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Unsanitized: The COVID-19 Report for Sept. 29, 2020

Flying to the Unemployment Lines

Plus, the genuinely difficult debate over schools

 

United Airlines reached a deal to avoid some pilot layoffs, but 12,000
workers are still expected to get cut. (John Nacion/Sipa via AP Images)

First Response

**** When the airline industry first secured its bailout in
the CARES Act, it included a provision that would prevent layoffs until
September 30. The assumption from everyone is that the layoffs would
then commence October 1. That would be in two days, and it's still the
expectation, barring 11th-hour action from Congress, which doesn't
move at the pace to enable 11th-hour action.

American Airlines expects to cut 19,000 jobs

on October 1. By October, the airline expects to have 40,000 fewer
employees than it did on January 1. United made a deal

to save the jobs of 2,800 pilots through reduced flying hours, but
12,000 layoffs are still expected. Southwest didn't expect any
involuntary layoffs because a quarter of its workforce took voluntary
buyouts
,
something that attracted thousands of workers at the other major
airlines to leap before they were thrown off the cliff. Meanwhile the
feeder airlines to the major carriers are consolidating. ExpressJet, a
feeder to United, ends service tomorrow.

Airlines and its labor unions have unsuccessfully attempted

to secure another $28 billion to extend the layoff-protected relief to
next year, in the hopes that a post-vaccine world will resume flying at
higher levels. Practically the only lobbyists making personal contact
with lawmakers are flight attendants who serve these still-frequent
flyers, pleading with them for support as they go from Washington to
their districts. But that has only gone so far. Congress is in no mood
to make any deal on anything involving money, and anyway, these layoffs
won't show up in a jobs report until after the election.

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**** There's a real question as to whether airlines
deserve special treatment and not, say, mass transit, or restaurants, or
any of a thousand other industries. The right thing to do would be to
level up relief to support these sectors, but we're determined to
level down. Airlines, alone among all sectors, at least agreed to some
temporary conditions to protect jobs. The cash sitting in the Fed's
money cannon could be deployed with conditions on jobs and climate (in
the airlines' case) and other options, instead of being used
indirectly for asset inflation. But that's where we are.

Meanwhile, an alternate-reality bill

out of the House Transportation Committee to fix safety problems with
the Boeing 737 Max was released yesterday. Based on a committee
investigation, "includes dozens of changes, including strengthening
whistle-blower protections and requiring experts to review Boeing's
safety culture and make recommendations for improvement," and would
authorize more hiring at the Federal Aviation Administration for safety
compliance, writes the New York Times.

But does the bill include a fictitious country where Boeing can sell
planes when the old ones start to age? Because there hasn't been a lot
of wear and tear put on these aircraft lately. Certifying the 737 Max to
fly again just isn't going to lead to a lot of sales, if any. Congress
is simultaneously ignoring the threat to workers in aviation and making
diligent rules based on an assumption that aviation will bounce back.
Maybe if the steps to recovery were actually being taken, the efforts on
airplane safety would be admirable. But from this vantage point they
look painfully out of touch.

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The Mall-pocalypse, With Numbers

Alec MacGillis is an excellent reporter, and his ProPublica piece

about the digital divide and remote learning, and how it's stunting
educational growth in a way we haven't seen in this country since the
advent of compulsory schooling (or, if we're talking about Black
students, since the too-slow tearing down of Jim Crow), is essential
reading. You can't help but feel for the students he profiles, who are
being set back at a critical time in development.

The story, however, hinges on the idea that classroom learning is
perfectly safe. There is much citation of studies and evidence from
other countries to this effect. But other countries haven't had the
trajectory that we've had in the U.S., and as Rachel Cohen notes
in an important
thread, the studies are fairly thin.

MacGillis states that children are mostly not at risk of sickness from
the virus, but they're not alone in the rooms, and they can spread the
disease to parents and adults who may get sick. The data is light
(it's hard to get a kid tested
)
and in many cases being suppressed
.
Most important, there has been almost no money appropriated to schools
to actually engage in the kind of safety measures-changing
ventilation, adding PPE, reducing class sizes-that MacGillis
identifies as important to returning to in-person learning.

One-sided approaches to genuinely difficult problems aren't helpful.
We're failing children at the same time we're failing educators and
everyone else. Meanwhile the Trump administration has been pressuring
the CDC to reopen schools
,
and stories like Alec's play right into their hands.

This has become an extremely personal issue for parents and they are
right to be angry. Leaving students behind will be a scar we live with
for decades. But nobody is actually trying to get kids back in schools
as much as they're talking about it. You have to do the work.

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Today I Learned

* The Prospect will have debate coverage tonight, where the pandemic
might be discussed. Visit our website this
evening and follow along with our staff on Twitter
. (TAP)

* The coronavirus death toll is now over 1 million

globally. (CNN)

* One last slimmed-down Heroes Act

has been offered, but nobody expects much out of it, the likelihood is
that the House recesses tomorrow. (Politico)

* New York City hasn't been in this much financial trouble

since the 1970s. (New York Times)

* Big banks, tenants of the same city, are doing great however
.
(Wall Street Journal)

* A mixed ruling in the UK

over business interruption insurance is being appealed to that
country's Supreme Court. Insurers don't want to be on the hook for
anything. (Bloomberg)

* Fed bond buying disproportionately in dirty energy
.
(Wall Street Journal)

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