SCOOP: The Biden admin. has weakened proposed health & safety rules for public housing.

HUD no longer plans to require fire extinguishers, circuit breakers to prevent electrocution, & other key safety features — contrary to codes adopted in many states.
nbcnews.com/politics/polit… Landlords, property managers, and other industry players lobbied against some of the safety standards that HUD initially proposed, arguing they would be too expensive to implement.

They warned strict requirements could drive away Section 8 landlords & reduce the housing supply.

This investigation was a labor of love, and I couldn't have done it without my amazing reporting partner-in-crime @DaniellaLSilva, who braved vicious dogs, multiple haunted houses (real & fake), and many inscrutable characters in the name of journalism: nbcnews.com/specials/h2a-v… .@nirmahasty produced a deeply moving video about the temporary farmworkers who were subject to horrific abuses in Georgia: nbcnews.com/video/lured-to… with beautiful footage from @haimyassefa as well.

NEW: Trump has cracked down on nearly every immigration & visa program — except for temporary farmworkers.

I spent 6 months investigating the shocking mistreatment of these guest workers on American farms, who wanted to come to the U.S. "the right way": nbcnews.com/specials/h2a-v… The H-2A farmworker visa program has grown exponentially amid Trump's crackdown on undocumented immigrants, who American farmers had long relied on to harvest crops.

It's now the single largest work visa program in the U.S. — outpacing even the H1-B program for tech workers.

One reason for the deafening silence:

Caregiving still overwhelmingly falls to women by default, and education/child care is still not considered to be a critical part of the economic policy debate (by many politicians, policy wonks, and the media).

https://twitter.com/BCAppelbaum/status/1275851931664224261

Exhibit A, via @clairecm: nytimes.com/2020/05/06/ups…

On a basic level, there is a serious public health messaging challenge:

1) We've been told for months to stay as isolated as humanely possible.
2) Suddenly, some of the same public officials and epidemiologists are saying it's OK to go to mass gatherings—but only certain ones. Structural racism is *definitely* a public health problem; just look at who's most likely to die of COVID-19.

But to unpack and justify that to the general public amid the ongoing pandemic is tough, when public health officials have already struggled so much to be credible.

This is a smart, thoughtful debate about the #COVIDー19 risk posed by protests and the uncomfortable tension between politics & public health recs:

https://twitter.com/haroldpollack/status/1268159189836279809

Another uncomfortable fact: If protests do create is a #COVID19 spike in coming weeks, those most at risk will be: 1) low-income people of color; 2) older people, especially those trapped in nursing homes who are *still* highly at risk, even if they don't take to the streets.

For my latest investigation, I spoke with nursing home workers who faced retaliation after confronting their bosses about unsafe working conditions.
nbcnews.com/news/us-news/f…

Here's one story that we didn't end up including in the final draft. 1/8 (THREAD) I got an email from a 56-year-old dishwasher who made $10/hr working at an assisted living facility in Texas.

He has kidney problems and 3 children at home, so he was especially worried about exposure to the virus. 2/8

Happy publication day to the indomitable @jialynnyang and @zachdcarter, whose extraordinary books on the history of American immigration and John Maynard Keynes are both out today! 🥳🥳🥳 wwnorton.com/books/97803936… penguinrandomhouse.com/books/563378/t… I saw the *years* of passion & effort that JL and Zach devoted to their books — the endless hours of archival research on weekends & vacations, while somehow also doing their intensely demanding day jobs.

Nursing homes have been ravaged by #COVIDー19 .

Now states like New York are forcing them to accept recovering COVID patients to free up hospital beds — making it more likely that the virus could kill the most vulnerable, elderly residents.

nbcnews.com/news/us-news/c… Some states (MA, CT, MN) are creating COVID-only nursing homes and post-acute care facilities to protect non-infected residents.

But New York has refused to do this. In fact, @NYGovCuomo has slammed nursing homes for criticizing the mandate: "They don’t have a right to object."

The 1st COVID case at a U.S. nursing home was on Feb. 28.

After COVID killed 5,600+ residents at other nursing homes, the Trump admin announced yesterday that it would start tracking these cases & making info public.

Why did the feds take 7 weeks to act?
nbcnews.com/news/us-news/f… It's also unclear when this COVID data at nursing homes will actually be made public.

On a call this morning with reporters, CMS chief Seema Verma said she expected nursing homes to begin reporting infections/deaths by the end of the week, but she couldn't give a timeline.

EXCLUSIVE: There are more than 2,200 nursing-home deaths from #COVIDー19 in 24 states.

2,300+ nursing homes have COVID infections.

The federal government isn't tracking any of this. So @strickdc and I compiled the data ourselves.

nbcnews.com/news/us-news/m… Some states simply *refused* to tell us how many nursing homes have infections or how many residents have died.

Others said they simply didn't have the capacity to do this.

This is why many experts think the federal officials should be keeping track. But they aren't.

Trump administration just issued new guidance telling nursing homes to use "appropriate PPE" and to separate COVID negative residents from positive ones.

How can nursing homes possibly comply, when so many are competing w/everyone else to buy PPE and can't access enough tests? Link to the new guidance here, first flagged by @DavidCGrabowski: cms.gov/newsroom/press…

NEW: The federal government has abruptly stopped issuing new visas for temporary farmworkers from Mexico.

U.S. farmers warn the move could threaten America's supply of fresh fruits and vegetables:
nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u… U.S. farms have become increasingly dependent on temporary workers from Mexico to plant/harvest crops as the rural workforce has aged and the immigration crackdown has intensified under Trump.

Farmers were certified to bring in 250,000+ foreign workers last year.

If hospitals run out of ventilators, doctors will be forced to make excruciating choices about who will live and who will die.

They are already preparing for the worst.

nbcnews.com/health/health-… Many states and hospitals began formulating these rationing plans after Hurricane Katrina, when doctors hastened the deaths of patients, as @sherifink revealed in wrenching detail.

The goal was to create a fair, rational framework for making unimaginable choices.

NEW: We don't have enough ventilators to cope with #COVID19.

Hospitals and state officials across the U.S. are quietly preparing plans for how they will ration them and who gets priority — effectively deciding who will live & who will die:
nbcnews.com/health/health-… If there's a shortfall, you might not get a ventilator if
1) You have another serious health condition;
2) You are less likely to survive than other patients;
3) You don't respond well after X minutes of treatment.
4) You are older than other patients.

Reminder: The CDC's own guidance on social distancing remains vague and incomplete.

"Put distance between yourself and other people if COVID-19 is spreading in your community" cdc.gov/coronavirus/20… The CDC's advice is also framed as "How to Protect Yourself."

When what you *really* are doing is protecting yourself, the vulnerable members of your community, your health care system, and your country.

Latest bottleneck for testing:
1) shortage of lab materials

https://twitter.com/charlesornstein/status/1238538839230119936

2) shortage of personal protective equipment for staff collecting patient samples: nbcnews.com/health/health-… We're running short on “swabs, N95 respirators, viral transport media, masks, [and] gloves,” American Clinical Laboratories Association told @strickdc.

There continues to be widespread confusion about #COVID19 testing. One problem is that there are so many different roadblocks that have slowed things down--even when earlier ones are cleared, new ones have popped up. Testing has scaled up, but it's not enough yet. 1/x Early on, CDC decided to develop its own test, rather than use other countries', which ate up time. That test had technical problems, which delayed things more. CDC also had extremely narrow criteria for testing & didn't let other public/private labs develop their own tests. 2/x

We are woefully behind on Coronavirus testing.

Commercial & research labs could increase capacity & turn results around in hours instead of days.

But they are STILL being delayed by red tape & lab supply shortages.

Latest w/@strickdc @BrendaBreslauer nbcnews.com/health/health-… .@UNC_Clin_Micro in Chapel Hill had developed a test before the state had theirs, with a 4 hour-turnaround time.

But the lab has been bogged down by an onerous FDA authorization process, the director says--and hasn't been able to test any patients yet.

70 staff members are out sick with symptoms resembling coronavirus and 6 more residents are also sick at the nursing home in Washington state where 4 have *already* died from the virus. nytimes.com/2020/03/07/us/… Life Care Center of Kirkland said it only received enough kits to test residents YESTERDAY. It did not say whether it had enough to test all its staff members.

NEW: The Trump administration has spent months working to roll back regulations preventing infectious disease outbreaks in nursing homes--a move that's under renewed criticism amid the Coronavirus outbreak and 4 deaths at a nursing home. nbcnews.com/news/us-news/a… An Obama-era rule requires all nursing homes & long-term care facilities to employ infection prevention specialists at least part time.

Last year, the Trump admin advanced a proposal to weaken that requirement, sparking an outcry from leading public health experts.