Coronavirus

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I would be happy to listen for much longer to that kind of eloquence and enormously powerful and significant comment on the blanket shield that some of our Republican colleagues seek to provide to wrongdoers, whether they are corporate wrongdoers or others who have severely harmed innocent people.

And it is not just about the rule of law that provides accountability for victims and survivors of wrongdoing, it is also an important part of the deterrent function of our legal system.

Accountability and penalties for wrongdoing are essential to protecting vulnerable people in the future, and so our side will stand for keeping the courthouse doors open. Those rights that some of our Republican colleagues would destroy are essential not only to the Anglo-Saxon concept of rule of law, they are also important to vindicating right.

And some of the folks who lived in nursing homes and who passed away as a result of this virus are veterans of wars. They fought for these rights. They risked their lives and sacrificed, and many were wounded, and they have now reached an age where they are in nursing homes.

But one of the reasons they fought was to preserve these very rights that some of our colleagues would sacrifice so needlessly and so readily.

Today, we are here not to look back and to lay blame. There will be time enough to establish a commission, as I hope there will be, a 9/11- type commission, to learn from the mistakes that were made. Obviously, we need to hold accountable other countries, including China, who may have failed to reveal the extent and magnitude of the health threat posed by this pandemic. We need to hold accountable officials in this country who may have failed to warn and who denied the severity of this pandemic.

We need to look forward, and right now, in this relief package, save America from the raging pandemic that continues, a health crisis, and from the collapse of our economy, happening before our eyes, an economic crisis.

And part of our package must be to provide funds for those nursing homes where those veterans live, where grandparents live, community leaders, people who have served our Nation in all kinds of capacity, raised our children, served in our religious places of worship, and been there for us.

They have served and sacrificed, and we owe them places that are safe and clean and, yes, healthy--at least conforming to standards that we know are necessary to preserve them from disease.

And here is the blunt truth: A disproportionate number of the deaths have occurred in these nursing homes.

In Connecticut, as is the case in many other States, the pandemic has hit nursing homes especially hard.

Of over 4,400 COVID-19 deaths in Connecticut so far, about 65 percent of all of them--that is 2,900--have been amongst individuals living in nursing homes. That is a searing indictment of our society. It is staggering.

And so I am proud to join with my colleague, Senator Casey, others who have come to the floor, like Senator Whitehouse. I especially want to thank Senator Casey because his leadership has been so instrumental in this effort.

We need now to make nursing home reform and funding part of the next package we pass here. We have all seen the signs "Heroes Work Here'' outside nursing homes, and they are well deserved.

I have visited a number of them. Most recently, the Riverside Health and Rehabilitation Center in East Hartford and the Mary Wade facility in New Haven.

What struck me most was, in fact, the heroism of these workers. Heroes do work there. They have put their lives on the line. They have reported for duty, despite the threats to their own well-being and the threats to their own health and safety and their families. They have been there for the people who live in those nursing homes. They deserve to be recognized and rewarded, not just in work but in money, in hazardous duty pay. The $13 per hour on top of regular wages that is part of the HEROES Act. It is known as the Heroes Fund. It should be part of what we do next as a relief package. We need to put our money where our mouth is in saying we support those essential frontline workers. Let's recognize and reward them but also retain them and make sure we recruit more of them because we need more of them.

Let's put our money where our mouth is, not just for our frontline workers, not just for the hazardous duty pay, not just for the Heroes Fund but for the people they serve in the conditions and care that prevail in these nursing homes. The heroes are not only the workers, they are the residents because they are veterans, teachers, firefighters, nurses, parents and grandparents, friends, community leaders, mentors. They are the Little League coaches who are now at an age where they are not going to the baseball field. They are the firefighters and police who once stood proudly in protecting our communities and now depend on others to help them stand.

We know that older Americans are more vulnerable to this insidious virus. We cannot simply surrender. We must act and we must protect those nursing home residents. Let's also be blunt about where the effects fall because these health disparities also have a racial equity component. They not only affect older people who are more vulnerable, they also affect older people in communities of color even more heavily.

Those disparities are unacceptable. A New York Times analysis of nursing homes found that nearly all--97 percent--of Connecticut nursing homes where at least a quarter of the residents are Black or Latino reported a coronavirus case. So there is a gap between homes with significant minority populations and homes that do not have them. Addressing this crisis in our nursing homes means we must address the racism that accounts for those disparities and mars our Nation. We can never forget that these residents of nursing homes are more than numbers, more than statistics; they are real people. As shocking as the numbers are, they are less dramatic than what you and I have seen when we visit those nursing homes. And my guess is, everybody listening to me now, almost all Americans are touched by the deaths that have occurred there in one way or another, directly or indirectly.

So I am proud to join Senator Casey in fighting for the Nursing Home COVID-19 Protection and Prevention Act. It would provide $20 billion in emergency funding specifically targeted for protecting those nursing home residents and providing the kind of personal protective equipment, training, and other kinds of resources that are necessary for making sure that the heroes, the frontline workers, have the capacity to do their jobs and the heroes who live in those nursing homes both receive the care and resources they need.

I am also proud to have introduced legislation with Senator Booker, the Quality Care for Nursing Home Residents and Workers During COVID-19 Act, which would provide for additional reforms to address the egregious number of nursing home deaths in Connecticut and throughout the country. It would require weekly tests of every resident and testing for every shift for healthcare workers. It would also mandate that all healthcare workers have sufficient PPE and comprehensive safety training around COVID-19, and each facility have a full-time infection-control preventionist on staff to keep residents and workers safe. It would guarantee that sufficient staff is available to facilitate weekly virtual visits between residents and their families. The sense of isolation of many of these nursing home residents is one of the major failings of how they have been treated during this pandemic.

We need to move forward without delay. There is no excuse for spending time debating this issue. We all know that these steps are necessary. There should be no politics. Nursing homes do not provide care for red or blue residents. They do not employ red or blue frontline workers. This cause should be bipartisan.

Unfortunately, the Republican proposal fails to provide virtually any resources--certainly nothing like the $20 billion that we are asking. So I hope we will move forward, as reasonable, caring minds and hearts must do, and make sure we provide the resources necessary to do justice to these heroes.

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