When his officers raised concerns about catching the coronavirus, a South Florida police chief tried minimizing their worries by claiming a Broward County deputy’s COVID-19 death was caused by his “homosexual” lifestyle, the officers alleged.
Chief Dale Engle, the head of the Town of Davie’s police department, made the remarks during an angry tirade against the officers after a patrol briefing on April 7, according to a complaint filed to town administration by a state police union that represents the officers.
Engle was placed on administrative leave Saturday evening “pending further review of allegations,” the town administration said in a statement. The remarks allegedly came four days after BSO Deputy Shannon Bennet, a 12-year veteran at the sheriff’s office, died of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
Sharon Kleinbaum was installed in 1992 as rabbi of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in Manhattan, considered the largest LGBTQ synagogue in the nation. At the time, AIDS was killing thousands of gay New Yorkers each year.
“The CBST community knows what it takes to live through a plague,” Kleinbaum says in a message posted on the synagogue’s website after New York became an epicenter of COVID-19.
Yet the pandemic poses challenges that weren’t present during the AIDS crisis — notably that she’s fulfilling virtually all her duties without face-to-face contact. She mostly works from her apartment in far-northern Manhattan, where she lives with her wife and dogs, 10 miles from the synagogue.
“That I cannot be with people physically is very hard,” Kleinbaum said.
During the AIDS crisis, she recalled, there were no such worries.
“I could be with people. I could hold their hand in the hospital. I could be with their loved ones.”
The Associated Press followed 10 New York City residents on Monday, April 6, as they tried to survive another day in the city assailed by the new coronavirus. For more, read 24 Hours: The Fight for New York.
One key challenge these days is technology, given the congregation’s reliance on digital communications.
“I’m not fluent with tech on the best of days,” Kleinbaum says. “I need to be more fluent very quickly.”
Yet she’s grateful for the ability to lead services online.
“I was shocked about how spiritually deep it felt,” she says. “I was prepared for it to be an alienating experience, and it wasn’t.”
Late Monday morning, she convened an online meeting with 14 staff members. Three have endured bouts with COVID-19; one lost a parent to the virus, another has a spouse who is battling it.
By phone, Kleinbaum spoke to a woman in the congregation who was traveling to a cemetery to bury her mother — under state orders, only 10 people were allowed at the funeral.
“I let her know that she’s not alone, that people in the congregation are thinking about her,” Kleinbaum said.
She also spoke to a congregant whose spouse, in hospice care at their home, is close to dying.
“It’s made worse because I can’t visit them,” she said.
Despite such difficulties, Kleinbaum is grateful — just to be there.
“I feel like God wants me to be alive right now,” she says. “Maybe for this you were born.”
We’re all giving up a lot these days, in the name of social distancing for the greater good. But something no one should have to give up is healthy, nutritious food.
Now more than ever, Food For Thought’s 850 clients, living with HIV and other serious illnesses, are in need of nourishing groceries. And you can help!
COVID-19 has forced the cancellation of the Sonoma County Human Race, which Food For Thought participates in annually. We hoped to raise more than $20,000 through our team of walkers and fundraisers at this year’s event.
To make up for this loss, we have created the GIVE IT UP campaign. This fun and engaging virtual fundraiser challenges you to give up something you love to eat while raising funds to feed those in need in our community. Set up your fundraiser today, it’s easy! Simply click the button below to become a fundraiser. Then ask your friends and family to donate in exchange for each day you give up a favorite food item.
Here’s an example of how it works:Kim really, really loves ice cream. And she’s been eating a *lot* of it while she has been sheltering in place. Kim posts her Give It Up! fundraiser on her social media accounts, and her sister Jane donates $10 in exchange for Kim not eating ice cream for a day. Jane gets their whole family on board to donate, and Kim’s college roommates and other Facebook friends pitch in, too. Kim raises $500 (and looks forward to eating ice cream again in late May).
The California Department of Public Health provided new data on the state’s positive COVID-19 tests on Wednesday, and provided the striking piece of information that health care workers make up nearly 10 percent of the state’s confirmed cases.
At the time of the report’s publication, there were 16,957 confirmed cases in the state, and 1,651 involved health care workers. However, just 299 of health workers were known to have acquired the virus in a “health setting,” while 462 were exposed via travel, close contacts, or community transmission, and a whopping 890 cases are of unknown origin.
“Since COVID-19 is moving rapidly within the community, health care workers now appear just as likely, if not more so, to become infected by COVID-19 outside the workplace,” the report states.
The report did not give any additional information on which workers are seeing higher infection rates.
“This larger number, which includes both occupational and non-occupational exposures, is important because it shows the overall impact of COVID-19 on the health care workforce,” the authors of the report write. “Regardless of the source of exposure, an infected health care worker needs to isolate from the workforce to prevent risk of infection to colleagues and the patients they serve.”
This week Trump welcomed his new White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, a combative TV pundit with a long history of anti-LGBT+ comments.
McEnany has previously worked as Trump’s spokesperson for his re-election campaign and as a pro-Trump commentator on CNN during the 2016 presidential election.
She’s frequently appeared on television to defend him and his policies, revealing some particularly unsavoury views as she does so.
The LGBT+ advocacy group GLAAD has compiled a list of her most egregious comments, which include opposing a bill to ban conversion therapy and repeatedly framing the issue of transgender bathroom access as a “predatory” threat to women and girls.
McEnany has previously argued that the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage equality is a threat to religious rights, and described late justice Antonin Scalia’s criticism of a pro-marriage equality ruling as “awesome“.
And she dismissed claims of LGBT+ discrimination prior the Supreme Court ruling as nothing more than “farcical blabber.”
“Throughout her career, Kayleigh McEnany has used her role as a commentator to attack LGBTQ people through the press,” GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement.
“Whether it be her opposition to marriage equality or her attacks on transgender people, McEnany has shown that she knows how to, and even enjoys using the media to spread dangerous, anti-LGBTQ messages to wide audiences.
“Unfortunately, in her new role as press secretary, she will have the power to continue doing so, but now with the White House name attached to hers.”
McEnany has already come under fire for her early statements on the coronavirus, which dangerously downplayed the risk.
“We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here, we will not see terrorism come here,” she boldly stated on Trish Regan Primetime. “And isn’t that refreshing when contrasting it with the awful presidency of President Obama?”
Since McEnany made the comments on February 25, over 402,000 people in the US have been infected with the coronavirus and nearly 13,000 have died.
Despite her rocky start, she won’t have to try too hard to do better than her predecessor Stephanie Grisham, who didn’t conduct a single press briefing during her nine-month tenure.
As coronavirus continues its spread across the world, it takes with it a disgusting wave of anti-Asian racism. But the LGBT+ Asian community is fighting back.
Asian LGBT+ activists spoke to the Bay Area Reporter about the current situation and the action they’re taking as they attempt to take care of themselves, as well as their communities.
Amazin LeThi is a queer Vietnamese athlete and founder of LGBT+ advocacy organisation the Amazin LeThi Foundation. She was the first out athlete to compete for Vietnam at the South East Asian Games and is using her platform to speak out against coronavirus fuelled racism.
She said: “Obviously, there has always been racism toward the Asian community, but we’ve never seen anything that has been so quick and so globally widespread as this.
“Sometimes it just feels like they just consider the whole continent of Asia, China. They just see an Asian person and because the coronavirus came from Asia, we are all part of the problem.
The coronavirus may have come from China, but in terms of how it’s being spread across the world, it’s everyone. It’s a global virus.
Gerald Esguerra, head of the Filipino LGBT Europe Out&Proud advocacy committee in Amsterdam, said: “It’s alarming in a way and it’s kind of weird, right?
“We lost humanity. It doesn’t necessarily mean that if you’re Asian you are carrying the virus.”
Esguerra has noticed increased racism in Amsterdam, a city he says is usually very welcoming. Wanting to support his community, he has been working on setting up virtual programmes to help queer Filipinos in Europe and in the Philippines.
In terms of the perpetrators, he added: “The only way that we can win this is through proper education and information dissemination to people.”
Social distancing leaves LGBT+ Asian communities vulnerable.
Glenn Magpantay, executive director of the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance, is using online resources to tackle the effects of racism as social distancing continues, creating a “series of virtual community sessions”.
He said: “Social distancing and rise in anti-Asian violence have left the LGBTQ+ API [community] disproportionately vulnerable and our community is hurting.
“The online course includes skill building and support groups and is working hard to support our community leaders who are supporting their communities.”
Even Asian communities who are in self-isolation are still at risk of race-based hatred.
Got this reply on Grindr after all he had was my photo and my greeting. There’s so much I wanna say…
1. Not surprised. These apps have always been hostile spaces. Many Bumble, Tinder, Hornet, etc, users have no idea, because POC are never given space to talk about #racism.
Founding San Francisco Bay Times contributor, pioneering lesbian, and civil rights activist Phyllis Lyon has died at age 95, according to Bay Times columnist Kate Kendell, who was mentored by Lyon and served as the former executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Lyon died on the morning of Thursday, April, 9 of natural causes.
Lyon was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on November 10, 1924. After earning a degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley, she worked as a reporter and journalist for several years. In 1950, she met Del Martin and the two became partners a few years later. In 1955, the couple moved to a Castro Street apartment and, with three other lesbian couples, helped to found the Daughters of Bilitis, which was the first lesbian civil and political rights organization in the U.S.
After moving to a home in Noe Valley, which remained their longtime permanent residence, they began publication of The Ladder in 1956. It was the first nationally distributed lesbian publication in the country, and continued until 1972.
In 1964, Lyon and Martin helped to found the Council on Religion and the Homosexual with Glide Memorial Methodist Church. This was the first group in the U.S. to use the word “homosexual” in its name. Three years later, they became the first lesbian couple to join the National Organization for Women, and subsequently helped to expand that influential organization’s policies to include lesbian rights.
The couple in 1972 were among the first members of the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club. That same year, they authored the groundbreaking book Lesbian Woman, which is considered to be a foundational text of lesbian feminism. This work was followed by Lesbian Love and Liberation, published in 1973.
In 1978, the pair chaired San Franciscans Against Proposition 6 (Briggs Initiative). With Cleve Jones and numerous other LGBTQ community leaders, they also became founding contributors of the San Francisco Bay Times. The following year, activists founded Lyon-Martin Health Services and named it after them. Now a program of HealthRight 360, Lyon-Martin Health Services continues to provide specialized, non-judgmental healthcare to women and to LGBTQ individuals.
Lyon and Martin were early supporters of now Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi when she was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1987.
The film Last Call at Maud’s, released in 1993, chronicled the lives of Lyon and Martin, along with other Bay Area-based lesbian community leaders and members. The 2003 documentary No Secret Anymore: The Times of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon as well as the book and film Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Birth of the Lesbian Rights Movement are among other works that highlight their achievements.
The couple in 1995 served as delegates to the White House Conference on Aging. In 2000, they made the brave decision to sign on as a plaintiff couple in In re Marriage Cases filed against the California law enacted by the passage of Proposition 22. On February 12, 2004, launching the “Winter of Love,” Martin and Lyon were issued a marriage license by the City and County of San Francisco after then mayor Gavin Newsom ordered that marriage licenses be given to same-sex couples who requested them.
The marriage license of the devoted couple, along with those of several thousand other same-sex couples, was voided on August 12 of the same year by the California Supreme Court. It took four more years before Lyon and Martin could be legally wed yet again. The mayor presided over the memorable ceremony that took place on June 16, 2008, making them the first same-sex couple to be married in San Francisco after the California Supreme Court decision concerning In re Marriage Cases legalized same-sex marriage in the state. Martin passed with Lyon by her side just four years later.
It was not until June 26, 2015, that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all state bans on same-sex marriage, thereby legalizing it in all fifty states.
After Martin’s passing, Lyon remained very active in the San Francisco LGBTQ community by lending her support to numerous organizations, promoting civil rights causes, and attending numerous events, including those produced by “Betty’s List” and the San Francisco Bay Times. She was thrilled when the play The Daughters, based on her and others’ lesbian activism, held its world premiere at the San Francisco Playhouse on October 9, 2019.
Lyon celebrated her 95th birthday on Sunday, November 10, 2019, with Kendell and Rocket Science Associates CEO Joyce Newstat. It was a joyous day for all that was commemorated with a special issue of the San Francisco Bay Times. As Kendell shared, “We drove, ate, laughed, talked. And felt grateful every second.”
On the occasion of Lyon’s final birthday, numerous friends paid tribute to her for the San Francisco Bay Times. Those tributes may be found at: https://bit.ly/3bTzXDV
Kendell shares that the family wishes to thank the devoted caregivers and community members whose devotion and commitment gave Lyon joy and security in her final years.
Survivors are her beloved sister Patricia Lyon, her devoted daughter Kendra Mon, son-in-law Eugene Lane (dubbed by Lyon an honorary lesbian), granddaughter Lorri Mon, grandson Kevin Mon, his wife Ellen, and Lyon’s great granddaughter Kexin Mon.
The family requests that gifts in honor of Phyllis be made to the Lyon-Martin Health Clinic: https://bit.ly/3b8C1bv
Researchers at Stanford Medicine are working to find out what proportion of Californians have already had COVID-19. The new study could help policymakers make more informed decisions during the coronavirus pandemic.
The team tested 3,200 people at three Bay Area locations on Saturday using an antibody test for COVID-19 and expect to release results in the coming weeks. The data could help to prove COVID-19 arrived undetected in California much earlier than previously thought.
The hypothesis that COVID-19 first started spreading in California in the fall of 2019 is one explanation for the state’s lower than expected case numbers.
As of Tuesday, the state had 374 reported COVID-19 fatalities in a state of 40 million people, compared to New York which has seen 14 times as many fatalities and has a population half that of California. Social distancing could be playing a role but New York’s stay-at-order went into effect on March 22, three days after California implemented its order.
“Something is going on that we haven’t quite found out yet,” said Victor Davis Hanson a senior fellow with Stanford’s Hoover Institute.
Hanson said he thinks it is possible COVID-19 has been spreading among Californians since the fall when doctors reported an early flu season in the state. During that same time, California was welcoming as many as 8,000 Chinese nationals daily into our airports. Some of those visitors even arriving on direct flights from Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in China.
“When you add it all up it would be naïve to think that California did not have some exposure,” said Hanson.
For years California has been the No. 1 travel destination for Chinese tourists in the United States. Even after the U.S. halted flights from China this winter Chinese travelers were still able to come to California on flights from Europe and Canada.
Hanson said through all of this the Chinese have been disingenuous about the timing of the initial outbreak of COVID-19.
“They originally said it was in early January, then it got backdated to December and then early December and now they are saying as early as November 17,” said Hanson.
If Californians were exposed earlier than the rest of the country to COVID-19 we may have had a chance to build up some herd immunity to the disease. We won’t know if that is the case until results from the Stanford Medicine study come back.
On Friday and Saturday, the study’s co-lead Eran Bendavid coordinated testing at sites in San Jose, Los Gatos and Mountain View. The teams used an antibody test from the company Premier Biotech. Technicians use a finger prick to draw blood for the test and it can tell within minutes if a person developed antibodies to COVID-19.
The same brand test is being offered at a lab in Monterey and healthcare workers there are closely watching the study. Spenser Smith with ARCpoint Labs is aware of the theory that COVID-19 arrived here as early as the fall and that some people may have had the virus unknowingly.
“Knowing the levels as to which that happened would be great and one of the tools you can use is this test,” said Smith
ARCpoint Labs started offering the antibody test in Monterey last week and has since tested 500 people. Smith said ARC has had some positive results for COVID-19 and is reporting all results to Monterey County’s Public Health Department.
Hanson said the testing could help us as we start the recovery process. He does not advocate lifting social distancing rules right now but said testing could help get some people back to work.
“It is going to allow us to get back to normal much more quickly because there will be many more people than we think that have anti-bodies,” he said.
Positive results in recovered folks could get nurses and caregivers back on the front lines of the pandemic as well as dishwashers and small business owners who keep our economy going.
The results of the study could also help us all to feel less scared of COVID-19. Limited testing has resulted in an artificially high death rate. The more people we can test who have mild symptoms, who are asymptomatic or who have recovered the less-lethal COVID-19 will seem.
The same brand test is being offered at a lab in Monterey and healthcare workers there are closely watching the study. Spenser Smith with ARCpoint Labs is aware of the theory that COVID-19 arrived here as early as the fall and that some people may have had the virus unknowingly.
“Knowing the levels as to which that happened would be great and one of the tools you can use is this test,” said Smith
ARCpoint Labs started offering the antibody test in Monterey last week and has since tested 500 people. Smith said ARC has had some positive results for COVID-19 and is reporting all results to Monterey County’s Public Health Department.
Hanson said the testing could help us as we start the recovery process. He does not advocate lifting social distancing rules right now but said testing could help get some people back to work.
“It is going to allow us to get back to normal much more quickly because there will be many more people than we think that have anti-bodies,” he said.
Positive results in recovered folks could get nurses and caregivers back on the front lines of the pandemic as well as dishwashers and small business owners who keep our economy going.
The results of the study could also help us all to feel less scared of COVID-19. Limited testing has resulted in an artificially high death rate. The more people we can test who have mild symptoms, who are asymptomatic or who have recovered the less-lethal COVID-19 will seem.
Despite encouraging signs that social distancing is working in California, where most residents are in their third week or more of sheltering at home, state officials are still projecting COVID-19 infections will peak in mid- to late May.
The reason for that is not because social distancing is failing — it’s an intended consequence of shelter in place. Social distancing is not meant to end the coronavirus outbreak; it’s meant to slow it down until a vaccine is widely available. By “flattening the curve,” California health officials hoped to buy time, preventing the type of overloading of the health care system that’s happening right now in New York City.
“We know that the bending or flattening of the curve means two things,” said Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, on Tuesday. “It means our peak comes down, but it also means it goes further out. We move that lower and further out. So our thinking around May, and late May in particular, means it follows this idea of flattening. It’s not just a reduction down, it’s moving it out.”
A consequence of flattening the curve — unfortunately for those hoping to leave home soon — is that it lengthens the duration of the outbreak. This, however, is a tradeoff most governments are willing to make. The alternative, where people are allowed to leave their homes unfettered, means many people will become sick at the same time. Hospitals, already under strain, won’t have the supplies or beds to care for everyone. This worst-case scenario occurred in Italy, where resource-strapped doctors reported having to decide which patients lived or died.
“I’ve talked about the curve bending but also stretching,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday. “And that’s why I just want to impress upon people that our modeling shows that we’re not at peak in a week or two. That we are seeing a slow and steady increase, but it’s moderate. And it’s moderate, again, because of the actions all of you have taken.”
One country that did briefly consider shortening its coronavirus timeline was the United Kingdom. U.K. officials floated the possibility of allowing up to 60% of the population to contract COVID-19, thus achieving “herd immunity.” At that point, enough individuals would be sickened and recover from the virus that transmission slows to an eventual halt.
