|
By Mark Gruenberg
WASHINGTON—More than a dozen nurses, clothed in their scrubs and wearing N95 anti-viral masks, marched to the White House on the morning of April 21 and read the names of 50 colleagues who have died so far in the U.S. phase of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic.
Those deaths, they said, are due to lack of personal protective equipment (PPE)—a lack their union, National Nurses United, squarely blamed upon GOP President Donald Trump and his inaction, blame-shifting, and inadequate response to the virus sweeping the globe.
Including the 50 nurses who have died so far, the coronavirus has sickened nearly 820,000 people in the U.S. at this writing—one-third of the world total—and killed over 45,000—one-fourth of the global total.
It’s also exposed enormous shortages of the masks, protective gloves, and other protective gear for the nurses and ventilators for patients. That drove NNU’s White House protest, the latest in a series of the union’s demonstrations on the issue. The others have been at hospitals nationwide....
READ MORE »
|
