The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives approved the latest COVID-19 relief bill on April 21 and April 23, respectively. Known as the “Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act” (COVID 3.5), President Trump signed the bill into law on April 24.
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The bill provides $484 billion in additional funding to replenish and supplement key programs under the CARES Act, including the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), small business disaster loans and grants, hospitals and health care providers and testing.
The small business loan programs authorized under the CARES Act had been quickly depleted after only two weeks of operation. More details are below.
Paycheck Protection Program (PPP): Appropriates an additional $321 billion in funding, with $60 billion set aside for small, midsize and community lenders (including minority lenders).
Disaster Loans Program: Appropriates an additional $50 billion for the Disaster Loans Program and an additional $10 billion for Emergency Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) Grants.
HHS Hospital and Provider Grants under the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund: Provides an additional $75 billion to support the need for COVID-19 related expenses and lost revenue due to coronavirus.
Testing: Provides $25 billion for the HHS Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund for necessary expenses to research, develop, validate, manufacture, purchase, administer and expand capacity for COVID-19 tests. Requires the Administration to create a national strategy to provide assistance to states for testing and increasing testing capacity.
Testing also requires states, localities, territories and tribes to outline their own testing plans, as well as plans to ease COVID-19 community mitigation strategies. Requires the Secretary to issue reports on testing, which must include de-identified and disaggregated data on demographic characteristics, including, race, ethnicity, age, sex, geographic region and other relevant factors of individuals tested for or diagnosed with COVID–19, as well as information on the number and rates of cases, hospitalizations and deaths as a result of COVID–19.
Specific testing funding is provided for:
