Unsanitized: The COVID-19 Report for July 14, 2020

Again With the Closures
Also, the new Tax Day is almost here

 

Those school supplies probably aren't getting purchased just yet. (Bill
Sikes/AP Photo)

First Response

The economy is officially shutting down again, but that's really just
a concession to an existing reality. California ordered a statewide
shutdown

of indoor dining, bars, and museums, and closures of gyms, malls, and
churches in the counties where 80 percent of the state lives. Oregon
also limited indoor gatherings

to 10 people or less, an effective lockdown of most non-essential indoor
activities.

Those places were shutting down without any governor's help. Pretty
much every good economic indicator in states that saw renewed numbers of
cases faltered in the middle of June
. The virus is
teaching us that most people are actually not stupid. If a deadly
disease is raging in their community, they'll stay inside.

That fact-that the pandemic is the economy-just makes the official
closures a formality. Though I would argue that official reopening does
send an "all-clear" signal, which is harmful if all is not clear.
That's why the deprivation of state and local fiscal support

was so important, because it did tell people it was safe to go back into
the water, when it wasn't.

Stopping and starting and stopping again is far more brutal for the
economy than just stopping until the virus is actually suppressed.
We're hearing stories of small businesses giving up

when the second lockdown order comes down, some of whom already received
and exhausted a PPP grant once. Larger business bankruptcies

are likely to grow. Failing to crush the virus has terrible impacts, and
now we're seeing a bifurcation within the country: states in the
Northeast that suffered more early but got a handle on it can function
in a more normal fashion, while the Sun Belt goes into lockdown in all
but name. Of course, an outbreak is just one person across state lines
away.

Read all of our Unsanitized reports here

Click to Support The American Prospect

The other major announcement yesterday was that L.A. Unified School
District, the nation's second-largest, would not reopen

to in-person schooling next month. This is tragic, especially if
you're skeptical of online instruction's value for kids, who are set
further and further behind, and if you know that, absent childcare,
working parents are tethered home indefinitely.

But this was inevitable. The bleating at the White House over how
schools "must" open did not accompany an actual method to do so. To test
everyone in L.A. Unified once a week, school superintendent Austin
Beutner noted, would cost $300 per year per person; L.A. Unified has
over 700,000 students alone, and 60,000 teachers and staff. That testing
money doesn't exist and it's not in any way the only expense. If you
need to drop class sizes to keep students distanced, well, the class
size debate has played out for decades, with higher class sizes winning.
What makes you think that will reverse itself? CDC recommends
circulating fresh air through schools. Have you been to a school lately?
Where's the money for retooling air systems? Trump is belatedly
discussing school aid
,
but I don't think anyone would believe it would be close to
sufficient.

There are ways to reopen schools
,
informed by experience around the world (though nobody has tried it in
the heart of a pandemic). It does seem like you can open elementary
schools first, albeit with care, proper distancing, and sanitization.
Maybe some other schools will reopen
,
at least until the first student or personnel member has to visit the
hospital.

The biggest plan for reopening schools, really, is suppressing the
virus. Just like with the rest of the economy, if people aren't
satisfied that everything is safe they're not going to send themselves
into harm's way and they're really not going to send their children
(even if children are more just carriers; you try telling a parent that,
well, only a handful of their kids will ever die from going to school).
The polling on this shows close to three-quarters of parents

uneasy with sending children to school. Until that changes, schools
won't reopen. And this is a wholly self-inflicted wound.

Reassurance will either take non-existent money or non-existent lifting
of the viral threat. It'd be good to make either of those, or both,
exist.

Support Independent, Fact-Checked Journalism

Odds and Sods

In coronavirus coverage this week at the Prospect, we have Michael
Sainato with some stories of the unemployed

who are collecting enhanced benefits that run out in only two weeks.
Marcia Brown looks at ICE's intolerable decision
to
require foreign students whose college classes have moved online only to
leave the country. And J.W. Mason's book review

of Stephanie Kelton's The Deficit Myth will become very important in
the new few years of crisis response and heavy federal spending needs.
All of our coronavirus coverage is at prospect.org/coronavirus
. And I haven't mentioned this in a
while, but send me your thoughts and tips via email
.

We Depend on Your Donations

A Taxing Day

Tomorrow is the new deadline for federal tax filing, and most state and
local filing as well, depending on the state. This was pushed back from
April 15. The reason for that delay was two-fold: one, the IRS moved
everyone to work from home, and they needed the extra three months to
get their systems set up to process returns. But the second reason was
that this gave Americans a little bit of extra cash flow. You probably
didn't wait until now if you expected a refund. But if you owed money
you could put it off from April until July.

That ends tomorrow. Treasury considered extending once more

to September, but ultimately didn't. So if you have a tax bill,
you're going to need to get it in by tomorrow. And that will end this
cash flow reprieve that many have experienced. Right now the IRS is only
down about 6 million returns
,
though many could have filed and just not sent in the money owed until
it was due, which is what a certain person writing this newsletter did.

Now, in no way am I saying that nobody should pay their taxes. It's
just another in a series of bad breaks. The timing of this should have
been perfect; a boost in the spring, and everyone pays once the economy
springs back when the virus is suppressed. As with everything else, that
plan was upended by governmental failure to contain the spread.

Days Without a Bailout Oversight Chair

109
.

We Can't Do This Without You

Today I Learned

* There are massive errors in the data

every major news organization used to single out "undeserving" PPP
recipients. Just completely corrupted data. Will any outlet retract
their story? (Bloomberg)

* Also, PPP didn't work
,
it was never designed for a long-term crisis. (Axios)

* Banks estimated to get $18 billion in fees to process PPP claims
, the easiest
money they've ever made. Totally risk-free. (The Intercept)

* Jane Mayer

on one chicken producer (albeit a small one, not a "tycoon" as the
headline says) getting rich during the pandemic. (The New Yorker)

* 5.4 million people lost their health insurance

just through May. (New York Times)

* The World Economic Forum-the body that runs Davos-is talking about
"revolutions
"
if the pandemic crisis doesn't lead to meaningful change. (CNBC)

* Coronavirus pandemic raises fears of being unable to deliver flu
vaccine, and therefore a flu epidemic
. (TPM)

* Woman becomes a dishwasher

at an assisted-living facility so she can see her husband. (Washington
Post)

**Click the social links below to share this newsletter**

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

YOUR TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION SUPPORTS INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM

Copyright (C) 2020 The American Prospect. All rights reserved.
_________________

Sent to [email protected]

Unsubscribe:
[link removed]

The American Prospect, Inc., 1225 I Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC xxxxxx, United States