USA

US exceeds one million COVID deaths

June 1, 2022 by Madeline Lucre Leave a Comment

The US passed one million deaths from COVID-19 on 4 May 2022, according to NBC News.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that more than 80 per cent of US deaths had been among unvaccinated people. However, during the Omicron surge in January and February this year, some 42 per cent of deaths were among vaccinated people. Most were over 75s who had been vaccinated but had not received boosters.

On 3 May, the CDC reinstated its recommendation for people to wear masks on planes, trains and buses.

Although 70 per cent of the US population aged over five is fully vaccinated, vaccines for young children are still not available. Both Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech have asked the FDA for approval of vaccines for children under five.

A CDC report found that 60 per cent of Americans have had COVID, including three out of four children. The highly contagious Omicron variant was responsible for most of the infections.

The study found that roughly 64 per cent of adults aged 18 to 49 years, about 50 per cent of those aged 50 to 64 years and about 33 per cent of older adults had been infected.

COVID relief funds misused for aggressive company buyouts: study

June 1, 2022 by Madeline Lucre Leave a Comment

A new US study found that at least US$5.3 billion stumped up by the US government for COVID pandemic relief went to 113 private equity-owned companies, which already had $908 billion in cash reserves available in 2020.

Many of these companies used their reserves to pursue aggressive new buyouts, and in many cases shed workers, according to the report by the Anti-Corruption Data Collective (ACDC).

The $5.3 billion in public funding was authorised by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act in response to the public health and economic crisis brought on by COVID.

The legislation imposed few conditions on recipients – such as requirements to support workers and maintain business operations – and failed to prohibit recipients from using public money to enrich investors.

“Public money not only went to companies that already had deep-pocketed backers, but also effectively allowed private equity owners to continue and even expand their predatory tactics during an economic and public health emergency,” the ACDC report said.

“With improved balance sheets shored up by government money, private equity firms were able to finance a buyout spree during the pandemic-driven economic downturn, as well as to extract dividends and fees from their portfolio companies.”

Over $4 billion, or 76 per cent of the total pandemic relief to the industry, went to just 10 private equity firms.

Why America’s nurses oppose the Muslim ban

January 31, 2017 by Nurse Uncut Editor 1 Comment

National Nurses United has joined with humanitarian and civil rights groups in opposing the US executive order to ban refugees, especially Muslim refugees, from entering the United States. National Nurses United, with close to 185,000 members across every state, is the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in US history. Here they explain why they oppose the ban.

What the ban does

The ban bars all refugees for at least four months — and indefinitely longer for refugees from wartorn Syria. It bars for three months all entrants, some 218 million people, from seven predominantly Muslim nations — Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — and directs the Department of Homeland Security to conduct a review, which could add other countries to the ban. Long-term US residents, including medical professionals, have also been blocked by the ban.

Why is this called a Muslim ban?

President Trump directs DHS to prioritise asylum for Christians and other non-Muslim minorities, claiming Christians have been treated unfairly by US refugee policy. However, since 2001, the United States has accepted nearly 400,000 Christian refugees and 279,000 Muslim refugees. Most victims of extremist violence in the Middle East are Muslim.

Why NNU opposes the ban

Nurses are advocates for relief of human suffering. The civilian death toll from the brutal civil war in Syria alone is now believed to be nearly 500,000, many of them children. Slamming the door on refugees is antithetical to the mission of nursing.
No one from any of the seven nations cited by the ban have committed any attacks in the US, nearly all were committed by native-born Americans. In announcing the executive order, President Trump cited the attacks of September 11, 2001 and San Bernardino. Yet none of those attackers were from any of the seven countries listed.
There is no evidence that the ban will make the US safer. Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, among many others, have warned it will only put more Americans at risk by fuelling a narrative of a US war against Islam. ISIS is already using the ban as a recruiting tool.
The United States is a nation of immigrants. Yet there is a troubled history of rejecting refugees and immigrants, including the racially motivated Chinese Exclusion Act and the rejection of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazism in World War II. Since then, the U.S. has welcomed many refugees fleeing authoritarian regimes, we should not be slamming the door today on people and families in crisis.

Thank you to National Nurse United for this article.

Previously on Nurse Uncut: