Coronavirus myths, debunked: A cattle vaccine, bioweapons and a $3,000 test

Grace Hauck, USA TODAY•March 13, 2020

We've all heard some outlandish rumors about the new coronavirus.

Fake stories circulated on WhatsApp have falsely stated that the virus has killed millions of people worldwide. Social media posts have claimed that drinking garlic water cures the deadly disease. Conspiracy theories that the virus is a bioweapon engineered in a Chinese lab have been voiced by TV pundits and even an American lawmaker.

There's a lot of misinformation out there, and it's transmitting faster than the virus itself. We're setting the record straight.

A cattle virus we've known about for years is the real cause of coronavirus

Absolutely not. Users on Facebook are spreading a photo of a vaccine used on cattle to falsely imply that the new coronavirus infecting humans globally has been known about "for years." That suggestion is false.

When we say "the coronavirus," we're referring to a new strain of virus that emerged from a family of coronaviruses. Coronaviruses can infect animals and people, and we've known about other coronaviruses for years. The novel coronavirus, which causes the COVID-19 disease, was first publicly reported in late 2019.

The vaccine pictured is used to combat bovine coronavirus, which is a virus that infects cattle. ScourGuard 4K is a vaccine for "pregnant cows and heifers" to help prevent diarrhea in their calves. The bovine coronavirus did not cause the current outbreak in humans.

– Angelo Fichera, FactCheck.org

The coronavirus will be gone by AprilWe've received many questions from you about whether the virus will be gone by spring as the weather gets warmer, but health officials say that's "premature" thinking.

In a press briefing last month, Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, cast doubt on this rumor. "I’m happy to hope that it goes down as the weather warms up, but I think it’s premature to assume that, and we’re certainly not using that to sit back and expect it to go away," Messonnier said.

Like the common cold and flu, COVID-19 spreads through respiratory droplets, and most viral respiratory diseases have seasons. They spread more during the colder months, but you can still get sick from them during the warmer months, too.
The coronavirus comes from Corona beer

Funny, but no. In January, the alcoholic beverage from Mexico showed a surge in Google searches, along with the term "corona beer virus" and "beer virus."

In the United States, Google Trends calculated that 57% of the people that searched one of those terms searched for "beer virus," and the remaining 43% searched for "corona beer virus." States like Hawaii, New Mexico and Kansas searched "beer virus" more, whereas states like South Carolina, Colorado and Arizona searched "corona beer virus" more.

– Adrianna Rodriguez

The virus escaped from a Chinese lab

Once again, no, the new coronavirus is not a bioweapon engineered by scientists in China. Early last month, bloggers began to circulate a theory on social media and other websites that the virus was man-made. Health officials debunked the claim, but Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., repeated the theory at least three times on Fox News. Right wing media outlets defended Cotton's comments.

Opinion: How Fox News and other right-wing media endanger our health

Scientists are still researching how COVID-19 emerged but say it is not man-made. The first infection, reported in December 2019, was linked to a market in Wuhan, China. It's still unclear how transmission unfolded, but there are several theories. Some researchers believe that someone bought contaminated meat at the market, ate it, got sick and infected others. Others say the virus originated in bats, spread to an intermediary animal and then to humans.

A coronavirus test costs $3,000

Nope. Actually, it's free. A claim that it costs patients in the U.S. more than $3,000 to test for COVID-19 originated on Twitter, where it amassed more than 250,000 likes and retweets. It became a meme that spread on Facebook.

The CDC, U.S. public health labs and private companies are running tests. As of March 11, 81 state and local public health laboratories in 50 states and the District of Columbia have successfully verified COVID-19 diagnostic tests and are offering testing, according to the CDC.

– Saranac Hale Spencer, FactCheck.org

You should start wearing a face mask

No, you should only wear a face mask if you are sick or if a doctor recommends it, according to the CDC. The best way to prevent infection is to wash your hands for at least 20 seconds with soap and water, avoid close contact with people who are sick, cover your cough or sneeze, clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces, and avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth.

First defense against COVID-19: 20 seconds - yes, a full 20 - of proper hand-washing

Gouge much? Coronavirus price hikes are making everyone mad

Lysol 'knew' of the virus before the outbreak happened

Yes, Lysol products have labels that say they disinfect against "human coronavirus." But those labels aren't referring to the new coronavirus, in particular.

The labels are referring to coronavirus, in general, which is a broader family of viruses. The COVID-19 virus is one of many in that family. Certain Lysol products have demonstrated effectiveness against coronaviruses on hard, non-porous surfaces, according to the company's website.

Pope Francis has the coronavirus

A story circulating on social media falsely claims that the Vatican has confirmed that the pope and two of his aides tested positive for the virus. Several Italian news outlets also reported that the Pope was tested for the virus.

The Vatican has not verified any of these claims, nor has it disclosed whether or not the pope was tested for the coronavirus. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni issued a statement saying, "The cold the Holy Father was diagnosed with recently is running its course, with no symptoms related to other pathologies."

– Isabella Fertel, FactCheck.org

The CDC recommends shaving beards to protect against the virus

This 2017 image made available by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health shows the kinds of facial hairstyles which will work with a tight-sealing respirator.

Social media users sharing a CDC infographic showing various styles of facial hair have suggested that the agency is instructing people to shave beards and mustaches to prevent the coronavirus. To beard or not to beard?

The infographic actually has nothing to do with the new virus. The CDC's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health first published the image in 2017 to show workers what types of facial hairstyles work with a tight-sealing respirator. Facial hair that lies along the sealing area of a respirator, such as beards, sideburns or some mustaches, interferes with respirators that rely on a tight facepiece seal to achieve maximum protection, according to the CDC.

AND THOSE INCLUDE THE N95 RESPIRATOR

The flu vaccine prevents coronavirus

While you should definitely get your flu vaccine, it won't protect you from the new coronavirus. Instead, take the common sense health precautions outlined above.

Why get the flu vaccine? In the U.S., influenza has caused 12,000 to 61,000 deaths annually since 2010, according to the CDC. So far this season, there have been at least 32 million flu illnesses, 310,000 hospitalizations and 18,000 deaths from flu.
African Americans can't get the coronavirus

Rumors about African Americans having a special immunity or resistance to COVID-19 have circulated on social media, and they can be traced to misleading online accounts of the recovery of a young black man from Cameroon who got the virus while studying in China.

The debunked claim even turned up on "Saturday Night Live" when cast member Chris Redd repeated it at the end of his "Weekend Update" segment. After finishing a comedy bit about COVID-19 stealing the spotlight from Black History Month, Redd yelled over the applause, "Black people can't get the coronavirus!"

The CDC rejects this rumor in no uncertain terms. "Diseases can make anyone sick regardless of their race or ethnicity," the CDC writes on its website. "People of Asian descent, including Chinese Americans, are not more likely to get COVID-19 than any other American. Help stop fear by letting people know that being of Asian descent does not increase the chance of getting or spreading COVID-19."

– Julie Hinds, Detroit Free Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Coronavirus facts, debunking myths: China bioweapon, seasonal, cattle

---30---

Dubious coconut and kale cures, rip-off masks and malicious emails. 
Beware of these coronavirus scams.


Published: March 10, 2020 By Lina Saigol

Eating Kale and Lemon are some of the fake coronavirus cures being touted by scammers

Coconut water and kale cures, rip-off surgical masks and suspicious emails.

These are some of the scams and hoaxes duping panicked consumers as they race to protect themselves from fears of a looming global health crisis.

Two British companies were last week banned from using “misleading, irresponsible and scaremongering” adverts seen via the Taboola network and for face masks which made false claims about the product’s ability to prevent the spread of the virus.

The industry watchdog the Advertising Standards Authority ruled that one of the ads from Novads OU for its Oxybreath Pro masks was likely to cause fear “without justifiable reason” and highlighted the use of “alarmist language,” such as referring to the spread of the virus as being “barely controllable” and “this terrifying time.”

Facebook FB, +10.23% and Amazon have also clamped down on false advertising and price gouging.

Rob Leathern, director of product management of Facebook, tweeted on March 7: “We’re monitoring COVID19 closely and will make necessary updates to our policies if we see people trying to exploit this public health emergency. We’ll start rolling out this change in the days ahead.”

Amazon AMZN, +6.46% said it had pulled more than 1 million products for price gouging or falsely advertising effectiveness against the coronavirus

Consumers are also being warned to watch-out for coranvirus-themed emails being sent to businesses which have been infected with malaware.

Cyber-criminals are also sending phishing emails and malware deployment schemes in a bid to tap into people’s desperation for information about the virus.

There have been 4,000 coronavirus-related domains, which contain words like “corona” or “covid,” have been registered since the beginning of 2020, according to cybersecurity firm Check Point. Of those, 3% were considered malicious and 5% were deemed suspicious. That means that there were about 320 sketchy websites lurking online, ready to take advantage of people’s fears.

“Concerns about COVID-19, or novel coronavirus, seem to have become as contagious as the virus itself,” Check Point noted in its report, adding that cyber-criminals are “quick to take advantage of these concerns for their own gain.”

The World Health Organisation (WHO) put out a statement this week warning consumers that some criminals are “disguising themselves as WHO to steal money or sensitive information.”

Meanwhile the major tech groups are also clamping down on profiteers.

“We’re banning ads and commerce listings selling medical face masks. We’re monitoring COVID19 closely and will make necessary updates to our policies if we see people trying to exploit this public health emergency,” Rob Leathern, director of product management, tweeted on March 7.

He added: “We are rolling this out in the coming days, and anticipate profiteers will evolve their approach as we enforce on these ads.”

Amazon last week said it had pulled more than 1 million products for price gouging or falsely advertising effectiveness against the coronavirus. It said third-party sellers must follow its Fair Pricing Policy, which states companies can’t set a price “significantly higher” then seen in other places or sell an item that “misleads customers.”

The proliferation of scams appears particularly acute in mainland China.

Shanghai police last week arrested three suspects for a fraud case related to the COVID-19 outbreak that involves over 13 million yuan (1.86 million U.S. dollars). The suspects sold nearly 1,000 bottles of disinfectants which they marketed as effective in preventing virus and earned more than 70,000 yuan of illegal profits, according to state-run news agency Xinhua.

In Malaysia, unsubstantiated claims that kale, coconuts and lemon could be ward of the virus prompted panic buying of the items after a self-proclaimed wellness coach said that eating them would prevent infection.

Malaysian health minister Datuk Seri Dzulkefly Ahmad urged Malaysians concerned about the Wuhan virus to put their trust in science and medicine instead of quackery, according to a report in the Malay Mail.

Bond investors say some energy companies ‘will not survive’ oil rout slamming markets

‘I honestly don’t know how this will ultimately shake out, but it is brutal,’ says one portfolio manager

March 10, 2020 By Sunny Oh and Joy Wiltermuth

An oil well in the Permian Basin in Garden City, Texas. Getty Images


Debt-laden U.S. shale-producing companies saw their bonds pummeled in Monday trading as an oil price war delivered a severe blow to the energy sector.

In the shale patch, U.S. crude producers have loaded up on debt to finance their capital-intensive fracking operations, often at a higher cost than those with larger multinational reach, and even as recently as January. But that also makes them vulnerable to the kind of slide crude prices saw on Monday, with the U.S. oil benchmark finished at a four-year low of $31.13 a barrel.

“There is a certain subset of energy companies like Chesapeake that will not survive,” predicted Bill Zox, chief investment officer of fixed income for Diamond Hill Capital Management, in an interview with MarketWatch.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. CHK, +95.95% saw its most-active 2021 maturing bonds tumble to an average $11.44 price on Monday, down from $41.18 on Friday, according to bond trading and pricing platform MarketAxess.


But the session’s most actively traded speculative or “junk” bonds came from shale producer Oasis Petroleum Inc. OAS, +169.68%, which saw the average price of its most-active bonds that mature 2022 plunge to $31.70 on Monday, from $74 on Friday.

On a yield basis, that translates to a more than 300%, and 79% yield, respectively for the pair of bonds, according to MarketAxess data, or a sign that traders feel there is little hope of bonds getting paid back in full.


To put things into perspective, bonds are typically issued with a value at $100, plus a spread over a risk-free benchmark, but shift with investor sentiment. Bonds that trade below $70 prices are considered distressed. Chesapeake and Oasis didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Analysts at Deutsche Bank underscored that even before Monday’s rout in oil, about two-thirds of high-yield exploration and production companies were trading at distressed levels, and that their earlier 2020 forecast of a 15% high-yield default rate will likely now “go materially higher above that,” in a client note Monday.

The sharp leg down comes as shale producers have been known as a potential weak spot in the debt markets for some time, even when oil prices briefly shot above $60 a barrel earlier this year.

Read: Why weak energy companies won’t likely get a lifeline from higher oil prices

Yet their fortunes have become increasingly important to a broader base of debt investors, since energy companies currently represent the biggest part of the roughly $1.5 trillion U.S. junk-bond market.

The nascent price war between oil-producing giants Saudi Arabia and Russia, which left global equity markets awash in losses on Monday, is expected to be particularly punishing to U.S. shale producers, whose business models already were stretched thin by the tumbling crude.

“I think they are looking to accelerate the demise of that business model,” said Ken Monaghan, Amundi Pioneer Asset Management’s co-head of high-yield, amid reports that Saudi Arabia plans to cut prices and hike crude-oil production after its talks with Russian broke down over the weekend to implement crude output curbs.

“Of course, the problem is that you have collateral damage across other parts of the market,” Monaghan said. “This is kind of like the last straw that broke the camel’s back.”

See:Why U.S. shale oil producers are the real target in the Saudi-Russia price war

The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +9.36% fell more than 2,000 points on Monday, while the 10-year Treasury note yield TMUBMUSD10Y, 0.981% carved out a new historic low at 0.5%.

Check out: Here’s why cratering oil prices and the coronavirus outbreak will ripple beyond the U.S. junk-bond market

“Thirty percent of the shale patch producers may not be able to service their debt” if oil continues to trade at current levels, said Michael Kelly, head of multi-asset strategy for PineBridge Investments, in an interview.

At the same time, Zox said some of the higher-rated oil producers are better insulated from the shock and likely have enough capital to sit out any freeze in the capital markets because they rolled over their debt far enough into the future to avoid tapping jittery bond investors for funding.

Meanwhile, the iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF HYG, +3.14% and the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Corporate High Yield ETF JNK, +3.21% both settled down more than 4% on Monday. Highly liquid credit derivatives tracking the performance of corporate bonds also came under pressure.

“I honestly don’t know how this will ultimately shake out, but it is brutal. People are scared,” said Michael DePalma, managing director at MacKay Shields, who oversees The High Yield EFT, HYLD, +0.57% at the fixed-income management firm and subsidiary of New York Life Investment Management.

The decline in oil prices also comes as COVID-19 infections have risen globally, which already threatened to dent demand from China, the epicenter of the illness, as the second-largest economy and the biggest importer of oil attempted to contain the epidemic. Now that the spread of the pathogen is accelerating outside of Beijing, fears of a broader, global slowdown and a possible world-wide recession, have intensified.

Those scenarios bode ill for industries broadly but could significantly whack the energy sector, experts say.

Saudis Add Pressure On Oil Prices, Russia As Shale Mogul Seeks U.S. Relief

GILLIAN RICH03/11/2020

Oil prices fell Wednesday as Saudi Aramco said it was directed to boost its production capacity for the first time in 10 years amid the OPEC-Russia price war.

The Energy Ministry asked state-run Saudi Aramco to increase its production capacity to 13 million barrels per day, up from 12 million bpd currently.

After talks at the OPEC+ meeting collapsed without a deal Friday, current oil production limits of 2.1 million barrels per day will no longer continue, allowing producers to pump at will.

Also Wednesday, the United Arab Emirates announced that it would increase supply to refiners by 1 million bpd to 4 million bpd.

On Tuesday, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said his country could increase production by 500,000 barrels a day, potentially hitting its own record of 11.8 million barrels a day. Iraq, cut its official price for Basrah Light crude for buyers in Asia by $5 a barrel for April deliveries.

The increased supply is coming just as demand is vanishing. On Wednesday, OPEC slashed its global demand growth forecast for 2020 to just 60,000 bpd from last month's view of 980,000.

Brent oil prices slid 3.4% to $35.95 per barrel. U.S. crude oil prices dropped 4% to settle at $32.98 per barrel.

Exxon Mobil (XOM) shares fell 3.3% on the stock market today. Chevron (CVX) lost 2.3%. Among top shale stocks, Continental Resources (CLR) lost 6.5%, and EOG Resources (EOG) dropped 6.6%.

U.S. Shale Scales Back Amid Falling Oil Prices

U.S. shale producers are reeling from lower oil prices. Shale oil was already grappling with lower global demand due to the coronavirus panic as airlines cancel flights and cities in Italy, Japan and South Korea are under quarantine.

On Wednesday, the Energy Information Administration reported an increase of 7.7 million barrels in U.S. crude stockpiles and a 5 million-barrel decline in gasoline stockpiles for the week ended March 6. U.S. production fell to 13 million bpd from 13.1 million bpd in the prior week.

In its monthly short-term energy outlook forecast also out Wednesday, the EIA cut its outlook for 2020 oil prices by 30%. It now sees 2020 benchmark U.S. oil prices at $38.19 per barrel and Brent at $43.30 per barrel. The EIA also sees U.S. crude oil output of 12.99 million bpd, down 1.6% from its earlier forecast.

Earlier Wednesday, Matador Resources (MTDR) said it would cut its rigs in half to just three by June 30 and its CEO is taking a 25% pay cut.

The Trump administration reportedly is considering assistance for the shale industry as producers slash capital spending.

Late Tuesday, the Washington Post reported that Continental Resources founder and Chairman Harold Hamm, who is also an adviser to Trump on energy, has asked the administration to use dumping laws to block Russia and Saudi Arabia from slashing oil prices for U.S. customers.

On Wednesday, Hamm told Bloomberg TV that he plans to file an anti-dumping complaint against Saudi Arabia with the U.S. Commerce Department.

The American Petroleum Institute also told CNBC that lobbyists for the oil and gas industry met with White House officials Wednesday morning about the coronavirus, the economy and the market.

But the trade group added that it's not seeking federal aid.

Sources told Politico, however, that the White House's National Economic Council planned to discuss possible relief for the oil industry, including low-interest loans, federal oil purchases or even trade barriers.

Follow Gillian Rich on Twitter @IBD_GRich for energy news and more.

Crossing state lines? Oil firms flare Texas gas as investors vent on climate

THIS IS WHAT GLOBAL WARMING LOOKS LIKE

By Jennifer Hiller Reuters March 12, 2020

FILE PHOTO: A flare burns off excess gas from a gas plant in

 the Permian Basin oil production area near Wink


By Jennifer Hiller

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Across the Permian Basin's high desert landscape, natural gas is going up in smoke even as oil majors including Exxon Mobil and BP pledge cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

Flaring, the deliberate burning of unwanted polluting gas, is rife during oil production in the biggest U.S. shale field, and an acute problem in Texas, home to most of the Permian reservoir, which sprawls 86,000 square miles (220,000 km2) across two states.

Loose regulation in Texas means that companies including Exxon, Matador Resources and privately-held BTA Oil Producers last year burned off gas at more than twice the rate as in neighboring New Mexico, a Reuters analysis of data compiled by Rystad Energy from more than 50 of the largest producers shows. Some drillers burned natural gas at up to six times the rate in Texas as they did over the state line, the data shows.

Exxon flared more gas in Texas last year than any other producer, data released in February by a state regulator shows.

This is despite Exxon and other large oil producers, which have spent billions drilling and building pipelines in the region, promising emissions cuts to curb global warming.

Although companies have to apply for permits to burn unwanted gas, Texas allows producers to burn unwanted gas for six months and routinely issues waivers after the six months expires. New Mexico allows new wells to flare for 60 days and is moving toward 30-day extensions thereafter. Producers must present a plan to pipe or store gas with their permit request.

Even though flaring is legal, it is a growing problem for companies. While it is cheaper for them to burn gas, investors are badgering them to improve their green credentials.

Exxon is "making significant investments in gathering, processing and natural gas pipelines" and was able to lower its Permian flaring rate to just above 2% by the end of the year, spokeswoman Julie King said. The Rystad data shows it averaged 6.6% across the Permian during the first 11 months of last year.

Some companies are going beyond what regulations require. EOG Resources, ConocoPhillips, Chevron Corp and Occidental Petroleum have low flaring rates in both states. And Shell, which only works in the Texas Permian, burned off just 1.5% of its gas.

Gas flaring has been on the rise since 2011 and so much has been produced alongside oil that it become worthless for much of February in West Texas, with producers having to pay a buyer to take it. Gas price turned positive this month as oil companies cut drilling, a move expected to reduce unwanted gas later this year.

FLARING RULES

Some investors have seized upon flaring, which generates greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, as a measure of environmental performance.

"It is the number one ESG (environmental, social and governance) thing they need to be focused on," said Rob Thummel, portfolio manager at energy investors Tortoise Capital. "They can choose or not to flare ultimately." Exxon, along with BP, Shell and Chevron, said in September it would minimize flaring, which exacerbates climate change by releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. BP, which bought BHP Billiton's assets in 2018 and said it has been trying to reduce flaring, burned 13.5% of its natural gas in the Permian last year.

The alternative, known as "venting", is even more damaging as it releases unburned, odorless methane, which is the main component of natural gas and many times more potent as a greenhouse gas.

Flaring is more common than venting - New Mexico producers report burning 2.6 times as much gas as they vent, according to state data - but producers in Texas do not have to specify how they dispose of gas. Regulation is the big difference between New Mexico and Texas, which has approved every permit for flaring or venting since 2013, sometimes even when pipelines were available. In New Mexico, applications require a plan to capture gas and must be refiled as often as every 30 days, the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association says, whereas in Texas, renewals are good for six months. That has led to wildly different rates of flaring by the same companies. BTA Oil Producers burns 12% of its gas output in Texas, but only 1.8% in New Mexico.

BTA and Matador Resources did not reply to requests for comment.

"The regulatory regime in a lot of ways drives the infrastructure," said Colin Leyden, a policy advocate for the Environmental Defense Fund, which tracks and monitors flaring. "In Texas you essentially have a blank check right now."

Investors are so focused on this that they spend as much as 15 minutes of an hour-long one-on-one meeting on "in the weeds" questions about flaring, venting and other environmental issues, said Matt Gallagher, chief executive of Parsley Energy, which does not bring wells online until pipeline connections are available.

"There's too much product in the air," Gallagher said.

MORE GAS 

The split in the Permian could worsen over time. Texas wells are making more gas, with the oil-to-gas ratio per well falling about 10% in the last five years. Texas could double its flaring rate by the end of this year due to the "gassier nature of the new acreage being drilled," said Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst at Energy Aspects. The prospect is even concerning the shale industry's top financiers. "It just feels like it's been too easy," said energy banker Bobby Tudor, chairman of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. And the two states are moving at different speeds. While a Texas energy regulator has promised meetings on the issue, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham last year signed an order directing state offices to develop regulations that would lower methane emissions in the industry.

New Mexico's oil and gas regulator told Reuters it expects to have new flaring rules in place by the end of the year. A Texas regulator recently said he plans to seek public recommendations on how to reduce wasted gas in the state.

(Reporting by Jennifer Hiller; editing by Gary McWilliams and Alexander Smith)

Oil Sands’ First Capital Spending Gain in Years Put In Doubt

Kevin Orland Bloomberg March 10, 2020


(Bloomberg) -- The first capital spending boost in Canada’s oil sands in half a decade is in doubt after the global oil-price plunge prompted one major explorer to slash its 2020 budget.

Cenovus Energy Inc. is cutting spending by 32% to a range of C$900 million ($653 million) to C$1 billion, suspending its crude-by-rail program and deferring investment decisions on major growth projects, according to a statement Tuesday. The company also is dialing back its production outlook to 432,000 to 486,000 barrels a day, down from 472,000 to 496,000.

MEG Energy Corp. followed suit later in the day, cutting its capital budget 20% to C$200 million. Production this year will be 93,000 to 95,000 barrels a day, down from an original forecast of as much as 94,000 to 97,000, the company said.

If other producers follow suit, the oil sands are at risk of posting their sixth straight year of declining investment, a trend that has weighed on Alberta’s oil-dependent economy.

Before international crude posted its worst decline since 1991 on Monday, capital spending in the world’s third-largest crude reserves was projected to rise 8.4% to C$11.6 billion this year, according to a January forecast from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

“Given recent oil market developments, investors were expecting Cenovus and its peers to announce spending austerity measures,” Michael Dunn, an analyst at Stifel FirstEnergy, said in a note. “Essentially, spending on growth projects has been put on the shelf.”

The investment slump has taken a toll on Alberta. After the last oil-market crash, unemployment in the province surged to 9.1% by late 2016.

Despite the oil-price recovery of the following years, explorers continued trimming jobs to reduce costs, and a shortage of pipeline capacity kept a brake on expansion plans. The province’s unemployment rate has remained above 6% since September 2015 and was at 7.2% last month.

Even before this week’s rout, some major oil-sands projects had been scrapped or postponed because of pipeline shortages and production limits imposed by provincial leaders.

Imperial Oil Ltd., Exxon Mobil Corp.’s Canadian unit, last year delayed its C$2.6 billion oil-sands project that was scheduled to start production in 2022. Last month, Teck Resources Ltd. withdrew its application for the C$20.6 billion Frontier oil-sands mine.

(Updates with MEG cutting budget in third paragraph)

--With assistance from Michael Bellusci.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kevin Orland in Calgary at korland@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Simon Casey at scasey4@bloomberg.net, ;Derek Decloet at ddecloet@bloomberg.net, Carlos Caminada

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Cenovus Energy To Suspend Crude-By-Rail Program In 2020

FreightWaves Benzinga March 13, 2020



Falling crude oil prices have prompted Canadian oil and natural gas producer Cenovus Energy (NYSE: CVE) to stop its crude-by-rail program temporarily.

Cenovus is "temporarily suspending its crude-by-rail program and deferring final investment decisions on major growth projects. These measures are being taken in response to the recent significant decline in world benchmark crude oil prices," the company said on March 9. Cenovus' operations include oil sands projects in northern Alberta and oil and gas production in Alberta and British Columbia.

Because Cenovus is suspending its crude-by-rail program, it will no longer be making use of the credits under Alberta's Special Production Allowance program. The program allowed crude producers to increase their crude oil production if producers agreed to ship it by rail. The Alberta government set production limits so that Alberta heavy crude would not be sold at steep discounts.

As a result of not increasing crude production and sending crude volumes via rail, Cenovus said it expects oil sands production to average 350,000-400,000 barrels a day, which is 6% lower than the 2020 guidance the company provided last December.

Crude oil prices in "this challenging commodity price environment" have fallen sharply in recent days as Saudi Arabia has sought to ramp up crude production in hopes of slashing prices, including those of competitors such as Russia.

Alberta crude producers look at the pricing spread between Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) as they assess their ability to ship via rail. Western Canada Select (WCS) crude, which is Alberta heavy crude, is typically priced against WTI.

WCS gets hauled to the U.S. East or Gulf coasts, and so producers consider rail costs. If the price of WCS, which is WTI minus the prevailing market differential, is competitive with Brent crude, then producers are more willing to bear the rail costs and ship WCS.

Cenovus to Curb Capital Spending in Weak Pricing Environment

Zacks Equity Research Zacks March 11, 2020

Cenovus Energy Inc. CVE recently announced plan to slash 2020 capital budget by around 32%. Moreover, the company will likely put its crude-by-rail program under temporary suspension, while postponing final investment decisions of some major growth projects. This move was triggered by the recent events in the OPEC+ meeting, which ended up creating a Saudi Arabia-Russia oil price war and pushing oil prices to historical lows.

Budget Cut

Oil prices have witnessed a massive tumble recently, highest since the 1991 Gulf War, which dealt a huge blow to the already struggling Canadian hydrocarbon industry. Reacting to the market situation, Cenovus decided to curb capital spending in a bid to maintain balance sheet strength. Per the revised budget, the company is expected to make capital spending of C$0.9-C$1 billion in 2020. Notably, as of Dec 31, 2019, the Canadian energy player had cash and cash equivalents of C$186 million, and total long-term debt of C$6,699 million. Its total debt-to-capitalization ratio was 25.9%, considerably lower than the energy sector’s more than 31%.

Lowered Production Guidance

The temporary suspension of the crude-by-rail program is expected to halt the usage of credits under Alberta’s Special Production Allowance program. This will likely take a toll on the company’s total production by 5%. Production is now expected within 432-486 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day. Oil sands production is now expected in the range of 350-400 thousand barrels per day, reflecting 6% fall from the original guidance.

Major Projects to Suffer

The company’s Christina Lake and Foster Creek projects, which were earlier expected to reach sanction-ready status in 2020, are kept on hold. Capital spending in its Deep Basin and Marten Hills operations is also likely to be suspended. The company will avoid making new projects sanctions owing to low oil price environment.

Price Performance

The stock has plunged 63.8% in the past year compared with 44.2% decline of the industry it belongs to.


Zacks Rank & Stocks to Consider

Cenovus currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked players in the energy space are Apache Corporation APA, Matador Resources Company MTDR and Phillips 66 Partners LP PSXP, each having a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Apache beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings thrice in the last four quarters, with an average positive surprise of 119.7%.

Matador Resources’ 2020 earnings per share are expected to gain more than 5% year over year.

Phillips 66 Partners’ first-quarter 2020 earnings per share are expected to gain 10% year over year.

The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All

Last year, it generated $24 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $77.6 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early.

COMPASSIONATE CAPITALISM, 
OR CAPITALISM WITH A CONSCIENCE 
ONE MORE STEP AND IT'S SOCIALISM

Former Best Buy CEO: Companies should 'pursue a noble purpose and good things'

The capitalistic system as it stands has been incredibly kind to perhaps one of the very best turnaround CEOs of the last decade, former Best Buy head honcho Hubert Joly. But even he acknowledges that changes to that system are long overdue.

“Milton Friedman is dead,” Joly told Yahoo Finance in an interview.

Continued Joly, “We need companies to pursue a noble purpose and good things for other stakeholders, the customers, the suppliers, the vendors, the communities the environments. Shareholder’s profit is an outcome and that’s a revolutionary approach.”

Joly is an interesting test case on a different kind of capitalism getting the job done. Now executive chairman of Best Buy (Joly will hand the position over to former Domino’s Pizza CEO and board member Patrick Doyle in June), the French-born Joly never seemed to be the typical CEO who sits in the ivory tower and bark orders to underlings and store associates. Joly ceded the CEO role to Corie Barry in June 2019 after a seven-year run. Instead, Joly always came across — based on my knowledge of covering Best Buy and in talking with various sources — as quite engaging, a champion of hourly store workers and a deep believer in that doing things right would lead to a stock price that heads up and to the right.

Now that Joly has a touch more time on his hands (he is on the boards of Polo Ralph Lauren and Johnson & Johnson, and is writing a book), he has tossed his hat into the ring of top executives calling out capitalism as in badly need of reform.

In August 2019, the influential Business Roundtable ignited a firestorm by doing away with its “shareholder comes first” mantra. The new mantra is that companies should put shareholders on par with other stakeholders like suppliers and average employees.

"We know that many Americans are struggling. Too often hard work is not rewarded, and not enough is being done for workers to adjust to the rapid pace of change in the economy. If companies fail to recognize that the success of our system is dependent on inclusive long-term growth, many will raise legitimate questions about the role of large employers in our society," a statement from the Business Roundtable stated.

Hubert Joly just got the job done at Best Buy. Bottom line. (Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for Samsung)

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, now former chairman of the Business Roundtable (Walmart CEO Doug McMillon has taken over), threw his weight behind the statement. "The American dream is alive, but fraying," Dimon said.

A host of other big-name leaders also threw their weight behind the view capitalism must reform in Yahoo Finance’s coverage of the 2020 World Economic Forum.

To say Joly’s refreshing approach to driving shareholder returns worked is a gross understatement. So as far as I am concerned, his views are dead on the mark. Something has to change in Corporate America.

Joly’s reign

Joly’s tenure atop of Best Buy was not just marked by saving a retailer under siege from Amazon and its own internal missteps, but re-imagining the business from end to end. Some of the highlights include significantly improving customer service (adding more staff to the stores, for example), pricing matching online rivals, reducing the likelihood of broken TVs upon delivery to the store from the warehouse, adding branded shops from Samsung and driving a successful launch of a buy online, ship from store.

Towards the end of his CEO reign, Joly pulled the trigger on a transformational $800 million acquisition in Great Call that brought Best Buy into senior living care. Heck, even Geek Squad is easier to use.

Billions of dollars in expenses were slashed despite a lack of rampant store closures. Joly boosted sales, boosted profits even more and perhaps boosted employee morale even more than both of those percentage changes on a financial statement. A lot could be said for all of those achievements in an often thankless retail sector being upended by digital shopping.

Total shareholder return under Joly’s watch: +263%.

Joly tells Yahoo Finance he has no plans on having one last CEO job. Nothing wrong with going out on top. In hindsight that may be a good thing — he should be doing paid speeches each week for the entire Fortune 500 on how an employee friendly approach to doing business works for all parties involved.

No electric device needed from Best Buy to figure out that is the right way to go when it comes to capitalism.


Fortune 500 companies can play a 'big' role in addressing poverty, says Robin Hood CEO


Max Zahn Reporter, Yahoo Finance•March 12, 2020

In the Democratic presidential primary, progressive Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has criticized large companies for exacerbating wealth inequality — but the head of a top anti-poverty nonprofit says top corporations can play a significant role in addressing it.

In a newly released interview, taped on March 3, Wes Moore — the chief executive of New York City-based philanthropic organization Robin Hood — said Fortune 500 companies can play a “big” role in alleviating issues of poverty and homelessness.

“The role of Fortune 500 companies is big, and broad, and vast,” says Moore, whose organization was founded by hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones and distributes between $150 million and $180 million each year to over 250 nonprofits.

“It's not just about making sure that we're both hiring people, and paying people fairly, and doing all that stuff, which is baseline,” he adds. “But there is also a role about how can they think creatively about their voice, how to think creatively about utilizing all the other assets that they have in place.”

In particular, Silicon Valley — home to prosperous tech giants Google (GOOG, GOOGL), Facebook (FB), and Apple (AAPL) — has drawn scrutiny for a worsening homelessness crisis. A survey last May by government officials in surrounding Santa Clara County found a spike of 31% in the homeless population over the preceding two years.

On the opposite coast, in New York City, where many large companies and banks are headquartered, the number of homeless single adults has risen 143% over the past 10 years, according to advocacy group Coalition for the Homeless.

Moore called on major corporations to use their platforms to raise issues like poverty and forward solutions for addressing them.

“Making sure that those things that you're speaking about are not just the things that are going to impact your quarterly earnings reports, but impact the community, impact your shareholders and the people who aren't yet shareholders,” says Moore, whose organization provides grant recipients with businesses expertise in addition to funds.

“Making sure that the ways you're using your voice and making sure the ways you're using your influence are going to have a larger societal impact that actually creates a level of fairness and parity and equity in our large society,” he adds. “That's how they can use their voice.”

Salesforce (CRM) CEO Marc Benioff, whose company is headquartered in San Francisco, donated $30 million last May to research the causes of homelessness. "The world needs a North Star for truth on homelessness," Benioff said at the time.


Moore made the remarks during a conversation that aired in an episode of Yahoo Finance’s “Influencers with Andy Serwer,” a weekly interview series with leaders in business, politics, and entertainment.

In 2017, Moore took over as CEO at Robin Hood. Before his current role, Moore worked on Wall Street, served as a captain in the army, and spent time under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the White House. From 2014 to 2017, he led BridgeEdU, an organization that seeks to make higher education accessible for low-income students.


Wes Moore, the CEO of New York City-based nonprofit Robin Hood, appears on Influencers with Andy Serwer.More

Moore said his organization welcomes support from many benefactors, including wealthy individuals.

“I don't have the luxury to say, who should and should not be involved in this conversation,” he says, adding that poverty is a problem for which all Americans share responsibility.

“I need to make sure that everybody is involved in this conversation because all of us have a level complicity for the fact that we have this problem,” he says. “So if that's the case, everybody needs to be [saying], ‘oh, I'm trying to find a solution to it.’”

Ruling protecting Cambodian refugees might benefit others, lawyers say

Agnes Constante, NBC News•March 13, 2020


A recent federal court ruling offering protections to some Cambodian refugees facing deportation could have a broader impact on other groups in similar situations, legal experts and immigrant advocates say.

A court in California last week issued what advocates call a “groundbreaking” decision that protects Cambodian refugees from final orders of removal in unannounced immigration raids.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has conducted arrests of individuals with old final orders of removal without warning, Jenny Zhao, a staff attorney at Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus, said. With the ruling, Chhoeun V. Marin, the U.S. government is now required to issue a 14-day written notice before detaining Cambodian nationals with final orders of removal.

Zhao said that the ruling applies only to Cambodians with deportation orders, but that other immigrants facing deportation for old removal orders could cite the decision if they find themselves in a similar lawsuit.

“I think a lot of the reasoning in the decision around why people who have an old deportation order and have been living peacefully in their communities shouldn’t be just plucked out of their lives one day without warning could apply to other communities as well,” she said.

Last week's decision, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, comes more than two years after the Asian Law Caucus, along with Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Los Angeles and Sidley Austin LLP, filed a class action lawsuit in 2017 challenging the detentions of Cambodian nationals.

ICE in October 2017 began carrying out unannounced raids and detaining Cambodian nationals with final orders of removal, many of which were based on decades-old convictions for offenses they committed as teenagers, according to court documents. Plaintiffs fled Cambodia as refugees in the 1970s to escape the Khmer Rouge, court documents noted.

The agency's practice of conducting immigration arrests without notice, along with the large-scale raids that have escalated in the Cambodian community over the past couple of years, became a source of stress and anxiety for many.

“The court has really acknowledged that the way ICE has been conducting arrests on Cambodian community members is unconstitutional and has caused enormous harm to that community over the years,” Zhao said.

In January 2019, the court issued a temporary restraining order requiring the government to provide written notice 14 days before detention. The order became permanent with the court ruling last week.

“What it really means is people no longer have to live in fear that every day could be the last day that they get to say goodbye to their families and they could just be arrested without notice and shipped off to some detention facility across the country,” Zhao said.

She added that the window of time also provides class members with the opportunity to find a lawyer and explore their legal options, and to get their affairs in order before detention.

According to court documents, the government argued that providing advance notice before detention interferes with the “prompt execution of removal orders,” creates a burden on ICE officers who have to gather information and prepare the notices, and results in high rates of disappearances. The government said that nearly half of class members did not show up for travel document interviews when they were given advanced notice of detention.

The court, however, said that none of the arguments were persuasive.

In the decision, the court said that the government had waited up to decades to execute removal orders and could afford 14 additional days to execute those orders, and that there is no evidence that written notices create a significant burden on the government. The court also said that the government has not provided reliable evidence to support the claim of high disappearances and that the burdens associated with disappearances are minimal.

ICE declined to comment on the case.

Nak Kim Chhoeun, a plaintiff named in the lawsuit who was detained without notice in October 2017, said the court's decision has provided him with a sense of security.

“I’d be afraid to walk outside my house right now and afraid that ICE could walk up to me and detain me prior to the ruling,” he said. “Now I can actually go out and say, 'You know what, if they were to detain me, they’re going to violate the judge’s order because they didn’t give me a two-week notice.'”

Zhao said that the court's ruling provides an important baseline protection, but that the fight is not over. She expects the government to appeal the decision and noted that Cambodians are still facing deportation. The government in January deported 25 Cambodian nationals in its first round of repatriations this year. And last month, the Asian Law Caucus issued an alert that ICE had begun arresting Cambodians for deportation.

In fiscal year 2020, as of Feb. 29, ICE has removed 30 Cambodian nationals, 25 of whom were convicted criminals, an ICE spokesperson said in an email.

As of Feb. 29, there were 1,769 Cambodian nationals with a final order of removal, 1,293 of whom are convicted criminals or have pending criminal charges, according to ICE.

“We feel that in the long term, ICE should stop detaining and deporting people altogether, especially from this community because these policies are causing so much harm to refugee families,” she said.

‘If you’re sick, they don’t care’: pandemic forces fast-food industry to review its policies

Lauren Aratani in New York, The Guardian•March 13, 2020

Photograph: Mike Groll/AP

In the middle of his shift last summer at Chipotle in New York City, Carlos Hernandez started to feel sick.

He told his manager that he was having diarrhea which, under the US Food and Drug Administration’s food code for restaurants and food services, meant he should have been excused from his shift.

Instead, Hernandez was told to stick around. He was to either go into the back of the store to wash dishes or work the register.

“Even if you’re sick, they really don’t care. If you can still stand up on your feet and move your hands, you’re considered workable,” Hernandez said.


Related: 'I suffer through it': how US workers cope without paid sick leave

This brushing off of illness is common in many places within the food service and restaurant industry and has been for many years. But with the recent coronavirus outbreak, being sick is no longer something people can shrug off given the illness’s ability to spread rapidly and efficiently.

The culture around sick leave in the food service industry is that it is nearly nonexistent. The CDC says that 15% of food workers have paid sick leave. That means a bulk of people in the industry are part of the 32 million American workers who are without paid sick leave.

Poor sick leave policies are an “industry standard” in food service, particularly fast food, said Judy Conti, government affairs director for the National Employment Law Center. The US does not have a federal sick leave policy, with 12 states and Washington DC having paid sick leave laws.

“Workers are getting low wage to begin with, so it’s really disadvantageous for them to take time off from work because they won’t get paid,” Conti said.

Maurilia Arellanes, who works at a McDonald’s in San Jose, California, said that she took a day off during the week to recover from the flu last year. When she came back to work, she found that she lost a chunk of the hours she was typically assigned to work.

“I went from working 35 hours a week to 27 hours a week. I had spent a month asking and begging my managers to get me back my normal shifts,” Arellanes said. “Workers like me are paid wages so low that we are dependent on every cent we earn on our shift.”

Arellanes is part of the Fight for $15, a workers’ rights campaign that has called on McDonald’s to give all workers in its corporate and franchise location paid sick leave if an employee or a close family member has tested positive for coronavirus and must be quarantined. They also demand that the company provide paid leave for parents who care for children of closed schools and cover the cost of testing and treatment of the virus.

“When I called in sick recently, I had to miss a payment on my electric bill and pleaded with the utility company for an extension,” said Fran Marion, a McDonald’s worker in Kansas City, Missouri, also part of Fight for $15. “If any of us had to be quarantined for two weeks … the effects would be devastating for our families.”

In response to the campaign, McDonald’s made an announcement that they will offer up to 14 days of paid sick leave to any employee of corporate-owned restaurants who is quarantined with coronavirus. A vast majority of McDonald’s restaurants, above 90%, are not corporate-owned but are owned by franchisees.

“As we proactively monitor the impact of the coronavirus, we are continuously evaluating our policies to provide flexibility and reasonable accommodations,” a McDonald’s spokesperson wrote in statement.

Even with paid sick leave, workplace culture in the food service industry encourages ill employees to make their shift rather than having someone rush to find a replacement.

Luis Torres, another Chipotle worker in New York City, says that managers at his location will often “guilt” employees into working while sick, saying that they are busy and do not have enough people working. “I’ve kind of normalized it, many people have normalized it,” Torres said.

Chipotle as a company offers three days of paid sick leave each year, but employees in New York City associated with the local 32BJ SEIU union, including Hernandez and Torres, went on strike last week in response to what they say is the company not following local sick leave laws. New York City requires five days paid sick leave accrued over the year.

Earlier this year, Chipotle settled with the city’s department of consumer and worker protection for firing an employee who took sick leave. The department is also conducting a deeper investigation of the chain’s workplace practices.

“We communicate to all employees how they can properly request sick time. Employees that are not feeling well are required to stay home and we’ll welcome them back when they are symptom free,” a Chipotle spokesperson wrote in a statement to the Guardian.

From a public health perspective, actively encouraging employees to take time off while sick is important for industries such as food service whose work requires employees to come in direct contact with people.

But the food industry has been particularly susceptible to high turnover because it typically produces high-pressure and fast-paced environments, putting pressure on managers to have all hands on deck even when employees are ill.

“Missing one person out of a system in a restaurant or a food [service] setting is really problematic” for efficiency and quality in a restaurant, said Ben Chapman, a professor and food safety extension specialist at North Carolina State University. “It’s a problem in public health that we haven’t really gotten our hands around.”

Chapman said while coronavirus is not at a stage where people should be avoiding restaurants, “people should be wary of being around people who are ill”.

---30---

Major companies are making big changes to their sick leave policies amid coronavirus spread
Tim O'Donnell, The Week•March 10, 2020

The spread of the novel coronavirus has prompted several major U.S. companies to re-think their sick policies.

Walmart, which had an employee in Kentucky test positive for the virus, will not penalize hourly workers who call in sick, and any employees who are diagnosed with COVID-19 or are placed in quarantine will receive two weeks of pay that won't come out of their normal paid leave. Uber is also providing two weeks worth of pay to any drivers or delivery workers who have tested positive or are isolated, while Lyft said it would compensate its drivers, as well, though the company did not elaborate.

Apple, meanwhile, is set to provide unlimited paid leave to any hourly employees who show cold or flu symptoms similar to COVID-19 even if they're not formally diagnosed, and, like Google, is encouraging its corporate employees to work from home for a while.

As for Darden Restaurants, the parent company of several chains including Olive Garden, the new coronavirus apparently sped up already-in-motion plans to reshape their benefits. Employees will now receive up to 40 hours of paid sick leave annually. Read more at The Washington Post and Business Insider.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez demands the government distribute a universal basic income and implement 'Medicare for all' to fight the coronavirus

Business Insider•March 12, 2020

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Jacquelyn Martin/AP Images

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is pushing for a significantly more robust federal-government response to the coronavirus pandemic as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi struggles to strike a deal with the GOP.

The House is preparing to vote on Thursday on a coronavirus-relief bill that would provide Americans with paid sick leave, food assistance, free coronavirus testing, and more substantial unemployment benefits.

"This is not the time for half measures," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Thursday. "We need to take dramatic action now to stave off the worst public health & economic affects."

Democrats are attempting to bring Republicans on board with their legislation — which doesn't include Ocasio-Cortez's far-reaching proposals — but the White House and GOP lawmakers are resisting it.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive lawmakers are calling for a significantly more robust federal-government response to the coronavirus than has so far been proposed by both Democrats and Republicans.

The House is preparing to vote on Thursday on a coronavirus-relief bill that would provide Americans with paid sick leave, food assistance, free coronavirus testing, and more substantial unemployment benefits.

But Ocasio-Cortez pushed for a more sweeping response, including expanding Medicare or Medicaid to cover all Americans, a freeze on evictions, a universal basic income, ending work requirements for food-assistance programs, criminal-justice reform, and freezing student-debt collection.

"This is not the time for half measures," she tweeted on Thursday. "We need to take dramatic action now to stave off the worst public health & economic affects. That includes making moves on paid leave, debt relief, waiving work req's, guaranteeing healthcare, UBI, detention relief (pretrial, elderly, imm)."

Ocasio-Cortez said the expansion of unemployment benefits wouldn't help the many millions of Americans, including tipped and contracted workers, who are suffering economically as a result of the pandemic but aren't necessarily losing their jobs.
A fight over the coronavirus response

Democrats are attempting to bring Republicans on board with the legislation, but the White House and GOP lawmakers are resisting it.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called the bill "completely partisan" and "unworkable." Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called the legislation "an ideological wish list that was not tailored closely to the circumstances."

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has remained defiant.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on March 12. Associated Press

"We cannot slow the coronavirus outbreak when workers are stuck with the terrible choice between staying home to avoid spreading illness and the paycheck their family can't afford to lose," she said in a Wednesday statement.

On Thursday morning, Pelosi told reporters that Congress wouldn't leave Washington without passing legislation to address the pandemic and resulting economic crisis. (Congress is scheduled to go on recess next week).

"We're bringing this bill to the floor," she said.

Meanwhile, the president has proposed a massive fiscal stimulus centered on a temporary Social Security payroll-tax cut that would add about $1 trillion to the national debt — more costly than both the 2008 Wall Street bailout and the 2009 stimulus bill designed to combat the Great Recession.

There is widespread bipartisan skepticism about the cost and effectiveness of Trump's proposal, and it would face an uphill battle in the Democratic-controlled House. Critics say the payroll-tax cut wouldn't be targeted enough and would disproportionately help higher-income Americans.

After calling for unity during an address to the nation on Wednesday night, Trump attacked Pelosi on Thursday morning for refusing to back his plan.

"Nancy Pelosi all of a sudden doesn't like the payroll tax cut, but when Obama proposed it she thought it was a brilliant thing that all of the working families would benefit from because if you get a paycheck, you're going to take home more money," he tweeted, quoting a host of "Fox and Friends."

---30---

Coronavirus: Pelosi and Trump reach deal on testing and paid leave package
The Independent•March 13, 2020

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she has reached a deal with the White House to pass legislation that provides free testing for coronavirus testing, including uninsured people, as well as paid sick leave and family leave for up to three months.

In a statement, she said: "This legislation is about testing, testing, testing. To stop the spread of the virus, we have secured free coronavirus testing for everyone who needs a test, including the uninsured. We cannot fight coronavirus effectively unless everyone in our country who needs to be tested can get their test free of charge."

Speaker Pelosi said they also have "secured paid emergency leave with two weeks of paid sick leave and up to three months of paid family and medical leave" as well as unemployment insurance, a Medicaid expansion, and food security plans for poor families impacted by the outbreak.