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High Unemployment and Infection Rates Showing Signs of Leveling Off

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Unemployment claims continue to rise in Massachusetts, but that trend is slowing. More than 55,000 new claims were filed for the week ending May 2, down from more than 70,000 the week prior. That is according to a report published Thursday by the U.S. Department of Labor.

State health officials recently announced 132 new coronavirus-related deaths in Mass., bringing the death toll to 4,552. So far there have been more than 73,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in the state. 

Meanwhile, stay-at-home orders in Mass. have been extended to May 18, with all nonessential businesses to remain closed until then. Although hospitalizations have begun to plateau, the state “still hasn’t seen the declines needed to ease up on social distancing and other steps the state has taken,” Baker said at a press conference. “You need to see downward trends,” he said.

Nationwide, more than three million Americans filed for unemployment benefits in the past week pushing the total up over 33.5 million. That’s one in five Americans newly unemployed. 

The explosion in unemployment comes less than 60 days since nationwide unemployment had reached a 50-year low of just 3.5%.

WCVB news has more on this story.

Cannabis Operations on the Verge of Reopening

Mass. seems to be on the verge of permitting the reopening of recreational cannabis shops in the state — as soon as Gov. Charlie Baker gets on board. 

Regulators in the state are confident this can be done safely by “employing curbside pickup, appointment-only shopping, and other similar measures adopted by retailers that have remained open,” according to a report in the Boston Globe.  

The Mass. Cannabis Commission says it will monitor dispensaries to enforce social distancing rules.

Massachusetts is the only state with a recreational marijuana market to have shuttered its dispensaries. This has led to an existential crisis for many license holders as cannabis concerns are ineligible for federal bailouts. However, the state is working on a potential coronavirus-relief program specifically for Mass. cannabis businesses.

According to ELEVATE Northeast executive director, Beth Waterfall, the creation of a Massachusetts PPP loan for cannabis businesses such as hers “would be a momentous step in the right direction to remedy the inequity that legal, tax-paying cannabis-related businesses like mine are facing during the COVID-19 crisis,” 

Mass Could Lead Clean Energy Revolution with Investment in Fusion R&D

A report by Commonwealth Magazine guest contributor Edward M Murphy, says it’s time for Massachusetts to step up its support of clean energy R&D — in particular, fusion energy — in the same manner as it has with the Mass. Life Sciences Initiative which infused $1.6 billion into biotech research in the state. 

Murphy writes: 

“In 2008, Massachusetts enacted a Life Sciences Initiative which offered to spend $1 billion in support of evolving biotechnology. That initiative helped the extraordinary growth of companies that have made Massachusetts a global leader in biotech and have enhanced the state’s economy. In 2018, the state renewed that commitment with an additional $623 million to help further accelerate life sciences. Many of those companies are now working to help solve the COVID-19 crisis.

“It is timely for Massachusetts government and business leadership to consider a similar initiative for the development of the clean, limitless, and inexpensive energy that fusion may produce. Success is not yet certain, but it is now probable and it can change the world”

Murphy, who recently retired as CEO and chairman of one of the country’s largest providers of services to people with disabilities, had worked in state government from 1979-1995 as the commissioner of the Department of Youth Services, commissioner of the Department of Mental Health, and executive director of the Health and Educational Facilities Authority. 

According to Murphy, “Massachusetts has the educational institutions, research facilities, entrepreneurs, and talent pool to become the leader of fusion development and to concentrate significant aspects of the industry here.” 

“Success would reinforce the state’s historical role of innovative breakthroughs, create more jobs,” says Murphy, “and would help preserve US technological leadership in what will likely be the most impactful innovation of the 21st Century.”

Read, “Can Mass. launch the fusion revolution?,” at Commonwealth Magazine. 

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