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Actress Olivia Cheng was recently volunteering in Vancouver when she says she witnessed a man drive up to an elderly Chinese woman, roll down his window and yell, “This is your fault!” before throwing trash at her.The incident enraged Cheng, and also served as another reason why she feels it’s so important for celebrities of Asian descent to use their voices and speak up against anti-Asian attacks, which authorities say are increasing during the coronavirus pandemic.”I don’t think we can pretend that this isn’t happening,” Cheng, who stars in “The Stand” on CBS All Access, said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “For now, it would not be unwise to be a little more careful, to maybe have buddy systems when possible to go get your groceries if you’re not feeling safe.” The FBI reports there has been an uptick in hate crimes and harassment against Asian Americans since the outbreak of COVID-19, which first appeared in Wuhan, China, late last year.Some people have blamed China and Asians in general for the spread of coronavirus; President Donald Trump at times has called it the “Chinese virus.”In New York, state Attorney General Letitia James has set up a hotline to report harassment or other targeted crime. Some of those incidents have been filmed and posted online.Tzi Ma arrives at the Los Angeles premiere of “Mulan” at the Dolby Theatre on Mar. 09, 2020.”Tigertail” star Tzi Ma says he’s been a victim of such harassment. He was entering a grocery store in Pasadena, California, recently when he was confronted by a man in a car.”He looked at me straight in the eye and said, ‘You should be quarantined’ and took off,” said the veteran actor, who was born in Hong Kong but moved to the United States as a child. “I got very angry obviously, flush with this kind of cold in your body. And I started screaming at him, but he was way too far away for him to hear me.” Actor Alain Uy, a star of the upcoming Hulu series “Marvel’s Helstrom,” worried early on that such incidents would occur after the virus’ spread. “Once this outbreak happened in Wuhan, we all kind of went, ‘OK, we know what this is gonna mean,'” said the actor, who was born in the Philippines.”Crazy Rich Asians” director Jon M. Chu said he’s been feeling more cautious than usual.”It’s very sad when I feel a little bit weird when I’m going to go for a walk around the block,” he said. Jeannie Mai arrives at the 77th annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Jan. 5, 2020, in Beverly Hills, Calif.”The Real” co-host, Jeannie Mai, who is half-Vietnamese and half-Chinese, revealed recently that for the first time, she needed someone to monitor her social media posts to delete racist comments.”The Good Doctor” actor Will Yun Lee is even nervous about taking his baby son to the grocery store: “My wife is Caucasian, but my son is half Korean and half white. But he looks very Asian.”But Ma and other stars are speaking up and working to combat the ignorance and harassment. Ma joined actress Celia Au and other celebrities and influencers in the recent campaign called ” Wash the Hate, ” created by IW Group, an Asian American-focused marketing agency. The PSA features Ma, Au and others washing their hands and reminding people that hygiene, not xenophobia, is the way to help combat the virus. “If I can start the conversation, why not?’ said Au, who was also born in Hong Kong. “If we don’t talk about it, then it’s not going to be talked about at all.”For Cheng, the recent wave of anti-Asian sentiment brought back painful memories of her childhood growing up in Edmonton, Canada, where she was the victim of a bias attack as a teen.She went down an internet rabbit hole of attacks posted online. “I had to stop watching,” she said. “It brought up all those feelings again from being a kid and not being able to do anything.”Mai says that it’s not only important for Asian stars to speak out against these attacks, but people of other races as well. “These are the conversations you need to be having with your kids in your house. You need to, even if you’re not Chinese. You should be explaining that this is terrible, that racism is coming out of this pandemic,” she said. “So, have that talk with your kid. Have that talk with your friends. If one of your friends says, ‘Yo, this ‘Chinese Virus’ is crazy.’ Say, ‘No. Actually, man it’s called COVID-19. It’s not the ‘Chinese Virus.” Just check them.”Earlier this month, Bill Maher, host of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” defended calling coronavirus the “Chinese Virus,” comparing it to the Spanish flu. “While people say it’s innocuous and that it came from China, it’s the undertones,” Lee said. “Certain people will grab those undertones and attach to it.” There’s also a worry that anti-Asian American sentiment could translate to a regression in Hollywood after recent success of telling Asian stories. Bong Joon Ho and the cast of “Parasite” pose at the 92nd Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, Feb. 9, 2020.This year, the South Korean film “Parasite” won the best picture Oscar, and Chinese-American director Lulu Wang took home the Independent Spirit Award for her film, “The Farewell.” “Crazy Rich Asians” was a hit at the box office in 2018 and last year, Sandra Oh became the first Asian woman in 39 years to win the best leading TV actress Golden Globe for “Killing Eve.” “I worry, is this going to impact our chances so soon after it feels like we finally made inroads?” Cheng said. “Is this going to regress us and put us however many steps back?” Ma says the only way to proceed is to keep putting out diverse stories.”There’s no relenting. We’ll keep moving forward. And hopefully one day, people are going to say, ‘You know what? I not only accept the differences, but I also accept the fact that we’re very much alike.'” 
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With the pandemic hobbling the meat-packing industry, Iowa farmer Al Van Beek had nowhere to ship his full-grown pigs to make room for the 7,500 piglets he expected from his breeding operation.  The crisis forced a decision that still troubles him: He ordered his employees to give injections to the pregnant sows, one by one, that would cause them to abort their baby pigs.  Van Beek and other farmers say they have no choice but to cull livestock as they run short on space to house their animals or money to feed them, or both.  The world’s biggest meat companies – including Smithfield Foods Inc, Cargill Inc, JBS USA and Tyson Foods Inc – have halted operations at about 20 slaughterhouses and processing plants in North America since April as workers fall ill, stoking global fears of a meat shortage. Crisis in supply chainVan Beek’s piglets are victims of a sprawling food-industry crisis that began with the mass closure of restaurants – upending that sector’s supply chain, overwhelming storage and forcing farmers and processors to destroy everything from milk to salad greens to animals. Processors geared up to serve the food-service industry can’t immediately switch to supplying grocery stores.  Millions of pigs, chickens and cattle will be euthanized because of slaughterhouse closures, limiting supplies at grocers, said John Tyson, chairman of top U.S. meat supplier Tyson Foods.  Pork has been hit especially hard, with daily production cut by about a third. FILE – Eggs are staged for packaging at Wilcox Family Farms, April 9, 2020, in Roy, Wash. The average retail price of eggs was up nearly 40% for the week ended April 18, compared to a year earlier, according to Nielsen data.In Minnesota, farmers Kerry and Barb Mergen felt their hearts pound when a crew from Daybreak Foods Inc arrived with carts and tanks of carbon dioxide to euthanize their 61,000 egg-laying hens earlier this month.  Daybreak Foods, based in Lake Mills, Wisconsin, supplies liquid eggs to restaurants and food-service companies. The company, which owns the birds, pays contract farmers like the Mergens to feed and care for them. Drivers normally load the eggs onto trucks and haul them to a plant in Big Lake, Minnesota, which uses them to make liquid eggs for restaurants and ready-to-serve dishes for food-service companies.  But the plant’s operator, Cargill Inc, said it idled the facility because the pandemic reduced demand. Daybreak Foods, which has about 14.5 million hens with contractor-run or company-owned farms in the Midwest, is trying to switch gears and ship eggs to grocery stores, said Chief Executive Officer William Rehm.  But egg cartons are in shortage nationwide and the company now must grade each egg for size, he said. Rehm declined to say how much of the company’s flock has been euthanized. Farmers call for helpAs the United States faces a possible food shortage, and supermarkets and food banks are struggling to meet demand, the forced slaughters are becoming more widespread across the country, according to agricultural economists, farm trade groups and federal lawmakers who are hearing from farmer constituents.  Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, along with both U.S. senators from a state that provides a third of the nation’s pork, sent a letter to the Trump administration pleading for financial help and assistance with culling animals and properly disposing of their carcasses.  “There are 700,000 pigs across the nation that cannot be processed each week and must be humanely euthanized,” said the April 27 letter.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said late Friday it is establishing a National Incident Coordination Center to help farmers find markets for their livestock or euthanize and dispose of animals if necessary.  Shame and griefThe latest economic disaster to befall the farm sector comes after years of extreme weather, sagging commodity prices and the Trump administration’s trade war with China and other key export markets.  But it’s more than lost income. The pandemic barreling through farm towns has mired rural communities in despair, a potent mix of shame and grief. Farmers take pride in the fact that their crops and animals are meant to feed people, especially in a crisis that has idled millions of workers and forced many to rely on food banks. Now, they’re destroying crops and killing animals for no purpose.  Farmers flinch when talking about killing off animals early or plowing crops into the ground, for fear of public wrath. Two Wisconsin dairy farmers, forced to dump milk by their buyers, told Reuters they recently received anonymous death threats.  “They say, ‘How dare you throw away food when so many people are hungry?'” said one farmer, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They don’t know how farming works. This makes me sick, too.”  Grocery prices upEven as livestock and crop prices plummet, prices for meat and eggs at grocery stores are up. The average retail price of eggs was up nearly 40% for the week ended April 18, compared to a year earlier, according to Nielsen data. Average retail fresh chicken prices were up 5.4%, while beef was up 5.8% and pork up 6.6%.  Hog farmers nationwide will lose an estimated $5 billion, or $37 per head, for the rest of the year due to pandemic disruptions, according to the industry group National Pork Producers Council.  A recently announced $19 billion U.S. government coronavirus aid package for farmers will not pay for livestock that are culled, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, the nation’s largest farmer trade group.The USDA said in a statement the payment program is still being developed and the agency has received more requests for assistance than it has money to handle.  
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Chinese authorities allowed a leading human rights lawyer to reunite with his family late Monday, ending more than four years of detention, most of it without communications with his friends and family.Quanzhang Wang returned home to his wife and son in the capital, Beijing. They burst into tears as a friend recorded the reunion.一个等待5年的拥抱！ pic.twitter.com/B6rZXWcWsH
— Suyutong 🎗️ (@Suyutong) April 27, 2020Wang had been released from jail earlier this month, following a four-and-a-half year sentence for “subversion” that the U.S. had called “unjust.”Right before the long overdue reunion, Wang told VOA that he was very happy to be back in Beijing. He said, “I really want to hold my son. I was always imagining that moment when I was in jail. When they visited me in jail, we could only talk across the glass. Now I can finally hug my wife and son.”He also told VOA that this time he’s not temporarily visiting but permanently back in Beijing. Release delayed by quarantineWang was one of more than 200 lawyers and activists detained in a notorious crackdown on Chinese civil rights lawyers starting in July 2015. The government argued that rights lawyers had exploited some cases to enrich themselves.Rights activists say the campaign was a hallmark of China’s President Xi Jinping’s tightening grip on power. Wang had defended political campaigners and victims of land seizures as well as followers of the Falun Gong movement, a banned spiritual group in China.Prosecutors accused him of “subversion of state power.” During the trial, journalists and foreign diplomats were barred from the courthouse.After serving his time, Wang was scheduled to be released April 5. However, instead he was sent to Jinan, a city that is 400 kilometers away from his home, for a mandatory quarantine required by the Chinese authorities. The authorities told him that he would be freed after the 14-day quarantine, but they made him wait a third week before allowing him to go back to Beijing Monday.A day before his scheduled return, on April 26, his wife was hospitalized with an acute appendicitis. Wang tried to meet with her but was stopped on the way home by the police. He argued it’s his basic human right and responsibility to reunite with and take care of his family.He told VOA that the authorities also prohibited him from talking with the press.The U.S. State Department released a statement last week calling for the Chinese government to allow Wang’s “freedom of movement, including the ability to join his family in Beijing.”The Chinese Foreign Ministry replied that the Chinese government objects to interference in its “domestic affairs” by any country. 
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Nicole Hingle wasn’t surprised when the call came. Frustrations had been building inside juvenile detention centers nationwide as the number of coronavirus cases continued to climb. Now, her 17-year-old son Jace, was on the phone telling her about 40 kids had rioted at his facility in Louisiana — the same state where more than a dozen youths escaped during two breakouts at another site this month.  Hingle said her son described whirring helicopters above the Bridge City facility just outside New Orleans. Juveniles kicked down their doors, a SWAT team swarmed in, kids were pepper-sprayed and a staffer was injured during the melee. “It’s a real mess,” the teen told his mother. “Everything is destroyed.” Due to coronavirus lockdown measures, it’s been more than two months since Hingle has been able to visit her son. She has accused administrators of keeping her in the dark, and said she was growing increasingly upset by the lack of a clear plan to protect or release those held inside. Ten youths have tested positive at Bridge City in recent weeks. “This could be life or death for my child,” said Hingle, adding that her son was among a group transferred to the Acadiana Center for Youth after the brawl, where they were pepper-sprayed twice over the weekend by parole officers brought in to help due to short staffing.  “I don’t want condolences from the state. I don’t want condolences from the governor,” she said. “I do not want sympathy. I want them to do what is right on behalf of our kids because they cannot save themselves nor can we save them without the help of these politicians.” Calls for releaseAs more and more state and local officials announce the release of thousands of at-risk inmates from the nation’s adult jails and prisons, parents along with children rights’ groups and criminal justice experts say vulnerable youths should be allowed to serve their time at home. But they say demands for large-scale releases have been largely ignored. Decisions are often not made at the state level, but instead carried out county by county, with individual judges reviewing juvenile cases one by one.  Such legal hurdles have resulted in some kids with symptoms being thrown into isolation for 23 hours a day, in what amounts to solitary confinement, according to relatives and youth advocates. They say many have been cut off from programs, counselors and school. Some have not been issued masks, social distancing is nearly impossible and they have been given limited access to phone calls home. One mother reported that her daughter was so cut off from the outside world — with no TV and staff not wearing any protective gear — that the girl had no idea a deadly virus was even circulating in America. In some states, authorities have been shuttling kids between facilities, trying to make sure sick and healthy young people are kept apart.  Growing fears and frustrations have led to violence and mayhem not just in Louisiana, but at juvenile centers in other coronavirus hot spots such as New York. Young people are calling their parents to say they’re scared and desperate to escape. Sheriff’s deputies responded to a facility in Portland, Oregon, this month after a “disturbance” broke out, but no injuries were reported. “The department has maintained essential staff at the juvenile detention center in accordance with national standards throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, and is working hard to balance the social and emotional needs of youth in our care during this extraordinary time,” the Multnomah County Juvenile Services Division said in a statement.  FILE – Vincent Schiraldi, co-director of the Columbia University Justice Lab, 2013. (A. Phillips for VOA)Vincent Schiraldi, co-director at Columbia University Justice Lab and a former correctional administrator, said he hoped these problems would serve as a warning to other juvenile facilities, especially those that have not yet been hit by the virus.  “If this storm is coming in your direction, don’t wait until you have 100 mile-an-hour winds to put the boards up on the windows,” he said. “Deal with it now. Come up with your COVID plan now. Get everybody out of your facility that can be gotten out, start training your staff, start developing your lines of communication, so that if people start getting sick and staff start calling in sick, then you can manage it as best you can.” As of Sunday, 150 juveniles and 283 staff had tested positive for COVID-19 at facilities nationwide, according to an unofficial log being kept by Josh Rovner at the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit The Sentencing Project. He said because testing has been so limited, it’s likely the real numbers are “much, much higher.” Separate facilitiesNew York is one of the few cities that operates two juvenile facilities. At the first sign of illness there, the city agency that oversees the sites decided to put healthy kids at the Crossroads Juvenile Center in Brooklyn, while moving all of the infected residents to the Horizon Juvenile Center in the Bronx. Fernando Cabrera, a Bronx council member, said he saw the potential danger of suddenly ripping kids away from familiar staff and routines, especially during a time of crisis.  “You transfer all these kids to another borough, they are going to be anxious,” he said after dozens of police responded when a fight broke out in Crossroads about two weeks ago. “They are in self-preservation mode.”  The city’s Administration for Children’s Services provided few details about the brawl, but said some staff suffered minor injuries, including one who needed offsite medical treatment.  A similar situation occurred at two branches of the Swanson Center for Youth in Louisiana. Its facility in Columbia had been designated for healthy youths, while its Monroe site was reserved for the infected, resulting in kids being transferred back and forth. So far, at least 17 have tested positive for the coronavirus in the two facilities, according to The Sentencing Project. In addition, two escapes occurred this month at Monroe involving 13 youths, according to a statement from the Louisiana Office of Juvenile Justice. Data lackingOne of the main obstacles to monitoring the spread of the coronavirus in youth lockups is that so few tests are being administered. In addition, some juvenile justice agencies, citing privacy concerns, have refused to release even basic information, including the number of people infected. Virginia’s Department of Juvenile Justice initially didn’t release figures. But on April 17, it revealed that more than two dozen kids had tested positive at the Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Center outside Richmond, accounting for a quarter of all reported cases at youth facilities nationwide at that time, according to The Sentencing Project. On Monday, the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services said 26 youths have tested positive at the Memphis Center for Success and Independence. No severe cases were reported at Bon Air, and the majority were asymptomatic, according to a statement from Christopher Moon, the department’s chief physician. But Rachael Deane, of the Legal Aid Justice Center’s Just Children Program, accused the department in a letter of not providing proper medical care to kids housed at Bon Air. She said one client with symptoms was not tested and another whose swab came back positive was never examined by a doctor. Deane also alleged that the department wasn’t communicating with parents when their kids became infected and that some clients had been denied access to counseling for weeks. She charged that legal rights were also being violated.  “Our clients report they are kept in their rooms for at least 23 hours per day. Although they are supposed to receive one hour per day outside their rooms, this is not always honored,” the letter said. “Even when their free hour is made available, residents are sometimes forced to choose between using it for essential activities, like taking a shower, instead of exercise and recreation.”  Valerie Boykin, director of the Virginia department, said in a statement that Bon Air residents’ parents and loved ones are kept informed in a timely manner. The juvenile population behind bars has been decreasing over the past couple of decades and stood at around 43,000 in 2017, the last available count. Roughly 70% were accused of low-level crimes.  The coronavirus doesn’t typically hit young people hard, but it has been shown to attack anyone with underlying health problems. Locked-up children face much higher rates of asthma and other respiratory ailments, along with substance abuse issues.   
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Face masks have gained worldwide importance as we battle the deadly coronavirus together. Most countries have recommended their citizens wear face masks to stem the spread of COVID-19.  But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do so.  Here’s what you need to know.
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Around the world, women are a critical part of the essential workforce, holding jobs considered too important to stop, even in the face of lockdowns and stay-at-home orders.
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In farming, there are many unknowns. The economy, weather and customer demand can affect crops and ultimately a farmer’s bottom line.
This year the agricultural industry was thrown a curve ball with COVID-19. Now as harvest season approaches, farmers are facing new questions about the availability of workers and how to keep them safe.
Farms in Adams and Franklin counties rank No. 1 and 3, respectively, in Pennsylvania for fruit, tree nut and berry sales.
“Generally, one of the biggest concerns right now and we’re hearing from our members, especially Adams and Franklin and areas where fruit growing is the primary agriculture sector, it’s just access to workers,” said Liam Migdail of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau.
The potential shortage comes from recent restrictions to international workers in light of COVID-19 and fears about what to do if too many employees get sick.
“That would shut us down in a heartbeat. If we all got the coronavirus, OK, nobody could work, the fruit falls on the ground … ,” said Kay Hollabaugh, co-owner and manager at Hollabaugh Bros. Inc. in Butler Township. But, in the meantime, the farm is trying to stay positive and keeping their workers “safe and healthy.”
Not only could a shortage of workers affect a farmer’s ability to pick their produce to sell, but it could also mean fewer options available for customers in stores and an increase in unemployment.
But some farmers say it’s too early to tell if coronavirus regulations are going to affect their ability to harvest fruits and vegetables since many begin between May and July.
“We don’t even know if (workers are) going to be able to come, so working on stuff that we may not have to work on is not something that we tend to do,” said Chris Baugher, co-owner of Adams County Nursery in Menallen Township.’Locals don’t want the work’
In 2016, the fruit industry contributed $580 million to the Adams County economy, creating 8,500 jobs and $16.4 million in local tax revenue, according to a study commissioned by Adams County Fruit Growers, Penn State Extension and others.
The South Mountain Fruit Belt produces 70 percent of Pennsylvania’s total crop, which is about 400 to 500 million pounds of apples a year.
Franklin County is also ranked No. 2 in the state for production of vegetables, melons, potatoes and sweet potatoes.
In 2019, there were more than 1,800 guest workers in Pennsylvania through the H-2A visa program.
Denton Benedict, co-owner of Benedict’s Produce in Franklin County, usually employs around 90 workers through this visa program.
The program allows agricultural employers to hire temporary workers from outside the U.S. to perform temporary or seasonal work when there’s a lack of available domestic workers, according to Farmers.gov.
“Not being able to find good help locally is the reason that we went to the H-2A program,” said Baugher, who usually hires around 24 workers out of Honduras.
The H-2A program requires that participants attempt to fill jobs with domestic workers, which farmers say is difficult.
“For example, we’ve had our (job) ad out since two months or something, I haven’t got a single response, so if that tells you anything (it’s) that locals don’t want to work (picking vegetables),” Benedict said.
At Adams County Nursery, one apple picker will pick 150 to 200 bushels of apples a day within the span of three months. Baugher said the year before he began employing H-2A workers in 2017, they lost 5,000 bushels, that’s between $4 to $10 a bushel.
Hollabaugh said that they do not hire H-2A workers, but they also have a hard time hiring domestic workers because people aren’t interested.
“We’ve been in business since 1955, I’ve been involved in the business for probably 35 years, and I would say in the last 10 to 15 years there’s been a dramatic shift away from anyone domestic wanting to apply for any of our jobs,” Hollabaugh said.
Hollabaugh said some of the factors in this includes:
— People don’t have the skills to do this kind of work anymore.
— It’s hard physical labor. Domestic workers don’t want to work in the 95 degree weather, with humidity, carrying a crate around their neck that weighs 35 pounds.
— The pay is lower than what a domestic person will work for. Hollabaugh said they pay $10 to $15 an hour for people with skills and minimum wage for those without any skills, like high school students.
“There is a skill set involved,” Hollabaugh said. “The people who work for us who harvest our fruits and vegetables are very skilled, they’re very fast, they come to work in the morning with the sole purpose in mind to work to the best of their ability because we’re giving them a job, and they’re so grateful for it.”
On March 20, the U.S. Department of State temporarily suspended routine visa services like in-person interviews at all U.S. Embassies and Consulates in response to the pandemic. Embassies in Mexico, which last year supplied 91 percent of H-2A workers to the U.S., were the first to implement this policy.
On March 26, the State Department released an announcement allowing consular officers to waive visa interview requirements for first-time and returning H-2 applicants who have no apparent ineligibility or potential ineligibility.
“There was some changes that happened at the State Department to try and make it available for more workers to come in but it didn’t fix the whole problem. We’re still advocating to try to get more access to H-2A workers,” Migdail said.
While Benedict said that his application seems to be moving along he does expect that his workers’ arrival date will be pushed back.
“If we don’t get our help, I mean, we’re already laying plastic, we got the greenhouses full of plants so we’re counting on that,” Benedict said. “If that would fall through, I mean that would be devastating.”Keeping workers healthy, virus-free
Employers that use the H-2A program are required to provide transportation and housing for their workers.
At Adams County Nursery, migrant workers are housed in a barrack-style camp that fits about 16 people and two house trailers that can house 12 more.
These living conditions do not allow for self-quarantine in case an employee gets coronavirus. Baugher hopes that by the time he needs these employees in June it won’t be a problem anymore.
“We’ve thought about maybe the need to quarantine them when they arrive for two weeks, but we haven’t thought about what a quarantine would look like if when we had them here we would need to quarantine them (individually),” Baugher said.
Hollabaugh hires migrant workers that are already in the country. She said they have not looked into how their employees can self-quarantine yet either since their harvesting season isn’t until the Fourth of July.
“Right now we are going like the rest of the world, day to day. … Certainly my hope and prayer is that by the Fourth of July it’s not an issue anymore. That’s my prayer, but if it still is an issue that is absolutely something that we will be addressing, we will be following the CDC guidelines and doing whatever is required of us,” Hollabaugh said.
Their camp is made up of apartment units available for singles and families, which would allow individuals to self-quarantine.
“I think it’s reasonable to say that we can expect that there’s going to be some shortages as a result of this,” Migdail said. “I mean if people’s kids are out of school or daycares close, they get sick, a family member gets sick, I think those ripple effects of not necessarily being able to have the workers you usually do are absolutely a concern.”
As part of the U.S. government’s attempt to help encourage employees to choose their health over their paycheck, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act requires certain employers to provide employees with paid sick leave or expanded family and medical leave for specified reasons related to COVID-19.
This includes farmers who employ less than 500 people, Migdail said.
“We are also mindful of the financial strain this places on many farms, who are already operating on tight margins and contending with the economic fallout of the pandemic,” Migdail said. “We are advocating for farms to be able to access the assistance they need to remain viable during this time.”
‘If we don’t have the workers … you’re also gonna lose farms’
A shortage of farm workers has much greater consequences than just less hands to pick the fruits and vegetables grown in Franklin and Adams counties. Nationally, this shortage could mean less produce available for customers and less employment opportunities.
“There’s a lot of jobs in between the apple tree on the farm and in the orchard and the bin at the grocery store. … The whole industry as a whole employs a lot of people, and it generates extra economic boom for the areas as a result of that,” Migdail said.
Benedict said he knows a lot of farmers that rely on H-2A workers to keep their farms going.
“If they would shut down the H-2A … that would drastically impact the food for sure and prices will go up or else there will be a shortage of it,” Benedict said. “That’s why I think they’re trying pretty hard to let the H-2A stuff still go because I think they realized that it would cripple agriculture.”
Baugher said that if this shortage goes too far, the effects could be much more long term.
“The ag industries have not been faring well the last three or four years, and if they can’t pay the bank they’re gonna go away. … If we don’t have the workers to harvest the crops, you’re gonna lose jobs, you’re gonna have higher price produce on the shelves and you’re also gonna lose farms, I believe,” Baugher said.
For Benedict, one challenge he thinks he will have is selling his “crooked cucumbers or mis-shapen peppers” because of restaurant closures.
“Whereas the stores all want your nice looking, No. 1 stuff, so I have a feeling there’s gonna be a lot dumped because of that,” Benedict said.
But he knows that in the end, people have to eat.
“We’re just rolling with it and we’ll see what happens, not much else you can do. … We’re gonna do our best to provide it to them as long as we can get a reasonable price for stuff and we have the help to do it,” Benedict said.
All he asks of the public is to shop local and fresh when possible.
“Maybe with this virus people will pay more attention to that, they might want local, fresh stuff and know where it’s coming from. … We just keep on doing what we’re doing and try to make a living.” Benedict said.
Trying to stay up-to-date with precautions
In the meantime, farmers are doing what they can to stay sanitary and ensure that the public can get their produce.
At Hollabaugh Bros., market employees are wearing masks and gloves while all employees are also being asked to stay at home if they feel sick or don’t feel safe coming into work.
“My son takes care of the production crew, and he has been talking regularly with them about the CDC mandates, if you’re sick stay home, wash your hands, don’t touch your face, keep the distance,” Hollabaugh said.
Baugher said they are doing what they can to keep employees at the nursery separated by keeping groups smaller then 10 and staggering lunches. At times it can be hard though, like when workers are packaging trees into boxes that are 5 feet long.
Baugher said they are hesitant to use N95 masks because of the shortage.
“We didn’t figure we (should) put any more pressure on that market at the moment, than there already is.”
While farms are doing everything to stay compliant, Hollabaugh said it can be hard to keep up with all the changes that come with every passing day.
“Every day is a new day with a new set of challenges that we’re reading, what are the regulations now, what are they saying now, can we do this, should we do this or wait? It’s crazy,” Hollabaugh said.
One change they’re now facing is how they are going to market their crop. Usually, the Hollabaugh farm allows customers to pick out their individual produce but that isn’t safe to do this year
“Everything that’s coming in here right now that is not grown by us is being packaged in plastic, I mean with a worker who has a mask on and gloves on, that person is packing it in plastic so that no hands are ever touching it,” Hollabaugh said.
If this continues, they will have to take the same precautions for peaches. Though, there is no evidence that human or animal food or food packaging is associated with transmission of COVID-19, according to a news release from the Pa. Department of Agriculture.
“It’s vital that they’re able to keep doing what they’re doing through this and that creates a whole other set of challenges,” Migdail said. “OK, you are essential and you’re going to keep operating but how do you do that in a way that you know works with the new regulations or rules that we’re seeing state, national level and how do you do that in a way that’s safe for yourself, your workers, your family, the public?”
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Nurse Flora Ajayi parks her car on a residential block in Queens, New York and pops open the trunk, revealing plastic bins full of personal protective gear. She dons gloves, a blue gown, two masks, a face shield and shoe covers and turns to enter the home of one of her COVID-19 patients.   Ajayi, 47, works alone on the next front line of the coronavirus pandemic. She is part of a network of New York home care nurses treating hundreds of patients who have been discharged from hospitals and sent home to recover from the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus.   The highly infectious disease has killed at least 20,300 people in the state, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, where more people have died than any other country — at least 49,000, according to a Reuters tally.   Home care nurses have a vital role to play as patients transition from around-the-clock care in a hospital to life at home. Ajayi enters and exits virus-ridden homes daily, donning and doffing her protective equipment up to 12 times a day on curbsides around the city.   Home care nurse Flora Ajayi poses for a portrait after visiting a client during the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in the Queens borough of New York City, April 22, 2020.Still, Ajayi worries she might bring the virus back from a patient’s home to her own, where she lives with her son, 23, and her sister. She wears a mask at home and tries to stay 6 feet away from her family to limit any infection – a sacrifice she makes for the job she loves.   “I love to be part of the healing, part of the mentorship, part of the progression,” she said. “It makes it all worth it.” ‘We don’t know’ Ajayi works for Northwell Health, New York’s largest healthcare provider with 23 hospitals.   Almost all hospitalized COVID-19 patients will require some medical follow-up or rehabilitation when they are discharged before they can regain their former quality of life, if that ever happens, said Dr. Maria Carney, Northwell’s medical director for post-acute services.   “We’re really entering an area of ‘we don’t know.’ We don’t know what patients need right now, we just see that they are extremely weak, both physically and mentally,” Carney said. “How can our health system deal with that next phase of recovery? It’s going to be a challenge.”   Of the patients who have been discharged so far, many suffer from blood clots in their legs, muscle atrophy, aches, fatigue, cardiac issues and continued respiratory distress.   Home care nurse Flora Ajayi is thanked by a clients daughter as she departs from a home while wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect herself and prevent cross-contamination while visiting a client, April 22, 2020.Patients who were intubated are showing these symptoms more acutely when discharged, and many also are showing cognitive impairment, which could be an effect of long-term sedation or a condition called Post-Intensive Care Syndrome, Carney said.   As the number of COVID-19 patients discharged from Northwell’s hospitals topped 6,600 this week, the hospital system is considering hiring more home care nurses. It may also expand telehealth services and partner with local skilled care facilities to accommodate the discharged patients, Carney said.   Inside the homes, Ajayi answers a flood of questions from patients and their families, ranging from how often they should go to the grocery store to how they can self-monitor blood pressure.   She listens to the patients’ lungs with a stethoscope for signs of fluid build-up. She reminds them to not share toiletries and to wipe down doorknobs and light switches.   She checks the refrigerator and sometimes nudges them to call charitable meal delivery services if it is empty. She tells the doctor a patient needs more oxygen if she sees they are sleeping propped up in a chair, unable to breathe while lying flat.   Ajayi’s five confirmed COVID-19 patients have made slow and steady progress since returning home, and none have needed to be readmitted to hospital.   Ajayi never removes her two masks and face shield around patients, but the creases around her silver eye-shadowed eyes give away her smile and her even voice brings comfort.   “We keep the calm in this hysteria for them,” Ajayi said. “They’re scared, we’re scared, but we can do it.”     
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Greeted by relieved parents, pet dogs, flares and a cloud of orange smoke, a group of 25 Dutch high school students with very little sailing experience ended a trans-Atlantic voyage Sunday that was forced on them by coronavirus restrictions.The children, ages 14 to 17, watched over by 12 experienced crew members and three teachers, were on an educational cruise of the Caribbean when the pandemic forced them to radically change their plans for returning home in March.That gave one of the young sailors, 17-year-old Floor Hurkmans, one of the biggest lessons of her impromptu adventure.“Being flexible, because everything is changing all the time,” she said as she set foot on dry land again. “The arrival time changed like 100 times. Being flexible is really important.”Instead of flying back from Cuba as originally planned, the crew and students stocked up on supplies and warm clothes and set sail for the northern Dutch port of Harlingen, a five-week voyage of nearly 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles), on board the 60-meter (200-foot) top sail schooner Wylde Swan.As they arrived home, the students hung up a self-made banner saying “Bucket List” with ticks in boxes for Atlantic Ocean crossing, mid-ocean swim and surviving the Bermuda triangle.The teens hugged and chanted each other’s names as they walked off the ship and into the arms of their families, who drove their cars alongside the yacht one by one to adhere to social distancing rules imposed to rein in the spread of the virus that forced the students into their long trip home.Aukje Wakkerman is the last to disembark from the Wylde Swan schooner carrying 25 Dutch teens who sailed home from the Caribbean across the Atlantic when coronavirus lockdowns prevented them flying arrived at the port of Harlingen, April 26, 2020.For Hurkmans, the impossibility of any kind of social distancing took some getting used to.“At home you just have some moments for yourself, but here you have to be social all the time to everyone because you’re sleeping with them, you’re eating with them you’re just doing everything with them so you can’t really just relax,” she said.Her mother, Renee Scholtemeijer, said she expects her daughter to miss life on the open sea once she encounters coronavirus containment measures in the Netherlands.“I think that after two days she’ll want to go back on the boat, because life is very boring back at home,” she said. “There’s nothing to do, she can’t visit friends, so it’s very boring.”The twin-masted Wylde Swan glided into Harlingen harbor late morning Sunday, its sails neatly stowed. Onlookers gathered on a sea wall to watch the arrival set off flares and a smoke grenade that sent an orange cloud drifting over the glassy water.Masterskip, the company that organized the cruise, runs five educational voyages for about 150 students in all each year. Crossing the Atlantic is nothing new for the Wylde Swan, which has made the trip about 20 times.The company’s director, Christophe Meijer, said the students were monitored for the coronavirus in March to ensure nobody was infected.He said he was pleased the students had adapted to life on board and kept up their education on the long voyage.“The children learned a lot about adaptivity, also about media attention, but also their normal school work,” he said. “So they are actually far ahead now of their Dutch school colleagues. They have made us very proud.”
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Mexico has almost entirely cleared out government migrant centers over the past five weeks to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, returning most of the occupants to their countries of origin, official data showed on Sunday. In a statement, the National Migration Institute (INM) said that since March 21, in order to comply with health and safety guidelines, it had been removing migrants from its 65 migrant facilities, which held 3,759 people last month. In the intervening weeks, Mexico has returned 3,653 migrants to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador by road and air, with the result that only 106 people remain in the centers, it said. The institute’s migrant centers and shelters have a total capacity of 8,524 spaces, the INM said. Victor Clark Alfaro, a migration expert at San Diego State University, said the announcement went hand in hand with the Mexican government’s readiness to keep migrant numbers in check under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump. “Today, Mexico’s policy is to contain and deport,” he said. There are dozens of other shelters run by a variety of religious and non-governmental organizations throughout the country that continue to harbor migrants. Among those who remained in the INM centers were migrants awaiting the outcome of asylum requests or judicial hearings, and others who had expressly sought permission to stay, a migration official said. The vast majority of those sent back were migrants detained by authorities because they were in Mexico illegally, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Some no longer wished to stay in centers because of the risk of coronavirus infection, the official added. Most of the migrants passing through Mexico to reach the U.S. border are from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. More than 80 Guatemalan migrants deported to their homeland from the United States have tested positive for the coronavirus.
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A shooting in Louisiana’s capital city of Baton Rouge has left one police officer dead and a wounded colleague fighting for life Sunday, authorities said, adding a suspect was in custody after an hourslong standoff at a home.Baton Rouge Police Chief Murphy Paul told The Advocate the officers were shot in the northern part of the city, and one of the officers later died.  Police said the officers were responding to a call about reports of gunfire when they were shot.At a news conference Sunday evening, the police chief said the slain officer was a 21-year law enforcement veteran and that the wounded colleague had seven years of police work, according to WBRZ-TV.  The chief did not identify the officers.  The second wounded officer was hospitalized and “fighting for his life,” Paul said, adding both officers were rushed earlier to a leading Baton Rouge hospital.Paul said a suspect was taken into custody after the standoff. The police chief did not elaborate on any possible charges. Many details of events leading up to the shooting remained sketchy, and the chief said only that police continue to investigate.Later Sunday, dozens of officers gathered outside the hospital where the wounded officer was being treated, awaiting updates amid their impromptu vigil.  A coroner’s van was seen during the afternoon being escorted away by dozens of law enforcement vehicles as it left the hospital, according to media reports. 
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Amazon.com Inc is piloting the use of video conference calls to verify the identity of merchants who wish to sell goods on its websites, in a new plan to counter fraud without in-person meetings in the pandemic, the company said on Sunday. The world’s largest online retailer has long faced scrutiny over how it polices counterfeits and allegedly unsafe products on its platform. Fakes have frustrated top labels like Apple Inc and Nike Inc and discouraged some from selling via Amazon at all. Amazon said its pilot began early this year and included in-person appointments with prospective sellers. However, it switched exclusively to video conferencing in February because of social distancing requirements related to the highly contagious coronavirus, which has infected more than 2.9 million people globally. The interview vetting, on top of other risk-screening performed by Amazon, has been piloted with more than 1,000 merchant applicants based in China, the United States, United Kingdom and Japan, Amazon said. The extra scrutiny by Amazon could make it harder for some China-based sellers, who have registered multiple accounts using private internet networks or fake utility bills. China-based merchants accounted for 40% of the top 10,000 Amazon sellers in Europe, according to 2019 research from firm Marketplace Pulse.
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With limited supplies of coronavirus tests available, the Pentagon is focusing first on testing those performing duties deemed most vital to national security. Atop the list are the men and women who operate the nation’s nuclear forces, some counterterrorism forces, and the crew of a soon-to-deploy aircraft carrier.Defense leaders hope to increase testing from the current rate of about 7,000 a day to 60,000 by June. This will enable them to test those showing symptoms as well as those who do not.The current tight supply forced the Pentagon to take a phased approach, which includes testing sailors aboard the USS Nimitz, the Bremerton, Washington-based Navy carrier next in line to head to the Pacific. Officials hope to avoid a repeat of problems that plagued the virus-stricken USS Theodore Roosevelt. On Friday the Navy disclosed a virus outbreak aboard another ship at sea, the USS Kidd.Despite President Donald Trump’s assertion that testing capacity is not an issue in the United States, Pentagon officials don’t expect to have enough tests for all service members until sometime this summer.Defense Secretary Mark Esper recently approved the tiered approach. It expands the Pentagon’s practice of testing mainly those who show symptoms of the virus to eventually testing everyone. Many virus carriers show no symptoms but can be contagious, as was discovered aboard the Roosevelt.The aim is to allocate testing materials to protect what the military considers its most important missions, while not depleting supplies for high-risk groups in the civilian population, including the elderly at nursing homes and health care professionals on the front lines of battling the virus.The first tier of U.S. troops are being tested this month, followed in May and June by the second-highest priority group: forces in combat zones such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Next will be those abroad outside of war zones, like troops in Europe and aboard ships at sea, as well as those returning to the United States from overseas deployments.Last in line: the remainder of the force.Gen. John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the first three groups could be fully tested by June. By then the Pentagon hopes to reach its goal of being able to conduct 60,000 tests per day. To complete testing of the entire force will take “into the summer,” he said without being specific.Hyten said that testing under this tiered approach started to step up in mid-April, and that it included a plan to fully test the crew of the Nimitz. The complications that come with trying to test for coronavirus aboard a ship while it’s already underway were made clear with the Roosevelt, which pulled into port at Guam in late March after discovering its first infections. It wasn’t able to test 100% of the crew until a few days ago.Beyond its desire to limit the spread of the virus, the Pentagon views testing and associated measures such as isolating and quarantining troops as tools to keep the force viable and to ensure it can perform its central function: to defend the nation. At least 3,900 members of the military had tested positive, including more than 850 from the Roosevelt.Military members, being fitter and younger than the general U.S. population, are thought to be less vulnerable to COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. So far only two military members have died from it.For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death.The military’s staggered approach to testing is necessary, officials said, because of limited supplies and incomplete knowledge about the virus.”It is a supply issue right now, which is causing us not to be able to go down the full spectrum of all of the forces,” Hyten said. “So we’ll have to — that’s why we came up with the tiered approach.”Keeping coronavirus out of the nuclear force has been a high priority from the earliest days of this crisis. There are several reasons for that, including the Pentagon’s view that operating those forces 24/7 is central to deterring an attack on the United States. Also, there are limited numbers of military personnel certified to perform those missions, which include controlling Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles from cramped underground modules and operating nuclear-armed Ohio-class submarines.Since early in the outbreak crisis, Minuteman 3 launch officers have been operating in the missile fields for 14 days at a time, an extraordinary arrangement for personnel who for years had done 24-hour shifts and then returned to base.Gen. David Goldfein, the Air Force chief of staff, said Wednesday there are no COVID-positive cases in the nuclear force. That’s a “no fail” mission, he said, that will have to work around the virus indefinitely.Other first-tier forces, Goldfein said, are elements of the new Space Force, including those who operate Global Positioning System navigation satellites as well as the satellites that would provide early warning of a missile attack on the United States or its allies.The Air Force and the other services are prioritizing testing in their own ranks, he said, “to make sure that as test kits become available, we’re able to put them where they are most needed.”Goldfein said the military understands that the limited national supply of test kits means it cannot have all that it would like.”One of the top priorities right now across the nation is nursing homes,” he said. “I would not want to take tests away from that top national priority for my younger and healthier force. As tests become available, we’ve tiered them out and we know where we need to put them.” 
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The United States has renewed a waiver for Iraq to continue importing Iranian electricity, a State Department official said on Sunday, but this time for a shorter period of 30 days, adding that Washington would be reassessing whether to renew again once a ‘credible government’ is formed in Iraq.”The Secretary granted this brief extension of the waiver to allow time for the formation of a credible government,” a State Department official said, referring to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and added that the waiver would expire on May 26.Washington has repeatedly extended the exemption for Baghdad to use crucial Iranian energy supplies for its power grid, for periods of 90 or 120 days.The United States has insisted that oil-rich Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest producer, move towards energy self-sufficiency as a condition for its exemption for importing Iranian energy.Earlier this month, Iraq’s president named intelligence chief Mustafa al-Kadhimi as prime minister-designate, the third person tapped to lead Iraq in just 10 weeks as it struggles to replace a government that fell last year after months of deadly protests.”Once that government is in place, the Secretary will reassess whether to renew the waiver and for how long, and looks forward to resuming our cooperation with the Government of Iraq to reduce Iraq’s dependence on unreliable Iranian energy imports,” the State Department official said. 
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After weeks and months of shutting businesses and schools, communities in the United States and around the world are talking about what it will take to open up again. One tool is “contact tracing,” a practice whereby health workers find those who have been exposed to a disease, such as COVID-19, in order to stop its spread. But COVID-19 presents some unique challenges for tracing. People without symptoms can spread it and for some, it can be deadly. Apple and Google among other tech entities are offering help that will allow people to learn, through the use of apps on their smartphones, whether they have been exposed to the coronavirus. VOA explains how that might work.
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Hong Kong riot police armed with shields dispersed a crowd of 300 pro-democracy activists holding a singing protest in an upmarket shopping mall on Sunday, despite a ban on public gatherings of more than four people. Chanting popular protest slogans, mostly young activists clad in black swarmed the Cityplaza mall shouting “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times!” while others called for the release of pro-democracy activists. The protest was the first sizable gathering since the government imposed the ban on public meetings at the end of March to curb a spike in coronavirus infections. Fears that Beijing is flexing its muscles over the Asian financial hub risk reviving anti-government protests after months of calm as social distancing rules start to ease. Political tensions have escalated over the past two weeks after the arrest of 15 pro-democracy activists in the city’s biggest crackdown on the movement. Beijing has said it supported the arrests in the Chinese special administrative region. On Sunday, police cordoned off sections of the Cityplaza mall, prompting some stores to shut as activists and shoppers, including families with children, were ordered to leave. “People were just singing, it’s very peaceful … we didn’t do anything illegally. Democracy and freedom is more important,” said a high school student surnamed Or who came to participate ahead of his university entrance exam on Monday. Adding to concerns that Beijing is increasingly meddling in the city’s affairs — a claim the central government rejects — Beijing’s top official in there urged local authorities last week to enact national security legislation as soon as possible.  
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As Italy prepares to emerge from the West’s first and most extensive coronavirus lockdown, it is increasingly clear that something went terribly wrong in Lombardy, the hardest-hit region in Europe’s hardest-hit country. Italy had the bad luck of being the first Western nation to be slammed by the outbreak, and its total of 26,000 fatalities lags behind only the U.S. in the global death toll. Italy’s first homegrown case was recorded Feb. 21, at a time when the World Health Organization was still insisting the virus was “containable” and not nearly as infectious as the flu.But there’s also evidence that demographics and health care deficiencies combined with political and business interests to expose Lombardy’s 10 million people in ways unseen anywhere else, particularly the most vulnerable in nursing homes.Virologists and epidemiologists say what went wrong there will be studied for years, given how the outbreak overwhelmed a medical system considered one of Europe’s best. In neighboring Veneto, the impact was significantly more controlled.Prosecutors are deciding whether to lay any criminal blame for the hundreds of dead in nursing homes, many of whom aren’t even counted in Lombardy’s official death toll of 13,269.By contrast, Lombardy’s front-line doctors and nurses are being hailed as heroes for risking their lives to treat the sick under extraordinary levels of stress, exhaustion, isolation and fear.Even after Italy registered its first homegrown case, doctors didn’t understand the unusual way COVID-19 could present itself, with some patients experiencing a rapid decline in their ability to breathe.“This was clinical information we didn’t have,” said Dr. Maurizio Marvisi, a pneumologist at the San Camillo private clinic in hard-hit Cremona.Death notices are seen on a board along an empty road in Alzano Lombardo, near Bergamo, the heart of the hardest-hit province in Italy’s region of Lombardy, March 17, 2020.Because Lombardy’s intensive care units were filling up within days of Italy’s first cases, many primary care physicians tried to treat and monitor their patients at home, even putting them on supplemental oxygen. That strategy proved deadly, since many people died at home or soon after being hospitalized, having waited too long to call an ambulance.Italy was forced to rely on home care in part because of its low ICU capacity: After years of budget cuts, Italy went into the emergency with 8.6 ICU beds per 100,000 people, below the average of 15.9 within the developed countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.As a result, Italy’s primary care physicians became the front-line filter of COVID-19 patients, an army of mostly self-employed general practitioners who work outside the public hospital system.Since only those showing strong symptoms were being tested because Lombardy’s labs couldn’t process any more, these family doctors didn’t know if they themselves were positive, much less their patients.The doctors also had no guidelines on when to admit the sick or refer them to specialists and didn’t have the same access to protective equipment as hospitals.Some 20,000 Italian medical personnel have been infected and 150 doctors have died. Two days after Italy registered its first case in the Lombardy province of Lodi, sparking a quarantine in 10 towns, another positive case was registered more than an hour’s drive away in Alzano in the province of Bergamo.By March 2, the Superior Institute of Health recommended Alzano and nearby Nembro be sealed off like the Lodi towns.But political authorities never implemented that recommendation, allowing the infection to spread for a second week until all of Lombardy was locked down March 7.Asked why he didn’t seal off Bergamo province sooner, Premier Giuseppe Conte argued that Lombardy’s regional government could have done so on its own. Lombardy’s governor, Attilio Fontana, said if there was a mistake, “it was made by both. I don’t think that there was blame in this situation.’’Lombardy has one-sixth of Italy’s 60 million people and is the most densely populated region, home to the business capital in Milan and the country’s industrial heartland. Lombardy also has more people over 65 than any other region, as well as 20% of Italy’s nursing homes, a demographic time bomb for COVID-19 infections.“Clearly, with the benefit of hindsight, we should have done a total shutdown in Lombardy, everyone at home and no one moves,” said Andrea Crisanti, a microbiologist and virologist advising Veneto’s regional government. But he acknowledged how hard that was, given Lombardy’s outsize role in Italy’s economy.“Probably for political reasons, it wasn’t done,” he told reporters.Unions and mayors of some of Lombardy’s hardest-hit cities now say the country’s main industrial lobby group, Confindustria, put enormous pressure on authorities to resist production shutdowns, claiming the economic cost would be too great in a region responsible for 21% of Italy’s GDP.On Feb. 28, a week into Italy’s outbreak and well after more than 100 cases had been registered in Bergamo, the province’s branch of Confindustria launched a social media campaign aimed at reassuring skittish investors. It insisted the outbreak was no worse than elsewhere and that production in provincial steel mills and other industries were unaffected.Even after the national government locked down all of Lombardy March 7, it allowed factories to stay open, sparking strikes from workers worried that their health was being sacrificed.“It was a huge error. They should have taken the example where the first cluster was found,” said Giambattista Morali of the metalworkers’ union in the Bergamo town of Dalmine.While the regional government focused on finding new ICU beds, its testing capacity lagged and Lombardy’s nursing homes were left to fend for themselves.Of particular attention to Milan prosecutors investigating deaths in care facilities was the March 8 decision by the regional government to allow recovering COVID-19 patients to be housed in nursing homes to free up hospital beds.Another regional decree March 30 told nursing home directors to not hospitalize sick residents over 75 if they had other health problems and avoid further risking their health during transport. 
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