Technology

Workers at Americalargest companies are not covered under a bill passed by the House of Representatives on Friday that is supposed to support American workers impacted by the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The bill still has to be voted on by the Senate and approved before it can be signed into law, but its structure leaves a gaping hole in the prevention strategy the government has said is necessary to reduce the COVID-19 outbreak in the US.

&No American worker should worry about missing a paycheck if they&re feeling ill,& said Vice President Mike Pence at the Sunday press briefing from the Coronavirus Task Force. &If you&re sick with a respiratory illness stay home.&

However, millions of Americans potentially don&t have the ability to make that choice under the congressional aid package touted by both Democrats and Republicans. By excluding companies with more than 500 employees from the Congressional aid, the health and welfare of millions of Americans in industries providing goods, manufacturing, and vital services to most of the country is being left up to the discretion of their employers.

Details of the legislative compromise were first reported by The New York Times yesterday. And chart published by The New York Times illustrated just how many companies didn&t have paid sick leave policies in place as the coronavirus began to spread in the US (companies have changed policies to respond to the coronavirus).

Image courtesy of The New York Times

Big technology companies took the lead early this month in changing policies for their workers and by the end of last week many of the countrylargest employers had followed suit. But it looks like their work won&t be covered under the governmentcurrent plan — and that any measures to extend sick leave and paid time off will be limited to a response to the current outbreak.

These large employers have already responded by closing stores or reducing hours in areas where most cases of the novel coronavirus have been diagnosed — and companies operating in most of those states are required by law to offer paid leave to their hourly employees and contractors.

Companies who have responded to the outbreak by changing their time-off and sick leave policies include Walmart, Target, Darden Restaurants (the owner of the Olive Garden restaurant chain), Starbucks, Lowes, and KFC, have joined tech companies and gig economy businesses like Alphabet (the parent company of Google), Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Instacart, Microsoft, Postmates, Salesforce, and Uber in offering extended leave benefits to employees affected by the coronavirus.

These kinds of guarantees can go a long way to ensuring that hourly workers in the country don&t have to choose between their health and their employment. The inability to pass a law that would cover all workers puts everyone at risk.

Without government stepping in, industries are crafting their own responses. Late Sunday, automakers including GM, Ford, and FiatChrysler joined the United Auto Workers union in announcing the creation of a coronavirus task force to coordinate an industrywide response for the automotive sector.

As the Pew Research Center noted last week, the bill proposed by House Democrats had initially proposed temporary federal sick leave covering workers with COVID-19 or caring for family members with two-thirds of their wages for up to three months; expiring in January 2021. The measure would have also guaranteed private employers give workers seven days of paid sick leave with another 14 days available immediately in the event of future public health emergencies.

Most workers have less than nine days of sick leave covered under current state legislation. There is no national mandate for paid sick leave. After one year on the job, 22 percent of workers have access to less than five days, while another 46 percent of employees can get five-to-nine days of paid sick leave. Only 38 percent of workers have between ten and fourteen days of leave.

The Pew Research Center also reported that the lack of access to paid sick leave increases as wages decline. Over ninety percent of workers receiving hourly rages over $32.21 have some form of paid sick leave. Only about 50 percent of workers who make $13.80 or less have access to some form of paid sick leave. For Americans who make under $10.80 an hour, only about 30 percent receive any sick leave.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has updated its guidance(also available in full below) regarding large group gatherings and events in light of the ongoing effort to combat the spread of coronavirus in the country. The new CDC guidance recommends against holding any events or group gatherings of 50 or more people across the U.S., and notes that this guidance applies for at least the next eight weeks.

The updated guidance, issued on Sunday night, also indicates that gatherings (of any size) should only take place provided that they can do so while also honouring the recommendations that exist around limiting exposure to especially vulnerable populations, as well as those around hand hygiene (hand washing and sanitization) and social distancing (increasing personal space to lower the chances of transmission from an infected individual).

As with less stringent, earlier guidance against larger group gatherings, the CDC notes that this guideline should not be considered to apply to the &day to day operation of organizations such as schools, institutes of higher learning, or businesses.& Nor, the CDC says, is it meant to &supersede the advice of local public health officials.&

It is meant to slow the pace of transmission, and to reduce the chances of introduction of the virus to communities where it isn&t present, the agency says. Social distancing and isolation are the best possible course for reducing the impact of the current coronavirus pandemic to levels even approaching manageability by health care professionals, according to all experts qualified to advise on the subject.

Despite the qualification in this CDC guidance regarding the suspension of school operations and businesses, many of these measures are being implemented at the local and state level. New York City public schools will be shut down as of next week, Mayor Bill de Blasio office announced on Sunday after mounting pressure to follow a number of other states in this measure, and multiple other states have introduced measures to close or limit the operating hours and capacities of restaurants and bars this weekend as the situation continues to evolve.

This new guidance extends through April and into May, which is longer than a lot of the existing tentative end dates for existing social distancing and coronavirus-related travel restriction measures put in place by private companies and event organizers. Itclear from this modification of its advice on the matter that the CDC anticipates greater impact for longer durations, at least when it comes to high-risk situations like densely packed groups of many individuals including conferences, concerts and trade shows & but extending even to much smaller gatherings like weddings and large birthday parties.

Despite many new efforts to limit group gatherings, this past weekend saw both a fair number of revellers gathering to celebrate St. PatrickDay, flying in the face of the good advice of experts, and major backlogs at airports caused by arrivals waylaid by a more stringent, but also more confused and potentially dangerous federally-instituted screening process for arriving passengers at major airports.

The Big 3 Detroit automakers — GM, Ford, and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles — have partnered with United Auto Workers to form a task force aimed at protecting workers and limiting the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus.

The task force was announced Sunday.

UAW President Rory Gamble along with leaders from the three automakers, a group that includes GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra, Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford, Ford President and CEO Jim Hackett and FCA CEO Michael Manley, will lead the task force.

Gamble said that &all options related to protecting against exposure to the virus are on the table.&

The task force will coordinate efforts to prevent the spread of the disease and will take a wide range of actions that include enhanced visitor screening and increased cleaning and sanitizing of common areas and touch points. Safety protocols for people with potential exposure, as well as those who exhibit flu-like symptoms, will also be developed.

Y Combinator said that it may make its Summer 2020 accelerator program entirely virtual, proving that even the worldpremiere accelerator isn&t immune to having its business reshaped by the novel coronavirus spreading across the world.

YC has already made its Demo Day for its Winter 2020 cohort an online only affair. The accelerator also accelerated the timeline for the Demo Day, which will be held tomorrow — a week early.

Beyond that, the accelerator said it wanted entrepreneurs to know that the summer batch will take place, and that its online application is open now.

&Additionally, depending on the circumstances this summer, some or all of the batch may take place remotely over video,& Y Combinator said in a statement.

&This is a unique worldwide crisis, but it will not lessen the extraordinary opportunities for terrific founders to start and build epic companies,& the accelerator wrote. &We look forward to reading all your applications and wish good luck and good health to everyone.&

In the past, Y Combinator had required that all participating startups relocate to the Bay Area — something that many entrepreneurs considered to be a strain on their business. And while the accelerator hasn&t had problems finding strong companies willing to take the leap, the virtual option may enable even more entrepreneurs to reap the benefits of the acceleratornetwork of experts and mentorship.

Electric scooters are still unlawful to use on public roads and pavements in the UK, but that hasn&t stopped many consumers from using them anyway to get from A to B. Now, in an effort to wean people off the use of individual automobiles, the government may finally be coming around to bringing its rules up to speed with the times, moving one step closer to legally using e-scooters alongside other new mobility technology, such as drone deliveries for medical supplies, in the coming years.

The UKDepartment for Transporttoday announced a new consultation into exploring new transportation modes that include e-scooters and e-cargo bikes, as well as bringing the on-demand model (popularised by services like Uber) to buses and other public transport alternatives, and using drones for medical deliveries. Alongside this, it announced funding of £90 million ($112 million) for three new Future Transport Zones to trial these new services.

Together, the moves represent some of the more significant headway that the UK has made in recent years to work with and consider what transportation will look like in the country in the years ahead, in particular as an alternative to consumers using private vehicles to move things and getting around.

Some argue that the UKhas lagged behind other European countries like France when it comes to bringing e-scooters to the wider market, with up to now the only legal services operating in closed &campus& environments.

&We are on the cusp of a transport revolution. Emerging technologies are ripping up the rulebook and changing the way people and goods move forever,& said Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, in a statement. &Our groundbreaking Future of Transport programme marks the biggest review of transport laws in a generation and will pave the way for exciting new transport technology to be tested, cementing the UKposition as a world-leading innovator.This Review will ensure we understand the potential impacts of a wide range of new transport types such as e-scooters, helping to properly inform any decisions on legalisation. Funding these new Zones across the country will also help us safely test innovative ways to get around, creating a greener future transport system for us all.&

Generally speaking, the announcement is an overdue, but clear, vote of confidence in the idea of trying out new kinds of services and models, in the wake of a number of them not living up to expectations. Bird, for example, introduced an e-scooter trial in London two years ago, but with a very limited range and scope, in the Olympic Park campus in London, ithad little exposure in the wider market. Citymapper last year, meanwhile, shut down its on-demand bus trials after finding they also didn&t work as the startup had hoped they would. (Italso an interesting turn for the government, which took a hands-off approach to initial Uberroll out, only to see the company run into controversy; perhaps learning from that, it seems now to be more engaged in how new services and technologies roll out.)

The news today essentially gives a lease of life to companies hoping to build businesses on these new technologies and services.

The DfT is short on details around what the consultation will entail but did include some specifics on scooters, in what would be the governmentfirst concerted efforts to consider how what requirements would need to be introduced to legalise e-scooters, including traffic laws, minimum age and vehicle requirements, insurance requirements and parking rules (parking fees being a key revenue driver for local councils).

(The backstory here is that scooters, which are counted as motorised vehicles in the UK, are still illegal because regulations around insurance, traffic laws and driver requirements, have been determined for them, and so even to test new services, the laws will need to be amended. The DfT said that local authorities will contract one or more e-scooter companies to run services.)

&This is great news for UK towns and cities, we&re delighted that the Government is exploring offering greener ways to travel,& saidAlan Clarke, Director of UK Policy and Government Affairs at Lime, in a statement. (Lime currently offers bikes on demand in various locations, but has yet to bring its scooters to the UK market.) &Shared electric scooters are a safe, emission-free, affordable and convenient way of getting around. They help take cars off the road with around a quarter of e-scooter trips replacing a car journey — cutting congestion and reducing air pollution.Lime operates shared dockless e-scooter schemes in over 100 locations globally and in 50 cities across Europe. We look forward to contributing to the governmentcall for evidence to develop clear rules and minimum safety standards to allow this environmentally friendly option to be made available and hope to participate in upcoming trials on UK streets.&

The new transport zones — inPortsmouth and Southampton, the West of England Combined Authority, and Derby and Nottingham — will be modelled on an existing region established in the West Midlands (covering Birmingham, Coventry and Solihull), which has been a testing ground for future transport policy and technology such as autonomous vehicles.

&The Zones will provide real-world testing for experts, allowing them to work with a range of local bodies such as councils, hospitals, airports and universities to test innovative ways to transport people and goods,& the DfT said in astatement.

As with the existing region, the new ones will explore autonomous vehicle trials, as well as scooter pilots, bus schemes that operate on on-demand models, and multi-modal transportation apps. Portsmouth and Southampton will also look at last-mile deliveries using e-cargo bikes and medical supply drones. Derby and Nottingham have been granted £15 million to build mobility hubs to promote different public transportation options alongside bike hire, car clubs and electric vehicles.

Beginning today, Starbucks is instituting a temporary move to a &to go& model for all of its locations in the U.S. and Canada. One of the more sweeping actions taken by a major food chain, the coffee giant is looking to adhere to advice about social distancing among an exponential uptick in cases of COVID-19.

The model, which find the company closing down seating in its cafe and patio areas, will be in place for at least two weeks, according to the company. Instead, Starbucks will rely on its app for ordering ahead, drive thru in certain locations, walk up counter and delivery.

Locations in &high-social gathering locations& like schools and malls will temporarily be closed. Same goes for communities that have been hit with large clusters of COVID-19 cases.

&As we all know, the situation with COVID-19 is extremely dynamic and we will continue to review the facts and science and make the proactive decisions necessary to protect our partners, customers and communities,& EVP Rossann Williams said in a statement. &Every communityneeds are incredibly different. We want to make sure we play a constructive role by taking responsible actions, in partnership with the CDC and local public health authorities, so we can continue to do whatright for our partners and customers.&

Earlier in the week CEO Kevin Johnson laid out some preemptive plans aimed at prioritizing &the health and well-being of our customers and partners while also playing a constructive role in supporting local health officials and government leaders as they work to contain the virus.&