Center for American Progress
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Dear John,

I hope you and your family are safe and healthy.

We are in the midst of an unprecedented public health crisis. The coronavirus pandemic requires a range of responses across our society—including from our public health, economic, and global systems—in order to mitigate the deep impacts it is having on families, communities, and individuals.

With that in mind, we are focused on ensuring the safety and well-being of our staff and the surrounding community as well as maximizing all available resources to help protect, prepare, and mitigate local, state, national, and global COVID-19 impacts going forward. Beginning March 12, we adopted a telework model and transferred upcoming American Progress public events to an online-only livestream. As an institution, we are utilizing the full suite of policy and communications assets to shape the response to this pandemic and improve outcomes for people across the country.

*This past Saturday, our health experts published guidelines for states and localities <[link removed]> around social distancing, the closing of bars, limiting the capacity of restaurants, and the closing of other public spaces. We spent the weekend advising a variety of governors—including those in California, Michigan, New Jersey, and New York, as well as in other localities—in order to ensure the implementation of those guidelines. On Sunday, California implemented our guidance, and many other states quickly followed suit; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also followed our guidance.

*For the past week, our staff has been advising federal, state, and local leaders in real time, around the clock as they work to develop legislative packages that address the public health and economic impacts of the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19. We are currently helping develop the third legislative stimulus package and have been instrumental in shaping <[link removed]> the ongoing elements on paid leave, unemployment insurance, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), direct payments, and small business assistance. And we continue to urge congressional leaders <[link removed]> to develop a package that adequately addresses the economic hardship families are facing true to the scale of economic dislocation, including through direct payments to individuals in addition to state aid and the social safety net.

*Our national security experts have been out front on how the president can use the Defense Production Act (DPA) to increase the production of essential equipment. We published an op-ed <[link removed]> in Defense One urging the Pentagon to join the fight against coronavirus at home; released a column <[link removed]> outlining six immediate steps President Donald Trump should take to leverage the DPA effectively; and provided direct input to Congress in order to shape legislative proposals surrounding the DPA and other U.S. Department of Defense resources that the administration could use to bolster its response.

*Early this month, we held a public event that brought attention to the challenges around testing. The event, “Containing Coronavirus” <[link removed]> included Dr. Zeke Emanuel, CAP senior fellow and vice provost at the University of Pennsylvania; Ron Klain, who coordinated the Obama administration’s Ebola response; Lisa Monaco, former homeland security adviser to President Barack Obama; and Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University.

We continue to produce impactful public material on a daily basis. You can access these resources via our coronavirus resource page <[link removed]>, which includes public policy recommendations and impact analyses from public health, economic, national security, and other critical policy perspectives. Leading this institutional effort is Mara Rudman, our executive vice president of policy, whose policy and government experience couldn’t be better suited to what the challenge requires.

This is a crisis that calls for an all-hands-on-deck approach. It is critical that we all do our part so that our hospitals are not overwhelmed, our governments remain effective, and our families and friends are protected.

Thank you for everything you're doing to help during these challenging times. We will keep you updated as this crisis develops.

Best,

Neera Tanden
President and CEO, Center for American Progress
CEO, Center for American Progress Action Fund

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