Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has been aggressively working toward testing all essential workers for coronavirus, including people who work in grocery stores as well as in healthcare, and that will be a vital move toward reopening the state, Sen. Debbie Stabenow said Friday.
"There are drive-through testing sites across the state," the Michigan Democrat said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "We've been partnering now with our major pharmacy chains, Walgreens, CVS, Rite-aid. It is great. In Detroit, the mayor has really leaned in... on testing police officers, so he didn't have 500 people sitting home under quarantine, not knowing if they had the virus."
Tests are also being conducted of all nursing home residents, said Stabenow, and about 26% of them have already been shown to have the virus, which is "very alarming."
Meanwhile, the stimulus package passed this week helps states as well as businesses, said Stabenow.
"Our Republican colleagues say, let states go bankrupt, where they're rushing to help private businesses, which we support, as well," said Stabenow. "A huge area of success and victory for us in the last package, as Democrats, was $25 billion for testing to help our states and local communities. Our committee did a report, laying out everything about ourselves versus other countries. You can find it on our website. We're not testing, by the way, more than other countries."
The lack of testing means further dangers for many people in public service, including police officers heading into Detroit every day.
"The Republicans, the administration, doesn't believe we should be supporting police, firemen, people on the front lines, [people] working in public health departments, people in health centers and mental health centers, that we shouldn't be supporting the states who have taken money out of other parts of their budget to rush into this," she said.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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