Every segment of U.S. child welfare system affected
NEW YORK — Child welfare agencies across the U.S., often beleaguered in the best of times, are scrambling to confront new challenges that the coronavirus is posing for caseworkers, kids and parents.
For caseworkers, the potential toll is physical and emotional. Child welfare workers in several states, including Michigan, Massachusetts, New York and Washington, have tested positive for COVID-19.
Many agencies, seeking to limit the virus’s spread, have cut back on in-person inspections at homes of children considered at risk of abuse and neglect. Parents of children already in foster care are missing out on weekly visits. Slowdowns at family courts are burdening some of those parents with agonizing delays in getting back their children.
“There are real sad consequences for folks who've been making progress toward reunifying,” said Boston social worker Adriana Zwick, who represents unionized caseworkers with Massachusetts’ Department of Children and Families.
Photo: The scene in California
Country music star Joe Diffie dies of coronavirus at 61
Joe Diffie, an icon to many country fans for his string of No. 1 hits in the 1990s, has died from complications related to the coronavirus, a spokesperson revealed Sunday afternoon. He was 61.
“Grammy-winning country music legend Joe Diffie passed away today, Sunday, March 29, from complications of coronavirus (COVID-19),” the statement read simply. “His family respects their privacy at this time.”
On Friday, Diffie become the first country star to go public with a coronavirus diagnosis. “I am under the care of medical professionals and currently receiving treatment,” a statement attributed to him read.
Emergency field hospital being built in Central Park to deal with coronavirus in New York City
New York City's famed Central Park will be home to a field hospital that will provide care for patients who are battling COVID-19, the disease associated with coronavirus.
Tents are being put up in the park's East Meadow to serve as emergency care by Mount Sinai Health System, various governmental agencies and humanitarian aid organization Samaritan’s Purse, Mount Sinai confirmed Sunday.
The field hospital is set to open Tuesday.
Over 7,000 Peace Corps volunteers in limbo after evacuating back to U.S.
March 16 was supposed to be a normal Monday for the more than 7,000 Peace Corps volunteers stationed across more than 60 countries. But that morning, one email changed everything: For the first time in its nearly 60-year history, the Peace Corps was suspending all operations and evacuating volunteers as the coronavirus pandemic spread around the globe.
Eight days later, by March 24, all Peace Corps volunteers had left their posts. The original plan had been to stagger departures over several days, but due to the ever-changing situation at borders around the world, volunteers ultimately had 48 to 72 hours from receiving the email before they were on flights home.
Now, the returning volunteers find themselves in limbo, back in an America that they don’t recognize.
Inmate dies after contracting coronavirus at Louisiana federal prison
A 47-year-old inmate died Saturday after contracting the coronavirus at a Louisiana federal prison where at least five prisoners have tested positive for the virus, officials said.
The death of Patrick Jones marks the first COVID-19 related death of an inmate in the federal prison system, a Bureau of Prisons spokesperson said.
Jones was locked up on drug charges at a minimum-security prison in Oakdale facing a surge in Covid-19 cases, according to the Bureau of Prisons and union leaders.
Drone video shows streets of Milan deserted during lockdown
Drone footage from Milan shows the effect Italy's coronavirus lockdown is having. Streets normally bustling with tourists in the country's financial capital lie empty. The lockdown has now been extended as the country's death toll rises, but even as most people stay at home, others have been caught flouting the rules.
Maine residents try to force quarantine of out-of-towners by cutting down tree, police say
A group of Maine residents apparently tried to forcibly quarantine their neighbors by cutting down a tree and blocking a roadway after fearing they might have coronavirus.
A man who lived on Cripple Creek Road left his Vinalhaven residence to check on disrupted cable service when he came across a downed tree in the road, according to a Facebook post Saturday from the Knox County Sheriff's Office. He told police that when he exited his car to inspect the tree, a group of people, some with guns, gathered around him and told him he needed to be quarantined.
Pope does not have coronavirus, calls for global ceasefire during pandemic
The Vatican said on Saturday that tests carried out in the building where Pope Francis lives after one resident tested positive for the virus showed that the pontiff and his closest aides do not have the disease.
Tests were done on 170 people in the Vatican and six showed positive, including one of the several dozen permanent residents of the Santa Marta guesthouse on the Vatican grounds, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement.
Speaking at his weekly blessing on Sunday, Pope Francis backed a call by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for a global ceasefire so the world can focus on fighting the coronavirus pandemic. Francis appealed to everyone to “stop every form of bellicose hostility and to favor the creation of corridors for humanitarian help."
Pelosi bashes Trump on coronavirus: 'As the president fiddles, people are dying'
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday criticized President Donald Trump's response to the coronavirus pandemic by saying that "as the president fiddles, people are dying."
Pelosi made the remark when asked on CNN's "State of the Union" whether Trump should relax some of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines on social distancing in parts of the country that have yet to suffer a major outbreak.