Congressman Mike Rogers (AL-03) spoke to Yellowhammer Radio Network’s Scott Chambers Monday about the federal government’s decision not to quarantine coronavirus patients at FEMA’s Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP) in Anniston.
Rogers confirmed that the potential U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) plan to bring patients to the CDP has been canceled following the personal intervention of President Donald Trump. U.S. Senator Richard Shelby, Governor Kay Ivey, Rogers and local elected officials had communicated their concerns with bringing the patients to Anniston, and Rogers explained those concerns to Yellowhammer Radio.
“We owe a lot of credit to President Trump for intervening on our behalf,” said the congressman, who represents parts of East Alabama, including Anniston.
Rogers remarked that the plan, and how it was announced, was “obviously disturbing to the community.”
He advised that he was particularly concerned because “the Center for Domestic Preparedness, which I’m very familiar with, is not equipped for handling people with infectious diseases.”
“It’s a training facility for first responders around the country who basically stay in barracks and hotel rooms while they’re training out there,” Rogers stated. “So it does not have the capacity to deal with infectious disease control, nor does our local hospital or local emergency personnel.”
He outlined that he first called the president on Saturday to inform him of the situation and explain why the CDP was not a suitable site.
“He had no idea,” Rogers said of the president’s knowledge of the HHS plan at that time. “He was angry that they’d even brought them back to the continental United States from Japan when nobody had asked him — he did not give his consent for it.”
“But nonetheless, he did not want them being brought to Alabama, to that facility,” he continued.
Rogers said Trump called him twice more on Sunday, including after the HHS secretary called Rogers to say the plan had been cancelled. The HHS secretary reportedly told Rogers that the president “had pulled the plug” on the plan.
“I really appreciate them acting so quickly, particularly President Trump, because we were really not equipped in this community to deal at the Center for Domestic Preparedness with this virus. We know it is a very dangerous virus, it’s spreading in ways that we’re not familiar with, particularly what it’s doing in China,” Rogers noted. “It did not need to be in our communities where we don’t have the facilities for it.”
The congressman pledged to stay vigilant and ensure the plan remains cancelled. He said he would be on it “like white on rice.”
“I know there’s been a lot of anxiety in and around this community … and folks should know that it’s not going to happen,” Rogers emphasized.
He did also specifically take issue with the HHS only notifying the governor’s office about the plan and then issuing a press release before contacting local officials. Rogers said he was informed not by the HHS but by the governor’s office on Saturday morning.
“HHS really handled this very poorly,” Rogers stressed. “Before they ever sent any press release, they should have at a minimum contacted the local elected leadership — and the hospital and the first responders to make sure they were prepared, and that we had the facilities to deal with it. Nobody did that. They issued a press release saying they were bringing them in before they talked to anybody. And the president, when he talked to me [Sunday] afternoon, he told me that there may be some people who lose their jobs over the way this was handled. But the good news is that it has been handled. And they’re not going to come here. But it was a second-rate operation by whoever at HHS tried to pull this off.”
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Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
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