fortune--2020-03-30--Finding a middle ground to tackle the coronavirus crisis

Good morning.
President Trump’s talk of reopening the economy on Easter, which he has now backed off of, has helped launched an important debate. At the moment, we seem stuck between two unrealistic alternatives: 1) a quick return to work, or 2) a widespread lockdown until a vaccine is ready (a year or more in the future). Both alternatives could lead to social and economic breakdown. But no one has articulated a clear vision for what the reasonable middle ground would look like.
What might it look like? The elements of a possible strategy are beginning to emerge. It will probably involve a nationwide lockdown that lasts at least through the end of May. Then, the return to work needs to roll out gradually, and include the following elements: continued protection/isolation for vulnerable populations; continued restrictions on large gatherings; increased production of protective equipment and ventilators; some proven therapies for treating the most vulnerable; priority given to those who can’t work from home over those who can; staggered start times to minimize rush hour crowding; widespread and rapid testing so new infections can be spotted quickly; sharp restrictions on travel so new infections can be isolated and contained; and antibody testing so immune individuals can be identified. The world should be watching China, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea as they probe the parameters of such an effort—even though more democratic societies will struggle to mimic many of their less democratic tactics.
Government needs to lead this effort; but business plays a critical role. Fortune will be holding a virtual gathering of members of its CEO Initiative tomorrow, to begin a conversation on this topic. I’ll have more to report on Wednesday.
In the meantime, former Honeywell CEO Dave Cote—who successfully navigated the Great Recession and added $60 billion to his company’s market value before stepping down in 2017—has some advice for CEOs in the midst of this crisis. You can read the full interview here, but some excerpts:
—Focus on leadership, not consensus. “What matters is getting feedback from all your people, then making a decision.”
—Hope for the best, plan for the worst. “Pick a plan and start executing as if you expect the worst to happen.”
—Keep workers around for the recovery. In the recession “we did very few layoffs… Instead, we relied on furloughs.”
—In a crisis, don’t take a bonus. “When workers asked me if I intended to take a bonus for 2009, I’d say that was up to the board… That was a big mistake.”
More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Markets fall—again
Markets were opening lower once again on Monday morning, and crude futures in the U.S. fell below $20/barrel once again on Sunday morning—an 18-year low—before slightly recovering. In oil markets, a vast surplus from the drop in demand paired with more supply from Saudi Arabia also means the sector is facing a logistical challenge: within weeks, it could run out of storage. FT
Small Business Loan Package
A small business loan program, as part of the overall $2 trillion government relief package, is expected to come this week, while workers can expect direct deposits or checks in three weeks, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said on Sunday. “Any FDIC bank, any credit union, any fintech lender will be authorized to make these loans” to a small business subject to certain approvals, Mnuchin said. That comes after 3.28 million people filed for unemployment insurance in the week ended March 21. Bloomberg
Cash Dash
Global corporate bond issuance by some of the world's largest "investment grade" companies has surged to $244 billion so far in March—the largest move since a record sale of $252 billion last September. Those include companies from Berkshire Hathaway to Disney and Pfizer, and those issuances were picking up pace last week after massive government stimulus was unveiled. FT
Hit Bottom
Analysts at JPMorgan predict the market has already hit bottom—noting that recession-style pricing, massive fiscal stimulus, and investors shifting their positioning has already occurred. But they note that coronavirus infection rates are still a "wild card"—and others think there's still further to go. Fortune
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
Labor Shift
The fall-out from the spread of coronavirus is the largest labor shift since the Second World War, staffing companies say, as furloughed workers across hospitality, aviation, and tourism are being recruited to online delivery, grocery chains, and even agriculture. “Tens of thousands of jobs open up overnight,” said Becky Frankiewicz, president of ManpowerGroup North America. “We have to move within hours.” WSJ
Instacart Strike
Instacart—the online grocery delivery service—is in demand, with orders soaring amid widespread lockdowns, and the company has pledged to hire another 300,000 delivery people. But workers from the company will strike on Monday, saying the company has ignored their demands for protective equipment, hazard pay, and access to sick-pay for at-risk workers and those who have coronavirus symptoms. Fortune
The race to design a better face mask
Face masks are easily contaminated—potentially spreading the disease. So now, researchers and designers are racing to design a better option: a mask that can kill viruses and bacteria, rather than just trap them. The current designs in the works use salt crystals, or nano-diamonds. Fortune
The Iceland Approach
In Iceland, any citizen can request a coronavirus test, simply by filling out an online form. That's part of an effort by the country's public health authority to test as broadly as possible to draw a real sample of how wide the virus has spread—rather than only testing those with symptoms, as is the case in the U.S. and U.K. Without widespread testing, “they do not have the faintest idea of how and why it is spreading in the society,” says the CEO of the Icelandic biopharma company DeCODE. Fortune
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by Katherine Dunn


fortune--2020-03-30--Malaria drug Trump touted as coronavirus treatment has been given FDA emergency authorization

Coronavirus could put 47 million people out of work , says the Fed

A drug President Donald Trump backed as a possible “game changer” in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic received an emergency-use designation from U.S. regulators.
The Health and Human Services Department accepted 30 million doses of the drug, hydroxychloroquine, from Novartis AG’s Sandoz unit, Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement late Sunday.
Normally used to treat malaria, hydroxychloroquine yielded promising yet inconclusive results in a small coronavirus trial. While Trump has said the drug is safe, it does carry significant side effects. Some people have been sickened, with one reported death, after taking various versions to try to ward off the new illness.
Trump said 1,100 patients in New York City are getting treatment using hydroxychloroquine. As global cases surged past 700,000, the city has emerged as one of the pandemic’s hot spots.
“Let’s see how it works,” Trump said in his daily briefing Sunday. “It may, it may not.”
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has cautioned against the use of unproven treatments against coronavirus.
“The history of medicine is strewn with examples of drugs that worked on paper or in a test tube but didn’t work in humans or were actually harmful,” he said in a briefing. “We must follow the evidence. There are no shortcuts.”
A rush to use medicines against coronavirus could also cause shortages for patients with illnesses that the drugs are normally used to treat. India banned exports of hydroxychloroquine to maintain supplies needed to combat malaria.
The Food and Drug Administration gave emergency use authorization to hydroxychloroquine and a related malaria drug, chloroquine, according to the statement. The agency can authorize emergency use when there are no available alternatives and the “known and potential” benefits of the product outweigh known and potential risks.
Efforts to find solutions to the virus’s advance are mounting as the number of worldwide cases soars, and health systems in Italy and Spain threaten to crack under the burden of desperately ill and contagious patients. A variety of treatments, including Gilead Sciences Inc.’s remdesivir, are currently in randomized, controlled clinical trials.
Scientists are also investigating the utility of a vaccine against tuberculosis that’s been used for about a century to see whether it will bolster the body’s immune system against coronavirus. The shot, called BCG or bacillus Calmette-Guerin, is being given to health-care workers in Melbourne to see whether it will protect them.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—Why Iceland’s approach to coronavirus testing may be better than America’s
—Everything you need to know about the coronavirus stimulus checks
—Glow sticks to surgical masks: Businesses pivot to tackle coronavirus shortages
—The world’s largest coronavirus lockdown is off to a rocky start
—The oil sector is quickly running out of storage for its unprecedented surplus
—The $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package isn’t green, but it helps
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: World leaders and health experts on how to stop the spread of COVID-19
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily newsletter roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business. It’s free to get it in your inbox.


fortune--2020-03-30--JPMorgan says the coronavirus market rout has probably hit bottom already

Strategists at JPMorgan Chase & Co. have concluded that most risk assets — a universe that typically includes stocks and credit — have seen their low points for the recession that’s gripped economies around the world.
Conditions that JPMorgan had set for market stabilization and revival have largely been met, with recession-like pricing, a reversal in investor positioning and extraordinary fiscal stimulus, strategists led by John Normand wrote in a note Friday. Coronavirus infection rates remain a “wild card,” as they remain high even if they’re “slowing” in the U.S. and Europe.
“Risky markets should remain volatile as long as infection rates create uncertainty about the depth and duration of the Covid recession, but enough has changed fundamentally and technically to justify adding risk selectively,” Normand wrote. “Most risky markets have probably made their lows for this recession, except perhaps oil and some EM currencies beset by debt-sustainability issues.”
Most risk assets should trade higher in the second quarter of the year, Normand said. He recommends that investors average into oversold markets, particularly those where central banks are buying directly. (Averaging into markets entails spreading out the purchases over time rather than diving in in one go.)
Not everyone sees the bottom as necessarily in.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s David Kostin reiterated in a note Friday that he expects the market to turn lower in coming weeks. He cited a checklist for a sustained rally similar to Normand’s — of slowing viral spread, evidence that fiscal and monetary policy stimulus is working, and a bottoming in investor positioning and flows.
Gavekal Research Ltd.’s Anatole Kaletsky said in a note Monday that it’s too early to buy equities, citing reasons including “surprisingly complacent” investor sentiment and historical data showing bear markets almost never end on a single massive sell-off without retesting the bottom.
Off the Low
The MSCI All Country World Index tumbled some 34% from its February record high to its recent low on March 23. As of early London trading Monday, it had recouped more than quarter of that loss.
Normand said his approach dovetails with the recommendations in the past week from bottom-up analysts at JPMorgan to add exposure in U.S. and European credit, peripheral European sovereigns, and U.S. and European inflation breakevens.
On the stocks side, things are somewhat more nuanced. JPMorgan’s multi-asset portfolio has been overweight equities all year, though partially hedged with short positions in credit and long ones in the U.S. dollar.
“Thus, future adjustments would be in terms of magnitude and funding source rather than in overall tilt,” Normand said. He added that the firm’s global equity strategists “believe that the risk-reward for equities remains skewed to the downside” because relief rallies will be faded.
Normand cautions that not all apparently cheap markets should be bought, as there is still a risk-reward spectrum. Developed-market bonds should be used to fund allocations to cheap credit and equities, but bond sell-offs should also be used as opportunities to buy duration as insurance against the next shock.
Credit generally has higher risk-adjusted returns than equities, so in volatility-adjusted terms may be superior in the market bottoming process over the coming weeks, Normand said.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Everything you need to know about the coronavirus stimulus checks
—The quickest way to boost the economy isn’t even being considered. Why?
—How does America pay for the coronavirus relief bill? With two shiny coins
—Will the “Great Cessation” be worse than the Great Recession?
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: U.S. tax deadline moved from April 15 to July 15
Subscribe to Fortune’s Bull Sheet for no-nonsense finance news and analysis daily.


fortune--2020-03-30--Tighter coronavirus lockdown concerns rattle the global markets

Macy ’ s has ‘ lost the majority of our sales ’ and will furlough most employees

This is the web version of the Bull Sheet, Fortune’s no-BS daily newsletter on the markets. Sign up to receive it in your inbox here.
Good morning, Bull Sheeters. The coronavirus death toll continues to climb, now nearing 34,000 around the world. Lockdowns are being tightened. New stimulus measures are in the works.
What impact is this having on the global markets? Let’s check in.
Markets update
China cut it prime bank-lending rate on Monday and injected 50 billion yuan ($7.1 billion) into the banking system. The stimulus measures, however, failed to lift markets in Shanghai or Hong Kong. Japan’s Nikkei is down too. Over the weekend, the country recorded a new spike in coronavirus infections. Not long ago, the media was wondering: how the heck did Japan manage to avert this global killer?
***
Continuing our global tour of markets, the major bourses in Frankfurt, Milan and Paris all opened in the green, before quickly sliding into negative territory.
The coronavirus crisis is dividing Europe over the question of how to pay for the staggering bailout plans in the works. Nine countries, including hard-hit Italy, Spain and France, are in favor of EU-wide “corona bonds.” The Germans, true to form, are unconvinced it’s a good idea. Meanwhile, the combined death toll in Spain and Italy climbed above 3,000 over the weekend.
Across the English Channel, Fitch Ratings cut Britain’s credit rating. The one-two punch of coronavirus and Brexit forced Fitch to downgrade the U.K. outlook to negative.
London’s FTSE opened in the red this morning.
***
As I type, the Dow and S&P 500 are both poised to open in the red as coronavirus fears deepen. Over the weekend, Dr. Anthony Fauci, a chief medical advisor to the White House, warned the U.S. could see millions of coronavirus cases and over 100,000 deaths. President Trump seemed to take those words seriously, extending the wholly voluntary social distancing guidelines through April 30.
So much for back-to-normal by Easter.
***
Elsewhere, the dollar is climbing again, snapping a four-day slump. Gold is flat, and oil is tanking. WTI crude fell below $20 per barrel at one point today, hitting its lowest price since November 2002, as the Saudis and Russians remain miles apart in their dispute about how to manage the collapse in demand.
***
Last week, the markets cheered stimulus packages from Washington to Berlin. This week, the news flow will no doubt be less cheerful. The U.S. jobs report comes out Friday, and the unemployment claims tally will be revealed on Thursday. Both are pointing to record numbers of Americans out of work.
That means we’re unlikely to see a repeat of last week. The S&P 500 climbed 13.6% last week, and that’s despite sliding by 3.4% on Friday. The Dow actually outperformed the S&P 500. But the S&P still managed to notch, at one point, its best three-day run since 1933.
Let’s go inside the numbers.
***
Barely a dent
As today’s chart shows, some of last week’s top performing S&P sectors—industrials, energy and financials—have been among the worst performers of 2020. In a lockdown economy, health care and consumer staples are the most likely to outperform the larger index. Energy and financials, in contrast, probably won’t make a sustained recovery until people get out of their homes, reopen their businesses and start traveling again. Who knows when that will be?
You can see that uncertainty reflected in the red bars. Energy is down 52.3% year-to-date. Financials are down 31.6% in that period. Consumer staples (-15%) and health care (-16.6%), while down significantly YTD, are outperforming the broader S&P 500 (-22%) in that period.
Postscript
If you manage to get out of the house, you’re bound to hear new coronavirus stories. That’s what happened on Friday when my wife took our daughter for her scheduled day-hospital visit. A kidney transplant recipient, my daughter gets poked with needles and weighed and measured at least once a month at the nephrology unit at the children’s hospital here in Rome, Bambino Gesu. These visits fill me with dread and they renew my faith in humanity. Dread that her creatinine level will spike. Admiration for the docs and nurses and parents who soldier through an ordeal that seems to have no end in sight. I marvel at the toughness of these kids.
Because of coronavirus contagion fears, the hospital is now scheduling the visits in small groups—no more than four or five families per day. Across the hall, the dialysis sessions are broken into more shifts with fewer kids. They start early in the morning and end late in the evening. You can see the strain on everyone’s faces.
Meanwhile, all transplants—the news everyone is waiting for—have been paused. They’re not doing living-donor transplants because of the heightened risk of coronavirus infection, and they’re no longer getting any donor organs from the overwhelmed hospitals around the country. In fact, a half-million non-urgent surgeries have been postponed around the country since Italy went into lockdown less than one month ago, health officials estimate.
It means more lost time for those kids on dialysis. It’s hard to fathom how they’ll work through the backlog when things return to normal.
It’s a reminder, to me at least, that there are fates far worse than being confined to a shelter-in-place lockdown.
Stay healthy, everyone. I’ll see you here tomorrow.
Bernhard Warner
@BernhardWarner
Bernhard.Warner@Fortune.com
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Today's reads
How long does a bear market run? After Friday's swoon, this is the question again on the minds of most investors. Fortune's Jen Wieczner goes to the history books to chart out how long bear markets tend to run, how deep they tend to drop, and how long you should expect to wait before the next bull market arrives. There have been some relatively benign bear markets (1990) and some real bruisers (the dot-com bubble burst of the early aughts).
Sell the rips. Buy the dips. That's the somewhat simplistic programming logic that powers some high-speed trading algorithms, which are, in general, absolutely cleaning up these days. Turns out the markets volatility we've seen in recent weeks has been a boom for high-speed trading. According to the Wall Street Journal, Virtu Financial Inc., one of the largest high-speed trading firms, is on pace for its best quarter since going public five years ago. It expects trading income to top a half-billion dollars this quarter.
Nationalize payrolls? Such a radical stimulus plan is a non-starter in the U.S. But it's about to go effect in a series of European countries in which the government will cover all or most of the pay checks of millions of out-of-work citizens. “If you can tide firms over and thereby reduce the severity of bankruptcies and firings, you can expedite the return to normal,” a Danish economist argues in the New York Times.
Market candy
Quote
“What the older professionals were saying was, when the market does this, you should look at it like when Macy’s puts stuff on sale. You have the opportunity to buy good stuff cheap. And that’s eventually what turns the market around.”
Judith Villarreal, general counsel and chief compliance officer for CoreCap Investments, recalls that crazy day in October, 1987—Black Monday—and what she learned from the event. There are a number of excellent take-aways in Erik Sherman's insightful article on Fortune.com about what those in the trenches learned from the past three bear markets.


fortune--2020-03-30--Gilead to expand access to remdesivir, its promising coronavirus treatment

Gilead Sciences Inc. will expand access to its experimental anti-coronavirus drug remdesivir to accelerate its emergency use for multiple severely ill patients.
The drugmaker said it’s switching to “expanded access” from a “compassionate use” program under which remdesivir was given to more than 1,000 Covid-19 patients.
“With expanded access, hospitals or physicians can apply for emergency use of remdesivir for multiple severely ill patients at a time,” Daniel O’Day, Gilead’s chairman and chief executive officer, said in an open letter sent by email Saturday. “While it will take some time to build a network of active sites, this approach will ultimately accelerate emergency access for more people.
A World Health Organization panel said in January that remdesivir was considered to be the most promising therapeutic candidate based on its broad antiviral spectrum, and existing data based on human and animal studies. The medication was developed initially for Ebola and studied in patients in Eastern Congo.
Multiple clinical trials are investigating the drug’s effects in Covid-19 patients in China and elsewhere. Initial results may be reported in the coming weeks, O’Day said.
If it is approved, the Foster City, California-based company “will work to ensure affordability and access so that remdesivir is available to patients with the greatest need,” he said.
“The urgency comes from knowing the desperate need among patients and the lack of any approved treatment,” O’Day said. “The responsibility is to ensure that remdesivir, an investigational medicine, is effective and safe before it is distributed for use worldwide.”
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—Why Iceland’s approach to coronavirus testing may be better than America’s
—Everything you need to know about the coronavirus stimulus checks
—Glow sticks to surgical masks: Businesses pivot to tackle coronavirus shortages
—The world’s largest coronavirus lockdown is off to a rocky start
—The oil sector is quickly running out of storage for its unprecedented surplus
—The $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package isn’t green, but it helps
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: World leaders and health experts on how to stop the spread of COVID-19
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily newsletter roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business. It’s free to get it in your inbox.


fortune--2020-03-29--Trump adds 30 days to social distancing guidelines as coronavirus spreads

President Donald Trump is extending the voluntary national shutdown for a month as sickness and death from the coronavirus pandemic rise in the U.S.
The initial 15-day period of social distancing urged by the federal government expires Monday and Trump had expressed interest in relaxing the national guidelines at least in parts of the country less afflicted by the pandemic. But instead he decided to extend them through April 30, a tacit acknowledgment he’d been too optimistic. Many states and local governments have stiffer controls in place on mobility and gatherings.
Trump’s impulse to restore normalcy met a sober reality check Sunday from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, who said the U.S. could experience more than 100,000 deaths and millions of infections from the pandemic. Trump’s decision to extend the guidelines reflected a recognition that the struggle will take place over the longer haul.
The federal guidelines recommend against large group gatherings and urge older people and anyone with existing health problems to stay home. People are urged to work at home when possible and avoid restaurants, bars, non-essential travel and shopping trips.
The extension would leave the federal recommendations in place beyond Easter on April 12, by which time Trump had hoped the country and its economy could start to rev up again. Alarmed public-health officials said Easter was sure to be too soon.
The U.S. had more than 137,000 COVID-19 cases reported by late Sunday afternoon, with more than 2,400 deaths.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—Why Iceland’s approach to coronavirus testing may be better than America’s
—Everything you need to know about the coronavirus stimulus checks
—Glow sticks to surgical masks: Businesses pivot to tackle coronavirus shortages
—The world’s largest coronavirus lockdown is off to a rocky start
—The oil sector is quickly running out of storage for its unprecedented surplus
—The $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package isn’t green, but it helps
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: World leaders and health experts on how to stop the spread of COVID-19
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily newsletter roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business. It’s free to get it in your inbox.


fortune--2020-03-29--New York delays presidential primary to June 23

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he was delaying the state’s presidential primary from April 28 to June 23, when the state plans to hold legislative congressional and local party primaries.
“I don’t think it’s wise to be bringing people to one location to vote” on the April date, he said.
New York joins over a dozen states that have delayed some elections. A smaller group including Ohio, Georgia, Louisiana, Connecticut, Maryland, Rhode Island, Indiana and Kentucky have also postponed their presidential primaries.
The governor’s decision came as election commissioners across New York warned they were “risking” their health and safety to meet impending deadlines for testing machines and preparing ballots ahead of the April 28 date.
Cuomo also says he’s signing an executive order instructing hospitals to allow at least one partner into delivery rooms.
The governor took the action Saturday after some hospitals had barred patients from having any visitors, including expectant fathers, because of the risk those people could pose to health care workers if they are infected.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—What the coronavirus shutdown means for immigrant workers
—The Supreme Court has shunned technology. Could coronavirus change that?
—Are cash handouts, tax holidays, and bond purchases the global economy’s best hope?
—The workers the U.S. government deems “essential” amid the coronavirus pandemic
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: U.S. tax deadline moved from April 15 to July 15
Get up to speed on your morning commute with Fortune’s CEO Daily newsletter.


fortune--2020-03-29--The coronavirus outbreak is making it harder for campaigns to fundraise

Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily newsletter roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business. It’s free to get it in your inbox.
White House candidates aren’t usually bashful about asking supporters for money.
But as the coronavirus upends everyday life, inundating hospitals, tanking financial markets and putting 3.3 million Americans out of work, President Donald Trump and his likely Democratic rival, Joe Biden, suddenly find themselves navigating perilous terrain.
What used to be a routine request for political cash could now come across as tone-deaf or tacky. The two also run the risk of competing for limited dollars with charities trying to raise money for pandemic relief. With a recession potentially on the horizon, there’s a question of whether wealthy donors are in a giving mood and whether grassroots supporters who chip in small amounts will still have the wherewithal to keep at it.
That presents a delicate challenge as both candidates try to stockpile the massive amounts of cash needed for the general election campaign.
“It’s hard to have a conversation with someone right now to ask how they’re getting by, and then ask them for financial support in the next sentence,” said Greg Goddard, a Democratic fundraiser who worked for Amy Klobuchar’s presidential campaign before the Minnesota senator dropped out of the Democratic race.
To Tim Lim, a Democratic consultant who worked for both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, “it’s a world where no one has a good answer.” He said that ”on the fundraising side, we are going to take some massive hits as a party.”
The task is particularly acute for Biden. The former vice president is trying to pivot from the primary to the general election in a race essentially frozen by the virus.
He lacks Trump’s reelection cash reserves, which were built up over the past three years of his presidency. Biden also has yet to clinch the nomination and won’t be able to do so until postponed primary contests are held in the months ahead.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, his sole remaining 2020 rival, has given no indication that he will back out, despite Biden’s virtually insurmountable lead in the delegate race.
The pandemic has put all big-dollar fundraisers on hold, like all in-person political events. That’s forced Trump and Biden, for now, to rely on online fundraising.
Biden is holding virtual fundraisers via video conferences. But they lack the exclusivity and tactile nature of an in-person event, where donors can network, see and be seen. Biden and Trump continue to send out fundraising emails and texts.
“It isn’t easy for me to ask you for money today,” Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a fundraising email Thursday, seeking contributions as low as $5. “There are so many deserving charities and small businesses in your community where your money makes a huge difference right now. And of course, your own needs and the needs of your family take precedence.”
But, she continued, “we have to keep fundraising because we have to keep campaigning. And we have to keep campaigning because it’s the only way we can defeat Trump in November.”
Trump repeatedly played down the threat posed by the virus in the early days of the outbreak, and his campaign was no exception. It blasted out fundraising texts with familiar themes, such as attacking Biden, Sanders and the media. The campaign enticed donors by offering Trump-themed items, including a set of shamrock whiskey glasses offered up in exchange for a $35 contribution around St. Patrick’s Day.
But in a March 12 message, his campaign also texted supporters a “coronavirus update,” which reflected Trump’s newfound concern over the virus and did not include a request for money.
“The safety, security, and health of the American People is President Trump’s top priority right now,” the message said. It also urged supporters to visit the U.S government’s coronavirus website to “learn ways to keep you, your family, and your community safe.”
His campaign has since returned to form, and one recent text excoriated former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, whom Trump nicknamed “Mini Mike,” for using a provision in campaign finance law to transfer $18 million leftover from his abandoned presidential campaign to the Democratic National Committee.
Trump campaign spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany didn’t respond to a request for comment.
On Saturday, the Biden and Trump campaigns sent out multiple fundraising requests over email and text.
Biden asked for $5 while suggesting that Trump’s early minimizing of the virus means it “will hit all of us harder than it otherwise might have, and it will take us longer to recover.”
Trump sent out an email with the subject line: “LET’S CRUSH IT.” The email asked supporters to “keep America great” and suggested that donations would help block “radical SOCIALISTS like Crazy Bernie or Quid Pro Joe gain an ounce of momentum.”
Sanders has earned praise for turning to his army of small-dollar donors to raise $3.5 million for virus relief instead of his campaign. The senator, whose campaign is fueled by grassroots online donors, has stopped sending out fundraising emails.
“Right now my focus is on this extraordinary crisis,” Sanders told The Associated Press on Wednesday, after declining to discuss the future of his campaign.
Bloomberg also shelved plans to leverage his billions of dollars of personal wealth to run an outside group aimed at preventing Trump’s reelection. Instead, he recently promoted a $40 million philanthropic effort aimed at curtailing the spread of the virus.
While the virus has disrupted many facets of life, Democratic fundraisers are optimistic that a degree of normalcy will return eventually. That will be a benefit to Biden.
Trump, as the incumbent, controls the Republican National Committee, giving him a major fundraising edge Biden lacks because he is not the nominee. Fundraising committees controlled by political parties can take in massive sums for candidates, such as Trump, with whom they have entered into joint agreements.
The DNC does not yet have a similar arrangement with Biden. His supporters are laying the groundwork for when it does.
“People like me are quietly reaching out to the bigger donors to let them know we are about to enter the next phase,” said Steve Westly, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. “There’s not a lot of fundraising going on right now, but the big picture is we’re getting near the time when the DNC will be involved and there will be much higher limits.”
Many Democrats also think Trump’s handling of the crisis will be a clarifying moment and they predicted an outpouring of donations once the campaign resumes.
“We are in a life or death situation, and people like the idea of a competent president, like Joe Biden,” said Mathew Littman, a former Biden speechwriter who is the executive director of Win the West, a pro-Biden super PAC that is focusing on Western states.
Still, Littman acknowledged that for at least the time being, fundraising might be a little slow.
“Not everybody is going to be able to donate to a super PAC, that’s for sure,” he said.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—What the coronavirus shutdown means for immigrant workers
—The Supreme Court has shunned technology. Could coronavirus change that?
—Are cash handouts, tax holidays, and bond purchases the global economy’s best hope?
—The workers the U.S. government deems “essential” amid the coronavirus pandemic
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: U.S. tax deadline moved from April 15 to July 15
Get up to speed on your morning commute with Fortune’s CEO Daily newsletter.


fortune--2020-03-29--The Coronavirus Economy: How my job as a bar and restaurant owner in Los Angeles has changed so far

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This was supposed to be the week that Grant Smillie opened his second restaurant in Los Angeles—his first, E.P. & L.P., is a sprawling, critically acclaimed three-story Southeast Asian joint that can accommodate up to 470 customers at once. Instead, rocked by the COVID-19 pandemic, the 42-year-old co-owner of the Botanical Group, a hospitality firm with bars and restaurants in L.A. and Melbourne, found himself telling his 125 employees that there would be no shifts for the foreseeable future.
With a “shelter in place” law blanketing California until April 19, bars and restaurants can’t serve dine-in customers, and Smillie had to weigh the costs of pivoting quickly to a takeout and delivery model or ceasing operations altogether. In 2019, California bars, restaurants, and nightclubs grossed $90 billion in revenue, according to IBISWorld. Smillie, like hospitality professionals all over the country, is grappling with questions he can’t answer. How will he pay his rent? What about his staff? When can his places reopen? With a recession looming, will customers come back?
Fortune spoke with Smillie for a new series, The Coronavirus Economy, to find out how COVID-19 has affected his business and how he thinks the pandemic could change the landscape of American dining. The following Q&A has been condensed and lightly edited.
Grant Smillie, co-owner of the Botanical Group, a hospitality firm with bars and restaurants in L.A. and Melbourne. Courtesy of Grant Smillie
Fortune: When did you realize that this pandemic was going to impact your business?
Smillie: I was in Japan, the second week of March, for a good friend’s 40th birthday. It was supposed to be a ski trip, but every time you got on a chairlift, all you’d end up doing is refreshing your phone going, “This is bad, this is bad, this is very bad.” I left two days after I arrived.
By Sunday [March 15], there was a lot of speculation about what was going to happen. When one of my colleagues rang me and said, “We’re going to close, are you going to close?,” I realized that we had to make some decisions. The worst part was thinking about, Are we closing because the law is forcing us to, or is it a moral obligation? I don’t want to put anyone at risk, but I also don’t want to put my people out of work.
It turned out—as we found out when the mayor announced all Los Angeles restaurants had to stop dine-in service as of March 16—that we were in the same bucket as gyms and business centers. It’s awful—if you’re an upwardly mobile person in Southern California, this is what you do—work, train, go out, eat, and drink.
Was E.P. & L.P. set up for delivery and takeout?
It was, but it wasn’t a decent revenue for us. It wasn’t of any significance.
The shuttered kitchen of E.P. & L.P., a sprawling, critically acclaimed three-story Southeast Asian joint in Los Angeles. Courtesy of Grant Smillie
Did you make any changes at the restaurant before you had to stop dine-in service?
We’re an Asian eating house. It’s a shared dining experience. By March 12, we had converted the entire menu to be non-sharing. Certain dishes couldn’t comply, so we figured out new ones. But we could see the drop-off in reservations. The math wasn’t adding up. If you’re used to 150 diners coming in, then all of a sudden it’s 35, how long can you sustain?
Are you offering delivery and takeout now?
No. The task of trying to overhaul the restaurant again, it was too much. It’s not going to be worthwhile, the labor cost versus the sales. If this thing drags on into July, my position may change.
What about your staff?
The hourly people, unfortunately, have no shifts. Our management and office staff is still on salary at this stage. We’re trying to get everyone working remotely, whatever that looks like. But how long can we sustain without any revenue coming in? How are we going to pay our rent? We’ve got huge overhead. If we knew it was going to be May 2, we could plan for it. But we don’t know.
How did you end up participating in the dining bonds initiative, where people can pay $80 for a “bond” that will be worth $100 when the restaurant reopens?
It was just a good idea. A friend of ours, Meghan Patke, who does our public relations, suggested this was a way to get some value back into the business. I don’t think any of us are going to retire off of these bonds. But it’s a great way to get people back into the venue. The whole thing comes back to, when are we reopening? That’s the million-dollar question. Of course, the sad truth is that some people are going to buy a bond to a restaurant that doesn’t fucking make it.
Whatever the outcome is here, it may well change the landscape of dining. Will there be this enormous bounce-back where it’s back to party time? Fingers crossed, but right now, I really don’t know. I think consumers are going to be driven by value. Maybe it’s a chance to pivot some items, dishes, and service models. We’ve been going about things the same way because it’s the way they’ve always been. I’m going to use this time to rethink how we operate.
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fortune--2020-03-29--Mnuchin gives timeline for stimulus checks and small business loan program

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Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said he expects to have a small business loan program up and running in the coming week while workers can expect aid from the $2 trillion stimulus package in the form of direct deposits or checks in about three weeks.
The administration is focused on getting “this money into the economy quickly,” Mnuchin said on “Fox News Sunday,” one of two television appearances for the day. “That’s a combination of small business loans that will be available this week” and checks to households which he called “bridge checks.”
“Any FDIC bank, any credit union, any fintech lender will be authorized to make these loans” to a small business subject to certain approvals, Mnuchin said.
Mnuchin was the White House’s lead negotiator on a $2 trillion economic stimulus package signed into law by President Donald Trump Friday to buffer the economy against the wide-scale shutdown and joblessness as the coronavirus swept through the country.
The magnitude of the economic devastation being wrought by the coronavirus pandemic was laid bare on Thursday when the U.S. government reported an unprecedented surge in the number of people seeking jobless benefits.
Wall Street’s role
A total of 3.28 million people filed for unemployment insurance in the week ended March 21, dwarfing previous highs in Labor Department reports published since 1967.
In a separate interview on CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” Mnuchin said the stimulus package should provide economic relief to workers and business for about eight to ten weeks.
Unlike the Troubled Asset Relief Program, where the Treasury compelled banks to beef up their capital during the financial crisis, Mnuchin told CBS, “We are not going to force money on any companies.”
The firms have to request aid, he said, and the Wall Street banks helping to manage the assistance will be working for “very reduced rates.”
Lawmakers are urging the administration to get the funds out quickly. Senator Mike Crapo, an Idaho Republican who is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, wrote to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Mnuchin Saturday, urging both to “work quickly” to issue guidance so that “businesses—including small and medium-sized businesses—states, municipalities and Tribes, understand what programs and facilities are available.”
Suspend dividends
The Fed has announced its intention to launch a Main Street Lending Facility to loan directly to medium-sized businesses while the stimulus bill recommends support for the markets that finance states and municipalities.
Carstens, chief executive officer of the BIS, a coordinator for global central banks based in Basel, Switzerland, said banks worldwide should suspend all dividend and stock buyback programs to retain more capital for lending as he called for stronger forms of credit support.
“The U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision to enter the corporate bond market marks a bold step in the right direction,” Carstens wrote in a column for the Financial Times this weekend. “But more may still be needed to build the last mile to the small businesses at the end of the line.”
Carstens recommended a government-guaranteed loan program equal to the amount of taxes small businesses paid in 2019 that could be securitizes and then refinanced through the central bank. The stimulus bill already outlines how lending should be conducted for small business and lists payroll costs as one criteria.
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—WATCH: World leaders and health experts on how to stop the spread of COVID-19
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fortune--2020-03-29--At this Milwaukee factory, orders for hospital wipes are up—as are daily temperature checks

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At 6 a.m. on Tuesday, March 24, Julie Graverson stood behind a plexiglass barrier to monitor each employee at Sellars Absorbent Materials as they got their temperature taken.
So far during the coronavirus crisis, none of the 250 employees at the Milwaukee-based manufacturer of shop towels, disposable wipers, toilet tissue, and other paper products has had to be sent home for having a temperature over 100 degrees.
After the first shift was cleared for work, Graverson, vice president of operations, supervised the taping-off of areas on the manufacturing floor, in the break room, and other places—an effort to ensure that the workers stay six feet apart.
When Graverson arrived home after work, she went first into the laundry room, left her clothes there, cleaned up a bit, donned a robe and then showered—all in hopes of not “contaminating” anything inside her home.
That no Sellars employee has yet tested positive for COVID-19 can be attributed at least in part to those steps and others taken by Tom Sellars, chairman and CEO of the 35-year-old company, long before most Americans had heard of Wuhan, China, the source of the coronavirus outbreak.
Sellars recalls it was Feb. 23, the day Italy experienced its first surge of coronavirus cases, that he began to act. He withdrew his company from a global trade show in Miami that was to be held in mid-March and canceled all company travel—including plans for his brother John, the company’s founder and president, and another employee to travel to Seattle, near where the first coronavirus death in the United States was recorded on Feb. 29.
Sellars said some people thought he was overreacting. But his sense was that too much of the United States was reacting with an attitude of “it’s no big deal,” despite signs that a worldwide outbreak was brewing.
The coronavirus has meant booked sales for March are 30% above budget for Sellars’ company, as it shifts more production to the cleaning wipes that health care facilities need. Sellars doesn’t sell directly to health care providers. Its health care customers include distributors which pick up Sellars cleaning wipes and towels by truck and delivers them to health care providers. “They are seeing and anticipating ongoing high demand. We are having to put limits on how much we are allowing people to purchase above normal so we can serve all of our customers,” said John Sellars. “The challenge in something like this is we’re not taking on new customers; we’re trying to take care of the customers we have,” adds Sellars.
Operations continue to run nearly 24/7—though not without worries.
Like much of American society, “you have people who are very anxious and concerned, and then folks who are trying to do the best they can, and then you have folks who are just not paying enough attention,” said Kathy Huntsinger, the vice president of human resources and Tom and John Sellars’ sister.
Sellars is shipping hundreds of additional truckloads over the next month by optimizing production. Courtesy ofSellars Absorbent Materials
The mood on the floor is more somber, said trainer Al Hagen, the go-to guy for any machine problems; he joined the company on the recommendation of his brother-in-law 17 years ago. “We’re still joking and laughing, but a lot less,” he said.
Graverson hopes for a silver lining.
“I expect that we come out of this and maybe be just a little bit more conscientious about each other, and also a little bit more aware about what’s important in life,” she said. “When you’re isolated, you kind of start thinking about time is precious. I hope that we’re just better people after this.”
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—Why the extraordinary dollar surge spells more trouble for the global economy
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fortune--2020-03-29--U.S. coronavirus deaths could hit 200,000 and ‘we’re going to have millions of cases,’ says Fauci

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As the White House looks for ways to restore normalcy in parts of the U.S., the government’s foremost infection disease expert says the country could experience more than 100,000 deaths and millions of infections from the coronavirus pandemic.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, offered his prognosis as the federal government weighs rolling back guidelines on social distancing in areas that have not been as hard-hit by the outbreak at the conclusion of the nationwide 15-day effort to slow the spread of the virus.
“I would say between 100,000 and 200,000 cases,” he said, correcting himself to say he meant deaths. “We’re going to have millions of cases.” But he added “I don’t want to be held to that” because the pandemic is “such a moving target.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci says there could potentially be between 100,000 to 200,000 deaths related to the coronavirus and millions of cases. “I just don’t think that we really need to make a projection when it’s such a moving target, that you could so easily be wrong,” he adds. #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/F2MOHY3xl4 — State of the Union (@CNNSotu) March 29, 2020
About 125,000 cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. had been recorded as of Sunday morning, with over 2,100 dead. It is certain that many more have the disease but their cases have not been reported.
One in three Americans remain under state or local government orders to stay at home to slow the spread of the virus, with schools and businesses closed and public life upended.
Dr. Deborah Birx, head of the White House coronavirus task force, said parts of the country with few cases so far must prepare for what’s to come. “No state, no metro area, will be spared,” she said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Fauci said he would only support the rollback in lesser-impacted areas if more testing is in place to monitor those areas. He said “it’s a little iffy there” right now.
Most people who contract COVID-19 have mild or moderate symptoms, which can include fever and cough but also milder cases of pneumonia, sometimes requiring hospitalization. The risk of death is greater for older adults and people with other health problems. Hospitals in the most afflicted areas are straining to handle patients and some are short of critical supplies.
Fauci’s prediction would take the death toll well past that of the average seasonal flu. Trump repeatedly cited the flu’s comparatively much higher cost in lives in playing down the severity of this pandemic.
Trump had eyed a “reopening” of the U.S. economy by Easter, April 12, but in recent days medical professionals have warned that would be far too soon for the nation’s heavily affected urban areas.
Just on Saturday, Trump was discussing tightening restrictions, suggesting then backing away from an “enforceable” quarantine of hard-hit New York, Connecticut and New Jersey. Instead, the White House task force recommended a travel advisory for residents of those states to limit non-essential travel to slow the spread of the virus to other parts of the U.S.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested that Trump shouldn’t be so quick to reverse the social distancing guidelines, saying more testing needs to be in place to determine whether areas currently showing fewer infections are truly at lower risk.
Trump’s “denial” in the crisis was “deadly,” she told CNN.
“As the president fiddles, people are dying, and we have to take every precaution,” she said. She promised a congressional investigation once the pandemic is over to determine whether Trump heeded advice from scientific experts and to answer the question that resonates through U.S. political scandals: “What did he know and when did he know it?”
Trump minimized the gravity of the pandemic for weeks. Asked whether she is saying that attitude cost American lives, Pelosi said: “Yes, I am. I’m saying that.”
It put Pelosi out of lockstep with former vice president Joe Biden, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, who said he wouldn’t go so far as to lay the blame for deaths on the president. “I think that’s a little too harsh,” he told NBC.
Biden faulted Trump for holding back on using his full powers under the recently invoked Defense Production Act to spur the manufacture of the full range of needed medical supplies — and for making erratic statements about the pandemic.
“He should stop thinking out loud and start thinking deeply,” Biden said.
Meanwhile, governors in other hotspots across the country were raising alarm that the spread of the virus was threatening their health-care systems.
“We remain on a trajectory, really, to overwhelm our capacity to deliver health care,” Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said on ABC’s “This Week.” “By the end of the first week in April, we think the first real issue is going to be ventilators. And we think it’s about the fourth or fifth of April before, down in the New Orleans area, we’re unable to put people on ventilators who need them. And then several days later, we will be out of beds.”
He said they officials have orders out for more than 12,000 ventilators through the national stockpile and private vendors, but so far have only been able to get 192.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—Why Iceland’s approach to coronavirus testing may be better than America’s
—Everything you need to know about the coronavirus stimulus checks
—Glow sticks to surgical masks: Businesses pivot to tackle coronavirus shortages
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—The oil sector is quickly running out of storage for its unprecedented surplus
—The $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package isn’t green, but it helps
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: World leaders and health experts on how to stop the spread of COVID-19
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily newsletter roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business. It’s free to get it in your inbox.


fortune--2020-03-30--Gap Inc furloughing 80,000 store workers because of coronavirus hit to sales

The coronavirus pandemic is changing broadcast and streaming TV as we know it

Gap Inc. became the latest retailer to furlough employees en masse while stores remain closed because of the coronavirus spreading through North America and Europe.
On Monday, the owner of Old Navy, Banana Republic, and Gap said that stores in those markets would stay closed past the initial April 1 date on which the company had hoped to reopen stores. Earlier on Monday, Macy’s announced it was furloughing the majority of its 130,000 workers.
Gap Inc. had taken steps in recent weeks to stanch the outflow of cash while much of its business ground to a halt, such as drawing down its $500 million credit line, suspending its dividend, and cutting capital expenditures. But the threat to Gap Inc. has only worsened since stores closed on March 18.
“We are now in a position where we must take deeper actions,” said Gap Inc. CEO Sonia Syngal, who took the reins earlier this month after years as head of Old Navy. In addition to the furloughs, Gap Inc. is laying off some staff at its San Francisco headquarters.
Before the outbreak, which has sickened at least 150,000 Americans so far and decimated company sales in March, Gap Inc. was already dealing with enormous challenges. Its namesake brand has been in decline for years, hurt by merchandise that has failed to stand out. Banana Republic has been hurt in recent years by the growth of casual wear. And Old Navy, long its juggernaut, has experienced an uneven performance in the past year. Prolonged closings will only make it harder for Gap Inc. to implement its plan to win shoppers back.
Gap Inc.’s problems also illustrate how even brick-and-mortar retailers adept at e-commerce won’t be spared by the economic toll of the pandemic. The company garners about 20% of its sales online, amounting to more than $3 billion. But people’s spending has shifted to essentials rather than clothing during the crisis, all the more since tens of millions of Americans are working from home and can’t go out.
In addition to the furloughs, Gap Inc. said its top executives and directors would take a compensation cut.
With GlobalData Retail estimating that some 40% of all American stores are closed, the industry, particularly apparel chains, is bracing for more furloughs on a scale that will shake the entire economy: 52 million Americans work in retail in the United States. Last week, the Labor Department said that a record 3.3 million Americans had applied for unemployment benefits the week before.
Other retailers that have recently announced furloughs of store workers include Ascena Retail, which owns Ann Taylor and Lane Bryant; Tailored Brands, owner of Men’s Wearhouse; and Bath & Body Works parent L Brands.
More must-read retail coverage from Fortune:
—Everything you need to know about furloughs
—Which stores are open—and closed—during the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.?
—How re-commerce players like Poshmark and eBay are adapting to the coronavirus
—How Nike is overcoming the coronavirus impact on its China business
—It may be a while before many of America’s stores open again
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEOs
—WATCH: The greatest designs of modern times
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fortune--2020-03-30--Instacart says strike over coronavirus protections has had ‘absolutely no impact’

Instacart said its operations on Monday have been unaffected by grocery delivery workers striking over demands that the company do more to protect them during the coronavirus outbreak.
“As it relates to today’s actions, we’ve seen absolutely no impact to Instacart’s operations,” the company said in a statement. “Today, we saw 40% more [workers] on the platform compared to the same day and time last week.”
A group of Instacart workers, who say they have 15,000 colleagues in their network, had called for a strike beginning on Monday after Instacart refused to meet the group’s demands to improve safety. The group wants safety gear for all workers, $5 hazard pay per delivery, and access to sick pay for at-risk workers and those who have symptoms of COVID-19.
In an effort to defuse the threatened strike, Instacart on Sunday said it had partnered with a third party to make hand sanitizer for workers. Instacart also said that it would allow customers to set the default tip amount, which would increase worker pay.
The strike comes during Instacart’s busiest period in its eight-year history, as more people use grocery delivery to reduce their exposure to the coronavirus in grocery stores and to avoid long lines. Within the past week, the number of customers has risen 40%, to the point that it has sold more groceries in the past 72 hours than in any other previous three-day period.
The strike at Instacart coincides with a similar strike by Amazon warehouse workers in Staten Island, N.Y., who walked out over their alleged lack of coronavirus protections. Meanwhile, workers at Amazon-owned Whole Foods are reportedly planning a “sick out” Tuesday to demand better coronavirus protection, according to Vice.
Instacart is in the middle of a hiring spree after saying last week that it wanted to add 300,000 workers. So far, 250,000 people have signed up to deliver for the service, and about 50,000 of them have already started work.
Instacart relies on contractors to pick up groceries at supermarkets and then deliver them to customers. Furthermore, many of them work irregular hours, making it difficult to determine how many people participated in the strike.
On Friday, Instacart also announced that it had extended the window during which it would provide 14 days of pay to workers who are diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed under mandatory quarantine, from April 8 to May 8. It also announced a bonus of up to $200 for employees, excluding Instacart’s delivery people (who are contractors), bonuses for workers who meet certain thresholds for the number of orders they handle, and the ability to deliver alcohol by getting a scanned image of a person’s ID from a distance instead of a written customer signature.
But the workers’ group said the changes, including Monday’s announcements, are insufficient. The group plans to continue the strike until all of their demands are met.
“They’ve failed to meet in full, all but one of our demands,” said Vanessa Bain, one of the organizing Instacart activists, referring to the extension of the deadline for sick pay. “We are still calling upon shoppers to walk off.”
It’s unclear how many Instacart workers are participating in the strike, but Bain says she expects it to be “in the thousands.”
“We will keep pushing for shoppers to walk off and not return until these demands are met in full,” she said. “It’s a matter of public safety.”
This is not the first time the activist group has staged a walkout at Instacart. Previously, workers staged a daylong strike demanding changes to tipping policies and improved transparency. Monday’s strike is the first one without a defined end date.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—The USPS might have to shutter by June as stimulus package provides no funding
—Everything you need to know about the coronavirus stimulus checks
—There will be another pandemic after the coronavirus. It’s time to start preparing
—Political activists make sure Americans register to vote—from a distance
—Social distancing creates $8 trillion in economic benefits, study says
—Where do clothing rental and subscriptions fit in a world that works from home?
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEOs
—WATCH: World leaders and health experts on how to stop the spread of COVID-19
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business, delivered free to your inbox.


fortune--2020-03-30--The coronavirus pandemic is changing broadcast and streaming TV as we know it

Instacart says strike over coronavirus protections has had ‘ absolutely no impact ’

No industry has been left untouched by the novel coronavirus pandemic, but the entertainment industry in particular has suffered. Clubs have closed. Movie theaters have shuttered. Concerts and festivals of all kinds have been canceled.
Though television can be consumed from the comfort of one’s living room, the creation of it still involves bringing people together on set—and that’s where things get tricky. Widespread efforts to curb COVID-19 have triggered unprecedented change in the TV business. Productions have stalled, and writers’ rooms have moved to teleconferencing. Meanwhile broadcast networks and streamers are adjusting their calendars to accommodate disruptions in the content supply chain. Even the Primetime Emmy Awards, still scheduled to take place in September, are deviating from tradition.
Here’s a look at what’s happening in the world of TV.
Changes to the broadcast calendar
The ripple effect of productions shutting down can be felt all over broadcast TV, where the final episodes of some shows’ seasons may not air according to their original schedule. The final season of The CW’s Supernatural is among them, with co-showrunner Andrew Dabb tweeting last week that new episodes would not be seen for some time. But the show will get a proper ending, he said. (“It’s not a matter of ‘if,’ it’s a matter of ‘when,’” he tweeted.)
ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, which was supposed to have 25 episodes this season, is simply wrapping up on April 9 with episode 21. On the flip side, the third season of BBC America’s Killing Eve (simulcast on AMC) will now air April 12—two weeks earlier than originally planned.
Sandra Oh as Eve Polastri and Jodie Comer as Villanelle on the set of “Killing Eve,” while filming the eighth episode of season two. The show’s third season will premiere two weeks earlier than planned, in April, as TV production and broadcast calendars are impacted by the pandemic. Courtesy of Gareth Gatrell/BBCAmerica
At NBC, plans have not yet been finalized for scripted shows with unfinished episodes. But the narrative needs of each genre (e.g., comedy, drama, procedural) will be considered when those decisions need to be made, sources say.
As networks’ schedules shuffle around in response to the coronavirus crisis, the overall television calendar itself could see significant changes. In recent years, more shows have aired outside the traditional September through May window, on cable channels and networks alike. Current world events could force a shift to an even more malleable development cycle—an existing discussion that has taken on new urgency during the pandemic.
NBC, already in the habit of launching many shows in the spring and summer, is prepared to adapt further. With pilot season also delayed by the pandemic, sources say the Peacock Network currently plans to shoot pilots once it’s safe to resume production, and will find an appropriate slot for them regardless of the time of year.
The impact on Emmy season
This year’s Emmy season is already undergoing changes. The primetime awards are still slated for Sept. 20, but eligible episodes can now air through the end of June, making up for production delays. Voting rounds and the nominations announcement have also been moved to a later date. “For Your Consideration” events—live, streaming, or recorded—are suspended for the season.
Those changes don’t make up for the fact that shows like Fargo, originally set for an April 19 premiere of its fourth season on FX before production disruptions led to postponement, won’t be eligible for this year’s Emmys. But there is potential for positive results among the changes.
“In one sense, I think it will level the playing field a bit for those studios and networks that can throw millions of dollars at a single show’s campaign,” says Erik Anderson, founder of AwardsWatch, a website that covers entertainment industry award competition year-round. “With everyone sequestered at home, that gives voters nothing but time to watch more shows. That could give us different nominations, a wider and more diverse set than usual, and that’s a net positive for everyone.”
And just as networks toy with the possibility of moving away from the traditional TV calendar, the Emmys could eventually change its usual eligibility period after this year’s events.
“I already feel that the existing calendar of the Emmys is extremely outdated, because the September to June eligibility period for the Emmys was created and existed during a time when there was no programming in the summer,” Anderson says. “There’s no reason that the Emmys couldn’t or even shouldn’t possibly consider adopting a calendar year eligibility.”
How streamers are adjusting
It isn’t just traditional TV that has been affected by the novel coronavirus pandemic. Though much has been made of people streaming shows and movies while stuck at home, production has shut down on a number of popular programs on streaming services, including Netflix’s The Witcher and Amazon’s upcoming pricey Lord of the Rings series.
In a cable news appearance earlier this month, Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos didn’t appear too concerned about how the pandemic will affect the amount of content the service has to offer—at least not immediately.
“What’s happening now is we work pretty far ahead with delivering all the episodes of our shows at once,” Sarandos said on CNN’s Reliable Sources. “So, there will be no disruption over the next few months, maybe later in the year as physical production is not operational.”
But what about those services that have yet to launch? NBC’s Peacock, HBO Max, and Quibi—the short-form, mobile-focused startup led by former Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman and chaired by Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg—are each supposed to launch in the coming months, with Quibi going first on April 6. Could production shutdowns slow their momentum?
“What these services want when they launch is not just, ‘Hey, we’ve got a bunch of content you can see right now,’” says Dan Rayburn, principal analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “They want the second round [of programming] to be able to come through pretty quickly, so that customers don’t just turn off. If this now impacts your round-two content strategy because you literally can’t get the content finished, does it make more sense to push back your launch by a quarter?”
Things are plowing ahead at Peacock, which will launch April 15 for corporate parent Comcast’s Xfinity X1 and Flex customers before it debuts nationwide July 15. Despite the loss of Olympics coverage this year, the wide range of titles across the NBCUniversal library—which span classic and newer primetime shows, kids’ titles, Spanish-language programming, and more—has left employees working on the service confident about its launch.
Sources tell Fortune there is a chance some of Peacock’s originals may be delayed, but assessments of when those shows should roll out will be made closer to the national launch date.
Quibi and HBO Max did not respond to Fortune’s requests for comment.
With a global pandemic response still underway, it remains difficult to determine how much each service will be forced to adjust its strategy in the coming months—especially since, as Rayburn notes, each business model is different.
“Quibi is a very different-looking business than NBC, Comcast, Peacock versus Time Warner, HBO, AT&T,” he says. “In this world, the way it’s changed as quickly as it [has], if you’re a business, you need to be looking at everything. What are all your options and alternatives?”
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fortune--2020-03-30--Stimulus funnels billions to health care for spending unrelated to COVID-19

The coronavirus stimulus package Congress rushed out last week to help the nation’s hospitals and health care networks hands the industry billions of dollars in windfall subsidies and other spending that has little to do with defeating the COVID-19 pandemic.
The $2 trillion legislation, which President Donald Trump signed Friday, includes more than $100 billion in emergency funds to compensate hospitals and other health care providers for lost revenue and other costs associated with COVID-19. The measure also calls for spending up to $16 billion to replenish the nation’s depleted stockpile of medical gear, such as ventilators, medicines, and personal protective equipment, or PPE.
But health care businesses will get billions of dollars in additional funding not directly related to the pandemic, in some cases because Congress agreed to reverse scheduled cuts in the rates paid by Medicaid and Medicare, which the federal government had tried for years to impose.
“Anything that could tangentially be related to the crisis lobbyists tried to get stuffed in this bill—particularly health care–related items,” said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group. While the stimulus package is “not as big” a “Christmas tree” as some other bills, Ellis said, “I’m sure we’ll find a few baubles and gifts along the way.”
Hospitals have won widespread praise as their doctors and other medical staff labor under perilous conditions, including shortages of protective gear. And, perhaps not surprisingly, the industry emerged as a big winner in the stimulus negotiations. Not only can hospitals draw on the $100 billion fund to stem their losses and cover other costs, but they will also see a boost in one stream of revenue as Congress overturned some planned rate cuts.
More than 3,000 hospitals that treat outsize numbers of Medicaid or uninsured patients, for instance, will share in an $8 billion windfall through the stimulus provision that reverses cuts in their Medicaid payments for 2020 and 2021.
Separately, hospitals will rake in at least $3 billion more because of a temporary suspension of a 2% cut in Medicare fees, according to the Federation of American Hospitals, which represents more than 1,000 for-profit hospitals and health systems. The infusion of cash also benefits doctors, nursing homes, home health companies, and others.
“That’s welcome news during this time of crisis,” said Joanne Cunningham, executive director of the Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare.
Also tucked into the stimulus: a rollback of planned rate cuts to clinical laboratories and some medical equipment suppliers.
At this stage, it is unclear how much these measures will add to the COVID-19 tab―or if far more stimulus would be required for the health care industry to rebound.
Take the 2% rate cut known as “the sequester.” The Office of Management and Budget expected it would save Medicare $16.2 billion in fiscal 2021. But the stimulus bill rescinds that rate cut from May 1 through the end of this year. As part of the legislation, Congress said it would, in effect, recoup the payments later by adding another year to the sequester. Whether lawmakers will follow through on that is anyone’s guess.
Anders Gilberg, senior vice president of government affairs for the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), expects the sequester relief to translate to a “huge” financial boost for more than 15,000 medical practices his group represents.
“This would never have been done under any other circumstances,” Gilberg said. “The situation was recognized as dire.”
Dr. Patrice Harris, president of the American Medical Association, said the stimulus offers “needed financial relief to hard-hit workers, health systems, and physician practices. At this critical moment, physician practices need significant financial support to sustain themselves and continue to meet the health care needs of all Americans during this time.”
Similarly, American Hospital Association CEO Rick Pollack called the legislation “an important first step forward. But, he added, “more will need to be done to deal with the unprecedented challenge of this virus.”
In a nod to clinical laboratories, which have helped bail out the federal government’s early failure to supply enough COVID-19 tests, the stimulus delayed planned rate cuts in 2021 likely to amount to tens of millions of dollars in revenue. Medicare officials have been at odds with the lab industry for years over rates for lab tests.
While other health care interests praised the bill, the laboratory trade association said it comes up short.
Just before the Senate passed the stimulus bill Wednesday, American Clinical Laboratory Association president Julie Khani slammed Congress for not designating funding to support labs. She said labs were in “an untenable situation, absorbing growing, uncompensated costs for testing specimens with no assurance that they will be appropriately or fairly reimbursed for all the tests they are performing.”
She added a not-so-veiled threat, saying: “If Congress fails to designate essential emergency funding for clinical laboratories to support our efforts, labs will be soon be forced to make difficult decisions about whether they can keep building the [testing] capacity our nation needs.”
The lab association, in a statement to Kaiser Health News, said labs have absorbed “staggering” Medicare reimbursement cuts of as much as 30% for many common tests in recent years.
In public securities filings this year, lab giants Quest Diagnostics Inc. and Laboratory Corp of America Holdings, known as LabCorp, reported they expected rate cuts in 2020 totaling more than $150 million. LabCorp said it supported the views of the lab association. Quest did not respond to a request for comment.
While labs processing COVID-19 tests missed out on direct funding, they could be eligible for some of the $100 billion allocated for hospitals and other providers to cover their losses, congressional aides said.
And the stimulus measure states that even in the event a lab is out-of-network, health plans are expected to pay the price it sets—as long as the lab publishes that price online—or negotiate with the lab.
Given that laws in some states ban surprise billing in particular, this provision seems to favor the labs, said Katie Keith, a Georgetown University law professor and health policy expert. “No one just lets the provider set the price,” she said.
The lab association disputes that, saying that many health plans are expected to pay labs less than the $51.50 the government recommended for a COVID-19 test.
Just how the $100 billion in health care funding will be distributed and how much oversight will occur is another unknown.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar has the authority to decide how long the emergency provisions remain in effect. Tracking all that money will be a challenge as well.
Ellis, the taxpayer advocate, noted that no government agency “is ready to handle the rush of extra funding.” He said that the stimulus grants extra resources to inspector general offices to monitor spending.
“There will be waste, there will be abuse,” he said. “It’s about exposing and rooting it out.”
The HHS Office of Inspector General expects to receive $4 million to support this oversight, according to spokesman Donald White.
Some groups aren’t waiting to compete over the $100 billion. The MGMA sent a letter March 27 to Azar and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services chief Seema Verma asking for more direct help. Gilberg noted that some medical practices, such as doctors who perform colonoscopies, have not been able to continue their work.
“Doctors and physician practices are having a lot of trouble right now,” Gilberg said. “They are literally shut down, and they are having financial troubles. Their operations have come to a full halt.”
Correction: An earlier version of this article misquoted the American Clinical Laboratory Association in saying the labs had absorbed “stunning” cuts in Medicare reimbursements. The association actually called the cuts “staggering.”
KHN correspondents Rachana Pradhan and Emmarie Huetteman contributed to this report.
Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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fortune--2020-03-30--Remembering the “Dean of the Civil Rights Movement”

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All movements have moments. When it comes to voting rights, Reverend Joseph Echols Lowery was there for most of them.
The man who was known as the “Dean of the Civil Rights Movement” died peacefully at home last Friday. He was 98.
Lowery was a co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with the Rev. Martin Luther King, and a co-creator of the bus boycott that would make Rosa Parks famous in 1955.
He was also the person tapped to bring a list of demands for full citizenship via voting rights to the desk of Alabama’s governor George Wallace in 1965. In the thankfully now-famous story of the 50-mile march from Selma to Montgomery, he did just that.
“Born and raised in Jim Crow Alabama, preaching in his blood, the Rev. Joseph Lowery is a giant of the Moses generation of civil rights leaders,” President Barack Obama said when he awarded Lowery the Medal of Freedom in 2009. “It was just King, Lowery and a few others, huddled in Montgomery, who laid the groundwork for the bus boycott and the movement that was to follow.”
While his family asked for privacy, Lowery was celebrated by many at home with words of online praise.
“A towering figure and icon has left us. Rest in Power,” tweeted NAACP Legal Defense Fund president Sherrilyn Ifill.
Reverend Bernice King, CEO of the King Center in Atlanta, reminded us that the work was always a family business. “It’s hard to imagine a world or an Atlanta without Reverend #JosephLowery,” she tweeted. “I’m grateful for a life well-lived and for its influence on mine. I’ll miss you, Uncle Joe. You finally made it up to see Aunt Evelyn again.”
For more extraordinary Lowery moments, you can read his essay rich with details about the march to Montgomery here, and watch his brilliant benediction at Barack Obama’s inauguration here.
But I’ll leave you today with a quote from his brief remarks at the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington from August 23, 2013. The shadow of Jim Crow, particularly with regard to voting rights, loomed large then, as it does now.
“Fired up?” he called.
“Ready to go,” the crowd responded.
And then he laid it bare:
“We join in prayer for a nation that strangely enough continues to seek to deny rights and restrict freedom in the right to vote. We come today fifty years later, it’s even stranger that there are men and forces who still seek to restrict our vote and deny our full participation. Well, we come here to Washington to say, we ain’t going back. We ain’t going back. We’ve come too far, marched too long, prayed too hard, wept too bitterly, bled too profusely and died too young to let anybody turn back the clock on our journey to justice.”
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
On Point
Amazon and Instacart workers go on COVID-19-related strikes Amazon warehouse workers on New York’s Staten Island and Instacart workers across the country are planning work stoppages today, citing inadequate protections from the coronavirus. Both companies have announced significant hiring initiatives to keep up with the demand of shoppers stuck at home. But the risks to workers may not be worth it: Employees from both companies are asking for more paid sick leave; Instacart workers are asking for better pay and disinfectant support like hand wipes and sanitizer gel.
NPR
Students with disabilities are losing ground under quarantine As schools across the country switch to some version of online teaching, a particularly vulnerable cohort is being left behind. Kids with cognitive disabilities or other special needs, who thrive on routine and specialized attention, are unable to find programs or attention that can meet them where they are. "Our district overall is implementing Google Classroom," says Ann Hiebert, a special education teacher for the Ferguson-Florissant School District in St. Louis. But her students with significant needs — many on the autistic spectrum, some non-verbal — can’t use basic tools like Google Classroom. “So all of these things that are out there aren't really going to be the best option for my kids," she says.
NPR
A federal prison in Louisiana “explodes” with coronavirus cases One inmate has died, one guard is in intensive care, and at least 30 inmates or staff have tested positive at the federal prison in Oakdale, Louisiana. At least 60 inmates are in quarantine. “It’s been simultaneous, just people getting sick back to back to back to back,” the union representative for the 1,700 person facility told The Washington Post. “We don’t know how to protect ourselves. Staff are working 36-hour shifts — there’s no way we can keep going on like this.”
Washington Post
On Background
The 15th amendment turns 150 The amendment which granted African American men the right to vote was formally adopted into the U.S. Constitution on March 30, 1870. It was a moment of reckoning that was never fully reckoned. The amendment which said the right for men to vote would not be abridged “on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude,” was instead a clarion call to find ugly and creative workarounds. “[W]hat we saw originally was the Mississippi Plan of 1890 that figured out how to get around it with poll taxes and literacy tests,” says Carol Anderson, author, voting rights expert and professor of African-American Studies at Emory University. She uses the term “bureaucratic violence,” or the collective policies used to void the promise of the 15th amendment while continuing to target Black people. “What we’re seeing now is what I’m calling “Jim Crow 2.0,” for want of a better term: these states doing things like voter ID laws, and poll closures, and voter roll purges.”
FAIR blog
You think you know how to adapt, but you don’t That’s the takeaway from this now timeless piece from Diane Coutu, most famous for her HBR piece, “How Resilience Works.” In this follow-up, she explores an unfamiliar definition of mindfulness: the power to detect—and act on—even weak signals of impending danger. (If you look at danger as a proxy for some sort of opportunity, then her ideas get even more interesting.) In business cultures that fear failure, or perhaps define it narrowly, weak signals of impending danger are quashed before they can be assessed, planned for, or innovated into. Original thinkers with diverse resumes are invaluable. “That’s why I place a lot of trust in executives who are generalists,” she says. “People who study liberal arts tend to get exposed to a wider variety and greater richness of values than people normally get in professional schools.”
HBR
Today’s read: The Crane Wife Sometimes you just need to read something beautiful, right? Let this essay, from the sublime novelist and teacher CJ Hauser, be the gift you give yourself. It tells the story of how she reconstructed her life after she broke off her engagement with a man that we come to find out was never worthy of her. Her awakening is part confessional, part cautionary tale, all solidarity. Here’s to the thirsty, the needy, the high-maintenance women and the people who love us. May we always find a way to drive our own boats. Enjoy. (Bring tissues.)
The Paris Review
Tamara El-Waylly produces raceAhead and manages the op-ed program.
Quote
“President Trump today at the White House said to me: ‘Be nice. Don't be threatening.’ I’m not the first human being, woman, black person or journalist to be told that while doing a job. My take: Be steady. Stay focused. Remember your purpose. And, always press forward.”
—Yamiche Alcindor, White House correspondent, PBS News Hour


fortune--2020-03-30--3 things need to happen before the stock market hits bottom, says Goldman Sachs

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The stock market rally last week may have offered investors a short-term respite from the recent carnage—and even hopes that the bear market may have been vanquished—but Goldman Sachs warns it’s still too early to declare the worst is behind us.
Last week, markets rallied from Tuesday through Thursday, lifting the S&P 500 nearly 18% in the period. But Goldman notes that isn’t anything to get too excited about: From September through December 2008, the S&P 500 saw six different one to six trading-day bounces of 9% or more, “with some rallies as large as 19%,” strategists wrote in a research note on Friday. Yet the market didn’t bottom until March 2009.
In fact, despite last week’s pop, the firm is declaring, “Tactically, we believe it is likely that the market will turn lower in coming weeks.”
That estimation makes sense for CFRA’s Sam Stovall too. He wrote in a note on Monday, “History advises investors to expect a ‘retest’ of the recent low,” he notes. “Even if the low for this bear market is already in place, the elevated volatility is expected to persist.”
For those like Thomas Hayes, chairman and managing partner of Great Hill Capital, calling the bottom is “mission impossible.” Plus, it’s “doubly hard when there’s literally no fundamental data you can reply upon because there’s no way to tell what earnings are going to be in 2020,” Hayes tells Fortune.
But while the actual bottom is anyone’s guess now, Goldman says three things will still need to happen before the market will truly trough.
A slowing of coronavirus spread
Top of mind for everyone on the Street remains the new coronavirus case count. While trends of slowing cases in China, South Korea, and Italy have given investors cause to be hopeful (Hayes notes that if the U.S. curve is like the China or Singapore case curve, “the market has likely already discounted most of the pain that’s going to be coming in coming months economically speaking”), Goldman maintains the uncertainty is going to continue making further multiple expansion unlikely.
Evidence that fiscal and monetary stimulus is actually working
An ample policy response from both the Fed and the government (with a $2.2 trillion stimulus package) is certainly reason to be optimistic, but Goldman still warns that “only time will tell to what extent the actions succeed in limiting defaults, closures, and layoffs.”
A bottoming in investor positioning and flows
Finally, the firm is looking to investor positioning and flows to signal if there is further downside ahead (checking to see if “selling pressure will slow and help stocks to bottom”). Goldman’s U.S. Equity Sentiment Indicator, which compiles nine measures of equity positioning, had only declined to –1.4 standard deviations, versus –2 to –3 standard deviation readings at the bottoms of other corrections this cycle. Last week, “the metric rose to –0.7, suggesting more selling lies ahead,” according to Goldman’s report.
But keep in mind…
Yet some are looking elsewhere to gauge where markets are most likely headed, and those like Hayes and Morgan Stanley are a bit more optimistic they could have bottomed already.
Morgan Stanley is taking note of the situation on the corporate earnings side. Citi Global Earnings Revisions Index recorded its worst reading in 20 years, the firm noted, which “is important, as it suggests the bad news is priced into markets, exemplified by the fact that [last] week’s [3.28 million] unemployment claims made no dent in market confidence. Stocks rose on the day of that report,” strategists wrote in a Morgan Stanley Wealth Management Global Investment Committee note on Monday.
That latter point of stocks being unperturbed by the bad news is precisely what Great Hill’s Hayes is watching: “The news will continue to be worse, but as the market starts to show strength on bad news, that’s when you can start to consider that we’re at a turning point,” Hayes contends. “That means the market has probably discounted a lot of the worst case already.”
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