Weekly Update: 3/30/20
Coronavirus
California officials are warning that the number of coronavirus cases will spike in the coming weeks….
Patients who have tested negative for COVID-19 will begin transferring to the Navy hospital ship Mercy, which docked at the Port of Los Angeles on Friday, 3/27….
Governor Newsom has requested from the federal government more hospital beds, ventilators, and testing as the state braces for a surge of new patients. Newsom noted he received more than 150 broken ventilators from the feds and enlisted Bloom Energy to fix them.
President Trump on Friday, 3/27, signed the “Phase 3” $2 trillion emergency spending bill into law, promising to deliver a tidal wave of cash to individual Americans, businesses and health care facilities all reeling from the coronavirus pandemic….
President Trump, on Sunday, 3/29, announced that the White House will keep its guidelines for social distancing in place through April 30 to try to blunt the spread of the coronavirus….
Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the disease experts of the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force, said that COVID-19 could infect millions of people in the United States and account for more than 100,000 deaths….
The U.S. now has more confirmed coronavirus cases than any other nation, and the number is growing more rapidly than anywhere else. The number of confirmed cases has grown by almost 20,000 per day in the last three days alone….
On Sunday, 3/29, the Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, which are malaria drugs championed by President Donald Trump for coronavirus treatment….
House Minority Leader Representative Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said that a fourth stimulus bill may not be necessary to help the economy impacted by the coronavirus pandemic….
Govtrack.us offers a “COVID-19 in Congress” resource that includes information on current legislative actions, affected legislators of the coronavirus, and office closures….
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a travel advisory on Saturday, 3/28, for the New York tri-state area. The advisory was posted after Trump said he was considering a short-term quarantine of “hot spots” in part of the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
The Seattle area is seeing evidence that strict containment strategies are beginning to slow of the coronavirus’s spread….
New York City mayor Bill de Blasio announced that New Yorkers who violate orders from police to disperse public gatherings will be fined up to $500 amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Former Vice President Joe Biden is calling for an immediate nationwide stat-at-home order to contain the coronavirus, saying the main mistake that leaders can make in a pandemic is “going to slow.”
The U.S economy saw the American Consumer Confidence’s sharpest drop since the Great Recession in 2008. This comes as another warning sign of how hard the coronavirus crisis may impact the economy
The U.S Department of Education has released a frequently-asked-questions document related to implementing performance accountability provisions under title I of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act as State Vocational Rehabilitation agencies seek to provide continuity of operations for individuals with disabilities in the COVID-19 environment….
Some medical schools are graduating students early in order to get them to work sooner to combat the COVID-19 pandemic….
A strike by Instacart workers may happen as grocery delivery workers are worried about their safety in response to the coronavirus outbreak and the surge in demand for online groceries….
President and Administration
A federal judge on Friday, 3/27, upheld the Trump administration’s decision to repeal a rule that established standards for hydraulic fracking on federal land….
Education
Mark Rocha, the chancellor of the City College of San Francisco, resigned Thursday 3/26…..
Inside Higher Ed has published a report that informs the shift of why students are going to college, the perception of proficiency in career-readiness competencies, how to measure the skill gap, vital experiences for college graduates, and what public colleges, community colleges, and private colleges should focus on for the mindfulness efforts.