Cato: The Vaccine Allocation Mess In New York

 New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo are currently at loggerheads over vaccine allocation in the city. The governor has only approved for the vaccine to be given to the first prioritized groups: healthcare workers in hospitals, urgent care providers, and nursing home residents and staff. New York City Mayor De Blasio believes that the city should be given authority to broaden eligibility further, and that if given that authority, they could already be vaccinating many more New Yorkers, including the over‐​75 demographic at highest personal risk from the virus.

Yet Cuomo is refusing to relent, despite New York City officials being adamant that, using current eligibility criterion, vaccines sit in storage or are going to waste. As my colleague Jeff Singer explained this week, a lot of healthcare workers either have immunity from the disease already or do not want the vaccine. The restrictions mean some doses are having to be transported out of the city. This follows stories from earlier in the week that claim some public and private New York hospitals had used just 15 percent of their vaccine allocation.

Given vaccines are widely regarded as being in short supply relative to demand, that sounds baffling. One would think that if those eligible priority groups were not filling slots, providers would be seeking out other people to ensure that either appointment times or the vaccine doses themselves do not go to waste. Vaccinating anyone still susceptible to the disease has a public benefit by (at a minimum) reducing the chances of severe disease for the recipient.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/vaccine-allocation-mess-new-york

Cato: Comparing Military Spending and COVID-19 Related Medical Costs

 As the United States struggles to contain the coronavirus outbreak, it has revived the perennial guns versus butter debate. Or, in this case, guns versus medical equipment. Might some of the money spent on the U.S. military have been better spent on more useful things closer to home? Might a few million additional N-95 masks have protected more Americans than a few additional M1 Abrams tanks? Might the money spent on even a single F-35 fighter plane have saved more lives — in April and May of 2020, at least — if it had been used to buy a few thousand more ventilators?

Such questions were barely on the table less than two months ago. On February 10, 2020, the Trump administration submitted its budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2021. It called for $740.5 billion for national security, of which $705.4 billion was for the Department of Defense. The accompanying press release outlining the rationale for this spending didn’t mention infectious diseases or coronavirus or anything pertaining to protecting public health. That isn’t so surprising: the Pentagon is rarely called upon to deal with domestic threats – and most Americans don’t want it to. But at the time of Secretary of Defense Mark Esper’s announcement of the FY21 budget request very few could have imagined that, by late March, thousands of military personnel would be scattered around the United States constructing and staffing make‐​shift hospitals.

Many aspects of the U.S. government’s response to COVID-19 merit scrutiny. There will be a thorough review of policies and procedures that might have slowed the spread of the virus. But, for now, the focus is and should be on stopping the further spread of the disease and caring for those who have contracted it. Such measures require several key pieces of protective equipment, from N-95 masks to gloves and gowns. Testing kits and thermometers are needed to separate the healthy from the sick. And hospital beds and ventilators are needed for those who fall ill. Shortages have prompted governors and mayors to appeal for help from the federal government, but also from foreign governments. Michigan, which as of 3 pm on April 6, 2020, had reported 17,221 confirmed cases, and 727 deaths from the disease, last week requested over 20 million N-95 masks and 25,000 ventilators. Massachusetts secured 1.2 million N-95 masks from China, delivered by the New England Patriots’ team plane.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/comparing-military-spending-covid-19-related-medical-costs

Cato: At‐​Home Self‐​Administered COVID Tests Without a Prescription May Finally Be Available–It Didn’t Have to Take This Long

 Yesterday the White House announced it was buying 8.4 million Ellume at‐​home, self‐​administered diagnostic tests it hopes to get to consumers across the country starting later this month. The at‐​home test is cheap and rapid and will enable people who have no COVID symptoms but are nonetheless infected and contagious, to test themselves for the disease. It has been a great challenge to stop the virus from being spread unwittingly by people who are asymptomatic carriers, who may make up 30 percent or more of people infected with the virus. This test should therefore be a great help in getting the pandemic under control. The Ellume at‐​home test received Emergency Use Authorization from the Food and Drug Administration in mid‐​December 2020.

At‐​home self‐​administered tests have actually been available at least since last November, when the FDA granted Emergency Use Authorization to the Lucira at‐​home self‐​administered test. But incomprehensibly the FDA requires people to get a prescription from a health care practitioner in order to purchase the test to self‐​administer at home. And providers are instructed to give a prescription only to patients who are symptomatic. These requirements, of course, cancel out any advantages an at‐​home test provides controlling the pandemic.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/home-self-administered-covid-tests-without-prescription-may-finally-be-available-it-didnt-have

Cato: A Prescription Is Not Required for an At‐​Home Pregnancy Test or an At‐​Home HIV Test—Why Require One for an At‐​Home COVID Test?

 The Food and Drug Administration announced on November 17 that it gave emergency use authorization (EUA) for the first at‐​home diagnostic test for COVID-19. The Lucira COVID-19 All‐​in‐​One test kit is designed to be self‐​administered. People can collect their own sample using a nasal swab, swirl the swab in a vial, and get the test result in 30 minutes.

The FDA requires people to get a prescription from a health care practitioner in order to buy and use the test. Children under 14 are required to have the test performed by a health care practitioner. Patients who present to doctors’ offices, urgent care centers, clinics, or hospitals may still self‐​administer the test once it is prescribed, but if the patient is 14 or under the practitioner must perform the test.

This is a welcome development. The ability to perform the test at home and get quick results should provide great assistance in identifying and isolating infected and contagious people, and help bring the spread of the virus under better control. But, why should this require a prescription?

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/prescription-not-required-home-pregnancy-test-or-home-hiv-test-why-require-one-home-covid-test

Cato: I, Ventilator

 In the last 10 days, President Trump has repeatedly invoked “P”—that’s his name for the Defense Production Act; everyone else calls it “DPA”—for critical supplies in the fight against COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.

First Trump issued a DPA order to General Motors to produce ventilators and appeared to threaten to do the same to Ford. Then, he made a similar order to GE Healthcare, Medtronic, ResMed, Phillips and two other firms that actually manufacture ventilators. Finally he “hit” 3M with “‘P Act’ all the way” for protective masks.

Trump isn’t alone in wanting to flex the powers of the DPA in the coronavirus crisis. Several other politicians and talking heads have called for the act to be used not just for ventilators and masks, but also for gloves, medical gowns and testing swabs.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/i-ventilator

Cato: Mob Rule Is No Path to Liberty

 Yesterday, Congress was violently disrupted as it performed its constitutional duty. This was a direct attack on the Constitution of the United States, the rule of law, and our constitutional republic.

For more than two months President Trump has claimed, without plausible evidence and through multiple recounts and court cases, that he won the presidential election. As Cato scholars and many others have explained, the president’s attempts to overturn the election are factually and legally baseless. His allegations of fraud have been consistently rejected by courts, state legislatures, governors and secretaries of state, and members of both parties in Congress.

Despite this, the president has persisted, and too many members of Congress have echoed his claims. By doing so, they have helped stoke the flames of distrust and division in ways that present a profound threat to liberty, and they must bear some responsibility for the actions that have followed.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/mob-rule-no-path-liberty

Cato: Impeachment, the 25th Amendment and Trump’s Final Days

 We started the week with an impeachment debate that looked like a rewarmed version of the one we had last year. “Read the transcript!”: when President Donald Trump got on the phone Saturday to lean on Georgia election officials, was it another “perfect call” or a second, sordid shakedown attempt?

By yesterday afternoon we were in entirely new territory: a violent mob storming and trashing the Capitol, four dead, guns and explosives seized, Congress evacuated, Vice President Mike Pence fleeing a mob inspired by the president’s tweets. “We will never concede,” Trump fumed at the pre‐​riot rally, “you don’t concede when there’s theft involved. Our country has had enough. We’re not going to take it any more.… if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country any more.” Howard Beale only asked people to yell out of their windows, and he didn’t have nuclear weapons.

As of Wednesday night there were at least 32 House Democrats publicly calling for a second impeachment. Though both houses are supposedly done working until after inauguration, an article of impeachment has already been drafted for circulation. And today, the incoming Senate Majority Leader called on Pence and the Cabinet to trigger the 25th Amendment and remove Trump from power.

Can Congress do either of those things? Both? How might the Constitution’s presidential defenestration provisions work here? Let’s take a look.

First, impeachment: the article of impeachment being circulated now charges Trump with making “statements that encouraged—and foreseeably resulted in—imminent lawless action at the Capitol.” Is incitement to riot an impeachable offense? Yes: it’s not even a hard question.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/impeachment-25th-amendment-trumps-final-days

Cato: An Epidemic of Red Tape

 Among the many lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic is how cumbersome one‐​size‐​fits‐​all regulations, administered by an impersonal bureaucracy, hamper a rapid and flexible response to an evolving public health emergency. The U.S. Navy Medical Corps provides us with the most recent example.

On March 30, the naval hospital ship U.S.N.S. Comfort arrived in New York harbor, with 1,000 hospital beds and 1.200 staff, ready to assist in the management of the epidemic which has taken a heavy toll on New York metropolitan area inhabitants. Yet, as of April 3, only 20 patients were being treated on the hospital ship. Three days earlier, the 1,000 bed U.S.N.S. Mercy arrived in Los Angeles, and as of April 2 treated 15 patients.

Both hospital ships were intended to take on and treat patients who are not infected with COVID-19, which serves the dual purpose of sheltering such patients from contagious COVID-19 patients in metro area hospitals while freeing up space in those hospitals for more COVID-19 patients.

But why are there so few patients aboard these hospital ships, considering the ships’ patient capacity and the size of the metropolitan areas they are serving? The answer lies in military protocols and bureaucratic rules that stand in the way.

Patients are not allowed to be directly admitted to the hospital ships and ambulances are not permitted to take them there. They must first be taken to a civilian hospital for evaluation and be tested for the virus before being transferred to the ship. Of course, this requirement does nothing to unburden crowded emergency rooms and their overworked staff.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/epidemic-red-tape

Cato: Governments Should Rely More on the WTO in the Fight Against the Coronavirus

 Yet another sign of the marginalization of the World Trade Organization is the omission of any mention of it in the recent G20 statement on COVID-19. At a time when more international cooperation is urgently needed to control and conquer the spreading coronavirus pandemic, including in trade, the international institution established to oversee trade is increasingly shunted to the sidelines.

The G20 leaders acknowledged the importance of trade to addressing the pandemic in their statement at the conclusion of their emergency video conference on March 25. They promised to use “all available policy tools to minimize the economic and social damage from the pandemic.” Shockingly, however, they neglected to refer by name to the only global institutional tool they have for achieving that goal in trade. Six other international institutions were specifically cited – but not the WTO.

Going into this global fight for survival, the WTO was already badly damaged by the corrosive combination of Trumpian unilateralism and intensifying global economic nationalism. Now, because of the coronavirus, all WTO meetings have been suspended until at least the end of April. Those who see the WTO as necessarily central to world trade are left wondering what its role is now and will be going forward.

Among trade experts, ideas abound for using the WTO to help fight the pandemic. At the top of the list is the pressing need to roll back and refrain from export bans on medicines and medical supplies. At last count, 35 countries have imposed such bans. While these measures, depending on how they are applied, may be legal under WTO rules, they are inconsistent with the G20 aim to “coordinate responses in ways that avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade.” They prevent limited drugs and supplies from going to where they are most needed to conduct effective coordinated global combat against the global virus, especially in the poorest countries where the outbreak may ultimately be the worst.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/governments-should-rely-more-wto-fight-against-coronavirus

Cato: How the Telephone Consumer Protection Act Unconstitutionally Privileges Government Speech

 In this time of crisis, the Supreme Court still soldiers on … somewhat. The Court cancelled its March oral argument sitting and will likely cancel the April one too. But petitions are still being filed–deadlines have been extended–and there are still cases to be decided. 

One of those cases concerns the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, a statute that is appreciated by many because it helps stop robocalls. The law makes businesses who violate the many consumer‐​oriented provisions liable to private lawsuit. This is no idle threat, either; in the last ten years 21 TCPA cases have settled for over $10 million. It is also a favorite of states’ attorneys general, who earn popularity for targeting the sources of unwanted calls.

The 1991 law was all‐​encompassing. Auto‐​dialers and pre‐​recorded calls were prohibited for political activists, local businesses, debt collectors, and charities alike. Unless a consumer has released their number willingly, they could not be called by such annoying methods. But in 2015, Congress passed a budget that contained an amendment exempting from the statute any calls made “solely to collect a debt owed to or guaranteed by the United States.”

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/how-telephone-consumer-protection-act-unconstitutionally-privileges-government-speech

Cato: The Census Is Too Intrusive

 Signs have popped up all over my neighborhood in Arlington, Virginia, urging us to respond to the census – so that the 8th wealthiest county in America won’t miss out on funding collected from taxpayers across the country.

Census Bureau materials stress to local officials that census data will help them get “their fair share of funding” from hundreds of federal programs. Obviously this is a zero‐​sum game. If my neighbors and I all fill out the form, then you and your neighbors will get less from the common federal trough. But at least we’ll be getting our “fair share.”

But where does the government get the authority to ask me my race, my age, and whether I have a mortgage? In fact, the Constitution authorizes the federal government to make an “actual enumeration” of the people in order to apportion seats in the House of Representatives. That’s all. Not to define and count us by race. Not to ask whether we’re homeowners or renters, or involved in a same‐​sex marriage or partnership. Just to ask how many people live here, so they can apportion congressional seats.

I’m not interested in getting taxpayers around the country to pay for roads and schools and “many other programs” in my community. All the government needs to know from me is how many people live in my house.

Through the American Community Survey, the Census Bureau asks 3.5 million Americans a year many more questions, including your citizenship, your income, your marital history, whether you’re on food stamps, and how many bedrooms you have. All very interesting to sociologists and planners, of course, but hardly what Madison anticipated when he and his colleagues provided for an “actual enumeration” of the constituents of Congress.

The bureau explains that this information “can be used in planning and funding government programs” and “to enforce laws, regulations, and policies.”

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/census-too-intrusive

Cato: Health Care Scope of Practice Laws Reveal Another Weakness in Response to COVID-19 Pandemic

 On March 24 Arizona Governor Doug Ducey issued an executive order allowing CRNA’s (Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists) to practice independently of physicians or surgeons, thus adding needed personnel to the health care work force during this public health emergency. Guidelines issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services state that nurse anesthetists should be “supervised” by a physician, thus preventing these well‐​trained specialized nurses from providing anesthesia independently while freeing up physician anesthesiologists so more patients can receive care. Because these CMS guidelines are listed as “optional,” the Governor decided that Arizona will opt out. The press release from the Governor’s office stated:

"“Arizona’s hospitals and medical professionals need all the help and resources they can get right now,” said Governor Ducey. “I am confident that this exemption will enhance access to high quality care, provide additional options to our rural hospitals, and is in the best interest of the citizens of Arizona.”"

Arizona joined 17 other states that have already opted out of these federal guidelines.

As we are seeing so frequently as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, regulations on the state and federal level stand in the way of needed care, equipment, drugs, and tests. In our federal system states have power over occupational licensing and determining the scope of work in which a licensee may engage. In the matter of the licensed health care professions, this is referred to as “scope of practice.”

For decades state legislators have witnessed turf battles among the various health care professions. Nurse practitioners and physicians’ assistants, for example, seek to practice independently of physicians and to expand their scope of practice to meet their level of training. This is usually met with resistance from medical doctors who argue NPs and PAs lack the necessary training to safely provide care beyond a narrowly‐​defined scope. The degree to which the scope of practice of NPs and PAs has been widened varies from state to state. Broadening their scope would help address the current health care crisis. But once the crisis passes, maintaining the broadened scope would give people more health care options and access, particularly in underserved rural areas.

Similarly, state capitals witness battles between optometrists, who seek to expand their scope to include prescriptive authority and simple surgical authority, and ophthalmologists who believe such expansions are dangerous.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/health-care-scope-practice-laws-reveal-another-weakness-response-covid-19-pandemic

Cato: Congress Set to Pass $2.2 Trillion Coronavirus Bill

 The Senate has passed a $2.2 trillion aid bill in response to the coronavirus crisis. The bill is expected to be passed quickly by the House and signed by the president.

Members of Congress stuffed a vast array of subsidies in the 880‐​page legislation, ranging from $454 billion for big businesses to $25 million for the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Here are the main spending buckets:

• $454 billion to finance loans to businesses and the states.
• $46 billion in loans and grants to airlines and other specified businesses.
• $377 billion in loans and grants to small businesses.
• $290 billion in stimulus checks for all individuals below an income cutoff.
• $260 billion in expanded unemployment benefits.
• $175 billion in grants to state and local governments.
• $180 billion in health‐​related spending.
• $154 billion for education, agriculture, food stamps, housing, and other programs.
• $290 billion in business and individual tax cuts.
  

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/congress-set-pass-22-trillion-coronavirus-bill

Cato: Technology Makes Social Distancing Easier

 Not long ago, many people decried screen time as an epidemic. But now that humanity finds itself in the midst of an actual disease pandemic, screens are proving to be a boon to the species. Progress in digital technology has perhaps never been more evident than in this moment of widespread social distancing measures.

Without today’s technology, “social distancing” would have meant isolation. From work, education and errands to leisure activities and socializing, technology is making “social distancing” possible with minimal sacrifice compared to what previous generations would have had to endure to achieve the same degree of physical separation.

It is of course true that looking at screens for prolonged periods has its downsides and that moderation is important. But the use of technology to help people stay connected and keep society running smoothly during this pandemic is turning the narrative that digital technology threatens human interaction and happiness upside‐​down.

Widespread reports have emerged of virtual dinner parties (warranting coverage in The Washington Post) and other virtual gatherings. It has become increasingly clear that social distancing should more aptly be called physical distancing — because those practicing it can still be social.

As bars temporarily shut down to prevent potential virus transmission, virtual cocktail parties and happy hours are taking off, meriting recent articles in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal covering the phenomenon. Happy hour gatherings, those fixtures of many young professionals’ lives, have transformed into digital social events involving split‐​screen video chats between participants as they each raise a glass from their respective locations.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/technology-makes-social-distancing-easier

Cato: Expanding Pharmacists’ Scope of Practice Can Save the Lives of Children

 Yesterday Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar used his emergency powers to override the restrictions that 22 states place on pharmacists vaccinating children over age 3.

As I noted in a previous post, a dangerous side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic is that many parents have not been bringing their children to the doctor’s office for their scheduled vaccinations. There are multiple contributing causes. In some cases, parents may be concerned about the expense. In others, they may be concerned that they or their children may get exposed to the virus. The timing of certain immunizations in children can be crucial and, for that reason, pediatricians and primary care practitioners have taken steps to provide immunizations in a safe, socially‐​distanced environment.

Despite an encouraging report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that, as COVID-19 cases have declined in New York City, childhood vaccinations have increased, a rebound in vaccinations has not yet been detected in other parts of the country.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/expanding-pharmacists-scope-practice-can-save-lives-children

Cato: Libertarianism and the Coronavirus Pandemic

 In recent days, there has been snark from some quarters about the current crisis somehow catching libertarians flat‐​footed. The argument goes that the need for a big government response disproves a political ideology that is often, though in somewhat oversimplified fashion, summarized as favoring “small government.” A better description would be a government limited in scope but sufficient to meet that scope.

Libertarianism, properly understood, encompasses certain core functions as the proper role of government. It is not the libertarian view that government should be ineffective at protecting individual rights or dysfunctionally paralyzed in the face of a massive threat to people’s lives. Government has a role to play in responding to the pandemic in much the same way it is the government’s job to prosecute murderers or defend the country from invasion.

At the same time, libertarian principles and insights can provide some guideposts for how to respond in this unprecedented global emergency.

One thing to keep in mind is that some limits on government power are even more crucial now. Emergency powers should be limited in duration and limited to directly addressing the present situation based on the facts as best we know them. Such policy responses shouldn’t be larded up with a pre‐​existing wish list of unrelated concerns. It is essential to preserve constitutional liberal democracy and resist excessive long‐​term concentration of power in the executive.

Social distancing measures should rely on voluntary compliance to the greatest degree possible, and most people have been voluntarily complying. Even when enforcement is necessary, simply breaking up gatherings without citation or prosecution is possible and preferable in many cases. A heavy‐​handed reliance on coercive enforcement might not only be unnecessary in some regards, it can also backfire by sparking protest non‐​compliance, and it might also be redundant to all the other measures already in place. With so much shut down, the only place most people have to go is to one of the essential businesses left open such as grocery stores. You don’t need to order people to stay home—except for the list of exceptions—if they already have almost nowhere to go that isn’t on that list of exceptions. For that reason, some states have so far rejected compulsory “stay at home” or “shelter in place” orders. There is no need to fuel further panic or distract police from their more important duties to worry about safe and benign activities like taking the family dog for a walk.

At the same time, many jurisdictions have moved to suspend petty arrests altogether, mostly for victimless crimes, in an effort to reduce jail populations. Also under consideration are proposals to release many of those individuals currently in jail awaiting trial for minor offenses. This is a welcome shift that should prompt us to reconsider the necessity of some of these laws, many of which have long been the target of libertarian ire.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/libertarianism-coronavirus-pandemic

Cato: When the Government Destroys All but a Smidge of Your Property Value, It Should Pay Just Compensation

 Developer Bridge Aina Le‘a, LLC, purchased a huge swath of land in Hawaii on which it planned to build hundreds of new homes. Before the company ever got the chance, however, the Hawaii Land Use Commission re‐​designated the land for agricultural use, stopping residential development dead in its tracks. Bridge Aina Le‘a sued to get its money’s worth and has asserted its constitutional right against uncompensated takings of property.

The land in question, over a thousand acres “of largely vacant and barren, rocky flow land,” could hardly support agricultural use. But existing Supreme Court doctrine could be read to defeat a takings claim in this case. This is despite the Land Use Commission’s subversion of Bridge Aina Le‘a’s “distinct investment‐​backed expectations”—a crucial factor in determining whether a regulation “goes too far” (as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes put it in 1922), violating the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause. That’s because in Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City (1978), the Court held that whether a regulation effects a taking in most cases involves “essentially ad hoc, factual inquiries.”

For over four decades, courts and developers have been left to ponder what these notoriously open‐​ended words mean. In Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council (1992), the Court clarified that those words were not meant to apply to regulations that resulted in a total loss of a property’s value or usefulness; that losses of that magnitude, once proved, effect per se takings of the property (regardless of whether the owner retains physical possession of the now‐​valueless or useless land). The problem with the Lucas doctrine is that even a 99% value‐​loss will not cut it—at least not for most courts. And, to add insult to injury, Lucas’s “usefulness” factor has fallen nearly completely out of vogue.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/when-government-destroys-all-smidge-property-value-it-should-pay-just-compensation

Cato: COVID-19 Leads to Arrest Reductions

 As COVID-19 spreads through the U.S., cities across the country are halting arrests for nonviolent offenses and releasing low‐​risk prisoners in efforts to reduce jail crowding and prevent the spread of the disease. Prosecutors in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Los Angeles County, Portland, and Nashville – along with many other cities – are issuing statements that arrests and prosecutions for low‐​level, nonviolent crimes (including drug offenses, theft, prostitution, traffic offenses, etc.) will stop.

Over 30 prosecutors issued a joint statement calling for public health officials and community leaders to:

Adopt “cite and release policies” for offenses which pose no immediate physical threat to the community, including simple possession of controlled substances.

• Release all individuals who are being detained solely because they can’t afford cash bail, unless they pose a serious risk to public safety.

• Reduce the prison population to minimize sharing of cells and ensure that there are sufficient medical quarantine beds, and enough staff, to promote the health and safety of staff, those incarcerated, and visitors

• Identify and release the following people immediately, unless doing so would pose a serious risk to the physical safety of the community:

○ Individuals who are elderly;

○ Populations that the CDC has classified as vulnerable (those with asthma, cancer, heart disease, lung disease, and diabetes);

○ People in local jails who are within 6 months of completing their sentence; and

○ People incarcerated due to technical violations of probation and parole.

• Put in place procedures and advocate for reforms that enable past lengthy sentences to be revisited and support release for those individuals who can safely return to the community

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/covid-19-leads-arrest-reductions

Cato: FDA Determined Convalescent Plasma Is Safe, Leaves Decisions on Efficacy up to Clinicians/​Patients. That’s the Way It Should Always Be

 Yesterday the Food and Drug Administration released a clinical memorandum giving Emergency Use Authorization for COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma (CCP) therapy, a previously unapproved biological product. For several months clinicians treating severely ill COVID-19 patients have transfused plasma donated by convalescing COVID-19 patients, rich with the antibodies to the virus produced by their immune system, hoping that these same antibodies can help patients suffering from active infection. Early results have been promising but, as some critics of the FDA decision have stated, more data is needed before definitive conclusions can be drawn regarding the efficacy of CCP therapy.

Using the antibodies in plasma from patients who have defeated a viral infection to treat newly infected patients is not a new idea. Clinicians and clinical researchers used it as early as the late nineteenth century to treat diphtheria and it was employed in the early twentieth century in the Spanish influenza epidemic.

By issuing the EUA allowing physicians to use convalescent plasma, the FDA didn’t make a final determination as to the treatment’s efficacy. The agency stated it “may be effective.” Importantly, it concluded that the treatment is safe. The FDA press release stated, “the known and potential benefits of the product outweigh the known and potential risks of the product.”

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/fda-determined-convalescent-plasma-safe-leaves-decisions-efficacy-clinicians/patients-thats

Cato: One Image to Capture the Unending Complexity of the H-2A Visa Program

 The Cato Institute published my latest Immigration Research and Policy Brief today. It provides basic facts about the H-2A visa program that farms use to hire guest workers. It contains a massive table of the 209 major H-2A rules that farmers must follow, which stretches for 14 pages in the print version, but perhaps nothing captures H-2A’s oppressive level of regulatory morass than Figure 4’s flow chart of the H-2A process.

The flow chart is a two‐​page maze of bureaucracy. It contains 69 action boxes. At every point there’s a possibility that an application or worker could be denied or delayed, upending the harvest for farmers. Its six sections represent the six government entities that conduct oversight over the H-2A program and that have the power to bar employers from hiring workers. Embedded within each step are dozens of rules and requirements. Each box represents a cost to employers and workers preparing and justifying their need to hire or work in this country.

Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/one-image-capture-unending-complexity-h-2a-visa-program