From: Dan Huff

Sent: Thu Mar 12 08:43:13 2020

To: Frank Schoenfeld; Gerald Fisher; Christie DeSantis; Alice Cannon; Chaunee Seifried; Cindy Chauran; Andy Peters; Diana Hadley; Michelle Satyna; Chris Long

Subject: FW: Federal Update: COVID-19

Importance: Normal

FYI

From: occma@list.orcities.org <occma@list.orcities.org> On Behalf Of Mike Cully

Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2020 6:19 PM

To: Oregon City/County Management Association <occma@list.orcities.org>

Subject: [occma] Federal Update: COVID-19

All –

After meeting with VP Mike Pence and a multi-departmental call in Washington DC today, I wanted to share the following information, much of which was just relayed in the President’s address to the nation:

UPDATE: COVID-19 Federal Action

It has been 10-weeks since the US first started responding to the COVID-19 virus, now classigied as a global pandemic.

The Oregon delegation has been in Washington DC this week and today we participated in several briefings, one with Vice President Mike Pence, and the other with department heads from several key federal agencies that are addressing this simultaneously.

Tigard Council President John Goodhouse represented the National League of Cities (NLC) and the Oregon League of Cities (LOC) at the briefing with the Vice President. I represented the LOC in the briefing with the department heads.

We are also working very closely with the Oregon Health Administration (OHA) to stay on-top of this situation and to keep you all informed with timely and factual information. This partnership will have the LOC collaborating on communications that will be in sync with messaging and consistent across the spectrum.

There is a lot of information forthcoming and the situation is evolving hour-by-hour, but here is the most current actions you need to know about from our federal briefings:

Just days ago, the POTUS authorized an $8.3B disaster response package. Typically this magnitude of a funding package would take a great deal of time to wind through the system and make its way to the front lines, but in an unprecedented move, the federal government is fast-tracking funds to be infused now in to the system and to the end-user: state and local governments. We will have more details on how funds are being allocated as this develops.

Today a new website went live with the most up-to-date information available: www.coronavirus.gov. This site was put together collaboratively with the CDC driving the execution. This website is being constantly updated and is a highly reliable source for credible and factual information. We encourage you to share this link widely.

Health and Human Services (HHS)

Today the HHS acknowledged a “lag in testing” nationally that is in the process of being addressed.

To date, the department has completed a total of 2.4M tests in the past 10 weeks, and will have conducted 3M more by the end of this week.

This is still not enough, and we can expect these numbers to continue to ramp-up as the days pass and testing becomes more readily available.

The department also acknowledged “spot shortages” in states, and again, this is being addressed now.

On a Nationwide level there are currently 79 public health labs open for testing in all 50 states. This number will also grow in response to the spread of this disease. The important takeaway here is that all states do have the resources to conduct testing now.

Since being identified as a pandemic and with so much missing data on the virus itself, the federal government has formed its own rapid response team to support local efforts and operations. This means, in Oregon, if our local teams are needing help at any point, there are support teams standing-by to deploy as needed.

One important side effect of the cautionary approach taken by citizens around the country is the fact that there is a significant shortage of blood supplies, which is only diminishing by the day. All are encouraged to continue with blood donations as usual during this critical time.

Small Business Administration (SBA)

From an economic standpoint this situation has thus far been devastating on many levels. To bring it closer to home, there will be (and already are) small businesses and non-profits being hit hard by this. To that end, the SBA has also taken unprecedented steps to help those sectors affected by the outbreak.

The SBA Office of Disaster Assistance is currently putting together a plan to roll out small business assistance loans of up to $2M to small business owners, agricultural-oriented businesses, and public and private sector entities whose business has been adversely affected because of the virus. This agency will have direct control over disbursal of these funds – which is also unprecedented – in order to quickly provide relief.

In order to qualify, a county or region must identify – and report to the Governor’s office – 5 businesses that are impacted by this situation. Once that threshold is reached, that regions would be deemed qualified to request this disaster relief.

More information about this is available now at WWW.SBA.GOV/DISASTER.

Education Department

On the education front there is a lot of activity which can best be summed-up by visiting this website that was launched today: WWW.ED.GOV/CORONAVIRUS

This department is staffed and taking the time to respond to all emails. The address to reach directly to this department is: Covid-19@ED.gov

We also heard reports from Housing and Urban Development which centered around sanitation concerns and reaching the homeless populations.

The LOC is committed to ongoing work with our partners at the federal, state and local level. The LOC will function as an aggregator of pertinent information which we will distribute through all our available media channels.

We have created a special section on our website, www.orcities.org which we update continuously. We also encourage you to follow us on Twitter at @oregoncities.

We are working hand-in-hand with OHA, the CDC and the NLC to protect the interests of our cities in Oregon as a trusted resource during this crisis.

Best regards,

---

You are currently subscribed to occma as: dhuff@cityofmolalla.com.

To unsubscribe click here: http://list.orcities.org:81/u?id=191757.6faed4414ea2ffab58a39ba4df6e19b0&n=T&l=occma&o=258279

(It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken)

or send a blank email to leave-258279-191757.6faed4414ea2ffab58a39ba4df6e19b0@list.orcities.org