Relief Isn’t Just About Money—It’s About Health, Too
Republicans and Democrats seem to be making slow-but-steady progress on the next round of stimulus relief. “We are really getting an understanding of each side’s position and we’re making some progress on certain issues, moving closer together,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, told the Wall Street Journal yesterday following new talks between the two sides; those conversations continue today.
Of course, the millions of out-of-work Americans would no doubt have preferred that progress to have been completed last week, when the federal government’s extra $600/week in unemployment benefits expired. What to do with that provision moving forward has become a key sticking point: Many Democrats want to keep the benefit in place as-is, while many Republicans want to trim it significantly—one plan put forth by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would cut the extra payment to $200/week until October, then replace the lump-sum payment with a new formula paying workers a maximum of 70% of their previous salary through combined federal and state benefits.
Those skeptical of extra unemployment benefits tend to argue that the money is incentivizing Americans to stay home rather than get back to work. Indeed, as many as two-thirds of out-of-work Americans eligible for unemployment benefits are currently earning more than they did by working, according to a University of Chicago analysis. But as my colleague Philip Elliott points out , one Yale study found that workers “who made more money while out of a job out-paced their neighbors in returning to the workforce;” a Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago study found that “those receiving the amped-up unemployment benefits were spending twice as much time looking for a job as the typical out-of-work American;” and a survey from the Bipartisan Policy Center found that, among out-of-work Americans, “only 16% said they were staying home because of the added federal cash.”
“In other words, Americans like to work,” Elliott writes.
There are three other big flaws in the argument against extra unemployment benefits. First, with the virus still raging and many states re-entering various forms of lockdown, there are fewer jobs to be found. Second, the payments have propped up consumer spending, bolstering the economy overall (when people can’t buy stuff, companies tend to lay people off). Finally, it’s wise policymaking from a public-health standpoint to make it possible for people to stay home and not put themselves at risk of catching or spreading the virus at work.
The lattermost point is further illustrated by the debate over paid sick leave, as another one of my colleagues, Jasmine Aguilera, reports. Back during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, the federal government decided against a nationwide emergency paid sick leave policy. But several states went ahead with paid sick leave plans of their own, “allowing researchers to study [paid leave’s] impacts,” Aguilera writes. Their findings? “Not surprisingly, influenza-like illness rates decreased significantly in states that implemented a paid sick leave policy compared to states that didn’t.”
The lesson here is this: smart public-health policymaking should not be limited to issuing rules around mask-wearing, social distancing, and handwashing. In the U.S., we can and should use our considerable economic might to pass measures that keep us not only financially healthy, but physically healthy, too. Those who view a relief package through a purely economic lens miss the public-health opportunity that lies therein.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK
The Global Situation
More than 18.2 million people around the world had been sickened by COVID-19 as of 1 AM eastern time today, and more than 693,000 people have died.
Here is every country with over 250,000 confirmed cases:
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned yesterday that, despite steady scientific progress on various vaccines, the world may never find an easy fix for the pandemic. “A number of vaccines are now in phase three clinical trials and we all hope to have a number of effective vaccines that can help prevent people from infection,” Tedros said in his daily press conference. “However, there’s no silver bullet at the moment and there might never be. For now, stopping outbreaks comes down to the basics of public health and disease control.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said today that the world is facing a “a generational catastrophe” as the pandemic has forced schools worldwide to close. “The decisions that governments and partners take now will have lasting impact on hundreds of millions of young people, and on the development prospects of countries for decades to come,” Guterres said in a video message, the Associated Press reports. His comments come as governments around the world are struggling to balance students’ educational needs with the physical health of children, teachers, staffers and communities more broadly.
A shipment of 2 million doses of hydroxychloroquine that the United States donated to Brazil has “been mostly untouched since arrival,” CNN reports. While both U.S. President Donald Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro have touted hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 preventative or treatment, studies have shown it’s ineffective at best, and harmful at worst. The drugs have gone unused because they need to be sorted into smaller quantities before distribution, a “costly and time-consuming” process, per CNN.
The Situation in the U.S.
The U.S. recorded more than 4.7 million coronavirus cases as of 1 AM eastern time today. More than 155,000 people have died. Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
On August 3, there were 45,368 new cases and 540 new deaths confirmed in the U.S. Here's how the country as a whole is currently trending:
Hurricane Isaias made landfall in North Carolina just after 11 PM last night as a category 1 storm—one of the first hurricanes to threaten the U.S. mainland in the COVID-19 era. Isaias has since been downgraded to a tropical storm, but stands to cause heavy flooding and tornadoes across the mid-Atlantic and northeastern U.S. The response to Isaias will no doubt be complicated by the virus, which presents a new risk at potentially crowded storm shelters.
On the heels of President Trump’s heated interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace last month, the commander-in-chief was grilled by Axios’ Jonathan Swan on a variety of topics, including his administration’s pandemic response. During the interview, conducted July 28 and released last night, Trump tried to keep the emphasis on deaths per case, while Swan countered that the U.S. has a comparatively high rate of COVID-19 deaths per capita (it ranks fourth in the world), more than 1,000 Americans are dying every day, and hospitalizations are also rising—which suggests more deaths are to come (hospitalizations have ticked down slightly since the time of the interview, but not by much). Trump also once again repeated his inaccurate claim that more testing leads to more cases.
While President Trump was slow to embrace facial coverings as a means of reducing viral spread, he and other top Republicans have begun recommending and wearing them more often in recent weeks, albeit sporadically. Yesterday, the Trump campaign took it a step further, emailing supporters a plea to wear facial coverings. “I don’t love them either,” read the message, which was signed by the President. “They can possibly help us get back to our American way of life that so many of us rightfully cherished before we were so terribly impacted by the China Virus,” a term the COVID-19 that some in the Trump administration have used to deflect blame for the crisis.
The U.S. Census Bureau will stop its nationwide people-counting efforts on Sept. 30, NPR reports, a month earlier than expected. The Bureau was originally supposed to stop counting at the end of July, but that deadline was pushed back to Halloween as the pandemic complicated its efforts, which are heavily dependent on door-to-door interviewing. Data collected in the census, conducted once every 10 years, helps determine a given area’s political representation and government funding. Some observers are worried that the Census Bureau hasn’t had enough time to get an accurate count this year, and minority groups are at particular risk of going under-counted—and thus under-served.
New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot stepped down this morning amid tensions between her department and City Hall on the best way to handle the outbreak within the five boroughs. “I leave my post today with deep disappointment that during the most critical public health crisis in our lifetime, that the Health Department’s incomparable disease control expertise was not used to the degree it could have been,” reads a letter Barbot sent to New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, the New York Times reports. Barbot’s departure comes after de Blasio made the unusual move of shifting responsibility for contact tracing from the health department to the city’s public hospitals.
Major League Baseball’s struggles with the virus continue, as more than a dozen St. Louis Cardinals players and staff have tested positive over the past week. The Cards’ four-game series against the Detroit Tigers, which was set to begin tonight in Motor City, has been postponed. The Miami Marlins are also dealing with a major outbreak within the team’s ranks. Some in the baseball world, including commissioner Rob Manfred, have blamed players for the spread, but others say the league’s decision to play road games rather than shift to a “bubble” strategy—as other professional sports leagues have so far successfully done —is the problem.
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of August 4, 1 AM eastern time. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
How the Pandemic Defeated America
A pro-tip for understanding the virus: read everything The Atlantic’s Ed Yong writes. His latest is a deep dive into America’s failure to contain and control the outbreak. “COVID‑19 is an assault on America’s body, and a referendum on the ideas that animate its culture,” he writes. “Recovery is possible, but it demands radical introspection.” Read more here.
Alabama’s and Mississippi’s Troubling Curves
While cases appear to be plateauing at the national level, some states, including Alabama and Mississippi, show troubling signs of emerging as the next American hotspots, Vox reports. Here’s what’s going on there, and why looking at only the national picture risks falling victim to the fallacy of division. Read more here.
A $175 COVID-19 Test Led to $2,479 in Charges
A drive-thru test that was supposed to cost only $175 instead resulted in charges 14 times higher, ProPublica reports, underscoring the confusing and frustrating world of medical billing in a pandemic. Read more here.
The Mask Slackers of 1918
History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes—and that’s certainly been the case with facial coverings, which once again are at the center of a political firestorm amid a public health crisis, just as they were during the 1918 flu pandemic. Here, The New York Times dives into the history of the people who refused to wear a mask back then, and what we can learn to improve compliance today. Read more here.
Thanks for reading. We hope you find the Coronavirus Brief newsletter to be a helpful tool to navigate this very complex situation, and welcome feedback at coronavirus.brief@time.com.
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Today's newsletter was written by Alex Fitzpatrick and edited by Elijah Wolfson.
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