Coronavirus
Floor Speech
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Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, I want to start my remarks by saying to the people of Massachusetts and families all across the country: Many of you are making big sacrifices--quarantining yourselves, postponing or canceling major events, dealing with closed schools and daycare. We are grateful.
Right now, our primary goal needs to be to slow the spread of this virus, and we all share in that responsibility. So we thank you for everything you are doing to keep your loved ones and everyone else's loved ones safe at this time.
We are at war with the coronavirus, and we need a massive wartime manufacturing mobilization for coronavirus testing kits and personal protective equipment for medical personnel and emergency responders. That is why, last weekend, I was the first to call on President Trump to immediately use existing authorities under the Defense Production Act to bring all of the power of the Federal Government to bear in mobilizing industry to meet this crisis. It is why I authored the Senate resolution calling on him to do so. It is why I spoke directly to Vice President Pence yesterday to urge the administration to take this critical action, and I am glad they are doing so.
The Defense Production Act allows the Federal Government to direct supplies of critical materials and equipment that our hospitals and first responders need. It allows us to mobilize industry to expand production and gives us the power to coordinate industry to respond to this crisis. We need to fully use all of those powers that are provided under this law.
That is why I am so glad President Trump has today invoked the power of the Defense Production Act to respond to the coronavirus crisis. I am glad he is exercising it. I am glad that after my conversation yesterday with Vice President Pence, they decided to put this on the agenda for our country.
We need to massively increase private production of the lifesaving personal protective equipment, medical supplies and devices, and diagnostic testing supplies we need to combat this viral enemy. We need to activate our capable and talented domestic industry and bring the full weight of the Federal Government behind this effort.
We are talking about gowns, gloves, face shields, surgical masks, N95 respirators, ventilators, disinfectant wipes, and hand sanitizers. We do not have nearly enough of this lifesaving equipment.
For instance, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that the United States could need up to 3.5 billion respirator masks. Let me say that again. Our own Department of Health and Human Services says that we could need upwards of 3.5 billion respirator masks. But our strategic national stockpile, the country's emergency medical supply bank, holds only a tiny fraction of that, just 12 million respirator masks--not 3.5 billion but 12 million.
The medical community calls this personal protective equipment ``PPE,'' but ``PPE'' also stands for a ``promise to protect everyone,'' and this is a promise we should make and keep for our hospital personnel, first responders, and patients. Invoking the powers of the Defense Production Act will help ensure that we can keep this promise to our American heroes who are on the frontlines of battling this epidemic.
I have been in regular contact with the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association and the Massachusetts Nurses Association, and both have issued a terrible alarm: There are insufficient medical equipment and supplies to test and treat affected individuals and protect healthcare workers and first responders. For example, the Berkshire hospital told me that they required 3,500 respirator masks a day. That is 35,000 in just 10 days for the Berkshire hospital, which is in the least populated part of our State--for just that one smaller hospital. Yet the entire State of Massachusetts recently received only 70,000 of these respirator masks. That is not nearly enough. We do not want our nurses and our doctors reusing or rationing masks.
Additionally, hospitals and labs across the Nation are trying to ramp up testing capacity but face shortages in test kits and supplies. But we need to dramatically scale up testing and ensure our continued ability to test. Our Nation must be able to conduct tens or hundreds of thousands of tests daily, ultimately testing millions of people over the course of our response. That means producing swabs, which we are now running short of, and other testing materials.
We have used the Defense Production Act before--during the Korean war--to mobilize defense infrastructure and during the Cold War. Make no mistake, we are facing an equally deadly enemy in this virus, and we need to bring all of our authority and resources to bear to defeat it.
All of us owe a debt of gratitude to our frontline health and medical care workforce. They don't have a roadmap for what is happening right now. It is unprecedented. They just have skills, a commitment, and the hearts of heroes. We owe them the resources they need to be protected in order to do their jobs.
Sadly, this pandemic is going to get worse before it gets better. I had been calling for the President to declare a national emergency, which he finally did last week. Now that he has done so, we need Massachusetts to get all of the funding that is due. I have been in regular contact with Governor Baker and Mayor Walsh, and I will support their requests for Federal resources.
As the Senate works on an economic relief package that matches the scale of this crisis, we need to ensure that we put people and family first--no half measures, no hidden bailouts and giveaways just to big corporations: paid sick time for all workers; unemployment insurance for all workers, including for tipped workers, gig workers, contractors, home workers; expansion of SNAP, WIC, and other food security programs; no evictions, no cutting off of utilities, no cutting off of Wi-Fi; halting all deportations and releasing of detained immigrants who pose no threat to public safety; provide free Wi-Fi to low-income households with students who cannot afford it but are going to be at home because of school closures so that we don't have a huge homework gap that now explodes in our country, as poorer children don't have access to the Wi-Fi technology at home, so they can learn at the same pace that kids who just happen to live in wealthier families will have. We cannot allow that to happen. These kids should be able to learn at home, regardless of their income. We need free Wi- Fi for those kids. We have to reimburse our States and cities and Tribes. They are bearing the brunt of this crisis, and they need resources immediately.
My commitment to protecting the health professionals, ensuring the consumers, workers, and families of Massachusetts get relief from the impacts of the coronavirus is my No. 1 priority. We have to protect the small businesses in our country. We have to make sure they receive the resources they need. Millions and millions of small businesses right now are feeling enormous stress. We have to make it possible for them to receive the relief they need, the help they need in order to survive, and we have to put upfront whatever the capacity is to make sure they get the resources they need. If that system in our country, where 48 percent of all workers are employed--small businesses in our country--and they are living on the margin, then we are going to have an economic catastrophe by August or September where millions of these small businesses will just declare bankruptcy. That is the bottom-line economic fact of the matter. We have to give them help, and we have to make sure we have the resources inside the Federal Government--the personnel--that will ensure we can deliver that relief too.
To the people of Massachusetts, I want you to know I am here for you, and I will help any of you individually who need any assistance during this emergency. This current moment may call for distancing and isolation, but we cannot and should not sever our basic human connections to one another because we are all in this together.
I want to end with the most important remark. We must continue to listen to the guidance of scientists and medical professionals. This pandemic is unprecedented and will require an unprecedented mobilization and response at every level of society. We can get through this, but it will require a commitment from every single one of us. We are one big family in the United States. Many families are going to be suffering. It is going to be our job to make sure that we protect those families, and it is the job of this institution to do so. We are the legislative first responders. We are the ones who have to provide the resources that then allow the first responders, the families in every community across our country to have the resources to help everyone in our society. That is our goal.
A pandemic should know no partisanship. Let us come together and produce the big package our country right now so desperately needs.
With that, I yield back.
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