{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.murphy.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/murphy-the-administration-has-totally-dropped-the-ball-on-protecting-health-care-workers-and-the-pandemic-is-going-to-be-increasingly-deadly-because-of-it", "Murphy: The Administration Has Totally Dropped The Ball On Protecting Health Care Workers & The Pandemic Is Going To Be Increasingly Deadly Because Of ItRead More", "2020-11-18", "2020", "2020-11", "Democrat", "House", "CT", "Christopher Murphy", "M001169", "www.murphy.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "WASHINGTONAs\r\nCOVID-19 cases across the country continue to climb, U.S. Senator Chris\r\nMurphy (D-Conn.), Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.),\r\nand U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) held a press call on Wednesday to\r\nannounce the Protect Our Heroes Act, new legislation to increase\r\nproduction of critical personal protective equipment (PPE) and address the N-95\r\nrespirator shortage facing frontline health care workers. The\r\nProtect Heroes Act would operationalize the Defense Production Act,\r\nauthorize $5 billion to bring additional PPE into our national stockpile,\r\nauthorize $1 billion for the Small Business Administration to provide grants to\r\nsmall businesses so they can retool themselves to produce more of this\r\nequipment, and require the federal government to provide more transparency on\r\nthe national supply chain. On the\r\ncurrent crisis that health care workers and hospitals are in dealing with\r\nCOVID-19, Murphy said:\r\nOur emergency rooms and inpatient wings of hospitals are at a breaking point.\r\nToday, there are 75,000 people hospitalized with COVID-19. It took around 90\r\ndays to go from zero cases in this country to a million cases, it took 10 days\r\nto go from 9 million to 10 million. And without any plan in place from the\r\nWhite House about how to adequately protect our first responders, this pandemic\r\nis going to be increasingly deadly for the people that are on the frontlines in\r\nour hospitals, in our health centers, at our testing sites. On the\r\nTrump administration's failure to respond to health care workers' PPE needs and\r\nhow the Protect Our Heroes Act would address this issue, Murphy said: It is still the wild, wild west in\r\nwhich every hospital in every state has to go out and create their own supply\r\nchain. That's not how it should work in the middle of a national pandemic. And\r\nso this legislation is critical because it approaches this crisis from a number\r\nof different perspectives. Since the\r\nstart of the pandemic, Murphy has been outspoken in calling on the\r\nadministration to federalize the national supply chain. In April, Murphy,\r\nBaldwin and Schumer announced the\r\nMedical Supply Transparency and Delivery Act\r\n(S. 3627/ H.R.6711), which would require the president to\r\nutilize all available authorities under the Defense ProductionActto\r\nmobilize a federal response to the pandemic through an equitable and\r\ntransparent process.46 Senate Democrats support their legislation as well\r\nas AFL-CIO, SEIU, the National Nurses United, AFSCME, Get Us PPE, and US PIRG.\r\nThe legislation also was included in the House-passed COVID-19 relief package, the\r\nHEROES Act but Majority Leader McConnell refuses to bring this legislation\r\nbefore the Senate for a vote. A\r\nfull transcript of Murphy's opening remarks can be found below: Thank you\r\nvery much, leader Schumer. Thank you for leading the introduction of this\r\nincredibly important piece of legislationlegislation that dovetails with a\r\nbill introduced by the vast majority of members of our caucus over the summer\r\nled by Senator Baldwin and myself. This legislation is absolutely critical\r\nbecause, as leader Schumer mentioned, we are enduring a nightmare right now,\r\nacross the American health care system. Our\r\nemergency rooms and inpatient wings of hospitals are at a breaking point. Today,\r\nthere are 75,000 people hospitalized with COVID-19. It took around 90 days to\r\ngo from zero cases in this country to a million cases. It took 10 days to go\r\nfrom 9 million to 10 million. And without any plan in place from the White\r\nHouse about how to adequately protect our first responders, this pandemic is\r\ngoing to be increasingly deadly for the people that are on the frontlines in\r\nour hospitals, in our health centers, at our testing sites. A recent\r\nsurvey of nursing homes showed that 20% of all nursing homes still report a\r\nshortage of PPE. A survey recently done by one of the big national nursing\r\norganizations found that 80% of health care workers are still reusing single\r\nuse PPE. And I could list for you an endless series of stories about hospitals\r\nthat today are requiring nurses to reuse N-95 masks until they are physically\r\ndamaged or so dirty that they simply cannot be used any longer. The Trump\r\nadministration has totally dropped the ball on PPE production. They didn't\r\nstart ordering mass quantities of PPE until late March. And today, we have zero\r\nvisibility as to how this administration is purchasing PPE or managing the\r\nprivate sector supply chain. My hospitals in Connecticut have no idea as to how\r\nHHS and the White House are directing PPE supplies. And it is\r\nstill the wild, wild west in which every hospital in every state has to go out\r\nand create their own supply chain. That's not how it should work in the middle\r\nof a national pandemic. And so this legislation is critical because it approaches\r\nthis crisis from a number of different perspectives. First, as\r\nleader Schumer mentioned, it authorizes certain actions by the administration\r\nthat they desperately need to takethe operation of the Defense Production Act.\r\nAnd then it authorizes $5 billion to bring PPE into our national stockpile. And\r\nthen smartly authorizes a billion dollars for the SBA to provide grants to\r\nsmall businesses so they can start to retool themselves to produce more of this\r\nequipment. I have so\r\nmany small businesses, small manufacturers in Connecticut that want to start\r\nproducing PPE, but right now, they need help to do so because they aren't flush\r\nwith capital because of the general downturn in business. We have so many\r\nsmall-medium sized manufacturers in this country who want to be part of the\r\nsolution, who want to start producing large numbers of PPE, they just need a\r\nlittle bit of help from the federal government. And then\r\nlastly, the bill requires the federal government to provide that transparency\r\nthat is lacking today, to release regular reports on what the need is and how\r\nthe plan is going to meet that need. Leader\r\nSchumer will remember a phone call that the Democratic caucus had with the Task Force back\r\nin the days when the Task Force was actually meeting and communicating to\r\nthe public and policy leaders. Five or six different members of the Senate\r\nasked the Vice President and his Task Force what their plan was to meet the shortage of\r\nPPE and testing equipment in this country. And over and over again, they\r\ncouldn't identify a specific targeted plan to fill the shortages in the time\r\nthat we needed in order to confront what was in the first wave of this virus. These\r\ntransparency provisions in this legislation will make sure that everybody has\r\nvisibility on what the scope of the problem is and what the proposed solution\r\nis so that we can have accountability. That's really important for Congress,\r\nbut that's really important for the public as well. So I'm glad to be one of\r\nthe original introducers of this legislation and look forward to partnering\r\nwith my colleagues to push it forward.\" ###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.murphy.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/murphy-the-administration-has-totally-dropped-the-ball-on-protecting-health-care-workers-and-the-pandemic-is-going-to-be-increasingly-deadly-because-of-it"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9740300010889769, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}