I am your constituent in Lakewood. I’m asking you stand with nurses. Our health care workers are in danger every single day, and the White House has refused to act. Nurses across the country are reporting that they are still not receiving the personal protective equipment (PPE) they need to safely care for COVID-19 patients.
That’s why I am calling on Congress to step in and mandate that:
1. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) enacts an emergency temporary infectious diseases standard.
2. The President fully utilizes the Defense Production Act to direct U.S. manufacturers to massively scale up production of personal protective equipment (PPE).
3. I’m also asking you use the Defense Production Act to massively scale up production of testing kits - both testing for the active virus and antibody testing to see if someone has already had COVID19.
It has been estimated that 25% or more of our people have the infection but are asymptomatic so they are exposing others without even knowing it. Testing both for active virus and antibodies would give valuable information to solve this problem but our government won’t manufacture enough test kits to test enough people to even know who’s had the disease!
So this virus is allowed to just spread through nursing homes & other places and kill vulnerable people.
We need you to take action NOW to get nurses & other health care workers the PPE they need to take care of their patients and keep us all safe & to get enough testing so workers and others who work close to others know if they are asymptomatic but are infected.
I look forward to hearing from you.
