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.”
Doctors in New York and California have diagnosed among homosexual men 41 cases of a rare and often rapidly fatal form of cancer,” the article began. “Eight of the victims died less than 24 months after the diagnosis was made.”
Chris Bartlett was 15 when the article was published.
“Between 1981 and 1995, when the first effective treatments came out … there was quite a bit of uncertainty,” Bartlett, now 53, told NBC News. “Would I become HIV-positive? Would I live? Would I survive? And I really didn’t have answers to that.”
Today, amid the global coronavirus pandemic, HIV health experts, survivors and longtime activists, like Bartlett are reflecting on the early — and undeniably dark — days of the AIDS crisis. Several of them spoke with NBC News about the parallels between the onset of the two public health outbreaks and what lessons learned four decades ago can help us now.
Denial can be deadly
HIV and the coronavirus are very different viruses in terms of contagion and lethality. However, in both cases, early decisions made by government officials and members of the public affected how the outbreaks became global pandemics.
One example of this, according to Cleve Jones, a longtime HIV and LGBTQ activist, was the cavalier attitude displayed by individualsduring the earliest days of both crises toward their chances of contracting the virus.
Cleve Jones speaks during the National Equality March at the Captiol Building on Oct. 11, 2009 in Washington.Bruce Glikas / FilmMagic
Jones, a close associate of gay icon Harvey Milk before Milk’s assassination in 1978, stressed “how very difficult it was” at first to tell other young gay men in San Francisco that there was a deadly virus spreading in their community and that “we had to change our behavior.”
“It was not welcome at all,” Jones told NBC News. “I had people spit on me.”
That early refusal to properly reckon with the risk of contracting a new virus is also what stood out to Dr. Howard Grossman, a gay physician currently working in Wilton Manors, Florida, who served his medical residency at a public hospital in New York City when HIV first broke out.
“At first it was, ‘Oh, I don’t do poppers, so I’m not going to get this,’ and, ‘No, I don’t do sex clubs, so I’m not going to get this,’” Grossman recalled.
“This was always an epidemic that was happening to ‘other people,’” Grossman said. “People didn’t have a sense of personal danger for most of the epidemic.”
Examples of cavalier attitudes toward contracting COVID-19 were — and still are — aplenty. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., jokingly wore a gas mask to the floor of the U.S. House on March 4, days before a close brush with a coronavirus patient in a Walmart parking lotled him to self-quarantine. On March 13, days before New York City ordered bars to close, they were packed shoulder-to-shoulder with revelers ignoring advice to voluntarily stay indoors. And just this week, as governors banned public gatherings in California and New York, Florida beaches were packed with young people enjoying their spring break.
Be wary of misinformation
In the early days of both outbreaks, the refusal of at-risk individuals to acknowledge their risk was due, at least in part, to government officials downplaying the severity of the situation, according to Grossman.
In October 1982, when hundreds of Americans had already died from AIDS, a journalist asked President Ronald Reagan’s press secretary, Larry Speakes, to comment on the mysterious illness: “It’s known as gay plague,” the reporter said.
“I don’t have it. Do you?” the press secretary snapped back, as the briefing room erupted in laughter.
It wasn’t until the late ‘80s before Reagan himself fully turned his focus to AIDS, which by then had taken the lives of tens of thousands of Americans. “After all, when it comes to preventing AIDS, don’t medicine and morality teach the same lessons?” Reagan asked in 1987, advocating for abstinence.
“Thanks to the president and Fox News, it’s been a similar thing: ‘It’s going to be overblown. It’s just going to be a few old people,’” Grossman said of the early response to the coronavirus.
On March 4, Trump appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program and claimed that the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 death rate — an ever changing figure derived by dividing the number of confirmed deaths by the number of confirmed cases — was “ “false,” citing a “hunch” he had.
And a memo sent two weeks ago by the Trump campaign said the “media’s obsession with weaponizing the coronavirus against President Trump remains at pandemic levels.”
But by last week, the president had changed his tune. NBC News has reported that the administration’s initial response to the outbreak was “a story of missed opportunities, mismanagement and a president who resisted the advice of experts urging a more aggressive response.”
Perry Halkitis, dean of the Rutgers School of Public Health, said similar misinformation circulated early in the AIDS epidemic, with certain populations believing that the virus was a CIA conspiracy or that it could could only infect gay men.
Gil Neary, 62, is a gay real estate broker living in New York City. He contracted HIV in 1987 and said his response to the COVID-19 outbreak has been visceral.
“Holy s—,” he recalled himself thinking upon first hearing about it. “It’s astonishing that we’ve gotten to the point that we’re at, especially considering it started halfway around the world.”
As with the early days of the AIDS crisis, Neary said he thinks “our leaders failed us in a big way,” and this time — as a man in his 60s living with a chronic immune condition in a densely populated city — he’s worried that he’s once again vulnerable.
“It’s very disconcerting, because you think, ‘Here we go again,’” he said.
Follow facts, not fear
Gay urban men, one of the first communities in which HIV/AIDS emerged before becoming a global pandemic, were among the first to receive scientific information that would help them modify their behavior based on facts, not fear. Thanks to community action, gay men were among the first to receive information about condoms reducing the transmission of HIV. The activist drag troupe Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, for example, distributed safe-sex pamphlets in 1982, over a year before the virus was identified by the U.S. government.
AIDS activist Peter Staley in 2014. After contracting HIV in the mid-’80s, Staley quit his job as a Wall Street bond broker and has been a prominent advocate for testing and treatment ever since.Sean Black / Staley
Eventually, behavior modification caught on and helped slow the relentless spread of HIV among gay men.
“We got religious about that,” Peter Staley, a veteran HIV/AIDS activist, said of condom use during the HIV epidemic. “Assume the other person’s positive, assume you’re positive if you haven’t taken a test, and act accordingly.”
At first, many gay men resisted taking the HIV test because there were no treatments for AIDS and no legal protections for those who tested positive. But eventually, after activist groups like ACT UP and Treatment Action Group began to apply wider and more dramatic pressure on government agencies to enhance HIV privacy protections and scale up research spending, testing became more widespread, and the dynamics of how the virus spread began to come into view.
“Eventually we got to the point where we realized you had to really work at it to get it,” Ann Northrop, a lesbian and early ACT UP activist, said of contracting HIV.
Initially, people feared the virus could be airborne or spread through surfaces, like COVID-19. At first, even medical professionals were afraid to be in the same room as some who had the virus, but through the relentless pursuit of factual information, Northrop said she knew HIV was contracted primarily through sex and she was not at risk of contracting it through her activism.
Now, however, with limited and conflicting information about the coronavirus, Northrop said she feels that same “generalized anxiety” that struck many people, particularly gay men, in the early years of the AIDS epidemic.
“I, for the first time in my life as a journalist and complete news junky, am having to limit my news consumption,” Northrop, co-host of the weekly cable news program and podcast “GAY USA,” told NBC News.
Ann Northrop speaks at the dedication ceremony of the LGBTQ Rainbow Freedom Flag at The Stonewall National Monument on Oct. 11, 2017 in New York City.Erik McGregor / LightRocket via Getty Images file
While “safe sex” was at first the leading behavior modification to stem the spread of HIV (today, many also take PrEP for HIV prevention), “social distancing” is the recommended way to “bend the curve” of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Man, people are just eyeing each other with such suspicion — and really making sure not to come in contact with each other,” Northrop said of a recent trip to a pharmacy in New York City, one of the areas hardest hit by the outbreak.
Brooklyn artist John Hanning, 57, knows the fear and anxiety that accompanies a new viral outbreak well. He was diagnosed with AIDS in 1995 and given six months to live.
“My doctor told me I needed to decide what I wanted to happen to my remains,” he said. “It hasn’t been easy, but now I’m undetectable, and I’m pretty healthy.”
Hanning, who was recently featured on the AIDS Memorial Instagram account sharing his story of survival, said an important lesson to take away from the early days of the AIDS crisis is to resist fear and stigma, especially fear and stigma directed toward others.
“We shouldn’t live in fear, and that’s something that happened during the AIDS crisis,” he said. “They were afraid of gay people, because of AIDS or HIV, and hopefully with this coronavirus, there won’t be that stigma.”
Amid this current pandemic, which originated in China, there have been multiple cases where Asian Americans have been targeted in the U.S. Last month, a 16-year-old Asian American student in Los Angeles County ended up in the hospital after he was beaten by peers who accused him of having COVID-19. On March 10, at leasttwo Asian American New Yorkers reported racist attacks: A 23-year-old woman said she was punched in the face and called anti-Asian slurs by another woman, and a 59-year-old man said he was kicked to the ground and called slurs.
Widespread anxiety and fear do not result in superior health outcomes, Halkitis stressed. What does, he added, is proper information and an atmosphere conducive to collecting that information.
During the height of the AIDS crisis, he explained, it took years before people had the proper information needed to protect themselves: information about their status, and information about how to use tools like condoms to make their social/sexual interactions safer.
“People were shooting in the dark, kind of like they’re shooting in the dark right now,” he said, referring to the lack of testing and information about the virus.
“There’s this huge emotional weight that surrounds this situation,” Halkitis said of the public’s attitude toward the pandemic. “We have to acknowledge that, and make it be safe for them to be willing to control this disease and make the right decisions.”
In the late ’80s, once it became easier, safer and more empowering to know one’s own HIV status, more people could take action to either prevent the spread or prevent themselves from becoming infected. That, too, could soon happen in the coronavirus outbreak, but not without the proper information about who has or has had the virus, Halkitis said.
Halkitis said if he had a “magic wand,” he’d test everyone today for coronavirus. “Send it with their census packet,” he added.
Chris Bartlett, left, and Dominic Piccirelli hold a stretcher carrying a fellow protester at an ACT UP “die in” protest outside Philadelphia’s City Hall in 1990.David Acosta
Maintain community — even if virtual
Chris Bartlett, now the executive director of the William Way LGBT Community Center in Philadelphia, said the most crucial lesson he learned as an HIV activist with ACT UP was “the importance of being in a community to settle my spirit in times when I felt anxious, disconnected, lonely and isolated.”
Even while practicing social distancing, Bartlett said connection is still possible — albeit a different type.
“One of my goals every day has been to get onto Facebook, Google chat and Skype to reach out and see people through the technology that’s offered to us to make a daily connection,” he said.
Through his decades of activism, it’s this “strong fabric of community interconnectedness” that he cherishes most.
“That gives me enough hope to get through today, without really being clear what’s going to happen tomorrow,” he said.
AS THE CORONAVIRUS continues its rapid spread internationally and across the U.S., many Americans are heeding public health advice from the Centers from Disease Control and Prevention to prepare for the possibility of a lengthy home stay.
COVID-19, the novel coronavirus that first caused an outbreak in China in 2019 and was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on Wednesday, has rapidly infected people around the globe. Most vulnerable to the viral threat are Americans over age 60 and those with chronic disease, such as heart disease, diabetes and lung disease, according to the CDC. The agency has urged those individuals to “stay at home as much as possible.”
The coronavirus can cause symptoms ranging from cough to high fever and shortness of breath. And in some cases, it can be deadly, particularly in those populations most at risk.
So having what you need to remain at home for a longer period, possibly weeks, is important. That way you’ll be prepared, experts say, if you need to decrease contact and socialization – whether because you’re sick or trying to prevent illness if there’s an outbreak of coronavirus in your community. Rather than panicking and buying more than you need, it’s about being adequately stocked: “Just in case we need to shelter in place, or in case stores have limited supplies,” says Dr. David Mushatt, chief of adult infectious diseases at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans.
Here’s what experts suggest having on hand:
Any medications you’re taking – at least a month’s supply of prescriptions – as well as other self-care items you may need.
Enough food for two weeks – primarily non-perishables that won’t go bad while in storage. As needed, this includes baby food and formula for infants, as well as pet food.
A plan of action for dealing with the spread of COVID-19 in your local area.
Medications
While advice varies, it’s a good idea to have a month’s supply of any medications you’re taking. Also, keep handy any self-care supplies, including items needed to manage chronic disease like blood glucose test strips for diabetes.
“Check to make sure you have at least a 30-day supply of your prescription medications, and have other health supplies on hand, including pain relievers, stomach remedies, cough and cold medicines, fluids with electrolytes and vitamins,” advises Anthony Tornetta, a spokesperson for the American Red Cross.
Also, have a thermometer and medications to reduce fever, like acetaminophen or naproxen, suggests Bill Gentry, director of the community preparedness and disaster management program and an associate professor of health policy and management at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health.
Food for You, Your Family and Any Pets
First, if you hate black beans, don’t buy a dozen cans of them.
While the focus should be stocking up on things that won’t go bad in storage, such as soup and other canned food, make sure to get foods you like and are comfortable preparing, Gentry recommends.
“Non-perishable, easy-to-prepare items are the best to have on hand. These could be things already in your pantry, such as canned goods or snack bars that can last and be easily stored. If you have an infant, make sure to stock up on extra baby food and formula,” Tornetta adds. “Similarly, if you have pets, make sure to have extra pet food in your home, as well. The Red Cross recommends having a two-week supply of these food staples for every person in your household.”
To stock up on food strategically, you’ll want to do meal planning in overdrive. Gentry suggests meal planning for two meals a day considering two different scenarios. If you’re home self-quarantined, “less calories needed since you will be more stationary,” Gentry says. “When you are sick, rest is key, so two meals a day will keep your strength up and your body rested.”
If you’re sick with the coronavirus – or anything else, you’ll want to have soups, apple sauce, and easy to eat foods that are soothing and easily digestible on hand. That includes one to two cans of soup per person per day.
If you’re self-quarantined, you can eat more regular meals. You may supplement what you have in the pantry with food from your refrigerator (as still available) and the freezer. “My wife has made casseroles and froze them,” Gentry says, by way of an example. “We have five in the freezer that we can pop into the oven.”
You might also consider foods or drink you can’t do without. So if you prefer to always have milk on hand, you might purchase shelf-stable milk that’s been through ultra-high-temperature pasteurization, which isn’t refrigerated. You can keep this or another substitute, like powdered milk, in your pantry for longer storage.
It’s good to be prepared for any kind of disaster. But since coronavirus isn’t a hurricane or other natural disaster that has the potential to cut power, buying things like frozen veggies or ready to eat meals that can keep for a significant amount of time may be helpful too. Just make sure to regularly replace any perishable foods and don’t neglect non-perishable stocks. Also, if you’re getting canned vegetables, soups and other canned foods, look for low salt varieties, and make sure to continue to be health conscious in all your choices of foods, experts say. Eating well supports overall health and can bolster immunity at a time when that’s critical.
Supplies to Keep Your Hands and Home Clean
Wherever you are, regular hand-washing is important to prevent the spread of disease, including coronavirus. For home, soap and water are more than sufficient.
If for some reason, you eventually need to leave your quarantine, it’s a good idea to have antibacterial wipes and/or hand sanitizer gel for the car or on your person. Make sure your hand sanitizer is at least 60% alcohol.
Wash your hands with soap and water, or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer if you don’t have a sink and soap handy. Do this for at least 20 seconds. Hum the “Happy Birthday” song twice if you’re not sure, the CDC recommends. Wash your hands before, during and after preparing food, before eating, before and after caring for someone who is sick, after changing diapers, after using the bathroom, any other time it seems reasonable and just frequently throughout the day.
Also, make sure you have all you need to keep your home sanitized. You should have disinfectant cleaners and disposable items, such as Kleenex and paper towels, Gentry suggests. You should also have wipes and diapers and any other supplies you need if you have a baby, he advises.
Reminder: It’s Always a Good Idea to Have a Preparedness Kit
“When COVID-19 attains community spread it may possibly disrupt your normal day-to-day routines, especially if you become infected,” Gentry says.
“First and foremost, it is a good idea to always have a ‘flu kit’ on hand for our normal flu season. This would be a thermometer, fever reducers, liquids to replace electrolytes and food for two weeks,” he says. “Research if there are grocery delivery outlets near you.”
Gentry adds that being prepared to keep infants as well as pets healthy is a must. In addition, he advises keeping your home, vehicle and phone wiped down to kill any virus that’s on surfaces.
“Finally, part of any preparedness plan is to be self-sufficient,” he adds. “Have gas in your vehicles, some cash on hand, and check on your family and neighbors. Stocking up on all of these items keeps you from having to go out if you get sick or a family member gets sick.” This can keep you from possibly exposing others to disease, or standing in lines and getting exposed yourself.
Have a Plan
Having supplies and a plan go hand in hand when it comes to emergency preparedness, experts say. So as you stock up on goods, make sure you put a plan in place to monitor the spread of the coronavirus in your community and neighborhood and to guide you if you get sick. Besides keeping up to date on local news and national updates, like from the CDC, stay in touch with neighbors and friends nearby in ways that don’t require physical contact, like phone and email.
SHOP NOW
Have contact numbers handy not only for your primary care doctor, any specialists you or a family member may be seeing and the pharmacy. Consider arranging for delivery of prescriptions if needed or as convenient (if you don’t already have medications delivered). And of course, don’t hesitate to call your doctor if you’re sick. Do not simply show up at a hospital or doctor’s office.
“When we discuss family emergency plans specifically for COVID-19, we ask that families plan for family members, including pets, to be taken care of if they get sick or self-quarantined,” Gentry says. For example, how will your dog get walked if all family members are quarantined, or do you have a pet sitter the dog can go to? He adds that this should include coming up with a way to check in on extended family members and children who do not live at home. For example, through social media, Skype, Facetime and Zoom .
Similarly, you can share information with neighbors online, like through a group email list or neighborhood Facebook page or group.
“We should not simply lock our doors and fend for ourselves,” Gentry emphasizes. “And finally, the plan should discuss changes in school and work schedules and what that means to family schedules. Learning from home and working from home are two good strategies to be discussing now, in case they are implemented as we progress through this event.”
You Probably Don’t Need a Mask – Just Keep Your Distance
At present, the CDC doesn’t recommend that people who are well wear a face mask to protect themselves from respiratory illnesses – and that includes the coronavirus. Rather you should only wear a mask if a health provider recommends doing so. This should be done by people with COVID-19 who have symptoms to prevent others from getting infected, according to the CDC.
“Face masks are not recommended at this time, and using them may actually increase your risk of infection due to contamination of the outside of the mask, and a false sense of security,” Mushatt says. Experts add that despite a run on latex gloves in retail stores, these aren’t advised as a precautionary measure for the general public, and wearing gloves hasn’t been shown to protect against the coronavirus.
Better to take steps to control disease spread that are also advised to protect against other viral threats, including the seasonal flu virus. Those steps include washing hands with soap and water (or hand sanitizer) frequently, Mushatt advises, along with “social distancing,” or putting some space between yourself and others, not touching your face, coughing into a sleeve or tissue and staying at home if you’re sick.
Coronavirus lockdowns in the Middle East are trapping LGBT+ people with abusive families, advocacy groups have warned.
Coronavirus is hitting the Middle East hard, and as the death toll passes 1,000 in Iran alone, governments in Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq and Algeria have all implemented emergency restrictions.
While it’s hoped these measures will be effective in slowing the spread of the virus, they’re disastrous for many LGBT+ people who are being forced to remain in unsafe home environments.
The Thomson Reuters Foundationheard that many LGBT+ advocacy groups in the region are now having to step up their support for those struggling amid the coronavirus lockdowns.
“The environment we live in unfortunately can be aggressive toward LGBT+ people,” said Omar Al Khatib of the Palestinian LGBT+ group alQaws, which is based in Jerusalem where LGBT+ people often live with families that do not accept them.
“Staying at home can eliminate their access to private spaces and increase bullying,” he told Reuters.
In Palestine, the authorities have closed places of worship and social spaces that usually offer some respite, like coffee shops and clubs, meaning that escaping the pressure at home is no longer an option.
This pressure has been heightened by a nighttime curfew that’s been implemented in the city of Bethlehem.
But with business closures and money worries on the rise, the situation isn’t much better for many LGBT+ people living alone – often because they’ve been rejected by their families.
“The state of quarantine creates a feeling of isolation and fear, and that they are completely on their own so it’s not safe for them,” said Khatib.
The number of coronavirus cases in the United States is ticking steadily upward, and with it are Americans’ collective anxiety levels. But stockpiling massive caches of toilet paper and bottled water for insular forts will only lead to more shortages and more stress. Instead, the best way for us all to prepare is by looking out for one another.
Here are some ways that you can help your community make it through the chaos—and the virus too, if it does hit closer to home.
Donate to your local food bank
As the virus spreads, food banks could face additional pressures. David May, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, said that the group currently distributes 1 million pounds of food per week. But May noted that it was also preparing for the possibility of increased demand in case of virus-driven school closings or an influx of workers struggling to get by on fewer hours than usual.
When donating to your local food bank, consider starting with your wallet instead of your pantry. Donating money not only gives food banks flexibility over which supplies—including fresh foods and paper products—to offer but also lets them decide when to refresh their stocks.
Offer assistance to at-risk neighbors
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers the elderly and people with chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and lung disease to be at higher risk from the coronavirus. If you’re in a lower-risk group, reach out to your higher-risk neighbors and community members and ask them how you can help, whether by picking up prescriptions and groceries or offering other assistance. Even if they’re already fully stocked, simply sharing your plans with one another can be helpful, particularly as people spend more time at home instead of out.
“It can be very isolating for individuals if they’re staying away from the places they normally go,” Herman Schaffer, the assistant commissioner for community outreach for the New York City Emergency Management Department, told me. “Some assistance is also just [providing] community, being able to talk to someone, and connect to information.”
Plan to stay in touch from afar
As COVID-19 spreads, we’ll continue to see more people asked to work remotely or from home, more school closings, more cancelled events, and other measures associated with social distancing. Start putting a plan in place now for how you’ll stay in touch with loved ones, friends, classmates, and co-workers, even when you’re not physically seeing them.
If the idea of a day of back-to-back Google hangouts and phone calls is adding to instead of relieving your anxieties, remember that there are a lot of ways beyond a call or a video chat to keep in contact. I like to challenge distant friends to virtual matches on a chess app and to share the occasional photo from my day via group text. Scheduling an hour to game online with a friend or swapping recipes in your group chat are small measures, but they let people know that you’re thinking about them, even when you don’t see them.
Stay up on your local news
Many cities (including Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle) offer an emergency alert system, so start by checking with your municipality to find out how to sign up for text, email, or voice alerts. Once you’ve done that, it’s time to get even more local. Get in touch with your neighborhood groups and local community organizations to find out what efforts are already underway. If you or your kids attend school, check to see what kinds of plans are in place in case of closures and how best to stay informed of any changes. Sign up for neighborhood listservs and message boards so that you’ll be able to share your surpluses, pool your expertise, and call on your neighbors for help when you need it, too.
Stock up, then stop
It’s tempting to respond to footage of panicked shoppers sweeping shelves of toilet paper into their carts by mentally tabulating how many pallets you might be able to stuff into your own closets. But panic buying just contributes to shortages—and more panic. If you already have 30 days’ worth of prescriptions, food, and household supplies at home, stop shopping.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading voice of medical authority as the world confronts the coronavirus, is no stranger to viral epidemics — nor protesters who once displayed him in effigy in frustration amid new infections and rising death tolls.
At the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the early 1990s, Fauci was at the frontlines as director of the National Institutes of Allergy & Infectious Diseases, a role he began in 1984 and continues to this day. During that time, Fauci’s research contributed to the understanding of HIV’s destruction of the immune system and therapy that has significantly contained the disease in more recent years.
Now, as a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Fauci has provided sage advice, calmed fears, and — at times — acted as voice of accountability for the Trump administration amid efforts to contain COVID-19.
As the coronavirus epidemic began to unfold, Fauci himself compared the situation to the early days of the HIV epidemic — as well as other diseases — because “there’s still a lot that’s unknown.“
“It’s not that different than the very early years of the HIV epidemic, of the anthrax attacks, of the concern about the pre-pandemic bird flu,” Fauci said March 9 on CNN’s “New Day.” “Everything has a little bit of a different twist to it. It’s not exactly the same, but there’s always that uncertainty that gets people very anxious.”
Under Fauci’s leadership, NIH in 1987 developed AZT, or zidovudine, the first antiretroviral approved for the treatment of HIV, although the epidemic continued. After more research, when combinations of drugs were seen to be effective against HIV, NIH cleared the way for more effective therapy in 1996.
Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV & Hepatitis Policy Institute, was among the advocates fighting HIV/AIDS who hailed Fauci’s work both then and now.
“No one does a better job at explaining and conquering infectious diseases, whether it is HIV/AIDS or coronavirus, than Tony Fauci,” Schmid said. “Not only is he one of the world’s top infectious disease doctors but he knows how to articulate complicated issues and on top of it, understands how to address them utilizing an all parts of society approach. He has been there since the earliest days of the AIDS crisis and can take all of what he has learned and done over the years, including working with presidents of both parties, to now deal with the coronavirus.”
But it wasn’t always a happy relationship with HIV/AIDS activists. As the HIV/AIDS epidemic raged and continued to the claim the lives of thousands of gay men, Fauci was the target of activists who accused him of not moving quickly with new medicines to fight the disease.
According to the article, written by veteran Blade reporter Lou Chibbaro, Jr., more than 1,000 demonstrators marched through the sprawling grounds of the NIH “using placards, costumes, bull horns and red-colored tape to draw attention to their demand for faster government action on AIDS research programs.”
One photo taken at the event by the Blade — but never published until now — shows three protesters dressed in black robes and skull masks in the style of the Grim Reaper.
The three hold a large coffin-like box with letters reading, “Fauci: Resign Now — Release Compound: O.” Another holds a sign reading, “120,000 AIDS Deaths, Courtesy NIH.” Another holds up a pole within a bloody head mask on top and a sign underneath designating the effigy as “Fauci.”
“Scores of drugs and alternative treatments languish untested while more than 200 new cases of AIDS are diagnosed each day,” stated ACT UP in papers distributed at the demonstration.
Police reportedly arrested 61 protesters during the four-hour demonstration and charged them with trespassing, including five members of ACT UP/D.C.
Following the demonstration, Fauci reportedly said he was sympathetic to ACT UP’s cause, but believes its allegations were untrue. Further, Fauci was quoted as saying NIH implemented recent changes to direct more resources to fight infections diseases like HIV/AIDS.
ACT UP protest at the National Institutes of Health on April 21, 1990. (Washington Blade archive photo by Doug Hinckle)
A chief critic of Fauci was Larry Kramer, a longtime HIV/AIDS activist who helped found ACT UP in the late 1980s and remains hostile to this day. As recently as 2015, Kramer in an op-ed for The Advocate faulted Fauci for failing to live up to his promise to find a cure for HIV infection. (Kramer didn’t respond to a Blade email this week to comment on Fauci’s approach to the coronavirus.)
Kramer’s harsh words may be persiflage. Fauci was quoted in a 2012 article in the New Yorker about Larry Kramer as saying he’s come to regard the activist as a friend, crediting his work with instituting a major change in medicine against infectious diseases.
But to say the relationship between HIV/AIDS activists and Fauci was entirely frosty would be inaccurate. On Dec. 22, 1990, also as reported by the Blade, when President George H.W. Bush met with gay men with AIDS at NIH, Fauci was among those who took part in the discussion.
Also at the meeting was first lady Barbara Bush and George Bush, Jr., otherwise known as future President George W. Bush. It was the first time “a sitting U.S. president formally met with open gays,” the Blade reported at the time.
The presidential party, Fauci reportedly said, listened to the gay men in attendance and sat in on a support sessions for people undertaking NIH’s experimental AIDS drug trials. Some of the men had HIV, some had developed AIDS, the Blade reported.
The elder Bush shook hands with each of the men and presented them with a commemorative presidential tie pin, according to the Blade.
“He was really touched,” Fauci was quoted as saying. “This was not just a formality. He was really interested.”
The meeting, Fauci reportedly said, was open to the White House press corps and news photographers took photos of the elder Bush shaking hands with the men.
“But much to his disappointment, Fauci said, almost all the photos appearing in the nation’s daily newspapers the next day were of a different part of the NIH visit — when the president cradled babies with AIDS in the NIH pediatric ward,” the Blade reported.
Asia Russell, executive director of the New York-based group HealthGAP, was among the HIV/AIDS activists at the time and told the Blade this week that work was responsible for pushing Fauci into supporting the community.
“Dr. Fauci has been the target of AIDS activists’ campaigns and protests in the past, and those protests delivered results — they helped him see how access to the benefits of science is not neutral, it’s driven, or hindered, by politics, and that remains true today,” Russell said.
Thirty years after the massive protest at NIH, the nature of the virus inspiring fear among the public and responsible for the deaths of thousands worldwide has changed, but Fauci’s work has not.
Russell said Fauci in his role within the White House Coronavirus Task Force has brought to the fore shortcomings in the Trump administration’s approach to COVID-19, which she said “has been a disgrace.”
“It’s an embarrassment that Dr. Fauci, a trusted voice in public health, has to testify before Congress and make the rounds on the Sunday shows to contradict the lies the president is telling,” Russell said.
(Washington Blade photo by Chris Johnson)
In media appearances and testimony before Congress, Fauci has made clear the severity of the coronavirus. Meanwhile, President Trump has falsely said Americans are at “low risk” of contracting the disease, predicted “it will go quickly” and said testing was available to everyone.
“It is a failing. Let’s admit it,” Fauci said last week in the testimony before the House on the lag in testing availability. Days later, Trump declared under questioning in a Rose Garden press conference he would “not take responsibility” for the delay in tests, which weren’t delivered on a massive scale until last week.
When Trump said a vaccine for coronavirus would be ready in two months (which the White House retconned as a reference to an Ebola vaccine), Fauci told the reporters it would be more like 12 to 18 months even on an expedited basis.
Fauci has also given credit to Trump, who continues to tout his travel ban on China amid early reports about the coronavirus of the evidence of his prescience about the danger. Addressing reporters last week in a White House gaggle, Fauci said that move “absolutely” made a difference in limiting new infections in the United States.
Amid self-imposed quarantines, travel bans and recommendations people not meet in groups with more than 10 people, Fauci has also reassured the American public any perception the federal government is overreacting is misplaced.
“I’ll say it over and over again: When you’re dealing with an emerging infectious diseases outbreak, you are always behind where you think you are if you think that today reflects where you really are,” Fauci said. “That’s not word speak. It means: If you think you’re here, you’re really here, because you’re only getting the results; therefore, it will always seem that the best way to address it were to be doing something that looks like it might be an overreaction.”
Michael Ruppal, executive director of the AIDS Institute, said Fauci is a trusted voice because “his communication is straight forward and direct and isn’t convoluted by political spin.”
“Dr. Fauci has been a trailblazer and leader in the HIV/AIDS pandemic since the beginning,” Ruppal said. “He has been a trusted federal partner to the HIV/AIDS community, and we appreciate having him continue to lead efforts at NIH after all these years and advancements. Dr. Fauci has been thrust forward as the federal face of the U.S. response and his integrity and honesty speaks for itself throughout his handling of this uncharted and unprecedented territory regarding COVID-19.”
But Fauci isn’t the only member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force who cut their teeth on epidemiology during the time of the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Among them is Deborah Birx, U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator & U.S. Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy at the State Department, whose three-decade-long career has focused on HIV/AIDS immunology, vaccine research and global health.
At a White House briefing on Monday, Birx recalled the fight against HIV/AIDS during the height of the epidemic, urging Americans to exhibit the same tenacity in the struggle against the coronavirus.
“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.”
Russell had favorable words for both Fauci and Birx in their approach to the coronavirus pandemic amid her general criticism of the Trump administration.
“The administration’s delays, dissembling, and political games are killing people,” Russell said. “Dr. Fauci and Ambassador Birx know that activists are watchdogging this effort and are ready to raise the alarm.”
Also on the White House Coronavirus Task Force with a history of HIV research is Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control. In addition to his work against the coronavirus, Redfield is seen as the point-person for the Trump administration’s plan to beat HIV/AIDS in the Untied States by 2030.
In an interview last year with the Washington Blade, Redfield credited the LGBTQ community for coming forward to participate in testing during the early of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, saying that led to medical advances that helped thwart the disease.
But Redfield notably hasn’t been present at the White House briefings with the rest of the coronavirus task force. Meanwhile, media reports have indicated White House officials have blamed him for the sluggishness in the rollout of coronavirus testing capabilities.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere rejected the notion Redfield’s absence was of any significance. “CDC is based in Atlanta, which is where Dr. Redfield is needed, and he’s actively involved in the work of the task force and stopping the spread of COVID-19,” Deere said.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday night that the shelter-in-place order already in effect in the Bay Area and Los Angeles County will now be extended to the entire state and its 40 million residents.
The order allows for essential businesses—such as banks, grocery stores, pharmacies, food banks and gas stations—to remain open. Restaurants can also remain open for delivery and pickup only. Bars are among the non-essential businesses that will close.
Individuals can also leave their houses to take a walk or go for a jog so long as they are practicing the requisite precautions when coming into contact with another individual.
Newsom did not state how long the order will remain in effect.
Eleven Democratic senators called on the Trump administration Thursday to recognize the particular needs of people living with HIV as it responds to the global coronavirus outbreak.
In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Thursday, the senators warned that the coronavirus “poses a serious health risk” to the estimated 1.1 million people in the U.S. who are HIV positive. The letter, which was shared with NBC News, says that “this risk is heightened by barriers to health care access” exacerbated by the White House’s own policies.
“Your agency’s actions to reduce health care discrimination protections for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community have created additional risks for this population during this national emergency,” it states, further urging the federal government to “take affirmative action to ensure everyone in the United States, including people living with HIV, can safely access COVID-19 testing, treatments, and support services.”
The letter — released the same day HHS was sued for axing LGBTQ discrimination protections — was signed by Sens. Bob Menendez of New Jersey; Charles Schumer of New York; Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin; Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut; Chris Coons of Delaware; Tammy Duckworth of Illinois; Kamala Harris of California; Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota; Gary Peters of Michigan; Chris Van Hollen of Maryland; and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
In a phone interview with NBC News, Menendez said the Trump administration has done nothing to increase services for people living with HIV, who health experts and advocacy groups say are particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus. The senator added that this population is “right at the very heart” of the crisis, but it never gets “mentioned by the administration” when federal authorities discuss groups threatened by infection.
“They’ve done a poor job of meeting the needs of the community at large,” Menendez said. “They certainly have been paying no particular attention to communities that have special needs.”
As of Thursday afternoon, there were more than 9,000 known cases of COVID-19 in the U.S., resulting in at least 140 deaths. Among the populations most profoundly affected are elderly individuals, those with a history of respiratory issues and people with compromised immune systems. The latter group includes those living with HIV.
LGBTQ advocacy and health groups have recognized the particular dangers this growing pandemic poses for HIV-positive individuals, who are disproportionately likely to be gay, bisexual or transgender. Over 100 national and local organizations — including the National LGBT Cancer Network, Human Rights Campaign and Lambda Legal and — signed a March 12 open letter addressed to public health entities and government agencies asking them to ensure that people living with HIV are “adequately served during this outbreak.”
“The undersigned want to remind all parties handling COVID-19 surveillance, response, treatment, and media coverage that LGBTQ+ communities are among those who are particularly vulnerable to the negative health effects of this virus,” the letter stated.
In addition to higher rates of HIV, the signatories of the March 12 letter note other factors that make LGBTQ individuals particularly vulnerable include higher rates of cancer, which, like HIV, can lead to a compromised immune system; higher rates of tobacco use, which can be a particularly harmful when combined with a respiratory illness like COVID-19; and health care discrimination, which may make LGBTQ people more reluctant to seek medical care.
Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., called on the administration to explain to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee why it had decided to evacuate U.S. diplomatic missions in Iraq.Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg via Getty Images file
Menendez said the Trump administration’s own decisions may make it difficult for people living with HIV or other affected groups get care should they contract coronavirus.
In 2018, the White House announced the creation of a Conscience and Religious Freedom division within HHS dedicated to the concerns of health workers who fear they may have to treat people or participate in care that goes against their “moral or religious convictions.” A year later, the administration further codified those actions by proposing a rule critics said would be a “license to discriminate” against LGBTQ people in health care settings. For its part, HHS says it’s “committed to fully enforcing the civil rights laws passed by Congress” and added that its 2019 rule proposal would help eliminate regulatory burdens “on the free exercise of religion.”
Menendez, however, said HHS’s actions “have in essence reduced the opportunity for those living with HIV to be protected from the virus.”
In order to ensure that people living with HIV aren’t denied care while seeking treatments, the senator called on the Trump administration to immediately “repeal rules seeking to undermine the antidiscrimination protections in the Affordable Care Act.” But he also called on the White House to make sure HIV-positive individuals are able to get the medication they need by lifting the “refill limits of maintenance drugs.”
“The president is, at the end of the day, so to speak, the father figure of the country,” Menendez said. “If he doesn’t do the right thing, well, then people may say, ‘Well, I don’t need to do it. The president’s not doing it.’”
Another crisis, another urgent call for blood donors, and another probably futile call on the Food and Drug Administration to fully lift the ban on gay men giving blood.
Since the coronavirus crisis began, 2,700 blood drives have been cancelled and there have been 86,000 fewer blood donations as of March 16, the American Red Cross reports.
We now face a severe blood shortage due to an unprecedented number of blood drive cancellations during this #coronavirus outbreak. Make an appointment to help patients counting on lifesaving blood: https://rdcrss.org/2weMYZI
Gay men were, until 2015, forbidden from donating blood. This “lifetime ban” dated back to all those having gay sex from 1977 onwards. In 2015, the FDA said it was OK for men who have sex with men to donate blood, but not if they were sexually active. Only those who had abstained from sex for a year could give blood.
“Ultimately, the 12-month deferral window is supported by the best available scientific evidence, at this point in time, relevant to the U.S. population,” Dr. Peter Marks, deputy director of the FDA’s biologics division, said at the time, according to Reuters.
“It is ridiculous and counter to the public health that a married gay man in a monogamous relationship can’t give blood, but a promiscuous straight man who has had hundreds of opposite sex partners in the last year can,” said Jared Polis, then a Democratic congressman and co-chair of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus, and now the governor of Colorado (making him the nation’s first out-gay man elected as governor).
Polis was right; like so many things about the discrimination LGBTQ people face it is often the sheer absurdity of the discrimination that is most offensive. Everything—from the blood ban to discrimination in the workplace, to “religious freedom” being used to chip away at rights and freedoms—comes down to a fierce disgust of LGBTQ people; the sex they have, or the biology they possess. That disgust is then translated into discriminatory law-making.
According to a recent study, there has been no significant increase in HIV infections from blood transfusions in the US since the FDA’s 2015 rule change.
The gay blood ban came into place in 1983, in the fledgling days of AIDS. It said everything about the priorities of the Reagan administration that it was so quick to exclude gay men from donating blood, and so utterly negligent when it came to caring for them as they died in their many thousands.
The blood ban set the tone for that administration’s callous disregard when it came to AIDS care, treatment, and prevention. It was LGBTQ activists and allies who forced the Government to act; and even then gay people and people with HIV were relentlessly stigmatized and demonized. The continued blood ban, and its ridiculous 12-month celibacy clause, is a shameful hangover from that.
To suggest that only gay men who have not had sex for as year are “clean” enough to give blood is homophobic.
As GLAAD reported in 2018, “The FDA screens every unit of blood donated for infectious diseases prior to entering the donation pool. Current tests for HIV are able to detect the presence of the virus with high precision within 11 days after infection.
“Based on this science, a 12-month deferral for MSM does not make any sense; furthermore, the test is able to detect HIV with such a high precision that only 1 in 3.1 million units of blood infected with HIV will make it past the screen. Therefore, opening up blood donations to MSM donors would not cause a significant difference in HIV transmission risk from blood transfusions.”
How is a gay man’s sexual behavior effectively patrolled, and deduced by the FDA? Truth serum? Lie detector? The presentation of clean underwear that can be carbon-dated?
What would stop any man simply lying about who they sleep with to give blood? What stops a promiscuous straight guy from lying? How would the FDA know? One of the curious ironies of the FDA’s policy is that it relies on a gay man’s honesty to perpetuate the discrimination the FDA is executing against him. We have to do the right thing, so the FDA can do the wrong thing to us.
If the FDA’s blood ban is based on an assumption of gay promiscuity, it follows that it automatically assumes that straight men do not sleep around; and that their heterosexuality does not need to be patrolled or pre-judged. Please, FDA, share with us how you know so much about each individual blood donor’s sexual behavior with no prior knowledge, without asking them anything, and without testing their blood?
Enlighten us: What is it about sexually active, heterosexual blood donors that automatically—no knowledge required—makes them preferable over a gay man whose sexual behavior you have no clue about?
GLAAD notes that while it may be true that “MSM blood donors have a higher risk of contaminating blood supplies due to disproportionately high rates of HIV as compared to other groups in the U.S…the MSM population is not homogenous.”
The blood ban, as it extends to each individual person wanting to donate, is simply predicated on assumptions and stereotypes; and as GLAAD says, on stigma rather than science. What does the FDA mysteriously know about gay and straight people, and how and when and with whom they have sex, before they’ve even filled in the requisite forms?
The real message of the gay blood ban, and it is a message echoed in prejudice and prejudicial laws aimed at LGBTQ people, is that gay sex is bad; and that the sex a gay person has is all that they are, and all you need to know about them to discriminate against them.
It also presumes an incredibly narrow definition of what “gay sex” might involve. What if you are a gay man who does not have penetrative sex, but nevertheless considers the sex you are having to be sex? What if you have penetrative sex, and that sex is safe?“The issue isn’t the amount of sex gay men have or the kind of sex they are having, but the questions the FDA asks of all donors, gay and straight”
“Too bad. Go away,” the FDA says, knowing gay men’s bodies and minds before they have even spoken to them. “We don’t want your blood.”
The FDA wants men who have sex with men to renounce having sex; then they’re OK. It doesn’t want men having sex with women to do this. Or women having sex with men. Everything about the ban places straight sex on some kind of purer pedestal than gay sex.
Surely, the issue isn’t the amount of sex gay men have or the kind of sex they are having, but the questions the FDA asks of all donors, gay and straight, about the sex they’re having and with who they’re having it.
In 2015, when the ban was partially lifted—with that all-important 12-month celibacy clause—gay men were told they were kind of good enough to be blood donors, but kind of not.
If the FDA really wants gay blood, it should be on the same basis that it accepts heterosexual blood. Make giving blood equal for all. Make everyone go through the necessary hoops to ensure the blood supply is safe.
Until then, the “gay blood ban” remains in place—and no patronizing pat on every virginal gay man’s head changes that.
