Illinois Family Builds a “Hug Machine” So That Grandma Can Hug Her Babies

Currents News Staff

It’s been said love knows no bounds, and one Illinois family proves that to be true.

With a little bit of ingenuity and some plastic, an 85-year-old great-grandma can now hug her loved ones for the first time in months.

“I wanted to cry because i couldn’t believe that this was happening,” said Rose Gagnon.

She hasn’t hugged her great grandchildren in more than two months.

“I see them every day normally so this was a challenge not to be able to see them, not to be able to hug them,” said Gagnon.

So, what did it feel like to be able to hold them again?

“My heart felt like it was going to burst. it filled my heart!” she said.

Rose’s granddaughter Carly Marinaro built a ‘hug time’ machine, allowing her kids to safely wrap up in their great grandmother’s embrace.

“I was getting to the point of oh my gosh I can’t handle this I need to hug her, the kids need to hug her so it was just — so worth it!” said Marinaro.

“The frame is just PVC pipe and then the plastic is a window insulator kit for a sliding glass door so double-sided tape and duct tape,” Marinaro continued.

All you have to do is put your arms through these holes so you can spread the love without spreading the germs.

“We’re not meant to be apart like this or be isolated and it’s sad for those people that cane be around their family members i just feel for the people that cant do this. I’m just glad that we can share this type of happiness with people,” Marinaro.

Even though there may be a piece of plastic between these hugs, this family proves nothing can come between a great grandmother’s love for her babies.

Five Family Members Who Beat Coronavirus Say They Did ‘Only by the Grace of God’

Currents News Staff

The last few months have been rough on the Pierce household.

“Five members of my family had COVID, three were hospitalized,” Jackie Corbett, the daughter of a coronavirus survivor, explained.

Those three were Jackie’s mother, father and brother.

“Dad had a fever. He had a cough. Mom had pneumonia,” she explained.

Jackie’s brother, Robert, was on a ventilator for 16 days.

“His journey was pretty perilous and a few times the doctors kind of got us ready for the worst,” she said.

But as of May 12, each of Jackie’s family members can say they beat COVID-19.

“Well, I’ll tell you, it’s only by the grace of God that we have been able to be survivors,” Robert said.

“We’re very thankful for everything, very thankful,” her mom, Loraine Pierce explained. “We’re very happy to be on our way home.”

After eight weeks together at New York’s Garden Gate Healthcare Facility, Lorraine and Robert headed home, chauffeured by their survivor son.

“And it’s through faith and through family that got us through this,” added Jackie.

“I’m just so thankful,” Lorraine explained, “thankful to God for all the prayers. I know that’s what got us through it.”

“Certainly it feels absolutely wonderful to be walking and talking and having our being and being able to breathe,” added Robert, “and it’s really a blessing.”

Pregnant During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Catholic Editor Shares How She’s Preparing

Currents News Staffs

Bringing a baby into the world can be stressful for any parent at any time, let alone in the middle of a pandemic.

Besides the obvious health concerns, moms to be can be left wondering: What world am I bringing my baby into?

Pope Francis recently prayed for pregnant women who may have this question.

Here to talk about her experience is Kerry Weber, executive editor at the Jesuit “America Magazine,” who is expecting a baby girl in July.

She wrote an article for America Magazine titled “The Hope and Uncertainty of Being Pregnant During the Coronavirus Pandemic.” There are already so many fears, and worrying that your baby will be healthy and the delivery will be uneventful, is now among these concerns.

Can you or your baby catch the virus? Can your husband be with you during the delivery?

Kerry joins Currents News to share her experience.

Currents News full broadcast for Wednesday, 5/13/20

On the newscast:

– A big welcome home for a little boy. Jayden Hardowar beating the odds of a mysterious illness probably linked to Covid-19 that’s targeting children and frightening parents.

– An update from underground one week after the start of the overnight shutdown of the City’s subways. An exclusive interview with a train operator on the latest conditions.

– An emergency program that’s supposed to help small businesses is plagued with its own problems that are putting owners in a bind.

– Pregnant during a pandemic and how one Catholic editor, Kerry Weber, is handling the stress.

Watch weeknights at 7:00 pm EST on NET-TV in the New York City area on Spectrum, Optimum, and Fios. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive notifications about new content.

Boy Scout Saves Brother Using CPR After His Heart Stops From Illness Linked to COVID-19

By Emily Drooby

Jayden Hardowar was met with cheers of joy as he left the hospital on Tuesday, May 12. It was a miracle, because just two weeks prior, the eight-year-old boy’s heart had stopped beating.

Jayden’s father, Roup, recalled that terrifying moment.

“He wasn’t breathing anymore,” he said.

Jayden was sick, suffering from a mysterious illness that targets children, which is currently being refer to as “pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome.” No one knows for sure, but medical professional believe it is likely linked to COVID-19.

Roup said Jayden’s life was on the line.

“Me and my older son rushed into the room and checked for a pulse, there was no pulse,” he explained.

Roup and his other son Tyron were terrified, but Tyron sprang into action.

“I thought he was dead to be honest, and I didn’t want him to die so I had to save him,” Tyron said.

Tyron is a Boy Scout with troop 177 out of Holy Child Jesus Church In Richmond Hill, Queens. With the group, he had recently learned CPR, and so he performed it on his brother.

“The Scout motto was be prepared, and I was prepared for life,” said Tyron.

Roup says that his son’s quick thinking likely saved Jayden’s life.

“It did a miracle here,” he said. “Without the CPR, he would have had some sort of brain damage, which the doctors found out there was none of that right now.”

Help arrived quickly. Firefighter Tom Gonzalez was shocked Jayden’s heart back into rhythm.

Gonzalez explained that after months of fighting COVID-19 on the frontlines, it was amazing to see Jayden’s heart start again.

“After all the cardiac arrests we have been through in the past few months, it’s a great thing to see to be able to help this kid out.”

New York is investigating 102 cases of this dangerous pediatric disease which causes extreme inflammation in important organs. So far three deaths in the state have been linked to it.

Jayden spent two weeks fighting for his life in the hospital. He is now home with his family, but he has a long road to recovery ahead of him. Jayden is a Cub Scout with Pack 177. The rest of his pack-mates made a get-well video for him.

Homelessness on NYC Subway Worse Than Ever During Nightly Coronavirus Cleaning Closures

By Jessica Easthope

Jennifer Montano rides the subway every week since the pandemic began to get to her prenatal appointments.

“In the car that I got on today, on the Q train as soon as I walked on there were literally four people laying down sleeping, taking up much of the space,” Jennifer said.

She only has to see this once a week, but MTA train operator Yann Hicks sees it everyday.

Last week, city and state leaders made the historic decision to close the subways overnight. The MTA has been disinfecting all trains. Yann, who’s been with the MTA for 14 years and operates N and J trains says he’s seen a big improvement in that area.

“I have to say that the trains are being cleaned up very well, I’m very proud of the MTA and the management for starting to clean up the trains,” Yann said.

Riders agree.

“Since the closures, I’ve noticed the subways — I was on the Q today and the R — have looked a little bit cleaner,” Jennifer said.

“The subway ride was nice, it was clean,” said rider George Samuel.

But Yann says the homeless who have been forced off the trains during the nightly cleanings come back.

“Around 5 a.m. people are all lined up to get back on the train that got kicked off at 1 a.m., whether they be homeless people or people that live on the train,” Yann said.

Then he says the conditions within the subway return to unacceptable and unsanitary.

“It’s disgusting when you’re a train operator and you’re pulling into a station, and you see a pile of defecation here and a pile of defecation there,” he added.

Yann says forcing people off is a small fix to a much deeper problem that has plagued New York City for decades.

“There’s a lot more work to be done, the city really needs to step in and help the people out, people shouldn’t be living on the trains and in the stations,” he said.

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ThriveNYC has an immense budget to address mental illness in New York City, critics say the initiative has failed.

“We now have found new ways to get street homeless people off the streets,” Mayor de Blasio said.

Yann says the people who call the subway home are lacking resources and options and are not getting the help they need.

“Right now it’s still a lot of homeless people, people who are mentally ill, people who think they live on the trains. It’s very difficult to see this,” Yann said.

The subway will be closed overnight for the foreseeable future. Yann says he hopes he and his fellow train operators are approached by city and state leaders to help come up with a more permanent solution to homelessness on the subways.

Nationwide Rationing of Remdesivir Puts Doctors in the Middle of an Ethical Dilemma

Currents News Staff

The federal government is announcing a plan for rationing remdesivir, the only drug so far that has shown some promise as a treatment for severe coronavirus patients.

A shortage of the drug is now putting hospitals in a tough position, and given limited supplies, the federal government has been doling it out.

But some hospitals have been getting less than they need, and others have been getting none.

“New York State is working with HHS, Health and Human Services, on the federal side, administering to 2,900 people at 15 hospitals,” state governor Andrew Cuomo said.

The federal government has given New York enough for 2,900 patients, but there are about 7,262 coronavirus patients in New York hospitals.

That same situation is playing out around the country.

A vial from the first shipment of remdesivir was received last week by Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where Dr. Rochelle Walensky is chief of infectious diseases.

“We know that the doses of this drug that we are going to get are not going to be enough to treat every patient that we have in the hospital now,” she explained.

As a result, they’ve had to make decisions about who gets remdesivir and who doesn’t .

“This was hard,” she said.

At Mass. General, they have about 200 patients with the virus, and they have enough remdesivir for only 65 patients. More patients are being admitted every day, and doctors don’t know when they’ll get more of the drug.

Mass. General’s decision: a hospital committee – not the patient’s doctor – decides who gets it.

“This is not how we like to practice medicine,” Dr. Walensky explained, but she says it’s the most equitable way to do it.

“It’s nearly an impossible situation to be in medicine when you think that there’s something you could and should be doing for somebody, and you don’t have it to give, ” she explained.

The federal government has never explained how they decided which hospitals would receive remdesivir, and how much.

“This drug is promising and we want to get it to the American people and the areas that need it most,” White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said.

May 9, the federal government said in addition to sending remdesivir to hospitals they’d also send it to some state health departments, and intend eventually to send it to all state health departments.

But they haven’t said how much they’ll send to each state, or their formula for determining those amounts.

Representative Lloyd Doggett runs the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, and has been following the remdesivir rollout.

“This administration doesn’t believe in transparency, but healthcare providers need to know about this,” he said. “It has been bungled from the very beginning.”

Now, doctors are trying to do their best to allocate this scarce resource.

With the Growing Popularity of Livestreamed Masses, Will Parishioners Return to Church?

By Emily Drooby

Livestreamed Masses have been a great solace for many since churches were shuttered to stop the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

Currents News spoke with Auxiliary Bishop James Massa, who says the tool has been a great way for people to connect with their parish and their faith during the pandemic.

“We’re getting thousands of hits, they’re coming from all over the parish, but also from around the country and around the world,” he explained. “But it is important for us to be together in worship and if technology can help us to do that, then it is truly a gift from God.”

But, now the world is slowly starting to reopen – and that includes churches.

In Italy the liturgy will resume on May 18, while the Brooklyn Diocese has already launched a task force to prepare for their eventual opening.

The question still remains: When churches do reopen, will people come back to the pews – or will they still stream services from home?

Monsignor Michael Curran, a theology professor at St Joseph’s Seminary, says of course they will return to church.

“It’s been a tremendous blessing to have that available, but hopefully, we want to avoid that idea where people would say, ‘Well I can watch Mass,’ with a cup of coffee in their living room, rather than go and be present,” he said. “But I don’t see that happening. I think people are hungry to get back to normality.”

And they are. Parishioners all over the Brooklyn Diocese are desperate to get back into their churches.

While watching from home technically doesn’t fulfill the Catholic obligation, it’s been a great way for churches to connect with their parishioners.

Holy Name of Jesus parish is also live streaming, but they’ve taken it a step further.

They’ve placed the Blessed Sacrament inside in a window – a place for parishioners to feel closer to the church while remaining socially distant.

“We have gotten positive feedback and we plan to keep it there until the churches open,” said Father Lawrence Ryan, the church’s pastor.

Currents News full broadcast for Tuesday, 5/12/20

On the newscast:

– Churches are going to open again but will people return to the pews once the coronavirus crisis eases?

– A virtual warning from America’s top infectious disease doctor, Anthony Fauci, that even though a vaccine could be coming, cities should remain cautious.

– The virus is still spreading behind bars. The curve hasn’t flattened and instead deaths are spiking.

– A miraculous recovery and a strong Catholic faith are helping a brave nurse endure the pandemic’s storm.

Watch weeknights at 7:00 pm EST on NET-TV in the New York City area on Spectrum, Optimum, and Fios. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive notifications about new content.

Jails and Prisons Still Among COVID-19 Hotspots

Currents News Staff

Prisons are a breeding ground for the coronavirus, spreading among a population forced into close quarters.

The virus has spread rampantly in prisons, and some prison systems have taken unusual steps to stop the spread.

In New York and in Los Angeles, thousands of prisoners have been released. Los Angeles County released a video, showing inmates trying to get the virus so that they can get released.

Are prison system officials educating inmates about how serious this pandemic is?

Some police departments say they’ve been limiting the number of arrests because of this crisis and its impact on prison systems.

This is a big issue for the Catholic Church, as the Holy Father has long advocated for the imprisoned. Are secular governments doing enough to keep them safe?

Are prison system officials educating inmates about how serious this pandemic is?

What will the new normal be once this pandemic is over, and how will that impact the criminal justice system?

John Paitakes, who has more than 40 years of experience working in the criminal justice system as the former Assistant Chief Probation officer at the Somerset County Probation Department in New Jersey and a criminal justice professor at Rider University, joins Currents News to offer his insight on this issue.