Coronavirus

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I am an unabashed optimist. I am a glass- half-full not a glass-half-empty kind of guy, and I tell my staff that I am like the little boy who goes down on Christmas morning and looks under the Christmas tree and finds a pile of manure and wonders where my pony is. That is how much of an optimist I am.

So I am optimistic about our progress made in the war against COVID- 19 after this long year that we have all endured. So far, a quarter of Americans over the age of 18 have received at least one dose of the vaccine. More than two-thirds of people over 65 have gotten their first shot. In my State, they have recently said everybody 50 and up can get a shot. Now, very soon, any adult person over the age of 16 will be eligible to get the vaccine. That translates into good news across the board. New cases, deaths, and hospitalizations are all declining. Over the last week, the 7-day positivity rate in Texas dropped to the lowest point since last May.

While we continue to follow the public health guidelines to slow the spread of the virus, it is clear we are moving closer and closer to an eventual end of this pandemic, and there are a million reasons to be optimistic.

Despite the narrative pushed by some, all of this hope isn't the result of just the last couple of months, and it certainly is not the product of the partisan bill that was passed just 2 weeks ago. These efforts have been underway for more than a year now, and we owe a great deal of credit to Operation Warp Speed, the initiative set up by the Trump administration to accelerate the development of vaccines, treatments, and therapeutics.

Last summer, when President Trump speculated that we would have an effective vaccine by the end of the year, he received some serious blowback. One media outlet published a fact check saying it would require nothing short of a ``medical miracle.'' Well, thanks to the leadership of the previous administration, thanks to the great scientists, pharmaceutical companies, and others, that so-called miracle has come true not just once but twice. Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines received emergency authorization last year, and Johnson & Johnson's vaccine was authorized last month.

Rather than setting ambitious goals to bring an end to the pandemic, the Biden administration has embraced a different approach. An Associated Press headline in January evaluated the situation pretty well when it said that Biden's early approach is to ``underpromise'' and ``overdeliver.''

Well, in December, President-Elect Biden announced his administration's vaccine goal as 100 million shots in the first hundred days. That announcement came about a week before the first doses of the vaccine were distributed, before we had a real-world test of the processes that had been in the planning stages for months. But it quickly became obvious that we were on a pace to meet that goal before President Biden even took the oath of office on January 20. The week of the inauguration, we averaged 1 million shots a day. On January 20, 1.5 million Americans received the vaccine. One physician and public health expert described the President's goal as a ``disappointingly low bar.'' To no one's surprise, the administration met that goal well ahead of the deadline.

Last week, the President claimed a victory for hitting 100 million vaccines in 58 days. Well, so did he follow up with a new goal, a truly ambitious one that would get us shots in arms even faster? Did he set up a new benchmark to encourage States to make their vaccination efforts more efficient and effective? Well, not yet. Maybe he will. Maybe he will announce a new goal this week. For the sake of our country, I hope he sets the bar high.

Given the fact that we are now vaccinating about 2.5 million Americans per day--a staggering number, really--it is time for the administration to take a truly bold step. The goal here isn't to set a target you are almost certain to meet. After all, you didn't see the previous administration set a target of a successful vaccine by the summer of 2021, which is what many experts believed at the time.

Unfortunately, the underpromise, overdeliver strategy doesn't end with vaccinations. Just look at the President's latest comments about small outdoor gatherings. In the same speech where he tried to take a victory lap for the ``disappointingly low bar'' set for vaccinations, he made a rather confusing promise to the American people.

He said:

If we keep our guard up, stick together, and stick with the science, we can look forward to a Fourth of July that feels a little bit more normal with small groups able to gather for cookouts in backyards.

Well, that was a little bit of a head-scratcher, when President Biden said that he anticipated that everybody who wanted the vaccine could get it by May, and now he is talking about having outdoor gatherings on the Fourth of July.

I can tell you, these small outdoor gatherings have been a part of many Texans' routines for almost all year now. Families and friends have spent time in driveways, backyards, open-air spaces, parks. They follow the public health guidelines to keep themselves and their loved ones safe while managing some sense of normalcy

The Centers for Disease Control has said it is safe for fully vaccinated individuals to gather not just outdoors but indoors as well. But based on the President's remarks last week, he is trying to frame these gatherings as a reward if things go well over the next few months. If you do everything right, then you might be able to hang out with your family in the backyard in 3 months. Well, the administration's own Centers for Disease Control has already told us that these gatherings are safe. Your current public health guidelines can't also double as a goal for 3\1/2\ months from now.

Then there is another big inconsistency between what the experts are telling us and what the administration is doing, and that has to do with reopening schools. Some children have now hit the anniversary mark of virtual learning. Studies have shown consistently that this is having a huge negative impact on America's kids academically, mentally, socially, and emotionally.

We need our schools to reopen, and, of course, we need that to happen safely, which they can. Back in December, then President-Elect Biden seemed to share that goal. He promised to safely reopen the majority of schools within his first hundred days in the White House, another hundred-day goal. The experts tell us it is not only possible, but it has already been done across the country.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a report in January that said:

There has been little evidence that schools have contributed meaningfully to increased community transmission.

In short, the schools are not a breeding ground for COVID-19, and as long as proper precautions are taken, schools can reopen safely. In fact, it has already happened across most of Texas. Nearly two-thirds of Texas schools are fully in-person, and just 3 percent of districts are still fully remote. Two-thirds are fully reopened, and 3 percent are fully remote.

Unfortunately, in this case, the science is at odds with a key supporter of our Democratic colleagues, and that is the teachers unions. For months, teachers unions have fought a safe return to in- person instruction even though the experts and real-world evidence tell us that it is safe. It has gone so far that they have now gotten into some pretty sticky situations.

A leaked post from a private Facebook group for the Los Angeles teachers union warned teachers not to post pictures of their spring break photos because it makes it difficult to argue that it is unsafe to return to school. Well, it is tough to tell parents that it is not safe for their kids to go to school and then turn around and tell teachers it is fine to go on vacation; just don't post pictures. Trusting science and listening to the experts means doing so all the time, not just when it is convenient or politically expedient.

We are seeing progress every day in our fight against COVID-19. That is the light at the end of the tunnel that is getting bigger and brighter, and the question is not if we get there but when. How quickly can we get more vaccines into arms? When will our children--all our children--return safely to the classroom? How long until families can hug one another without fear of spreading the virus to someone they love?

We all know this is a community effort. It is a team effort. It is a personal responsibility effort. Each of us has a role to play in stopping the spread of the virus. But leadership matters too. The goals and benchmarks set by the administration will determine how quickly all of these things can happen. Now is not the time to walk back goals, set low bars, or bow to unions and political supporters. The administration needs to set clear metrics and targets for how we reopen and find our new normal, and these goals should be based on the science and the advice of the experts--nothing less.

So we are getting close to safely crossing the finish line, and we shouldn't let politics or any other consideration slow us down.

I would suggest the absence of a quorum.

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