Congressman Dan Kildee: Congress to Act to Combat Coronavirus

Statement

Congressman Dan Kildee (MI-05), Chief Deputy Whip of the House Democratic Caucus, today said the U.S. government must do more to address the spread of the deadly coronavirus. Kildee said that President Donald Trump is currently treating the coronavirus "like a public relations problem, instead of a public health crisis." Kildee, along with other members of Congress, was briefed in Washington, D.C. today on the coronavirus by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department for Homeland Security.

This week, the Trump Administration requested $2.5 billion to combat the coronavirus. However, health experts said that more resources are needed to combat the growing health epidemic. Additionally, $1.25 billion of the administration's proposal would be transferred from funding already allocated to fighting other infectious diseases, including Ebola virus, as well as stealing money from the National Cancer Institute and the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, a program that helps low-income Michiganders pay for heat during the winter. Democrats this week unveiled a multi-billion dollar emergency supplemental to fight the spread of the coronavirus outbreak.

Furthermore, the President's budget request this month would cut the CDC budget by almost 16 percent, as well as cut nearly 10 percent from HHS. The budget for the World Health Organization and Pan American Health Organization would also be severely cut. In 2018, the White House eliminated a position on the National Security Council to coordinate pandemic response.

"Congress will take action to ensure that the government has the resources necessary to combat the coronavirus and keep Americans safe," Congressman Kildee said. "Congress must work in a bipartisan fashion to address the coronavirus in a smart, strategic and serious way, to ensure that the administration has the resources it needs. The House will act in the coming days on an emergency funding supplemental that provides new funding to combat the coronavirus, not stealing existing appropriations from other accounts. The coronavirus represents a growing global health threat and we must listen to health experts, not play politics. People's lives are at stake."

The CDC has produced a fact sheet with frequently asked questions about the coronavirus here. Local health departments are also regularly providing updates, including the Saginaw County Health Department and the Genesee County Health Department.

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