Wednesday, May 27, 2020
The Indian Health Service acknowledged on Wednesday that 1 million respirator masks it purchased from a former Trump White House official do not meet Food and Drug Administration standards for “use in healthcare settings by health care providers.”
The IHS statement calls into question why the agency purchased expensive medical gear that it now cannot use as intended. The masks were purchased as part of a frantic agency push to supply Navajo hospitals with desperately needed protective equipment in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
ProPublica revealed last week that Zach Fuentes, President Donald Trump’s former deputy chief of staff, formed a company in early April and 11 days later won a $3 million contract with IHS to provide specialized respirator masks to the agency for use in Navajo hospitals. The contract was granted with limited competitive bidding.
University of Arizona President Dr. Robert Robbins was joined by a panel of university leaders from different disciplines to talk about their plan to reopen the campus on August 24.
As before, Robbins and Dr. Richard Carmona, a former US Surgeon General who is tasked with directing the campus reentry plan, said their plan is to reopen the campus as safely as possible. Robbins said their intention is to open the campus back up for the fall semester, but they will not reopen unless it's deemed safe to do so.
There are 89 days left until the beginning of the fall semester. Robbins hopes to have a final answer about reopening by the 60-day mark so that students can have time to plan their living situations and other matters.
The university hopes to come to a final decision in concert with local and state officials considering the present risk of transmission. Carmona said they will use the epidemiological data of Southern Arizona to drive their decisions.
“Many colleges and universities are struggling with this now, making decisions just empirically to open or not open because of the fear, the uncertainty,” Carmona said. “But I think this is truly an academic approach to be able to take the thought leaders in our university, challenge them to come up with the best practices, aggregate that data, bring it forward so that the incident management team can sort through it, and then come up with a plan ... to ensure that we mitigate risk and are optimally prepared to open our university when [Robbins makes] the decision.”
Tags: COVID19 , Coronavirus , University of Arizona , UA , Campus Reentry Plan , Robert Robbins , Image
With the widespread economic fallout of the pandemic, many renters in Southern Arizona are facing a tough financial situation and an eviction will only set them further back.
In response to the impending displacement of vulnerable people, the Pima County Constables Office has organized an eviction prevention resource fair in partnership with a handful of local nonprofits and government service agencies.
Tags: Eviction , Pima County , Constable , Rent , Housing , COVID19 , Coronavirus , Economy , Image
A firm set up by a former telemarketer who once settled federal fraud charges for $2.7 million. A vodka distributor accused in a pending lawsuit of overstating its projected sales. An aspiring weapons dealer operating out of a single-family home.
These three privately held companies are part of the new medical supply chain, offered a total of almost $74 million by the federal government to find and rapidly deliver vital protective equipment and COVID-19 testing supplies across the U.S. While there’s no evidence that they obtained their deals through political connections, none of the three had to bid against competing firms. One has already lost its contract for lack of performance; it’s unclear if the other two can fulfill their orders on time, or at all.
They are among about 345 first-time federal contractors promised at least $1.8 billion in deals by the Trump administration since March, representing about 13% of total government spending on pandemic-related contracts of $13.8 billion, a ProPublica analysis of federal procurement data found. Like the three companies, many of the new contractors have no experience acquiring medical products.
Some of them, including the ex-telemarketer’s company and another firm established by a former White House aide, formed only days or weeks before landing multimillion-dollar government contracts. The U.S. government’s reliance on them, with what appears to be scant vetting of their credentials, represents a major gamble whose outcome could affect how many Americans are infected by the coronavirus and how quickly the U.S. economy recovers.
“We’re putting schedule above quality, to some extent, in this time of great need,” said Trevor Brown, a professor of public management at Ohio State University. “There’s just so much pressure to get PPE into the field, I’m not surprised there’s a relaxing of focus on the quality of the product.”
Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry noted that reaction has ranged from critics who say the county hasn't done enough to those who complain the Board of Supervisors shouldn't do anything at all. Democratic supervisors Ramon Valadez, Sharon Bronson and Betty Villegas said they voted for the regulations to ensure public safety, while Republicans Steve Christy and Ally Miller say the new rules make it harder for beleaguered businesses to reopen. At the request of three GOP lawmakers, Attorney General Mark Brnovich is investigating if the measures imposed by the board exceed their authority. See more details here.
Tucson Weekly asked the candidates running for Board of Supervisors seats this year if they approved of those decisions and if they would have done anything differently. Here’s what the candidates in District 5 had to say.
The Democratic primary pits two school board members against each other: TUSD Board member Adelita Grijalva is facing Sunnyside School Board member Consuelo Hernandez in the heavily Democratic district, which includes the University of Arizona, downtown and parts of South Tucson and Saguaro National Park West.
Grijalva said the county moved too slowly to close their facilities, such as the libraries, and transition the majority of employees to work from home. If she was on the board, Grijalva says she would have advocated to close down facilities sooner.
Now that businesses are opening back up, Grijalva said the county cannot ignore basic health and safety precautions. She has already witnessed large groups of people gathering at restaurants since the state stay-at-home order was lifted on May 15.
The question about safety guidelines in restaurants continues to be debated. On May 21, the supervisors had to revise their emergency regulations on restaurants and bars after restaurant owners complained the new rules were too burdensome and some state lawmakers threatened to sue.
She also believes that the communications coming from the Pima County Health Department about COVID-19 need to be more accessible.
“I know that they’re putting it on social media, but if someone has connectivity issues, if they don’t have internet, then how are we getting information out?” Grijalva said. “It really is the responsibility of the county to get the information out, and I feel that while people who are engaged and seeking the information can find it, the vast majority may not be getting the updates that they need to.”
Hernandez said local government needs to do whatever it can to keep residents safe.
“As someone who has a background in global health, I know how critical it is for us to let the health professionals take the lead on this process,” Hernandez said. “And while I understand the problem the county supervisors face and understand the challenges, it remains critical for us to deal with the situation with the best health and safety interests of our citizens in mind.”
Republican Fernando Gonzales did not respond to requests for comment.
This coming weekend is the next scheduled date for the Arizona Department of Health Services' COVID-19 Testing Blitz. Several medical locations throughout Pima are offering testing, both to existing patients and the general public.
Local locations available for pre-registration and drive-up for COVID-19 testing:
- 13395 N. Marana Main St. will be testing on Saturday, May 30. Pre-register by phone at (520) 682-4111 or online.
- 2325 N. Wyatt Dr. will be testing from 7:30 to 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, May 30. Pre-register by phone at (520) 682-4111 or online.
- 1895 W. Valencia Road, Suite 101, is testing today through Saturday, March 30 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Pre-register by phone (520) 576-5104 or online at their website.
- 2510 E. Broadway Blvd., is testing today through Saturday, March 30, 8 a.m. through 4 p.m. Pre-register by phone at (520) 232-2072 or online at their website.
With the state’s stay-at-home orders largely lifted this month, tourists flocked to sites like Lake Havasu, Scottsdale and Lake Pleasant, according to news reports. At Lake Havasu, one official said, “The lake was full, the river was full. Every activity we had, there were people involved in.”
While it was legal, it may not have been wise, according to one health official, who said the “behavior over the holiday weekend will increase transmission of the virus.”
“Whether that translates into a big increase of cases, we don’t know yet,” said Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association. “But it was definitely the kind of the behavior that increases the spread of the virus.”
Those concerns were echoed by Scottsdale Mayor Jim Lane, who said images of crowds in Old Town Scottsdale were “disturbing, and frankly show a real lack of common sense and civic responsibility.”
“It is imperative that all businesses comply with the governor’s executive orders – to ignore them is to risk faster spread of this disease and further damage to our physical and economic wellbeing,” Lane said in a statement Tuesday.
After stay-at-home orders shut down much of the state’s travel and tourism – and other industries – this spring, Gov. Doug Ducey began lifting the restrictions earlier this month.
It was just one of the changes that Arizona Muslims made this year for Eid al-Fitr, which ends the month of fasting of Ramadan. Other mosques held car parades for the holiday, encouraged prayers online or at home or, in one instance, allowed worshipers in the mosque who wore masks and prayed a safe distance from one another.
At the Tempe mosque, Imam Omar Tawil estimated that 250 to 300 cars circled the center Sunday morning, honking as they drove by in cars adorned with balloons and windows painted with sayings like “Eid Mubarak” and “CovEID.” Volunteers wearing masks and gloves handed out small presents and boxes of sweets.
“It was personal enough, and as personal as you could get,” Tawil said. “And we were still wearing masks and still practicing social distancing.”
He said planning for the parade was an “organic” process by volunteers and mosque board members who were looking for “an opportunity to feel what they normally feel in the month of Ramadan,” a sense of community and belonging.
Leena Tohaibeche, a Tempe resident who took part in the parade with her family, said it let her feel safe while feeling herself part of the celebration.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Arizona topped 17,000 as of Wednesday, May 27, according to the morning report from the Arizona Department of Health Services.
Pima County had 2,119 of the state's 17,262 confirmed cases.
The coronavirus had killed 831 people statewide, including 175 in Pima County, according to the report.
In Maricopa County, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases had risen to 8,627.
Because symptoms can take as long as two weeks to appear after exposure to the virus (while some people can remain entirely asymptomatic), health officials continue to urge the public to avoid unnecessary trips and gatherings of more than 10 people, especially if you have underlying health conditions, and have advised people to cover their faces with masks in public.
As Pima County emerges from the state's stay-at-home order, many establishments have reopened and more are planning to in the weeks to come as local elected officials attempt to enact emergency regulations or otherwise advise people how to safely avoid COVID-19 infection.
Dr. Bob England, Pima County's Interim Health Director, said the next few weeks will show healthcare experts two things: The degree to which our population has developed an immunity to COVID-19 and the seasonality of the disease. He said if the virus behaves really seasonally and cases continue to drop since Arizona’s stay-home order was lifted May 15, that’s good news in the short run. However, he said there could be bad news later in the year.
“But in the long run, that may mean we’re in for it in the winter because if it comes back with a vengeance during the time we have other respiratory viruses and flus circulating, that could be a real mess for all of us,” England said.
England said now was the time to prepare, both as residents and healthcare providers, for any potential resurgence. England added that if COVID-19 behaves like other coronaviruses, and if our immune system behaves as it does with other illnesses caused by coronaviruses, “then maybe we’ve got a couple of years worth of protection to look forward to. That means this may be an every winter phenomenon.”
