The families of four people who died from COVID-19 are suing the Manhattan-based nonprofit that funded coronavirus research in China for “creating” the bug — and “releasing it, either intentionally or accidentally.”
EcoHealth Alliance and its president, Peter Daszak, knew the virus was dangerous and “capable of causing a worldwide pandemic,” according to the Aug. 2 Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.
Despite partially-funding the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where the virus originated, EcoHealth failed to make sure critical safety measures were in place — then worked to cover up the origins of the outbreak, they claimed in court papers.
“If we had known the source or origin of this virus and had not been misled that it was from a pangolin in a wet market, and rather we knew that it was a genetically manipulated virus, and that the scientists involved were concealing that from our clients, the outcome could have been very different,” Patricia Finn, the victims’ attorney, told The Post.
The families of Mary Conroy, of Pennsylvania; Emma D. Holley, of Rochester, NY; Larry Carr, of Crossville, Tennessee; and Raul Osuna, of Bennington, Nebraska, are seeking unspecified damages. --->READ MORE HERE
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| Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images |
A lawsuit filed by the family of a San Quentin guard who died of COVID-19 in 2020 will be allowed to go forward.
In a 2-1 ruling, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday upheld a federal judge’s refusal to dismiss the suit filed by the widow and children of Sgt. Gilbert Polanco. Polanco was the only guard to die in a COVID-19 outbreak at the prison that resulted in the death of 28 inmates and the infection of more than 2,100 inmates and 270 staff members.
Terri Hardy, a spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, wrote in an email, “CDCR does not comment on pending litigation.”
The outbreak occurred a few months into the COVID-19 pandemic shortly after officials in the California prison system transferred 122 inmates from the California Institution for Men, where there was a widespread COVID-19 outbreak, to San Quentin State Prison, where there were no known cases of the virus.
“The transfer did not go well,” presiding Judge Michelle Friedland wrote in her decision.
Friedland wrote that most of the men who were transferred had not been tested for COVID-19 for over three weeks, and none of the transferred inmates were properly screened for symptoms before being packed onto buses to San Quentin in numbers far exceeding coronavirus-era capacity limits that the California Department of Corrections had mandated for inmate safety.
Friedland noted that although some inmates exhibited symptoms while on the bus, the Department of Corrections did not quarantine the newly arriving inmates. Instead, most of the transferred inmates were moved into a housing unit with grated doors and allowed to use the same showers and eat in the same mess hall as other inmates.
Friedland wrote in her decision that after learning of the transfer, Marin County Public Health Officer Matt Willis called the prison with safety recommendations. Willis told prison officials that the transferred inmates should be sequestered from the original San Quentin population, that all exposed inmates and staff should be required to wear masks, and that staff movement should be restricted between different housing units to prevent the spread of COVID-19. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
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