Mon. 4/20: COVID-19 Daily Update
NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
Help is coming to ease Hawaii’s severe unemployment claim backlog (HawaiiNewsNow, April 20, 2020)
Up to 1,000 state workers are being asked to volunteer at a new facility set up in the Convention Center to process the 230k UI claims backlog.
LIVE: Despite decline in new cases, Ige says he’s not ready to ease stay-at-home restrictions (HawaiiNewsNow, April 20 ,2020)
Governor Ige will likely extend the stay at home order late this week, but is considering easing some of the restrictions at the same time.
VIDEO: State House committee updates COVID-19 economic recovery plans (Star Advertiser, April 20, 2020)
Video briefing on the prerequisites to incrementally reopen the economy before the development of a vaccine and having the infrastructure in place to test, screen, monitor and quarantine for the virus. Also include an update on the State’s receipt of federal CARES Act funds and its allocation and disbursement strategy with State Department of Taxation Director Rona Suzuki.
Jump-starting Hawaii’s economy from coronavirus shutdown to start within a month (Star Advertiser, April 20, 2020)
There appears to be a acceleration of the reopening plan for the state. This week, they will sketch out work plans to support screening, testing, tracking, and quarantining the population when benchmarks for reduced transmission of the novel coronavirus have been met.
Two weeks from now, that plan should be finalized after vetting and tweaking elements. “Our current timeline is aggressive but it’s necessary for it to be aggressive,” Mugiishi said. Mugiishi said the gradual reopening could start with certain places, such as parks or restaurants hypothetically, and expand as capacity for screening, testing and monitoring grows. He also said the reopening could be done on different islands at different times.
A watchdog out of Trump’s grasp unleashes wave of coronavirus audits (Politico, April 20, 2020)
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) answers to Congress, and it has announced numerous oversight audits of the bailout package among other things.
Trump and the astroturf protests: An ugly, cynical new strategy to divide America (Salon, April 20, 2020)
The relatively small anti-quarantine protests you’ve been hearing about are astroturf, which means they are created by and/or funded by corporations, associations, political interests, or public relations firms. These anti-quarantine protests are basically a test to these organizations’ ability to direct inflammatory messaging to “certain” types of people to inflame them into action. Most people still support the quarantine at this point in time.
World: Cases: Cases: 2.475M (+75k). Deaths: 165k (+5k)
USA: Cases: 786k (+28k). Deaths: 42.3 (+1.7k). Total Tested: 4.0M (+200k)
Hawaii: Cases: 584 (+4). Deaths: 10 (+0). Hospitalized: 55 (+3). Recovered: 423 (+9)
