ON OPENING UP AGAIN

Good: “I’m with the president on opening up our economy. I think that teachers are essential workers and education is essential for our kids. We can take reasonable precautions and reasonably protect them. It’s demonstrated that there’s very little risk for children, for kids, and so I agree with the president about getting our kids back to school and we will weather this storm together. As we have done in the past, we can responsibly run and grow our economy while ensuring the most vulnerable Americans are protected. I firmly believe the American people understand how to manage their health and take care of their families. It is critical that the production of medications is brought back to the United States in order to secure the health of our citizens and reduce or eliminate dependence on foreign hostile nations.”

Webb: “I think people have presented a really false dichotomy … They’ve said either we can open up and let things get back to normal or we can stay closed and hope that we get the virus under control. In reality we’re doing something in between … And so I think to start, we need a unified message. I hope Mr. Good and I both are telling everybody, wear masks, keep physical distance. You can go eat at a restaurant but eat outdoors, maintain physical distance from folks. … Our work has to look like getting testing rolling, making sure we have enough contact tracers so we can keep track. These are public health fundamentals and nations all over the world have gotten it right. So you can’t put the cart before the horse. … It’s about saying, hey, if we’re opening up, if we’re having people out in our community (which we’re already doing) we need to do it safely. … If our kids are in schools we need to have the design so that it works. You can’t turn a blind eye to the fact that this virus is here. Doing so is frankly dangerous.”