Good evening,
Please find today's Daily COVID-19 Update for October 26th below and attached. Please let me know if you have any comments or questions.
Thank you,
Jeff Cohen
INFORMS Members in the News
Member: Sheldon Jacobson
Member: Pinar Keskinocak
Federal Policy Update
- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Spokesperson Drew Hammill announced that Speaker Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spoke this afternoon in their ongoing discussions for a broader relief package. The announcement stated that House Democrats "continue to eagerly await the Administration's acceptance of [their] language," and they are "hopeful the response will be positive as [they] also await the outcomes of talks between committee chairs. Hammill added that Speaker Pelosi is still optimistic that they will be able to reach an agreement prior to the election next week.
- Regarding the aforementioned negotiations, White House Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow stated that the discussions "have certainly slowed down, but they're not ending" – adding optimism that "committee chairmen on both sides, in the Senate and the House, have been meeting and discussing various aspects" of a potential relief measure.
- The Departments of Defense and Health & Human Services awarded a $33 million contract to Tecan to bolster its U.S. production capacity for disposable pipette tips essential for fully automated COVID-19 testing systems.
- The Department of Agriculture announced that the Farm Services Agency (FSA) has approved over $7 billion in payments agricultural producers hindered by Covid-19 in the second round of its Coronavirus Food Assistance Program.
- Food & Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn said in a video stated that their "promise to the American people is that when [the FDA] looks at the science and data, [the FDA] will make the absolute best decision for the people in terms of safety and efficacy of a vaccine."
State Response
- 32 states and the District of Columbia have announced more specific details as to how they plan to use the 150 million COVID-19 tests that have been distributed by the Trump administration.
- Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine stated that she would warn against families gathering for the holidays, stating that we should all "think about more and more gatherings being virtual or only staying with the family that you live with."
Global Response
- Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that 1 in 5 members of their Russian Parliament have either had or currently have coronavirus.
- Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced that he intends for the country's state of emergency to be kept in place through May 9th.
- French Scientific Council Advisor Jean-François Delfraissy estimated that the country is seeing approximately 100,000 new coronavirus cases each day.
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that schools for grades 1-4 are set to reopen next week, with students to be set on a rotating schedule of attending classes on alternate days.
- The Chinese government announced that they are rolling out a mass coronavirus testing program for nearly 5 million residents in the Kashgar prefecture.
- Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz announced that the government is considering a second lockdown due to the increase of coronavirus cases in the country.
Economic Update
- U.S. stocks were on the decline today, with the three indices closing with negative results. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 2.3%, the S&P 500 by 1.9%, and the Nasdaq Composite by 1.6%.
Latest Impact Data
- In the United States: Over 8,960,078 cases and 231,036 deaths in 50 states, 4 territories, and Washington, D.C.
- Worldwide: Over 43,767,825 cases and 1,164,227 deaths in at least 204 countries and territories.
In the News
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Jeffrey M. Cohen, MBA
Director, Public Affairs & Marketing
INFORMS
jeff.cohen@informs.org------------------------------