Thread by @DrChristineMann

I appreciate my opponent in #TX31 taking a moment to address concerns about #Coronavirus; however, his article misses the mark in discussing why there is real concern within the medical community.

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statesman.com/opinion/202003…

First of all, no one has asserted that the President has defunded the CDC.

But what @JudgeCarter fails to mention is that the President *did* dismantle the US Pandemic Response team to save money. That is the applicable issue here.

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Pandemic response teams are *necessary* on an on-going basis to address issues like Ebola, pandemic flu seasons, and in our current case, #Coronavirus.

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These teams spend time between pandemics creating statistical models, best-case/worst-case scenarios, and algorithms necessary to immediately address pandemics when they occur. This between-pandemic work is *critical* to readiness when a pandemic appears.

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They keep track of outbreaks around the world of infectious diseases that you may not even know exist, monitoring local/state/federal response capability and medical system capacity so that resources can be mobilized and shifted immediately.

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And the administration dismantled this team. To save money. That’s the *epitome* of political. Because when you have a political party like the @GOP, that is willing to risk people’s lives to save a few dollars, that is political. And shameful.

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That is part of why there is a lack of coordinated information flow: one of the agencies that is specifically designed to address something like #Coronavirus no longer exists.

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So, @JudgeCarter, if you really want to help constituents, lead the charge to make sure that this agency is immediately re-instated and is never at risk of dismantling again. Your words mean nothing if you are not willing to take action.

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