Coronavirus Roundup: Lawmakers Unveil ‘Essential Workers Bill of Rights’ Including Protective Gear, Pay

As President Trump’s initial “aspirational” deadline of Easter Sunday (April 12) to reopen the country has come and gone, he and others in his administration are now looking to May 1 as the target date to scale back stay-at-home orders. However, some experts including those working in the government, caution that the country will have to gradually reopen and that May 1 still might be too soon, The Washington Post reported. Here are some other headlines from over the weekend and today that you might have missed. 

For over 20 years, across four presidential administrations, politicians from both parties “failed to heed the warnings” from scientists, civil servants and intelligence reports on preparations for pandemics or biological threats, NBC News reported on Monday. Dating back to 1998, “They didn't set up and fund a large volunteer medical reserve corps, for example, or build surplus hospital capacity, or create a system to quickly produce and deploy virus tests.”

On Saturday, The New York Times published a series of emails between academic and government public health experts that showed a “rising sense of frustration and then anger as their advice seemingly failed to break through to the administration” from January to March.  One participant was Dr. Carter Mecher, a senior Veterans Affairs Department medical adviser who was worried the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were acting too slowly in responding to the outbreak. 

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn said on NBC's “Meet the Press” on Sunday that he hasn’t felt any “political pressure” in his decision-making process during the coronavirus outbreak. He pushed back on the accusations from The New York Times emails. “I do feel that we've been surrounded by experts,” he said. “Particularly at FDA, we have a lot of scientific and clinical experts who know a lot about testing.”

During the coronavirus briefing on Friday, Trump; Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and White House coronavirus task force member; and Dr. Deborah Birx, White House task force coordinator, said they did not see the federal projections that said there would be a spike in infections if shelter-in-place orders were lifted after 30 days. Prior to the briefing, The New York Times reported on Homeland Security and Health and Human Services projections that said, “Without any mitigation, the death toll from the virus could have reached 300,000. And if the administration lifts the 30-day stay-at-home orders, the death total is estimated to reach 200,000.”

On Friday night, the Defense Department was authorized by the White House to use the 1950 Defense Production Act’s Title 3 to use “authorized incentives” such as loans to speed up production of masks. Politico reported.  "The $133 [million] project will use these authorities to increase domestic production capacity of N95 masks to over 39 million in the next 90 days," the Defense Department said in a statement. 

U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Mark Green’s last day was on Friday. His agency has been critical to combating the coronavirus worldwide. In an interview with ABC he said foreign assistance is "important" and that "especially in times of challenge, we need to keep those investments, those tools and that leadership,” which contrasts some of the statements made by the president and other administration officials. The White House announced on March 17 that John Barsa would become the acting USAID administrator. Barsa is currently USAID’s assistant administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean. 

Sens. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said on Friday they will introduce legislation that would establish a Global Health Security Interagency Review Council and a U.S. Coordinator for Global Health Security. The bill will recommend that a member of the National Security Council be appointed as global health security coordinator. This measure comes after the president disbanded the council's pandemic unit in 2018. “Coronavirus has exposed some glaring gaps in our nation’s capacity to respond to a pandemic,” Romney said in a press release. “It is critical that we are better prepared to coordinate global responses and exert leadership to address future health threats.”

On Monday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., released a proposal for an “Essential Workers Bill of Rights” to safeguard those working on the frontlines during the pandemic, which they argue should be included in the next relief legislation. The bill of rights involves: sufficient protective gear, pay compensation, collective bargaining ability, whistleblower protections, childcare support and more. Many federal employees are deemed essential and “reports indicate that these workers may be contracting COVID-19 at a higher rate than the general public,” according to the press release. 

Politico reported on Monday about the struggles states are experiencing to secure medical equipment because of the federal government’s  “haphazard approach” to distributing supplies and the president’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kusher’s involvement with the White House task force. On Friday, Trump denied reporting that there are shortages of beds, masks and ventilators during an exchange with CNN’s Jim Acosta. 

Democratic senators wrote to Vice President Mike Pence on Friday with concerns that the administration’s reliance on the private sector to procure and distribute medical equipment lacks sufficient oversight. “We are concerned that the federal government is using taxpayer dollars to bring supplies to the United States, just to have six private distributors step in and sell those very supplies to desperate states, tribes and health care systems for a profit,” they wrote. “FEMA should make organized, data-informed decisions about where, when, and in what quantities supplies should be delivered to states—not defer to the private sector.”

In an “usual move,” the White House pushed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to give its largest coronavirus contract to a company that did not have to bid, ProPublica found. AirBoss of America, a Canadian manufacturing company, received an over $96 million deal to build 100,000 respirators and filters for medical workers in New York by the end of July. “It is unclear why the White House chose AirBoss for the protective equipment, which is similar to products made by other vendors,” ProPublica reported. “Ethics experts have criticized the White House’s effort as lacking transparency and opening the federal government to further influence from companies.”

Former CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden outlined how he would slow the spread of the pandemic in a New York Times article on Sunday. It includes: a robust contract tracing effort, improving utilization of data and better preparations, so an outbreak like this does not occur again.  “Our top experts are still where they have been for decades—at the C.D.C. If they guide our strategy, we can begin to get ahead of the coronavirus in this war,” he wrote. 

The U.S. Supreme Court announced on Monday morning that it will hear oral arguments by telephone conference in May for some of the postponed cases and will make live audio available for the first time. One of the 10 cases is the subpoena fight over whether or not the president must release his tax returns and other financial records. 

The National Institutes of Health announced on Friday it began recruiting for a new study that will use blood samples to determine undetected coronavirus cases. “This study will give us a clearer picture of the true magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States,” Fauci said in a press release. “It will [tell] us how many people in different communities have been infected without knowing it, because they had a very mild, undocumented illness or did not access testing while they were sick.” 

Despite commitments from Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, “frustrations have built among career staff at the Labor Department that the agency hasn’t ordered employers to follow safeguards, including the wearing of masks, recommended by the CDC to protect workers,” according to The Washington Post. People knowledgeable of the matter said two draft guidance documents by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration aimed at strengthening health-care worker protections have not been advanced within the department. 

The Veterans Affairs Department denied a Wall Street Journal report from Saturday that it’s facing a mask shortage, CNN reported. According to internal memos obtained by WSJ, the agency is facing a shortage of masks and respirators, so it has to tell hospitals to decide which employees get masks and which do not. However, “Veterans Affairs spokeswoman Christina Noel pushed back saying that all VA employees who need [personal protective equipment] have it and that all VA facilities are properly equipped,” according to CNN.

The VA said on Monday there was a vast increase in veterans’ use of virtual mental health services in March. Compared to February, telehealth group therapy, consultation phone calls and virtual appointments at VA facilities nationwide increased between 200% and 280%. 

House and Senate Democrats announced on Friday they will introduce legislation to establish a “9/11” style commission to examine the federal government’s response to the coronavirus. “The coronavirus showed just how unprepared and slow we were to respond to a major outbreak. And that lack of readiness endangered lives,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. “We know this won’t be the last outbreak, so a 9/11 Commission-style panel is necessary to fix these mistakes going forward and apply the lessons from this pandemic to future crises.”

The Internal Revenue Service began sending out economic stimulus checks on Saturday. Read more about the process on the agency’s website. 

Federal Bureau of Prisons Director Michael Carvajal said in an interview with CNN on Friday that a full-scale lockdown of inmates is not necessary yet. “That’s not healthy...and I'd like to think that that's the last resort," he said. He also expressed fears that a lockdown could lead to rioting, which happened in two local prisons last week. Currently, BOP is operating under a “modified” lockdown as the number of inmates and employees with confirmed coronavirus cases has been steadily increasing over the last month.

DHS is using its recently launched pilot program, which allows it to procure technologies faster, in order to obtain “innovative tools” to aid the pandemic response. This comes shortly after the department set up a new procurement team to handle the influx of commercial inquiries looking to provide coronavirus services, Fifth Doman reported on Friday.  “An important aspect of this objective is to support the efficient acquisition and testing of innovative commercial products from legitimate suppliers, as well as the efficient production and fielding of the successfully tested innovative commercial products,” said DHS’s special notice. 

On Monday, the Agriculture Department released a federal resource guide to help rural communities respond to the pandemic. It includes information on programs, training, funding and more. “USDA is committed to being a strong partner to rural communities preparing for and impacted by COVID-19,” said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue in a press release. “This resource guide will help our rural leaders, whether they are in agriculture, education, health care or any other leadership capacity, understand what federal assistance is available for their communities during this unprecedented time.”

Today’s GovExec Daily podcast episode is about how agencies (such as Defense and Energy) are using supercomputing to determine how the pandemic spread and strategies to combat it. 

Upcoming: The White House coronavirus task force will have a briefing at 5 p.m. 

Help us understand the situation better. Are you a federal employee, contractor or military member with information, concerns, etc. about how your agency is handling the coronavirus? Email us at newstips@govexec.com.