Unsanitized: COVID Disaster Hurting Response to Other Disasters

Plus, will there be a relief bill? This is The COVID-19 Daily Report for August 24, 2020.

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First Response

Hello and I am back for one day before we continue our convention coverage with the Republicans. Harold Meyerson will be holding it down for me for the remainder of the week with his thoughts on the Trump show.

As for the coronavirus, it was a busy week, from the Postmaster General blaming COVID for the mail slowdown when the virus started in March and the slowdown didn’t kick in until July, to weekly unemployment claims rising for the first time in months, to Trump’s executive measures on coronavirus relief providing no relief. (I just wanted to use the John Oliver recap language.)

But our main story today is about disasters. We know about the one disaster we’ve been living through for close to half a year. But on a routine basis, Americans have become inured to the fact that we’re just going to experience disasters, many of them natural, many man-made (or at least man-caused). Instead of stopping gun violence, we offer thoughts and prayers. Instead of building barrier islands and fighting climate change to mitigate extreme weather, we go to Home Depot for lumber and sandbags. We know disasters come and we even have them marked in our calendars; there’s hurricane season and wildfire season. But when it’s pandemic season too, doing our normal work of cleaning up disasters becomes that much more difficult.

Read all of our Unsanitized reports

If the trajectories remain accurate, two tropical storms are going to hit the Gulf Coast in the same week, hitting land on opposite patches of Louisana coastline. This could be a lot worse, as Marco has downgraded from a hurricane as it heads toward landfall sometime this afternoon. Tropical Storm Laura, however, is gaining strength and could be a hurricane by the time it reaches Louisiana on Thursday. This double-storm type of event has not happened in at least 60 years.

It’s impossible to rescue those who need to be rescued while practicing social distancing. It’s impossible to set up evacuation shelters that don’t put people in giant rec centers or big open rooms, often with poor ventilation. The pandemic makes the normal disaster response more difficult.

Because of Donald Trump’s executive measure, the storms also directly compete for funds with the money supplied for an extra $300 in unemployment checks. That money comes out of the FEMA Disaster Relief Fund (DRF), which will surely be tapped to handle these storms and the terrible derecho in Iowa. Under the order, the DRF cannot drop below $25 billion. Before storm season, that left $44 billion for unemployment benefits, already not enough to cover more than a few weeks of the slashed benefit. Whatever aid is drawn down for Laura and Marco and the derecho reduces that even further. (Trump’s derecho order did not include aid for farmers and homeowners, perhaps because of this problem.)

Meanwhile, in my home state, seven have died and 250,000 are under evacuation order from wildfires that are burning throughout northern California. Almost a million acres have burned. The same problem with evacuees applies here, with the added issue of ash leading to bad air quality when there’s a respiratory disease about.

Moreover, progress has been slow and earlier last week was almost non-existent, because of one of the glories of late capitalism. California still uses inmate crews to battle wildfires, and thousands of inmates have been released to prevent infections. One of the main prisons where inmates train on fire control has been hit with a coronavirus outbreak. So the prison slave labor was unavailable, and there isn’t much of a fallback option.

This is life in a nation of disasters. We can’t respond to the ones we tolerate because of the one we didn’t prepare for. Disasters beget disasters.

Watch This

Lots of media appearances to tell you about. I was on The Last Word on MSNBC with fill-in host Ali Velshi discussing the Postal Service. Watch here. (Even got rated by Rate My Skype Room.)

ABC News in Australia had me on their podcast to discuss the Postal Service. Listen here.

I was on The Discourse podcast talking about the stalled effort in Congress on coronavirus relief. Listen here.

If you’re opening this after noon on Monday, it’s probably too late to check out our Prospect Zoom event with Rick Perlstein, but we will put up video on the website. I do have another Zoom event on Wednesday through Dissent magazine and DSA about a different book, We Own the Future, to which I contributed a chapter on public banking. That’s Wednesday night at 7:30 ET, you can register here.

Where We Are

Just a quick update on the legislative process or lack thereof. The House returned to work on Saturday, but only to pass a Postal Service-related bill. Speaker Pelosi rejected a call for a standalone unemployment insurance boost, reflecting her rejection throughout this recent negotiation of piecemeal relief measures. However, the postal bill included $25 billion for USPS, which is… a piecemeal measure.

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans were busy finding the smallest possible bill that the entire caucus could agree upon. The most recent text would renew the unemployment boost at $300 a week, forgive a $10 billion Postal Service loan, add another round of PPP funding and some additional money for education and testing. The McConnell corporate immunity shield is in there too, of course. Keep in mind that most testing money already appropriated hasn’t been drawn down, the PPP closed up with $120 billion unspent, and the postal loan hasn’t been tapped. I think Republicans are trying to find a way to “spend money” without spending any money.

Talks are… who am I kidding, there are no talks. Check back in a week.

Days Without a Bailout Oversight Chair

151!

Today I Learned

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