Hunger Striker At KPFA Calls For More Programming On Testing/tracing & Worker Safety

Artist and KPFA member John Sheridan spoke out on 8/2/20. in front of KPFA Pacifica on the need to have more programming on testing and tracing.

He was joined by WorkWeek's Steve Zeltzer who discussed the continuing dangers that workers face in California because of the refusal of Governor Newsom to have physical inspections by Cal/OSHA and also the failure to have testing and tracing
in workplaces including Tesla, Highland and SF General Hospital. There are less than 200 Cal/OSHA

inspectors in California and the pandemic has exploded in the Central Valley where agricultural workers are getting no protection by Health Department and Cal/OSHA.

Additional media:
The Covid Pandemic & Central Valley Agricultural Workers
https://youtu.be/wUp42Eqb7R8

Workers, Liability, The Hero's Act and Health and Safety On The Job With UFCW Local 7 President Kim Cordova
https://youtu.be/ezmEDOiR9s0

With No Safety, Covid Killing Colorado JBS Workers &
Memorial With UFCW Local 7 President Kim Cordova
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5kTkTdQLpg

UFCW 7 Memorial For 6 JBS Greely, Colorado Workers Who Did Died From Covid
https://www.facebook.com/572982989459766/videos/2875360759256585/?eid=ARB7Kpk3vssOExInbEyCJVx6tLPM7xbOBWPd4W87zE4GRdcpGGK_HclbTWQSPbkqPiGtrhdvdpMyWSFI

The Death March, Slavery, Meat Plant Workers & Covid-19
https://youtu.be/zZkwe4kkYMQ

Investigation: Counties With Meatpacking Plants Report Twice the National Average Rate of COVID-19 Infections
https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2020/05/ewg-map-counties-meatpacking-plants-report-twice-national-average-rate

America’s Largest Food & Retail Union Confirms Growing COVID-19 Impact on Frontline Workers
http://www.ufcw.org/2020/06/25/covidupdate/

Covid & The Staffing Crisis At Cal/OSHA With Garrett Brown MPH, CIH Retired From Cal/OSHA & Researcher
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JBRHGoJSLA

Tesla, Covid-19, Elon Musk, Cal-OSHA & Gov. Gavin Newsom-Interview With Tesla Worker Carlos Gabriel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx9fRymBiqk

'We Need A Safe Workplace! Tesla Worker Carlos Gabriel Speaks Out For Safety In Elon Musk's Tesla Plant
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGLb61Iy5VQ

Jail Tesla Billionaire Elon Musk & Defend Health & Safety: Workers Speak Out At Tesla Fremont Plant
https://youtu.be/GBB5y5Q6cZI

Elon Musk "He Thinks He Is Above The Law" Rally at Tesla plant
https://youtu.be/rzPl6tm3k7U

Coronavirus: Workers group wants Tesla to give more safety information
https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/06/15/coronavirus-workers-group-to-demand-tesla-give-more-safety-information/

TESLA Employees COVID-Positive, Gov.Newsom Responsible-June 12 Protest In Sacramento
https://patch.com/california/sacramento/calendar/event/20200612/838884/tesla-employees-covid-positive-gov-newsom-responsible

Protesters Outside Fremont Tesla Plant Demand Improved COVID-19 Safety For Workers
https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/06/15/protesters-fremont-tesla-plant-demand-improved-covid-19-safety-workers/

Protesters Outside Tesla Fremont Factory Demand Improved Safety for Workers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrZpnX7bQKk

Production of Labor Video Project
http://www.labovideo.org

DAY 23! of a HUNGER STRIKE for A MOVEMENT TO DEMAND UNIVERSAL COVID-19 TESTING AND TRACING IN THE UNITED STATES


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 3, 2020

Contact: John Sheridan



universal_covid_19_testing [at] yahoo.com 510 536-5889

universal-covid-19-testing.com


DAY 23! of a HUNGER STRIKE for A MOVEMENT TO DEMAND UNIVERSAL COVID-19 TESTING AND TRACING IN THE UNITED STATES

Announcement of a Press Conference to demand better and thorough Media Coverage!

Meet outside of KPFA 94.1 FM, 1929 MLK Jr. Way, Berkeley, CA at Noon, Monday August 3, 2020

A people's movement to test everyone living in the United States every 2 weeks


Covid-19 cases are skyrocketing with no end in sight. Every person in the United States is directly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. With ever-increasing spread of the virus - and no national plan to address it - people must make a demand on the United States government to invoke the Defense Production Act and to create a national program of Universal Testing and social tracing. Such a program, even without a treatment or a vaccine, could save hundreds of thousands of lives and many more illnesses. The cost would be LESS than the US economy loses in a single month under the current lockdown and recession.

A growing grassroots movement is needed to pressure the US government to design and implement universal covid-19 tests and social tracing. Time is critical. Beginning Sunday July 12, 2020, I launched a Movement for Universal Covid-19 Testing and Tracing - with a hunger strike - to last for an indefinite period of time until the United States government announces plans to test everyone residing in the country.

HOWEVER, US media, including national progressive grassroots media such as Pacifica and KPFA must begin to cover not only mitigation tactics such as masks, social distancing, sheltering in place and the closure of businesses and gathering places. MEDIA MUST also simultaneously inform the public that there is a SOLUTION to the pandemic that is not being discussed in any way adequately. That is UNIVERSAL COVID-19 TESTING AND TRACING!

We demand that media investigate, report on and explain this SOLUTION regularly and make it a part of any discussion. It is a macro solution that does not alter the fact that we must protect ourselves now with mitigation tactics - but it is imperative that media also include and shift some of the daily discussion to educating an uninformed and therefore helpless population. To ignore this is to be COMPLICIT in the corporate-dominated government's total mismanagement of the pandemic. Don't have that on your conscience, instead work to inform as many people as possible that there is a likely solution that has not been discussed much less tried .

California Governor Newsom is personally responsible for the massive escalation of Covid in the state of California. He has allowed companies like Tesla and Amazon to keep their infections secret from the frontline workers and the public.

He also has refused to fully staff Cal-OSHA which months after the pandemic has less than 200 inspectors. KPFA News Department has ignored and helped cover-up the role of these corporate controlled politicians who have allowed the state to re-open because of pressure from the billionaires and Trump. There has been a complete failure of testing and tracing of working people of California from the Central Valley to the Coast because of the failure to have a massive tracing and testing program.

You cannot stop a pandemic without massive testing and tracing for the public and also at all work locations. Governor Newsom has allowed workplaces to continue operating without proper cleaning even though this violates the rules of Cal-OSHA. This has also not been covered by the KPFA News Department despite this being a life and death issue for the working people of California.

Background:

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Romer on universal testing (@paulnromer. Tthe PBS News Hour, July 2, 2020): …if we could just do enough testing to find out the roughly two million people who are infected right now, quarantine them for two or three weeks, the pandemic would come to a screeching halt.

This is all we need to do, is figure out who is infected, get them into isolation. The pandemic comes to a screeching halt. And we just need to have the commitment to just start doing it.

And Director of Harvard Global Health Institute, Ashish Jha (@ashishkjha. Today.com, June 11, 2020): We don't have to live with hundreds of thousands of Americans dying. We do have to get people to wear masks. We do have to do as much social distancing as possible. And while we've gotten better on testing, we're nowhere near where we need to be ... We really need the federal government to step in and decide that it doesn't want to have hundreds of thousands of Americans dying and help states ramp up testing and tracing. That's the other piece of this that's still missing.

Rajiv Shah, Rockefeller Foundation president (@rajshah. July 31, 2020): The current estimated 4.5 million tests per week should be increased to 30 million per week by October, said Rajiv Shah, Rockefeller Foundation president. “We know we need testing at that level or more to get on top of the epidemic and bend the curve, and to allow workers to go to work knowing they’re safe. We think it’s not too late for the fall to be worse than the spring.”

Other leading medical, economics experts and journalists to follow on Twitter who are strong on the need to ramp up testing, although not necessarily promoting "Universal Testing and Tracing":

Eric Feigl-Ding (@Dr.EricDing)
Natalie E. Dean, PhD. (@nataliexdean)
Eric Topol (@EricTopol)
Michael Mina (@michaelmina_lab )
Tom Frieden (@DrTomFrieden)

Steven Berry (@StevenBerry)

Alex Mohajer (@AlexMohajer)

Mark Lipsitch (@mlipsitch)


At least158,000 people are dead in the United states and this is certainly an undercount, with over 3 million confirmed cases. Epidemiologists believe the actual infection rate is 10 - 12 times that. New Covid-19 cases have surged over 450,000 in just the past 7 days. 1,000 peple die each day. Businesses are shut down and will fail, unemployment claims are at historic levels. Many hospitals are at or beyond capacity to deal with the virus. People of color and frontline workers are at much higher risk, and people live in fear, evictions, layoffs and furloughs are increasing.

Congress and the President should be leading us toward a solution - but they are not, having delayed acknowledgement of the severity of the virus, its spread and its deadliness. They have offered no leadership when they have the power to literally stop this virus with a national program of Universal Testing and Tracing. Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Romer has estimated that for a cost of about $200 billion, which is less than the economy is losing in a single month of the current lockdown/recession, the US could design and implement a robust program of testing every individual in the US every 2 weeks, and frontline workers every day.

I am an individual, artist and activist. Unaffiliated and independent. But I am speaking for those growing numbers of people who realize we have a solution that would cost some money but be temporary and could in fact literally practically extinguish the virus in a few months, but only with a ramping up of Covid-19 testing and social tracing. I am attempting to raise awareness and by doing so raise a demand from the ground up that those in power will have to heed.

A HUNGER STRIKE is a personally a very difficult thing for anyone to consider, as it has no predetermined end date - but it is meant to focus awareness where it is lacking. It presents a real danger to the one striking however it is the right thing to do, and sometimes that is what one has to do when one sees a solution to a massive - and growing - problem that is not being discussed enough, nor fought for nor implemented - but which could save hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, with no downside to the society.

Others who believe in Universal testing and tracing is the EDMOND J. SAFRA CENTER FOR ETHICS AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY and their recently published "Roadmap to Pandemic Resilience" - Massive Scale Testing, Tracing, and Supported Isolation (TTSI) as the Path to Pandemic Resilience for a Free Society:

(https://ethics.harvard.edu/files/center-for-ethics/files/roadmaptopandemicresilience_updated_4.20.20_0.pdf)

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/america-needs-universal-covid-19-testing-here-s-how-we-n1192146

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/04/10/the-case-for-universal-mandatory-covid-19-testing/

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ (daily updated table of C-19 cases/deaths/tests by country. And in the US:/state/county).



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