The STOCK (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge )Act bans insider trading by Congressmembers. It passed the Senate by 93-2 vote. Richard Burr voted against it.
More on relief package from Guardian:
I tried to post a link here to the doc but it got flagged.
Republican ‘Phase 3’ plan proposes up to $1,200 for individuals
Mitch McConnell’s proposal for a stimulus package would issue direct payments of as much as $1,200 to individual Americans, in an effort to provide economic relief. The plan, which is similar to the White House’s stimulus plan, would be one of the largest in modern history.
The four part plan includes:
- Checks of as much as $1200 for individuals, or $2400 for couples.
- Assistance for small businesses
- Steps to stabilize the economy 4 more support for patients, health professionals.
- Additional relief for patients and health workers
A few more details from the Republican stimulus package:
The financial relief will come to eligible individuals as tax rebates.
The rebates will be $1200 per individual, plus $500 per child.
Those with a tax liability under $1,200 for tax year 2018 will get smaller checks, but at a minimum $600
Those diagnosed with Covid-19 or those who suffer “adverse financial consequences” due to it, can tap into their 401(k)s and IRAs without a penalty
Taxpayers get up $300 in charitable deductions for 2020
There are a few notable gaps in the Republican proposal.
The package bases relief rebates on peoples’ 2018 tax returns. If you made more than $99,000 in 2018, but much less in 2019, you wouldn’t get the benefit.
Another key point: low-income families, who would have paid less than $1200 in taxes, would receive less money. [ this seems really short sighted. Paying the people who need help most, the least. ]
Thank you Governor Wolf. As of 8pm tonight ALL not life sustaining business in PA must close their physical locations. Enforcement starts at 12:01am Saturday.
The GOP plan also only calls for a one-time check. A counterpoint from the Democrats offered recurring checks for the duration of the crisis.
The Democrats have proposed another plan, which Chuck Schumer presented on the Senate floor. The proposal includes a “Marshall Plan” — which borrows its name from the stimulus plan the US developed in the aftermath of World War II — for the hospitals and the health care system. It includes broader paid sick leave mandates, help for small businesses, bailouts for workers and full pay for those out of work.
“No bailout that goes to the people at the top. The money should go to the workers,” Schumer said.
In a surprising moment of bipartisanship, Republican Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi said he agrees with “so much” of Schumer’s proposal, including that “we need to put workers first”.
“I simply rise today to say this is a time for us to come together as patriots, as Americans and take on the task that has come before us,” he added.(Guardian)
California governor projects “56% of state’s population will be infected” in the next 8 weeks
California Gov. Gavin Newsom described in letter to President Trump on Thursday the impact coronavirus will have on the state and its residents.
“We project that roughly 56% of our state’s population – 25.5 million people – will be infected with the virus over an eight-week period,” he said.
He asked that the US Navy’s Mercy Hospital Ship be stationed at the port of Los Angeles. Defense officials tell CNN the ship will head to the Seattle area in the next five to 10 days. The final destination could always change depending on civilian needs, an official cautioned.
Newsom said the hospital ship “will help decompress the health care system to allow the Los Angeles region to ensure that it has the ability to address critical acute care needs.” (CNN)
I’m so glad this is becoming public!
May I suggest a penalty? Every single penny of what he sold should be the amount of his fine and may that money be channeled into the fund helping businesses survive this crisis.
I
$99K per household or per person income? If per household, it’s going to get a lot of people upset. 100K doesn’t really carry you far in high CoL areas.
I am happy the government is doing something about it, but I wish the cap is higher. I just know so many families - this is not going to make them happy.
And agreed with low income - they need the most help!
Hospitals in Italy’s central and southern regions are bracing themselves as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases grows.
The rise, which has been particularly steep in Lazio, Campania and Puglia, is believed to be largely the result of the thousands of people who fled south after Lombardy, where the outbreak in Italy began, was quarantined on 8 March. The entire country was put under lockdown on 9 March and rules were tightened on 11 March.
Giorgio Sestili, a physicist who is collating studies from Italian scientists and sharing them on the Facebook page Coronavirus – Data and Scientific Analysis, said:
Looking at the situation in central and southern Italy, you see cases increasing, especially over the last few days.
We think this could be due to the many people from the north who travelled south after the 9 March lockdown, and who might have transferred the virus.
The American pharmaceutical company which produces a potential covid-19 treatment rose its prices by almost 100% in January as the virus spread across China, the Financial Times has reported (paywall).
Rising Pharmaceuticals, a New Jersey-based company, increased the price of chloroquine — an antimalarial which is one of the drugs that is being tested against Covid-19 — on January 23, according to data from research firm Elsevier.
The price rose 98% to $7.66 per 250mg pill and $19.88 per 500mg pill, according to the FT.
Rising said the price rise was coincidental and that it restored the old price upon realising it might be in demand, but the reversal of the price lift was reportedly not yet reflected by the data.
Guardian
What data model does he base that on? 25 millions with 1% fatality. So 250,000 people will die in the next 8-12 weeks? I would agree with that number if we let it go unchecked (and over a longer period). I seriously hope he is wrong.
Am i missing something here, everyone?
Governors express concern over lack of medical supplies in meeting with Trump
From CNN’s Jason Hoffman, Nikki Carvajal and Kevin Liptak
States need more medical and testing supplies.
That was the message from governors around the country to President Trump on Thursday, as they met with members of the coronavirus task force. The President, who at times appeared frustrated, spoke with governors from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s headquarters in Washington, DC.
Many of the governors, like Phil Murphy of New Jersey and Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, said their main worry is that there is not enough personal protection equipment available in their states — like masks, disposable gowns, and other supplies.
Trump told Murphy that the states should be working to get whatever equipment they need on their own, but the federal government would help if it could.
“Try what you can — do the best you can to get what you can actually get,” Trump said.
Addressing some of the concerns about access to necessary medical equipment, Vice President Mike Pence told governors to immediately “take inventory of your medical supply needs.”
He said the federal government would work with any state “in the middle of critical response” to “get you what you need.”
But he said other states should go through the normal routes to obtain medical equipment from the marketplace, even as hospital workers raise concerns about shortages.
“Other states, you need to talk to your healthcare leaders, providers and make sure that they are going to the supply chain and we encourage you to pull them together today to emphasize that point,” Pence said.
Days after the President insisted access to testing wasn’t an issue, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker pressed the task force over the amount of available coronavirus tests that would be provided to his state. Pritzker said that Illinois did not have enough equipment to properly conduct tests. He said those were being “monopolized” by the drive-through sites the federal government was operating. Members of the administration said that wasn’t true.
Other state leaders said that even when they did get test kits, there were problems with how they were being distributed. Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota told the group that she spent weeks requesting testing supplies, only to have them go to a lab in her state that wasn’t approved to operate by the Food and Drug Administration.
“So they received what I was trying to get for two weeks when they’re not even approved, not even up and running,” she told the President.
She said she had even started asking other states for help. As she voiced her frustration and confusion over how it happened, the President cut her off. “Alright. We got it. Thanks Kris,” he said, as the governor continued to speak.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who the President had snapped his fingers at as Noem spoke, jumped in to answer. He said the hospital “probably bought them on the open market."
“After this call we’ll get on with you to make sure you’re getting what you need,” Azar said. The governor tried to make further requests, but her connection cut out before she could finish.
The President offered little feedback to the governors, choosing instead to leave much of the substance of the meeting to Pence, Azar and other members of the task force.
[ I listened to parts of it. Trump often sounded bored and short. I did listen to the part with the South Dakota governor and this article reports it accurately. It struck me as rude. ]
“Spring Break’s done,” says Florida’s governor
From CNN’s Denise Royal
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he issued an order Thursday morning to limit gatherings on beaches to no more than 10.
“So what you’ve see now is a lot of the sheriff’s departments have instituted protocols … Cocoa Beach, major spring break destination went down 70% since my order. And so, I think that’s a more prudent approach to do social distancing,” the Republican governor said.
The governor also wants Spring Break vacationers to know that the party is over.
“Since I issued my directive, anybody who’s put that in place, spring break’s done. Any place to go for bars and all this done. They don’t have a place to go.”
DeSantis added that he spoke to the US surgeon general recently about social distancing. He doesn’t want people living in the Sunshine State to stay inside all day if they feel fine.
“They [medical experts] want you to social distance, of course, but they actually encourage people to get fresh air. They just don’t want you congregating in big groups. And so, if you have a Floridian that, you know, goes walks their dogs like a married couple on the beach, as long as you’re not within six feet of each other, they view that. And, you know, that’s a healthy thing. And so, I think it’s important to allow that if the local communities want to do it, to be to be able to do it," he said.
New York City expected to run out of medical supplies in 2 to 3 weeks
From CNN’s Melanie Schuman
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city is two to three weeks away from running out of medical supplies.
According to De Blasio, the city needs these items:
3 million N95 masks
50 million surgical masks
15,000 ventilators
25 million each of personal protective equipment, surgical gowns, coveralls, gloves and face masks
“I said very clearly that for the month of March, we have the supplies that we need, the city has very strong reserves of the kind of supplies that I talked about. … It is going into April that I’m worried about. I don’t have the perfect day for you, we’re assessing all the time but it is a day, two weeks from now or three weeks from now where we must, by then, have had a very substantial resupply. So I think the simple way to think about it, is that the federal government has, essentially, two weeks to get us major resupply or the people of New York City are going to be in much greater danger.”
isn’t Pence supposed to be in charge? Why is trump on these calls?
Panama is to suspend all international passenger flights for 30 days suspend after midnight on Monday to contain the spread of the coronavirus, president Laurentino Cortizo has said.
Writing on Twitter, Cortizo said cargo flights, humanitarian flights and domestic flights would continue operating as normal for the time being.
Elon Musk has downplayed the severity of the coronavirus epidemic and kept his northern California factory in the US open despite a local “shelter-in-place” order, but the billionaire entrepreneur also said he’s willing to help.
However, its San Francisco Bay Area has announced it would cease manufacturing at the factory on 23 March.
The company said to investors:
Despite taking all known health precautions, continued operations in certain locations has caused challenges for our employees, their families and our suppliers. As such, we have decided to temporarily suspend production at our factory in Fremont, from end of day March 23, which will allow an orderly shutdown.
Guardian
Pence very much took a back seat on this one and it was several hours long.
Maybe because he’s the President?
Doing it as tax rebates allows giving less to poor people who may not file taxes or have less tax to rebate against.
Got to love this part:
Have you been to any of the risk areas*?
Yes, in California, Washington, or New York, US
which then leads to
You have been to a Covid-19 risk area within the past 14 days: Avoid unnecessary contacts/physical human interactions and stay at home for 2 weeks, whether you have symptoms or not.
I guess…
Ha ha ha, I have changed hardly anything about my life (except to be more diligent about washing hands) and yet the pandemic footprint calculator scores me at only 20/1000. “Small Footprint.”
So now I can feel good about myself like so many others and start lecturing too!