US Has Yet To Cut WHO Funding Despite Trump Move To “Terminate” Relationship

US Has Yet To Cut WHO Funding Despite Trump Move To “Terminate” Relationship

Tyler Durden

Fri, 06/12/2020 – 20:05

The Hill reports that as of the close of this week the United States still hasn’t cut funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) despite President Trump controversially vowing to pull the plug on all US funding, which provides the bulk of the UN organization’s budget. 

Trump made the “final” statement on May 29 amid widespread international criticism against the global health body for essentially being asleep at the wheel while the coronavirus outbreak rippled across the world. US officials have also repeatedly charged the WHO is in Beijing’s pocket, which they say is the reason WHO leaders dithered while the disease raged in Wuhan, soon spreading far outside China’s borders, before it was belatedly labeled a pandemic.

Right: WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom. Source: AFP/Bloomberg

The US president had stated: “Because they have failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms, we will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving, urgent global public health needs.”

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had immediately urged the administration not the take the drastic action in the middle of a pandemic: “We regret the decision of the President of the United States to order a halt in funding to the World Health Organization,” he said.

And now, as The Hill reports, “Two weeks later, no steps toward a formal withdrawal have been taken. A WHO spokesman told The Hill that the agency had received no formal notification that the United States would withdraw.”

“Senior WHO officials said they continue their relationships with American agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH),” the report underscores. 

It’s possible that Trump is under pressure from within his own administration as well as Republican allies not to ultimately sever funding. Perhaps the president was just content to score political points with his base in the shock announcement of two weeks ago. Or it’s possibly the slowness of red tape when it comes to pulling the funding.

By far the largest single WHO funder, America’s contribution is at about 15%, which approaches a billion dollars for the current two-year budge period.

Executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, Mike Ryan, said there’s been no change so far: “We rely heavily on our colleagues and institutions in the U.S. like CDC, like NIH and like the hundreds of collaborating centers that this organization has across the United States,” Ryan said Monday. “We will continue to do that until we are otherwise instructed or informed.”

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Colorado Bill Requires “Re-Education” For Parents Who Refuse The COVID-19 Vaccine

Colorado Bill Requires “Re-Education” For Parents Who Refuse The COVID-19 Vaccine

Tyler Durden

Fri, 06/12/2020 – 19:45

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Are you ready for re-education camps in the United States? Colorado has introduced a bill that would “re-educate” parents who refuse to vaccinate their child with the coronavirus vaccine.

The bill forces all doctors and medical staff to give vaccinations with no exemptions, even if they are in a situation where they believe it would not be in that child’s best interest. The bill’s current version, however, does not list any sanctions or punishments for medical staff that refuse, according to Life News. 

The bill just passed through a committee in Colorado (20-14) to reduce available exemptions on vaccinations for school-age children (making vaccines mandatory). This bill offers “online education modules” for parents who want a different vaccination schedule than what the state demands. Submitting a “certificate of completion” from the re-education classes is one way to receive the state-sanctioned vaccine exemption.

This plandemic was never about health, it was about forcing everyone to get a vaccine: an injection of whatever the hell the ruling class decided to put in the vaccine.

These vaccines are not being required for the health of anyone unless it’s for the health of Big Pharma and the ruling class.

What happens if the “re-education” fails to convince a person to get the vaccines? It’s hard to say, but these types of concentration camps (and be honest with yourself, you know that’s what they are) should be condemned by anyone who wishes to be free. This is utterly insane.  The limits the governments are now going to in order to force people to get vaccinated is unbelievable.

But, we knew this was coming. We knew that the coronavirus was a scam to force everyone to take the COVID (certification of vaccine ID) under Agenda 2020. Beware, this could very well be what more religious people are calling “the mark of the Beast”, and people commenting on this Colorado bill have already made it clear that “people won’t be able to go to work or school” unless they get the vaccine.

This is the new normal they are conditioning us to accept. This is why they need martial law. Your chains are about to get much shorter unless you wake up and start to extract yourself from their system.  There isn’t much time left.  The government is not going to help you out, after all, they are the ones writing the laws while they have the police and military enforce them at gunpoint. Wake up, or be enslaved.

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Cornell Law Prof Says There’s A “Coordinated Effort” To Have Him Fired After He Criticized Black Lives Matter

Cornell Law Prof Says There’s A “Coordinated Effort” To Have Him Fired After He Criticized Black Lives Matter

Tyler Durden

Fri, 06/12/2020 – 19:25

Recall, it was just days ago that we pointed out Cornell professor and friend of Zero Hedge Dave Collum was publicly shamed by Cornell for daring to express the “wrong” opinion about current events on social media. Now, there’s a second Cornell professor coming under fire for his critique of the Black Lives Matter movement. 

Cornell Law School professor William A. Jacobson has challenged any student or faculty member to a public debate about the Black Lives Matter movement after he says liberals on campus have launched a “coordinated effort” to have him fired from his job. At least 15 emails from alumni have been sent to the dean, demanding that action be taken, according to Fox News

“There is an effort underway to get me fired at Cornell Law School, where I’ve worked since November 2007, or if not fired, at least denounced publicly by the school,” Jacobson wrote on Thursday. “I condemn in the strongest terms any insinuation that I am racist.”

Jacobson founded the website Legal Insurrection and says he’s had an “awkward relationship” with the university for years as a result. The recent outrage comes as a result of two posts he recently made on his site:

“Those posts accurately detail the history of how the Black Lives Matters Movement started, and the agenda of the founders which is playing out in the cultural purge and rioting taking place now,” Jacobson said. 

Jacobson (Source: Jacobson’s Blog, Legal Insurrection)

He recently wrote on his blog: “Living as a conservative on a liberal campus is like being the mouse waiting for the cat to pounce. For over 12 years, the Cornell cat did not pounce. Though there were frequent and aggressive attempts by outsiders to get me fired, including threats and harassment, it always came from off campus.”

“Not until now, to the best of my knowledge, has there been an effort from inside the Cornell community to get me fired,” he says.

“The effort appears coordinated, as some of the emails were in a template form. All of the emails as of Monday were from graduates within the past 10 years,” he continued. Jacobson’s “clinical faculty colleagues, apparently in consultation with the Black Law Students Association” drafted and published a letter denouncing ‘commentators, some of them attached to Ivy League Institutions, who are leading a smear campaign against Black Lives Matter.’”

Cornell responded, backhandedly defending the Professor’s right to his own opinion:

“…the Law School’s commitment to academic freedom does not constitute endorsement or approval of individual faculty speech. But to take disciplinary action against him for the views he has expressed would fatally pit our values against one another in ways that would corrode our ability to operate as an academic institution.”

“This is not just about me. It’s about the intellectual freedom and vibrancy of Cornell and other higher education institutions, and the society at large. Open inquiry and debate are core features of a vibrant intellectual community,” he stated.

“I challenge a representative of those student groups and a faculty member of their choosing to a public debate at the law school regarding the Black Lives Matter Movement, so that I can present my argument and confront the false allegations in real-time rather than having to respond to baseless community email blasts.”

“I condemn in the strongest terms any insinuation that I am racist, and I greatly resent any attempt to leverage meritless accusations in hopes of causing me reputational harm. While such efforts might succeed in scaring others in a similar position, I will not be intimidated,” Jacobson concluded.

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Virginia Senator Told Police To Stand Down Before Statue Collapse That Left Man In A Coma

Virginia Senator Told Police To Stand Down Before Statue Collapse That Left Man In A Coma

Tyler Durden

Fri, 06/12/2020 – 19:05

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

Virginia Senator Louise Lucas told Portsmouth City police officers to stand down and urged Black Lives Matter protesters to “wreck” a statue that was later toppled and struck a man in the head, leaving him in a coma.

Shocking video footage of the incident shows one of the four bronze soldiers on the Confederate monument being torn down by an angry mob, only to immediately strike a man in the head, leaving his skull split open.

The victim was later named as BLM protester Chris Greene, who remains critically ill in a coma.

It has now emerged that Senator Louise Lucas was responsible for inciting the mob to target the statue.

A video clip shows Senator Lucas wearing a full face covering as she tells the crowd that the police cannot intervene because the monument is on city property.

“This is city property! I’m Louise Lucas! They cannot arrest them because the city owns this property, they been paying for that!” she says.

“Come July 1 they can take it down anyway. These police officers cannot arrest them for standing on city property, so I’m gonna stand right here and see what’s gonna happen.”

Lucas then reveals her face to police before continuing.

“This is city property and [Mayor] John Rowe knows it, [City Manager] Dr. Patton knows it. And if they’d have listened to the Vice Mayor and Shannon Glover when they introduced [removing] this [statue] thing to the City Council in the first place they could’ve put a tarp over this thing and all of this would’ve been resolved it wouldn’t even have been necessary. So if the city had done what they were supposed to do these citizens wouldn’t have to do it. So there you go!”

She then openly incites the mob to take down the statue, telling them, “Go ahead wreck it!”

Despite Portsmouth Vice Mayor Lisa Lucas-Burke telling the mob that the city council would be meeting to determine the statue’s fate, almost certainly resulting in its removal, Lucas escalated the situation, asserting, “But this is city property and anybody who pays taxes in this city got a right to be on their property. To hell with city council!”

“That’s alright, the city has had 3 years to cover it, y’all cover it!” she added.

The crowd then shouted “you heard her!” before the statue was targeted later that evening and Greene was left fighting for his life.

The council would have almost certainly decided to remove the statue anyway, but because the mob couldn’t wait a few weeks and wanted to carry out their ritualistic destruction of America’s heritage, a man is now on the verge of death.

*  *  *

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Daily Briefing – June 12, 2020

Daily Briefing – June 12, 2020


Tyler Durden

Fri, 06/12/2020 – 18:55

Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal and Real Vision managing editor Ed Harrison discuss today’s undulating recovery as global equities tried to regain ground lost in yesterday’s market rout. Raoul and Ed explore why today’s snapback wasn’t as strong as expected and Raoul places this discussion within the context of his “unfolding” thesis. In the intro Jack Farley discusses the VIX and a daring attempt by Hertz bondholders to take advantage of the moment.

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COVID-19 Lockdowns Spark 41% Collapse In Black-Owned Businesses In America

COVID-19 Lockdowns Spark 41% Collapse In Black-Owned Businesses In America

Tyler Durden

Fri, 06/12/2020 – 18:45

Widespread lockdowns across the country shuttered many small businesses for months. Stores, factories, and many other companies closed due to government-enforced public health orders or because of a rapid shift in demand. A new report from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) provides the first analysis of lockdown impacts on small businesses, makes a shocking discovery that African-American owned businesses plunged by 41%. 

NBER commissioned the new report titled “The Impact of Covid-19 on Small Business Owners: Evidence of Early-Stage Losses from the April 2020 Current Population Survey” — shows active business owners in the US declined by 3.3 million or 22% from February to April because of “unprecedented” economic impacts of lockdowns. The decline in small business owners was the “largest on record,” and losses felt across all industries. 

The report said African-American businesses were hit the hardest, recorded a 41% decline of black owners from February to April. Next were Latino owners, fell 32%, and Asian business owners dropped by 26%. 

Immigrant business owners plummeted 36%, and female-owned businesses fell by 25%. These findings of early-stage losses to small businesses, so far, outlines how minority businesses were crushed during the lockdowns. 

“The negative early-stage impacts on minority- and immigrant-owned businesses, if prolonged, may be problematic for broader racial inequality because of the importance of minority businesses for local job creation,” said the report’s author, Robert Fairlie of the University of California at Santa Cruz Department of Economics.

In a separate report, we noted how the virus-induced economic downturn could result in at least 52% of small businesses closing up shop in the next six months. 

For readers, it’s essential to understand that nearly half of all US jobs originate from small businesses. This all suggests the quick economic recovery narrative pitched by the Trump administration and Wall Street is bullshit. ​​​​​​

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Former Steve Jobs Advisor Says Facebook Is “Destroying The Very Fabric Of Human Relationships”

Former Steve Jobs Advisor Says Facebook Is “Destroying The Very Fabric Of Human Relationships”

Tyler Durden

Fri, 06/12/2020 – 18:25

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

A former advisor to Steve Jobs warns that Facebook is “destroying the very fabric of human relationships” by making its users become addicted to anger.

During a question and answer session at the 2020 CogX conference, Joanna Hoffman was asked about the cult of leadership within Silicon Valley.

“As I look at Facebook, for example, I keep thinking are they really that ignorant or is this motivated by something … darker than what appears?” she said.

Hoffman went on to accuse Facebook of “destroying the very fabric of democracy, destroying the very fabric of human relationships and peddling in an addictive drug called anger.”

“You know it’s just like tobacco, it’s no different than the opioids,” she added.

“We know anger is addictive, we know we can attract people to our platform and get engagement if we get them pissed off enough. So therefore what, we should capitalize on that each and every time?”

While Hoffman was talking about Facebook, much of the same charges could be made against Twitter.

Twitter has become a monstrous echo chamber of hysterical nonsense controlled by outrage mobs who abuse the platform to threaten criminal acts as well as intimidating, doxxing and attempting to ruin people’s lives for the sin of holding an alternate opinion.

Much criticism of social media is framed in the context of its “threat to democracy,” despite the fact that both Twitter and Facebook are more censorious than ever, with the overwhelming target being conservatives and anyone who offends woke jihadists.

In reality, the real damage being done by these platforms is to people’s mental health, to the cohesion of a functioning society, and to the concept of free speech itself.

*  *  *

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Default By Mall-Owner CBL Sparks Another Manic-Bid By Robinhood Daytraders

Default By Mall-Owner CBL Sparks Another Manic-Bid By Robinhood Daytraders

Tyler Durden

Fri, 06/12/2020 – 18:05

As we have previously noted, a bearish trade emerged on Wall Street several years ago and received the moniker “The Next Big Short.” The trade was simple: short shopping malls by going long default risk via CMBX 6 (BBB- or BB) or otherwise shorting the CMBS complex. As we describe below, the first major US shopping mall operator could be on the brink of bankruptcy as it would suggest the commercial real estate bust is underway. 

Mall operator CBL & Associates fired a warning shot on June 5 that said tenants across 108 of its properties paid just 27% of April’s rent. Many retailers skipped out on rent payments during the COVID-19 lockdowns, forcing CBL to default on a secured credit line, significantly raising bankruptcy risk. 

The Chattanooga, Tennessee-based commercial real estate company, owns 108 properties in the Northeast, Southeast, and Rust Belt, breached a covenant on its $1.185 billion credit facility after recently over-drawing on the credit line, which is backed by 17 malls and three other commercial properties.

CBL properties 

Administrators at the credit facility notified CBL about default but have yet to expedite maturity on the debt. CBL has said that it is seeking a waiver. 

The mall operator also skipped an $11.8 million interest payment due on its 2023 unsecured bonds on June 1, though it has chosen to use the one month grace period. 

If CBL files for bankruptcy, it could unnerve commercial real estate investors by suggesting a bankruptcy wave of mall operators has begun. 

According to the International Financing Review (IFR), CBL mall properties have been chopped up and packaged into CMBSs. At least $1.7 billion in CMBS exposure across 24 loans of the mall operator, with $937 million of these loans with special servicers and two loans in foreclosure.

About half of CBL’s CMBS loans are tracked via CMBX indexes, with the series 6 having the most significant exposure at $447 million. 

“Given the severity of the COVID downturn, coupled with its high levels of indebtedness, CBL may face difficulty in meeting its debt obligations,” a Wells Fargo report said this week. 

If CBL were to file for bankruptcy, it would be the first mall operator during the pandemic. Coresight Research warned that 25,000 retail stores could close in 2020, something that would undoubtedly lead to other mall operators coming under severe financial distress. 

With CBL on the brink of bankruptcy, Robinhood traders have been piling into the stock since March. Accounts holding CBL stock nearly doubled in the last three months, from 8,100 holders (mid-March) to 15,300 (June 12). 

CBL should take note of what’s happening with the Hertz bankruptcy, issue a bunch of stock and drain the equity, along with all the Robinhood daytraders in it.

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“Let’s Pretend It Never Existed” – Virtue-Signaling In America Reaches Unprecedented Heights

“Let’s Pretend It Never Existed” – Virtue-Signaling In America Reaches Unprecedented Heights

Tyler Durden

Fri, 06/12/2020 – 17:45

Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

Virtue signaling in the US of A has already reached new heights, and there’s little reason to believe it won’t reach even much higher as we happily signal along. In the process, we will find that applying logic to the undertaking will take us to unanticipated, and highly undesirable (for most protesters), places. But by then a lot of damage, whether we think that’s a good thing or not, will have been done.

HBO opened a Pandora’s Box all of its own when it pulled Gone With the Wind, despite that fact that Hattie McDaniel was the first black American Oscar nominee AND winner. Let’s erase that too. Along with ALL other films that depict slavery in the “wrong” light, or, better yet, that depict slavery at all.

Let’s ban all links to slavery, let’s pretend it never existed, because if we don’t we will find it’s impossible to decide between what we do and do not want to last. Not all people have the same preferences or opinions, and neither do all black people.

And while we’re talking movies, and Columbus statues are toppled across the nation because Christopher (before there were any “Americans”) treated indigenous Americans poorly, do let’s ban all Hollywood westerns in which “Indians” are depicted as cannon fodder. No more John Wayne for you. Gone even the few non-westerns Wayne appeared in, because his name and face are forever linked to killing “Indians”. No more Duke.

And why stop there? Just to name an example, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, arguably a great book and a good movie, depicts a white man “being compassionate” to a black man oppressed by other white men. Can’t have that, the oppression is obviously racist and so is the good(!) white(!) man who’s the protagonist of the story, written by a white woman(!).

Let’s leaf through all American and other world literature of the past half millennium that describes slavery, including that which talks about “good white” men. There are no good white men!

Anything to do with native Americans must go. Because they were badly treated throughout the 500 years of history they share with white people (Europeans). They still are, just like African Americans. Same difference. Phillis Wheatley, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison? Don’t think so. They were all talking about slavery. And we’re toppling statues in order to stop that talk.

Frederick Douglass? You got to be kidding. His autobiography is called “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave“. Isn’t that enough to topple him? James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, they all remind us of a period we don’t want to be reminded of anymore. It’s enough! No more slavery!

Martin Luther King? Get serious, he talks about nothing but oppression. He even claims black people in his lifetime were still slaves. Muhammad Ali is obviously not welcome anymore, he spoke just about exclusively from the viewpoint of an oppressed man.

Washington, D.C. is the capital of the United States of America. George Washington was a slaveholder, he’s obviously out. D.C. stands for District of Columbia, named after Columbus, so that needs a new name. The country gets its name from a Columbus contemporary and fellow explorer who was a slave holder and treated indigenous populations of the countries he “visited” no better than Columbus did. Wikipedia:

Amerigo Vespucci wrote his will in April 1511. He left most of his modest estate, including five household slaves, to his wife.

[..] After Hispaniola they made a brief slave raid in the Bahamas, capturing 232 natives and then returned to Spain.

There once was a time when Washington, D.C. was the capital of the United States of America. But those days must soon be gone. How can you hold on to a name for your capital city that belongs to a man who was a brazen slave holder? Or the district the capital is in? And how can you breathe in a country named after a despicable Italian slaveholder and slave trader?

The US constitution was largely written by slave holders. We’re going to need a new one.

There are 1747 “symbols of the Confederacy” in the US. I’m guessing Pelosi, once those 11 statues at the Capitol have been toppled, will start work on getting rid of the other 1736 too. And mind you, this doesn’t yet include Columbus, Vespucci, or anyone else who’s “mistreated”, enslaved, murdered, native Americans. We will easily have twice the 1747 number once we include those.

For that matter, if you’re Nancy Pelosi, how and why do you dress up in the “kente cloth” fabrics that originate with the Asanthi people that ruled in present-day Ghana from mid-1600s to mid-1900s, and were themselves … slaveholders and slave traders? Who sold god knows how many African slaves to European slave traders? How can you dress up in the garb of slave traders to protest the mistreatment of the grandchildren of slaves? Short circuit? Temporary?

For all the protesters other than Pelosi, who herself obviously joined in only for political reasons, here’s a question: Do you oppose slavery, or only slavery on US soil? Because, you know, the Romans had slaves, many African tribes had slaves, present day Chinese people did. Australia? Slave country if I ever saw one. The deeper you dig into history, the more you will find. I don’t want to bore you with an extensive list, because it would be too extensive.

Or maybe a second question, though it has mostly already been answered: Is this protest only about slavery, or about the oppression of people(s) in general? It’s already been answered in toppling the Columbus statues, since Christopher was not a slavetrader as far as we know, so, see above, we’re talking about both “indians” and “negroes”.

I use both derogatory terms on purpose, precisely because they paint the picture of what things used to be like. That they are no longer tolerated tells a story all by itself. And yes, much more is needed, but can that be achieved by toppling statues and banning books and movies? Is that how those two terms were banned?

We cannot escape our past and probably that’s the reason we shouldn’t try. What we need to do, what our role in the story is, is to not follow in the “footsteps of wrong”, and to do better. Do we have a better chance at doing better and escaping “wrong” if and when we ban all symbols of it, so we can no longer see it?

Or is our best chance to let all these things last so we can point at them to say: that is wrong!? If all the statues and books and movies are gone, how will our children know?

And I haven’t even mentioned the music yet, the unique melting pot of European melodies and African beats that gave the world blues and jazz and rock, all born from the plantation life that so many stories depict, and the music itself, growing under the statuesque eyes of the likes of Jefferson Davis or George Washington.

Maybe if you like your blues and jazz and rock and rap, you should call for the statues and books to remain standing, because without the narratives they bear witness to, there would be no blues, or anything that came after. Maybe you should celebrate your ancestors’ genius that gave America (or whatever you wind up calling it soon) its music, which, accidentally, has conquered all the countries of all the slavetraders of the past.

Maybe the music, the books, represent your ancestors’ victory over their oppressors, and maybe you risk tainting that hard-fought victory by trying to erase the memories of those they fought against to attain it.

And no, you can’t just pick the books and statues and music you would like and dump everything else. It doesn’t work that way. Your neighbor might have slightly different criteria and pick other favorites, and so on.

You can’t say we’ll hold on to Toni Morrison and throw out Harper Lee, you can’t dump Gone With the Wind but keep Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, because each of these are part of the exact same story.

It’s a package deal, called history. And you’re not going to get the best end of that deal by pretending history doesn’t exist.

*  *  *

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COVID Spreads To 60 Plants, Sparks Fear Of US Food Shortages As 2nd Wave Strikes

COVID Spreads To 60 Plants, Sparks Fear Of US Food Shortages As 2nd Wave Strikes

Tyler Durden

Fri, 06/12/2020 – 17:25

A new report reveals the severity of COVID-19 spreading beyond meatpacking plants to food processing facilities across the US. 

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) outlines this new reality of how the fast-spreading virus has infected 1,200 food processing workers at 60 plants from mid-March to early June. 

To compile these statics, EWG reviewed news articles of outbreaks and noticed many of the infections were seen at Kraft Heinz, Birds Eye, Conagra, and the Campbell Soup Company’s Pepperidge Farm, as well as those of smaller plants, like Fairmont Foods and Ruiz Foods.

Food Processing Plants With the Most Reported COVID-19 Cases

h/t EWG

Bloomberg elaborated on EWG’s findings and said: “These are the first national numbers of their kind. The advocacy group compiled its figures using local media reports because there are no federal agencies reporting the data. The true total is almost certainly higher.” 

Bakers, dairy workers, fruit and vegetable packers, many of whom are deemed “essential” have worked through the pandemic, sometimes laboring in tight quarters. 

“At our workplace, we were not ready for this virus. We didn’t talk about it. We didn’t know about it,” Paula Zambrano,61, who packs fruit at Borton & Sons in Yakima, Washington. She was so concerned back in April of an outbreak at her plant that she stayed home for three weeks. Low on money, she returned to work to support her family. 

“People are infected, and they come to work. They keep quiet about it,” Zambrano said. “We live from our work. We are surviving from our wages. If we have children, how will we feed them?”

In a piece titled “”Cold, Damp & Crowded” – How America’s Meat Plants Are Breeding Grounds For Covid” we described how meat processing plants had become a breeding ground for the virus — and with EWG’s report this week, similar conditions have been seen across many other types of food processing plants. 

EWG estimates at least 1.8 million Americans work in food processing plants. Many of the workers are low-income and minority, their labor in tight workspaces make them susceptible to infection.

America’s food suppliers have seen some of the worst outbreaks of the virus. Dozens of folks at meatpacking plants across the country have died with thousands infected. The ongoing human tragedy at meat and food processing plants expose the vulnerability of the food supply chain

To solve this issue, we noted how meat processing plants should “unleash a new wave of automation across plants to ease labor and health woes.” 

With a health crisis still not abating at many plants — another problem has developed, that is, food shortages and skyrocketing food inflation. 

The latest food at home index increased 4.8% over the last 12 months, with all six major grocery store food group indexes rising over that span.

The index for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs rose 10% over the last year, its most significant 12-month increase since the period ending May 2004.

second coronavirus wave could spell disaster for America’s food supply chain. At the moment, the stock market is selling off, with investors nervous that a reemergence of the virus is ahead. 

 

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