Being Incarcerated with COVID-19… What They’re Not Telling Us

by with One Comment CultureFeaturedPolitics

Here we are again. In the midst of a COVID outbreak. I was hoping we had learned something the first time around; however, that turned out to be just a hope. I’m especially disgusted with the way Governor Gretchen Whitmer, or should I say “Big Gretch” hasn’t stepped in to do more for MDOC (Michigan Depart of Corrections). I should also express my utter disdain, disgust, and outright fury at how Heidi Washington, Director of MDOC, is handling this. The men and women housed in these facilities are human and still have rights. The state of Michigan and MDOC have an obligation to keep these men and women safe, and right now they are doing the opposite. They are intentionally exposing inmates, staff, and surrounding communities to COVID-19 by continuing to ignore the deplorable conditions at many facilities that allow for rapid growth of the virus. 

Let’s go to Central Michigan Correctional Facility in Saint Louis, MI. 

There are approximately 2560 men housed at this Level 1 Facility and as of November 21, 2020, 1566 inmates have tested positive and 806 inmates have been identified as close contact. Testing ceased until December 3, 2020. 94% of the inmates in the facility are COVID positive. What does that mean for the inmates? What does that mean for the staff, who leaves and goes home every day? The counselors are calling off left and right because they are either COVID positive or close contact. What does this mean for the greater community who come in contact with the staff on a daily basis? Why hasn’t Big Gretch and Heidi responded? What are they waiting on? 

There is more, Shall I continue?

Just two weeks ago, they gave these adult men hot dogs and carrots as a meal and for dinner a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, only to turn around and give them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with cereal for breakfast. These meals are nowhere near the required calorie count for a healthy person, yet with 94% of the inmates COVID positive, this is the meal they were given. How are these men expected to have any shot at recovery with an imposed unhealthy diet, limited access to nutrient-rich food and vitamins? 

Additionally, the men are not being given time outside, which is limiting their access to fresh, clean air. This takes minimal effort from the staff. Recall, this is a Level 1 facility where many men are on their way home. In fact, many are incarcerated for non-violent offenses and have less than 5 years remaining on their sentence. Where is the humanity? 94% of the population is COVID positive and close contact, this number doesn’t include staff. The inmates aren’t being given nutritious food so the least MDOC could do is ensure they have time outside for movement and access to fresh air. 

There’s more, Shall I go on?

The facility is NOT being cleaned. Period. The inmates are given non-germicidal bleach to clean; however, the directions state the bleach has to sit for 15 minutes before it’s deemed effective. Let’s be clear, it is NOT sitting for 15 minutes before it’s being wiped up. Why not purchase the cleaning supplies suggested by the CDC, unless of course, you don’t care. 

For one unit in particular, there are currently ONLY 3 porters assigned when there should be 12. You have 25% of the manpower needed to adequately clean the unit. 

Governor Whitmer and Heidi Washington do NOT care about these men and their actions support this claim. Let’s be clear, the information I’ve shared is only a snippet of what the inmates and the staff are experiencing. These men are already physically incarcerated behind bars, now they have to finish out their sentence with a virus running rampant, no access to adequate cleaning supplies, subpar food, and no time to go outside. This is a death sentence imposed by Governor Gretchen Whitmer, “Big Gretch”, Heidi Washington, and MDOC.

Why aren’t more people talking about this??

This article was originally published on 3 December 2020.

Similar Read: Crime Pays

Can Music Programs Survive COVID-19?

by with No Comment CultureFeaturedGen Z

[New Contributor]

Even during quarantine, people are still trying to continue activities that have been affected by the virus. Basketball players are practicing at home, teachers are using distance learning applications, and waitresses are learning to wear masks and constantly wash tables. But one often untouched area that is having trouble adapting from quarantine is the school music organizations. Clubs like jazz band and choir have to practice in close proximity with each other in order to practice harmoniously. Now, with quarantine and the new back to school restrictions, the student musicians will have to switch to online rehearsals. 

According to the CDC, COVID-19 is transmitted from person to person through microscopic droplets in the air. Activities like singing or talking in loud voices spread these types of droplets, eliminating the possibility of the choir practicing in proximity with each other. 

With the advent of video conferencing technologies like Zoom, people don’t necessarily need to be in the same room to communicate effectively. Numerous groups have joined together on virtual platforms and sung together already. For CNN’s 2020 graduation special, high school students from the choir joined together to sing the Star Spangled Banner. There are numerous Youtube Channels, such as Quarantine Choir, that continue to sing despite the distance. 

In addition, music teachers have still found ways to continue music lessons. The Choir teacher at Round Rock High School compiled video footage of her students singing and displayed them to the school.

Closing choir has more implications than just for schools. Many religious ceremonies involve singing, such as Sunday Mass at Church. A study found that singing caused 53 of the 61 choir members testing positive and 102 of 130 members of an Amsterdam choir developed COVID-19 after a performance, and four people associated with the choir died. In Austria, 43 of 44 participants in a choir seminar tested positive. 

Regardless of the distance between the musicians, harmony comes with dedicated, supervised practice. In an uncontrolled setting with distractions, dedicated practice is impossible. However, musicians also gain something by practicing at home. In a comfortable, relaxed environment they may be able to play better. Whether good or bad, stay-at-home musicians will give their audience a unique performance as they perform in the comfort, or discomfort, of their own home. 

Similar Read: Guidance Counseling in the Midst of COVID-19

COVID-19 And Trump, A Modern Day Nero?

by with No Comment CultureFeaturedPolitics

An email was sent to my employer’s special-interest lists the other day: “Does anyone know where I can find some N95 masks? All of the local stores are sold out.” I was stunned. My company is staffed by some of the most logical, reasonable, critically-thinking people I’ve ever known. People at my own company were panicking about the novel Coronavirus, also called COVID-19. Why?

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has been a reliable source of unbiased, evidence-based public health information for decades. But, they have been oddly inconsistent in their messaging concerning the coronavirus outbreak – which has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday (3/11/20), and President Trump is largely responsible.

When the virus first entered the country, the White House squabbled over whether to even share what it knew, and what plans, if any, were being made to keep Americans safe. Meanwhile, experts at the CDC were prevented from communicating with state agencies and providing information to the public. So, state and local governments, airlines, and other companies worked to devise their own plans. Conferences were canceled, airlines put new sanitation policies into play, companies began plans for allowing employees to work from home and to provide financial support to hourly workers. We were standing by until February 25th, as President Trump was preparing to return from New Delhi when he was forced into the reality of the situation. Only then did he signal any intent to address the issue.

Americans look to the president to lead them through crises with a calm demeanor, determination, and decisiveness. Trump did not deliver. Instead, he chose to turn every opportunity to provide assurances into a platform for vilifying the media, blaming the democrats, and aggrandizing himself. What vague reassurances he offered were not intended to calm the public as much as to avoid ruffling the stock market’s feathers. It didn’t work. Trump’s refusal to acknowledge the threat until late in the game may have actually caused the panic on Wall Street. The business-as-usual attitude may have intended to calm fears, but when the rest of the world is rushing to contain and mitigate the spread of the virus, some might see it as sticking one’s head in the sand, waiting for the threat to pass. Not exactly a model of decisive action.

Not surprisingly, Trump’s view of what we’re facing is out of sync with reality. While Democrats worked toward pushing through an emergency economic package to help those forced to stay away from their paying jobs, Trump pushed for a payroll tax break. Not at all useful, because you have to be paid – which means you have to work – in order to get the benefit. He explained his rationale to Republican senators, “… so taxes don’t go back up before voters decide whether to return him to office.” said, President Trump. The stimulus package that the White House is putting together is reportedly going to cost around $700 billion – on par with the Wall Street bailout of 2008 and the Recovery Act of 2009. This package is aimed at corporations, including the hotel industry, which considering that he still profits from his hotels, creates more evidence of his conflict of interest.

The Trump Administration’s anti-science stance is also reflected in its response to the COVID-19 threat. Over the last 3 years, Trump Republicans have gone out of their way to discredit evidence-based science. Budgets for research and public education were slashed, seriously hobbling the CDC in its efforts to create accurate tests and effective solutions. His willful ignorance of how science works was laid out for all to see at his visit to the CDC on Friday. He failed to grasp the simple concept that drugs cannot be created overnight. Getting medicine from the lab to the drug cabinet takes painstaking research, experimentation with consistent results, and clinical trials. All of which require money… money that Trump took away back in 2017.

Exemplified by ​his own tweet​, Trump is fiddling, while all around him the flames get higher.

Similar Read: The Coronavirus Pandemic Should Be the Jumpstart to a Revolution?

911… What’s Your Emergency?

by with No Comment CultureFeatured

The opioid epidemic in the United States is continuing at an exponential rate.  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over 28,000 people died from an opioid overdose in 2014.  In 2015, that number jumped to more than 33,000, then more than doubled to over 64,000 deaths in 2016.  At the current rate, more than 145 people die per day from opioid overdoses, with the majority of those affected living in rural, White America.

The beginning of the opioid epidemic started in the late 1990s.  During this period, pharmaceutical companies began marketing new opioid pain relievers, promising the medical community that opioids prescribed for pain relief were not addictive.  With such reassurance, medical providers began prescribing opioids at higher rates than the staple pain relievers of the time, Motrin and Tylenol. The increased amount of prescription opioids in circulation lead to the widespread misuse and abuse of prescription opioids, as well as an increased use of heroin.

In response to the opioid epidemic, America has funneled millions of federal funding to combat the crisis, with some of the funds directed towards law enforcement programs that assist those battling addiction and facing prison time.  The passing of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was one of the first measures to combat the opioid crisis.  The ACA required coverage of substance abuse treatment with all marketplace plans. In late 2016, Congress passed the 21st Century Cures Act, which created $1 billion in Opioid State Targeted Response (STR) grants to enhance states’ response to the epidemic.  In 2017, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency and rolled out HHS’s 5-Point Strategy to combat the epidemic.  A Traveling Opioid Memorial was also created to educate the masses on the effects of opioid addiction.

I can’t help but wonder where were all these resources and sympathy during the crack cocaine epidemic of the inner cities in the mid-1980s and early-1990s when the majority of faces affected were black and brown?  Instead of allocating funds to prevention and recovery of crack cocaine addictions, America used billions to fund the ‘War on Drugs.’ Congress enacted mandatory sentencing via the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, with harsher sentences given to offenders of crack cocaine as opposed to powder cocaine at a rate of 100-to-1.

Just recently, Demi Lovato was hospitalized for an apparent drug overdose. There has been an outpouring of support. Fans have even created a hashtag #HowDemiHasHelpedMe to showcase how Demi helped fans with their own struggles. Demi and those battling addiction now are offered rehab and protection from jail, while those who battled crack cocaine addictions were shuttled off to jail by the thousands.  I am all for shifting sentiment as we evolve as a society, but I can’t help but wish that Whitney Houston and Amy Winehouse had similar support during their battles with addiction.

The effects of criminalization and mass incarceration of crack cocaine addiction, rather than treating it as a disease, are still felt to this day.  Before the ‘War on Drugs,’ the number of people in the US imprisoned for non-violent drug offenses was well under 50,000. By the year 2000, this number increased more than 6-fold, with the majority of those imprisoned being Black men, according to the Bureau of Justice statistics.  Due to this high incarceration rate, there were more Black men in prison than there were in all of higher education across America. It wasn’t until 2010 when the Fair Sentencing Act was passed did the discrepancy between crack cocaine and powder cocaine offenses reduce from 100:1 to 18:1; however, due to mandatory sentencing, many offenders are still locked up.  The economic setbacks caused by a lack of family unit and poor education will continue to impact the Black community for years to come as they struggle to catch up to their White counterparts.

In the end, I wish Demi Lovato well.  As a healthcare professional, I’ve understood for years that addiction is a disease with constant battles and many setbacks no matter how strong-willed a person is.  I’m certified to administer and carry naloxone, the drug used to temporarily reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, and I do my part to ensure opioids are only prescribed for legitimate reasons.  The battle to conquer the opioid epidemic is far from over. In order to resolve this crisis, America needs to do a lot of self-reflection and figure out why are so many Americans self-medicating.

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(Feature image description: Len Bias, drafted by the Boston Celtics with the second overall pick in the 1986 NBA Draft. Ironically, Len never got a chance to wear a Celtics uniform.  He unfortunately died from a cocaine overdose 2 days after the Draft.  Artwork by  TruArtist83.  Visit his Website or Instagram for more conscious art.)