Live Q&A

Okay, I think we got it. Doctor Chen Hallelujah. Yeah. so good evening everybody. It's Derek Gilmer here in our nation's capital. We're it was a hot and muggy day in the Internet seemed to be having trouble so sorry that our Facebook live is starting a little bit later than expected. it's always good to be able to do town halls. You know for me. it's a part of just being available and accessible and accountable to the folks I represent and I'm. Folks are participating in tonight's Facebook Live Town Hall to talk about not just the health care issues related to Covid- 19, but the economic response to Covid- 19, and we have a terrific guest for for these purposes. tonight we'll be talking about the federal Government's response to Cove at 19, but we're also fortunate to have the health director for the Tacoma Pierce County Health Department Doctor Anthony Chen, who will Medical and provide an update on the public health emergency and discuss our region's plans to keep folks safe while we move towards economic recovery let me say upfront I hope folks who are watching are keeping safe and staying well and managing through what is obviously been a really difficult time and we'll get to as many of your questions as we can in the next hour or so or since we started late, I don't know how long we have your doctor Chen but Doctor Chen first of all. Let me just say I'm grateful you could join us. To share your insights and maybe just to start right at the top and Doctor Chen, you know, maybe give folks the latest for Covid- 19 in our region. What are we seeing at the Tacoma Pierce County Health Department in terms of cases and and and and what are the recent trends look like? Yes? Thank you Congressman. yes, it's not looking good for us. I mean today that to come up Pierce County Health Department reported 94 new cases and you know when you It just you know a month or two ago we were down at 10 to 15 cases a day and in the past week or two, we have gone over a hundred. I mean I was almost a hundred and 20 cases a day. This is eclipsing what we saw in April and if you remember the love of anxiety we had in April are peak then was about 77 cases and so this is just you know it's very disheartening and we're not seeing a flattening out yet one of the other. That we look at the state has to look at the number of cases we've had in the last 14 days and and then they look at that as a rate per hundred thousand just to give you context back on in the beginning of June, when we went from phase one to phase two here in Pierce County, it was 16 per hundred thousand today, we're reporting 140 - three. I'm sorry. 100 yes 143 per. Just astounding, I mean it and and you know the state's guideline was they wanted us to keep it below 25. So we're definitely above the state's guidelines it is way higher than we were in the beginning of June and it's actually quite a bit higher than what King County is doing right now, which is very unusual. I mean they've always had more cases than us but not a good situation for us in Pierce County. Can you give a sense of what's going on? why do you? why are we seeing the trend line moving in the direction? It's? Well, I think it's very clear that people are moving around more and they're forgetting about all the things they were very good at doing before right so from from our peak of 77 and April. you know we had to stay home order. I think everyone did the best they could. They didn't go out except for essential purposes they stayed at home. They washed their hands. They covered their coffee. They did everything we asked them to do and then you know beginning of June when we went to phase two, I think everyone just they were Fed up and they just. I mean that you know and so we've the searching cases now I mean it's it's everywhere right. It's it's widespread throughout Pierce County but it is being led by the young people so about a quarter of our cases now are in the 20 year olds about 40 percent or you know under 40 and half are under 50 and you know, especially. Young adults, they're out a lot They're Mobile, they can drive they part of what they do at that age Just hang out in large groups so you know mobility close proximity You know gathering large groups you know, I'm not sure how often they are wearing the face, coverings and Mass but they're forgetting that they need to do all this and that's really driving the cases and once it starts in that group it spreads throughout other age groups and we're we're. See this show up in many other places right So businesses we're we're we're working with lots of businesses now it was running about. I think 10 or 15 businesses a day now we're we're about 15 to 20 businesses a day I think yesterday we're working with 22 businesses, which are cases not to say the businesses are doing anything different than they were before, and, in fact, you know with the governor's orders they all are requiring face masks in the businesses now, but. When there's so much disease in the community, it's going to get everywhere. I understand I wanna be sure to jump to people's questions and you touched on something that maybe is a decent place to start we got through Facebook bill in Gig Harbor wrote in, he said Short-term restrictive actions to stem the tide of Covid- 19, have now become the new normal. I am concerned, he wrote, he says. Where is freedom in America Mass are being mandated. Authorities are deciding when businesses can operate in which are may close. I'm asking you to and I'm praying that you'll make the right decisions that honor the rights we have guaranteed in the Constitution and the declaration of independence. So maybe I'll say a few words about this and then Doctor Chad I'd love to get your take on it. You know. Ultimately, I think the decisions that are being made here are really designed to try to contain the spread of a virus that is really the most significant public health crisis that we've seen in a hundred years and. you know I think Bill to the point of your question, you know part of the task of of. Makers is to try to make decisions based on sound science with the health and safety of the public is really the top priority you know you've seen guidance from the Centers for Disease Control around things like social distancing and around advising people to wear a mask in settings not to protect not to just protect yourself but to protect folks around you in fact last week, I think Doctor Jen you may have seen this the head of the Centers for Disease Control, said that he looked. As really, the most powerful weapon, we have just one stop the spread of this virus and said you know if we really knuckle down and universally accepted this, we could probably get on this virus within this I think he said a four to eight week time period to some degree and I'd love to get your take on this doctor. Jenn I think of this almost in the way that you know there's a number of rules that are already in place like you can't you know you can't go into a store without wearing a shirt and. And there's no smoking indoors and some of those basic things are set in place to protect the folks around you and so I'm Doctor Chen, maybe talk a little bit about some of the public health rules and guidelines that have been set in place talk a bit about mask-wearing. You know what why is that important and what other steps should folks be taking to take care of themselves and prevent the spread of this. well? I think the participant is absolutely right we want to preserve freedoms If you want to preserve our freedoms, you got controlled virus right, what's the alternative to wearing a mask? Well, I alternative if we shut down society, the same way that we did earlier in the spring and I don't think people want to rush back there right so you know you know our response in this pandemic really has two goals right. our first goal is to protect the health of the people of our County. Our second goal is to help reopen society and the economy. It's not one or the other. It's both we need to do both right and you know. If we want businesses to to stay open and not go out of business, we need to control the virus right. I mean right now, I'm telling you I mean the number of businesses are working with already. I mentioned earlier was about 10 to 15 a day now we're up to 15 to 20 and often over 20 a day and you know hard to run a business when you're employees are getting sick and why they're getting sick and they're getting sick because it's not disease in the community. so steps in the recommendations we. Like if you don't have to go out. try not to right if you do go out, stay close to home. We know that movement and travel it exposes you to infection and if you have infection, it's spreads the infection so you know normally in the summer, we might be saying Oh, let's get in the car and we'll go over to Chelan or you know I don't know Hoover Dam, whatever go camping or something well. Stay. Home right because for you to get from here to those places you're bumping into a whole lot of other people. If you're sick, you're gonna spread to them. you know or you might go to an area where there's a lot of infection and you'll get sick so I think people need to look at this as we either go back to much stricter restrictions or we do our part. so that we can enjoy what we currently have and and in fact the the way that we're going now, I mean at some point we need to be having conversations about. We'll be stepping back, you know, Phase two is not working for us. you know with the diseases uncontrolled right now, it is just going out on a straight line if we want businesses to stay open, we've got to do our part if we want our kids to go back to school face to face in the fall, We got to do our part and we got control the virus. so so this is yes, we want our freedoms in order to get our freedoms. We've got to take part in this. It's a really sobering discussion and you know I think. to your. The five months or so I have really stunk right. I mean it's been really hard for people. you know I've talked to people of all ages, but you know I've talked to some seniors and my neighborhood When I last time I was home, I was walking my dog and they said you know this is not what we planned for our retirement. You know we wanted to be out traveling the country and traveling the world and we're stuck and you know so it is very difficult to your point that. The frustration with Bill's question because it is a frustrating time the other thing maybe just from a health standpoint. Can you help folks understand so what's the deal with the mask? So I like the you know when you wear a mask. Why is that protecting other people? you know? what what does What the Health guidelines tell us about mask-wearing? So? one thing I remind people is that if you go way back in history the reason that. Started wearing mask was because patients were dying from bad infections and so that's when people start wearing gloves. they start wearing mask so the concept there is everyone carries germs. They're gonna spread it and in terms of surgery, it is you know the germs on our skin and you know. our secretions and so on and so the master intended to be a barrier to catch any droplets when we breathe saliva, you know. Thing like that, and we know that Cobra, 19 spreads by droplets, So there's a very clear role in wearing face covering and Mass and catching those droplets. if you're infected and protecting other people, this has become particularly important as we've learn more about Covid- 19. In fact, many people well like many other infections for that matter right people can shed virus before they are fully Sy. And we also know that some people get very mild illness so they don't particularly feel sick right so and in those situations I mean if you think about you and I you know, we're we're tempted. sometimes we're not feeling great, but we still feel like we have important work to do right and for some people it's financially important that they go to work or they don't get a paycheck you know and and so if we don't stop that kind of a symptomatic early spread, then people are just. About doing what they normally do and and the rate that this virus is spreading right now. That's we we cannot tolerate that it's just ridiculous. The virus hasn't changed between May and now our behavior has changed right and if people don't want to be asked to stay home under a stay-home order if they want to be able to go out, they have to wear a face covering or mask it's just another step. Does it protect the person from someone else's infection it might right but and certainly for doctors and those who are working front-lines, They're wearing the special Nninety- five mask those are designed to protect people in your filter out the viral particles as much as possible, even with the clock covering a face covering they're probably is some protection, but the the biggest impact in terms of the public health impact is that it is preventing spread of infection from any possible infection from you to other people and you know it's just We do you do your part, your neighbor and the person next to you does their part so if they're shedding, they're not getting you sick either. Yeah. it's funny. I'm sitting in my office and I didn't even organize these props ahead of time, but I'm sitting at my computer with my hand sanitizer my and my cleaning wipes so we're we're definitely trying to do our part in the office Yeah, yeah, a lot of people are doing their part. we just need them to do more. Yeah. Yeah. I hear you. I hear you let me dive into some other. We got and then this one maybe for me more than for you, David and Bremer in with housing concerns with the first of the month approaching, he wrote. Many of us are scared of losing our home and it was still being sick and unable to work. Will there be another extension to the rent? eviction moratorium just as well. The payment plans that the apartments are giving us would be reasonable if we could get back into the work and to work but with so many people out of a job and about to be three months in debt to their landlords, we're scared and we need help. thanks for the question, David let me just say upfront you know people shouldn't have to worry about losing their home for something that's not their fault and you know both with regard to protections from eviction and protections from foreclosure. that was part of the Care Act and it's part of the Heroes Act, which passed the House 10 weeks ago, You're finally starting to see negotiation now between the House and the Senate and to me, it's really important. That they're that housing will be a component of whatever the House and Senate come to an agreement on we've been actively working in an outreach with the governor's office about thankfully extending the ban on on evictions and calling for Public Utilities to work with ratepayers to avoid any disruption in service you know, frankly The Heroes Act also included some other stuff that I think is really important. there's a bill that I introduced along with my colleague and. In Washington, DC Denny that was called the Emergency Rental Assistance Act, which would provide a hundred billion dollars for rental assistance for folks again. You know one of the best ways to address housing and stability is to make sure people don't face eviction in the first place and that was really the rationale behind that Bill and that assistance was included in the Heroes Act. There were some other provisions in the act around housing choice vouchers and rentals other rental assistance. Some targeted a rural areas as well but I completely agree with the premise of your question there needs to be more certainty provided to to folks so that they don't have to worry about losing their home. I'll just say another couple of things on this front part of the discussion around the Heroes Act or whatever ends up happening with the Senate is one I'm trying to help employers whether this so that they can keep the lights on and ideally keep workers attached to their jobs and even if they're. not operating in person or not operating at all. That was really the rationale behind the paycheck protection program in the Heroes Act. There's also the employer retention tax credit. All of these are kind of focused on the same idea, which is the best way to deal with unemployment is keeping people attached to their employer in the first place the other discussion that's hot and heavy right now is you know if people are gonna face rent and mortgage mortgage payments if they've lost their job continuing to extend an employment assistance and that additional support from the federal government in. Is really important that's being debated right now in Congress. I'm very concerned that there may be a gap in coverage and I don't wanna see people face housing instability for something again. That's not their fault. Doctor Chad I don't know if you wanna weigh in on that or if I should jump to the next question you know certainly appreciate your efforts and other members of our delegation in DC in public health we fully understand the importance and connections between housing and health. A roof over their heads and they also need to be in good quality housing so that you know their health conditions are able to be under control and that they can thrive. Thanks, we got a question from Megan and Forks and I know we got and just looking through we got a similar questions from me and Noah and better and Aaron on Facebook all had similar concerns and questions Megan's question was as an educator. I'm concerned about the state of education she wrote. I urge you to support fiscal relief supporting state education budgets in the next package that Congress considers I'm just concerned about making sure that students have the support that they need Megan first of all thanks for being an educator both of my folks for public school teachers and I've always appreciated the extraordinary work that our educators have done and I also know during this pandemic they've really had to go beyond the traditional duties to try to continue teaching and support kids that's why I want to thank you for that. I also know that kids that students have really seen. Lives turned upside down by this pandemic as well, You know, regardless of whether we reopen schools in person or go virtual or provide a hybrid model, you know, we know that educators are gonna need more resources to ensure that kids can learn and so again not to keep coming back to the Heroes Act, which passed over two months ago now, but that Bill provided money directly to States for the purposes of protecting school school districts and Institutions for that matter, I'm really concerned about this, we've seen some districts throughout the the Congressional District I represent that have been laying off school teachers and educational employees again. I don't I don't wanna see that happen. We've already had challenges in our state in terms of providing adequate funding for K 12 and I think the federal government has to help and again it's important to acknowledge the challenges that school. Are facing the challenges that the State of Washington state is facing is not because they were you know probably gets spenders going into in fact the state to the credit of our state legislators left Olympia with more than three billion dollar Rainy day fund. The problem is it's not just raining. It's pouring and so you know we've got to make sure that the federal government steps up and provides some help to our state to avoid massive layoffs. We need to make sure that any decisions regarding school. Are made with the health and safety of our kids and educators and their families as a priority because we can't you know, we can't put people in harm's way so Doctor Chen I know this is timely because you know you've you've you've noted as a school districts and Pierce County have contemplated what to do in the fall that you don't think it's safe to open schools in September for traditional classroom learning so talk a little bit about how you came to that conclusion and what steps our community and our region need to take to help get students back to back to their. Buildings. I think the bottom line to your question is what I said earlier, which is if we want our kids back in school for In-person education, we need to control this virus and so I mean there are two issues We look at one is how would we do that like if if it was safe to get kids back in the school buildings? How would we do that? and you know o S P I C D C, You know we've got guidance on that the health departments in our three contiguous counties so peers, King and Snohomish where our staff is working with OSP I to help the. Superintendents clarify their guidance guidance and that part is relatively straightforward. you know I think the guidance is fairly similar between different organizations the other issue, which is the difficult issue right now is is it safe for children to be in school in person right now and as I mentioned earlier that the rate of growth that we have seen there's no slowing down of the growth of cases right now, the. Level of community spread of coin 19, It is not safe for children to be in school right now in terms of the timing right, I mean, I don't know what it'll be like in September, I'm hoping you'll be much better than this, but I don't know, but you know all you know all the schools they're needing to plan now they need to lead time. so this was time to coincide with their planning time frame and and I know that you know parents are. you know many educators are disappointed and I want to assure people that we are in complete agreement in terms of our understanding of how important education is and how important face-to-face education is in terms of social, emotional learning and other things that there's so many other functions that school provides such as feeding kids, you know helping them with behavioral needs or other special needs. Those are all really. But at this time the level of disease does not allow us to do that I also I see a question from Sophia in Tacoma about childcare you know, particularly of schools are going virtual concerned about what you know when parents go back to work whether care will be there Sophia to your question the House just voted today on two bills that we're focused on. On that you know one to provide assistance to families just to cover the cost of being able to secure affordable child care and then another bill that was focused on trying to help child care providers to enable the safe reopening of the economy that the one bill would create a childcare Stabilization fund for providers so that they can make whatever investments are needed to keep folks safe and then the second one. Some federal investments and tax subsidies for working families just trying to enable them to be able to cover the cost of child care and and thankfully we saw some bipartisan support for those I know this is a big deal because we've seen unfortunate about one in five of our state's child care program shut down just because of this medically induced coma that our economy has been put in. I I I understand from Andrew from my team that we may have some technical challenges that may abridged our. Time so I may go into to hyper speed doctor Chen Mia on Facebook asked about testing and said how do I find a testing site and can you find out where you can get tested if you have no insurance Doctor Chad, I think the general in our state is that you can make an appointment for your medical provider or check with the local health district and that testing is available without charge even if you don't have insurance, Can you chime in on that? absolutely Need to know Go to our website and our website list testing sites through cares. We also have been able to secure some Mobile testing equipment. we're also paying labs and providers to expand their testing capacity, so it should be much more available now. and for folks who are watching in other counties, I think that's also true of your other of the other public health departments. they have those resources available as well. I I see a question from Terry on Facebook about Social Security. I know we're mostly talking about Kobe but let me just so responsive to you. let me say unequivocally that I have been and will continue to be a big a vocal opponent of any effort to undermine social security. Including proposals to raise the age of eligibility or reduce the cost of living adjustment or privatize. what I think is a really critical social safety Net program to me that only viable path to protecting and growing social security. is a bill that I'm you know to me the right answer. Here is a bill that I'm a sponsor of called the Social Security 2100 Act which would actually extend the solvency of the program through the year, 2100 and actually. The cost of living adjustment so seniors can with inflation and it does that simply put by asking the very wealthiest Americans to pay more into the system. So I've sponsored that this Congress in the last one and the one before that and I've spoken directly to House leadership wanting to see that get included for a vote and frankly, I think it should be part of the discussion because I think it is really important that we protect economic security for everybody, including a right retirees. During a really difficult time in our economy, let's see Mary and Cosmos asked about unemployment when the end of July comes and the benefits like unemployment and other forms of support and what happens to us, what will happen to the unemployed with unemployment claims still rising real people need help I am completely with you Mary. you know unfortunately. we've seen a tremendous strain on our economy and you know most of the folks who have lost. Jobs you know clearly, it's not by choice and they're feeling a lot of pain right now, which was really the rationale behind the added funding in the Cares Act. the the the rationale was and Doctor Chen. Maybe you wanna speak to this. The reason that additional dollars were provided the notion was for the average person who was made unemployed that unemployment check should be equal to the amount that people made when they were working and. Different than normal because usually unemployment is less because you wanna get people who are able bodied and incentive to go pound the pavement knock on doors and look for a new job the challenges in the midst of a global pandemic we you know public health professionals actually don't want you out knock doors pounding the pavement and looking for a new job. And that was why that additional federal employment was provided as part of the Care Act and to the point of of of Mary's question. that expires at the end of this month so 10 weeks ago, the House passed a bill called the Heroes Act, which which would extend that unemployment. Assistance through January to me, the right answer is also to to just that the unemployment assistance meets the conditions on the ground so if conditions persist or even worsen, then you don't see the congressional brinkmanship that you see right now, you know our our communities can't afford to face a cliff every few months and you've seen some of the dysfunction out of the negotiations between the House and the Senate right now I know that the set up proposed very substantial cut to those unemployment benefits, but the problem married to your point is That unemployment benefit goes down very substantially. It's not like your rents going down or that your mortgage is going down or that you're your food costs are going down and so I'm very concerned about that. I am hopeful that we will see a positive resolution to this for folks who are hurting right now. Doctor Chen Do you wanna say anything on that? No? I think you've covered it. I mean, obviously the economy is hurting because of the pandemic and we need to control the virus. Okay. let's see Kelly on Facebook just now asked about testing how long does it take for test results to come back? and maybe Doctor Chen, you could speak a little bit. You know not just about how long it takes to get a result, but you know what is the health Department need from the federal government on this front? I think amp up testing to the level it ought to be at well. I think we need a coordinated National plan. It's been very frustrating. I mean our capacity is better now. but you know. Suffered for a few months they're staying at home doing everything driving the disease right down We bought everyone time, but then to hear now that we're still having issues with swamps and regions and this and that and now we're getting back logs because some of the National are getting overwhelmed because other States they're just totally melting down in a number of cases they have. It's just very frustrating that we're still facing these problems after. The government time and so that's that's the challenge. I mean we are doing better. We are doing more tests but I I you know, we're still not even into the fall where we're expecting things to get even crazier and we really need a Unified National plan. we really need the government to step in and say hey, we're going to use the defense Production Act and people are gonna start making swamps they're going to start making you know whatever the problem is with the. We need to expand laboratory capacity. That's what needs to happen. I'm sure with you and frankly, that's the approach that was taken in the Heroes Act. I agree with you we need and I'm I'm I'm somewhat I think everybody is somewhat frustrated because the when the extension of the paycheck protection program was passed, it actually included with not a lot of fan fair or requirement that the administration put forward a National testing strategy and. What we got back was basically 50 state testing strategies staple together and you know to your point. We can't have 50 States competing with each other for scarce resources. so I'm told that we have about four minutes before Zoom puns us off. so I'm gonna try to ask a couple of quick ones. I'll ask should we be employing hydroxy chlorine? Simple Answer. No has been shown not particularly to work and we knew from the beginning it had a potentially serious side effects so the answer is no unless you're in a clinical trial. and then Mia Kate asked you know from the standpoint of small businesses, you know if you're a small business owner, How do we enforce people wearing masks? Yeah. That's a tough one. I know on our website we do have resources. I think it's becoming more. I mean the other day I called the restaurant for a carry out and the person's before we got off the phone and said Oh and when you come in, don't forget put your mask on right so it is an expectation I know certainly for the bigger businesses like the supermarkets and so on I have not seen you know a whole lot of people like not participating that almost everyone seems to I can understand for a smaller business maybe more challenging, but it is the norm and we actually need. everyone to tell everyone else that it is the norm and that's an expectation. We got a Facebook question from Betty just asking about daycare centers and you know their viability for being open and contrasting that with the state of play for schools. Can you speak to help Pierce County's handling that that's that's a real challenge? I think you know for the schools that were required to provide child care the advantage for them because they had larger facilities and if they didn't have classes going on, they could expand their their you know the the space they needed to other classrooms and so on I think private child-care tend not to have. They do provide a very essential function. and this is kinda goes back to you know we did not really have outbreaks in child cares before we are now because there's just so much disease in the community. So if I might sound like a broken record if you want to have child care, we got control the virus right and and if people want to go to work and they need child care, they need to control the virus so that we can have child care I I as I. Dom's gonna put us in two minutes so maybe just can I invite you to give any other Council the folks in terms of what people should do to keep themselves and their loved ones safe. You know we really appreciate what everyone did a few months ago, you know, staying home and really ratcheting down. We need people to do that again, you know, stay close to home. Don't go out and if it's not necessary. Keep your socialization to less than five people if you can you know with the one new thing I'm gonna add now is. Really need people to activate their social networks? People may not want to listen to me. They may not want to listen to you, but they will listen to the people that are important in their lives and that they have connections to I need every person to activate their social network. Everyone needs to understand. we're all in this together. We have a responsibility to do it, It might seem like just a little bit, but it all adds up and that's the only way we're gonna bring this back down unless we want to lock. Society again Doctor Chen, I wanna Thank you for taking the time with us tonight and I I again apologize for our technical difficulties. It's the you'd think after five months of this, we all get used to zooms and all that I also just want to say to folks who are watching if you have a question that we didn't get to feel free to reach out to my office, You can email me through Gilmer dot House dot Gov. I also have a terrific team, including some phenomenal case workers. if you're a small business owner who. if you're dealing with issues related to unemployment or social security or any other benefits our team will go the extra mile to try to lend a hand in any way that we can in the final thing. I wanna just remind people I know that this has been a challenging several months. I know that folks are hurting and I'm working hard to make sure that the federal response to this steps up and takes care of people who are struggling right now. I also wanna remind you that even though this virus is. Contagious and it's not the only thing that's contagious. so it's kindness and so is caring about.