George “Skip” Panse, a member of the Gay Men’s Chorus in South Florida, was busy greeting members with a smile and a big hug three weeks ago. Last Wednesday, he died of complications caused by coronavirus.
Panse has become a headline dreaded by all as the pandemic pelts the US. The nation has, within days, become a petri-dish of cases, hauling the highest amount of confirmed coronavirus cases in the world.
A church-goer known by loved ones for his sense of humour and passion for music, Panse’s death was confirmed Thursday by the executive director of the chorus on Facebook in a tearful post.
Loved ones mourn the loss of Gay Men’s Chorus singer George Panse who died from coronavirus.
“It is tough to know that Florida’s death toll from the Coronavirus has climbed to 23 and one of them is a dear man I knew and who was a member of the Gay Men’s Chorus of South Florida,” Mark Kent wrote.
“We lost Skip to the virus yesterday.
I am usually not public about personal pain, but I share this in the hope that it helps more people take this epidemic seriously. Please stay home and stay safe.
“My prayers for Skip’s loved ones.”
Tributes poured in for Panse, a regular attendee of the United Church of Christ Fort Lauderdale, as stunned church-goers, faith leaders and choir members regaled their favourite memories of him.
“As we all know, Skip had a great passion for music and he was fed spiritually by our music ministry,” senior pastor Patrick Rogers wrote on Facebook.
“And we will never forget Skip’s love for others and our community. Rest in Peace Brother, we know that you will always watch over us.
‘Every time you see a number, it’s someone’s mother.’
Rogers recalled with fondness the time Panse duetted with another choir member at a concert – “It was such a blessing to witness Skip share his gift with so many, I will never forget that presentation.”
Choir member Bill Spinosa said Panse’s passing should remind everyone to take the viral outbreak rampaging the world seriously, NBC South Floridareported.
Every time you see a number, it’s someone’s mother. It’s someone’s father. Somebody’s brother.
Spinosa said: It’s amazing and because people are dying alone in hospitals in the ICU, it’s even more devastating because there’s nobody there to hold their hand.”
“It just seems so surreal how I just saw him shy three weeks ago and he was just being the vibrant, high-spirited guy that he always was, every time I saw Skip he greeted me with a warm welcome and hug, we will definitely miss him,” Rodrick Minnis wrote.
“People this is so real, we really need to take care of ourselves in these difficult times, and social distancing is key.
“I’m OK,” gay nurse Kious Kelly told his sister March 18, “don’t tell mum and dad. They’ll worry.”
These were his last words.
Kelly has become a headline dreaded by New Yorkers – front-line healthcare providers especially – the first state nurse to die of coronavirus.
The 48-year-old assistant nurse manager at Mount Sinai West tested positive for the novel virus and breathed with the help of a ventilator in the ICU. He died Tuesday, the New York Post reported.
Kious Kelly’s sister: ‘His death could have been prevented.’
Countless fellow staffers, friends, family and LGBT+ community leaders mourned his death online, with some setting up a GoFundMe page to support his loved ones. The page is threaded with reverent messages lauding his life.
His death, which his sister Marya raged “could have been prevented” on Facebook Wednesday, has become a horrifying glimpse into weeks to come for America’s overstrained health system.
“Please help get our healthcare workers the protection they need,” she wrote, adding that although her brother had asthma, he was otherwise healthy.
A story of missteps and mixed messages, US president Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus has outraged medical chiefs. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The US now has the highest coronavirus caseload in the world and missteps from the Trump administration, advocates warn, have threatened the lives of Americans.
Moreover, New York City has become a petri dish for the deadly but delicate virus, hoarding almost a quarter of the country’s COVID-191 cases.
Gay nurse dies of coronavirus, and outraged staffers say hospital’s lack of protection is to blame.
Dwimdling supplies in US hospitals did not exclude the one Kelly clocked-in day-to-day.
He had worked nonstop for weeks as fellow staffers wore gowns made of trash bags not enough to protect them from the wave of hacking, feverish patients pelting the hospital.
Kelly’s colleagues are frightened. Terrified that the scarcity of protective kits for staff – such as masks and gowns – contributed to Kelly’s death and they, too, might be next.
“Kious didn’t deserve this,” an anonymous nurse told the paper.
“The hospital should be held responsible. The hospital killed him.”
“I’m also very angry with the Mount Sinai Health System for not protecting him,”registered nurse Bevon Bloise posted to Facebook.
A view of Mount Sinai Hospital West amid the coronavirus outbreak on March 26, 2020 in New York City. (John Nacion/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“We do not have enough PPE, we do not have the correct [personal protective equipment], and we do not have the appropriate staffing to handle this pandemic.
“And I do not appreciate representatives of this health system saying otherwise on the news.”
Mount Sinai West representatives denied the staff claims when approached for comment by the New York Times, saying: “While we do — and have had — enough protective equipment for our staff, we will all need more in the weeks ahead.”
Kious Kelly yearned to become a dancer, but found himself applying for nursing school.
“He used to carry around a thick notepad holder that hides a box full of chocolates and candies so he can have it handy to give out to miserable/grumbly nurses and doctors who are more likely than not ‘hangry,’” Joanne Loo, a fellow nurse at Mount Sinai West, wrote on Facebook.
“He spreads joy and love exactly like how the world needs it. He is a nurse hero to the patients and nurses who he crossed path with.
“His death hit home… and it hurts.”
His family is now trying to bring his body back to Michigan.
“We know we can’t have a service anytime soon, but we want him home,” Sherron said.
As households across the United States start to receive their 2020 census packets, LGBTQ advocacy groups are ramping up efforts to ensure lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people living in the country are counted and understand what’s at stake when it comes to the decennial survey.
“We want LGBTQ folks to know that census data are used to allocate political power,” said Meghan Maury, policy director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, which runs the Queer the Census campaign. The drive, formed just before the 2010 census, works to raise LGBTQ awareness and participation in the population count.
The organization’s efforts are increasingly important as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps the globe and upends the daily lives of people across the U.S. and beyond. This public health crisis has complicated the Census Bureau’s plans to deliver by year-end an accurate count of every person living in the country.
How are LGBTQ people counted?
As required by the Constitution, the census every 10 years will count all people living in the United States on April 1, 2020, and for the first time, same-sex couples are being explicitly counted.
The 2020 census asks respondents about their relationship to the person with whom they share their home, and now includes “‘opposite-sex husband/wife/spouse,” “same-sex husband/wife/spouse,” “opposite-sex unmarried partner” and “same-sex unmarried partner.” In previous surveys, the options were “husband and wife” or “unmarried partner.”
Data on same-sex cohabiting couples, however, only provides a partial snapshot of the country’s LGBTQ community, as many individuals do not live with a same-sex partner.
“The data we get from the census won’t be representative of everyone in our community,” Maury said, who along with her organization has been advocating for higher LGBTQ participation in the count.
According to NBC News’ reporting from 2017, LGBTQ advocates pushed to add an explicit question about sexual orientation and gender identity, and they briefly rejoiced when a draft of the census was leaked in 2017 showing such a question. But soon after, the Census Bureau issued a statement saying that the question had been a “mistake.”
Even so, the LGBTQ data the 2020 census does collect will be useful, according to advocacy groups. Knowledge about the “number of same-sex couples that are raising kids, the geography of where same-sex couples live, and the race and ethnicity of people in same-sex couples” will all help policymakers better understand at least the cohabiting part of the LGBTQ community, Queer the Census said in a statement.
What’s at stake?
Census data is used to help allocate more than $675 billion in federal funding each year on everything from infrastructure to job training services, according to the Census Bureau. The data also helps determine a community’s emergency readiness needs and how many seats each state has in the House of Representatives.
This information is also used to disburse funds for programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid and public housing, all of which Maury said “LGBTQ people are disproportionately likely to use.”
Maury said one of her organization’s biggest efforts revolves around educating LGBTQ people about the census. She said at-risk communities — including LGBTQ people, people of color, immigrants, those experiencing homelessness and people with low incomes — are “overwhelmingly undercounted in the census.”
The National LGBTQ Task Force has found that not only are at-risk communities undercounted, but also “privileged” and wealthy people are overcounted, which “reinforce[s] systems of power and oppression in this country.”
Where can I fill out the 2020 census?
All home addresses in the U.S. should soon receive a packet that contains a private code, which can be used to fill out the survey online at my2020census.gov. Those who are unable to fill out the questionnaire online, which the Census Bureau says will take 10 minutes on average, can request a paper questionnaire.
Households that do not fill out the census as required by law will be visited by an in-person census taker. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, however, the Census Bureau is delaying certain aspects of its survey collection and counting process. While online and mail collections are proceeding normally, census takers won’t go out into the field until May to knock on doors of homes whose residents haven’t yet filled out the survey. And the deadline for counting everyone in the U.S. has been delayed by two weeks, moving from the end of July to mid-August.
Data from the 2020 census is expected to be available to the public beginning in December 2021.
Amid concerns a lack of federal protections leaves LGBTQ people open to discrimination, a group of 87 House Democrats are calling on Dr. Deborah Birx to affirm anti-LGBTQ discrimination will be prohibited in coronavirus relief efforts.
The March 26 letter, coordinated by Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.), Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kansas) and the LGBTQ Equality Caucus, draws on the assertion LGBTQ people are disproportionately vulnerable to the coronavirus.
“We call on you to keep these considerations in mind as you develop solutions and we ask you to be proactive by publicly asserting that any programs or initiatives that assist the American people during this crisis must be conducted without discrimination against any community, including the LGBTQ community, and that there are no grounds by which this type of discrimination is acceptable,” the letter says.
LGBTQ people are disproportionately vulnerable to the coronavirus, the letter says, because that have high reported rates of discrimination in the health care system; have greater rates of smoking, cancer and depression; and are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS, which can depress immune systems and make patients vulnerable to disease.
Older people are vulnerable to the coronavirus, and LGBTQ elders even more so, the letter says, because they “grew up in an era where asserting an LGBTQ identity was difficult to impossible” and now have limited social support.
Birx, named the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, has become a rising star as result of her diplomatic approach to answering questions during the daily White House briefings on the pandemic.
As the House Democrats’ letter notes, Birx also has a history in fighting the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Since 2014, she has served as ambassador-at-large and U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator since 2014, which makes her responsible for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR.
“Based on your many years of service in the fight against HIV/AIDS, we take comfort knowing that you are in this leadership position and have been, and will continue to be, an ally to the LGBTQ community,” the letter states.
Birx has compared the coronavirus pandemic to the fight against HIV/AIDS in the early days of the epidemic during a White House briefing in the Rose Garden earlier this month.
“We had another silent epidemic: HIV,” Birx said. “And I just want to recognize the HIV epidemic was solved by the community: the HIV advocates, and activists who stood up when no one was listening and got everyone’s attention. We’re asking that same sense of community to come together and stand up against this virus.”
House Democrats write the letter in the aftermath of the Trump administration declaring it will refuse to enforce an Obama-era rule barring anti-LGBTQ discrimination among federal grantees, such as taxpayer-funded adoption agencies and medical care providers. The Department of Health & Human Services had implemented the rule in December 2016 just before Obama left the White House and Trump took office.
Faced with calls to lift the rule from religious-affiliated non-profits, including Catholic Social Services, the Trump administration announced late last year it would not only the start the rule-making process to lift the regulation, but cease enforcing it immediately.
Earlier this month, a trio of LGBTQ legal advocacy groups filed a lawsuit against the decisionto stop enforcing the rule in court, citing the discrimination LGBTQ people may face in social services, such as meals on wheels, without the implementation of the rule.
Although House Democrats don’t explicitly mention the rule or the lawsuit, they cite many of the same concerns expressed in the lawsuit against the Trump administration.
“For every community impacted by coronavirus, you will often see ways in which the LGBTQ populations within those communities face harsh realities,” the letter says. “Young people whose colleges are closing may not have supportive families who will take them in. LGBTQ people who lose their jobs may have a harder time finding new work based on pre-existing patterns of discrimination against LGBTQ job-seekers. Those LGBTQ people in prison or who are navigating the immigration system already face unique challenges, including vulnerability to violence, which can be made worse during a crisis such as this.”
The record-setting $2 trillion deal Congress reached on Wednesday to stimulate the economy amid the devastation of the coronavirus pandemic contains $155 million to bolster HIV programs serving the nexus of communities affected by both diseases.
For the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, the deal includes $90 million for existing contracts under the law and the Public Health Service Act. At the same time, the deal appropriates $65 million for the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS, or HOPWA, to maintain operations and provide rental assistance amid the coronavirus crisis.
In both cases, the money must be used by Sept. 30, 2022, although appropriations for HOPWA afford some additional flexibility. The money is on top of the $330 million Congress appropriated in December 2019 for Ryan White and other initiatives in fiscal year 2020 as part of the Trump administration’s initiative to beat HIV by 2030.
The money for the HIV programs is geared toward ensuring recipients — which include cities, states and community health centers — can continue and expand those services as the coronavirus pandemic complicates efforts to address HIV.
Rachel Klein, deputy executive director of the AIDS Institute, said the additional money for Ryan White programs, which provides care to low income people with HIV, is essential for HIV-positive people trying to obtain services amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“The program itself needs to be able to adapt to provide care in different ways,” Klein said. “People are trying to avoid sitting in public meeting rooms unnecessarily right because they don’t want to be exposing themselves potentially to a new virus. The programs are going to need to be able to be flexible, to find creative ways to ensure that people are able to still get the care that they need, and that’s going to come with some costs.”
There are mixed opinions about whether people with HIV are more at risk for COVID-19. On one hand, HIV if left untreated will depress a patient’s immune system and make them more susceptible to disease, but Dr. Susan Henn, chief medical officer for the D.C.-based Whitman-Walker Health, has told the Blade for people with well-managed HIV, the increased risk would only be “very slight.”
Lauren Killelea, director of public policy of the National AIDS Housing Coalition, said money for HOPWA is needed because people with HIV without access to housing “are less likely to be virally suppressed and therefore more susceptible to COVID-19.”
“HOPWA is uniquely situated to be a great, flexible resource for low-income people living with HIV during the coronavirus pandemic,” Killelea said. “HOPWA can not only provide permanent housing but also short-term assistance as well as critical supports like access to transportation and nutrition services.”
After failed votes in the U.S. Senate and negotiations throughout the week, congressional leaders had announced Wednesday morning they had reached a deal on Stage 3 for congressional action in response to the coronavirus crisis.
A vote was expected earlier Wednesday after the Senate returned from recess, but proceedings were halted over objections from a small cadre of Republicans — including Sens. Tim Scott (S.C.), Ben Sasse (Neb.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) — over language they say could lead to the exploitation of unemployment benefits. After leaders agreed to an amendment to appease these lawmakers, the Senate voted to approve the measure 96-0.
The next step is House approval for the stimulus package and President Trump signing the package into law, both of which were expected to happen expeditiously.
A number of parties had pressed Congress for the HIV funds in the stimulus package. Last week, AIDS United and a coalition of 90 HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ groups, including GLAAD, the Human Rights Campaign, Whitman-Walker Health, NMAC, NASTAD, NCSD and the AIDS Institute, sent a letter to every member of Congress urging them to consider people with HIV and “craft a relief package that takes the unique needs of this population into account.”
In a letter to Congress dated March 17 and obtained by the Blade, the White House Office of Management & Budget sought money in the stimulus package for Ryan White and other health programs to the tune of $1.336 billion. An attached request from Health Resources & Services Administration makes that request for “health centers to expand triage and treatment capacity and telehealth, rural hospital technical assistance and the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, in response to coronavirus.”
The request, however, makes no mention of HOPWA funds, which the Trump administration sought to cut earlier this month in its budget request for fiscal year 2021. OMB didn’t respond to the Blade’s request to comment on whether it welcomes the HIV money appropriated in the stimulus package.
Killelea said the HOPWA money was inserted by the Transportation and Housing & Urban Development Act appropriations staff headed by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Reps. David Price (D-N.C.) and Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.). (Diaz-Balart was the first member of Congress confirmed to test positive for the coronavirus.)
Congress makes the appropriations at the same time the Trump administration has made a pledge to beat HIV in the United States with a PrEP-centric plan that aims at reducing new infections by 75 percent in five years and 90 percent by 2030.
Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV & Hepatitis Policy Institute and co-chair of Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, told the Blade the extra money is needed because the coronavirus threw a “monkey wrench” in the HIV plan.
“I was just talking today to someone at the CDC that several people from the center for that are working on HIV are being used to address COVID-19, and it’s a significant amount of their staff, because they all have the expertise in infectious diseases, and the doctors, too, in the field,” Schmid said. “That’s why I can see a lot of this 90 million being used to, for the doctors in the workforce.”
As Congress advances the deal, the Health Resources & Services Administration’s HIV/AIDS Bureau was set to have a phone conference with grant recipients and stakeholders across the country on Thursday at 3:30 p.m., according to a notice shared with the Washington Blade.
Immigration Equality on Monday demanded U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement release detainees with HIV who are at increased risk for coronavirus.
Immigration Equality in a complaint it sent to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties notes the six men who are named as complainants are at higher risk for coronavirus, in part, because of inadequate health care that includes inconsistent access to antiretroviral drugs and a failure to adequately treat opportunistic infections. The men are currently detained at the Winn and Richwood Correctional Centers in Louisiana, IAH Secure Adult Detention Facility in Texas and La Palma Correctional Center in Arizona.
The complaint also notes Immigration Equality has received reports that indicate “a failure to provide information on COVID-19, including how to protect against transmission.”
“In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the continued detention of these individuals puts them at even graver risk,” reads the complaint. “As experts have noted, immunosuppressed individuals, like those with HIV, are at heightened risk of serious medical issues with COVID-19, including death. This is particularly troubling for people in detention where they are at even greater risk of transmission.”
All six complainants are asylum seekers who fled persecution based on their sexual orientation and HIV status.
Acting ICE Director Matthew Albence and Acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan are also named in the complaint. Both of their agencies fall under the Department of Homeland Security’s jurisdiction.
Immigration Equality is among the myriad groups that have urged ICE to release from its custody people with HIV/AIDS and other detainees who are at heightened risk for coronavirus.
Louisiana’s Ouachita Parish in which Richwood Correctional Center is located has four confirmed coronavirus cases. There are no confirmed cases in the state’s Winn Parish where Winn Correctional Center is located.
Arizona’s Pinal County in which La Palma Correctional Center is located has 16 confirmed coronavirus cases. There are no confirmed coronavirus cases in the county where the IAH Secure Adult Detention Facility is located.
ICE on its website says as of March 17 there were no confirmed coronavirus cases in any of its detention centers. A guard at a New Jersey jail tested positive for coronavirus last week, but officials said none of the 250 ICE detainees who are currently at the facility were exposed to the disease.
Visitation at all ICE detention centers has been suspended. Lawyers, lawmakers and/or members of their staff who visit an ICE detention center are now required to wear disposable gloves, marks and eye protection.
“The health, welfare and safety of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees is one of the agency’s highest priorities,” reads ICE’s website. “Since the onset of reports of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), ICE epidemiologists have been tracking the outbreak, regularly updating infection prevention and control protocols, and issuing guidance to ICE Health Service Corps (IHSC) staff for the screening and management of potential exposure among detainees.”
“ICE continues to incorporate CDC’s COVID-19 guidance, which is built upon the already established infectious disease monitoring and management protocols currently in use by the agency,” it adds. “In addition, ICE is actively working with state and local health partners to determine if any detainee requires additional testing or monitoring to combat the spread of the virus.”
An ICE spokesperson on Monday referred the Washington Blade to their agency’s coronavirus guidelines in response to a request for comment about Immigration Equality’s complaint.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Washington and the Northwest Immigrants Rights Project last week filed a federal lawsuit that calls for ICE to release detainees who are at high-risk for coronavirus. U.S. District Court Judge James Robart on March 19 ruled against them.
The Trump administration on March 20 announced the U.S. will not allow undocumented immigrants to enter the country from either Mexico or Canada. The announcement came hours before Mexico-U.S. and Canada-U.S. borders closed for 30 days in an attempt to stop the spread of coronavirus.
“Many of these individuals arrive with little or no identity, travel or medical documentation, making public health risk determinations all but impossible,” said Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf during the White House Coronavirus Task Force’s March 20 briefing. “It’s also important to note that the southern border would likely increase the strain on health systems in our border communities, taking away important and life-saving resources away from American citizens.”
Immigrant advocacy groups sharply criticized the new policy.
With the coronavirus claiming thousands of lives across the globe, medical experts are throwing any and all medications they can against the disease , including drugs used to treat HIV/AIDS that — if effective in clinic trials — may turn attention toward Truvada, commonly used as PrEP for HIV prevention.
One medical expert told the Washington Blade if the early promising results for the HIV drug Remdesivir hold out in clinical trials, the drug Truvada — the more standard medication against HIV/AIDS — could also work against the coronavirus.
David Hardy, adjunct professor of medicine for the Division of Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said if Remdesivir works, Truvada could be shown to be effective because the two drugs are in the same family of medications.
“If Remdesivir works, because it falls into the same class of medication as Truvada, then Truvada may be able to be tried as well,” Hardy said.
Hardy said Remdesivir and Truvada — both developed by Gilead Sciences — work by the same “mechanism of action,” hitting the virus in a susceptible point in the virus’ replication cycle.
“I would wager to say that if the clinical studies that are studying Remdesivir in China and then in the U.S. now show some promise, then there’s gonna be a very quick look at Truvada to see if it works,” Hardy said.
Although Hardy said he’s unaware of any clinical trials underway for Truvada against coronavirus as of last week, he predicted that would change soon if Remdesivir is shown to be effective.
Hardy said there’s a key difference between the drugs: Truvada as a pill can be administrated orally, in contrast to Remdesivir, which requires intravenous injection.
“That can be much more complicated for treating large numbers of people than pills are,” Hardy said.
As reported by NBC News, there’s hope for Remdesivir, a drug used to fight HIV, which is still being studied under clinical trials. Based on early tests, the drug “may start working within 24 hours of the first dose” against the coronavirus.
According to anecdotal reports, at least two hospitalized patients who received Remdesivir started to improve by the next day. One was a man who traveled to Wuhan, China, where the virus originated, then after coming back to his home in Washington State became the first person in the United States diagnosed with COVID-19. And Chris Kane, 55, was diagnosed with the coronavirus and given the drug during his hospitalization at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, Wash.
In both cases, the patients started to improve after taking Remdesivir within one day.
But with this limited sample, questions remain about whether it was the drug that led to health improvement, or whether these two patients would have gotten better anyway.
The drug’s use against coronavirus is now officially in clinical trials at Providence Regional Medical Center and first results are expected in late April, according to NBC News. The hospital didn’t respond to the Blade’s request for comment and offered limited information to NBC News, citing an inability to discuss the drug before trials are complete.
As scrutiny on Remdesivir’s potential grows, Gilead Sciences announced on Monday in a statement it will eventually expand access to the drug, but — for the time being — suspend acquisition under early compassionate use.
“During this transition period, we are unable to accept new individual compassionate use requests due to an overwhelming demand over the last several days,” the statement says. “We are focused now on processing previously approved requests and anticipate the expanded access programs will initiate in a similar expected timeframe that any new requests for compassionate use would have been processed.”
Another exception Gilead Sciences set for compassionate use requests for Remdesivir was for pregnant women and youth under age 18 with confirmed COVID-19 infection and severe manifestations of the disease.
Remdesivir was among the drugs potentially effective against the coronavirus mentioned by President Trump, who touted the medication at a White House news conference last week.
Hardy warned despite reports HIV medication may be effective against the coronavirus, patients taking the drugs either for prevention or treatment may still be susceptible to COVID-19 and able to transmit it.
“People have misinterpreted when they have read this that HIV drugs work against the coronavirus that this means that they are somehow protected against the coronavirus by virtue of taking HIV drugs, and that is not something that anyone should assume at this point in time,” Hardy said. “We have no idea whether they work against the virus in any great numbers of people who have been taking the medications.”
The HIV drug Truvada is used not only for HIV treatment, but also prevention and in the form PrEP is seen as a key tool to ending the HIV epidemic. Asked by the Blade if HIV drugs are, in fact, proven to be effective in treating the coronavirus, that also would mean they would be effective in prevention, Hardy cautiously replied, “Maybe. Maybe.”
“There’s many, many factors that are involved when we study the same medication for two different infections,” Hardy said. “You know the dose of the medication that may work in HIV may not be enough. So, we don’t know whether or not the dose of medication that works for HIV is going to be the same.”
Medical experts across the board are cautious about raising hopes about potential medications against the coronavirus. For example, Trump’s public mention of drugs tested against the coronavirus without clinical determination they will be effective has inspired criticism from political opponents and from medical professionals.
After Trump tweeted out the unproven claim a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin has a “real chance” to fight the coronavirus, there were consequences. According to ProPublica, the tweet triggered a run on the medication, which is needed for individuals suffering from lupus, including an estimated 1.5 million Americans and several who reported not being able to obtain the medication.
Trump’s suggested use of unproven drugs against coronavirus led to a now infamous fiery exchange during a White House briefing between NBC News correspondent Peter Alexander, who asked whether it was giving people “false hope.” Trump then attacked Alexander in response to a subsequent question, and said he should be ashamed of himself.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy & Infectious Diseases, pushed back against Trump’s untested claim hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin would be effective against coronavirus when asked about it Thursday during the White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing.
“I’m not entirely sure what the president was referring to, but believe it was a report of hydroxychloroquine and azythromicin,” Fauci said. “Many of the things you hear out there are anecdotal reports. They may be true – but the only way to know is randomized trials.”
Medications for several diseases are on the table for potential use against the coronavirus, including drugs used to treat malaria, such as chlorquine, which is considered one of the best hopes to fight the disease.
For another HIV drug, Kaletra, which is a combination of lopinavir and ritonavir produced by AbbVie, early tests indicated the drug would be effective, but that didn’t bare out in a major clinical trial.
Early indications Kaletra could be used against coronavirus were tested on an elderly couple from Italy, who were treated in India with the drug and whose test went from positive to negative, as well as a man in Spain.
The results on the couple tested in India were so promising that India’s Union Health Ministry had been recommending the treatment.
But hopes for Kaletra quickly faded, after a study released last week in the New England Journal of Medicine, according to Reuters.
A test in Chinese patients with severe coronavirus infection found the 99 who received Kaletra fared no better than the 100 who received standard care over the course of 28 days. All of the patients had pneumonia and were treated at Jin Yin-Tan Hospital in Wuhan, the city where the pandemic began.
According to Reuters, test participants who took Kaletra showed small improvements in their health, but “the differences were not statistically significant.” The drug was also shown to have side effects, prompting the treatments to be halted in 13.8 percent of patients.
Kaletra, however, was not tested against a placebo, which is considered the most effective way to assess a treatment.
Despite the lack of placebo and modest gains shown in patients taking Kaletra, Hardy said the trial results are dispositive.
“I do think that the verdict on Kaletra has been made…and it is negative,” Hardy said, “This study is rapidly being circulated in medical circles now.”
Regardless of the medication that ends up working, odds are likely the treatment for coronavirus will be available well before a vaccine.
Even with clinical trials underway now, health officials have said it would take between 12 to 18 months before a vaccine would be available to the public. In contrast, Hardy estimated a treatment for coronavirus for individuals who are infected would be ready within six to eight weeks.
Hardy said the effectiveness of treatment will ultimately be gauged on whether or not people infected with coronavirus and taking the medication are able to beat a death rate estimated one time at 3.8 percent.
“If that 3.8 percent can be reduced by giving people Remdesivir, then that will actually prove it works in terms of just giving them supportive care like a ventilator and things like that,” Hardy said.
Yuanyuan Zhu was walking to her gym in San Francisco on March 9, thinking the workout could be her last for a while, when she noticed that a man was shouting at her. He was yelling an expletive about China. Then a bus passed, she recalled, and he screamed after it, “Run them over.”
She tried to keep her distance, but when the light changed, she was stuck waiting with him at the crosswalk. She could feel him staring at her. And then, suddenly, she felt it: his saliva hitting her face and her favorite sweater.
In shock, Zhu, who is 26 and moved to the United States from China five years ago, hurried the rest of the way to the gym. She found a corner where no one could see her, and she cried quietly.
“That person didn’t look strange or angry or anything, you know?” she said of her tormentor. “He just looked like a normal person.”
As the coronavirus upends American life, Chinese Americans face a double threat. Not only are they grappling like everyone else with how to avoid the virus itself, they are also contending with growing racism in the form of verbal and physical attacks. Other Asian Americans — with families from Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, Myanmar and other places — are facing threats, too, lumped together with Chinese Americans by a bigotry that does not know the difference.
In interviews over the past week, nearly two dozen Asian Americans across the country said they were afraid — to go grocery shopping, to travel alone on subways or buses, to let their children go outside. Many described being yelled at in public — a sudden spasm of hate that is reminiscent of the kind faced by Muslim Americans after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
But unlike 2001, when President George W. Bush urged tolerance of Muslim Americans, this time President Donald Trump is using language that Asian Americans say is inciting racist attacks.
Trump and his Republican allies are intent on calling the coronavirus “the Chinese virus,” rejecting the World Health Organization’s guidance against using geographic locations when naming illnesses, since past names have provoked a backlash.
Trump told reporters Tuesday that he was calling the virus “Chinese” to combat a disinformation campaign by Beijing officials saying the U.S. military was the source of the outbreak. He dismissed concerns that his language would lead to any harm.
“If they keep using these terms, the kids are going to pick it up,” said Tony Du, an epidemiologist in Howard County, Maryland, who fears for his son, Larry, 8. “They are going to call my 8-year-old son a Chinese virus. It’s serious.”
Du said he posted on Facebook that “this is the darkest day in my 20-plus years of life in the United States,” referring to Trump’s doubling down on use of the term.
While no firm numbers exist yet, Asian American advocacy groups and researchers say there has been a surge of verbal and physical assaults reported in newspapers and to tip lines.
San Francisco State University found a 50% rise in the number of news articles related to the coronavirus and anti-Asian discrimination between Feb. 9 and March 7. The lead researcher, Russell Jeung, a professor of Asian American studies, said the figures represented “just the tip of the iceberg” because only the most egregious cases that would be likely to be reported by the media.
Jeung has helped set up a website in six Asian languages, to gather firsthand accounts; some 150 cases have been reported on the site since it started last Thursday.
Benny Luo, founder and chief executive of NextShark, a website focused on Asian American news, said the site used to get a few tips a day. Now it is dozens.
“We’ve never received this many news tips about racism against Asians,” he said. “It’s crazy. My staff is pulling double duty just to keep up.” He said he was hiring two more people to help.
No one is immune to being targeted. Dr. Edward Chew, head of the emergency department at a large Manhattan hospital, is on the front lines of fighting the coronavirus. He said that over the past few weeks, he has noticed people trying to cover their nose and mouth with their shirts when they are near him.
Chew has been using his free time to buy protective gear, like goggles and face shields, for his staff, in case his hospital runs out. On Wednesday night at a Home Depot, with his cart filled with face shields, masks and Tyvek suits, he said he was harassed by three men in their 20s, who then followed him out into the parking lot.
“I heard of other Asians being assaulted over this, but when you are actually ridiculed yourself, you really feel it,” he said the following day.
A writer for The New Yorker, Jiayang Fan, said she was taking out her trash last week when a man walking by began cursing at her for being Chinese.
“I’ve never felt like this in my 27 years in this country,” she wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. “I’ve never felt afraid to leave my home to take out the trash because of my face.”
Attacks have also gotten physical.
In the San Fernando Valley in California, a 16-year old Asian American boy was attacked in school by bullies who accused him of having the coronavirus. He was sent to the emergency room to see whether he had suffered a concussion.
In New York City a woman wearing a mask was kicked and punched in a Manhattan subway station, and a man in Queens was followed to a bus stop, shouted at and then hit over the head in front of his 10-year-old son.
People have rushed to protect themselves. One man started a buddy-system Facebook group for Asians in New York who are afraid to take the subway by themselves. Gun shop owners in the Washington, D.C., area said they were seeing a surge of first-time Chinese American buyers.
At Engage Armament in Rockville, Maryland, most gun buyers in the first two weeks of March have been Chinese American or Chinese, according to the owner, Andy Raymond.
More than a fifth of Rockville’s residents are of Asian ethnicity, and Raymond said buyers from Korean and Vietnamese backgrounds were not unusual. But Raymond said he was stunned by the flow of Chinese customers — in particular green-card holders from mainland China — that began earlier this month, a group that rarely patronized his shop before.
“It was just nonstop, something I’ve never seen,” he said.
Raymond said that few of the Asian customers wanted to talk about why they were there, but when one of his employees asked a woman about it, she teared up. “To protect my daughter,” she replied.
For recent immigrants like Du who are in close touch with friends and family in China, the virus has been a screaming danger for weeks that most Americans seemed oblivious to.
Du is trying to remain hopeful. He spends his weekends training to become a volunteer with Maryland’s emergency medical workers. He is part of a group of Chinese American scientists who organized a GoFundMe account to raise money for protective gear for hospital workers in the area. In three days, they raised more than $55,000, nearly all in small donations.
But he said he was afraid of the chaos that could be unleashed if the U.S. death toll rises significantly.
Already a gun owner, Du, 48, said he was in the process of buying an AR-15 style rifle.
“Katrina is not far away,” he said, alluding to the unrest in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. “And when all these bad things come, I am a minority. People can see my face is Chinese clearly. My son, when he goes out, they will know his parents are Chinese.”
For American-born Asians, there is a sudden sense of being watched that is as unsettling as it is unfamiliar.
“It’s a look of disdain,” said Chil Kong, a Korean American theater director in Maryland. “It’s just: ‘How dare you exist in my world? You are a reminder of this disease, and you don’t belong in my world.’ ”
He added: “It’s especially hard when you grow up here and expect this world to be yours equally. But we do not live in that world anymore. That world does not exist.”
One debate among Asian Americans has been over whether to wear a mask in public. Wearing one risks drawing unwanted attention; but not wearing one does, too. Zhu said her parents, who live in China, offered to ship her some.
“I’m like, ‘Oh please, don’t,’ ” she said. She said she was afraid of getting physically attacked if she wore one. “Lots of my friends, their social media posts are all about this: We don’t wear masks. It’s kind of more dangerous than the virus.”
A 30-year-old videographer in Syracuse said he was still shaken from a trip to the grocery store Monday, when the man ahead of him in the checkout line shouted at him, “It’s you people who brought the disease,” and other customers just stared at him, without offering to help. That same day, he said, two different couples verbally abused him at Costco.
“I feel like I’m being invaded by this hatred,” said the man, Edward, who asked that his last name not be used because he feared attracting more attention. “It’s everywhere. It’s silent. It’s as deadly as this disease.”
He said he had tried to hide the details of what happened from his mother, who moved to the United States from China in the 1970s. But there was one thing he did tell her.
“I told her, whatever you do, you can’t go shopping,” he said. “She needed to know there’s a problem, and we can’t act like it’s normal anymore.”
Richard Weber Jr, an attorney who dedicated his life to fighting for LGBT+ community, has died of coronavirus complications shortly after reassuring colleagues that he was improving.
The lawyer, 57, was a member of the LGBT Bar Association of New York, or LeGal, and a partner at the law firm Gallo Vitucci Klar.
He specialised in false arrest claims and helped spearhead the LGBT+ community in New Jersey. He undertook many cases pro bono and had volunteered and fundraised for LeGaL’s free weekly legal clinic for the past seven years.
Speaking to the New York Daily News, LeGal executive director Eric Lesh described Weber’s death as “devastating”.
“He reached out by email so that folks wouldn’t worry. He reached out to me and the president of the bar association, letting us know what happened and saying it was the sickest he’d ever been, but that he was on the mend,” Lesh said.
“He’d just liked some innocuous things I posted on social media. He was engaging and thought he was on the mend.
“He was a loving, kind and caring human being who gave generously of his legal talents and his energy to the LGBTQ community,” he said.
Lesh added to the New York Postthat his colleague was “just a wonderful human being with a real dedication to giving back to others”.
Richard Weber Jr began experiencing coronavirus symptoms around two weeks ago and disclosed his symptoms to his law firm on March 10, after which they closed their Manhattan office.
AIDS activist group Act Up NY has called out US president Donald Trump for repeatedly calling COVID-19 the “China virus”.
Trump has been repeatedly using the terms “Chinese virus” and “China virus” to describe the coronavirus, prompting many to accuse him of promoting racism against Asian communities during the pandemic.
On March 18, Trump posted on Twitter: “I always treated the Chinese virus very seriously, and have done a very good job from the beginning, including my very early decision to close the ‘borders’ from China – against the wishes of almost all.
“Many lives were saved. The Fake News new narrative is disgraceful and false!”
AIDS activism group Act Up NY responded: “We remember a time when HIV/AIDS was called ‘gay-related immune deficiency’ aka GRID and ‘gay cancer’.
“NEVER AGAIN will we let world leaders transfer blame to communities. Trust science over discrimination always.”
Trump was asked yesterday at a press conference why he continues to call coronavirus the “China virus” after many have described the term as racist.
The reporter asking the question said: “Why do you keep calling this the Chinese virus? There are reports of dozens of incidents of bias against Chinese Americans in this country.
“Your own aide, secretary Azar, says he does not use this term. He says ethnicity does not cause the virus. Why do you keep using this? A lot of people say it’s racist.”
Trump responded: “‘Cause it comes from China. It’s not racist at all, no, not at all. It comes from China, that’s why. I want to be accurate.”
She continued to press him while he attempted to interrupt her, but he eventually said: “I have great love for all of the people from our country, but as you know China tried to say at one point … that it was caused by American soldiers. That can’t happen. It’s not gonna happen, not as long as I’m president. It comes from China.”
A photo was even taken by a Washington Post photographer showing that in the US president’s briefing notes, he had crossed out “corona” and replaced itwith the word “Chinese”.
A close up of President Donald Trump’s notes shows where Corona was crossed out Corona and replaced with Chinese Virus as he speaks with his coronavirus task force in response to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic during a briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on Thursday, March 19, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty)
Dr Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization health emergencies program, told CNN: “Viruses know no borders and they don’t care about your ethnicity or the colour of your skin or how much money you have in the bank. It’s really important that we be careful in the language we use.”
He added that this is “a time for solidarity. This is a time for facts. This is a time to move forward together.”
