CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Rep. John Garamendi (D- CA) is Interviewed about the Coronavirus

Interview

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SCIUTTO: Right now, more than 3,500 people are on a cruise ship off the coast of California, waiting to find out if any of them have coronavirus. Test results expected today after news that a passenger who was on board that same ship two weeks ago died from the virus. Cases in the state of California spiked to 49 overnight. Of course the concern that as more are tested, that number rises.

With me now, Democratic Congressman from California, John Garamendi.

Congressman, good to have you on the air.

REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D-CA): Good morning.

SCIUTTO: Just, very quickly, we heard the president just a moment ago saying, I'm quoting, we closed it down, we stopped it, talking about the spread of the coronavirus.

Is that true in your view? GARAMENDI: Well, if only it were true. The facts are quite different

and since we've had very, very limited testing, we really don't know.

In a public health emergency, you have to know what's going on. That requires testing in this situation. And, unfortunately, we have been very, very slow to the testing and even to this day only 45 people on that ship are going to be tested. That leaves some 3,000 untested.

My sense of it is, test them all, and then we can go forward with that.

SCIUTTO: Do you have, though, the tests necessary to do that, because Vice President Pence, he conceded yesterday, after initially saying that there would be millions of tests getting out there into the system, that they don't have the capacity to do that at this point.

Does California have the test kits that it needs to properly assess this?

GARAMENDI: Well, let's keep in mind that it was only last Friday a week ago, that the CDC unleashed the laboratories here in California to undertake testing. They delivered the test kits, that is the necessary samples. Those labs are in the process and, as I understand it, some of them are, in fact, doing testing. That is where we are slow to the fight here.

I don't think there is anybody that can tell you exactly how many tests are going on. But what we do know is that testing is absolutely essential. We do know that there are ten labs, I think now perhaps 20 labs in California that can do testing. And so, in the days ahead, I don't know what day it's going to be --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GARAMENDI: More testing will be done and that is absolutely essential.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you this, and I don't want you to look into a crystal ball, but I imagine you sat in on briefings because experts are trying to assess this. When the state does test more, how many more cases are they preparing to find out here? Is it thousands? Is it tens of thousands? Do we even know?

GARAMENDI: The fact is we don't know, and that's where the early testing would have been very, very important in controlling this. We really don't know.

I represent Travis Air Force Base and Vacaville, the two epicenters here in the northern California area. Of course, San Jose, Santa Clara County is the other one. It's in our community. We know that. And, therefore, we must assume that it is prevalent. That's where we need to go with the testing.

How many, I wouldn't estimate a thousand, 10,000 or any other number. But what we do know, that if we do test, particularly these hot spots --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

GARAMENDI: Then we can begin to get it under control by isolating. And, by the way, if you want to be patriotic in America, wash your hands, don't cough on people, you know, use your coat to cough in, those kind of things, that's how real patriotism is going to be shown right now.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Those small steps matter.

Next step, you test, a number of people are going to test positive, that is a fact. Does California have the resources? Does it -- is it prepared to then, as you say, to then quarantine those people, to respond, to treat those people? What happens then?

GARAMENDI: Well, this is where the legislation that the president just signed is so critically important and really the work that was done by Speaker Pelosi in making sure that the federal money would be available to the states, to provide so that the states and local communities could gear up now and be prepared to deal with perhaps a surge of people that need to be isolated.

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There's clearly going to be a shortage of isolation rooms in the hospitals. The hospitals are going to need the resources to expand those should this be a major outbreak. And so that's where that money is critically important and needs to flow to the states immediately.

In conversations with Governor Newsom's chief of staff, the state is gearing up. They've set up the office of emergency service here, which is well exercised with all of the disasters we've had in California, fires and floods and the rest, to really get control of the total public health system, the hospitals, all of the support, first responders and the rest.

SCIUTTO: And we should note the president said he's been speaking to the governor of California, of course a Democrat, Gavin Newsom.

GARAMENDI: Yes.

SCIUTTO: But they're discussing, they're sharing information and I'm sure that's what people at home want to see.

Congressman John Garamendi, great to have you on. We look forward to keeping up the conversation.

GARAMENDI: We'll do that, Jim. Thank you.

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