Posted on 04/06/2020 1:47:54 AM PDT by JediJones
Health professionals say the majority of Luzerne county's coronavirus cases are in the Hazleton area and the numbers are growing quickly.
The mayor of Hazleton will enact a curfew for residents on Saturday at 8PM along with other rules that will be enforced by police.
Luzerne County has asked the governor to send in the National Guard...there are many factors that led to Hazleton being a hot spot for COVID-19...
...Hazleton is really going to be ground zero for this...
Rep. Toohil says there are many factors that may have led to this including commuters to New York and New Jersey that live in Hazleton, the large Spanish-speaking population not getting the message from the Department of Health properly, and their work environments.
"Looking at our numbers and how bad they are and that the numbers are affecting the Spanish-speaking community that works in the industrial parks...
"We can't just close the factories, we can't close the interstates, we can't close the borders, and I don't think that people realize that we don't have those powers and it's out of our jurisdiction," said Hazleton Mayour Jeff Cusat.
"We have a lot of industrial plants where management was not following the OSHA guidelines and the CDC recommendations...
...Mayor Cusat is doing what he can to enforce social distancing in public with a curfew and the prohibition of any public gatherings of more than four individuals in public or in parked cars in the city.
"People just need to know that the problem is here. It's going to get worse before it gets better. We all need to keep working together on it," said the mayor.
Officials say they know where their weaknesses are in terms of getting all the proper messaging out to the Spanish-speaking community in the greater Hazleton area.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnep.com ...
Pennsylvania has 11,510 cases. 741 are in Luzerne County. The mayor says 401 of those in the county are all in the city of Hazleton, without yet adding in this weekend's numbers. The first case in Hazleton was 13 days before Friday.
401 is 1.6% of the city's population of 24,723. That is a higher rate of infection than New York City's 1.4%. And New York City is further along in its curve than Hazleton is. So this small town is going to have an even bigger rate of infection compared to New York City than it does now.
As the article states, this town, despite its distance, is almost a de facto suburb of New York due to the mass immigration of Spanish-speakers that moved from New York to there over the past 10-15 years.
NY to Hazleton is a big drug running route.
Wilkes Bar
Just what exactly is the reasoning behind an 8PM curfew? I doubt the virus gets more contagious at night.
Translation: Illegal aliens who refuse to learn basic English.
The Amazon Warehouse in this town is an infection hotspot there too.
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-workers-are-afraid-to-go-to-work-heres-why-2020-4
At the Amazon facilities in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, there are as many as 18 confirmed coronavirus cases — and Dominica Mercuri told Business Insider that she may be one of them.
The 29-year-old outbound associate who picks, packs and ships customer orders began experiencing symptoms associated with coronavirus including a dry cough, extreme fatigue, and a fever on March 27 — the same day her facility announced that an employee had tested positive for COVID-19. According to Andrea Houtsch, another associate at the same Pennsylvania facility, there are now as many as 18 confirmed cases in their buildings.
And Pelosi made millions buying Amazon stock before the SHTF. That should be some consolation to the slaves in the Amazon fulfillment centers. /s
Anyone know if Hazelton has a high proportion of illegal multifamily dwellings?
The curfew may have less to do with disease spread and more to do with crime prevrntion.
Per Wikipedia:
In 2006, Barletta made headlines for his efforts opposing illegal immigration in Hazleton vowing to make the city "one of the toughest places in the United States" for illegal immigrants.[8] Barletta introduced and the city council approved the Illegal Immigration Relief Act.[9] The ordinance allowed the city to deny a business permit to employers who hired illegal immigrants and gave the city authority to fine landlords up to $1,000 for leasing to illegal immigrants.[8][10] The act also made English the official language of Hazleton, prohibiting city employees from translating documents into any language without official authorization.[11] In response, the ACLU and Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund sued in Federal District Court to block the ordinance.[11]
In July 2007, District Court Judge James M. Munley ruled that the act was unconstitutional for interfering with Federal immigration laws and violating the due process of individuals, employers and landlords.[8] The ruling was upheld on appeal to the United States Court of Appeals on September 9, 2010.[12] In a public statement shortly after the decision, Barletta vowed to appeal.[13] The Supreme Court declined to hear the case.[1] In 2014, the town of Hazleton was ordered to reimburse the ACLU $1.4 million in legal fees (which was more than one tenth of the annual revenue of the town for 2017), and the town, which was already in debt to the tune of $6 million, had to take additional loans to pay the fees.[1] In 2017, the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development declared that the town of Hazleton was financially distressed.[1]
This is from Oakland, CA, Mar 30. If anything like this is going on in Hazleton at night, I can see the need for the curfew...
Hundreds Gather At Illegal Oakland Sideshows In Violation Of Shelter-In-Place Order; 3 Arrested
The region went massively for Trump in the election. It had wall to wall yard signs for him. It’s a tale of two worlds in towns like Hazleton. The old-timers who are disgusted by the excessive immigration and the Spanish-speaking immigrants who are in their own universe and don’t speak, act or think like Americans. I don’t think they know how to vote so they really haven’t exercised any electoral power yet despite probably being a majority of the population by now.
Ironically, this Newsweek article semi-mocks people complaining that immigrants bring disease with them. And now it just happened with coronavirus.
https://www.newsweek.com/2016/12/16/donald-trump-pennsylvania-win-luzerne-county-527861.html
“Hazleton has a population of about 25,000, and many of the people who live here don’t like the way that figure is climbing. The Hispanic population jumped from 5 percent in 2000 to 46 percent in 2014, and the town became the flash point for the region’s anger toward immigration a few years ago when it passed laws—later struck down—that banned undocumented immigrants from working or renting there.”
“They often complain about crime and lowered property values and say undocumented immigrants—or sometimes just immigrants—are to blame. (FBI records show a crime spike in Hazleton between 2000 and 2014, with more murders, six times as many robberies and a 70 percent increase in assaults.)”
“One elderly man, echoing a questionable (at best) Breitbart story from 2015, earnestly explained to me that undocumented immigrants are reintroducing a wide range of diseases into the U.S., and his girlfriend added, “Even measles came back.””
Yup. People not getting the word because they don’t speak English.
It may not just be a language issue. If you’ve got people crammed together in housing that makes steerage on the Titanic look spacious, a language barrier may be the least of the problems.
It would be interesting to see the percentage of confirmed positive WuFlu cases that are illegal aliens.
Hazelton Pennsylvania is about 2 hrs west of NYC on I-80.
Basically it became a suburb of NYC!
It’s at the major interstate crossing of I-80 and I-81.
That’s why it’s a drug running hub and Amazon shipping point.
I’ve been to Hazelton, but not in a long while, which is why I was wondering about housing issues.
Pennsylvania. It’s the new New Jersey.
Police: Illegal club shuttered in early morning raid in Hazleton
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