[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 122 (Thursday, July 2, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4201-S4204]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Coronavirus
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, just 3\1/2\ months ago, a sneaky,
dangerous virus turned our country and the world upside down. It is
hard to believe that it was just 3\1/2\ months ago--mid-March--that we
were headed toward March Madness in basketball; that our economy was
roaring; that unemployment rates for about every category were as low
as they had been in a long, long time. America felt really good about
itself. By the time we would have gotten to the Fourth of July, it
would have been a terrific celebration except that here came this
dangerous, sneaky virus that turned our lives and those in countries
all over the world upside down.
I want to comment this afternoon on some aspects of where we are in
terms of COVID-19 based upon five congressional hearings this month
that I have either chaired or attended in our HELP Committee or the one
I participated in today in Senator Blunt's Appropriations Committee on
Health. Of course, Senator Murray, of Washington State, is the ranking
Democrat on both of those committees.
Of course, much of the talk is about vaccines. Even though we have
appropriated $3 trillion and another astonishing $3 trillion in credit,
that is not going to really solve the problem. The only cure for this
disease, this virus, will ultimately be through testing, treatments,
and vaccines. It is appropriate that we talk about vaccines because our
country is moving more rapidly than it ever has in producing a safe and
effective vaccine for a new virus.
As Dr. Francis Collins--the head of the National Institutes of
Health--told our subcommittee this morning, it usually takes,
historically, 5 to 10 years to create a vaccine. Here, the goal of the
administration's warped speed effort to create a vaccine is to have 300
million doses ready by the first of this coming year--in other words, 6
months from now. That is its aspirational goal. The administration is
not sure it will get there, but you don't get anywhere if you don't set
high goals. We know that as a country. So it has set an enormously
ambitious goal.
We are taking steps that are like none we have ever taken before,
such as Congress has appropriated money, has approved, and is starting
to build a manufacturing plant for a vaccine before we know that it
works. Now, we don't do that before we know that it is safe, but we
will do it before we know that it works. We can be sure that, in some
cases, we are going to lose that money, but it is better to cut 6
months or a year off of the amount of time before the vaccine comes and
take that financial risk. I think all of us would agree with that.
Instead of talking about vaccines today, which are next year's
solution, let me talk about two aspects of COVID-19 that are this
year's solution--in fact, that are this fall's solution. One is
diagnostic tests to find out whether you have the disease or not, and
one is treatments, which is medicine that can be given to you to reduce
the chance that you might be seriously ill or will even die.
That is appropriate in the first place because, in not very many
weeks, America will be headed back to school and to college. In Metro
Nashville, TN, public school begins on August 4. All across the
country, most colleges and schools will be back in business by Labor
Day. There were 75 million students who were casualties of COVID-19.
They were sent home from school or college in mid-March--100,000 public
schools, 35,000 private schools, and 6,000 colleges. Graduations were
canceled. Sports championships and once-in-a-lifetime events were
canceled.
In our country today, two-thirds of married parents with children
work outside the home, and most single parents work outside the home.
Suddenly, their children were home. Teachers were not really prepared
for such wholescale remote teaching, and parents were not prepared for
homeschooling. So ever since mid-March, students have been in limbo.
We are looking forward to doing whatever we can to help make sure
that those 75 million students in schools and colleges can go back to
school and college this fall and go back safely. That is the importance
of tests and treatments. That is the first.
Now, there is another one, and it is not trivial. This is a sports-
hungry country. We love our sports, and everybody has a different sport
one likes. The question I asked Dr. Collins this morning was: Are we
going to have enough COVID-19 tests so we might be able to watch some
football this fall or some basketball this winter? I had read that the
National Hockey League was going to test every player every day in the
National Hockey League.
It is not recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. It is not standard for there to be widespread testing at
schools and colleges, even though the president of Brown University
told our committee she would like to test all students on their way
back to Brown.
The fact is, if we are going to be able to go back to school, back to
college, back to work, out to eat, maybe even watch a sports game,
maybe even, in some cases, attend a sports game, we are going to need a
lot more quick, reliable tests. Let me talk about those, just for a
moment, in terms of going back to school and going out to eat and,
perhaps, being able to watch a little football this fall.
Admiral Giroir testified this month before our committee that our
country has done 30 million tests--more than any other country. We are
doing that at about the rate of 500,000 tests a day, and he says that
we will have four to five times that many in September.
Now, I hear about problems in this place or in that place about
people not getting tests or that it takes too long for the results to
come back from the labs. The fact is, that what is going on now is
every State in the country is developing a plan for July through
December on how many tests States like Indiana, Tennessee, and Alaska
might need in working with the Federal Government, and the Federal
Government has been supplying Tennessee with what Tennessee needs.
In our State, for example, which is 1 of the States that is in the
top 10 of having frequent testing, the Governor has said: If you want a
test, you can have a test. Go down to your public health department,
and you will get one for free. Now, whether they will be able to
continue that, we will see, but that is what we are doing today.
Despite that, when 75 million students try to go back to school and
college, I imagine principals and administrators will want to test
teachers frequently, older people frequently, and everybody in some
classes if one student gets sick, maybe everybody in an elementary
school if several students get sick, and maybe the parents and
grandparents of the children if the children bring home the disease. So
we are going to need a lot more tests.
This is why Senator Blunt and I and others worked together in the
last legislation to support what we called the shark tank at the
National Institutes of Health. This was an unprecedented effort at the
National Institutes of Health, led by Dr. Francis Collins, who led the
Human Genome Project and is one of the most distinguished scientists in
our country.
This is a project to see if we can find a new way to create tens of
millions of diagnostic tests that are what they call point-of-care
tests. That means you can take them instantly; that you can get a
result within an hour or so; and that they are inexpensive and
reliable. You don't have to ship them off. You would probably do this
with saliva. So you might put a lollypop in your mouth and let that
saliva on the lollypop indicate, one way or another, whether you have a
positive or a negative result.
Dr. Collins' goal--and he said this is a very aspirational goal--is
to be able to produce a million of those tests a day by Labor Day. This
would change our lives in many numbers of ways. This would mean that
Brown's president could surely test all students, not just once when
they go back but more often. It would mean many sports teams could test
every player every day if that is what it required.
It would mean that we would probably have more tests than we would
need.
[[Page S4202]]
What would that do?
It would, one, help to contain the disease so we could identify who
has this disease so we could quarantine them and the people they have
exposed instead of quarantining all of us and keeping us from going
back to school, out to eat, and going to work.
It would contain the disease, and it would build confidence. If you
are working in a plant with 500 people and you know that 6 people have
had to be tested because they had been tested and were found to have
been positive, you are going to worry about that. Yet, if you know that
you could get a free test today and any time you wanted and could get
the result in an hour, I believe you would have more confidence in
going to work or in going to school or in going out to eat or even in
playing on a football team whether you are in college or in high
school.
So we are pulling for Dr. Collins' shark tank and his effort to
produce these new ways of testing. They have had an unprecedented
outpouring of applications. He said most of them come from smaller
companies. They are down to 26, I believe is the number, and they are
putting them through this rigorous test. His goal is a million new
tests a day.
That is important for principals to know and teachers to know and
those who are hoping to play a little football and watch a little
basketball this fall--that there might be plenty of quick, reliable
tests to help contain the disease in your community and to be confident
that you are in a safe place.
And then what is the second thing we could expect?
We heard about treatments. As Senator Kennedy says in his inimitable
way, people aren't scared of the virus because they are afraid they
might get sick; they are afraid they might die. And they might,
particularly if they are in a vulnerable population or older age.
There is no medicine for this virus, or at least there wasn't until
recently. Now there is one, Remdesivir, which the United States has
bought a huge amount of, which has been shown to reduce by 32 percent--
according to Dr. Fauci, who testified at our hearing yesterday--reduce
by 32 percent the amount of time it takes you to recover from COVID-19.
According to the experts who testified, there are other plasma
medicines and steroids that have shown to be helpful. That exists
today.
So if you are a parent or a grandparent or a teacher or administrator
worried about children going back to school, you are probably not very
worried about the children catching COVID-19 because, generally
speaking, they haven't seemed to get sick from COVID-19--all around the
world. It has been older people who do. But the children might come
home and bring it to the parent or the grandparent. As I said, this is
a sneaky, dangerous virus. You can give it to somebody without showing
any symptoms of having it. But if you get it, there are already two or
three treatments that your doctors, your hospital can prescribe to
shorten the time that you recover and to reduce the chance that you
might die.
Dr. Collins said that by the time we get to the fall, he expects
there will be more of these treatments approved by the FDA. There are
different kinds of treatments, and he didn't go into all the specifics,
but one kind he mentioned was the so-called antibody cocktail. This was
developed during the time of Ebola, and it was approved by the FDA. It
helped us get rid of the Ebola disease before it came to the United
States and caused a lot of trouble here.
This antibody cocktail--``monoclonal antibody'' is the longer name of
it--is not approved yet. It is not proved to be safe or effective yet,
but because it was once before, there is a cautious optimism that it
will be approved for COVID-19--a version of it--and that those will be
ready by the fall.
If it does work out that this treatment is safe and effective and
approved by the Food and Drug Administration, there are several
companies that have these antibody cocktails, and they should be able
to manufacture large numbers of them.
I guess my point is, we talk a lot about vaccines. We spend every day
hearing about the deaths, the hospitalizations, and what is going on,
and this spike or that spike, but as we think about 75 million students
going back to school and college, going back to work, whether we will
see some football or maybe basketball later, the two aspects that are
needed to determine that are tests and whether the shark tank will
produce enough of them and treatments, and both seem to have a good
possibility of being there for us in the fall.
We had a hearing last week that focused on this question: How do we
sustain what we have built in this pandemic? In fact, one Senator
lectured me a little bit and said: Why are we worrying about the next
pandemic? We are in the middle of this one.
And my answer was, because for the last 20 years, we forgot about the
last pandemic as soon as it was over, and then we got to the next
pandemic, and we weren't as ready as we should be.
We have had four Presidents and several Congresses that passed nine
laws to try to get us ready, and then here comes this sneaky, dangerous
virus, and we find some gaps in our preparation. It is not President
Trump's gap. It is not President Obama's gap. It is our gap because we
didn't do some of the things we should do.
One of the things I believe each of us should do in this Senate is be
willing this year, this summer, to take the lessons we have learned and
sustain what we built, not just to complete our work on this pandemic
but to be ready for the next one.
For example, do we have enough manufacturing capacity for the
vaccines in the United States? Well, we didn't. Now we are building it.
Are we going sustain it?
No. 2, what about our stockpiles? We filled them up, and then they
were depleted--the stockpile here, the stockpile in the States.
Hospitals needed money. They sold off their stocks, and so they were
depleted. We have now built them up, but are we going to sustain that
for the next pandemic or just say: OK, we beat COVID; let's go and
worry about something else.
What about data? We are not getting all the data we want in the way
we should be getting it from the Centers for Disease Control. Are we
just going to forget that, or are we going to do something about that
now?
Hospital preparedness. Hospitals weren't really ready. They did a
magnificent job of getting ready, but we lagged on hospital
preparedness. We have built that up again. Are we going to sustain it,
or are we going to let it drop off once more?
Our State and local public health. Almost all of our public health
efforts in this country are State and local. We are not a small
European country where everything is centralized. We are a great big,
complicated, diverse country where parts of Indiana are very different
from parts of Tennessee and Alaska and New York or wherever we are
from, and as Governor Leavitt, who testified before us, said, for 30 or
40 years, we have gradually disinvested in our public health system. We
are not building that up, but are we going to sustain it?
So that is my hope, that when it comes to building up this
manufacturing capacity here in the United States, increasing our
stockpiles to the levels they should be, beginning to collect the data
in the way it needs to be, preparing our hospitals to receive patients,
building up our State and local public health--are we going to sustain
that while we have our eye on the ball, or are we going to do what we
have done for the last 20 years and slide off into a short memory?
Senator Bill Frist, who was majority leader of this body, said that
he made 20 speeches in 2005 and 2006 about what we needed to do to be
prepared for the next pandemic, which he said is surely coming. They
did some things, but most of the things that he said needed to be done
weren't done. We could do them today if we would just have the resolve
to do them.
Governor Leavitt said that before a pandemic, those who do what he
and Senator Frist did, which was to say we need to do all these things,
are called alarmists, and then after a pandemic or in the middle of it,
they are called inadequate to the task.
Then there is the last point I would like to make, and it is about
politics. The COVID-19 virus--this sneaky, dangerous enemy--is a
science matter, not a political matter, but it has become too much of a
political matter.
Take the issue of masks. We have gotten into a situation where
whether
[[Page S4203]]
you wear a mask depends on your attitude toward President Trump. For
many Americans, it seems that if you are pro-Trump, you don't wear a
mask, and if you don't like Trump, you do wear a mask.
I suggested that the President might occasionally wear a mask just to
signal to his followers that it is a good idea; recommended by every
single health expert to wear a mask--certainly for the protection of
everybody else.
Another way to say it is that our athletic director at the University
of Tennessee, Phillip Fulmer, said: If you really, really want to watch
some football, wear a mask. What he means by that is that it would help
contain the disease in our area so the football players can play
safely.
Well, yesterday the President made it clear. He said masks are good,
and he is happy to wear them when he needs to. Of course, the fact is,
he doesn't need to most of the time. He is tested every day. People
around him are tested. And--as I am not wearing one right now--he is
speaking most of the time. But there are times when I wear my mask.
When I leave the floor, I wear the mask. When I go back down the hall,
I wear the mask. When I am in a smaller room, less than 6 feet away
from somebody, I wear a mask, and I expect others to do that as well.
Every expert who testified in the six hearings I attended this month
said there are three things to do: Wear a mask, wash your hands, and
stay 6 feet apart when you can. If all of us do those things, we are
much more likely to be able to go back to school, back to college, back
to work, out to eat, and maybe even watch a little football.
Vanderbilt University did a survey in the middle of May, and what
they found was surprising. Most of the attitudes of people in Tennessee
weren't about male versus female or east versus west or any other
difference; it was about Republican or Democrat. Republicans didn't
want to wear a mask very much; the Democrats mostly did. Republicans
were eager to go out to eat; Democrats were a little slower.
Republicans weren't as worried about catching the disease; Democrats
were pretty worried. The debate got too politicized.
I thank President Trump for what he said yesterday. He has 70 or 80
million people as his social media followers. If they get the idea that
wearing a ``Make America Great Again'' mask is good for the country, I
bet millions will wear it. If they do, the country will be safer, the
economy will be better, and we will be able to go back to school and do
the other things we want to do.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
my opening statement from our hearing yesterday
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Opening Statement
COVID-19: Update on Progress Toward Safely Getting Back to Work and
Back to School--June 30, 2020
All of our witnesses today are participating in person, and
some senators are participating by videoconference.
I'd like to say something about masks:
The Office of the Attending Physician has advised that
senators and witnesses may remove their masks to talk into
the microphone since our chairs are all six feet apart.
So that's why my mask is off--because I'm six feet away
from everyone else. But like many other senators on this
committee, when I'm walking the hallways or on the Senate
floor, I'm wearing a mask.
People wear masks because the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention advises the use of ``simple cloth face
coverings to slow the spread of the virus and help people who
may have the virus and do not know it from transmitting it to
others.''
Unfortunately this simple lifesaving practice has become
part of a political debate that says: If you're for Trump,
you don't wear a mask. If you're against Trump, you do. That
is why I have suggested the president should occasionally
wear a mask even though there are not many occasions when it
is necessary for him to do so. The president has millions of
admirers.
They would follow his lead. It would help end this
political debate. The stakes are too high for it to continue.
Around here, senators and staff wear masks--because we
don't want to make each other sick. I was exposed to COVID-19
by a pre-symptomatic staff member on my way to Dulles Airport
and, as a result, self-quarantined for two weeks. The senate
physician told me one reason that I did not become infected
was because the staff member was wearing a mask and that
greatly reduced the chances of exposure.
It's also a pretty good way to make a statement. I like to
wear my plaid mask. Dr. Fauci uses his mask to demonstrate
his loyalty to the Washington Nationals. Senator Kaine is
either a cowboy or a bandit.
If you want college football to return this fall, like I
do, listen to the words of Coach Fulmer at the University of
Tennessee who told fans how they can help make that happen:
``If you really really want sports, football, and all those
things, then wear a mask and keep social distancing,'' he
said last week.
The United States is in the middle of a very concerning
rise in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in many states,
and the experts in front of us today have told us that
washing our hands, staying apart and wearing a mask are three
of the most important ways to slow the spread of the virus.
I am grateful to the Rules Committee, Sergeant at Arms, the
press gallery, the Architect of the Capitol, the Capitol
Police, and our committee staff, Chung Shek and Evan Griffis,
for all of their hard work to help keep all of us safe.
Among the casualties of COVID-19 are the 75 million
students who were sent home from schools and colleges in
March.
Add to the casualties the teachers who weren't prepared to
teach remotely and the working parents who suddenly had
school children at home and who weren't prepared to home
school. Add the lost sports seasons and once in a lifetime
graduation ceremonies. Then there were unprecedented dilemmas
for administrators and inadequate school budgets. Being sent
home from school does not rank with the sickness and death
the virus has caused. The United States has over 2.5 million
cases of the virus and over 126,000 deaths according to Johns
Hopkins University.
While states and communities continue to take action to
help keep people safe, nothing was more disruptive to
American life--and nothing would head it back toward
normalcy--than for those 135,000 public and private schools
and 6,000 colleges to reopen safely this Fall.
Earlier this month this committee heard from college
presidents and school leaders about their plans for safely
reopening this fall. This hearing is an opportunity for an
update and to hear from the nation's top health experts on
how headmasters, principals, superintendents, chancellors and
college presidents can open their schools safely just a few
weeks from now.
This committee last heard from today's four witnesses on
May 12, when three of the four were quarantined and most of
the senators participated virtually. That was one of the
first virtual senate hearings in history and surely the best
watched virtual hearing. Every network carried the two and
half hours of statements and questions and answers from
senators.
The question before the country today is not about whether
to go back to school or college or child care or work, but
how to do it safely. Even though COVID-19 has not, in
general, hurt young children and college-age students nearly
as much as older or more vulnerable Americans, there is some
health risk. But in my view the greater risk is not going
back to school.
Guidance for reopening schools from the American Academy of
Pediatrics tells school administrators: ``the AAP strongly
advocates that all policy considerations for the coming
school year should start with a goal of having students
physically present in school.''
The American Academy of Pediatrics adds: ``The importance
of in-person learning is well documented, and there is
already evidence of the negative impacts on children because
of school closures in the spring of 2020. Lengthy time away
from school and associated interruption of supportive
services often results in social isolation, making it
difficult for schools to identify and address important
learning deficits as well as child and adolescent physical or
sexual abuse, substance use, depression, and suicidal
ideation. This, in turn, places children and adolescents at
considerable risk of morbidity and, in some cases, mortality.
Beyond the educational impact and social impact of school
closures, there has been substantial impact on food security
and physical activity for children and families.''
Dr. Lloyd Fisher, the incoming president of the
Massachusetts chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics
told reporters last week: ``While for most children COVID-19
has not had the devastating and life-threatening physical
health effects that have occurred in adults, the negative
impact on their education, mental health and social
development has been substantial,'' he said. ``Nothing can
take the place of the daily face-to-face interaction our
children experience when attending school in person.''
Many American colleges--overall considered the best in the
world--will be permanently damaged or even closed if they
remain, in Brown University president Christina Paxsons
words, ``ghost towns.''
Mitch Daniels, the president of Purdue, wrote in a
Washington Post op-ed that for Purdue, ``failure to take on
the job of reopening would be not only anti-scientific but
also an unacceptable breach of duty.''
So today, in addition to hearing more about the concerning
rise in cases and hospitalizations in some states in the
U.S., I would like to ask our witnesses in their statements
and answers to questions to put themselves in the place of a
superintendent
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of one of America's approximately 14,000 school districts, or
the principal or headmaster of one of the 135,000 schools, or
the president or chancellor of one of the 6,000 colleges, and
help them answer the question of how to reopen schools
safely.
So Dr. Fauci, I hope that in your opening statement or in
answers to questions you will suggest the steps a
superintendent might take to open school safely, and how not
only to keep children safe but to keep safe the adults--
teachers, parents and grandparents--with whom they come in
contact.
Dr. Hahn--Will there be treatments or medicines this fall
that will help speed recovery from COVID-19 or reduce the
possibility of death? I believe the fear of going back to
school--or going anywhere these days--is in large part
because of the fear of severe illness. If that risk can be
lessened by new treatments, it should increase confidence in
going back to school.
I'd also like to commend Dr. Hahn and the work FDA did to
get tests on the market as quickly as possible to help
understand the spread of the virus. Since then, FDA has
worked out which tests have not worked as well as they
should, and taken steps to remove them from the market.
That's what is supposed to happen during a pandemic.
Admiral Giroir--at our last hearing you said you expected
there to be 40-50 million diagnostic tests available each
month by September. Is that still true? And exactly how does
a school district go about making sure it has those tests?
And who pays for them? What are the prospects from the
``shark tank'' at NIH that there will be new fast,
reliable and inexpensive tests available for more
widespread testing?
Dr. Redfield--you are continuing to work on additional
guidelines about going back to school and college safely. Are
CDC employees available to help states work with school
districts or college administrators to develop their plans?
And what advice do you have about the arrival of the flu
season this fall at the same time as COVID-19?
This is a lot to discuss but there will be time during the
next two and half hours to answer most of those questions.
Let me highlight three areas that have come up in our four
earlier hearings this month that I think need clarification.
First, contact tracing. There is no doubt contact tracing
is crucially important to identify anyone who might have been
exposed so that person doesn't, in turn, expose someone else.
According to an NPR report on June 18, states already have
hired at least 37,000 contract tracers. State health
officials and Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security issued
a report estimating a need for at least 100,000 contact
tracers.
Several reports have suggested that the federal government
should appropriate funds to pay for these contact tracers.
The reality is: Congress already has.
On April 24, Congress appropriated $11 billion, which has
been sent to states and tribes for the expenses of testing.
The legislation explicitly said that money could be used for
contact tracing. This is in addition to the nearly $755
million from the first emergency appropriations legislation
signed into law March 6 that went out to states for
coronavirus response and can be used by states for contact
tracing.
This is also in addition to the March 27 legislation in
which Congress provided at least $1.5 billion in the CARES
Act for states, territories, and tribes to use for COVID
preparedness and response, some of which can be used for
contact tracing. The CARES Act also included $150 billion to
states, but a significant amount of that $150 billion has not
been spent because it is restricted to expenses related to
COVID-19.
For example, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has told me that
he is reserving as much as $1 billion of what Tennessee
received so he can determine what flexibility he has in
spending the money. Washington state has not spent as much as
$1.2 billion. According the Missouri State Treasurer,
Governor Parsons has not spent about $1 billion.
According to the report by state health officials and Johns
Hopkins, an average salary for a contact tracer would be a
little more than $35,000. That adds up to about $3.5 billion
for 100,000 contact tracers. So Congress has already sent to
states enough money to hire all the contact tracers that are
needed.
Second, who pays for testing. In the CARES Act, Congress
voted to make all COVID-19 tests available to patients at no
cost. That meant insurers would cover diagnostic tests, which
detect whether a person is currently infected with the virus,
and also antibody tests, which indicate whether a person has
had COVID-19 in the past and now may have immunity to future
infection. Guidance from the Labor Department, the Treasury
Department, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services last week said insurers are only required to pay for
tests without patient cost sharing if a doctor orders it. I
agree with that.
But given that the CDC specifically recommends doctors
order tests in 2 situations--when a person has signs or
symptoms of COVID-19, or recently had contact with someone
known or suspected to have COVID-19--who pays for testing at
other times?
I believe Congress will need to take further action. For
example, if a school wants to test its students randomly,
perhaps that school should coordinate with their state to
become a part of the state testing plan, making all tests
free to students and teachers. Congress may need to provide
more money to states to cover that.
If an automaker wants to test all its employees at a plant
every two weeks, perhaps the automaker should pay for that
testing or become part of a state testing program using funds
already provided by the federal government.
Third, flu shots. CDC has said more people need to get flu
shots this fall so health care workers can better distinguish
between COVID-19 and the flu. CDC says a priority is for all
children over the age of 6 months be vaccinated for the flu
so they don't become sick and pass it to more vulnerable
populations who could have more severe consequences.
On January 24, Sen. Murray and I hosted our first
bipartisan briefing on coronavirus at a time there were only
4 cases in the U.S. Since then this committee has held 4 more
briefings. This is our 8th hearing on coronavirus and U.S.
preparedness.
Last week's hearing was about steps to take this year,
while our eye is on the ball, to better prepare for the next
pandemic. I have issued a white paper outlining five
recommendations for Congress to prepare Americans for the
next pandemic, and that paper has received more than 350
substantive comments that are available to every member of
the committee.
At the end of this hearing, I'm going to ask each witness
what are the 2-3 actions that Congress could take this year
to prepare for the next pandemic, some of which undoubtedly
could help with this pandemic.
But this hearing is about what happens now as
administrators prepare to reopen schools and colleges.
Experts underestimated this virus and there is still much
we don't know about it. But we do know the basic steps to
take to reopen schools and colleges in 2020 before there is a
vaccine and those are: social distance, wear a mask, wash
your hands, test, contact trace, and isolate those exposed or
sick. And hopefully by the fall there will be treatments to
make the consequences of the disease less severe.
I look forward to hearing from our distinguished witnesses
how school leaders and college presidents can safely reopen
135,000 schools and 6,000 colleges, and also learning the
latest developments on testing and treatments that we can
expect during the year 2020 before vaccines arrive.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank Senator Blunt and Senator
Murray for their cooperation this month in this series of six hearings
that we have had on COVID-19.
I think it is very important for the American people to know that
while there is a vaccine down the road, the tests are coming, the fast
tests, and the treatments are coming. They should be here by the fall.
That is what the experts say. It is not what I say; that is what the
experts who testified before us say.
The experts all said the following: If you want to contain the
disease, if you want to go back to school and back to college and back
to work and out to eat and maybe even see a little football, stay 6
feet apart, wash your hands, and wear a mask.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Braun). The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.