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“Coronavirus (Executive Session)” mentioning Bernard Sanders was published in the Senate section on pages S1535-S1536 on March 16.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Coronavirus
Mr. President, last year I came to the floor on multiple occasions to ask consent for a simple, sensible resolution. It called for the United States to cooperate in global efforts to address the COVID pandemic. At that time, that point was obvious, and it is even more obvious today.
Pandemics don't respect borders. None of us is safe from highly infectious diseases until all of us are safe. That is especially important to keep in mind as we begin to turn a corner here in America.
Last week, during his first address to the Nation, President Biden announced that all adults in America over the age of 18 will be eligible for vaccinations on May 1 of this year. If all goes to plan, we can look forward, as President Biden mentioned, to a Fourth of July with family and close friends at a close distance.
Considering what they inherited, the Biden administration deserves credit for dramatically scaling up vaccinations in America. The administration helped to strike a historic partnership between rival drugmakers, ramped up manufacture of the vaccine, and improved coordination with State officials everywhere.
We are seeing a world of difference that this makes. When you put competent, qualified leadership in charge in the White House and in State capitols, good things happen. Our weekly vaccine shipments in Illinois have nearly doubled. The Federal Government has erected a mass vaccination site at the United Center in Chicago. It has also supported partnerships with community health centers and retail pharmacies to expand access to vaccines. A cautious hopefulness is washing over America, but we can't lose momentum in our fight against COVID.
To put this pandemic really behind us and to bury it in history, we need to lend a hand to the many poor nations that have yet to receive a single dose of vaccine. The inequities are stark. Ten countries have accounted for 75 percent of the total vaccinations administered worldwide, while approximately 100 countries have yet to administer any vaccine doses. This dangerous shortfall has the potential to undermine the good work that is happening here in America. Closing this gap is not only the right and moral thing to do, it is the safest and smartest thing to do to stop the threat COVID, and its increasingly contagious variants, pose to us all.
Remember back a little over a year ago, an obscure city in China generated a virus--we think they did--that ended up circling the world many times over and changing life on this planet.
Last month, I received a briefing from Dr. Fauci on the new genetic mutations of COVID-19. He shared troubling news about variants that are emerging in the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Brazil. Some of them may have more resistance to our current vaccines than we care to see. He warned that if we fail to stamp out the virus globally, then we will continue to see risks within our own borders. Variants of the virus could counteract the tremendous progress we have made and the progress that we are poised to make in the near future.
As I said at the outset, viruses don't recognize borders. Crushing the virus in other countries is a strategic investment in our own national safety and security. President Biden understands this. He is serious about addressing the virus first in America and then around the world. He has set us on a pace to vaccinate all eligible Americans over the course of the next several months.
Let me urge those who are hesitant or skeptical as to whether it is the right thing to do, do it, please--for yourself, for those you love, and for this Nation.
President Biden wisely halted President Trump's withdrawal from the World Health Organization. He joined the global COVAX vaccine effort, and he allocated significant funding toward global vaccination efforts, funding that is expanded under the American Rescue Plan, which we passed just a few weeks ago in the Senate.
Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen recently announced that the United States will support the issuance of special drawing rights, a type of IMF foreign exchange reserve that can help poor countries buy vaccines and weather the economic fallout from the pandemic, a welcome move that I encouraged and was a coauthor of with Senator Sanders and Congressman ``Chuy'' Garcia.
Just last week, the President announced a partnership with key allies in the Pacific region to provide at least 1 billion COVID vaccines in countries in Asia. This is prescient, global leadership long overdue. The President's actions will save lives here at home and abroad, and these investments will fuel a global economic recovery, which we all want to see.
To understand why a global strategy is called for, look at history. Some of you who are witnessing this statement on the floor at home may be old enough to have a distinct circular scar on your upper arm. Maybe you have seen it on the arms of a parent or grandparent. That mark is a relic from one of the world's greatest public health victories: the eradication of the deadly smallpox virus.
The fact that so few people living today remember the death and misery caused by that disease is a testament to the global public health strategy that stopped it. Smallpox was one of the most devastating diseases to afflict mankind. It is estimated to have killed up to 300 million people in the 20th century, 500 million people in the last hundred years.
In 1967, the World Health Organization launched a historic international effort to eradicate it. It was one of the most successful public health initiatives in human history. Next month marks the 41st anniversary of that historic achievement.
In the years since, America has led similar global efforts to stamp out diseases like polio and Ebola. If we follow in these footsteps, historians will one day add COVID to the top of that list of historic achievements.
Pursuing a global strategy is the most effective way--maybe the only way--to accelerate vaccine production and distribution in every corner of the world. By sharing our wealth of knowledge and resources with the world, we reap lifesaving benefits, not just around the world but right here at home.
We all know public health is bigger than partisanship and always has been. In the 2000s, for example, I called on then-President Bush to help stem the scourge of AIDS around the world through the historic PEPFAR Program. At the time, many of my Republican friends in the Senate supported it. I hope and expect that they will do the same when it comes to supporting the global effort against COVID-19. The moment calls for nothing less.
Public health experts understand that. President Biden understands that. I know we here in Congress understand that. We can end the threat of COVID once and for all. It is within our power.
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