The University of Washington Office of Research has created a document answering various FAQs related to the Governor’s Stay-at-Home Order and how UW will maintain critical research.
The document is available here and will be updated periodically.
Category: Health/Medical
Broader Higher Education Community Looks to Engage with Federal Government to Address Community-Wide Challenges
Yesterday, the broader higher education community sent to Congress a series of recommendations and requests for assistance aimed at stabilizing the entire enterprise as it tries to cope with COVID-19. The requests fall into a number of distinct categories:
- One set of requests addresses the immediate financial challenges facing both students and institutions.
- Another set of requests focuses on the unique circumstances that research universities face as they deal with trying to mitigate the impact on research.
- The third set focuses on tax-related provisions that could assist students, families, and institutions.
Text and Section-by-Section Summaries of “Phase 3” Now Available
The text of the Senate Republican stimulus bill, “Phase 3,” has been released and is available here.
In addition, several chairmen of the committees that would have jurisdiction over different parts of the bill have released summaries of the parts of the bill that they would oversee. The section-by-section summaries of parts of the bill that are most relevant to UW and other universities are provided below:
- Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee summary of higher education- and healthcare-related provisions
- Finance Committee summary of health-related provisions in its jurisdiction
- Finance Committee summary of tax provisions in the legislation
As noted previously, this is the initial proposal from the Senate Republican and it will need to be modified along the way as they begin to negotiate with Congressional Democrats, who will also have their own priorities.
House Passes 2nd COVID-19 Appropriations Package, Next Senate
Despite earlier push back, the House passed fixes to its financial relief package Monday night by Unanimous Consent. Conservative Senate Republicans also voiced concerns, specifically about the small business leave provisions. Those requirements for paid leave were apparently tweaked by tightening eligibility in some areas. It restricts paid family leave to $200 per day or $10,000 total. It also provides more generous tax credits to employers for providing paid leave than the initial bill.
The package, which still has no official cost estimate, would extend unemployment insurance, increase federal Medicaid spending, offer nearly $1 billion in additional food aid, provide free coverage for coronavirus testing, and more.
The measure now moves to the Senate which is expected to take up the measure (HR 6201) today to cushion the economic blow of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Census Bureau Modifies Policies and Timelines on Info from Higher Education
As part of the census process every 10 years, colleges and universities are required to collect and provide certain pieces of information about their student population to the Census Bureau. 2020 is a census year.
For the census, college students living in on-campus housing are counted through their university as part of the bureau’s Group Quarters Operation. Due to the impact of COVID-19 on colleges and universities, the Census Bureau issued a statement on Monday highlighting several modifications to the policies and timelines it had in place for the census. The statement reads, in part, as follows:
- In general, students in colleges and universities temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 virus will still be counted as part of this process. Even if they are home on census day, April 1, they should be counted according to the residence criteria which states they should be counted where they live and sleep most of the time. We are asking schools to contact their students and remind them to respond.
- Per the Census Bureau’s residence criteria, in most cases students living away from home at school should be counted at school, even if they are temporarily elsewhere due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The full statement from the Census Bureau is available here.