POLITICO NIGHTLY: The reopening debate goes to college

By Renuka Rayasam Presented by TASK COMPLETE? — The White House is planning to wind down its coronavirus task force in the coming weeks as it shifts focus to reopening the economy, Gabby Orr, Nancy Cook and Brianna Ehley report. The move is a more formal recognition of a strategy that has been developing in recent weeks. President Donald Trump and his aides have been shifting their attention toward jolting the country's finances and speeding up vaccine development. Efforts to mitigate the ongoing coronavirus outbreak will ultimately be shifted to agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Vice President Mike Pence. COVID 101 — Don’t take a gap year because of Covid-19, college is more than classes and Washington shouldn’t ignore the plight of public universities, University of California President Janet Napolitano told your host, a Berkeley alum, today. Napolitano, who also served as Arizona’s governor and as Homeland Security secretary, said the UC system is in the midst of a major overhaul of how it will admit students and conduct classes. This fall, she said, could see a “hybrid model” that mixes remote learning with campus life, but college protests will come roaring back. This interview has been edited for clarity. How will universities look this fall? There’s going to be a lot of variations on a theme throughout the UC system. We are thinking through what a hybrid model looks like, where some classes remain remote and some on campus. I can see situations where smaller classes can be offered in person and larger lectures are online or a combination. If, on campus, which students? I can see some campuses may want to bring in their freshmen, but not bring in upperclassmen who have already had a campus-based experience. What steps is the UC system taking to keep students and employees safe? Campuses, in deciding how they are going to reopen, should first meet certain basic requirements. Do they have a testing plan, do they have a tracing plan, do they have a quarantine plan? Have they thought through housing? Why not just keep classes online? There is so much value to the college experience beyond just being in class. There’s the whole participation in extracurriculars, clubs, athletics. There’s all the being able to be with your friends. There’s the whole maturation process that happens as a population of 17- and 18-year-olds, usually living away from home for the first time, gets to experience campus life. The goal is to try to regain some form of normalcy on our campuses. Campuses are like mini cities. The goal is how to safely and securely be able to repopulate them. The UC system already has lost nearly $600 million from revenue losses and added expenses. Should colleges be a bigger part of another congressional rescue package? Yes. I wish I saw more discussion in Washington about what should the federal government do to make sure that public universities can remain accessible and excellent and do what we do best. I don’t want to pick a fight with all private schools. What I will say is that public institutions depend on states for a big proportion of their funding. And public budgets are going to be really thin this year. So these public higher ed institutions could be on the chopping block and that would be a mistake. Protests were such a huge part of Berkeley’s campus life — what happens now that gatherings are banned? They will come back in some form or fashion. I’ll be interested to see how students mobilize on social media. Should students consider just taking a year off from college? I’d say go! First of all, what are you going to do during a gap year? Usually during a gap year you’re traveling somewhere or you have some fancy kind of internship. Those aren’t going to be available. Are you going to sit at home for a year? I say, go to college, start making progress to your degree, get on with it! Welcome to POLITICO Nightly: Coronavirus Special Edition. Even the experts who predicted widespread deaths agree that it’s hard to comply with stay-at-home measures. 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 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 DANGER AHEAD — Despite a resilient stock market and the president’s rosy promises of a “tremendous rebound” in the second half of the year, investors could be in for another shock as Covid-19 continues to devastate the economy, chief economics correspondent Ben White and reporter Myah Ward write. A parade of companies, including some of the nation’s largest profit machines, are reporting lower profits or warning that earnings could struggle in the coming months as consumers stay cautious and businesses assume the crash position. Many other CEOs are simply throwing up their hands and offering a giant shrug. “Companies have no idea what is going to happen whatsoever,” said Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research Inc. “I’m an optimist. I had a happy childhood. But you have to be a realist here that there are going to be after-shocks and no V-shaped recovery. Plenty of companies — especially retail, hotels, restaurants and airlines — would be happy to get 50 percent of their peak business back a year from now.”   TOMORROW - A VIRTUAL INTERVIEW WITH FORMER BRITISH PRIME MINISTER TONY BLAIR: Join Global Translations author Ryan Heath tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. EDT for a virtual discussion with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair about what partnerships are needed around the world to minimize the health and economic impacts of coronavirus, how to handle deepening inequalities, and what the global architecture of a new and more resilient “normal” should look like. Have questions? Submit yours by tweeting it to @POLITICOLive using #AskPOLITICO. REGISTER HERE TO PARTICIPATE.     A pilot walks through a mostly empty terminal at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Va. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images From the Health Desk MEDICAID ADJUSTMENT — Medicaid, the largest budget item in most states, provides health insurance to roughly 70 million poor adults, children, pregnant women and people with disabilities. And coronavirus is going to gut it just as millions of newly jobless Americans surge onto the rolls. “The cruel nature of the economic downturn is that at a time when you need a social safety net is also the time when revenues shrink,” Ohio's GOP Gov. Mike DeWine said today, saying that he would cut $210 million from his state’s Medicaid program because of declining tax revenues caused by the pandemic. State Medicaid programs in the last economic crisis cut everything from dental services to podiatry care — and reduced payments to hospitals and doctors to balance out spending on other needs like roads, schools and prisons. Medicaid officials warn the gutting could be far worse this time, health reporters Rachel Roubein and Dan Goldberg write, first in POLITICO Nightly. DATA POINT — There’s another number that officials are now looking at to justify lifting lockdowns: the ratio of positive Covid tests to tests given overall. The White House has set a goal of bringing down the positivity rate to less than 10 percent. And today Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott pointed to the state’s falling number (in front of a slide prominently displaying the words “positivity rate”) as a reason to allow hair salons and barber shops to reopen this Friday. It’s a number that’s become more reliable as testing capacity expands, health care reporter David Lim told your host today. More than 200,000 tests are being administered a day up from 150,000 nationwide. If the ratio of positive tests to overall tests is going up, that means that cases are probably spreading faster than officials can catch them and that the area is quickly becoming a Covid hotspot. “If it’s going down it indicates that officials have a better grasp of who is getting sick,” Lim said. The lower that number gets, the easier it will be for local officials to deploy contact tracing and other tools to contain the virus. But he said that even a 10 percent positivity ratio is too high given how many cases are still being detected. The national rate has been stubbornly high, at around 20 percent for weeks, but as New York City’s outbreak starts to subside and more testing becomes available, the number has plunged to 10.2 percent since last Monday, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project. That’s still far higher than most countries around the world. Canada’s positivity rate is 6.5 percent. South Korea is at 2 percent. And as outbreaks occur in other parts of the country, including in some Texas cities, that number will start to spike. BUGGING OUT — The all-hands on deck public health response to the coronavirus has shifted personnel and equipment away from seasonal pest control — meaning less protection against mosquitoes and ticks that can carry Lyme disease, West Nile and several encephalitis viruses, executive health care editor Joanne Kenen emails us. “The Covid-19 response has taken time, attention and personnel away from all other unrelated health priorities, as already-underfunded and understaffed local health departments respond to the pandemic,” laments the National Association of County and City Health Officials, noting that even things like N95 masks, often needed for chemical pest-control, now have a higher coronavirus calling. We welcome suggestions on how to teach mosquitoes to social distance, a responsible 6 feet away from us. (Make that 106 feet, please, for “murder hornets.”)     Ask The Audience Our question for our readers this week: What routines and activities, if any, are you resuming this week? Use the form to send us your responses, and we plan to feature several later this week. A model prepares backstage before a fashion show in Beijing. | Lintao Zhang/Getty Images The Global Fight TONY BLAIR: COVID-19 REQUIRES ‘RADICAL’ GLOBAL CHANGE — Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, now head of the Institute for Global Change, is calling for “radical changes” in international cooperation, including a revolution in data-sharing between countries in a paper he shared first with POLITICO Nightly readers. Blair also said each country needs a multi-level lockdown system because today’s “pervasive uncertainty is almost as damaging as the lockdown itself,” Ryan Heath writes. To reduce uncertainty, Blair said, governments should formally set out several lockdown levels — New Zealand and South Africa have such systems in place — with authorities switching between levels when certain tests and triggers are met. One of Blair’s first tests for easing lockdown is the availability of rapid testing as well as rapid isolation of virus carriers from their home environment. Blair is also concerned about health systems that are unable to focus on both Covid and more ordinary illness and emergencies. The U.K. has experienced a 62 percent drop in cancer-related referrals compared to pre-pandemic levels. More than 32,000 people in the U.K. have died with suspected Covid-19, the highest official number for any European country so far, according to data published by the Office for National Statistics today. Ryan will chat with Blair on Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. EDT to discuss what needs to change in global governance, and what “new normal” the world should aim for. RSVP and ask your question here. COVID CHANGE — Air pollution has dropped dramatically. Los Angeles' skyline is no longer obscured by smog. Kangaroos have been spotted hopping through deserted Australian streets. Sustainability policy editor Nick Juliano explains how the climate effects of the coronavirus pandemic are changing the way we think about sustainability in the latest episode of POLITICO Dispatch. And sign up for The Long Game, a new newsletter from POLITICO for leaders building a sustainable future. Listen to the latest POLITICO Dispatch podcast   TOMORROW - HOW DO WE SAVE SMALL BUSINESSES? The coronavirus has crushed small businesses across the country. There’s been confusion and frustration stemming from the turbulent rollout of the Paycheck Protection Program. Join POLITICO chief economic correspondent Ben White tomorrow at 9 a.m. EDT for a virtual discussion with Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Small Business Committee, about how banks have struggled with the Paycheck Protection Program's disbursement process, what the next round of stimulus funding must include to keep small businesses and local economies afloat, and the return of elected officials to the Capitol despite concerns about spurring an outbreak. Have questions? Submit yours by tweeting it to @POLITICOLive using #AskPOLITICO. REGISTER HERE.     Nightly Number 9.6 percent The amount by which U.S. exports fell in March, as the effects of the coronavirus began to take a fuller toll on economic activity around the world, according to a Commerce Department report today. U.S. imports plunged 6.2 percent, the biggest drop since January 2009 during the global financial crisis. (h/t trade reporter Doug Palmer) Parting Words FRAUGHT FROMAGE — French cheesemakers warn that restaurant closures and a downturn in international trade have caused a 60 percent slump in sales of cheeses — from Camembert to Roquefort. A 5,000-ton surplus could rot. Cheesemakers are looking at desperate measures, ranging from destroying tons of luxury stock to deviations from the strict rules required to win a gourmet label, Eddy Wax reports. The coronavirus broke out during the seasonal peak of European milk production, and the drop in demand for high-value cheeses led farmers to create a glut of more storable dairy products such as butter and milk powder. “There are producers experiencing drops in prices that are catastrophic,” said Michel Lacoste, president of the National Council of Appellations of Dairy Origin, a group for producers of the 45 French cheeses protected by the EU’s lucrative geographical indication label. “Today it’s the France of 1,000 cheeses that is being threatened.”   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

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