[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 80 (Tuesday, April 28, 2020)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E402]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              AMERICA'S GLOBAL LEADERSHIP DURING COVID-19

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                            HON. ILHAN OMAR

                              of minnesota

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 28, 2020

  Ms. OMAR. Madam Speaker, I rise today to join my colleagues from both 
sides of the aisle in recognizing the need for the United States to 
take clear, decisive leadership in a genuinely global collaboration to 
confront the threat COVID-19.
  The threat of COVID-19 is truly global--the virus does not understand 
borders or nationalities. Until and unless the virus is contained 
everywhere on Earth, it is not truly contained anywhere. The United 
States leads whether through action or inaction. We have a 
responsibility both morally and to our own national security to 
coordinate an international response to COVID-19 that meets the 
enormous challenge it presents. It is a sad state of affairs that this 
White House has preferred transparently political international 
squabbles to the type of American leadership the world is counting on.
  In Congress, we have been understandably focused on our districts and 
our constituents, who are facing job losses, evictions, and the closing 
of their small businesses. We have needed to ensure that our health 
care professionals have access to the equipment that they need, and 
that our constituents abroad could be safely returned home.
  And as we know today that there is still much to do on the homefront, 
the threat of COVID-19 in the rest of the world is incredibly grave. 
The Central African Republic has three ventilators in the entire 
country. In Somalia, there are 15 ICU beds total. Millions of refugees 
who have already fled unspeakable brutality and violence now live in 
camps where social distancing is impossible, and there isn't clean 
water to wash their hands every time they've touched a potentially 
contaminated surface. In Yemen, where conflict has already decimated 
infrastructure and public health, the confirmed cases of COVID-19 cast 
yet another long shadow on a long-suffering population. From Gaza to 
Guatemala, and from Lagos to Lahore, the toll of this disease could 
reach levels still unthinkable.
  It is also important that we remember that it is women who are on the 
front lines, making up 70% of global health workers. The United States 
must stand in solidarity with these women and other healthcare workers 
and be a global leader in ensuring there is funding so that they have 
supplies and infrastructure to do their jobs and the long-term support 
to address mental and physical health issues as a result of their 
response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
  Not only are women impacted as health workers by health systems being 
overwhelmed by the pandemic, but women and girls are also facing new 
and exacerbated barriers in access to services, particularly sexual and 
reproductive health and gender-based violence prevention and response 
services, services that are essential. Pre-existing barriers to 
essential health services are exacerbated as overwhelmed health systems 
shift their attention solely to COVID-19 response. Experience has shown 
us that access to sexual and reproductive health care is critical in a 
pandemic. During the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone, reduced access to 
reproductive healthcare is estimated to have caused at least as many 
deaths as Ebola itself.
  We must not turn our back on the world. We must put aside our 
grievances and work toward the common good, to find a common solution. 
This pandemic is clear, tragic evidence that the outlook that favors 
international cooperation over isolationism, institutions over 
improvisation, is not just more moral but safer. Just as the ravages of 
this terrible disease know no borders, neither must the cure. Our 
national interest and our moral duty are one and the same. Now is the 
time. It is clearer now than ever that our destinies are linked, and 
that we are all in this together.

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