Johnson Controls' role in global fight against COVID-19 started in Wuhan.
Now the front lines are here

U.S. Department of Homeland Security lists Johnson Controls as a critical manufacturer

Because of the global company's presence in health care and its capabilities, Johnson Controls was asked to become part of the team in Wuhan to deliver temporary health care options, the company's vice president of commercial sales for building solutions North America Lisa Roy said.

In China, government and health officials targeted renovated stadiums and conference centers and turned them into mobile or temporary hospitals. This process is now beginning in the United States.

Roy said some of the company work being done in China included installing remote patient monitoring systems in a place being used as an isolation facility. Another project included equipping 300 hospital beds in a remote facility with proper communication and security technology. That took just 72 hours, Roy said. Johnson Controls also equipped 860 critical beds in China with nurse call systems.

Johnson Controls is already in over 85% of hospitals in the U.S., Roy said. The company has 25,000 people in North America in 120 locations. Two weeks ago, different company teams were already doing work in U.S. hospitals, providing installation work or services. As hospitals and health care facilities worked to reconfigure entry and exit points, Johnson Controls has been providing basic security and fire offerings.

Now, Johnson Controls is working with state and federal officials to identify property that would create good makeshift hospitals and equipping these spaces with the proper technology. In the last 24 hours, Roy said the company has seen seven of these types of procurements in seven different states.

Click here to read the full story on how Johnson Controls is helping the global fight against COVID-19

Genetec - Access Control Feature

"Contagion/Contaminant Proximity Report" available free of charge to any Genetec Security Center Synergis access control customers

Genetec has released an access control feature to help organizations identify people who are at increased risk of being in contact with contaminants or contagious individuals during COVID-19.

The new reporting function for its Security Center Synergis (Synergis) access control system is designed to help organizations find all people who went through a door in close proximity to someone thought to be contagious. A report can quickly be generated to correlate access events by time window to identify people who are at increased risk of being in contact with contaminants or contagious individuals. This will allow enterprises to proactively advise individuals of their potential contamination and take the necessary hygienic precautions, as outlined by health and safety procedures and regulations.

The feature is available free of charge to any Genetec Security Center Synergis access control customers.

For more information, visit Genetec.com
 

Coronavirus Update: April 6

US: 350K+ Cases, 10,300+ Dead -- Globally: 1.3 Million+ Cases, 72K+ Dead

New Retail Layoffs & Furloughs

Carter's announces furloughs for store employees

Destination XL furloughing 264 corporate associates, effective April 2

Genesco furloughs 3,000 North American store associates & "reduces headcount" in corporate offices

GNC furloughs "a significant portion" of its store & corporate workforce

Hobby Lobby furloughs nearly all store employees & "a large portion" of corporate & distribution center staff

Sears furloughs most hourly & salaried employees & majority of corporate associates

Vera Bradley announces furloughs for majority of associates & some corporate employees
 

The Next Two Weeks - Our Pearl Harbor & 9/11 Rolled Up in One

"This is going to be the hardest and the saddest week of most Americans' lives"

The numbers look terrifying, according to NIAID Director Dr. Fauci and the Surgeon General. With the next two weeks, according to President Trump, possibly being the worst two weeks in our nation's history.

Obviously everyone has heard the predictions of 100,000 to 240,000 deaths and all the efforts to try to impact that and lower the peak.

Over the weekend the various experts and commentators talked about another 5 million potentially becoming unemployed this week. On top of the 10 million in the last two week period. A number higher than the Great Depression according to GPS.

But one of the bigger potential problems we're also facing is the lack of a clear exit strategy and how do we come out of this medically induced coma the economy is in.

Post-COVID Plan

Translated in retail terms - how do we restart the stores and bring back the millions of furloughed employees? What does that look like and what's the plan?

A great question considering we're all shell shocked right now with just watching the scenes coming out of NYC's hospital's and listening to Governor Cuomo go on endlessly, all be it with facts and figures that do indeed warrant review and consideration if we're to defeat this enemy in the hardest hit place on the planet.

Facts - Probability - Risk

But the point is how do we restart the industry in anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months possibly? With the longer it goes causing the most severe reactions and consequences. As Cuomo pointed out 'Cabin Fever' is a big concern. Given that it could cause "irrational behavior, more alcohol abuse, domestic issues, and overall mental health issues." A valid point given the economic pressures.

So at the end of the day what do we see in the stores once we start reopening?

Shoplifting spike, robbery spike, more domestic violence played out at the workplace. And out of this huge employee population coming back, who are the most at risk that might just be contracting COVID-19 or who are carriers and not showing it? And how do we monitor and screen this?

Issue being that we also need to start focusing on and developing a strategy for turning this huge machine back on while minimizing the risk and safeguarding our associates and customers.

Just some thoughts. -Gus Downing

US coronavirus peak predicted to see over 3,000 deaths in single day
The peak of the coronavirus pandemic is likely still 10 days away in the US - when an alarming 3,130 Americans are predicted to die in a single day, according to new scientific data.

Graphs created by the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics outline predicted death tolls for each state, along with warnings about potential shortages of much-needed hospital beds.

The models support Gov. Andrew Cuomo's suggestion that the pandemic is close to its apex in New York - forecasting that it will peak on Thursday.

Nationwide, the peak is predicted to hit a week from Thursday, with 3,130 that day - pushing the predicted total of deaths to 81,766 by Aug. 4. The US could be short a total of more than 36,500 hospital beds, more than 16,300 in ICUs during the peak, they predict.

"If social distancing measures are relaxed or not implemented, the US will see greater death tolls," warned the institute's director, Dr. Christopher Murray. nypost.com

Nearly 3,000 new NYC coronavirus cases overnight, total approaches 68,000
Queens remains the hardest-hit borough, with 22,767 confirmed cases, followed by Brooklyn, with 18,215, according to City Hall. The Bronx has the third most diagnoses (13,397), followed by Manhattan (9,624) and Staten Island (3,780).

The toll continued to mount as City Councilman Mark Levine (D - Manhattan) said that the Big Apple may be forced to temporarily bury its dead in public parks. nypost.com

New CDC Guidance for Employers Reflects Evolving Knowledge of Coronavirus
Open the windows. Leave contaminated areas vacant for 24 hours if you can. Wear disposable gloves and gowns. And, of course, wash your hands often.

These are among the updated guidelines posted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for cleaning and disinfecting a workplace after an employee is diagnosed with COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus. Among the new tips: If a contaminated area has been closed for seven days or more, there's no need for a special cleaning. shrm.org

How can stores get social distancing right?
Walmart, Target, Home Depot and Lowe's this past weekend joined many other retailers in limiting the number of customers allowed in stores at one time to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. The retailers are taking some extra measures as well.

At Menards, the Midwest home improvement chain, children under the age of 16 are banned. In the U.K., Sainsbury's isn't letting couples shop together. At Costco, only two family members are now being allowed to enter their stores per membership card.

Hy-Vee is encouraging customers to follow a "one person per cart" guideline. Schnucks and H-E-B are suggesting one shopper per household when possible.

In Vermont, retailers such as Target, Walmart and Costco are now required to limit the sales of nonessential items.

Miami Beach and Hoboken, NJ over the weekend passed laws requiring residents visiting businesses to wear face coverings. In New Zealand, some grocers are refusing entry for shoppers not wearing gloves and masks. retailwire.com

Burglaries Up 75% in NYC
NYC Sees More Burglaries of Businesses Under Coronavirus Emergency Measures

Some shops are opting to board up storefronts as a deterrent

Burglaries of businesses have risen in New York City under emergency measures to fight the new coronavirus, according to new New York Police Department data, and some businesses are boarding up their storefronts.

The NYPD has seen a 75% increase in reports of burglaries of commercial establishments from March 12, when New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a state of emergency, to March 31, police officials said. The NYPD recorded 254 burglaries of businesses during that time period this year compared with 145 for the same period last year, the officials said.

All boroughs of the city have seen increases, the officials said.

The increase in burglaries coincided with steps to stop the spread of the coronavirus. On March 15, the city ordered restaurants and bars to cease on-site service, prompting many establishments to close altogether or limit operations. A March 20 decree by Gov. Andrew Cuomo called for the closure of all nonessential businesses, leading many retail stores to shutter.

"We knew with the closing of many stores that we could see an increase and, unfortunately, we are," said NYPD Chief of Crime Control Strategies Michael LiPetri.

But Mr. LiPetri said that break-ins of eateries, supermarkets and retail establishments are fueling a rise in commercial burglaries. There were 30 burglaries of supermarkets and bodegas between March 12 and March 31, according to NYPD data, a 400% increase from six such incidents recorded during the same period a year earlier. Burglaries of eateries nearly doubled, rising to 51 incidents in 2020 from 28 incidents in 2019.

Thieves are taking currency, electronics and consumables, such as food, alcohol and retail goods from businesses, Mr. LiPetri said. They gain entry to closed businesses by forcing open doors, breaking windows or climbing in from rooftops, he said.

Dan Biederman, president of the 34th Street Partnership, a business-improvement district that includes the closed Sephora location, said it isn't necessary for businesses to board up their windows. "It's a solution in search of a problem," Mr. Biederman said. Mr. Caserta said boarding up buildings sends an inappropriate message to the community.

"It brings up this idea of rioting and collapse of society," Mr. Caserta said. "This is way too much, and it sends the wrong signal." wsj.com

Threatening to Spread COVID is Fed. Terrorism Offense
'Feds, States Target Coronavirus Frauds - US AG Appoints Coordinator
in Every Office
The Justice Department has directed all 94 U.S. Attorneys to appoint a coordinator for all virus-fraud cases, raising the prospect that those who threatened or attempted to spread the virus could be charged with federal terrorism offenses as the virus could be classified as a biological agent. thecrimereport.org

AG Barr Releases 522 'Vulnerable' Federal Inmates to Home Confinement After Serving 90% of Sentences

Keeping Unoccupied Stores Safe from Burglaries or Looting in the Time of the Coronavirus
Crooks used to doing home burglaries to get their drug money (their first reason, followed by a gambling addiction as the second), will soon realize the liquor store, hardware store and pizza shop are closed. With a truck and a brick, they are back in business.

Prison interviews with burglars reveal most of them are not master thieves. They steal what they can carry out; they are deterred by big angry dogs; they wear gloves, hoodies and masks to avoid being caught on a camera; and if they trigger a ringing alarm, their most common answer is, "I'll work faster," knowing that it's unlikely the local cops are arriving from right down the street.

At times like this, with the coronavirus running our lives, we need to think outside the box. Consider these unique solutions to help us better protect the properties of small-business store owners:

•  Suggest that store owners move as much of their most expensive or theft-sensitive inventory to an offsite storage facility (or their homes) until the quarantine period is over.

•  Have businesses in strip malls pool their money to hire a security guard firm to watch all of their businesses 24/7.

•  Besides making certain they have fully-functional intrusion alarms, with both ringing alarm coverage and an alarm monitoring service, discuss the value of adding shatterproof windows to their stores (perhaps splitting the cost with the landlord or property manager) and/or installing window bars or grilles.

•  Paying furloughed employees to work in teams of two or more, three eight-hour shifts per day inside the store (including graveyard hours), and be visible to anyone who looks in. They can clean, restock, conduct inventory, or do nothing but just sit and monitor what's going on outside and be ready to call the police if a caser comes by or a crowd of looters gathers. We won't ask these employees to intervene physically to protect the building or the goods, but they need to be ready to lock down the store or call the police before a potential looting situation escalates. securitymagazine.com

SF police begin issuing citations to shelter-in-place violators
Police Chief Bill Scott said at a noon press conference on Friday that officers had cited one business and one person in the last 24 hours for failing to heed warnings about the order.

Police have taken incident reports for six businesses that should have closed to comply with the order but remained open, and cited one of those businesses, Scott said. policeone.com

Lawsuits Swell as Owners, From Gun Shops to Golf Courses, Demand to Open

There will be a million lawsuits

Attorneys told The Post Friday that countless legal issues could arise as a result of the crisis - related to employment labor law, insurance coverage, landlord-tenant matters, contract disputes, and, naturally - medical malpractice.

Orders to stay home and to shutter businesses because of the coronavirus are being challenged nationwide on the grounds they deny Americans their constitutional rights.

It is a growing refrain across the United States as more governors invoke their "police powers" to take extraordinary measures to protect public health. Some Americans, many hoping to protect their livelihoods and others suspicious of such sweeping powers, are turning to the courts.

Because of sparse online records, it is not clear how many ordinary Americans have turned to state courts for redress, legal experts said, but there has been a wave of lawsuits as state governments extend the timeline for people to stay home and to shutter their businesses.

Other constitutional amendments have been invoked in several lawsuits in recent weeks attempting to force open gun stores, or to argue that measures to curb the virus should not outweigh rights like freedom of assembly and religion.

Legal experts anticipate a tidal wave of court activity afterward - especially in fields like insurance and debt collection - because of the economic dislocation caused by the pandemic.

Across the United States, closing gun shops provoked a series of lawsuits arguing that the measure violated the Second Amendment right to bear arms. nypost.com nytimes.com

What the CEO's Are Reading
The Robin Report: What Retailers Really Need Now - Rent Relief

The Big Push - Taubman Has Already Said No

Besides online sales, what retailers need most right now is rent relief, in any size, shape or form! Many of them may need rent abatement for the entire time they are closed. Retailers, even the golden children, direct-to-consumer brands, are having a make or break moment. The cost of overhead is one of their largest expenses and with none-to-few revenues; this imbalance will be a retailer killer. In a normal environment there would be lots of guidelines and a legal framework to follow, AKA your lease. But this roadmap may not be enough. These are the terms du jour you've likely heard a lot lately, Force Majeure, Temporary Condemnation, Quiet Enjoyment, Business Interruption Insurance and Rent Holidays have been discussed, analyzed and most don't seem applicable to the pandemic. Indeed, we are in a dynamic, fluid and unprecedented period.

The terms du jour you've likely heard a lot lately, Force Majeure, Temporary Condemnation, Quiet Enjoyment, Business Interruption Insurance and Rent Holidays have been discussed, analyzed and most don't seem applicable to the pandemic. therobinreport.com

Coronavirus will hit these states hardest financially, according to Moody's States Most Affected: - Nevada - Hawaii - Washington - New York  yahoo.com

Dallas News Correction: Dallas County Stay-at-Home order is April 30th not May 20th

The Container Store closes its stores switches to curbside only

Open Pantry Install Plexiglass Walk-Up Windows & Offering PPI

Southeastern Grocers Expands Safety Precautions - Limits customers - floor markers - plexiglass partitions

Costco & Trader Joe's Limiting Number of Customers

Chico's Extends Store Closures Indefinitely & Furloughed Majority of Workers with Health Benefits

Meijer doing daily temperature checks, health screenings of employees

Lululemon keeps workers on payroll to June 1, top exec's take 20% pay cut

BJ's limits in-store traffic to 20% of store's total capacity, temperature checks team members, provides masks & gloves, increased wages, paid leave

Instacart will provide free health and safety kits to full-service shoppers that include face masks, hand sanitizer, and thermometers

Under Armour details big restructuring charges; to furlough employees
 

In Case You Missed It

Director, Global Asset Protection job posted for eBay in Draper, UT

Corporate America Better Mandate No Zooming Period
'Zoombombing' Becomes a Dangerous Organized Effort

Zoom has become a target for harassment & abuse coordinated in
private off-platform chats

In recent weeks, as schools, businesses, support groups and millions of individuals have adopted Zoom as a meeting platform in an increasingly remote world, reports of "Zoombombing" or "Zoom raiding" by uninvited participants have become frequent

While those incidents may have initially been regarded as pranks or trolling, they have since risen to the level of hate speech and harassment, and even commanded the attention of the F.B.I.

The weaponization of Zoom - a videoconferencing app that has become a de facto social platform for the coronavirus era - is the latest development in the story of online abuse, the kind playing out on social networks and darker, unmoderated corners of the internet.

An analysis by The New York Times found 153 Instagram accounts, dozens of Twitter accounts and private chats, and several active message boards on Reddit and 4Chan where thousands of people had gathered to organize Zoom harassment campaigns, sharing meeting passwords and plans for sowing chaos in public and private meetings. (Since this article's publication, Reddit has shut down the message boards where Zoom raids were discussed.)

Zoom raiders often employ shocking imagery, racial epithets and profanity to derail video conferences. Though a meeting organizer can remove a participant at any time, the perpetrators of these attacks can be hard to identify; there may be several in a single call, and they can appear to jump from one alias to another.

Harassers have begun to leverage every feature of Zoom's platform for abuse. They have used the app's custom background feature to project a GIF of a person drinking to participants in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and its annotation feature to write racist messages in a meeting of the American Jewish Committee in Paris.

"When you see this kind of rampant abuse, it isn't just a one-off thing," said Whitney Phillips, an assistant professor at Syracuse University who teaches digital ethics. "Clearly, this is systemic."

"Certain people are weaponizing Zoom to sow division in society or spread hate," Mr. Amanullah said. "Those of us who are of particular backgrounds and who are targets of hate bear the brunt of it." nytimes.com

Sean can we insert some maps of below

Google Mobility Reports Show Impact of Lockdown
Google published reports Friday that use aggregated phone location data to show how closely lockdown regulations are being followed around the world.

The company said its COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports would "provide insights into what has changed in response to work from home, shelter in place, and other policies aimed at flattening the curve of this pandemic."

The reports use aggregated, anonymized data gathered from cell phones to chart movement trends over time. Specifically, they reveal how busy popular destinations such as shops, parks, recreation spaces, grocery stores, pharmacies, transit stations, residential areas, and workplaces have been since the majority of countries asked people to stay at home.

Initially, the reports will cover 131 countries and regions and show trends that have emerged over several weeks, with the most recent data included at least 48 hours old.

Today's reports show a traffic comparison over a five-week period between February 16 and March 29.  infosecurity-magazine.com

Click here to see more U.S. Google Mobility Reports

Hacking forum OGUsers gets hacked for the second time in a year

Let's hope it was the FBI or CIA

OGUsers, one of the most popular hacking forums on the internet, disclosed today a security breach, the second such incident in the past year.

"It appears that someone was able to breach the server through a shell in avatar uploading in the forum software and get access to our current database dating April 2, 2020," said Ace, the forum's administrator.

The attacker is believed to have stolen the details of more than 200,000 users, the latest user counter listed on the forum.

The site rose to infamy in 2018 when fellow tech news site Motherboard identified it as one of the main locations on the internet where hackers were gathering to buy and sell hacked Instagram accounts.

Furthermore, the site also served as a training ground and meeting place for hackers looking to organize SIM swapping (SIM jacking) attacks. zdnet.com

AWS Announces General Availability of Amazon Detective
Amazon Web Services Inc. announced the general availability of Amazon Detective, a new security service that makes it easy for customers to conduct faster and more efficient investigations into security issues across their AWS workloads. aboutamazon.com