Congress struck a deal Sunday on a nearly $900 billion Covid-19 relief package that includes a new round of direct payments and help for jobless Americans, families and businesses struggling in the pandemic.
The agreement includes stimulus checks of up to $600 a person based on income, a federal unemployment insurance bonus of $300 per week, over $284 billion more in loans for businesses struggling to pay rent and workers, vaccine distribution funds and $82 billion in funding for colleges and schools. It also includes the Democrats' priority of $25 billion in rental assistance and an extension of the eviction moratorium.
The agreement was expected to be reached earlier in the week but hit a roadblock after some Republicans demanded an end to Federal Reserve authorities over emergency lending. Democrats pushed back, accusing the GOP of seeking to sabotage the economy overseen by incoming President Joe Biden.
- Map of U.S. hot spots and worldwide Covid-19 cases.
- Tracking surges in states across the country this winter.
- Map of travel restrictions and which states have a mask mandate.
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Biden to receive vaccine
WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden will receive his first dose of the coronavirus vaccine on live television as part of a growing effort to convince the American public the inoculations are safe.
Monday's event will come the same day that a second vaccine, produced by Moderna, will start arriving in states, joining Pfizer's in the nation's arsenal against the Covid-19 pandemic, which has now killed more than 317,000 people in the United States and upended life around the globe.
“I don’t want to get ahead of the line, but I want to make sure we demonstrate to the American people that it is safe to take," Biden has said of his decision. Biden and his wife, Jill, will also thank health care workers at the facility where they receive the shots, his incoming press secretary has said.
Despite Covid-19 eviction ban, tenants still being thrown out
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s eviction moratorium was supposed to protect renters in all 50 states through the end of the year. Keeping Covid-affected renters in their apartments, the CDC said, would reduce the potential for virus transmission likely to occur as displaced people were forced to move in with family or friends or into homeless shelters.
But nationwide adherence to the moratorium has been spotty, housing experts say. Some judges are rejecting the moratorium outright, while others are evicting based on landlord-friendly state regulations or disputed claims about tenants violating their leases.
Evictions processed while the moratorium is still in place are a preview of what some experts predict will be a wave of homelessness when the CDC moratorium expires on Dec. 31. Access to Congressional funds earmarked for rental assistance also ends then, programs that have helped landlords as well as renters.
Mental health care resources stretched thin during pandemic
In a year of more than 300,000 deaths from a pandemic, job insecurity, a looming eviction crisis and a renewed focus on racial injustice, mental health has been pushed into the public discourse across the country.
Politicians have implemented new strategies to acknowledge disparities in quality of care for people seeking health providers and have attempted to address mental health through policy. But questions remain as to whether systems will change enough to normalize mental health care following a year of collective trauma.
In June, an estimated 40 percent of U.S. adults reported struggling with some form of mental health or substance abuse issues, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report published in August. There was a threefold increase in adults reporting anxiety and four times the reports of feelings of depression compared to the same time the year before, the CDC found.
More European Union nations ban travel from U.K.
BERLIN — A growing list of European Union nations barred travel from the U.K. on Sunday and others were considering similar action, in a bid to block a new strain of coronavirus sweeping across southern England from spreading to the continent.
France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Ireland and Bulgaria all announced restrictions on U.K. travel, hours after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that Christmas shopping and gatherings in southern England must be canceled because of rapidly spreading infections blamed on the new coronavirus variant.
Johnson immediately placed those regions under a strict new Tier 4 restriction level, upending Christmas plans for millions.
France banned all travel from the U.K. for 48 hours from midnight Sunday, including trucks carrying freight through the tunnel under the English Channel or from the port of Dover on England's south coast.
French officials said the pause would buy time to find a “common doctrine” on how to deal with the threat, but it threw the busy cross-channel route used by thousands of trucks a day into chaos.
Hospital staffs stretched thin during California virus surge
LOS ANGELES — Medical staffing is stretched increasingly thin as California hospitals scramble to find beds for patients amid an explosion of coronavirus cases that threatens to overwhelm the state's emergency care system.
On Sunday, more than 16,840 people were hospitalized with confirmed COVID-19 infections — more than double the previous peak reached in July. A state model that uses current data to forecast future trends shows the number could reach 75,000 by mid-January.
More than 3,610 COVID-19 patients were in intensive care units. All of Southern California and the 12-county San Joaquin Valley to the north have exhausted their regular ICU capacity, and some hospitals have begun using “surge” space. Overall, the state’s ICU capacity was just 2.1% on Sunday.
The enormous crush of cases in the last six weeks has California’s death toll spiraling ever higher. An additional o 161 fatalities were reported Sunday for a total of 22,593.
Many hospitals are preparing for the possibility of rationing care. A document recently circulated among doctors at the four hospitals run by Los Angeles County calls for them to shift strategy: Instead of trying everything to save a life, their goal during the crisis is to save as many patients as possible. That means those less likely to survive won’t get the same kind of care offered in normal times.
Congress reaches deal on $900 billion Covid-19 relief package
WASHINGTON — After months of stalemate, Congress struck a deal on a nearly $900 billion Covid-19 relief package that includes a new round of direct payments and help for jobless Americans, families and businesses struggling in the pandemic.
"More help is on the way," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Sunday evening on the Senate floor. "Moments ago, in consultation with our committees, the four leaders of the Senate and the House finalized an agreement."
The agreement includes more stimulus checks, a federal unemployment insurance bonus, more money for businesses struggling to pay rent and workers, vaccine distribution funds and funding for schools.
Lawmakers are expected to vote on the package beginning later Sunday or Monday.
CDC advisory group: Older adults, frontline essential workers to get Covid vaccine next
People ages 75 and up and frontline essential workers will be next in line to receive Covid-19 vaccines, according to recommendations from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee.
On Sunday, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted in favor of the recommendations, which will go on to the CDC for final sign off.
The new proposal comes less than a week after the first Covid-19 vaccines went out to health care workers and those living in long-term care facilities across the country. That group is referred to as phase 1a. The Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency use authorization to two Covid-19 vaccines, from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
What scientists know about the coronavirus variant spreading in the U.K.
Several European countries have banned flights from the U.K. over fears about new coronavirus variant that has forced millions of people in Britain to cancel their Christmas plans.
Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Italy all announced restrictions on U.K. travel. Others will likely follow suit as scientists warned the new strain spread more quickly than its predecessor.
With U.K. infection levels rising rapidly, Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson told a Saturday news conference that London and the U.K.'s southeast would be put under the strictest lockdown rules, known as "Tier 4."
As a result, nonessential shops, gyms, cinemas, hairdressers and bowling alleys will be forced to close for two weeks, while people will be restricted to meeting one other person from another household in an outdoor public space.