Tag Archives: stay at home order

Ontario issues stay-at-home order, closes most stores as COVID cases rise

(Reuters) -Ontario will begin a four week-long stay-at-home order and close in-store shopping for non-essential retailers as of Thursday, Premier Doug Ford said on Wednesday, as the Canadian province battles a surge of COVID-19 cases.

“The situation is extremely serious. We need to hunker down right now,” Ford said at a briefing in Toronto.

“What we do until we start achieving mass immunization will be the difference between life and death for thousands of people.”

The order requires people in Canada’s most populous province to stay in their residences except for essential reasons, including exercise, vaccination appointments or grocery trips.

Last week, Ontario shuttered all indoor and outdoor dining, a move that fell short of what the government’s expert advisory panel said was necessary to avoid catastrophically high case numbers.

All retailers except those selling grocery, pharmacy and gardening goods will close for four weeks, except for curbside pickup. Big box stores can remain open, but with capacity limits and only certain products including groceries, pharmacy and gardening materials available for in-store purchase.

Industry groups had criticized Ford for allowing big box stores to remain open during past lockdowns while shutting small businesses.

Retailers considered essential can open for in-store shopping by appointment only. These include medical device supply and repair shops, optical stores and auto mechanics.

On Tuesday, Canada reported 6,520 cases, the most recent data publicly available. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned of a “very serious” third wave of the virus, with more young people going into hospital and on ventilators due to more lethal variants.

Hospitals in Ontario are becoming more stretched. Provincial data showed more COVID-19 patients in intensive care units than at any point since the pandemic began.

ICU admissions are rising faster than the worst-case scenario modelled by experts, Ford said.

The province also announced that all teachers and education staff in Toronto and the suburb of Peel would be eligible for vaccination beginning during the school districts’ April break.

On Tuesday Toronto Public Health shuttered the city’s schools for in-person learning, sending the country’s largest school district of around 247,000 students back to remote learning from Wednesday until April 18.

Hours earlier Ford had told reporters that schools were safe and closures would be unnecessary.

Ontario reported 3,215 new cases on Wednesday, according to government data.

(Reporting by Moira Warburton in Vancouver Editing by Chris Reese and David Gregorio)

Washington, D.C. extends coronavirus-related stay-at-home order through June 8

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Washington, D.C., the seat of the federal government, extended its stay-at-home order through June 8, the district’s mayor told reporters on Wednesday.

The district’s stay-at-home order, intended to combat the coronavirus outbreak, had last been scheduled to end on May 15. The announcement comes as the White House pushes for states to reopen businesses while public health experts urge caution.

 

(Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

A day fighting COVID-19: U.S. hospital staff share hardest moments on shift

BALTIMORE, Md. (Reuters) – The shifts are long and the scenes are heartbreaking inside a Maryland hospital where nurses and doctors have been treating coronavirus patients for weeks, unable to let family inside to visit loved ones on their death beds.

One of the hardest moments of a recent work day for registered nurse Julia Trainor was intubating a patient, and then calling the patient’s husband so he could talk to his wife. He was not allowed in the hospital.

“I had to put him on the phone and hold the phone to her ear as he told her that he loved her so much, and then I had to wipe away her tears,” says Trainor, who works in a surgical intensive care unit. “I’m used to seeing very sick patients and I’m used to patients dying, but nothing quite like this.”

The highly infectious COVID-19 disease caused by the novel coronavirus has infected more than 580,000 people across the United States and killed nearly 24,000.

In Maryland, where residents have been ordered to stay at home since March 30 to stem the spread of the disease, around 9,000 have tested positive for the virus and more than 260 have died.

After finishing what for many was a more than 12-hour shift, some nurses and doctors at one hospital shared with Reuters the hardest moments of their days. The hospital asked that it not be named.

The medical workers agreed that one of the toughest parts of the job – more than the exhausting schedule or adjusting to work in a new unit – was witnessing the toll on patients and families.

Because of the hospital’s no-visitor policy, which was implemented to prevent further spread of the virus, the medical staff must care for the patients’ physical needs and offer as much emotional support as they can muster in the absence of the patients’ families.

“The hardest moment during the shift was just seeing COVID patients die helpless and without their family members beside them,” says Ernest Capadngan, a nurse in the hospital’s biocontainment unit.

Communicating with the families has weighed heavily on the hospital staff. Staff cannot bend the no-visit rules, even when a family calls in desperation.

“I had a patient fall out of bed today and I had to call his wife and tell her and she couldn’t come see him, even though she pleaded and begged to come see him,” says Tracey Wilson, a nurse practitioner.

“One of the hardest moments was having to see a family member of a COVID patient say goodbye over an iPad,” says Tiffany Fare, a nurse in the biocontainment unit. “You can’t see your loved one and then they’re gone.”

There are very few opportunities to rest during a shift, although colleagues look out for one another and try to cover for each other when someone needs a break.

Cheryll Mack, a registered nurse in the emergency room, says she tries to get outside for 15 minutes during the day to breathe.

“It has given me relief, just fresh air,” Mack says.

Each shift concludes with a similar decontamination drill. Nurses and doctors must remove their personal protective equipment and shower immediately before coming in contact with their family at home.

“I take a very long, very hot shower. And then I usually sit on the couch and… read a book or watch some mindless reality show in order to destress,” says Martine Bell, a nurse practitioner.

Laura Bontempo, an emergency medicine physician, says she removes her work clothing and gear in a decontamination tent she has set up outside her home, and then wraps herself in a towel and runs inside to shower.

Then she puts the scrubs in the washing machine by themselves to not contaminate any other items.

Meghan Sheehan, 27, a nurse practitioner, says she drives home each night without turning on the radio and uses the quiet time to reflect on her shift and her patients. When she gets home, she tries hard not to dwell on the day.

“I go home, I shower immediately and try to have dinner with family, and try to not talk about it,” she said. “Nighttime is definitely the hardest because you’re constantly thinking about what the next day will brin

(Writing by Gabriella Borter in New York, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

California issues ‘stay home’ order; U.S. death toll hits 200

By Dan Whitcomb and David Shepardson

LOS ANGELES/WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – California issued an unprecedented statewide “stay at home” order on Thursday for its 40 million residents and Washington warned Americans to return home or stay abroad indefinitely, as the number of coronavirus deaths in the country hit 200.

Governor Gavin Newsom’s directive, effective immediately, marks the largest and most sweeping government clampdown yet in the worsening public health crisis brought on by the COVID-19 outbreak, which he predicted could infect more than half the state within eight weeks.

As authorities ramped up measures to keep the virus from spreading, Washington could announce restrictions on travel across the U.S.-Mexico border as soon as Friday, limiting crossings to essential travel, two officials briefed on the matter said. That would follow a similar measure on Wednesday closing the border with Canada.

The fast-spreading respiratory illness has shattered most patterns of American life: shuttering schools and businesses, prompting millions to work from home, forcing many out of jobs and sharply curtailing travel.

The U.S. State Department told citizens that if they travel internationally, “your travel plans may be severely disrupted, and you may be forced to remain outside of the United States for an indefinite timeframe.”

STIMULUS PACKAGE

With the economy swooning, Senate Republicans unveiled a $1 trillion economic stimulus plan to provide funds directly to businesses and the American public. President Donald Trump has been eagerly calling for that package.

It would be Congress’ third emergency coronavirus bill following a $105 billion-plus plan covering free coronavirus testing, paid sick leave and expanded safety-net spending, and an $8.3 billion measure to combat the spread of the highly contagious pathogen and develop vaccines.

The plunging stock market and surging U.S. death toll has caused Trump to sharply change his tone on the disease this week, demanding urgent action after spending weeks downplaying the risks.

Over 13,000 people across the United States have been diagnosed with the illness called COVID-19 and 200 have died, with the largest numbers so far in Washington state, New York and California.

Newsom said his ‘stay at home’ order was essential as modelling showed 56% of California’s 40 million people would contract the virus in the next eight weeks, and require nearly 20,000 more hospital beds than the state could provide.

“We are confident the people of California will abide by it, they will meet this moment,” Newsom, a first-term Democrat told a news briefing from the state capital in Sacramento.

Los Angeles, as the nation’s second-largest city, would likely be “disproportionately impacted” in the coming weeks, he said.

Two Los Angeles Lakers players have the coronavirus, the NBA franchise said on Thursday, after four players from the Brooklyn Nets tested positive for the disease a day earlier.

The virus has taken the greatest toll in Washington state, which reported eight more deaths on Thursday, bringing the toll there to 74.

Hospitals across the country say they face shortages of medical gear, with doctors in Seattle reduced to making their own face masks out of sheets of plastic.

“We’re days away from running out of the equipment we need,” said Melissa Tizon, Associate Vice President of Providence St. Joseph Health, which runs 51 hospitals across five western states. “We’re expecting more shipments later on but until then we’ve got to improvise.”

TEST DELAYS

With the United States slow to roll out mass testing for the virus that has infected more than 244,000 people worldwide, officials fear the number of known cases of the respiratory illness that can lead to pneumonia lags far behind reality.

There are no approved treatments or vaccines for COVID-19, but several options are being tested.

New York City, where many young people last weekend packed local bars and restaurants, has been eerily deserted after nightfall.

“It’s a skater’s dream,” said Dyanna Hernandez, 20, who had joined a dozen friends in Manhattan’s Union Square to enjoy the freedom of what she called a “ghost city” after three days stuck at home. “I can’t really be quarantined.”

The epidemic, which has killed over 10,000 globally so far, has drawn comparisons with traumatic periods such as World War Two, the 2008 financial crisis and the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits surged by the most since 2012 to a 2-1/2-year high last week, as companies in the services sector laid off workers with businesses shutting down due to the pandemic.

Katie Vetere, 32, general manager of One 53, a small restaurant near Princeton, New Jersey, applied for benefits for the first time in her life after the restaurant was forced to shut down when state authorities banned table service.

Vetere expects her benefits to be less than half her regular weekly paycheck.

“I go from ‘I’m sad’ to ‘I’m scared’ to ‘I’m angry,'” she said. “Do I consider my job lost? I don’t know.”

(Additional reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Jeff Mason in Washington, Laila Kearney, Jonathan Allen, Gabriella Borter and Leela de Kretser in New York, Steve Gorman and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles and Rich McKay in Atlanta; Writing by James Oliphant and Bill Tarrant; Editing by Scott Malone, Daniel Wallis & Simon Cameron-Moore)