Cruz steps up during crisis
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz was supposed to wrap up his self-quarantine on Thursday, more than two weeks after interacting with a person who later tested positive for the new coronavirus.
But when I caught up with him by phone at his Houston home that afternoon, he wasn’t looking forward to hitting the town, or sounding particularly frolicsome.
His tone was somber, and the strain in his voice was notable, as he discussed the pandemic and the federal government’s response to it.
It’s been a long week for all of us, including the occasionally combative Republican. And it must have felt even longer for Cruz, who announced Friday morning that he was extending his selfquarantine by four days after learning about a second interaction — a Spanish government official in Washington — who later tested positive.
Cruz has shown more maturity than some of his peers in responding to concerns about the coronavirus. His fellow Republicans should take note, as should President Donald Trump, who along with Vice President Mike Pence seemingly resisted testing even after coming into contact with an infected Brazilian official in Florida
last weekend. (Trump’s doctor said Saturday evening that Trump has tested negative for the novel coronavirus, according to news reports.)
Two Republican senators who also came into contact with the same Brazilian official planned to self-quarantine, the New York Times reported Thursday.
Trump tried to calm fears during an Oval Office address Wednesday night, but the next day stocks suffered their worst plunge since 1987. Cruz tried to focus on the positive elements of the speech.
“I was glad of the tone,” Cruz said. “The tone was more measured than some of the previous communications. I think that was beneficial. I think the address conveyed a greater level of seriousness with which the administration is treating the crisis.”
Cruz’ initial self-quarantine followed his attendance last month of the Conservative Political Action Conference just outside Washington, where he was among several lawmakers potentially exposed. One of the attendees tested positive for COVID-19, the disease the virus causes, after the conference, prompting CPAC organizers to reach out to his hobnobbing partners. As a result, Cruz has had an experience that many Americans are now navigating, of trying to figure out how to minimize risks
to the most vulnerable people in his life while continuing to live life and do his job.
Cruz got the news about the first incident on the night of March 7, he says, as he and his wife Heidi were preparing to join friends and campaign supporters for an Eagles concert at Toyota Center. “I was really excited,” Cruz said. “I thought it was gonna be a lot of fun and had been looking forward to it.”
But Cruz had anything but a peaceful, easy feeling that night and in the ensuing days. He phoned and explained his situation to his own physician as well as medical experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, the Houston Health Department and the Harris County Public Health Department.
His interaction in late February with the person who tested positive was a brief one, lasting less than a minute. He saw the individual outside the CPAC greenroom, and shook hands with him; they may have posed for a selfie, he can’t remember. In addition, Cruz was feeling fine when CPAC organizers contacted him nine days after the encounter; that was auspicious, because the average incubation period for the virus is five to six days.
Experts were prepared to give Cruz the all-clear; he didn’t meet the CDC symptoms for selfquarantine. But after thinking it over, and consulting with Heidi, he decided to stay home in
Houston until a full 14 days had passed — “out of an abundance of caution, and because of how frequently I interact with my constituents as a part of my job and to give everyone peace of mind,” he said in a statement Sunday.
The news struck some political observers then as drolly amusing: Cruz sidelined by one of his germy fellow ideologues. But several days later, no one is snickering about any aspect of this situation, which was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on Wednesday.
Self-quarantining isn’t an easy experience, Cruz says. He was been able to stay at home with Heidi and their two daughters, but had to maintain 6 feet of distance from them at all times; that’s sufficient to protect them, he explained, if he were carrying the virus.
And the news that the NBA has decided to suspend the rest of its season was a bit of a blow, Cruz added.
“Usually what I do at night is watch a DVR’d Rockets game,” he explained.
But Cruz wasn’t complaining. In his original statement March 8, he emphasized the need to take this outbreak seriously — even as some leaders, Trump among them, were still playing down the idea that the coronavirus might quickly spread through our communities. And his sense of urgency hasn’t abated.
“History has shown, global
pandemics can have really horrific outcomes,” Cruz observed, “and let us pray this does not.”
The senator was even-handed in his assessment of how the White House has handled the situation so far. Mistakes have been made, he acknowledged, especially when it comes to distributing test kits to affected areas; it also troubled him that Trump made several factual errors in his address Wednesday evening.
"That shouldn't happen,” Cruz said. But he commended Trump for having restricted air travel in late January between the United States and China, where the virus originated.
For his part, Cruz voted for the $8.3 billion coronavirus funding bill that sailed through Congress last week. And he plans to introduce legislation, along with Utah Sen. Mike Lee, that would fast-track federal approval of drugs and devices approved in developed countries — Canada, for example — in the United States.
For now, Cruz’s most important role in the coronavirus pandemic might be as a voice of calm and measured leadership as the White House struggles to confront the crisis.
“We have had serious public health crises before; we’ve survived them before,” Cruz said Thursday. “We’ll survive this one but we need to be sober and level-headed about taking all the steps necessary.”