Solano County Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Updates and Resources. Check out basic information in this screenshot. IMPORTANT: The County’s interactive page has more. On the County website, you can hover your mouse over the charts at right for detailed information.
Previous report, Tuesday, May 19
Summary
Solano County reported 5 new positive cases today, total is now 430.
2 new deaths today, total is 18.
For the second time in 9 days, the County did not report any new cases among young persons 18 and under. The County reported 8 new cases among our youth in the last week and only 6 over the 5 weeks prior. (See table below).
BY AGE GROUP
No new cases were reported today of a young person under 19 years of age, total of 14 cases, 3.2% of total confirmed cases. (See table below.)
5 new cases of persons 19-64years of age, total of 307 cases, 70% of the total. 1 new death in this age group, total of 4. Note that only 37 of the 307 cases in this age group (12%) were hospitalized at one time. (It is unclear whether the 4 deaths were ever hospitalized.)
1 new case was of a person 65 or older, total of 115 cases, 26% of the total. 1 new death, total of 14. Note that 29 of the 114 cases in this age group (25%) were hospitalized at one time, more than double the percentage in the mid-age group. (It is unclear whether the 14 deaths in this age group were ever hospitalized.)
Recent surge in positive cases among youth 18 and under
Date
New cases
Total
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
0
14
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
0
14
Monday, May 18, 2020
1
14
Friday, May 15, 2020
2
13
Thursday, May 14, 2020
3
11
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
1
8
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
1
7
Monday, May 11, 2020
0
6
Friday, May 8, 2020
0
6
Thursday, May 7, 2020
0
6
Wednesday, May 6, 2020
0
6
Tuesday, May 5, 2020
0
6
Monday, May 4, 2020
0
6
CITY DATA
Vallejo added 3 of today’s new cases, total of 262.
Fairfield added 1 of today’s new cases, total of 74.
Vacaville
added 1 of today’s new cases, total of 40.
Suisun City remains at 21.
Benicia remains at 21.
Dixon, Rio Vista and “Unincorporated” are still not assigned numerical data: today all remain at <10 (less than 10). The total numbers for other cities add up to 418, leaving17cases somewhere among the locations in this “<10” category (same as last reported).Residents and city officials have pressured County officials for city case counts. Today’s data is welcome, but still incomplete.
HOSPITALIZATIONS: 67 of Solano’s 435 cases resulted in hospitalizations, 1 more than yesterday.
ACTIVE CASES: 43 of the 435 cases are active, 4 more than yesterday. Note that the county does not report WHERE the active cases are. Below you will see that only 18 are currently hospitalized, which leaves 25 of these 43 active cases out in our communities somewhere, and hopefully quarantined.
HOSPITAL IMPACT: The County shows 18 of the 67 hospitalized cases are CURRENTLY hospitalized, same asyesterday. The County’s count ofICU beds available and ventilator supply remains at “GOOD” at 31-100%. (No information is given on our supply of test kits, PPE and staff.)
This chart shows the infection’s steady upward trajectory in Solano County. Our “curve” continues to creep up. Our nursing homes, long-term care facilities and jails bear watching!
Still incredibly important – everyone stay home if you don’t need to go out, wear masks when you do go out, wash hands, and be safe!
Donald Trump participates in a tour of Owens & Minor Inc, a medical supply company, on Thursday in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP
The president’s outlandish behavior as Americans suffer has inspired horror and confusion while alienating allies
The Guardian, Julian Borger in Washington, Helen Davidson in Sydney, Leyland Cecco in Toronto, Daniel Boffey in Brussels, Philip Oltermann in Berlin, Angela Giuffrida in Rome, Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro and Emmanuel Akinwotu in London; 15 May 2020
The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that the US is “leading the world” with its response to the pandemic, but it does not seem to be going in any direction the world wants to follow.
Across Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, views of the US handling of the coronavirus crisis are uniformly negative and range from horror through derision to sympathy. Donald Trump’s musings from the White House briefing room, particularly his thoughts on injecting disinfectant, have drawn the attention of the planet.
“Over more than two centuries, the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger,” the columnist Fintan O’Toole wrote in the Irish Times. “But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the US until now: pity.”
The US has emerged as a global hotspot for the pandemic, a giant petri dish for the Sars-CoV-2 virus. As the death toll rises, Trump’s claims to global leadership have became more far-fetched. He told Republicans last week that he had had a round of phone calls with Angela Merkel, Shinzo Abe and other unnamed world leaders and insisted “so many of them, almost all of them, I would say all of them” believe the US is leading the way.
None of the leaders he mentioned has said anything to suggest that was true. At each milestone of the crisis, European leaders have been taken aback by Trump’s lack of consultation with them – when he suspended travel to the US from Europe on 12 March without warning Brussels, for example. A week later, politicians in Berlin accused Trump of an “unfriendly act” for offering “large sums of money” to get a German company developing a vaccine to move its research wing to the US.
The president’s abrupt decision to cut funding to the World Health Organization last month also came as a shock. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, a former Spanish foreign minister, wrote on Twitter: “There is no reason justifying this move at a moment when their efforts are needed more than ever to help contain & mitigate the coronavirus pandemic.”
A poll in France last week found Merkel to be far and away the most trusted world leader. Just 2% had confidence Trump was leading the world in the right direction. Only Boris Johnson and Xi Jinping inspired less faith.
A survey this week by the British Foreign Policy Group found 28% of Britons trusted the US to act responsibly on the world stage, a drop of 13 percentage points since January, with the biggest drop in confidence coming among Conservative voters.
Dacian Cioloș, a former prime minister of Romania who now leads the Renew Europe group in the European parliament, captured a general European view this week as the latest statistics on deaths in the US were reported.
“Post-truth communication techniques used by rightwing populism movements simply do not work to beat Covid-19,” he told the Guardian. “And we see that populism cost lives.”
Around the globe, the “America first” response pursued by the Trump administration has alienated close allies. In Canada, it was the White House order in April to halt shipments of critical N95 protective masks to Canadian hospitals that was the breaking point.
The Ontario premier, Doug Ford, who had previously spoken out in support of Trump on several occasions, said the decision was like letting a family member “starve” during a crisis.
“When the cards are down, you see who your friends are,” said Ford. “And I think it’s been very clear over the last couple of days who our friends are.”
In countries known for chronic problems of governance, there has been a sense of wonder that the US appears to have joined their ranks.
FacebookTwitterPinterest Trump’s press briefings have captured the world’s attention. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA
Esmir Milavić, an editor at Bosnia’s N1 TV channel, told viewers this week: “The White House is in utter dysfunction and doesn’t speak with one voice.”
Milavić said: “The vice-president is wearing a mask, while the president doesn’t; some staffers wear them, some don’t. Everybody acts as they please. As time passes, White House begins to look more and more like the Balkans.”
After Trump’s disinfectant comments, Beppe Severgnini, a columnist for Italy’s Corriere della Sera, said in a TV interview: “Trying to get into Donald Trump’s head is more difficult than finding a vaccine for coronavirus. First he decided on a lockdown and then he encouraged protests against the lockdown that he promoted. It’s like a Mel Brooks film.”
In several countries, the local health authorities have felt obliged to put out statements to counter “health advice” coming from the White House, concerning the ingestion of disinfectant and taking hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug found to be ineffective against Covid-19 and potentially lethal.
The Nigerian government put out a warning that there is no “hard evidence that chloroquine is effective in prevention or management of coronavirus infection” after three people were hospitalised from overdosing on the drug in Lagos. It was not enough to prevent a fivefold increase in the price of the drug, which is also used to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
Trump’s decision not to take part in a global effort to find a vaccine, and his abrupt severance of financial support to the WHO at the height of the pandemic, added outrage and prompted complaints that the US was surrendering its role of global leadership.
FacebookTwitterPinterest There is a sense of relief among Chinese state commentators that Trump’s antics have diverted some of the anger that could have been aimed at Beijing. Photograph: Xinhua/Rex/Shutterstock
“If there is any world leader who can be accused of handling the current crisis badly, it is Donald Trump, whose initial disdain for Covid-19 may have cost thousands of Americans their lives,” an editorial in the conservative Estado de São Paulo newspaper said last month.
The newspaper said Trump had only decided to take Covid seriously after finding himself “cornered by the facts” – and expressed shock at his decision to halt WHO funding.
“Even by the standards of his behaviour, the level of impudence is astonishing for the holder of an office that, until just a few years ago, was a considered reference in leadership for the democratic world,” it said.
Nowhere in the world is the US response to the pandemic more routinely castigated than in China. It is hardly surprising. Trump has consistently pointed to Chinese culpability in failing to contain the outbreak in its early stages, and the pandemic has become the central battleground for global leadership between the established superpower and the emerging challenger.
There is a palpable sense of relief among Chinese state commentators that the US president’s antics have diverted some of the anger that would otherwise have been aimed at Beijing.
“Only by making Americans hate China can they make sure that the public might overlook the fact that Trump’s team is stained with the blood of Americans,” said an English-language Global Times editorial late last month.
Its editor, Hu Xijin, tweeted: “US system used to be appealing to many Chinese people. But through the pandemic, Chinese saw US government’s incompetence in outbreak control, disregard for life and its overt lies. Washington’s political halo has little left.”
China’s failure to cooperate fully with the WHO and its heavy-handed diplomacy has won Beijing few friends, despite its dispatch of medical assistance around the world. But the German news weekly Der Spiegel argued that Trump had single-handedly managed to spare Beijing the worst of the global consequences for its failings.
“For a while, it looked like the outbreak of the coronavirus would throw China back by light years,” the magazine argued in an editorial. “But now it is US president Donald Trump who has to spend day after day in a stuffy White House press room explaining to the world why his country can’t get a grip on the pandemic.”
Solano County Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Updates and Resources. Check out basic information in this screenshot. IMPORTANT: The County’s interactive page has more. On the County website, you can hover your mouse over the charts at right for detailed information.
Previous report, Wednesday, May 18
Summary
Solano County reported 6 new positive cases today, total is now 430.
No new deaths today, total is 16.
For the first time in 8 days, the County did not report any new cases among young persons 18 and under. The County reported 8 new cases among our youth in the last week and only 6 over the 5 weeks prior. (See table below).
BY AGE GROUP
No new cases were reported today of a young person under 19 years of age, total of 14 cases, 3.3% of total confirmed cases. (See table below.)
5 new cases of persons 19-64years of age, total of 302 cases, 70% of the total. No new deaths in this age group, total of 3. Note that only 36 of the 302 cases in this age group (12%) were hospitalized at one time. (It is unclear whether the 3 deaths were ever hospitalized.)
1 new case was of a person 65 or older, total of 114 cases, 27% of the total. No new deaths, total of 13. Note that 26 of the 114 cases in this age group (23%) were hospitalized at one time, nearly double the percentage in the mid-age group. (It is unclear whether the 13 deaths in this age group were ever hospitalized.)
Recent surge in positive cases among youth 18 and under
Date
New cases
Total
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
0
14
Monday, May 18, 2020
1
14
Friday, May 15, 2020
2
13
Thursday, May 14, 2020
3
11
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
1
8
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
1
7
Monday, May 11, 2020
0
6
Friday, May 8, 2020
0
6
Thursday, May 7, 2020
0
6
Wednesday, May 6, 2020
0
6
Tuesday, May 5, 2020
0
6
Monday, May 4, 2020
0
6
HOSPITALIZATIONS: 66 of Solano’s 430 cases resulted in hospitalizations, 2 more than yesterday.
ACTIVE CASES: 39 of the 430 cases are active, 1 fewer than yesterday. Note that the county does not report WHERE the active cases are. Below you will see that only 18 are currently hospitalized, which leaves 21 of these 39 active cases out in our communities somewhere, and hopefully quarantined.
The County’s “Hospital Impact” graph shows 18 of the 66 hospitalized cases are CURRENTLY hospitalized, 1 more than yesterday. The County’s count ofICU beds available and ventilator supply remains at “GOOD” at 31-100%. (No information is given on our supply of test kits, PPE and staff.)
CITY DATA
Vallejo added all 6 of today’s new cases, total of 259.
Fairfield remains at 73.
Vacaville remains at 39.
Suisun City remains at 21.
Benicia remains at 21.
Dixon, Rio Vista and “Unincorporated” are still not assigned numerical data: today all remain at <10 (less than 10). The total numbers for other cities add up to 413, leaving17cases somewhere among the locations in this “<10” category (same as last reported).Residents and city officials have pressured County officials for city case counts. Today’s data is welcome, but still incomplete.
This chart shows the infection’s steady upward trajectory in Solano County. Our “curve” continues to creep up. Our nursing homes, long-term care facilities and jails bear watching!
Still incredibly important – everyone stay home if you don’t need to go out, wear masks when you do go out, wash hands, and be safe!
Stimulus tax change helps translate losses into instant cash
Oil companies are uniquely poised to benefit, analysts say
As it headed toward bankruptcy, Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. took advantage of a little-noticed provision in the stimulus bill Congress passed in March to get a $9.7 million tax refund. Then, it asked a bankruptcy judge to authorize the same amount as bonuses to nine executives.
The rig operator is one of dozens of oil companies and contractors now claiming hundreds of millions of dollars in tax rebates. They are employing a provision of the $2.2 trillion stimulus law, called the CARES act, that gives them more latitude to deduct recent losses.
“This is a stealth bailout for the oil and gas industry,” said Jesse Coleman, a senior researcher with Documented, a watchdog group tracking the tax claims. It’s geared to companies “that have been losing money over the last few years — and now they get that money back as a check from the taxpayers. That’s exactly what the oil industry has been doing.”
Electronic drilling with cyber chairs Source: Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc.
The change wasn’t aimed only at the oil industry. However, its structure uniquely benefits energy companies that were raking in record profits in 2018 as crude prices reached $76.41 per barrel, only to see their fortunes flip a year later.
More than $1.9 billion in CARES Act tax benefits are being claimed by at least 37 oil companies, service firms and contractors, according to a Bloomberg News review of recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Besides Diamond Offshore, which declined to comment, recipients include oil producer Occidental Petroleum Corp. and refiner Marathon Petroleum Corp.
Other oil companies say they didn’t lobby Congress for the change, which is widely available across all industries. “We did not request any benefit, but we are obligated to follow the tax laws as passed by Congress, which apply to all corporate manufacturers nationwide,” said Jamal Kheiry, a spokesman for Marathon, which got a $411 million benefit.
Congress embedded the tax change governing losses in the stimulus measure early on, as lawmakers moved rapidly in March to steer trillions of dollars in aid to coronavirus-ravaged workers and companies. Alongside expanded unemployment payments and payroll loan programs, lawmakers saw an opportunity to harness the tax code to help get cash flowing to companies struggling to pay rent, workers and insurance.
It “was sold as help for the little guy — help for small business,” said Steve Rosenthal, a senior fellow with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. “In the name of ‘small business,’ we’re shoveling out billions of dollars to big corporations and rich guys.”
The provision loosened rules governing how businesses deduct net operating losses — incurred when deductible expenses exceed gross income. For years, companies were able to apply those net operating loss deductions to previous tax returns as well as going forward — but Congress ruled out retroactive relief as part of the 2017 tax cut law.
That new forward-focused approach works well when the economy is expanding, but the promise of using today’s losses as tomorrow’s deductions isn’t much help to coronavirus-battered companies with no guarantee they will survive long enough to claim them. So in the stimulus package, Congress gave businesses the chance to carry back all their losses — and claim immediate tax refunds — for five years from 2018, 2019 and 2020.
“The thought was temporarily we should bring them back so that firms that are seeing significant losses in the next year or over the past year or two can carry those back and get some short-term liquidity,” said Garrett Watson, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, a non-profit that supports pro-growth tax policies.
Traditionally, the ability to deduct net operating losses is meant to ensure companies get fair tax treatment even amid volatility, Watson said — a plus for the notoriously boom-and-bust oil industry. “You are going to see the biggest benefits for firms like oil and gas that are seeing volatile profits — and now, of course, extreme losses,” he said.
The combination of big losses now and the congressional tax changes mean it may be years before some oil companies have to pay corporate income taxes at all.
“We’re going to have some large losses this year,” ConocoPhillips Executive Vice President Don Wallette said in an April 30 earnings call. The company is in “a zero-tax-paying position in the U.S. and expect to remain there for quite some time,” Wallette said.
There’s no limit on how the new refunds can be used — and even bankrupt firms can get them.
Consider Diamond Offshore. Once one of the world’s largest drilling rig contractors, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on April 26 after crude prices plunged along with demand for its high-tech drillships.
In a first quarter filing, Diamond, which is majority owned by Loews Corp., said it had recognized a tax benefit of $9.7 million as a result of the carryback change. In an emergency motion filed with a federal bankruptcy court May 1, the company asked for the freedom to dole out $16.7 million in cash incentives to 85 of its 2,300 full-time employees, including as much as $9.7 million for nine senior executives.
The company said at the time that deteriorating market conditions and the collapse of Diamond’s stock had made its existing equity-based bonus program “largely worthless.” The tax filing did not specify how the $9.7 million would be used.
Dozens of other oil businesses have reported reaping the benefits, including $55 million for Denver-based Antero Midstream Corp., $41.2 million for supplier Oil States International Inc. and $96 million for Oklahoma-based producer Devon Energy Corp.
Occidental Petroleum, which enlisted its employees to ask Congress to “provide liquidity to the energy industry,” said it now anticipates a cash refund of about $195 million as a result of the carryback provision and a separate change in the stimulus bill that allows the immediate refund of unused alternative minimum tax credits. An Occidental spokesperson declined to comment.
Millions in Refunds
National Oilwell Varco Inc., a manufacturer of oil and gas equipment, expects a $123 million refund by carrying back its 2019 losses and applying them to its 2014 tax filing.
San Antonio-based refiner Valero Energy Corp. recognized an extra $110 million by carrying back losses to 2015 — when the corporate tax rate was 35% instead of the current 21%.
Valero spokeswoman Lillian Riojas said that is tied to tax losses generated in the first quarter, since the company did not generate a net operating loss for federal income tax purposes in 2018 or 2019. And she said the actual refund will be dependent “not only on the company’s performance for the remainder of the year, but also on the impact” of other tax provisions.
The benefits are “turbo-charged,” said Rosenthal, with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. That’s because businesses can carry back losses to offset income at a higher corporate tax rate of 35%, before the 2017 tax cut law lowered it 14 points. “Getting those losses at 35% is very, very favorable — especially in 2020 when the losses are going to be devastatingly large.”
The filings themselves reveal only part of the picture. Private companies are able to generate tax refunds too — without disclosing it to the SEC. And while some public companies said they benefited from the tax break, they didn’t reveal by how much.
For instance, refiner Phillips 66 boasted an effective income tax rate of just 2% for the first quarter — well below the federal statutory income tax rate of 21% — partly because of the carryback. But the company did not specify the amount of its expected refund.
Dennis Nuss, a spokesman for Phillips 66, declined to comment when reached by phone Thursday. Representatives for Oil States, National Oilwell Varco, Antero and Devon didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.
The importance of the provision hasn’t been lost on President Donald Trump’s administration. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette recommended oil companies consider taking advantage of the expanded deduction in an April 21 interview with Bloomberg TV, calling it one of several “important liquidity tools that are going to help the industry.”
Congressional tax analysts initially estimated that the expanded loss carryback provision would cost $25 billion over 10 years — just when used by corporations. Now, some are questioning whether the final pricetag could be much higher, and Democrats are seeking to limit the value of the tax break after raising concerns it overwhelmingly helps corporations and the wealthy.
In a new stimulus bill advanced Tuesday, House Democrats proposed scaling back the provision so companies could only apply losses back to 2018. Their plan also would prevent companies with “excessive” executive compensation or stock buybacks from claiming the tax break — a change that would be retroactive back to March.
Rosenthal stressed that it was logical for Congress to help businesses that were profitable before the pandemic. “But the CARES Act goes too far, tilting its benefits overwhelmingly to the wealthiest Americans,” he said in an essay. “I think Congress did not know the extent of what it was doing.”
— With assistance by Ari Natter, Laura Davison, David Wethe, Kevin Crowley, Leslie Pappas, and Rachel Adams-Heard
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