A Brooklyn man claiming to be infected with the coronavirus coughed
on FBI agents who were investigating him for hoarding medical supplies,
the US Attorney’s Office said Monday.
Baruch Feldheim, 43, is facing charges of assault and making false
statements to the feds on Sunday outside his Borough Park home where he
allegedly peddled and stored massive amounts of N95 respirator masks, federal officials said.
Feldheim is also accused of price-gouging. On March 18, he’s
suspected of selling a New Jersey doctor about 1,000 of the masks for
$12,000, a markup of roughly 700 percent, authorities said.
The accused fraudster also directed another doctor to an Irvington,
NJ, auto repair shop to pick up another order. There, the doctor
reported to investigators that Feldheim was allegedly hoarding enough
medical supplies “to outfit an entire hospital.”
The materials included hand sanitizers, Clorox wipes, chemical cleaning agents and surgical supplies.
By last Monday, Feldheim was operating from his Brooklyn home, offering to push surgical gowns to a nurse, the feds said.
Two days later, the suspected hoarder received a gigantic shipment at his home of about eight pallets of face masks.
FBI agents then staked out his house, first noticing empty boxes of N95 masks outside.
On Sunday, they said they witnessed “multiple instances” of people
approaching Feldheim’s residence and walking away with what appeared to
be medical supplies.
The agents confronted Feldheim outside his house, keeping a safe social distance over coronavirus fears.
“When the agents were within four to five feet of him, Feldheim
allegedly coughed in their direction without covering his mouth,” the US
attorney’s release said. “At that point, Feldheim told the FBI agents
that that he had the Coronavirus,” the statement said.
Feldheim then allegedly lied to FBI agents regarding his possession and sale of medical supplies.
He falsely told the agents that he worked for a company that bought
and sold PPE and that he never took physical custody of the materials.
Following Feldheim’s arrest, the FBI on Monday night raided a
warehouse on Pennsylvania Avenue in an industrial section of Linden, NJ,
that housed Feldhim’s suspected stash of 80,000 masks, a source said.
Mask-wearing agents and other workers placed the eight pallets of medical supplies into a box truck.
https://nypost.com/2020/03/30/brooklyn-man-arrested-for-hoarding-masks-coughing-on-fbi-agents/
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
NYC paramedic says coronavirus patients brought to hospitals ‘to die’
City paramedic Megan Pfeiffer is on the front lines of the
coronavirus pandemic in New York — and said the situation has surpassed
anything she could have imagined.
“It’s like battlefield triage right now,” she told The Post of the increasingly grim outlook.
“We’re pretty much bringing patients to the hospital to die.
“We know what we signed up for — though we didn’t expect this. It’s very straining. We’re all exhausted.’’
Pfeiffer, 31, treats patients in Queens in response to 911 calls.
Nearly one-quarter of the city’s paramedics are now out because of illness or injury amid the deadly pandemic, officials said on Tuesday — while the number of 911 calls coming in only soars higher.
Pfeiffer, an FDNY paramedic since 2013, is assigned to Jamaica Station 50 and says COVID-19 now involves the largest number of 911 calls she handles.
“There are a lot of really sick people. Others are panicked, and as soon as they have symptoms, they call us. Some have fever, some have shortness of breath,” Pfeiffer said.
“The hospitals in Queens I go to are totally full.”
Pfeiffer recalled recently bringing a patient who was in cardiac arrest to NewYork-Presbyterian Queens hospital in Flushing, and the person was immediately admitted and put on the last ventilator available in the Intensive Care Unit.
While older people infected with COVID-19 tend to be seriously ill, she said she was struck by how many younger adults she treats who are also ending up in a hospital ward with the illness.
“There are 20- to 40-year-olds being sent to the ICU,” she said.
Her colleagues describe similar horror stories.
EMT Phil Suarez said the Big Apple’s fight against the coronavirus is like being in a “war zone” — and he should know.
“I’ve actually been in a war zone. It is a pretty good analogy,” said the paramedic, also a humanitarian-aid worker who has provided trauma care in Mosul, in northern Iraq.
Suarez told Reuters the Big Apple’s raging battle against the virus “just wears you down.”
“You know, I really . . . I’ve welled up in tears at times, you know, when we take somebody, a loved one, out of their home,” he said.
He noted that because the virus is so highly contagious, family members aren’t allowed to accompany patients in the ambulance or visit them in the hospital.
“You can’t go to the waiting room and wait,” he said. “So we literally just take their loved ones, and oftentimes, we know that they will never see them again alive.
“And these people will most likely die in a bed alone. It’s profound sadness.”
Last week, Suarez said, he got home from a 16-hour shift where nearly all of his ambulance runs involved coronavirus patients.
He noted that an “all-time record” involving city EMTs was recently reached — when there were more than 7,100 reported emergencies in the Big Apple in a 24-hour period.
“That’s almost double what we normally do, which is profound for New York City — 7,100 emergencies in a 24-hour period. It’s overwhelming,” he said.
According to Suarez, the only other time the emergency calls reached that level in a 24-hour period was right after the 9/11 terror attacks.
What’s different this time, he said, is that he and his colleagues are afraid they’ll be exposed to the virus on the job.
“We’re just in fear that we’re going to come down with it and we’re going to be that 2 percent” who dies, he said.
Pfeiffer said paramedics are self-quarantining to avoid infecting family and friends. She said she often sleeps at her work station in Jamaica. “A lot of people are not going home,” she said.
City paramedics and emergency technicians who work the ambulance crews are employed by the Fire Department’s Emergency Medical Services division.
About 23 percent of all EMS members — about 950 — were out on medical leave as of Sunday, the most recent data available, according to an FDNY spokesman.
Some of those are “people injured on the job from normal operations” not connected to the pandemic, the representative noted.
At the same time, the FDNY has seen an increase of about 2,500 emergency calls per day, spiking at 6,527 calls on Sunday.
A total of 282 FDNY members — EMS, firefighters and civilian workers — have tested positive for COVID-19.
Oren Barzilay, head of paramedics union Local 2507, which represents EMS workers, said the coronavirus outbreak has taken a toll on his members.
“It’s really heart-wrenching work. It’s going into a house and not knowing what to expect,” Barzilay said. “We’re taking sick people to the hospitals not knowing if they’re going to come out alive or not.”
He said there are EMS units where nearly all of the workers are sick.
“We have people who are sleeping in their cars to protect their families. This is a communicable disease,” Barzilay said.
More than 75,700 New Yorkers statewide have tested positive for the coronavirus, and more than 1,500 have died — with New York City being the epicenter of the outbreak.
New York City tallied more than 41,700 confirmed coronavirus cases, with about 1,100 fatalities, according to statistics released Tuesday evening.
https://nypost.com/2020/03/31/were-bringing-covid-19-patients-to-hospitals-to-die-nyc-paramedic/
“It’s like battlefield triage right now,” she told The Post of the increasingly grim outlook.
“We’re pretty much bringing patients to the hospital to die.
“We know what we signed up for — though we didn’t expect this. It’s very straining. We’re all exhausted.’’
Pfeiffer, 31, treats patients in Queens in response to 911 calls.
Nearly one-quarter of the city’s paramedics are now out because of illness or injury amid the deadly pandemic, officials said on Tuesday — while the number of 911 calls coming in only soars higher.
Pfeiffer, an FDNY paramedic since 2013, is assigned to Jamaica Station 50 and says COVID-19 now involves the largest number of 911 calls she handles.
“There are a lot of really sick people. Others are panicked, and as soon as they have symptoms, they call us. Some have fever, some have shortness of breath,” Pfeiffer said.
“The hospitals in Queens I go to are totally full.”
Pfeiffer recalled recently bringing a patient who was in cardiac arrest to NewYork-Presbyterian Queens hospital in Flushing, and the person was immediately admitted and put on the last ventilator available in the Intensive Care Unit.
While older people infected with COVID-19 tend to be seriously ill, she said she was struck by how many younger adults she treats who are also ending up in a hospital ward with the illness.
“There are 20- to 40-year-olds being sent to the ICU,” she said.
Her colleagues describe similar horror stories.
EMT Phil Suarez said the Big Apple’s fight against the coronavirus is like being in a “war zone” — and he should know.
“I’ve actually been in a war zone. It is a pretty good analogy,” said the paramedic, also a humanitarian-aid worker who has provided trauma care in Mosul, in northern Iraq.
Suarez told Reuters the Big Apple’s raging battle against the virus “just wears you down.”
“You know, I really . . . I’ve welled up in tears at times, you know, when we take somebody, a loved one, out of their home,” he said.
He noted that because the virus is so highly contagious, family members aren’t allowed to accompany patients in the ambulance or visit them in the hospital.
“You can’t go to the waiting room and wait,” he said. “So we literally just take their loved ones, and oftentimes, we know that they will never see them again alive.
“And these people will most likely die in a bed alone. It’s profound sadness.”
Last week, Suarez said, he got home from a 16-hour shift where nearly all of his ambulance runs involved coronavirus patients.
He noted that an “all-time record” involving city EMTs was recently reached — when there were more than 7,100 reported emergencies in the Big Apple in a 24-hour period.
“That’s almost double what we normally do, which is profound for New York City — 7,100 emergencies in a 24-hour period. It’s overwhelming,” he said.
According to Suarez, the only other time the emergency calls reached that level in a 24-hour period was right after the 9/11 terror attacks.
What’s different this time, he said, is that he and his colleagues are afraid they’ll be exposed to the virus on the job.
“We’re just in fear that we’re going to come down with it and we’re going to be that 2 percent” who dies, he said.
Pfeiffer said paramedics are self-quarantining to avoid infecting family and friends. She said she often sleeps at her work station in Jamaica. “A lot of people are not going home,” she said.
City paramedics and emergency technicians who work the ambulance crews are employed by the Fire Department’s Emergency Medical Services division.
About 23 percent of all EMS members — about 950 — were out on medical leave as of Sunday, the most recent data available, according to an FDNY spokesman.
Some of those are “people injured on the job from normal operations” not connected to the pandemic, the representative noted.
At the same time, the FDNY has seen an increase of about 2,500 emergency calls per day, spiking at 6,527 calls on Sunday.
A total of 282 FDNY members — EMS, firefighters and civilian workers — have tested positive for COVID-19.
Oren Barzilay, head of paramedics union Local 2507, which represents EMS workers, said the coronavirus outbreak has taken a toll on his members.
“It’s really heart-wrenching work. It’s going into a house and not knowing what to expect,” Barzilay said. “We’re taking sick people to the hospitals not knowing if they’re going to come out alive or not.”
He said there are EMS units where nearly all of the workers are sick.
“We have people who are sleeping in their cars to protect their families. This is a communicable disease,” Barzilay said.
More than 75,700 New Yorkers statewide have tested positive for the coronavirus, and more than 1,500 have died — with New York City being the epicenter of the outbreak.
New York City tallied more than 41,700 confirmed coronavirus cases, with about 1,100 fatalities, according to statistics released Tuesday evening.
https://nypost.com/2020/03/31/were-bringing-covid-19-patients-to-hospitals-to-die-nyc-paramedic/
Fauci: Research showing coronavirus can travel 27 feet in air ‘terribly misleading’
The nation’s top infectious disease expert said recently published research that suggests the coronavirus can travel 27 feet and linger airborne for hours is “terribly misleading.”
“I’m sorry, but I was disturbed by that report because that’s misleading,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, a member of the White House task force, said Tuesday of jarring headlines stemming from
MIT associate professor Lydia Bourouiba’s research.
Bourouiba, whose research on the dynamics of coughs and sneezes was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, warns that current social-distancing guidelines to stay 6 feet apart are inadequate and outdated.
The scientist writes that “pathogen-bearing droplets of all sizes can travel 23 to 27 feet.”
But Fauci noted during a Tuesday White House press briefing that it would take a “very, very robust, vigorous, achoo sneeze,” for droplets to even come close to traveling such a distance.
The esteemed doctor even feigned a forceful sneeze on stage as an example of what it would take to propel the droplets that far.
“So if you go way back and go, achoo,” said Fauci as he leaned back then thrust forward, “and go like that, you might get 27 feet.”
He added: “That’s not practical. That is not practical.”
Bourouiba fears that the current guidelines are “overly simplified” and “may limit the effectiveness of the proposed interventions” against the deadly pandemic.
https://nypost.com/2020/03/31/dr-fauci-research-showing-coronavirus-can-travel-27-ft-is-misleading/
“I’m sorry, but I was disturbed by that report because that’s misleading,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, a member of the White House task force, said Tuesday of jarring headlines stemming from
MIT associate professor Lydia Bourouiba’s research.
Bourouiba, whose research on the dynamics of coughs and sneezes was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, warns that current social-distancing guidelines to stay 6 feet apart are inadequate and outdated.
The scientist writes that “pathogen-bearing droplets of all sizes can travel 23 to 27 feet.”
But Fauci noted during a Tuesday White House press briefing that it would take a “very, very robust, vigorous, achoo sneeze,” for droplets to even come close to traveling such a distance.
The esteemed doctor even feigned a forceful sneeze on stage as an example of what it would take to propel the droplets that far.
“So if you go way back and go, achoo,” said Fauci as he leaned back then thrust forward, “and go like that, you might get 27 feet.”
He added: “That’s not practical. That is not practical.”
Bourouiba fears that the current guidelines are “overly simplified” and “may limit the effectiveness of the proposed interventions” against the deadly pandemic.
https://nypost.com/2020/03/31/dr-fauci-research-showing-coronavirus-can-travel-27-ft-is-misleading/
News Corp. pauses 60 Australian papers
News Corp. (NWS, NWSA) is suspending printing of 60 community papers in Australia, according to an Australian Broadcasting Corp. reporter.
The company’s making the move as ad revenue slides due to the viral outbreak, Rhett Burnie says.
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3557063-news-corp-pauses-australian-papers-reportFutures off 3% after ugly first quarter
Risk-off sentiment is seeping into the markets
once again, with traders deciding their next moves as the second quarter
kicks off.
As of 3:00 a.m. ET, S&P 500 futures were down 3.6% and Dow futures were off more than 700 points,
following a warning from President Trump that the coming weeks would be
“very painful” and White House projections of 100K-240K U.S.
coronavirus deaths.
The Dow already recorded its worst quarter since
1987 in Q1, while the S&P 500 logged its worst quarter on record, as
the pandemic caused a nationwide shutdown of the economy.
What’s next? Moody’s ADP Employment data is
expected to show an evaporation in job creation later today, while the
latest manufacturing indexes will be released for March.
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3557069-futures-off-3-after-ugly-first-quarterTeva prevails in migraine patent dispute; shares up 9%
The USPTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board has upheld three patents protecting Teva Pharmaceutical Industries’ (TEVA +9.0%) migraine med Ajovy (fremanezumab-vfrm) that were challenged by Eli Lilly (LLY -0.9%).
Lilly claimed that the patents, related to
calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP)-targeting antibodies [(i.e.,
fremanezumab and Lilly’s Emgality (galcanezumab-gnlm)], were invalid
since CGRP was a clinically validated target for treating migraine well
before Teva filed its patent applications. Teva countered that the
earlier work centered on research tools to better understand the
science, not for developing an antibody.
Teva sued Lilly for infringement shortly after the
latter received the FDA nod in September 2018 after which Lilly
challenged the validity of the patents.
The companies’ civil suit is on hold until the patent office completes its reviews.
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3556858-teva-prevails-in-migraine-patent-dispute-shares-up-9GE finally closes $20B Biopharma sale
General Electric (NYSE:GE) has finalized the sale of its BioPharma unit to Danaher (NYSE:DHR), giving its $20B, after accounting for taxes, fees and factored receivable balances.
The anticipated proceeds have been central to CEO
Larry Culp’s efforts to chip away at GE’s debilitating debt load and
help it recover from a deep slump in recent years.
The companies won approval from the Federal Trade Commission earlier this month for the deal, which was announced in early 2019.
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3557071-ge-finally-closes-20b-biopharma-sale
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