20,000 migrants have been expelled along border under coronavirus order
Camilo Montoya-Galvez, CBS News•May 7, 2020



The Trump administration announced on Thursday that officials at the southern border have summarily expelled more than 20,000 unauthorized migrant adults, families and children from the U.S. under a broad public health order issued in late March in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Citing the emergency directive by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), border officials sent more than 14,000 migrants to Mexico or their home countries in April, according to new government data. In the last 11 days of March, more than 6,400 were expelled under the order, which the administration says allows officials to bypass laws and policies that govern the processing of migrants and asylum-seekers, including children who arrive at the border without their parents or legal guardians.

Officials relied on the emergency authority under the CDC order to quickly remove the vast majority of migrants who arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border without documents last month. More than 90% of the adults, families and unaccompanied children encountered by Border Patrol in April were expelled.

Most of the 15,862 migrants encountered by Border Patrol last month were single adults, but 604 families and 734 unaccompanied minors were also processed. Officials did not immediately say how many of these families and children were processed under the CDC order, but government data suggests most of them were expelled.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement, charged with caring for unaccompanied migrant minors, received only 58 children from border officials in April, according to the data obtained by CBS News. In March, including the 11 days under the order, border officials referred 1,852 children to the agency. Since the office has continued releasing minors to sponsors in the U.S. during the pandemic, less than 1,650 children remained in its care this week — a population level not seen since late 2011.

Outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Ciudad Juarez

A migrant child in the "Remain in Mexico" program speaks on the phone while waiting with his parents at the Paso del Norte border bridge to reschedule their immigration hearings amid the coronavirus outbreak, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on April 21, 2020. Reuters

The administration has argued that the CDC directive, which cites a World War II-era public health law, is critical to contain the spread of the coronavirus inside the U.S., saying potentially infected migrants could overburden medical institutions along the borderlands. Acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan reiterated on Thursday that the order is not part of the administration's immigration agenda, but rather a measure to safeguard public health.

"This is not about immigration," Morgan told reporters during a remote briefing.

Advocates, however, disagree, saying the administration is accomplishing something it has sought to do for years: restrict access to humanitarian protections for unauthorized migrants who arrive at the border. Since officials are processing most of them under public health law, migrants could be denied the opportunity to apply for humanitarian programs, like asylum, that are enshrined in U.S. immigration law.

Thelma Garcia, an immigration attorney in the Rio Grande Valley, the most heavily patrolled sector of the U.S.-Mexico border, said the CDC directive is being used to deny migrants access to America's asylum system.

"There are still problems in Central America. People are still fleeing. Once they cross the border into the U.S., nobody knows anything about them because they are deported so quickly. And I'm sure there's a lot of people in there with some good claims that should not be removed," Garcia told CBS News. "But they are using the pandemic as an excuse not to follow the immigration and asylum laws."

The CDC order was first issued on March 20 and renewed late last month for another 30 days. Morgan did not confirm whether it will be extended yet again beyond the current May 20 end date, saying health officials will make that determination. But he said the public health risk posed by processing large numbers of migrants persists, citing the growing coronavirus cases in Mexico.

U.S. suspends protections for migrant kids at border, expelling hundreds

Camilo Montoya-Galvez,CBS News•May 7, 2020

María does not know what to do. Her request for U.S. asylum was denied. Her authorization to be in Mexico, contingent on having an ongoing U.S. immigration case, has expired. And now, the U.S. has sent her 10-year-old son alone to Honduras, where she fled an abusive partner who threatened to kill her if she returns.

After losing their asylum case under the Remain-in-Mexico policy, which has granted protection to just 1.1% of the migrants who have completed their proceedings under the program, María allowed Jesús, her young son, to cross the border alone to turn himself over to U.S. officials, thinking he would be allowed to reunite with family in Texas and seek refuge in the U.S. under long-standing policies for unaccompanied migrant minors.

Instead, Jesús was placed on a deportation flight to Honduras within four days of encountering U.S. immigration officials, who have been granted broad emergency powers during the coronavirus pandemic.

"He was desperate," María told CBS News in Spanish, referring to her son. "He wanted to be in the U.S. with his uncle because he did not want to go back to Honduras to suffer. 'I do not want to live with that man again so he can mistreat me,' he told me."

For the first time in decades, children like Jesús who show up at the southern border without their parents or legal guardians are being summarily expelled and denied access to protections that have been afforded to them under U.S. law. The shift is being justified under a 17-page public health order the Trump administration believes allows border officials to bypass asylum, immigration and anti-trafficking laws.

Under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) order, first issued on March 20 and renewed for another 30 days late last month, border officials have expelled thousands of unauthorized migrants to Mexico or their home countries and denied most asylum-seekers the opportunity to request humanitarian protections created by Congress.

In the last 11 days of March alone, officials expelled at least 299 unaccompanied children under the public health order. Expulsions in April are expected to be released Thursday, according to a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesman, but data from the U.S. refugee agency responsible for caring for these minors suggests that most unaccompanied children have been denied entry since the emergency order took effect.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) received only 58 children from border officials in April, according to government data obtained by CBS News. In March, including the 11 days under the order, border officials referred 1,852 children to the agency.

Before the worst weeks of the pandemic, the office was getting as many as 77 migrant minors on a given day. Since the order's implementation, especially in April, daily referrals from border officials have hovered around the single digits. On some days, the agency has not received any minors.

Because the refugee agency has continued to release children to relatives and sponsors in the U.S. during the pandemic, the number of unaccompanied migrant minors in its custody has plummeted, falling to 1,648 this week — a population not seen since late 2011, according to an administration official. Last April, during an unprecedented wave of U.S.-bound migrant families and children, the office had 12,500 minors in its care.

The administration has argued that the CDC order invoking a 1940s-era public health law is necessary to block the entry of migrants who could be carrying the coronavirus and cause outbreaks inside immigration jails that would overwhelm the public health system along the border. Migrant children, top officials have argued, pose the same threat to the U.S. as adults during the pandemic.

"The disease doesn't know age," Acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan told reporters last month. "When [minors] come across the border, they pose an absolute, concrete public health risk to this country and everybody they come in contact with."

While officials like Morgan have maintained that the turn-back order was not a matter of immigration policy, it accomplishes an objective the Trump administration has pursued for over three years: shutting off access to humanitarian protections for immigrants who hardliners see as chiefly economic migrants.

"The administration is using coronavirus and the pandemic as a cover for doing what it has always wanted to do, which was to close the border to children," Jennifer Nagda, the policy director at the Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights, told CBS News. "There is no reason why unaccompanied children arriving at the border can't be safely screened and transferred to ORR custody, where capacity is at an all-time low."

"There is no real public health justification for turning these children away at the border — and it absolutely violates federal law," Nagda added.

"I didn't know where they had him"

María said she and Jesús left Honduras last year after being threatened by her former partner. She said her other three children stayed at her mother's home, where they had been living.

CBS News is not disclosing María or Jesús' real names to protect their identities.

Upon reaching and crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in September 2019, María and her son were placed in the Remain in Mexico program, formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols or MPP, according to U.S. government documents reviewed by CBS News. For months, they lived in the tent city in Matamoros, Mexico, the largest refugee camp along the U.S.-Mexico border. They entered the U.S. three times to attend their court hearings at a makeshift immigration court in Brownsville, Texas. In March, an immigration judge denied the family's petition for humanitarian protection in the U.S. María said she found herself in an agonizing position. She feared her son could be hurt if they returned to Honduras. She was also concerned about his safety in the squalid tent camp in Matamoros, located in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, which the U.S. government warns Americans not to visit because of the rampant violence and crime there.

Migrant children play with cardboard boxes at a migrant encampment where more than 2,000 people live while seeking asylum in the U.S., while the spread of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, in Matamoros Mexico, on April 9, 2020. ReutersSo María followed the lead of other asylum-seeking parents in the MPP program and let Jesús cross the border without her, since unaccompanied minors are supposed to be excluded from the Remain in Mexico policy. Between October 2019 and last month, at least 571 children in the custody of the U.S. refugee agency have said their parents were in Mexico under the policy, according to government data obtained by CBS News.

In a letter Wednesday, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus denounced reports by advocates that the U.S. refugee agency has been delaying the release of children with pending Remain in Mexico cases. Last month, a federal judge said the agency can't block the release of children with sponsors simply because they were formerly in Mexico with their family and have a pending case linked to the MPP program.

According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Jesús was turned over to the agency on April 20, one day after Border Patrol agents encountered and processed him under the public health order. On April 24, ICE sent him to Honduras on a deportation flight, the agency said.

But María said he did not find out about her son's fate until a week after he was expelled to San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Her cousin in Tegucigalpa, the country's capital, was the one who told her, she said. Honduran immigration officials reached her six days after Jesús' removal. "I was scared about my son's whereabouts. I didn't know where they had him," she said.

María's cousin has agreed to take care of Jesús for the time being. The 10-year-old boy is still shocked and distressed, María said.

"This is the first time we have been separated. That's why he is sad. 'When are you coming, mommy?' he has asked me," she added. "They told me he spent his days at the shelter crying."

Dr. Amy Cohen, a child welfare expert and executive director of the group Every Last One, which works with asylum-seeking minors, helped María locate her child and arranged for him to stay with family members in Honduras. Faulting the U.S. government, Cohen said it would've been nearly impossible for the Honduran mother to locate her son if she had not received outside help.

"This child, for all intents and purposes, is now alone in Honduras. He's 10-years-old. He has been traumatized and separated from his mother," Cohen told CBS News.

"Complete dereliction"

The rapid expulsion of unaccompanied children like Jesús from U.S. soil upends decades of legal safeguards that underage migrants have been granted for years, particularly those classified as unaccompanied.

When the Department of Homeland Security was created in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Congress charged the Office of Refugee Resettlement with caring for unaccompanied minors, which had been the responsibility of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, a Justice Department branch with law enforcement functions that was disbanded.

Under a 2008 law, border officials generally must transfer unaccompanied migrant children who are not from Mexico or Canada to the U.S. refugee agency within three days of their apprehension, except in extraordinary circumstances.

Once in the U.S., immigration law dictates that unaccompanied migrant minors can't be placed in a fast-tracked deportation process known as "expedited removal" and must be connected with legal services providers and child advocates. They are to be placed in the "least restrictive" shelters and facilities.

U.S. law stipulates that unaccompanied children can also have their asylum applications decided by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, rather than an immigration judge. Migrant minors, unlike adults, also have other avenues beyond asylum to seek safe haven in the U.S. Those who can prove they have been neglected, abandoned or abused by one or both parents can request "Special Immigrant Juvenile Status," which creates a pathway to U.S. citizenship.

The care of unaccompanied children in U.S. custody is also governed by the landmark 1997 Flores Settlement Agreement, which also covers minors in families. Under the settlement, minors must be detained in safe and sanitary facilities, and the government must make a continuing effort to release them to qualified sponsors.

The Trump administration has sought to alter, limit or completely scrap most of these laws and protections, arguing that they encourage unauthorized migration of children, particularly from poverty-stricken and violence-ridden parts of Central America. But Jennifer Podkul, vice president of Kids in Need of Defense, a group that provides legal services to unaccompanied minors, said these safeguards were purposely established to protect them.

"Congress passed legislation with incredible bipartisan support, recognizing that this is a particularly vulnerable population, to make sure that these kids aren't summarily returned but rather that they have the opportunity to talk to a social worker, talk to a lawyer and talk to a judge, so that the United States can be sure they are not sending a kid back to danger," Podkul told CBS News. "That was Congress' intent."

Pablo Rodriguez, an attorney at the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services who works with unaccompanied minors in U.S. immigration custody, said children fleeing to the U.S. are still in need of protection, even during a pandemic.

"Just because there is a pandemic going on does not mean that the reasons the children flee, the reasons why people are coming to the United States, have changed," Rodriguez told CBS News. "They are still fleeing gang violence, and a lot of other push-and-pull factors are still at play."

Border officials citing the CDC order have also altered the long-standing definition of an "unaccompanied" migrant child as a minor who is encountered at the border without a parent or legal guardian. The administration has told Congress it is now classifying minors who come to the border with other family members as "accompanied" and expelling them as a family.

Under an informal agreement between the U.S. and Mexico, Mexican officials agreed to receive Central American families and single adults expelled by the U.S. under the public health order but not unaccompanied minors, a Mexican government official told CBS News. However, a CBP spokesman said Tuesday that unaccompanied children could be expelled to Mexico through a port of entry, or in an ICE deportation flight.

CBP has said its agents could exclude unaccompanied minors from the public health order on a case-by-case basis if they see signs of trafficking or illness, or if the child's expulsion to her home country is not immediately possible. A CBP spokesman did not provide more details about when agents could exclude children. "If specific circumstances guaranteeing exemptions from title 42 expulsion were to be made public, they would be exploited by human smugglers," the spokesman said.

Nagda, the policy director at the Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights, is worried about the potential asylum and protection requests that the U.S. is no longer hearing from children.

"What is most terrifying about this situation is the complete dereliction of any sense of either our legal obligation or moral obligation to very vulnerable children who are coming to our borders," she said. "We have no idea who these children are and we have no idea where they're going."

Meanwhile, in the refugee camp in Matamoros, María is now contemplating returning to Honduras.

"Yes, I'm scared to go back — but my son is there now."

Democrats fume over having to clean up Bloomberg's mess

HE WAS A REPUBLICAN, STILL IS
HE FUCKED OVER HIS WORKERS

Alex Thompson and Holly Otterbein,Politico•May 7, 2020


Mike Bloomberg’s decision to dump hundreds of former campaign staffers from his payroll — after promising them paychecks through the election — has left a trail of ill will within the Democratic Party that’s now roiling a key part of its general election operation.

After accepting a much-needed $18 million donation from Bloomberg when he dropped out of the presidential campaign in March, Democratic National Committee officials have been pressuring battleground state parties to hire his former employees, according to senior party aides in three swing states. Those staffers found themselves jobless after the billionaire broke his campaign’s public promise to keep them employed through November whether he won the nomination or not.

But some state parties are chafing at the hiring requests. Senior state party officials told POLITICO they’re being tasked with cleaning up Bloomberg’s public relations mess rather than hiring the best people for the jobs.

“It’s ridiculous,” said one Democratic operative familiar with the dispute, who was granted anonymity to speak frankly about the situation. “There were dozens of candidates [with qualified employees] and the parties are being asked to prioritize the rich guy’s staff over everyone else’s.”

David Bergstein, the DNC’s director of communications for battleground states, did not dispute that the DNC is pushing some state parties to hire ex-Bloomberg aides. But he said that “every potential staffer goes through a competitive hiring process.”

Bergstein added that “the Bloomberg campaign ended with a very large pool of available and talented staff in many battlegrounds, and we’re making sure they, along with others who are interested, have opportunities to apply to our state organizing programs."

The state parties' resistance has in turn irked Bloomberg’s team. “If people don't want the money, they can return it and it will be put to use in alternative efforts to defeat President Trump," a Bloomberg spokesperson told POLITICO. “The Bloomberg campaign made the largest transfer in DNC history, $18 million, to help boost the DNC's coordinated efforts, including by enabling them to hire field organizers of ours who wanted to continue through November. It is certainly our hope that effort not only continues, but accelerates.”

The rancor has highlighted Bloomberg’s growing influence in the Democratic Party as a donor and power broker after his failed presidential campaign, which now extends to hiring and contracting decisions. The rift over Bloomberg staffers is not an academic matter for Democrats: As Joe Biden ramps up his digital operation and shifts increasingly to online campaigning, the battleground organizers are some of the only on-the-ground infrastructure Democrats have in swing states right now.

Bloomberg’s digital operation has also been a point of contention since he left the race. The digital firm he started, Hawkfish, is seeking to take over large parts of Biden’s digital operation for the general election, a possibility that has caused a clash inside the campaign.

Part of the disagreement over the staffers seems to stem from differing expectations of what Bloomberg’s money would be used for. The Bloomberg team argued that $18 million is enough to hire 500 additional organizers, but the DNC said it is using that money to hire people faster and ahead of schedule rather than increasing the expected size of its battleground organizing teams.

The DNC has also been committing money to other areas, such as recently reserving $22 million in YouTube ads for the fall.

One of the three senior state party aides said some of the Bloomberg staffers were underqualified and overpaid on his presidential campaign, and had outsized expectations. Entry-level organizing staffers on the Bloomberg campaign were paid at a rate of $72,000 a year, nearly double the salary of similar positions on other presidential campaigns.

“They’ve been frickin spoiled,” the person said. “The two trends we noticed: They overshot what they were applying for” and some “felt as though they should have been compensated more than we were willing to go.”

“[The DNC] did make it clear it was a priority for them,” the state party aide added. “It was clearly a priority that they be able to show that they hired a lot more ex-Bloomberg [staffers] than they had to that date.”

Other state party officials expressed gratitude to the DNC and Bloomberg for the large infusion of resources.

“These early investments have helped us dramatically grow our organizing programs and ensure we have the folks we need to connect with voters early and across the Commonwealth,” Lauren Reyes, Virginia’s Democratic Coordinated Campaign Director, said in a statement through a DNC spokesperson.

Even state party officials who were frustrated by the pressure to hire Bloomberg staffers, however, said they ultimately blamed Bloomberg for the problem. In order to ramp up his campaign quickly, Bloomberg enticed employees with a pledge that they would have jobs through November. After he lost the primary, Bloomberg abruptly fired most of the 2,400 members of the staff, leaving them unemployed and without health insurance amid an economy in freefall. The former New York City mayor, who is estimated to be one of the richest 10 people in the world, is facing two class-action lawsuits from former aides over the situation.

After a barrage of criticism, Bloomberg relented last week and offered to pay for health care coverage for his former campaign staff through COBRA until November, citing “these extraordinary circumstances.”

Yahoo News/YouGov poll: Most Americans deny Trump virus response is a 'success' — nearly half say Obama would be doing better

https://news.yahoo.com/yahoo-news-you-gov-poll-most-americans-deny-trump-virus-response-is-a-success-nearly-half-say-obama-would-be-doing-better-134316999.html

#23SKIDOO

These 23 companies are working on coronavirus treatments or vaccines — here’s where things stand

Published: May 6, 2020 at 2:50 p.m. ET
By

Jaimy Lee
The list includes Gilead Sciences and Moderna along with smaller biotechs

A mix of legacy drugmakers and small startups have stepped forward with plans to develop vaccines or treatments that target the infection caused by the novel coronavirus.
COVID-19, which was first detected in December in Wuhan, China, late last year, has since sickened more than three million people worldwide and killed more a quarter of a million people.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued two emergency use authorizations for COVID-19 treatments, including one for hydroxychloroquine sulfate and chloroquine phosphate in March to treat COVID-19 patients and one for Gilead Sciences Inc.’s remdesivir on May 1. No drugs or vaccines have received FDA approval.

In the U.S., many of the publicly traded companies that are initiating development have received funding from two organizations: the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), which is a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a division of the National Institutes of Health. Some companies have also received funding from Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a global organization based in Oslo that has provided millions of dollars in funding to vaccine makers. Other companies are funding trials by themselves or through partnerships with other life sciences companies.

These are some of the companies developing treatments or vaccines in the U.S. for COVID-19. (An earlier version of the article included several adjuvant platform technologies that are used to aid the development process but have since been removed.)

Amgen and Adaptive Biotechnologies

Type: Antibody treatment

Stage: Preclinical

Background: The very early-stage collaboration between Amgen Inc. AMGN, -1.37% and Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp. ADPT, +6.49% seeks to discover antibodies that can be used to prevent or treat COVID-19. Financial terms of the exclusive collaboration will be completed “in the coming weeks,” the companies said April 2. “There may well be more than one generation of antibody therapeutics entering the clinic,” Amgen R&D EVP David Reese told investors on an earnings call.

Also in the works: Amgen will test Otezla as a COVID-19 therapy treating respiratory distress in late-stage patients, with the company saying April 30 that it plans to put the oral psoriasis drug into trials “in the coming weeks.”


Year-to-date stock performance: Amgen’s stock is down 1.9%; Adaptive’s is up 10.3%.
Altimmune

Type: Vaccine

Stage: Preclinical

Name: AdCOVID

Background: Altimmune Inc. ALT, +0.64% said March 30 it is partnering with University of Alabama at Birmingham to develop a single-dose, intranasal COVID-19 vaccine. They said they plan to put the vaccine candidate into Phase 1 trials in the third quarter. The preclinical company is also developing vaccines for anthrax and the flu.

Year-to-date stock performance: Shares of Altimmune have gone up 60.8%.
BioNTech and Pfizer

Type: mRNA vaccine

Stage: Phase 1/2

Name: BNT162 program

Background: Pfizer Inc. PFE, -3.06% announced March 17 it would help develop and distribute BioNTech SE’s BNTX, +3.22% COVID-19 vaccine candidate, though the deal excludes China. The 360 patients in the U.S. trial had started to receive the first doses of the four vaccine candidates included in the study as of May 5. Dosing in 200 participants in the German trial began April 23. As part of the deal, Pfizer will pay $185 million upfront, with additional possible future milestone payments of up to $563 million. Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer’s chief scientific officer, said during an April 28 earnings call that the companies expect the first round of trial data in May or June, with the vaccine candidate moving into “expanded trials that could allow emergency use or accelerated approval coming in the fall, possibly October.”

BioNTech is also testing the vaccine in collaboration with Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Co. Ltd. in China.

Pfizer and BioNTech for several years have said they are working on mRNA-based influenza vaccines.

Year-to-date stock performances: Shares of BioNTech have soared 47.6%; Pfizer’s stock is down 1.7%.
CytoDyn

Type: Treatment

Stage: Phase 2 and Phase 2b/3 clinical trials

Name: leronlimab

Background: CytoDyn Inc. CYDY, -5.01%, a preclinical biotechnology company based in Vancouver, is testing its experimental drug leronlimab in two types of COVID-19 patients. The investigational therapy hasn’t been approved for any indications; for COVID-19, it is being proposed as a treatment for mild-to-moderate respiratory complications that occur in patients with the disease as well as severely and critically ill patients.

The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study will test the efficacy and safety of leronlimab in 75 patients. CytoDyn had been studying the experimental therapy as a treatment for people with HIV and a form of metastatic breast cancer.

Year-to-date stock performance: CytoDyn’s stock has soared 213.0%.
Gilead Sciences

Type: Treatment

Stage: Emergency use authorization

Name: remdesivir

Background: Gilead Sciences Inc. GILD, +0.18% is a longtime drugmaker best known for developing the first major cure for hepatitis-C in Sovaldi, a therapy that changed the standard of care for that disease but also kicked off the national debate about drug pricing. The company has experience developing and marketing HIV drugs, including Truvada for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), its preventive HIV medicine.

It received an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration in the U.S. on May 1 based on preliminary results from two clinical trials: one conducted by the NIAID, and one by Gilead. In the NIAID trial, COVID-19 patients taking the drug had a median recovery time of 11 days, compared with 15 days for those patients taking placebo. NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci has said the drug is now considered the standard of care; however, other experts have had mixed responses to the data. Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said he thinks the drug is effective based on the preliminary data that has been made public. “It’s just not that potent,” he said via email.

The drug was also used in two randomized, controlled clinical trials in China. Results from one trial, which was stopped early, found the drug didn’t produce “statistically significant clinical benefits,” according to findings published in The Lancet.

Gilead in late March had to halt individual compassionate use requests for remdesivir as outbreaks worsened in the U.S., having provided the investigational therapy to 1,000 patients. “The system cannot support and process the overwhelming number of applications we have seen with COVID-19,” Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day said March 28.

The company told investors on May 1 it may spend up to $1 billion this year to develop and manufacture remdesivir, and it aims to have 500,000 treatment courses by October and 1 million by the end of 2020.

Gilead’s notable clinical trials:

1. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases trial has enrolled patients in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 3 trial evaluating 1,063 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 at 68 sites worldwide, including at three sites in Singapore and South Korea, according to the NIAID. However, the majority of the study locations are in the U.S. The study began Feb. 21 and is expected to conclude April 1, 2023. Preliminary results from this trial were used to inform the EUA.

2. A Gilead-sponsored randomized, open-label Phase 3 trial is testing remdesivir in 1,600 patients with moderate COVID-19. It previously said it would enroll 600 participants. The trial started enrolling patients in March, with results to come in May. The clinical trial listing states the study is taking place in 13 countries, including Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and the U.S.

3. A Gilead-sponsored randomized, open-label Phase 3 trial is evaluating remdesivir in 6,000 patients with severe COVID-19. The drugmaker previously said it planned to include 400 participants in the trial. The trial started enrolling patients in March, and early results based on 397 patients included in the initial phase of the study were used to inform the EUA. The clinical trial listing states the study is taking place in Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and the U.S.

Results: The EUA followed two weeks of clinical trial data leaks that sent the company’s stock soaring or tumbling depending on the news. Stat News reported April 16 that University of Chicago Medicine researchers saw “rapid recoveries” in 125 COVID-19 patients remdesivir, though that data isn’t part of the full clinical trial data set. A week later, Stat and the Financial Times reported that a draft of the clinical trial results for remdesivir showed that the drug didn’t speed up improvement in patients in China or prevent them from dying. The summary was reportedly published by accident on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) website and then taken down.

What’s next: The drugmaker plans to donate 1.5 million vials, about 140,000 10-day courses of treatment, of the drug through June. It also said May 5 that it plans to contract with pharmaceutical manufacturers abroad to ensure access to remdesivir outside of the U.S. The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, a group that assesses the cost-effectiveness of medicines, said Gilead would need to charge $10 for a course of treatment to recoup its costs, but could be priced as high as $4,500 per course of treatment to be considered effective.

Year-to-date stock performance: Shares of Gilead are up 21.2%.
GlaxoSmithKline

Type: Vaccine, treatment

Name: AS03 adjuvant system for vaccines

Background: GlaxoSmithKline GSK, -1.62% is another leading vaccine maker, having brought to market vaccines for human papillomavirus (HPV) and the seasonal flu, among others. It has announced a string of wide-reaching collaborations during the pandemic, most notably a deal with Sanofi to jointly develop a vaccine candidate. (Sanofi is also working with BARDA on a separate vaccine program.) As part of this agreement, Sanofi’s S-protein COVID-19 antigen will be paired with GlaxoSmithKline’s adjuvant technology; the companies expect to launch clinical trials in the second half of the year. Terms of the agreement are expected to be completed this month.

Also in the works: GSK said Feb. 3 that the CEPI-funded University of Queensland will have access to its vaccine adjuvant platform technology, which is believed to both strengthen the response of a vaccine and limit the amount of vaccine needed per dose. A separate deal with Clover Biopharmaceuticals Inc., a Chinese biotechnology company, which was announced in February, is also using its adjuvant technology in combination with its vaccine candidate, COVID-19 S-Trimer, in preclinical studies. Dr. Thomas Breuer, chief medical officer for GSK Vaccines, is leading work on vaccines and the adjuvant platform.

Separately, GSK and Vir Biotechnology Inc. announced a deal in early April, in which GSK made a $250 million equity investment in Vir as the two companies work together to develop two of Vir’s experimental therapies, VIR-7831 and VIR-7832, expected to go to Phase 2 clinical trials sometime in 2020.

Year-to-date stock performance: Shares of GSK have tumbled 11.3%.
Heat Biologics

Type: Vaccine

Stage: Preclinical

Background: Heat Biologics Inc. HTBX, -0.36% has previously announced that it is developing a vaccine for the novel coronavirus with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. It disclosed March 17 in a financial filing that its COVID-19 vaccine candidate had been added to the World Health Organization’s “draft landscape” of 41 candidate vaccines. “We are finalizing completion of the vaccine and plan to commence preclinical testing this quarter,” Heat CEO Jeff Wolf said in an April 29 statement.

The company also recently joined the Alliance for Biosecurity, which may help it “secure government funding to support its rapid development, production, and distribution” of its COVID-19 vaccine, according to Maxim Group analysts.

Year-to-date stock performance: Heat’s stock has gained 14.8%.
Inovio Pharmaceuticals

Type: DNA-based vaccine

Timeline: Phase 1 clinical trial

Name: INO-4800

Background: Another CEPI grantee (with roughly $17 million in total awards), Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. INO, +2.19% is testing its vaccine candidate in a Phase 1 clinical trial at two sites in the U.S.: the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the Center for Pharmaceutical Research in Kansas City, Mo.

Inovio develops immunotherapies and vaccines but hasn’t yet had a product approved for treatment. For INO-4800, preclinical testing was performed between Jan. 23 and Feb. 29. The company began clinical trials in the U.S. with up to 40 participants in April, dosing the first patient on April 6. Inovio said it expects to have the first results from the trial in the fall and to have 1 million doses of the vaccine ready for additional clinical trials or emergency use by the end of the year.

Inovio on March 12 announced a $5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to test a delivery device for its vaccine candidate. In late March, Inovio said that Ology Bioservices Inc., a contract development and manufacturing organization, had received a $11.9 million contract from the Department of Defense to support future potential manufacturing of Inovio’s vaccine candidate for military personnel.

Year-to-date stock performance: Shares of Inovio have soared 209.5%.
Johnson & Johnson

Type: Vaccine

Stage: Preclinical

Background: Johnson & Johnson JNJ, -0.33% announced Feb. 11 that it was working with BARDA to test its vaccine candidate, with each party providing $1 billion for research and development and the public-health organization funding the Phase 1 trials.

“We are also in discussions with other partners, that if we have a vaccine candidate with potential, we aim to make it accessible to China and other parts of the world,” Dr. Paul Stoffels, J&J’s chief scientific officer, said in a statement.

On March 13, J&J said it started preclinical testing on multiple candidates in collaboration with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and by March 30 it had identified a lead vaccine candidate. The company said it is scaling up its vaccine manufacturing capabilities in the U.S. and abroad as part of its commitment to bring “an affordable vaccine to the public on a not-for-profit basis for emergency pandemic use.”

The company aims to put its lead vaccine candidate in a Phase 1 clinical trial in September, the company said March 30, and it may have investigational doses of the vaccine available by early 2021 for emergency use.

Also in the works: J&J said in February that it had partnered with BARDA on a project that aims to screen existing antiviral medications, including experimental or approved therapies, that may be effective against COVID-19. Similar to GSK, J&J’s AdVac and PER. C6 technologies are used to improve the development process for a vaccine and were also used to develop J&J’s experimental Ebola vaccine.

Year-to-date stock performance: Shares of J&J are up 2.6%.
Moderna

Type: RNA-based vaccine

Stage: Phase 1

Name: mRNA-1273

Background: Moderna Inc. MRNA, +8.66% received funding from CEPI in January to develop an mRNA vaccine against COVID-19. On Feb. 24, it said it had shipped the first batch of mRNA-1273 to the NIAID for a Phase 1 clinical trial in the U.S.

Clinical trials: The first patient in the Phase 1 trial received a dose of the vaccine candidate on March 16. The study is expected to enroll 45 healthy adult patients, between the ages of 18 and 55 years old, in an open-label Phase I clinical trial to test mRNA-1273 as a vaccine for COVID-19. Participants will be followed for one year. The trial, which is expected to conclude June 1, 2021, will be conducted at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle. CEPI funded the manufacturing of the investigational vaccine for the first phase of the trial, which is evaluating different doses for safety and immune response. A Phase 2 trial is expected to begin in the second quarter.

In mid-April, Moderna said it will receive up to $483 million in BARDA funding to support its vaccine development program. “We believe that we would be able to supply millions of doses a month in 2020 and with further investments, tens of millions a month in 2021, if the vaccine candidate is successful in the clinic,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said at the time.

Year-to-date stock performance: Moderna’s shares have gained 146.8%.
Novavax

Type: Vaccine

Stage: Phase 1 clinical trial

Name: NVX-CoV2373

Background: Novavax Inc. NVAX, +5.89%, a preclinical biotechnology company, announced Feb. 26 that it had several vaccine candidates in preclinical animal studies. By April 8, the company said it had identified a COVID-19 vaccine candidate, and it plans to initiate a Phase I clinical study in mid-May. The first phase of the placebo-controlled study will enroll 130 healthy adults; the first round of data from that study is expected in July.

In March the company said it had received $4 million from CEPI to develop a COVID-19 vaccine and that Emergent BioSolutions Inc. would support contract development and manufacturing for the experimental vaccine.

Year-to-date stock performance: Its stock has gained 334.4%.
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals

Type: Prevention and treatment

Stage: Preclinical

Name: REGN-COV2

Background: On Feb. 4, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. REGN, +1.14% announced it is working on developing monoclonal antibodies as treatments for COVID-19, and during a May 5 earnings call it disclosed the name of the treatment, REGN-COV2. The company’s VelocImmune platform uses genetically engineered mice with humanized immune systems in preclinical testing. “We are aiming to have hundreds of thousands of prophylactic doses ready for human testing by end of August,” a spokesperson said. Christos Kyratsous, vice president of infectious disease R&D and viral vector technology, is running the project.

Clinical trials are expected to begin in June.

Year-to-date stock performance: Regeneron’s shares are up 37.0%.
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and Sanofi

Type: Treatment

Stage: Phase 2/3 clinical trial

Name: Kevzara

Background: The FDA approved Kevzara, a treatment developed by Regeneron and Sanofi SNY, -1.92%, as a therapy for rheumatoid arthritis in 2017 as part of a recently concluded longstanding R&D partnership between the two companies.

Clinical trials: Regeneron and Sanofi said March 16 they had started a Phase 2/3 trial testing Kevzara as a treatment for patients who have been hospitalized with severe COVID-19 infections. This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial is expected to enroll up to 400 patients and will take place at 16 sites in the U.S. New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital, the first site, has started enrolling patients, according to a company spokesperson.

The aim is to evaluate if the drug lessens patient fevers and their need for supplemental oxygen. The Phase 3 trial will evaluate if Kevzara prevents deaths and reduces need for mechanical ventilation, supplemental oxygen, or hospitalization. Early results from a small 21-person trial in China that haven't been peer-reviewed found that some patients who were taking a similar drug, Roche Holdings’ Actemra, reported reductions in fever, and 7% of them had a reduced need for supplemental oxygen within days of starting treatment.

Results: On March 30, the companies said the first patient in their global trial had been treated. However, in late April, the companies said they would limit the Phase 3 trial to only include patients defined as critical, which includes those requiring mechanical ventilation, high-flow oxygenation, or being cared for in an intensive care unit, given that sicker patients seemed to show some improvement while taking the drug. The next phase of the study will also only include a higher dose of the drug (400 milligrams) and the placebo, and not the lower dose of 200 milligrams used in the mid-stage trial.
Roche

Type: Treatment

Stage: Phase 3 clinical trial

Name: Actemra

Background: Roche Holdings AG’s ROG, -1.46% Actemra was first approved in 2010 as a rheumatoid arthritis drug. The Swiss drugmaker has initiated a Phase 3 clinical trial evaluating Actemra as a treatment for patients with COVID-19 who have been hospitalized with severe pneumonia. Roche began enrolling around 330 patients in early April, at 55 sites in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. The company plans to examine patient mortality and need for mechanical ventilation or an intensive care unit stay among other primary and secondary endpoints. On April 3, the first patients in the trial, which is in partnership with BARDA, were treated, a Roche spokesperson said by email. Results are expected in early summer, the company said April 22.

Also in the works: Roche has developed a diagnostic and an antibody test for COVID-19. Both have received EUAs from the FDA.

Year-to-date stock performance: Roche’s stock is down 1.3%.

­
Sanofi

Type: Vaccines

Stage: Preclinical

Name: No name yet

Background: Starting Feb. 18, Sanofi is working with BARDA to test a preclinical vaccine candidate for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) for COVID-19 using its recombinant DNA platform. A spokesperson said Sanofi aims to put a vaccine into a Phase 1 clinical trial between March 2021 and August 2021. It announced a separate program with Translate Bio Inc. TBIO, -3.03% on March 27 to develop a mRNA vaccine.

The French drugmaker has a long history of producing vaccines in its Sanofi Pasteur business and acquired this candidate through its 2017 acquisition of Protein Sciences for $750 million. It previously worked with the organization on flu vaccines. Scientists in Meriden, Ct., are working on the vaccine; David Loew, Sanofi Pasteur’s EVP, is leading the project.

Year-to-date stock performance: Shares of Sanofi are down 0.7%.
Takeda Pharmaceutical

Type: Treatment

Stage: Preclinical

Name: TAK-888

Background: Japanese drugmaker Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. TAK, -1.62% 4502, +1.02% said March 4 that it plans to test hyperimmune globulins for people who are at high risk for infection.

As part of its research, which will be performed in Georgia, Takeda said it would need access to plasma from people who have recovered from COVID-19 or those who have received a vaccine if one is developed. Dr. Rajeev Venkayya, president of Takeda’s vaccine business, is the co-lead of the company’s COVID-19 response team. In April, Takeda and CSL Behring CSLLY, +1.81% said they formed an alliance to develop a plasma-derived treatment for COVID19. Biotest AG and Octapharma also joined the alliance.

Also in the works: Like J&J, Takeda plans to examine whether other therapies, both experimental or with regulatory approval, may have treatment potential.

Year-to-date stock performance: Shares of Takeda are down 10.0%.
Vaxart

Type: Vaccine

Stage: Preclinical

Background: Vaxart Inc. VXRT, -1.16% was one of the first companies to announce plans to develop a vaccine when it did so Jan. 31. In March, the clinical-stage company announced that Emergent BioSolutions will help develop and manufacture its oral vaccine candidate.

“We believe an oral vaccine administered using a room temperature-stable tablet may offer enormous logistical advantages in the rollout of a large vaccination campaign,” Vaxart CEO Wouter Latour said in a March 18 news release.

The company plans to start a Phase 1 clinical trial in the U.S. in the second half of 2020, a company executive said. As of March 31, it has five vaccine candidates for preclinical testing.

Year-to-date stock performance: Vaxart’s stock is up 621.8%.
Vir Biotechnology

Type: Treatments

Stage: Preclinical

Name: VIR-2703 (also called ALN-COV), VIR-7831 and VIR-7832

Background: Vir Biotechnology Inc. VIR, +2.29% has two preclinical treatment candidates, VIR-7831 and VIR-7832, and on May 4 said it had identified a treatment candidate as part of a partnership with Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. ALNY, -2.63%. The companies said they aim to file for an investigational new drug application by the end of 2020, before the proposed inhaled treatment or prevention therapy would enter trials.

Also in the works: In many ways, Vir has been one of the most prolific partners in the biotech field during the pandemic. The preclinical company is run by George Scangos, the former CEO of Biogen Inc. BIIB, +2.35%. Starting Feb. 25, it said it was collaborating with Shanghai-based WuXi Biologics to test monoclonal antibodies as a treatment for COVID-19. If the treatment is approved, WuXi will commercialize it in China, while Vir will have marketing rights for the rest of the world. It later announced a partnership with Biogen to help develop and manufacture its monoclonal antibodies as a potential treatment for COVID-19. Biogen will handle clinical manufacturing of Vir’s antibodies, the company said. Vir later announced a research agreement with Generation Bio as part of its COVID-19 antibody development program. Most recently, it announced the equity investment from GSK.

Year-to-date stock performance: Vir shares have jumped 138.2%.

'What are we doing this for?': Doctors are fed up with conspiracies ravaging ERs

Ben Collins, NBC News•May 6, 2020

ANOTHER TRUMP DEPLORABLE

At the end of another long shift treating coronavirus patients, Dr. Hadi Halazun opened his Facebook page to find a man insisting to him that "no one's dying" and that the coronavirus is "fake news" drummed up by the news media.

Hadi tried to engage and explain his firsthand experience with the virus. In reply, another user insinuated that he wasn't a real doctor, saying pictures from his profile showing him at concerts and music festivals proved it.

"I told them: 'I am a real doctor. There are 200 people in my hospital's ICU,'" said Halazun, a cardiologist in New York. "And they said, 'Give me your credentials.' I engaged with them, and they kicked me off their wall."

"I left work and I felt so deflated. I let it get to me."

Halazun, like many other health care professionals, is dealing with a bombardment of misinformation and harassment from conspiracy theorists, some of whom have moved beyond posting online to pressing doctors for proof of the severity of the pandemic.

And it's taking a toll. Halazun said dealing with conspiracy theorists is the "second most painful thing I've had to deal with, other than separation of families from their loved one."

Several other doctors shared similar experiences, saying that they regularly had to treat patients who had sought care too late because of conspiracy theories spread on social media and that social media companies have to do more to counteract the forces that spread lies for profit.

Image: Anti-stay-at-home protesters in Oregon (Terray Sylvester / Getty Images)

CALL 'EM WHAT THEY ARE: TRUMP DEPLORABLES

Dr. Duncan Maru, a physician and epidemiologist in Queens, New York, said he had heard from colleagues that a young patient had come into the emergency room last week with damage to his intestinal tract after having ingested bleach. The incident occurred just days after President Donald Trump suggested that "injection" of disinfectants should be researched as a potential coronavirus treatment.

"Folks delaying seeking care or, taking the most extreme case, somebody drinking bleach as a result of structural factors just underlines the fact that we have not protected the public from disinformation," Maru said.

The structural factors in this case include Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, which have struggled to contain the spread of misinformation, some of it coming from positions of authority.

Social networks have taken a variety of steps in recent weeks to thwart misinformation, such as providing dedicated portals for vetted information from public health officials and banning content related to conspiracy theories around 5G wireless technology.

Despite the efforts, the distribution networks built up in recent years by fringe media personalities and activists on tech platforms and through websites have proven resilient.

Whitney Phillips, a assistant professor of communications who studies the spread of disinformation at Syracuse University, said the coronavirus outbreak offers a look at how conspiracy thinking is now, in some ways, more organized.

"With conspiracy theories, the reason they're impervious to fact-checking is that they have become a way of being in the world for believers," Phillips said. "It isn't just one narrative that you can debunk. It is a holistic way of being in the world that has been reinforced by all the other bulls--- that these platforms have allowed people to consume for years."
'It scares me more than anything'

Organized harassment campaigns, lies and urban legends targeting doctors are a real-life symptom of what the World Health Organization dubbed the "infodemic" as the coronavirus started to spread throughout the world earlier this year.

Halazun has since stopped engaging with the trolls on Facebook, some of whom claimed that "the hospitals are empty" and that the virus was part of a plot to vaccinate or microchip U.S. citizens — just two of the many conspiracy theories that have swirled around the coronavirus.

But he was still left with big questions: How can people believe this stuff? And do they understand the algorithms and opportunistic extremists that led them to believe it?

"It scares me more than anything that there are people who are basically controlled — and in the same way they feel they're fighting against that control," he said. "They go to YouTube, where they're really being controlled, and they don't realize it. That's what's scary."

Maru also said he felt that tech platforms need to do more to deal with disinformation, but he acknowledged that there is no easy fix.

"I do think it's a monumental task to hold these companies to account, but in the COVID case, they truly have blood on their hands," Maru said.

Beyond emergency rooms and internet platforms, there are hints of how far some coronavirus misinformation has spread. Dr. Rajeev Fernando said that when he takes questions about the coronavirus on radio shows, one out of every two callers refers to 5G towers or conspiracy theories about labs in Wuhan, China.

On the phone, sometimes they'll listen to reality, said Fernando, an infectious diseases specialist at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital in New York.

"Some people have an agenda, and you can't help that," Fernando said. "But for other people, I say, 'Let me try to answer your questions and see why you think this way and why I think this is an appropriate answer.'"

Still, Fernando believes social media networks need watchdogs, including physicians, to identify disinformation before it once again becomes a public health crisis.

"We have to understand these [conspiracy theorists] are criminal organizations which really stop at nothing to get disinformation out," Fernando said.
Bill Gates and 5G

Well-organized, professional disinformation peddlers in the QAnon and anti-vaccination movements have gained new audiences during the coronavirus pandemic by coalescing around two primary boogeymen: Bill Gates and 5G towers.

Halazun heard it all firsthand. He didn't know where it all began or how to stop it.

"These anti-vaccination people were telling me I'm a sheep," Halazun said. "Dr. Fauci this, Bill Gates that. And I don't really care what you think about Bill Gates. It doesn't affect me. But it does affect me when they tell me what we're doing is not real and that the hospitals are really empty. It hurts."

In January, a well-known promoter of QAnon, the baseless conspiracy theory that Trump is secretly dismantling a pedophile-cannibal cabal that runs the U.S. government, pushed a conspiracy theory that Gates "patented" the coronavirus based on a mischaracterized public patent search.

The patent was created by a Gates-aligned research institute to research a vaccine, a common practice among researchers, and it covered a previous coronavirus, not the one that causes COVID-19.

Still, the tweet helped spark a focus on Gates that has permeated the various conspiracy theory networks that have developed on the internet in recent years.

The same QAnon promoter later promoted a diluted form of bleach called "Miracle Mineral Solution" as a possible way to kill the coronavirus.

Similarly, the anti-vaccination movement has pushed a false conspiracy theory that 5G towers are weakening immune systems throughout the world and that COVID-19 is a cover story for the colossal death tolls around the world.

After a prominent anti-vaccination figure posted a video on Instagram of a man alongside a destroyed 5G tower, several arson fires were set on towers across Europe and Canada.

Brian Keeley, a professor of philosophy at Pitzer College in California who studies why people believe in conspiracy theories, said some people in times of crisis look to far-fetched ideas with simple answers for complex problems.

Providing a straightforward, extinguishable enemy — whether it's a well-known celebrity like Gates or a mysterious concept like the illuminati — gives conspiracy theorists hope, agency and power in a time of chaos. In reality, those recognizable, often mortal figures are simply scapegoats for an act of God.

"People are looking for these kinds of explanations to control something in their lives," Keeley said.

Keeley, who's been researching conspiracy theories for over 20 years, said he has abandoned using Facebook because of the "depression that comes from looking at that."

"It's sort of an informational quarantine," he said. "You don't want to be exposing yourself to a different kind of virus."
Quitting Facebook

After researching why people believe in the conspiracy theories, Halazun has come to the same conclusion: Right now, it's not worth it for a doctor to spend any time on Facebook.

"We're limited in our emotional capacity. I'm not going to spend whatever I have left after a long day of work trying to convince a conspiracy theorist," Halazun said. "They're immune to any evidence. You're not going to change their mind."

As Halazun stepped outside after his Facebook experience, he heard the bang of pots and pans and whoops and hollers. It was 7 p.m., and New York City residents were participating in their nightly salute to health care workers on the front lines of fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

"I just started crying," Halazun said. "I thought, 'What do I believe here?' It almost made me question myself. Some people are out there who are sitting in their homes, going on these videos and then telling us it's fake while we're saving lives.

"I felt like 'What are we doing this for?'"

Can the Postal Service be saved?

Mike BebernesEditor,Yahoo News 360•May 7, 2020

The 360” shows you diverse perspectives on the day’s top stories and debates.

How the coronavirus is impacting the U.S. Postal Service

What’s happening

The United States Postal Service has been in financial trouble for years. The added pressure brought on by the coronavirus pandemic has brought it to the brink of collapse.

Mail volume has dropped dramatically because of the outbreak, robbing the USPS of its most profitable revenue stream. The agency expects to run out of money by September and have a net operating loss of $54 billion in the near future. Without significant help, “the Postal Service could cease to exist,” the chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee said.

The USPS has been a fixture of American life since 1775. For most of its history, it operated as a typical government service. That changed in 1970, when it was turned into an independent agency that was expected to run like a business without financial support from taxpayers. That arrangement was largely successful until the mid-2000s, when a combination of new laws that restricted its income and the emergence of digital alternatives crippled its budget.

The Postal Service frequently ranks as Americans’ favorite federal agency, with approval ratings as high as 90 percent. But it has recently drawn the ire of President Trump, who incorrectly blames its financial troubles on low prices it charges Amazon for package delivery services. “The Postal Service is a joke,” Trump said last month.

Why there’s debate

Political divisions have also informed proposed solutions for rescuing the Postal Service. According to USPS leaders and many liberal lawmakers, the best solution is a massive infusion of cash. Democrats have pushed to include billions in additional funding for the agency in the trillion-dollar stimulus packages recently passed by Congress, but Trump reportedly threatened to veto any bill that included a bailout for the USPS.

Beyond funds to survive the current crisis, the USPS needs fundamental changes to free it from the circumstances that were tanking its finances long before the pandemic came along, some argue. The agency’s current structure — in which it has all of the revenue-generating responsibilities of a private business but still has its policies dictated by Congress — is seen as unsustainable by many. In 2006, a Republican-led Congress passed a law requiring the Postal Service to put away enough funds to cover retirement and pension costs for its employees for the next 75 years. Without that law, which some argue was part of a deliberate attempt to bankrupt the agency, the Postal Service would have actually made a profit in recent years, according to analysts.

Others have argued for either expanding the service’s mission to include new revenue-generating operations like banking, or cutting back expenses like ending Saturday delivery.

Some conservatives argue that the best path for the Postal Service is for it to no longer be part of the government at all, but instead become a private company free from congressional restraints.

What’s next

The Trump administration announced Wednesday that the current head of the USPS will be replaced by a top Republican donor in June, which could be a precursor to the service implementing some of the changes in package fees the president has demanded. Funding for the Postal Service may be a key point of contention during debate over the next congressional stimulus bill. Democrats are expected to push for $25 billion to keep the USPS afloat. But that provision may need enough Republican support to override a potential veto from Trump.
Perspectives

Congress needs to stand up to Trump to pass a USPS bailout

“Trump has now threatened to veto any stimulus package that includes funding to shore up the agency. Congress should call his bluff, and do what it takes to save the US Postal Service or make the president pay the political consequences of signing its death warrant.” — Editorial, Boston Globe

Restrictive laws that choke the Postal Service’s budget need to be revoked

“Congress has hamstrung the agency with an unsound plan to fund future retiree pensions. It also has prevented it from employing modern technologies or adding services that might compete with private companies. It should unleash the agency.” — Editorial, Los Angeles Times

Saturday delivery should be cut to save money

“The postal service should be free to choose to stop delivering paper mail six days a week — once all the stimulus checks are in the public’s hands. Again, demand for paper mail has plunged, and it is financially irresponsible to force mail carriers to haul mostly low-margin advertising mail more than five days per week.” — Kevin Kosar, Politico

The USPS should be privatized

“Policymakers should restructure the USPS with two goals in mind: creating a level playing field for all businesses in delivery markets and giving the USPS the flexibility it needs to cut costs and diversify its revenue sources. … To survive and even thrive in the changing economy, the U.S. Postal Service should be moved to the private sector.” — Chris Edwards, New York Daily News

Congress should start treating the USPS as a public good, not a business

“From the 1850s until the 1960s, Congress routinely covered whatever deficits the Postal Service incurred — no matter how large — and with little controversy, partisanship or debate. Why? Because the Postal Service was a public service, whose rationale was civic rather than commercial. … The Founders intended the Postal Service to be a pillar of the republic, binding together millions of Americans, urban and rural, for the common good.” — Richard R. John, Washington Post

Any bailout should be contingent on major reforms

“If the USPS wants to receive taxpayer aid during this crisis, it should make the institutional reforms that it has neglected for decades. Indeed, neglecting to solve these issues for so long has now made it all the more difficult for the institution to cope with the new extreme and difficult circumstances.” — Thomas Aiello, Washington Examiner

Bail out the USPS now, fix its long-term problems later

“President Trump is absolutely correct that the U.S. Postal Service needs restructuring and a viable business model. … But now is not the time to play hardball with an agency as central to what ‘makes America great.’” — Kimberly Wehle, The Hill

The USPS should be freed to explore new ways of making money

“The service should get more control over how much it charges for its services, how many people it employs and how easily it can innovate. Many post offices may have to be closed, but others could be reconfigured to also provide banking and licensing services if and when the world normalizes.” — Timothy L. O'Brien, Bloomberg

The USPS needs to be protected from GOP sabotage

“The truth is, the Postal Service has been under attack by conservatives for years. … The Trump administration is now playing a costly game of chicken to get what it sought long before the current crisis: drastic service and facilities cuts, more noncareer labor and outsourcing, and a rollback of employee rights and benefits. If it succeeds, we’ll all be the poorer for it.” — Philip F. Rubio, Atlantic

Coronavirus is coming for the red states too

In other words, the virus isn’t receding. It’s relocating.

Myth: Red America has been spared.
Reality: Coronavirus is coming for red America too. 

Andrew RomanoWest Coast Correspondent,Yahoo News•May 6, 2020

It’s no secret that blue states, with their big, dense cities and heavily trafficked transportation hubs, have borne the brunt of this pandemic. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation report released in late April, the number of infections and deaths per capita in states with Democratic governors were (respectively) more than double and triple the corresponding rates in states with Republican governors.

But the same report told a different story when it came to the direction the virus was heading. While blue-state cases had increased 63 percent from April 13 to April 27, red-state cases had increased 91 percent; while blue-state deaths had increased 104 percent, red-state deaths had increased 170 percent.

That gap has likely widened since late April. According to the New York Times, the only states where daily cases are clearly declining are on the post-peak Eastern Seaboard (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware), in the sparse Mountain West (Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, South Dakota, Colorado) or in the middle of the Pacific Ocean (Hawaii). With the exception of Arkansas, the rest of the country is either plateauing or climbing, and some of the sharpest upticks seem to be in places like Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Minnesota.


A site called Rt.live (which was developed by the co-founder of Instagram) confirms this development. By tracking Rt — the effective growth rate of the virus as expressed by the estimated number of people one infected person subsequently goes on to infect — Rt.live is able to gauge, roughly, how COVID-19 is spreading at the state level. Rt values over 1.0 mean we should expect more cases in that area; values under 1.0 mean we should expect fewer. (Rt is similar to the more-familiar R0, but the former measures real-time changes in the virus’s spread; R0 — or “R-naught” — is a fixed value inherent to a particular disease.)

The four states with the highest current Rt values are Nebraska (1.06), Minnesota (1.06), Wyoming (1.03) and Iowa (1.02). Wisconsin and Kansas are also at or above 1.0, and most other rural states show a possible range of Rt values that cross the 1.0 threshold.






The news from the heartland jibes with these numbers. Dakota County, Neb., had no known cases as recently as April 11. Now, driven by outbreaks at meat-processing plants, it has the third-most cases per capita in the country. Trousdale County, Tenn., another rural area, suddenly finds itself with the nation’s highest per capita infection rate by far. “A prison appears responsible for a huge spike in cases,” reports the New York Times. “In 10 days, this county of about 11,000 residents saw its known cases skyrocket to 1,344 from 27.”

Other hot-spot counties include Nobles, Minn. (home of the JBS pork plant); Cass, Ind. (a Tyson meatpacking plant); and Moore, Texas (a JBS Beef meatpacking plant), where the known infection rate of 19.91 per 1,000 residents far outpaces every other county in the state and is roughly 13 times higher than the rate in the Houston metro area.

Anyone tempted to dismiss these rural outbreaks as outliers confined to prisons and plants, where social distancing is all but impossible, should think again. That may be where they start. It isn’t necessarily where they end.

As the Texas Tribune recently reported, the “spread of the virus is not isolated to the meatpacking plant floors, reaching out into communities when workers wrap up their shifts and head home. Members of the community in Moore County, including church workers whose family members work at the plant, have also tested positive.” New outbreaks keep emerging in grocery stores, Walmarts, nursing homes and factories as well.

Instead, these new rural hot spots should probably be seen as harbingers of things to come — what happens when restrictions are relaxed and people resume assembling in the midst of a pandemic, long before the advent of a vaccine.
People walk through Central Park in Pella, Iowa, on Sunday. (Jack Kurtz/Zuma Wire)

Which is happening a lot faster in red states than blue states — even in red states, like Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Indiana and so on, where the daily infection and death rates are still going up.

This isn’t to say Nebraska, with its much smaller and more dispersed population, is the next New York. But the risks remain. Twenty percent of nonmetro residents are older than 65, compared to 15 percent in metro areas, and rural residents under 65 are more likely to have preexisting health conditions (26 percent) compared to their urban counterparts (20 percent).

Meanwhile, as states reopen, their capacity to contain flare-ups will depend on their ability to test, trace and isolate infections. But rural states are less prepared for that complex public health challenge, and isolated hospitals lack the capacity to meet a surge of patients needing ICUs.

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