In this week’s segment of What We Know Now, Up host Chris Hayes gives his take on this winter’s infamous norovirus that was spread by restaurant workers who do not have, or did not know they had unpaid sick leave. to discuss what they have learned this week, he is joined by panel guests Mona Eltahawy (@monaeltahawy), columnist and public speaker on Arab and Muslim issues; Rangina Hamidi, president of Kandahar Treasure, the first women-run business in Kandaha; Laura Flanders (@GRITlaura), founder of GRITtv.org, contributing writer to The Nation; and Mallika Dutt (@mallikaduttv), founder of Breakthrough India/Breakthrough U.S.
Norovirus spreads across nation.
by Branden Largent, Minnesota Daily
Typically called “stomach flu,” it has no relation to the flu.
A new strain of the norovirus – typically misnamed the “stomach flu” – has been spreading throughout the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .
Symptoms for norovirus include diarrhea, vomiting and nausea, and sometimes fever, headache and body aches that last up to three days. [..]
Norovirus is a food-borne illness, Kelley said, and can spread quickly through nursing homes, cruise ships, restaurants and residence halls.
Paul Allwood, University director of Occupational Health and Safety, said statewide food industry regulations mandate that people with norovirus symptoms cannot come to work until they are symptom-free for 72 hours.
Food service workers are also restricted from handling kitchenware and ready-to-eat foods for an additional 72 hours.
Sick leave bill pressed by workers’ groups, citing flu
by Ramiro S. Funez, Queens Chronicle
Labor rights activists across the borough are pressing lawmakers for passage of the long-delayed sick leave bill, after a local deli worker who was sick with the flu was fired for taking a day off work to visit his doctor.
Members of Make the Road New York and the NYC Paid Sick Days Campaign rallied outside the former employer of Elmhurst resident Emilio Palaguachi on Jan. 31 to urge City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) to finally bring the Paid Sick Time Act to a vote. [..]
“No one knows when the bill will pass. It can be in a few days or in a few years,” Palaguachi said. “We’re trying, and I know it’s not easy, but we are continuing to try to get people to pass the bill.”
The proposed bill is supported by the Working Families Party, the state Paid Family Leave Coalition, Make the Road and A Better Balance, a family legal center.
Pennsylvania Medicaid Expansion Nixed By GOP Gov. Tom Corbett
by Jeffrey Young, The Huffington Post
Pennsylvania won’t make Medicaid available to more of its poor residents, Gov. Tom Corbett (R) told state legislators during his budget address Tuesday.
By rejecting the Medicaid expansion under President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, Corbett becomes the 11th Republican governor to turn down federal funding to provide health benefits to low-income residents. Pennsylvania now joins Idaho, Maine and a swath of states from Georgia to Texas in refusing to add more people to Medicaid, which is jointly managed and financed by the federal and state governments. [..]
Corbett’s announcement comes a day after fellow Republican governor John Kasich of Ohio became the fifth GOP state executive to back the Medicaid expansion. In contrast to Corbett’s claims about the affordability of adding more people to Medicaid, Kasich, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) and others have cited the high level of federal funding as a key reason to participate. The chief executives of 20 states and the District of Columbia now support the Medicaid expansion.
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