United States Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) on Tuesday said “more help is on the way” for Tennesseans in the fight against COVID-19, after the Senate passed legislation to provide an additional $310 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program to continue to make loans, $75 billion for hospitals, and $25 billion to strengthen testing.
“According to the Small Business Administration (SBA), over 34,000 Tennessee small businesses have been approved for more than $6.5 billion from the Paycheck Protection Program, created by the CARES Act – and more help is on the way," said Senator Alexander. "Today, the Senate passed legislation that will provide an additional $310 billion for this program to continue to make loans, which will help keep paychecks coming to hundreds of thousands of workers in Tennessee and across the country. Since the government has temporarily shut down the economy because of this disease, the government must help those who are hurt by it.”
Visit the senator’s website to learn more about how to take advantage of the Paycheck Protection Program.
Senator Alexander continued, “The legislation also includes $75 billion for hospitals and clinics to help address the harm caused by COVID-19, and an additional $25 billion to strengthen testing, including over $1 billion to launch a new competitive ‘shark tank’ to pull out all the stops and create new technologies. There is no safe path forward to combat the novel coronavirus without adequate testing. To contain COVID-19 and persuade Americans to leave their homes and return to work and school, the United States will need tens of millions of diagnostic tests. We should squeeze every test possible out of current technologies, but we need tens of millions more to really get a handle on how far and wide this disease has spread.
“If there’s a bold idea out there that will work, this bill will help make sure the funding is available to get these tests in the hands of health care providers quickly. We also should improve serologic tests to determine whether someone already has had the disease and has now created the necessary immunity to hopefully fight off the disease in the future.”
“Just last week, owners of a senior living facility gave a COVID-19 diagnostic test to 2,500 employees and residents of its 26 communities in Tennessee and Kentucky. The owner, Gary Keckly, told the Tennessean, ‘Because of the fear, we decided the only way to make sure residents didn’t have the virus was to test them. There is no substitute for testing everybody.’ Governor Lee and our state’s leaders understand the importance of testing – the governor announced on Wednesday that Tennesseans can now be tested for COVID-19, regardless of traditional symptoms. The expanded testing efforts launched over the weekend, and more than 11,000 COVID-19 tests were administered.”
Senator Alexander concluded, “Congress has now given federal agencies up to $63 billion to develop tests, treatments, and vaccines. This is the time for both the government and its industry partners to step up and pull out all the stops.”