Nurses suspended for refusing COVID-19 care without N95 mask

Nurse Mike Gulick was meticulous about not bringing the coronavirus home to his wife and their 2-year-old daughter. He’d stop at a hotel after work just to take a shower. He’d wash his clothes in Lysol disinfectant. They did a tremendous amount of handwashing.

But at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California, Gulick and his colleagues worried that caring for infected patients without first being able to don an N95 respirator mask was risky. The N95 mask filters out 95% of all airborne particles, including ones too tiny to be blocked by regular masks. But administrators at his hospital said they weren’t necessary and didn’t provide them, he said.

His wife, also a nurse, not only wore an N95 mask but covered it with a second air-purifying respirator while she cared for COVID-19 patients at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center across town in Los Angeles.

Then, last week, a nurse on Gulick’s ward tested positive for the coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19. The next day doctors doing rounds on their ward asked the nurses why they weren’t wearing N95 masks, Gulick said, and told them they should have better protection.

For Gulick, that was it. He and a handful of nurses told their managers they wouldn’t enter COVID-19 patient rooms without N95 masks. The hospital suspended them, according to the National Nurses Union, which represents them. Ten nurses are now being paid but not allowed to return to work pending an investigation from human resources, the union said.

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Coronavirus could erode global fight against other diseases

NEW DELHI (AP) — Lavina D’Souza hasn’t been able to collect her government-supplied anti-HIV medication since the abrupt lockdown of India's 1.3 billion people last month during the coronavirus outbreak.

Marooned in a small city away from her home in Mumbai, the medicine she needs to manage her disease has run out. The 43-year-old is afraid that her immune system will crash: “Any disease, the coronavirus or something else, I'll fall sick faster."

D’Souza said others also must be “suffering because of the coronavirus without getting infected by it.”

As the world focuses on the pandemic, experts fear losing ground in the long fight against other infectious diseases like AIDS, tuberculosis and cholera that kill millions every year. Also at risk are decadeslong efforts that allowed the World Health Organization to set target dates for eradicating malaria, polio and other illnesses.

With the coronavirus overwhelming hospitals, redirecting medical staff, causing supply shortages and suspending health services, “our greatest fear” is resources for other diseases being diverted and depleted, said Dr. John Nkengasong, head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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China, Europe show restarting virus-hit economies not easy

BEIJING (AP) — As countries consider how to restart economies that have been halted by the coronavirus, the early experiences in China and parts of Europe show it will be no easy task.

Workers back on the job are wary of spending much or going out. Shoppers are staying away from the few stores reopening. Masks and social distancing measures are not fading. And pervasive is the fear the virus could return if lockdowns meant to stop its spread are eased too much, too quickly.

Still, leaders are anxious to reopen factories, schools and shops and to repair the economic damage from the pandemic that has infected more than 2 million people and claimed more than 137,000 lives.

Some Chinese cities tried reassuring consumers by showing officials eating in restaurants. In the U.S., people have begun getting relief checks to help them pay the bills.

Rome's streets were largely deserted despite some stores reopening. In Vienna, clothing store owner Marie Froehlich said her staff was happy to be back after weeks cooped up at home. But dependent largely on tourism, she expects the business will take months to return to normal.

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Some leaders use pandemic to sharpen tools against critics

BANGKOK (AP) — Health concerns were on artist Danai Ussama’s mind when he returned to Thailand last month from a trip to Spain. He noticed that he and his fellow passengers did not go through medical checks after arriving at Bangkok’s airport, and thought it worth noting on his Facebook page.

The airport authorities denied it, lodged a complaint with police, and he was arrested at his gallery in Phuket for violating the Computer Crime Act by allegedly posting false information — an offense punishable by up to five years imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 baht ($3,063).

Danai told The Associated Press that his Facebook post, though public, was really meant just for a small circle of 40 to 50 people. Instead it went viral.

He believes the government is afraid its opponents would use his observation as proof it was failing the fight against the coronavirus, and acted against him as a warning to others.

As governments across the world enact emergency measures to keep people at home and stave off the pandemic, some are unhappy about having their missteps publicized. Others are taking advantage of the crisis to silence critics and tighten control.

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`Am I going now to my execution?' One doctor's very long day

PARMA, Italy (AP) — It was March 7, in the afternoon. Dr. Giovanni Passeri had just returned home from Maggiore Hospital, where he is an internist, when he was urgently called back to work. His ward at the hospital was about to admit its first COVID-19 case.

Driving back to the hospital, down the tree-lined streets of Parma, Passeri, 56, recalled thinking: “Am I going now to my execution?”

Italy’s more than 21,000 coronavirus dead have included scores of doctors, including a colleague of Passeri's at Maggiore, a hospital in one of Italy’s hardest-hit northern provinces.

Since that afternoon more than a month ago, Passeri has worked every day. From the evening of April 7 until the morning of April 9, Associated Press photographer Domenico Stinellis documented his night and day, from a tense, 12-hour overnight shift to his drastically altered routine at home with his wife and 10-year-old son.

In his apartment, he sleeps alone in a garret room hastily converted into a bedroom to prevent any chance of transmitting the virus to his wife. The first time his son, Francesco, leaped up to hug him when Passeri came home after tending to coronavirus patients, the physician stiffened. That's no longer safe, the physician had to say.

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China tries to revive economy but consumer engine sputters

BEIJING (AP) — China, where the coronavirus pandemic started in December, is cautiously trying to get back to business, but it’s not easy when many millions of workers are wary of spending much or even going out.

Factories and shops nationwide shut down starting in late January. Millions of families were told to stay home under unprecedented controls that have been copied by the United States, Europe and India.

The ruling Communist Party says the outbreak, which had killed more than 3,340 people among more than 82,341 confirmed cases as of Thursday, is under control. But the damage to Chinese lives and the economy is lingering.

Truck salesman Zhang Hu is living the dilemma holding back the recovery. The 27-year-old from the central city of Zhengzhou has gone back to work, but with few people looking to buy 20-ton trucks, his income has fallen by half. Like many millions of others, he is pinching pennies.

“I put off plans to change cars and spend almost nothing on eating out or entertainment,” he said. “I have no idea when the situation will turn better."

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Trump says new guidelines aim to lift some restrictions

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said he's prepared to announce new guidelines allowing some states to quickly ease up on social distancing even as business leaders told him they need more coronavirus testing and personal protective equipment before people can safely go back to work.

The industry executives cautioned Trump that the return to normalcy will be anything but swift.

The new guidelines, expected to be announced Thursday, are aimed at clearing the way for an easing of restrictions in areas with low transmission of the coronavirus, while keeping them in place in harder-hit places. The ultimate decisions will remain with governors.

“We’ll be opening some states much sooner than others,” Trump said Wednesday.

But in a round of calls with business leaders earlier in the day, Trump was warned that a dramatic increasing in testing and wider availability of protective equipment will be necessary for the safe restoration of their operations.

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Lives Lost: Spanish father leaves behind bits of history

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Julián Iglesias could always connect with his loved ones through his gaze, even after dementia stole his memory.

“Maybe he didn’t recognize me, but there was always something in his eyes,” daughter Victoria Iglesias said.

The man who tucked newspaper clippings into his books, who earned two degrees following Spain's tough transition to a democracy, who loved walking in nature and collecting gadgets, died in a Madrid hospital March 26 of the coronavirus.

Like thousands of other Spaniards who fell ill, the 89-year-old was alone when he died. That's especially hard for Victoria Iglesias, who said she, her sister and mother regularly visited her father in his nursing home on the outskirts of Madrid and would have been at his side in his final hours if not for Spain's mandatory lockdown.

“The pain is very deep,” she told The Associated Press in a video call days after his death.

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'Dreary summer' expected in California as virus dims plans

LOS ANGELES (AP) — In these dark times, clouded by fears of an enemy we can’t see and sheltered in homes we're itching to leave, it's reassuring to know that California's sunsets over the Pacific are just as vivid. You just can't enjoy them with sand between your toes.

Most beaches and virtually every other destination in California are closed because of the coronavirus outbreak. Though the outlook has improved, Gov. Gavin Newsom has written off the possibility of a typical summer. It could be one where you travel on the internet, have your temperature checked before being seated in a half-empty restaurant and worry about tan lines from your face mask.

While it's uncertain when life as we knew it will return, it's clear this summer will be like no other.

Newsom’s sobering message this week has foreshadowed warm days without large outdoor concerts, rides at amusement parks or trips to the coast.

His so-called road map to reopen the economy won’t have anyone packing their car for a trip on the open highway. It felt more like a chart of the stars that need to align before restrictions could ease.

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AP PHOTOS: In Iran, isolated musicians perform from rooftops

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — On the rooftop terrace of her Tehran apartment building, 28-year-old Mojgan Hosseini's fingers pluck the strings of her qanun, an ancient stringed instrument, bringing life to an Iranian capital stilled by the coronavirus.

With performance halls closed and many isolated in their homes as a result of the Mideast's worst virus outbreak, Hosseini and other Iranian musicians now find performance spaces where they can. That includes rooftops dotted with water tanks and littered with debris, empty front porches and opened apartment windows. Their music floats down on others stuck in their homes, fearful of the COVID-19 illness the virus brings.

Their impromptu concerts draw applause and offer hope to their listeners, even as public performances still draw hard-line scrutiny in the Islamic Republic.

“We’re not front-line medical workers, hospital custodians, or grocery workers, but I think many musicians — myself included — have felt an obligation to offer our services of comfort and entertainment in these trying times,” said Arif Mirbaghi, who plays the double bass in his front yard.

Iran has been hard-hit by the virus with more than 76,000 confirmed cases, including more than 4,700 fatalities.