<em>The Atlantic</em> Politics Daily: There Goes the Economy

It’s too late to stop these layoffs, but the federal government can soften the economic blow by expanding its messaging to companies about the $300 billion loan program it launched last week, and then funnel more money into it:

The message should be: You have a patriotic and moral duty to hold on to your workers during this national crisis, and the government has a patriotic and moral duty to pay you to do it.

Here are four rules we should be operating by, Derek also writes. The first? That saving the economy should be pitted against saving lives is a false choice.

Moreover, it’s foolish to begin thinking about reopening the economy when the cities that fuel the economy remain under a vicious COVID-19 siege, our political analyst Ron Brownstein writes:

In interviews with me this week, the mayors of several of those big cities told me that it will take much longer than a few weeks to restart their economy—and that even when economic activity resumes, the process will be gradual and halting.

You can read the full story here.

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Politics Daily readers: Are you applying for an emergency small-business loan, or know someone who is? Our economics reporters would like to hear about the experience.

Write to us by replying directly to this newsletter, or emailing us here. Include your name as well as the name, size, and location of your enterprise.

—Christian Paz

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« THE CORONAVIRUS READER »

(THE ATLANTIC)

+ The White House said it estimated anywhere from 100,000 to 240,000 people to die from COVID-19 in the U.S. The debate rages on over whether the official estimates are correct. But that’s the wrong way to be understanding these models. Epidemiological models are not meant to be “right” or “wrong,” Zeynep Tufekci aruges.

+ The coronavirus is advancing on the American South: So far, about one in 10 deaths in the U.S. from COVID-19 has occurred in the four-state arc of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, according to data assembled by the COVID Tracking Project. And more young people are dying, Vann R. Newkirk II writes.

+ Closing schools and restaurants, shutting down public spaces, and postponing events was the easiest part of states’ responses to the coronavirus, one former DHS official argues. There are a range of ugly decisions forthcoming (think, for instance, “which crimes to investigate”).

You can keep up with The Atlantic’s most crucial coronavirus coverage here.

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Today’s newsletter was written by Christian Paz, a Politics fellow. It was edited by Shan Wang, who oversees newsletters.

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Christian Paz is an editorial fellow at The Atlantic.