Category: Corona Virus

Sporting Kansas City confirmed Friday that one of its players has tested positive for COVID-19. At least 22 players from four teams have tested positive since entering Major League Soccers quarantine bubble on June 27.

SKC was among the last teams to arrive in Orlando, checking into the league hotel on July 5. In accordance with MLS protocol, the player who tested positive has been moved to an isolation area of the hotel where he will remain in his room, and be monitored and tested daily.

SKC is scheduled to open group play in the 51-game MLS Is Back tournament Sunday against Minnesota United.

Two teams, FC Dallas (an original MLS club) and Nashville SC (an expansion franchise), withdrew from the tournament earlier this week after multiple players tested positive. Dallas had 11 players and at least two staff members test positive. Nashville had nine players test positive.

More results will be coming since about half the teams in the MLS quarantine bubble arrived less than a week ago, meaning they are still within the incubation period for COVID-19.

Only around days five to seven does a test have a reasonable chance of identifying someone as infected, said Dr. Anne W. Rimoin, a professor of epidemiology at UCLA and director of the schools Center for Global and Immigrant Health.

As we have seen with the current sports experiment, keeping this virus at bay even with elaborate planning can be difficult. It hinges on perfect behavior and testing, both of which are hard to achieve.

The tests that are currently available are imperfect and do not guarantee that someone who tests negative is actually negative. They are designed to identify people who are acutely infected and are less accurate at identifying asymptomatic individuals or people who have a very low level of virus at the earliest stages of infection.

In fact, the probability of testing negative in the first few days of infection are extremely high.

LAFC and the Galaxy, who arrived in Florida on Monday, have not reported a positive test. Both teams open play July 13, the Galaxy against the Portland Timbers and LAFC with the Houston Dynamo.

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Another MLS player tests positive for coronavirus in Orlando - Los Angeles Times

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) With increased demand for testing, the wait times for results are increasing, too.

After getting tested because of an exposure at work, Wayne Jackson was told it would take three to five days.

Weve had such an increase in the influx of people wanting to get tested, says Rick Rickman, CRNP, of the AHN Mobile Testing Unit. Its kind of overloaded the system.

At the Allegheny Health Network, results come back in three to five days.

Even though we are saying three to five days, we are getting them much quicker than that, says Rickman. We are calling the positives first. The negatives are getting sent back to the providers that ordered the test, and they are making the call.

At Lab Corp, it had been one to two days, but with the higher demand, its now four to six days.

At MedExpress, the demand has pushed results to seven to 10 days.

Quest has a one day turnaround for hospitalized and preoperative patients and healthcare workers with symptoms, and a three to five day average for everyone else.

St. Clair Hospital can do a one-hour in-house test for patients in the hospital, but also sends some out to the Mayo Clinic, with an average wait time of two days.

UPMC can get results in a matter of hours for sick inpatients or healthcare workers, but usually expects a 12 to 48 hour wait.

While people are waiting for results, they and other members of their household must isolate.

You want to confine yourself as much as possible to a specific room in the house, Rickman says, We separate ourselves, we wear masks. You dont want to go to the store. Youll also want to monitor your symptoms. If your symptoms start to progress, you want to call your physician immediately.

I cant go back to work until its done, says Jackson, But other than that, its good.

Demand has gone up so much, some places are only testing people with symptoms now, so people needing tests to go back to work after a vacation exposure might have a harder time.

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Overloaded The System: People Are Waiting Longer For Coronavirus Test Results Due To Increased Demand - CBS Pittsburgh

After months of closures, governments are eager to reopen schools and businesses to allow people to get on with their lives. But fresh clusters of infection have seen leaders forced to reimpose restrictions in some hotspots, even as rules are eased elsewhere in the same country.

There are hopes this approach could minimize the economic damage resulting from large-scale shutdowns. In Portugal, for example, 19 boroughs on the outskirts of Lisbon have shut down, while the capital's downtown area has continued its reopening, along with the rest of the country.

Workplace links

Alexander Kekul, a virology professor and Director of the Institute for Biosecurity Research in Germany, told CNN: "The only strategy we can have is a stamping-out strategy. It's the same thing we do usually when we have new clusters of infections of any novel disease."

He said such moves were the "new normal," but needed to be combined with other measures, such as wearing masks and maintaining social distancing, as well as efficient systems to track and trace outbreaks before case numbers enter the hundreds.

"We should get used to it," he added. "In many places of the world people are really used to rules, for instance: Mosquito nets. And you can argue that the mosquito net is terrible and will change your whole life -- and it's like everybody argues against masks -- but when you have at the other side a deadly disease, and no real good idea how to survive until the vaccine will come, one day or never, then I think it's the best chance we have."

Guetersloh's lockdown was lifted Monday when a court in the state of North Rhine-Westfalia ruled that the regulation was "no longer compatible with the principle of proportionality and the principle of equal treatment."

Residents reported facing prejudice from the rest of the country, with a T-shirt on sale reading, "Keep a distance, I am from Guetersloh," and CNN affiliate n-tv reporting that people with Guetersloh license plates were worried about driving outside the district for fear of discrimination.

In the Italian city of Mondragone, authorities sealed off a building that housed migrant seasonal workers as a "red zone" late last month after 49 people tested positive for Covid-19. The army was sent to monitor the hotspot and a group of workers living in the building broke the quarantine to protest.

The governor of the Campania region, Vincenzo De Luca, blamed foreign workers for the "contagion," in an interview published on his Twitter account: "As always, we worked to assure the serenity of our families. In the coming weeks I believe we will do a wide check on seasonal workers."

A spokesperson for the Italian Interior Minister told CNN that military controls were ending Tuesday night with only 10 positive cases remaining in the building, which they said local health authorities could easily monitor.

And in Serbia, police in the capital Belgrade on Tuesday fired tear gas at protesters demonstrating against the President Aleksandar Vucic after he announced a weekend-long curfew to try to combat a surge in cases.

On Tuesday, Serbia recorded its highest daily death toll from Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, with Vucic calling the situation in Belgrade "alarming."

Lockdown towns

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned that Leicester showed "the virus is out there still circling like a shark in the water," raising fears of further lockdowns in other UK areas with rising numbers of new cases. After UK pubs opened last weekend, three establishments announced they were shutting because customers had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Leicester couple Naeem and Aisha Brisco formed an organization called Project Hope with two friends, to deliver food and necessities to vulnerable people in the community.

Naeem Brisco, whose IT company is currently closed, told CNN more people seemed to be struggling financially this time around. "I have noticed that there's been more calls coming through," he said.

He said there were now more test centers, boards displaying distancing rules, leaflets delivered to people's homes in different languages, and police patrolling streets and stopping cars.

With the rest of the country able to visit relatives and return to pubs after England's lockdown was eased on July 4, "Leicester feels a bit left out," he said.

Brisco said support was coming from the grassroots. "I think mainly the locals are getting together and just trying to be there for their neighbors and family."

Campaign group Labour Behind the Label last week suggested conditions in Leicester's garment factories were increasing the risk of coronavirus transmission among low-paid and often migrant workers.

But Brisco stressed it was important not to stereotype areas. "I can see a lot of unity and we talk about ethnic minorities, I get that, but if we remember, we've got people of all backgrounds in Leicester. Certain words that we use can put people in a minority position."

He said people were "scared" but happy to do what needed to be done to contain the spread of the virus.

As for businesses: "How long they can sustain for, I don't know," he said.

Sharifah Sekalala, Associate Professor at Warwick Law School, told CNN it was "a real concern" that local lockdowns could mean "communities that are already deprived might then get deprived even further."

She said the onus should not be on people who work in factories, use public transport, live in crowded housing or face social deprivation to enforce social distancing.

"What you end up with is just really easily stigmatizing all of certain groups of people," she said. "This is really problematic, in terms of class but also in terms of ethnic groups that certain groups are going to be disproportionately more affected."

Sekalala said government should hold industries to account -- as when the French government took Amazon to court for not practicing social distancing -- and "think really carefully about what a social safety net looks like in times of a crisis."

This includes providing appropriate housing that is not as densely populated, making sure transport to workplaces is socially distanced, and ensuring people can sustain themselves in the long term -- not just receiving furlough payments before losing their job.

Sekalala said lockdowns should not be "punitive" towards a particular region. "We need to shift the narrative about this localized lockdown, because it seems to me that the people who are locking down make a personal sacrifice on behalf of the whole country," she said.

Second state of emergency

On Saturday, 3,000 residents of nine densely populated public housing estates were put under full lockdown and from Wednesday, residents in metropolitan Melbourne are no longer allowed to leave their homes, except for grocery shopping, caregiving, exercise or work.

Victoria's border with New South Wales will close for the first time since the pandemic began.

"We know we're on the cusp of something very, very bad if we don't get on top of this," Victoria's State Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters Tuesday, describing the surge in numbers as unsustainable.

"I think a sense of complacency has crept into us as we let our frustrations get the better of us," Andrews said.

Melbourne cafe owner Steffan Tissa told CNN that he switched to takeout service for around three months before reopening to dine-in customers recently. Now his cafe, West 48, is closing its doors again. Tissa said he understands it's a necessity, but it will be "difficult" for his business.

"When it first started, we had to let staff go," he said. "And then as the lockdown started to ease off, we brought new staff on.

"We've been quite encouraged by it and now to have to go back, we're in a state of limbo, you know, where will our new normal be just in terms of how trade goes?" he said. "Financially, it could be quite a challenge."

Large-scale second lockdowns

Israel has re-imposed strict limitations across the whole country, closing event halls, bars, gyms and pools after the country hit a record daily figure of 1,140 new infections.

It is facing a near 40-fold increase in daily cases from mid-May, when the nation appeared to have the virus under control.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting Monday that "we must take immediate steps that will prevent us from having to take even more extreme measures later."

But Kekul, the virology professor, believes that large-scale reopening and then locking down again is a mistake, and risks causing psychological or economic damage to those affected.

"We need a reliable picture of our future or the economy," he told CNN. "You cannot plan when you have the possibilities of lockdowns at any time. People will not do that several times, again and again.

"In the United States, or also in Brazil, we have the situation that the people are beginning to fight against lockdowns and I understand why they are doing that," he said.

"Instead of braking and accelerating, we needed a completely different concept... some kind of continuous response to the disease or to the outbreak.

"Whenever we loosen these lockdowns without having a replacement strategy you will get outbreaks again, because you have only very few people who are immune."

This could be the most complex and nuanced phase of the pandemic yet.

Continued here:

Localized lockdowns show that we're in the most complex phase of coronavirus yet - CNN

"One of the things that bothered me throughout this whole time was, I researched the 1918 pandemic, '57, '68, and there were some mitigation efforts done in May 1918, but never just a national-shutdown type deal. There was really no observed experience about what the negative impacts would be on that.

"So I was very concerned about things on that side as well and I think that's why I had a more nuanced and balanced approach than some of the other governors. Because you have some of these health officials saying, 'You've got to do this. This is science,' or whatever. But really, these were unchartered territories."

Which certainly doesn't look like winning.

It's not hard to see what happened here.

There are two political lessons to be learned in DeSantis' struggles.

1) Never declare victory until you know you've won.

2) If circumstances change, you need to change too.

What Florida looked like on May 20 -- when Lowry wrote the column -- and what it looks like today are radically different. DeSantis was quick to take the credit when it looked as though his hands-off approach was working.

He added: "We understood that the outbreak was not uniform throughout the state, and we had a tailored and measured approach that not only helped our numbers be way below what anybody predicted, but also did less damage to our state going forward."

But DeSantis has been resistant to either taking the blame for the current situation or putting in place measures that will slow the raging epidemic in the state.

To put it in Florida terms that DeSantis can understand: The Miami Hurricanes football team doesn't stop playing at halftime just because they are ahead by three touchdowns. Unfortunately for the governor, that's exactly what he did.

The rest is here:

Florida's governor took a victory lap on coronavirus -- but it was only halftime - CNN

Hospitals in several states are sounding the alarm as they reach maximum capacity. Bars were shut back down in Texas and parts of California, and Florida prohibited customers from drinking on-site.

But progress that was undone can be redone.

While nothing about this virus seems simple, perhaps the one thing that's remained the same throughout the pandemic is the advice from health officials and experts highlighting the simple ways that can make a world of a difference when it comes to controlling the spread of the virus.

Here's a refresher of the simple things that everyone can -- and should -- be doing as their part to reel in their pandemic.

Let's start with the basics

Keep your distance. Seriously, the more feet the better.

Wear a mask

Leading health experts have said something as simple as wearing a mask when you venture out into public spaces can help save lives. They've been proven to be the most effective way to reduce transmission of the virus and in fact, if people opted to wear masks, they could better the conditions of the pandemic in weeks, the nation's top doctor said this week.

"It's the most important thing in my opinion that we can do that will allow us to open and stay open," US Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams told local news station FOX 5 in Washington, DC, Wednesday.

"Coronavirus can get bad really quickly, but I want people to understand that we can improve the coronavirus rates really quickly in the course of two to three weeks," Adams said. "There are studies that show that you can decrease the spread of coronavirus by 60%, 70% if you can get 80-plus percent of people wearing face coverings when they go out in public."

Atlanta became one of the latest cities to require face masks in public in response to a rise in cases.

"We will continue to take active measures to help slow the spread of COVID-19 infections in Atlanta," Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said in a statement. "Public health experts overwhelmingly agree that wearing a face covering helps slow the spread of this sometimes deadly virus."

Don't go to bars just yet

As more state leaders reach the realization bars fuel the spread of the virus, one health expert says there is one simple choice going forward.

"I've been talking to governors about pauses. I've been talking about what they want to roll back. And when they understand the choices in stark terms -- schools this fall or bars now -- those are your choices ... I think more and more governors, even in places that aren't having large outbreaks, are realizing that maybe we can avoid bars in the summer and fall, if that gives us a better shot at getting schools open this fall," Dr. Ashish Jha, the Director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, said Wednesday.

So, if you want to do your part, maybe skip the beer with friends -- just for a few more months.

Actually, don't go anywhere you don't have to

While parts of the US see spikes in cases, it may be smart to keep the outings limited altogether -- or at least the ones that aren't essential.

This has been a similar message coming from more local and state leaders lately, echoing March and April warnings when many states were put on lockdown: stay home.

One local official in Houston, Texas, where hospitals are now overwhelmed with new coronavirus patients, said it's best to take measures now than wait for things to get worse.

"(I want to be) very clear with the community. Right now, folks need to stay home and I need the authority to enforce it ... We shouldn't be waiting for our health care workers to be overburdened, for ICUs to be full," Texas Judge Lina Hidalgo, Harris County's Chief executive, told ABC earlier this month.

In Arizona, which has also seen a rise in cases, the governor has urged residents to stay home if they don't absolutely have to go out.

CNN's Pierre Meilhan, Andrea Kane, Rebecca Grandahl, Jamiel Lynch and Jacqueline Howard contributed to this report.

Originally posted here:

Nothing about the coronavirus is simple. Except the small actions you can take to prevent its spread - CNN

For the foreseeable future, MinnPost will be providing daily updates on coronavirus in Minnesota, published following the press phone call with members of the Walz administration each afternoon.

Here are the latest updates from July 8:

Eight more Minnesotans have died of COVID-19, the Minnesota Department of Health said Wednesday, for a total of 1,485.

Of the people whose deaths were announced Wednesday, two were in their 90s, two were in their 80s, two were in their 60s, one was in their 40s and one was in their 30s. The person in their 30s who died had no known underlying health conditions, while the person in their 40s who died had at least one known underlying health condition. Five of the eight deaths announced Wednesday were among residents of long-term care facilities. Of the 1,485 COVID-19 deaths reported in Minnesota, 1,161 have been among residents of long-term care.

The current death toll only includes Minnesotans with lab-confirmed positive COVID-19 tests.

MDH also said Wednesday there have been 39,589 total confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Minnesota. The number of confirmed cases is up 456 from Tuesdays count and is based on 7,636 new tests. The seven-day test positivity rate of 4.4 percent is up over 3.6 percent a week ago.You can find the moving day seven-day positive case average here.

Evan Frost/MPR/Pool

Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm

The median age of people testing positive continues to trend down, indicating younger people represent a larger proportion of people who test positive.

Since the start of the outbreak, 4,272 Minnesotans have been hospitalized. Hospitalizations remain steady, with 265 currently in the hospital, 122 in intensive care. You can find more information about Minnesotas current ICU usage and capacity here.

Of the 39,589 confirmed positive cases in Minnesota, 34,902 are believed to have recovered.

More information on cases can be found here.

Infectious Disease Director Kris Ehresmann said the MDH has heard some Minnesotans may be considering throwing or attending COVID parties, purported gatherings where people try to get infected with COVID to get it over with, in the hopes of having some immunity in the future (reminder: the jurys still out on how much immunity people develop).

This is a really really bad idea, Ehresmann said Wednesday. Not only is there a small but real risk of significant illness and complications in young people or anyone who develops COVID, but theres also a real risk that the virus will be passed on to other family members or even people in the community at higher risk.

For the record, rumors of COVID parties in other states, most recently from Alabama,have been shared by officials andturned out to be false.

In a review of similar stories, Wiredfound other alleged COVID parties were just rumors, some of which were later walked back by the officials who had repeated them. The press just cant stop pushing the narrative that people are trying to get themselves infected. At no point in this chain has anyone bothered to confirm the underlying claim. The whole thing is reminiscent of the supposed scourge, in the mid-2000s, of pharm parties, at which Americas wayward teens were said to put their parents prescription drugs into a bowl and then consume them at random. This did not really happen.

Ehresmann said Wednesday there had been no confirmed transmissions from COVID parties in Minnesota, and MinnPost asked for additional information on where MDHs information about such gatherings came from.

This was driven more by a preventive impulse just reiterating dont think about it because it is such a bad idea rather than weve had a specific case or credible report that weve confirmed, agency spokesperson Scott Smith wrote in an email.

An increase in COVID-19 cases nationally prompted MDH officials to warn Minnesotans the supply chain for lab materials needed for COVID-19 tests is tightening as demand for them increases and supplies shift to hot spots.

Due to an uptick in testing, people who are tested for COVID-19 may have to wait longer for test results, too.

National labs are reporting its taking four to six days to get results, Infectious Disease Director Kris Ehresmann said. That means it could be up to eight days between the time a person is tested and receives a result, including the time it takes to transport the sample and receive results from a provider.

MDHs coronavirus website: https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/index.html

Hotline, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.: 651-201-3920

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Coronavirus in Minnesota: MDH warns of 'COVID Parties,' which are not real - MinnPost

To prevent the outbreak from spinning out of control, US residents must focus on controlling crowds, wearing masks and doing a better job at physical distancing, Dr. Anthony Fauci told the Wall Street Journal in a podcast Wednesday.

Climbing cases, sparked in part by loosened restrictions, have motivated many states to pause or roll back plans to reopen economies after widespread shutdowns in the spring.

"We've got to just tighten things up, close the bars, indoor restaurants ... or make it so there's very good seating, make sure people wear masks, make sure they don't congregate in crowds, make sure they keep the distance," Fauci urged.

"If you do those simple public health measures, guarantee you're going to see that curve come down. It's happened, time and again in virtually every country that's done that."

Where states stand

Many states are feeling the effects of the coronavirus surge.

With 98 coronavirus-related deaths in one day, Texas set its record for highest single-day fatality increases Wednesday. The state also reported its second highest number of daily new cases at 9,979.

Louisiana made great strides in managing the virus in June, but the past three weeks has undone all of that with high levels of community spread, a death toll at 3,231 and increased hospitalization, Gov. Jon Bel Edwards said Wednesday.

With hospitalizations rising and the virus spreading, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell announced Wednesday that bars and restaurants will be limited to 25 patrons inside with bar seating prohibited and masks required.

Philadelphia is combating the virus by recommending that people avoid traveling to or from states with "high-incidences" of coronavirus and self-quarantine for 14 days if they do.

California cases are rising after early success

California, one of the first states to implement restrictions to stem the spread of the virus and among the slowest to lift them, is now wrestling with a worsening situation.

In Los Angeles, coronavirus infection rates are on the rise, and hospitalization rates have climbed to levels not seen since April, Health Director Barbara Ferrer announced in a news conference Wednesday.

The city is currently at a high level of risk and could get worse in the next week or two, said Mayor Eric Garcetti. If it does reach the next threat level, Los Angeles would likely return to a safer at home order, he said.

The cases are particularly growing among people between 18 and 40-years-old, Garcetti said. That age range made up 30% of the cases a few weeks ago, then 40% last week and is now at more than 50%, he said.

In Southern California, the intensive care unit at a Ventura County hospital reached its full capacity after receiving an influx of coronavirus patients, Dr. John Fankhauser, CEO at Ventura County Medical Center, said Wednesday, adding that the ICU at the facility is now full.

Back to school still in question

As cases and hospitalizations rise, an answer to the question of whether children will return to school in the fall becomes less clear.

The White House has also claimed the CDC's guidelines for reopening schools is too strict. But public health expert Dr. Ashish Jha told Pamela Brown Wednesday on "The Lead" that the guidelines are the minimum of what should be required.

"I think they should go further. Look, you can open up schools anywhere you want," Jha, the faculty director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, said.

There is still mystery surrounding how the virus affects children. At first experts thought children were not contracting the virus as frequently and were not impacted as severely.

But a study published in an American Academy of Pediatrics journal found that children did not show the same symptoms of coronavirus as adults and that coronavirus targeted tests miss cases in children.

Guidelines from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend only testing patients with fever, cough and shortness of breath, who traveled to high-risk countries and who came into close contact with someone with a confirmed case.

But the children who tested positive in the study were admitted to the hospital with seemingly unrelated symptoms, including bacterial infections, appendicitis and inflamed muscles. The researchers say it is unclear how large a role coronavirus played in their illness.

CNN's Jenn Selva, Pierre Meilhan, Kay Jones, Raja Razek, Sarah Moon, Lauren Mascarenhas and Shelby Lin Erdman contributed to this report.

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Health expert warns the US needs to get a handle on coronavirus before conditions return to spring levels - CNN

California's San Quentin prison declined free coronavirus tests and urgent advice now it has a massive outbreak  Nature.com

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California's San Quentin prison declined free coronavirus tests and urgent advice now it has a massive outbreak - Nature.com

LINCOLN PARK A new, coronavirus-inspired concoction is spurring backlash at Alinea, one of the worlds most famous restaurants.

The canap resembles renderings of the coronavirus: a bluish-gray sphere pockmarked with red dots. It was created by the Alinea team and is served at AIR: Alinea in Residence, a rooftop pop-up in the West Loop thats been open while the original Lincoln Park location is closed due to the pandemic.

The snack is a coconut custard with Szechuan peppercorn and freeze-dried raspberries. It generated controversy after a photo of it was posted on Instagram this week.

Unbelievable, Dave Baker wrote when he shared the image on Instagram. @thealineagroupThis isnt ok this isnt cute. This is shameful. How unbelievably disrespectful to anyone whos life has been lost. I dont care how you spin it, this is unacceptable.

Bakers image appears to have been taken from a Saturday tweet from a man who described himself as a doctor and thanked the restaurant for the dish.

But several people commenting on Bakers post said it was insensitive and tone-deaf to use the coronavirus pandemic as artistic inspiration for food.

More than 2,600 people have died from the disease and more than 53,000 have been infected with the virus in Chicago.

Alinea Group co-owner Nick Kokonas repeatedly defended the dish in the comments on the Instagram post.

Art is often meant to provoke discomfort, conversation, and awareness. This is no different, Kokonas wrote. Everyone on here saying we are somehow oblivious need to think just a single level upwards.

That only provoked more terse exchanges between commenters and Kokonas, who said he and his team are extremely deferential to the coronavirus pandemic and were not trying to be flippant.

But this this is not disrespectful, he wrote. This is not pro Trump. This is not making light of the situation. This is manifesting and making visible what we all cannot see and reminding patrons, right as they arrive, that we are aware that this is still with us and will be for some time.

Commenters were not convinced.

I think Im mostly just blown away that given the everything thats happened in the last 7 months, people cannot check their ego long enough to say, You know what, youre right probably a bad look to make food in the shape of a coronavirus cell and instead vehemently defend their right to provoke instead of having an ounce of respect for the victims of this pandemic, one wrote.

There is a big difference between provocative art and just being blatantly insensitive, Baker wrote back to Kokonas. Slapping a COVID-19 dippin dot on a plate and calling it art doesnt make it less disrespectful, just as telling an offensive joke doesnt make it less offensive because it was a joke.

This dish is disrespectful to its victims, their families, your patrons and the entire restaurant industry that is crumbling around us.

The pop-up restaurant has taken precautions to prevent the spread of coronavirus: Customers have their temperature checked and are required to wear masks when coming in. Parties can only come in one at a time to ensure theres social distancing.

The controversial canap is offered to customers when they first walk in. Its comfort food, Kokonas told Block Club in emails, and its delicious.

Kokonas told Block Club the feedback has been fantastic at AIR.

Every day we get emails thanking our team for providing a unique, safe and pleasurable experience in these difficult times, Kokonas said. We are also proud that we have reemployed our team and provided a creative outlet to express what they do. We are working to extend the run into the fall if possible.

People have made up their minds on the dish and on the experience at AIR without actually experiencing it, Kokonas said.

I suppose Id want to show them some of the work weve found inspirational and yes, even challenging, that others have done through the visual arts, short movies and docs, music, and theater around the world and ask if those are equally offensive to them, Kokonas said. Why this bite and not that? The larger question that Ive heard for years is, Should a place like Alinea exist? because it is food + it is expensive.

What people dont often realize is that our clientele is not composed of the 1 percent; its composed of people who enjoy food, who are celebrating a special occasion, or who prefer this to, say, a Bears game which costs the same money. The difference, of course, is that we all need to eat we understand that. But Alinea is meant to be a fun and delicious celebration of life. AIR is, as well.

I recognize that the commenters think the opposite that we have no empathy. It is 100 percent the opposite.

And Kokonas said he cannot abide by comments on social media threatening him in response to the snack.

One person on Instagram told Kokonas they hope he accidentally trip[s] and fall[s] into a cardboard baler.

There are a dozen of those on there and I really cannot understand how anyone can accuse us of being offensive and then wish personal harm on us, our families and our hardworking team over a bite of food taken out of the context of its experience, Kokonas told Block Club.

Finally, the irony in this is that the person(s) who actually created the bite is/are not me . I just defended their right to do so and enabled the experience to happen. No one asked who made it . They might be surprised.

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Alinea Made A Coronavirus-Themed Dish. It's Not Going Over Well - Block Club Chicago

James Allen Smith was only supposed to be at a Texas prison for a matter of months, sentenced to a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program after he pled guilty to a repeat DWI offense in January.

But in May, while in a Huntsville prison where Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials halted almost all movement as inmates and employees fell ill with the new coronavirus, the 73-year-old retired teacher from Bastrop also contracted the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease. Instead of coming home to his family after completing a short program, Smith died in prison custody on June 11.

We never thought this would happen, Lani Davis, Smiths 26-year-old granddaughter, told The Texas Tribune last week, shock still evident in her voice. He was going to get out, he was being fine. He was only sentenced to six months.

At least 84 Texas state prisoners have died after catching the new coronavirus, according to TDCJ reports. The death toll, which the agencys leader called unprecedented, is the second highest among state prison systems. Those who have died include men serving life sentences, a man who was days away from his release date, and others, like Smith, who were only supposed to be locked up for a short time.

For months, advocates in Texas and across the country have pushed for the early release of some vulnerable prisoners such as those with underlying health problems as lockups became hotspots for the new coronavirus that has killed more than 2,600 people in the state. They argued that a smaller prison population would make it easier for inmates to socially distance and also better protect prison employees who can spread the virus to their families and communities.

But while some states have moved to release more parole-eligible prisoners or those nearing the end of their sentences, Texas practices have gone unchanged.

The spread of COVID in the prison system has shown that a period of incarceration for a number of people has turned into a death sentence, said Peter Steffensen, a staff attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project. That doesnt change the fact that the parole board and the governor are both empowered to take a number of different steps that they could have and should have months ago.

Nearly 9,500 of about 131,000 people in Texas state prisons have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to TDCJ reports. Though the number of confirmed active cases went down in recent weeks, the agency continues to report more deaths.

At least 10 people who work in Texas prisons have also died after contracting the virus, the agency has reported. More than 1,700 TDCJ employees were confirmed to have the virus.

TDCJ has been criticized for its handling of the pandemic by prisoner rights advocates, family members, and inmates both in letters and a federal lawsuit. But early prison release decisions in Texas fall to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, whose members are appointed by the governor. As the pandemic began taking hold in Texas earlier this year, both the board and Gov. Greg Abbott rejected the idea of early prison releases, with Abbott tweeting in March that releasing dangerous criminals in the streets is not the solution. A spokesperson did not respond to questions about whether the governor has changed his stance.

Abbotts decision was supported by some Texas law enforcement officials, who feared more prison and jail releases could lead to more crime while the state is already in a public health crisis. On Wednesday, the parole board reaffirmed that there have been no changes to the manner in which the [board] renders parole decisions.

The state prison population did drop, however, because intake of new inmates from county jails was halted in April. On Wednesday, TDCJ again began accepting newly sentenced inmates on a limited basis after significant consideration and planning, a spokesperson said. That includes people who, like Smith, have been waiting in a local jail to be sent to a TDCJ rehabilitation program.

After entering the state prison system, Smith landed at the Estelle Unit in Huntsville for his rehab program shortly before the coronavirus shut down prison visitation and intake from jails.

Even after the virus was confirmed on his unit and his movement was restricted, he still wrote frequent letters and called his family on Saturdays. But in early May, the letters abruptly stopped, and one of his three daughters, Jami Smith Hanchey, later noticed her letters to him were returned undelivered.

Neither she nor her sister, who was Smiths emergency contact, were told anything about his condition. But when she looked on the online inmate database in late May, Hanchey saw that her father had been transferred to the prison hospital in Galveston.

The sisters desperately and unsuccessfully tried to get information on their father. Finally, in early June, a prison supervisor called Hanchey to tell her Smith had a stroke but was OK and back at the Estelle Unit.

Within one week, hes died, Hanchey, 45, said. I dont even know what from yet. Maybe another stroke? Maybe COVID?

TDCJ spokesperson Jeremy Desel said Thursday that Smith first tested positive for the coronavirus on May 7 at Estelle and was moved to isolation. Desel said Smith was in the hospital from May 23 to June 5 for a non-COVID ailment, though he again tested positive for the virus while there. He was sent back to Estelle still actively infected with the virus, and six days later he was sent to a Huntsville hospital and died after going into cardiac arrest, Desel said.

TDCJ lists the deaths of 84 men who have died in its custody as presumed COVID-19 deaths. The presumptions are largely based on initial autopsy reports and medical investigations, and the cause of dozens of additional inmate deaths are still being investigated as potentially COVID-related. Desel said in some cases, though an inmate tested positive for the coronavirus, it is clear it had absolutely nothing to do with their death.

TDCJ notes on its list of presumed COVID-19 deaths that Smith had pre-existing conditions Hanchey said he was on medication for a heart condition. But the agency said Smiths preliminary autopsy results indicate COVID-19 was a contributing cause in his death.

Of the inmates with COVID-19 who died, Smith was supposed to spend the shortest amount of time in prison. But four others were serving sentences of five or fewer years.

Gerald Barragan, 62, was serving five years after being convicted of possessing two small bags of cocaine in Kendall County, according to court documents.

Another 62-year-old, Joe Channel, was given a three-year sentence in Nacogdoches County for jumping bail on a since-dismissed charge of drug possession.

David Uhrich, 60, had three years left on a five-year sentence out of Travis County on a drug dealing charge.

And 28-year-old Nicolas Andres Sanchez was sent to prison for three years after his probation was revoked for failing to report to his probation officer on a Dallas County domestic violence charge.

Of those serving longer sentences, 10 prisoners who had COVID-19 when they died had five years or fewer left to serve. One man, 54-year-old Alfredo De La Vega, died on May 5 with 12 days left on a 20-year sentence for aggravated sexual assault.

In late March, when only a handful of TDCJ prisoners were known to be infected with the virus, inmates at a geriatric unit sued the agency for its handling of the pandemic. They argued for more protective measures like face masks and hand sanitizer.

But at hearings in early April, the federal judge overseeing the lawsuit kept coming back to a potentially simpler solution for the older, sick men that largely comprised the units population.

Would it be difficult for the prison authorities to make an early cut? To say, if people have all these characteristics: they are of compromised health, they are over the age of 65, they have served at least 75% of their sentence, and they have a habitat to go to, would it be hard to make that cut? U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison in Houston asked in the teleconference hearing.

After some silence and noncommittal answers, agency representatives eventually told the judge that its not possible for TDCJ to decide that. Release decisions come from the parole board, and though there are mechanisms in place for the board to release more people for medical reasons, it is not being used on a large scale, according to board reports.

The board can approve early parole review and release for prisoners who are mentally ill, disabled, terminally ill, or require long-term care under medically recommended intensive supervision. But the program is rarely used. Last year, 76 inmates fewer than 3% of those referred to the board were approved for such release, according to a board report.

This year, 22 people were approved for early medical release between March and June, according to the board spokesperson.

The only thing holding [the parole board] back is themselves, said Steffenson, the Texas Civil Rights Project attorney. Weve seen dozens of people die and the expectation is that there are many more to come, and thats a shame.

Prisoner rights advocates have also called on the board to quickly release men and women who the parole board have already approved for release. In May, thousands of inmates had been approved for parole pending completion of education or rehabilitation programs but because those programs had largely come to a standstill due to the virus, the inmates remained locked up.

Advocates and family members asked the governor and the board to let such inmates complete those programs outside prison walls, but those requests went unanswered.

Corrections departments, parole boards, judges and governors in numerous other states have released prisoners early during the pandemic. By May, Wisconsin released more than 1,400 people who were being held for probation or parole violations, while the governors of Kentucky and Oklahoma commuted hundreds of prisoners sentences. Multiple other states, including California and Ohio, approved the release of some inmates who had only months left on their sentences.

In Texas, Smiths family said the system failed him turning his six-month program into a death sentence. Since he wasnt sentenced to prison, only the in-prison program, Hanchey feels Bastrop County and TDCJ both let her father slip through the cracks.

He just felt like it was going to be like six months, get this over with, Hanchey said.

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At least 84 Texas prisoners have died after contracting the coronavirus - The Texas Tribune