Coronavirus: The Hill and the Headlines, December 8 2020

In Washington:

• POLITICO reporter Burgess Everett tweeted that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) says “negotiators should drop both state and local aid and liability shield provisions in order to reach consensus on covid.”   Sen. McConnell has previously called liability his “red line.”  McConnell’s comments come after the bipartisan lawmakers negotiating the $908 billion reached a deal in principle on state and local money, according to his source that is familiar with the matter.  Upon introducing their framework, negotiators included a six-month liability provision that provides a temporary suspension of any liability-related lawsuits at the state or federal level associated with COVID-19, giving states enough time to put in place their own protections.  The bipartisan group is expected to begin releasing summaries of the legislation as early as Tuesday.
  • The Hill reports that McConnell reiterated that he was willing to put COVID relief legislation on the floor if the two provisions were dropped.  So far, McConnell has refused to back the bipartisan bill even though Democrats have backed down on their demands for a $2 trillion stimulus package and agreed to a smaller targeted package.  Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who is leading the liability protection talks for Republicans,  said the idea of dropping the liability protections along with new state and local funding went over like a “lead balloon” at a meeting between Republican and Democratic senators on Monday evening.  
  • House Speaker Nancy Pelosi responded to McConnell’s remarks saying his “efforts to undermine good-faith, bipartisan negotiations are appalling.”   “With vaccine distribution being administered by the states, state and local funding is central to our efforts to crush the virus,” Pelosi said. “The bipartisan negotiations involving Senators and Members of the House have made good progress and must be allowed to proceed without Leader McConnell's obstruction."

• House Democrats unveiled the text of a stopgap spending bill on Tuesday to prevent a government shutdown later this week, buying congressional negotiators until Dec. 18 to work out an annual funding package and aid for struggling Americans during the pandemic. The measure is set for a House vote Wednesday.

• On Tuesday, President-elect Joe Biden said his administration in its first hundred days would aim to have 100 million people vaccinated against COVID-19, require masks in federal buildings and on planes, trains, and buses for interstate travel, and work to return to in-person schooling. Biden laid out his plans while introducing nominees and appointees who will play a key role in his administration's response to the pandemic. He also urged Congress to provide more money to vaccinate 100 million people by late April. 

• A group of Democratic senators led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in a Tuesday “Dear Colleague” letter pressed colleagues to include $1,200 direct payments to individuals in a new COVID-19 relief package and say a $908 billion compromise proposal endorsed by centrists doesn’t go far enough because it excludes direct payments. Sanders told reporters earlier Tuesday that he is specifically pressing Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) to support a larger relief package that includes direct payments.

• The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) confirmed that the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine is effective and safe.  A panel of FDA scientists posted their first analysis of the vaccine online.   The analysis also states that the vaccine offers strong protection even after the first dose.  Twenty million doses are expected this year, but most aren’t expected until this summer.  

• D.C. restaurant workers laid down hundreds of empty plates with their names on the East Lawn of the U.S. Capitol while calling on Congress to provide relief for their beleaguered industry.  According to the Independent Restaurant Coalition, more than 2 million hospitality workers remain unemployed since the start of the pandemic, more than in any other industry in the country.

In the News:

• Florida state police on Monday raided the home of the scientist who created the state’s COVID-19 data dashboard but was fired for refusing orders to, in her words, “manipulate” the site’s data. Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) agents entered Rebekah Jones’s home, guns drawn, and confiscated computer equipment, the Tallahassee Democrat reported. FDLE said it suspects Jones of hacking the state’s emergency health alert system. Jones denies responsibility. After her termination, Jones released emails from her supervisors asking her to remove health data from a state website. Jones claims the FDLE seized the data and backups for the private coronavirus info site she started post-termination. Days ago the Sun Sentinel reported that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis's (R) administration ordered the state health department to avoid discussing the pandemic pre-election.

• Margaret Keenan, 90, was the first person in the world to receive an authorized COVID-19 vaccine as Britain begins its process to inoculate its citizens. 

• The first signs of a post-Thanksgiving surge in coronavirus cases are beginning to appear in state-released data. While some hard-hit Midwestern states saw numbers ebb, other states now report substantial increases. Cases have risen over the last week in 38 states and the District of Columbia. 

• Health experts are increasingly worried about deaths tangentially related to the pandemic as COVID-19 cases stretch medical providers to their limit. If hospitals are overrun by coronavirus patients, those who need immediate care for other health crises — heart attacks, strokes or injuries — may find that care is not as available as it normally is, cautions Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. There is already evidence that drug overdoses are up while cancer screenings are sharply down during the pandemic, raising concerns that early-stage cancers will go undetected until they become far more deadly.

• In a radio interview from George Washington University Hospital Tuesday, Rudy Giuliani said that he is the latest Donald Trump associate to be getting a rare experimental treatment, Regeneron, after testing positive for the coronavirus.  On Tuesday, Giuliani’s co-counsel, Jenna Elis, revealed that she also tested positive for coronavirus.

Authored by Ivan Zapien