Debbie de los Angeles woke up on March 3 to two voicemails from nurses at the Seattle-area care home that housed her 85-year-old mother, Twilla Morin.
In the first one, left at 4:15 a.m., a nurse asked a troubling question - whether the “do not resuscitate” instructions for her mother’s end-of-life care were still in force.
“We anticipate that she, too, has coronavirus, and she’s running a fever of 104,” the woman on the recording said. “We do not anticipate her fighting, so we just want to make sure that your goal of care would be just to keep her here and comfortable.”
The nursing home in Kirkland, Washington was dealing with the beginnings of an outbreak that has since been linked to more than 30 deaths. De los Angeles had not yet fully grasped the grave threat; she comforted herself with the thought that her mother had made it through flu outbreaks at the center before.
Then she took in the next voicemail, left three hours after the first by a different nurse.
“Hi Debbie, my name is Chelsey … I need to talk to you about your Mom if you could give us a call. Her condition is declining, so if you can call us soon as possible that would be great. Thanks. Bye.”
De los Angeles called the home immediately. Her mom was comfortable, she was told. She did not change the “do not resuscitate” instruction. She wanted to visit, but held off: She is 65, and her husband Bob is 67; both have underlying medical conditions that pose serious risks if they contract coronavirus. She thought they had more time to find the best way to comfort her mother in what might be her final hours.
At 3 a.m. the next morning, Wednesday, March 4, de los Angeles woke up and reached for her phone. Life Care Center had called – leaving another voice message just a few minutes earlier, at 2:39 a.m.
“I know it’s early in the morning but Twilla did pass away at 2:10 because of the unique situation,” the nurse said. “The remains will be picked up from the coroner’s office. They’ve got your contact.”
The “unique situation” has of course become tragically common worldwide, as thousands of families have been separated from their loved ones in the last days before they died in isolation, often after deteriorating quickly. The three voicemails - eerily routine and matter-of-fact - would be de los Angeles’ final connection to her mother. She had gone from knowing relatively little about the threat of COVID-19 to becoming a bereaved daughter in the span of one day.
The hurried voicemails with such sensitive information were one sign of the chaos inside the facility at the time, as nurses worked feverishly to contain the outbreak while residents died from a virus that was just hitting the United States. One of the nurses who called de los Angeles, Chelsey Earnest, had been director of nursing at another Life Care facility and volunteered to come to Kirkland to care for patients through the outbreak. She never expected the disease would cause dozens of deaths and the mass infection of patients and staff.
Earnest worked the night shift, when patients with the disease seemed to struggle the most, and many, like Morin, succumbed to the disease. Infected patients developed a redness in and around their eyes. The center’s phones rang constantly as worried families called for updates. About a third of the center’s 180 staff members started showing symptoms of the disease; the rest started a triage operation.
“There were no protocols,” said Life Care spokesman Tim Killian, as nurses found themselves thrust into a situation more dire than any faced by an elderly care facility “in the history of this country.”
The center’s nurses, he said, would not normally leave such sensitive information about dying relatives in voicemails, but they had little time to do anything else – and did not want anyone to hear about a loved one’s condition in the news before the center could inform them. Outside the home, journalists and family members gathered for the latest scraps of information on the home’s fight against the virus. Many relatives, barred from going inside for safety reasons, stood outside the windows of their loved ones’ rooms, looking at them through the glass as they conversed over the phone.
Leaving the emergency voicemails, Killian said, made “the best of a difficult situation."
From the outside, the messages appear abrupt and impersonal, but may well have been the best or only way to properly notify families in such a crisis, said Ruth Faden, professor of biomedical ethics at John Hopkins University’s Berman Institute of Bioethics. While medical professionals should normally aim to impart such urgent information in person, the circumstances - an overwhelmed staff, dealing with dozens of dying patients - likely made that impossible, she said.
“The way to find out is difficult, always,” Faden said. “What people remember is how much the nurse cared about the person.”
When de Los Angeles heard of her mother’s death in one of those voicemails, she immediately called one of the nurses back, looking for any bits of information about her mother’s final hours. The nurse sounded upset.
“She told me my Mom was one of her favorite people there; she was going to miss seeing my Mom going up and down the hallway in her wheelchair,” de los Angeles said.
They had given her mother morphine and Ativan to keep her calm and comfortable, the nurse told her.
“My Mom was asleep, and then she just went to sleep permanently,” de los Angeles said.
De los Angeles, an only child, aches over not having spoken to her mother before she died. Morin had been a bookkeeper for several companies. De los Angeles fondly remembers doing household chores with her mother on Saturday mornings, then going to the local mall or to Woolworth’s for lunch.
The separation continued even after her mother’s death. De los Angeles telephoned the crematorium where her mother had been taken, as Morin had arranged years earlier, to ask if she could view the body.
“Absolutely not,” the woman told her, out of concern de los Angeles could be infected.
Morin had been tested for coronavirus shortly after she died, on March 4. The results confirmed her coronavirus infection a week later. Soon afterwards, she was cremated.
“We picked up her ashes on Saturday,” she said. “I never saw or spoke to mom. It’s put off the closure.”
It’s also put off the funeral. De los Angeles had planned the ceremony for April 4 - the birthday of her father, who died ten years ago. Her ashes would be placed next to his. But the service will have to wait because Washington’s governor, Jay Inslee, has banned gatherings of 10 people or more.
In the meantime, de los Angeles has worked to make sure her mother’s death certificate records her as a causality of the pandemic. The doctor who signed it did not have confirmed test results showing a COVID-19 infection at the time of her death, de los Angeles said, and listed the cause as “a viral illness, coronary artery disease and a respiratory disorder.” But the doctor has since moved to include coronavirus as a cause, at de los Angeles’ request.
As she waits for the funeral, de los Angeles has put the urn holding her mother's ashes behind some flowers on the mantle in her living room. She says she can’t bear to look at it.
A daughter learns in voicemails that coronavirus has killed her mother
https://arab.news/8xm8x
A daughter learns in voicemails that coronavirus has killed her mother
Indigenous peoples, impacted by climate change, raise alarm about the planet at COP29
- 12 Indigenous people attending this year’s negotiations say one thing about how climate change is impacting their community
For the many Indigenous peoples who attend the annual UN climate talks, this year being held in Azerbaijan, it’s a chance to make their voices heard. Their communities are often hard hit by weather extremes that are made worse by climate change. At the same time, traditional practices make many such communities vital in efforts to combat global warming. After all, for thousands of years Indigenous peoples around the world have successfully cared for lands, finding a balance with nature.
The Associated Press asked 12 Indigenous people attending this year’s negotiations to say one thing about how climate change is impacting their community, or how their community is helping to combat climate change. Here are their reflections:
Saina Ekaterina Savvinova, 53
Indigenous community: Yakut
Location: Yakutsk, Russia
“When I was a child, we had a lot of snow. We played in it. We made labyrinths with it. Now we don’t have much snow.”
Antumalen Ayelen Antillanca Urrutia, 26
Indigenous community: Mapuche Huilliche
Location: Huapi Island, Chile
“As a young Mapuche, I denounce the contamination of my home of Ranco Lake in southern Chile. I live on the third largest lake, on an island in the middle of it, and we do not have drinking water.”
Sydney Males, 27
Indigenous community: Kichwa Otavalo
Location: Otavalo, Ecuador
“We have a connection, like an energy, with the lakes, with the water in general. We have a connection with fire, we have a connection with the the air and other things that you in the Occident don’t have a connection with. So, we have solutions for climate change.”
Big Wind Carpenter, 31
Indigenous community: Northern Arapaho
Location: Wind River Reservation, United States
“We have been in a drought since I was born. We have been in extreme drought the last 30 years and completely surrounded by wildfires.”
Flora Vano, 39
Indigenous community: Melenasian
Location: Port Vila, Vanuatu
“Sea level rise is eating us up. It threatens our food security, contaminates our water source, infrastructure is destroyed and the increase in gender-based violence goes sky high.”
Puyr dos Santos Tembé, 47
Indigenous community: Tembé
Location: Belem, Brazil
“Think about the Amazon. You have trees and rivers, and then you see the rivers, which are the mode of transport for many people, drying up.”
Mingma Chhiri, 40
Indigenous community: Sherpa
Location: Khumbu Pasanglhamu Municipality District, Nepal
“As ethnic people in the area, we don’t destroy any natural beauty. We don’t cut trees. We plant them.”
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, 41
Indigenous community: Mbororo
Location: N’Djamena, Chad
“Right now we are experiencing the biggest floods we have ever had. Two million people have been displaced and thousands are dead.”
Ninawa Inu Pereira Nunes, 50
Indigenous community: Huni Kui
Location: Feijo, Brazil
“The main work we do is to raise awareness among people to stop deforestation. But we are also restoring degraded areas by planting trees. And we are working very hard to strengthen the spirituality of our people by restoring the sources of the rivers and repopulating the streams and rivers.
Marynne Rimbao, 42
Indigenous community: Tombekin
Location: Unda village, Papua New Guinea
“My place is located in one of the remotest places in Papua New Guinea, where there are mining activities. Especially when mining activities are involved, my area is being impacted by climate change when it comes to the environment — the land, the water, the resources, the food and forests — that sustains our livelihood.
Didja Tchari Djibrillah, 30
Indigenous community: Peul Mbororo
Location: Mayo-Kebbi East, Chad
“The community (of pastoralists) contributes to combatting the effects of climate change. When moving from one place to another, we leave cow dung that allows the soil to be fertilized and the ecosystem to regenerate.”
Jackson Michael, 40
Indigenous community: Iban
Location: Borneo, Malaysia
“Heavy rainfall is affecting wildlife. Now the government is making a lot of effort to protect and preserve wildlife.”
Japanese troops to train with Australia, US militaries in Darwin
- The deployment has special significance given Darwin was a major base for Allied forces in World War Two
Around 2,000 US Marines are already hosted in Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory, for six months of the year amid growing concern among Washington and its allies about China’s growing military power in the Indo Pacific region.
“Today we are announcing that there will be regular deployments of Japan’s amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade to Australia,” Marles said at a televised press conference in Darwin, alongside US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani.
“Having a more forward leaning opportunity for greater training with Japan and the US together is a really fantastic opportunity for our defense,” Marles told Sky News on Sunday, according to a transcript.
The deployment has special significance given Darwin was a major base for Allied forces in World War Two and was heavily bombed by Japanese forces. The wartime air raids on the port city are sometimes described as Australia’s Pearl Harbor.
Austin said on Sunday he was confident the US will provide the capabilities set out in the AUKUS deal, which will see Australia buy US nuclear submarines and develop a new class of nuclear-powered submarines with the US and Britain.
The US Defense Department was focused “on a smooth and effective transition” to the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump, Austin said.
“I’m really proud of the things that this administration has accomplished over the last four years, in terms of what we’ve done in this region to strengthen alliances and to work with countries that share the vision of a free and open Indo Pacific,” Austin added.
Sunday’s trilateral meeting between Australia, the US and Japan in Darwin is the 14th meeting of its kind between the three allies.
At the last trilateral, held in Singapore in June, the nations expressed serious concern about security in the East China Sea and said they opposed “any destabilizing and coercive unilateral actions” there, a veiled reference to China.
China, building its military capacity in the Indo Pacific, in September carried out the rare launch of intercontinental ballistic missile that landed in the Pacific Ocean. The test launch was described as concerning by several Pacific nations including Australia.
Bangladesh extends armed forces judicial powers
- Order extends for two more months the powers of the armed forces to engage in day-to-day enforcement activities like the police, including making arrests
Dhaka: Bangladesh’s interim government has extended the judicial powers of the armed forces granted after the August revolution that toppled ex-leader Sheikh Hasina.
The government order, issued November 15, extends for two more months the powers of the armed forces to engage in day-to-day enforcement activities like the police, including making arrests.
“The armed forces will carry out the orders assigned to us by the government,” army spokesman Sami-Ud-Daula Chowdhury said Sunday.
Former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, 77, had ordered police to crush student-led protests — a deadly crackdown that left at least 700 people dead — before she fled by helicopter to India on August 5.
Her 15-year regime was marred by incidents of preventing the opposition from exercising their democratic rights.
Since then, a caretaker government, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, has been tasked with implementing democratic reforms and holding elections.
The army was brought in to restore security with many people having lost confidence in the police.
Only officers with the rank of captain or above are authorized to make an arrest, high court lawyer Imam Hasan Tareq said Sunday.
The powers have been extended to include the coast guard and border security units.
Super Typhoon Man-yi topples trees, power lines in the Philippines
- Man-yi still packing maximum sustained winds of 185 kilometers per hour after making landfall late Saturday
- Man-yi is expected to ‘slightly weaken’ to a typhoon before hitting main island of Luzon
MANILA: Super Typhoon Man-yi uprooted trees, brought down power lines and ripped off corrugated iron roofing as it swept across the storm-weary Philippines on Sunday, following an unusual streak of violent weather.
Man-yi was still packing maximum sustained winds of 185 kilometers per hour after making landfall on lightly populated Catanduanes island late Saturday.
More than 650,000 people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi as the national weather service warned of a “potentially catastrophic and life-threatening” impact from the storm.
“There have been no reported casualties, perhaps because people followed the evacuation orders,” Catanduanes provincial disaster operations chief Roberto Monterola said on Sunday, as clean-up efforts on the island got underway.
“All the towns sustained damage, but we expect those in the north to have more problems,” Monterola said.
“It’s just a breeze and a drizzle now.”
Man-yi is expected to “slightly weaken” to a typhoon before hitting Luzon — the country’s most populous island and economic engine — on Sunday afternoon, forecasters said.
Severe flooding and landslides were expected as Man-yi dumped “intense to torrential” rain over provinces in its path, with more than 200 millimeters (nearly eight inches) forecast in the next 24 hours, the weather service said.
Panganiban municipality in the northeast of Catanduanes took a direct hit from Man-yi.
Photos shared on the Facebook page of Mayor Cesar Robles showed toppled power lines, damaged houses, and trees and corrugated iron sheets strewn on the roads.
“Pepito was so strong, I have never experienced a typhoon this strong,” Robles said in a post, using the local name for Man-yi.
“It is still a bit unsafe there are still bursts of wind and there are many debris.”
Marissa Cueva Alejandro, 36, who grew up in Catanduanes, said typhoons were getting stronger.
“Before, we would only experience (typhoon) signal number three to four, but now typhoons are getting as strong as signal number five,” she said, referring to the weather service’s five-tiered wind warning system.
Man-yi is the sixth storm in the past month to batter the archipelago nation. At least 163 people died in the previous storms, that also left thousands homeless and wiped out crops and livestock.
Climate change is increasing the intensity of storms, leading to heavier rains, flash floods and stronger gusts.
About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the Southeast Asian nation or its surrounding waters each year, killing scores of people, but it is rare for multiple such weather events to take place in a small window.
Robert Tancino, a government ambulance driver in Tiwi municipality in Albay province, which faces Catanduanes, said his area appeared to be largely unscathed.
“Not too many trees fell and the roads are otherwise clear. I did not see any damage among the houses here,” Tancino said.
The weather forecaster has hoisted its second-highest typhoon signal over several provinces along Luzon island’s east coast where Man-yi is expected to make its second landfall.
Around 2,000 people were in emergency evacuation shelters in Dipaculao municipality in Aurora province.
Others have stayed home to protect their property and livestock, or because they were skeptical of the warnings, said Geofry Parrocha, communications officer of Dipaculao disaster agency.
“Some of our countrymen are really hard-headed. They do not believe us until the typhoon arrives,” Parrocha said.
Tourists emptied out of coastal resorts ahead of the typhoon.
“Our facilities are deserted,” said Irene Padeo, reservation officer of the L’Sirene Boutique Resort in Baler town in Aurora, shortly before Man-yi was due to make landfall in neighboring San Luis.
“Our outdoor items have all been packed and taken indoors. We tied down all the rest.”
On its current trajectory, Man-yi will cross north of Manila and sweep over the South China Sea on Monday.
Man-yi hit the Philippines late in the typhoon season — most cyclones develop between July and October.
Earlier this month, four storms were clustered simultaneously in the Pacific basin, which the Japan Meteorological Agency said was the first time such an occurrence had been observed in November since its records began in 1951.
China’s president vows to work with Trump team as he meets Biden in Peru
- “China’s goal of a stable, healthy and sustainable China-US relationship remains unchanged,” Xi said
- Trump has vowed to adopt blanket 60 percent tariffs on US imports of Chinese goods as part of a package of “America First” trade measures
LIMA, Peru: Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday vowed to work with the incoming US administration of President-elect Donald Trump as he held his final talks with outgoing President Joe Biden on key conflicts from cybercrime to trade, Taiwan and Russia.
Biden met Xi at a hotel where the Chinese leader was staying, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Lima, Peru, for their first talks in seven months.
“China’s goal of a stable, healthy and sustainable China-US relationship remains unchanged,” following the election, Xi said, acknowledging “ups and downs” between the countries.
“China is ready to work with the new US administration to maintain communication, expand cooperation and manage differences,” he added.
Biden told Xi that the two leaders haven’t always agreed but their discussions have been “frank” and “candid.”
The talks come two months before Trump assumes office. He has vowed to adopt blanket 60 percent tariffs on US imports of Chinese goods as part of a package of “America First” trade measures. Beijing opposes those steps. The Republican president-elect also plans to hire several hawkish voices on China in senior roles, including US Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state and Representative Mike Waltz as national security adviser.
Biden has aimed to lower tensions with China, but Washington is incensed by a recent China-linked hack of the telephone communications of US government and presidential campaign officials, and it is anxious about increasing pressure by Beijing on Taiwan and Chinese support for Russia.
Taiwan President Lai Ching-te is planning to stop in the US state of Hawaii and maybe Guam on a sensitive visit that is sure to anger Beijing in the coming weeks, Reuters reported on Friday. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s former economy minister Lin Hsin-i met Biden at the summit on Friday and invited him to visit Taiwan in the near future.
China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory. The US is Taiwan’s most important international backer and arms supplier, despite the lack of formal diplomatic recognition.
Biden also wants China’s help with North Korea, whose deepening ties with Russia and deployment of troops in the war with Ukraine has worried Washington.
China’s economic hit
At the same time, Beijing’s economy is taking a stiff hit from Biden’s steps on trade, including a plan to restrict US investment in Chinese artificial intelligence, quantum computing and semiconductors and export restrictions on high-end computer chips. All of those topics are expected to figure into the talks, US officials said.
China routinely denies US hacking allegations, regards Taiwan as internal matter and has protested American statements on Sino-Russian trade. A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington declined to comment.
“When the two countries treat each other as partner and friend, seek common ground while shelving differences and help each other succeed, our relationship would make considerable progress,” Xi said as he met with Biden, according to a simultaneous translation.
“But if we take each other as rivals or adversary, pursue vicious competition, and seek to hurt each other, we would roil the relationship or even set it back.”
On Wednesday, Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan described the transition as “a time when competitors and adversaries can see possibly opportunity.” Biden is stressing with Xi the “need to maintain stability, clarity, predictability through this transition between the United States and China.”
Shen Dingli, a Shanghai-based international relations scholar, said China wants the meeting to ease tensions during the transition period. “China definitely does not want relations with the United States to be thrown into turmoil before Trump formally takes office,” said Shen.
Pacific Rim leaders gathered at the APEC summit are assessing the implications of Trump’s return to power as US president on Jan. 20. The South American summit offers new signs of the challenges to the United States’ power in its own backyard, where China is on a charm offensive.
Xi, who arrived in Lima on Thursday, plans a week-long diplomatic blitz in Latin America that includes a refurbished free-trade agreement with Peru, inaugurating the massive Chancay deep-water port there and being welcomed in Brazil’s capital next week for a state visit. China also announced plans to host the APEC summit in 2026.
China is seeking Latin America’s metal ores, soybeans, and other commodities, but US officials worry they may also be looking for new US-adjacent military and intelligence outposts. Chinese state-backed media has called those accusations a smear.
A US official said Washington’s commitment to the region was strong and that Chinese infrastructure investment overseas has declined in recent years due to domestic challenges and problems with the projects.
But Ryan Berg, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, said Xi would meet with a good reception in the region.
“Biden’s trip will be overshadowed very clearly by all of the things that Xi Jinping will be up to when he visits APEC,” he said. “When Xi meets with Biden part of his audience is not – it’s not solely the White House or the US government. It’s about American CEOs and continued US investment or trying to renew US investment in China and get rid of the perception that there’s a hostile business environment in China.”
