Congresswoman Cori Bush Holds COVID-19 Virtual Town Hall
ST. LOUIS, MO – Today, Congresswoman Cori Bush (MO-01) held a virtual Town Hall on the COVID-19 vaccine and its distribution. The Congresswoman hosted four St. Louis area experts: Dr. Alex Garza, Chief Community Health Officer at SSM Health and Incident commander of the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force, Dr. Kendra Holmes, Vice President/Chief Operating Officer for Affinia Healthcare, Spring Schmidt, Acting Co-Director for the Saint Louis County Department of Public Health, and Dr. Fredrick Echols, Director of the City of St. Louis Department of Health. More than 1,000 St. Louis community members participated in the Town Hall event. Below are the Congresswoman’s opening remarks as prepared:
Good evening, everyone. I’m so grateful to be spending this evening with all of you. Thank you for joining us tonight for the first of many town halls, community events, and conversations to come on the first day of Black History Month. You could have been doing anything this evening, but you chose to be here—in community with hundreds of our fellow neighbors—to ask questions and hear more about the COVID-19 vaccine and the urgent need for its equitable distribution. Thank you.
I have had the honor of being your Congresswoman for four weeks, and what a four weeks it has been. Since being sworn in on January 3rd, we’ve faced an insurrection, an impeachment, and witnessed a historic Presidential Inauguration. Since so much has happened, I want to do a brief recap of the past month to update you on the work my team and I have been doing on your behalf within the halls of the People’s House.
I’ve introduced two pieces of legislation, the first of which was introduced during my first week in office: House Resolution 25. It calls for the investigation and expulsion of members, led by Josh Hawley and others, whose racist attempts to overturn the election resulted in an attack on the U.S. Capitol. We impeached Donald Trump for his role in this insurrection, now we must hold our colleagues in Congress accountable too.
Less than one week ago, I also teamed up with Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts (author of the Green New Deal) to introduce the Environmental Justice Mapping and Data Collection Act of 2021. Our bill would federally fund and create an interagency committee to develop detailed maps of key indicators of environmental racism, such as air quality, and fossil fuel infrastructure, and police violence (yes, police violence) that affect St. Louis and communities just like ours on a daily basis. This data will be used to help direct nearly $800 billion in clean energy transition funding to the communities most affected by these environmental hazards, including many in St. Louis.
I am very proud of these two pieces of legislation, and even prouder that I got to work with partners on the ground here in St. Louis to help develop them. We will continue to center St. Louis in everything we do.
Earlier I mentioned impeachment. The decision to impeach the President was one that I did not take lightly. But Donald Trump has been a threat to our community since the day he rode down that escalator. His impeachment was necessary—you cannot incite an insurrection and get away with it. He has been a historically dangerous President, and now history will remember that he is the only President to be impeached twice. During my impeachment debate remarks on the House Floor, I made clear what those of us in St. Louis already knew: Donald Trump was the white supremacist-in-chief. He incited an insurrection, and next week the Senate must convict him so that he may never hold public office again.
I also partnered with County Prosecutor Wesley Bell to call on President Biden to end the death penalty by reducing the sentences of all on federal death row. Donald Trump executed 13 people over the course of six months -- more than any other administration in over a century. In order to build a more just, dignified democracy, we cannot allow a flawed and racist practice like the death penalty to continue. St. Louis is now leading that national charge in the fight for justice, and this is just one step of so many more that I will be taking as a member of the House Judiciary Committee to bring true justice into our criminal-legal system.
But today, we’re here to talk about the COVID-19 vaccine and COVID-19 relief. We are nearing almost one full year since this virus upended our lives, our economy, our health, and our ability to socialize and be with those we love. More than 26 million people across the country have been infected, and over 400,000 people have lost their lives. 400,000. In Missouri, there has been nearly 500,000 cases and over 7,000 deaths.
It’s no secret that this pandemic has disproportionately devastated Black and brown communities. Black folks are three times more likely to die from COVID-19 than white people, we are more likely to be evicted from our homes, face unemployment, and despite all of what we know and have found out since this pandemic started?e are less likely to have access to a vaccine.
I am encouraged by the early steps the Biden-Harris administration has taken to combat this pandemic: enacting a mask mandate in all federal buildings and interstate travel, ramping up production of vaccines, committing to getting our schools reopened, and taking steps to get not just 100 million shots in the arms of people within this first 100 days but enough to ensure that 300 million people can be fully vaccinated by the end of the summer. That would be 90 percent of the U.S. population. That means that we will finally begin making progress to overcome this pandemic as a country, and I am so glad we finally have an administration that believes in science that we can work with.
But I’m also concerned that our efforts to climb out of this crisis will not be done equitably. That is why I am leading a letter to the Biden administration this week urging them to prioritize communities of color in their distribution plans. It is reported that Missouri ranks dead last in its rollout of the vaccine. Now, I am confident the federal government will do its job. But as resources come in, we need to ensure that the state is directing those resources to St. Louis. I have spoken to the Governor and will continue to do so to ensure that our community has access to not just the vaccine, but to relief.
This week in Congress, we are considering a budget resolution to pass President Biden’s plan that includes $25 billion in rental assistance, $5 billion to provide housing for the unhoused, $400 per week in unemployment insurance, another round of stimulus checks, and a total of $1 trillion in direct relief for families. But I know that will not be enough. I am fighting to ensure that those survival checks are increased to $2,000 and given monthly through the end of this pandemic—and that those unemployment checks are increased to at least $600 per week. I am fighting to ensure that we can get hazard pay for our frontline workers. I am fighting to ensure that we can cancel student debt, and provide health care to those who are uninsured. I will keep fighting to do the most for everyone in St. Louis, starting with those of us who have the least.
We’re lucky to be joined by public health experts tonight — Dr. Alex Garza, Dr. Kendra Holmes, Dr. Fredrick Echols, and Spring Schmidt — who we’ll fully introduce shortly. Before we get to our conversation with our panelists, I want to share a brief video from a conversation about the vaccine that I had with Dr. Camara (COMMA-ra) Phyllis Jones, a physician, epidemiologist, anti-racism advocate, and former President of the American Public Health Association.
Like many of us, even I’ve had reservations about getting this vaccine. I hear my neighbors and my friends loud and clear that we don’t want to be guinea pigs. I understand. Racism is present in every part of our society, including health care. As a nurse, and as someone who survived COVID-19, I know that.
We know the history. And we know that today there are stark disparities in health between Black and white people -- not because Black people are predisposed to illness, but because of the structural racism and inequality that affects the housing we live in, the air we breathe, and the water we drink. Right now, we are dealing with a virus that touches every single one of our lives, all while disproportionately harming Black and brown people. We are being infected more and dying more because of COVID-19, but that doesn’t mean our concerns about this vaccine aren’t valid or that we don’t deserve to have our questions answered.
I’m someone who has long been uninsured, and I currently don’t have a primary care physician to ask my questions about the vaccine. Dr. Jones and I sat down to have an honest conversation about the vaccine and its safety. It answered a lot of my questions, and I hope it helps answer some of yours too.
I hope you all enjoyed watching our conversation. It answered a lot of my questions about the vaccine, and I do plan to get the vaccine in the coming weeks. It is my hope that this video has also answered some of your questions, too.
Thank you.
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Congresswoman Cori Bush represents Missouri’s First Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives. She serves on the House Judiciary Committee and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. She is also a Deputy Whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a proud member of the Congressional Black Caucus. She is a registered nurse, single mother, and an ordained pastor. Following the murder of Michael Brown Jr. by a now-terminated Ferguson police officer, she became a civil rights activist and community organizer fighting for justice for Black lives on the streets of Missouri and across the country.