Political Quotes

“I am honored to follow my colleagues Senators Shaheen and Hassan from New Hampshire and Senator Whitehouse of my neighboring State of Rhode Island--great advocates and steadfast champions of our elderly, our nursing home and assisted living facilities, and, most important, my wonderful friend and colleague, Senator Casey of Pennsylvania, who has been such a tremendous champion as the ranking member on the Aging Committee, where I am also privileged to serve. I have been reading about the 1918, 1919 pandemic which killed Americans and people all around the world with such terror and such relentless cruelty, and it hit particularly hard young people in the prime of their life, in their twenties and early thirties, most especially members of the military who were bunked together and confined on bases or on troop ships on their way to the war. Almost as many American troops died of disease during World War I as they did of wounds they suffered in combat. Today's pandemic is different. It has hit particularly hard our elderly, and they too have been struck with vicious cruelty because, in many instances, they are confined to facilities or living spaces where they are together, and the disease is transmitted so efficiently. Today, we have less excuse than the public officials a century ago. They had no idea what this organism looked like, how it lived, what it did, or how it was transmitted. We know. We have pictures of it.…”