GameStop joined the growing list of retailers requiring customers to wear masks inside stores, saying Friday the “safety measure” will take effect July 27 in all U.S. locations. The 10-day lag will give GameStop time to inform customers of the change, post signage and train employees on the new protocol. Best Buy, Costco, Target and Walmart are among the growing number of retailers requiring mask use in stores (see past two issues of this publication). GameStop didn’t respond to questions.

Target will require customers to wear masks or face coverings beginning Aug. 1, it said Thursday. The new policy is in keeping with "guidance" from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "on the role masks play in preventing the spread of the coronavirus," emailed a spokesperson. Target will exempt young children and customers with underlying medical conditions. This "builds on the more than 80% of our stores that already require guests to wear face coverings due to local and state regulations," said the spokesperson. Store employees already wear store-provided masks. Target will provide disposable masks at store entrances. It will add signage and overhead audio messages and station team members at entrances to remind customers to wear masks. The retailer will steer shoppers to its "no-contact fulfillment options, including Drive Up, Target.com and Shipt, if they’d prefer," she said. Walmart and Best Buy announced customer such requirements this week (see report, July 16).

Congressional Telehealth Caucus Co-chair Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., and four other caucus members jointly filed the Protecting Access to Post-Covid-19 Telehealth Act Thursday to make permanent Congress’ temporary lifting of some telehealth restrictions during the pandemic. Lawmakers lifted some limits on telehealth eligibility for Medicare, among other rules, in March via the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act and other laws (see 2003250046). Senate Health Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., is among the lawmakers who backed making those rule changes permanent rather than letting them expire at the end of the pandemic (see 2006170065). “Telehealth is a proven and cost-effective way to get care out to patients, particularly during a crisis,” Thompson said. “Many patients who need routine care have been using telehealth to see their doctors without increasing the risk of spreading Coronavirus and many face an abrupt end to this practice after the crisis is over.” Co-sponsors include CTC co-Chairs Reps. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio; David Schweikert, R-Ariz.; and Peter Welch, D-Vt. Caucus member House Communications Subcommittee Vice Chair Doris Matsui, D-Calif., is also a co-sponsor. American Telemedicine Association CEO Ann Mond Johnson said the bill would “keep patients and healthcare providers from falling off the telehealth ‘cliff.’”

Belkin’s connected things division is selling face masks to address personal protective equipment shortages during the pandemic, said the company Thursday.

Broadcast associations for all states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico are urging Capitol Hill leaders to make broadcasters and other local outlets eligible for the Small Business Administration-administered Paycheck Protection Program as part of the next COVID-19 aid bill. The House passed the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (Heroes) Act (HR-6800) in May with such a provision (see 2005180056). PPP has already “saved many local news outlets from closing their doors,” but other outlets “have been unable to benefit from the program at all, simply because they exist within larger business or ownership groups,” the broadcasters said Wednesday in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. NAB, which also backed expanding broadcasters’ PPP eligibility (see 2004090066), published the letter Thursday.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. business increased slightly in Q2 as 5G deployments offset other weakness, said CEO C.C. Wei on a Thursday investor call. COVID-19 “continues to bring some level of disruption to the global economies,” he said: TSMC is observing “weak consumer demand.” It expects 2020 global smartphone unit shipments to decline by a “low teen” percentage year-over-year, he said. But supply chains are making efforts to build back stability in “actively preparing for new 5G smartphone launches,” he said. The chipmaker is upgrading its 2020 forecast for 5G smartphone penetration to the “high teens” of the total smartphone market in 2020 from 5%-10% penetration in its April forecast, said Wei. TSMC thinks the long-term “underlying megatrend” of 5G remains “intact,” he said: Supply chains will “adjust and rebalance.” There "may be some impact” from the Commerce Department’s May 15 increased export control restrictions on Huawei (see 2005150027), he said. TSMC doesn’t plan to ship Huawei wafers after Sept. 14, said Chief Financial Officer Wendell Huang. TSMC remains on track to build an “advanced semiconductor fab” in Arizona, said Wei: Production is “targeted” to begin in 2024 with monthly capacity of 20,000 wafers.

June U.S. retail sales through online and other non-store channels fell 2.4% sequentially but rose 30% year over year amid COVID-19, reported the National Retail Federation Thursday: Retail sales “have been climbing back upward” after a record 15% decline in April, “the first full month that most stores were closed.”

Effective intellectual property protections “enabled the rapid private sector response to the pandemic,” the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and sister business groups in Canada, France, Germany, South Korea and the U.K. wrote “world leaders” Thursday. “These protections will be essential to support the rapid manufacturing and distribution of safe and effective treatments and vaccines when they are approved,” said the groups. “Our associations urge you to recognize the critical role effective intellectual property protections have played and will play in defeating the virus, in helping to drive economic recovery, and in enabling the private sector to make sustainable contributions to solving this crisis.” They also urged leaders to “rally the world” to urgently remove “unnecessary supply chain barriers that are hindering the efficient distribution of COVID-19 technologies.”

COVID-19 focused worldwide attention on drones, speakers said during an Akin Gump webinar Wednesday. The pandemic “created an environment … we have not seen before,” said Ruby Sayyed, International Air Transport Association acting director air-transport movement infrastructure. The need for remote access to facilities for security, inspection or disinfection “increased because of the pandemic,” but safety is critical for the public to accept more use of drones, she said. “When we look at integrating drones into the supply chain, it’s going to take more than just technologies to enable that and to make that scalable to different locations and regions,” Sayyed said. Mark Wuennenberg, Drone Delivery Canada vice president-regulatory affairs, said his company trialed delivery of supplies to a remote first-nation community on an island. The normal mode of delivery is by helicopter with a cost of $1,300 hourly, he said. Drones can reduce that 80-90%, he said. The island community’s goal is to have zero COVID-19 cases because of limited healthcare services, Wuennenberg said. “They can very quickly become overwhelmed and the best method to address the threat is simply not have contact” with outsiders, he said. The company wants to enter the U.S. market and is seeking more harmonization with rules here, he said. “That will do wonders for the U.S. industry.” Building trust with government is important to getting regulations right, Wuennenberg said, noting Canada has been looking at drone rules for six years. “It was important to start early so we understood the box in which we were operating,” he said. Since March, Kenya-based Astral Aviation has been delivering COVID supplies to 26 countries in Africa using manned flights, said CEO Sanjeev Gadhia. Africa is made up of 54 countries, which is a challenge, he said. The “good news” is that after a three-year process, Kenya has rules, which are being harmonized with other nations in East Africa, he said. Drones are being used in Africa for broadcasting the importance of social distancing and spraying hot spots, he said. Once vaccines are developed, a challenge will be getting them everywhere, especially since they have limited shelf life, Gadhia said. Drones can help with last-mile delivery, he said: “We believe Africa is the perfect testing ground. This is the place where we have the worst infrastructure and a lot of challenges with accessibility and connectivity.”

The National Cable Television Cooperative and ACA Connects will put on a virtual Independent Show Sept. 29-Oct. 1 for discussion of policy and technical issues for broadband and video service for independent providers, they said Wednesday. CNN political analyst Ron Brownstein will keynote, they said. The event is invite-only.