Ed Markey calls for additional coronavirus measures as Biden signs executive orders
With a new Democrat-led administration, the Massachusetts senator is pushing bills to encourage mask mandates and create a permanent pandemic chief.
President Joe Biden is using his first hours in office to sign a wide range of executive orders.
Sen. Ed Markey says they’re a good start, but also just a start.
In a statement Wednesday afternoon, the Massachusetts senator applauded the newly sworn-in president’s Day 1 executive actions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including a national face covering requirement for federal property.
“Starting today, science will finally dictate our country’s response to this health crisis,” Markey said.
However, as those signings got underway, the Malden Democrat announced plans to reintroduce bills encouraging states to impose more sweeping face covering requirements and requiring the president to appoint a permanent pandemic czar.
“President Biden has made fighting the coronavirus pandemic a day one priority for his administration,” he said. “With a single qualified individual to help lead our global health efforts and incentives for states to implement mask mandates, we can make significant, lifesaving progress in our fight against COVID-19.”
Biden’s slate of executive actions Wednesday included steps in that direction. One of the orders would require the use of masks in all federal buildings, on federal lands, and by federal employees and contractors. Biden also issued a “100 Days Masking Challenge” asking Americans to comply over the next several months and has appointed a czar to deal specifically with COVID-19.
Markey’s proposals would go further.
On masks, the senator’s bill — first introduced in November — would provide a total of $5 billion in federal grants to incentivize states to implement their own mask mandates, requiring individuals over the age of 2 to wear face coverings in all public indoor spaces and outdoors when they cannot stay at least six feet away from others, in addition to federal property
As of this week, 37 of the country’s 50 states have already implemented statewide face covering mandates (Markey’s home state, Massachusetts, has even eliminated the outdoor social distancing exception from its mask mandate).
Markey’s pandemic czar bill would also require Biden to make the Pandemic Prevention and Response Coordinator a permanent position, not just for COVID-19.
In fact, President Barack Obama’s administration had created a global health security and biothreats director position in 2016, after the emergence of the Ebola virus. However, President Donald Trump’s administration dissolved the position in 2018. Markey has argued that the United States’ response to the coronavirus would have been “swifter and better informed” if the position wasn’t eliminated.
“This coronavirus is not the first, and will not be the last biothreat we face,” he said last March.
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