Coronavirus Report: The Hill’s Steve Clemons interviews Rep. Trey Hollingsworth

The Hill’s Steve Clemons interviews Rep. Trey Hollingsworth (R-Ind.), formerly a small-business owner.

Read the interview below:

Clemons: Where is the right equilibrium between what you see as a public health standard we should meet and getting the economy going. How are you approaching this?

{mosads}Rep. Trey Hollingsworth: Steve, you’ve hit the nail on the head. We have got to find the right equilibrium, the right position where we mitigate and minimized the risk, especially to our ultra-susceptible population patients, while still enabling and empowering Americans to get back to as much of their normal way of life as possible. What I hear from Hoosier businesses, what I hear from Hoosiers all the way across the district and Americans, frankly, all the way across the country is that they don’t want more handouts. They want the opportunity to begin rebuilding their future. They want the opportunity to get their freedoms back, the opportunity to go back to churches and synagogues, the opportunity to create a better future for themselves and a better future for America. And as you well said, we have to find a way forward, even in these challenging circumstances, by using the best of what we know from our biological sciences, but also from our social sciences like economics as well to minimize and mitigate risk while still enabling and empowering the economy. And as much of it is, we can at least to move forward.

Clemons: This is a kind of nefarious disease and nefarious virus that people don’t see and don’t feel until it hits them. And so how do we get reopening right?

Hollingsworth: Steve, you are exactly right we need to listen to the scientists. But what we need to develop from the scientists is a rubric of those populations that are most susceptible and those populations that are least susceptible. Those industries that have the most contact, and those industries that have the least contact, those geographies that are the most likely to have a high incidence rate of infection. And those geographies that are having a low incidence rate of infection. I absolutely believe that the shelter-in-place order put in place a month ago made sense, tooflatten the curve, made sense to delay the onset of significant health care capacity consumption by COVID-19 patients. But shelter in place is not a long-term strategy. The long-term strategy should derive from real and material scientific advancement both and biologically pushing back against this disease. Anti-virals — we’ve seen some great news on that in the past few weeks, obviously continue with the vaccine. But also ensuring that we talk about those people that are the least susceptible. How do we get them back? Those industries where there’s less contact, how do we get them back engaged? Those geographies where there’s less incidence rate. How do we get them back to more of their normal life? We don’t have to say to the American people, “All of you need to stay in your homes, living healthily but not necessarily happily, or there’ll be widespread casualties from coast to coast.” What we should tell them is this is “This is a challenging situation. We have the best biologists in the world. We have the best economists in the world, and we’re going to get the most amount of people back to the most amount of their normal life and the normal economy as possible, while keeping the susceptible populations as safe as possible while minimizing transmissions even while we do that. “

Clemons: Take your congressman hat off for a minute and imagine yourself back in your old job. As I understand it, you had an aluminum manufacturing a small business, something along those lines. How would you go about doing it if you were back in that role of running that company?

Hollingsworth: Well, it’s a great question, right? The first thing that we need from government is certainty. What are the rules of the road? What are the best practices? We need the CDC, we need others to come out and say, “Here’s the best practices for how to approach getting back to work.” That certainty is really, really important. And I think we’ve seen some firms that are taking what they know already and beginning to develop protocols on how they’re gonna keep their employees safe. It includes things like wearing a mask any time that you’re indoors and around people, having still virtual conferences, even if you’re in the same building, even if you’re in the same room, having virtual conferences versus getting close together. It includes temperature checks for everyone who walks through the door. It includes extra rigorous cleaning every single night. It includes staggering shifts, so we have fewer people in office buildings, fewer people in factories at any given point in time. All of these can contribute to lowering that transmission mechanism. It also includes, by the way, ensuring that those older populations which by and large have been more susceptible, that they continue to telework while we bring younger populations and their counterparts in to continue work inside the office or inside the factory at the same time. These are all parts of a solution. We need the private sector to continue to innovate and develop biological cures, biological treatments, but also the best practices to biologically minimize the transmission between people.

Clemons: The issue about testing has become kind of a blur for me. Where does as as a person in your community and talking every day to small businesses and your constituents, but also as a member of Congress, can you help me understand where we’re at with getting a regular and predictable testing foundation that everyone says we need to proceed? 

Hollingsworth: You know, Steve, I’m so glad, you are really, really thoughtful about this issue to say it is getting muddled. We’re talking about all different types of tests at the same time, all different manner by which of getting results. There are two separate tests that need to happen at the same time, and we have to build capacity for, right. The first test is testing to see if you have the actual disease, a diagnostic test to determine if you have the disease. What we have struggled with is how long it takes to get the results of that. We’ve seen some tremendous innovations that brought those results in a very, very short amount of time, so that if you go and get a test, you can know in the next hour, in the next two hours, in the next day, whether you have it, whether you need to quarantine yourself, whether you need to stay away from other people. … That’s one big testing category that we’ve done a good job of ramping up. We can do even better. I know the president said he wants to get to the point where we’re doing 5 million a day. We’ve reached the max of doing 314,000 a day roughly. That is more than any other country around the world. But we’re gonna continue to expand that. We’ve got a lot of locations and districts that are just stepping up and starting their more robust testing as well at local Wal-Marts, local community colleges, etc. That’s one big area testing. The second big area of testing is we need to find out where this is in our community. Right now you have to show symptoms. Walk through a physician’s door, prove to that physician that you’ve shown symptoms, then you get tested. But the big thing we need to transition to is let’s go find this it in our communities. We need to start testing out there for who has this but is asymptomatic? Who has had it in the last couple of months and is not likely to get reinfected? Once we know the underlying incidence rate not just of the sick population but in the general population, we can begin to understand the trajectory of any potential outbreak going forward. That is critical going forward to ensure that we allow the right geographies, the right populations to get back to work without risking a larger scale epidemic.

Clemons: Heroism is not being hung on D.C. right now. It’s emerging in other places. And I’m wondering, given what you just said, who do you see as the heroes in this time?

Hollingsworth: The reality is I go around the district and talk to people all the time. Now it’s been virtually, it’s been over the phone over the last month or so, but I have never once in any of my town halls in any of my meetings, in any of my round tables, I have never once heard somebody respond when I asked the question, “Where is the greatness of America? What creates America’s greatness?” I’ve never once heard anybody, whether they’re in elementary school or whether they are a senior citizens group in a nursing home, I’ve never heard them say it’s 535 politicians in D.C. Nobody thinks that Washington is the reason this country is great. What I hear from people is that it is hard working Americans getting up every single day, doing their jobs, creating their better futures, leading their churches, leading their communities, helping out in health care, giving of their time to help our senior citizens, that is what makes this country great, it is what has always made this country great. In this crisis that has come to the forefront is our health care heroes have stepped up and said, “I will stand between America and the widespread epidemic.” As our firefighters, our police officers do what they can to get food to our senior citizen so that they don’t have to get out and risk it themselves. I’ve seen unbelievable acts of small businesses that have stopped making alcohol and started making hand sanitizer and giving that away. We have seen tremendous examples of Americans stepping up, and it is what has made this country great for 240 years and what will make this country great for the next 240 years. It’s Americans, generation after generation, continuing to step up in spite, not because of, but in spite of what they see in Washington, D.C.