Woman Goes for Ice Cream, Gets Shot in the Face, and Gets Put on Hold. On September 6, a Dallas woman went on an ice cream run to the CVS near Trinity Groves. When she walked back to her car, the man parked beside her shot her and then drove off. The woman called 911 twice: the first time she heard silence on the line; the second time she was put on hold. She ended up driving herself home so that her fiancé could take her to the hospital. DPD has acknowledged issues with the 911 call center, which currently has only 69 of its usual 90 call taker positions filled. The call center’s goal is to answer 911 calls in less than 10 seconds. In August, that was true 95 percent of the time. In September, only 83 percent of calls were answered that fast. Officials said that in addition to causing recruitment and retention issues for the department, the pandemic also caused the call center to split employees between two locations to allow for physical distancing. However, the 911 operators are supposed to be moved back to one location today.
American Airlines Will Start Furloughs and Layoffs for 19,000 Employees. That amounts to about 16 percent of the company’s workforce. CEO Doug Parker had hoped that federal aid would come through before the Payroll Support Program of the CARES Act expired today, but as of last night, no agreement had been reached in Congress. The airline has already received more than $4 billion in grants and $7 billion in loans, amounting to more than $300,000 per employee. Parker has told Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin that if a deal for aid is reached soon, he’ll reverse course and reinstate the impacted employees.
Coronavirus Cases Continue to Rise, and a New Treatment Is Being Tested Locally. Dallas County saw 249 new confirmed cases and two deaths yesterday. “The fall can lead to a good situation with the weather cooling and more opportunities to space out outdoors,” said County Judge Clay Jenkins. “However, over the last two weeks, increased capacities at retail establishments and a letting down of the guard at functions at home, along with some outbreaks at schools (although those numbers have been manageable), and a significant increase in the number of COVID-19 positive cases in people 18-22, both in college and not in college, has led to the stop of our improvement. These increases now threaten to push us back into the sort of numbers that we saw in August if we don’t all work together to make smart decisions.” Meanwhile, researchers at Baylor Scott & White will be the first in the world to administer remdesivir through a nebulizer. Previously, the antiviral drug was only available via injection. The blind study, which will be administered at emergency rooms over a period of five consecutive days, will be conducted at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas, Baylor Scott & White Medical Center at Irving, and Baylor Scott & White Medical Center at College Station. “It’s the Wayne Gretzky model of COVID,” Robert Gottlieb, a cardiologist and principal investigator in Baylor’s treatment trials, told the DMN. “If you don’t take a shot, generally you don’t score.”
