democracynow--2020-03-25--Frontline NY Nurses Lack Protective Masks & Ventilators, Say Worst Yet to Come as COVID-19 Spreads

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : We ’ re broadcasting from the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States , New York City , with my co-host Juan González in New Jersey , with the second most coronavirus cases in the country .
The New York metro area has 60 % of all the new coronavirus cases in the United States and is responsible for half the cases all over the country .
The death toll in New York is 271 with more than 26,000 confirmed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New York are among people between the ages of 18 and 45 years in age .
Federal officials say anyone who travels from New York City should self-quarantine for 14 days .
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday the number of hospitalizations is expected to peak in the next 40 days .
Four temporary hospital sites will be built to address the shortfall of hospital beds , including one at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Midtown Manhattan .
Cuomo blasted the Trump administration for failing to respond to the magnitude of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ encountering shortages of equipment needed to protect medical workers and to keep patients alive .
AMY GOODMAN : Many hospitals in New York say they ’ re already down to their last weeks of personal protective equipment to keep frontline medical workers from contracting COVID-19 .
Some are being forced to reuse single-use masks .
If they get sick , hospitals will face even greater staff shortages amidst the outbreak .
For more , we ’ re joined by two people who are working on the frontlines of this pandemic .
Sean Petty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ emergency room of Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx .
He ’ s a member of the board of directors of the New York State Nurses Association .
Next to him is Kelley Cabrera , an emergency room nurse there , as well .
And , of course , co-hosting from his home in New Brunswick , New Jersey , is Juan Gonzalez .
Sean , let ’ s begin with you .
Can you describe the conditions at your hospital ?
What do you need ?
What do you have ?
SEAN PETTY @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thing that we need , first and foremost , is we need N95 masks .
N95s are the only proven prevention in terms of masks for healthcare workers for N95 — or , for COVID-19 .
In Wuhan , China , once they realized that healthcare workers were becoming infected , and they imported 42,000 healthcare workers to help with the crisis , they outfitted them with N95 masks and full protective equipment , personal protective equipment , or PPE , as we call it .
And they achieved an unbelievable zero out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ So zero healthcare workers out of 42,000 with full PPE were infected after they were imported into Wuhan , China .
So , we know that N95s are the only significant protection that we have against this virus .
And they are the item that is in most severe shortage in this country .
Just this morning , as I was walking into the hospital , and we heard of — we started hearing about reports of this just last night — our command center has been telling nurses that the one N95 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only N95 mask that they ’ re going to be getting for an entire week .
So , this is a profound — AMY GOODMAN : Now , I just want to be clear on how unusual this is .
The head of the American Medical Association said , if you did something like that — reuse , reuse , reuse a mask — it would have been grounds for dismissal in the past .
Talk about the significance of what it means to reuse your mask , Sean , seeing patient after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contagious disease .
SEAN PETTY : A hundred percent , Amy .
We would have absolutely been brought up on charges and possibly terminated for reusing a mask in the future .
The CDC guidelines from the beginning of this outbreak — at the beginning of this outbreak were that COVID-19 patients were to be treated with airborne and contact precautions , which necessitates an N95 mask by federal guidelines .
They rolled those back , caving into pressure from the hospital associations that were talking about their shortage .
So , they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ science , but because of — not because of science , but because of the shortage .
And so , that allowed the hospitals to ration these masks in that way .
And so , what it means is that we take — we use a mask , we touch the mask , we take care patients , our hands could potentially become contaminated , our hands then contaminate our mask , and then , when we reuse it , we potentially contaminate ourselves , and then we ’ re putting other patients @ @ @ @ @ @ @ care of patients who are suspected of COVID-19 , we take care of patients who have COVID-19 , and we take care of patients who don ’ t have any symptoms of COVID-19 .
So , we , of course , as healthcare workers , then are not only infecting ourselves , not only infecting each other as healthcare workers , because it ’ s very difficult to practice social distancing in a healthcare setting when you ’ re , like me and Kelley are , in traumas , in tight quarters taking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ each other , and we ’ re infecting — we ’ re potentially infecting other patients .
So , to contaminate our own masks and to compromise the integrity of those masks repeatedly makes those masks absolutely useless at a certain point .
And you ’ re absolutely right that this is something that is not — something that the hospitals would have disciplined nurses prior to this , and something that they ’ re mandating us to do in this current context .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : Kelley Cabrera , I ’ d @ @ @ @ @ @ @ component of the best possible care , the issue of ventilators .
We heard Governor Cuomo blast the federal government for not providing sufficient numbers of ventilators .
What ’ s the situation in your hospital with ventilators ?
KELLEY CABRERA : Yeah , so , I work at the same hospital as Sean in the adult emergency room , and so I am taking care of the older population .
And we have been seeing , as you guys have stated before , the numbers , between 18 and 45 , like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We know we don ’ t have enough .
It ’ s a discussion that doctors are having , that nurses are having .
It ’ s a conversation that is way out in the open .
Previously , prior to coronavirus , if there was a patient coming in who we knew needed a ventilator , it was no questions asked .
You went in , and you provided that care , and that was it .
And we ’ re starting to see the situations where , unfortunately , we ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , you know , is it worth — it ’ s horrible to say it this way , but we really have to debate , like : Is it worth exposing all of our workers , when we know that we don ’ t have the right equipment and when we know the machines aren ’ t going to be enough ?
So those conversations are starting to happen .
I ’ ve heard at other facilities in the Bronx already that ventilators have run out .
For us , that hasn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s definitely not looking good .
It ’ s going to happen .
And it ’ s a conversation that , unfortunately , we ’ re forced to have now .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And I ’ d also like to ask you , Kelley , about the — Governor Cuomo has asked all the hospitals to increase capacity by 50 % in terms of beds .
Have you seen that process begin in your hospital ?
And , of course , increasing the number of beds also requires having more staff , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beds .
How has that been playing out in your hospital ?
KELLEY CABRERA : Yeah , that is starting to happen now .
I think a really big message here is that we have to remember that a lot of the issues that we ’ re seeing come up now , they ’ re not new issues .
So , prior to coronavirus , we were already holding patients in our emergency room for days at a time , not just our emergency room .
I know that this happens across the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have always been stretched to their limit .
So now we ’ re just adding the stress of a pandemic to it , and it ’ s pushing us to new places we ’ ve never seen before .
So , we have opened up new spaces in the hospital .
Prior to this , we had advocated for that space before for the previous patients that we were holding in the emergency room .
And now that space is being used by shuffling other patients in the hospital to that empty space @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the floors for more ICU patients .
I know there ’ s been conversions of different units into — that are specifically going to be for ICUs .
Yesterday , our waiting room started — they started construction in our waiting room to expand an area for where these patients will be taken care of .
Like , they are building a wall within our waiting room , because we have to do it one way or another .
Like , to increase 50 % capacity , it ’ s making us do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ putting patients together that perhaps we wouldn ’ t have put together before .
We ’ re trying to put people — the biggest issue right now is space , lack of equipment , lack of ventilators , but we ’ re trying to — we know that the surge is going to happen , and all we ’ re trying to do is best prepare for it .
And unfortunately , it ’ s making us make some really hard decisions .
AMY GOODMAN : Kelley Cabrera , can you talk more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you ?
What kind of access do you have to healthcare tests ?
I mean , I believe something like four in five cases , people are infected by people who are asymptomatic .
Now , certainly , you are on the frontline .
You ’ re using and reusing your protective equipment .
If you ’ re feeling sick , what kind of access do you get to tests ?
And then , how long do you have to wait and work , while you might not be feeling well , before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ So , we ’ ve been told that if we don ’ t feel well , we are supposed to — you know , we should be going home .
It ’ s kind of what ’ s being said .
However , we know from — I ’ ve experienced , like from speaking to other — excuse me — from other workers that have gone through this , it ’ s basically you have to have a fever , body aches , and they ask you basically the same symptoms as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ comes into the emergency room .
However , for us , we have to — it ’ s not guaranteed that we ’ re going to get a test just because we work on the frontlines .
So , initially , we were advocating for that , being that we knew that a lot of us were getting exposed , and , obviously , like , we might not display symptoms , and we might be passing it along to other people .
But I think from what the mayor had said , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like we have to all basically assume that we have it .
From other workers that I ’ ve heard that have been tested and have been told that they are positive , they are to stay at work — sorry , they ’ re to stay at home for seven days and then wait the three days — have at least three days without a fever before being able to return to work .
It ’ s not guaranteed that we ’ re going to get tested at all .
Like , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ process .
We have to call 311 .
I believe our hospital also has a different hotline for us , as well , but basically we ’ re following the same guidelines as the general public , even though we have arguably the most exposure .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : Well , I ’ d like to ask Sean — going back to this issue of hospital capacity , over the last few decades , and certainly during the period that Governor Cuomo has been in office , the number of beds available per @ @ @ @ @ @ @ states has declined dramatically , mostly because hospital managers see empty beds as not money-making , so they want to reduce the number of empty beds as much as possible , so they staff fewer and fewer beds .
Could you talk about these past policies and now , with this sudden crisis , how the chickens have come home to roost in terms of this maximum bottom line for hospitals ?
SEAN PETTY : Yeah , absolutely .
And I would just add that it ’ s just not hospital managers .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ — all of the people who are making political and economic decisions around public health in the city and the state .
So , for instance , I would call Governor Cuomo probably the single most important person in terms of the drive to close down hospital beds in this state over the last 20 years .
In New York state , we ’ ve gone from 73,000 beds to 53,000 beds from the year 2000 to the present time .
So , specifically because of policies that Governor Cuomo has pursued , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we need to be in terms of trying to scale up our capacity to these unprecedented levels .
Governor Cuomo estimates , I think , this week that we need 140,000 hospital beds to have enough capacity to treat patients that need oxygenation and hospitalization during this crisis .
So , we ’ re starting at 53,000 instead of 73,000 to scale up to this , to scale up to the need that is being estimated .
So , the way Governor Cuomo did that is he came up with a hospital bed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Berger Commission .
And he also has had now two rounds of Medicaid cuts .
The first — they ’ re called the Medicaid Redesign Teams .
The second Medicaid Redesign Team just made a recommendation for massive Medicaid cuts , including specific cuts to the city hospital system , where we work , just in the last two weeks .
So Governor Cuomo is currently trying to reduce Medicaid spending in the state by almost $ 2.5 billion during this pandemic .
And this will absolutely result in a decrease in healthcare @ @ @ @ @ @ @ matching federal dollars for Medicaid spending .
So , it ’ s unfathomable to somebody like myself , somebody who has worked in a public hospital for 12 years and has seen these cuts , seen the resulting decrease in staffing , seen the resulting decrease in services .
We had to fight a couple years ago just to keep our pediatric trauma center open in the Bronx , the only pediatric trauma center that serves the entire borough of the Bronx and southern Westchester County .
We had to fight to keep @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
We thankfully won that fight , but we have been at a severe state of precarity when it comes to having these services available over the last decade going into this pandemic .
And these are because of these specific policies of Medicaid cuts and hospital closures that have been explicitly pursued .
And it ’ s very easy to find all of the quotes from Governor Cuomo , from the Medicaid Redesign Teams , from the Berger Commission , about these hospital closures in New York state over the last two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t want to keep you , Sean .
We know you ’ re right now scheduled to go on duty .
What gives you the courage to be there , day after day , with the massive exposure that you have ?
SEAN PETTY : Well , I think , a sense of duty to my patients .
If we don ’ t show up , if we ’ re not there , nobody else is going to be .
And I would also just add that I know nurses are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but it ’ s also our housekeepers are heroes right now , our nurses ’ aides are heroes right now , the doctors .
We all are coming to work .
We all are doing Herculean — making Herculean efforts to make this thing work .
We all are exposing ourselves to these risks .
And we know that we ’ re at the very tip of the iceberg .
And so , you know , but if not us , who else is going to do it ?
And we only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you know , I ’ ve done this for 12 years .
Kelley has done it for six years .
We do this every day .
We face adverse conditions every day .
We face going into battle short-staffed .
We face these things .
So it ’ s something we ’ re used to .
It ’ s something we ’ re prepared for .
What I think undermines that courage and undermines that morale for us and our co-workers is that our government doesn ’ t have our back , that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have done virtually nothing to get us the armor and the supplies that we need in this war against coronavirus .
AMY GOODMAN : Sean Petty , I want to thank you so much for being with us , joining us from Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx , pediatric emergency room nurse .
And thank you so much to Kelley Cabrera , emergency room nurse , as well .
When we come back , we go to Spain , which now has more than 47,000 confirmed cases , nearly 3,500 deaths , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Among the hardest hit in Spain are the healthcare workers , as well .
Stay with us .
AMY GOODMAN : “ Soul Makossa ” by the great African funk saxophonist Manu Dibango , who has died at the age of 86 from COVID-19 .
This is Democracy Now !
, democracynow.org , The War and Peace Report .
In the music we were just playing for those watching online or television around the world , we were showing dancing doctors and medical workers from China to Iran , who were getting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ massive pandemic .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re broadcasting from the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, New York City, with my co-host Juan González in New Jersey, with the second most coronavirus cases in the country. The New York metro area has 60% of all the new coronavirus cases in the United States and is responsible for half the cases all over the country. The death toll in New York is 271 with more than 26,000 confirmed cases. Almost half the cases in New York are among people between the ages of 18 and 45 years in age. Federal officials say anyone who travels from New York City should self-quarantine for 14 days.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday the number of hospitalizations is expected to peak in the next 40 days. Four temporary hospital sites will be built to address the shortfall of hospital beds, including one at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Midtown Manhattan. Cuomo blasted the Trump administration for failing to respond to the magnitude of the crisis and said hospitals are already encountering shortages of equipment needed to protect medical workers and to keep patients alive.
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO: FEMA is sending us 400 ventilators. Four hundred ventilators? I need 30,000 ventilators. You want a pat on the back for sending 400 ventilators? What am I going to do with 400 ventilators, when I need 30,000? You pick the 26,000 people who are going to die because you only sent 400 ventilators!
AMY GOODMAN: Many hospitals in New York say they’re already down to their last weeks of personal protective equipment to keep frontline medical workers from contracting COVID-19. Some are being forced to reuse single-use masks. If they get sick, hospitals will face even greater staff shortages amidst the outbreak.
For more, we’re joined by two people who are working on the frontlines of this pandemic. Sean Petty is a registered nurse in the pediatric emergency room of Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx. He’s a member of the board of directors of the New York State Nurses Association. Next to him is Kelley Cabrera, an emergency room nurse there, as well. And, of course, co-hosting from his home in New Brunswick, New Jersey, is Juan Gonzalez.
Sean, let’s begin with you. Can you describe the conditions at your hospital? What do you need? What do you have?
SEAN PETTY: Absolutely. Well, the first thing that we need, first and foremost, is we need N95 masks. N95s are the only proven prevention in terms of masks for healthcare workers for N95 — or, for COVID-19. In Wuhan, China, once they realized that healthcare workers were becoming infected, and they imported 42,000 healthcare workers to help with the crisis, they outfitted them with N95 masks and full protective equipment, personal protective equipment, or PPE, as we call it. And they achieved an unbelievable zero out of 42,000 infection — noninfection rate. So zero healthcare workers out of 42,000 with full PPE were infected after they were imported into Wuhan, China.
So, we know that N95s are the only significant protection that we have against this virus. And they are the item that is in most severe shortage in this country. Just this morning, as I was walking into the hospital, and we heard of — we started hearing about reports of this just last night — our command center has been telling nurses that the one N95 mask that they are distributing is the only N95 mask that they’re going to be getting for an entire week. So, this is a profound —
AMY GOODMAN: Now, I just want to be clear on how unusual this is. The head of the American Medical Association said, if you did something like that — reuse, reuse, reuse a mask — it would have been grounds for dismissal in the past. Talk about the significance of what it means to reuse your mask, Sean, seeing patient after patient who are suffering from this highly contagious disease.
SEAN PETTY: A hundred percent, Amy. We would have absolutely been brought up on charges and possibly terminated for reusing a mask in the future. The CDC guidelines from the beginning of this outbreak — at the beginning of this outbreak were that COVID-19 patients were to be treated with airborne and contact precautions, which necessitates an N95 mask by federal guidelines. They rolled those back, caving into pressure from the hospital associations that were talking about their shortage. So, they rolled their guidelines back, not by science, but because of — not because of science, but because of the shortage. And so, that allowed the hospitals to ration these masks in that way.
And so, what it means is that we take — we use a mask, we touch the mask, we take care patients, our hands could potentially become contaminated, our hands then contaminate our mask, and then, when we reuse it, we potentially contaminate ourselves, and then we’re putting other patients at risk. Now, we take care of patients who are suspected of COVID-19, we take care of patients who have COVID-19, and we take care of patients who don’t have any symptoms of COVID-19. So, we, of course, as healthcare workers, then are not only infecting ourselves, not only infecting each other as healthcare workers, because it’s very difficult to practice social distancing in a healthcare setting when you’re, like me and Kelley are, in traumas, in tight quarters taking care of patients, we are infecting each other, and we’re infecting — we’re potentially infecting other patients. So, to contaminate our own masks and to compromise the integrity of those masks repeatedly makes those masks absolutely useless at a certain point. And you’re absolutely right that this is something that is not — something that the hospitals would have disciplined nurses prior to this, and something that they’re mandating us to do in this current context.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Kelley Cabrera, I’d like to ask you about another critical component of the best possible care, the issue of ventilators. We heard Governor Cuomo blast the federal government for not providing sufficient numbers of ventilators. What’s the situation in your hospital with ventilators?
KELLEY CABRERA: Yeah, so, I work at the same hospital as Sean in the adult emergency room, and so I am taking care of the older population. And we have been seeing, as you guys have stated before, the numbers, between 18 and 45, like those numbers are a lot higher. We know we don’t have enough. It’s a discussion that doctors are having, that nurses are having. It’s a conversation that is way out in the open. Previously, prior to coronavirus, if there was a patient coming in who we knew needed a ventilator, it was no questions asked. You went in, and you provided that care, and that was it. And we’re starting to see the situations where, unfortunately, we’re really — we have to debate, you know, is it worth — it’s horrible to say it this way, but we really have to debate, like: Is it worth exposing all of our workers, when we know that we don’t have the right equipment and when we know the machines aren’t going to be enough? So those conversations are starting to happen. I’ve heard at other facilities in the Bronx already that ventilators have run out. For us, that hasn’t happened yet, but it’s definitely not looking good. It’s going to happen. And it’s a conversation that, unfortunately, we’re forced to have now.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I’d also like to ask you, Kelley, about the — Governor Cuomo has asked all the hospitals to increase capacity by 50% in terms of beds. Have you seen that process begin in your hospital? And, of course, increasing the number of beds also requires having more staff, as well, to deal with those beds. How has that been playing out in your hospital?
KELLEY CABRERA: Yeah, that is starting to happen now. I think a really big message here is that we have to remember that a lot of the issues that we’re seeing come up now, they’re not new issues. So, prior to coronavirus, we were already holding patients in our emergency room for days at a time, not just our emergency room. I know that this happens across the country in several hospitals, because hospitals have always been stretched to their limit. So now we’re just adding the stress of a pandemic to it, and it’s pushing us to new places we’ve never seen before.
So, we have opened up new spaces in the hospital. Prior to this, we had advocated for that space before for the previous patients that we were holding in the emergency room. And now that space is being used by shuffling other patients in the hospital to that empty space in order to make more rooms on the floors for more ICU patients. I know there’s been conversions of different units into — that are specifically going to be for ICUs. Yesterday, our waiting room started — they started construction in our waiting room to expand an area for where these patients will be taken care of. Like, they are building a wall within our waiting room, because we have to do it one way or another. Like, to increase 50% capacity, it’s making us do the craziest things. We’re putting patients together that perhaps we wouldn’t have put together before. We’re trying to put people — the biggest issue right now is space, lack of equipment, lack of ventilators, but we’re trying to — we know that the surge is going to happen, and all we’re trying to do is best prepare for it. And unfortunately, it’s making us make some really hard decisions.
AMY GOODMAN: Kelley Cabrera, can you talk more about testing of healthcare workers, like you? What kind of access do you have to healthcare tests? I mean, I believe something like four in five cases, people are infected by people who are asymptomatic. Now, certainly, you are on the frontline. You’re using and reusing your protective equipment. If you’re feeling sick, what kind of access do you get to tests? And then, how long do you have to wait and work, while you might not be feeling well, before you get results?
KELLEY CABRERA: So, we’ve been told that if we don’t feel well, we are supposed to — you know, we should be going home. It’s kind of what’s being said. However, we know from — I’ve experienced, like from speaking to other — excuse me — from other workers that have gone through this, it’s basically you have to have a fever, body aches, and they ask you basically the same symptoms as we would ask any other patient that comes into the emergency room. However, for us, we have to — it’s not guaranteed that we’re going to get a test just because we work on the frontlines. So, initially, we were advocating for that, being that we knew that a lot of us were getting exposed, and, obviously, like, we might not display symptoms, and we might be passing it along to other people. But I think from what the mayor had said, as well, it’s just like we have to all basically assume that we have it. From other workers that I’ve heard that have been tested and have been told that they are positive, they are to stay at work — sorry, they’re to stay at home for seven days and then wait the three days — have at least three days without a fever before being able to return to work. It’s not guaranteed that we’re going to get tested at all. Like, we have to go through the same process. We have to call 311. I believe our hospital also has a different hotline for us, as well, but basically we’re following the same guidelines as the general public, even though we have arguably the most exposure.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, I’d like to ask Sean — going back to this issue of hospital capacity, over the last few decades, and certainly during the period that Governor Cuomo has been in office, the number of beds available per patient in the United States in many states has declined dramatically, mostly because hospital managers see empty beds as not money-making, so they want to reduce the number of empty beds as much as possible, so they staff fewer and fewer beds. Could you talk about these past policies and now, with this sudden crisis, how the chickens have come home to roost in terms of this maximum bottom line for hospitals?
SEAN PETTY: Yeah, absolutely. And I would just add that it’s just not hospital managers. It’s actually all of our — all of the people who are making political and economic decisions around public health in the city and the state. So, for instance, I would call Governor Cuomo probably the single most important person in terms of the drive to close down hospital beds in this state over the last 20 years. In New York state, we’ve gone from 73,000 beds to 53,000 beds from the year 2000 to the present time. So, specifically because of policies that Governor Cuomo has pursued, we are now 20,000 beds behind where we need to be in terms of trying to scale up our capacity to these unprecedented levels. Governor Cuomo estimates, I think, this week that we need 140,000 hospital beds to have enough capacity to treat patients that need oxygenation and hospitalization during this crisis. So, we’re starting at 53,000 instead of 73,000 to scale up to this, to scale up to the need that is being estimated. So, the way Governor Cuomo did that is he came up with a hospital bed closure commission. It was called the Berger Commission. And he also has had now two rounds of Medicaid cuts. The first — they’re called the Medicaid Redesign Teams. The second Medicaid Redesign Team just made a recommendation for massive Medicaid cuts, including specific cuts to the city hospital system, where we work, just in the last two weeks. So Governor Cuomo is currently trying to reduce Medicaid spending in the state by almost $2.5 billion during this pandemic. And this will absolutely result in a decrease in healthcare capacity and keep the state from getting matching federal dollars for Medicaid spending.
So, it’s unfathomable to somebody like myself, somebody who has worked in a public hospital for 12 years and has seen these cuts, seen the resulting decrease in staffing, seen the resulting decrease in services. We had to fight a couple years ago just to keep our pediatric trauma center open in the Bronx, the only pediatric trauma center that serves the entire borough of the Bronx and southern Westchester County. We had to fight to keep it open because of these Medicaid cuts. We thankfully won that fight, but we have been at a severe state of precarity when it comes to having these services available over the last decade going into this pandemic. And these are because of these specific policies of Medicaid cuts and hospital closures that have been explicitly pursued. And it’s very easy to find all of the quotes from Governor Cuomo, from the Medicaid Redesign Teams, from the Berger Commission, about these hospital closures in New York state over the last two decades.
AMY GOODMAN: And we don’t want to keep you, Sean. We know you’re right now scheduled to go on duty. What gives you the courage to be there, day after day, with the massive exposure that you have?
SEAN PETTY: Well, I think, a sense of duty to my patients. If we don’t show up, if we’re not there, nobody else is going to be. And I would also just add that I know nurses are getting a lot of attention right now, but it’s also our housekeepers are heroes right now, our nurses’ aides are heroes right now, the doctors. We all are coming to work. We all are doing Herculean — making Herculean efforts to make this thing work. We all are exposing ourselves to these risks. And we know that we’re at the very tip of the iceberg. And so, you know, but if not us, who else is going to do it? And we only ask — and we do this — you know, I’ve done this for 12 years. Kelley has done it for six years. We do this every day. We face adverse conditions every day. We face going into battle short-staffed. We face these things. So it’s something we’re used to. It’s something we’re prepared for. What I think undermines that courage and undermines that morale for us and our co-workers is that our government doesn’t have our back, that the Trump administration and the federal authorities have done virtually nothing to get us the armor and the supplies that we need in this war against coronavirus.
AMY GOODMAN: Sean Petty, I want to thank you so much for being with us, joining us from Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx, pediatric emergency room nurse. And thank you so much to Kelley Cabrera, emergency room nurse, as well.
When we come back, we go to Spain, which now has more than 47,000 confirmed cases, nearly 3,500 deaths, the second-highest number in the world after Italy. Among the hardest hit in Spain are the healthcare workers, as well. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Soul Makossa” by the great African funk saxophonist Manu Dibango, who has died at the age of 86 from COVID-19. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. In the music we were just playing for those watching online or television around the world, we were showing dancing doctors and medical workers from China to Iran, who were getting up their energy to deal with this massive pandemic.


democracynow--2020-03-25--Headlines for March 25, 2020

Headlines for March 25, 2020

U.S. Senate leaders have reached a deal with the White House on an unprecedented $ 2 trillion stimulus package to battle economic freefall caused by the coronavirus pandemic .
The Senate deal would send $ 1,200 checks to most American adults , with another $ 500 per child .
It would create a half-trillion-dollar program to loan money to U.S. corporations and municipal governments , overseen by an inspector general and an oversight board .
Another $ 367 billion would go toward a small business loan program .
Hospitals would receive $ 130 billion , and state and local governments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Progressive critics are calling for grants — not loans — to small businesses and warn that the bailout ’ s centerpiece , the $ 500 billion loan program , could become a “ slush fund ” for corporate America .
This is New York Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , speaking on MSNBC .
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez : “ If we do not get this right , we risk small businesses across the country shutting down and big businesses experiencing a total pay day with lack of accountability , further consolidating our economy .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
If we think income inequality is bad now , we really need to make sure that we get this right to prevent the worst possible outcome.
” An unemployment provision added to the Senate bill by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders would see laid-off workers receive 100 % of their salary up to $ 75,000 a year , with tipped and gig economy workers covered .
Economists at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs estimate the U.S. gross domestic product could plummet by 30 % next quarter , driving unemployment to nearly 13 % @

U.S. Senate leaders have reached a deal with the White House on an unprecedented $2 trillion stimulus package to battle economic freefall caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The Senate deal would send $1,200 checks to most American adults, with another $500 per child. It would create a half-trillion-dollar program to loan money to U.S. corporations and municipal governments, overseen by an inspector general and an oversight board. Another $367 billion would go toward a small business loan program. Hospitals would receive $130 billion, and state and local governments would get $150 billion in assistance.
Progressive critics are calling for grants — not loans — to small businesses and warn that the bailout’s centerpiece, the $500 billion loan program, could become a “slush fund” for corporate America. This is New York Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, speaking on MSNBC.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “If we do not get this right, we risk small businesses across the country shutting down and big businesses experiencing a total pay day with lack of accountability, further consolidating our economy. And that will create a generational issue. If we think income inequality is bad now, we really need to make sure that we get this right to prevent the worst possible outcome.”
An unemployment provision added to the Senate bill by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders would see laid-off workers receive 100% of their salary up to $75,000 a year, with tipped and gig economy workers covered. Economists at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs estimate the U.S. gross domestic product could plummet by 30% next quarter, driving unemployment to nearly 13%.


democracynow--2020-04-16--Pandemic Is a Portal: Arundhati Roy on COVID-19 in India, Imagining Another World & Fighting for It

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
, democracynow.org , The Quarantine Report .
I ’ m Amy Goodman , with Nermeen Shaikh .
We turn now to India , where officials say six major cities are coronavirus infection hot spots , calling them red zones , including the capital , New Delhi , and the financial center , Mumbai .
The country has more than 420 deaths , 12,000 infections , though the number is likely far higher due to lack of testing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ civil liberties groups are sounding the alarm that the government of Narendra Modi is using the coronavirus outbreak to crack down on opponents and dissidents .
This month , police arrested a prominent journalist , Siddharth Varadarajan , accusing him of spreading “ discord ” and “ rumors , ” after he reportedly criticized a Hindu nationalist politician for participating in a religious ceremony with dozens of people during the national lockdown .
Elsewhere , activist Anand Teltumbde , who is 69 years old , and journalist Gautam Navlakha , who is 67 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both say were fabricated .
Teltumbde wrote an open letter to the people of India on the eve of his arrest , saying , quote , “ I do not know when I shall be able to talk to you again .
However , I earnestly hope that you will speak out before your turn comes , ” he said .
Prime Minister Modi has announced India ’ s nationwide coronavirus lockdown , affecting 1.3 billion people — the largest at any time in the world — announced it will be extended until @ @ @ @ @ @ @ migrant workers left homeless and unemployed by the lockdown held a protest Tuesday demanding the government deliver food and assistance .
AMY GOODMAN : For more , we go to New Delhi , India , where we ’ re joined by the award-winning writer , author , activist Arundhati Roy .
She has a new essay in the Financial Times headlined “ The pandemic is a portal.
” It ’ s drawn from her forthcoming book , Azadi : Freedom .
Fascism .
Fiction .
Her most recent book is My Seditious Heart @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Booker Prize in 1997 for her first novel , The God of Small Things .
Arundhati , welcome back to Democracy Now !
As you speak to us from New Delhi , if you can talk about what ’ s happening there and why you see the pandemic as a portal ?
ARUNDHATI ROY : Well , in India , you know , we have a COVID crisis whose contours we don ’ t know yet .
I mean , you mentioned the figures and also the fact that we don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because there ’ s not that much testing happening .
But on the other hand , just looking around , you know that there isn ’ t a run on hospitals like there has been in New York , you know ?
The disease doesn ’ t seem to have really got its claws into us yet .
But we have the COVID crisis .
We have a hunger crisis .
We have a hatred crisis .
And we have a health crisis apart from COVID .
So , as you said , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ March , with four hours ’ notice , which ran between 8:00 at night and 12 midnight , Modi locked down this nation of 1.38 billion people without warning .
And the crisis that that has created , the lack of planning , the lack of thinking forward , although like some states like Kerala , which you talked about , have done wonderful work , but from the center , the crisis has been exacerbated into something that might — might really become even more serious than the epidemic that it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ situation where you have millions of workers and migrant workers under a lockdown , which is supposed to enforce social distancing , but it only enforces physical compression .
People are crammed together .
People are separated from their families .
In many places , they have no food .
They have no access to money even .
They ’ ve sold their phones .
You have the sense that you ’ re sitting on some kind of explosive substance .
And yet , at the same time , like you said , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the people who you mentioned .
Siddharth Varadarajan has not been arrested , the editor of Wire , but he has a case filed against him .
Senior lawyers who speak out against Modi have had FIRs filed against them .
Gautam Navlakha and Anand Teltumbde have been arrested .
Young students and people , a lot of Muslims , who are now being accused of being part of the massacre that took place against Muslims in northeast Delhi , are being arrested .
You know , the circles are closing in .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic is a portal is that all over the world you have a situation now where , on the one hand , the powers that be are going to try and increase surveillance , increase inequality , increase privatization , increase control , and , on the other hand , you have populations of people who will want to increase solidarity and who will want to see and understand the fact that what has happened in the U.S. , as well as what has happened in India , is that the pandemic has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and inequality .
Even the calling of the shutdown with four hours ’ notice was a sign of panic from this prime minister , because he knows that this infrastructure of this country , it can ’ t even deal with normality , forget about a pandemic .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : Arundhati , I want to ask you more about that , about Modi ’ s declaration of a lockdown with just four hours ’ notice .
He declared it at 8 p.m. , and it went into effect at midnight on March @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reported case , of COVID-19 was on January 30th , so he had — it ’ s unclear why he took seven weeks to shut down the country .
But you went , when the first — when the country went into lockdown , you used a press pass , and you went and spoke to some of the migrants , the hundreds of thousands of people who were forced to flee Delhi once all transportation had already been shut down .
You spoke to some of these migrants in Delhi .
Can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their situation ?
ARUNDHATI ROY : Well , as soon as the lockdown was announced , mass transport was stopped .
It was the last week of March .
People had not been paid their salaries , people who live virtually from day to day .
The landlords in these little cramped , medieval tenements , into which five and 10 people are squashed into a room , said that they wanted their rent on time .
So people just had to leave .
And it was a surreal sight , you know @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the streets , but suddenly the structural inequality and the horror , the shame of how our societies live , made themselves manifest .
And I just realized that these people have started walking , walking for hundreds of kilometers to their villages .
And I went out because I felt like the tectonic plates were shifting .
You know , it was crazy .
So I went to the border between Delhi and Uttar Pradesh , where I walked with many of them .
And I spoke to many of them , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ horrific kind of wannabe pogrom against them , which didn ’ t turn out that way because people were so prepared that they fought back .
But having survived that , now they were walking these hundreds of miles home — you know , carpenters , tailors , construction workers .
And all of them were aware of the virus .
All of them were wearing masks .
They were doing their best to maintain social distance .
It was impossible .
There was a rumor that buses might be organized , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , pressed together , waiting for buses .
And I asked some of them , “ So , what do you think of this virus ?
” They said , “ Whatever we think of the virus , right now we have no food , we have no water , we have nowhere to sleep .
We have to reach home.
” And that was so much more present for them than this .
A lot of them felt that this was a rich people ’ s illness brought in by planes .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ people at the airport instead of kicking us out of our jobs and our homes , you know ?
” And a lot of people just — one of the people who I wrote about in the Financial Times piece said — he just said to me , ” Shaayad Modiji ko hamaare baare mein pata nahi [ phon . ]
, ” meaning “ Maybe Modi doesn ’ t know about us , ” you know , which was just perhaps true in a way , that the government and everybody else @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more or less airbrushed the poor out of their imagination — out of films , out of literature , out of everything .
You know ?
Except NGO brochures where the poor feature in order to raise money , you know ?
AMY GOODMAN : Arundhati , I wanted to ask you about President Trump ’ s critical trip to India right at the time the pandemic was exploding , the famous pictures of them shaking hands , the stadium of 100,000 people .
When President — ARUNDHATI ROY : No , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was a million people .
In the U.S. , it was 50,000 , yeah .
AMY GOODMAN : So , as President Trump took off and was flying back to the United States , it was then that he read the comments of a U.S. scientist talking about the effects of the pandemic and what it will mean in the United States .
He was so enraged by what she had to say that he canceled a meeting of scientists when he was returning , in retaliation .
And then you have this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what “ Dr .
Trump ” — and I ’ m saying that very facetiously — President Trump has been pushing , hydroxychloroquine , because Narendra Modi said he was going to crack down on sales , exports of this drug , until President Trump pressured him .
And now one study after another is coming out saying people are dying in the studies around hydroxychloroquine .
AMY GOODMAN : Just overall , talk about what Trump has meant for Modi and what Modi means for Trump , this U.S.-India alliance , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ country .
ARUNDHATI ROY : Well , it is giving such a great amount of legitimacy to a situation which I can ’ t hardly explain , Amy , on TV , because I ’ ve been writing about this for so long , you know ?
And what I said earlier , the crisis of hunger , and then the crisis of hatred .
So , the time Modi came to the U.S. and did the “ Howdy Modi ” show , and then , when Trump came here and it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on , this sort of bizarre dance between these two , I ’ m sorry to say , but not very intelligent human beings , but very , very powerful people , who are legitimizing the horror of what is happening in the U.S. with immigrants , with racism , with undocumented workers , and the horror of what the BJP regime , the RSS , which is the mothership of the BJP cultural guild to which Modi belongs , which believes that India should be a Hindu nation and that everyone else @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they have made new citizenship laws and are building detention centers .
And all of this is being legitimized by this idea that the most powerful country in the world and the most powerful man in the world loves Modi , you know ?
And between them , the — I mean , it ’ s a tragedy for the world that this particular pandemic has arrived at a time where country after country is controlled by people like this , which is why I said it ’ s a portal , because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to — are we going to sleepwalk into this fascist surveillance state that everyone has in store for us ?
I mean , the app , called the Aarogya Setu app , which Modi has asked people to download and became the fastest-downloaded app in the world — we have 50 million downloads now — I mean , every technical expert says it ’ s just a surveillance app , you know ?
And all various — so many democratic societies are moving toward this , in this panic and fear that has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many things about the coronavirus , you know , so many heartwarming things .
I was reading in The New York Times today how it ’ s creating solidarity between people in the U.S .
I just saw a wonderful video of people thanking a Pakistani doctor for having invented a mechanism that allows a single ventilator to be shared by many .
But here , you have Muslims being blamed for corona .
There ’ s the whole concept of “ corona jihad.
” And I ’ ve been reading of how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state basically blamed Jews for typhus and used it as a way of stigmatizing and ghettoizing Jews .
The same thing is happening here with Muslims .
You know , you have to hear the language that the mainstream media uses , and people on the street .
So , it ’ s an extremely dangerous situation , which is being completely legitimized by Trump and by all these powerful people who meet and shake hands and refuse to see how this virus is going to move in and exacerbate inequalities , exacerbate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , too , are frightened , because they know these millions of people , hungry , starving .
How are you going to deal with that anger ?
In India , I ’ ll tell you how they ’ re going to deal with it .
They are going to try and divert it into an anti-Muslim rage , which is the only thing they do always .
But at some point — you know , already things are exploding .
People are burning shelters and so on .
And the hunger is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ addressed now .
The granaries are full of food which is not being distributed .
You know , people need cash transfers , but they don ’ t have bank accounts , or they don ’ t have access to their bank accounts .
It ’ s a crisis which you feel you ’ re sitting on some kind of explosive substance right now .
And , you know , as it deepens , once you distribute that grain , where will the next batch of food come from ?
Because right now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you know , people are — even those who have been able to harvest are not being able to sell .
And , you know , the whole cropping pattern of this country has changed into cash crops .
AMY GOODMAN : We just have — I want to thank you very much for being with us , as we run out of time .
ARUNDHATI ROY : Oh , OK. You ’ re so welcome .
AMY GOODMAN : We ’ re going to link to your piece , “ The pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s in Foreign Policy .
Arundhati Roy is — next Thursday , April 23rd , will be joining an online teach-in with Princeton professor Imani Perry and Haymarket Books on “ The Pandemic Is a Portal.
” And we ’ ll link to your essays , as well , at democracynow.org .
Democracy Now !
is working with as few people on site as possible .
The majority of our amazing team is working from home .
I ’ m Amy Goodman , with Nermeen Shaikh .
Be safe .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. We turn now to India, where officials say six major cities are coronavirus infection hot spots, calling them red zones, including the capital, New Delhi, and the financial center, Mumbai. The country has more than 420 deaths, 12,000 infections, though the number is likely far higher due to lack of testing.
This comes as press freedom and civil liberties groups are sounding the alarm that the government of Narendra Modi is using the coronavirus outbreak to crack down on opponents and dissidents. This month, police arrested a prominent journalist, Siddharth Varadarajan, accusing him of spreading “discord” and “rumors,” after he reportedly criticized a Hindu nationalist politician for participating in a religious ceremony with dozens of people during the national lockdown. Elsewhere, activist Anand Teltumbde, who is 69 years old, and journalist Gautam Navlakha, who is 67, were arrested Tuesday over charges they both say were fabricated. Teltumbde wrote an open letter to the people of India on the eve of his arrest, saying, quote, “I do not know when I shall be able to talk to you again. However, I earnestly hope that you will speak out before your turn comes,” he said.
Prime Minister Modi has announced India’s nationwide coronavirus lockdown, affecting 1.3 billion people — the largest at any time in the world — announced it will be extended until May. In Mumbai, hundreds of migrant workers left homeless and unemployed by the lockdown held a protest Tuesday demanding the government deliver food and assistance.
SHAHBAZ: [translated] We are not getting anything here. The government promised to provide money and other amenities, and nothing has been delivered yet.
SHABANA: [translated] We have nothing to do now. We have small kids, and they are not getting anything to eat. What should we do?
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to New Delhi, India, where we’re joined by the award-winning writer, author, activist Arundhati Roy. She has a new essay in the Financial Times headlined “The pandemic is a portal.” It’s drawn from her forthcoming book, Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction. Her most recent book is My Seditious Heart: Collected Nonfiction. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her first novel, The God of Small Things.
Arundhati, welcome back to Democracy Now! As you speak to us from New Delhi, if you can talk about what’s happening there and why you see the pandemic as a portal?
ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, in India, you know, we have a COVID crisis whose contours we don’t know yet. I mean, you mentioned the figures and also the fact that we don’t know if they’re reliable, because there’s not that much testing happening. But on the other hand, just looking around, you know that there isn’t a run on hospitals like there has been in New York, you know? The disease doesn’t seem to have really got its claws into us yet. But we have the COVID crisis. We have a hunger crisis. We have a hatred crisis. And we have a health crisis apart from COVID.
So, as you said, you know, on the 24th of March, with four hours’ notice, which ran between 8:00 at night and 12 midnight, Modi locked down this nation of 1.38 billion people without warning. And the crisis that that has created, the lack of planning, the lack of thinking forward, although like some states like Kerala, which you talked about, have done wonderful work, but from the center, the crisis has been exacerbated into something that might — might really become even more serious than the epidemic that it’s planning for. You have a situation where you have millions of workers and migrant workers under a lockdown, which is supposed to enforce social distancing, but it only enforces physical compression. People are crammed together. People are separated from their families. In many places, they have no food. They have no access to money even. They’ve sold their phones. You have the sense that you’re sitting on some kind of explosive substance.
And yet, at the same time, like you said, arrests have been made, not just the people who you mentioned. Siddharth Varadarajan has not been arrested, the editor of Wire, but he has a case filed against him. Senior lawyers who speak out against Modi have had FIRs filed against them. Gautam Navlakha and Anand Teltumbde have been arrested. Young students and people, a lot of Muslims, who are now being accused of being part of the massacre that took place against Muslims in northeast Delhi, are being arrested. You know, the circles are closing in.
And the reason I said that the pandemic is a portal is that all over the world you have a situation now where, on the one hand, the powers that be are going to try and increase surveillance, increase inequality, increase privatization, increase control, and, on the other hand, you have populations of people who will want to increase solidarity and who will want to see and understand the fact that what has happened in the U.S., as well as what has happened in India, is that the pandemic has exposed structural problems of such egregious injustice and inequality. Even the calling of the shutdown with four hours’ notice was a sign of panic from this prime minister, because he knows that this infrastructure of this country, it can’t even deal with normality, forget about a pandemic.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Arundhati, I want to ask you more about that, about Modi’s declaration of a lockdown with just four hours’ notice. He declared it at 8 p.m., and it went into effect at midnight on March 24th. But the first case, reported case, of COVID-19 was on January 30th, so he had — it’s unclear why he took seven weeks to shut down the country. But you went, when the first — when the country went into lockdown, you used a press pass, and you went and spoke to some of the migrants, the hundreds of thousands of people who were forced to flee Delhi once all transportation had already been shut down. You spoke to some of these migrants in Delhi. Can you tell us what they said about their situation?
ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, as soon as the lockdown was announced, mass transport was stopped. It was the last week of March. People had not been paid their salaries, people who live virtually from day to day. The landlords in these little cramped, medieval tenements, into which five and 10 people are squashed into a room, said that they wanted their rent on time. So people just had to leave. And it was a surreal sight, you know, while there was no traffic on the streets, but suddenly the structural inequality and the horror, the shame of how our societies live, made themselves manifest.
And I just realized that these people have started walking, walking for hundreds of kilometers to their villages. And I went out because I felt like the tectonic plates were shifting. You know, it was crazy. So I went to the border between Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, where I walked with many of them. And I spoke to many of them, including Muslims who had just survived this horrific kind of wannabe pogrom against them, which didn’t turn out that way because people were so prepared that they fought back. But having survived that, now they were walking these hundreds of miles home — you know, carpenters, tailors, construction workers.
And all of them were aware of the virus. All of them were wearing masks. They were doing their best to maintain social distance. It was impossible. There was a rumor that buses might be organized, and suddenly like 100,000 people were there together, pressed together, waiting for buses. And I asked some of them, “So, what do you think of this virus?” They said, “Whatever we think of the virus, right now we have no food, we have no water, we have nowhere to sleep. We have to reach home.” And that was so much more present for them than this.
A lot of them felt that this was a rich people’s illness brought in by planes. “Why didn’t they stop people at the airport instead of kicking us out of our jobs and our homes, you know?” And a lot of people just — one of the people who I wrote about in the Financial Times piece said — he just said to me, ”Shaayad Modiji ko hamaare baare mein pata nahi [phon.],” meaning “Maybe Modi doesn’t know about us,” you know, which was just perhaps true in a way, that the government and everybody else who controls anything in this society has more or less airbrushed the poor out of their imagination — out of films, out of literature, out of everything. You know? Except NGO brochures where the poor feature in order to raise money, you know?
AMY GOODMAN: Arundhati, I wanted to ask you about President Trump’s critical trip to India right at the time the pandemic was exploding, the famous pictures of them shaking hands, the stadium of 100,000 people. When President —
ARUNDHATI ROY: No, a million people. In India, it was a million people. In the U.S., it was 50,000, yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: So, as President Trump took off and was flying back to the United States, it was then that he read the comments of a U.S. scientist talking about the effects of the pandemic and what it will mean in the United States. He was so enraged by what she had to say that he canceled a meeting of scientists when he was returning, in retaliation. And then you have this whole relationship with India around hydroxychloroquine, what “Dr. Trump” — and I’m saying that very facetiously — President Trump has been pushing, hydroxychloroquine, because Narendra Modi said he was going to crack down on sales, exports of this drug, until President Trump pressured him. And now one study after another is coming out saying people are dying in the studies around hydroxychloroquine.
ARUNDHATI ROY: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Just overall, talk about what Trump has meant for Modi and what Modi means for Trump, this U.S.-India alliance, and what it’s doing in your country.
ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, it is giving such a great amount of legitimacy to a situation which I can’t hardly explain, Amy, on TV, because I’ve been writing about this for so long, you know? And what I said earlier, the crisis of hunger, and then the crisis of hatred. So, the time Modi came to the U.S. and did the “Howdy Modi” show, and then, when Trump came here and it was the “Namaste Trump” and so on, this sort of bizarre dance between these two, I’m sorry to say, but not very intelligent human beings, but very, very powerful people, who are legitimizing the horror of what is happening in the U.S. with immigrants, with racism, with undocumented workers, and the horror of what the BJP regime, the RSS, which is the mothership of the BJP cultural guild to which Modi belongs, which believes that India should be a Hindu nation and that everyone else should be second-class citizens, toward which they have made new citizenship laws and are building detention centers. And all of this is being legitimized by this idea that the most powerful country in the world and the most powerful man in the world loves Modi, you know?
And between them, the — I mean, it’s a tragedy for the world that this particular pandemic has arrived at a time where country after country is controlled by people like this, which is why I said it’s a portal, because, you know, are we going to — are we going to sleepwalk into this fascist surveillance state that everyone has in store for us? I mean, the app, called the Aarogya Setu app, which Modi has asked people to download and became the fastest-downloaded app in the world — we have 50 million downloads now — I mean, every technical expert says it’s just a surveillance app, you know? And all various — so many democratic societies are moving toward this, in this panic and fear that has been created.
And there are so many things about the coronavirus, you know, so many heartwarming things. I was reading in The New York Times today how it’s creating solidarity between people in the U.S. I just saw a wonderful video of people thanking a Pakistani doctor for having invented a mechanism that allows a single ventilator to be shared by many.
But here, you have Muslims being blamed for corona. There’s the whole concept of “corona jihad.” And I’ve been reading of how, in the 1930s, the Nazi state basically blamed Jews for typhus and used it as a way of stigmatizing and ghettoizing Jews. The same thing is happening here with Muslims. You know, you have to hear the language that the mainstream media uses, and people on the street.
So, it’s an extremely dangerous situation, which is being completely legitimized by Trump and by all these powerful people who meet and shake hands and refuse to see how this virus is going to move in and exacerbate inequalities, exacerbate injustice and create a situation where they, too, are frightened, because they know these millions of people, hungry, starving. How are you going to deal with that anger? In India, I’ll tell you how they’re going to deal with it. They are going to try and divert it into an anti-Muslim rage, which is the only thing they do always.
But at some point — you know, already things are exploding. People are burning shelters and so on. And the hunger is so urgent, it has to be addressed now. The granaries are full of food which is not being distributed. You know, people need cash transfers, but they don’t have bank accounts, or they don’t have access to their bank accounts. It’s a crisis which you feel you’re sitting on some kind of explosive substance right now. And, you know, as it deepens, once you distribute that grain, where will the next batch of food come from? Because right now is the harvest season, and, you know, people are — even those who have been able to harvest are not being able to sell. And, you know, the whole cropping pattern of this country has changed into cash crops.
AMY GOODMAN: Arundhati, we have 10 seconds.
ARUNDHATI ROY: Yeah. Tell me.
AMY GOODMAN: We just have — I want to thank you very much for being with us, as we run out of time.
ARUNDHATI ROY: Oh, OK. You’re so welcome.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to link to your piece, “The pandemic is a portal,” that’s in Foreign Policy. Arundhati Roy is — next Thursday, April 23rd, will be joining an online teach-in with Princeton professor Imani Perry and Haymarket Books on “The Pandemic Is a Portal.” And we’ll link to your essays, as well, at democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is working with as few people on site as possible. The majority of our amazing team is working from home. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. Be safe.