The COVID-19 pandemic has become the ultimate stress test for communities, countries and the world. It falls into the "once in a lifetime" category, but the dynamics and challenges it will entail have been studied for years by researchers investigating “super wicked problems,” ”transboundary crises” and “mega crises.”

California’s State Compensation Insurance Fund announced on Monday that it will establish two new funds to support the health and recovery of essential workers and workplace safety during the COVID-19 crisis.

The first fund, the Essential Worker Support Fund, is a $25-million relief fund to support State Fund policyholders’ essential workers, as defined by an executive order from Gov. Newsom, who contract COVID-19 or are ordered to self-isolate due to a potential exposure.

(TNS) - Ramona Moll remembers grappling with an elderly dementia patient who showed all the signs of COVID-19: fever, difficulty breathing and a persistent cough. The patient had tried to bite her while the staff struggled to keep him from tearing off his mask and oxygen tubes, she said.

Days later, Moll said she began to develop a cough and grew so weak she could barely speak or climb stairs. She wound up hospitalized herself and tested positive for COVID-19. She became one of the first employees at UC Davis Medical Center to test positive for the disease.

When nine police officers showed up to make an arrest near Melrose Avenue in the Bronx last Wednesday, none wore a mask or gloves to protect them from coronavirus.

Similar scenes play out all over the city daily: officers making arrests, walking their beats and responding to 911 calls without protective gear, according to interviews with nearly two dozen New York City officers and scenes witnessed by Reuters.

(TNS) - In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, EMS workers face unique challenges among healthcare workers.
They’re walking into the “great unknown.”

“We’re going into people’s homes. The hospital is a really tough environment but they have to keep cleanliness to a certain standard,” said Administrative Director of EMS at Staten Island University Hospital (SIUH) Dominick Battinelli.

That hospital standard of cleanliness doesn’t exist in a house -- especially in a home where a patient who is potentially positive for COVID-19 has been cooped up for days.

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which is responsible for workplace safety regulations, certain workers are at higher risk than others for exposure to the coronavirus and the disease COVID-19.

Nurses, doctors, lab and morgue workers are among those at highest risk.

(TNS) — President Donald Trump invoked emergency powers Friday, declaring a national emergency over the coronavirus outbreak, which will allow more federal aid to flow to states and municipalities.

“I am officially declaring a national emergency,” the president said during a news conference in the Rose Garden. “No resources will be spared, nothing whatsoever.”

The announcement came an hour after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi partially preempted Trump by making a public statement from the Capitol, outlining legislation she has negotiated largely with Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin that, she said, would ensure that coronavirus testing is free for all Americans, including the uninsured.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom urged the state’s nearly 40 million residents to avoid sporting events, concerts and large gatherings to prevent the spread of the coronavirus and adamantly warned the elderly to stay away from cruise ships as he pondered measures to restrict cruise travel off the California coast.

The warning came as Newsom announced an update to the painstaking process of disembarking more than 2,000 passengers from a cruise ship struck by the coronavirus and moving them to military bases around the U.S. for a two-week quarantine. The Grand Princess docked in the Port of Oakland Monday after being forced to idle for days off the coast while authorities scrambled to find a suitable port and plan to move the passengers into safe quarantine sites. While at sea, tests on people who showed symptoms of illness confirmed 21 contracted the coronavirus.

(TNS) — Joe Brown, who lives in a thicket of trees sandwiched between Interstate 5 and Harborview Medical Center, said Monday afternoon that he had not heard much about the novel coronavirus that has killed six people in Washington state and is expected to spread.

Brown, 36, who’s been sleeping on a platform built from pallets and cardboard boxes, said outreach workers have come to distribute hand sanitizer on the weekends. But regular access to hot water and soap for hand-washing, one of the main actions health officials say a person can take in order to prevent contracting the illness, is another story.