Author: Scott Welch
The small-business loan program that received a new infusion of cash last week reopened with a sputter Monday as the Lakers became the latest high-profile name to return money received under a program designed to boost small, struggling companies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
After hearing for months about serious access issues involving tests that diagnose COVID-19 based on swabs from the nose or throat, Americans are being inundated with reports about promising new tests that look for signs of infection in the blood.
Inova Health System, with campuses in some of the wealthiest suburbs of Washington, D.C., and Truman Medical Centers, a safety-net hospital in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, have little in common. But, today, they are confronting the same financial plague: mass cancellations of nonessential surgeries that are their biggest moneymakers while bracing for an expensive onslaught of coronavirus patients.
During the first week of school closures in San Jose, state Sen. Jim Beall’s office received more than a dozen phone calls from distressed parents and caregivers.
A second wave of the coronavirus is expected to hit the United States next winter and could strike much harder than the first because it would likely arrive at the start of influenza season, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Tuesday.
The Justice Department will consider taking legal action against governors who continue to impose stringent rules for dealing with the coronavirus that infringe on constitutional rights even after the crisis subsides in their states, Attorney General William Barr said.
The Senate passed a $483.4 billion economic relief measure Tuesday that would replenish a popular small-business loan program and provide funding for hospitals facing financial shortfalls due to COVID-19.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday acknowledged that pressure from Californians and local governments is building to modify the statewide stay-at-home order carried out to stem to spread of the coronavirus, but he said restrictions will remain in place until the threat to public health subsides and adequate testing and other safeguards are implemented.
Federal officials offering emergency funding to hospitals, clinics and doctors’ practices have included this stipulation: They cannot foist surprise medical bills on COVID-19 patients.
In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Amazon appears to be considering a new business: helping Amazon sellers with their own health insurance needs. Amazon sellers account for nearly 60 percent of Amazon’s retail sales, with around 900,000 active Amazon seller accounts in the US alone. That merchant base gives Amazon a huge potential target for such an offering.