Best Buy will furlough about 51,000 hourly store employees due to the coronavirus, said the company Wednesday. The retailer said sales since March 21 plunged 30% from a year earlier after the company began restricting in-person sales to curbside pickup. Fiscal Q1 ends early May. COVID-19 sent March retail sales at electronics and appliance stores plunging 15.1% from February and 16.2% from March 2019, reported the National Retail Federation Wednesday. Executive salaries are being cut. Furloughs will affect hourly store employees and nearly all part-time employees, Best Buy said. It's keeping 82% of its full-time store and field employees on the payroll, including most in-home advisers and Geek Squad personnel. “The situation we are all facing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic is truly unprecedented,” said CEO Corie Barry. All of Best Buy’s U.S. stores are closed to customer traffic, with 40 closed completely, mostly in the Northeast, “for at least 10 days at our discretion,” Barry said. Online domestic sales are up more than 250%, with half of those sales coming from customer pickup at stores, Barry said. The situation remains “very fluid and there is still a great deal of uncertainty,” Barry said, referencing depth and duration of store closures “and consumer confidence over time.” Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter emailed investors that upcoming tech innovations the retailer expected to benefit from near term “will be delayed by supply chain disruptions and muted by a looming recession.” That could extend the timeline for the retailer to meet long-term targets, said analyst Michael Pachter. Shares Wednesday closed down 7.3% to $64.76.

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois and Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, lauded the Federal Bureau of Prisons Wednesday for agreeing to make inmate phone calls and videoconferencing services free during the COVID-19 pandemic. BOP responded to a push by Klobuchar, Durbin and 10 other Democratic senators for a waiver of phone and video call fees due to the suspension of in-person visits during the epidemic. They cited language in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act that allowed BOP to waive phone and video fees for inmates if the attorney general determines emergency conditions will materially affect the bureau’s functioning. Phone calls “were made free for the inmate population” effective April 9, BOP Director Michael Carvajal said in a letter to the senators. Video conferencing was made free the same day, though only for female inmates. “We increased each inmate’s monthly telephone time to 500 minutes per month to help compensate for the lack of visits," Carvajal said. BOP’s Trust Fund Limited Inmate Computer System added a feature to its instant messaging service that will allow prison staff to filter out inmates' messages to attorneys. Durbin tweeted he’s “glad to see” BOP has “taken our advice” to “make phone & video calls free for federal inmates.” Klobuchar noted her push.

Infinite Electronics makes 60-72 face shields weekly at its Hayden, Idaho, facility to help West Coast medical facilities facing COVID-19 shortages, Katee Schalau, technical content specialist, emailed us Tuesday. The electronic components maker announced last week it’s using a printing design developed by 3D printer maker Budmen Industries to donate face shields.

Q1 shipments of PCs, including desktops, laptops and workstations, declined 9.8% globally to 53.2 million, reported IDC. It blamed the “stark decline” on “reduced supply” from the COVID-19 outbreak in China, the world's largest supplier of PCs. Inventories were “somewhat limited” in Q1 as consumers flooded retail for connectivity tools for telework and distance learning as the U.S. began sheltering in place, said IDC Monday. “A few vendors and retailers were able to keep up with the additional demand as the threat of increased tariffs last year led to some inventory stockpiling at the end of 2019. It fears “this bump in demand may be short lived as many fear the worst is yet to come and this could lead to both consumers and businesses tightening spending in the coming months."

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr noted on Twitter he had been blocked from following Lijian Zhao, spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry of China. Carr is a recurring critic of how that nation has silenced those criticizing its handling of COVID-19 (see 2004100062). “No higher honor than getting blocked by the chief propagandist of the communist regime in China,” Carr tweeted. China's embassy in Washington didn't comment.

The Library of Congress canceled all scheduled public events until July 1 due to COVID-1. It previously closed buildings and facilities to the public until further notice (see 2003270007).

The Scripps Research Institute and Stanford Medicine are working with Fitbit, using the wearable maker’s data to help detect, track and contain infectious diseases like COVID-19, said the company Tuesday. They are inviting other institutions to join the effort and share learning with researchers. Early evidence shows wearables can help predict the onset of an infectious disease like the flu before symptoms start, Fitbit said, and the consortium's goal is "to unlock similar potential via leading research institutions in response to COVID-19." Scripps recently launched an app-based research program to analyze participants’ wearable health data to detect the emergence of the flu, coronavirus and other fast-spreading viral illnesses.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., led filing of the Advancing Connectivity during the Coronavirus to Ensure Support for Seniors (Access) Act in a bid to increase senior citizens’ access to telehealth during COVID-19. The bill would make a $50 million emergency appropriation for the Department of Health and Human Services’ Telehealth Resource Center for nursing facilities receiving Medicare and Medicaid, Capito’s office said Monday. The measure would establish an HHS grant program to help enable nursing facility residents’ participation in “virtual visits” with loved ones while the health risk of in-person visits remains high. Two Democratic senators are co-sponsors: Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania.

“Keeping Britain connected” is the “biggest contribution” Huawei can make in the U.K’s effort to defeat COVID-19, said Vice President Victor Zhang in an “open letter” Monday. “Despite this, there has been groundless criticism from some about Huawei’s involvement in the UK’s 5G rollout,” he said. “Disrupting our involvement in the 5G rollout would do Britain a disservice.” Once the crisis passes, “we look forward to continuing to play our role as a key partner in improving the networks, benefiting the economy and ultimately everyone in the UK, ending the postcode lottery of good connectivity,” he said. “Right now, by keeping Britain online, we are able to play our part in helping the country through this difficult period.”

Demand for PCs soared in Q1, driven by remote working and global lockdown measures, but the coronavirus caused “severe delays in production and logistical issues," leading to a global decline of 8% in shipments year on year, said Canalys Friday. Vendors shipped 53.7 million desktops, notebooks and workstations. PC makers started 2020 facing a constrained supply of Intel processors caused by a “botched transition to 10-nanometer nodes," said analyst Rushabh Doshi. The outbreak exacerbated the shortage when factories in China temporarily shut. The analyst predicts PC vendors report “healthy profits,” with operating margins for most reaching highs. Lenovo continued to lead, shipping 12.8 million units, followed by HP with 11.7 million and Dell with 10.5 million. Apple was hit hardest, tumbling 20% to 3.2 million.