Agencies working together is vital in getting our country back to normal. With a vaccine for COVID-19 a year off, being able to test people is the most important says Congresswoman Cheri Bustos:

“You’ve got to base this on being able to test people. Because of the lack of testing and lack of what is called serology testing, which is if you have had it, are you immune and can you then go back to your normal way of living. We don’t have that available in big enough quantities for our nation to get back to normal. Testing, testing, and testing. That has to come first. After that, so much of the rest of what we need to do will fall into line. The vaccine is probably at least a year off. That is what will allow us to be completely back to normal. If we can have a vaccine and make sure that we are not going to get sick when we go back to our normal way of living,” Bustos reports.

Congresswoman Bustos was recently at the Rock Island Arsenal with Senators Durbin and Duckworth and met with the Secretary of the Army discussing what more can be done with aid from the military. Currently the Rock Island Arsenal is manufacturing ventilator components and also has the capability to make testing swabs.

In these unprecedented times, three historic pieces of legislation have been passed, one of which was the largest aid package in our nation of 2.2 trillion dollars. The last package was the CARES act and while it was a large amount of assistance, Congresswoman Cheri Bustos states more needs to be done:

“The one we will go back out to Washington and vote on and I think pass, is bi-partisan. So it is Democrats, Republicans, House, and Senate coming together along with negotiating with the White House, so I am confident we will pass that. This is a supplemental bill to the tune of somewhere around 450 billion dollars. Two major components of that will be number one; for small businesses. We know that we have to do more, specifically for the paycheck protection program. Then the second component, which we as House Democrats fought very, very hard for, but we’ve got to get more money for our hospitals and the workers,” says Bustos.

Congresswoman Bustos reports a CARES 2.0 aid package is being negotiated and doing more for local government.