Saturday snippets is a regular weekend feature of Daily Kos
• Manufacturers seek to overcome obstacles in switching operations to fight coronavirus: Donald Trump invoked the Korean War-era Defense Production Act Friday, which authorizes him to order U.S. businesses to make products essential to battling the highly contagious virus and COVID-19, the disease it brings. GM and Ford are looking into making ventilators. Electronics maker Sharp Corp. is converting a factory that usually builds displays into a maker of surgical masks. Beiersdorf, which makes skin products including Nivea and Coppertone, plans to make medical disinfectants for first responders. L’Oreal is making sanitizer gel. For some, the conversion is relatively simple. Not so much for others. Switching gears, so to speak, is much tougher for carmakers. “When you are repurposing a factory, it really depends on how similar the new product is to the existing products in your product line,” said Kaitlin Wowak, an expert in industrial supply chains who is a professor at the University of Notre Dame. “It’s going to be a substantial pivot to start producing an entirely different item.” GM announced Friday that it was working with ventilator Ventec Life Systems to boost production, but didn’t say whether it would build ventilators at its own factories, which have suspended car and truck production until March 30.
• Calls to Oregon’s domestic violence crisis lines spike during coronavirus crisis: With people confined to their homes as a result of the abrupt and incredibly disruptive shuttering of all but essential businesses, organizations who serve domestic violence survivors say they’re seeing more calls than usual. One group, Call to Safety, reported its calls had about doubled. Among the issues is how survivors will get or enforce restraining orders given the reduced court access. Police agencies say they will still respond to such calls. Domestic violence “lives in isolation,“ said Melissa Erlbaum, executive director of Clackamas Women’s Services. “When there is additional isolation,” she said, “that exacerbates the situation.”
• Southern California plant nurseries see uptick in business: People are eager to plant vegetable gardens, and the nurseries—considered an essential service by authorities—are meeting the demand for plants and simultaneous social distancing. Customers can make online orders and pick them up in the businesses’ parking lots or, in some cases, get them delivered to their homes. “It’s the rebirth of the victory garden” said Jo Anne Trigo, owner of the Two Dog Nursery in Los Angeles, referencing gardens undertaken during the two World Wars. “We’re doing 50 orders a day; every time I walk in the house to get a drink of water there are six more orders to print. But we’re laying down the law now; we’re all in masks and we’re not letting anyone in. And for the sake of time and our backs, we’re not loading orders into cars anymore. We just leave them on the curb.”
• Six ways Trump’s denials delayed response to coronavirus and climate change: Katelyn Weisbord at InsideClimate News notes that Trump has said things regarding the coronavirus that “ignore, question or distort mainstream science” and contributed to the delay in responding and to misunderstandings among the public. Although more and more Americans are realizing that this is no “hoax” or “fake news,” as Trump infamously claimed, but he’s now getting more polling approval for his handling of the crisis. This is so even though he still is either screwing up or purposedly disinforming people every day in front of the cameras. So much so that he has been publicly corrected more than once by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. The six ways Trump has messed things up? Wishing science away. Misusing scientific data. Making stuff up. Blaming China. Blaming the Democrats. Ignoring expert advice.
MIDDAY TWEET
• PG&E, the California utility giant, agrees to sell itself if its bankruptcy plan is rejected: The “contingency process” was negotiated with Gov. Gavin Newsom. It authorizes the state to embed an “operational observer” who will review the company’s efforts at improving safety and reducing fire risk. Specifically, the observer will be able to “conduct field visits, interviews and inspections, review documentation related to safety performance, and undertake any other tasks reasonably required in furtherance of its duties.” If the process is not approved by June 30 or put in place by Sept. 30, PG&E will appoint transition officer to oversee a sale to the state or another buyer. As part of the plan, there are a bunch of new enforcement powers, among them the power to revoke PG&E’s operating license if it causes another major fire and to take control of the company.
• Famed Country singer Kenny Rogers dead at 81.
• American Red Cross faces shortage of blood as 5,000 blood drives are canceled: Many of the places where the drives are usually conducted—campuses and libraries, for instance—have closed as social distancing policies are adopted. With those policies now imposed on tens of millions of Americans instead of just advised, the situation likely will worsen. The canceling of the drives has meant around 170,000 fewer donations. A medical director warned, “This could kill our patients.” Dr Jennifer Andrews, director of the blood bank at Vanderbilt University medical center and pediatric hematologist, said: “We’re preparing for the worst. There are no blood alternatives. Patients with leukemia or other cancers, patients who are in a motor vehicle accident or bleeding after childbirth—they need blood.” Medical authorities point out that blood donors are not in danger of contacting coronavirus from donating.