Coronavirus Roundup: CDC Changes Testing Guidelines; IRS Will Send ‘Catch-Up’ Payments

During his remarks at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday, top White House Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow praised President Trump for his management during the pandemic and its resulting recession. He spoke about the coronavirus outbreak in the past tense, despite the fact that it is far from over. There were 1,147 deaths on Tuesday and almost 37,000 new COVID-19 cases nationwide, according to The Coronavirus Tracking Project. Here are some other recent headlines you might have missed. 

Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Edward Markey, D-Mass., wrote to the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday requesting records related to FDA’s recent emergency approval for convalescent plasma to treat the coronavirus. It is “critical that the FDA’s drug approval process—which serves as the gold standard around the world—is guided by science, not partisan or political whims,” they wrote. They also asked for a timeline of how the agency made the decision to grant approval this past weekend, after reportedly not having sufficient data to back it up. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “quietly” changed their guidelines this week to say people who don’t have coronavirus symptoms don’t need to be tested, even if they were exposed to the virus. Public health experts questioned the decision and said this could be a major setback for the progress the country has made in testing, The New York Times reported on Tuesday. 

The Defense Department updated its coronavirus guidance on testing eligibility and considerations for service members and civilian employees. “In the clinical setting, asymptomatic individuals may be tested based on a clinician’s judgment and as deemed appropriate by public health professionals,” it reads. 

Earlier this week, nine Democratic senators announced they asked the Government Accountability Office to review the Executive Office of Immigration Review’s management of the courts during the pandemic. “Legal service providers have explained that EOIR’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates how the agency can use seemingly neutral measures to tip the scales of justice against noncitizens,” they wrote. “Immigration judges, staff, and litigators have also expressed concerns about the health risks to them and the litigants who appear in immigration courts.” 

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said Vice President Mike Pence is “a truly decent person” in a Washington Post profile about Pence’s handling of the pandemic and tenure during the administration. “I am sometimes referred to as ‘the skunk at the picnic’ but Pence never directly asks me, the skunk, to be quiet or leave,” Fauci told The Post. “Some may say that Pence and his team are ‘too ideological’ but they are after all political people. This is not unexpected.”

Politico published a deep dive on Wednesday about how Pence slowed down the government’s response to the coronavirus after the president tapped him to lead the White House Coronavirus Task Force in late February. Of the 21 individuals involved with the task force, “Many gave Pence high marks as a listener, and state and local officials praised him for being more responsive to their concerns than the president or his inner circle,” said the report. However, “Many said Pence’s consensus-building approach drained urgency from the mission, pitted interests against each other and gave inappropriate weight to opinions outside the public health realm.”

New rules by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services require hospitals and laboratories to report their coronavirus data to HHS daily (as opposed to voluntarily), among other things. Penalties for not complying with the provisions could be hundreds to thousands of dollars in payments or expulsion from Medicare and Medicaid programs. 

An industry group is urging Congress to extend a provision of the CARES Act that allows federal agencies to use their funds to give contractors sick or paid leave during the pandemic if they are not able to access their worksites or telework. Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president and counsel at the Professional Services Council, told Federal News Network on Tuesday, “The pandemic has continued on much longer than anybody had hoped for. And the number of both federal employees as well as contractor employees who are denied access to those facilities and unable to work is continuing.” 

The Internal Revenue Service announced on Tuesday it would soon be sending “catch-up” stimulus payments to about 50,000 individuals whose checks were diverted in order to pay their spouses late child support. The agency expects the checks to be issued in early to mid September. 

The National Nuclear Security Administration is exercising new remote hiring provisions adopted during the pandemic to fill 600 positions through a virtual job fair on Wednesday. While the agency, a division of the Energy Department, has been doing virtual recruiting for several years, it is solely doing so now. “Because of the [pandemic], the Office of Personnel Management has given us some latitude on how we can bring people on board and get them working,” Frank Lowery, NNSA associate administrator for management, told Federal News Network. 

Today’s GovExec Daily podcast episode covers the FDA’s emergency use approval for convalescent plasma and the backlash over the decision critics say was made prematurely. 

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.