This week U.S. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-23) announced that U.S. Rep. Mark Green, (R-TN-07) a member of the House Oversight Committee, has been named as one of five Republicans to serve on the Coronavirus Select Committee.
Green is the only doctor appointed to serve on this Committee, according to a press release Green put out this week.
“I’m honored to have been selected to represent my colleagues and the American people on this Committee. However, Congress should be passing bills to help the American people, not creating more bureaucratic committees,” Green said.
“With more than 33 million Americans now unemployed, eight existing oversight mechanisms, and trillions in new debt, the last thing the American taxpayer wants—or needs—is another committee to investigate the President.”
As The Tennessee Star reported last month, said researchers continue to advance toward a vaccine for COVID-19, but he also encouraged his constituents to keep up with their social distancing. Green said this during a Tele-Town Hall with constituents. He said recent medical literature suggests COVID-19 has a genetic component.
“There are some folks who have a different formation of the receptor on their lung lining that either allows for protection or a lack of protection for the virus inserting itself into the cells. More research is being done,” Green said.
Researchers are also trying to understand why Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who are roughly the same age and have similar health histories, ended up with COVID-19 but under different circumstances. Paul was asymptomatic, while Johnson ended up in ICU, Green said.
During the call, one of Green’s constituents, who identified herself as a flight attendant for an international airline, said COVID-19 killed certain of her friends. She asked Green whether authorities should require people to wear gloves and masks in public.
“I dress for battle when I go out. But I cannot tell you how many people I see when I go to a grocery store or a warehouse store [who are not dressed for battle]. I observe all the precautions,” the woman said.
“Yet others don’t follow any precautions once they get in the door. No six-foot rule. No gloves. No masks. It seems like something that is so simple that we can require people to do when they choose to go not to a park but into a store.”
Green encouraged his constituents to stay physically apart from one another and to continue to sanitize their hands.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
