IMPACT

Businesses have been shut in Nevada for a month now, and Governor Sisolak said today that he doesn’t know if Nevada will still be closed after April 30.

He said, quite pointedly in his news conference today, that he is listening to the scientists and he will open the state when they say it is safe to.

We also heard from the head of Nevada’s state labs about what they’re doing. It involves more testing and 3-D printing of testing materials.

How much past April 30 can businesses survive in this state - with being open or running at full capacity?

Today we’re checking in with Peter Guzman, who is the executive director of the Latin Chamber of Commerce, about his vast membership and how they’re doing.

The Latin Chamber represents all sorts of businesses - from hotels and casinos to restaurants for various sizes, to realtors and janitors and independent contractors. Some of their members - like construction companies - are still working. But many are not.

Guzman favors more testing, a clear plan, and a gradual reopening to start sooner than later.

 

News:

The news stories we talked about today are:

Protesters in Michigan

Governor Sisolak's press conference, where we learned from Dr. Mark Pandori of the State Dept. of Health Labs, that:

But Dr. Mark Pandori, head of the state Dept. of Public Health lab, was clear that we can’t go back to normal until we test people who are not symptomatic

• They have 5,000 testing kids on hand at any given time
• They are making swabs via 3D printing
• They will be doing automatic testing
• They will be opening more testing places
• They will implement antibody testing to see who has had COVID 19 already

Glitches in Stimulus Checks

 

Carrie Kaufman and Andrea Cole talked to Nevada ACLU policy director Holly Welborn and Clark County deputy chief public defender, and former Assemblyman, John Piro about their bid to get non-violent prisoners released from county jails and state prisons. Conditions in prisons, they argue, don't allow for social distancing.

This is IMPACT. A daily look at how we are coping with the coronavirus in Nevada. I’m Carrie Kaufman.

Why is this night different from all other nights?

That’s a question that Jews all over the world ask every year at the Passover seder, which is happening tonight.

The story of Passover is the story of Jews escaping bondage in Egypt. It is the story of Moses, becoming aware of who he really was and fighting for his people.

It is a story about a … plague. And a leader who ignored the warnings until his first born son was threatened.

It is the story about GETTING THROUGH a plague. And gaining freedom.

At this moment, Jews all over America are looking at each other through their computer screens, not around their Seder tables.

This night. Is. Different.

But we will get through it.

NEWS:

Numbers. From WaPo

Worldwide, we are at 1.5 million cases. 100,000 more than yesterday. Almost 88,000 people have died around the world.

In the U.S., we have almost 423,000 confirmed cases, about 50 thousand more than yesterday. 14,400 people have died.

I should note here that when you look at the numbers adjusted for population, the U.S. looks far rosier than other countries - especially in Europe. We have more people here. We still have more deaths than any other country. Take that as you will.

In Nevada, on more person has died, bringing the number to 72. 2,269 people are sick. Or testing positive. Most of those numbers are in Clark County.

For context, New York numbers rose to 150,000 cases and over 6,200 deaths.

Closer to home - and to today’s topic - KLUC radio host Omari Mitchell is in better condition after spending the week in ICU at Southern Hills Hospital, the Review Journal posted today.

Akiko, Mitchell was apparently doing fine, then he just rapidly declined. This is why this virus is so scary.

The RJ also reports today that under the “independent contractors” provision of the CARES package, professional gamblers will be allowed to file for unemployment

And Megan Messerly reported in the Nevada Independent today that Humboldt County has 14 cases of COVID 19. Pretty large for a population of 17,000.

 

The Interview

If you’re watching the numbers closely, you begin to notice a pattern in coronavirus cases - and especially deaths. It started for me anecdotally. I would see a “rest in peace” on Facebook. A friend told me her ex-husband’s grandmother died, followed a couple of weeks later by her ex-husband’s grand FATHER. And I started to realize that almost all the deaths I was hearing about were black people.

Then I started looking at the statistics. In Chicago, black people account for 70 percent of COVID 19 deaths. But they only make up 32 percent of the population.

Just up I-95 in Milwaukee, it’s a similar story. 26 percent of Milwaukee’s population are African-American. Yet that demographic makes up 73 percent of COVID deaths.

Dougherty County in the southwest part of Georgia has statistics that are only eclipsed by New York, when you account for how big the population is.

Dougherty County is 71 percent black.

In fact, if you look up a map of the “black belt” that spans from Southeast Arkansas and Eastern Louisiana, then through Alabama and Mississippi, and you lay that map over a current coronavirus map, the similarities are pretty striking.

We are going to report on this pretty steadily as we go. Because the coronavirus has illuminated something that our society as a whole has been trying to ignore for some time: Black and brown people in the U.S. have lower life expectancy and more health issues than white people.

We’re going talk about why.

Joining us today is Lowryanne Vick. She’s a Ph.D in Nursing Practice and represents the Eta, Eta, Eta chapter of the Chi Eta Phi Sorority Inc. - African American professional nursing association.

This is IMPACT. A daily look at how we are coping with the coronavirus in Nevada. I’m Carrie Kaufman.

The parents are not all right.

That’s the gist of a number of articles I have read recently and comments I have seen from parents in social media.

We have a disconnect in this country between work and parenting. When our country was full of farmers, work and parenting were pretty much the same thing. That was true, too, in the small businesses that sprung up across the nation, where people lived above their restaurants or tailor shops.

But the rules for the middle class - the GENTEEL class - were that one parent worked while the other one stayed home. Aside from the inherent sexism in that arrangement, we simply don’t live in a world anymore where families can afford only one parent working.

But, I can tell you from experience - it is hard to work and parent at the same time. Especially if your kids are younger.

We’re going to talk about parenting and school under quarantine.

This is IMPACT. A daily look at how we are coping with the coronavirus in Nevada. I’m Carrie Kaufman.

I spent the first half of my adult life doing, watching and writing about theatre.

But I really spent those decades of the 90’s and aughts writing about life.

PerformInk, which was the newspaper I started back when the first Bush was ending his presidency, covered politics, race, sexual and workplace harassment. We wrote about economic development. And leadership. And being a working parent. And global policies and issues.

Because arts is a lens that refracts and makes sense of the entire world. It is our common language. It is our shared experience.

These are the things I’ve learned from theatre:

1. To be in the moment. To always be authentic and present.
2. To be emotionally available. If you bottle yourself up and follow outside rules, rather than inside intuition, you will not be a good leader. You simply won’t see the people you’re trying to lead. You may not even see yourself.
3. To listen. Truly listen. Not just with your ears, but with your whole being.
4. To take risks. I just started a radio show on two days notice. I am a gay, single mother who reoriented her career halfway through her life.
5. To say Yes… AND. That’s one of the main tenets of improv. You come into a given situation, you find agreement, then you add something to help it move forward.

Theatre has taught me how to live. It’s made me a good journalist and interviewer and manager. It’s made me a halfway decent teacher. It’s made me a damn good mother.

We’re going to talk today about how arts are influencing us in this time of lockdown and fear. And how we can take the lessons that arts have to teach us to see our way through to more meaningful experiences on the other side.

I’m joined today, as I am going to be every Friday, by Sarah O’Connell. Sarah is the artistic director of Asylum Theatre, and former associate director at American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. She is also a fierce arts advocate and leader, and has stepped up to bring the performance community in Las Vegas together, most notably through her website, Eat More Art Vegas, and her monthly Arts Table gatherings.

Matt Elwell is an old friend from my Chicago Theatre days. He’s Executive Director of CSz Worldwide and a speaker and consultant in Applied Improvisation. CSz Worldwide produces ComedySportz. In addition to his exec duties, Matt has been a performer in ComedySportz for 20 years.

I met both of these people because I interviewed them. And I was like, “Yeah, I have to keep these people.”

Health care workers are on the front lines of COVID 19. Especially at Clark County's one public hospital - University Medical Center.

Which is why it came as such a surprise when Clark County Manager Yolanda King told SEIU today that the County would be suspending all union contracts till the end of the emergency order.

This came as a surprise to Brian Shepherd, the chief of staff of SEIU in Southern Nevada. UMC employs  over 4,000 University Medical Center workers, such as nurses and respiratory techs.

 

 

The Washington Post reported today that the Dept. of Homeland Security’s emergency stockpiles of protective gear are dangerously low. This includes gloves, face masks and other medical supplies.

“The stockpile was designed to respond to a handful of cities,” a source told the Post. “It was never built or designed to fight a 50-state pandemic.”

The Guardian reported yesterday that the day after California’s Shelter in Place order, ICE agents raided immigrant communities, putting dozens of people in detention.

But get this… the ICE agents were wearing N95 masks. You know, those masks that medical professionals are desperate to get.

Yesterday the ACLU of Nevada filed a lawsuit over detentions of two immigrants who have pre-existing conditions that make them more vulnerable to the virus. This follows a handful of lawsuits around the country in which the ACLU has prevailed.

Federal Judges in the U.S. have held that keeping people in detention demonstrates "deliberate indifference"; is "life threatening" and that social distancing is impossible in overcrowded detention centers; that filling detention centers represents "callous disregard" for detainees.

This is IMPACT. A daily look at how we are coping with the coronavirus in Nevada. I’m Carrie Kaufman.

So I took some risk today. To get a story. Valley High School is handing Chromebooks and I went to talk to kids and to principal Ramona Esparza. I wore gloves and a mask. Upside down, apparently, according to my know it all Facebook friends.

I think it turned into a good piece. We’ll play it in a few minutes. But first we are joined this evening by Rebecca Garcia, one of the people who runs the CCSD parent Facebook group.

And we're going to check the numbers.

As of March 30, the U.S. has passed 159,000 cases.There was 141,000 yesterday. And almost 500 more deaths, at 2945.

Around the world, there’s been a 35,000 case uptick since yesterday. We’re at more than 755,000 cases, with 37,000 reported deaths.

Nevada is at 1008 cases and 15 deaths. That death rate has held steady over the last couple of days. Keep staying in, Nevada!

Governor Steve Sisolak held a press conference yesterday with Attorney General Aaron Ford and State Treasurer Zach Conine. They announced an emergency order to prohibit evictions for Nevadans struggling to pay their rent or mortgage. Ford also announced his office is spending $2 million to United Way of Southern and Northern Nevada to cover the cost of food.

Sisolak’s moratorium on evictions will last as long as the state of emergency is in effect, it will not get people out of having to pay once the pandemic is over, and it will not allow any late fees. In addition, landlords must still carry out their contractual obligations - for instance, if a pipe bursts.

This is IMPACT. A daily look at how we are coping with the coronavirus in Nevada. I’m Carrie Kaufman.

What can I do to help?

No doubt, we’ve all asked that question without even thinking about it.

When we walk in to a party and see the host scurrying around trying to get last minute cooking done.

What can I do to help?

When we volunteer at our kids’ schools

What can I do to help?

When we do walk-a-thons to raise money for cancer or sign people up to vote.

Humans DO things. And most of us want to do things to make the world a better place.

I’m a journalist, because I want to connect people with information.

Artists… actors, clowns, musicians, painters… connect people not with information, but with images, drama, laughter.

We’re going to talk today about different ways people are DOING SOMETHING in this time when we feel utterly helpless and staying home - while the experts say it is the best thing we can do - just doesn’t feel like enough.

The NEWS:

CCSD Trustees held an emergency meeting this morning to take care of routine business that had routine due dates.

State law requires meetings outside of the regular schedule to be labeled, "emergency." But we're in the middle of an actual emergency, and there is a lot of confusion and unanswered questions about what students and teachers and parents are supposed to do. At the very least, calling and "emergency" meeting without planning to address some of the issues related to the pandemic was a communication gaffe.

Alas, an item was added to the agenda at the last minute to talk about distance learning, which started today.

CCSD Superintendent Jesus Jara said that 63 percent of students have access to the internet. Which means 47 percent will have to pick up paper packets at food distribution points, or go without homework.

Jara also said he is not abiding by the an order from the State Dept. of Ed to have distance learning in place by today. There are simply too many hurdles to overcome. We’ll have more on this tomorrow and Wednesday.

The Washington Post is reporting - via its ever changing coronavirus map - that the U.S. had 100 deaths from the novel virus - the single biggest death toll yet.

Worldwide, there have been 375,458 confirmed cases and 16,371 deaths - a 4 percent death rate. The death rate from the flu is less than 1 percent.

The New York Times is reporting that Republican led legislators in Texas and Ohio are labeling abortion as unnecessary elective procedures, to be stopped while the coronavirus is spreading. Critics argue that coronavirus is not treated in abortion clinics.

The INTERVIEW:

We talked today to Robin Slonina and Troy Heard. Robin runs a body painting and event company in the arts district. Troy runs the Majestic Theatre in the arts district.

Both of them have had to shut their businesses when Gov. Sisolak ordered a shut-down of non-essential businesses. The Majestic had just opened an interactive show - Garden Party - in which actors would physically interact with audience members.

Slonina had to cancel a charity event she was planning for One Drop. She also lost income on the canceled Electric Daisy Carnival.

"My concern is not making it through, it's what's going to happen on the other side. Who's going to want to come into an enclosed space," said Heard.

He's also worried about whether people who make up their audiences are going to have expendable income after the pandemic recedes.

"How long does it take to recover from everyone in the city losing months of work," adds Slonina.

In the meantime, both Slonina and Heard are keeping busy, planning for the future. Slonina is launching a TV show on You Too (known as YTA) called Vegas Unveiled. They're producing it with Vegas: The Network. The idea is to get artists to film themselves teaching their kids to do tightrope, or doing acrobatics in open spaces that are now empty on the Strip. It will premiere March 30, and run an hour a night.

Heard is doing online interactive online shows, where people can dial in and talk to characters.