As one of the homeless people in Los Angleles county, I can say we've been left out to die as Covid-19 struck. Most businesses and buildings we homeless people depended on for basic thing like bathrooms (fairly important!), places to hang out, power, wifi, etc, have been closed. Yes, this is for a bigger purpose, we get that, but the closures were a huge hit to the already highly vulnerable homeless populations across the country.
The silver lining is that places like homeless shelters, where many people are living in tight quarters, have become literal death traps. Going into a homeless shelter right now (mid-April 2020), ANYWHERE, there's nearly 100% chance of coming in contact with someone who has the virus. This is made worse by the fact that virtually no one seems to be testing the homeless populations for the virus. Hell, 34,000+ people have died, roughly 675,000 Americans are are were sick with Covid-19, and the U.S. has only tested 1% of the national population. The catastrophic failure of the Trump administration in this pandemic is an epic fail for the ages.
Into this context, we have this report, of a doctor in Miami being handcuffed for testing homeless people for Covid-19. Strange days indeed...
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