SENATE MAY NOT PASS CORONAVIRUS PAID SICK LEAVE ANYTIME SOON BECAUSE GOP OPPOSES SICK LEAVE COSTS

https://www.newsweek.com/senate-may-not-pass-coronavirus-paid-sick-leave-anytime-soon-because-gop-opposes-sick-leave-costs-1492566?fbclid=IwAR1XjXWPtgEWmIKVrTHhqZo6EYj0W7PdFb4uEeyrb9wPqRd9FzQuwWrEbDE

The bipartisan stimulus package approved by the House over the weekend that was designed to alleviate economic stress on workers amid the coronavirus pandemic likely won’t be immediately passed by the Senate when members return Monday afternoon.

Although the bill, which includes requiring certain companies to provide paid sick leave and the government to give free virus testing and food aid, was supported by the majority of House Republicans and received the backing of President Donald Trump, hurdles remain with Senate Republicans.

“I fear that rather than offering a workable solution, the House bill will exacerbate the problem by forcing small businesses to pay wages they cannot afford and ‘helping’ them go further into debt,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said in a statement over the weekend. He suggested existing state unemployment funds should be used instead.

“I hope the Senate will approach this with a level head and pass a bill that does more good than harm—or, if it won’t, pass nothing at all,” Johnson added.

Some GOP senators have expressed concerns over the cost to smaller businesses for offering employees two weeks of paid sick leave, the time period in which health officials say it could take for someone with the virus to begin experiencing symptoms.

“We shouldn’t be imposing a big, new federal mandate on businesses that are struggling to stay alive in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak,” Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the health committee, said last week.

The worry among Republicans persists despite Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who worked with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to come to an agreement on the stimulus bill, saying the legislation provides relief to businesses who may be fiscally strained by paid sick leave. It provides a dollar-for-dollar reimbursement for coronavirus related sick leave costs, he said, adding that Treasury will “use its regulatory authority to advance funds to employers.” That includes making advances to small businesses and for employers to use cash deposited with the IRS.

Although Trump backed the bill and Mnuchin and Pelosi spent days negotiating its terms, the president signaled Monday that the Senate won’t simply accept the relief legislation and will make changes. “We may go back and forth with the House,” he said.

Because the Senate is already addressing a FISA surveillance bill with a procedural vote Monday night that was already passed by the House, the chamber would need unanimous consent to turn its attention toward the coronavirus bill. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said over the weekend that they are “carefully reviewing the details” of the stimulus package and will act after it receives the final version from the House.

And there remains another source of delay. Due to technical changes the House needs to still make to the bill’s text—likely the result of last-minute edits made before lawmakers voted around 12:30 a.m. Saturday—it will need to pass the legislation again, likely by unanimous consent because the chamber is on recess this week. Any member could prevent this from happening. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) has threatened to do so until he’s about to read the final version in full.

Louie Gohmert@replouiegohmert
We still do not have a final draft of the negotiated changes being called ’technical corrections’ and some of us believe that the newly worded laws should be finished before we pass them. #CoronaVirus

“We’re still waiting on the House to reach a decision on technical corrections and submit a final product to us,” McConnell said Monday.

But in the Senate, Democrats and some Republicans have advocated for the swift and immediate passage of stimulus legislation amid heightened fears that a recession is inevitable thanks to a spiraling stock market, and nationwide school and business closures.

“FISA needs to be carefully reviewed. That takes time. That can wait,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) wrote in a tweet. “The emergency response to #coronavirus should be the first order of business in the Senate tomorrow. There is no reason for this to take days & days.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has chastised McConnell for allowing senators to leave Thursday and not return until Monday afternoon. The chamber scrapped a previously scheduled recess this week to address FISA and coronavirus.

“We cannot wait,” Schumer said in a floor speech Monday. “It was my preference to keep the senate in session over the weekend so that we could have passed this bill already, but Leader McConnell, regrettably and almost inexplicably, decided to send everyone home and then call them back today.”

Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle have agreed that no matter the fate of the paid sick leave legislation, there will be future economic stimulus measures to come in the near future.

The 4 Key Reasons the U.S. Is So Behind on Coronavirus Testing
Bureaucracy, equipment shortages, an unwillingness to share, and failed leadership doomed the American response to COVID-19.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/why-coronavirus-testing-us-so-delayed/607954/

The COVID-19 outbreak has been a confusing time for Americans, but one thing has been glaringly clear: The U.S. is way behind when it comes to testing people for the coronavirus.

Despite the fact that last week, Vice President Mike Pence promised that “roughly 1.5 million tests” would soon be available, an ongoing Atlantic investigation can confirm only that 13,953 tests have been conducted nationally. New York, which has shut down Broadway and has at least 328 coronavirus cases, is still failing to test patients who have worrying symptoms. As late as March 6, a busy clinic in Brownsville, Texas, a border city of nearly 200,000 whose population crosses back and forth from Mexico frequently, told me they could test only three people. By comparison, South Korea, which has one of the largest outbreaks outside China, is testing nearly 20,000 people a day.

Testing is essential for identifying people who have been infected and for understanding the true scope of the outbreak. But when the initial test from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was rolled out to state public-health laboratories in early February, one of its components was discovered to be faulty. Since then, academic, clinical, and other laboratories have struggled to get or make new tests and diagnose patients.

Though some elements of the breakdown are by now understood, the full extent of the difficulties laboratory directors have faced has remained largely opaque. Interviews with laboratory directors and public-health experts reveal a Fyre Festival–like cascade of problems that have led to a dearth of tests at a time when America desperately needs them. The issues began with onerous requirements for the labs that make the tests, continued because of arcane hurdles that prevented researchers from getting the right supplies, and extended to a White House that seemed to lack cohesion in the pandemic’s early days. Getting out lots of tests for a new disease is a major logistical and scientific challenge, but it can be pulled off with the help of highly efficient, effective government leadership. In this case, such leadership didn’t appear to exist.

Here are the four main reasons the testing issues have been so bad:

RED TAPE

The Food and Drug Administration has a protocol called emergency use authorization, or EUA, through which it clears tests from labs around the country for use in an outbreak. Getting more of these tests up and running would greatly increase the capacity of doctors and public-health officials to screen patients for the coronavirus.

Former FDA officials I spoke with said that during past outbreaks, EUAs could be granted in just a couple of days. But this time, the requirements for getting an EUA were so complicated that it would have taken weeks to receive one, says Alex Greninger, the assistant director of the virology division at the University of Washington Medical Center, which is located right near the heart of the American outbreak. Greninger told me clinical labs were not allowed to begin testing at all before they had received the EUA, even if they had already internally made sure their tests worked. Though these regulations are in place to ensure that faulty lab tests don’t get used on patients, several microbiologists told me they felt the precautions were excessive for a fast-moving outbreak of this scale. “The speed of this virus versus the speed of the FDA and the EUA process is mismatched,” he said.

On February 28, Greninger and dozens of other clinical microbiologists wrote a letter to Congress complaining that the EUA process was slowing down the ability of their labs to deploy coronavirus tests. “Many of our clinical laboratories have already validated [tests] that we could begin testing with tomorrow, but cannot due [to] the FDA EUA process,” they wrote. The following day, the FDA changed the EUA process so that labs like Greninger’s could begin testing—they would just have to submit data for the FDA’s authorization two weeks later. But weeks had already passed during which many labs and hospitals were unable to use their tests.

“The EUA pathway … has served for Ebola and Zika, etc.,” says Mark Miller, the chief medical officer at bioMérieux, an infectious-disease diagnostic company based in France. “And then you have a situation like now with coronavirus, which I don’t think any of us have ever lived through.”

Margaret Hamburg, who served as the FDA commissioner from 2009 to 2015, told me that while she doesn’t have knowledge of what went on inside the FDA over the past few months, the agency could have proactively reached out to different national and international labs to see whether their tests could be approved for use in the U.S. For example, the FDA might ask a lab, “Would you be interested to try to redirect what you were doing for a MERS diagnostic to a novel-coronavirus diagnostic?” she says. Instead, as The New York Times reported, federal officials told one Seattle infectious-disease expert, Helen Chu, to stop testing for the coronavirus entirely. (In an email, an FDA spokesperson denied that the agency acted slowly. Ensuring the validity of tests is important, she noted, to prevent false results.)

It looks like Chu was not alone. Dozens of labs in the U.S. were eager to make tests and willing to test patients, but they were hamstrung by regulations for most of February, even as the virus crept silently across the nation.

HARD-TO-GET VIRUS SAMPLES

Labs and companies need samples of the virus itself in order to make their tests, but delays in getting access to samples further slowed down the test-development process. The coronavirus originated in China, and as several microbiologists told me, the Chinese government does not allow specimens to be shipped outside its borders.

Many researchers have had difficulty getting their hands on samples even as the virus has spread. “I was working the phones to try to get access to the virus,” Greninger said.

BioMérieux just released three versions of its coronavirus test this week, after beginning work on it on January 23. Miller says that with every viral outbreak, the company’s biggest problem by far is getting access to virus and patient specimens so that it can validate its tests. Even when working with nonauthoritarian countries, a combination of government processes, researcher reticence, complex shipping regulations, and patient-privacy concerns makes getting samples difficult for diagnostic companies like his.

Miller said it would help if researchers, governments, and companies firmed up pathogen-sharing contracts in advance of an outbreak, but so far that hasn’t happened. “The problem is that in the past, industry has been viewed as this dirty participant in all of this, and we can’t be trusted, and why would I have contracts with you?” Miller says. “But that’s ignoring the plain fact that we’re the ones that create the product in the end.”

LACKING EQUIPMENT

The type of test Greninger is making is called a lab-developed test. To be used in other labs, his test requires special instruments that extract and then amplify the RNA that makes up the virus. However, labs across the country—like those at many county hospitals—don’t have the tools to do this. They can only run a simple type of test called a sample-to-answer test. As late as this week, several lab directors told me that no sample-to-answer versions of the coronavirus test had been approved in the U.S. “That means that the vast majority of clinical labs in this country will not be able to do in-house testing at this time,” says Susan Butler Wu, an associate professor of clinical pathology at the University of Southern California.

The U.S. health-care system is broken up into state and county public-health laboratories, which have different equipment than academic research institutions, which have different equipment than hospitals that diagnose patients. So the same test won’t necessarily work in different places. “We don’t have a nationalized health-care system where you put the same equipment in all the hospitals,” Wu says. “We have all these independent hospital systems with their own equipment in their own labs.”

Even though some hospitals actually have the new, functional CDC tests, the extraction machines and reagents that are used to perform them are in short supply. “We’ve been pleading to the research laboratories to please, if they have RNA-extraction machines, to give them to the hospital,” says Michael Mina, an associate medical director in the department of pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

LEADERSHIP AND COORDINATION PROBLEMS

For months, President Trump has made light of the coronavirus, telling attendees at a Black History Month reception, for instance, that perhaps the virus could miraculously disappear. He claimed on Twitter that the U.S. has done a “great job” handling the outbreak. Such a cavalier attitude seems unlikely to have motivated health officials to take things seriously. It also contradicted advice from most public-health experts. Even Scott Gottlieb, who recently resigned as Trump’s FDA commissioner, wrote in The Wall Street Journal on February 4 that “it’s time to start testing more people.”

Containing a new infectious disease requires a lot of close collaboration between the president, the CDC, the FDA, and other parts of the Department of Health and Human Services, several Obama-era health officials told me. “One reason we were able to move quickly [during the Ebola outbreak] was that there was a great deal of coordination and issue spotting and troubleshooting that went on,” Hamburg, the former FDA commissioner, told me.

The different arms of the sprawling health department have to feel like they’re all pulling toward the same goal. “I think you have fabulous people at CDC and FDA all doing the best they can, but we always found it was incredibly important to have all the agencies together in the same room,” says Jesse Goodman, a former FDA chief scientist who helped manage the country’s response to the 2009 H1N1 outbreak. When issues came up that merited the attention of the White House, he says, they got it.

Though Trump has proposed a payroll-tax break, as my colleague Peter Nicholas has pointed out, “Much of what he’s said publicly about the virus has been wrong, a consequence of downplaying any troubles on his watch.”

On top of that, there’s reportedly been tension and infighting between the president and his HHS secretary, Alex Azar, as well as between the FDA and the CDC. Politico reported that Vice President Mike Pence, who has no background in public health, repeatedly sidelined Azar from the coronavirus-response task force, and the White House appears to be blaming Azar for any failures in its coronavirus response. Politico also reported that an FDA scientist was “initially rebuffed”—made to wait overnight—when he attempted to visit the CDC in order to help coordinate testing. (In an email, a CDC spokesperson said this was “in full compliance with standard security processes required for all individuals whether they are federal employees or other visitors.”)

“I gather that there was a huge amount of infighting about who could or who should lead this, and there was a sense that a lot of people [inside HHS] weren’t considering it a major threat,” said a former Obama-administration official who has been in contact with current staffers and who related these private discussions under the condition of anonymity. “And why that was, I don’t know.”

It’s possible that all of these other hurdles could have been cleared if officials at the highest levels of government had been working together smoothly. Instead, we’ve seen confusion, doubt, and even more delays.

“A video has emerged.”

It’s a clip from a press conference he did just a couple weeks ago, guys. https://t.co/p3HpN4iukm pic.twitter.com/x0qIVeGKQo

— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) March 17, 2020

Neither Todd Gurley nor Brandin Cooks are following the Rams on Instagram or Twitter 🤔🧐

— Cameron DaSilva (@camdasilva) March 17, 2020

Sosa K@QBsMVP
Update on a Todd Gurley trade per @TomPelissero. Sounds like the contract, knee, COVID-19 (lack of ability to travel and get a physical done) are all hoops that need to be cleared. Still sounds like the #LARams are motivated to move on from Gurley.

==

This has the makings of an ugly breakup. Can’t fault Todd Gurley when he hears how the #Rame are trying everything they can to rid themselves of him… https://t.co/FCh2QeDdE4

— DOWNTOWN RAMS [DTR] (@DowntownRams) March 17, 2020

in the mid-1980s, an intoxicated Mick Jagger phoned Charlie Watts’ hotel room in the middle of the night asking “Where’s my drummer?”. Watts reportedly got up, shaved, dressed in a suit, put on a tie and freshly shined shoes, descended the stairs, and punched Jagger in the face, saying: “Don’t ever call me your drummer again. You’re my fucking singer!”

Judy Battista@judybattista
In wake of NFL officially announcing indefinite delay of off-season program, I heard from one team owner. He told me he would be surprised if teams will be able to report any time before training camp.

Next Gen Stats@NextGenStats
New Colts DL DeForest Buckner has been one of the most consistent interior DL in the NFL since 2017.

Buckner is 1 of 4 interior DL with at least 30+ QB pressures and 30+ defensive stops in each of the last 3 seasons. The others: Aaron Donald, Cameron Heyward & Geno Atkins

Bucky Brooks@BuckyBrooks
A wise defensive coach told me:
pass rush > coverage

Disruption at the POA, particularly up the gut, affects the QB more than tight coverage down the field. Colts adding a monster inside to deal with the top QBs in the AFC

Colts get it—you cannot beat Mahomes without inside pressure–its never about coverage, its always about getting into the “paint” this move is all about Mahomes.

Joe Banner@JoeBanner13
Someday teams will stop trading for players without doing extensions. Tunsil and Ramsey should get market breaking deals when they do them as well.

NFL@uSTADIUM
Sources: Rams Talking with Teams About Brandin Cooks
The Rams are shopping WR Brandin Cooks and have had at least 3 teams call with interest. He could be moved in the coming days.

Michael Silver@MikeSilver
Another big-name player whose name is coming up in trade talks: Rams RB Todd Gurley. As I reported in December, the team may be ready to move on.

Cameron DaSilva@camdasilva
Mike Silver said on NFL Network that the Rams could wind up cutting Todd Gurley if they can’t find a trade partner.

“If you want Todd Gurley, call the Rams.”

==

Todd Gurley lovers, it might be time to close your eyes and ears. Sounds like the Rams will need to do whatever they have to as they want to move on without Todd Gurley on the roster, per Mike Silver:pic.twitter.com/zsX7AUleRV

— Sosa K (@QBsMVP) March 16, 2020

Michael Silver@MikeSilver
Brandin Cooks has been traded twice in his career (Saints to Patriots, Patriots to Rams), with a first-round pick included on each occasion. The 7th-year WR could be traded again this offseason, and it likely wouldn’t take a 1.

tonyde
FYI….If the Rams can trade him and designate him a post June trade, Rams save 12 million on this years cap..

wv wrote:

I never like it when a league adds more playoff teams

Yeah I don’t like any of that stuff much either. It’s just money talking, as was said. And now only one team has a playoff bye. That would mean that in 2018, the Rams would have had to play 2 games instead of 1 before New Orleans. Top seed plays 2 games at most, all the others would have to play 3 total if they make it to the championship game.

Per conference:

week one: 3 games, 6 teams, 1 w/ a bye … 3 teams eliminated
week two: 2 games … 2 teams eliminated
week three: 1 game, 1 team eliminated

Basically, they go through all that just to add one extra playoff game per conference.