Wed. 4/22: COVID-19 Daily Update
WATCH THE RECORDING OF OUR FACEBOOK TOWN HALL ON HEALTHCARE & PENSION
Today, we hosted another Facebook Live Town Hall, which focused on our Local 5 healthcare and pension. We were joined by Carla Jacobs from Benefit & Risk Management Services (BRMS), Lani Meniano Rivera who works at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, and our Financial Secretary-Treasurer Eric Gill. In case you missed it, you can watch the recording here.
We will be hosting Facebook Live sessions every Wednesdays and Fridays at 5pm. “Like” our Facebook page so that you’ll receive notifications on our future live sessions.
NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
Hilton Grand Vacations puts construction of Waikiki tower on hold due to Covid (Pacific Business News, April 22, 2020)
Hilton Grand Vacations has put construction of its $370M, 32-story, 191-unit time-share tower on the former King’s Village site in the center of Waikiki on hold because of coronavirus. The Ka Haku by Hilton Grand Vacations project was to begin vertical construction this spring with completion in 2022. Sales were to have started this year.
New unemployment call center opens in hopes of easing Hawaii’s severe backlog of claims (Hawaii News Now, April 22, 2020)
This new call center at the Hawaii Convention Center will accommodate up to 30 lines and will be expandable to other areas and has a full-blown system which allows us to queue people up,” said DLIR. It’s the fourth and biggest call center so far—with technology that the other sites didn’t have. Murakami said because more volunteers than expected showed up for training earlier this week, the call center won’t be operational until the weekend. Volunteers who were trained to process claims, however, will begin doing so on Wednesday.
Trump says immigration order will apply only to green cards and will last 60 days (CNN, April 22, 2020)
The temporary rule barring immigration will only apply to people seeking green cards, lasts 60 days, and won’t affect workers entering the country on a temporary basis.
USDA Increases Monthly SNAP Benefits by 40% (KITV, April 22, 2020)
All SNAP households that are eligible to receive less than their maximum benefit will receive the emergency allotment supplement to bring them up to the maximum. By law, SNAP households are not permitted to receive more than the maximum allotment. SNAP emergency allotments allow states to raise benefits to the maximum amount for the household’s size for up to two months, and USDA is providing additional guidance today to states that want to further extend these emergency allotments month by month as prescribed by the law.
Domestic violence shelter on O’ahu reaches full capacity (KITV, April 22, 2020)
A shelter for victims of domestic violence run by Parents and Children Together (PACT) on Oahu is now at full capacity. It has seen a 20-30% increase in requests since the start of the pandemic. They are working on opening another shelter.
World: Cases: 2.62M (+60k). Deaths: 183k (+6k)
USA: Cases: 842k (+17k). Deaths: 46.6k (+1.6k). Total Tested: 4.4M (+250k)
Hawaii: Cases: 592 (+6). Deaths: 12 (+0). Hospitalized: 63 (+7). Recovered: 444 (+7)
