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August 09, 2022

Rep. Trone Hears Concerns From Scientists At Ellume In Frederick

Credit: WFMD, Kevin McManus

Frederick, Md. (KM) – Concerns about whether the nation is ready for the next pandemic were brought up Tuesday to Representative David Trone. He and Maryland US Senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen toured the Ellume manufacturing plant in Frederick, and held a town hall.

Trone says the scientists are worried that some people believe that COVID-19 is no longer a threat because there are vaccines against this virus. But they told him COVID could mutate and possibly be more deadly than when it first appeared.

The federal government must work with private industry, pharmaceutical companies in particular, he said, to be prepared for the next pandemic; and Trone says it may not be COVID. “Other diseases could come down the pike, and they were worried about the US’ lack of willingness to stay prepared,:” he said.

Trone says the nation was not prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic and the government is largely at fault. “We got to get government thinking like business,:” he says. . “My business life we always tried to think long term and invest in the long term. And, unfortunately, government is all concerned about today.”

And, he says, we should not pay attention to those people who still believe the COVID-19 pandemic is a hoax. “We have a million people that are dead, in the ground, and someone can say that’s a hoax. That person or persons are living in a world of delusion,” says Trone.

He was referring to the fact that more than one-million people have died from COVID across the US since the pandemic began in 2020.

Trone noted that Dr. Francis Collins, the former Director of the National Institutes of Health, predicted such a pandemic back in 2015. “He said we’ll have a million dead. It will be flu-like. It will travel in the air. and it will be pandemic. He said we’re not ready for it. We can’t the government to give us the funds to get ready for it. And that’s what keeps him up at night.”