In Washington

• The Republican National Convention kicked off Monday night and centered around President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Speakers showcased the president as a decisive leader who acted quickly and ensured ventilators and PPE to hospitals and the frontlines. Monday afternoon, President Trump attacked Democrats saying, “What they’re doing is using COVID to steal an election. They’re using COVID to defraud the American people, all of our people, of a fair and free election.”
• Health officials criticized the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) and its “grossly misrepresented” interpretation of data in its announcement that it was authorizing the emergency use of plasma as a coronavirus treatment. President Trump continues to claim that the use of plasma in treatments had reduced deaths by 35 percent; however, such conclusions were based on a small study of patients in a Mayo Clinic and does not warrant such concrete assertations. During a visit to North Carolina on Monday, President Trump repeated that the treatment “was proven to be an incredible reducer – it is going to reduce mortality by at least 35%, could be much more than that. We will see the final numbers, but it could be even higher than that.”
  • FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn has remained in the hot seat since not correcting the President’s remarks about the treatment at the Sunday's White House press briefing with HHS Secretary Alex Azar. Hahn tweeted an apology for making a mistake in describing the benefits of convalescent plasma during a controversial public appearance on Sunday with President Trump. "What I should have said better is that the data show a relative risk reduction not an absolute risk reduction," he tweeted.
  • HHS Secretary Azar said on Fox News’ Bill Hemmer Reports that President Trump is demanding that bureaucratic red tape be cut and therapies and vaccines “get to the American people as soon as they meet FDA safety and efficacy and regulatory standards.”
  • White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said on CNBC’s Squawk Box that President Trump is a “right-to-try” president. “We have extremely abnormal times where Americans are dying every day and there’s a struggle now philosophically in the medical profession” in which “some of the medical folks would rather have 100,000 people die from the virus than have one person die from some of the therapeutics,” Navarro claimed.
  • The World Health Organization (WHO) has also expressed caution over the US’s move to use plasma as a treatment for Covid-19 patients, stating that evidence of its effectiveness is “low quality.” Soumya Swaminathan, the WHO’ chief scientist, said that as only a few trials have so far been conducted, the evidence was not convincing enough to endorse the widespread use of the treatment.
  • Democratic leadership from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce wrote a letter to FDA Commissioner Hahn on 24 Aug. asking the agency to assure that “science, not political expediency” will drive the decisions to authorize and approve a COVID-19 vaccine. Representatives Dianne DeGette (D-CO), Frank Pallone (D-NJ), and Anna Eshoo (D-CA) asked a series of questions regarding best practices in the approval process and safeguards against political interference. The lawmakers are requesting a response by 4 Sept.
• Republican Sen. Tim Scott (SC) predicts mail-in voting, which is expanding in availability due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will work “just fine,” despite concerns raised by President Trump that mail-in balloting risks voter fraud. Scott, who spoke on the first night of the Republican National Convention yesterday, told NBC News’s "Today” he has “a lot of confidence in our electoral process.” He added that he’s “confident that we will have fair elections across this country.”
• Sixty-eight percent of registered voters approve of President Trump's executive orders related to COVID-19 relief, a new Hill-HarrisX poll finds. Thirty-two percent disapproved. The moves by Trump garnered support in the 18 -19 Aug. survey from 90 percent of Republicans, 73 percent of independents and 45 percent of Democrats. The orders purport to extend unemployment benefits, suspend payroll taxes, and offer federal eviction and student loan relief.
• The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has now approved most U.S. states to send workers the extra US$300 weekly unemployment benefit from the federal government. States had recently applied for the funds. Arizona and Texas have started paying out the claims. More states are likely to be approved soon. How much workers will actually receive depends on where they live. So far, only Kentucky and Montana are opting to give an additional US$100 on top of the US$300 from the federal government and the standard state unemployment payment.

In the News

• American Airlines will cut 19,000 employees in October when federal aid that protected those jobs expires, the carrier said Tuesday. The airline, which employed more than 140,000 people in March, is prohibited from laying off workers through 30 Sept. under the terms of a US$25 billion federal aid package.
• The accuracy of rapid COVID-19 tests remains under scrutiny as an unusual number of false positives continue. The inaccuracies will significantly affect the ability to test employees, nursing home patients, and students widely.
• Best Buy plans to turn some stores into curbside pick-up and shipping hubs as it bets on a permanent shift toward online shopping. CEO Corie Barry said on a call with reporters Tuesday that the retailer is confident that customer preferences have permanently changed.
• Fifteen of the NFL's 32 teams have so far ruled out spectators to start the season.
• JP Morgan Chase’s will cycle between days at the office and at home, keeping the ability to work remotely on a part-time basis, according to Daniel Pinto, head of the massive division and co-president of the banking giant. “We are going to start implementing the model that I believe will be more or less permanent, which is this rotational model,” Pinto told CNBC. “Depending on the type of business, you may be working one week a month from home, or two days a week from home, or two weeks a month.”
• New York’s two largest airports will set up COVID-19 testing sites for incoming passengers as part of the latest effort to stop travelers from bringing the coronavirus to the state.
• New York’s restaurant industry is worried as many are restaurants head into a season of uncertainty and weather that will limit outdoor dining. Nearly 10,000 restaurants have set up outdoor seating and operating at only a fraction of their regular seating capacity.

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