Trump agencies steadily push rollbacks as pandemic rages

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER March 24, 2020

FILE - In this Feb. 27, 2020, file photo, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler testifies during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. The Trump administration is steadily pushing major public health and environmental rollbacks toward enactment, rejecting appeals that it slow its deregulatory drive while Americans grapple with the pandemic. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is rejecting appeals to slow its deregulatory drive while Americans grapple with the coronavirus, pushing major public health and environmental rollbacks closer to enactment in recent days despite the pandemic.

As Americans stockpiled food and medicine and retreated indoors and businesses shuttered in hopes of riding out COVID-19, federal agencies in recent days moved forward on rollbacks that included a widely opposed deregulatory action by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The proposed rule would require disclosure of the raw data behind any scientific study used in the rulemaking process. That includes confidential medical records that opponents say could be used to identify people.


The EPA says the rule, first introduced in 2018, is designed to increase transparency. But early drafts drew more than a half-million comments, most of them in opposition. Health experts say it would handcuff federal officials’ ability to regulate proven health threats in the future, by making it impossible for regulators to draw on findings of public health studies.

The EPA has dismissed demands from 14 attorneys general, the National Governors Association, the National League of Cities and dozens of other government, public health and environmental groups and officials that it at least tap the brakes on that proposed rule while officials confront “the national emergency that arises from the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Federal agencies should suspend steps toward enactment for any nonessential rule changes, Attorney General Maura Healey of Massachusetts, one of those signing the appeal, said in a separate email. “During this unprecedented public health emergency, we should be focusing our resources on protecting the health and well being of our residents not on fighting against the Trump Administration’s reckless environmental proposals and actions,” Healey said.

Asked for comment, EPA spokeswoman Enesta Jones said the agency is “open and continuing our regulatory work as usual.”

Jones said that the public can still have its say on the proposed rule. “As regulations.gov is fully functioning, there is no barrier to the public providing comment,” Jones said.

President Donald Trump and his agency chiefs have less than 10 months left in his current term to complete the administration’s business-friendly easing of the way the federal government enforces scores of environment and public health protections.

The Interior Department, for example, is moving ahead with a measure that would greatly ease protections under the more than century-old Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Interior closed the 30-day comment period for the change as scheduled last week. Critics say the changes could devastate threatened and endangered species and speed an already documented decline in U.S. bird populations overall.

Interior also ticked off required procedural steps in March on consideration of a ConocoPhillips oil and gas project in the Alaska wilderness and on a development plan for land surrounding New Mexico’s Chaco Culture National Historical Park, a World Heritage site at the center of a long debate over oil and gas development, among other projects.

Interior spokesman Conner Swanson called it “unfortunate that these interest groups are playing politics at a time when all Americans need to come together.”

“All DOI actions, including comment periods, are being evaluated on a case-by-case basis and adjustments are being made to ensure we are allowing for proper public input, while protecting the health and safety of the public and our employees,” Swanson said.

Opponents also say they expect the White House to make public as soon as next week the latest version of its rollback in vehicle emissions standards, weakening one of the Obama administration’s major efforts against climate-damaging fossil fuel emissions.

The ongoing push on rule-cutting as most of the world deals with the coronavirus shows the EPA “clearly in a hurry to meet procedural rules” to wrap up key rollbacks, said Stan Meiburg, the agency’s acting deputy administrator from 2014 to 2017 and a 39-year EPA veteran.

Last week, the EPA released its latest redo of the science rule. The release starts the clock on what the agency said would be a 30-day public comment period, moving the rule a big step closer toward adaptation.

Attorney generals from 13 states and the District of Columbia say the 30-day timeline is even shorter than the agency’s usual 60-day comment period for such a change.

States objecting include New York, where a statewide lockdown is in effect as New York City deals with about 10,000 coronavirus cases and about 100 deaths. Around the world, more than one-fifth of the global population is under lockdown orders or advisories as officials struggle for medical supplies to face a new contagion that has no known vaccine or treatment.

Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Texas Democrat and chairwoman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, separately wrote the agency of the “massive disruption” of the coronavirus emergency and the “personal and professional turmoil” that health experts and others who normally would speak out on the science rule are facing.

Agencies have moved public hearings on proposed rules online or to conference calls.

Collin O’Mara, head of the National Wildlife Federation, pointed to the many low-income Americans in particular all but unable to have their say now that some public comments have moved online.

Nearly 20 million Americans — most of them rural residents, including many members of tribes — have no access to broadband internet, and another 100 million Americans have no broadband internet subscription, the federal government estimates.

In the regulatory world, the public comment periods are vital both for showing support or opposition for a rule change and for laying out the groundwork for any future legal challenges.

In Washington state, the first big U.S. battleground in the pandemic, Joseph Bogaard took time for a telephone call-in comment period on a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plan for the Snake River this month, even as he worried for elderly parents vulnerable to the disease and for a daughter forced to make her way home when her California university closed because of the virus.

“What we’re finding is people are so distracted and concerned” for families that it seemed wrong to ask the public at large to divert attention to the Corps’ public comment period, Bogaard said last week. That’s even though earlier, in-person public hearings on the same matter routinely drew hundreds of people.

“We made a decision, and a bunch of others did, too, that we’re not going to try to organize people and encourage people to turn out, whether it’s meetings or phone calls right now,″ he said. “Because people were so distracted.”

Tracking the spread of coronavirus in the US

For most people, the virus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.

Page 1 of 6 

	LOCATION	CONFIRMED CASES	DEATHS
1	New York	46,094 46,094	605 605
2	New Jersey	8,825 8,825	108 108
3	California	4,885 4,885	102 102
4	Washington	3,726 3,726	175 175
5	Michigan	3,657 3,657	92 92
6	Massachusetts	3,240 3,240	35 35
7	Florida	3,198 3,198	46 46
8	Illinois	3,029 3,029	34 34
9	Louisiana	2,746 2,746	119 119
10	Pennsylvania	2,345 2,345	23 23

This chart updates twice daily.

Source: Esri; Johns Hopkins Graphic Phil Holm & Nicky Forster

Associated Press writers Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana, and Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed to this report.

US could get stake in airlines in exchange for virus grants

By DAVID KOENIG and MARCY GORDON March 26, 2020

FILE - In this Wednesday, March 25, 2020 file photo, American Airlines jets sit idly at their gates as a jet arrives at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix. The Trump administration is raising the possibility of the U.S. government getting ownership stakes in U.S. airlines in exchange for $25 billion in direct grants to help the carriers survive a downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic, according to people familiar with the matter, Thursday, March 26, 2020. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)


The Trump administration is raising the possibility of the government getting ownership stakes in U.S. airlines in exchange for $25 billion in direct grants to help the carriers survive a downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic, according to people familiar with the matter.

Details were unclear on Thursday, but one approach being considered by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is to give the government warrants — options to buy shares in airlines that accept grant money, the people said.

A key factor would be the price at which the government could exercise the warrants. Airlines would balk if the government could buy their shares near the current, depressed prices.


The issue is wrapped up in discussions between the Trump administration and Republicans and Democrats in Congress over a $2 trillion plan designed to soften the economic blow of the COVID-19 outbreak. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that Mnuchin disclosed the plan for the government to take stakes in airlines during final negotiations over the rescue plan.

Officials from the Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Aid to airlines is one of the last sticking points in Washington’s negotiations over the economic-rescue plan, which includes $500 billion in loans and guarantees to businesses, state and local governments.

The White House and Senate Republicans had favored only zero-interest loans and loan guarantees to the airlines, while Democrats supported the industry’s request if they were accompanied by conditions such as a ban on stock buybacks and limits on executive compensation.

Some lawmakers questioned the need to give cash from taxpayers to the airlines, which have enjoyed a decade-long run of huge profits and spent much of it buying back their own shares. Buybacks tend to raise stock prices by reducing the number of shares in circulation, which can benefit executives whose compensation is mostly in stock awards and options — not salary.

Airlines for America, an industry trade group, asked for $50 billion in aid to passenger airlines — equally divided between cash grants and loans — and another $8 billion for cargo airlines. When it appeared that the airlines might not get grants needed to make payroll costs -- only loans – the carriers and their labor unions mounted a furious lobbying effort on Capitol Hill, promising to delay massive layoffs if the government gave the companies an infusion of cash.

The trade group’s CEO, Nicholas Calio, praised a long list of officials involved in crafting the relief package, starting with President Donald Trump, and said he hoped the government would release the money quickly and “with as few restrictions as possible.” He didn’t mention equity stakes for the government in his statement.


The relief package, which was passed by the Senate and now goes to the House, includes restrictions on other companies that receive aid besides airlines:

—Employment: Companies that receive loans through the $500 billion emergency fund must maintain current employment levels “to the extent practicable” and in any event not to cut more than 10% of their workforce through September.

—Stock buybacks: Companies will be barred from buying back their own shares for at least 12 months after the loan term ends. No dividends on common stock during the same period.

—Executive pay: No increase in compensation for any executive who was paid more than $425,000 last year. For those who made more than $3 million last year, the maximum compensation they could receive is $3 million plus half of any difference over that amount.

—Golden parachutes: Severance for employees who made more than $425,000 last year can’t exceed twice their 2019 compensation.

—New watchdog: A new government office and a panel appointed by Congress will monitor how loans and loan guarantees are used, with the goal of preventing abuse.

Airlines were singled out in the rescue package because of the massive blow they have suffered in the face of the global pandemic. Air travel has plummeted due to government restrictions and passengers’ fear of flying. Some flights have fewer than 10 passengers, according to airline officials. The Transportation Security Administration said it screened 239,234 people on Wednesday, compared with nearly 2.3 million on the same Wednesday a year ago – a drop of nearly 90%.

Major cruise lines have also seen revenue and stock prices battered by the outbreak, but a cruise industry official said the bill appears to exclude the industry. The measure limits relief to U.S.-based companies with a majority of their workers based in the U.S. Carnival, Norwegian Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean are all based outside the U.S. The trade group Cruise Lines International Association did not immediately comment.

The bill likewise does not mention Boeing, which had asked for $60 billion in help for itself and other aircraft makers and parts suppliers. However, it includes $17 billion in loans for “businesses critical to maintaining national security,” which lawmakers said was partly to help Boeing. The company declined to comment.

The $2 trillion package has drawn comparisons to the 2008 bailout of banks and automakers during the financial crisis. Critics including some lawmakers were furious when banks and car companies that received help turned around and gave bonuses to executives.

The government gained equity stakes in some companies then. At one point the government owned 61% of General Motors, but it lost $11.3 billion on its $51 billion investment -- more than $60 billion in today’s dollars, after considering inflation— when it sold the last shares, according to the Treasury Department.

Can blood from coronavirus survivors treat the newly ill?


By LAURAN NEERGAARD March 24, 2020

FILE - In this Feb. 18, 2020, file photo, Dr. Zhou Min, a recovered COVID-19 patient who has passed his 14-day quarantine, donates plasma in the city's blood center in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province. Plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients contains antibodies that may help reduce the viral load in patients that are fighting the disease. (Chinatopix via AP, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Hospitals are gearing up to test if a century-old treatment used to fight off flu and measles outbreaks in the days before vaccines, and tried more recently against SARS and Ebola, just might work for COVID-19, too: using blood donated from patients who’ve recovered.

Doctors in China attempted the first COVID-19 treatments using what the history books call “convalescent serum” -- today, known as donated plasma -- from survivors of the new virus.

Now a network of U.S. hospitals is waiting on permission from the Food and Drug Administration to begin large studies of the infusions both as a possible treatment for the sick and as vaccine-like temporary protection for people at high risk of infection.

There’s no guarantee it will work.

“We won’t know until we do it, but the historical evidence is encouraging,” Dr. Arturo Casadevall of Johns Hopkins University’s school of public health told The Associated Press.

Casadevall drew on that history in filing the FDA application. The FDA is “working expeditiously to facilitate the development and availability of convalescent plasma” a spokesman said.

Here are some questions and answers about this latest quest for a treatment.

WHAT EXACTLY IS THIS POSSIBLE THERAPY?

It may sound like “back to the Stone Age,” but there’s good scientific reason to try using survivors’ blood, said Dr. Jeffrey Henderson of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, who coauthored the FDA application with Casadevall and another colleague at the Mayo Clinic.

When a person gets infected by a particular germ, the body starts making specially designed proteins called antibodies to fight the infection. After the person recovers, those antibodies float in survivors’ blood -- specifically plasma, the liquid part of blood — for months, even years.

One of the planned studies would test if giving infusions of survivors’ antibody-rich plasma to newly ill COVID-19 patients would boost their own body’s attempts to fight off the virus. To see if it works, researchers would measure if the treatment gave patients a better chance of living or reduced the need for breathing machines.

One caution: While regular plasma transfusions are a mainstay of medicine, very rarely they can cause a lung-damaging side effect.

COULD IT ALSO ACT LIKE A VACCINE?

Sort of, but unlike a vaccine, any protection would only be temporary.

A vaccine trains people’s immune systems to make their own antibodies against a target germ. The plasma infusion approach would give people a temporary shot of someone else’s antibodies that are short-lived and require repeated doses.

Still, if FDA agrees, a second study would give antibody-rich plasma infusions to certain people at high risk from repeated exposures to COVID-19, such as hospital workers or first responders, said Dr. Liise-anne Pirofski of New York’s Montefiore Health System and Albert Einstein College of Medicine. That also might include nursing homes when a resident becomes ill, in hopes of giving the other people in the home some protection, she said.

“We need both things desperately,” Pirofski said. “We need to be able to break the cycle of transmission and we also need to be able to help people who are ill.”
Full Coverage: Understanding the Outbreak

WHAT’S THE HISTORY?

These plasma infusions were used most famously during the 1918 flu pandemic, and against numerous other infections, such as measles and bacterial pneumonia, before vaccines and modern medicines came along. Long-ago research is sketchy. But in the Journal of Clinical Investigation earlier this month, Casadevall and Pirofski cited evidence that 1918 flu patients given the infusions were less likely to die. And a 1935 medical report detailed how doctors stopped a measles outbreak from sweeping through a boarding school using “serum” from prior patients.

The old-fashioned approach still is dusted off every so often to tackle surprise outbreaks such as SARS in 2002, and in 2014 when Ebola survivors’ plasma was used to treat other patients during the West Africa epidemic. Even during those recent outbreaks, strict studies of the technique were not done, but Casadevall said there were clues that the plasma helped.

Casadevall thinks that when it didn’t work, it may have been used too late. “Somebody at the end of their lives, it’s very hard to affect” any disease at that point, he cautioned.

A more modern approach is to brew this type of antibody in the lab, something Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and other companies are working on. Using blood from COVID-19 survivors is a decidedly more labor-intensive approach — but researchers could start banking the plasma as soon as regulators give the OK.

HOW WOULD DOCTORS GET THE PLASMA?

Blood banks take plasma donations much like they take donations of whole blood; regular plasma is used in hospitals and emergency rooms every day. If someone’s donating only plasma, their blood is drawn through a tube, the plasma is separated and the rest infused back into the donor’s body. Then that plasma is tested and purified to be sure it doesn’t harbor any blood-borne viruses and is safe to use.

For COVID-19 research, the difference would be who does the donating -- people who have recovered from the coronavirus. Scientists would measure how many antibodies are in a unit of donated plasma — tests just now being developed that aren’t available to the general public — as they figure out what’s a good dose, and how often a survivor could donate.

Researchers aren’t worried about finding volunteer donors but caution it will take some time to build up a stock.

“I get multiple emails a day from people saying, ‘Can I help, can I give my plasma?’” Pirofski said.

——

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Virus test results in minutes? Scientists question accuracy

By ARITZ PARRA, CIARÁN GS and JILL LAWLESS 3/27/2020

FILE - This undated electron microscope image made available by the U.S. National Institutes of Health in February 2020 shows the virus that causes COVID-19. The sample was isolated from a patient in the U.S. Some political leaders are hailing a potential breakthrough in the fight against COVID-19: simple pin-prick blood tests or nasal swabs that can determine within minutes if someone has, or previously had, the virus. But some scientists have challenged their accuracy. (NIAID-RML via AP)


MADRID (AP) — Some political leaders are hailing a potential breakthrough in the fight against COVID-19: simple pin-prick blood tests or nasal swabs that can determine within minutes if someone has, or previously had, the virus.

The tests could reveal the true extent of the outbreak and help separate the healthy from the sick. But some scientists have challenged their accuracy.

Hopes are hanging on two types of quick tests: antigen tests that use a nose or throat swab to look for the virus, and antibody tests that look in the blood for evidence someone had the virus and recovered. The tests are in short supply, and some of them are considered unreliable.

“The market has gone completely mad,” Spanish Health Minister Salvador Illa said Thursday, lamenting the l ack of face masks, personal protection equipment and rapid tests “because everybody wants these products, and they want the good ones.”

The Spanish government on Friday said it already sent back a batch of 58,000 rapid antigen tests from a Chinese producer because the first 8,000 proved flawed. It said the producer agreed to replace the returned tests and another 582,000 tests ordered with kits that would meet requirements.

Chinese authorities said Thursday that the manufacturer did not have a license to sell the products. But Spain said the company did have permission to do so in Europe and the kits came with European Union certificates.

The Spanish government initially said 9,000 tests, not 8,000, had proved unreliable.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson this week called the rapid tests a “game changer” and said his government had ordered 3.5 million of them.

The U.K. hopes the tests will allow people who have had COVID-19 and recovered to go back to work, safe in the knowledge that they are immune, at least for now. That could ease the country’s economic lockdown and bring back health care workers who are being quarantined out of fears they may have the virus.

Many scientists have been cautious, saying it’s unclear if the rapid tests provide accurate results.

In the past few months, much of the testing has involved doctors sticking something akin to a long cotton swab deep into a patient’s nose or throat to retrieve cells that contain live virus. Lab scientists pull genetic material from the virus and make billions of copies to get enough for computers to detect the bug. Results sometimes take several days.

Rapid antigen tests have shorter swabs that patients can use themselves to gather specimens. They are akin to rapid flu tests, which can produce results in less than 15 minutes. They focus on antigens — parts of the surface of viruses that trigger an infected person’s body to start producing antibodies.

Health authorities in China, the United States and other countries have offered few details on the rates of false positive and false negative results on any coronavirus tests. Experts worry that the rapid tests may be significantly less reliable than the more time-consuming method.


Lower accuracy has been a concern with rapid flu tests. Spanish scientists said the rapid tests for coronavirus they reviewed were less than 30% accurate. The more established lab tests were about 84% accurate.

Those results “would prevent its routine introduction,” according to a report by the Spanish Society of Infectious Disease and Clinical Microbiology that triggered the alarms in Spain and spurred the government’s rejection of the 58,000 antigen tests.

Similar questions swirl around new antibody tests involving blood samples. Some versions have been described as finger-prick tests that can provide important information in minutes.

Antibody tests are most valuable as a way of seeing who has been infected in the recent past, who became immune to the disease and — if done on a wide scale — how widely an infection has spread in a community.

The antibody tests also will allow scientists to get a better understanding of how deadly coronavirus is to all people, because they will provide a better understanding of how many people were ever infected, ranging from those who never showed symptoms to those who became fatally ill. The results will also guide vaccine development.

But so much is unknown, including how long antibodies — and immunity — lasts, and who the blood tests should be used on.

“We don’t have all the answers,” said Dr. Robin Patel, president of the American Society for Microbiology.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death. Most people recover.

More than 15 companies have notified the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that they have developed antibody tests, the agency said. The companies are permitted to begin distributing the tests to hospitals and doctors’ offices, provided they carry certain disclaimer statements, including: “This test has not been reviewed by the FDA.”

In Spain, the government sought the rapid tests for use first in hospitals and nursing homes, where efforts to halt the spread of the virus have been hampered by widespread infections among health workers.

Hopes about the transformative power of the tests have been raised, then partially dashed, in the U.K. Sharon Peacock, director of the national infection service at Public Health England, told lawmakers this week that the tests would be available in the “near future” for purchase through Amazon for use at home or to have completed in a pharmacy.

“We need to evaluate them in the laboratory to be clear, because these are brand-new products,” she said, explaining that the evaluation should be completed this week. She said “further millions” were being ordered on top of the 3.5 million the government had already bought.

Full Coverage: Virus Outbreak

But England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, urged caution.

“I do not think, and I want to make this clear, that this is something you will suddenly be ordering on the internet next week,” Whitty told a news conference Wednesday. “The one thing worse than no test is a bad test.

“If they are incredibly accurate, we will work out the quickest way to release them. If they are not accurate, we will not release any of them,” he said.

The prime minister’s spokesman was unable to say Thursday how much the U.K. had paid for the tests, which come from several suppliers, or whether the money would be refunded if they turned out to be unreliable.

The chief scientist at the World Health Organization said wider testing would allow health officials to pinpoint infections in people who appear healthy but may be carrying the virus.

“We know that if you really go out and test everyone in the community, you’re going to find people walking around with this virus in their nose who do not feel at all ill,” Dr. Soumya Swaminathan said in an interview.

WHO believes most transmissions of the virus occur through people who already show symptoms, but “the question is still open” about how asymptomatic people may spread infection, Swaminathan said.

___

Jill Lawless reported from London. Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Mike Stobbe in New York contributed to this report.

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Follow AP coverage of the virus outbreak at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

Brazil’s governors rise up against Bolsonaro’s virus stance

By MAURICIO SAVARESE and DAVID BILLER March 26, 2020

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A man rides his bicycle along an empty Arpoador beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, March 26, 2020, as many people stay home to help contain the spread of the new coronavirus. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)


SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil’s governors are defying President Jair Bolsonaro over his call to reopen schools and businesses, dismissing his argument that the “cure” of widespread shutdowns to contain the spread of the new coronavirus is worse than the disease.

Bolsonaro contends that the clampdown already ordered by many governors will deeply wound the already beleaguered economy and spark social unrest. In a nationally televised address Tuesday night, he urged governors to limit isolation only to high-risk people and lift the strict anti-virus measures they have imposed in their regions.

“What needs to be done? Put the people to work. Preserve the elderly, preserve those who have health problems. But nothing more than that,” said Bolsonaro, who in the past has sparked anger by calling the virus a “little flu.”

The country’s governors protested on Wednesday that his instructions run counter to health experts’ recommendations and endanger Latin America’s largest population. They said they would continue with their strict measures and, in a joint letter, nearly all of them begged the federal government join forces with states. The rebellion even included traditional allies of Brazil’s president.

Gov. Carlos Moisés of Santa Catarina state, which gave almost 80% of its votes to Bolsonaro in the 2018 presidential runoff, complained he was “blown away” by the president’s instructions. Moisés said he would insist that all residents stay home during the pandemic despite the president’s stand.

In a videoconference Wednesday between Bolsonaro and governors from Brazil’s southeast region, Sao Paulo Gov. João Doria threatened to sue the federal government if it tried to interfere with his efforts to combat the virus, according to video of their private meeting reviewed by The Associated Press.

Aerial view of the almost empty Paulista Avenue in Sao Paulo (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

“We are here, the four governors of the southeast region, in respect for Brazil and Brazilians and in respect for dialogue and understanding,” said Doria, who supported Bolsonaro’s 2018 presidential bid. “But you are the president and you have to set the example. You have to be the representative to command, guide and lead this country, not divide it.”

Bolsonaro responded by accusing Doria of riding his coattails to the governorship, then turning his back.

“If you don’t get in the way, Brazil will take off and emerge from the crisis. Stop campaigning,” the president said.

The governors weren’t the only defiant ones. Virus plans challenged by Bolsonaro were upheld by the Supreme Court. The heads of both congressional houses criticized his televised speech. Companies donated supplies to state anti-virus efforts.

Gloria Maria cleans the shore of an unusually empty Copacabana beach backdropped by the Sugar Loaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, March 26, 2020, as people stay indoors to help contain the spread of the new coronavirus. The 41-year-old city worker said that in her 10 years of work cleaning the beach, she never saw an empty beach on a sunny Thursday. "It's terrible, people are dying in Europe due this virus," she added. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Bolsonaro on Wednesday told reporters in the capital, Brasilia, that he has listened to his U.S. counterpart, Donald Trump, and found their perspectives to be similar. On Thursday, he issued a decree to allow religious services, despite states’ quarantine orders, then ridiculed journalists for gathering outside the presidential residence while their outlets prescribe social distancing.

“Look, people of Brazil: they say I’m wrong, and that you have to stay home,” he said with a grin, then turned to face the press. “So I ask, what are you doing here?”

He has found some support among his base — #BolsonaroIsRight trended atop Brazilian Twitter on Wednesday — though that backing has been countered by a week of nightly protests from many Brazilians respecting the self-isolation rules who lean from their windows to bang pots and pans.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, though, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.

As of Thursday, Brazil had 2,915 confirmed cases and 77 deaths related to the outbreak, with nearly 200 people in intensive care units. Experts say the figures could soar in April, intensifying pressure on the country’s stretched health care system. There is particular concern about the virus’ potential damage in the ultra-dense, low-income neighborhoods known as favelas.

Bolsonaro’s administration has also faced criticism from economists, including Armínio Fraga, a former central bank governor, and Claudio Ferraz, a professor at Rio de Janeiro’s Pontifical Catholic University.

“Brazil is seeing something unique, an insurrection of governors,” Ferraz wrote on Twitter. “This will become a new topic in political science: checks and balances by governors in a Federal System.”

Rio de Janeiro Gov. Wilson Witzel, another former ally of Bolsonaro, also told the president in the videoconference that he won’t heed the call to loosen social distancing protocols.


A boy peaks from the dilapidated doorway of his home as his mother receives soap and detergent distributed by volunteers as an effort to avoid the spread of the new coronavirus, in the Rocinha slum of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday, March 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Last week, Witzel announced he would shut down airports and interstate roads, which Bolsonaro annulled by decree contending that only the federal government can adopt such measures. By the time the president took to the airwaves Tuesday evening, a Supreme Court justice had ruled in favor of Witzel.

Two days earlier Brazil’s top court issued another ruling allowing Sao Paulo state to stop repaying federal government debt amounting to $400 million so that it can beef up its health sector. The decision may set a precedent for other states.

Sao Paulo, Brazil’s economic engine, is home to the majority of the coronavirus cases. It has been under partial lockdown since Tuesday, and schools, universities and non-essential businesses have mostly been closed for more than 10 days. Rio state has adopted similar measures, including closing its beaches.

Gov. Ronaldo Caiado of Goiás state, a physician who had been a close Bolsonaro ally, participated in a meeting late Wednesday of nearly all Brazilian governors to coordinate their efforts. The federal government wasn’t invited.

Caiado told reporters he is redefining his relationship with Bolsonaro.

“I cannot allow the president to wash his hands and hold others responsible for the coming economic collapse and loss of jobs,” Caiado said. “That is not the behavior of a leader.”

Soldiers stand in formation before disinfecting wagons for the new coronavirus at the central train station in Rio (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Soldiers disinfect wagons parked at the central train station in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where trains connect cities within the state, as a measure to stop the spread the new coronavirus, Thursday, March 26, 2020. COVID-19 causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

___

Biller reported from Rio de Janeiro.

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/03/mutual-aid-solidarity-and-humor-in.html

Fears for civil rights mount amid fight against coronavirus

By MICHAEL TARM March 25, 2020

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A traveler walks through the security line at the Salt Lake City International Airport Wednesday, March 25, 2020, in Salt Lake City. Many airline flights are nearly empty as virus undercuts travel. The Salt Lake City International Airport is expecting to screen about 5,000 passengers Wednesday, March 25, 2020, which is down from about 24,000 daily passengers. Earlier this year during the ski season, the airport was seeing record-breaking days with 30,000 passengers. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

CHICAGO (AP) — The orders seem prudent in the bid to thwart the spread of the novel coronavirus: Don’t go out, don’t gather with others and keep your stores closed. But growing segments of the U.S. population say state and federal governments are trampling on freedoms central to American life in the name of protecting public health.

The case is already being made. A church-goer in New Hampshire says prohibitions against large gatherings violate her religious rights. A Pennsylvania golf course owner argues that gubernatorial edicts shuttering his business amount to illegal seizure of his private property.

If civil libertarians aren’t yet sounding alarms, many have their hands hovering over the button.

“So far, we haven’t had draconian methods, like armed police blocking people’s movement in the streets, surveillance and phone tapping,” said Larry Gostin, a public health lawyer at Georgetown University. “But we are seeing lockdowns of millions of citizens like we have never seen before.”

He added: “We are on the precipice of something that could transform American values and freedoms.”

Questions about the extent of governmental power to impose restrictions haven’t been fully resolved since New York cook Mary Mallon, a typhoid carrier, defied public health department orders to isolate. Mallon, better known as Typhoid Mary, lost her legal battle for freedom and ended up effectively imprisoned for 28 years on an island cottage, dying there in 1938.

Responses are no longer as severe. But thousands of Americans are already confined to their homes under threat of fines and even jail. Businesses are losing thousands of dollars. Workers are laid off.

One man infected with the coronavirus in Kentucky recently left a hospital and refused to quarantine; an armed county deputy was posted outside his home to ensure the 53-year-old stayed put.

“It’s a step I hoped I’d never have to take, but we can’t allow one person who we know has the virus to refuse to protect their neighbors,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear told reporters.

Authority to order shutdowns and quarantines inside states rests almost entirely with states under provisions in the U.S. Constitution ceding power not explicitly delegated to the federal government to states.

The federal government itself can’t order nationwide quarantines or business closures, courts have ruled over the years. It does, however, have clear power under constitutional clauses regulating commerce to quarantine international travelers or those traveling state to state who are suspected of carrying an infectious disease.


At least some legal scholars believe the Constitution’s Commerce Clause may vest President Donald Trump with powers to impose a national lockdown, but he’d likely have to resort to persuading all 50 states to agree to uniform restrictions if he ever seriously contemplated such a move.

That doesn’t appear to be his inclination. He said this week he was hoping to lift restrictions in a bid to boost the plummeting U.S. economy as early as Easter Sunday, April 12, setting up a standoff with state officials who have said they can’t risk it.

“The federal government has done guidelines. And then states can follow the guidelines, states can fashion the guidelines to fit their specific circumstances,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. “What works for New York isn’t necessarily going to work for Tulsa or San Antonio. The federal government isn’t saying we mandate anything.”

Laws spelling out what steps a state can take during a pandemic can be complex and difficult for judges to sort through. Some haven’t been updated in decades, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.

And they also differ state to state. The maximum penalty in most states if someone violates mandatory quarantines — often backed by a court order — is no more than a year in jail. In Mississippi, it can be 10 years in some circumstances, according to the National Conference of State legislatures.

A few Americans are already fed up and have taken their grievances to court by suing their respective states. But a relative trickle of legal challenges will likely become a flood if lockdowns drag on for weeks and frustrations mount. The number of dead in the U.S. has reached 1,042 with more than 69,000 infections, and scientists warn the peak has not happened.

The Pennsylvania lawsuit filed on behalf of the Blueberry Hill Golf Club says Gov. Tom Wolf’s power to close businesses under state law is limited to man-made or natural disasters such as oil spills, tornadoes and mudslides. The coronavirus, it argues, doesn’t fall into those categories. The state has more than 1,280 cases.

For most people, the virus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.

The state-court filing says the golf course has a short window that starts with an influx of golfers in spring to recoup costs of maintaining greens and fairways. With cash flow now cut, it may not be able to make vital bank payments, the lawsuit says.
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The owner would undertake COVID-19 prevention protocols if permitted to re-open, the lawsuit said, including but not limited to “requiring golfers to walk, or if golfers wish to ride in carts, require golfers to use individual carts for each golfer.”

So far, judges have rejected the few legal challenges to state restrictions. Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court refused to freeze Wolf’s sweeping shutdown orders. In response to complaints, Wolf did ease restrictions on some businesses.

A New Hampshire court issued a similar ruling in the lawsuit by the church-goer. It upheld Gov. Chris Sununu’s ban on large gatherings, the court’s written ruling saying it couldn’t imagine a more critical public objective “than protecting the citizens of this state and this country from becoming sick and dying from this pandemic.” New Hampshire reports more than 130 cases.

But courts have never been asked whether the unprecedented lockdowns are constitutional “and in violation of individual rights,” Gostin said.

A battle all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court on that issue, he says, may be looming.

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Follow Michael Tarm on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mtarm

Aid group says Mideast lockdowns hinder humanitarian efforts

By SAMY MAGDY and JOSEPH KRAUSSMarch 25, 2020

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Medical workers oversee the disinfection of the streets to prevent the spread of coronavirus in Qamishli, Syria, Tuesday, March 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad)


CAIRO (AP) — An international aid group said Wednesday that closures aimed at containing the coronavirus pandemic are preventing it from reaching 300,000 people in conflict zones across the Middle East, as the virus arrived in war-torn Libya and case counts rose in Syria and the Gaza Strip, among the world’s most vulnerable places.

The Norwegian Refugee Council said it was unable to reach people in Syria, Yemen and the Gaza Strip, where authorities have imposed strict measures to halt the spread of the virus. All have fragile health care systems that could be overwhelmed by an outbreak, and only Yemen has yet to report any cases.

“While governments are taking tough and much-needed measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus, millions of refugees and displaced people still depend on humanitarian assistance,” said Jan Egeland, head of the aid group.

In northwestern Syria, hundreds of thousands of people are crammed into unsanitary tent camps, sheltering from the government offensive on the war-torn country’s last rebel stronghold. On Wednesday, the U.S. urged the Syrian government to halt its campaign so those displaced can access humanitarian aid. The U.S. also urged the Assad government to release thousands of civilians arbitrarily detained in crowded jails who are especially vulnerable to the virus. On Wednesday, Syria’s tally of cases rose to five and testing began after weeks of obstacles in the rebel-held province.

The crowded Gaza Strip reported seven new coronavirus late Wednesday among security workers, raising the total to nine and stoking concerns about the capacity of its weakened health system to manage coronavirus patients. Gaza has been under Israeli-Egyptian blockade since the Hamas militant group took power in 2007.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms that clear up in two weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness. The virus is highly contagious and can be spread by those showing no symptoms.

Countries across the Middle East have imposed sweeping measures to prevent its spread, including closing their borders, canceling flights and in some cases imposing round-the-clock curfews.

In Syria, an open-ended nightly curfew took effect Wednesday at 6 p.m. local time (1600 GMT). State TV showed police patrolling the empty streets of Damascus and other main cities.

The Israeli government Wednesday approved new restrictions, including the closure of all synagogues. Many in Israel’s insular ultra-Orthodox communities have defied restrictions on public gatherings, fueling tension with authorities.

Twenty-nine percent of those who contracted the virus in Israel were infected in a synagogue or a yeshiva, according to an analysis by the National Information and Knowledge Center for the Fight Against the Coronavirus, which has been advising the Health Ministry.

The new restrictions in Israel will bar most people from venturing more that 100 meters (yards) from their homes. More than 2,369 Israelis have been infected, with 39 in serious condition. Five elderly Israelis with pre-existing medical conditions have died. In a televised address, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged citizens to obey the stringent guidelines and warned of the need for a total lockdown if the outbreak doesn’t slow.

The Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has ordered a full lockdown and halted travel between cities, towns and villages. Sixty-two cases have been reported in the West Bank along with the nine in Gaza. A 60-year-old woman became the West Bank’s first fatality Wednesday. She was infected by her son, who caught the virus while working in Israel, according to the Palestinian Authority.

At least 3,000 workers came home to the West Bank on Wednesday, said Shahir Saed, head of the workers union, after the Palestinian leadership ordered all 65,000 Palestinian workers to return to the West Bank from Israel. Wages in Israel are much higher than in the Palestinian territories, where decades of Israeli military rule has hindered economic development.

In Libya, authorities tracked down and quarantined dozens of people who had come into contact with the country’s first confirmed case, a 73-year-old man who entered from neighboring Tunisia on March 5 after traveling to Saudi Arabia. Health officials said he was in stable condition.

Libya has been mired in chaos since the 2011 uprising that overthrew and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. It is governed by rival authorities based in Tripoli and eastern Libya whose forces have been battling over the capital for nearly a year. The capital’s suburbs came under heavy fire even as the United Nations appealed for a truce so authorities could focus on the pandemic.

Meanwhile, the eastern city of Benghazi began a two-week lockdown Wednesday, although authorities have allowed residents to buy food and medicine for two hours each morning.

Streets in Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous country, emptied Wednesday at 7 p.m. as a nationwide nighttime curfew took effect. President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi appealed to citizens on social media to stay inside and “preserve our safety.” Egypt has confirmed 456 cases and 22 fatalities, including two senior military officers who were involved in efforts to disinfect public places.

Iran is battling the worst outbreak in the region, with over 27,000 confirmed cases and a death toll of at least 2,077. Authorities have advised people to stay at home but have not imposed the kinds of lockdowns seen elsewhere. State television aired footage of people thronging the streets Monday night, ignoring social-distancing warnings. President Hassan Rouhani imposed new restrictions on parks, saying he was left with “no other choice.”

War-ravaged Afghanistan imposed a lockdown on its western Herat province, which borders Iran and where the largest number of cases has been detected. Afghan authorities have reported 76 cases and two deaths. The NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan has reported four cases among soldiers who recently arrived in Kabul.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, expanded its curfew hours in the cities of Mecca and Medina, home to Islam’s holiest sites, as well as the capital, Riyadh. Residents now must remain inside their homes from 3 p.m. to 6 a.m. The kingdom, which has reported 900 cases, also banned travel between three governorates.

As community transmission appears to take off in Pakistan, which has confirmed 1,000 cases and seven deaths, the country halted all domestic passenger flights beginning Thursday.

Abu Dhabi’s Etihad carrier, one of the biggest in the Middle East, said it has had to cut salaries by 25-50% due to the grounding of its passenger flights.

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Associated Press writer Samy Magdy reported this story in Cairo and AP writer Joseph Krauss reported from Jerusalem. AP writers Aron Heller in Jerusalem; Munir Ahmed in Islamabad; Jon Gambrell and Aya Batrawy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark; Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank; Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran; and Tameem Akhgar in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

As offerings dwindle, some churches fear for their future

By DAVID CRARY March 21, 2020

The Rev. Alvin J. Gwynn Sr., of Friendship Baptist Church in Baltimore, sits in his church's sanctuary, Thursday, March 19, 2020. He bucked the cancellation trend by holding services the previous Sunday. But attendance was down by about 50%, and Gwynn said the day’s offering netted about $5,000 compared to a normal intake of about $15,000. “It cuts into our ministry,” he said. “If this keeps up, we can’t fund all our outreach to help other people.” (AP Photo/Steve Ruark)


NEW YORK (AP) — As in-person worship services are canceled or downsized amid the coronavirus outbreak, some churches across the U.S. are bracing for a painful drop in weekly contributions and possible cutbacks in programs and staff.

One church leader, Bishop Paul Egensteiner of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Metropolitan New York Synod, said some of the 190 churches in his region were unlikely to survive because of a two-pronged financial hit. Their offerings are dwindling, and they are losing income from tenants such as preschools which can no longer afford to rent church venues.

“As much as I’d like to help them, everybody’s reserves are taking a hit because of the stock market,” Egensteiner said,

At Friendship Baptist Church in Baltimore, a mostly African American congregation of about 1,100, the Rev. Alvin Gwynn Sr. bucked the cancellation trend by holding services last Sunday. But attendance was down by about 50%, and Gwynn said the day’s offering netted about $5,000 compared to a normal intake of about $15,000.

“It cuts into our ministry,” he said. “If this keeps up, we can’t fund all our outreach to help other people.”

There was a brighter outcome at the Church of the Resurrection, a large United Methodist Church congregation that operates out of five locations in the Kansas City area.

Cathy Bien, the church’s communications director, said about 25,700 people logged in to join online worship last Sunday after in-person services were canceled. That compared to normal Sunday participation of 14,000 worshippers -– 8,000 in person and 6,000 online.

“It blew our minds,” Bien said. “They were coming from all over the country -– a lot of Methodists from other churches.”

The huge turnout didn’t translate into a larger than normal offering, although the church is still processing checks that were sent by some of the worshippers, Bien said. She expressed hope that financial support will remain robust as the church stresses the need to bolster food pantries and other community programs in the face of COVID-19.

At Trinity Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville, Virginia, giving was down modestly last weekend as the church cancelled in-person worship and made the service available online.

The pastor, Walter Kim, said some of his roughly 1,000 congregants have grown accustomed to online giving in recent years, but many worshippers still give in person at the services - an option not available for now.


“We’ll be asking them to sign up (for online giving) or mail a check,” said Kim. He will be urging congregants to bolster the church’s “mercy fund” for use assisting hard-up members of the community as job losses multiply.

In addition to his pastoral duties Kim is president of the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents more than 45,000 evangelical churches. The NAE will be co-hosting a two-day digital summit next week featuring videos from church leaders advising other pastors nationwide how to respond creatively and effectively to the virus outbreak.

The co-host is the Humanitarian Disaster Institute at Wheaton College in Illinois, which already has offered resources to churches in response to COVID-19.

“Some changes are going to be required,” Kim said. “The church is a very creative institution. In the end it will find ways of fulfilling its mission.”

In Western Massachusetts, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield has indefinitely cancelled all public Masses, and recently rescinded permission for parishioners to pray individually at their churches.

Funeral Masses were still allowed with a maximum attendance of 25; the diocese said the times of those Masses were not to be shared in the media,

“Lack of access to the churches and Eucharist is particularly difficult for many older parishioners whose entire daily routine is built around getting up, out of the house, and going to Mass,” said the Rev. Mark Stelzer, who has served in the diocese as a parish priest and college chaplain.

The Rev. William Tourigny, pastor of Ste. Rose de Lima Church in Chicopee, Massachusetts, said his parish had a solid financial foundation and expected it could maintain all programs and staff payroll for the time being.

“For smaller faith-based communities with little or no reserved funds, difficult decisions will need to be made,” he said.

Joe Wright, executive director of the Bivocational and Small Church Leadership Network in Nashville said many pastors in the network have been holding regular in-person services, while monitoring the spread of the virus.

“Once the coronavirus rises to the level where it starts hitting smaller groups, then we’ll see even the smaller groups back away and seek ways to gather, probably electronically,” he said.

When that happens, Wright said, financial giving will depend on the church, especially the age of the congregations.

“Some churches with older congregations do not give electronically so the transition to that will be a little bit harder,” he said.

Ron Klassen, executive director of Rural Home Missionary Association, said it’s too early to say how the rural churches he represents are being impacted.

“My sense is that in the past, people rise up and, if anything, the giving might increase,” he said. “People are going to give. They’ll take care of their church and their community.”

In Baltimore, pastor Gwynn worries that tensions might rise past the point that church outreach programs can help.

“With all the uncertainty, I’m afraid this could turn into anarchy,” he said. “Not everybody’s patient. Not everybody’s law abiding.”

He even envisioned the possibility of a stampede toward the goods being doled out after church’s annual food drive.

“My biggest fear right now is what’s happening to the minds of our people,” Gwynn said. “How long can we hold them together?’

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AP Religion Editor Gary Fields contributed.

Ethanol plants seek rule changes to resupply hand sanitizer

By DAVID PITT March 26, 2020

FILE— In this Jan. 28, 2014 file photo a jar of ethanol fuel sits on display during the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association meeting in Altoona, Iowa. As hospitals and nursing homes run out of hand sanitizer to fight off the coronavirus, struggling ethanol producers are eager to help. They could provide alcohol to make millions of gallons of the germ-killing sanitizer, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has put up a roadblock, frustrating both the health care and ethanol industries with its inflexible regulations during a national health care crisis. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, file)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — As hospitals and nursing homes desperately search for hand sanitizer amid the coronavirus outbreak, federal regulators are preventing ethanol producers from providing millions of gallons of alcohol that could be transformed into the germ-killing mixture.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s roadblock has been frustrating the health care and ethanol industries, which have been calling for a relaxed regulation to deal with the public health care emergency.

“Hand sanitizer is a big part of our lives,” said Eric Barber, CEO of Mary Lanning Healthcare, a hospital in Hastings, Nebraska. “We can’t get any. We order it and it’s just not available.”

The problem for the ethanol industry is that most plants make food-grade ethanol, one step below the highest pharmaceutical grade. But since the plants aren’t certified to comply with stringent production standards designed to protect quality of medicines, food ingredients and dietary supplements, the FDA doesn’t want the alcohol used for a product to be applied to the skin.
FILE - In this Jan. 6, 2015 file photo steam blows over the Green Plains ethanol plant in Shenandoah, Iowa. As hospitals and nursing homes run out of hand sanitizer to fight off the coronavirus, struggling ethanol producers are eager to help. They could provide alcohol to make millions of gallons of the germ-killing sanitizer, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has put up a roadblock, frustrating both the health care and ethanol industries with its inflexible regulations during a national health care crisis. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik, file)

In addition, the alcohol is not denatured or mixed with a bitter additive to make it undrinkable. The FDA insists this step is “critical” because of cases of poisoning, sometimes fatal, among young children who have accidentally ingested hand sanitizers.

An FDA spokesman said Thursday that regulators have already seen a rise in poisonings linked to hand sanitizers in recent weeks, “heightening this public concern.”

The FDA is also skeptical of industry claims that undenatured sanitizers could be distributed in a way that would keep them away from children.

“It is unclear what, if any, measure could be instituted to ensure that the product does not make its way into consumer hands, where children could have access,” FDA’s Jeremy Kahn said in an emailed statement.

Facing a nationwide shortage, Barber said the FDA should temporarily relax regulations to allow alternative production.

“You’re talking about alcohol. Does it matter if it’s fuel grade or whatever the stuff is they’re trying to price gouge now? I think its common sense,” he said.

The American Hospital Association encouraged flexibility to help protect patients and caregivers, without directly weighing in on the sanitizer dispute.

“We may need to consider a range of possible solutions that were not on the table before the pandemic,” said Nancy Foster, a vice president with the group, in an emailed statement to the AP.


The Consumer Brands Association, formerly the Grocery Manufacturers Association, has had conversations with the FDA to push the agency to reconsider its guidelines. The group, which represents branded food, consumer products and beverage companies, said that hand sanitizer supplies are running so low that its members have had to ration it out to workers in stores, distribution centers and manufacturing plants.

“We need a temporary solution,” said Mike Gruber, vice president of regulatory and technical affairs at the trade association. “This goes toward ensuring basic food safety practices.”

Distillers that produce vodka, whisky and other alcoholic drinks have been given some regulatory waivers by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau allowing them to produce hand sanitizer. Many have done that, but they produce much smaller volumes of alcohol than an ethanol plant could produce. They also receive a benefit in the Senate-passed stimulus bill.

The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, which represents dozens of large and small distillers, applauded Congress for easing taxes on distillers who make hand sanitizer.

Under the stimulus package passed late Wednesday, distillers don’t have to pay federal excise taxes on alcohol used for hand sanitizer through Jan. 1, 2021.

“Hundreds of U.S. distillers are stepping up to produce hand sanitizer and they should not be hit with a huge tax bill for producing this much-needed item, especially at a time when so many of them are struggling,” said Chris Swonger, the group’s president and CEO.

But the council said it’s urging the FDA to update its guidance and let distillers use undenatured alcohol for hand sanitizer. The stimulus bill requires distillers to follow the FDA’s guidance if they want to receive the tax breaks.

The FDA has waived dozens of regulations in recent weeks to boost production of key medical supplies, including coronavirus tests, ventilators, gloves and hand sanitizers.

Under the latest FDA guidelines, regulators maintain standards for alcohol, requiring new producers to use alcohol that meets federal or international standards for use in either drugs or food products.

The regulatory hurdles are especially frustrating for Midwest ethanol producers who are facing plunging fuel demand and a petroleum fight between Saudi Arabia and Russia that caused prices to plummet. The factors are forcing more plants to curtail production and close.

For ethanol producers relaxed rules, including a requirement of the hard-to-acquire denaturant, would allow them to step in an help in a national emergency.

“If we could get the FDA to say yes you can use the beverage grade and for the duration of this emergency at least for some point in time here for the next two weeks you can waive the denaturant we would literally have millions of gallons of hand sanitizer available within a matter of days,” said Monte Shaw, CEO of Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol trade group. “Every one of our plants has gotten contacted by people who want this stuff and we can’t send it to them.”

Andrew Vrbas owner of Pacha Soap, a boutique soap shop in Hastings, Nebraska, had just finished renovating a 100,000-square-foot former bread factory as a project to boost the community. Now, he’s preparing to set up hand sanitizer production there to supply to hospitals. He’s received calls from hospitals in Nebraska, Florida and New York City seeking hand sanitizer.

“We are literally three miles from a plant that has as much ethanol as you could imagine,” he said. “We’re sitting on millions of gallons of alcohol. If we could rally the federal government to say look if you just let us work with local ethanol producers we have the expertise, we have the ability to provide hand sanitizer to hospitals not only in Nebraska but all across the country that are just reaching out through my network saying if you could send us hand sanitizer, we’re out.”

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Retail Writer Anne D’Innocenzio contributed from New York City, Health Writer Matthew Perrone from Washington and Auto Writer Dee-Ann Durbin from Ann Arbor, Michigan.