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Unsanitized: The COVID-19 Report for Dec. 24, 2020

$2,000 Check Battle Heads to an Endgame

Plus, Pfizer and the government make a deal

 

David Perdue is the unhappiest man in America right about now, as Donald
Trump completely undermined his campaign gambit. (John Bazemore/AP
Photo)

Housekeeping Note

This is the last Unsanitized of the year. The Prospect is taking off
Christmas week; we will have plenty of Best of 2020 lists from our staff
on the site, along with a couple other goodies. If there are
developments in the COVID relief story (see below) I may dust off the
computer and bring them to you.

I hope you got something out of these missives, which I began in the
middle of March and have done practically every day since. I think this
chronicle of an extraordinary year, a first draft of history, was
important to produce. And now I'm going to ask something of you.

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First Response

There have been several developments in the past 24 hours in the
continuing story of direct payments for Americans. When we last left you
,
Donald Trump had blown up an already-passed deal by saying the payments
were "ridiculously low." Democrats immediately took him up on the
offer to expand payments to $2,000. The House planned to come in
Christmas Eve to request unanimous consent to quickly pass the bill,
without hundreds of members having to get back on planes and risk their
health (and more important those they come in contact with, because
while many are vaccinated there's still a risk of shedding the
disease).

This morning, the House Ways and Means Committee introduced the Caring
for Americans with Supplemental Help (CASH) Act,

a two-page bill

that just increases the direct payments from $600 to $2,000. (My money
was on the DOLLAR Act, but such is life.) Steny Hoyer, the House
Majority Leader from nearby Maryland, asked unanimous consent to pass it
in the House. And Republicans, as promised, denied unanimous consent,
leaving the bill unpassed.

Speaker Pelosi immediately released a statement
chastising Republicans for not
allowing the bill to advance. More important, she said this: "On
Monday, I will bring the House back to session where we will hold a
recorded vote on our stand-alone bill to increase economic impact
payments to $2,000...Hopefully by then the President will have already
signed the bipartisan and bicameral legislation to keep government open
and to deliver coronavirus relief."

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A few things to keep in mind. First, the House was going to come back
into session anyway. Yesterday President Trump vetoed the defense
authorization bill

that had overwhelming bipartisan support, and Pelosi had already
announced the House would return to override that veto.

Second, two unemployment programs that approximately 14 million people
are using right now expire on Saturday unless Trump signs the COVID
relief bill. That's why Pelosi is begging him to do so
.
Furthermore, an eviction moratorium extended in the bill expires New
Year's Eve. Guaranteed sick leave expires that day too. Consumer
spending has begun to fall

and the economy is in a fragile state. Millions of increasingly
desperate people's financial lives are on the line
.

In addition, the COVID bill is tied to an omnibus spending bill to keep
government running. Right now government funding expires on Monday, and
will shut down if Trump doesn't sign the bill. There's likely going
to be a third vote on Monday on a continuing resolution to fund the
government, perhaps through the end of this Congress. There's total
confusion

over what Trump is willing to sign, or not.

The implications of Trump's rejection of the relief bill are
catastrophic. The political implications for Republicans are similarly
so. While Trump literally raises money
off his
demands for the bill, the House will pass the CASH Act on Monday. At
that point, Mitch McConnell will be standing between Americans and an
extra $1,400 of survival money, on Christmas week, during a raging
pandemic, with two of his incumbents up for election in Georgia on
January 5.

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David Perdue is literally running an ad in the state

touting his support of the COVID relief bill that Trump trashed as a
disgrace. If Perdue and Loeffler were getting hammered before, their
party's roadblock to relief is even more conspicuous now. Even for
low-information voters, that check that might have gotten to them by
Election Day won't get there now.

So what does McConnell do? He can ignore the bill, and risk losing his
Senate majority. He can put it on the floor, release Perdue and Loeffler
to come back and vote for it, and hold back the rest of his caucus,
which would be unpredictable and wouldn't solve the problem;
Republicans would still be seen as Scrooges. He could allow the bill to
pass to save his majority, which would go against his instincts of
kneecapping the Biden economy.

This has the GOP in complete disarray
,
and Democrats looking like savvy operators taking advantage of a huge
bungle. It's hard to process.

We Can't Do This Without You

Vaccination Watch

After a concerted media effort to create a story out of the Trump
administration denying the receipt of additional vaccine doses from
Pfizer, the two sides reached agreement

on a deal for 100 million additional doses by the end of July. This deal
was probably available sooner and would have meant more front-loaded
doses. I believe this guarantees doses for 200 million people from the
two approved vaccines, and if the AstraZeneca vaccine gets approved
that's another 150 million. Johnson & Johnson is also close, with 100
million guaranteed. If either one of them is approved that's pretty
much all we'll need.

In exchange for the purchase order, the government has agreed to help
Pfizer procure key ingredients

used in the vaccine. This will require use of the Defense Production
Act, to require manufacturers to make the ingredients Pfizer needs. This
is urgently needed. The U.S. vaccinated 1 million Americans in the first
10 days

since Pfizer's vaccine was approved. We need much more than 1 million
every day to reach herd immunity. (The best vaccine tracker is here
.)
Every possible resource needs to be thrown into increasing the pace of
vaccination. It's the best public health and economic solution we've
got.

Days Without a Bailout Oversight Chair

272
.
The confusion over the COVID relief bill could yet save this segment for
a little while!

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Today I Learned

* Case growth is no longer increasing
and about half the states are seeing falling numbers across the board.
Distancing is working. (COVID Tracking Project)

* And yet, here comes holiday travel

to completely ruin all that work. (Associated Press)

* Excess deaths show about 400,000 in 2020
,
directly or indirectly related to COVID. (Talking Points Memo)

* Part of the Pfizer deal should have been mandatory global access

through eliminating patent protections. (Jacobin)

* Private equity deals are now at a post-crisis high
.
(Financial Times)

* Why is California surging
,
despite relatively better winter weather than the rest of the nation?
(Politico)

* Why antibody treatments are going unused
.
(New York Times)

* Breaking down the UK variant of the virus
.
(Science)

* The pandemic is making holiday hams scarce
.
(Wall Street Journal)

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