CHICAGO As people flock to bars and restaurants to enjoy a delayed patio season, workers say they have been completely overlooked in reopening plans.
The city entered Phase 3 of reopening from coronavirus on June 3, allowing restaurants to open for patio service with strict safety precautions. Bars and breweries can join them in reopening as of Wednesday.
But obedience to these guidelines requiring guests wear face masks when not eating and social distance has been mixed, which has servers like Alicia Rottman concerned about returning to work.
Just because the state says its OK to open up doesnt necessarily mean that its safe to, said Rottman, whos worked in the industry for 15 years.I think the consensus is were going to see a big pop in cases maybe a month into reopening and that will largely fall on us.
RELATED: Partaking In Patio Season? Be Very Careful, Doctors Say As Nervous Diners Emerge From Quarantine
Rottman said she fell into a panic after her employer, who she declined to name for fear of retribution, texted her last week asking if shed considered coming back to work. She asked what steps would be taken to protect employees during the pandemic, but didnt feel their answers were substantial.
Rottman began reaching out to her coworkers, and theyunanimously agreed that servers needed to be better compensated for the risks theyd take going back to work.For that risk to be worthwhile, servers could need more paid sick leave, employer-provided health insurance and higher wages to make up any loss in tips due to restaurants capacity limits, she said.
This is uncharted territory for the entire industry, so were not expecting them to have all the answers, but theres some really basic stuff that hasnt been addressed for workers and were getting completely overlooked as the state pushes for reopening, Rottman said.
Raeghn Draper, a bartender at Cindys Rooftop in the Chicago Athletic Club, said the hotel is gradually reopening, asking small groups of employees back as they can increase capacity. She said she was relieved when she wasnt in the first wave of employees asked back.
I dont want to risk my health and put my body on the line so I can serve people some cocktails and steaks, Draper said. There are no safety nets for me, so what would I be risking myself for by going back?
Rochelle Semons, who is a food runner at Big Star in Wicker Park and a server at Utopian Tailgate in Old Town, said she was asked back by both of her jobs, but she declined the work because she doesnt feel safe.
I drove through Old Town and saw so many people outside not distancing themselves and not wearing masks anymore. I simply dont feel comfortable, Semons said.
For now, Semons is able to remain on unemployment benefits, but she worries about losing them if restaurants rush to reopen and bring their employees back.
They havent offered sick pay, hazard pay, to cover our health benefits if we do get sick nothing to make us want to work for them and feel safe doing so, Semons said.
At the first weekend of Lakeviews Dine Out On Broadway event, which closed a stretch of Broadway from June 1214 so that restaurants could expand their outdoor patios into the streets, some restaurants were unable to participate because they didnt have enough employees back at work, according to Maureen Martino, executive director of the Lakeview Chamber of Commerce.
The biggest challenge for some restaurants was that they cant do it until next week when they have more employees back, Martino said. Theyre trying to get people off of unemployment so they to serve the customer base.
Groups of people who didnt follow social-distancing guidelines, didnt wear face masks or ignored open alcohol container rules were reported during the first days of the outdoor dining event. But Martino said the chamber had a handle on things by Sunday afternoon and in time for the next closure from June 1921.
Weve got it all down now and learned we had to be really strict that this is a dining event and cannot be a festival, Martino said. Theres a lot of pressure on us being the first outdoor dining closure to get it right so others can learn from this, and I hope we made the neighborhood proud.
Jake Wittich is aReport for Americacorps member covering Lakeview, Boystown and Lincoln Park for Block Club Chicago.
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The German government has appealed to its citizens to download a newly available coronavirus warning app as it launched what it insisted was its most sophisticated tool yet for tackling the pandemic.
The Corona Warn App suffered setbacks including disagreements over data privacy and functionality, but is seen as being introduced just in time as lockdown regulations rapidly relax with a decreasing infection rate.
The app will complement a human tracking and tracing system that has been in place across the country since February. It will alert users whether and for how long they have been in contact at a distance of 2 metres or less with someone who has tested positive for the virus.
Contact data will not as initially planned be saved centrally, only on the smart phones themselves, and the app is based on privacy-focused technology developed by Apple and Google. Users have been assured their private data will not be compromised and neither will the app drain a phones battery.
Use of the app, which cost 20m to develop, is voluntary but virologists say 60% of Germans must download it for it to become effective.
Public health leaders, computer hackers and government ministers, all of whom had been involved in its development, introduced the app to the public in Berlin on Tuesday morning. By midday it was said to have been downloaded more than 1m times. It has been backed by a massive advertising campaign across broadcasters and on billboards involving leading DAX companies and the German Football Association, the DFB, in the hope of reaching as large an audience as possible.
It follows the introduction of a French warning app, StopCovid, which launched last week but crashed four days later due to huge demand. Australia has introduced a similar system.
The German app has an open source program code, meaning it can be potentially copied and updated by other countries.
Helge Braun, the head of chancellor Angela Merkels office, and himself a doctor, said downloading the app amounted to one small step for us, but a giant step in our fight against the pandemic.
Lothar Wieler, of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Germanys leading public health advisory body, said the app would be an effective tool to help us break chains of infection.
He said its introduction would mark the start of the digitalisation of all coronavirus case data, much of which has been gathered so far by about 500 containment scouts who have typically used fax machines to communicate new coronavirus cases to the RKI to ensure data protection.
Jens Spahn, the health minister, said the app would be vital in speeding up the measures taken to break chains of infection particularly at a time when Germans were becoming more mobile.
We are increasingly coming into contact with anonymous people, whether at demonstrations or on public transport, he said. Every hour we gain by an early warning is a gain in our fight against this virus. Id prefer people to get tested too often than too little.
The next step, Spahn said, would be to build a system that would work across Europe. Currently, if a German user travels abroad, the app will not work.
Timotheus Httges, of Deutsche Telekom AG, said its laboratory in Prague had been central to developing the app and adapting it to the variety of situations in which users might find themselves.
There we simulated everything from cocktail parties to the school classroom to train journeys, he said. When youre working on something thats for the benefit of the whole society, its amazing the extent of the possibilities. He said it had taken 50 days to develop, adding: It was a lot of fun.
1. How COVID-19 is affecting the globe
2. WHO welcomes lifesaving drug trial breakthrough
The World Health Organization has said it will update its clinical guidance after a UK trial of dexamethasone was shown to reduce mortality of critically ill COVID-19 patients.
It was shown to reduce mortality by about one third in patients on ventilators, and by about one fifth for patients requiring only oxygen.
The inexpensive and widely available steroid has been used since the 1960s to reduce inflammation and is part of a larger trial by the University of Oxford which tests existing drugs for their effectiveness in COVID-19 patients.
This is the first treatment to be shown to reduce mortality in patients with COVID-19 requiring oxygen or ventilator support, said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.
This is great news and I congratulate the Government of the UK, the University of Oxford, and the many hospitals and patients in the UK who have contributed to this lifesaving scientific breakthrough.
There are more than 2,000 registered clinical trials investigating COVID-19 worldwide.
Image: Statista
3. Nepal facing COVID-19 remittance crisis
As the world slides into recession, Nepal faces twin issues of falling remittances - a lifeline to workers' families and a key source of liquidity for banks - as well as thousands of stranded or returning migrants now out of work.
Earnings sent home as remittances by Nepal's migrant workers in the Gulf states and elsewhere represent more than a quarter of the Nepal's economic output.
Lockdowns in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, two of the most popular destinations for migrant workers from Nepal and India, have hit the tourism, hospitality and construction sectors hardest, where many migrant workers were concentrated.
More than 210,000 Nepalis need to be rescued and repatriated, Nepali Foreign Minister Pradeep Kumar Gyawali told a parliamentary committee in May.
Globally, it's projected there will be a 20% in remittances in 2020, according to KNOMAD and the World Bank, equal to $110 billion.
But global cooperation efforts are underway to address the crisis. The governments of Switzerland and the UK are spearheading a high-level call to action to keep remittances flowing.
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The COVID-19 Health Equity Dashboard seeks to fill the gaps in county-level data about the virus and underlying social determinants of health. Our goal is for this Dashboard to facilitate easy comparisons of counties with respect to COVID-19 outcomes and social determinants. We hope this becomes a valuable resource for and critical component of ...
The data are now overwhelming, from here in the U.S. and all around the world, that this infection is a grave threat to the elderly and chronically ill, but generally mild for younger, generally healthy people, said Katz in an interview.
Its also clear that many of the worried projections about social determinants of health and the consequences of mass unemployment are confirmed. We have, indeed, seen rising rates of addiction, domestic violence and mental duress.
We also know much more now, Katz continued, about the risks of exposure. This virus is not transmitted all that easily. Many people with transient, ordinary exposures dont get infected because of low exposure dose, partial resistance to this pathogen, or both.
All of this provides actionable intelligence, Katz argued. We can and must do a far better job of protecting the frail and elderly, especially in nursing homes, and all of those with serious chronic disease, he said. Then the rest of us can go about our business, but with policies in place to regulate any interactions we might have with higher-risk people, so we protect them, and with reasonable precautions for our own sakes, like wearing masks, practicing social distancing and avoiding crowded indoor settings, that limit exposure to high doses of coronavirus and our ability to pass it along.
We also can see now with cases spiking in locations around the country that did not experience an early wave of infection and are now opening up haphazardly how right it was to warn about the dangers of just flattening the curve without a risk-stratification strategy, added Katz. A flattened curve delays cases, it does not prevent them, because no immunity has been developed.
To get back to normalcy requires widespread immunity to the coronavirus, which happens in only two ways.
One is a vaccine that is safe, effective, mass produced and universally distributed. That would be the best solution, and God willing, a vaccine will come in the fall and everyone can get back to work safely in subsequent months. But it may not, and we cant just keep the economy on hold.
Dr. Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand's director-general of health, pictured last week, said Tuesday that two women flying in from the U.K. via Australia had tested positive for the coronavirus and had been in isolation since their arrival. Marty Melville/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
Dr. Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand's director-general of health, pictured last week, said Tuesday that two women flying in from the U.K. via Australia had tested positive for the coronavirus and had been in isolation since their arrival.
After 24 days with no new cases of the coronavirus, New Zealand now has two. Both are women in the same family and traveled from the U.K. via Australia.
"I can say now both women are self-isolating in the Wellington region, and we're very confident the arrangements that are in place is the best place for them to be right now," Dr. Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand's director-general of health, said in a news conference Tuesday.
One woman experienced mild symptoms; the other was symptom-free.
The two women had been in a managed isolation hotel in Auckland since arriving in the country. They came to the country on June 7 and traveled to Wellington on Saturday.
Bloomfield said they have been following the country's regulations, including not using any public facilities and not having any contact with anyone during their journey by car from the isolation hotel in Auckland to self-isolation in Wellington. Contact tracing is now being conducted, ranging from the people who were on their flight from Australia to the staff at the airport and isolation facility.
"A new case is something we hoped we wouldn't get but is also something we have expected and planned for," Bloomfield said. "That is why we have geared up, and continue to gear up, our contact tracing at a local level and national capacity and capability as well as having our excellent testing capability so we can respond rapidly."
He added, "We know there are people continuing to come to New Zealand these are Kiwis returning from countries where there is active community spread of COVID-19. And that is why we have the requirement for managed isolation at the border."
New Zealand may grant "compassionate exemptions" for a person to leave a managed isolation facility if the person has a detailed plan for self-isolation, testing and health checks through the end of the 14-day isolation period.
The country's total number of confirmed cases is now 1,156, and its combined total of confirmed and probable cases is 1,506. The number of recovered cases remains at 1,482, and no one is currently receiving hospital-level care for COVID-19.
The Ministry of Health said that more than 558,000 people are now registered users of NZ COVID Tracer, the ministry's contact tracing app.
Here's how it works: Businesses and organizations are given posters with an official QR code specific to that location. People are then encouraged to scan the QR code with the smartphone app to create a diary of where they've gone. Users can sign up to receive alerts if it turns out a person with COVID-19 was at the same location at the same time. If you are identified as a confirmed or probable case of COVID-19, you can share your check-ins with the Ministry of Health, helping contact tracers identify others who might have been exposed.
A COVID-19 QR code allows patrons to scan for New Zealand's tracing program as they enter a stadium Saturday in Dunedin ahead of a rugby game. Joe Allison/AP hide caption
New Zealand is seen as perhaps the globe's biggest success story in controlling the spread of the virus, with the country moving swiftly to stop local transmission and prevent new cases from arriving.
In mid-March, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern ordered anyone entering New Zealand into quarantine. A few days later, Ardern stopped travel into the country, in effect banning all foreigners from entering the island nation of 4.8 million. By mid-May, New Zealand had three consecutive days with no new cases, and it allowed most businesses to reopen.
Last week, as the nation began allowing large gatherings such as sporting events and concerts, Ardern warned that New Zealand is not immune to what happens in the rest of the world.
"We will almost certainly see cases here again," she predicted. "That is not a sign we have failed."
For several weeks in May, it seemed as though the coronavirus was finally ebbing: National case counts, which rose astronomically earlier in the spring, had leveled off. States had started the process of reopening.
Now, cases are rising again, prompting fears that a second wave has hit the U.S.
NBC News reached out to several experts who study patterns of disease. All agreed: No, this isn't a second wave.
Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak
A second wave of the coronavirus suggests that the first wave has come and gone. That hasn't happened.
"We never made it out of the first wave," said Dr. David Weber, medical director of hospital epidemiology at the University of North Carolina Medical Center in Chapel Hill.
Weber likened waves of infectious disease to ocean waves. "When you're 10 feet up on the shore and the wave hits you, it recedes all the way back," he said. "Now you're on dry land with no puddle beneath."
But with COVID-19, he said, "we still got a big puddle there."
The word "wave" comes from the curve used to visualize the number of people infected during an outbreak. If more people get sick every day, the curve goes up. If fewer people get sick every day, the curve goes down.
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"Flattening the curve" that is, stopping the rise of the number of new daily cases and causing it to level off but not necessarily go down is important because it gives health care systems a chance to spread out resources so they don't get overwhelmed. That's where the U.S. is overall sitting atop a plateau of new daily cases as businesses begin to reopen.
"A second wave implies that the first wave has disappeared and reappeared," said Loren Lipworth, an epidemiologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. "I don't think that is what we're seeing here in the U.S."
Instead, the U.S. appears to be going through a constant chain of smaller spikes. Lipworth referred to them as "waves of infection" rather than one big, cresting wave that has come and gone.
While cases have significantly decreased in the hardest-hit states, New York and New Jersey, they're increasing in states like Arkansas, Arizona and South Carolina.
Those states "didn't have much disease activity early in the pandemic but are now seeing an upswing," said Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. In other words, their first waves are just beginning.
Download the NBC News app for full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak
Another way to consider whether an area has gotten through the first wave of an infectious disease is to look at levels of community spread, or transmissions of the virus that can't be traced to a source.
It's only when areas can get through one to two weeks without community spread, Weber said, that they would qualify as having passed that first wave. Indeed, community spread is still occurring across much of the country.
It's possible that the current plateau will stay on the same course over the summer, without decreasing significantly, and then spike even more this fall as schools reopen and the annual flu season begins. That's not necessarily a "second wave" but an even bigger rise on top of the current series of smaller crests.
"There is a possibility that we will see a resurgence in the fall," Rivers said. "But there's a lot of open questions, because we've never seen this virus before."
Scientists can base predictions only on past pandemics, such as the 1918 influenza pandemic.
The first wave of that infection was in July, when influenza viruses generally don't transmit well because of higher temperatures and because people generally spend more time outdoors.
That wave largely subsided during August and September, but cases spiked significantly in October and November 1918 in a second wave. The return of the illness was largely blamed on authorities' downplaying the significance of the virus and allowing large public gatherings to continue, particularly in Philadelphia.
As a result, 12,000 people died in Philadelphia. In contrast, immediate social distancing in St. Louis resulted in just 1,700 deaths.
Indeed, the potential for a bigger surge of COVID-19 will also depend on the actions of people. Unlike the actual ocean, there are ways to slow the waves of the virus or at least minimize its risks.
"If people become less compliant with physical distance and masks," Weber said, "we're going to see more cases."
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Erika Edwards is a health and medical news writer and reporter for NBC News and "TODAY."
Tambo and her daughters had first came to the Peruvian capital from a remote village in the Amazon rainforest, so that her oldest, Amelie, could become the first member of the family to attend university.
The 17-year-old had won a prestigious scholarship to study at Lima's Universidad Cientfica del Sur, and the family had big dreams. They would rent a small room, help Amelie get started and Maria would scrape together some money working in a restaurant.
After nearly two months of quarantine, they had no money left to pay for their rented room or for food. Tambo decided to return to their village in the Ucayali region, 350 miles away.
With public transportation shut down the only option was to make the journey by foot. "I know the danger I am putting my children in, but I don't have a choice," she said. "I either die trying to get out of here or starve to death in my room."
Escaping the city
I met Tambo, 40, through a WhatsApp group where thousands of Peruvians talked about how they would leave Lima to return to their homes. "I haven't left my house since the government declared the quarantine," she told me. "But I no longer have any money."
She agreed to let me follow her on the dangerous journey, to tell her story, unsure of what the outcome would be.
Tambo and her daughters left Lima in early May. She wore a facemask and carried infant Melec on her back along with a large multi-colored backpack sprinkled with little hearts. Amelie and seven-year-old Yacira trudged by her side, lugging their own packs. A pink bear hung from Yacira's backpack.
Their epic journey, along dusty highways, railway tracks and dark country roads, would take the Tambos through the high-altitude Andes region before they would reach the Amazon rainforest -- a perilous route for a woman traveling alone with three children.
Walking in the heat, hour after hour, we watched them press ahead. Water and food were scarce, Tambo's emotions were raw. She cried as she sang softly to her baby Melec. "There is no path, you make your own path walking," she hummed.
There were moments of kindness and relief as they broke up the journey by hitching a few rides along the way. One driver tossed them food as he drove by. But most of the time, Tambo and her daughters walked.
On the third day, as they struggled in the thin air near the Andes, 15,000 feet above sea-level, we saw one trucker take pity on the family, giving them a ride to the next town and sharing some of his food. "I have walked so much," she told the driver, trying to hold back the tears of gratitude.
It was a brief respite for their feet. "My daughter's hands were turning purple," she told him. "I thought she wasn't going to make it."
Checkpoints along the way
The way home involved more than endurance. Tambo also had to navigate police checkpoints set up to prevent residents from Lima, the country's coronavirus epicenter, from spreading the virus to rural areas.
In San Ramon, just before Tambo entered the jungle, we watched a police officer interrogate her. "You cannot pass here with children," the officer said. Tambo negotiated with him. "I am only going back to my farm, in Chaparnaranja, where I have been for a week already."
It was a lie. She could not tell the officer she was coming from Lima, or he wouldn't allow her to continue on her journey.
But the exhausted mother persevered. She was doing what she had to do to survive, she told us. The virus was not as scary as dying from hunger.
After seven days and nights, and 300 miles traveled, Tambo and her children made it to her home province, the Ucayali region, where the indigenous Ashaninka people also live.
A final hurdle lay on their path -- entry to the territory was prohibited because of the virus.
"What would happen if an infected person comes in? How do we escape?" one of the local Ashaninka leaders told us. "The only respirator we have is the air. Our health center does not have anything to combat the virus."
But Tambo was determined. She negotiated with the local leaders and was permitted to go home -- on the condition that she and the kids isolate themselves for 14 days.
They arrived at night, Tambo was overwhelmed as the family dogs ran to greet them. She dropped to her knees and sobbed, thanking God for delivering her home, as the animals wagged their tails and nuzzled against the infant in her arms.
As the tears flowed, her husband, Kafet, and her father-in-law emerged from the darkness.
There was joy but distance. Nobody could touch. Nobody could hug because of the virus.
"It was so difficult, we suffered so much," she told them through her tears.
"I don't ever want to go to Lima again. I thought I would die there with my girls."
The latest COVID-19 model shows Harris County's projected four-week spike could be the second-worst in the country.
HOUSTON Gov. Greg Abbott told Texans not to panic Tuesday after another record-high number of new COVID-19 cases were reported across the state.
"The increased occupancy in hospital beds, it does raise concerns, but as shown today, there is no reason to be alarmed," Abbott said.
The governor blamed the spikes on batches of positive tests in prisons, assisted living facilities and some data errors. He insists that the reopening of Texas is going smoothly.
"COVID-19 hasn't magically left the state of Texas, it's still here," Abbott said. "We do not have to choose between either returning to jobs or protecting healthcare."
Abbott's press conference left infectious disease expert Dr. Peter Hotez with key questions unanswered.
"What's the contingency if these numbers continue to go up precipitously?" Hotez said.
Right now, 21% of Houston-area hospital beds remain available. The problem, Hotez said, is that the cases are going up, not down.
"The models tell a frightening story," Hotez said. "People were aggressive about opening early and this is the consequence of it, unfortunately."
The latest University of Pennsylvania models show Harris County's four-week case projection is the second-worst in the country, behind Maricopa County in Arizona.
"If by next week these numbers continue to accelerate, we may have to make some hard choices," Hotez said.
"Masks give us a fighting chance," Hotez said.
For now, Abbott is not budging.
"All of us have a collective responsibility to educate the public that wearing a mask is the right thing to do, but putting people in jail however is the wrong approach," Abbott said.
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KHOU has just upgraded its technology. If you were unable to receive KHOU with your antenna in the past, try again on channel 11.11. You may have to rescan your channels for it to work if thats the case, weve got some instructions at KHOU.com/antenna. If you already see KHOU on 11.1, you may now ALSO see it on 11.11 its the exact same programming. Were really excited to be able to bring our KHOU 11 News, CBS shows and sports, Wheel of Fortune, Ellenand Great Day Houston to more homes around the area. If youre still having trouble, please contact us here and well try to get you set up.
ATLANTA New COVID-19 cases remain steady in Georgia, with 664 new cases on Tuesday, after several days in a row of upward trends.
11Alive has been tracking the case numbers. It's likely that there are few reasons for this.
Given what we know about how the data lags behind, this is about the time we expect to see some of the impact of mass protests on COVID-19 cases.
The graph below shows the progression of COVID-19 cases since mid-March. The section in orange shows the cases from the past week, and the dotted line indicates the 14-day moving average.
We also got a question from a viewer, asking how much testing we're doing and how that might play a role.
Here's how that breaks down.
One month ago Georgia had completed 260,000 COVID-19 tests. As of Monday, that number had risen to 625,000. That is a 139 percent increase in the number of tests administered across Georgia.
Another measurement public health officials look at is the rate of positive tests. That means the number of people who have the virus. This is a lot harder to calculate because people who have the virus often take multiple tests, so it's not a perfect science.
However, we do know that one month ago, about 14 percent of people who got the coronavirus test were positive. A month later, that's now down to about 9 percent.
The graph above shows the comparison of the rate of positive cases for May and June.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wants to see that number below 15. Anything above that is likely to start to strain hospital resources.
Here's a look at where we are on those currently in the hospital.
Right now, our line is pretty steady after trending up a bit last week. In the graph above, you can see the uptick from last week, which is circled.
As cases rise, we'll be keeping a close eye on this to see how severe they are.
11Alive is focusing our news coverage on the facts and not the fear around the virus. We want to keep you informed about the latest developments while ensuring that we deliver confirmed, factual information.
We will track the most important coronavirus elements relating to Georgia on this page. Refresh often for new information.
