POLITICO NIGHTLY: The next bailout debate

By Nick Niedzwiadek and Renuka Rayasam Presented by TONIGHT'S WUERKER — Matt talks to a Canadian cartooning buddy about humor in the time of corona. Watch the latest Punchlines here. Matt Wuerker STATE YOUR PROBLEM — Even before the House passed the newest rescue package today for the comatose economy, sending $484 billion in emergency aid for President Donald Trump's signature, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had a message for states that are expecting help for their falling tax revenues during the stay-at-home era: Have you considered bankruptcy? The nation's governors responded the way you would expect. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called McConnell's suggestion "vicious," "reckless," and "one of the really dumb ideas of all time." California Gov. Gavin Newsom said McConnell's rhetoric was "offensive" and demanded a retraction. And Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican who heads the National Governors Association, told POLITICO that calling the aid a "blue-state bailout" — as McConnell's office recently did — is "complete nonsense" and rampant municipal bankruptcies is "the last thing we need." Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, both Republicans, declined to take direct shots at McConnell and pointed to their respective rainy day funds as evidence that they're not yet underwater. But, DeWine noted, "it is raining." McConnell hasn't completely ruled out sending money to state governments, but he wants strings attached, conditions that other elected officials will likely bristle at. The president, who previously sounded open to federal assistance to the states, seemed to find McConnell's argument persuasive at today's coronavirus briefing. "Some states have not done well for many years," Trump said, specifically mentioning Illinois and New Jersey, blue states that are also notorious for budgetary mismanagement. "The states that have the problem happen to be Democrat." It's true that states with a blue streak have been the hardest hit by coronavirus thus far, but there are warning signs flashing across the country. It's not hard to imagine that the political pressure for a rescue package for state governments will increase once a Republican-run state like Florida or Texas — both of which are dependent on sales tax revenue — asks for help. When you need money, ideological principles tend to take a back seat. Not all that long ago, Texas Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz shrugged off accusations of hypocrisy and appealed for billions in federal aid for their state after Hurricane Harvey, despite voting against sending similar relief to New York and New Jersey after Superstorm Sandy. And the bankruptcy of a U.S. state, if it's even allowed, would likely upend the financial markets and exacerbate the already considerable economic pain felt by tens of millions of Americans. The fear among the governors, should they be forced to go that route, is one that's recently been heard from the Oval Office: "We can't have the cure be worse than the problem." Welcome to POLITICO Nightly: Coronavirus Special Edition. Reach out with tips: rrayasam@politico.com or 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 expanding our unique manufacturing capabilities and sharing available capacity to ramp up production once a successful medicine or vaccine is developed. Explore our efforts.   First In Nightly SAVE YOUR BACON — Meat shortages could be arriving in May, as major packing plants swept by coronavirus remain shuttered and the nation's stockpiles of frozen meat begin to dwindle, writes agriculture reporter Liz Crampton. Staff members for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi prepare for a Covid-19 legislation signing ceremony. | David Butow From the Health Desk GETTING CARDED — Cuomo said today that about a fifth of New York City supermarket shoppers — and 14 percent of New Yorkers statewide — tested positive for Covid-19 antibodies in an early test. New York is testing 2,000 residents a day for the presence of Covid-19 antibodies as part of a strategy to reopen. The results fostered hope that an idea that once seemed radical — immunity passports — could be a realistic part of an end to America's stay-at-home shutdown. The idea is that people who have recovered from the virus — or tested positive for antibodies — would get a card that lets them resume normal life. Theoretically, these people could go back to work, travel, attend school and just generally go about their days without fear of getting sick or getting others sick. U.S. health officials and business leaders are talking about immunity passports. Anthony Fauci has said administration officials are discussing them for Americans. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has floated the idea. Delta has said such documents could be a way to pack planes. Immunity cards are already a reality in at least one country: Chile is rolling out a program to hand them out to nearly 5,000 people who've recovered from the virus. In the United Kingdom there's talk of immunity wristbands. Italy and Germany are also experimenting with the idea. China has developed an app that does something similar — issue a green symbol for those who are symptom-free — but it's not the same as an actual immunity card because it doesn't require an antibody test. The cards are a tantalizing prospect for those of us who don't want to wait for a vaccine. But we've got a long way to go — and several obstacles to overcome — before the idea of an immunity card could be transformed into a reality. Here are three: Antibody testing is still inaccurate and inaccessible. Serious concerns persist about accuracy and availability . Only four of the 90 antibody tests on the market have received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. Some tests render false positives — a nursing home worker who wrongly thought he was immune from Covid-19 could unleash a wave of new infections. Plus, the country hasn't built the infrastructure needed to diagnose the sick and infected, so widespread antibody testing seems farfetched in the immediate future. We have no idea what immunity looks like . Researchers don't understand whether antibodies confer long-term immunity. There's evidence coming out of South Korea that people can become reinfected with Covid. People don't build up immunity to the common cold. Researchers believe that immunity to some other coronaviruses like SARS and MERS lasts two to three years. But they're confused about long-term immunity even for diseases that have been around for decades. The CDC said immunity to pertussis or whooping cough could last anywhere from four to 20 years — a huge range. When should an immunity card expire? They could create another societal wedge. Access to immunity cards would likely come first for those who already have health insurance. Letting them go back to the office, while poorer people sit at home unable to work or travel, could create huge social unrest. Plus there's the fear that people who haven't been sickened with the virus would seek out exposure in an effort to gain immunity. That's a perverse incentive that could send us back to where we started with this pandemic. BILLIONS AND BILLIONS — We've told you about modeling the disease trajectory and deaths. Our executive health editor Joanne Kenen emails us about another model to worry about, this one about how much Covid-19 could cost: A study in the journal Health Affairs finds that Covid-19 could cost up to $654 billion — assuming that 80 percent of the population gets infected. If only 20 percent is infected, it drops to $163.4 billion. The authors acknowledge a lot of unknowns, including that they are basing some of their cost estimates on severe flu, and Covid turning out to be not just more deadly but more complicated, affecting multiple organs beyond the lungs. But even that low-end number — $163 billion — puts it awfully close to the annual cost of cancer (about $174 billion this year, according to the CDC) or heart disease and stroke ($199 billion). Or switch to the big number — $654 billion over the course of the pandemic, which could spill into more than one calendar year. That would be quite a jolt on top of the roughly $3.5 trillion the U.S. spends on health care (more per capita than any other country, without proportionately better outcomes, but I digress). It's unexpected expenses, it's very hospital-intense — and of course that doesn't even count all the damage the outbreak has done to the economy and American families. Drug bust — Leaked WHO data today revealed that Covid patients were not helped by remdesivir, a highly anticipated treatment from Gilead originally created to treat Ebola. The new results come a week after early data from another clinical trial showed promise for the drug, drawing praise from the president. The doctor is in, again — In the latest edition of POLITICO Dispatch, POLITICO Pulse co-author Dan Diamond talks about the return of Surgeon General Jerome Adams to the podium for the coronavirus task force briefing Wednesday after being sidelined earlier this week — and what his shifting role at the White House means: "Adams, while an imperfect messenger, and someone who's gotten in trouble in a bunch of different ways over the past few months, is also a person who's rare on that stage for pushing the racial disparity question at all. When he goes missing, that means there's less talk about it writ large." Listen to the latest POLITICO Dispatch podcast   THE CORONAVIRUS & THE UK: JOIN TOMORROW TO HEAR FROM THE BRITISH AMBASSADOR: The coronavirus hit Britain hard, with the fourth-highest death toll in Europe and a stay in the ICU for the country's prime minister. Join Global Translations author Ryan Heath tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. EDT for a virtual discussion with Dame Karen Pierce, who was named Britain's ambassador to the United States in February. Pierce will detail the government's handling of the pandemic, the status of the "special relationship" between the United Kingdom and the United States, and what it's like to be an ambassador in quarantine. Have questions? They'll answer as many as they can. REGISTER HERE TO PARTICIPATE.     On The Hill CORONA OVERSIGHT — House lawmakers voted today to create an oversight panel to monitor how the Trump administration doles out nearly $3 trillion in coronavirus relief measures, but the bill swiftly drew Republican criticism and will stall in the GOP controlled Senate. Behind the curve — Utah's Republican Sen. Mitt Romney and Arizona's Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema sent a letter to CDC Director Robert Redfield, saying they are "deeply concerned" about lagging efforts to track the virus spread. Palace Intrigue BATTERED BATTLEGROUNDS — Americans filed 4.4 million jobless claims last week, the Labor Department reported today, pushing the five-week total of coronavirus-driven job losses to more than 26 million. And the unemployment pain is especially prevalent in the places Trump relied on to carry him to the White House. From the Defense Desk COVID BOMB — Top Defense and intelligence officials are investigating how bad actors could weaponize Covid, especially against high level targets. Doomsday prep comes in handy — As commanders struggle to contain Covid-19 outbreaks aboard warships and at training camps for recruits, they are looking for lessons from the nation's nuclear forces, which took early and aggressive action to head off the pandemic, senior national correspondent Bryan Bender reports in a rare peek into the secretive arsenal. As early as January, nuclear commanders began reviewing "disease containment plans" and drawing up contingencies to make sure personnel assigned to nuclear subs, long-range bombers crews, and intercontinental ballistic missiles silos — and their command centers — kept the virus at bay. "I'm knocking on wood right now [but] so far our measures are working," one said. "You're not getting headlines that our community is all bed-ridden because it's just not happening."     The Global Fight FOLLOW THE GREEN — Forget emissions targets, the new global climate battleground is national stimulus packages, Ryan Heath writes, more evidence that the virus is never just about the virus. Huge public spending in 2020 will set the course of most national economies for decades to come, and environmentalists — burned by the 2008 generation of corporate bailouts that came with few strings attached — are determined to impose green conditions in 2020. The NGOs argue it's the last chance the world has to get back on track with the U.N.'s Paris climate agreement. So far, there's a lot of talk and very little green cash.   THE COVID-19 UPDATES YOU NEED IN 15 MINUTES OR LESS. POLITICO Dispatch, our newest podcast offers listeners a look behind the scenes at POLITICO with our top reporters as they unpack the latest impact of the coronavirus on our lives. Fast. Short. Daily. Subscribe and listen today.     Talking to the Experts Can Amtrak recover from the massive decline in ridership caused by the pandemic? "The need for rail access won't disappear when we have recovered from this health crisis. No matter what Amtrak's fiscal situation is now, Congress has a responsibility to the American people to ensure that rail service continues to exist in the future. If it takes a while for those ridership levels to return to normal, I believe that Congress will continue to assist Amtrak." — Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a daily Amtrak rider, as told to energy and transportation reporter Anthony Adragna "I don't know if we've hit bottom but we're down 95 percent. We don't have a firm date by which we think we're back to break-even, in part because we're still not clear what the level of ridership will be as we ramp up into this new normal, and how we accelerate from that into growth." — New Amtrak CEO William Flynn, as told to transportation reporter Tanya Snyder on a call with reporters Nightly Number 100,000 The number of additional Covid-19 deaths projected "if jail populations are not dramatically and immediately reduced," according to new data released today by the ACLU and academic research partners. Parting Words DEAD WAKE — The traditional Irish funeral, a deeply ingrained part of the nation's culture, is on hold, Irish journalist Karen McHugh writes. Death notices in the local paper or online no longer include funeral details, and condolence books and Mass cards are no longer allowed. "It's very important for people to have their friends around, and families, people coming to visit the house. It's all about the volume of people at Irish funerals. And that's gone now," said Phil O'Reilly, an undertaker from Tullamore.   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: · Rapidly screening our vast global libraries to identify potential treatments and have 284 clinical trials underway · Dedicating our top scientists and using our investments in new technologies to speed the development of safe and effective vaccines · Sharing learnings from clinical trials in real time with governments and other companies to advance the development of additional therapies · Expanding our unique manufacturing capabilities and sharing available capacity to ramp up production once a successful medicine or vaccine is developed Explore our efforts.   Did someone forward this email to you? 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