Given a paragraph, generate a claim that is supported by the given paragraph. 1) The claim must contain information from within the paragraph. 2) A sentence within the paragraph can be used as a claim. 3) The claim should not have contradictions within the paragraph. 4) The claim should be at most one sentence long.

“This pandemic is not only a public health crisis, it is also fueling an economic crisis the likes of which we have not seen since the Great Depression,” Hancock said at a news conference. Denver has seen steep declines in sales, lodging and other taxes since the pandemic hit Colorado two months ago, and the state is still under a safer-at-home order that has placed restrictions on businesses. City leaders say the drop in tax revenue is affecting the fund that pays for police and fire services, as well as street maintenance. American cities, from Puyallup, Washington, to Miramar, Florida, have also furloughed employees to save money in the face of dire economic forecasts. In April, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti released a spending plan he called “a document of our pain” that includes service cuts and furloughs for nearly 16,000 workers. Under the proposal, city employees would take 26 furlough days, the equivalent of a 10% pay cut, in the coming year. The spending reductions in Los Angeles are likely to be a sign of what’s to come at city halls across the nation, as jobless lines grow and local treasuries see steep drops in tax revenue. Denver’s planned furloughs, which do not apply to uniformed employees like firefighters, police officers and sheriff’s deputies, will save the city about $16 million. The city also is reducing travel, hiring and purchases, and it is asking departments to cut 7.5% from their budgets. About 3,000 of Denver’s 12,000 employees are uniformed workers. “I want everyone to know that we have worked to exhaust every other tool we had before taking this step,” said Hancock, who repeated his call for lawmakers to include cities in the next federal stimulus package. “The reality is this: If cities can’t recover, there will be no national recovery,” he said. Brendan Hanlon, the city’s chief financial officer, said he thought the fallout from the 2008-2009 Great Recession was astonishing, but the current crisis will be harder to address. “I could have never imagined seeing the numbers that we’re seeing right now and the gravity that it means to the services that we provide to the public every day here in Denver,” he said. The city last instituted furloughs in 2011. A survey by the National League of Cities found nearly universal agreement that cities would be hit hard by revenue shortfalls caused by the coronavirus outbreak, and in many cases furloughs and layoffs would be used to close budget gaps.
Denver to furlough thousands of workers amid coronavirus.

A member of a small county commission in Florida became an online laughingstock after video spread of him endorsing a widely-debunked cure for COVID-19 (a.k.a. the “coronavirus”) by a right-wing “news” outlet to his colleagues.During the March 20 2020 meeting, Okeechobee County commissioner Bryant Culpepper reassured his colleagues that his information was legitimate because he saw it on One America News Network (OAN or OANN), which he described as “the new Fox News.”“There’s a lot of baloney out there on social media. You’ve gotta be really careful. But I only brought it up because it came from a pretty reliable source,” Culpepper said.According to a story he saw on the channel, he said, an OAN guest claimed that it was possible to beat COVID-19 by training a hair dryer on one’s face at a temperature of 136 degrees Fahrenheit. (This is not true. )“In this interview with one of the foremost doctors who has studied the coronavirus, [he] said that the nasal passages and the nasal membranes are the coolest part of the body,” Culpepper said. “That’s why the virus tends to go there until it then becomes healthy enough to go into the lungs.” (This is also not true. )But using the hair dryer, he said, would cause the virus to fall apart. “You hold a blow dryer in front of your face and you inhale with your nose, and it kills all the viruses in your nose,” Culpepper claimed, falsely.He also indirectly promoted the “cure” on his own Facebook page, linking to local coverage of the meeting without mentioning that it covered his remarks:The claims that he said OAN and the “foremost doctor” were promoting have been roundly and completely debunked. And in reality, OAN is far from “pretty reliable.” In fact, as the media analysis site Media Bias/Fact Check reported in reviewing the California-based channel, it’s exactly the opposite:We rate One America News Far right biased based on story selection that consistently favors the Right and Mixed for factual reporting due to promotion of conspiracies, lack of sourcing and a few failed fact checks. OAN is one failed fact check away from moving to the Questionable Source list.The review cited an AdWeek story saying that staff members felt that the channel’s billionaire founder, Robert Herring Sr., had become a “de facto news director” who pushed OAN into becoming supportive of United States President Donald Trump’s run for office in 2016:According to internal emails, Herring has directed his channel to push Trump’s candidacy, scuttle stories about police shootings, encourage antiabortion stories, minimize coverage of Russian aggression, and steer away from the new president’s troubles, according to more than a dozen current and former producers, writers and anchors, as well as internal emails from Herring and his top news executives.Besides getting local coverage, Culpepper’s attempt to paint the “blow dryer” cure as legitimate was shared on social media:Okeechobee County Commissioner Bryant Culpepper at emergency meeting says you can kill coronavirus by holding a blow dryer up to your nose after he saw it on “reliable source” OANN, warns “there’s a lot of baloney out there on social media” #BecauseFlorida pic.twitter.com/n9dGDBQ4WW— Billy Corben (@BillyCorben) March 22, 2020According to the Friendly Atheist blog, which covers religious affairs, Culpepper reacted angrily at first to the criticism:No one is holding a gun to your head to do anything you do not want to do but for some they don’t have alot [sic] of options. All this wonderful Science you believe in yet Thousands die everyday from Cancer, Lukemia, ALS so why haven’t they been cured with all the Scientist working on for years Go ahead laugh all you want and feel like fools when I am proven Right.However, he apologized on his Facebook page on March 22 2020. “I am Heartfully Sorry for comments I made on Social Media,” he wrote:I was only trying to give comfort to those in Okeechobee who have no insurance to treat there [sic] families. I should have ignored the comments that I perceived as hateful and the embarrassment I caused to my Fellow Commissioners and our Administrator And [sic] her staff. I will not offer anymore suggestions unless they are tried and proven.Given the huge amount of disinformation circulating both on and off social media and the credulity with which certain officials are repeating it, it is probably best to receive health guidance from medical experts, not public figures without expertise who regularly quote ideas from far-right television networks without credibility.
A member of the Okeechobee County Commission in Florida promoted a claim that using a blow dryer could cure people of COVID-19.

Food and Drug Administration officials said they are trying  to determine whether the chemical — over-sulfated chondroitin  sulfate — was purposely or inadvertently added during  manufacturing in China. “We don’t know whether the contaminant was introduced  intentionally or by accident,” said Dr. Janet Woodcock,  director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. Chondroitin sulfate is widely sold as a dietary supplement  to treat joint pain. The over-sulfated version is not known to  occur naturally and therefore likely was chemically modified,  Woodcock told reporters on a conference call. It is still unclear whether the contaminant is the cause of  up to 19 deaths and hundreds of serious breathing problems and  other reactions reported to the FDA, she said. The substance mimics the blood-thinning actions of heparin  but is not FDA-approved for use in medicines, Woodcock said. In  some batches, the contaminant accounted for between 2 percent  and 50 percent of the samples, she said. FDA officials said chemically manipulating chondroitin  sulfate, which is widely available from animal sources, would  be cheaper than getting raw heparin from pig intestines. Last year, the FDA found pet food ingredients imported from  China were tainted, killing more than 200 cats and dogs and  causing widespread alarm. The Chinese maker involved was later  indicted in the United States for fraud over adding the  chemical melamine in an attempt to bolster the value of its  ingredient. The pet food case drew attention to China’s role in the  U.S. food and drug supply and ignited criticism over the FDA’s  lack of oversight — and little cooperation from its Chinese  counterparts. This time around, FDA officials said they are getting  needed help from China. “It’s quite a different scenario than we had a year ago,”  FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for International Affairs Murray  Lumpkin, told reporters on the phone, while speaking from  China. FDA’s Woodcock said it remains unclear whether the heparin  contamination was intentional. Many scientists are studying  over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate, which could have  accidentally made its way into heparin products, she said. The FDA announced on March 5 it had found a “heparin-like”  contaminant in some of the drug’s active ingredient supplied to  Baxter by a plant in Changzhou, China, owned by Wisconsin-based  Scientific Protein Laboratories. Investigators had been working  since then to determine its precise identity. In a statement, Scientific Protein Laboratories said a  consultant working for the Changzhou plant concluded the  contaminant is not linked to the plant’s production but likely  occurred earlier in the supply chain. Baxter, in a statement, agreed with the FDA’s finding of  over-sulfated chondroitin sulfate but also said the substance  contaminated the product before it reached SPL. FDA spokeswoman Siobhan DeLancey said the agency was still  investigating at what point the contamination occurred. Meanwhile, U.S. lawmakers tentatively scheduled hearings on  the issue for April 15 and April 22. “This latest development underscores our concerns that FDA  does not have a robust enough presence overseas in conducting  inspections,” House of Representatives Energy and Commerce  Committee Chairman John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, said in a  statement. Last month, Baxter recalled most of its U.S. supplies of  heparin, used in kidney dialysis as well as heart and other  surgeries to prevent blood clots. The FDA has received more than 785 reports of heparin  reactions, including 19 deaths in patients treated with some  brand of heparin. Baxter has said only four fatalities might be  related to its heparin and there is not enough information to  say the drug was the cause. The agency has told border inspectors to stop all shipments  of imported heparin intended for the U.S. market so they can be  tested for the contaminant. Germany also has ordered a recall of heparin made by  Rotexmedica after reports of allergic reactions there.

FDA pinpoints contaminant in Baxter's heparin.