U.S. Republican senatorial candidate Manny Sethi announced Monday he will host a tele-town hall this coming Thursday on Facebook to discuss the Coronavirus.
According to a press release, Sethi has scheduled his Coronavirus town hall for noon central Thursday on Facebook.
People may submit questions and get more information by going to Sethi’s campaign website.
Sethi also said in the press release that he will limit campaign appearances and events, due to the Coronavirus threat.
“As a trauma surgeon, I know the first thing you always do is stop the bleeding. As a result, our campaign is taking strong steps to prevent the spread and threat of COVID-19. Yesterday, the CDC recommended no gatherings of over 50 people for the next eight weeks. In order to keep Tennesseans safe, I am scaling down campaign appearances and events,” Sethi said.
“Additionally, my team will be engaging in social distancing by working remotely. We have an excellent team statewide who are working to win in August, and they will continue to do so from the safety of their own homes.”
As The Tennessee Star reported last week, Sethi said the Coronavirus is “a national security threat” and that “we must shut down our borders to keep Americans safe if the pace of transmission continues to increase.”
Building off of a plan Sethi released this month, his next steps include the following:
• Banning travel to the United States by all non-U.S. citizens who have been in a country affected by Coronavirus and mandating a self-quarantine period for U.S. citizens who have traveled to affected countries. Any country reporting exposed patients should be immediately added to the travel ban list and at-risk patients notified.
• Minimize exposure to non-infected individuals in clinics and emergency rooms across America with “at-home” or “curbside” immediate testing. Options include tests that can be delivered same day or overnight directly to a patient’s doorstep and curbside testing that can be done in the patient’s vehicle.
• Immediate need for national inventory on access to intensive care and triage. Hospitals must ensure the rapid ability to care for sicker patients and that these individuals are effectively quarantined from other non-infected patients. Centers for Disease Control should monitor and confirm that each state has adequate resources for containment and management.
• Basic hand-washing hygiene and self-quarantine if symptomatic are critical to containment. Continued preventative education within communities across America is vital.
• If a patient exhibits symptoms but tests negative for Coronavirus, the patient should still self-quarantine. With current test accuracy in question, false negatives are occurring, and every patient with symptoms consistent with Coronavirus should self-quarantine for the entire incubation period.
As The Tennessee Star reported, Sethi, citing national security, also said America should not depend on China for pharmaceutical products, and America should also secure its own supply chain of medicine.
Sethi is running to replace Tennessee’s retiring U.S. Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander.
As The Star reported last month, Sethi released a plan to address the Coronavirus. At the time, Sethi called the outbreak a “massive international crisis” that needs “something as bold and ambitious as a Manhattan Project-style effort to combat it.” Sethi also said Americans “must stop listening to the Wall Street elites, who are more worried about not spooking the markets and their pocketbooks than they are about protecting Americans.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
