Significant parts of the country are moving to ease pandemic restrictions in the coming days.
President Trump said Tuesday that 20 states are making plans to reopen their economies “in the very near future.”
“They’re going to be doing it safely. They’re going to be doing it with tremendous passion,” Trump said. “They want to get back to work.”
Republican governors in Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee announced plans to allow more commercial activities. Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia said that gyms, bowling alleys, tattoo and piercing shops, barbers, cosmetologists, nail salons, and estheticians can open Friday. Movie theaters and restaurants will start reopening Monday.
The plan drew criticism from some, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who warned it would risk a resurgence of the virus. Dr. Deborah Birx, the coronavirus task force response coordinator, was noncommittal when asked about the plan Tuesday evening. “If people can social distance and do those things, then they can do those things,” she said. “I don’t know how, but people are very creative.”
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster is canceling orders to close beaches and limit retail operations to pick-up and delivery. Finally, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee chose not to extend the state’s stay-at-home order beyond April 30 and said that some businesses will be permitted to reopen, according to the Tennessean.
The number of coronavirus cases worldwide surpassed 2.5 million Tuesday, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally. The United States has the most coronavirus cases, with over 810,500, but the growth rate of new cases reported daily is slowing. The other countries hardest hit, Spain and Italy, have similarly seen a steady decline in new cases. Health officials in Italy, for example, reported 2,256 new cases Monday, the lowest tally since early March.
The Senate approved a $484 billion coronavirus relief package Tuesday that will replenish the Paycheck Protection Program that provides forgivable loans to small businesses that maintain payroll, boost hospital spending, and fund more coronavirus testing.
The bill is likely to pass the House this week, after two weeks of negotiations between Democrats and Republicans.
“I urge the Senate and House to pass the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act with additional funding for PPP, Hospitals, and Testing,” Trump said Tuesday shortly before the Senate approved the bill.
The package will increase funding for the Paycheck Protection Program by $310 billion, with another $60 billion reserved for community-based lenders and smaller banks that serve small businesses that do not use big banks.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that the added small business relief would likely be sufficient. “We look forward to this having a big impact on the economy,” he said.
Senators agreed to allocate $75 billion to hospitals on top of the $100 billion included in the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, and $25 billion will be used to improve coronavirus testing capacity.
States will receive a portion of the funds for testing, $11 billion, which Democrats have been pushing for, and $14 billion will go to research at national agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.
The National Retail Federation and 16 other business organizations, many of which represent a large share of the real estate, hotels, and restaurants nationally, are backing Democratic-led legislation aimed at creating a federal pandemic risk insurance program modeled after the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act passed in the wake of 9/11. “When businesses couldn’t obtain coverage for acts of terrorism after 9/11, Congress stepped in,” National Retail Federation Senior Vice President David French said Tuesday. “It’s time for Washington to do the same for pandemics.”
Spain’s government has announced it will take incremental “deescalation” measures to lift restrictions it has placed on people in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Health Minister Salvador Illa announced Tuesday that starting Saturday, children under 14 will be allowed to run errands and go on walks with their parents, which was previously prohibited unless the parents had no one to watch their children while they were out. Allowing minors to go for walks was a last-minute addition to an earlier rule that children could only accompany parents to carry out errands the government deemed essential, such as going to the bank or the grocery store, according to El Pais. “We will give more details in the coming days,” Illa said.
The Food and Drug Administration granted emergency approval Tuesday for the first coronavirus test people can take at home. The agency said that LabCorp had shown sufficient evidence to prove that the in-home nasal swab test is just as accurate as one a patient would take in person at a health center.
China has begun handing out vouchers to cautious shoppers in an effort to coax people into spending again, according to the Guardian. Many of China’s restaurants and shopping malls have reopened, but people are still reluctant to go out after the coronavirus tore through the country, leaving at least 4,636 dead (which the U.S. intelligence community says is a massive cover-up).
Some cities have proposed two-and-a-half-day weekends to encourage spending, while other large retailers have introduced credit features that allow shoppers to “buy now, pay later” as a feature on the app WeChat.
Netflix saw a huge subscription surge in its first quarter, driven by lockdown measures that keep people in their homes. Total new subscriptions amounted to almost 16 million, according to CNBC.
McDonald’s announced it will give free “Thank You meals” to first responders and healthcare workers starting Wednesday until May 5, “as a small token of our appreciation.”
“Rather than including a toy, each Thank You meal box will include a dedicated thank you note to first responders and healthcare workers, as a way to show our appreciation for everything they are doing to keep our communities safe during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the company said.
