Political Quotes

“I rise today to speak about coronavirus, now clearly the worst pandemic in a century. I will also speak briefly about the need for a national response plan that is guided by science and public health, not politics. The first case of COVID-19 was reported in the United States on January 20. In the intervening 6 months, we have seen cases climb, then fall, and now surge once again. More than 4 million Americans have been infected with coronavirus. So far, more than 155,000 have died. Every day for the last 4 months, I have received an update from my staff on coronavirus numbers. I have watched, day by day, the number of positive cases climb. In California right now, 30 of our 58 counties have had more than 1,000 positive cases. The numbers just go up and up and up. It becomes impossible to look at the charts and graphs and not come to the conclusion that we have to do more--and maybe significantly more. Simply put, this is the worst pandemic in my lifetime. You have to go back more than 100 years to the Spanish flu epidemic to find something comparable. But the unprecedented scale of this crisis is no excuse for our failure to respond more forcefully and in a nationally coordinated manner. Once we realized the scale of the outbreak in the spring, both by the increased cases at home, as well as monitoring stricken countries like Italy, it became clear that we needed strong leadership from the top. We didn't get that.…”