7 Things: Alabama’s neighbors tighten restrictions, Alabama passes 1,000 confirmed cases, getting the stimulus check just got easier and more …

7. Some seniors already graduated in Alabama

• Alabama high schools will be going back to class online, but a lot of seniors who were already “on track to graduate” this spring have been declared graduates, as decided by State Superintendent Dr. Eric Mackey’s task force. 
• School districts get to independently decide if seniors will graduate early, but Madison County will grant seniors graduate status and Vestavia Hills will grant them the status but continue offering classes to prepare them for continuing their education. Huntsville City Schools have pushed graduate dates back to June 25 and 26. 

6. Hospitals in Alabama and around the country are cutting staff

• Huntsville Hospital CEO David Spillers has said that the hospital is cutting staff where they’ve seen a decline in patients as a way to free up funds in the event that the hospital sees a surge of coronavirus patients. Other hospitals are doing the same.
• Spillers said that they are working “to make sure this doesn’t impact patient care when we need people to come in and take care of patients.” So far, cuts have been made to cafeteria workers, cleaning staff and construction.

5. Pence is defending the president’s response to the coronavirus

• While on CNN, anchor Wolf Blitzer said to Vice President Mike Pence, “It would have been good if the president wouldn’t have been belittling the enormity of this crisis.” This was referring to the coronavirus pandemic and repeating a popular mainstream media talking point that President Donald Trump was slow to act with the virus.
• Pence rejected the assumption that Trump downplayed the severity of the virus, saying Trump has “expressed gratitude and confidence in health care workers in this country.” Pence went on to bring up how Trump initially wanted to “suspend all travel from China” and how the Coronavirus Task Force was set up at the beginning of the year.

4. China lied, people died

• Much to the chagrin of the American media and their Democrats, the United States’ intelligence community is making it clear that their narrative that China was truthful and has the coronavirus pandemic under control in their country is not true. Those still repeating those lies are handing China a propaganda win.
• The secret report indicates that that China has been misleading the world on the number of coronavirus cases and deaths intentionally incomplete, U.S. Senator Ben Sasse and others are calling out the lies saying, “The Chinese Communist Party has lied, is lying, and will continue to lie about coronavirus to protect the regime.”

3. Trump administration fixes hiccup with stimulus checks

• While the Internal Revenue Service announced that it would start sending out stimulus dollars over the next three weeks, they also initially said that you need to file a tax return to receive it, which, according to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), was not the intention. He added, “IRS should follow the law that Congress passed.”
• In response to the outcry, the administration reversed course with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin saying, “Social Security recipients who are not typically required to file a tax return need to take no action, and will receive their payment directly to their bank account.”

2. Alabama coronavirus cases surpass 1,000

• The Alabama Department of Public Health has reported that the number of coronavirus cases in Alabama is at least 1,100, and there are at least 28 people who have tested positive for the virus and then passed away, but ADPH has only verified 17 of those.
• There are at least 305 cases in Jefferson County and 107 cases in Madison County with one death in each county. Chambers County has 45 cases but the highest death toll with four.

1. Alabama still hasn’t tightened restrictions

• After immense pressure from the media and health experts, because boats and beachgoers kept mingling in the waters off Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis (R) issued the order and shut the state down for 30 days to bring the total number of Americans under some mandatory order to 272 million. 
• Other southern governors did similar things. Georgia issued a shelter-in-place order, and Tennessee and Mississippi now have “safer-at-home” and “stay-at-home” orders, leaving Alabama and Governor Kay Ivey as one the sole outlier in the region.