Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Interceptor7, Magnifico, annetteboardman, jck, and Besame. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Man Oh Man,
wader, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw.
OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00 AM Eastern Time.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
Chicago Sun-Times: City and state are ‘a long way away’ from lifting stay-at-home order: Lightfoot by Fran Spielman
Chicago and Illinois are “a long way away” from lifting the stay-at-home order because the number of coronavirus cases in Chicago and Illinois is “not near the peak,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Tuesday.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s stay-at-home order was due to expire Tuesday before being extended until April 30. Lightfoot had already extended the closing of Chicago Public Schools through April 20 before that extension.
On Tuesday, the mayor was asked to articulate the criteria that would be used by the city and state to determine when shuttered non-essential businesses would be authorized to reopen and when residents would be free to leave their homes, return to work and once again enjoy the everyday freedoms they once took for granted.
“We’re a long way away from that, and we are actually exploring that question now. We’ve been talking all along about a peak in the number of cases and then, thinking about what the downward slide of that will be. We are looking at when we think now we will reach that point,” she said.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Georgia gets trove of malaria drug unproven in fighting coronavirus by Tia Mitchell and Greg Bluestein
Georgia officials say a pharmaceutical firm donated 200,000 doses of a medicine used to treat malaria and autoimmune diseases that President Donald Trump has aggressively promoted to fight COVID-19 even though it has yet to be proven safe for that use.
U.S. Rep. Doug Collins said Tuesday that generic drug manufacturer Amneal Pharmaceuticals contributed the doses of hydroxychloroquine sulfate to the state Department of Public Health for potential use in treating Georgians hospitalized by the disease.
In a statement, Collins said Georgia is one of the first states to receive a donation from the New Jersey-based company. Others include Louisiana, New York and Texas.
Gov. Brian Kemp’s administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the development, though the state’s top health official has cast doubt about the efficacy of the drug to combat COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
San Francisco Examiner: Supes to require SF procure 8K hotel rooms to shelter homeless as coronavirus spreads by Joshua Sabatini
Members of the Board of Supervisors announced emergency legislation Tuesday that would require The City to procure more than 8,000 hotel rooms to shelter homeless persons after weeks of debate with Mayor London Breed who has resisted the idea.
The legislation requires The City to procure 8,250 hotel rooms to come under lease by April 26, around when a surge of coronavirus cases is expected in California.
There were 622 confirmed cases of coronavirus in San Francisco as of Tuesday and in recent days three homeless people in two of The City’s shelters have tested positive for the respiratory illness caused by novel coronavirus, Covid-19.
The details of the legislation were announced during a virtual press conference with Supervisors Hillary Ronen, Matt Haney, Dean Preston, Shamann Walton and Aaron Peskin.
Cleveland.com: Inmate in Ohio federal prison where coronavirus outbreak has killed three records video on smuggled cellphone: ‘they literally leaving us in here to die' by Cory Shaffer
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A video recorded inside a federal prison in Eastern Ohio where a coronavirus outbreak killed three inmates and infected dozens of others shows inmates lying on beds just feet apart coughing and wheezing.
The inmate, whose identity cleveland.com has been unable to confirm, said he recorded the video on a smuggled cellphone. He spoke for nearly half an hour through a mask about conditions inside the Federal Correction Institution in Elkton, where Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Monday authorized the Ohio National Guard to send emergency medical assistance to deal with the outbreak.
“They literally leaving us in here to die,” the inmate said.
A spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Tuesday that the video was “under investigation."
“We can confirm that after identifying the inmates in the video, none of them were symptomatic of COVID-19,” spokeswoman Sue Allison said in a Tuesday email to cleveland.com.
NJ.com: With 5 infected, N.J. warehouse workers protest conditions amid coronavirus outbreak by J. Dale Shoemaker
The 800 workers at the Barnes & Noble distribution center in Monroe Township are considered essential —so, while many people are working from home to help combat the spread of the coronavirus, they aren’t.
Every day, employees there pack and ship boxes of books and toys as they come down a conveyor belt.
But on Tuesday, about 15 protesting employees picketed outside the facility to question why they are still at work.
“Why keep the warehouse open when this isn’t essential work?” said Jose Alberto, who works to ticket packages and ensure the right labels get attached to the right boxes.
"You don’t protect us,” box-packer Elsa Rodriguez added, addressing company officials at the protest. “We don’t sell food, we don’t sell (pharmaceuticals), no! We don’t sell any necessary goods. I am very mad!”
Washington Post: The coronavirus is infecting and killing black Americans at an alarmingly high rate by Reis Thebault, Andrew Ba Tran, and Vaness Williams
As the novel coronavirus sweeps across the United States, it appears to be infecting and killing black Americans at a disproportionately high rate, according to a Washington Post analysis of early data from jurisdictions across the country.
The emerging stark racial disparity led the surgeon general Tuesday to acknowledge in personal terms the increased risk for African Americans amid growing demands that public-health officials release more data on the race of those who are sick, hospitalized and dying of a contagion that has killed more than 12,000 people in the United States.
A Post analysis of what data is available and census demographics shows that counties that are majority-black have three times the rate of infections and almost six times the rate of deaths as counties where white residents are in the majority.
Mother Jones: WhatsApp Takes Steps That Could Slow the Spread of Coronavirus Misinformation by Sinduja Rangarajan
WhatsApp, the world’s largest messaging app, announced today that it is taking new steps to curb the spread of misinformation on its platform, a problem that has become increasingly visible during the coronavirus pandemic. As I wrote in March, the platform has been a “petri dish for misinformation”—an incubator for false information and rumors about COVID-19. The company, which is owned by Facebook, says it will now monitor and limit the dissemination of forwarded messages.
This is a major change for an app that’s known as a place where friends and family send along memes, jokes, images, and multimedia messages. “Is all forwarding bad? Certainly not. We know many users forward helpful information, as well as funny videos, memes, and reflections or prayers they find meaningful,” the company posted on its blog. “However, we’ve seen a significant increase in the amount of forwarding which users have told us can feel overwhelming and can contribute to the spread of misinformation. We believe it’s important to slow the spread of these messages down to keep WhatsApp a place for personal conversation.”
Buzzfeed: People In Wisconsin Waited In Line For Hours To Vote Despite Fears Over The Coronavirus by Clarissa- Jan Lim
When Quinn Blackshere woke up on Tuesday morning in Wisconsin, she lay in bed thinking about her options on Election Day: "Stay home and feel defeated, or go out, make my voice heard, and potentially contract a horrible virus."
With news of the coronavirus pandemic and a statewide safer-at-home order already heightening her anxiety, it was not an ideal situation to be in. "I was very frustrated," Blackshere, a 27-year-old freelance illustrator in Milwaukee, told BuzzFeed News.
She arrived at Riverside High School when polls opened at 7 a.m. The line was already far longer than she expected.
During any other time, the sight of voters waiting for hours to cast their ballots might merely have been infuriating, rather than terrifying. But as Wisconsin residents went out to vote in the primary with fears of the coronavirus outbreak hanging over them, the lines outside polling places were clouded by a tinge of panic.
Wisconsin is the only state to hold in-person voting in April, a month that public health experts say is crucial to flattening the curve on COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Several states, including Wisconsin, are expecting to hit their peak in COVID-19 cases in April.
New York Times: What if the Most Important Election of Our Lifetimes Was the Last One? by Matt Flegenheimer
Politics runs on superlative: the best plan, the biggest rally, the most votes.
And one trope has proved most enduring of all, repeated each campaign season with well-practiced conviction.
“This is the most important election of our lifetimes,” Bernie Sanders said of 2020 last month.
“The most important election of our lives,” Pete Buttigieg agreed in February.
“Maybe the most important election,” Joe Biden ruled last year, hedging slightly, “no matter how young or old you are.”
Maybe. But what if they’re wrong this time? What if the other clichés — of dice cast and Rubicons crossed — have finally overwritten this one?
What if the most important election of our lifetimes happened already?
“Actually,” said Representative Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona and a Biden supporter, “it was the last one.”
BBC News: Coronavirus: Boris Johnson spends second night in intensive care
Boris Johnson is spending a second night in intensive care as he continues to receive treatment for coronavirus.
The PM is being kept at St Thomas' Hospital in London "for close monitoring", Downing Street said.
Mr Johnson's condition is "stable" and he remains in "good spirits", his spokesman added on Tuesday evening.
Downing Street also confirmed that the planned review into whether the UK's coronavirus lockdown measures could be eased would not go ahead this Monday.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who is deputising for the PM, has said he was "confident" the PM would recover from this illness, describing him as a "fighter".
Speaking at Tuesday's Downing Street coronavirus briefing, he said Mr Johnson was receiving standard oxygen treatment and was breathing without any assistance, such as mechanical ventilation or non-invasive respiratory support.
It is understood there will not be a further update on Mr Johnson's condition until later on Wednesday.
AlJazeera: How Greece flattened the coronavirus curve by John Psaropoulos
Athens, Greece - When Greece cancelled carnival celebrations in late February, many people thought the measure excessive. In the western city of Patra, which hosts Greece's most flamboyant carnival parade, thousands defied the ban and took to the streets.
"The government has ordered an end to all municipal activities … but this is a private enterprise. No one can shut it down," said a jubilant reporter for the local Ionian TV in front of a crew dressed up as 17th-century French courtiers. "They're gathering here on St George's Square, where the [Greek] revolution began in 1821, and that's symbolic," he said.
Greeks quickly put their revolutionary spirit aside, however, and largely heeded government advice to remain indoors. The result has been a remarkably low number of deaths - 81 by Tuesday, compared to more than 17,000 in neighbouring Italy. Even adjusted for population sizes, Italy's fatality rate is almost 40 times greater.
Compared with other European Union members, too, Greece has fared better. Its fatalities are far lower than in Belgium (2,035) or the Netherlands (1,867), which have similar populations, but a much higher gross domestic product (GDP).
South China Morning Post: Coronavirus: Hong Kong to close beauty and massage parlours amid Covid-19 spread by Zoe Low
Hong Kong beauty and massage parlours have been ordered to close for 14 days from Friday, the government announced on Wednesday, after three of them were linked to confirmed Covid-19 cases.
Meanwhile, an earlier ban on gatherings of more than four people at public venues such as restaurants has been extended until April 23. Hong Kong reported 21 new coronavirus infections on Tuesday, bringing the city’s total to 935.
“We hope the closures can effectively break the transmission chain of the virus,” Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan Siu-chee said at a press briefing on Tuesday.
The extended measures come as the government is also expected to announce more than HK$30 billion for an anti-epidemic fund to subsidise the wages of workers in affected industries.
Everyone have a good and safe evening!