Starting next week, city workers on the frontline of the Covid-19 pandemic in Carmel, Indiana will be tested weekly for the virus. In the first week, the city of about 100,000 people just north of Indianapolis expects to test about 350 police officers, firefighters and EMS personnel, as well as city staffers who still have to physically show up to work, like those in charge of code enforcement on construction sites and sewer utility workers.
- PUB DATE: 4/6/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Route Fifty

VIDEO: A fire that spread across 15 acres destroyed more than 3,500 rental cars at the rental car overflow area of Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW) on Friday, Lee County Port Authority said. The cause of the fire remains under investigation. It drew a response from every Lee County fire department with assistance from aviation and fire departments in neighboring Collier and Charlotte counties.
- PUB DATE: 4/6/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WINK-TV CBS 11 Fort Myers

As the U.S. continues to combat the coronavirus outbreak, the New England Patriots’ airplane is being used to help aid the country in its response to the pandemic. The Patriots’ team plane departed early Wednesday morning from Shenzen, China, where the Boeing 767 had picked up 1.2 million N95 face masks to bring them back to the United States, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
- PUB DATE: 4/3/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Republican - MassLive.com

VIDEO: Protecting first responders has never been more important. Now a local business has developed a simple safety solution. CBS 2’s Steven Graves takes a look at how it works. Like most operations around the country, the one at Crown Point, Indiana Fire and Rescue has shifted. “Our thought process is that everybody is a potential patient with COVID-19.
- PUB DATE: 4/3/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WBBM-TV CBS 2 Chicago

Cardiac patients who flatline will not be taken to area hospitals for further care, according to a new directive handed down as the city battles the rise in coronavirus cases. The new orders from the Regional Emergency Medical Services Council of New York City say that “no adult non-traumatic or blunt traumatic cardiac arrest is to be transported to a hospital with manual or mechanical compressions in progress" unless the person’s heart restarts at the scene.
- PUB DATE: 4/3/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New York Daily News

Tucked away in the corner of his office, Dr. Richard Saint Syr has created a little treatment station. On the bottom shelf of his bookcase, hidden behind one of his pictures, is an ultraviolet light the size of his forearm, two N95 masks and some goggles. The light he bought from Amazon a few days back after he was hit with a realization.
- PUB DATE: 4/3/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Kitsap Sun

Hospitals are seeing early success giving hydroxychloroquine to patients with COVID-19. Now, Henry Ford Health System wants to see if the drug can prevent the virus. The health system and the city of Detroit are launching the first research trial in the nation in which healthy people are given hydroxychloroquine.
- PUB DATE: 4/3/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: MLive.com

Firefighters trained as paramedics and EMTs will assist the FDNY’s overloaded medical services bureau as part of a “doomsday scenario” to deal with the surging coronavirus pandemic, the Daily News has learned. Roughly 209 FDNY firefighters with emergency medical technician licenses have been ordered to man rapid response vehicles, according to a six-minute video released Tuesday night by United Firefighters’ Association head Gerard Fitzgerald.
- PUB DATE: 4/2/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New York Daily News

The city of Detroit will be the first to have specific test kits that could have results in minutes. Normally, the swab tests take days to yield results. Testing with these kits begin today but only for Detroit police, first responders and bus drivers. Instead of waiting days to get results to find out if you have the coronavirus — you get results in 15 minutes.
- PUB DATE: 4/2/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WXYZ-TV ABC 7 Detroit

Sacramento-area fire crews and public health officials are launching a new initiative to provide mobile health support to the community. “We’re essentially bridging the gap between emergency services and the hospital,” Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District Capt. Scott Perryman told FOX40. Think of it as an urgent care center on wheels.
- PUB DATE: 4/2/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KTXL-TV FOX 40 Sacramento

The South Carolina Department of Health is creating a database that will give first responders more information about the places and people they’re responding to during the coronavirus pandemic. The announcement came on Tuesday during a news conference with Dr. Linda Bell, DHEC’s Director of the Bureau of Communicable Disease Prevention and Control.
- PUB DATE: 4/2/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WMBF-TV NBC 32 Myrtle Beach

First responders and emergency workers are urging Minnesota lawmakers to ease their ability to obtain workers’ compensation should they contract COVID-19. A bill before lawmakers would encompass firefighters, paramedics, police, nurses, doctors and people providing child care to emergency responders, among several others whose jobs put them at particular risk of contracting the disease that had infected 689 and killed 17 Minnesotans as of Wednesday.
- PUB DATE: 4/2/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Star Tribune

VIDEO: N95 masks are ideally single-use, which contributes to the shortage felt by first responders amid the COVID-19 pandemic. That's why one southern Colorado fire department sought out a way to extend the life of each mask. South Fork Fire Rescue in the San Luis Valley says it's developed a way to safely reuse a mask up to 10 times.
- PUB DATE: 4/1/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KRDO-TV ABC 13 Colorado Springs

A partnership between FEMA and New York City is aiming to bring aid to an overburdened FDNY EMS system that has received an “unprecedented” influx of calls due to the coronavirus (COVID-19). Mayor Bill de Blasio, FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro, NYC Emergency Management Commissioner Deanne Criswell and FEMA Region II Administrator Tom Van Essen announced the partnership, which will bring more than 250 ambulances and approximately 500 more EMTs to the city.
- PUB DATE: 4/1/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: SILive.com

The police and fire departments have gone full Star Wars on battling the coronavirus. Cops and firefighters are using electrostatic guns to disinfect cruisers, cells, fire apparatus and equipment. “It looks like something out of Star Wars,” Police Chief Brian Clark said Tuesday, adding that the gun quickly and evenly coats a surface with a chlorine solution.
- PUB DATE: 4/1/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Sun Chronicle

As lawmakers prepare a fourth round of stimulus relief in response to the coronavirus pandemic, a Michigan lawmaker plans to introduce a bill this week calling for a federal income tax holiday for doctors, nurses and first responders. Rep. Bill Huizenga, a Zeeland Republican, said the proposed tax holiday for three months is modeled after how the federal government excludes income taxes from members of the military serving on the front lines in combat zones.
- PUB DATE: 4/1/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Detroit News

VIDEO: A group of first responders in Palmdale expressed their appreciation to those on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic Monday night. The salute to doctors, nurses and medical staff at Palmdale Regional Medical Center took place around 7:30 p.m., coinciding with the setting sun, according to a post on the Palmdale sheriff’s staton’s Facebook page.
- PUB DATE: 4/1/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KTLA-TV WB 5 Los Angeles

The three largest public safety agencies in Franklin County will no longer release the number of personnel who have tested positive for the new coronavirus, the agencies said Monday. The Columbus Divisions of Fire and Police and the Franklin County sheriff’s office all cited consultations with legal counsel.
- PUB DATE: 3/31/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Columbus Dispatch

If you go outside at sunset, listen in the distance and you may hear something you don’t hear too often. Each night at dusk, bagpipes and drums will echo through neighborhoods across the country. "You should listen at sunset -- there are pipers and drummers all across the area," Thomas Johnson, a captain with Aurora Fire Department told FOX31.
- PUB DATE: 3/31/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KDVR-TV FOX 31 Denver

Sometimes miracles happen because every little thing goes right. And people involved are smart and creative and fearless. This is the story of a hairstylist, a team of automotive prototype designers and a massive global company that in just a few days went from creating high-tech cars guided by artificial intelligence with the use of robots to old-fashioned built-by-hand assembly the way things were done back in the 1900s.
- PUB DATE: 3/31/2020 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: USA Today