Part One:
We speak with Sara Morrison, a reporter for Vox, about why lifesaving ventilators will be in short supply for the foreseeable future. The State of New York alone will need an additional 30,000 more ventilators than they currently have, in order to care for the health of the state’s residents who already have the virus or who are expected to get it during the course of this pandemic.
Likewise, the entire US has 170,000 ventilators, but we’ll need 1 million before this disease runs its course. We’ll have to try to spread the need out, over more time, so everyone who needs one can get one. Otherwise, the doctors will be having to decide which patients get a ventilator and survive and which will be left to die.
At the same time, the country will have to try to produce a lot more ventilators than the manufacturing companies are currently preparing to produce. The industry and the govt need to create a clear standard which will govern all of the necessary production – so the ventilators we end up using will be effective in doing what patients need done and will not risk causing any additional harm (as side effects or as malfunctioning machines).
It’s not as easy as just asking a bunch of factories to pump out these complicated machines. Producing and providing all the ventilators that we’re going to need will be this generation’s “moon shot,” much like the almost-impossible-but-extend-ourselves-goal which JFK promised the country in the 1960’s.
POSTPONING TAX DAY! YAY! BUT ARE THERE COMPLICATIONS?
Tax Day is now July 15. Is that a good thing? The Treasury Secretary says that the filing deadline has been pushed back, but that doesn’t mean you should wait. State and local govt have different rules for their taxes, and not all of them follow the feds. One bill now in Congress provides that you will not be charged interest or penalties on tax payments that you fail to pay on time, but this doesn’t mean that you won’t lose your house to a tax lien.
Part two:
HOW SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT INFUSE CASH INTO PEOPLE’S HANDS? WHO NEEDS IT MOST? WHICH METHOD IS QUICKEST?
We speak with Lisa Gennetian, the Pritzker Associate Professor of Early Learning Policy Studies at Duke University, about the debate in Congress on how the government will provide cash payments to all Americans, as a means of combating the economic damage that COVID-19 is inflicting on our economy. We need this response to be rapid, and for it to be equitable – providing enough money (quickly) to the people who need it most in order to survive.
But what mechanism should the govt use to pump out this money? Writing a check won’t work for some people, who may not have checking accounts. Tax rebates won’t work for people who don’t earn enough income to owe any taxes. Maybe electronic debit cards will work for many people but again, we have to make sure that the word gets out to everyone, including folks who are living on the margins of society. Perhaps community organizations can be more successful searching out their clientele, but even then, some people might not want to be found by public officials. Undocumented immigrants – who may not even qualify for the cash stimulus being debated in Congress – probably don’t want ICE to known where they’re crashing, for fear of being detained and deported.
