Transcripts For CSPAN Select Subcommittee On The Coronavirus Crisis Hearing On Frontline ... 20240713

Impact of the coronavirus on workers and the steps the federal government can take to better protect these workers. The coronavirus pandemic has already killed more than 90,000 americans, more deaths than any other nation. Throughout this crisis, our nations essential workers have continued to serve their communities at Great Potential risk to themselves and their families. They are the true heroes of this crisis. I am deeply honored that several of these heroes have joined us today. These heroes treat patients who are sick with the virus and comfort the families of those who have lost loved ones. They respond to emergency calls and keep our communities safe. They stock our grocery and drugstore shelves. They keep our transit systems running, and they clean our hospitals and offices to prevent the virus from spreading further. Tens of thousands of essential workers have been infected with the virus, and many have lost their lives. Im particularly concerned that many essential workers still lack basic protections that are needed to keep them and their families safe and healthy. That must change. It is unacceptable four months into this Public Health crisis that many frontline medical professionals and other essential workers still face shortages of critical supplies like masks and hospital gowns. These shortages must be acknowledged and immediate steps must be taken to procure and distribute these necessary supplies. At last weeks briefing, this subcommittee heard from two former fda directors and other bipartisan Public Health experts who warned that safely reopening our economy requires a comprehensive, nationwide strategy for testing, tracing, isolation, and treatment. Protections for essential workers must be a cornerstone of that strategy. Otherwise, these workers will be just will be put at an even greater risk as states begin to reopen and we all face a greater risk of a second wave. Essential workers across the United States have made sacrifices to serve their communities during these dark times. We owe them our thanks and much more. We must provide them the protections they need, the support, and paid leave they deserve, and declare publichealth guidance that is critical to prevent further harm. Today, we will hear the stories of some of these workers. We will hear from Leilani Jordans mother, a 27yearold maryland woman who continued to work at the Grocery Store during the pandemic in order to serve her neighbors and community. She passed away due to coronavirus. We are honored to be joined today by ms. Jordans mother, zenobia shepherd. We will also hear the story of a bus driver from detroit, who died from the coronavirus. And we are honored to have his friend and fellow bus driver, eric colts, with us today. The committee will hear today about the stress and anguish faced by essential workers who fear spreading the virus to loved ones and have been forced to isolate themselves from their children and their families. We will also hear about the Financial Stress that forced many low income americans to keep showing up to work, despite the risk. And we will hear from First Responders, who battle the pandemic at the peak of the crisis in some of the hardest hit areas of the country, including new york city. These cities and states have been literally begging the federal government for months to provide more resources to protect these workers, and many are still waiting. Today, witnesses have agreed to share their stories with us, including the incredible painful loss of their family members and friends. I hope we can honor their loved ones and ease their suffering by conducting todays proceedings in a truly bipartisan manner. I hope we can find out about the needs and how we can fulfill them. I will now yield to distinguished Ranking Member mr. Scalise for opening remarks. Rep. Scalise thank you, mr. Chairman. I join all the members of our subcommittee in thanking the witnesses. We thank not just our witnesses that are here today with us, but all of those frontline heroes, nurses, doctors, emts, Grocery Store workers, truck drivers, janitors, factory workers in those essential industries. Mr. Chairman, there are millions of americans all across this country who have responded to this call. We mourn everyone who has died from this evil virus, and i share with you in welcoming those members that have loved ones and friends that have been some of the tragic victims of this virus. Too many families have been unable to say goodbye. Too Many Americans have lost their jobs or their businesses. Too Many Americans and students had their education interrupted. But because of people all across the country, like the witnesses we have today, the virus has met its match. It will be defeated. Americans do not hide from a fight, mr. Chairman. We dont back down. We will confront this challenge, like we confronted so many others in our nations history. The select subcommittee must honor those heroes by focusing on helping families get back on their feet, by helping businesses safely reopen, and by Holding China and the World Health Organization accountable. China moved, in january, to contain the outbreak domestically, yet they allowed the virus to spread to america and other nations all around the globe. Mr. Chairman, yesterday, the republicans on the subcommittee sent a letter urging you to immediately call on World Health Organization director general tedros and the Chinese Ambassador to the United States to testify. We requested to hold a hearing in person at the capital, but we are doing this by webex. We do know this, mr. Chairman china lied to the world about this disease. During critical periods in december and january, china withheld evidence of the virus, evidence that confirmed there was human to human transmission of the virus, evidence of the extent of the spread. China refused entry of american and other medical experts from around the world for weeks. Our medical experts wanted to go in. Their medical experts wanted us to go in, but the Chinese Communist party who said no, because they wanted to hide what was happening from the world. During this time, china hoarded key medical supplies, the ppe that we have been so fervently trying to get manufactured in america. They hoarded those supplies. Masks, gowns, other lifesaving ppe. They hoarded it for themselves and imported it from other countries while they were hiding from the world what was really going on. This is something that the Chinese Communist party directed. We need to look into this, mr. Chairman. China knew the danger posed by the virus, and while they hid the truth, they used that time to stock up on not just ppe, but other vital medical supplies that they still hoard to this day. While chinese authorities limited to domestic flights from wuhan to other domestic cities like beijing and shanghai, the china government urged International Carriers to maintain their flight schedules, seeding the virus throughout the rest of the world while they knew what was going on in their country. The who received warnings of human to human transmission of covid19 from the taiwanese government in late december of 2019, but they failed to act on that information. For more than two weeks in january, the who made a series of public proclamations that human to human transmission was not occurring, despite mounting evidence all across world to the contrary. And late january, the head of the who praised chinese president xi jinping for, quote, the seriousness with which china is taking this outbreak, especially the commitment from top leadership and the transparency they have demonstrated. Of course, mr. Chairman, we know this all turned out not to be true. At the time of that announcement, the whos International Expert had not even been granted access to china. Mr. Chairman, america has embarked on an unprecedented response to this challenge for the past few months. We are testing over 300,000 people a day, and that number keeps growing. The Trump Administration has procured hundreds of millions of ppe supplies from all across the globe, to provide for our Health Care Workers on the front lines combating this crisis. We all work to continue to increase that number, especially to bring that manufacturing back to the United States, so we dont rely on countries like china, who are hoarding this. There are all kinds of numbers on the increases of respirators, masks, face shields, gowns, gloves. America has paid too high a price for chinas lies. This subcommittee owes it to all of our frontline heroes to expose the truth and to hold china accountable. I urge the chairman to schedule a hearing on this scandal as soon as possible. With that, mr. Chairman, i will yield back. Chair clyburn thank you very much, mr. Ranking member. Now i would like to introduce the essential workers and their family members who are with us today. Dr. Megan ranney is an emergency physician and associate professor at brown university. She has treated patients with coronavirus and helped start an organization to assist Health Care Providers in need of personal protective equipment. Talisa hardin is a registered nurse at the university of Chicago Medical Center and chief nurse representative of National Nurses united. Talisa works in a unit that treats patients suspected of having coronavirus. Eric colts is a bus driver with the Detroit Department of transportation, who i mentioned earlier. Diana wilson is an emergency medical technician with new york fire department. Miss wilson has responded to emergency calls for those experiencing severe coronavirus symptoms. Marcos aranda is a custodian at Pacific Gas Electric in san francisco, where he cleans and sanitizes offices. Dr. Acres is a pulmonary and Critical Care physician in albany, georgia, an area hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak. Of a Restaurant Group in new orleans. Zenobia shepherd is a decorated navy veteran and mother of leilani jordan, who i also spoke of earlier. Thank you, all, for being here today to share your stories. With that, i would recognize dr. Ranney for her opening remarks. Dr. Ranney. Dr. Ranney thank you, chairman clyburn and Ranking Member scalise and the rest of the members of the committee. I would also like to thank the other panelists for being out there and doing their jobs during this crazy pandemic. Im an emergency physician, as chairman clyburn mentioned, and a Public Health researcher at brown university, and today im going to share my perspective from three vantage point. First, the shortage of personal protective equipment. Second, the physical and mental effects on er docs and other frontline medical workers. Third, what comes next from our perspective . The lives of every Health Care Worker across the country changed for the worse two months ago. My own Hospital System had been preparing for the pandemic since the coronavirus was first reported. We had done our best to build up stores of masks and gowns. The number of patients coming through our doors started to skyrocket. Our ppe burn rate, the number of masks and gowns used every day, had gone through the roof. Supply had dried up. We were running out of essential protective year around the country, and there was no more to be had. Overseas manufacturing had been diverted to other hotspots like italy. A National Stockpile was inadequate and quickly depleted. We internally had not ramped up our u. S. Production in time. We were told by the u. S. Centers of Disease Control to use bandanas when we ran out of masks. Dan dennis have no utility in a Health Care Setting bandanas have no utility in a Health Care Setting. Frontline workers, like all of us joining today, were unable to protect ourselves from being infected. As a result, over the last two months, i have innumerable colleagues across the country who have been infected by covid19, many who have been hospitalized, and some have died. In emergency medicine, we are used to doing without. Every single day, Emergency Departments across this country have our finger in the diked of the broken Health Care System. Our patients were alone, no visitors allowed. We Health Care Workers were scared, both of getting sick ourselves and scared of failing our patients. Because of the shortages of ppe, we couldnt sit at their bedsides and hold their hands. Because of lack of scientific knowledge and lack of supplies, we often couldnt save them. We began running out of not just ppe, but also other essential supplies, basic medicines like the ones we use to sedate sedate a patient on a ventilator, basic supplies like the plastic spacers we used to administer albuterol, a treatment for asthma. We were operating with levels of supplies and facing ethical dilemmas about who to give treatment to that we would never normally tolerate in the United States. As a result, many of us on the front lines felt abandoned, like we were on our own, and the secondary trauma from this experience is only just beginning to be felt. Personally, i am frustrated and exhausted. On behalf of my colleagues, we are seeing higher levels of burnout, anxiety, sleeplessness, depression, ptsd, and much worse. One of my colleagues, a fellow emergency physician, died of suicide less than a month ago, faced with covid19 herself and trying to run an Emergency Department that couldnt take care of the number of patients coming through the doors. That said, im also here to talk about hope and solutions. As mentioned in the early days of the pandemic, i and other Health Care Workers began to speak out on twitter and other Media Outlets about the shortages of ppe, lack of testing, and lack of supplies. Very quickly seeing there was no one coming to save us, we decided to band together and create an organization, get us ppe, whose original goal was to match donated protective equipment from nonmedical settings to Health Care Workers across the country. We wanted to distribute ppe equitably, so we didnt just go to the big name hospitals, but to everyone, whether in a hospital, nursing home, other frontline Health Care Workers in desperate need. Within a week, we had received requests from over 1000 facilities. Within a month, we had received more than 7000 requests from every state in our union, as well as puerto rico. And in collaboration with regional and corporate partners, over the first month of existence, with med students in chicago, boston scientific, our tribal nations, even amazon, we we delivered well over 1. 6 million pieces of protective equipment. But this is not enough paired we had rosens of new requests in the last two weeks. Early on, everyone needed surgical masks. Now we see the need for gowns, wipes, and other essential needs. One thing is clear, the ppe shortage continues in america. As long as this virus is here, we need a more stable and predictable solution then what we are able to provide as volunteers and donors. Over the past two months, i have seen the best, but also the worst of our country. I have hope based on the ingenuity and kindness of americans across this great nation, but we need your help, from the federal government. The heroes act is a beginning, but we must adequately ramp up manufacturing, increase the stockpile available, enhance our data on protective equipment and other medical supply deeds needs, and ensure this equipment is distributed equitably to everyone who needs it, not just the doctors and nurses, but all of the other workers who are speaking on this panel today. With that, i will close. I thank you for your time, your dedication to keeping us all healthy and safe, and to creating a Public Health response that will protect our communities. Thank you. Chair clyburn thank you, dr. Ranney. Now we will hear from miss hardin. Ms. Hardin good morning. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my experiences with you today. My name is talisa hardin. Im a registered nurse at the university of Chicago Medical Center, and im a proud member of National Nurses united, the Largest Union for registered nurses in the United States. I work in the burn icu, and since the pandemic began our unit has been operating as a pui, person under investigation for covid19 unit. Patients come to our unit when they are being tested for coronavirus. When they test positive, they are sent to the covid unit. Our unit is a revolving door for covid19. The percentage of patients who eventually test positive is very high, but our Hospital Management has consistently refused to give nurses in my unit the protections we need to avoid exposure and infection. Before the pandemic, nurses could access ppe from a supply room. When the pandemic had, they took the supplies out of the room and they havent been restocked. For the first two months of this pandemic, nurses in the pui unit did not have access to n95 respirators that would protect us from covid exposure, or we were forced to reuse n95s for multiple days. N95s are intended for single use, and reuse created greater exposure. In march, cdc weakened their guidance and management used this as a justification for their failure to protect us. I took part in discussions with management about these issues. It was deeply disappointing to listen to hospital attorneys, people who have zero experience with medical or nursing care, refused to listen to Health Care Professionals in their hospital. Management was consistently condescending and patronizing to our nurses. They told us that the hospital wouldnt get out n95 because they didnt want to run out before the end of the pandemic. They did not have a shortage at the time. Would you rather run out of n95s or nurses . More than two months later, our hospital is still failing to protect us correctly. We still need to constantly don and doff our n95s, which increases our risk of exposure. We are not notified of exposure when the patient or coworker has tested positive. We are not tested for covid19 unless we are symptomatic. As a result, we are at greater risk of exposing our families and our patients to coronavirus. Excuse me. Ongoing low Staffing Levels have made the situation even more challenging. We do not have enough nurses in the icu before the pandemic hit, and we certainly do not have enough now. To compensate, Hospital Management has instructed other nurses to work in the icu after receiving only a twoday orientation. Normally, a nurse would receive 12 weeks of training before working in the icu. This inadequate staffing plan has increased the stress on icu staff and put patients in danger. Nurses are vulnerable in the er and covid units have a higher level of protection than we do even though a High Percentage of ,Covid Patients come to our unit. As a result nurses in the pui unit account for 90 of all nurses who tested positive for covid19 in the hospital. The nurses in my unit have been terrified of bringing coronavirus home to our families. I cannot adequately put into words the stress this fear has caused us. For me, the lack of protection in my unit have forced me to send my daughter to live with my mother for her protection. It has been five weeks since i last saw my daughter in person and i do not know when i will see her again. She is so frustrated by the situation she consistently asks me to come home and has asked me to quit my job. She is worried, she is scared, and she is experiencing separation anxiety. I live in fear of contracting the virus. I leave my scrubs outside in a plastic bag for days before i wash them. Like many other nurses, i have been experiencing terrible headaches, facial pain and skin rashes due to Wearing Masks for 12 hour shifts. The situation nurses are forced to be in is astounding. Our hospitals have failed to give us the protection we need. It is clear to me our country has not established the systems necessary to protect Frontline Workers during a pandemic. As a result, more than 100 nurses across the country have lost their lives. I urge every member of this committee to do everything in their power to ensure that nurses and other Frontline Workers get the protections we need immediately. We need an osha emergencies temporary standard. We need a president he used the defense reduction act to increase production of ppe now. We need that ppe to be distributed to our facilities immediately. We needed these protections three minutes ago three months ago and we need them now. It is the only way to ensure that nurses can do their job safely and protect our patients, families and communities. Thank you. Rep. Clyburn thank you very much miss harden. Good afternoon members of the committee. I want to say thank you for a long me to testify in front of you today. Mr. Colts im going to try to give you a little bit of insight into what it is like to be essential worker. Since the onset of this coronavirus. I am a bus driver. For the city of detroit. The department of transportation. I have been on the job for four years. I am a member and proudly a member of the amalgamated Transit Union local 26. On behalf of all the transit workers in detroit and across america on the front lines right now, putting their lives at risk, i appreciate the opportunity to give you insight into the day in the life of a bus driver in the middle of this pandemic. I am also here today on behalf of bus drivers who can no longer speak. Like my best friend jason hargrove. Jason was not only a bus driver. Jason was a loving husband, loving father, six wonderful children and three grandchildren. Jason on march 21 posted a Facebook Live video that has gone viral talking about the fact of a woman in the middle of this pandemic just stood up in the back of his bus and openly coughed several times. And in doing that, it got him infected. To the point that jason 10 days later on march 31 died from coronavirus. And in that, jason was in the hospital alone. And the pain of knowing he had no one around him is what is really hurting his family and myself also and also his fellow coworkers. Jason was a very loved with the ddot organization. Trying to make sure the city moves freely like it is supposed to. But driving a bus in detroit has always been a tough job. Even before coronavirus. I know this for a fact because i know personally drivers that have been actually driving the bus and while the bus is in motion they had been pulled out of the seat and attacked. People do not like paying fares are being told about regulations. And they get angry about the service. They take out their frustrations on the drivers. Union members across the country have been assaulted. And the reason being is because we have no sort of protection or barriers to actually ward off any type of attacks from passengers. Now we are attacked by an invisible enemy. I go to work every day afraid, not knowing. I go to work every day hoping i do not bring this virus back home to my family. And the reason that i am really afraid is the simple fact that i go to a stop every day not knowing who will be at that stop. I do not know if they have the virus themselves. The biggest fear for me while i am driving trying to Pay Attention to the road as you have someone in the back that will sneeze or cough. If you have been on the city bus or public transportation, we look at it as a 40 foot incubator. You have no way of practicing social distancing on the coach. The way the cdc has set up guidelines, there is no way for a bus to actually be able to have any sort of social distancing. They try their best the way they arrange the seating chart but it never works because you still have people that are coming out with no masks or they are out riding the bus because it is free. And most of the people we are picking up our homeless people. We do have some essential workers where we have a Grocery Store worker or a nurse that we are picking up going to hospitals and post office workers. We have a lot of Security Officers we are picking up. Those are essential workers. I am proud to say that i can make sure they get from place to place. In detroit, they now started providing masks for the actual passengers as the passengers enter through the rear door of the bus, they are able to take a mask but in the innercity we have a box of 50 masks and by the time i do a round trip those masks are gone. Now i am riding the bus all day long for 810 hours a day that no masks are being provided for passengers getting on the coach. Personal protective equipment has been a constant, constant battle. Everyone is having those issues. We are working with the detroit permanent transportation, we never had a plan and transportation to even work on or try to deal with a pandemic such as what we are going through right now. So everybody is struggling to get the actual ppe. It is really hard for us as transportation workers to know what to do. We actually were finally able to get a hold of some n95 masks and at that time every driver was issued one n95 mask. But in receiving those n95 masks we were never told how to care for those masks. So me myself personally when i feel like when i go out on my run for the day, i feel like that mask has been soiled. It is contaminated. It is not good for me. I do not know what to do the next day. I never knew how to clean the mask or be able to go onto the next day. What i did personally and my wife, we ordered n95 masks. And those masks were ordered in april and we just recently as two weeks ago got that order of n95 masks. That entire time ive had to do makeshift masks from a bandana which i know its not safe. I had surgical masks, held on to my n95 mask. But i had a great fear inside of me. To the point where i was just afraid that im still going to bring home that virus. And when i do actually come from come home from work i had directly to my washroom, take my uniform off and i wash my uniform every single day just to make sure i can get off whatever virus i have held onto for that entire day. Rep. Clyburn thank you so much, mr. Colts. Thank you so much for your testimony today. With that we now recognize miss wilson. Ms. Wilson good morning. To members of congress i would like to thank you for the opportunity to tell my story about covid19 in new york. And how it is affecting me personally and my family. My name is diana wilson. Im an emergency medical technician that has been worker with the new York City Fire department for the past 17 years. I am a mother of two boys, 11 and 16, a daughter to a father who has become bedridden due to a stroke and i became a widow in 2019. And i pay my mortgage on my own. Academy indny 2003, i took an oath to provide free hospital care for those who needed an emergency event. I am waiting to be admitted into the paramedic program. Since covid19 plagued the city my life and dreams have been put on pause with great sacrifice to serve the citizens of new york city. During the early days of this pandemic, i sent my sons to keep them safe from contracting this deadly virus. It has been 10 weeks since i saw my children. What ive seen in the last six and 10 weeks was unprecedented chaos. Attempting to drop off patient to max capacity emergency rooms, and travel longer distances for 911 calls. Doctors informing crews they have no more beds and stressing they had no more ventilators for patients who require them. Emts and paramedics are being mandated 16 hour shifts which are leaving us mentally and physically exhausted. On a normal shift we respond to one or two cardiac arrest. Since covid19, has ravaged our state, we are not responding to calls of six to 10 cardiac arrest in an eight hour tour. Despite her best effort to save lives, we are finding patients dead in their homes. Sometimes even in their cars area cards. We are doing our best to combat this invisible enemy and to do so we need the proper safety equipment. In order to make good on our own as paramedics, we need to be provided the personal protective equipment to protect ourselves. Coming to work not knowing if i was going to be provided a medical n95 mask is not only stressful. It endangers our families. I want to be clear of who we are. . We are emts and paramedics and First Responders. We are the first to enter a patients home suspected of having covid19. While firefighters and Police Officers secure the perimeter. Retreat our patients with dignity provide medical attention and reassure family members that we will take care of on loved ones and their loved ones. We trained for ebola. Retrain for active shooting scenarios. We failed on a plan for training on this pandemic at any scale. There were other countries who had strategies to respond to this type of scenario, and we were unprepared. New york city is one of the main hub for international travel. If we only had the preparedness we needed like all the other training that is federally funded we couldve saved more lives. We are fighting an invisible enemy that is killed thousands of my fellow new yorkers and americans across the country. Let us remember how emts and paramedics during 9 11 during they were being told the air was not safe. Fastforward to today, responding first of this virus. When does ems get the ppe we need to protect ourselves . When do we get the pay they deserve for being first medical responders and when and how would hazard pay be just. The government failed us by not protecting First Responders by providing us with a plan and ppe. We are haunted by our choices and the patients we could not save. Behind the masks and uniforms we are people with families. We have responsibilities and civic duties. As we try to get a hold on our longer shifts we are , transitioned into 12 hour tours. This should have been implemented when the call volume reached 7000. We are stressed and overworked for the better part of 10 weeks. Let us put our political differences aside together and make a step in the right direction. Pledged to support paramedics. Give First Responders the ppe they need and the financial backing required to not only save lives but to also live them. Provide the adequate pay for our paramedics. When no one else would, the essential First Responders did. Thank you. Rep. Clyburn thank you very much, miss wilson. Now we will hear from mr. Ara aranda. Mr. Aranda good morning. I would like to thank chairman clyburn for allowing me to share my story today. My name is marcos aranda. I am a janitor and proud member of local 87. As a janitor for 10 years i can tell you that my job has always been essential to protecting the Publics Health and safety, even before the covid19 pandemic. Covid19 has made it harder for janitors to do our job safely. When i come into frequent contact with objects that could be contaminated with coronavirus, i use regular latex gloves and nothing medical grade, i am lucky. There are many janitors who work without ppe. We have to make sure we disinfect every frequently touched surface from telephones to elevators to microwave handles. We do detailed jobs to make sure that people coming into work and our buildings during this crisis stay safe. I know firsthand that it is easy for janitors to come into contact with the virus, but it is harder to deal with the consequences. My coworkers came to me recently at work. He was sick at work. He turned out to have contracted the coronavirus. I did what i could at the moment and got him help. This took a huge emotional toll. I stayed home for two days afterward but then i had to return to work. Janitors do not have the option of working from home. And many janitors do not have paid sick leave. If they stay home, they do not get paid. We fought for our paid sick days. Now when i go to work, i am not only worried about my health but also worried about the health of my family. My wife and i live with our six kids, my mom, my sister and their two kids. Thankfully, no one in our family has been infected but covid19 has already hurt working families like mine without getting sick. Raising our big family was a challenge on two patients before the pandemic. Two paychecks before the pandemic. Now my wife was laid off in march just as the stayathome order went into place. Now am trying to raise our family on one paycheck and the pandemic has made it even tougher. When the kids were in school we could count on school lunch programs, but the help is not available right now and the cost of covering extra meals adds up. There is also the challenge with other expenses. We are doing so many more loads of laundry to disinfect clothing to make sure we do not bring the covid19 back into our home and keep our children and family is family as safe as possible. We are cutting corners where we can. Recently we got into a car accident. Luckily no one was hurt. , but the car was totaled. And now with so much uncertainty we have decided to make do without a car. Not knowing what to expect when our families went into quarantined i was happy about having my kids around more. We normally have different schedules because i work nights. And they are at school while i am at home. I do not have a chance to see them enough. Today i worry about feeding them, keeping them helping, making sure they have what they need in the future. My story is not unique. I heard of a union janitor like myself, over 25,000 across the country, who have been laid off. I have no idea if i will have a job in a week or two. Many parents work and essential jobs are worried about the next few weeks and months and years because of the pandemic. Now more than ever we need congress to take action to protect all workers by requiring higher paid during the crisis, higher pay during the crisis, for all working people who are putting their health at risk to going to work. Making sure we have sufficient ppe. Protecting our right to speak out about unsafe conditions and respecting the right to join together in a union. Extending the 600 unemployment benefit boost until the crisis is truly over. My family is only able to hold things together because of this extra help. And making sure that every worker with no exception has paid sick days if they are sick, selfisolating, caring for loved ones, people who are exposed to covid19 or someone with symptoms like i was should not be forced to go to work because they cannot afford not to. They should be an option to selfquarantine and get tested to keep all of us safe. Thank you. Rep. Clyburn thank you very much, mr. Aranda. Thank you chairman clyburn and Ranking Member scalise and members of the committee. I am a pulmonary Critical Care physician that lives in albany, georgia. I have the privilege of being part of this community for two years and when i first moved, i learned that people in this town look out for each other. I worked at putney memorial hospital. A 448 bed hospital with 38 icu beds. We are a rural hospital that supports a surrounding county many without a hospital. We provide critical access to georgia. As 2020 began to outlet started report cases of any respiratory illness. China seemed far away and unlikely to reach us in southwest georgia. We had our First Contact with covid19 during the last week of february and we did not know it. We were informed on march 10 by doctor of aased patient we had treated had turned out positive. The virus had been spreading 10 then spread like wildfire. A funeral had become a super spreader event and in one case became five and then 15 until it was all around our hospital and exceeded our 38 bed icu capacity. We started to board critically ill patients. Ward. Led ward after we were forced to keep patients were critically ill on the floor as we ran out of space. Those early days were scary and intense. We knew so little about how it was spread or how to treat it. We listen for guidance from those who had experienced treating covid19. Without the resources of a larger academic system or nearby hospitals to buffer our caseload our community did what , it did us we looked out for each other. The hospital shut down elective cases to pool resources and limit transmission. Doctors and nurses shared what information we found. We had local construction firms donating n95s as it became clear that ppe was limited. Churches and businesses provided meals. And throughout it all our hospital supported its staff, provided free of childcare to any staff member that needed to work and the Hospital Administration was there every day to make calls and went through extraordinary efforts to obtain ppe to provide clinical staff. Efforts that they should not have had to make, that should have been readily available. What ppe we had stockpiled to last six months lasted one week. We were and still are forced to make that supply stretch. This time took a toll on all of us. Staff members caring for covid19 patients isolated from their families. We took precautions to decontaminate ourselves to ensure we did not become carriers in our community or to our families. We took very strong precautions even in hugging our children and feeling that was a reckless act. I spent many weeks not seeing my children awake because the hours this pandemic required. I minimized physical contact with my family in case my ppe had not been adequate and i updated my will. My husbands unwavering support of me is what kept me calm during the storm. I sat awake at night after working long days thinking of what we could try next to save our patients. Even when i tried to rest, it was impossible to avoid covid19. It was in the news and on peoples minds constantly and there was no respite. Every day a new piece of information came out, sometimes contradicting information from the day before. We were close to running out of critical drugs that provided sedation for patients on ventilators. Drugs that would keep them safe. I wish i could explain to you all how terrifying it feels to be that helpless. I have been trained to protect and care for patients so they overcome a critical illness. In spite of our best efforts, some patients died no matter what we did and we could not change that outcome. It did not matter if they were young or old, this virus does not discriminate. There were mothers, fathers, grandparents, children, members of our community. I had to call families at home, some of whom were even sick with covid19 themselves, to let them know their loved one had passed. Some families lost multiple generations in weeks. Through it all every person that works at our Health System new knew we could count on one thing and that was each other. Day in and day out we picked each other out. We cheered with patients when they took their first steps out of the hospital. We were fortunate to receive support from Governor Kemp and the Georgia National guard. When we saw the guardsmen come into our building a huge weight started to lift. I cannot express how grateful and appreciative we were for all of their help. We need more ppe. We need more organization on a state and federal level. As cases start to come down here we know another wave could come at any time but we are certain of one thing we are strong and we will get through this as a community but if he can happen to us it can happen anywhere. We are asking for your support. Thank you for your time. Rep. Clyburn thank you very much. Mr. Pettis. Mr. Chairman clyburn and Ranking Member scalise, and members of the committee. Good afternoon. We operate six restaurants in new orleans. We have 500 coworkers. With our teammates we have run a restaurant for decades. So many of our coworkers have done this for over 20 years. Some more than 40. Our success has allowed us an array of benefits. Such as health and dental insurance, Educational Assistance and team members receive 6,000 to help them buy a home. 401k, paid time off and so many others. Unfortunately all of that has been suspended for now but just for now. During the time we have been closed, we have provided thousands of family meals to those in the Hospitality Industry and musicians. New orleans has over 80,000 hospitality workers, all were welcome. Jim beam, crystal hot sauce, provided the funds for this. And they paid the teammates who prepared the meals. On behalf of my coworkers and the restaurant industry, i thank you for your swift action and putting the payroll Protection Plan into place. This act has allowed Small Businesses such as ours to maintain our Employee Base and salary levels. With the payroll protection act doubt anyonei would believe the time it is taken for so many Small Businesses to reopen. We added our fifth week of the ppp payroll and other sameday opened up a 30yearold flagship restaurant for the first time in two months. As for government regulations, we opened that 25 capacity. Last year on the same date we did 25,000 in sales. We intend to open our largest restaurant next week. The remaining restaurants will have to wait until we have enough guests to justify opening. Our ppp period runs out on june 18. If the eight week period remains in place, we will likely have to lay off hundreds of our teammates. Once again, the emotional toll on those laid off and those remaining will be immeasurable. Because of the eight week period, we will be forced to open at 25 Seating Capacity and no Customer Base. I do not blame the city. It is where we are in the Recovery Process. We have been through katrina, the bp oil spill and many other disasters. We understand the Recovery Process and the time it takes. As a cash flow business, we are out of time. I would ask congress to extend the ppp period to 24 weeks to provide enough time for our Customer Base to recover and allow our business to grow at the same rate. We can stretch an average of 2. 5 months of payroll into six months. But we cannot spend improperly in eight weeks if we are phone if we are forced to be closed for over half the time. We are not asking for more money. We are asking for more time. The restriction i would ask you to reconsider is the 25 limit on grants and utilities and salary requirement. If you must keep the categories, so be it. But please lets rearrange restrictions on how we spend this money. Allow american entrepreneurs to do with they do best work hard, be creative and stretch dollars. The third change i would ask of you is to extend the amount of time for Small Businesses to repay a portion of the loan. Interestonths at 1 are favorable to the borrower. The anticipated financial future will prevent us from paying back any loans in such a short time. [indiscernible] impact of this disease. My wife is a nurse and i lost my aunt on april 28. [indiscernible] note we are grateful for further help provided thus far. For many of us, businesses and individuals we are still below , the surface and gasping for air. I am confident that american leaders will find a way to avoid the compounding medical disaster and economic catastrophe. Thank you for your time and thank you for your service. Rep. Clyburn thank you very much. We now recognize ms. Shepherd. I see ms. Shepherd. Can someone unmute ms. Shepherd . We are not hearing ms. Shepherd. Im sorry. Well, while we work on trying to get ms. Shepherd, can you hear me . Rep. Clyburn i cannot hear ms. Shepherd. Do we need time to get connected to ms. Shepherd . Can we go to q a and come back o her . While we work on trying to get ms. Shepherd squared away, let us go to the members for questions. Let me begin the questioning by asking one myself. I would like to know, in fact, the question i had let me yield to the Ranking Member ms. Maxine waters for questions. Chairman, i am here. Rep. Clyburn please, go ahead with your statement. Thank you, chairman. Thank you for having me. I am Leilani Jordans mom. She was a 27yearold very dedicated Frontline Worker. She went to work to help the elderly and to help the individuals in the community. Can you hear me, chairman . Rep. Clyburn yes, we can hear you. Ok. Leilani was a 27yearold, disadvantaged, cerebral palsy, Frontline Worker and she worked at a Grocery Store in aryland. She loved going to work to help seniors and the elderly that are disadvantaged. Leilani contracted covid19 due to the lack of resources with ppe at the time when she was working. She was a butterfly. I call her my purple butterfly. She went to work to help regardless if it was helping the seniors get what they needed, helping them get to and from their baskets, whatever the case may be. She went from being a hero at her Grocery Store to being a ero in the ccu unit. They allowed me in there and i witnessed her stay, over 20 doctors and nurses trying to save her life. Over 20 doctors and nurses scrambling, trying to get her off of a ventilator, trying to get her the right medical supplies. Why didnt we do that in the beginning . Why couldnt the ppe be provided to the Grocery Store workers . The gloves, they disinfectant they needed to clean the bathrooms. All of the items she needed to do her simple job. Leilani was a superstar where he worked. She loved going to work to help the elderly. She said, mommy, i want to go to work, no one is showing up, i want to help the elderlies. I still hear my baby cry to this day. I still hear her cry to this day, saying what she wanted to do. She risked her life to help seniors, to help those that are disabled, to help those that are homeless. There are so many people that go through the supermarket and none of the resources they needed, which was the simple ppe, they should of been handing them out, did they have. Cashier did not have the gloves they needed to receive the money or the transactions that were possibly contaminated. No one knows. But my baby, my purple butterfly is gone. She rests at the national cemetery. And i love her so much. I just want members of congress, we have to do a better job at keeping people with disabilities, American People, eniors, keeping them safe. We cannot see covid19. You cant see covid19. You dont know where it is. But i am asking if they could do a better job at protecting the doctors and nurses that allowed me the opportunity for my daughter to die in my arms, allowing me to touch her one last time, allowing me to know that my disabled daughter did not die in vain. We have to do a better job, mr. Chairman. There are so many seniors passing away and people with disabilities and they dont have any income that can substantiate them to buy these resources. We have to do a better job. I am asking you to please hear my cry as a mom. Rep. Clyburn thank you very much, ms. Shepherd. Thank you for your service to this country. We all join together. Thank you for the sacrifice you re making. We will now go to the members. Each one will have five minutes to ask questions. Please remember, unmute yourselves when you get ready to ask your question. And to our witnesses here, please unmute yourselves when you get ready to answer the questions. I would like to start the questioning with a question to mr. Colts. I want to thank you for your critical work especially during this andemic. I am a great advocate for mobile testing in critical areas of our opulation. Especially in Rural Communities and isolated urban communities. I would like to know what inspired you and your friend mr. Hargrove from that episode on the bus. I still think about it daily. I feel a lot for your sacrifices. I would like to hear from you exactly what inspired you to continue to do this work knowing full well how dangerous it could be to you and your family. Thank you, representative clyburn. My reason for going to work every day on a daily basis, my mother taught me to be proud of what you do. What i actually do every day is i take pride in the city that raised me and i know that people still have to get around the ity. Even in my fears and my quest to get over the hurdle of being afraid of this coronavirus, i still know that i have a job to do because i am a public servant. Took a Civil Service exam and i know that i am a person of service and that is the reason that i go and do what i do every day. I love the city and i love my job and i just want to make sure that when the city sees me, they see the face that wants to make sure that they are getting from place to place in a safe manner. I am a proud member of the acu and we love what we do and that is making the city of detroit move the way it is supposed to move. That inspires me every day to go to work, just to know that there are people out there that need us. Even though we dont want to be out here because we dont know what is going to happen, we go because we know that we have people that actually need us and that is what inspires me to go to work every day. Rep. Clyburn thank you very uch. Ms. Shepherd, i, like so many in the country, follow the reports f your daughter. I would like to ask you do you feel that she was given enough or the proper personal protective equipment going to work every day . You need to unmute yourself, ms. Shepherd. We are not hearing ms. Shepherd again. Can you hear me, mr. Chairman . Rep. Clyburn yes. No she was not provided any ppe at all as well as the cashiers anyone in the store. She said to me, we have to bring our own Hand Sanitizer. By that time, everyone in the Prince George county in maryland, it was very difficult to get the basic Hand Sanitizer, let alone face masks or any kind of gloves. No she wasnt. Not as a disabled, disadvantaged Frontline Worker. She was not given the opportunity and neither were any of the other staff members. So she was not given the opportunity at all. The thing that gets me is this was my daughters last paycheck. Er last paycheck was for 20. 63. Rep. Clyburn thank you very much. I remember the reports of that aycheck. Do you know how many boxes of gloves we could have bought with this . They come like 100 to 200 in one box. 20. 63. We can buy how many boxes . And now you cannot even buy one box. You cannot even buy 10 face masks with 20. 63, mr. Chairman. Rep. Clyburn thank you. Ranking member scalise, i yield to you. Mr. Scalise thanks again, mr. Chairman. Once again, i want to thank all our frontline heroes who are here on the panel. For those of you who have friends, and just these powerful stories. Our prayers go out to those who are struggling against this hidden enemy. We are continuing to learn more about it, finding cures to the disease, therapies, as well as a vaccine. I know we put a lot of money out there in the cdc to find a cure because while we are working to rotect people, we want to make sure that we cure this and find a vaccine so as it is out there, we will be able to go about our ives safely. That is really difficult. Trying to improve safety for everybody. I know some of the witnesses touched on this, i think ms. Wilson said it, we could have aved more lives. That makes me the most angry as we are working and so much of the work we have been doing to get these vital resources to ramp up production of ppe, to get testing capabilities and to buy more ventilators which the president used the defense production act to go and buy. Ge is making ventilators to olve that problem. As we have been doing all this to get resources out there, we also know that china knew about this long ago. They hid it from the world. Hid it from the United States. When we wanted to send our medical team in, we had some of the best and brightest in the world who wanted to go to china and find out what was going on and the Chinese Communist party kept us out, kept the world out, lied to the World Health Organization that cost us lives. That cost the world so many vital days that we could have used to stop the spread. But now we have got it and we know we have to focus on ramping up reduction of ppe. We have talked about the need to hold hearings on these areas. About 80 of the world supply of ppe prior to covid19 was made in asia and much of that in china. China literally stopped Companies Like 3m, American Companies who were making ppe over there, they would not let them sell it to us in the u. S. These are things that outrage me and i think outrage so many eople. It focuses us on saying we need to bring more of that manufacturing back to america. I know the president was in pennsylvania a few days ago highlighting a p. P. E. Manufacturing company starting up there. We need to encourage more of those vital, lifesaving supplies to be made here so we dont have to rely on a country like china who literally shut us off so we couldnt buy and even if you could buy the prices skyrocketed. Those are things we need to to focus on. As we are combating this disease, we are celebrating these heroes but we need to do more to bring that back here so we can continue wrapping up those numbers. I want to highlight a few hometown heroes in my community. Oscar hospital in new orleans. The biggest outbreak went new orleans was one of the hotspots, this hospital treated more covid19 patients than anybody in the new orleans area and they have done a phenomenal job. There are some people over there. Savannah stewart, shes ap rn; shes somebody who was born without a left forearm. She talks a lot about how she did not use it to have an xcuse. She said, with my disability i will work even harder. She is one of those inspirational people and she is treating so many covid19 patients. They actually sent her to treat the most serious people on ventilators and she is out there every day doing a great job. Yle edwards who also works there he is a tech, hes in the Orthopedic Division but chose to go and work with Covid Patients because he knew that there were other people at higher risk and he wanted to go out on the frontline himself to put them less at risk to help covid atients. Leslie gates at lakeview Regional Medical center, they all her the singing nurse. Even though she herself got covid she is out there helping other people too. Mr. Pettus is there, from the restaurant side there are so many people doing things to make things better for employees but lso the customers. If you could touch on the things they are doing to make things safer for workers and customers o come into restaurants. As i mentioned, my wife is a nurse so i got to put her to ork again. In helping develop our sanitation protocols. All employees who come through the back door and we take their temperature. We are asked if we are feeling well or if we have been nearing one suspected of having ovid19. Everyone in the kitchen wears masks and gloves. We have an allclean call once an hour, wipe down all surfaces in the kitchen with sanitizer. We had to rework our strategy with regard to service so that customers only come in contact with one person as you walk n. Theres a sign that says if youre not feeling well, please refrain from dining with us today, join us when you feel better. There are sanitizing stations ll over the place. There is a qr code that allows our guests to download the menu so they dont have to touch a menu. If they want a menu, we have isposable ones there, too. 10 feet apart for tables. Contactless service. Food is delivered and went it is picked up, it goes back, they sanitize their hands again. Front house staff wares masks. We have one person who is in front of the house whose only job is they are the sanitation engineer so they walk around and clean and wipe down with sanitizer throughout their entire shift. Thank you very much. We appreciate all of those precautions. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Yield back. Rep. Clyburn we now go to chairman waters. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. I thank you for holding this hearing. This may be one of the most important hearings that we can possibly have. I would like to thank all of the panelists for participating here today and i am especially hankful to mr. Aranda who is a southern californian here today explaining to us what is happening in his workplace. Our custodian, performing a vital and essential service. Protecting everyone in your workplace from potential Coronavirus Infection. All the while youre exposing yourself to possible infection. We have learned from medical experts and environmental experts that we can assist in avoiding Coronavirus Infection by keeping our surroundings clean. That means scrubbing, wiping, disinfecting surfaces, and keeping down dust. We learned that the virus clings to dust. Cleaning is necessary. This kind of cleaning is what you do, exposing yourself to bacteria as you clean floors and eilings, dirty corners, wiping away the coughs and sneezes by others that land on surfaces in the workplace. Despite the essential services of custodians, they are often times some of the lowest paid orkers in society. As i listen to you describe your awesome responsibilities not only in the workplace but in your home, where youre taking care of your family, your extended family, your children, who are not in school where they would be receiving some assistance with lunches and food and now you have to stretch your budget in order to make sure. At food is kept on the table i support you in calling for your job security. I support you and organize labor and fighting for an increase in pay. I want to know whether or not, even if you could get an increase in pay would it be help to feel you right now to get ea bonus so that you can buy the exfrom food that you need for your children . We talked a lot and hear people talk about bonuses. Of course we want continued extra pay but a bonus right now would help. What other financial pressures re you experiencing . There are difficulties without a car, having to get to the Grocery Store. Having to pay someone to give me a ride there. Providing our own masks, that has been a big deal. Gloves, we have to buy our own gloves for just being at home or going out grocery shopping. It has been financially raining. Will you tell people what it means to go shopping and want to purchase certain things for your family but knowing the budget wont allow that and you have to have alternate things . Youre looking for cheaper foods, youre looking for cheaper packages, will you explain to people what thats like to be in the Grocery Store doing that . It is kind of embarrassing. Im a proud person. I feel like i should be able to provide for my family. I feel like i am doing the best i can. It is a little more difficult and timeconsuming to look through the prices and look at generic brands. We are having to touch more things on the shelf which makes e nervous. I dont know that somebody with the virus has touched that item or not. It is exhausting mentally. It is not an easy task. Its not an easy task. I know that is not about. I come from a family where we had 13 children in the family. I can remember as your children probably do now, running through a box of cereal that may cost five dollars that you cant afford. What do you tell them . I give them what they want and what they need and making them understand, everything is oing to be ok. It is difficult trying to illustrate that to them without showing my emotions that i having behind all of this. I can see that and i can feel that. I want to thank you for being here today. And i want you to know that i stand with you and will do everything that i can as a member of congress to be an advocate for increased pay. If you have to walk the picket lines, i will be there with you. I want you to know that i am advocating for you to have a bonus during these difficult times so that you can attend to the financial crisis confronting you. Thank you for participating and i want everybody to understand what you and many other families are going through. And with that, mr. Chairman, i yield back the balance of my ime. My other panelist may not be able to see me and my picture has not been exposed, i am Maxine Waters and im here for you. Rep. Clyburn thank you very uch, chair waters. I now yield to mr. Jordan. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Let me thank my witnesses for being here today especially ms. Shepherd and mr. Colt. Who have lost loved ones and friends. Dr. Ranney, nine weeks ago the American Economy shut down. Why was the shutdown done . Mr. Jordan, thank you for the question. I was not in charge of the decisions about the shutdown but i will say here in rhode island as we saw our case counts climb we made the decision to put our kids into distance learning, to cancel elective surgeries, to cancel large gatherings, in order to flatten the curve of this infection that our hospitals across the country would not be overrun with sick patients and we wouldnt all be facing situations like new york city had. So the end goal was to make sure our Health Care System was not overrun is that accurate . Yes. It was accurate that we put social distancing measures in place in order to slow the spread of the virus so we could have more time for science to make sure our hospitals were not overrun and to keep people safe. In wasnt because we had it had nothing to do with testing. He said we want to flatten the curve to not overwhelm the hospitals. We had Governor Cuomo say the number of cases would overwhelm our Hospital System, thats why were going to close the valve. Governor newsom said were looking at requiring 10,000 hospital beds. The goal was to make sure our Hospital System was not overwhelmed is that accurate . The first goal was to make sure the Hospital System was not overwhelmed. Im not talking about sequence of goals. Im talking the reason given to the American People why the economy was shut down, why there were stay at home directives given, it was to make sure our Hospital System was not overwhelmed is that accurate . Yes, sir, i would defer to the governors of each state as to their own reasons. I understand. Have we accomplished the goal . So the virus is still amongst us. We still have our invisible enemy and our goal is to keep the most people safe to we dont run the risk im always for saving lives. Im just saying we were told the goal was not to overwhelm the Hospital System. Did we accomplish that goal in the past nine weeks . We accomplished it in some places and not in others but we have certainly slowed the curve and even in the most overwhelmed areas we are starting to see decreasing, in most areas, we are starting to see decreasing case counts though there are still areas oaf country where case counts are climbing. If we accomplish the goal, seems like it is time to get back to work. Do you think we have not accomplished the goal . Dr. Ranney representative jordan, i would love Nothing Better than for my kids to get back to school, for summer camps to be reopened. We are restarting elective surgeries, we are opening restaurants carefully and doing it in a datadriven approach. Thank you. So we should be going back to work, do you agree with that . Dr. Ranney we should be going to work using data and science to inform us so we dont undo all the hard work and sacrifices americans have made over the past 10 weeks. Seems to me that the goal was to make sure hospitals were not overwhelmed. In the month of april alone, we had 1. 4 million healthcare workers lose their jobs. The ship sent to new york harbor sailed out of new york harbor three weeks ago. Seems like it is time to get people back to work. Sir, which elect to get back to work . I would love to get back to work. You would love to have those 500 employees of yours get back to work, wouldnt you . They are excited to get back to work. Let me ask one other question. Two weeks ago, the democrats took was to send a letter to this company and say, hey, give back your p. P. P. Dollars because we dont think you deserve those. If they had to give it back, whoa number of steelworkers would lose their jobs. Last week, democrats gave us false information and said inadequate testing was the reason for the shutdown of our economy and the stayathome directive. This week, mr. Scalise and the rest of us write a letter to mr. Clyburn and say we want the leader of the w. H. O. To come here. The response from the democrats was this committee is not directed to focus on the origin of the virus. As someone who had to lay off 500 employees, would you like to know the cause . Would you like to get to the heart of this, what china did, and why they did not tell us . Is that not Important Information for the American People to have . It is critical whether by accident or on purpose. We may never know. I do believe the Chinese Government did not do everything to prevent the spread of coronavirus out of their border. I too lost loved ones. We will never get them back. In recognition of the economic damage china has caused, they should be held accountable. I yield back. Chairman clyburn thank you, mr. Jordan. Thank you, mr. Chairman for holding this hearing. It is critically important to see how our First Responders, our essential workers do not even have protective gear they need to protect themselves. I think it is a National Scandal that they are going to work and in many cases, becoming sick because this vital protection is not there. I want to go back to the question of Testing Capacity in this country. It has been a major reason why so Many Americans have died of the outbreak and why the virus is still not under control today. In new york, First Responders on the frontline were not able to be tested until youre coughing and ready to be admitted to the hospital. Last week, the bipartisan experts appeared before your committee and agreed testing needs to be scaled up quickly. They said the lack of testing was, the fundamental failure that caused our country to shut down, and they warned that we cannot reopen safely without comprehensive testing in place. So testing is especially important for our frontlines, essential workers testifying today. So i would like to ask ms. Hardin, as a nurse, you are on the front lines of this work, you work in the unit with patients suspected of having the coronavirus, and i understand you may be waiting to take a test or awaiting results to come back from a test. So my question is, how would the availability of more tests and faster tests impact your safety and that of your colleagues in the nursing profession, ms. Hardin . Ms. Hardin thank you for your question. Number one, one of the reasons why i am afraid to go around my family, and one of the reasons i sent my daughter away is because i dont know if i am a carrier. Its possible to have covid19 and not have any symptoms. So because i dont know and because we cant get tested unless we actually have symptoms, it is safer to stay away from everyone just to decrease the risk of passing it on to someone that i love. If we were able to be tested, if we got the tests back faster, maybe some of the things that make life really hard right now would go away. I didnt recognize how much not being able to see my family affected me until we started talking about this, and i realized it makes every day a little harder knowing at the end of the day that i cant go and see my family. If we could get tested, if there were tests available, if we knew quicker whether patients had a virus or not, then maybe we could have some kind of normal life. Rep. Maloney it is not just normal life, i say it is lifeanddeath. In new york it is reported that more than 250 medical personnel have been out sick, some have died. They cant get testing because they are treating people all day. I want to ask dr. Ranney. Have you worked directly with coronavirus patients, and have you heard from professionals struggling to get supplies for themselves . Do you believe that hospitals, Nursing Homes and other Health Care Providers have the testing supplies that they need . Dr. Ranney thank you, congresswoman mulaney. No, they do not. Rep. Maloney is testing reliable, and have is the testing would have available to catch every case . No, it is not. It would be transformative. If i could test every person when they walked through my Emergency Department and get a quick result within 15 minutes that tells me they have covered or not, i could separate them from each other, and i could also protect my Frontline Workers. Out in the community make sure people that are sick are isolating and not infecting others so we dont see the curve start to go up again and overwhelm our hospitals again. Rep. Maloney i think it is a National Scandal that we dont have testing, and if the executive branch will not use the defense production act to get the p. P. E. We need, i think that power should be given to our governors. They should demand it. We are at war. We should have the defense production act to get the testing and the p. P. E. We need. Mr. Colts, i was very struck that you go to work every day, you dont know when someone stops on your bus whether or not they have covid, if they cough, you dont know. Would you feel safer if you knew the people in your community had access to reliable testing, so they would know whether or not they should be quarantined, mr. Colts . Mr. Colts i would love to have the same testing we have as drivers. We have the rapid tests where we can get ours in 15 minutes. If that can be provided to everyone across the world come , across this country, that would be the most amusing thing amazing thing that can happen because we can actually get some sort of shut down in some sort of curve where it can slow down, instead of keep constantly raising up, so i would love that. Rep. Maloney i think all the i thank all the heroes, especially diana wilson, from the district i represent. People are deeply grateful. Thank you, mr. Chairman, for this. These are courageous panels. We need to do more to protect them. At the very least we should get them testing and p. P. E. To protect themselves as they protect us and risk their lives without any protective equipment. This is a scandal. Chairman clyburn thank you very much, miss maloney. We now recognize mr. Luetkemeyer. Thank you for your. Chairman, and thank you to all the members of the panel that the committee has brought in. Appreciate your comments with regards to p. P. E. , i know that in my state, the governor has said we have adequate amounts of p. P. E. , not that we have a lot to spare, but we are ok. In fact, we are making a lot in our own state. Since the coronavirus outbreak began, First Responders and other essential workers have worked tirelessly on the front lines. Grocery store workers are ensuring the shelves are stocked so families have food on the table. Custodians, factory workers, farmers, the list goes on of countless individuals risking their health as we continue to fight this invisible enemy. Many of you on the panel today, thank you for your service. But the states are in the early stages of reopening and those workers will play a significant role in getting the economy back on its feet. Again, thank you for being here today. It was interesting, we are trying to get everything reopened now. I know that dr. Ranney made a statement about data and science. I put together some information in the last couple of days with regards to reopening. It seems across the board, they are not necessarily on the conservative side, has started to run stories about how, it is time to reopen. In the last couple of days, i saw a doctor who talked about the deaths of despair. People are dying. He said around 75,000 people are dying or will die of other things other than covid and the result of covid being focused on, at the expense of them with regard of suicides, heart attacks, overdoses, suicides. He said 90 are not getting cancer screenings anymore. The week before, we had another meeting with congressman green. He made a comment that probably 30,000 would die because of the lack of the screening and treatment they are not getting. 600 doctors recently signed a petition saying they need to get back to work. Over 30 people died in a particular area where they did not get hurt surgeries. Suicide rates are the highest since the great depression. These are statements they are making on tv, i am pulling these statements off the tv screen. Child abuse, alcoholism, drug abuse, all up. We are letting felons out, and at the same time, putting seniors in Nursing Homes, more likely in the high risk that are going to be infected. Last week we were in washington, d. C. Trying to pass a bill to make it easy to vote by mail. The reason is you dont have to stand in line anymore to vote. Yet everybody stands in line to go to the Grocery Store, walmart, the liquor store, even to get tested for the coronavirus. Its amazing to see this. Mr. Pettis, you have experienced this from new orleans being a hotspot. Now starting to reopen and seeing how people are responding, can you give me an overview of how you think the reopening is going and what else needs to be done . Well, it is going slowly. I will tell you, the anxiety level is being experienced by everyone. I used the analogy earlier that we are gasping for air because a few times a week that is how i feel. I wake up in the middle of the night, and it is surprising. Everyone is so anxious. The governor has touted our success. We are moving in the right direction, but it is time to keep moving forward. That is the next wave, the current we are worried about. We think that if p. P. E. Is going to help us, then it is. We are grateful for everything, but that is going to run out, and we will be laying people off by the hundreds. 85,000 people in the new orleans Hospitality Industry, it will not be successful. It is just anxiety. Rep. Luetkemeyer i know you have done a good job detailing all the things you are doing to protect the workers and customers in your restaurants. I was very impressed with what you are doing. One of the solutions to get the economy going is discussing a payroll tax cut. How important would it need for how important would it be for your employees to get a 7. 5 raise . One of the members of the Committee Said how important it would be to get a pay raise, something i think would be beneficial. Would that be helpful to your employees . Absolutely. We try to look through the eyes of our coworkers as well. People dont grow up thinking i will want to grow up and work in a restaurant. It is an easy entry industry, we take people where they are and teach them the profession of being a cook or a waiter and hopefully make a good living. Any raise would be greatly appreciated by them, im sure. Thank you, your time has expired. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and the Ranking Member for having this important forum. Today we are hearing from the heroes of our crisis, and we have heard the moving stories of our essential workers. Let me take this opportunity to say mr. Colts, and ms. Shepherd, my heart goes out to you. Saying thank you is not enough. That is why i support the h. E. R. O. E. S. Act that provides 200 billion for a heroes fund established by this act. It is great to say thank you, but it would be much more important that we encourage the senate to take on the bill that provides the type of resources we need. Dr. Ranney, last week we heard testimony that reopening to o early without adequate testing might do more harm to Small Businesses and the economy. And one of the answers that was provided is that in order to get consumers to their doors, they need to have confidence. They have to have confidence that when they walk into a restaurant, that we have taken all the steps and precautions so that people are not contaminated, that people are not getting the coronavirus. So, what risk do we run by reopening too soon without proper action . Dr. Ranney there are two risks. The first risk is we reopen, but we will not see the economy rebound. We saw decreases in airline flights, hospital visits, s long beforesit the state decided to shut things down because people were nervous. People are not coming to the hospital, because my er is not safe, but because they perceive it as not the safe, so unless we reassure people, they are not going to show up. The second risk is that we will face another wave of reinfections. If we get back to the situation like occured in albany, georgia, or in my home state of rhode island. Where we had an early case we did not identify, and the virus started to spread among our community. We know this spreads exponentially, and we could be right back in the situation we were in in march. Rep. Velazquez thank you. You saw firsthand how albany, georgia unexpectedly became a hotspot for coronavirus. Do you have any concern that similar outbreaks could happen in your community or across the country if States Reopen without a clear plan to stop virus transmission . Yes. I think the issues involved with reopening are very complex. I know we are very worried about the livelihoods of people who have lost their jobs. I think that is a gradual plan based on decreasing transmission within the community is obviously a prudent way to go forward. I think in our town, the guidance has been promoted on the federal and state level and have done what works for us in our community, and we have slowly done things in a stepwise fashion. Our case is a great example that spread can occur anywhere. We do not control where people move or how they travel. Following the guidelines would be very important. Rep. Valazquez thank you. How would another spike in cases ms. Hardin currently, the Health Care System is starting to level out. We are seeing not as many icu patients, but we were completely overwhelmed. We didnt have enough icu nurses to take care of the patients we were seeing. These patients have been sicker than the patients we have seen, and we currently dont have a way to treat them. So we would be even more overwhelmed. And again, we dont have enough nurses currently to take care of the patients we have now. So if we see another spike we definitely wouldnt have enough nurses. It increases our risk of getting sick ourselves, us taking it home to our families. It increases the length of time we have to be away from our families. It could be really detrimental to our Mental Health as well. Just dealing with the issue, taking care of patients that you cannot adequately take care of , and again, not being able to go home and cry on the shoulder of your loved one after an especially hard day is difficult, and we would hope not to put ourselves two steps back from where we are currently. Much. Nk you very we recognize ms. Walorski. Thank you mr. Chairman, first of all my condolences to ms. Shepherd and mr. Colts, and to all of the Frontline Workers, i am honored by the sacrifice you are doing. To all workers around the country, thank you so much. We are a grateful nation. We are so thankful for the sacrifice, for keeping us safe, healing the sick, manufacturing and providing supplies, for those who are feeding the country. I want to talk about my district in northern indiana. I have been so inspired to see hardworking hoosiers pitching in for our community, volunteering at local food banks, manufacturer is donating supply of masks and other p. P. E. To local hospitals. Some even retold their production to respond to the crisis. A chemical Packaging Company in indiana started producing Hand Sanitizer. An Auto Parts Company in goshen, a thermal plastics manufacturer in elkhart, both retooled to make face shields. Hostage, a commercial sewing company in elkhart started making gowns and facemasks. The list goes on. Hoosiers have been incredible. Small and big business have answered the call and started to ramp up production of p. P. E. As states begin to reopen, a key question is how businesses would get ppe products which are now in demand. Governor holcomb pioneered a first of its kind indiana Small Business p. P. E. Marketplace, where eligible Small Businesses could apply for bundles of facemasks, face shields and Hand Sanitizer free of charge. Barrieroves a potential for employers trying to open safely, and gives employees and customers peace of mind. I cant tell you how proud i am of the leadership and ingenuity of the Hoosier State that we has ve shown through this crisis. One clear lesson of this pandemic is the importance of adequate domesticproduce supplies of p. P. E. We can do this by leveraging robust publicprivate partnerships with bills like the medical supply a pandemic act which are introduced. It would create incentives for Domestic Production of medical supplies, and better manage the supply chain and the strategic National Stockpile for the next crisis. It is so important to focus on domestic manufacturing quite simply because we cant trust china. A recent report from Homeland Security concluded china intentionally concealed the severity of this virus so it could hoard p. P. E. By blocking exports and buying it up through state owned enterprises. There are media reports which confirmed this. The New York Times reported that factories in china were not authorized to export masks, while the others bought up much of the rest of the world supply. The Sydney Morning Herald similarly reported that a chinabacked property giant, instructed its employees worldwide to stop what they were doing and go buy Bulk Supplies of medical supplies all over, as many as they could in january and february. Meantime, hospitals all over the country were faced with skyrocketing prices for p. P. E. That cannot solely be attributed to pricegouging. Its clear china the laws of supply and demand by downplaying the true structure and danger of this virus, along it to spread even further and wider. I keep hearing the notion that china accountability is nothing more than distraction. It is not a distraction to me. Getting to the bottom of chinas role in these p. P. E. Shortages is at the very core of ensuring adequate supply to protect Frontline Workers. Last week i posted a question on this committee, what will differentiate this subcommittee from dozens of others oversight bodies, aside from blatant, blind, partisanship . We are on the second briefing now. We have heard from 10 democratic witnesses and one republican witness. I hope we can do better. I hope we can put a premium on substantive work, on Holding China accountable. The American People deserve it, all these Frontline Workers around the country deserve it. I yield back. Chairman clyburn i recognize mr. Foster. Rep. Foster thank you to all of our panelists for joining us today. We are honored to have several frontline and essential workers here today to give their firsthand account. But of course, it is not just the workers themselves will face infection, but also their families. Our increasing knowledge of the prevalence of asymptomatic carriers of covid19 and the continued lack of testing availability, means Frontline Workers who never experienced symptoms can still spread the virus to coworkers, family members, their household and their community. This is not an abstract discussion for me. In my office, my chief of staff has two parents, both nurses, who have been working in a hardhit hospital, and this week, they both tested positive. It is interesting what we can learn from the experience in other countries. Canada was lied to by china, and yet because canadas leadership listened to its National Security advice, to its scientific advice instead of mocking it, canada has a much smaller per capita death rate than the United States. Canada also has a very different attitude toward the sciencebased safety of the social workers. Of essential workers. In canada, essential workers are given the best available scientific guidance on how to best protect themselves. Cdc is not being muzzled by the executive like it is in the u. S. Most importantly, in canada, any essential medical worker has the right to walk off their job if they believe they are being asked to work in unsafe circumstances. So as a result, the number of nurses who have died from covid in the United States was 91. The number of nurses who have died in canada was 0. Zero. So the leadership that listens to science and has a commitment to worker safety matters. This commitment to essential worker safety did not come at a cost to the quality of health care. As i mentioned, canadas overall casualty rate from covid as a fraction of its population is far smaller than the United States. When you keep essential workers safe, the health of the whole population improves. Here in the u. S. , essential workers are kept in the dark about the best scientific practices to keep them safe, essential equipment is not provided, and some are forced to take desperate precautions, including attempting to selfquarantine within their own homes, something epidemiologists will tell you is difficult to impossible. So i will start my questions by giving the floor to my fellow illinoisian, and ask ms. Hardin if she could respond first, then open it up to anyone else who would like to respond. Ms. Hardin, could you tell us what steps you and your coworkers take to minimize the spread of covid19 within your household . And how does your full as in how does your role as a nurse during the crisis, how has it impacted your family . Ms. Hardin thank you. It is actually a conversation we have at the nurses station every single day. Most of us are staying somewhere other than with family members. I said earlier that i sent my daughter to stay with my mom so that i dont inadvertently give her coronavirus. We have dealt with a shortage of supplies at the hospital. A lot of us personally went online and bought our own respirator masks because they were not provided for us. Trying to keep ourselves and our families and patients safe. Many of us get undressed and put our clothes in plastic bags and leave them there for days because we are afraid of bringing it in in our clothing and putting them in our washing machines and somehow infecting our families. We are not sure if that is possible, but we are afraid that it is. We try to change at work, and shower when we walk through the door, and try to stay away from everyone as much as possible. Its really difficult to selfdistance at work because we work in close quarters and we rely on each other to do our jobs. We have to be very close to each other at all times, helping with patients and things like that, so we kind of look at each other and say, it is probably inevitable we will probably contract this disease. So, again, the best thing we can do is not see our families, which has been difficult for all of us. I have one coworker whose parents have told her, i dont care. We will get sick, but we miss you and we want you to come and see us. I had a friend ask me, do you consider quitting your job . My daughter thinks i should quit. Of course i love being a nurse, so it is not something i would ever do. So there is lots of things we have been trying to do. We talk to each other to keep our morale up so that we dont end up depressed about the situation. Chairman clyburn thank you very much, ms. Hardin. Rep. Foster your story is being replicated by essential workers all over the country, and my heart goes out to you. I yield back. Chairman clyburn thank you, mr. Foster. We now recognize mr. Green. Rep. Green thank you, chairman clyburn and the Ranking Member, and all the witnesses for being here today. Before i address the p. P. E. Shortage that our witnesses have spoken to today, i want to remind the committee that in medicine, knowledge changes daily and overtime it impacts. Medical decisionmaking for example, in my medicine residency, we were talked six taught six days of an opiate would not cause addiction. Yet today, we know addiction can happen as soon as three days in some people. Should we castigate the doctors who operated under the old way of trying to treat pain but accidentally caused addiction . No, they were operating under the best information they had at the time. Through this a brandnew Novel Coronavirus pandemic, our knowledge has changed almost daily. Great scientists and doctors allow us to learn more about the virus in realtime, and as we look back, we must remember to do so in light of the information we had at the time. When the coronavirus started spreading, not only did china hide its severity and spread from the world, they covertly hoarded p. P. E. According to the washington post, u. S. Manufacturers exported roughly 31 million of p. P. E. In the first two months to china. In january and february, we were shipping our p. P. E. To china. Contrast, it was an increase of 1000 compared to years prior. While the u. S. Provided this to china at a crucial time, they didnt blink an eye when the coronavirus reached american shores. At the height of our fight against the virus, on april 10, the Chinese Communist party imposed strict export restrictions on p. P. E. , stranding American Companies. American executive testified, the Chinese Government coerced them into not exporting their p. P. E. Italy donated p. P. E. To china and the communist party had the audacity to charge italy to get it back. China has claimed it was ramping up production, the truth is at the same time, exports drastically decreased, causing a p. P. E. Shortage around the world, a world that, by this time, was fighting xis virus. The Trump Administration has worked tirelessly to get p. P. E. To the states and hospitals, in collaboration with partners in the private sector. The administration ramped up production everyday, they secured donated equipment, utilized the defense production at and mobilized p. P. E. F. E. M. A. Has launched project airbridge, an unprecedented operation to extradite supplies to our Frontline Workers. They work with fedex in dupont to ship 450,000 protective suits from vietnam to texas. Recently on may 8, they sent another shipment to new york that included nearly one million pairs of gloves, 194,000 owns, and 200,000 masks. The federal governments response led even Governor Cuomo to say that interview that President Trump, has delivered for new york. The fact is, unprecedented amounts of p. P. E. Have been sent to every state and territory. As of may 15, this included 46. 4 million n95 masks, 8. 9 million face shields. 422 million surgical masks. 1. 5 billion gloves. 207 million gowns. Nevertheless, the fact remains if we had known about the virus, we would have had more time to act. According to one analysis last week, at least 50,000 more americans would be alive had china spoken up about the virus just one week sooner. And more than 96 of the deaths may have been avoided had they spoken up three weeks sooner. If this committee must have credibility, we must start looking into how this virus turned into a pandemic and caught the world unprepared. China lied and people died. China lied about the people infected in their own nation. After the communist government kicked out american journalists, they delayed for weeks if not months reporting the virus. Chinese officials made the absurd claim that brave american soldiers were responsible for xis virus. Many americans have lost a loved one who covid, including those here today, and my heart goes out to you all and your loved ones. We must hold china accountable. Mr. Chairman, this is a committee to find the answers. We are supposed to look into it with a vigorous oversight, every aspect of this crisis. I ask, is there some reason why the majority refuses to hold hearings on china . Thank you. I yield. Chairman clyburn thank you very much. The chair recognizes mr. Raskin. Rep. Raskin mr. Chairman, thank you very much for convening this panel of heroes. I want to tell them that we have named after you the legislation that we passed on friday, which honors you not just with words, but with real resources. Putting resources into the front lights so you can have the equipment you need to do your job safely. You may be heroes, but it doesnt give your government the right to treat you as martyrs. Thank you for what you are doing every single day. Mr. Chairman, we created the constitution and the government of the United States to promote the general welfare and provide for the common defense. But the National Government has not been successfully protecting or defending the people against this killer virus. We have, instead, lost more than 95,000 americans. That is more americans than we have lost in the vietnam war, in the iraq war, in the afghan war, put together in a period of less than six months. Less than four months. We have seen 36 million americans are not of the mismanagement of the government, and nearly 1. 5 million americans who have been infected with the virus. The National Government should be coordinating the procurement and logistics of all the Health Equipment we are talking about today the masks, the guns, the gowns, ventilators and testing kits, everything. All of it, the government should be coordinating but it is not. It is pitting the states against each other in a brutal, with less competition for resources, essentially erasing the federal governments role, going back to the articles of confederation when it was every state for itself. President trump while promising the virus would magically disappear, and while praising the government of china and the leader of the Central Committee of the communist party of china 37 different times in january, february, march, and april, refused to take responsibility for providing the necessary Health Equipment to the states, counties, cities, hospitals. Here is what President Trump said the government is not supposed to be out there buying items and shipping. We are not a shipping clerk. So, states, counties and cities have been left to their own devices, and the government has been basically acting as a spectator or a heckler. Dr. Ranney, can you tell us about your work to help hospitals around america secure personal protective equipment for the nurses and doctors and the Health Officers . Why was your project missed in the first place . Dr. Ranney our project was necessary in the first place because as you outlined, there simply wasnt any p. P. E. To be purchased by hospitals in the early days of the pandemic. A few Different Things happened. The first is despite knowing this was coming, we didnt ramp up American Manufacturing in advance. There were tremendously limited supplies. There had not yet been a federal declaration allowing us to use 95. Additionally, as others including you have outlined, there was a limited ability to import protective equipment for a wide variety of reasons. Much of our p. P. E. Is manufactured overseas, unfortunately. There were no planes coming out of china. A lot of what we did get was counterfeit. On top of that, we had hospitals and Health Systems competing with each other. Prices of p. P. E. Would normally cost about a dollar to suit up a Health Care Worker adequately. Instead, it was costing us 10 to 20 for the equipment that a Health Care Worker needed to be facetoface with a patient with covid19. As we competed with each other, not only do we see the prices driven up, but we saw the numbers go up. We saw scammers and counterfeiters. Rep. Raskin let me ask you, the administration disbanded the working group in the National Security council, ignored warnings of its own doctors who were screaming about what was coming. Do you think the federal government should have taken responsibility for the supply chain and procurement and logistics . Dr. Ranney yes, sir. Very early on i and others wrote a piece published in the new england journal of medicine calling for coordination of the supplies of p. P. E. What indiana did is great and it should have been done nationally. Rep. Raskin i want to ask you this, your daughter gave the final sacrifice for her community and for the American People. What do you think the government owes to her . Do you think the government should take responsibility for providing Logistical Support to the states and cities in hospital . Mr. Jordan absolutely. Rep. Raskin i yield back, mr. Chairman. Chairman clyburn i recognize mr. Kim. Rep. Kim thank you so much, chairman. Thank you to everyone, all the witnesses, for participating today and sharing your story with the American People. In preparation for this hearing, i have been talking with a lot of the essential workers in my district, and i have been hearing the superstars of difficulties they had with personal protective equipment, with regard to testing and other challenges you have raised. I think a phrase that mr. Colts said earlier in his remarks has kind of lingered with me here which is, he called himself a person of service. I think that really hits at the heart of what people are doing, when essential workers continue to go to work knowing full well that they are putting their lives at risk. The stories cut between a lot of the different threads of your work, talking about the families and the suffering you have had, with wondering whether or not you are infected. I remember ms. Hardin saying, i dont know if i am a carrier, and your concerns about that. As a father of two baby boys, i share that concern. I can only imagine the anxiety you face. I wanted to talk through some of the next steps. One important part of this committee is thinking about where things are right now and what we can do to help you get through the day today. But i also think it is important to have Strategic Thinking looking forward, of what are the next big challenges we may face. Dr. Ranney, you really walked through a lot of the challenges we are facing with p. P. E. I am hearing from dr. Fauci and other experts that a second wave is inevitable, that we should expect something of the sort later this year. This worries me. About what our level of preparedness is. We want to do everything we can to make sure this is not at the same or even near the level of challenges we have faced already. I wanted to ask you, from your perspective, are we prepared for the second wave, and if not, what are the steps we should be taking to make sure we are . Dr. Hardin i do not think well dr. Hardin i do not think wela second wave. We still lack adequate protective equipment in most hospitals. Dr. Green is also an emergency physician. I know that during his residency, we would have never reused n95 masks run entire shift. We would have never used reused surgical masks with more than one patient. That is what we are doing now. Thank you for the funding you have given to n. I. H. And the c. D. C. , but it is not enough. We need more, not just for covid but for all other medical problems that have shifted as we treat coronavirus. We also lack adequate Public Health messaging. We need consistency in our messaging so the public can believe us. We need to give them accurate data and straightforward answers. We need to be clear about where and why our answers change. And how those depend on science. Most of all, we need adequate protective equipment and testing workers not just for health care, Nursing Homes and hospitals, but all of you who have testified today. Everyone out there facing the public needs to be safe. To do that, they need to be tested and they need masks, gloves, gowns, and sanitizer. Rep. Kim a lot of what i am hearing makes it sound like we whatever is coming in now is going straight out, and we are not at a level right now where we are able to rebuild our stockpiles. Is that correct from your experience both in the hospital you work with as well as others you are in touch with . Is anyone able to start rebuilding the stockpile and preparing for the second wave Going Forward as we start to reopen . Dr. Ranney i cant speak for every hospital in the country, but based on my experience at a national level, we are still millions and millions of pieces of p. P. E. Short from what hospitals currently much less what they need in order to build the normal stockpiles we all keep to face a pandemic situation. Rep. Kim there is a lot of concern as we start to reopen. We know that Small Businesses and other businesses will start to keep testing and personal protective equipment for their employees. The general public is trying to get more access to, as they should, we want to make sure people have the masks and equipment they need. But certainly, those types of increases will put further strain on the limited number of vendors and the ability of hospitals and other essential workers to get the personal protective equipment. So i continue to urge you all to move forward. Continue as a country to calculate what we need. To utilize the defense production act to get there and make sure we are prepared for the second wave than any other spikes. Thank you again, to everybody for joining us today. And i yield back, mr. Chairman. Chairman clyburn thank you very much, mr. Kim. Before closing this briefing, i would like to yield to the Ranking Member for any Closing Remarks he might want to make. Ranking member scalise. Rep. Scalise thanks again, mr. Chairman, and to all of our witnesses and all of our frontline heroes. You heard a lot of conversation here about how we got here, where we are. The Biggest Issue is, what can we be doing together to help keep people safe, to start reopening our economy safely . When we talk about reopening, nobody is suggesting there should be a tradeoff between your physical health and your economic health. We can do both. We have to do both. Luckily there are a lot of templates out there, places who have started to do it the right way. Mr. Greens point is very important about the physical and mental cost of having to shut down. The idea that some people should suggest we should stay home until there is a vaccine, and we know this could come back again. But we also know we cant keep things shutdown. There is a human cost. The suicides that are up. I see it in my parish where you see people who are not going to get their regular checkups, not if they have chest pains. They are not going to the doctor like they normally would where they can catch things early, and they are dying of heart attacks. Some of the witnesses even talked about that. So there is another cost of which we need to be cognizant, all the human costs of both shutting and safely reopening, and focusing on helping people getting back out safely. Focusing on helping the manufacturing of vital things like p. P. E. Into our country, and President Trump is doing this. He has been using the defense production act. And he will keep doing it if we can focus together on a community on what china did, how they hid it from the world. Why the World Health Organization has issues. Dr. Tedros ought to be here before this committee answering questions, because they have lost credibility. I think the world needs that can that kind of organization to have credibility, and they dont. Why were they the mouthpiece covering up for china, in said of helping the world learn how to save more lives . As we start to bring those things back to america, surely, it takes time, but we need to see more success and we need to Work Together to do that. I appreciate, chairman, focusing on this. Hopefully we can have hearings on some of these things, too, because china needs to be held accountable. They are opening up their wet markets again, the places where these kinds of diseases, not just covid, but others have started. They are going back to their old ways again in china. We should all be up in arms and working to stop that from happening as well. I yield back. Chairman clyburn thank you very much, mr. Scalise. As we conclude this briefing, i want to take a moment to address concerns that have been raised over remarks i made about what our aims should be in addressing this pandemic. I said that this crisis presented an opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision. That vision of mine is a country that provides for all of its citizens, liberty and justice for all. That is the way we conclude our pledge of allegiance, with liberty and justice for all. And that is my vision for this great country. Doctors ranney and akers have talked about the need to restructure our Health Care System in order to make it accessible. And available for all. When we rely on Health Care Workers to save our lives but then deny them the protective equipment to save theirs, that that needs to be restructured. We rely on farmworkers and Grocery Store clerks to ensure we can buy food for our families. But they dont get paid enough to ensure they can buy food for their families. That is a failure. That must be restructured. When we rely on transit workers to help us make it home safely, but we dont provide the safeguards to help them make it home safely, that is a failing that needs to be restructured. Restructuring these failings must be the mission of this committee, ensuring the funds we have appropriated are spent effectively, efficiently, and equitably. For the sake of the workers, and in honor of the memories of those who are here, i hope we can work on a bipartisan basis to improve the structure of protecting the lives of those american heroes. I thank all of our guests and members for being here and participating. And thank you. And god bless america. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] on friday, democrats on the House Judiciary Committee hold a discussion on the Trump Administration response to the spread of the coronavirus in prisons and jails. Watch live 4 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan, online as cspan. Org or listen free on the cspan radio app. The house returns on wednesday and thursday for legislative business, and to reauthorization bill. It extends through december, 2023. It has been amended by the senate and requires house action. With new rules for proxy voting, house members can vote for other members nonpresent during floor votes. Watch live house coverage on cspan. Watch ondemand on cspan. Org or listen with the free cspan radio app. From publicdent affairs, available now in paperback and ebook. President s of every organized by their ranking by noted historians, from best to worst. And features perspectives of our nations chief executive and leadership style. Visit our website, cspan. Org thepresident. Order your copy today. Wherever books and ebooks are sold. U. N. Xt, remarks by ambassador kelly kraft on u. S. Foreignpolicy during the pandemic. She talks about the problems between china and the World Health Organization, hosted by the hudson institute, this is 45 minutes. Good afternoon, i am a senior fellow at the hudson institute. I am honored to be joined