300) from a maximum 206 euros at present.

VENTILATORS

The new directive under review, seen by Reuters, would also give the government the option to extend parts of the lockdown to July 31.

Gori said he did not see how business could remain shuttered for much longer, but indicated that the government might look to extend restrictions on those who have proved most vulnerable to the virus, especially the elderly.

The Civil Protection Agency said the biggest difficulty facing the country was a shortage of masks and ventilators – a problem that has dogged the health system since the contagion first surfaced in Lombardy on Feb. 21.

Underscoring the problem, the regional governor of Veneto, Luca Zaia, ordered the confiscation of ventilators at veterinaries, saying they could be converted to human use.

With other countries looking to hoard their own medical supplies, a consortium of Italian textile and fashion companies have converted their production lines and will soon be able to produce half the required amount of masks.

“(This) will give our system the ammunition that we need in order to fight this war and avoid our total dependence on imports,” Domenico Arcuri, the national commissioner for the emergency, told reporters.

The government has said a number of industrial sectors, including medical suppliers, must keep operating during the crisis, but there is growing unhappiness amongst some unions who think the prescribed list of strategic concerns is too wide.

Workers in the metal, chemical, textile, rubber-plastic and paper industries are expected to go on strike on Wednesday, alarming the government, which is holding talks with unions to try to stave off the stoppages.

“The last thing that Italy can allow itself is industrial conflict in a situation of national emergency,” deputy Economy Minister Antonio Misiani told SkyTG24 television.

(Additional reporting by Giuseppe Fonte and Giulia Segreti in Rome and Valentina Za and Elvira Pollina in Milan, and Riccardo Bastianello in Veneto; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Pentagon leaders suggest coronavirus outbreak could continue for months

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senior Pentagon leaders said on Tuesday that the coronavirus pandemic which has hit the United States could continue for months.

“I think we need to plan for this to be a few months long at least and we’re taking all precautionary measures to do that,” U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said when asked how long the outbreak may last and how long the military would continue the support efforts to counter it.

“I am fully confident that at the end of the day, in a period of months, we will get through this,” Esper said during a virtual town hall.

At the same event, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley said that while it was unclear how long the outbreak would last, taking models from the experience of other countries, which may or may not apply to the United States, the outbreak could last into July.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

McConnell, Pelosi, Mnuchin see deal soon on $2 trillion U.S. coronavirus aid

By David Morgan and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senior Democrats and Republicans said on Tuesday they were close to reaching a deal on a $2 trillion coronavirus economic stimulus package, raising hopes that the U.S. Congress could soon act to try to limit the economic fallout from the pandemic.

“At last, I believe, we’re on the five-yard line,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, using a football analogy meaning close to scoring, as the chamber opened its session on Tuesday morning.

“We are very close,” added McConnell, the top Republican in Congress.

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress, said the two sides had agreed to more oversight provisions of a $500 billion fund to help hard-hit businesses, resolving a key sticking point.

“I think there is a real optimism that we could get something done in the next few hours,” Pelosi told CNBC.

Steven Mnuchin, President Donald Trump’s treasury secretary, told reporters that lawmakers hope to have a draft ready within the next two to three hours. He confirmed the changes to the industry fund. “There’s better oversight,” Mnuchin said.

Democrats have twice blocked attempts to advance the bill, saying it did not provide enough money for states and hospitals, lacked sufficient aid for unemployed Americans and did not include adequate supervision of a massive fund to aid big businesses.

Those concerns appear to have been addressed.

“I’m very optimistic that there will be a deal announced this morning,” Democratic Senator Chris Coons said on MSNBC.

Wall Street jumped at the open on Tuesday as signs that Washington was nearing a deal on the rescue package gave a shot of optimism to markets reeling under the biggest selloff since the global financial crisis more than a decade ago.

Trump’s administration has launched a major push for action to try to blunt the economic impact of the pandemic and steep stock market decline, after he spent weeks dismissing the risks.

As talks concluded late on Monday, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said the two sides were nearing an agreement and he expected that the legislation would be voted upon on Tuesday.

‘ALL OF THE NONSENSE’

Republicans, Democrats and top Trump aides had negotiated for days over the package, which would be the third and largest passed to address the crisis if it is backed by both the Republican-majority Senate and Democratic-majority House and signed by the Republican president.

“Congress must approve the deal, without all of the nonsense, today. The longer it takes, the harder it will be to start up our economy,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 550 people in the United States and sickened more than 43,800, shuttered thousands of businesses, thrown millions out of work and led state governors to order about 100 million people – nearly a third of the nation’s population – to stay at home.

Pelosi has introduced her own $2.5 trillion counterproposal that also includes $4 billion that would allow states to conduct the November presidential and congressional elections by mail.

That legislation would likely be irrelevant if a bipartisan deal is forged in the Senate.

While details of the emerging bipartisan bill were not available, it is expected to provide financial aid for Americans out of work because of the virus and help for struggling industries such as airlines.

Republicans normally hold a slim 53-47 majority in the Senate, meaning they need Democratic support to garner the 60 votes required to advance most legislation.

But the coronavirus has affected their ranks, giving Democrats even more leverage. Republican Senator Rand Paul has tested positive for coronavirus and four other Republicans are also unable to vote because they were exposed to Paul or others with the virus.

(Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu, Lisa Lambert and Susan Heavey; Writing by Andy Sullivan and Patricia Zengerle; editing by Scott Malone, David Gregorio and Will Dunham)