Reader Quick Hits: April 22, 2020

Earth Day turns 50. On April 22, 1970, a bipartisan effort created the very first Earth Day. On that day, 20 million Americans in 2,000 communities and 10,000 schools planted trees, cleaned up parks, buried cars in mock graves, marched, listened to speeches and protested how humans were negatively affecting the planet. It was the largest demonstration in the history of the nation. The Idaho Statesman has a great article up about Paul “Pete” McCloskey, a former Republican Congressman who is one of the unsung heroes of the modern environmental movement that helped establish Earth Day in 1970.

Bonner County is holding at four cases of coronavirus. Statewide, as of Wednesday, April 22 at 5 p.m., there have been 1,802 total confirmed and probable cases in Idaho, with 36 new ones added today. To date, there have been 54 deaths attributed to coronavirus in Idaho and 767 cases listed as “recovered.”

Colleges in Idaho are expected to receive a total of $57 million from a federal stimulus package aimed at dampening the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The University of Idaho will receive $7.3 million and the North Idaho College will get $2.3 million. Roughly half of the package will go directly to students in the form of emergency grants to help with tuition, technology, child care and other needs. The money came from the $2 trillion CARES, Act that Congress passed in March.

Mask on Mask Off: the Boise Weekly has an interesting article here which attempts to shine a light on what divides people over wearing face masks in public places.

The U.S. House of Representatives is poised to give final passage to a new package of pandemic relief funds totaling $484 billion on Thursday. The legislation, which passed the U.S. Senate Tuesday, includes $320 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program designed to help struggling small businesses keep their workers on the payroll, according to the Spokesman-Review. The new package comes on top of the $2 trillion package enacted in March. 

CDC director warns that a second wave of coronavirus cases in the U.S. could be even worse than the first. CDC director Robert Redfield said the danger was higher as a fresh outbreak would likely coincide with the flu season. President Donald Trump tweeted this morning that the “CDC Director was totally misquoted by Fake News @CNN on Covid 19.” The original story, which was reported by The Washington Post, not CNN, quoted directly from Redfield, who retweeted The Washington Post story shortly after it originally published urging people to read it.