March 18, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 52 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session

[Pages S1796-S1797]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, 3 months ago, no one in the country--
in fact, no one in the world--had heard the term ``COVID-19.'' The term 
``coronavirus'' was around, but most folks didn't use that because it 
was connected to SARS or to MERS in the past.
  In December of 2019, an infection started in China, and it spread 
rapidly through the Wuhan region. By January, there were thousands of 
people affected before most of the world even knew it existed. Now, 
almost every country in the world has infections. We have hundreds of 
thousands of people who have had contact with this virus, and 
unfortunately we have lost thousands of people worldwide.
  In the United States, the numbers continue to increase as we are 
continuing to increase the number of people we can actually test. 
Fortunately, the vast majority of the people who get this virus have 
little to no symptoms. It is a cold; it is a mild flu to them. But for 
our vulnerable populations--our elderly populations, those with heart 
issues, those with lung issues, smokers, diabetics--this can be a very, 
very serious thing.
  The challenge we face in our healthcare is that every person who 
walks in to get tested is face to face with one of our healthcare 
workers, especially in rural areas of our State, who may be the only 
healthcare professional for that entire county. If that person--who has 
not been vaccinated as well because there is no vaccine yet--is not 
able to serve the rest of the population, that health situation becomes 
even worse because of diminishing care.
  We, as Americans, have taken this seriously, as we should. We are 
paying attention. The younger population is spending time trying to get 
away from other individuals, to self-isolate, to self-quarantine--
``social distancing'' is the new term--to find some way to not be close 
to someone else so they don't accidentally pass the virus on, because 
although the virus may be within them and they are not personally 
physically affected much, the effect on someone else could be pretty 
dramatic. So, out of respect for others, they are trying to manage that 
distance and be attentive to that.
  There have been multiple actions from the government over the past 
several months. There are the travel bans we all know very much about, 
starting with China and now in multiple areas of the world, and lots of 
encouragement to limit gatherings, first to 250 and then to 50 and now 
to 10. Now it is a series of just keep social distancing, to make sure 
you are aware of that. There have been emergency declarations.
  CMS has changed coverage, as recently as yesterday, dealing with 
issues like telehealth, making sure individuals who may have other care 
needs don't have to actually go in to a healthcare professional--for 
their fear of who else is sitting in the waiting room--but they can get 
access to telehealth, which is a much needed change.
  The FDA has been very aggressive in giving access to different States 
to do their own testing regimens.
  The CDC has been active in trying to get to a point where they can 
get a testing system that can actually get out to the entire country. 
The challenge was, early on, many other countries did tests and 
developed tests with a high false-positive rate. The CDC was very 
focused on trying to get as accurate as it possibly could. That meant 
it took longer, and we don't have the tests out. The tests are more 
accurate, but we don't have the tests in the numbers we need at the 
moment we needed them, which was last week. So now we are still 
struggling to catch up on testing all over the country.
  Multiple other labs and multiple universities are also coming on 
board. In

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fact--it is interesting--multiple other countries are also developing 
their own testing processes. In the days ahead, we will be able to 
catch up on the testing so that any American could be able to 
get testing, but for now, it is limited.

  In States like my State of Oklahoma, where the virus is beginning its 
acceleration--we were late in actually getting the virus coming to 
Oklahoma, but now that the virus is there, it starts to accelerate, and 
testing is exceptionally important to us, as it is to everyone else.
  The Department of Transportation is engaged on things like waivers 
for hours of service to allow the movement of goods all over the 
country dealing with livestock and with food.
  There has been a big push from just about every retailer in the 
country to make sure they are cleaning facilities more and being open 
and accessible and having hours early in the morning for those in the 
most vulnerable populations so they are not shopping with people who 
may have the virus and don't even know it.
  There has been a shift around the country to encourage people to 
telework or to find ways to separate in their place of work.
  All of these things have occurred just in the last few months. Again, 
3 months ago, none of us knew this term or this virus existed. All of 
this is happening extremely rapidly.
  Three weeks ago, Congress and the President agreed on a proposal--it 
was a wide bipartisan proposal--to deal with additional funding for 
testing, additional funding for vaccine development, additional funding 
for State and local departments of health to make sure they are taking 
care of that. My own State of Oklahoma has already received almost $7 
million to help with what is happening in our county, and we are in 
desperate need of those dollars to get that done.
  Vaccine development is already in human trials now. It is in phase 1. 
It will take multiple months to get that done, but we have already 
begun that process. That is important to us.
  The bill that was on the floor today dealt with multiple helpful 
things. It expands SNAP--what some people still call food stamps, but 
it is supplemental nutrition. It is assistance for those families. It 
is an expansion of that.
  It also deals with unemployment insurance benefits to make sure those 
are staying consistent and those get extended to people who are going 
to need them because in the past week, unemployment has dramatically 
increased all over the country. In the days ahead, when we see the 
numbers, we will see the difference between what is happening this week 
versus the week before versus the week before that.
  The struggle is, my phones have been filled with one other element 
that is in that bill, and that deals with a mandate on small businesses 
for sick leave. Small businesses in my State are closed. Many retailers 
and restaurants--many small businesses are really struggling with how 
they are going to pay for this when they have no income coming in right 
now. They are hearing the promise of a Federal reimbursement coming to 
them, but they don't know when that is coming, and they are literally 
teetering on the edge right now. Their struggle: Please don't do 
something that pushes us over the edge. We need help, but we don't need 
a bureaucracy that is going to be slow to respond or a way that is 
actually going to get us some help but help that comes to us too late.
  I have heard these terrifying words from multiple employers: I cannot 
make it with that structure. I am going to have to lay people off and 
hope to be able to hire them back when this all ends.
  For those families who are laid off and in unemployment now, this is 
a very different day for them. My fear is that some of what pushed some 
of those individuals over the edge into unemployment was a nudge to say 
we are going to add one more mandate to you at your worst possible 
economic moment.
  The first principle we should have as Congress is, do no harm. We 
need to step in and help those folks who need help. There are lots of 
ideas being bantered around by the Senate and the House, from both 
sides of the aisle, to figure out how we can get help as rapidly as we 
can to as many people as we can.
  This is a moment unlike what we have seen before where it is not that 
the economy is crashing because of some economic foundation that is not 
there; it is fear and panic that is global, that literally we are 
struggling with ``what if'' and the CDC and our own governments saying 
to employers: It would be best if you closed for a season. And they, 
being good citizens and good neighbors, quite frankly, are complying 
with that out of fear for their own business and for their own 
employees.
  I finished my day yesterday--late last night--talking to a small 
business owner in Oklahoma who related to me what he is going through 
right now and the struggles he is having keeping the doors open. Quite 
frankly, he was fairly blunt with me to say: The things that are being 
passed in the bill tomorrow will affect me, but my competitors that are 
big companies--it doesn't affect them. It is already hard enough for me 
as a small business to compete with them, and now I have a new mandate 
on me that is not a mandate on them, and it makes it even harder, and I 
don't think I will have the cash flow to be able to make this work.
  Toward the end of the conversation, he paused and literally began to 
cry, and he pulled himself together and said: I am having to call 
people and tell them ``I don't have hours for you next week,'' and 
these are people I care about.
  We need to take action, but we need to take action that helps people 
keep their jobs, helps people stay employed, and helps us deal with the 
dip in the economy right now to help them pull back out. My fear is 
that we didn't do that just now. We might have just made it worse.
  There are important things for us to do, and many of those things we 
are working on this week. We have to get help to as many people as we 
can, as fast as we can. It is my hope that the Senate will continue to 
stay in session--as the leader has already said and promised that it 
would--until we actually come to some proposals where we have wide 
bipartisan agreement that can get help rapidly to the people who need 
the help the most: those workers, those individuals who are struggling, 
the folks who are hourly, those folks who are waiters and waitresses, 
those folks who work at the coffee shop and own the coffee shop, and 
those folks in retail locations that are shut down. They need us to 
stand with them, and this is our moment to do it. Let's do it together
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.

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