• Yesterday, President Trump signed an Executive Order to protect our Nation’s meat supply chain during the COVID-19 outbreak.  This order declares America’s meat and poultry processing plants critical to the nation during this emergency and employs the Defense Production Act in directing the Secretary of Agriculture to ensure these processing plants operate uninterrupted to the maximum extent possible, in accordance with newly released safety guidelines provided by CDC and OSHA.  This is a bold, visionary action by the President, who clearly understands the threat to the nation a meat and poultry shortage would present. 

• I’ve mentioned telehealth frequently in these e-mails as one of the ways we can help ensure people are getting needed medical care and advice without putting themselves and providers at risk by going to a hospital or doctor’s office. This post from the White House discusses how telehealth services have expanded dramatically since the COVID-19 outbreak began thanks to deregulation and other actions by the Trump Administration.
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• In the wake of some larger brand-name companies who were publicly pressured to return Payment Protection Program loans, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin announced yesterday that the SBA will review all loans in excess of $2 million, in addition to other loans as they deem appropriate, following the submission of the borrower’s loan forgiveness application. This will help to ensure that PPP dollars are flowing to the small businesses that need them the most.  More information available here.

• The SBA Administrator also announced that to assist small community lenders and ensure their small business customers have access to the PPP, today from 4 p.m. to midnight, SBA systems will only accept loans from lending institutions with asset sizes less than $1 billion. Lending institutions with asset sizes less than $1 billion will still be able to submit PPP loan applications outside this time frame as well.

• The Treasury has also updated its PPP FAQ document, available here.

• The CDC has released a Frequently Asked Questions document for law enforcement personnel that answers some common questions our police officers and departments have about how they can stay safe during the COVID-19 outbreak. View it here.

• There’s the potential for some strong and severe weather tonight into Thursday. Here’s the latest update from the National Weather Service in Wilmington.

• In light of the COVID-19 outbreak, the U.S. Census Bureau is adjusting 2020 Census operations. Already, over 70 million households have responded to date, representing over 48% of all American households.  The Census Bureau temporarily suspended field data collection in March. Steps are being taken to reactivate field offices beginning June 1st in preparation for the resumption of field collection operations as quickly as possible. More info from the Census Bureau here.