The societal impacts of COVID-19

[Pony]

I have been laughing at Trump's brilliance on reopening.

Trump: We should talk about reopening.
Media: Nope. Not interested.
Trump: Oh. Okay.
pause.
Trump: I have sole authority.
Every media outlet: He's not a king. Lets discuss reopening with every possible authority on the air to prove it. The people will decide not a dictator!
Trump: *drops mic*

I've cracked up laughing at least once during every press conference. The comments the other day about Biden probably doesn't even know what's going on....

[RBP]

It was the best news Steve Mastropietro could have hoped to receive.

His 91-year-old father had made a near-miraculous rebound last Saturday morning after being diagnosed two days before with COVID-19.

A nurse at the New Jersey Veterans Home in Paramus said Tom Mastropietro no longer had a fever. The Korean War veteran had not only eaten breakfast, but even walked to the bathroom unaided.

ast time I saw him. They made me think he had turned a corner.”

Four hours later, the nursing staff called again.

They had made a terrible mistake.

Tom Mastropietro had died hours earlier.

Steve would soon learn that his father and another patient were given the wrong identification bands amid the chaos that had overtaken the Paramus nursing home in recent weeks as coronavirus tore through the facility, infecting dozens of residents and staff.

Tom's body had even been taken to the other man's funeral home to be prepared for cremation the next day — Tom's wishes were to be buried next to his wife. It was a funeral home worker who noticed two medical bracelets on the body with two different names.

What happened to the Mastropietro family is an egregious example of the breakdown in care and communication at New Jersey's state-run veterans homes in Paramus and Menlo Park.

“We are devastated that this error occurred and we offer our most sincere apology for the mistake in the notification of their father’s passing,” said Dr. Mark Piterski, deputy commissioner with the New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, which oversees the homes.

COVID-19 has infected at least 25% of the two homes' 504 residents, killing at least 50 residents as of Thursday. The death toll due to COVID-19, however, may be far greater since the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs is only counting those residents who tested positive for coronavirus. Since March 23, at least 80 residents have died at the two homes.

The virus has infected dozens of nurses and aides, causing such a significant staff shortage that Gov. Phil Murphy sent in National Guard medics and dozens of federal Veterans Affairs nurses to assist.

Staff at the homes, who have requested anonymity, said no service training was held in preparation for the pandemic, and workers initially were told not to wear masks, gowns or gloves because it would scare the residents. Some brought their own protective gear.

Since NorthJersey.com and the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey broke the story last week of the death toll at the Paramus home, families across New Jersey with veterans home residents living and deceased have described a near-blackout of communications from the facilities.

Phones go unanswered. Voicemails are not returned. When families do get someone on the phone, it is often a hurried conversation with little or confusing information conveyed. The residents' best advocates — their families — have been barred from entering the homes for over a month in an effort to avoid infection. It is a story being played out at many of the more than 300 nursing homes in New Jersey.

And there may be no family that has experienced this more than the Mastropietros.

Tom Mastropietro’s formal education ended at grade school, yet he spent his life acquiring skills like carpentry, which helped him build a small summer home on Lake Hopatcong and fashion triangular boxes to hold ceremonial flags for families of deceased veterans.

The longtime North Bergen resident was a “jack-of-all-trades,” his son Steve said. “He could do anything.”

Tom and his wife, Mary, raised three boys, Thomas, Michael and Stephen. Tom worked as a boiler maintenance man at Bendix aircraft in Teterboro.

But before any of that, he served in the U.S. Army for four years during the Korean War, which made him eligible to live out his days in a veterans home if need be.

When Mary died in 2016 and dementia started taking its slow but ceaseless toll on Tom, his family tried using nursing aides in his home for a few years. But Tom gradually showed signs of depression from being alone. He ate erratically and lost weight.

In early February, he moved into the New Jersey Veterans Home in Paramus. “I thought, ‘Let’s try this,’” Steve said. “If it doesn’t work out, it’s OK. It’s temporary. We can take him out.”

The veterans home lifted Tom’s spirits. He gained his weight back and was happy to be around people. His favorite activity was a modified cooking and baking class that — nurses said jokingly — he tried to take over.

“I was initially upset about putting him in there, but after two or three weeks that was gone,” Steve said. “He was happy. He was doing better than he had been doing in a long time. And we felt like we made a great decision. But we didn’t know what was coming.”

Steve visited his father in early March, and noticed that one of the wards called Valor had been closed off from the rest of the home to house residents with respiratory issues. “I inquired about the coronavirus and was told there were no cases,” Steve said. “Looking back I’m sure there were coronavirus cases, but no one had been tested.”

Shortly after the visit, the Paramus home barred visitors for fear of infecting residents.

Steve felt his dad was safe since he was in a room by himself and in a ward away from those suspected to have the disease. He called the home several times and questioned staffers if coronavirus had broken out but was told it had not.

“I made the decision to leave him there and I’m kicking myself,” Steve said.

On April 6, Steve received a call that his dad had a fever and cough, and would be tested for coronavirus. Steve kept calling for updates.

“One hour he was fine and then hours later I was called to see if they should move him to the hospital,” he said. “I had no idea of his condition. The information was not clear.”

Having seen images of overrun emergency rooms and intensive care units, Steve didn’t want his dad going to the hospital for fear of exposure.

On April 8, he was finally able to see his dad via FaceTime. “He looked like death,” Steve said. “He looked weak and was incoherent.”

The next day, the test result came back. To no one's surprise, Tom had COVID-19 and was moved to the Valor ward with the other coronavirus residents.

It's here that Steve suspects the wrong identification bands were given to his father and another man, because the next day a nurse told Steve that his father had only a low-grade fever.

At 8 a.m. on Saturday, April 11, Steve called again and was given the surprising news that his father was making tremendous strides.

But Tom had already been dead for several hours.

Anthony Cassie, the funeral director of S.W. Brown & Son Funeral Home in Nutley, was called early that morning by the other man's family to pick up what they believed to be his body.

Cassie said the Paramus home's staff brought him to the room and identified Tom Mastropietro as the other man. The identification band on Tom's wrist had the other man's name.

Cassie took Tom's body to his funeral home and received a call shortly after from the Paramus home saying they may have misidentified the body. Cassi examined the body and found a medical bracelet near an elbow with the name: Tom Mastropietro. It was given to Tom by his family.

At noon, the Paramus home staff called Steve and told him Tom was dead.

"They gave us hope and it was total misinformation," Steve said. "It was crushing."

[lost in melb.]

Will be forever haunted by this image of protestors in Ohio demanding the governor open businesses back up pic.twitter.com/P0nivaYSsY

— future canon (@futurecanon) April 15, 2020

[lost in melb.]

Virgin airlines is tanked. Gone

Bulldozers blocking Virgin planes at Perth Airport as airport seizes the airline’s property for debts owed!! pic.twitter.com/a699d8BKUB

— Gary Adshead (@Gary_Adshead) April 24, 2020

[lost in melb.]

As a personal aside, one of the air hostesses from Virgin is now working at my local organic store. Man, to say that she outclasses the women there is no exaggeration. It's like Cinderella amongst the goblins


P. S. She is so nice, not to mention physically healthy. And I think she likes me. Probably just being professional

[RBP]

As a personal aside, one of the air hostesses from Virgin is now working at my local organic store. Man, to say that she outclasses the women there is no exaggeration. It's like Cinderella amongst the goblins


P. S. She is so nice, not to mention physically healthy. And I think she likes me. Probably just being professional

Make a bunch of Virgin puns. I bet the novelty of it will win her over.

[DemonGeminiX]

[lost in melb.]

"A Melbourne cafe owner who has been struggling during the coronavirus pandemic has been left “lost for words” by a stranger’s kind act.

Pierre Patole, who owns The Timbuktu Cafe in Brighton East, took to Facebook to share the contents of an envelope that had been placed under the cafe’s door."

[Teh One Who Knocks]

The College Fix Staff


A New Jersey high school teacher was caught on video screaming at a group of teenagers playing in a park in violation of coronavirus restrictions.

According to The Trentonian, Steinert High School math teacher Nicole Griggs was walking her dog when she spotted the teens playing football. One of them, a freshman at Griggs’ school, said the teacher began to berate them from behind a fence.

Another student recorded Griggs and put the video on TikTok. (It’s also posted in the Trentonian story.)

“Parks closed. The whole area,” Griggs tells the students. “Get it through your thick head. You are the reason we are in this situation. You are the problem, not the solution. Go ahead keep recording. Who are you going to show it to? Post me on social media. You’re the idiot doing the wrong thing. I’m just trying to save your ass and save your life. But die, OK. I hope both of you get the coronavirus. I hope you both die a long, painful death.”

It appears wishing ill upon people with whom she disagrees isn’t new to Ms. Griggs. The Trentonian confirmed she acted similarly earlier this month:

In an April 6 post on the Facebook page of Nikki Leigh, which Griggs appears to operate under an alias, she says: “We are surrounded by idiots!!!!!! Rode our bikes near Kuser Park this afternoon and what to [sic] we see but a younger couple with their daughter maybe 2/3 years old UNDOING the caution tape around the jungle gym so she could slide. I totally called them out on it, wished illness on them and commented that it was scary to even think they were parents. Their response: ‘We were going to put it back.’”

The (freshman) student said he and his pals “now know they shouldn’t have been in the park,” but added Griggs “shocked” them by wishing they’d die.

“I didn’t know someone would say something like that, especially a teacher,” he said. “She should be smarter with her words.”

Hamilton Township School District Superintendent Scott Rocco said he “will address the issue immediately.”

[DemonGeminiX]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that this one probably shouldn't be teaching.

[perrhaps]

Ah, Hamilton Township, where I spent the first 9 years of my life, and where my sister recently retired from teaching. A typical New Jersey cesspool of pay-to-play politics.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Elizabeth Rosner - New York Post




Cyber affairs are thriving during the coronavirus pandemic as people in sexless marriages are quarantined at home with their spouses.

Married couples locked inside together are in desperate need of satisfaction and have been seeking cybersex in troves, according to a new report released by Ashley Madison — a website aimed for cheating spouses.

Ashley Madison has added 17,000 new members a day in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, compared to 15,500 new members a day in 2019.

“We’ve spoken to members, and they’re saying they’re using the site as a release valve for the tension that’s built up at home during the pandemic,” Paul Keable, the chief strategy officer of Ashley Madison, said in an interview with Venture Beat. “They’re looking to have needs met that aren’t being met at home.”

Some people want to chat with someone other than a spouse, while others are seeking emotional validation or the fantasy of pursuing a secret sex life, the study said.

The website even has a new tagline during this crisis, “Life is short. Have an affair.”

In its most recent study, the site found 30 percent of its female users are having cybersex with their affair partners and 14 percent of its male users were having virtual sex with their affair partners.

“Now with self-isolation a major factor in our lives, virtual affairs are being utilized to fill the gap,” Keable told Instyle.

“Often it’s a physical component, from an intimacy standpoint. By seeking an affair discreetly, they’re able to maintain all the aspects of life that they value and enjoy,” added Keable.

The website also asked members if they’re trying to spice up their sex life with their spouses while socially distancing –- with 76 percent of respondents saying no.

[Hikari Kisugi]

I wonder if all their new members are real this time, weren't they the company filled with bots?

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Lauren Pineda - Rare.us




As we continue to witness the brave fight health care workers have been putting up on the front lines against the coronavirus, we are also reminded that they are not immune to being human. Dr. Lorna Breen, an emergency room doctor who worked in the Columbia University Irving Medical Center and New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital system, committed suicide on Sunday, April 26.

Dr. Breen was taken to the UVA Hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia after Charlottesville Police Department responded to a call for medical assistance at her sister’s house where she was staying. They later stated in a news release that Dr. Breen died at the UVA Hospital by “[succumbing] to self-inflicted injuries.”

Dr. Breen, the daughter of Dr. Philip Breen (a retired trauma surgeon), had expressed to her father about how the coronavirus outbreak had affected her and her colleagues. She explained specifically how the challenging front lines of the emergency department, along with most other health care institutions nationwide, have completely overextended its first responders, making this pandemic an even more challengingly difficult time.

Dr. Breen had been working endlessly for weeks in United States’ pandemic epicenter, New York City, as an ER doctor, tending to coronavirus patients first hand. She then contracted COVID-19 as well, but after taking only a week and a half off to recover, she immediately went back to “the trenches” of the front line. According to Breen’s father, she couldn’t even make it through a 12-hour shift but was determined to keep helping.

Eventually, a doctor friend of Breen’s told her to go home to Virginia to rest. She was admitted to the UVA Hospital for exhaustion, her mother being a doctor in the ward she was treated. A week later, Dr. Breen stayed with her mother, and then with her sister that weekend. And unfortunately, the mental devastation was too much.

“She went down in the trenches and was killed by the enemy on the front line. She loved New York and wouldn’t hear about living anywhere else. She loved her coworkers and did what she could for them. I just want people to know how special she was,” Breen’s father explained. Dr. Lorna Breen was so determined to do everything she could to help COVID-19 patients at the hand of her own mental health.

It’s important that we realize what those on the front lines against the coronavirus crisis are sacrificing in order to restore order again. These health care workers, first responders, police officers, and more are humans just like the people they are protecting. Their mental health is also at stake, even though we can’t always see it. If you know someone, anyone, having a difficult time with their mental health, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. It’s the least we can do to honor those who have truly given everything they have to protect us.

[lost in melb.]

They’re shorts I promise ����*♂️

— Will Reeve (@ReeveWill) April 28, 2020