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What we know Tuesday

Tuesday, March 24, 3 p.m.

As of Tuesday morning, Tulare County HHSA has spent $325,340 on responding to the COVID-19 pandemic in Tulare County, Director Tim Lutz said.

Lutz shared an overview of how the agency has responded to the COVID-19 pandemic Tuesday at the Tulare County Board of Supervisors meeting.

Lutz said the agency expects to receive about $475,000 specific to its response efforts through a supplemental appropriations act President Donald Trump signed March 6, as well as some other funds for helping specific groups.

"There are some additional allocations that are coming through alternative sources, such as our homelessness response monies, that we're targeting to specifically providing beds and support to that population," Lutz added.

The agency has delivered 67,760 personal protective equipment supplies to hospitals and skilled nursing facilities, first responders and community clinics since March 17.

"I will note though that PPE, personal protective equipment, does remain our No. 1 constraint on ordering," Lutz said.

A call center was set up last week to handle an influx of calls to 2-1-1. The center received 950 calls last week, Lutz said.

"We continue to keep up with demand and monitor that," he said.

Lutz said the Tulare Public Health Lab has done 355 Tulare County tests, as well as 124 from other counties.

The lab was one of the first 40 in the country to do testing, but now that other testing centers have cropped up, the lab has been able to focus more on processing Tulare County tests.

Lutz said testing capabilities will likely double once new equipment is installed Wednesday.

Tuesday, March 24, 1:30 p.m.

On a Tuesday appearance on Ray Appleton's KMJ talk show, Congressman Devin Nunes (R-Tulare) vowed to help hospitals and clinics in his district get critically needed supplies like masks.

"We're in touch with all the hospitals and clinics," he told Appleton.

Nunes also criticized the House Democrats' stimulus legislation as 1,400-pages of pork politics and giveaways, saying that the proposed bill gives money to unnecessary programs such as an art organization in Washington D.C.

But Nunes was also confident the Senate Republicans would pass a better bill after negotiations, saying the stimulus package was critical to avoid an even worse economic downturn.

Nunes also praised President Trump's goal to get America back to work by Easter.

“We’re going to be opening relatively soon,” Trump said during a Fox News town hall Tuesday. “I'd love to have it open by Easter ... It's such an important day for other reasons but I'll make an important date for this too. I would love to have the country, opened up and just raring to go by Easter.”

Shortly after Trump’s remarks, three major U.S. health organizations – representing the nation’s doctors, nurses and hospitals – issued a public plea to Americans to stay home.

“Staying at home in this urgent moment is our best defense to turn the tide against COVID-19,” wrote the American Medical Association, American Hospital Association, and American Nurses Association in an open letter.

USA TODAY contributed to this report.

Tuesday, March 24, 11 a.m.

Tulare County Public Health Department announced a new case of COVID-19 was confirmed.

The patient is between 25 and 40 years old and is self-isolating at home, health officials said. The case is travel-related.

This brings Tulare County's total confirmed COVID-19 cases to 17.

Tuesday, March 24, 6:30 a.m.

4 new Tulare County cases Monday

Tulare County has four new positive cases of COVID-19, Tulare County Public Health Branch announced Monday. That brings the total in the county to 16.

The four newest cases were all travel-related. Three cases are between the ages of 18–25, and one is between the ages of 26–40.

None of the four new cases required hospitalization. They are at home in self-isolation.

Staff has started contact investigations for the new cases.

"Dinuba, Porterville, Tulare and Visalia are the communities that are impacted with positive cases," according to a Tulare County Health & Human Services news release.

Fresno County had a jump of seven new positive cases Monday, bringing its total up to 13.

Outside Creek Elementary School open

Despite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s statewide stay-at-home order, Outside Creek Elementary School, a small rural single-district school southeast of Visalia with about 89 students, remains open.

Outside Creek Elementary School District Superintendent Derrick Bravo did not immediately respond to requests for comment. He declined to talk to other media on Monday, too.

Bravo also teaches at the school.

Tulare County Superintendent Tim Hire confirmed the school was the only one open amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

The majority of schools closed more than a week ago, with the remaining holdouts closing early last week. Visalia Unified School District was the first to close.

Chromebooks help connect college students

About 90 Chromebooks were lent out at College of the Sequoias Visalia campus Monday afternoon, with more distributed at the Tulare and Hanford campuses.

COS officials expect to check out about 200 more next week.

As COS continues to conduct its courses online, the college is connecting registered COS students with devices to complete schoolwork and ways to access the internet.

Students can hold onto the Chromebooks until at least April 13, the current date in-person classes are set to resume.

Trump wants to ease up on coronavirus-related shutdowns 'pretty soon'

President Donald Trump on Monday said his administration is looking at ways to ease economic restrictions it stressed just days earlier even as the U.S. braces for a jump in coronavirus cases and states tighten restrictions on people and businesses.

"I'm not looking at months," Trump said of the duration of social distancing guidelines that have led to school and business closures. "We will be back in business as a country pretty soon."

Trump’s suggestion comes as others are taking their most strict measures yet. On Monday, four U.S. states announced more rigid orders for residents and businesses, an International Olympic Committee member revealed this year's games would be postponed and U.S. deaths approached 600, according to the Johns Hopkins University data dashboard.

The federal government, Trump said, will use data "to recommend new protocols” to allow local economies to “cautiously resume their activity at the appropriate time."

He did not say when those protocols would be rolled out as the coronavirus spreads across the U.S.

The remarks were a major departure from Trump's prediction just days ago that the guidelines could potentially be in place through the summer. Trump appeared to signal that parts of the country that are less hard hit could be placed under less strict guidelines than states like New York and California.

At the same time, Trump admitted the outbreak will only get worse in the U.S. Trump said he agreed with his surgeon general’s prediction that the number of coronavirus cases would jump.

“This is going to be bad,” Trump said. “We’re trying to make it so it’s much, much less bad.”

Stimulus package deal stalls

An effort in the Senate to move forward with a nearly $2 trillion economic stimulus package to combat the coronavirus crisis has stalled for the second day in a row over continued disagreements between Republicans and Democrats.

The largely party-line vote (with Republican for and Democrats against) was 49-46 to end debate and move forward. Sixty votes were needed to advance the measure for a final floor vote.

The measure is designed to provide direct payments to most Americans, throw a lifeline to small businesses shuttered across the country, and rescue large industries, such as the airlines, battered by the coronavirus crisis. But Democrats want more protections for workers from layoffs and loss of heath coverage, more money for states to deal with the crisis, and more aid for students facing student debt repayment.

After the vote, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell angrily dismissed the Democratic opposition as “procedural obstruction” that could delay a vote on the measure until the end of the week.

House Democrats are countering with a financial rescue plan to help the nation recover from the coronavirus pandemic that, at $2.5 trillion, would dwarf the roughly $2 trillion package Republicans and the Trump administration have been touting.

The package, released Monday afternoon by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., would provide $1,500 to every individual, up to $7,500 for a family of five. The benefit “would be available to anyone with an individual taxpayer identification number, as well as to our nation’s retirees and unemployed individuals,” according to an outline obtained by USA TODAY.

USA TODAY contributed to this report.

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