Name: Sen. Ted Cruz reacts to coronavirus response, quarantine experience
Uploaded: 2020-03-19T21:32:47.000Z
Duration: 9 min 24 s
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and tonight Congress appears tohave a deal on a relief plan.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spent the past 24 hours and intense negotiations with the Treasury secretary A B.

The speaker has just announced that they have reached an agreement.

This is a bill that's intended to provide immediate relief to Americans who are suffering from Corona virus.

It would include Free Corona virus testing also enhanced paid family and sick leave, and it would boost unemployment.

Insurance would also include measures to increase food security across the country.

But it does not include several measures that the president has been demanding, like a payroll tax cut.

Now, both Speaker Pelosi and the Treasury secretary agree that there could be additional bills and measures in the coming weeks.

And Diane, they have spent the last 24 hours in intense negotiations, the two of them speaking more than a dozen times just today to try and hammer all of this out.

The House is going to be acting on this tonight, and then the Republican controlled Senate will be following suit on Monday.

We'll be here about action out of Washington.

And one of the lawmakers who will be considering that proposal is Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

But he is under self quarantine right now and joins us now by phone.

So I understand that you had to extend your quarantine after you learned of a second interaction.

I'm in good health, but I'm trying to the same time.

To be cautious and prudent on the quarantine came about from two separate interactions two weeks ago that the CPAC uh, gathering I interacted.

I visited with and shook hands with the person who subsequently tested positive for Corona virus.

I was informed of that nine days later when I found out about that, I spoke with the CDC.

I spoke with the health department above the city of Houston and Harris County, where I reside.

I spoke with my own doctor based on their advice, they concluded that I did not meet the CDC criteria for self quarantine because the encounter had been briefed and it had been nine days without symptoms.

Nevertheless, I decided in an abundance of caution to impose my own self quarantine.

And so I spent ported the remainder of the 14 days day period in my home away from other people.

So I was happily looking forward Thio tonight, taking my family out to dinner and and ending the quarantine.

And then, unfortunately, I found out last night that a second person I had encountered a Spanish government official who had come to meet me in my in my office in D.

Had tested positive for Corona virus last night.

And so, as a result of that, I decided to extend the self quarantine for 14 days from that interaction that will expire on March 17.

So I am once again said it's sitting and sitting in my home and but but working from home in an engaging in the government response to this this growing public health crisis and have you been tested yet?

Senator, you know I have not and The reason is each of the each of the positions that I've consulted with advised me that since I have no symptoms since I'm not sick, they said testing was medically ineffective that that you have to have a sufficient viral load for the test tow work.

And so the advice of the physicians was not to get tested but simply monitor.

And if I did, if I encountered any symptoms and got sick, then they then they said testing makes sense now.

That being said, I think we need to do much, much more to make tests available widely and publicly on.

And I think we've made major steps in the in the last 48 hours in that regard, in particular seeing private labs stepping forward to fill some of the some of the capacity.

But I'm urging the administration emerging Congress to make the tests tests widely available so that anyone who is experiencing symptoms can be tested.

We also need to improve protective gear protective gear for first responders, protective gears for health professionals to expand the accessibility to that to make sure that we have enough and and we need to improve our health capacity If you look at what has happened in countries like China and Iran and Italy, we've seen their health system overwhelmed.

And so I've urged the administration to give hospitals to give our health system the flexibility to expand their capacity and also to improve things that expand their inventory of things like ventilators.

Because if God forbid, we see a dramatic increase in the number of people suffering from this public out health outbreak, we need to make sure that we have sufficient medical equipment to care for them.

And then finally, the fourth piece of the public health response that I think is very, very important is doing every step necessary to develop a vaccine and to develop a treatment protocols and hopefully a cure.

And so I have and filing legislation to speed up the FDA approval process, and in particular to pass legislation that call the Results Act.

That says that any pharmaceutical device or medical device approved in another major developed country like Canada like Europe, that the FDA has 30 days to approve it here if it is directed towards the Corona virus so that we can get the medical tools we need T defeat this epidemic.

And on that note about legislation, Senator, we're hearing that Nancy Pelosi says she has a deal on the current legislation before the House.

Do you plan to vote for this legislation once it clears?

Obviously, I want to see the specifics of the deal.

I don't know what what Speaker Pelosi has agreed to.

I will look at it very carefully and with great interest.

II voted in favor of the $8.3 billion emergency appropriation that we passed a little bit over a week ago.

I hope they're good elements in in this deal.

But until I see the specifics, I want to assess it on the marriage.

And you know you were talking about that.

Some of the areas that were lacking before one big area concern was the lack of testing to this far.

Do you think more tests should have been made available to Americans by now?

Undoubtedly, and there are areas in the public health crisis that I think the administration has done well there, areas where they have not done as well, and they need to do better.

So when you heard today President Trump saying that he takes no responsibility at all, what do you make of that?

Well, look, I think the rollout of the tests was clearly problematic, that there were mistakes in terms of the efficacy.

There was contamination within the CDC facilities that made the test less than effective.

And then they haven't Men been delivered, uh, across the country with the speed and efficiency that they should have been.

Now, that being said in any public health crisis, it is a complicated and difficult challenge to undertake.

And so it's it's easy to criticize the process.

What I'm focused on instead of how can we be more effective?

How can we ensure that we get the test, where where they need to go and and don't use this simply as a political football for one side or the other to advance their partisan objectives?

And one of the keys that we've seen is is private labs, labs that have an enormous capability, academic labs that have the capacity to develop test kits being engaged, and I think I think the bureaucracy was a little bit slow in bringing the private sector into it and empowering them and getting the red tape out of the way.

I think we're moving in the right direction.

But listen, this is a major public health threat.

And so almost anything we need, we're doing.

This is a global pandemic that that has taken lives all across the globe and stopping it means one of the keys to stopping it is limiting its spread.

And that means that that means social distancing.

It's It's one of the reasons why I decided myself to self quarantine, that the doctors advised me based on the contact I had, that the likelihood of contraction of the virus was quite low.

But I thought it was the right thing to do, to minimize my contact with others so that it so that if I had contracted the virus, I would not be at risk of passing it on to anyone else.

Well, Senator, we appreciate you setting a good example for your citizens, and we appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.

We hope you continue to feel well throughout this.

And as a country, well, we've endured enormous challenges before and will overcome this one as well.