Latest from Lamar, Notes from the Senate Desk

*Important news from
this week: *

-

This week, I chaired [link 1] a hearing in the
Senate health committee with key administration officials and COVID-19
task force members to explore what federal, state and local
governments need to do to get Americans back work and back to school. You can
read more about that hearing below.

-
The U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services announced Tennessee will receive more than $155
million to support COVID-19 testing and contact tracing across the
state. Tennessee has done more testing than most states, but even more
testing is key to ensuring folks are safe as they go back to work and
back to school. When in doubt, get a test!

-
Residents of Davidson,
Putnam and Wilson counties who missed the May 4th deadline to
register for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) disaster assistance
can still apply [link 2]. Residents have 60 days after the deadline to
apply and must provide justification for late registration.


COVID-19 testing in the United States is impressive - enough to begin going
back to work*

This week, I chaired [link 3] a hearing in the Senate
health committee on what federal, state and local governments are
doing to help Americans go back to work and back to school as rapidly and
safely as possible. All roads back to work and school lead through
testing. According to Johns Hopkins University, the United States has
tested over 10 million Americans for COVID-19. That is twice as many as
any other country and more per capita than most countries, including
South Korea, which several committee members have cited as an example
of a country doing testing well.

Here is what impressive means in
Tennessee: First, anyone who is sick, a first responder, or a health
care worker can get tested. Governor Bill Lee is also testing every
prisoner, as well as every resident and staff member of nursing homes. He
has also offered weekend drive-thru testing and has done specific
outreach to increase testing in low-income neighborhoods. A Tennessean can
get a free test and a free mask at the local public health clinic.
Tennessee has so far tested four percent of its population, and the
governor hopes to increase that to seven percent by the end of
May.

That amount of testing is sufficient to begin Phase I of going back to
work in Tennessee, but as I said last week, it is not nearly enough to
provide confidence to 31,000 students and faculty that it is safe to
return to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville campus in
August.

That is where the new "Shark Tank [link 4]" at the National Institutes
of Health I worked to provide funding for comes in to play. Staying at
home indefinitely is not the way to end this pandemic. There is not
enough money available to help all those hurt by a closed economy. For
the near term, to help make sure those 31,000 UT students and faculty
show up in August, we need widespread testing - millions more tests
created mostly by new technologies - to identify those who are sick and
who have been exposed so they can be quarantined and, by containing the
disease in this way, give the rest of America enough confidence to go
back to work and back to school.

Swimming around in that shark
tank are dozens of early stage proposals for new ways to create
diagnostic tests. Some of these will fail. But we only need a few successes to
create millions of more tests.

*Tennessee students need to return
in the Fall *

This week, I joined National Public Radio (NPR) to
discuss efforts to ramp up COVID-19 testing to allow students to go back
to school this fall. You can listen to this interview here [link 5].
If I were president of the University of Tennessee, I would say we're
going back to school this fall. The only questions is, how do we do it
safely? That may take a number of changes. There are 100,000 public
schools with 50 million children, and 6,000 colleges with 20 million
students. We have to think about the impact on those children of not
going to school for a year. I think part of our leadership responsibility
is to not just throw up our hands and say, "No, we can't do it."
Instead, we are going to need a strategy for going back to school and to
college that is safe.

#TennesseeStrong - Tennesseans fighting back
against COVID-19 *

Here are some inspiring stories from this week
of Tennesseans who are showing their "Volunteer Spirit" and supporting
their communities:

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A Nashville entrepreneur volunteered [link
6] to fly to Macon, Georgia to pick up COVID-19 testing samples and
bring them back to Tennessee - speeding up results for those who were
tested by several days.

-
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, working
with other national labs, is continuing to use their resources and
brainpower to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more about all of the
great work they are doing here [link 7].

*Here are a few interviews
where I discussed the United States' efforts to ramp up COVID-19
testing so we can go back to work and back to school state by
state.*

[image =
[link removed]] [link 8]

Fox News - America's Newsroom [link 9]




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WKRN-ABC Nashville Channel 2 [link 11]




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WREG - CBS Memphis Channel 3 [link 13]




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NBC News - Meet the Press [link 15]




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PBS - PBS NewsHour [link 17]

Interest
rates on new federal student loans will drop to historic lows on July
1st*

On July 1st, interest rates on new federal student loans will
drop [link 18] to historic lows. This rate drop is a result of Congress
working together in 2013 with President Obama to tie student loan rates
to actual federal government borrowing costs. And I plan to continue
working together with my colleagues in a similar bipartisan fashion
this year to continue passing legislation to help make college more
worth student's time and money. The interest rate on undergraduate loans
will be 2.75% for the 2020-2021 school year, down from 4.53% in the
2019-2020 school year. The interest rate on loans for graduate students
will be 4.3% (down from 6.08%) and for PLUS loans for parents and
graduates will be 5.3% (down from 7.08%).

*How can the CARES Act can
help you?*

I encourage Tennesseans to visit my website [link 19] to
learn more about how you can take advantage of the federal assistance
Congress passed
[link 20]and President Trump signed into law that will
keep paychecks coming, relieve financial burdens and help contain
COVID-19.

*Below are a few news articles from this week I thought you
might want to read:*

NBC News: GOP Sen. Alexander says increased
testing is the 'only solution' for economic recovery [link 21]

New
York Times: A Spaniel, a Mute Button and Profound Matters of State [link
22]

WATE-ABC Knoxville Channel 6: Senate lawmakers hear testimony
from top health experts on nation's pandemic response [link 23]




Remember birthdays.

*#245 in Lamar Alexander's Little Plaid
Book*




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re:%20clips%20draft%20updated%20%20Whalen,%20Mitchell%20(Alexander)%20%20%20Reply%20all|%20Mon%205/11,%2012:25%20PM%20Davies,%20Ashton%20(Alexander);%20Haulsee,%20Taylor%20(Alexander);%20Heartsill,%20William%20(Alexander);%20+1%20more%20You%20replied%20on%205/11/2020%2012:42%20PM.%20Monday,%20May%2011,%202020%20%20%20H%20E%20A%20D%20L%20I%20N%20E%20S%20%20%20NATIONAL/STATE%20MENTIONS%20%20%20NBC%20News%20GOP%20Sen.%20Alexander%20says%20increased%20testing%20is%20the%20'only%20solution'%20for%20economic%20recovery%20https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/gop-sen-Alexander-says-increased-testing-only-solution-economic-recovery-n1203986
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Location:
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