Roy Blunt: “the second topic I wanted to talk about is that we spend lots of time discussing what to do in this next phase of…”

“the second topic I wanted to talk about is that we spend lots of time discussing what to do in this next phase of dealing with the coronavirus legislation. I want to talk about something we did earlier and the results it has produced. In April, Senator Alexander and I proposed that the National Institutes of Health create a ``Shark Tank'' program for scientists to develop new technologies for COVID-19 testing. NIH set up that program very quickly. We gave them the authority and money to do it, but they did in a week what they normally would have done in 6 months. They have been working overtime ever since with the private sector and with BARDA, or the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, to meet the tremendous need for quicker and earlier tests. The Presiding Officer and I talked about this just the other day. The President is right in his view that some of these tests only tell us information that gives us more data. We need tests that are quicker and have an immediate response. When you go get a test and you don't have a response for 5 days, that really doesn't do anybody a whole lot of good. You have been moving around for 5 days, maybe without symptoms, and you don't know that you are continuing to spread the virus. If you had known in 5 minutes or 15 minutes what it took you 5 days to find out, how many less people would have gotten the disease if you had known what you needed to know when you needed to know it?…”