Midday

With coronavirus testing, hospitalization, mortality and recovery data now being released that includes breakdowns by zip code and race, we are getting a clearer picture of who is becoming ill, and where concentrations of infection and fatalities are located. Northwest Baltimore has more cases than anywhere in MD. Federal, state and local officials have all warned that Baltimore City is likely to soon be one of the next hot spots for the disease in the country.

Today, it’s the Midday Healthwatch with Dr. Leana Wen, the former Health Commissioner of Baltimore, and a leading expert on the pandemic. She’s currently a visiting professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health. Dr. Wen is a licensed emergency physician and the former president of Planned Parenthood.

She joins us today from her home in Baltimore, just a week and a half after she and her husband Sebastian welcomed their second child, Isabelle, into the world. You can see the video diary of her experience being pregnant and delivering during a pandemic, which was posted on Mika Brzezinski's NBC News website, KnowYourValue.com.

Listener comments and questions are welcome.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

We begin today with an update on the situation in New York City. The metropolis leads the nation in the number of COVID-19 cases and daily fatalities, even as the United States leads the world, by far, in COVID-19 cases, according to the World Health Organization.

Hospitals in New York City have had a bit of good news this week. There is, as of today, no shortage of ventilators, for example, and there are signs that the number of deaths in the Big Apple are leveling off.

Each day, legions of health workers have been providing COVID patients with life-saving care — under conditions more difficult than most of them could have imagined. And there is a growing awareness that these critically important workers -- from physicians and nurses to technicians and operational staff – all face unique mental health stresses.

At NYU/Langone Health, one of New York’s premier university hospital systems, psychiatrist Marra Ackerman directs the House Staff Mental Health Program, which is now providing an expanded array of psychiatric services to Langone’s beleaguered front-line health workers.

Dr. Ackerman, who is normally based in Manhattan, joins Tom on the line from her remote home office in Norwalk, Connecticut.

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Enduring Racial Disparities in Health Compound COVID-19 Pandemic For African Americans

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Last month, after Maryland Governor Larry Hogan declared a ban on all large public gatherings, the region’s theaters — like most of its businesses — were closed to the public. But actors gotta act, and it wasn’t long before the theater community found new and creative ways to connect with their stay-at-home audiences. We'll hear about some of them today.

Tom is joined first by our theater critic, J. Wynn Rousuck, who has been sampling some of what’s out there for home-bound theater lovers.

Here are links to some of the virtual (online) thespian offerings that Judy recommends (including Pandemic Players, also linked below):

Baltimore Center Stage, Where We Stand
Play at Home
Royal National Theatre
92nd Street Y and its Sondheim program, in particular.
audible.com
Theatre Project
and Happenstance Theater, in particular.

Then, Tom talks with local theater director Stephen Deininger. He’s the founder and director of Pandemic Players, a defiantly creative response to the shuttering of our theaters. Its digitally-produced performances -- which can be followed on its Facebook page and seen on its Youtube channel -- are also helping to raise emergency funds for the theater community.

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So far, Maryland’s hospitals are not overwhelmed. There is not a shortage of ICU beds and ventilators. But if that changes, hospitals may be faced with unthinkable decisions about rationing equipment and some life-saving treatments for patients in their care.

We’ll talk about that today on this edition of Midday on Ethics. Dr. Jeffrey Kahn is the director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. He was part of a committee of ethicists, physicians and others who have submitted a plan to Gov. Larry Hogan about how to allocate scarce resources in a time of crisis.

Dr. Anita Tarzian is the program coordinator for the Maryland Healthcare Ethics Committee Network at the University of Maryland School of Law. She’s also a professor at the UM School of Nursing. In 2017, Dr. Tarzian was one of the experts who created a framework that served as the starting point for the plan that Gov. Hogan is now considering.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Remote learning has laid bare the extent of the digital divide between poor communities and others. Many kids live in households that don’t own a computer, or access to Wi-Fi. How can we acquire and distribute the technology these kids need?

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Through digital platforms, and telecommunication, the Enoch Pratt Library is making valuable resources like, tutors, research databases, online classes and of course, books, available to students across the city.

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As we continue to hunker down in our homes (and that includes Midday host Tom Hall), a conversation about two very important elections coming up in the next couple of months.

Voters in the 7th Congressional District have three weeks to vote for a successor to the late Congressman Elijah Cummings. Democrat Kweisi Mfume is running against Republican Kimberly Klacik to fill the remaining time in the late congressman’s term. Voters will vote by mail. Ballots must be postmarked no later than April 28th.

Ballots should start arriving in the mailboxes of 7th District voters soon. If you don’t receive a ballot this week, you should go on line or call the Board of Elections to be sure you get a ballot in time.

We'll talk about the second election, the re-scheduled June 2nd primary for local and national races, in our segment later this hour with Democratic candidate Dan Sparaco, who's running to be the next City Council President.

Last Friday here on Midday, we talked with the Secretary of State of Washington, Kim Wyman, who has overseen mail-in elections there for several years. Today, Tom checks in with a former Secretary of State of Maryland who is a nationally recognized expert on voting procedures and election reform.

John Willis joins us on the line. He is Executive in Residence at the University of Baltimore’s School of Public and International Affairs. While serving as Maryland's secretary of state from 1995 to 2003, he was deeply involved in election reform efforts at both the state and national levels. He chaired Maryland's Special Committee on Voting Systems and Election Procedures, which led to landmark legislation and implementation of election reform measures in 2001. John Willis also served on the Commission to Revise the Election Code, which modernized and recodified Maryland's election laws.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Now, another in our series of Conversations with the Candidates. Tom's guest is Dan Sparaco, an attorney in private practice and a candidate who's running in the June 2 primary election for Baltimore City Council President.

He is one of eight candidates -- seven Democrats and one Republican -- in the race. He is running on a platform of political reform and a fundamental restructuring of the City Council.

Mr. Sparaco is a native New Yorker who earned his law degree at the University of Pennsylvania and worked for several years as an attorney with The Legal Aid Society in New York. He moved to Baltimore in 2010 to work in Baltimore’s Legal Department. In 2013, he was appointed Assistant Deputy Mayor for Operations under Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

Dan Sparaco is 44 years old. He lives in Greenmount West, and he joins Tom on the line from his home office.

Listeners with questions or comments are invited to call, email or tweet during the live broadcast.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Now, Ira Kress, the interim president of Giant Food, joins Tom to talk about those empty shelves you may have encountered at the grocery store and whether the situation is improving.

Giant has 163 supermarkets in the region and about 20,000 employees. And now, those folks are on the front lines in the battle against Covid-19. They are among the essential employees who are allowed to take public transportation and travel around the state despite stay-at-home orders for everyone else. And they are important links in the supply chain for food, medicine and other essential products.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.