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Magic Johnson is set to help small businesses with $100 million worth of Paycheck Protection Program loans during the coronavirus pandemic. The funds will come thanks to Johnson’s life insurance company, EquiTrust Life Insurance Co.
The funds are reportedly set to help 5,000 companies.
“We knew why the money was gone and couldn’t trickle down to small businesses, especially small minority businesses, because they didn’t have those great relationships with the banks,” Johnson told the Wall Street Journal. “So this was easy for us to understand.”
The loans will help companies with women and minority owners.
From Forbes.com:
Minority communities have been disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, according to data released by New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago. African Americans in New York City make up 28% of coronavirus deaths, but make up 22% of the population. And in Los Angeles, 17% of people who died from coronavirus were African American, but the group is 9% of the population there. In Chicago, the numbers are the starkest: 71% of deaths from the virus were African American—who comprise 29% of the city’s population.
The coronavirus mainly comes from animals and a majority of those who were infected early either worked at or frequently visited the Huanan seafood wholesale market in Wuhan, according to The Guardian. The virus is similar to Severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (Mers).
The Wuhan coronavirus is transmitted from person to person through “droplet transmission.” That means an infected person can pass the virus by sneezing or coughing on another person as well as by direct contact.
While a majority of the cases have been detected in the United States and China — with more than 85,000 deaths in the United States and more than 1 million confirmed cases — it has now reached many countries around the world. It has also been confirmed in Italy, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and many other eastern countries.
