April 29, 2020 ACG Coronavirus Update

OVERVIEW

• President Trump said the administration's current guidelines on slowing the spread of COVID-19 will be “fading out” as more states begin to reopen. joined growing number of states preparing to ease coronavirus restrictions. Governor said the state was “weeks, not months, away” from easing its stay-at-home order.

NEW RESOURCES

• Testing Overview and Testing Blueprint • Institute for Legal Reform report of COVID-related liability issues • The CARES Act Relief Funds Toolkit

CONGRESS • Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) says he wants to protect companies from liability over pandemic-related suits. However, he does not support including an infrastructure package in the next coronavirus relief bill, despite President Trump’s push to bolster infrastructure. “We need to keep the White House in the box,” McConnell said, referring to any infrastructure package. “The Democrats and the White House need to get the message.” However, Speaker (D-CA) said Wednesday that Democrats will not support business liability protections in the next CARES Act. “At the time of this coronavirus challenge, especially now, we have every reason to protect our workers and our patients in all of this,” she said. “So we would not be inclined to be supporting any immunity from liability.”

• The Senate Committee on Commerce, , and Transportation is working on a COVID-19 bill to address heightened security issues regarding devices, including everything outside of HIPAA. The proposal is considering that companies such as Apple, Google and others will have to reach certain thresholds to use the data.

• A group of Democratic lawmakers and advocacy groups are urging more federal funding to ensure affordable access to the internet in the next coronavirus package. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Ed Markey (D-MA) and Representative Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) joined a dozen of the groups, including Common Sense Media and Demand Progress, in a livestream Wednesday to urge access to new funding. “We have a digital divide in this country, there's no question about it,” Blumenthal said.

FINANCIAL SERVICES

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• Today, the Federal Reserve held a Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting. At the meeting the Fed said it would maintain its current interest rate target between 0% and 0.25%. “The ongoing public health crisis will weigh heavily on economic activity, employment, and inflation in the near term, and poses considerable risks to the economic outlook over the medium term,” the committee said. “The Committee expects to maintain this target range until it is confident that the economy has weathered recent events and is on track to achieve its maximum employment and price stability goals.” The committee’s commitment reflects a pledge to keep rates near zero and hold them there until full employment returns and inflation gets back to around the Fed’s long-stated 2% goal. Further, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the U.S. economy would need additional spending from Congress and the White House to ensure a robust economic recovery. Read Chairman Powell’s opening remarks here and the FOMC statement here.

• Yesterday, U.S. Treasury Secretary and Small Business Administrator (SBA) issued the following statement on the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP): “The Paycheck Protection Program is providing critical support to millions of small businesses and tens of millions of hardworking Americans. We have noted the large number of companies that have appropriately reevaluated their need for PPP loans and promptly repaid loan funds in response to SBA guidance reminding all borrowers of an important certification required to obtain a PPP loan. To further ensure PPP loans are limited to eligible borrowers, the SBA has decided, in consultation with the Department of the Treasury, that it will review all loans in excess of $2 million, in addition to other loans as appropriate, following the lender’s submission of the borrower’s loan forgiveness application. Regulatory guidance implementing this procedure will be forthcoming. We remain fully committed to ensuring that America’s workers and small businesses get the resources they need to get through this challenging time.”

• Today, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and Small Business Administrator Jovita Carranza announced that “the SBA is only accepting loans from lending institutions with asset sizes less than $1 billion from 4:00 p.m. EDT until 11:59 p.m. EDT on April 29, 2020” for the PPP. The move seeks to aid small community lenders, their small business customers, and ensure SBA’s systems run efficiently. Read full press release here.

• The Congressional Progressive Caucus held a remote hearing today to discuss work share programs and the Paycheck Guarantee Act (PGA) to keep individuals employed. Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) explained that the PGA aims to prevent mass layoffs and keep workers employed. The plan creates a direct program to provide a three-month federal guarantee for 100 percent of worker salaries of up to $100,000 and continue to provide employer-sponsored benefits. The program would automatically renew monthly until consumer demand rebounds to pre-crisis levels. Jayapal and other speakers noted that the current Paycheck Protection Program reinforces racial disparities because many banks don’t reach small communities. Amanda Ballantyne, Executive Director of the Main Street Alliance, stated that businesses would not need to compete for funds and deal with unclear loan terms under the PGA. Meanwhile, Representative Mark Pocan (D-WI) expressed the importance of work share programs to allow businesses to reduce employee hours, instead of laying them off completely. Businesses can stay running instead of completely closing and more workers can receive pay and benefits from their employer on top of their .

HEALTH CARE

• Dr. said results from a study of remdesivir treating coronavirus patients showed “quite good news.” Gilead Sciences said Wednesday it has received “positive data” from a

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clinical trial and found that COVID-19 patients taking remdesivir had a speedier recovery than patients taking the placebo. Additionally, patients with severe COVID-19 taking the drug over a five-day treatment had similar improvement compared with those taking the 10-day course. Meanwhile, the race for the coronavirus is moving at an unprecedented rate, with Pfizer joining several other companies saying that they had accelerated the timetable for testing and a vaccine could be ready for emergency use in the fall.

• Many laboratories in the U.S. are processing coronavirus diagnostic tests far below their capacity, leaving equipment unused. Lab executives and public-health officials cite barriers including fragmented supply chains, relatively strict test guidelines, incompatible electronic systems and a lack of centralized data on where capacity exists. Meanwhile, Dr. Anthony Fauci on Tuesday said he hoped anyone who needed a coronavirus test should be able to get one by the end of May or early June.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES Reopening Information • American Renewal Action Plan by National Association of Manufacturers and the White House • List of State Plans on Reopening • White House Guidelines for Opening America Again

Legislation and Summaries • Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act o Summary of the Paycheck Protection Program provisions o Summary of hospital and testing funding provisions • HHS Fact Sheet on Additional Allocations of $100B Provider Relief Fund • ACG- Understanding the Federal Reserve Actions and Tools to Help Businesses • Senate Democrat Hazard Pay Proposal • CARES Act Hospital Fund: State-By-State Information • Senate RPC summary of the CARES Act, Committee Resources, and Agency Resources • CARES Act o Unemployment Insurance Provisions one-pager o Small Business Loan Provisions one-pager o Title IV one-pager o Key Tax Provisions Summary • Summary of Families First Coronavirus Response Act (H.R. 6201)

Federal Resources • Treasury Department resources for assistance to small businesses • Guidance on the Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce

Policy Briefings • ACG & ACGA Policy Call: Federal Reserve Lending Facilities in the CARES Act • ACG Title One Call with Senate Small Business Committee’s Josh Duncan and Philip Todd • Recording of ACG & ACGA Policy Call: The Great American and Q&A

Trackers • COVID-19 Projections • COVID-19 Treatment and Vaccine Tracker • COVID-19 Media Updates

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