Tag: 2020 News

Facing budget shortfalls and double-digit unemployment, governors of U.S. states that are COVID-19 hotspots on Thursday pressed ahead with economic reopenings that have raised fears of a second wave of infections.

Governors face pressure to fire up economies facing fiscal year 2021 budget shortfalls of up to 30% below pre-pandemic projections in New Mexico. Nevada, which has seen cases increase by nearly a third in the past two weeks, is suffering 28% unemployment.

Reuters reports that the moves by governors of states such as Florida and Arizona came as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the United States could not afford to let the novel coronavirus shut its economy again and global stocks tanked on worries of a pandemic resurgence.

As Florida reported its highest daily tally of new coronavirus cases on Thursday, Governor Ron DeSantis unveiled a plan to restart public schools at “full capacity” in the autumn, arguing the state’s economy depended on it.

North Carolina reported record COVID-19 hospitalizations for a fifth straight day on Thursday, a day after legislators passed a bill to reopen gyms, fitness centers and bars in a state where more than one in ten workers are unemployed.

“This is about saving lives, this is also about livelihoods in the state of Arizona,” Governor Doug Ducey told a news briefing, adding that a second shutdown of the economy was “not under discussion” despite official figures showing a 211% rise in virus cases over the past 14 days.

About half a dozen states including Texas and Arizona are grappling with rising numbers of coronavirus patients filling hospital beds.

Ducey and Texas Governor Greg Abbott say their hospitals have the capacity to avoid the experiences of New York, where the system was stretched to near breaking point as some COVID patients were treated in hallways and exhausted workers stacked bodies in refrigerated trailers.

A note of caution came from Utah, where Governor Gary Herbert said most of the state would pause its reopening after a 126% rise in cases over the past two weeks.

Austin, Texas on Thursday also said it would likely extend stay-at-home and mask orders past June 15 after the state reported its highest new case count the previous day. Austin health officials blamed a record week of infections on easing business restrictions and Memorial Day gatherings.

There was no talk of new shutdowns.

In New Mexico, Health Secretary Kathy Kunkel pointed to outbreaks at the Otero County Prison Facility, as well as in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, as factors behind an uptick in cases.

From apple packing houses in Washington state to farm workers in Florida and a California county known as “the world’s salad bowl,” outbreaks of the novel coronavirus are emerging at U.S. fruit and vegetable farms and packing plants.

Reuters reports that a rising number of sick farm and packing house workers comes after thousands of meat plant employees contracted the virus and could lead to more labor shortages and a fresh wave of disruption to U.S. food production.

The Trump administration said last month it may extend an executive order to keep meat plants operating to fruit and vegetable producers as well, a sign it is concerned fresh produce could be the next sector hit.

While social distancing can be more easily implemented for workers harvesting fruits and vegetables in fields and working outside may reduce some risks for virus spread, plants that package foods such as apples and carrots resemble the elbow-to-elbow conditions that contributed to outbreaks at U.S. meat packing plants.

By late May, there were more than 600 cases of COVID-19 among agricultural workers in Yakima County, Washington. Of those, 62% were workers in the apple industry and other packing operations or warehouses, according to a Reuters review of data from county health officials.

With 4,834 known cases as of June 10, the county had the highest per-capita infection rate on the West Coast.

“The (production) line moves super fast. And you’re working side by side and back to back,” said Edgar Franks, political director with local farmworker union Familias Unidas por la Justicia in Washington state.

Workers at six fruit packing sites in Yakima County went on strike in May due to concerns they were not being provided adequate protection from COVID-19, Franks said.

The health department in Monterey County, California, known as “the world’s salad bowl” for its sprawling vegetable farms, reported 247 agricultural workers had tested positive for coronavirus as of June 5, 39% of county’s total cases. Monterey is one of only a handful of health departments in nearly 30 of the largest U.S. fruit and vegetable producing counties that tracks virus cases among agricultural workers, Reuters found.

On May 19 the U.S. Agriculture Department and Food and Drug Administration said the government could use the Defense Production Act to keep fruit and vegetable lines moving. The act would give companies some liability protection if workers fall sick.

An FDA spokesperson said the act could be used “to protect the food supply and prevent significant food shortages.”

U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, said in an interview with Reuters farm workers face increased risks as fruits like apples and cherries enter harvest season.

Stabenow, ranking member on the Senate Agriculture Committee, introduced legislation on May 27 that would offer companies grants and loans to upgrade machinery and purchase personal protective equipment, fund COVID-19 testing and facility cleaning.

“You can get ahead of this, which is what didn’t happen in the meatpacking situation,” she said. “The best way to protect our supply chain is to keep workers safe.”

Meanwhile, coronavirus cases near tomato-growing Immokalee, Florida, are also on the rise. The spread of the coronavirus among Florida farm workers has significant implications for national food production, as many agricultural workers travel north through the summer following the harvest through Georgia, the Carolinas, and into the Northeast.

The Florida Department of Agriculture is planning for more on-farm outbreaks by partnering with county health departments, hotels for quarantine housing, and educating workers.

U.S. commercial insurance prices again grew significantly in the first quarter of 2020, according to Willis Towers Watson’s most recent Commercial Lines Insurance Pricing Survey (CLIPS).

The survey compared prices charged on policies underwritten during the first quarter of 2020 to those charged for the same coverage during the same quarter in 2019.

The aggregate commercial price change reported by carriers was close to 2% for all four quarters of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019, climbing to almost 4% in the second quarter, almost 5% in the third quarter of 2019, and over 6% for the past two quarters.

Data for nearly all lines indicated significant price increases in the first quarter, with the largest coming from excess/umbrella liability and directors and officers liability, as both coverages saw significantly accelerating increases over the past three quarters.

However CLIPS indicates ongoing material price reductions for workers compensation, in contrast to nearly all other surveyed lines, though the decreases have tempered somewhat for each of the last five quarters.

The past outlier in the results, commercial auto, saw reported price increases near or above double digits for the tenth consecutive quarter, while property coverage saw near double digit increases for the fourth consecutive quarter.

Price changes for most lines other lines were fairly consistent with those observed in the prior quarter.

When comparing account sizes, reported price changes were more muted for small commercial accounts, higher for mid-market accounts, and approaching double digits for large accounts, whereas the prices were fairly consistent by account size four quarters ago.

Specialty lines price increases in aggregate were above double digits increases for the second consecutive quarter.

Amazon has found itself involved in a lawsuit, which was filed by a group of warehouse workers that claim the e-commerce giant put them at risk because of the working conditions at its fulfillment centers during the coronavirus pandemic.

This is not the first lawsuit that Amazon has been involved with over working conditions at its fulfillment centers during the coronavirus pandemic. The company has come under fire for its safety measures as it ramped up its workforce by 175,000 employees to meet the onslaught of demand caused by consumers stocking up on essential items from its website.

Employees at Amazon have staged walkout protests asking for hazard pay, better working conditions, and more COVID-19 testing. Amazon paid its workers $2 per hour extra during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, which expired at the end of May. The company said it has spent $800 million in the first two quarters of the year on safety measures.

Amazon said it was reviewing the complaint. “We are saddened by the tragic impact COVID-19 has had on communities across the globe, including on some Amazon team members and their family and friends,” spokeswoman Lisa Levandowski said in an emailed statement. “From early March to May 1, we offered our employees unlimited time away from work, and since May 1 we have offered leave for those most vulnerable or who need to care for children or family members.”

Amazon emerged as an indispensable service for many customers shopping online during “shelter-in-place” orders. The company scrambled to meet surging demand by hiring 175,000 workers while simultaneously announcing new procedures to protect its workforce.

According to Amazon, over 150 processes have been updated to protect employees, and the company is spending over $800 million in the first half of 2020 on coronavirus safety measures. Workers diagnosed with the virus are also being offered additional paid time off, the company has said.

But the new lawsuit claims Amazon has only “sought to create a facade of compliance” and continued with unsafe practices. Workers “continue to work at dizzying speeds, even if doing so prevents them from socially distancing, washing their hands, and sanitizing their work spaces,” according to the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs also say Amazon punishes employees who complain about workplace safety and tells workers to avoid informing others if they become infected. Amazon has told employees its contact tracing consists only of reviewing its surveillance footage, rather than interviewing infected workers about their interactions, the lawsuit says.

“Amazon’s failures have already caused injury and death to workers and family members of workers,” the lawsuit says, noting that a worker at the Staten Island warehouse has been confirmed to have died from Covid-19.  One month later, the worker’s family member reportedly displayed COVID-19 symptoms and died. The plaintiffs in the case are not seeking damages for illness or death but instead asking for an injunction to force Amazon to follow public health guidelines, the news outlet said.

The Staten Island warehouse has been a focus of health and safety complaints since March, when employees mounted the first of a series of walkouts.

Amazon terminated the leader of that protest, claiming he violated a company quarantine order. The company’s action spurred denunciations and calls for investigation by officials including Senator Bernie Sanders and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Reverse payment patent settlements, also known as “pay-for-delay” agreements, are a type of agreement that has been used to settle pharmaceutical patent infringement litigation (or threatened litigation), in which the company that has brought the suit agrees to pay the company it sued.

That is, the patent holder pays the alleged infringer to stop its alleged infringing activity (e.g., to stop selling a generic version of a drug) for some period of time and to stop disputing the validity of the patent. These agreements are distinct from most patent settlements, which usually involve the alleged infringer paying the patent holder. Reverse payment patent settlements result from a peculiarity in US regulatory law arising from the Hatch-Waxman Act passed in 1984.

One of the Federal Trade Commission’s top priorities in recent years has been to oppose a costly legal tactic that more and more branded drug manufacturers have been using to stifle competition from lower-cost generic medicines.

According to the FTA, drug makers have been able to sidestep competition by offering patent settlements that pay generic companies not to bring lower-cost alternatives to market. These “pay-for-delay” patent settlements effectively block all other generic drug competition for a growing number of branded drugs.

According to an FTC study, these anticompetitive deals cost consumers and taxpayers $3.5 billion in higher drug costs every year. Since 2001, the FTC has filed a number of lawsuits to stop these deals, and it supports legislation to end such “pay-for-delay” settlements.

Reuters just reported that EU Regulators have now successfully pursued similar initiatives.

EU antitrust enforcers, boosted by recent court victories, reinforced their case against Israeli drugmaker Teva over its deal with rival Cephalon to delay selling a generic version of its sleep disorder drug modafinil.

Three years ago, the European Commission said the company’s cash payments deal with Cephalon as part of a settlement to end a lawsuit over alleged infringement of Cephalon’s patents on the blockbuster drug may have jacked up the price of modafinil.

It sent a statement of objections, or charge sheet, outlining its concerns why the deal may be anti-competitive. Teva later acquired Cephalon in 2011.

On Monday, the EU competition enforcer sent a supplementary charge sheet to Teva, clarifying why it considered that the objective of the pay-for-delay deal was to restrict competition. It also cited recent court judgments backing its stand.

Teva can be fined up to 10% of its global turnover if found guilty of breaching EU antitrust rules. Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic have fought a long-running battle with drugmakers against such deals.