Reporter Roundup: How to Keep Masks on Children

[Music] Hello, I'm Juan Devis, ChiefCreative Officer at KCET and PBS SoCal, and I'm joined by the newsroom of KPCCand LAist on a daily Reporter Roundup.

How is everyone today? -Well, thank you.

Jackie, you've been talking toelderly care workers; what what are youfinding? -Yeah, I talked to twooccupational therapists and they're really conflicted.

They both do treat elderlypatients.

One of them goes from house tohouse.

Another goes to a nursing home both therapists are afraid thatthey may transmit the corona virus totheir patients without knowing itneither of them can get personal protective equipment like masks or gowns.

Those are being reserved for hospitalstaff.

One of those therapists decided to juststop working altogether.

The othertherapist says she'll keep working becauseshe's afraid her patients won't bewell enough to fight off the virus withouther care.

So, the lack of preventivemeasures for health workers in this situationis really getting more traction in Washington DC mainly because ofCOVID-19 outbreaks in nursing homes, sowe may see some regulatory change soon.

-We have a whole team of healthreporters in the newsroom looking at the pandemicfrom many different angles.

Mariana'sbeen looking at kids and masks.

So, the CDC recommends that kidsunder 2 actually don't wear any kind of facialcovering because it can be a suffocation hazard and really young children aren't able to say, hey, like, I'm having trouble breathing right now.

Ialso talked to some Californiapediatricians who had a couple of other tips.

You should definitely wash yourhands before putting on a mask and then avoid touching it once it's on.

Kidstouch pretty much everything, so thatcan be a challenge to its effectivenessas well, and then if the mass becomes wetwith drool or what in my family wecall mucus or boogers, that can also makethe mask more likely to spread germsrather than keep them contained.

They saidto keep kids safe, focus on hand-washingand then cleaning surfaces in the housethat they are most likely to be touching.

We're also against finding theway coronavirus is reshaping our economy, whatsupport is out there, what the governmentis doing.

Aaron has been looking at asituation for renters.

-Yeah, things emerged is a really critical issue during the pandemic.

It's certainly beenfront and center for the LA City Council.

Last time they met, they took action onaddictions.

They've also drawn criticism fornot doing enough.

Today, citycouncil president Maria Martinezreintroduced a program from last year to helptenants facing big rent hikes stay intheir units.

The hope is since thiswas a previously existing program theycan fast track it.

In a release, Martinez said that low-income angelenoshave been hurt the most financiallyby this virus.

There was also otheraction in the City Council today on housing, rental housing specifically.

Councilmembers Mike Bonin and David Ryuintroduced a motion to freeze rents acrossthe city of Los Angeles.

-With coronavirus, we've heard so many examples ofneighbors stepping up to help neighborspeople doing acts of kindness maybethey weren't doing before, butthere's also an ugly side to this and Josie'sbeen looking at incidents of racismagainst asian-americans.

-Yes, you may have heard that there was a case in thevalley where a boy had to go to thehospital after he was beat up at schoolover coronavirus, but there are manyincidents that don't make headlines, andthere's this one group in LA that'scalled the Asian-Pacific Policy andPlanning Council, and they're helping tocollect these stories.

So far, they'vegotten about 1, 100 submissions andabout a third are from California.

Onereported incident was at a park in LaBrea where a man flung a cup of coffee atan asian-american resident hecalled a “chink.

” I also read about afamily of four that was walking at LAX when adriver cut them off and started blamingthem for the virus, so the hope is by collecting these storiespolitical leaders, and the general publicactually, will call out racist incidentswhich have shown really no sign ofletting up.

This goes all the way up to youknow the statements the president Trumpdid, I think a week ago.

Has there beenany retraction from the White Housein regards to this? -Uh, no, I believe what the president has done insteadis, not, he's not using Chinese virusanymore, actually I think he saidsomething about how Asian-Americans are trying to help the Americans, which was interesting because he framed itas, you know, they, the Asian-Americansare trying to help us, the Americans, whichwas, I thought very telling.

It's very sad that immigrants always get the blamewhen a situation like this happens, um, thanks to the newsroom and KPCC and LAist, and thanks to all of you athome.

Be safe, take care of your family, andwe'll see you tomorrow.

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