Schumer Calls for Stronger ‘Testing Regime’ Before Reopening Economy

In a Friday interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) sounded off on President Donald Trump’s plan to reopen the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic.

According to Schumer, the plan is flawed due to a lack of testing, which he explained is why Senate Democrats and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) are pushing for a $30 billion plan for a nationalized testing regime.

“The plan is a little more measured than what the president said in the past, which is good, but there’s a key thing missing in all of this, and the business leaders he talked to, the political leaders, Democrat and Republican he talked to, all said it — it is called testing,” Schumer outlined. “If we don’t have a strong, adequate testing regime, we are going to have real trouble. You have to know who has the illness, who is immune from the illness and who could get the illness before we can determine who can go back to work and who can’t. That’s why we Senate Democrats have posed, and now with Speaker Pelosi, we are pushing it in this interim COVID 3, a $30 billion plan to have an immediate regime on testing, figure out the best test, use the DPA– the Defense Production Act — to take over the factories and their supply chains and make it and then distribute it across the country where it is needed. You know, we want to open small businesses up, but if small business is open and no customers are on the streets because everyone is afraid to go out because they don’t know who has the virus and who doesn’t, what good is it going to be?”

“Each state can’t come up with its own test,” he added. “Many of the states are inadequate to come up with their own test. We need a national program distributed to the local governments.”

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