America’s fight over masks has reached a new front: polling places.

On Election Day, voters across the country will face varying rules about mask-wearing when they cast a ballot as officials try to balance public safety precautions amid a global pandemic with the constitutional right to vote.

Most states, even ones with broad mask mandates, are stopping short of forcing voters to use a face covering. Instead, they’re opting for recommendations to wear them while providing options for voters who refuse.

“We are asking everyone at the polls to observe social distancing inside and outside of polling places, and not to create disturbances about wearing or not wearing face coverings,” said Meagan Wolfe, chief elections official in Wisconsin, where a state mask mandate applies to poll workers but not voters.

During the early voting period, disagreements over masks occasionally led to long voting lines and had election officials clearing polling sites for the mask-less or directing them to stations away from other machines.

Still, due to the decentralized nature of the country’s voting systems, rules are different depending on where ballots are cast. Some places are taking harder stances than others.

Connecticut reimposes some restrictions as virus rates increase

Connecticut is reimposing some restrictions on businesses and gatherings as coronavirus rates continue to increase in the state, Gov. Ned Lamont said Monday.

Also Monday, state judicial officials postponed a plan to resume jury trials because of rising virus cases.

Lamont, a Democrat, said the latest rules will take effect at 12 a.m. Friday. He said neighboring Massachusetts is expected to take similar steps.

“We are putting in these restrictions on a statewide basis now to make sure we don’t have to do more severe things later,” said Lamont, who also urged residents to work from home if they can.

Restaurants’ indoor capacity limit will revert back to 50 percent, down from 75 percent under the phase 3 reopening that started last month, with eight people maximum per table. They also will have to close by 9:30 p.m., but can continue takeout and delivery past that time. Officials said it’s part of an effort to stop bars from masquerading as restaurants. Bars have not been allowed to reopen in Connecticut.

Religious gatherings will continue to be limited to 50 percent of a building’s capacity, but the limit on the number of people will decrease from 200 to 100. Lamont encouraged people to participate in virtual services.

The capacity limits for personal services, such as hair salons, will remain at 75 percent. Performing arts and movie theaters will be limited to 100 people. Event venues will be limited to 25 people indoors and 50 people outdoors.

The latest 14-day average positivity rate for coronavirus tests in Connecticut is about 3 percent.

Connecticut also continues to see an increase in hospitalizations and deaths. There were 340 people in the state hospitalized with COVID-19 on Monday, the most since early June. The state also reported 11 more virus-related deaths since Friday, bringing the state’s total during the pandemic to 4,627. More than 73,800 people in the state have tested positive.

UK’s Boris Johnson defends lockdown against criticism of delay

LONDON — Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday defended his decision to impose a second national lockdown, brushing aside criticism that weeks of delay have meant thousands more infections and hundreds of needless deaths.

The comments came as Johnson gave the House of Commons details of the proposed four-week lockdown in England that is set to begin Thursday. The plan was hurriedly announced Saturday after updated projections showed that rapidly rising infection rates risked swamping hospitals in a matter of weeks.

“Faced with these latest figures, there is no alternative but to take further action at a national level,″ Johnson told lawmakers, adding it was right to try imposing local measures first. “I believe it was right to try every possible option to get this virus under control at a local level with strong local action and strong local leadership.″

The new policy comes three weeks after Johnson announced plans for a three-tiered regional approach to combating the virus, with tighter restrictions imposed on areas with higher infection rates. The government chose that strategy in an effort to reduce the economic and social impact of new restrictions, even though a committee of scientific advisers on Sept. 21 recommended a short lockdown as a “circuit breaker” to slow the spread of COVID-19.

But that approach became untenable after new analysis showed COVID-19 was spreading so rapidly that the number of deaths this winter could more than double those recorded earlier this year. The government needs to act now to prevent the National Health Service from being overwhelmed, Johnson said in the face of criticism from members of his own party who are concerned about the impact the restrictions will have on jobs and civil liberties.

Labour Party leader Keir Starmer said the cost of that delay was recorded in statistics of the pandemic. On Sept. 21 the U.K. recorded 11 deaths from COVID-19 and about 4,000 new infections. Forty days later, there were 326 deaths and more than 22,000 cases.

“At every stage, he’s over-promised and under-delivered,” Starmer said of Johnson’s COVID-19 strategy. “Rejecting the advice of his own scientists over 40 days was a catastrophic failure of leadership and of judgment.”

Despite his criticism, Starmer pledged to back the legislation that is expected to come up for a vote on Wednesday.

The U.K. has Europe’s deadliest outbreak of COVID-19, with 46,807 deaths recorded through Sunday.

Hospitals compete for nurses as U.S. coronavirus cases surge

FENTON, Michigan — As the coronavirus pandemic surges across the nation and infections and hospitalizations rise, medical administrators are scrambling to find enough nursing help — especially in rural areas and at small hospitals.

Nurses are being trained to provide care in fields where they have limited experience. Hospitals are scaling back services to ensure enough staff to handle critically ill patients. And health systems are turning to short-term travel nurses to help fill the gaps.

Adding to the strain, experienced nurses are “burned out with this whole (pandemic)” and some are quitting, said Kevin Fitzpatrick, an emergency room nurse at Hurley Medical Center in Flint, Michigan, where several left just in the past month to work in hospice or home care or at outpatient clinics.

“And replacing them is not easy,” Fitzpatrick said.

As a result, he said, the ER is operating at about five nurses short of its optimal level at any given time, and each one typically cares for four patients as COVID-19 hospitalizations surge anew. Hospital officials did not respond to requests for comment.

But the departures are not surprising, according to experts, considering not only the mental toll but the fact that many nurses trained in acute care are over 50 and at increased risk of complications if they contract COVID-19, while younger nurses often have children or other family to worry about.

“Who can actually work and who feels safe working are limited by family obligations to protect their own health,” said Karen Donelan, professor of U.S. health policy at Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management. “All of those things have been factors.”

Donelan said there is little data so far on how the pandemic, which has killed more than 231,000 people in the country, is affecting nursing overall. But some hospitals had a shortage even before the virus took hold, despite a national rise in the number of nurses over the past decade.

With total confirmed coronavirus cases surpassing 9 million in the U.S. and new daily infections rising in 47 states, the need is only increasing.

Wausau, Wisconsin-based Aspirus Health Care is offering $15,000 signing bonuses for nurses with at least a year of experience and hiring contract nurses through private staffing companies to handle a surge in hospitalizations that prompted the system to almost quadruple the number of beds dedicated to COVID-19 patients.

Aspirus, which operates five hospitals in Wisconsin and four in small communities in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, also is moving nurses around between departments and facilities as hot spots emerge, said Ruth Risley-Gray, senior vice president and chief nursing officer at Aspirus.

Outside help still is needed, in part because some nurses have gotten sick from or were exposed to the cornavirus during the current wave, which “came with a vengeance” starting in August, Risley-Gray said. At one point in mid-October, 215 staffers were in isolation after showing symptoms or being exposed to someone who tested positive, and some are just starting to return to work.

Read the full story here.

Trump threatens to fire Fauci in rift with disease expert

OPA-LOCKA, Fla. — President Trump is suggesting that he will fire Dr. Anthony Fauci after Tuesday’s election, as his rift with the nation’s top infectious disease expert widens while the nation sees its most alarming outbreak of the coronavirus since the spring.

Speaking at a campaign rally in Opa-locka, Florida, Trump expressed frustration that the surging cases of the virus that has killed more than 231,000 people in the United States this year remains prominent in the news, sparking chants of “Fire Fauci” from his supporters.

“Don’t tell anybody but let me wait until a little bit after the election,” Trump replied to thousands of supporters early Monday, adding he appreciated their “advice.”

As he prepared to fly to a campaign stop in Ohio hours later, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden tweeted, “We need a president who actually listens to experts like Dr. Fauci.”

Biden has sought to keep the presidential campaign focused on what he says was a disastrous federal response to the pandemic. Trump is countering by using the race’s final hours to accuse his opponent of wanting to force the country back into a lockdown to slow the spread of the virus.

Still, Trump’s comments on Fauci less than 48 hours before polls close likely ensure the pandemic will remain front and center heading into Election Day.

It’s the most direct Trump has been in suggesting he was serious about trying to remove Fauci from his position. He has previously expressed that he was concerned about the political blowback of removing the popular and respected doctor before the election.

The latest flare-up follows Fauci making his sharpest criticism yet of the White House’s response to the coronavirus and Trump’s public assertion that the nation is “rounding the turn.”

Fauci has grown outspoken that Trump has ignored his advice for containing the virus, saying he hasn’t spoken with Trump in more than a month. He has raised alarm that the nation was heading for a challenging winter if more isn’t done soon to slow the spread of the disease.

Read the full story here.

Colleges to ramp up virus testing before Thanksgiving

For colleges and universities, Thanksgiving looms as a pivotal moment in their quest to finish an extraordinary fall semester amid a dangerous pandemic. Most schools that brought students to campus are expecting to send them home before the holiday and have them stay there for at least several weeks, a measure meant to protect campus communities from the threat of the novel coronavirus.

But dispersing all of those students poses another risk: They might unwittingly infect family, friends and others at home if they happen to be carrying the virus. With that in mind, many schools are planning to encourage or even require students to get tested for the virus before they leave.

This is the flip side of the massive viral testing initiatives undertaken in August and September when students first arrived on campuses. Call it “exit testing.”

The State University of New York announced recently that students who use on-campus facilities in the public system must test negative before heading home. That will require testing 140,000 students statewide during a 10-day period before the break.

SUNY Chancellor Jim Malatras called it “a smart, sensible policy that protects students’ families and hometown communities and drastically reduces the chances of covid-19 community spread.”

Not all schools go as far as SUNY’s mandate. But experts say that even giving students a chance to get a pre-Thanksgiving test is an important step. Holiday travel, especially on airplanes, buses or trains, could exacerbate rising viral case totals as weather turns colder.

“There’s quite a bit of risk,” said Michael Mina, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Certainly these massive rearrangements of people are times when virus can spread.” If schools have the resources, Mina said, “they should absolutely try to offer testing to students as close as possible to the time they’re leaving campus.”

Read the full story here.

Brazil protesters oppose vaccine mandate

SAO PAULO — Protesters have gathered in Brazil’s two biggest cities to demonstrate against any mandate for the taking of a coronavirus vaccine, supporting a rejection campaign encouraged by President Jair Bolsonaro in opposition to the advice of most health professionals.

A small group of people assembled in downtown Sao Paulo on Sunday calling for the removal of Sao Paulo state Gov. Joao Doria, who has said state residents will be required to take a vaccine, likely the one being developed by Chinese biopharmaceutical company Sinovac and the local Butantan Institute. Demonstrators supporting Bolsonaro on the question also protested on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro.

The issue has become a talking point in mayoral and city council campaigns for elections later this month.

Brazil has reported more than 5.5 million confirmed cases of coronavirus infections, and about 160,000 people have died from COVID-19, the disease that can be caused by the virus.

Mexico mourns doctors on Day of the Dead

MEXICO CITY — Diminutive figures skeletons in facemasks and medical caps are all too common on Mexico’s Day of the Dead altars this year.

More than 1,700 Mexican health workers are officially known to have died of COVID-19 and they’re being honored with three days of national mourning on these Days of the Dead.

One is Dr. Jose Luis Linares, who attended to patients at a private clinic in a poor neighborhood in Mexico City, usually charging about 30 pesos (roughly $1.50) a consultation.

“I told him, ‘Luis, don’t go to work.’ But he told me, ‘then who is going to see those poor people,’” said his widow, Dr. María del Rosario Martínez. She said he had taken precautions against the disease because of lungs damaged by an earlier illness.

Her Day of the Dead altar this year inlcudes — in addition to the usual marigolds and paper cutouts — little skeleton figures shown doing consultations or surgeries in honor of colleagues who have died.

Amnesty International said last month that Mexico had lost more medical professionals to the coronavirus than any other nation.

Trump science adviser apologizes for interview with foreign agent

WASHINGTON — Dr. Scott Atlas, one of President Donald Trump’s science advisers, is apologizing after appearing on the Russian state-funded TV channel RT to criticize lockdown measures aimed at stemming the coronavirus.

In a tweet Sunday, Atlas wrote he was unaware that RT was a registered foreign agent. He said he regretted the interview and apologized, particularly to the national security community, “for allowing myself to be taken advantage of.”

Atlas told RT over the weekend that he considered the COVID-19 pandemic to be mostly under control and that it was actually lockdowns that are “killing people.”

RT is registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which applies to people or companies disseminating information in the U.S. on behalf of foreign governments, political parties and other “foreign principals.”

U.S. intelligence agencies have alleged RT served as a propaganda outlet for the Kremlin as part of a multi-pronged effort to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Russia denies interfering.

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