Transcripts For KQED KQED Newsroom 20240712

Tracing, testing, and outreach. The state will also provide 52 million in fede l aid for affected communities. Essential workers in agriculture and Meatpacking Industries who are mainly latino are especially vulnerable to getting sick and e Fresno County Health Department says latinos make up roughly half of the countys population but acunt for nearly 70 percent of covid19 deaths. With me now by skype is esno City Council President and enining bykype from fresno is steve randel. Thank you both so much for joining us. Thanksfor having us paid would like you to tell me uabou it so hard to contain the virus among farmworkers. These conditions are very specific to farmworkers in inclliving in high density substandard housing with intergenerational living e uninsured and have limited access to healthcare, a lot of them have preexisting medical conditions like diabetlo and High Pressure and they live in an area with the highest pollution rate in the country and they do not have access tofpaid time on a problewith lauage access for language in tracing and they have all been declared essential workers and been given no direct support at the federal level to remain home when they do become infected. What would you say needs to be done inorder to limit the spread of the virus among farmworkers . We have to treat them like essential workers like erfront line wolike medical workers, we need to provide them relief when they cant go to workan that means housing relief, medical relief and ensure that they can afford to remain at home when they get infected and that they have a support systemwe also need to e they have access to testing and tracing, where they are working and on the fields where they are picking the crops and packing food in e processing plants. Without that direct relief for them to stay home when they are sickth, t testing and tracing at the workplace, they will never be able to get access to the necessary healthcare they need in order to curb down the infection rates of our county. Fresno county, the county present has more than 13,000 active coronavirus cases, the most heavily impacted county in san joaquin valley, theres meese Meat Processing facilities in your county as well igas oring counties, what requirements if any does your county place on reporting coronavirus outbreaks of meatpacking and agricultural facilities . Fresno county is by far the rgest county in the Central Valley, we cover over re6000 sqmiles, roughly the size of the state of connecticut so we have a lot of Rural Community as thwell as city of fresno, our largest city. Weve done a lot on all of the issues you addressed with miguel and with meatpacking, the requirements from our publd Health Department our public heth officer are that if somebody test positive for cod19 or believes they have it, everybody that has worked near that person in the same shift and same location of the Facility Needs to be told that they have come in contact with somebody thats st positive and then they are then required to stay home and take k time off of it does not mean we shut down the whole plant or even that every employee of the ant would be notified and our Public Health directorsays this ia case by case service. Miguel, you have heard from workers at some of those meatpacking ants, what are their concerns . Thats one of the primary concerns. One make meatpacking plant employs 2500 people under one roof, amazon employs 3500 people. If they only tify thperson to the right and left of you, you are far too late to be able to co ain the spreand ths the challenge we are seeing, thats why theres been such a big spread in those meet packing plants and processing facilities and its really important for the general public to also be notified of re an infection in those locations so they also dont have to risk their lives in ordeleto be to just go to work and its one of the challeng when it cometo public safety, officers or medical staff on the front line, they get time off, they get support in order to. Be ho essential workers get zero dollars and zero support in toorder for them stay home knowing that they live paycheck to paycheck and theres no rentt relief or ge really for them. Steve, would you like to address that . I uld love toaddress that miguel is unaware of the Families First Coronavirus Response act, its mandated by the federal government, the t employees do have to pay the salaries of those who have to stay home, the federal government is taking re of that, its a project thats been underway for months and is extended through december 31, ployees or less are mandated to pay the pricof the daily wages of these employees. Could you broaden our perspective on the Central Valley and tell us what your constituents are saying about the virus and its impact . Great question, the people that i represent as you might guess are split 50 50 on covid 19. We are told daily with phone calls why arent wedoing more and that we are told daily on phone calls, why are we overburdening people . Weve got people whbelieve that coronavirus is a hoax and we have other people that believe that if you step outside of your front door youre going to come in ntact with the black plague, we know both of these are not accurate, that we are fighting a at pandemic, buthe same time we have to be aware that we have to keep our government and our economy running as wet. Ware your own thoughts about the virus and about wearing a mask . Im probably right in the middle, ivebeen wearing my mask at the right times since ve the or mandated it nearly a month ago, so when i am in public spaces where i am not ablestto social ce, i will wear a mask. I dont wear a mask in my car or in my office ani feelim right in line with the majority of my constituents. Miguel, there seems to be an ideological split that is driving policy decisions that are being made every day, is that accurate, do you see gian ideol divide and if so, could you describe that for us . I will give you an example, when the Public Health director a few months ago mandated ma wearing in the county of fresno, the board of supervisors overturned his decision ade it optional for people to wear. That has been a big difference for us in the city because we derstand that as the city that has the majority of the population, our county, we undegitand that if you the option to residents, they will not comply. Secondly, weve been very aggressive about enforcing business closures that are not supposed to open like gyms and Indoor Dining with the county has chosen to look the other way and not do any enforcement of the state emergency order and lastly, our city, our cares act dollars in providing direct relief for residents, so they could stay home. Ar for example we providing 5 million in housing relief funds, we are providing millions of dollars for childcare foessed ial workers suring that Small Businesses have the resources they need and we are spending on additional testing and tracing, all things that most cities have not donewhere the county of fresno has only directed 5 million for Small Business relief fundder the cares act and finally, steve is right, the supervisor is right that employers should be giving the challenge is that approximately half of our Agricultural Workers are undocumented and the federal government has indicated that cares act funds cannot be used on undocumentesidents, knowing that is half of the workers of essential workers in agriculture, that maintain the Food Supply Chain in the country. So a few different topics here that have been addressed, talk about the enforcement s the ruto close when necessary, the way that money has been spent and this question of undocumented eiworkers and supporting needs. Absolutely. Let me start with the undocumented workers, that is beyond our pay grade at the Fresno County board of supervisors, we would blow through every last penny of our cares act dollars within the ee nextif we had to support a Healthcare System for undocumented workers, that needs to be addressed at the state and federal level, its way beyond my pay grade. At the nounty of frwe do not, like the city of fresno have a robust Code Enforcement team and you will find that throughout most counties, we do nodeal with the me types of things that the city normally deals with. We do not have the bandwidth to fomake all these ements that the governor has demanded. Since he has mandated those, we come more in line with his requirements and trying to meet the standards laid out to us, but our Fresno County sheriffs attacking crime at itsource and we do not have the bandwidth to go to every little restaurant where there is a complaint to ke sure that they are shut down. The governor has a strike team in Fresno County and he can do that if you want to, and he has been. That assistance is coming in, i understand early next week, just in our last few seconds before we go, would u share with us what you know about that team coming in to help your county . Thats called the united support teom, its different his Enforcement Strike team and the United Support Team is working via the phone with our Public Healthofficer now and next week they begin in person meetings when they get on the ground Fresno County, they will go over the problems and theyre going to come up with solutions, and e we welcom them in Fresno County. Thank you bo so much thank you. Apart from the human suffering wrought by the virus there is also its devastating th toll on e economy. The mate nations Gross Domestic Product fell nearly 10 percent in the second quarter, lathr Department Says ther are now 30 million americans claiming on employment benefits. Compare that to e same ti last year when there were just 6 Million People claiming unemployment. Americans unemployed due to the invirus have been recean additional 600 of relief each week, that federal stimulus funding ends today and theres no agreement yet on a new relief package. Thanks so ch for being with us. The enhanced on implement 600 benefit and did today, the is bipartisan support to do something to replace it with some amount of money and yeas the es still expired without a replacement, is there an intentional slowdown, and intentional lack of urgency around this work . In washingt i dont understand what the Rod Blagojevich republicans in the senate are doing, we passed this bill and juits not the on implement extension, its also funding for covid, its relief for renters, its helping out states and local governments whose revenue has collapsed so they dont have to do massive layoffs ancutoffs of service, funding for the schools so they can do their job, we ssed that over two months ago to give plenty of sc time to have sions to reach common ground. They didnt even Start Talking to the mile of thisweek, and they came up with something that is completely inadequate. I dont understand why they would want to have the economy go further in the ditch, the economist tell us that if we dont pass Something Like the plan that tw enacted months ago, we are going to see a 3. 5 to four point additional reduction in the gdp, thats not what our country needs. Your chaiof the committee on House Administration and voting security is one of the key issues on eeyour commi what is your reaction to the president s tweet yesterday suggesting that the novemberti president ial el should be moved because of his concerns about voting by mail . The president has no say in when the election is held, thats done by statute and its been the same for a long, long time. We are not going to change the t e, so the election will be november 3 and that has been emphasized not only by myself chairing the committee, but even senator mcconnell mentioned that the president cannot change the election and the election will go forward as planned. I dont understand the president , whetherhes trying to vert attention from his pathetic failure in managing the pandem crisis, by stirring up soother issues people wont watch his massive failure there. I suspect thats it. You aralso the chair of subcommittee on immigration and as of midjuly, immigration Customs Enforcement officials confirmed more than 3500 coronavirus cases in its Detention Center and on its website i says it has released more than 900 detained individuals to minimize the spread of the virus and they are also housing detainees at risk of exposure separately from the rest of the te population. Us about your reaction to their handling of the coronavirus among detained immigrants and reports that the agency is deporting individuals who test positive for it. We had hearing inthe subcommittee about this a while ago, and its a massive failure. Not onlyare they transferring people to Foreign Countries and spreading the infection around the world, they are also transferring detainees and these are detainees who have been convicted of no e fense, around country and spreading covid throughout the United States. Infecting not only the detains, and also the staff and of course when the staff gets infected, they go home to their neighborhoods and infect their families and neighbors, so ice has been foa vector the spread of covid. Th we suggested that release all detainees who do not pose a threat, they not only did not do that, they did not even answer the letter, they are not testing, its really a massive failure. Last ntthe Supreme Court saved the ca program fr being ended by the Trump Administration, at least for now, what do you say to young undocumented immigrants who would like to apply for relief under daca t cannot doit because the Trump Administration is not accepting new applicants for it right now . s theres a lanouit right in the District Court in maryland that has ordered ice to reinstate the program as the United States Supreme Court directed, so right now, the plaintiffs in that case will go back to the District Court. In i personally it looks like the department is simply defying the order of the United States Supreme Court, they argue that they have some wiggle room, so we will see what the District Court says about that. I would hope that dreers will have faith the future, the election is less than 100 days from now and we could have a november 3. Proach after this week, attorney general barr testified before the house judiciary mmittee which you also sit on, what is your reaction to the use of Homeland Security forces in portland ere they have clashed th protesters for weeks, and the attorney generals defense of sending those federal troops . Is an extraordiny abuse of power, i dont think this has ever happened in the history of United States before where federal police, without into american citiover the objection of the governors and mayors to essentially guard agnst vandalism and graffiti, and with that pretext, have then gone into other parts of the cityarresting people and brutalizing them. I think its worth noting, i mean there were problems in portland, no doubabout it, but the insertion of the federal presence actually instigated a further reaction, it made things worse according to the mayor and the governor and now, those forces g are go in retreats, which i didnt think is helpful. No one defends vandalizing a building or graffiti, but the response to that has been extraordinarily overdrawn and i think it has instigated investigations by the inndector generalwe will see what he concludes. T s week, Texas Congress member louis gomer revealed he has tested positive for the coronavirus and this comes after he had read commen about not ing willing to wear a mask and he said he may have gotten it from handling the wh mask so much, has wearing a mask become so politicized and how is it possible to keep the coun y safe when even politicians ar follow the guidance of Health Officials . His view on that is just dumb and unsupported by any science. He not only has infected himself, he may have infected other people, not only members use, everybodis getting n e super du which is not the ing first time, unfortunately. Why he would take that positioni would never try to explain his thinking, but i think the president has tried to make the wearing of a mask a political act when it has do nothing to with politics, it has to do with health. And all of the emerging in rmation indicates that wearing a mask provides a level of protection, not only for others if you are infected, but for yourself, so why people would not do that is beyond me, and its helped prolong the epidemic and delayed our ability to get back to me semblance of normality. Thank you for joining us. Thank you very much. A new documentary highlights the struggle fo press freedoms in the philippines, where many journalists are under attack by the president , leading the fight against him is an Award Winning former cnn bureau chief whose Media Organization has been targeted by for exposing a brutal war on drugthat has claimed thousands of lives. She and her team of reporters have faceddeath threats, arrests, and multiple legal challengun. In she was convicted on libel charges and this month, lawmakers refused to renethe franchise license of the largest news broadcaster in the with me by skype is a producer, writer, and director of 1000 cuts, ramona diaz thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. The viewers here know a little bit about president rt dua, he has a reputation leader, he hes very popular locally, tell usout this tension that has arisen between him and the journalist there, in particular, maria russell. S and her organization were really the first ones who questioned the drug war, questioning the numbers because the administration was nuying thers were closer to 4000 which is in itself still a very horrific number b the organizations are pegging it more like 27,000so there was a discrepancy and they started questioning matt and the esminu they on that, they were pounded. What does that mean, what did that look like . Maria talks about it in the film, she got like 90 hate messages per hour. So who are these messages from . From trolls, but these were amplified by people who were allied with duterte. Theres an incredibly strong power of social media that is very present through this film, i want watch a clip now where the president berates one of the journalists from the at news organn that has been publishing documents against the president , his war, the one look at that and come back. Just because you have the power of press freedom, you are a filipino who has lowed to abuse our country and you are an active participant in tha in the name ofthe holy grail of press freedom. Theres sort of a alchilling y to me as i watch that with how the president of the United States has attacked the press over aner again, with their familiarity is for you also . Absolutely. When trump called cnn fake news, duterte called rattler fake news a few days later so they are probably playing, they have the same playbook. I go back and forth between the philippines and hered if i sit here in the u. S. I and watch cnn reporters being arrested on Live Television i its become so the same, it is alarming. And we knew that what we were filming, that there was somet ing very similar ab the two countries. You also explore social medias outside influence on the slection there, weve obvi had their own issues here in this country, what are your concerns Going Forward into the election in thnovember with affects that social media could have here . I think social media has been westernized and theres no longer any public space where we can have discourse, like reasonable discourse because i think we are all in silos,we only see the things that people we agree with. As maria says in the film, this is really about content because if you go after content, thats a workable game and you will be playing that forever and once you put something out there it will always be out there, even if you put it down. If you take down your tweet for example, but itsa network that you have to look at, the network of sharing d how one account can really influence nd thouand millions of other accounts in the spread, it spreads like a virus, quickly and exponentially so its very hard to control. Maria fits that byputting forward alternate content, content she and her journalist feel very strongly is the truth. Yes, but the thing on social media is bad news and anger and hatred spread so much faster than warring truth, e or less insightful, right . For some reason they spread faster on social media and people share faster, so really the problem with the social media platforms, like the engineering has to change. To come to todays news and what is happening around the d, woresident duterte has instituted one of the longest and strictest lockdowns in asia to stop the spread of the coronavirus, how has his handling of thpandemic impacted his standing there . They are on their 19th week of lockdown, the longesand the president s response to covid is like his sponse to the drug war, its a police response, its not a Public Health response and its really affected because people are very unhappy, hes shut down the biggest broadcast in the country in the middle of the le pandemic, so peare starting to realize that what they fought for is fast slipping away and theres a kind of anger that you are noticing that a lot of protest, they stay in their cars, there are noise barrages, but people i think are starting to wake up in the middle of a pandemic. Thank chyou so for being with us. Thank you for having me. 1000 cuts opens next friday, august 7 with virtual screenings in the bay area and around the nation, for more information, visit athousandcuts. Film. Fromreall of us at kqed, thanks for watching. Captioning sponsored by wnet sreenivasan on this editioau for sundayst 2 negotiations over the emergency relief bill conthis week. Tropical storm isaias heads north along the east coast. And, reimagining back to school, in the good ole outdoors. Next, on pbs newshour weekend. Pbs newsho weekend is made possible by sue and Edgar Wachenheim iii. The Anderson Family fund. Bernard and denise schwartz. The cheryl and Philip Milstein family. Barbara hope zuckerberg. Charles rosenblum. We try to live inhe moment, to not miss whats right in front of us. At mutual of america