By Glynn Wilson –

There’s nothing like a global health pandemic to make people wish they had paid attention in science class, or at least voted for politicians who believed in providing health care to people.

Now maybe even President Donald Trump at least privately wishes he had not been so hasty in firing and running off all those scientists working for the federal government, although so far publicly he has seemed content to blame the Democrats for spreading the coronavirus or calling it another hoax and depending on his cronies who know nothing about science to publicly address the problem.

His chief concern, of course, is that the crashing stock market, which has lost 3 percent of its value in the past two weeks, and frozen economy, with trade halted with China where the virus got started, are not helping his reelection bid. He’s never uttered a sympathetic word to people suffering from anything in his entire life or career, so why would he start now trying to be presidential and reassuring a scared nation that the U.S. government is working hard on the problem to make things go OK? He often makes fun of the very idea of being “presidential” in his campaign stadium rallies, adopting a stiff upper lip and claiming the very idea is just “boring.”

U.S. Senator Doug Jones of Alabama is showing his concern, however, questioning health officials this week about the availability of testing equipment in a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee and talking to the press about spreading helpful information about the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, in a media call with reporters on Thursday.

He specifically called for federal officials, including those with the Centers for Disease Control and Preventionout of Atlanta, to increase the public’s awareness of the signs and symptoms of the virus, expand test kit availability, and to help rural areas access the resources they need to keep their communities safe.

“The health and safety of Alabamians is my top priority, and so I appreciated the opportunity … to raise some of my concerns with our nation’s top public health officials about the response to COVID-19,” Senator Jones said. “I am especially interested in making sure folks in Alabama and across the country are getting accurate information and protecting themselves, but we also need to look at ways we can rapidly increase the number of coronavirus test kits available and also help folks at our rural hospitals prepare as well. I’ll continue to advocate for any resources and steps we need to take to minimize the impacts of this virus and keep (people) healthy.”

There is a shortage of testing kits available, along with other necessary supplies and personnel, including masks, respirators and doctors.

Witnesses at the hearing included Dr. Anne Schuchat, Principal Deputy Director at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH); Dr. Robert Kadlec, Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS); and Dr. Stephen Hahn, Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The Senate passed a bill this week in a 96-1 vote, with libertarian Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky casting the lone dissenting vote, to provide more than $3 billion in funds for the research and development of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics related to COVID-19.

The House passed the measure in a 415-2 vote on Wednesday, and President Trump is expected to sign the bill into law, even though the $3 billion allocated is more than three times higher than what the president requested.

Under the bill, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would get about $2.2 billion, nearly $1 billion of which would go to state and local health agencies through grants.

As of Thursday morning, at least 163 patients with the illness had been treated in 18 states, according to the New York Times and other news outlets. The pace of diagnosis has grown rapidly in recent days, with nine new cases announced Wednesday in both New York and California, along with 13 additional patients in Washington. On Thursday, Tennessee reported its first case of coronavirus, two new cases were announced in New York, and Florida announced its fourth case.

Though more and more unexplained cases have been identified, dozens of people with coronavirus in the United States recently spent time in a country with a larger outbreak, according to the Times.

A woman in Washington State who traveled to South Korea was diagnosed late last week. On Sunday, the first diagnosis in New York was announced, involving a woman who had traveled in Iran. This week, a case in Texas and another in Florida were announced; both men who had recently traveled abroad.

Over the weekend, health officials in Rhode Island said two people, including a teenager, who had returned from a school trip to Italy were diagnosed with coronavirus. A third case connected to that trip was reported in Massachusetts. Others who went on that trip were being held out of class, and the school was closed for deep cleaning.

The CDC on Thursday confirmed nearly 150 cases among Americans, which includes 11 reported deaths.

The Alabama Hospital Association says that 88 percent of rural hospitals are operating at a loss, with not enough beds, test kits, resperators or doctors to treat the expected flood of patients over the next few weeks.

According to Alabama House Democrats, Alabama Republicans are “putting politics over people and doing nothing to avert this avoidable crisis.”

Over the past decade, due to a failure of Republicans in the state to expand Medicaid and take billions of dollars in federal help, 14 rural hospitals in Alabama have permanently shut their doors. The latest closure was the Pickens County Medical Center west of Tuscaloosa. A primary reason for its closure was the lack of Medicaid expansion.

“This is obviously a loss for the entire community,” Senator Jones said in the press call. “We are thinking of a praying for all those who have lost their jobs as well as those who are going to lose access to the health care that they rely on.”

“An obvious step if our state leaders could take that would make a huge difference for our hospitals would be to expand Medicaid,” Senator Jones said. “Not only would that provide access to health care to more than 326,000 people in Alabama, it would help health care facilities become more financially stable.”

With the coronavirus right now we are seeing “a prime example” of why we should be proactively making sure that everyone in Alabama has access to the health care they need, he said.

When I asked what the latest thinking is on how bad the financial impact is going to be, Jones said: “Well we don’t know yet.”

The Senate is working on another stimulus bill to potentially provide another $8 billion to help out, with Medicare reimbursements and to fund telemedicine, for example.

“But no one really knows,” he said. “When you get into the impacts on small business, sporting venues, those kind of things.”

He said the Secretaries of the Treasury and Commerce are beginning to look at the potential financial impacts.

When I asked if the impacts are expected to be worse in states where Medicaid expansion was not done with more people going without any access to health care, he said if the virus spreads into the rural areas (where hospitals have closed), “there will be greater challenges.”

“This is a serious matter, but it is not one that we can’t overcome,” he said. “The folks that are most at risk are elderly with some type of respiratory precondition. Those are the ones at most risk.

“Children seem to have a very low risk,” he said. “If people just start now and get ahead of this and start getting into these good hygene habits of washing your hands, using hand sanitizers as often as possible, sneezing or coughing into your elbow, trying to keep your hands away from your face. If we can get people thinking this way, this will help us not only get through this coronavirus it will help us get through flu season next year. People really need to get into those habits. I can’t empasize that enough.”

Florida is also one of the few states that failed to pass Medicaid expansion, so we are looking more into the problem from our new bureau in Pensacola.