Community spread in Washington State and tried to work with federal agency to conduct testing, the administration did not work with them to let the public know how serious the coronavirus was. You can be sure, i will get to the bottom of this and make sure u will never happen again. I am furious that instead ofid acting with urgency that they did nothing. Instead of acting with transparency they kept quiet. Instead of working to keep families safe, they wasted valuable time. Now, in my state 24 people have died. Tr over 1000 across the country are confirmed to beed infected. And experts are telling us many more are likely to be ill. I am hearing from people in my home state of washington who were worried about their relatives who are dying alone. Worried about having to missbo work and unable to pay the rent. In worried about how to keep thr children safe at school and care for them and make sure they get a nutritious meal if the schools cancel. Im hearing from Small Business owners who are worried because no one is coming through t the door and unsure how to support the workers going forward. I am hearing from communities who are worried how they protect people who are experiencing homelessness, i have seen a lot in my years as u. S. Senator but i am not exaggerating when i say this is one of the most, we will hold the Administration Accountable for missing opportunities to get ahead. I will also do everything in my power to make sure we do not miss significant opportunities, we do still have time to slow this down and manage it as best as we can. Our primary goal right now for people in my home state and across the country needs to be slowing the spread of the virus in areas where there are outbreaks. So areas where it has not hit hard have the time to prepare. One of the best ways we can do this is by allowing workers who feel sick or who need to stay home with the child whose school is closed, to do so without losing a paycheck or their jobs. Mr. President , workers and their families want to do the right things for their selves and their communities. And for many of our workers, restaurant workers, truck drivers, Service Industry workers they may not have an option to take a j off without losing their pay or the job,oi that leaves them with the impossible choice of putting food on the table paying bills or rent by protecting themselves and others. Mr. President , that is not a choice we should ask anyone to make in the United States of america in the 21st century. But 32 Million People in our country today are about one out of every four private sector worker area faced with an impossible choice every time they get sick. Right now it has a unique and dire consequences. I have been advocating to allow paid sick day since 2004 along with my colleague in the house. Time and again, as we see for Public Health and workers the flexibility they need. In fact we introduced her bill of march of 2019, here we are almost to you later today without the very policies in place that wouldve helped millions of our workers, and bolstered our resilience in this exact healthcare crisis that paid sick days are s intended to prevent and to mitigate. We now have another opportunity to get this right. I am here to ask my colleagues to support our new Emergency Paid Sick days legislation which would ensure workers have 14 days of paid sick leave immediately in response to Public Health emergencies like the onefa that we say today inea addition to allow workers to get there 70s of sickly. It would mean you would not lose a paycheck if so many parents in my home state of washington and across the country are facing if your Childs School has closed in the coming weeks because of the outbreak. It would mean you would not lose a paycheck if your Family Member is squinting and you need to stay home to take care of them so you will not also spread the virus. Or if you cannot go to work because you are sick or your workplace is shut down as we see into many places. You will not lose pay. Mr. President , these are the real challenges people are now facing and will continue tor face. Our bill will help these workers immediately the minute it becomes. We have enough delay when it comes to paid sick days. Lets get this done, lets keep working as we need to do on a comprehensive correlated response and focus squarely on what our families and our workers and our Small Businesses need in the weeks and months ahead, democrats have a lot of ideas, were they not in response including how to make sure the tests are affordable. That we support our most vulnerable communities and we reckon with the economic impact, there is a lot that we need to do in the weeks and months ahead. But i urge us to start today with a simple really important issue. I asking mns consent that the Health Committee be discharged from further consideration ofn s3415, a bill to allow americans to earn paid sick time so they can address their own health needs and the health needs of their families, that the senate proceed to its immediateti consideration the bill be considered read a third time to reconsider made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. Is their objection . Senator from tennessee. Reserving the right to object, i will continue to work washingtonnator from state as we always do and this issue on a comprehensive response to coronavirus. She and i have had four briefings and another one tomorrow, we have a history of being able to come to agreement on these matters. The idea of paid sick leave is a good idea. But if washington, d. C. Thinks its a good idea washington, d. C. Sure to pay for it. When i was governor of tennessee, nothing used to make me more unhappy than an individual in the United States taking credit and sending me the bill. So employees are struggling, so our employers. It is not a cure for the coronavirus to put a big new expensive federal mandate on employers who are struggling in the middle of this matter, paid good idea, you do it in my office, the federal government now does it, many businesses do it, but the federal government wants to require, the federal government should pay for. Objection is heard. Senator from washington. I appreciate the fact that the senator from tennessee has been a great partner on many k issues, i will keep talking about this. Let me just say this, withoutss doing this the cost to businesses is going to grow exponentially, we have already seen it on wall street. We are seeing in our communities, because people are not getting paid, they are coming to work, spreading the virus and seeing the impact and will continue to see in our communities as fewer people go to their stores or businesses. Will either do this now or continue to pay for it in the future. I am sorry its been ejected today but i think its a critical step in this Public Health crisis we are having today, we need to get this done. Thank you, mr. President. Mr. President i watched upro close and from afar, working together on issues like this, i absolutely believe its a good idea but i think its what senator murray just said, its costing businesses all kinds of cost imposed on businesses as a result of people coming to work sick. It is also more expense forse Public Hospitals and more expense with people getting sick and what that means to medicaid. These costs are impossible to quantify today that are not having a sickly policy, a year from now will be able to look back on what the cost really were, they will be overwhelming. I have a solid cohesive coherent sickly policy of something modest like senator murray is calling for could make a difference there. I was recently notified from the governor when you run into a shortage in our state of the test kits that are necessary some 300 million have been tested