As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to advance, the Deseret News will provide breaking national and international coronavirus news throughout the day. Bookmark this page and click back for updates:
Pittsburgh sanitation workers strike for protective equipment
2:45 p.m.
Sanitation workers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania have gone on strike to demand personal protection equipment against the coronavirus and for hazard pay to aid in covering medical co-pays if they get sick, The Pittsburg Post-Gazette reported. They also requested more work boots and protective gloves.
Sanitation workers said they wouldn’t go back to work until their demands were met.
The workers protested outside the city’s Bureau of Environmental Services Wednesday morning, parking trucks to block the building’s parking lot. The rally lasted 90 minutes.
“We’re kind of taken for granted because they don’t have to call for us like they have to call for the fire and police. We just show up and do our job,” said sanitation employee Tom Foley.
Workers said they have been buying their own medical gloves to protective themselves from exposure when collecting trash. According to one worker, sanitation employees were not notified when an employee’s wife tested positive, allegedly, for the coronavirus.
Pennsylvania Gov. Mike Peduto said only the state and county department of health could disclose coronavirus patient information because of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
16 states tell Trump they need supplies
Noon
In a letter, attorneys general from 16 states called on the president to invoke the Defense Production Act to direct industries to create more necessary medical supplies to combat the coronavirus pandemic, The Hill reported.
The law passed during the Korean War could be used to require industries to build more ventilators and personal protection equipment for health care workers, the group of attorneys general from mostly Democratic states said.
“The federal government must act decisively now and use its sweeping authority to get as many needed supplies produced as soon as possible for distribution as quickly as possible,” the letter says. The letter was dated on Tuesday.
The president has said voluntary action from companies has been enough and he has not needed to scale-up the role of the federal government.
Coronavirus attacking health care workers in Europe
9:45 p.m.
Medical professionals in Europe are catching the coronavirus at alarming rates, reports The New York Times.
In Spain, 5,400 health care workers have tested positive for the virus — 13.5% of the nation’s 40,000 COVID-19 cases. At the heart of Italy’s outbreak, around 10-15% of Brescia province’s nurses and doctors have the coronavirus and cannot work. Nearly 500 French public hospital professionals in Paris — of around 100,000 employees — have the virus.
Upwards of 30 medical professionals have died in those countries.
Dr. Ángela Hernández Puente, the deputy secretary general of Italy’s doctors’ union said, “the virus was already among us when we were really only testing those who came from Wuhan and then from Italy.”
“Some of our doctors unfortunately worked without adequate protection and acted as vectors,” the doctor added.