Thu. 7/16 COVID-19 Update
2020 election ballots have started to arrive. Look for yours in the mail and refer to Local 5’s primary Election endorsement.
Local 5 union pushes for safety, job security – Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
– Good article about yesterday’s actions, with quotes from Affron Herring and Eric Gill.
Workers call for extended health coverage as the closure drags on – The Maui News.
– Good article from the Maui News about yesterday’s actions, with very good quotes from Celia Cabal-Arcilla and Eric Gill. There is also something from ILWU.
Some Hawaii state senators blast reopening plans – Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
– Excerpt: “We cannot force people to be tested,” [Dept. of Health epidemiologist Dr. Sarah] Park testified. Those who refuse a secondary COVID-19 test will be “given some guidance, some information and then sent on their way,” she said.
Committee chairman Donovan Dela Cruz, replied: ‘That means they’re roaming about.’
To which Park replied, ‘We don’t have proof that it’s COVID, so we can’t keep them.'”
– With the cynical push to reopen schools, teachers’ unions are in a similar situation to our union.
Tourists [worldwide] facing restrictions amid fears of new coronavirus spikes – Associated Press.
– Excerpt: “And in hard-hit Texas, refrigerated trailers were being rushed in to handle the growing number of bodies as deaths surge in the state. Dr. Ivan Melendez, Hidalgo County’s public health authority, said it’s not uncommon for a deceased COVID-19 patient to lay on a stretcher for 10 hours in the community’s overcrowded hospitals until the body is picked up and put in a freezer.
‘Before someone gets a bed in the COVID ICU unit, someone has to die there,’ Melendez said.”
