US Chamber Organizes Social Media Blitz To Get Congress To Replenish Small Business Stimulus Funds

Rick Wade, Vice President, Strategic Alliances and Outreach for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the organization is rallying the business community  to use its collective clout to press Congress to approve emergency funding for programs designed to rescue legions of small businesses ravaged by the COVID-19 economy. In fact, Wade says they will engage in a “morning blitz” via social media  today urging congressional leaders to take immediate action to replenish stimulus funds.

In a release from the US Chamber, Wade stated: “Today, we learned that the Paycheck Protection Program — a critical lifeline for small businesses across the country — has reached its statutory limit. Meanwhile, the SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loans expanded by the CARES [Corronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security] Act are running on empty. Congress has yet to replenish the funds for either program. As our Executive Vice President Neil Bradley wrote in a letter to lawmakers today: ‘There is absolutely no excuse for failing to get these funds approved immediately.’ “

As a means of lobbying “to refuel these vital programs,”  Wade said the US Chamber’s recently-instituted Save Small Business Initiative has organized #SaveSmallBusiness Day of Action.

In his role, Wade, a top Commerce Department official during the Obama Administration, has placed a special emphasis on the US Chamber forging partnerships and developing programs with organizations such as the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC), US Black Chamber and National Business League, among other outfits, as a means of spurring minority business growth. Due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak and government lockdown orders in states throughout the nation, black-owned businesses have been among the hardest hit.

To effectively engage in the lobbying effort, Wade says it has made available the #SaveSmallBusiness Digital Toolkit, complete with suggested assets that  US Chamber members, entrepreneurs and small business advocates can use on their social media channels. The toolkit also provides “content calling for more emergency funding as well as more universal small business support messaging.”

He says morning blitz of social posts between 9 AM and 1 PM.

 

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Major League Baseball Employees and Players to Take Part in COVID-19 Antibody Test

No one knows how long this coronavirus pandemic will last and the lasting effects it will have on us. With this mindset, according to USA Today, there will be a national study involving Major League Baseball to determine how and why COVID-19 infected so many and spread so rapidly.

Major League Baseball with its players, team employees, and family members who are in direct contact have become the largest industry to participate in a nationwide study. The research will test about 10,000 people for coronavirus antibodies, allowing medical and scientific researchers to understand how widespread COVID-19 is across the United States.

“We went to them, asked if they were interested in partnering,’’ Dr. Daniel Eichner, president of the Sports Medicine Research & Testing Laboratory in Salt Lake City, told USA TODAY Sports this week, “and they were happy to help contribute to public health policy. It couldn’t have worked any more favorable. Everybody was motivated to assist as quickly as they could.

“I think it will be enormously useful for public health to understand how extensive the infection is around the country. We need a study like this.’’

The Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory (SMRTL) is conducting this COVID-19 epidemiological study in conjunction with Stanford University and the University of Southern California. The mass testing is called the COVID-19 Sero Prevalence Study.

Why Major League Baseball as opposed to other professional sports or organizations? The MLB’s employee and player population is more diverse in terms of age and geographies than other professional American sports, making it a more representative sample of the U.S. 

“This will be the first time we’ll be able to see how prevalent COVID-19 has spread throughout the United States,’’ said Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor of medicine at Stanford. “This will help us understand how far along we are in battling this virus.

“This is a scientific study that would normally take years to set up, and it’s going to be a matter of weeks.’’

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Africans in China: We face coronavirus discrimination

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Unemployment Claims Reaches 5.2 Million in America and Hits Small Businesses Hard

The COVID-19 health crisis has led to a financial crisis. As a result, 5.2 million Americans have filed for unemployment between April 5 and April 11, according to the Department of Labor. Due to the high volume of claims, individuals and small businesses are facing challenges when trying to access government funds to support their livelihood and businesses.

In a recent report, The New York Times Outlined the impact the demand is hitting small businesses hard.

From The New York Times:

The Small Business Administration has run out of money for its Paycheck Protection Program, officials said on Thursday, leaving millions of businesses unable to apply for emergency loans while Congress struggles to reach a deal to replenish the funds.

 

Congress initially allocated $349 billion for the program, which was intended to provide loans to businesses with 500 or fewer employees. The money has gone quickly, with more than 1.4 million loans already approved as of Wednesday evening, as small businesses struggle with virus-induced quarantines and closings.

 

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is expected to resume negotiations with lawmakers about adding another $250 billion to the fund on Thursday.

It is the fear of many leaders that the organization and others that provide economic relief that they will run out of money.

The Times spoke with a number of business owners and one of them shared that this series of unfortunate events is non-stop. “There’s a whole domino effect to this thing, and I’m one of the dominoes,” he said. “This morning, I read that the money’s gone and I’m like, ‘Heck, I didn’t even get a shot at this.’”

And he is spot on.

With the number of unemployed Americans, people are experiencing new financial realities. One of them is having a negative bank account balance which is causing difficulties receiving funds from the stimulus plan.

One of those challenges being is that when money is deposited into accounts with negative balances, banks are legally allowed to take what is needed to zero the balance.

And while no one can predict the ultimate outcome of this natural disaster, economists strongly believe that those living in poverty will be hit the hardest.

Read the full story here.

To stay in the loop on the latest on how COVID-19 is impacting the community, click here.

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Head Lice Drug Emerges as Potential Coronavirus Treatment

In an effort to treat people who have the coronavirus, another drug on the market is getting recognition for its possible benefits fighting COVID-19. According to ABC News, ivermectin, a head lice drug, may be a potential treatment for the coronavirus.

Although some researchers don’t want to call it a breakthrough, it seems promising in the fight against the deadly virus. Ivermectin is an antiparasitic drug and is sometimes used to treat head lice. Research into the drug’s viability in treating COVID-19 is still in its early stages but with the emergence of two studies showing promising results, experts are hopeful that there is a chance that it could help.

“Finding a safe, affordable, readily available therapy like ivermectin if it proves effective with rigorous evaluation has the potential to save countless lives,” said Dr. Nirav Shah, an infectious disease expert with the NorthShore University HealthSystem.

Although ivermectin is known for its topical use in treating head lice, the drug dates back to the 1970s and 1980s, first as a veterinary treatment for nematodes in cattle and later as a way to combat river blindness in humans.

“We found that even a single dose could essentially remove all viral RNA by 48 hours and that even at 24 hours there was a really significant reduction in it,” said Dr. Kylie Wagstaff, the leader of the team from Melbourne’s Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute. 

The coronavirus is not a parasite, but the experts are suggesting that the drug basically treats it like one as it blocks the viral RNA from invading healthy cells. If the virus is unable to enter the cell, the RNA is slowed from replicating, giving the patient’s immune system more time to fight it off.

“There are numerous examples of drugs with in vitro activity not proving effective in human studies,” said Shah. “That being said, given there are no proven therapies against COVID-19 to date and we are in the midst of a pandemic, drugs that show promise in early in vitro or observational studies such as ivermectin should be rigorously evaluated to understand safety and effectiveness.”

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Meet 4 Black Scientists Fighting COVID-19

The spread of COVID-19 across the U.S. has had a huge effect on black communities. Many cities, including Chicago and Milwaukee, have seen African Americans represent the majority of their new cases. However, there are a number of scientists and researchers working non-stop to find a treatment to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Here are some of the black scientists working to find a vaccine for COVID-19.

Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett

Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett is a viral immunologist at the National Institutes of Health. She is leading the effort to develop an mRNA vaccine for COVID-19, which has moved into Phase 1 at record speed. She recently confirmed to CNN’s Anderson Cooper that projections are at eight months for a vaccine being made available to the general population.

NIH’s lead scientist for coronavirus vaccine research Kizzmekia Corbett lays out the government’s race to create a vaccine, saying they could be on track to have a vaccine from sequence to the general population within 8 months. https://t.co/FtacDLY6rn pic.twitter.com/hlE34Wz64I

— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) April 15, 2020

Dr. Tomeka Suber

Dr. Tomeka Suber is a pulmonologist and an expert in acute respiratory distress syndrome.

Dr. Christopher Barnes

Dr. Christopher Barnes is an HHMI Hanna Grays Fellow at California Institute of Technology. His work is helping find a cure by crystallizing antibodies to fight against COVID-19 to help identify more effective treatments and a possible vaccine.

Dr. Michael Johnson

Dr. Michael Johnson is a professor at the University of Arizona investigating if copper could be used to alter the binding of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Research is still in the early stages. The scientists hope that copper, in conjunction with other treatments, will deliver a solid one-two punch to COVID-19.

Here we go!https://t.co/eVQwhXq0lJ

— Dr. Michael D. L. Johnson (@blacksciblog) April 3, 2020

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Entrepreneur Mary Seats Built Her Business with $300. Now She’s Making Millions

Mary ‘Mz Skittlez’ Seats, affectionately known by millennials as the “Kris Jenner of marketing,” has been building her brand and countless others for years. In 2011, Seats launched her first company, Cupcake Mafia, in Atlanta with $300 to her name and now she says she is making millions. And she is helping others to do the same.

Seats comes from a family of serial entrepreneurs. Her father and grandfather were both businessmen and, as an only child, Seats got the entrepreneurial spirit and began designing clothes for dolls, which she showed off and sold to others. After graduating from college, Seats worked as an assistant stylist on an international tour and her father encouraged her to take a leap of faith and create her own clothing brand.

“All I had was literally $300, a dream, and my relationships,” said Seats. And that was enough to launch The Cupcake Mafia. Support from celebrities who she connected with on the road helped to catapult her brand and it became more visible.

“One day, my site started going crazy with orders after Tiny [Harris] wore the brand on TV. That is when I decided that I was fully committed to being an entrepreneur,” Seats recalls.

Leveraging her relationships and the influence of others resulted in monumental success in sales and landed Seats the opportunity to collaborate with clothing brand Forever 21, which generated over a million dollars.

The Ebbs and Flows of Business

Seats’ success up until that point appeared to be unquantifiable until she was met with her first business challenge.

“That deal led me to partner with an investment firm. And I had no idea that I would be fired six months later from my own brand — which, by the way, took me from a penthouse overlooking Central Park to sleeping on an airbed in a unit above my store in Atlanta.”

In business, as in life, you live and you learn.

“What I didn’t realize is that God had a different plan for me. That story is pretty lengthy, but to sum it up, I signed a bad deal. I went back to fight them, and I won! I paid $60,000 for my brand back. And after I received the rights to the trademark, I went in full ‘go-mode’—even from my airbed,” said seats.

“The airbed stage of my life—which seemed to be the lowest point of my life—is when I got closer to God. He brought me to what is now the highest and happiest point of my life.”

Leveling Up

(Image: Mart Seats)

Once Seats recovered from that experience, she founded The Icing Agency, a branding and marketing firm, and Gurl Mobb. “After losing my first company to investors and buying it back, I realized to never to put my eggs in one basket,” said Seats. She later opened three retail stores, purchased a factory in China, and took on entrepreneur and influencer B. Simone as a client. She also wrote a book and began creating digital guides, resources, and marketing webinars, which are often sold out within hours.

Most recently, Seats sold hundreds of spots for a digital conference in less than 48 hours where she and a panel of experts equipped women with the information they need to blossom as entrepreneurs.

As Seats continues to grow her businesses, she is adamant about helping other women achieve success as well. With an organic following of over 149,000 followers on her personal Instagram account, women flock to the entrepreneur because of her authentic nature and wealth of knowledge.

“When I was on that airbed, I told God ‘If you get me back up, I will never look down. The only time I will look down is to pull someone up.’ And it’s been that way ever since,” said Seats.

And when it comes to seats at the table, Seats firmly believes, “If I cannot bring anything to the table, I will not sit down!”

When Seats isn’t creating, working on her business, or with clients, she is encouraging women entrepreneurs to bloom where they are planted. To others, Seats offers this advice, “You can be a mom, a wife, or whatever it is you want to be. I used to want to find a poster woman for the ideal mom, wife, and unstoppable girl boss – and I honestly I couldn’t find it. So, I became it.”

To learn more about Seats and the services that she offers women entrepreneurs, click here.

 

 

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Meat Shortage Could Be On The Horizon Due To Plants Shutting Down

Workers at meat processing plants across the country are falling ill due to the coronavirus, meaning shortages and potentially increased prices may follow.

According to MSN News, plants that process meat are being shut down and the worry is that consumers will be impacted by shortages and higher prices. Some suppliers have already started limiting quantities of pork and beef.

“At this time, there is more problem with supply and not price,” Tom Violante, co-owner of Holiday Market in metro Detroit told MSN. “When the supply chain runs through its current load of beef and pork the supply will be limited and the price increase will follow.”

Smithfield Foods announced the closure of one of its pork processing facilities in South Dakota. More than 200 employees at the plant have been infected with the coronavirus.

Other major food processors, such as Tyson Foods and JBS USA, also have closed meat processing plants because of the coronavirus. Smithfield CEO Kenneth Sullivan warned that shuttering plants is pushing the country’s meat supply “perilously close” to the edge.

Smithfield’s plant represents about 5% of the pork processed in the U.S., supplying 130 million servings of food per week.

“It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running,” Sullivan said. “These facility closures will also have severe, perhaps disastrous, repercussions for many in the supply chain, first and foremost our nation’s livestock farmers. These farmers have nowhere to send their animals.”

Smithfield said it will rely on “further direction of local, state and federal officials” when considering when to reopen. The company also said its employees will be paid for the next two weeks.

Tom Super, a spokesman for the National Chicken Council, said production and processing of poultry will continue and worker safety measures are in place. Store shelves will be restocked, he said, it’s just taking a little longer than normal.

“The companies are working to divert some of the product from the freezers and product that was intended for restaurants, but that takes time and there are some challenges with that in terms of repackaging, labeling, and logistics.”

Christine McCracken, senior protein analyst for Rabobank, did have some good news, saying the Smithfield’s plant closing will have little impact on the price of pork.

“We shouldn’t see a dramatic impact or any increases in price on store shelves,” McCracken said. “But there could be some disruptions on certain products.”

Additionally, due to the cancelation of several spring sporting events including the NCAA basketball tournament, there is now a national surplus of chicken wings. Food franchises are also being hit hard during the outbreak.

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