Consider This from NPR - Deaths Climb In Louisiana; Delays In Aid For Small Businesses

Episode Date: April 7, 2020

The Paycheck Protection Program was created to help small businesses during the coronavirus pandemic. But the program got off to a rocky start, with some businesses having trouble applying for and getting the money.In Louisiana, an alarming number of black people are dying from COVID-19.Plus, how the coronavirus affects animals and what you can do to protect your pets.Derek Thompson's article in The Atlantic 'The Four Rules of Pandemic Economics.'Find and support your local public radio stationSign up for 'The New Normal' newsletterThis episode was recorded and published as part of this podcast's former 'Coronavirus Daily' format.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

One quick thing before we get started. We know a lot of people are struggling financially, so it might not be possible for you to support our work. One good thing about public radio is we will always be here for you. But sometimes we have to ask. If you can give, any amount helps. So please, if that is you, episode notes, too. And thanks. It's looking increasingly likely that getting back to normal will happen in stages. In Wuhan, China, where this outbreak first started, authorities have lifted the stay-at-home order 87 days after the first person died from COVID-19. Even still, people's movements are restricted.

Here in the U.S., we are in the middle of the outbreak. The first stage of normal is still some time away. What might it look like? When we say getting back to normal, we mean something very different from what we're going through right now. Because right now we are in a very intense mitigation. Dr. Anthony Fauci said this week a slow return to normal might be possible as we develop ways to treat symptoms and when we eventually have a vaccine. If back to normal means acting like there never was a coronavirus problem, I don't think that's going to happen until we do have a situation where you can

completely protect the population. Coming up, the economic cost of getting back to normal too soon and a report from Louisiana where Black people appear to be dying at higher rates than others. This is Coronavirus Daily from NPR. I'm Kelly McEvers. It's Tuesday, April 7th. So if you run a small business, you might have spent the weekend filling out an application for the Paycheck Protection Program. That is a $350 billion pool of money created by the Economic Relief Pack package for small businesses with less than 500 employees. The money was given to banks, which are then supposed to loan it to businesses. And if those businesses spend the money on things like payroll, then their loans are forgivable. Starting last Friday, business owners could apply for those loans. So how's it going? Well, it's not. Greg Honeycutt told NPR's

Daniel Kurtzleben that he has almost entirely shut down his construction business in Houston. Yeah, we have multiple jobs that are on hold right now, and they will stay on hold until I feel comfortable that it's safe to go back to work. Honeycutt started looking into a paycheck protection loan from his bank, Wells Fargo, last Friday, the day the program started. He followed up and he followed up. And today, on Tuesday, they told him they were still not taking applications. There have also been reports of the government's application website crashing and that the terms and criteria for who should qualify were confusing to banks and to borrowers. You know, it's a little concerning, obviously.

You know, I paid my guys two weeks. Well, that was two weeks ago. I paid them for two weeks. This week, they haven't been paid. I, you know, I can't, it's going to be difficult to keep paying people without some kind of relief since we really are not working, not making any money. So at the White House this week, The Paycheck Protection Program has gotten off to a confusing start for small businesses. I don't think so, I think it's done very well. But Wells Fargo...

The president was asked about the program's launch. I wish you'd ask the question differently. Why don't you say it's gotten off to a tremendous start, but there are some little glitches, which, by the way, have been worked out. It would be so much nicer if you do that. Other officials are urging businesses to keep trying over the phone and online as they work out the problems. Also on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said

he had reached an agreement with Democratic and Republican leaders to put another $250 billion into the program. So this Paycheck Protection Program for many businesses will help pay people who are not working. That's because the economic cost of sending them back to work too early could actually be worse in the long term. Derek Thompson, senior editor at The Atlantic, explained why in an article called The Four Rules of Pandemic Economics. And he talked to here and now host Tanya Mosley. Your first rule is that the idea of either saving the economy

or saving lives is a false choice. What do you mean? I mean that in the short term, when you have a pandemic raging, it does no good to allow people to go to restaurants and go to movies and go to concerts because they're just going to get extremely sick and have to stay home from work anyway. So saving the economy versus saving lives doesn't make a lot of sense because the economy is made up of living people. So what we should

want to do is root out the pandemic itself, save as many people as possible, create a short and sharp recession, and then hope that we can quickly put everything back online really quickly. One metaphor that's sometimes been used is that this is a little bit like a medically induced coma. The purpose is to solve the problem the patient is facing by putting them under, fixing the problem, and then putting them back into consciousness. That's what we're trying to do right now. Okay, which brings us to number two. Pay people a living wage to stop working. What do economists say about whether the U.S. is doing enough to pay people to stop working?

This is another rule that just totally flies in the face of historical macroeconomics. Typically, you would always want to make sure that everybody who wants to work can work and they're paid a living wage to do so. But in a pandemic, that logic is turned on its head. What you want people to do is to social distance. So we should pay them a living wage to stop working. The way the US has done this essentially is we've made an agreement to send most households

a one-time payment of about $1,200 per adult plus $500 per child. We've also beefed up unemployment benefits. I think these are both fine ideas, but it's important to note that other countries have taken a different stance. Denmark and other Northern European nations have essentially said, we're going to pay businesses to maintain their payrolls to avoid the sort of mass layoffs that we're already beginning to see in the US. Again, let's get everybody who's employed with their current employer or boss, just stay at that company. We'll pay you to do nothing for a few months. And then hopefully in the summer, we can bring the whole thing back online without having

to lose millions, maybe even tens of millions of people in the US to unemployment. Yeah. You have another rule that really speaks to businesses and their plight right now. That comes from economist Justin Wolfers at the University of Michigan, who told you that you have to build companies a time machine. What does that mean? Right. So he's not talking about the HG Wells contraption. He's talking about a time machine. What does that mean? Right. So he's not talking about the H.G. Wells contraption. He's talking about a time machine made out of money that can move their expenses from the present day to the future. And in the U.S. economic rescue package, that time machine looks like about $350 billion in low interest loans that the government's going to give out to small and

medium-sized businesses and maybe even forgive those loans if those businesses maintain their payrolls. I think it's a good idea. I just think it's probably a little too small and a little too late. If we want to pay all the small and medium-sized businesses in the U.S. enough money to maintain their payrolls, that figure shouldn't be $350 billion. It should be closer to $600 or $700 billion. You also say in rule number four, the business of America is now science. Can you explain that? We need to get people money or they're going to die. And we need to get companies cash or they're going to die. But if we don't clear the way for healthcare workers to treat the sick, if we don't find a way to test and trace illnesses, we don't find a way to build antiviral medications or a vaccine, if we don't fix the science problem, people and companies are going to die anyway.

There's just no such thing as a normal economy until we can contain this virus. Derek Thompson, senior editor at The Atlantic, talking to Here and Now host Tanya Mosley. Across the United States, this pandemic is only making an unequal system more so. Unless you have a white-collar job that lets you work from home, you're probably stuck going to work, or you're being laid off. And when it comes to the virus itself, African Americans are dying at an alarming rate in Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, and in Louisiana, where the disease seemed to hit with sudden force. Here's Tegan Wendland of member station WWNO in New Orleans. Just a little over a month ago, Elroy James was riding high in Zulu's Mardi Gras morning parade, kissing babies and shaking hands. He's the president of the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club,

the center of Black culture in New Orleans. A month later, 20 of his club brothers have been hospitalized, and five are dead. We have not been able to celebrate the lives of those of our members the way we would have traditionally done it. No jazz funerals, no second lines. All he can do is console families over the phone, encourage them, and pray for them. He's not alone. COVID-19 has killed many, many Black people in Louisiana. During a press conference, Governor John Bel Edwards released data for the first time on the racial breakdown of coronavirus deaths, showing that at least 70 percent were of Black people. So that deserves more attention, and we're going to have to dig into that and see what we can do to slow that trend down. In Louisiana, there are many reasons for that trend. Pre-existing

conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, and coronary heart disease disproportionately affect the Black community, largely because of poverty and lack of access to medical services. Problems that, Congressman Cedric Richmond says, are rooted in hundreds of years of systemic racism. There's no doubt that it's going to impact African-American communities. Our poor communities work. In Chicago, which has a much smaller Black population, 70 percent of the people who've died of the coronavirus so far were Black, according to WBEZ. Milwaukee is seeing similar trends. Joya Carrere-Prairie is a doctor who founded the National Birth Equity Collaborative. She says a lot of Black people don't even know they're at risk.

We're seeing a lot of Black men, a lot of younger people. I mean, you're seeing all the things that you didn't see in some other countries play out in the U.S. because we have not created a social safety net for everyone. And in a state like Louisiana, where at least 8% of the people don't have insurance, a number that's even higher for minorities, folks might be reluctant to go to the hospital if they don't think it's that serious. Congressman Richmond. At the end of the day, this is not some academic study.

This is a life or death issue. And once and for all, I hope that this gives us the momentum to tackle health disparities across the board. Allison Plyer is with the New Orleans Data Center, which is studying COVID death rates. As we move forward, we have to really create a society that cares for everyone, even the most vulnerable, or else we will have a large portion of our society that is susceptible to these kinds of shocks.

For his part, Elroy James will continue to support his Zulu community as they navigate this devastating time. And when it's all over, they'll throw a big old second line for the brothers and sisters they've lost. Tegan Wendland from member station WWNO in New Orleans. Last week, Nadia had a dry cough, so she was given a test for the coronavirus. The test came back positive, which was newsworthy. Because Nadia is a four-year-old Malayan tiger at the Bronx Zoo, and she is the first known animal in the United States to have the virus.

For the record, she did not use a test that could have been used on a human. But this story underscores how little we know about this virus and its ability to infect other species. The guidance from the CDC is if you feel sick, you should try to avoid contact with pets, yours or others. And if you're not sick, just practice normal good pet hygiene. Wash your hands after handling animals, their food, or toys. Paul Calley, chief veterinarian at the Bronx Zoo, said on NPR's Here and Now that Nadia is doing better. And the CDC still says there is no evidence the virus can spread from pets to people. NPR has more answers to your questions about the virus and animals. There's a link to an article by reporter Laurel

Wamsley in our episode notes. For more news on the coronavirus, you can stay up to date with all of it on your local public radio station and in our daily coronavirus newsletter, The New Normal. Sign up at npr.org slash newsletters. I'm Kelly McEvers. Thanks for listening. We'll be back with more tomorrow.