Warren, Markey Press Pence for Answers Following Trump's Rambling Coronavirus Press Conference at CDC

Statement

United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) and Senate Aging Committees, and Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), sent a letter to Vice President Mike Pence, head of the White House Task Force on Coronavirus, expressing their concern about the troubling press conference held on Friday, March 6, 2020, by President Trump, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield, and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar.

The press conference-at which President Trump made a series of false, politicized, and nonsensical statements about the federal government's response to the coronavirus outbreak-came at the end of a grim week of news regarding the spread of COVID-19. The nation learned that there have been more than a dozen reported deaths from COVID-19 and that the virus had been spreading in the country for weeks, with schools and institutions of higher education announcing closures and over 3,500 passengers on the coronavirus-infected Grand Princess cruise ship stuck in a "hellish" quarantine as Administration officials debated whether to allow the ship to dock in the United States.

Despite these problems, President Trump was praised at Friday's press conference by CDC Director Redfield for his "decisive leadership" in the public health crisis, and the President made numerous comments suggesting that he does not understand the contours nor gravity of COVID-19's spread. He claimed, among other things, that "anybody that needs a test, gets a test"-a statement that is not accurate and served to spread confusion about testing protocols and test accessibility-and when asked about the status of the individuals on the Grand Princess ship, he indicated that he was more interested in keeping the reported "numbers" of coronavirus infections low than in objectively assessing the crisis and providing needed medical care and preventing the spread of the virus.

In their letter to Vice President Pence, Senators Warren and Markey expressed concern with the President's statements, which threaten to confuse the public and medical professionals about how to respond to COVID-19 and undermine an already slow and mismanaged response to the disease.

"Friday's press conference was a disservice to the nation and the non-partisan scientists and public health experts at the CDC and across the federal government," the senators wrote. "It is essential that the response you are directing is guided by scientific evidence and principles, rather than aimed at misdirected goals of assuaging the President's ego and hiding his lack of public health knowledge from the American people."

The senators also asked the Vice President to clarify President Trump's comments, and to provide additional information about the Administration's policy on how to handle the quarantined individuals on the Grand Princess ship.

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