Covid-19 – birdpuk

April 30, 2021April 30, 2021

Nye County assuming local control of pandemic

By Robin Hebrock Pahrump Valley Times

April 30, 2021 – 7:01 am

Tomorrow, May 1, Nye County will officially assume control over nearly every aspect of the mitigation and management of the COVID-19 pandemic within its boundaries, with one very notable exception. Despite Nye County commissioners’ unanimous vote to rescind the requirement that its citizens wear masks when interacting with others in a public setting, the statewide mask mandate still stands and Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak has made it clear that any endeavor to sidestep that mandate is null and void.

“Nye County received a letter April 27 from the governor’s office thanking Nye County stakeholders for the work invested in developing Nye County’s Local COVID-19 Mitigation and Enforcement Plan. The letter indicates that the governor delegates authority to Nye County to manage COVID-19 mitigation measures in accordance with the plan,” a news release sent out by Nye County Public Information Officer Arnold Knightly this week states. “Emergency Management Director Scott Lewis presented the plan to the state COVID-19 Mitigation and Management Task Force on April 22. The plan highlights include removing capacity limitations for businesses and gatherings due to COVID mitigation starting May 1. The county will also lift social distancing restrictions. However, as stated in the letter, the requirement for face masks in public spaces, including businesses, remains in place past May 1 in Nye County and statewide.”

Before being sent to the state, the Nye County COVID-19 Mitigation and Management Plan went before commissioners for their stamp of approval during the board’s April 20 meeting.

At that meeting, Nye County Manager Tim Sutton gave an overview of the plan, explaining, “The plan provides for the following: no mandatory capacity restrictions; no mandatory social distancing; no mandatory sanitizing; no requirement for large event plans to be approved by the state moving forward. And that is in response to the board’s request for a full reopening.

“The plan provides that will continue to monitor the items found on page 4, which would be; daily new cases; daily tests; test positivity rate; daily vaccination rates; daily COVID deaths; daily hospitalization rate; and daily ICU and ventilator use,” Sutton continued. “The plan also provides that we will continue to provide vaccination PODs and also information about testing and also we will provide PPE in the priorities listed in the plan.”

Sutton requested just two changes to the document prior to its approval, one for a minor typo which changed the incorrect term “contract” to “contact” and another to remove two entire sentences from a section of page 6 addressing public sector work plans.

“Social distancing and sanitization protocols were deferred to the county per the governor’s last press conference, and I think everybody knows that the mask mandate is under the state anyway so there is really no reason to put in it there,” Sutton stated. “Where it says ‘Mask mandates, social distancing and sanitization protocols remain in place’, I’d like to propose that that sentence be stricken.”

Nye County Commission Chair Debra Strickland then remarked that this would mean, first and foremost, that the tape barring members of the public from using certain seats in the commissioners’ chambers would be removed and the sanitization of the public commenter’s stand would not longer be carried out. “All the people can sit with whomever they want to. And that right there is a big change,” she noted.

Strickland then attempted to give direction to Sutton to end the teleconferencing that has been available for the public since the onset of the pandemic limited the number of persons allowed inside of the chambers during meetings. Nye County Commissioner Leo Blundo, for one, threw his support behind the idea of doing away with the teleconferencing system but at least one board member was not amenable to that and even county staff expressed their hesitation in removing that option just yet.

“I don’t have a problem with people calling in,” Commissioner Frank Carbone stated. “There are people who are at home right now who are calling in here, they don’t need to come here if they don’t want to. It’s just a burden on their part.”

Strickland interjected that the teleconferencing was a burden of the part of staff, asking, “So you foresee that we will need to still do teleconference? Because this is a pain in the you know what.”

Nye County Administrative Manager Samantha Tackett jumped in to request that the teleconferencing remain in place for now, adding that the county has certain contracts and other items that she would like taken into consideration before the teleconferencing comes to an end. In response, Strickland asserted that a formal agenda item would be brought forward so the commissioners could vote on the matter.

Nye County Commissioner Donna Cox then opened the discussion on the sticky topic of the mask mandate, asking how the county was going to be handling that. Carbone asserted that the commission had already voted to get rid of the mask mandate, with Blundo chiming in, “I remember that too.”

Regardless of the action taken by the commission earlier this month, Strickland informed her fellow commissioners that the mask mandate is a statewide mandate and Sutton added, “The state’s position is that the counties do not have the authority to pass any resolution on the mask mandate, so they won’t recognize anything. I have also been advised by counsel that the action taken by the board at the last meeting, as it pertains to the mask mandate, was void and of no effect.”

“I vehemently disagree with that opinion,” Blundo declared. “And I believe that we voted in the affirmative and we have control over Nye County… and we took a stand, knowing, against the governor…”

Blundo then specifically asked if the mitigation plan before the board means that the county is returning to normal, to which Sutton answered that he and Blundo might have different ideas of the concept of “normal”. Blundo clarified that he was asking about masks and Sutton replied, “That’s kind of where the rub is.”

Strickland noted that there was nothing in the mitigation plan that stated that the county will or will not have a mask mandate, and Blundo added, “So let them (the state) interpret it for what they want to.”

“So does this mean that I can come back to the meetings without a mask on?” Cox, who has not attended a commission meeting in person for many months due to the mask requirement, asked. During that very meeting, Blundo, Carbone and commissioner Bruce Jabbour had all already removed their masks so it stands to reason that Cox would be able to attend without a mask in the future as well.

Cox then stated that she was leery of the idea of not addressing the removal of the mask mandate within the county’s mitigation document but once again Sutton remarked that any and all provisions adopted by counties that go against the statewide mandates, such as the mask mandate, are null and void. “Whether we put it in or take it out, the state is not going to recognize it,” Sutton emphasized.

Blundo made the motion to approve the county’s COVID-19 Mitigation and Management Plan, which carried 5-0.

The plan can be viewed online by visiting www.NyeCounty.net and clicking on the “Meeting Center” link. The document is included with item #42 on the April 20 agenda.

Source: Nye County assuming local control of pandemic

March 24, 2021

Employers can’t require Covid-19 vaccination under an EUA – STAT

A health worker holds a vial of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at a vaccination center in Pfaffenhofen, Germany. CHRISTOF STACHE/AFP via Getty Images

Ever since the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization for two new vaccines, employers, schools, and other organizations are grappling with whether to require Covid-19 vaccination.

While organizations are certainly free to encourage their employees, students, and other members to be vaccinated, federal law provides that, at least until the vaccine is licensed, individuals must have the option to accept or decline to be vaccinated.

Knowing what an organization can or cannot do with respect to Covid-19 vaccines can help them keep their employees, students, and members safe and also save them from costly and time-consuming litigation.

Much remains unknown about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine

Even though the FDA granted emergency use authorizations for the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines in December 2020, the clinical trials the FDA will rely upon to ultimately decide whether to license these vaccines are still underway and are designed to last for approximately two years to collect adequate data to establish if these vaccines are safe and effective enough for the FDA to license.

The abbreviated timelines for the emergency use applications and authorizations means there is much the FDA does not know about these products even as it authorizes them for emergency use, including their effectiveness against asymptomatic infection, death, and transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease.

Given the uncertainty about the two vaccines, their EUAs are explicit that each is “an investigational vaccine not licensed for any indication” and require that all “promotional material relating to the Covid-19 Vaccine clearly and conspicuously … state that this product has not been approved or licensed by the FDA, but has been authorized for emergency use by FDA” (emphasis added).

EUAs are clear: Getting these vaccines is voluntary

The same section of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act that authorizes the FDA to grant emergency use authorization also requires the secretary of Health and Human Services to “ensure that individuals to whom the product is administered are informed … of the option to accept or refuse administration of the product.”

Likewise, the FDA’s guidance on emergency use authorization of medical products requires the FDA to “ensure that recipients are informed to the extent practicable given the applicable circumstances … That they have the option to accept or refuse the EUA product …”

In the same vein, when Dr. Amanda Cohn, the executive secretary of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, was asked if Covid-19 vaccination can be required, she responded that under an EUA, “vaccines are not allowed to be mandatory. So, early in this vaccination phase, individuals will have to be consented and they won’t be able to be mandatory.” Cohn later affirmed that this prohibition on requiring the vaccines applies to organizations, including hospitals.

The EUAs for both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines require fact sheets to be given to vaccination providers and recipients. These fact sheets make clear that getting the vaccine is optional. For example, the one for recipients states that “It is your choice to receive or not receive the Covid-19 Vaccine,” and if “you decide to not receive it, it will not change your standard of medical care.”

What this means in practice

When the FDA grants emergency use authorization for a vaccine, many questions about the product cannot be answered. Given the open questions, when Congress granted the authority to issue EUAs, it chose to require that every individual should be allowed to decide for himself or herself whether or not to receive an EUA product. The FDA and CDC apparently consider this fundamental requirement of choice important enough that even during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic they reinforced that policy decision when issuing their guidance related to the Covid-19 vaccines.

This means that an organization will likely be at odds with federal law if it requires its employees, students or other members to get a Covid-19 vaccine that is being distributed under emergency use authorization.

State law often prohibits retaliating against an employee for refusing to participate in a violation of federal law. Organizations that require Covid-19 vaccination in violation of federal law may face lawsuits under these state laws not only to block the policy but also for damages and attorneys’ fees. Such potentially costly lawsuits can be avoided by refraining from adopting policies that require vaccination or penalize members for choosing not to be vaccinated.

Organizations are free to encourage vaccinations through internal communications, through educational events, and through other measures to urge employees to be vaccinated. They can take these measures so long as: (1) they are not viewed as coercive, (2) the organization makes clear the decision regarding whether to receive the vaccine is voluntary, and (3) the measures comply with the requirements in the EUAs and the related regulations for these products.

People across the world have had their lives upended during the last year. The urgency to return to normalcy is felt deeply by many. As decision-makers at organizations decide on their Covid-19 vaccination policy, they should be careful to not let this passion lead the organization to run afoul of the law.

Aaron Siri is the managing partner at Siri & Glimstad LLP, a complex civil litigation firm with its principal office in New York City. This article is not intended to provide legal advice but to offer broad and general information about the law.

Source: Employers can’t require Covid-19 vaccination under an EUA – STAT

March 11, 2021March 11, 2021

39-Year-Old Healthy Utah Mother Dies After Taking Second Dose of Moderna Vaccine

A vial with the Moderna CCP virus vaccine is displayed at the corona vaccination centre at the University hospital in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, on Jan. 22, 2021. (Ronny Hartmann/AFP via Getty Images)

A 39-year-old healthy single mother from Utah died four days after taking a second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine on Feb. 1.

According to KUTV, her family said that Kassidi Kurill “had more energy” than most people around her and was a happy person with no known health problems.

“I didn’t really cry when my dad died, I cry a lot for her,” her father, Alfred Hawley, a former Air Force Base fighter pilot, told the outlet.

Kurill was a local surgical tech for various plastic surgeons.

“I’m at a state in my life where I’m OK with that [emotion],” Hawley said amidst tears, “she was the one who promised to take care of me.”

“She was seemingly healthy as a horse,” Hawley said, according to Fox News. “She had no known underlying conditions.”

On the morning of Feb. 4, Hawley woke up to his daughter’s plead for help.

“She came in early and said her heart was racing and she felt like she need to get to the emergency room,” he said.

“[She] got sick right away, soreness at the shot location, then started getting sick then, started complaining that she was drinking lots of fluids but couldn’t pee, and then felt a little better the next day,” Hawley said.

Hawley said that her condition got worse: she said that she had headaches, nausea, and couldn’t urinate although she was drinking fluids.

He took her to the emergency room, where she got blood tests. Hawley said that then she became less coherent, and began to throw up.

In the evening they transported her to Trauma Center in Murray.

“They did a blood test and immediately came back and said she was very, very sick, and her liver was not functioning,” Hawley said.

The doctors attempted to stabilize her for a transplant, but her condition worsened to the point where she could no longer talk by the morning of the next day.

“They were trying to get her to a point where she was stable enough for a liver transplant. And they just could not get her stable,” he said. “She got worse and worse throughout the day. And at nine o’clock, she passed.”

Kurill’s family is waiting for an autopsy.

They set up a GoFundMe page named “Kassidi Kurill and Emilia Memorial Fund,” in her and her 9-year-old daughter’s honor.

KUTV led an investigation into COVID-19 vaccine side effects and found four reported deaths filed by the families and caregivers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told The Epoch Times in an email that as of March 8, over 92 million doses of mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 had been injected, with 1,637 deaths occurring following the injections.

The CDC states on its website that: “To date, VAERS has not detected patterns in cause of death that would indicate a safety problem with COVID-19 vaccines.”

The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) was put in place in 1990 to capture unforeseen reactions from vaccines.

The Epoch Times reached out to Moderna for comment.

Source: 39-Year-Old Healthy Utah Mother Dies After Taking Second Dose of Moderna Vaccine

February 25, 2021

Democrats Accept 2 of 286 Amendments Sought by Republicans for $1.9 Trillion COVID-19 Stimulus Bill

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) speaks at the weekly news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington on Dec. 3, 2020. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

Republicans have criticized Democrats for continuing to push their pandemic stimulus package while accepting little to no Republican input. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Wednesday out of 286 amendments proposed by Republicans for the $1.9 trillion spending package, only two were accepted.

“Republicans offered 286 amendments to President Biden’s massive $1.9 TRILLION spending blowout. Democrats accepted 2 of them. So much for Biden’s calls for ‘unity,’” McCarthy said in a statement.

On Feb. 19, Democrats unveiled the full text of a 591-page bill (pdf) titled the “American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.”

https://www.scribd.com/document/495999748/American-Rescue-Plan-Act-of-2021

House Republicans held a press conference on Wednesday in which they voiced their opposition to the Democrats’ “rescue” package that includes many items that have little to do with pandemic relief.

Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), who serves as the Republican Leader of the House Budget Committee, called the $1.9 trillion package a liberal “wish list” because so little of the total funds are going to fighting the effects of the pandemic.

“It’s very simple. We’re here today because Pelosi, Schumer, and Biden decided to use a pandemic to push forward a progressive wish list; items to reward political allies, friends, and donors at the expense of the American working class,” Smith said.

He said that less than 9 percent of the $1.9 trillion is allocated for COVID health spending and only 5 percent is marked to fund the extra needs at schools amid the pandemic.

“Why is it that this package spends more than 25%, according to the Congressional Budget Office, on items that kill millions of jobs,” he added.

The Republican Study Committee (RSC), the largest conservative caucus on Capitol Hill, released a fact-sheet on items “Democrats are hoping the public won’t find about [sic]” that are included in President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus bill.

Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), the RSC’s newly elected chairman, said in a memo sent to caucus members that Democrats have included items of “special interest pork and other liberal goodies” in the proposal.

“If that’s not bad enough, Nancy Pelosi plugged in a $200 million earmark for an underground tunnel in San Francisco for Silicone Valley employees,” Banks said. “This is a bailout to the special interest groups that gave them power.”

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) said another reason why the GOP will oppose the package is because it does not help get kids back to school full time.

“That’s not what this $1.9 trillion liberal wish list, giveaway bill does and that’s why we’re strongly opposing it, and we’re also pushing to expose just what is really in this bill,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the $1.9 trillion package will provide “bold COVID relief to Americans nationwide” and criticized Republicans for obstructing Democrat efforts.

“Republican leaders are reportedly ‘maneuvering’ to get every single Republican member to oppose urgent, bold COVID relief. Every single one! Make no mistake: Democrats are working to quickly deliver the American Rescue Plan and big, bold COVID relief,” Schumer said.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the Democrat’s rescue package was not addressing the issues that would help reopen the economy.

“Only about 1% of the Democrats’ partisan plan goes to vaccines. Only about 5% of its K-12 funding would even go out this fiscal year. Democrats are not addressing the urgent needs of a re-opening America. They started with a preconceived liberal wish-list and worked backward,” McConnell said.

Source: Democrats Accept 2 of 286 Amendments Sought by Republicans for $1.9 Trillion COVID-19 Stimulus Bill

February 17, 2021February 17, 2021

Opinion: Joe Biden Just Made the Worst Foreign Policy Blunder Since 1950

Buildings at the Artux City Vocational Skills Education Training Service Center, believed to be a re-education camp where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities are detained, north of Kashgar in China's northwestern Xinjiang region, on June 2, 2019. (Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images)

Commentary by Thomas Del Beccaro

Recently, I wrote that the world would be “Living Dangerously for Four Years Under Joe Biden.” In plain terms, Joe Biden is not physically or mentally up to the job.

By dismissing the Chinese regime’s atrocities against the Uyghurs, a Muslim minority who live in Xinjiang in northwest China, as part of “different norms,” Biden could be plunging the world into an international crisis sooner than any of us could have imagined.

In 1968, the historian Will Durant wrote in his “Lessons of History,” that “War is one of the constants of history, and has not diminished with civilization or democracy. In the last 3,421 years of recorded history, only 268 have seen no war.” Sadly, there has been a war somewhere in the world every year since.

Regardless of the luxuries in which Americans live, it remains true that, in every era, there are regimes that are barbaric or seek domination of their people and often the regions around them, if not more.

China is one such country. Recently, it was reported by the New York Post that “The State Department said it was ‘deeply disturbed’ by a report that claims Muslim women being held in Chinese re-education camps detaining millions of Uyghurs are being systematically raped, sexually abused and tortured.”

While not every atrocity can be remedied by the United States, none of them should be tolerated. All of them should be met by statements from our Commander in Chief that America aspires for freedom for everyone and that no atrocity can be justified or tolerated.

Beyond that, an administration should use diplomacy and economic sanctions at a minimum to confront the atrocities. Military intervention, while a last resort, should never be taken off the table.

With respect to China, a country that permits live organ harvesting, military intervention is not an option for those atrocities. Clear-eyed resolve, diplomacy, and sanctions, however, are a must.

All of which brings us to Joe Biden’s statement related to China and the Uyghurs. In a rambling response on national television, Biden first justified China’s abuses by saying:

“If you know anything about Chinese history, it has always been, the time when China has been victimized by the outer world is when they haven’t been unified at home . . . So the central—well, vastly overstated—the central principle of [Chinese leader] Xi Jinping is that there must be a united, tightly controlled China. And he uses his rationale for the things he does based on that.”

He also said, “Culturally there are different norms that each country and their leaders are expected to follow.”

Atrocities are not justifiable norms and prior wrongs don’t justify current atrocities.

Biden’s comments could be the worst foreign policy blunder since Secretary of State Dean G. Acheson’s speech at the National Press Club on Jan. 12, 1950. In that speech, he “defined the American ‘defensive perimeter’ in the Pacific as a line running through Japan, the Ryukyus, and the Philippines. This denied a guarantee of US military protection to the Republic of Korea (ROK).”

Not long after, the world was plunged into the Korean War after North Korea invaded South Korea in June of 1950. Many reasonably believe that Acheson’s statement that the United States’ sphere of concern, i.e. its defense perimeter, didn’t include what is South Korea today was a green light for North Korea, with the support of China and Russia, to invade South Korea.

Joe Biden’s comments just gave comfort to China that the United States won’t interfere in its domestic atrocities. The same words shall give comfort to Iran, Russia, and every dictator around the world—regardless of whether clarifying statements are made by the Administration in the days and weeks ahead.

God only knows what they will do with Biden’s green light.

The world, on the other hand, now knows just how weak Joe Biden is.

One lesson of history is that wars are started based on an adversary’s weakness and that is why the world will be living dangerously under Joe Biden.

Thomas Del Beccaro is an acclaimed author, speaker, Fox News, Fox Business, and Epoch Times opinion writer, and former chairman of the California Republican Party. He is the author of the historical perspectives “The Divided Era” and “The New Conservative Paradigm

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Birdpuk.com

Source: Opinion: Joe Biden Just Made the Worst Foreign Policy Blunder Since 1950

January 30, 2021January 30, 2021

Republicans Pan Pentagon Move to Give COVID-19 Vaccines to Guantanamo Detainees

The entrance to Camp VI, a prison used to house detainees at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on March 5, 2013. (Bob Strong/Reuters)

Republican lawmakers took aim at reports that the Pentagon would give COVID-19 vaccines to detainees at Guantanamo Bay while millions of vulnerable Americans wait in line for their turn to get inoculated.

Recent reports indicate that the Pentagon plans to offer vaccines to the 40 prisoners housed at the facility starting as early as next week. Those detained in Guantanamo Bay include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks which killed 2,977 Americans.

Department of Defense spokesman Michael Howard told The New York Post that an order had been signed that will see vaccinations “offered to all detainees and prisoners” and will be administered on a voluntary basis.

Epoch Times Photo — An image of a courtroom shows Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (C) and co-defendant Walid Bin Attash (L) attending a pre-trial session in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on Dec. 8, 2008. (Sketch by Janet Hamlin-Pool/Getty Images)

Clayton Trivett, the prosecutor in the case against five Guantanamo Bay prisoners who stand accused of taking part in plotting the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, wrote a letter to defense lawyers saying that “an official in the Pentagon has just signed a memo approving the delivery of the COVID-19 vaccine to the detainee population in Guantánamo,” according to The New York Times.

The move has sparked anger among Republican lawmakers, with some accusing President Joe Biden of putting the needs of accused terrorists ahead of law-abiding Americans.

“It is inexcusable and un-American that President Biden is choosing to prioritize vaccinations for convicted terrorists in Gitmo over vulnerable American seniors or veterans,” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) said in a tweet Saturday.

“Outrageous. The Biden Administration is giving vaccines to terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. What do they say to American seniors and veterans still waiting for theirs?” Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) wrote in a tweet Saturday.

“Nothing says #unity like letting the 9/11 mastermind & Gitmo detainees skip in front of millions of Americans for the COVID #vaccine,” said Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.), in a tweet.

The U.S. naval base in Guantanamo began inoculating its 6,000 residents earlier this month, although detainees were not believed to have been included.

Biden has made ramping up vaccinations a priority, announcing a plan to inoculate 100 million Americans in his first 100 days in office.

The move to include Gitmo detainees in the vaccination rollout also sparked outrage from New Yorkers who witnessed the collapse of the World Trade Center firsthand and helped respond to the fallout.

“You can’t make this up. The ridiculousness of what we get from our government. They will run the vaccine down to those lowlifes at Guantanamo Bay before every resident of the United States of America gets it is the theater of the absurd,” said Tom Von Essen, who was city Fire Commissioner during 9/11 and lost 343 firefighters that day, according to The New York Post.

Source: Republicans Pan Pentagon Move to Give COVID-19 Vaccines to Guantanamo Detainees

January 23, 2021January 23, 2021

Landlords bear financial burden of eviction moratoriums for renters

Tenants who received an eviction notice from their landlord fill out forms at the Civil Law Self-Help Center at the Regional Justice Center, on Nov. 16, 2020, in Las Vegas. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @bizutesfaye

Eviction moratoriums have protected cash-strapped renters affected by the coronavirus pandemic for the past 10 months, but mom-and-pop landlords are finding themselves shouldering tremendous financial burdens.

Landlord Mario Tafarella is owed more than $30,000 in rent from two of his Las Vegas rental properties in Desert Shores, and it’s money he never will receive.

“Thirty grand — take it out of your bank account. Would it have a financial impact on you?” Tafarella said, referring to eviction moratoriums implemented by Gov. Steve Sisolak and the federal government. “It’s horrible what was done, and it should be illegal.”

Shannon Conley, a landlord in Reno, said the eviction moratoriums are frustrating. She found herself not only out rent money from her tenant but also discovered extensive damage to her property including “the carpet with all (their pet) ferret’s poop on it.”

Landlords looking to evict tenants for nonpayment of rent must wait longer before taking action.

That’s because Sisolak reinstituted his eviction moratorium last month. The directive is expected to expire March 31. Like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention order, eligible tenants must opt in by signing a declaration form and giving it to their landlord.

The governor’s office did not respond to request for comment.

Tafarella said he was unaware of Sisolak’s latest directive but is concerned should his tenants stop paying rent.

“We’ve got tenants that have been with us five and seven years, and they paid us through the eviction ban … but who knows, anything can happen,” he said. “If all of them (stop paying) it would drive us to bankruptcy.”

Another extension

Las Vegas resident and landlord Bob Smith said his worst-case scenario would be foreclosing on his properties in Pahrump and Las Vegas.

Smith had to tap into his savings when one tenant stopped paying rent last year after the eviction moratorium took effect. He’s lost more than $6,500 and had to requested a mortgage forebearance on the home.

“I used it on that house — I had to,” he said. “They put it on the back end of the loan (but) I did try to catch up on the payments.”

Smith said that like during the Great Recession, when he had to foreclose on four properties, he doesn’t recall very many government programs aimed at helping smaller landlords.

Attorney Rory Vohwinkel of Las Vegas-based Vohwinkel Law, which specializes in bankruptcies and foreclosures, said there’s very little help for smaller landlords.

“The CARES Act has a lot of incentives for larger property owners to be able to apply for benefits, but the smaller homeowners are really struggling,” he said.

The main lifeline for mom-and-pop landlords is a mortgage payment forbearance option first made available after last year’s passage of the federal coronavirus relief package, or the CARES Act.

The program allows for homeowners to pause their mortgage payments for up to 12 months on government-backed home loans, but they’re required to eventually make repayments.

A lender or loan servicer is also prevented from foreclosing on a property until the end of March. The moratorium on foreclosures was set to expire Feb. 28, or Jan. 31 for Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac-backed loans, but President Joe Biden extended the protection Wednesday.

Rental assistance also is offered through the CARES Housing Assistance Program (CHAP), said Bailey Bortolin, policy director at Nevada Coalition of Legal Service Providers.

“Rental assistance is available, and it’s given directly to landlords so that landlord relief element is still there and has been there the entire time,” she said.

Clark County has an estimated $125 million budgeted for housing and utility assistance, which is being paid out through the CHAP program, according to Clark County spokesman Dan Kulin.

‘Full of flies’

For landlords like Tafarella, whose rental properties are paid off and serve as retirement income, the forbearance program offers no help, and one of his tenants was unable to receive rental assistance because the funds had run dry at the time he applied.

Tafarella, who lives in Santa Barbara, California, owns 12 rental properties — 11 condominiums and a house — in the Las Vegas Valley.

He stopped receiving monthly rent payments at two of his properties in March when Sisolak announced his first eviction moratorium.

When Sisolak’s moratorium expired Oct. 15, Tafarella quickly learned about another moratorium in place. The CDC issued a national moratorium on evictions for nonpayment of rent Sept. 4. It was extended this week by Biden through at least the end of March.

Tafarella recalls learning about the CDC order when his tenant handed him a signed declaration form. The tenant was on the lease with his girlfriend, who was working as a nurse.

“I contacted our eviction company and said, ‘What’s the deal? There’s two tenants. Can you please check with the legal staff and see if one form is sufficient,” he said. “The (eviction) company said I was right — we need a form from both tenants — so we kicked off the eviction process.”

Tafarella was able to evict the couple in December because the girlfriend was not covered by the CDC moratorium.

Meanwhile, his second tenant stopped responding to emails, phone calls and texts about creating a payment plan.

“We went through the full eviction process, which was very lengthy, so we could have access (to the property) because we presumed she was still there,” he said. “That presumption was wrong. We found out she vacated months ago and never told us — left food, furniture and just totally trashed the place. It was full of flies.”

Trouble ahead

Real estate broker Tom Blanchard of Signature Real Estate Group said other than restaurants and bars, smaller landlords have “had to bear the brunt of this pandemic.”

He said mom-and-pop landlords are those who purchase one or a handful of properties expecting some extra income, especially as a part of a retirement plan.

“They’re not the large corporate conglomerates that can handle taking a loss because they’re making money (on other investments),” said Blanchard, who last year served as president of trade association Las Vegas Realtors.

Nevada could see a rise in foreclosures should smaller landlords fail to keep up with their multiple mortgage payments, according to Blanchard.

The latest report from CoreLogic found 6.1 percent of mortgages in October were delinquent by at least 30 days or more, including those in foreclosure, up 2.4 percent from October 2019. In Nevada, the delinquency rate was 7.5 percent and 8.5 percent in the Las Vegas metro area.

Serious delinquencies, those 90 days or more past due including loans in foreclosure, was 4.1 percent in the U.S. for October. Nevada reported 5.5 percent, making it No. 8 for the state with the highest serious delinquency rate. New York ranked No. 1 with 6.4 percent, while Hawaii was No. 4 at a rate of 5.7 percent.

Real estate broker and Las Vegas Realtors President Aldo Martinez said smaller landlords usually don’t have enough leverage to cover a tenant’s missed rent payments for an extended period of time, adding that some clients are now looking to sell their rental properties.

“They’re just cutting their losses where they can,” he said. “If you think owning rental properties is a good idea because there’s someone helping you pay down the property plus you’re making some income, all of that makes sense. But then you run into COVID and an eviction moratorium and now a state that was actually very good for landlords has become a catastrophe for them.”

Source: Landlords bear financial burden of eviction moratoriums for renters