[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 100 (Thursday, May 28, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H2349-H2352]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                COVID-19, STRATEGIC TESTING FOR WORKERS

  (Ms. KAPTUR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, as of yesterday, the United States death 
toll from COVID-19 has reached over 100,000 precious lives.
  Recent headlines tell the story of COVID-19 risks as workers report 
to work with no testing. The Toledo Blade reports: ``Coronavirus 
Strikes Fermi 2 Nuclear Plant During Refueling.'' Reuters reports: 
``All Three Detroit Automakers Had Workers Test Positive for COVID-19 
Since Plants Reopened.'' And Willamette Week reports: ``The Reopening 
of Vancouver, Washington, Is On Hold as 65 Workers Test Positive for 
COVID-19 at a Fruit Processing Facility.''
  Madam Speaker, I include in the Record the articles I mentioned.

                     [From the Blade, Apr. 8, 2020]

  Coronavirus Strikes Fermi 2 Nuclear Plant During Refueling; Utility 
                             Keeps Working

                             (By Tom Henry)

       Newport, Mich.--An undisclosed number of coronavirus cases 
     have been documented inside Fermi 2 during the nuclear 
     plant's latest refueling outage.
       But owner-operator DTE Energy said it believes it has 
     enough precautions in place now to complete the work and get 
     the plant restarted in the coming weeks.
       In a statement, DTE spokesman Stephen R. Tait said the 
     company ``can confirm that we have had employees test 
     positive, but are

[[Page H2350]]

     not giving out numbers, locations or names at this time.''
       Media reports showed the first worker tested positive about 
     the same time the refueling outage began on March 21. A 
     Detroit television station reported at least two more 
     positive cases were documented within days of that.
       DTE won't say for the record when it expects to complete 
     Fermi 2's outage.
       But many similar operations--which once took six weeks or 
     longer--have been shortened to about a month in recent years. 
     Utilities lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential 
     electricity sales each day nuclear plants sit idle.
       Nuclear plants are refueled every 18 to 24 months, 
     depending on the type of uranium used in their reactor cores.
       Fermi 2, located along western Lake Erie in northern Monroe 
     County's Frenchtown Township, is one of many nuclear plants 
     across the United States scheduled to be refueled during the 
     spring or fall of 2020, the two seasons when demand for 
     electricity is lowest.
       Energy Harbor's Davis-Besse nuclear plant along the Lake 
     Erie shoreline in rural Ottawa County recently completed its 
     latest refueling.
       Both plants are about 30 miles from downtown Toledo.
       The coronavirus pandemic has, of course, complicated those 
     efforts this year.
       To help keep refuelings on schedule, the U.S. Nuclear 
     Regulatory Commission last month allowed for an exemption 
     from rules which limit the number of consecutive hours 
     workers are allowed to be inside the plant at a time. The 
     agency said in a March 28 letter to the Washington-based 
     Nuclear Energy Institute that it will consider such requests 
     on a case-by-case basis, and that exemptions will be limited 
     to 60 days.
       ``We are aware of the NRC's willingness to relax some rules 
     for overtime at plants if there is a need,'' Mr. Tait said. 
     ``At this time, we have not requested any variances.''
       The NRC has ``no immediate concerns in this area,'' 
     Viktoria Mitlyng, agency spokesman, said. ``We are 
     communicating regularly with Fermi staff to discuss current 
     activities and future plans, including staffing, medical 
     screening, reductions in nonessential maintenance work, and 
     other related matters.''
       In nearly all refuelings, including at those at Fermi 2 and 
     Davis-Besse, hundreds of specialized, out-of-state 
     contractors augment the regular plant workforces, often 
     resulting in 1,000 or more workers assigned to any given site 
     at a time. Work is usually divided into eight-hour shifts, 
     with activity occurring 24 hours a day.
       Officials have noted those contractors move throughout the 
     country from job to job, bringing with them the potential of 
     carrying viruses outside of the sites they last worked.
       Monroe-area resident Michael J. Keegan, a longtime activist 
     associated with the activist group Don't Waste Michigan, said 
     he worries the NRC will again allow DTE to postpone some of 
     the work planned for the submerged portion of Fermi 2's 
     pressure suppression chamber, also referred to as the torus.
       The utility came to an agreement with the NRC to fix 
     degraded coating there, a situation that has lingered for 31 
     years. It was first identified in 1989, the NRC has said.
       One of the concerns is that loose paint chips in drains 
     could make it difficult for vital reactor coolant pumps to 
     move water in the event of an emergency.
       The NRC told DTE it will grant the utility's request to 
     remove only coatings found to be degraded through 
     inspections.
       ``If degraded coating is found, they will remove it prior 
     to returning the reactor to operation after the spring 2020 
     outage,'' Ms. Mitlyng said.
       Fermi 2, one of Michigan's largest employers, is about 30 
     miles south of Detroit, which is now one of America's hot 
     spots for the coronavirus pandemic.
                                  ____


                      [From Reuters, May 27, 2020]

  All Three Detroit Automakers Had Workers Test Positive for COVID-19 
                         Since Plants Reopened

       Detroit.--In the week since U.S. auto factories reopened 
     after coronavirus lockdowns, workers at all three Detroit 
     automakers have tested positive for COVID-19 but only Ford 
     Motor Co has temporarily closed plants.
       The U.S. auto industry reopened many plants last week after 
     a two-month shutdown due to the global pandemic. To ensure 
     safety during the outbreak, companies imposed new safety 
     measures, including screening employees, use of face masks 
     and social distancing.
       Ford paused production at its Claycomo, Missouri, plant for 
     an hour on Tuesday after a worker tested positive. Work 
     resumed at the plant, which builds the F-150 pickup truck and 
     Transit van, without workers being sent home following a deep 
     cleaning, Ford spokeswoman Kelli Felker said Wednesday.
       General Motors Co and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCA) 
     said Wednesday they have had workers test positive since the 
     restart, but have not been forced to idle plants. They did 
     not disclose the number of workers affected.
       On Wednesday, a union leader at Ford's Kentucky Truck Plant 
     said on Twitter a worker there tested positive, but had not 
     worked since May 21. Felker said the plant never closed.
       Last week, Ford closed two assembly plants, due to a 
     positive test at its Dearborn, Michigan, factory and a parts 
     shortage due to a positive test at a supplier that closed the 
     Chicago plant. It had marked the second consecutive day for 
     closures in Chicago following two positive tests.
       United Auto Workers Local 600, which represents hourly 
     workers in Dearborn, last week demanded testing for every 
     worker there and that Ford shut down the plant for 24 hours 
     after a positive test. Ford said the safety of its workers is 
     a top priority and cited the safety measures it has developed 
     in conjunction with the UAW.
       In Mexico, Ford told workers it was targeting a May 28 
     restart at its Hermosillo plant. GM and FCA have restarted 
     operations in Mexico.
                                  ____


                     [From wweek.com, May 25, 2020]

   The Reopening of Vancouver, Wash., Is On Hold as 65 Workers Test 
          Positive for COVID-19 at a Fruit Processing Facility

                            (By Tess Riski)

       Clark County's application to move into Phase 2 of 
     reopening has been put on pause.
       The COVID-19 outbreak at a fruit processing plant in 
     Vancouver, Wash., climbed from 38 workers Friday to 65 
     employees Monday. The Oregonian first reported.
       The facility, called Firestone Pacific Foods, halted 
     production May 19. On May 23, Washington state health 
     officials suspended Clark County's request to enter Phase 2 
     of the state's reopening plan due to the outbreak.
       The state health department cited the Firestone outbreak as 
     its reason for suspending Vancouver's reopening.
       The county health department said in a press release 
     Saturdav that it is identifying and notifying close contacts 
     of all who tested positive and asking them to quarantine for 
     14 days.
       Firestone processes frozen fruit mostly berries. Food 
     processing plants have been epicenters of COVID-19 outbreaks 
     across the U.S., in part because social distancing is 
     difficult on assembly-line floors.
       The facility told The Oregonian it's unaware of any workers 
     who have been hospitalized because of the virus.
       ``While this outbreak is unfortunate, our response 
     demonstrates we have the confidence and capability to respond 
     to situations like this,'' Dr. Alan Melnick, the Clark County 
     health officer, said in a press release.
                                  ____


                [From the New York Times, May 25, 2020]

    `This Is Not the Hunger Games': National Testing Strategy Draws 
                                Concerns

              (By Apoorva Mandavilli and Catie Edmondson)

       The Trump administration's new testing strategy, released 
     Sunday to Congress, holds individual states responsible for 
     planning and carrying out all coronavirus testing, while 
     planning to provide some supplies needed for the tests.
       The proposal also says existing testing capacity, if 
     properly targeted, is sufficient to contain the outbreak. But 
     epidemiologists say that amount of testing is orders of 
     magnitude lower than many of them believe the country needs.
       The report cements a stance that has frustrated governors 
     in both parties, following the administration's announcement 
     last month that the federal government should be considered 
     ``the supplier of last resort'' and that states should 
     develop their own testing plans.
       ``For months, it was a tennis game, it was going back and 
     forth between the feds and the states, and it's now landed 
     with the states,'' said Scott Becker, executive director of 
     the Association of Public Health Laboratories.
       Mr. Becker noted that the federal government plans to 
     distribute some testing supplies, including swabs and viral 
     transport media, and to store test kits in the strategic 
     national stockpile. ``That's actually quite significant,'' he 
     said. ``That's a positive step.''
       The Department of Health and Human Services prepared the 
     strategy, which meets requirements under the Paycheck 
     Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, signed 
     into law by President Trump on April 24, that federal 
     agencies come up with a strategic testing plan within 30 
     days. It was reported earlier by The Washington Post.
       Mr. Becker, public health experts and Democratic leaders 
     panned the proposal, saying the strategy runs the risk of 
     states competing with one another and may create deep 
     inequities among them.
       The strategy mirrors a divide that has played out in 
     Congress for months. As they negotiated the virus relief bill 
     in March, Democratic lawmakers pushed to require the 
     administration to submit this national testing plan to 
     Congress. Republicans resisted, saying those decisions 
     belonged to each state.
       Mr. Becker and others said it's reasonable to expect states 
     to implement some aspects of the testing, such as designating 
     test sites. But acquiring tests involves reliance on national 
     and international supply chains--which are challenging for 
     many states to navigate.
       ``That's our biggest question, that's our biggest concern, 
     is the robustness of the supply chain, which is critical,'' 
     Mr. Becker said. ``You can't leave it up to the states to do 
     it for themselves. This is not the Hunger Games.''

[[Page H2351]]

       In a joint statement on Monday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi; 
     Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader; Representative 
     Frank Pallone, Democratic chairman of the House Energy and 
     Commerce Committee; and Senator Patty Murray, the ranking 
     Democrat on the Senate's health committee, said the Trump 
     administration was not taking responsibility for ramping up 
     national testing capacity.
       ``This disappointing report confirms that President Trump's 
     national testing strategy is to deny the truth that there 
     aren't enough tests and supplies, reject responsibility and 
     dump the burden onto the states,'' the lawmakers said. ``In 
     this document, the Trump administration again attempts to 
     paint a rosy picture about testing while experts continue to 
     warn the country is far short of what we need.''
       Experts also took issue with the report's assertion that 
     continuing to test only about 300,000 people a day, by 
     targeting only those likely to be positive, would be enough 
     to contain the outbreak.
       ``On the face of it, the idea that 300,000 tests a day is 
     enough for America is absurd,'' said Dr. Ashish Jha, director 
     of the Harvard Global Health Institute.
       He offered a quick rundown of the numbers to illustrate the 
     estimate's inadequacy. Most hospitals nationwide now test 
     everyone who is admitted for any reason, roughly 100,000 
     tests each day, fearing that they may be asymptomatic and yet 
     still spreading the virus. Testing the 1.6 million residents 
     of nursing homes--known to be at high risk of coronavirus 
     infection--and workers every two weeks would require 150,000 
     more tests each day. Add high-risk places like meatpacking 
     plants that need regular testing, and the numbers rapidly 
     build.
       ``Without having tested a single person for symptoms of 
     Covid, we would quickly exhaust our entire national supply of 
     testing if all we have is 300,000 tests per day,'' he said.
       The H.H.S. report noted that an analysis by the Safra 
     Center at Harvard estimated the need at more than three 
     million tests per day. But the federal report said that 
     estimate was based on faulty assumptions.
       The Safra authors who crafted the estimate said that the 
     federal report had cherry-picked one simple example from 
     their analysis without considering other evidence.
       ``We ran multiple models, all of which pointed to the same 
     order of magnitude,'' said Danielle Allen, director of the 
     Safra Center. ``They've selected one non-primary model in an 
     appendix and selectively adjusted assumptions to generate a 
     different number.''
       Dr. Allen said millions of daily tests would be required to 
     have 4 percent of people test positive with the coronavirus--
     the level they say is needed to halt the spread of the virus. 
     The administration's target, 10 percent, would allow only for 
     mitigation.
       ``There is not a single country that I'm aware of that 
     achieved disease suppression with a positivity rate of 10 
     percent,'' she said.
       And 300,000 daily tests would be insufficient even for 
     mitigation, Dr. Jha said, estimating that would require at 
     least 900,000 tests per day.
       The proposal also leaves it to states to plan for contact 
     tracing and isolation, rapidly identify new clusters of 
     coronavirus infection and adopt new technologies. It says the 
     federal government is ``supporting and encouraging'' states 
     to rely heavily on guidance from the Centers for Disease 
     Control and Prevention.
       However, the C.D.C. has been slow to release guidance for 
     states during this outbreak, Dr. Jha said. And the agency 
     fumbled its role in testing strategy, most recently with last 
     week's dust-up over the mixing of test results for active 
     infection with serology. ``This is not C.D.C.'s shining 
     moment,'' he said.
       Governors have bristled at claims from the administration 
     that the supply of tests was adequate, routinely asking for 
     more federal assistance. Some states have ultimately decided 
     to negotiate directly with suppliers to obtain test kits.
       Federal virus relief legislation required states to release 
     their individual testing plans last week, but they requested 
     an extension to later this week. If elements of those state 
     plans prove promising, Mr. Becker said, the federal strategy 
     could be revised or merged with them.
                                  ____


                        [From CNN, May 21, 2020]

         Coronavirus Testing Is `a Mess' in the US, Report Says

                            (By Maggie Fox)

       Coronavirus testing in the United States is disorganized 
     and needs coordination at the national level, infectious 
     disease experts said in a new report released Wednesday.
       Right now, testing is not accurate enough to use alone to 
     make most decisions, including who should go back to work or 
     to school, the team at the University of Minnesota said.
       ``It's a mess out there,'' Mike Osterholm, head of the 
     university's Center for Infectious Disease Research and 
     Policy (CIDRAP), which issued the report, told CNN.
       ``Testing is very, very important, but we're not doing the 
     right testing.''
       The number of tests that have been completed--numbers 
     widely reported by states and by the White House--show only 
     part of the picture, the report reads.
       ``The data is really kind of screwed up,'' Osterholm said. 
     ``It's because the public health system is overwhelmed.''
       The report has some specific recommendations for diagnostic 
     tests that check to see if someone is currently infected with 
     coronavirus.
       Testing is most useful for clinical care of patients, for 
     disease surveillance and contact tracing and for monitoring 
     frontline workers such as emergency responders, doctors and 
     nurses who may have been exposed, the report recommends. 
     People with symptoms should also be tested, it says.
       But coronavirus testing is not accurate enough yet to use 
     in many other ways, the CIDRAP team said.
       It recommends against:
       Universal testing in hospital settings
       Testing in schools or other low-risk settings
       Widespread community-based testing
       Antibody tests to decide who goes back to work
       Immunity passports
       It might be useful to test asymptomatic people in long-term 
     care facilities in some cases because they are likely to have 
     many cases, the report said. ``Asymptomatic shedding of the 
     virus may be detected with a molecular test (which looks for 
     the virus itself) or an antigen test (which looks for 
     important pieces of the virus). It is not yet clear where, 
     when and how asymptomatic individuals should be tested.''
       The report also says that antibody tests should be used 
     only with caution. These tests check the blood for evidence 
     of an immune response to the virus, and indicate that someone 
     has been infected for some days or has even cleared an 
     infection. They are most useful for identifying donors of 
     plasma used to treat patients or for deciding on how to 
     manage patients when standard diagnostic tests are negative, 
     the report says.
       It's not clear if antibody tests are useful for testing of 
     health care workers to determine immune status, according to 
     the report.
       ``We believe that greatly expanding SARSCoV-2 testing is a 
     critical element in our response to COVID-19,'' the report 
     reads. ``For testing to be maximally effective, coordination 
     across the system and across jurisdictions is necessary. 
     Ideally, this requires federal guidance, leadership and 
     support, with strong jurisdictional buy-in at the state and 
     local levels.''
       The report calls on the US Department of Health and Human 
     Services to appoint a panel to oversee and organize testing. 
     ``The panel should include representatives from public 
     health, clinical laboratory, and medicine; the laboratory 
     testing research and development, marketing, and product 
     support industries; ethicists; legal scholars; and elected 
     officials,'' it says.
       Osterholm noted that some states are combining data from 
     diagnostic tests and antibody tests to make estimates about 
     how many people have been infected. The Food and Drug 
     Administration advises against using tests in this way and so 
     does Osterholm. ``You need to do the right test at the right 
     time to get the right result,'' he said. ``Nobody is thinking 
     through that.''
       Plus, there's not enough coordination to ensure that states 
     have the testing supplies they need. This is a system and if 
     a system breaks down anywhere, it breaks down everywhere,'' 
     Osterholm said.
       ``What good are the test results if you can't trust them?''
                                  ____


                [From the New York Times, May 25, 2020]

As Meatpacking Plants Reopen, Data About Worker Illness Remains Elusive

      (By Michael Corkery, David Yaffe-Bellany and Derek Kravitz)

       The Smithfield Foods plant in Tar Heel, N.C., is one of the 
     world's largest pork processing facilities, employing about 
     4,500 people and slaughtering roughly 30,000 pigs a day at 
     its peak.
       And like more than 100 other meat plants across the United 
     States, the facility has seen a substantial number of 
     coronavirus cases. But the exact number of workers in Tar 
     Heel who have tested positive is anyone's guess.
       Smithfield would not provide any data when asked about the 
     number of illnesses at the plant. Neither would state or 
     local health officials.
       ``There has been a stigma associated with the virus,'' said 
     Teresa Duncan, the director of the health department in 
     Bladen County, where the plant is located. ``So we're trying 
     to protect privacy.''
       Along with nursing homes and prisons, meatpacking 
     facilities have proven to be places where the virus spreads 
     rapidly. But as dozens of plants that closed because of 
     outbreaks begin reopening, meat companies' reluctance to 
     disclose detailed case counts makes it difficult to tell 
     whether the contagion is contained or new cases are emerging 
     even with new safety measures in place. The Centers for 
     Disease Control and Prevention said there were nearly 5,000 
     meatpacking workers infected with the virus as of the end of 
     last month. But the nonprofit group Food & Environment 
     Reporting Network estimated last week that the number has 
     climbed to more than 17,000. There have been 66 meatpacking 
     deaths, the group said.
       And the outbreaks may be even more extensive.
       For weeks, local officials received conflicting signals 
     from state leaders and meatpacking companies about how much 
     information to release, according to internal

[[Page H2352]]

     emails from government health agencies obtained through 
     public records requests by Columbia University's Brown 
     Institute for Media Innovation and provided to The New York 
     Times. The mixed messages left many workers and their 
     communities in the dark about the extent of the spread in 
     parts of Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado.
       The emails also reveal the deference some county officials 
     have shown toward the giant meatpacking companies and how 
     little power they have in pushing the companies to stem 
     outbreaks.
       ``Bad news spreads way faster than the truth,'' said a 
     county health official in Colorado of an outbreak at a 
     Cargill plant, according to notes from a conference call last 
     month. ``At this point, we are not doing anything to cast 
     them in a bad light. Will not throw them to the Press.''
       Questions about the transparency of governments and 
     companies about the coronavirus extend far beyond 
     meatpacking. Chinese officials have been widely criticized 
     for not fully disclosing the extent of the virus's spread 
     within their borders. And in the United States, President 
     Trump has questioned the official death toll from the 
     coronavirus, suggesting that the numbers may be inflated even 
     as public health experts and statisticians say the opposite 
     is more likely true.
       The meat companies are not legally required to disclose how 
     many workers are sick. But legal experts say privacy is not a 
     valid reason for keeping the numbers from the public.
       ``Alerting a community about the number of cases in a 
     particular place is a standard public health response;' said 
     Nicole Huberfeld, a public health expert at Boston 
     University. ``People need to act appropriately if they are 
     exposed.''
       The lack of full disclosure also demonstrates the 
     industry's sway as a major employer in the Midwest and the 
     South.
       While more than 80 percent of beef and pork workers are 
     unionized, even labor leaders acknowledge it is not as easy 
     to shut down meat plants as other factories because they are 
     essential to the food supply. Auto plants, for example, were 
     shut down relatively early during the pandemic and have only 
     just begun to reopen.
       After some slaughterhouses did close, restaurants and 
     stores experienced significant shortages of meat, leading Mr. 
     Trump to issue an executive order designating meat plants 
     ``critical infrastructure'' that must stay open.
       But the order did not address crucial issues like testing, 
     leading many companies to reopen plants or keep them 
     operating without fully assessing whether employees had 
     contracted the virus.
       Across the country, many local health departments have 
     encouraged companies to test employees--but stopped short of 
     ordering them to do so.
       On April 21, health officials in Dallas County, Iowa, told 
     Tyson Foods that they could provide rapid testing kits for 
     workers at its local plant in Perry, according to the emails. 
     An early draft of that message to Tyson managers underscored 
     the urgency, saying, ``At this time, we strongly recommend 
     this option be implemented immediately.''
       But the county's lawyer asked that the language be revised 
     to read, ``At this time, we ask you to consider this be 
     implemented as soon as possible.''
       In an interview, the county attorney, Chuck Sinnard, said 
     he recommended revising the language because he did not 
     believe the health department had the authority to order 
     Tyson to conduct tests.
       ``It was in the vein of choosing wording cautiously and 
     conservatively so we didn't get in a position where we were 
     overstepping our bounds,'' he said.
       On May 5, the state health department, which ultimately 
     worked with Tyson to test employees, said 730 workers, or 58 
     percent of the plant's work force, had tested positive for 
     the virus. About two weeks ago, Tyson started to disclose the 
     number of coronavirus cases at a handful of its plants around 
     the country where there has been widespread testing.
       In North Carolina, workers and community advocates in the 
     Tar Heel area started to raise the alarm in April, as local 
     news outlets reported a string of infections linked to the 
     Smithfield plant.
       In neighboring Robeson County, 59 residents who work at the 
     Tar Heel facility have become infected, out of a total of 669 
     cases in the community, according to Melissa Packer, the 
     county's assistant health director.
       But like the rest of the public, Ms. Packer does not know 
     the full extent of the outbreak at the plant.
       In conversations with state officials this month, Ms. 
     Packer said, a number of county health directors requested 
     that plantspecific numbers stay private. One of the reasons, 
     she said, was that the local officials wanted to avoid 
     antagonizing the meatpackers while they worked alongside them 
     to curtail the outbreaks.
       ``A lot of the concerns were around fractured 
     relationships,'' Ms. Packer said. ``Some local health 
     directors from the counties where there are processing plants 
     expressed some concerns about how that may negatively impact 
     the relationship they have built with the management of the 
     companies.''
       A spokeswoman for North Carolina's health department, Amy 
     Ellis, declined to reveal plant-specific data. She said the 
     state has recorded a total of 1,952 cases across meat plants 
     in 17 counties.
       Smithfield said it continued to ``report all Covid-19 cases 
     to state and local health officials, as well as the C.D.C.'' 
     and was working to provide free testing to all its employees.
       This month, Gov. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska announced that 
     the state would not disclose the number of coronavirus cases 
     in specific meat plants without the consent of the companies. 
     The state is releasing aggregate case numbers across the meat 
     processing industry, the governor's spokesman said. Some of 
     Nebraska's big meatpackers have also started revealing less 
     about case numbers to their employees.
       Eric Reeder, a local union president representing workers 
     in 14 plants around Nebraska, said that the larger the 
     outbreak, the less transparent some of the companies have 
     become about the case numbers.
       ``When a plant hits several hundred cases, they get more 
     tight-lipped, and that makes it difficult for workers to 
     protect themselves and their families,'' said Mr. Reeder, 
     president of the United Food & Commercial Workers union local 
     293.
       Those transparency issues were on display last month when 
     Teresa Anderson, the director of the Central District Health 
     Department in Grand Island, Neb., told the meat processor JBS 
     that she planned to conduct coronavirus testing at a park 
     near the company's plant, which employs 3,700 people.
       JBS wanted assurances that the test results would not be 
     made public.
       ``We understand that you will be asking and recording the 
     employer,'' Nicholas White, a compliance official at JBS, 
     wrote in an email to Ms. Anderson on April 15. ``But we would 
     ask that you not disclose that information as part of any 
     public disclosure of the testing results.''
       Six days later, though, Ms. Anderson announced that more 
     than 200 people connected to the Grand Island plant were 
     infected. By May 5, at least 328 employees had tested 
     positive, according to the emails from Grand Island, some of 
     which were previously reported by ProPublica.
       A spokesman for JBS, Cameron Bruett, said the company did 
     not want to publicize the number of positive cases at the 
     plant because little testing was being conducted in the 
     broader area. Releasing the data, he said, ``would distort 
     any one company's role in community spread.''
       The tussle over whether plants should test workers has 
     stretched for months in some states, creating critical delays 
     in isolating infected workers. Local health authorities 
     concede that asymptomatic employees are still coming to work 
     with the virus, fueling the spread.
       As recently as May 14, health officials in Wyandotte 
     County, Kan., warned that the virus was continuing to spread 
     inside a National Beef plant.
       ``The outbreak has gone on for a month,'' a county 
     epidemiologist said in an email to her colleagues.
       ``Should we bust in, show our badges and test everyone?'' a 
     colleague suggested. ``Ha!''
       A National Beef spokesman said the company was following 
     the county's health guidelines.
       Even when case numbers are disclosed, many health 
     departments say they have little authority to act at meat 
     plants.
       Last month, a worker in a Triumph Foods pork plant in St. 
     Joseph, Mo., emailed the city saying at least two employees 
     were infected and 90 percent of the staff was still working 
     ``less than a meter away'' from one another.
       ``Workers are scared,'' the employee said. ``Can the 
     government take action on the matter for the protection of 
     workers and the city?''
       A health official wrote back on April 21, saying the city 
     had ``limited authority'' in closing a business and suggested 
     that the workers cover their noses and mouths and use hand 
     sanitizer.
       Since then, Triumph has supplied workers with masks, among 
     other protective measures, according to the company website. 
     But at the time, the plant worker was not comforted by the 
     city's assurances.
       ``Are you telling me that it doesn't matter that two 
     workers are infected,'' he wrote. ``Because the plant is 
     worth more than the workers' health?''
  Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, testing requires a national strategy, not 
a 50-State, helter-skelter search for limited supplies. Without 
rigorous expanded surveillance testing, many more American lives are 
put on the chopping block because of pure stupidity and callousness.
  If the President can find billions to build more nuclear weapons, 
then surely we can find the money to protect those who build them and 
all workers who dedicate their talents to moving our Nation to full 
throttle again.
  Mr. President, get a testing regimen in place. It is your duty. No 
excuses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to address their 
remarks to the Chair.

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