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THE WINCHESTER STAR: In Wexton town hall, official says Virginia isn't 'there yet' on returning to normal

By Josh Janney

Rep. Jennifer Wexton, D-10th, held a fourth virtual town hall Saturday afternoon to give her constituents updates on efforts being made at the state and federal levels on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources Dr. Daniel Carey, Virginia Employment Commission Unemployment Insurance Director William Walton and Fairfax County Director of Health Dr. Gloria Addo-Ayensu participated in the town hall with Wexton.

Carey said the goal is to mitigate the spread of the virus.

“We are unclear whether we’ve hit our peak yet in Virginia,” Carey said. “Some models had us peaking yesterday or today or tomorrow. We are hopeful for that but we can’t count on that.”

Carey thanked Virginians for their commitment to social distancing, saying, “It has made a big difference.” He noted that Gov. Ralph Northam announced last week that initially COVID-19 cases were doubling every three days in Virginia. Now, they are doubling every nine days. He added that efforts are underway to increase testing. He said the governor would like to reach the ability to test 10,000 people per day.

One constituent asked Addo-Ayensu how Virginians will know when it’s safe to return to some sense of normalcy.

“First of all, we have to be confident that the number of new cases is shrinking,” Addo-Ayensu replied. “As the secretary [Carey] said, we are still seeing increases in cases. Certainly in Fairfax, as we are in our acceleration phase.”

“It really has to start with cases coming down significantly and we are not there yet,” Addo-Ayensu said.

Wexton said on Thursday she voted for a second emergency funding package. This one provides relief to small businesses and critical resources for hospitals and health care providers and expands testing capacity. The legislation includes $310 billion in additional funding for the Paycheck Protection Program, $60 billion for small business disaster loans and grants, $75 billion for hospitals and health care providers and $25 billion for a new coronavirus testing program.

“The Senate’s original proposal didn’t do enough to address small business needs and didn’t include any money for hospitals or testing,” Wexton said. “So I’m glad that this legislation was passed, but it still didn’t go far enough. I’m on the phone with businesses and constituents nearly every single day and I know that we need to do more. So we are already working on the next round of COVID legislation, which we hope will include, and I’ll be fighting for, funding for states and localities.”

Wexton said she wants increased funding for critical services like fire and rescue, police and teachers. She would also like to see more direct cash assistance to individuals and families. She said the one-time payment of $1,200 per individual is not enough.

“I’ve heard from a lot of constituents who were locked out of the one-time stimulus payment because their income from a previous tax year was too high even though they’ve been out of work for weeks,” Wexton said. “Those folks shouldn’t be locked out of those funds."

Wexton also said there needs to be more funding for the United States Postal Service, better health care coverage for the uninsured and additional rent and mortgage protections.

According to Walton, the Virginia Employment Commission has received more than 500,000 unemployment benefit applications since mid-March. In a submitted comment, a Leesburg resident said it was extremely challenging to apply for unemployment benefits online due to error messages, adding that high call volumes make it difficult to apply over the phone.

“We have increased staffing levels,” Walton said. “We stood up an auxiliary call center so we can take more incoming calls and try to answer questions from folks who are trying to reach us. As of yesterday, we've added an additional 100 customer service representatives to perform that function. I do know that we had some issues with our website when folks were trying to file online. There were times when there were heavy workloads and the system was slow, so to speak. It never crashed but there were times where folks had more difficult times than others getting through to us. I would encourage you, if you haven’t filed, to please keep filing. Try to get online or call our call centers. We have more staffing. [It] should be easier now.”

For information on how to seek COVID-19 relief from the Virginia Employment Commission, visit www.vec.virginia.gov/covid19

For more information on Wexton’s efforts to provide COVID-19 relief and for links to resources, visit wexton.house.gov/services/coronavirus.htm