Roger Marshall: “it was 2 years ago this month that I stood on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives and was the first person to…”

“it was 2 years ago this month that I stood on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives and was the first person to speak about a novel coronavirus, soon to be called COVID-19. Two years ago, I had been reading about this virus for several weeks, and something in my gut as a physician told me this was not going to be a common cold. I chatted with the CDC, and I implored them to start doing research on the origins of the virus, asking ``Was it from nature or from a laboratory?'' and that we needed to work on vaccines, therapeutics, and testing. As we all know, the development of an American vaccine, thanks to Operation Warp Speed, was successful. As for the testing, we know the CDC fumbled it, but the private sector saved us. And therapeutics? Not so much. Therapeutics have never been a priority for this administration. As we return to our Nation's Capital, I would venture to say that very few Americans didn't have somebody in their families catch Omicron, and my family was no different. We shared the same experience as millions of other Americans did. Despite being vaccinated, one of my loved ones with underlying healthcare conditions caught the Omicron virus. As I saw my loved one start having asthma, wheezing, and become short of breath, I did what every spouse would do and said: Well, we need to go get tested. We need to talk to a doctor. So we drove to several testing sites, and we had the option of standing in line for 3 or 4 hours with sick people.…”