The economy is in free fall but Wall Street is thriving, and stocks of big private equity firms are soaring dramatically higher. That tells you who investors think is the real beneficiary of the federal government’s massive rescue efforts.
Coronavirus
Palm Coast’s Grand Oaks Rehab Rejects Health Department’s Testing of Patients and Staff, Then Relents
After its corporate office overrode local resistance, Grand Oaks Rehab in Palm Coast agreed to have its 100 patients and 100 staff members tested for Covid-19 next week. The Flagler Health Department’s strike teams conducted 200 tests today at two other large nursing home facilities.
Florida’s Hair and Nail Salons and Barber Shops Reopen Monday, But Guidelines Are Scant
The reopening will follow what the governor called “enhanced safety protocols,” but the governor and state agencies had not issued guidelines for hair salons and barber shops as of Friday.
How Climate Change Is Contributing to Skyrocketing Rates of Infectious Disease
A catastrophic loss in biodiversity, reckless destruction of wildland and warming temperatures have allowed disease to explode. Ignoring the connection between climate change and pandemics would be “dangerous delusion,” one scientist said.
Economy Loses 20.5 Million Jobs in April, Unemployment Rate at 14.7%, Worst Since 1939
The April figures are an undercount, as they represent only a partial survey of actual job losses in April. Those losses are closer to 30 million or more, according to the cumulative total of first-time unemployment claims filed over the past few weeks.
Flagler Health Officials Pledge to Keep Up Covid Testing as AdventHealth Phases Out Drive-Up Sites
There is some confusion about how much testing should take place–2 percent of the population per month or overall–and whether it will be available to the extent recommended as society reopens. The guideline from the federal government of testing 2 percent is a monthly goal, not an overall goal.
DeSantis Is Right on Cautious Reopening, Wrong on Models
Gov. Ron DeSantis took a wisely cautious approach on reopening, but his caution contrasted with his ridicule of models that predicted grim outcomes for Florida in March. His criticism reflects a simplistic misunderstanding of models’ purpose, especially when they have their intended effect: to minimize loss of life.
A Woman Disputing Social Distancing Rules at Local Clinic Clashes With Cop and Faces Felony Charges
It was an incident out of Covid-19’s unwritten playbook, escalating from a simple social-distancing request at the Florida Health Care Plans office off Palm Coast Parkway to a scuffle, a woman’s arrest and felony charges and an injury to a Flagler County Sheriff’s sergeant.
Flagler’s Covid-19 Deaths Rise to 4 But New Positive Cases Slow as Broader-Criteria Testing Increases
Flagler’s deaths add to a statewide tally approaching 1,500 as one of the models most closely watched by state and federal officials revised significantly upward its estimate of deaths for Florida now that the state has begun reopening.
At Gargantuan Feed Palm Coast Food Drop, Tears, Solidarity, and the Reality About Those ‘Late-Model Cars’
No government, no military contingent, no church or any other private organization had ever attempted what Palm Coast government and Parkview Church did Saturday: the distribution of 5,000 boxes packed with a week’s worth of groceries, and thousands of additional boxes of snacks and Easter candy, for families that streamed through the two drop locations.