Cuomo's wide-ranging remarks also criticized what he called the "extraordinarily dangerous" politicization of the response to a pandemic that has killed more than 58,000 Americans and left millions jobless. The Democratic governor, who has intermittently traded barbs with U.S. President Donald Trump and other Republican politicians during the crisis, made a thinly veiled reference to the upcoming national election in November. Cuomo, who previously blasted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's suggestion that states like New York should be able to declare bankruptcy if financially crippled by the crisis, took fresh aim at Florida Senator Rick Scott.
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You've probably noticed that graphs and charts are having a moment during the coronavirus pandemic. Governments are using them to make informed decisions about when to re-open economies, and they pop up daily to present people around the world with a look at how the pandemic is trending. But some would argue people are putting a little too much stock in models without accounting for their potential pitfalls.Carl Bergstrom, an expert on both emerging infectious diseases and networked misinformation from the University of Washington, told The Guardian in an interview he doesn't think people have done a good job of "thinking about what the purpose of models are, how the purposes of different models vary, and then what the scope of their value is." That's led people to over-rely on them and "treat them too seriously," and when reality eventually differs from the projections, models tend to get criticized "for not being perfect at everything."Bergstrom's point is that science, especially in fast moving scenarios like the pandemic, is "provisional" and "can be corrected." He believes researchers can improve at communicating that point by "deliberately stressing the possible weaknesses of our interpretations." A really good paper, he said, will lay out all the reasons why it could be wrong. Read more at The Guardian.More stories from theweek.com Scientists are perplexed by the low rate of coronavirus hospitalizations among smokers. Nicotine may hold the answer. Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez partner to block major mergers during coronavirus pandemic Health care workers are reportedly having dreams reminiscent of combat veterans and 9/11 responders
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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Monday appointed his economy vice president, Tareck El Aissami, who has been indicted in the United States on drug trafficking charges, as oil minister, amid acute fuel shortages across the country. Maduro named Asdrubal Chavez, cousin of the late President Hugo Chavez, as interim president of state oil firm PDVSA, according to the appointments published in the government's official gazette.
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Nigeria will start easing a coronavirus lockdown covering its largest city Lagos and capital Abuja from May 4, President Muhammadu Buhari said on Monday. "I have approved a phased and gradual easing of lockdown measures," Buhari said in a televised broadcast. More than 25 million residents in Abuja, Lagos and neighbouring Ogun state have been under federal lockdown since March 30 and other states have introduced their own restrictions.
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(Bloomberg) -- France reported the most new coronavirus cases in more than a week on Monday, while deaths linked to the virus rose for the first time in five days.The number of new infections rose by 4,326 to 196,069, the biggest daily increase since April 18, according to data published by the health ministry. Fatalities linked to the outbreak rose by 437 to 23,293, after the country on Sunday had reported the fewest deaths in more than a month.France is preparing to ease its confinement after May 11, and Prime Minister Edouard Philippe is set to present the government’s plan to begin the return to normal life on Tuesday. Lockdown measures across Europe have started to decelerate the spread of the coronavirus, slowing the number of new deaths in Spain and Italy.Patients in intensive care because of the virus, which French health authorities consider a key indicator of the outbreak’s impact on the country’s hospital system, fell by 74 to 4,608, the lowest since March 29. Hospitalizations fell by 216 to 28,055.France’s daily coronavirus figures have fluctuated amid inconsistent reporting from nursing homes -- first included in the tally this month -- including a downward revision of the data last week.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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Covid-19 can linger for hours in the air of crowded spaces and rooms such as toilets that lack ventilation, according to a new study by scientists who now recommended wearing masks in public. While the transmission of the coronavirus from direct human contact and through respiratory droplets, such as coughing or sneezing, is clear, the potential for airborne transmission is much less understood. The World Health Organisation has said the risk is limited to very specific circumstances, pointing to an analysis of more than 75,000 cases in China in which no transmission from breathing or talking was recorded. However, a study carried out by scientists from the University of Wuhan and published on Monday in the scientific research journal Nature, suggests the virus can potentially remain in the fair or some time in areas with poor ventilation. The study took samples from 30 sites across Wuhan, China, where the novel virus was first reported, including inside hospitals as well as public areas of the city during the height of its outbreak in February and March. It found levels of airborne virus particles in the majority of public areas was too low to be detectable, except in two areas prone to crowding - including the entrance of a department store.
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Tyson Foods recently suspended production at its Waterloo, Iowa, pork processing plant due to a growing coronavirus outbreak among employees. The plant was Tyson’s largest, employing some 2,800 workers and processing 19,500 pigs a day. At least 180 confirmed infections originated from the plant, about half of all cases in the county.It’s not the first meat processing plant to close. In the U.S., at least eight have halted in recent weeks, affecting over 15% of the nation’s pork processing capacity. As a result, pig farmers have begun euthanizing hundreds and potentially tens of thousands of animals that can’t be processed – raising fears of a meat shortage on grocery shelves. Managers at essential companies like Tyson considering plant shutdowns over coronavirus are weighing a variety of factors, from worker safety and profits to keeping afloat a US$230 billion segment of the U.S. economy that supplies food for hundreds of millions of Americans.As a corporate and white-collar crime scholar, I believe there’s another variable they’re weighing: criminal liability. Coronavirus crimePut simply, executives at food companies like Tyson face a heightened risk of criminal prosecution for the decisions they make. This is due to a quirk in American law, known as the “responsible corporate officer doctrine,” that allows senior executives in certain industries to be held criminally responsible for wrongdoing at their companies – even if they’ve never set foot in a plant or factory.In the case of the coronavirus pandemic, potential criminal liability stems from a meatpacking facility sending out a contaminated product and knowing there was an outbreak among employees. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not found evidence that COVID-19 has been transmitted through meat or poultry, public health officials have said that coronavirus strains can live at low and freezing temperatures and on food packaging. And so much about the risks of COVID-19 are uncertain and evolving that companies need to be on their toes. In addition, there’s the danger that if plants stay in operation without enough workers, there’s a greater risk for other types of food contamination, like of E. coli or salmonella. And the Food and Drug Administration has reduced the number of inspections during the outbreak, which doesn’t limit the criminal liability of executives if tainted food reaches a consumer. This means food safety procedures are paramount to keeping the public safe. Executives that don’t take steps to ensure those procedures are in place – for example, by keeping processing lines going as usual while employee infections spike – are at risk of ignoring their legal duties and becoming a “responsible corporate officer.”Normally, criminal law insists that a defendant must be aware that he’s doing something wrong to be held liable. But courts have decided that this element of intent can be ignored in limited situations where the public’s health and welfare are at stake – namely, in the making of drugs and in food production. ‘Strict liability’Although the responsible corporate officer doctrine is an anomaly in the criminal law, it has a lengthy history. In 1943, the Supreme Court in United States v. Dotterweich found that the president and general manager of a pharmaceutical company was liable for the misbranding of the company’s drugs that were later distributed across state lines. In upholding his conviction under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, the court stated that there need not be a showing that Joseph Dotterweich knew of the illegal activity. The court reasoned that Congress had balanced the relative hardships that came from imposing “strict liability” on corporate executives who had a “responsible share” in the illegal conduct and those imposed on the innocent public “who are wholly helpless.” Dotterweich was found guilty by a jury and had to pay a small fine. Thirty years later, in United States v. Park, the Supreme Court again considered the responsible corporate officer doctrine, this time specific to food distribution. John Park, president and CEO of a national food chain, was charged with violating the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act for allowing food to be shipped from company warehouses infested with rats.Although the contamination occurred in locations Park did not personally oversee, the court found him responsible. The court held that the food act imposes not only a positive duty to seek out and remedy violations but also a duty to “implement measures that will insure that violations will not occur.” While this standard is demanding, the court conceded, the public has a right to expect executives to assume such a standard when taking positions of authority that affect the health and well-being of the public. He was required to pay a small fine. While the penalties in responsible corporate officer cases have mostly been minor, some have involved months of jail time. For example, in 2016, the Eighth Circuit not only upheld the conviction of two executive owners of a large Iowa egg production company for not preventing a salmonella outbreak, but also their three-month jail sentences. Relying on the previous Supreme Court rulings, the court in United States v. DeCoster brushed aside arguments that jailing the the owner and his son for a strict liability crime violated the Constitution. The punishment was proportionate and reasonable, the court found, for those overseeing “egregious” safety and sanitation procedures that allowed salmonella-contaminated eggs to enter the market and sicken consumers. Executive dutiesSo what does this mean for executives at American food companies today? While it would be easy for those executives with responsibility over our nation’s food supply to defer to others, such as governors or the president, that thinking ignores their own duties – legal and ethical – as well as their own criminal risk.The law is clear that even if an executive is not involved in the day-to-day operations of production, he or she could be held criminally responsible for the distribution of contaminated food. That’s one more risk to weigh in the decision to keep the plant doors open. Let’s see if it tips the balance. [Get facts about coronavirus and the latest research. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]
Este artÃculo se vuelve a publicar de The Conversation, un medio digital sin fines de lucro dedicado a la diseminación de la experticia académica.
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