POLITICO NIGHTLY: Falling short

By Ben White and Renuka Rayasam

Presented by

FAILURE OF IMAGINATION — The global coronavirus crisis crashed into the United States in Washington state in January and quickly brought the richest and most powerful nation in the history of the world to its knees. And so far, the federal response has been too small in scope and short on creative solutions to meet the greatest challenge since World War II. The nation needs upward of 30 million tests per week to properly track the virus, health experts say. The country is testing around 1 million a week now. It could take a public health army of more than 100,000 to track and trace those carrying the virus. There are only a few thousand so far. It may take a trillion dollars just to keep small businesses alive, based on the current burn rate of the federal small business rescue program. Congress, mostly stuck outside of Washington, appeared to seal a $484 billion deal today that would bring the total for small businesses up to around $670 billion. Unemployment benefits — while expanded and enhanced — do not come close to making up lost income for millions of Americans. The Federal Reserve has pledged to inject what could amount to trillions of dollars into the coronavirus response but it too may need to do more to fight a potentially large rise in mortgage defaults. The U.S. is likely to bounce back from the coronavirus pandemic. Jobs will return and normal life will eventually resume. But that process could take much longer unless the government response accelerates. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly: Coronavirus Special Edition, a nightly intelligence brief from our global newsroom on the effect of the coronavirus on politics and policy, the economy and global health. I wish I were a teenager again so I could have tried out for Mindy Kaling's new Netflix show. Reach out with tips: rrayasam@politico.com and on Twitter at @renurayasam.

A message from PhRMA: In these unprecedented times, America's biopharmaceutical companies are coming together to achieve one shared goal: beating COVID-19. We are dedicating our top scientists and using our investments in new technologies to speed the development of safe and effective vaccines. Explore our efforts.

First In Nightly

TRUMP'S TRUST GAP — A sneak peek at Wednesday's new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll offers a look at whom Americans will trust to tell them when it's safe to abandon social distancing, senior campaign and elections editor and chief polling analyst Steve Shepard writes: Only 38 percent say they have "a lot" or "some" trust in President Donald Trump to recommend an end to the guidelines, while a combined 53 percent have "not much" trust in Trump, or no trust at all. More voters say they have "a lot" or "some" trust in Anthony Fauci (71 percent), the CDC (71 percent), their state's governor (60 percent) and Vice President Mike Pence (40 percent).

Around the Nation

Matt Wuerker/POLITICO

THE NEW CORONA CONFLICT — TIRED: Trump vs. governors WIRED: Governors vs. mayors "I don't have a lot of confidence in my hairstylist being able to get the appropriate PPE for each customer," Atlanta's Democratic Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms told your host today. Coronavirus has already made stars of governors like Andrew Cuomo and Gretchen Whitmer. Now that Trump has handed responsibility for reopening America to the 50 chief executives, local officials like Bottoms have nabbed the limelight as they try to thwart their governors, making for a reopening that's anything but smooth. "For whatever authority the governor has that supersedes my power as mayor, I still have the ability to use my voice," Bottoms said. "As mayor of Atlanta I am asking people to please stay at home." When Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp said Monday that barber shops, nail salons, bowling alleys and other businesses could open later this week, the mayors of the state's biggest cities — not just Atlanta, but also Augusta, Savannah and Albany, where an outbreak has killed dozens of people — said that they were caught off guard. Bottoms condemned the decision and said it's impossible to socially distance at many of the businesses Kemp included in his order, such as massage parlors. The city's minority communities, she said, are particularly vulnerable to a resurgence of the virus. Similar fights are playing out across the country, and they're not always partisan: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, two Democrats who have long had an adversarial relationship, are fighting over school closures. In Florida people and businesses have been confused by the patchwork of state and local orders — confusion which will only grow as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ponders reopening the state. In New Jersey, Matt Friedman tells us that some Republicans in the state legislature are seeking exemptions to restrictions imposed by Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, such as reopening state parks and golf courses and allowing religious services. In South Carolina, Columbia's Democratic Mayor Stephen Benjamin said that Republican Gov. Henry McMaster's plan to relax business restrictions is based on an arbitrary timeline and not data. Protestors are swarming state capitals (some nationally organized) and people are chafing under lockdown restrictions. But fears of the virus spread are still rampant, especially in urban areas and communities with large elderly populations. Local leaders who were the first to lock down will be the last to let up. PPP Round 2 — The Senate passed a $484 billion deal for small businesses and hospitals today after cash for sorely needed loans dried up last week. But in the latest edition of POLITICO Dispatch, financial services reporter Zachary Warmbrodt says the lending program has been riddled with problems — and the next wave of funding could only last a couple days.

Listen to the latest POLITICO Dispatch podcast

No tests post-protests — Some of the protesters fighting stay-at-home orders are violating social distancing rules in their states. That doesn't mean local governments will test them for coronavirus or conduct contact tracing, Nolan McCaskill reports. He reached out to health departments from at least a dozen different states where residents have protested over the last week. One of the problems? No one knows who was exposed to whom. Minnesota will conduct contact tracing if someone at a rally tested positive, said Julie Bartkey, a public information officer for the Minnesota Department of Health. "However, given the specific environment you are asking about, unless those at the rally know who they are standing near, it would be virtually impossible to alert those who may have been exposed," she said. "There should be some assumption that in a large gathering such as this, with social distancing recommendations not being adhered to, community transmission could occur." Another issue: It may take a few weeks for any protesters to show symptoms of the illness, as the Franklin County Health Department in Kentucky and Salt Lake County Health Department in Utah said. So there's nothing to do yet. Several of the agencies contacted said they aren't aware of any protest- or rally-related cases so far.

A Trump supporter holds a "Build the Wall" campaign sign while registered nurses protest outside the White House. | M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO

The Global Fight

THE OTHER CRISIS — United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres will use a speech marking the 50th Earth Day on Wednesday to confront Trump and directly link coronavirus and climate change. Ryan Heath obtained a copy of the speech, and reports the stark language marks a new willingness by the U.N. chief to challenge the Trump administration, including via a call to end fossil fuel subsidies, at a time when both oil companies and households are struggling to pay their bills. Trump committed Tuesday to bailing out the U.S. oil industry. Exit strategy — U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson agreed today with Trump on the need for "a coordinated international response to coronavirus," according to Downing Street's record of the call. Now, the OECD club for rich economies has done the heavy lifting of proposing a set of criteria for safely lifting containment restrictions, Ryan writes. The bottom line: The OECD says nearly all governments need to significantly increase testing capacity, trace the contacts of those who test positive, and put in place strict measures to prevent people who may be infectious from breaking quarantine. The U.S. continues to rank below the OECD average in tests conducted per capita: 22nd out of 35.

DON'T MISS TOMORROW'S VIRTUAL PLAYBOOK INTERVIEW WITH JOHN KERRY: Join Playbook co-authors Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman tomorrow at 4 p.m. EDT for a virtual discussion with former Secretary of State John Kerry . Kerry weighs in on the global action needed to overcome the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic and his latest message and thinking as a surrogate for the Biden campaign. Join the discussion. Have a question? Tweet it to @POLITICOLive using #AskPOLITICO. REGISTER HERE TO PARTICIPATE.

From the Health Desk

UNDER STUDY — Hydroxychloroquine is in the news again — this time, not as an unlikely cure but as the focus of a study that found no benefit to coronavirus patients who were given the drug at VA hospitals, deputy health care editor Lauren Morello writes. In fact, nearly 28 percent of patients given the malaria drug died, compared to just 11 percent of patients who didn't receive it. So, why did POLITICO not send out urgent news alerts on this study? There are lots of reasons to be cautious. For one, its authors posted their work online before it could be peer-reviewed by other scientists, although they have submitted it to the New England Journal of Medicine for publication. Peer review doesn't guarantee a great paper, but — in theory — it does make it harder for a bad one to slip through the cracks. The new analysis was also retrospective, meaning that the authors analyzed the health records of 368 VA patients, all men, after their treatment had concluded. That means there could be wide variations in the patients' care, because they weren't part of a clinical trial with standardized treatment regimens. And Covid-19 patients who receive experimental treatments, such as hydroxychloroquine alone or in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin, tend to be among the sickest. That makes it hard to distinguish whether a drug helped or hurt, especially outside of a clinical trial — although the study's authors did try to account for this confounding factor.

Talking to the Experts

How did Facebook come to the decision to block anti-quarantine protestors from organizing on the site? "We've had a long-lasting policy that we would take down content that can lead to imminent harm. And that policy is something we have applied in this situation by working closely with the CDC and the WHO. So, for example, claims that a certain thing is going to cure coronavirus could lead to imminent harm if people try it, and so we take that down. Social distancing is part of the same philosophy here, where the CDC and WHO are being very clear that we need to continue social distancing for now. And as a result, we are following their lead, and really making sure that any content that goes against that is taken down." — Fidji Simo, head of the Facebook App, as told to senior Washington correspondent Anna Palmer on the next edition of the Women Rule podcast, landing Wednesday.

Ask The Audience

Our question for our readers this week: What permanent changes will the pandemic cause in your behavior, either at work or at home? Use the form to send us your responses, and we plan to feature several later this week.

Palace Intrigue

HELP LINE — All 50 states and D.C. have requested "individual assistance" — think food, lodging help and credit assistance for their citizens — from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but as of today only 10 states have been approved for a small amount of such aid, Daniel Lippman reports. Every state got a major disaster declaration from the federal government, but some states are saying that's not enough. One state official told Lippman of FEMA and individual assistance, "We were basically told that this is not going to happen for you." Another state's head of emergency management, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid jeopardizing relationships with FEMA, said that "aid to citizens is the critical piece." Approving more individual assistance was being discussed at OMB, he said, but the federal government doesn't want to overlap with the congressional assistance that's already been approved. A senior administration official said: "There are a lot of state-specific requests and we're in the middle of processing those. We're being very responsive to their requests." The state emergency director said he's raised the issue with his state's congressional delegation. "These are programs that help folks directly." The emergency director also questioned if FEMA has the capability to scale up to provide widespread individual assistance to millions of Americans. Ten states — California, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Texas and Washington — have been approved for the crisis counseling and training program under the individual assistance programs, a FEMA spokesperson said, and that all other requests for individual assistance remain under review.   HOW DOES THE ECONOMY BEGIN TO RECOVER? A VIRTUAL INTERVIEW WITH AUSTAN GOOLSBEE TOMORROW: The coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc on the American economy, leaving a range of unanswered questions. Should we wait to restart the economy until people feel safe and there is enough testing? Or is it more important to start opening back up? Is it possible to thread the needle? Join POLITICO's chief economic correspondent and author of the Morning Money newsletter Ben White tomorrow at 9 a.m. EDT for a virtual conversation with Austan Goolsbee, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama administration. Tweet it to @POLITICOLive using #AskPOLITICO. REGISTER HERE TO PARTICIPATE.     Nightly Number 45,550 — The number of calls poison centers received on exposure to cleaners and disinfectants from January to March, according to the CDC. The figure marks a 20 percent year-over-year increase, including 28,158 calls on cleaners and 17,392 regarding disinfectants. Parting Images Patterson Clark/POLITICO OIL'S BETTER DAY — The March oil futures contract that expired today on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange staged a rebound to end in positive territory, after closing at -$37 a barrel on Monday. But the June futures contract shed $9 to trade near $11 a barrel, near the previous record lows from 1986. Trump tweeted his support for a bailout of the industry, energy reporter Ben Lefebvre reports, but some in the industry fear that may spark a backlash against the sector.   A message from PhRMA: In these unprecedented times, America's biopharmaceutical companies are coming together to achieve one shared goal: beating COVID-19. The investments we've made have prepared us to act swiftly: · Working with governments and insurers to ensure that when new treatments and vaccines are approved, they will be available and affordable for patients · Coordinating with governments and diagnostic partners to increase COVID-19 testing capability and capacity · Protecting the integrity of the pharmaceutical supply chain and keeping our plants open to maintain a steady supply of medicines for patients Explore our efforts.   Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam   Follow us  POLITICO, LLC 1000 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA, 22209, USA