democracynow--2020-05-20--"Stay Alive, Stay at Home, Organize": Rev. Barber Sets June 20 for Poor People's Digital March on DC

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 Juan González , as we turn now to look at the disproportionate impact the coronavirus pandemic continues to have on Black , Brown and poor communities , and the next steps officials should take .
Our next guest is Reverend William Barber .
He ’ s calling for people to stay in place stay alive and organize .
He ’ s organizing a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Moral March on Washington online on June 20th .
This comes as four of the 10 worst current confirmed outbreaks in the U.S. are now in rural Southern counties , have been driven by an outbreak in a prison .
According to Facing South , the online magazine for the Institute for Southern Studies , quote , “ Covid-19 has hit counties with prisons and meatpacking plants particularly hard , along with majority-black rural counties across the Deep South.
” The three counties in the rural South with the highest death rates from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Georgia .
For more , we ’ re going to Raleigh , North Carolina .
Reverend William Barber is back with us .
Welcome to Democracy Now !
You co-chair the Poor People ’ s Campaign .
You ’ re president of Repairers of the Breach .
Reverend Barber , if you can start off by talking about this disparate impact on communities of color and the poor , White and people of color , and what you ’ re doing about this ?
REV .
WILLIAM BARBER II : Well , Amy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are hard times .
And what we ’ re seeing in America now , a lot of the pain is by choice .
It didn ’ t have to be .
It ’ s not because of the virus , per se .
It is because of the pandemic of greed and lies and trickle-down economics that , in this situation , caused us to move in the wrong direction from the beginning .
Now , what we know is , even before COVID hit , too many people in power were too @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
We have 140 million poor and low-income people in this country , 43 % of the nation , 700 people dying a day from poverty and low wealth , two-and-a-quarter million a year , even before COVID hit , and 80 million people either uninsured or underinsured before COVID hit .
And what all of the public health officials tell us , that pandemics exploit the fissures in the society and the wounds in the society , the open wounds , and that America had a whole lot of open wounds as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , because when you break down those numbers , 61 % of African Americans were poor and low-wealth before COVID .
Sixty-six million White people , in raw numbers , were poor and low-wealth in COVID .
From the mountains of Appalachia to the Delta of Mississippi , you had extreme disparities .
And COVID hits .
And what we have now , as I just heard you mentioning , is the disparity among Black people and — and really , it ’ s low-income African Americans or poor African Americans , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t really know how bad it is , because the data is so spotty .
But what we do know is that the pandemic is exploiting those fissures .
And our response , from the beginning , has been terrible , both from the White House and , dare say I , from the Congress , and from particularly the McConnell Congress , since he has blocked so many things , because it ’ s kind of our imagination has been limited by this Reaganism , this trickle down .
So @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bills up front , and 83 , 84 , 85 % of all the resources go to the corporate heads , go to the top .
The bills did not start at the bottom up .
It did not — think about it .
We ’ re in the middle of a pandemic .
We ’ ve had three so-called rescue bills .
Not one bill provided healthcare for everybody and the uninsured , in the midst of a pandemic .
Not one bill provided living wages , in the midst of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ your water couldn ’ t be cut off and your utilities , in the midst of a pandemic .
Not one bill ensured the protections that you need in terms of personal protection and the ventilators .
Not one bill significantly dealt with all the homeless in this community , in this country .
Not one bill focused on the undocumented workers .
And so , what we ’ re saying is this is the moment that you have to stay at home .
Don ’ t you believe these lies these governors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ open back up the society .
Stay at home .
Stay alive .
Organize .
Organize .
And we ’ re demanding that all the things that were not done up front that should have been done , they have to be done now , in order for us to move forward and possibly overcome this pandemic .
Otherwise , the pandemic is going to still have root in our society .
And it ’ s not just going to hurt poor people ; it ’ s going to exploit poor communities and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ going to continue to spread throughout the rest of the society .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : Reverend Barber , I wanted to ask you especially about the institutional populations in the face of this pandemic , both in nursing homes and in prisons .
Just as the virus does not respect national borders , it also doesn ’ t respect institutional borders in this , so that you have this enormous spread in nursing homes , in long-care facilities , as well as in prisons and jails , The New York Times reporting today @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Island have tested positive , six have died .
And in several Southern states , where there have been hot spots , it ’ s usually around a prison or a meatpacking plant .
The impact on the African American and Latino communities , who are centered in many of these institutions ?
REV .
WILLIAM BARBER II : You ’ re exactly right .
And I have to , because of the nature of our campaign , say , yes , we have a large number of African Americans , of poor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ keep wanting to make that point — but also Latino and also poor Whites , as well .
And what you have is these institutions have become like Petri dishes .
Right ?
So , in the prison system , people can actually now be imprisoned , let ’ s just say , or be incarcerated , for bouncing checks , and it becomes a death sentence .
And some people in power are OK with that .
They will just say , “ Well , they ’ re in prison.
” In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only is it hurting the people who are residents of those nursing homes , but we ’ re finding out every day that the nurses ’ aides , the people we call essential workers — essential workers , that ’ s — many of them feel like that was a title change , because a few months ago we called them service workers .
But what “ essential ” really means now is expendable , because they ’ re essential , but none of the bills have given them the essentials they need @ @ @ @ @ @ @ healthcare they need .
And so , what happens ?
We had one lady named Polly , and she ’ s a nurse ’ s aide in New York .
She said , “ I feel like we ’ re engaged in mass murder .
We ’ re being led to mass murder.
” She said , “ We have to buy our own garbage bags to try to have some covering .
We don ’ t have the masks that we need .
None of this was done up front.
” And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only are the residents , which is horrible and ugly and evil enough for them to catch the disease because the controls weren ’ t put in place ; it then spreads outside of the nursing homes and outside of the prisons .
I live in a county where we are the fifth — one of the five highest areas in our state , and the majority of our infections are inside the prisons .
And then what we hear is , once that happens , people can ’ t call out .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to talk to people on the outside .
But again , the public health officials say that something like 25 people — one study says something like 25 people could potentially be impacted because of one or two prisoners on the inside that have the coronavirus .
They could actually pass it to the guards , administrators .
Then they pass it to their families and others outside .
This is horrific .
And it is a dereliction of duty , really , by the White House and by the Congress , when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which , in the biblical sense , it would be called evil .
When he said , “ I ’ m going use the Defense Authorization Act to make meatpackers go to work .
I ’ m going to make them go to work .
I ’ m going to say that they have to go to work , ” but he wouldn ’ t use that same Defense Authorization Act to make sure that they had the PPEs that they needed , that they had the protection that they needed and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sick leave they needed , it ’ s really sick .
“ I ’ m going to make you go back to work ” in a lethal situation .
And that ’ s what we have here .
People are feeling like they are being sent into lethal situations .
And it didn ’ t have to be like this .
When we see the long lines of 10,000 people standing in line for food , it didn ’ t have to be like this .
You could have expanded SNAP .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what they needed .
Even in some communities where many of these institutions you ’ re talking about are , many of them have had the closures of hospitals over the last few years .
That should have never happened , but we could have used the Army Corps of Engineers to put field hospitals in place and testing in place .
That ’ s the problem .
Our response to this virus , what we have seen has been a dereliction of duty and a damnedable — a damnedable dereliction of duty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ People are being infected needlessly .
And it did not have to be this way .
AMY GOODMAN : Reverend Dr. William Barber , you ’ re participating in a rally organized by the ACLU and Fight for 15 in support of McDonald ’ s workers .
They ’ re walking out in at least 20 places all over the country .
They cite a survey of more than 800 McDonald ’ s workers , from March 31st to April 6th , in which 42 % reported being told not to wear masks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also said almost half came to work feeling sick , because they were afraid they would be disciplined or penalized .
Now , the company is disputing these figures .
But can you talk about McDonald ’ s ?
REV .
WILLIAM BARBER II : They can dispute them all they want to , but these are real figures .
These are people who we ’ ve talked to and we continue to talk to .
I ’ m standing with Mary Kay Henry , SEIU .
I mean , again , what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a constitutional standpoint , is basically the failure to have equal protection under the law .
You say you ’ re going to make workers go in .
You ’ re not going to give them what they need in the time of a pandemic .
In fact , it shows , Amy , how immoral some of our politicians and business leaders have become , that they would rather make people go into lethal situations than address the problems that exist .
And so , yes , we ’ re standing with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who — one of them said to me the other day , he said , “ Reverend Barber , you know what ?
” I said , “ What ?
” They said , “ Today , our pins came in.
” I said , “ What do you mean , our pins ?
” They said , “ McDonald ’ s provided us pins that says 'essential workers . '
” She said , “ I don ’ t need a pen .
I need paid sick leave .
I need adequate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I need to be insured .
I should not have to work a job , which is already a low-wage , low-income job , and then come into that job and risk my life and my children ’ s lives and my spouse ’ s life.
” This is no way to run a country .
But the problem is , Amy — and I want to drive this home — that even before COVID , we were allowing so much inequality , which is why the Poor People ’ s Campaign started @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much inequality existing and so many people comfortable with it , and too many of even our politicians on both sides of the aisle have been locked into this kind of Reaganism , to trickle down .
As long as we take care of the wealthy and the middle class , other people — everything is fine .
And we ’ ve not done policy from the bottom up , from low-wage and poor folk , from low-wage workers and poor people , from the bottom up .
And this pandemic now is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ?
— a contrast dye , that has now gone through the body politic of America , and it ’ s exposing — it ’ s exposing all of these inequalities .
And poor and low-wealth people are having to pay the brunt of it .
They ’ re having to die from this .
And it is terrible , what is going on .
And so , yes , workers are saying , “ We can ’ t just die .
You know , we can ’ t just allow this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of them have said to me , “ Reverend Barber , ” they ’ ve said , “ we ’ re in a situation now where in 48 hours we could be on a ventilator .
And so , we ’ ve decided that if we might be on a ventilator in 48 hours , we ’ re going to use our last breath to breathe new life into this society .
We ’ re not going to just die .
We ’ re going to stand up .
We ’ re going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be able to be in the streets because of coronavirus , but we can be on social media .
We can organize.
” We can do , on this coming Thursday — Wednesday , Thursday — REV .
WILLIAM BARBER II : — a hundred thousand calls to McConnell and [ Pelosi ] .
Yes .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : Reverend Barber , we only have about a minute left , but I just wanted to ask you about the June 20th march that you ’ re planning .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ concerns about voter suppression , going into this next presidential election ?
REV .
WILLIAM BARBER II : We want everybody to join poor and low-wealth people throughout this country on June 20th , 2020 .
You can go to PoorPeoplesCampaign.org or June2020.org .
We are calling — we were going to be physically on Pennsylvania Avenue , but — and we were thinking about not doing it , and people said , “ No , we have to do it.
” We ’ re going to put a face and a voice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to lay out the demands that are going to come from people who are impacted and the experts and religious leaders .
We ’ ve got 16 denominations , joining a hundred organizations , but , more importantly , 45 state coordinating committees made up of poor and low-wealth people , who are saying , “ Somebody is hurting our people .
It ’ s gone on far too long .
We won ’ t be silent anymore.
” We ’ re doing this to shift the narrative and build power .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voting power out of this , as well , because poor and low-income people hold the key to change the political calculus .
In terms of voter suppression , this president and the Senate Leader McConnell , even before COVID , they had done everything they could .
They ’ ve refused to fix the Voting Rights Act .
We ’ re going to have to have massive voting that — we probably won ’ t get mail-in voting , so we ’ re going have to turn out in massive ways .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump won .
He actually lost in the popular vote .
He won by 80,000 votes .
There are the thousands and thousands and thousands of people , millions of people , who didn ’ t vote — 100 million people .
It is time .
We must vote .
We must vote in massive numbers .
And we must — and Democrats , if they want to win , they need to speak to people ’ s issues .
They need to fight for people ’ s lives , because people are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ go vote .
So they need to stop talking about being practical and moderate and all this other stuff and left and right , and just do what is right .
Fight for people ’ s lives .
Fight and show them you really care , and I believe the American public will turn out .
But it ’ s going to be a battle .
And the Poor People ’ s Campaign is going to be in it all the way .
AMY GOODMAN : Well , we hope to be talking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ William Barber , co-chair of the Poor People ’ s Campaign .
The major march online is planned for June 20th .
When we come back , a largely immigrant public elementary school in New Brunswick , New Jersey , fights to stop its demolition .
Stay with us .
AMY GOODMAN : “ Color Esperanza 2020 , ” featuring Latinx and Hispanic artists like Rubén Blades , Thalía and many more , singing alone together in their homes .

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 Juan González, as we turn now to look at the disproportionate impact the coronavirus pandemic continues to have on Black, Brown and poor communities, and the next steps officials should take.
Our next guest is Reverend William Barber. He’s calling for people to stay in place stay alive and organize. He’s organizing a Mass Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March on Washington online on June 20th. This comes as four of the 10 worst current confirmed outbreaks in the U.S. are now in rural Southern counties, have been driven by an outbreak in a prison. According to Facing South, the online magazine for the Institute for Southern Studies, quote, “Covid-19 has hit counties with prisons and meatpacking plants particularly hard, along with majority-black rural counties across the Deep South.” The three counties in the rural South with the highest death rates from COVID-19 are majority Black and in Southwest Georgia.
For more, we’re going to Raleigh, North Carolina. Reverend William Barber is back with us.
Welcome to Democracy Now! You co-chair the Poor People’s Campaign. You’re president of Repairers of the Breach. Reverend Barber, if you can start off by talking about this disparate impact on communities of color and the poor, white and people of color, and what you’re doing about this?
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: Well, Amy, thank you so much. These are hard times. And what we’re seeing in America now, a lot of the pain is by choice. It didn’t have to be. It’s not because of the virus, per se. It is because of the pandemic of greed and lies and trickle-down economics that, in this situation, caused us to move in the wrong direction from the beginning.
Now, what we know is, even before COVID hit, too many people in power were too comfortable with other people’s deaths. We have 140 million poor and low-income people in this country, 43% of the nation, 700 people dying a day from poverty and low wealth, two-and-a-quarter million a year, even before COVID hit, and 80 million people either uninsured or underinsured before COVID hit.
And what all of the public health officials tell us, that pandemics exploit the fissures in the society and the wounds in the society, the open wounds, and that America had a whole lot of open wounds as it related to systemic racism and poverty, because when you break down those numbers, 61% of African Americans were poor and low-wealth before COVID. Sixty-six million white people, in raw numbers, were poor and low-wealth in COVID. From the mountains of Appalachia to the Delta of Mississippi, you had extreme disparities. And COVID hits. And what we have now, as I just heard you mentioning, is the disparity among Black people and — and really, it’s low-income African Americans or poor African Americans, and then whites and Latinos. And we don’t really know how bad it is, because the data is so spotty. But what we do know is that the pandemic is exploiting those fissures.
And our response, from the beginning, has been terrible, both from the White House and, dare say I, from the Congress, and from particularly the McConnell Congress, since he has blocked so many things, because it’s kind of our imagination has been limited by this Reaganism, this trickle down. So, what happened? We passed three bills up front, and 83, 84, 85% of all the resources go to the corporate heads, go to the top. The bills did not start at the bottom up. It did not — think about it. We’re in the middle of a pandemic. We’ve had three so-called rescue bills. Not one bill provided healthcare for everybody and the uninsured, in the midst of a pandemic. Not one bill provided living wages, in the midst of a pandemic. Not one bill guaranteed that your water couldn’t be cut off and your utilities, in the midst of a pandemic. Not one bill ensured the protections that you need in terms of personal protection and the ventilators. Not one bill significantly dealt with all the homeless in this community, in this country. Not one bill focused on the undocumented workers.
And so, what we’re saying is this is the moment that you have to stay at home. Don’t you believe these lies these governors are telling us about the time to open back up the society. Stay at home. Stay alive. Organize. Organize. And we’re demanding that all the things that were not done up front that should have been done, they have to be done now, in order for us to move forward and possibly overcome this pandemic. Otherwise, the pandemic is going to still have root in our society. And it’s not just going to hurt poor people; it’s going to exploit poor communities and the fissures, but it’s going to continue to spread throughout the rest of the society.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Reverend Barber, I wanted to ask you especially about the institutional populations in the face of this pandemic, both in nursing homes and in prisons. Just as the virus does not respect national borders, it also doesn’t respect institutional borders in this, so that you have this enormous spread in nursing homes, in long-care facilities, as well as in prisons and jails, The New York Times reporting today that over 1,200 correction officers at Rikers Island have tested positive, six have died. And in several Southern states, where there have been hot spots, it’s usually around a prison or a meatpacking plant. The impact on the African American and Latino communities, who are centered in many of these institutions?
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: You’re exactly right. And I have to, because of the nature of our campaign, say, yes, we have a large number of African Americans, of poor and low-wealth African Americans — and I keep wanting to make that point — but also Latino and also poor whites, as well. And what you have is these institutions have become like Petri dishes. Right?
So, in the prison system, people can actually now be imprisoned, let’s just say, or be incarcerated, for bouncing checks, and it becomes a death sentence. And some people in power are OK with that. They will just say, “Well, they’re in prison.”
In nursing homes, we found that not only is it hurting the people who are residents of those nursing homes, but we’re finding out every day that the nurses’ aides, the people we call essential workers — essential workers, that’s — many of them feel like that was a title change, because a few months ago we called them service workers. But what “essential” really means now is expendable, because they’re essential, but none of the bills have given them the essentials they need, the protections they need, the healthcare they need.
And so, what happens? We had one lady named Polly, and she’s a nurse’s aide in New York. She said, “I feel like we’re engaged in mass murder. We’re being led to mass murder.” She said, “We have to buy our own garbage bags to try to have some covering. We don’t have the masks that we need. None of this was done up front.” And so, what happens is, not only are the residents, which is horrible and ugly and evil enough for them to catch the disease because the controls weren’t put in place; it then spreads outside of the nursing homes and outside of the prisons.
I live in a county where we are the fifth — one of the five highest areas in our state, and the majority of our infections are inside the prisons. And then what we hear is, once that happens, people can’t call out. They’re not allowing the prisoners to talk to people on the outside. But again, the public health officials say that something like 25 people — one study says something like 25 people could potentially be impacted because of one or two prisoners on the inside that have the coronavirus. They could actually pass it to the guards, administrators. Then they pass it to their families and others outside. This is horrific.
And it is a dereliction of duty, really, by the White House and by the Congress, when you think about what the president did, which, in the biblical sense, it would be called evil. When he said, “I’m going use the Defense Authorization Act to make meatpackers go to work. I’m going to make them go to work. I’m going to say that they have to go to work,” but he wouldn’t use that same Defense Authorization Act to make sure that they had the PPEs that they needed, that they had the protection that they needed and the insurance that they needed and the sick leave they needed, it’s really sick. “I’m going to make you go back to work” in a lethal situation. And that’s what we have here. People are feeling like they are being sent into lethal situations.
And it didn’t have to be like this. When we see the long lines of 10,000 people standing in line for food, it didn’t have to be like this. You could have expanded SNAP. We could have made sure that everybody had what they needed. Even in some communities where many of these institutions you’re talking about are, many of them have had the closures of hospitals over the last few years. That should have never happened, but we could have used the Army Corps of Engineers to put field hospitals in place and testing in place. That’s the problem. Our response to this virus, what we have seen has been a dereliction of duty and a damnedable — a damnedable dereliction of duty, and people are dying needlessly. People are being infected needlessly. And it did not have to be this way.
AMY GOODMAN: Reverend Dr. William Barber, you’re participating in a rally organized by the ACLU and Fight for 15 in support of McDonald’s workers. They’re walking out in at least 20 places all over the country. They cite a survey of more than 800 McDonald’s workers, from March 31st to April 6th, in which 42% reported being told not to wear masks and gloves by management. The survey also said almost half came to work feeling sick, because they were afraid they would be disciplined or penalized. Now, the company is disputing these figures. But can you talk about McDonald’s?
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: They can dispute them all they want to, but these are real figures. These are people who we’ve talked to and we continue to talk to. I’m standing with Mary Kay Henry, SEIU. I mean, again, what we’re talking about, from a constitutional standpoint, is basically the failure to have equal protection under the law. You say you’re going to make workers go in. You’re not going to give them what they need in the time of a pandemic. In fact, it shows, Amy, how immoral some of our politicians and business leaders have become, that they would rather make people go into lethal situations than address the problems that exist.
And so, yes, we’re standing with these workers all over the country, who — one of them said to me the other day, he said, “Reverend Barber, you know what?” I said, “What?” They said, “Today, our pins came in.” I said, “What do you mean, our pins?” They said, “McDonald’s provided us pins that says 'essential workers.'” She said, “I don’t need a pen. I need paid sick leave. I need adequate unemployment. I need protective gear. I need to be insured. I should not have to work a job, which is already a low-wage, low-income job, and then come into that job and risk my life and my children’s lives and my spouse’s life.” This is no way to run a country.
But the problem is, Amy — and I want to drive this home — that even before COVID, we were allowing so much inequality, which is why the Poor People’s Campaign started long before COVID. There was so much inequality existing and so many people comfortable with it, and too many of even our politicians on both sides of the aisle have been locked into this kind of Reaganism, to trickle down. As long as we take care of the wealthy and the middle class, other people — everything is fine. And we’ve not done policy from the bottom up, from low-wage and poor folk, from low-wage workers and poor people, from the bottom up.
And this pandemic now is like a — what do you call it? — a contrast dye, that has now gone through the body politic of America, and it’s exposing — it’s exposing all of these inequalities. And poor and low-wealth people are having to pay the brunt of it. They’re having to die from this. And it is terrible, what is going on.
And so, yes, workers are saying, “We can’t just die. You know, we can’t just allow this to happen.” In fact, some of them have said to me, “Reverend Barber,” they’ve said, “we’re in a situation now where in 48 hours we could be on a ventilator. And so, we’ve decided that if we might be on a ventilator in 48 hours, we’re going to use our last breath to breathe new life into this society. We’re not going to just die. We’re going to stand up. We’re going to fight back. We may not be able to be in the streets because of coronavirus, but we can be on social media. We can organize.” We can do, on this coming Thursday — Wednesday, Thursday —
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Reverend Barber? Reverend Barber, we —
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: — a hundred thousand calls to McConnell and [Pelosi]. Yes.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Reverend Barber, we only have about a minute left, but I just wanted to ask you about the June 20th march that you’re planning.
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: Yes.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And if you could just briefly talk about your concerns about voter suppression, going into this next presidential election?
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: We want everybody to join poor and low-wealth people throughout this country on June 20th, 2020. You can go to PoorPeoplesCampaign.org or June2020.org. We are calling — we were going to be physically on Pennsylvania Avenue, but — and we were thinking about not doing it, and people said, “No, we have to do it.” We’re going to put a face and a voice on poverty. We’re going to lay out the demands that are going to come from people who are impacted and the experts and religious leaders. We’ve got 16 denominations, joining a hundred organizations, but, more importantly, 45 state coordinating committees made up of poor and low-wealth people, who are saying, “Somebody is hurting our people. It’s gone on far too long. We won’t be silent anymore.” We’re doing this to shift the narrative and build power. We’re going to build a massive voting power out of this, as well, because poor and low-income people hold the key to change the political calculus.
In terms of voter suppression, this president and the Senate Leader McConnell, even before COVID, they had done everything they could. They’ve refused to fix the Voting Rights Act. We’re going to have to have massive voting that — we probably won’t get mail-in voting, so we’re going have to turn out in massive ways. We need to stop saying that Donald Trump won. He actually lost in the popular vote. He won by 80,000 votes. There are the thousands and thousands and thousands of people, millions of people, who didn’t vote — 100 million people. It is time. We must vote. We must vote in massive numbers.
And we must — and Democrats, if they want to win, they need to speak to people’s issues. They need to fight for people’s lives, because people are going have to risk their lives to go vote. So they need to stop talking about being practical and moderate and all this other stuff and left and right, and just do what is right. Fight for people’s lives. Fight and show them you really care, and I believe the American public will turn out. But it’s going to be a battle. And the Poor People’s Campaign is going to be in it all the way.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we hope to be talking to you again soon, Reverend Dr. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign. The major march online is planned for June 20th.
When we come back, a largely immigrant public elementary school in New Brunswick, New Jersey, fights to stop its demolition. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Color Esperanza 2020,” featuring Latinx and Hispanic artists like Rubén Blades, Thalía and many more, singing alone together in their homes.


democracynow--2020-05-20--As NYC Subway Closures Force Unhoused People into Packed Shelters, Advocates Demand Permanent Homes

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : For the first time in its more than 115-year history , New York City began shutting down its subway system overnight .
The unprecedented move has left unhoused people who rely on the trains for shelter suddenly with nowhere to go , and made them even more vulnerable as the coronavirus continues to spread .
New York police and outreach workers are staffing the end-of-the-line subway stations and bussing unhoused people to overcrowded shelters , where social distancing is impossible .
Images @ @ @ @ @ @ @ floor of the 30th Street shelter in Manhattan , lining the stairs as they laid out , and a Wards Island shelter , after being taken off the subways , have sparked outrage .
One man described his experience to Spectrum ’ s NY1 .
AMY GOODMAN : Many have refused to enter the shelters , saying it ’ s safer to sleep on the street .
One person named Rick described the situation to the advocacy group Human.NYC outside the 30th Street shelter .
AMY GOODMAN : New York City Mayor Bill @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unhoused people will now be moved into double-occupancy hotel rooms , in addition to 2,500 unhoused people who have already been relocated to hotel rooms .
But advocates say the move is too little , too late , and are calling on the mayor to take more bold action .
De Blasio ’ s administration is against legislation that would permit thousands more people to live in unoccupied hotel rooms for the remainder of the coronavirus pandemic .
For more , we ’ re joined by two guests .
Dr. Kelly Doran is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of emergency medicine and population health at NYU ’ s School of Medicine .
She co-authored a letter to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City officials about how to care for the city ’ s homeless population in the midst of the COVID19 outbreak .
And Josh Dean is with us , executive director of the homeless advocacy group Human.NYC .
He ’ s been out on the city streets monitoring how subway closures are impacting homeless people .
We welcome you both to Democracy Now !
There was a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Dr. Kelly Doran , what are you demanding the city and the state do when it comes to the unhoused in New York City , especially as we see now , with the unprecedented closure of the city subway system , night after night , people being taken away ?
DR. KELLY DORAN : Yeah .
So , the situation is concerning .
The city has done a lot since the pandemic started .
So , I was a part of a group that , actually , over 500 physicians — physicians @ @ @ @ @ @ @ frontline healthcare professionals , that signed a letter that had been organized by the Health & Housing Consortium , which is a nonprofit organization here in New York City .
And that letter gave recommendations and observations about what had been going on regarding our patients experiencing homelessness in New York .
That letter was sent over a month ago now , April 15 , and had a number of recommendations around increasing communication with hospitals so that hospitals know how to better care for their patients who are experiencing homelessness , improving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ safe places where we can send people from the hospitals .
The letter also had recommendations around moving homeless New Yorkers who are in congregate settings into private rooms , and recommendations against stopping street sweeps of people living in encampments or living on the streets , since those are against CDC recommendations .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And , Dr. Doran , could you discuss what other cities are doing , compared to New York City , what Mayor de Blasio and the administration here is or is not doing correctly ?
DR. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ say New York is unique in that we are the epicenter of the pandemic , and we also have a very large number of people who are experiencing homelessness compared to other places .
We have done some things well in New York City .
They have moved a number of people out of congregate shelters .
They did set up isolation hotels fairly early for people who need to be isolated because they have symptoms of COVID .
Some things that we are not doing as well yet in New York City @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first , broadly testing in shelters in New York .
In some places — for example , there have been studies that have come out of Boston , out of Atlanta , out of San Francisco now , including a study that was published by the CDC , where they have done widespread testing at homeless shelters .
And what they found is that once you get even a small cluster of two or more people within the shelter who have COVID-19 , when they test everybody in those shelters , 30 % @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And the majority of them — the vast majority of them , actually — have not displayed symptoms .
And so , in New York City , some of the shelters have begun doing some testing , but it ’ s still not widespread .
And , you know , that is problematic , because we know that there are all of these asymptomatic cases .
And so , the current screening to try to catch people who do have coronavirus , and isolate them in the shelters , is based on asking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the second thing that we ’ ve seen some places do better than others throughout the U.S. is moving people proactively into private settings , like hotel or motel rooms , to protect them .
One of the places that ’ s done this best is Connecticut .
Early on , before the peak of their pandemic , before really even the upswing of their pandemic , they moved people , a large number , the majority of people , out of their congregate shelters and into hotel and motel rooms .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of infections and deaths among people experiencing homelessness as we have here , for example .
AMY GOODMAN : I want to turn to one unhoused man speaking to NY1 about the scene at an overcrowded homeless shelter .
AMY GOODMAN : During a press conference last week , Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city ’ s subway closures and homeless outreach plan are working very well and have a , quote , “ positive impact reducing homelessness in New York City.
” AMY GOODMAN : So , that ’ s Mayor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also joined by Josh Dean , executive director of the homeless advocacy group Human.NYC .
If you can respond to Mayor de Blasio , whether you think this is a successful policy ?
You are spending night after night outside .
JOSH DEAN : Yeah , I mean , this is absolutely not as successful as he ’ s making it out to be .
The way that he is presenting the data is extremely misleading .
We can start there .
The people that he ’ s counting as accepting services is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a van and be transported to the shelter , regardless of what happens when they actually arrive .
And the folks that he ’ s counting as engaging are only the people with whom the outreach teams have a significant conversation with .
So , because there ’ s such a heavy NYPD presence , and because the NYPD has consistently mistreated folks who are homeless , a lot of homeless folks will take one look at the NYPD and see that they ’ re with the outreach teams , want nothing to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t get counted as engaged , despite being removed and sent to the streets .
There are also folks at the overwhelming majority of stations that are not end-of-the-line stations .
And those folks , if they fall asleep on the platform , for example , they ’ re going to be asked to leave by NYPD , and there are not outreach teams there .
The outreach teams are only deployed at the end-of-the-line stations .
So , both the numerator and the denominator in his , you know , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where he says half of the people that we ’ re engaging are accepting services , are extremely misleading .
As we heard from the gentleman Rick , who we interviewed outside the 30th Street Men ’ s Shelter , a lot of folks are being transported to the shelters , and either because they ’ ve been there before or because they went inside and they saw how crowded it was , they left , for reasons that pertain to their safety , reasons that I think many of us who would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the same decision .
So , what we actually ended up seeing , once some of the local journalists pressed the mayor hard enough , was that only a hundred people , of the folks that engage night after night , actually ended up staying at the shelter .
And that , in and of itself , is concerning , given that the conditions that they were taking folks to , at least back a couple weeks ago when this was happening , are not necessarily safe places for folks to be right @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I wanted to ask you — this whole attempt by the city to move people into hotels now , a lot of people don ’ t know , who don ’ t know the history of New York City , know that back in the 1950s and '60s , the city had an entire network of what were called SROs , single-room occupancy hotels , specifically geared to low-income New Yorkers .
And , of course , as the city got increasingly gentrified , all of those single-room occupancy hotels were closed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ need , not only because of the homeless population , but because of the pandemic , to once again house people , but now in much more expensive hotel rooms than the old SROs .
What do you see as a long-term solution to dealing with this situation of increasing homelessness in the city ?
JOSH DEAN : Yeah .
So , I mean , in the short term , we absolutely need to be moving folks both out of the congregate shelters , off the streets and off the subways .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ folks , you know , a private hotel room , where they ’ re able to socially distance , where they ’ re able to shelter in place .
For the folks who are living on the streets , they haven ’ t been able to shower .
They haven ’ t been able to wash their hands .
So , a hotel room gives them the ability to do many of the things that housed New Yorkers have been doing for months now as we ’ ve been through this pandemic .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
We need to be moving these folks into permanent housing .
For some folks , that will be supportive housing , which is housing with supportive services .
And for some folks , they really just need their own apartment .
And we have vouchers right now in the city , that those folks have , and the vouchers are not up to fair market rent , so a lot of people aren ’ t able to find units that they can afford even with the voucher .
And they also face @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t want to be renting to voucher holders .
So , a combination of increasing the vouchers to fair market rent and increasing our ability to fight back against landlord discrimination will be really pivotal in permanently housing folks , because hotels , you know , are really important , and we need to be doing that right now , but they ’ re not the long-term solution .
AMY GOODMAN : Josh , we just have 30 seconds .
How many unhoused people are there , would you estimate , in New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you believe are positive for COVID ?
JOSH DEAN : Unhoused folks in New York City , you know , the numbers indicate that number is around 80,000 , and that includes folks who are living in shelters or living on the streets .
Estimate of folks who have COVID , you know , the data suggests that number is at 976 right now .
But I think with what Dr. Doran had talked about with regards to asymptomatic spread , that number has got to be in the thousands , and we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right now .
AMY GOODMAN : Well , I want to thank you both for being with us , Josh Dean , executive director of the homeless advocacy group Human.NYC .
And thanks to Dr. Kelly Doran , an emergency physician , assistant professor of emergency medicine and population health at NYU ’ s School of Medicine .
She co-authored a letter to the governor of New York and New York City about how to care for the city ’ s homeless population in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak , and we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This is Democracy Now !
, as we turn to the co-chair of the Poor People ’ s Campaign , Reverend William Barber .
Stay with us .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: For the first time in its more than 115-year history, New York City began shutting down its subway system overnight. The unprecedented move has left unhoused people who rely on the trains for shelter suddenly with nowhere to go, and made them even more vulnerable as the coronavirus continues to spread. New York police and outreach workers are staffing the end-of-the-line subway stations and bussing unhoused people to overcrowded shelters, where social distancing is impossible. Images of dozens of people sleeping on the floor of the 30th Street shelter in Manhattan, lining the stairs as they laid out, and a Wards Island shelter, after being taken off the subways, have sparked outrage. One man described his experience to Spectrum’s NY1.
UNHOUSED PERSON: Last night, I slept on the floor in the shelter, ’cause they said they had no beds. But they kick you out of here to go sleep on the floor.”
AMY GOODMAN: Many have refused to enter the shelters, saying it’s safer to sleep on the street. One person named Rick described the situation to the advocacy group Human.NYC outside the 30th Street shelter.
HUMAN.NYC: Where were you when the NYPD picked you up?
RICK: In the 7 train. Came from Queens.
HUMAN.NYC: From Queens? And they drove you here?
RICK: Yep. They didn’t drive me here, but they had an association of people that take you to places like here.
HUMAN.NYC: So where are you going to go now?
RICK: Now I’m going to sleep outside, again. So, I’m out here in New York City, and I have — I don’t want to go to the shelters, because this is what happens when I come to shelters so that people help me. There’s no help. There’s no help. There’s no help.
AMY GOODMAN: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said this month a thousand unhoused people will now be moved into double-occupancy hotel rooms, in addition to 2,500 unhoused people who have already been relocated to hotel rooms. But advocates say the move is too little, too late, and are calling on the mayor to take more bold action. De Blasio’s administration is against legislation that would permit thousands more people to live in unoccupied hotel rooms for the remainder of the coronavirus pandemic.
For more, we’re joined by two guests. Dr. Kelly Doran is an emergency room physician, assistant professor of emergency medicine and population health at NYU’s School of Medicine. She co-authored a letter to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City officials about how to care for the city’s homeless population in the midst of the COVID19 outbreak.
And Josh Dean is with us, executive director of the homeless advocacy group Human.NYC. He’s been out on the city streets monitoring how subway closures are impacting homeless people.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! There was a very contentious City Council meeting this week. Dr. Kelly Doran, what are you demanding the city and the state do when it comes to the unhoused in New York City, especially as we see now, with the unprecedented closure of the city subway system, night after night, people being taken away?
DR. KELLY DORAN: Yeah. So, the situation is concerning. The city has done a lot since the pandemic started. So, I was a part of a group that, actually, over 500 physicians — physicians, nurses, social workers and other frontline healthcare professionals, that signed a letter that had been organized by the Health & Housing Consortium, which is a nonprofit organization here in New York City. And that letter gave recommendations and observations about what had been going on regarding our patients experiencing homelessness in New York.
That letter was sent over a month ago now, April 15, and had a number of recommendations around increasing communication with hospitals so that hospitals know how to better care for their patients who are experiencing homelessness, improving the discharge processes so that we have safe places where we can send people from the hospitals. The letter also had recommendations around moving homeless New Yorkers who are in congregate settings into private rooms, and recommendations against stopping street sweeps of people living in encampments or living on the streets, since those are against CDC recommendations.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Dr. Doran, could you discuss what other cities are doing, compared to New York City, what Mayor de Blasio and the administration here is or is not doing correctly?
DR. KELLY DORAN: Sure. I would say New York is unique in that we are the epicenter of the pandemic, and we also have a very large number of people who are experiencing homelessness compared to other places. We have done some things well in New York City. They have moved a number of people out of congregate shelters. They did set up isolation hotels fairly early for people who need to be isolated because they have symptoms of COVID.
Some things that we are not doing as well yet in New York City that other places are doing are, first, broadly testing in shelters in New York. In some places — for example, there have been studies that have come out of Boston, out of Atlanta, out of San Francisco now, including a study that was published by the CDC, where they have done widespread testing at homeless shelters. And what they found is that once you get even a small cluster of two or more people within the shelter who have COVID-19, when they test everybody in those shelters, 30% or more test positive for coronavirus. And the majority of them — the vast majority of them, actually — have not displayed symptoms. And so, in New York City, some of the shelters have begun doing some testing, but it’s still not widespread. And, you know, that is problematic, because we know that there are all of these asymptomatic cases. And so, the current screening to try to catch people who do have coronavirus, and isolate them in the shelters, is based on asking people about symptoms.
And then, the second thing that we’ve seen some places do better than others throughout the U.S. is moving people proactively into private settings, like hotel or motel rooms, to protect them. One of the places that’s done this best is Connecticut. Early on, before the peak of their pandemic, before really even the upswing of their pandemic, they moved people, a large number, the majority of people, out of their congregate shelters and into hotel and motel rooms. And they have not seen nearly the number of infections and deaths among people experiencing homelessness as we have here, for example.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to one unhoused man speaking to NY1 about the scene at an overcrowded homeless shelter.
UNHOUSED PERSON: Take a look inside. If you don’t catch corona or drop dead from disgust, I don’t know what will. And here I am. Unsanitary conditions.
AMY GOODMAN: During a press conference last week, Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city’s subway closures and homeless outreach plan are working very well and have a, quote, “positive impact reducing homelessness in New York City.”
MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO: I want to keep updating you on the efforts to reach homeless New Yorkers related to this new plan to clean the subways each night and amplify the opportunities for our homeless outreach workers to reach homeless people and get them to safety and get them to a better life. Here are the results from last night: 370 homeless individuals were engaged, 213 accepted help — 178 went to shelter, 35 to hospitals. Again, I’ve said it enough times; I’m not going to repeat it. Unprecedented results, and the trend continues now for over a week, very, very consistently. And this, if we can sustain this, is going to have a very long-term and positive impact reducing homelessness in New York City.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Mayor Bill de Blasio. We’re also joined by Josh Dean, executive director of the homeless advocacy group Human.NYC. If you can respond to Mayor de Blasio, whether you think this is a successful policy? You are spending night after night outside.
JOSH DEAN: Yeah, I mean, this is absolutely not as successful as he’s making it out to be. The way that he is presenting the data is extremely misleading. We can start there. The people that he’s counting as accepting services is anyone who agrees simply to get into a van and be transported to the shelter, regardless of what happens when they actually arrive. And the folks that he’s counting as engaging are only the people with whom the outreach teams have a significant conversation with. So, because there’s such a heavy NYPD presence, and because the NYPD has consistently mistreated folks who are homeless, a lot of homeless folks will take one look at the NYPD and see that they’re with the outreach teams, want nothing to do with them. And those folks don’t get counted as engaged, despite being removed and sent to the streets.
There are also folks at the overwhelming majority of stations that are not end-of-the-line stations. And those folks, if they fall asleep on the platform, for example, they’re going to be asked to leave by NYPD, and there are not outreach teams there. The outreach teams are only deployed at the end-of-the-line stations.
So, both the numerator and the denominator in his, you know, statistics that he shares every day, where he says half of the people that we’re engaging are accepting services, are extremely misleading.
As we heard from the gentleman Rick, who we interviewed outside the 30th Street Men’s Shelter, a lot of folks are being transported to the shelters, and either because they’ve been there before or because they went inside and they saw how crowded it was, they left, for reasons that pertain to their safety, reasons that I think many of us who would be in the same situation would make the same decision.
So, what we actually ended up seeing, once some of the local journalists pressed the mayor hard enough, was that only a hundred people, of the folks that engage night after night, actually ended up staying at the shelter. And that, in and of itself, is concerning, given that the conditions that they were taking folks to, at least back a couple weeks ago when this was happening, are not necessarily safe places for folks to be right now.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Josh Dean, I wanted to ask you — this whole attempt by the city to move people into hotels now, a lot of people don’t know, who don’t know the history of New York City, know that back in the 1950s and '60s, the city had an entire network of what were called SROs, single-room occupancy hotels, specifically geared to low-income New Yorkers. And, of course, as the city got increasingly gentrified, all of those single-room occupancy hotels were closed. Now we're seeing the pressing need, not only because of the homeless population, but because of the pandemic, to once again house people, but now in much more expensive hotel rooms than the old SROs. What do you see as a long-term solution to dealing with this situation of increasing homelessness in the city?
JOSH DEAN: Yeah. So, I mean, in the short term, we absolutely need to be moving folks both out of the congregate shelters, off the streets and off the subways. We need to be offering all of those folks, you know, a private hotel room, where they’re able to socially distance, where they’re able to shelter in place. For the folks who are living on the streets, they haven’t been able to shower. They haven’t been able to wash their hands. So, a hotel room gives them the ability to do many of the things that housed New Yorkers have been doing for months now as we’ve been through this pandemic.
But hotels are not the long-term solution. We need to be moving these folks into permanent housing. For some folks, that will be supportive housing, which is housing with supportive services. And for some folks, they really just need their own apartment. And we have vouchers right now in the city, that those folks have, and the vouchers are not up to fair market rent, so a lot of people aren’t able to find units that they can afford even with the voucher. And they also face rampant discrimination from landlords who don’t want to be renting to voucher holders. So, a combination of increasing the vouchers to fair market rent and increasing our ability to fight back against landlord discrimination will be really pivotal in permanently housing folks, because hotels, you know, are really important, and we need to be doing that right now, but they’re not the long-term solution.
AMY GOODMAN: Josh, we just have 30 seconds. How many unhoused people are there, would you estimate, in New York City? And how many do you believe are positive for COVID?
JOSH DEAN: Unhoused folks in New York City, you know, the numbers indicate that number is around 80,000, and that includes folks who are living in shelters or living on the streets. Estimate of folks who have COVID, you know, the data suggests that number is at 976 right now. But I think with what Dr. Doran had talked about with regards to asymptomatic spread, that number has got to be in the thousands, and we’re just not aware of it right now.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you both for being with us, Josh Dean, executive director of the homeless advocacy group Human.NYC. And thanks to Dr. Kelly Doran, an emergency physician, assistant professor of emergency medicine and population health at NYU’s School of Medicine. She co-authored a letter to the governor of New York and New York City about how to care for the city’s homeless population in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak, and we’ll link to that letter.
This is Democracy Now!, as we turn to the co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, Reverend William Barber. Stay with us.


democracynow--2020-05-20--Headlines for May 20, 2020

Headlines for May 20, 2020

As the U.S. death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic nears 92,000 , the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has @ @ @ @ @ on how to reopen their economies during the pandemic .
The CDC ’ s 60-page @ @ @ @ @ after the White House shelved a 68-page version of the plan , and after nearly @ @ @ @ @ partially reopened .
The newly released document provides guidance for transit agencies , schools , @ @ @ @ @ .
Excluded from the document is advice to religious groups .
The previous draft included @ @ @ @ @ with solo singers , not passing the collection plate and limiting the sharing of religious @ @ @ @ @ Department , Attorney General Bill Barr on Tuesday threatened California with legal action over its @ @ @ @ @ , claiming it ’ s biased against religious groups .
This comes after the CDC @ @ @ @ @ found 35 of the 92 people who attended services at a rural church in Arkansas @ @ @ @ @ the coronavirus , leading to three deaths .

As the U.S. death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic nears 92,000, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released detailed guidance to states on how to reopen their economies during the pandemic. The CDC’s 60-page planning document comes a week after the White House shelved a 68-page version of the plan, and after nearly every state has at least partially reopened. The newly released document provides guidance for transit agencies, schools, restaurants and other gathering places. Excluded from the document is advice to religious groups. The previous draft included recommendations including replacing church choirs with solo singers, not passing the collection plate and limiting the sharing of religious books.
At the Justice Department, Attorney General Bill Barr on Tuesday threatened California with legal action over its plan for a phased reopening, claiming it’s biased against religious groups. This comes after the CDC published a case study that found 35 of the 92 people who attended services at a rural church in Arkansas in March tested positive for the coronavirus, leading to three deaths.


democracynow--2020-05-21--Study Warns 1.1 Million Children Could Die as Pandemic Interrupts Access to Food & Medical Care

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
, democracynow.org , The Quarantine Report , as we are all alone together .
I ’ m Amy Goodman , with Nermeen Shaikh .
As more than three-quarters of the world ’ s children live under stay-at-home orders amidst the pandemic , a shocking new report finds the child mortality rate could increase for the first time in more than 60 years .
More than a million children under 5 could die over the next six months @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health , who studied the secondary impacts of the coronavirus outbreak , the disruptions to health services and access to food .
More than 60,000 mothers could also die .
The report was published in The Lancet Global Health and looked at 118 low- and middle-income countries .
For more , we ’ re joined by the lead author , Tim Roberton , assistant scientist in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore .
Also with us , infectious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is director of the Vaccine Centre at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine , lead vaccinology researcher at the MRC Unit The Gambia .
We welcome you both to Democracy Now !
Tim Roberton , let ’ s begin with you .
Talk about the findings of this study .
To say the least , deeply alarming .
DR. TIM ROBERTON : So , we know from past experience and research that in outbreak situations , people have health issues because of the virus , but also more people have health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ effects of the outbreak .
So , in the current pandemic , people are dying because of coronavirus itself .
But if the pandemic and the response to the pandemic lead to the disruption of health services , then more people are going to die from other causes , as well .
So , in our study , we looked at the potential for additional deaths among pregnant women and young children .
And we modeled three different scenarios , looking forward , of different severity .
So , in our least severe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ six months , we could see around 12,000 maternal deaths — so women dying in childbirth — and around 250,000 child deaths .
These are children under the age of 5 .
That would represent a 39 % increase in child mortality above what is currently occurring .
But in our worst-case scenario , we saw that up to 60,000 maternal deaths and up to about 1 million , 1.1 million children could also die .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : So , Tim Roberton , could you explain what essential services , health services @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be retained to diminish the possible mortality rates among women and infants ?
What are the procedures ?
What are the health services , the medicines , that should not be diverted to deal with coronavirus , or at least there should be sufficient amounts available for routine care of mothers and infants ?
DR. TIM ROBERTON : So , in our study , in our modeling efforts , we look at what we call the continuum of care , so looking from antenatal care among pregnant women through to care around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and then looking at care for newborns , for early children , so , for example , vaccinations , preventative care or curative service for children if they have pneumonia or malaria or diarrhea .
So , in general , I think we see two ways in which the secondary effects of the pandemic could impact children .
So , the first way is , as I said , around health service disruption .
So , ordinarily , if a family has a young child that ’ s sick , they may go @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and get care — so , if they have malaria , might get antimalarials , or antibiotic for a cough or pneumonia .
But under the pandemic , perhaps people are not able to travel to a health facility , or they might be disinclined to go .
Perhaps they ’ re afraid of going to health services .
And also , even if they were to get to a health facility , perhaps at the facility there ’ s now maybe fewer health workers because some health workers have been diverted to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ maybe health workers themselves are sick , or perhaps at the facility there ’ s not the necessary treatment , drugs , medicine , because of issues to do with the supply chain , you know , health facilities just now not having the drugs that they need .
So that ’ s the first general way in which we see this happening .
And another big general way that we see , particularly for child mortality , is an issue that was touched upon in your previous segment , which is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because of broader macroeconomic effects — so , for example , households now not having the same income that they had , disruptions to food services , people not being able to access markets and get the necessary food for their children .
And what comes from that is that we ’ re going to see more families living in food insecurity and potentially more children being wasted , so being undernourished .
And while wasting itself doesn ’ t necessarily kill many kids , what it does do is it increases the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other diseases , other infectious diseases .
And in our model , that second pathway , these broader effects , increasing food insecurity , increasing undernutrition , is also a big potential way in which more children are going to die because of the pandemic .
AMY GOODMAN : I wanted to bring Dr. Beate Kampmann into the conversation , who ’ s speaking to us from London .
If you can talk about the poorest countries in the world right now ?
I mean , even in the United States , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lowest vaccination level , as parents are afraid to bring their kids in to the doctor .
But if you can talk about countries around the world , the stopping of their immunization programs ?
What ’ s happening ?
And what are the places ?
One of your specialties is the Gambia , but talk about everywhere , from Mexico to Africa ’ s most populous country , Nigeria .
DR. BEATE KAMPMANN : Yeah , yeah .
Thank you very much , Amy , and thank you for having me on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ important topic , and Tim has already spoken about a whole range of services for mother and child health , so I ’ ll try and focus a bit on the risk of — the prevention of potentially deadly infectious diseases for which we know we have vaccines .
So , I was quite alarmed when I saw the WHO announcing at the end of March that mass campaigns should be suspended , because we know that this will potentially leave over 100 million children at risk of measles , which is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ context of malnutrition , which is also something Tim has just alluded to .
So , to me , it ’ s really a question of what is being traded off against what , when we are looking at COVID infection prevention and spread of the pandemic versus essential services for women and children .
So , I work primarily in West Africa .
And our own group has , for example , mapped out the consequences of vaccination services not being delivered , even without the presence of a pandemic .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a plateau of about 80 % of vaccination , and that is not enough for herd immunity for diseases , for example , like measles , that need to have a cover of up to 95 % in the community to prevent outbreaks .
And just to give a recent example , during the Ebola outbreak in the DRC , about three times as many people died from measles as did end up dying from Ebola .
So the consequences of not vaccinating and providing the essential services in the immunization programs are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ SHAIKH : And , Dr. Kampmann , if you could also talk about the fact that you ’ ve said that the effects of diminishing or entirely preventing people from getting vaccinations — that the effects will only be known in a year or two , not immediately , and what you think needs to be done or can be done to ensure that vaccinations continue despite this pandemic ?
DR. BEATE KAMPMANN : Yeah .
So , it depends slightly on the level of vaccine coverage that the individual countries have .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that we ’ re trying to prevent .
So , measles is a highly infectious disease that needs 95 % of the community to be immune to protect the individual but also to stop transmission in the community .
There ’ s meningitis .
There ’ s pneumonia .
There ’ s diarrhea .
All of those are vaccine-preventable and are amongst the most common causes for childhood morbidity and mortality , especially in children under the age of 5 .
So , the solutions to consider in a situation where healthcare workers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ campaigns , or parents might feel reluctant to go to immunization clinics — and we ’ re seeing this in the U.K. , as well — we need to really , first and foremost , have a commitment that the delivery of vaccines to populations remains a high priority for health services .
Then we can possibly break down the interventions that could be done into — some of them being purely logistical .
For example , flights are suspended all across the globe , and flights bring vaccine supplies to countries .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to bring vaccines to countries .
And , for example , in the Gambia , we have already run out of oral polio vaccine for one reason or another , and that ’ s already shown a bottleneck .
When it comes to healthcare workers and the public , obviously , the personal protective equipment needs to be available to healthcare workers .
People need to respect good hand hygiene .
And we need to probably run the clinics in a slightly different way — stagger appointments so not everybody turns up at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ frequent clinics in different smaller places .
The third intervention , I think it ’ s crucial that we have data collection tools that will allow us to capture what is going on in the immunization system , who has received vaccines and who hasn ’ t , because it ’ s not just now that the children and anyone in the community will suffer from preventable infectious diseases , it ’ s in a little while , when the herd immunity or the community immunity has either dropped or there are new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because of suspension of immunization programs , would have never seen a vaccine .
And the health systems need to put in place records for that to be feasible , and the data collection systems really need to be fit for purpose .
And we really probably need to think about new models of delivering vaccines and to have more platforms , and maybe not just restricting them to the usual EPI clinics .
For example , antenatal services play a big role in maternal immunization .
AMY GOODMAN : And , Dr. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to your report ?
I mean , it is a deeply alarming report , the number of children who will die in the next six months around the world , not to mention mothers .
DR. TIM ROBERTON : Since we published the report , we ’ ve had a lot of countries reaching out to us , country offices of NGOs working in different countries around the world , and even ministries of health themselves , contacting us and saying , “ You know , we really appreciate this study , because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ play out in our country , and we ’ re worried about it.
” And over the next few months , our goal is to do more of our own kind of modeling and analysis , working with countries themselves , to use their own assumptions around what they think is happening in their country , based on available data , as Dr. Kampmann said , and also then model different potential scenarios that they could put in place , different policy options that they can , so that they can mitigate the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ GOODMAN : Dr. Roberton , let me ask you a quick question .
DR. TIM ROBERTON : — and also continue to maintain care .
Yeah .
AMY GOODMAN : The significance of President Trump saying that the U.S. is going to pull out of the World Health Organization , and the overall stopping of funding to it ?
The role the WHO plays in children and maternal mortality and health ?
DR. TIM ROBERTON : Absolutely .
I mean , the WHO plays a crucial role for maternal and child health around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vital mechanism for coordinating work in the global health space .
Also , I think what people don ’ t realize is the technical assistance that WHO provides to different governments and ministries of health around the world .
And right now countries are looking for guidance about how they can — how they can do this , what sort of policy options they should be considering , what sort of action they can take .
And WHO has been putting out guidance now , operational guidance , on how countries can maintain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also addressing COVID .
So , I think to undermine WHO now or to defund it , I think , would be highly counterproductive .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : And , Tim , could you also , very quickly , before we conclude , talk about some of the concerns you have raised about disruptions both in food supplies as well as the disruptions to pharmaceuticals and medicine supplies in the areas in which you ’ re most concerned ?
AMY GOODMAN : And we have 20 seconds .
DR. TIM ROBERTON : Yeah @ @ @ @ @ @ @ think , perhaps often overlooked , but is an absolutely kind of vital thing to be considered .
I mean , health systems are complex , and so we ’ re not really sure how these secondary effects play out .
But I think governments can make sure that they have social safety nets for people who are suffering food insecurity , and kind of bolster and perhaps may need to expand some of these social protection programs to make sure that children aren ’ t at risk .
AMY GOODMAN : We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for joining us , Drs .
Tim Roberton of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health — we ’ ll link your report — and Dr. Beate Kampmann , infectious disease pediatrician and director of the Vaccine Centre at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine .
That does it for our show .
Very Happy Birthday to Tey-Marie Astudillo .
I ’ m Amy Goodman , with Nermeen Shaikh .
Thanks for joining us .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report, as we are all alone together. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
As more than three-quarters of the world’s children live under stay-at-home orders amidst the pandemic, a shocking new report finds the child mortality rate could increase for the first time in more than 60 years. More than a million children under 5 could die over the next six months, according to researchers at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who studied the secondary impacts of the coronavirus outbreak, the disruptions to health services and access to food. More than 60,000 mothers could also die. The report was published in The Lancet Global Health and looked at 118 low- and middle-income countries.
For more, we’re joined by the lead author, Tim Roberton, assistant scientist in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. Also with us, infectious disease pediatrician Dr. Beate Kampmann, who is director of the Vaccine Centre at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, lead vaccinology researcher at the MRC Unit The Gambia.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Tim Roberton, let’s begin with you. Talk about the findings of this study. To say the least, deeply alarming.
DR. TIM ROBERTON: So, we know from past experience and research that in outbreak situations, people have health issues because of the virus, but also more people have health issues and complications because of the secondary effects of the outbreak. So, in the current pandemic, people are dying because of coronavirus itself. But if the pandemic and the response to the pandemic lead to the disruption of health services, then more people are going to die from other causes, as well.
So, in our study, we looked at the potential for additional deaths among pregnant women and young children. And we modeled three different scenarios, looking forward, of different severity. So, in our least severe scenario, over a period of just six months, we could see around 12,000 maternal deaths — so women dying in childbirth — and around 250,000 child deaths. These are children under the age of 5. That would represent a 39% increase in child mortality above what is currently occurring. But in our worst-case scenario, we saw that up to 60,000 maternal deaths and up to about 1 million, 1.1 million children could also die.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Tim Roberton, could you explain what essential services, health services, you think — you suggest ought to be retained to diminish the possible mortality rates among women and infants? What are the procedures? What are the health services, the medicines, that should not be diverted to deal with coronavirus, or at least there should be sufficient amounts available for routine care of mothers and infants?
DR. TIM ROBERTON: So, in our study, in our modeling efforts, we look at what we call the continuum of care, so looking from antenatal care among pregnant women through to care around childbirth for moms, postnatal care, and then looking at care for newborns, for early children, so, for example, vaccinations, preventative care or curative service for children if they have pneumonia or malaria or diarrhea.
So, in general, I think we see two ways in which the secondary effects of the pandemic could impact children. So, the first way is, as I said, around health service disruption. So, ordinarily, if a family has a young child that’s sick, they may go and seek care from a health facility and get care — so, if they have malaria, might get antimalarials, or antibiotic for a cough or pneumonia. But under the pandemic, perhaps people are not able to travel to a health facility, or they might be disinclined to go. Perhaps they’re afraid of going to health services. And also, even if they were to get to a health facility, perhaps at the facility there’s now maybe fewer health workers because some health workers have been diverted to work on the COVID response, or maybe health workers themselves are sick, or perhaps at the facility there’s not the necessary treatment, drugs, medicine, because of issues to do with the supply chain, you know, health facilities just now not having the drugs that they need. So that’s the first general way in which we see this happening.
And another big general way that we see, particularly for child mortality, is an issue that was touched upon in your previous segment, which is the potential for increased undernutrition, malnutrition, because of broader macroeconomic effects — so, for example, households now not having the same income that they had, disruptions to food services, people not being able to access markets and get the necessary food for their children. And what comes from that is that we’re going to see more families living in food insecurity and potentially more children being wasted, so being undernourished. And while wasting itself doesn’t necessarily kill many kids, what it does do is it increases the likelihood that a child will die from other diseases, other infectious diseases. And in our model, that second pathway, these broader effects, increasing food insecurity, increasing undernutrition, is also a big potential way in which more children are going to die because of the pandemic.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring Dr. Beate Kampmann into the conversation, who’s speaking to us from London. If you can talk about the poorest countries in the world right now? I mean, even in the United States, the wealthiest country, it’s the lowest vaccination level, as parents are afraid to bring their kids in to the doctor. But if you can talk about countries around the world, the stopping of their immunization programs? What’s happening? And what are the places? One of your specialties is the Gambia, but talk about everywhere, from Mexico to Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria.
DR. BEATE KAMPMANN: Yeah, yeah. Thank you very much, Amy, and thank you for having me on the program. This is really an important topic, and Tim has already spoken about a whole range of services for mother and child health, so I’ll try and focus a bit on the risk of — the prevention of potentially deadly infectious diseases for which we know we have vaccines.
So, I was quite alarmed when I saw the WHO announcing at the end of March that mass campaigns should be suspended, because we know that this will potentially leave over 100 million children at risk of measles, which is a potentially lethal infection, especially in the context of malnutrition, which is also something Tim has just alluded to. So, to me, it’s really a question of what is being traded off against what, when we are looking at COVID infection prevention and spread of the pandemic versus essential services for women and children.
So, I work primarily in West Africa. And our own group has, for example, mapped out the consequences of vaccination services not being delivered, even without the presence of a pandemic. And we already showed that there’s a plateau of about 80% of vaccination, and that is not enough for herd immunity for diseases, for example, like measles, that need to have a cover of up to 95% in the community to prevent outbreaks. And just to give a recent example, during the Ebola outbreak in the DRC, about three times as many people died from measles as did end up dying from Ebola. So the consequences of not vaccinating and providing the essential services in the immunization programs are really, really rather devastating.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Dr. Kampmann, if you could also talk about the fact that you’ve said that the effects of diminishing or entirely preventing people from getting vaccinations — that the effects will only be known in a year or two, not immediately, and what you think needs to be done or can be done to ensure that vaccinations continue despite this pandemic?
DR. BEATE KAMPMANN: Yeah. So, it depends slightly on the level of vaccine coverage that the individual countries have. And it also depends on the diseases that we’re trying to prevent. So, measles is a highly infectious disease that needs 95% of the community to be immune to protect the individual but also to stop transmission in the community. There’s meningitis. There’s pneumonia. There’s diarrhea. All of those are vaccine-preventable and are amongst the most common causes for childhood morbidity and mortality, especially in children under the age of 5.
So, the solutions to consider in a situation where healthcare workers might feel exposed if they run vaccination campaigns, or parents might feel reluctant to go to immunization clinics — and we’re seeing this in the U.K., as well — we need to really, first and foremost, have a commitment that the delivery of vaccines to populations remains a high priority for health services. Then we can possibly break down the interventions that could be done into — some of them being purely logistical. For example, flights are suspended all across the globe, and flights bring vaccine supplies to countries. Maybe extra flights need to be chartered to bring vaccines to countries. And, for example, in the Gambia, we have already run out of oral polio vaccine for one reason or another, and that’s already shown a bottleneck.
When it comes to healthcare workers and the public, obviously, the personal protective equipment needs to be available to healthcare workers. People need to respect good hand hygiene. And we need to probably run the clinics in a slightly different way — stagger appointments so not everybody turns up at the same time, and maybe more frequent clinics in different smaller places.
The third intervention, I think it’s crucial that we have data collection tools that will allow us to capture what is going on in the immunization system, who has received vaccines and who hasn’t, because it’s not just now that the children and anyone in the community will suffer from preventable infectious diseases, it’s in a little while, when the herd immunity or the community immunity has either dropped or there are new birth cohorts of children who then, because of suspension of immunization programs, would have never seen a vaccine. And the health systems need to put in place records for that to be feasible, and the data collection systems really need to be fit for purpose.
And we really probably need to think about new models of delivering vaccines and to have more platforms, and maybe not just restricting them to the usual EPI clinics. For example, antenatal services play a big role in maternal immunization.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Dr. Tim Roberton, the response of governments to your report? I mean, it is a deeply alarming report, the number of children who will die in the next six months around the world, not to mention mothers.
DR. TIM ROBERTON: Since we published the report, we’ve had a lot of countries reaching out to us, country offices of NGOs working in different countries around the world, and even ministries of health themselves, contacting us and saying, “You know, we really appreciate this study, because we are actually starting to see this play out in our country, and we’re worried about it.”
And over the next few months, our goal is to do more of our own kind of modeling and analysis, working with countries themselves, to use their own assumptions around what they think is happening in their country, based on available data, as Dr. Kampmann said, and also then model different potential scenarios that they could put in place, different policy options that they can, so that they can mitigate the spread and transmission of COVID —
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Roberton, let me ask you a quick question.
DR. TIM ROBERTON: — and also continue to maintain care. Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: The significance of President Trump saying that the U.S. is going to pull out of the World Health Organization, and the overall stopping of funding to it? The role the WHO plays in children and maternal mortality and health?
DR. TIM ROBERTON: Absolutely. I mean, the WHO plays a crucial role for maternal and child health around the world. It’s a vital mechanism for coordinating work in the global health space. Also, I think what people don’t realize is the technical assistance that WHO provides to different governments and ministries of health around the world.
And right now countries are looking for guidance about how they can — how they can do this, what sort of policy options they should be considering, what sort of action they can take. And WHO has been putting out guidance now, operational guidance, on how countries can maintain these maternal and child health services while also addressing COVID. So, I think to undermine WHO now or to defund it, I think, would be highly counterproductive.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Tim, could you also, very quickly, before we conclude, talk about some of the concerns you have raised about disruptions both in food supplies as well as the disruptions to pharmaceuticals and medicine supplies in the areas in which you’re most concerned?
AMY GOODMAN: And we have 20 seconds.
DR. TIM ROBERTON: Yeah. So, this is, I think, perhaps often overlooked, but is an absolutely kind of vital thing to be considered. I mean, health systems are complex, and so we’re not really sure how these secondary effects play out. But I think governments can make sure that they have social safety nets for people who are suffering food insecurity, and kind of bolster and perhaps may need to expand some of these social protection programs to make sure that children aren’t at risk.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you both so much for joining us, Drs. Tim Roberton of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health — we’ll link your report — and Dr. Beate Kampmann, infectious disease pediatrician and director of the Vaccine Centre at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
That does it for our show. Very Happy Birthday to Tey-Marie Astudillo. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. Thanks for joining us.