Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) said Sunday that someone could potentially test themselves for COVID-19 using something as seemingly mundane as a lollipop.
Alexander said this on NBC’s Meet the Press.
“You might be able to put a lollipop in your mouth with a swab and take a picture of it with your cell phone. If it lights up then you’re positive,” Alexander told host Chuck Todd, while referring to one potential breakthrough.
“Or you can send that swab to a laboratory that’s not too far away. They use what they call gene sequencing machines that are already there. They can do tens of thousands of tests very quickly. Lower the risk of COVID-19 on [a college] campus, and you’ll be safe enough to come back and bring your tuition money and your dorm rent.”
On Tuesday Alexander is scheduled to chair a Senate Health Committee hearing on the federal government’s response to COVID-19. Officials from various government agencies are scheduled to update senators about what state and local governments are doing to help Americans get back to work and school as rapidly and safely as possible, according to an emailed press release.
“What we have done is very impressive, according to Johns Hopkins. The United States has tested more than 8 million people. That’s twice as many as any country, more per capita than almost all countries, including South Korea,” Alexander told Todd.
“It’s enough to do what we need to do today to reopen, for example, but it’s not enough when 35,000 kids and faculty show up at the University of Tennessee campus in August.”
Alexander chaired a hearing last week —“Shark Tank: New Tests for COVID-19”—that featured testimony from Dr. Francis Collins of the National Institutes of Health and Dr. Gary Disbrow of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. They discussed efforts to create new technologies designed to produce tens of millions of COVID-19 tests, according to Alexander’s emailed press release.
Alexander worked with Senate Health Appropriations Committee Chairman Roy Blunt (R-MO) to include what he called a “shark-tank”— like effort in the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act. That, Alexander’s press release said, also provided an additional $25 billion for COVID-19 testing.
Watch the full segment:
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
“It’s enough to do what we need to do today to reopen, for example, but it’s not enough when 35,000 kids and faculty show up at the University of Tennessee campus in August.”
Huh? So the same kids can go to Walmart or Pilot or HALF of a restaurant, but not UT?
Go ahead, use the nuclear option Lamar….no UT Football!
I watched opening of the hearing. Watched typical Dem Senator open up by starting a Trump bashing again. Lamar just let the committee member get away with it instead of gaveling it down. Disgusting! Turned it off.
Horatio,
If you take the time to drive up Cumberland Ave in Knoxville, not having been there a while, you will be shocked at the canyon created by newly constructed high rise buildings, dormitories, office buildings, etc, stretching for miles. If students, parents, and teachers do not show up to pay tuition and fees and taxes, which go to pay off the bonds and liens on that jaw-dropping construction, to say nothing of unfunded entitlements, there is going to be a major problem, financially speaking. Maybe TN should increase state excise tax on gasoline again to pay for it all. Pennsylvanians pay 50 cents per gallon, TN should be able to go 40 cents.
“Gene sequencing machines…they’re already there.”
So guess what else the Government gets with every Covid-19 test that “they” perform for “free”. A complete copy of your genetic make-up, your DNA!
So in the future, if you have the genetic predisposition for having one ear lower than the other, you might not be allowed to run for Senate. Or, maybe that’s the requirement! Get the picture?
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Deep staters think they can kiss and make up over standing by doing nothing to push back against the onslaught against Flynn, McFarlan, Stone, Trump, Kavanaugh, etc. by a runaway FBI and DoJ, and Main Stream Media for the past 3 years. By their actions, or lack thereof, they aided and abetted this disaster.
Disgusting! Lamar, please just go away. Sessions, please just go away, McConnell, please just go away. Showing up now in the conservative press to take their “accolades”, is an insult to the integrity of U.S. House and Senate and those who did stand up against one of the most sordid chapters in the history of our nation, as DC Scum tried to circumvent justice and depose a duly elected POTUS.
CCW –
HEAR! HEAR1
CCW
Well said. This RINO just needs to crawl back in his hole until January.