U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela (D-Texas) held a telephone town hall Wednesday for a Q&A session with guest speakers to discuss the coronavirus, public health and unemployment.
Among the guest speakers were Dr. Joseph McCormick, a professor of epidemiology at the UT Health School of Public Health; Julian Alvarez, commissioner representing labor of the Texas Workforce Commission; Ed Serna, executive director of the Texas Workforce Commission; Angela Burton, district director for U.S. Small Business Administration; Homero Martinez, director for Veterans Affairs Texas Valley Coastal Bend Health Care System; and U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.
“I think it’s really clear that our local leadership, our county judges, our mayors, our healthcare providers, have provided a whole lot of leadership on this issue by, basically, asking us to stay at home,” Vela said. “In Cameron County there are 450,000 people. We have over 200 people infected with the coronavirus, three folks have passed away, but of those 200 folks, about 80 are people who were either working or patients at two nursing homes.”
Vela said person-to-person contact makes the virus dangerous, and it is important to keep listening to the leadership by staying at home.
Congress passed the CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security) Act about three weeks ago, providing for $600 weekly payments to people who filed for unemployment insurance, according to Vela.
Serna explained the CARES Act enables individuals, who previously had not been eligible for unemployment benefits, to apply for them. Specifically, individuals who are self-employed contract employees and work for non-profit organizations.
The Texas Valley Coastal Bend Health Care System has taken several steps to ensure the protection of employees and veterans by continuing to screen every visitor that comes in the healthcare system, according to Martinez.
During the Q&A section of the meeting, when asked what is being done in terms of coordinating testing for people, McCormick replied, “Obviously, the testing issue continues to be a problem, and it is a major obstacle even to reopening businesses, to a large degree, because we don’t have adequate testing.”
He said the test being used is the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test and it takes about 24 to 48 hours to receive a result.
“But here’s the biggest problem with testing that everyone is experiencing as one of my colleagues put it: The reagents, that are required to make these tests, are coming in a garden hose as opposed to a canal,” he said. “And this is one of the major things that’s holding up the … ability to expand our testing. Right now, we’re using criteria … that are involved, whether people have symptoms or not, as to whether they get tested or whether they’ve been in contact with a known case. We would love to be able to expand that. But I don’t see that happening anytime soon because of the lack of reagents.”
Another concern brought up during the meeting was Gov. Greg Abbott’s plan to reopen businesses.
“Gov. Abbott has not addressed that question specifically with us, although every week we do get on a conference call with the governor, every member of Congress and state legislators, and they’re giving us information that’s pretty up to date,” Vela said. “But he has not specifically addressed the opening of the economy yet. My guess is that will be on the next call.”
He said leaders need to listen to health professionals on the issue of opening up business.
“I would just emphasize, again, the virus doesn’t really have a politic or anything else, and that’s why we have to use the best science,” McCormick said. “We can obviously balance with the need, but maybe we can figure out how to do this in small stages by using good science, getting more information about other people’s experience.”
McCormick said Texas needs to look at countries such as China, South Korea, Taiwan and other areas where they are reopening their businesses.
“We have to keep an eye out on what’s happening with them and whether we’re seeing a recurrence because none of us want to get back to what we see in New York and Chicago and elsewhere,” he said. “And that’s what could happen if we opened things up too soon.”
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