On Sunday, Republican Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson appeared on NBC’s “Meet The Press” with host Chuck Todd to discuss COVID-19.
During the segment, Todd asked Hutchinson about preparing for another wave of the coronavirus.
“So if we assume we’re going to get hit seasonally now, what do you need in the next five months before your summer – if it is another summer surge like you dealt with – what do you think needs to be done by the federal government to let you have the tools you need to handle your summer surge?” Todd asked.
Hutchinson replied, first noting that cases are going down, and that infrastructure needs to be a focus, as well as testing, and therapeutics.
The governor also asserted that we need to get out of “panic mode.”
And I do believe that we need to move from a pandemic status and mode of operation, to more endemic, where we’re normalizing taking it very seriously, preparing, but I think we need to move out of the panic mode. I think we need to handle this to make sure that we continue with our normal lives.
WATCH: “We need to move out of the panic mode” on Covid, @AsaHutchinson (R-Ark.) says on #MTP.@GovMurphy (D-NJ) “I agree with Gov. Hutchinson. We’re not gonna manage this to zero. We have to learn how to live with this.” pic.twitter.com/XQzuyvqjxt
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) January 30, 2022
TRANSCRIPT:
TODD: Let’s talk about preparing for the next wave. And I say it this way because we don’t know how big it is. We don’t know how small it is. But I guess I would like to think we’ve – everybody’s learned some lessons from what happened pre-Omicron. So, if we assume we’re going to get hit seasonally now, what do you need in the next five months before your summer – if it is another summer surge like you dealt with – what do you think needs to be done by the federal government to let you have the tools you need to handle your summer surge?
HUTCHINSON: Well, first of all, we’re delighted to see our cases going down. We just peaked last week. We hope the Omicron continues to go down. We believe that it will. And I do believe that we need to move from a pandemic status and mode of operation, to more endemic, where we’re normalizing taking it very seriously, preparing, but I think we need to move out of the panic mode. I think we need to handle this to make sure that we continue with our normal lives.
But the response should be – and there’s two things because we know that there will be additional variants coming down the way. First of all, is to continue to build the infrastructure. So, for my state and other governors, we want to make sure our testing capacity is there. We want to make sure that we have access to the therapeutics, and that’s where the federal government needs to step up. We need to make sure that there’s the quick production. They need to rely upon the states for the distribution. And there are a lot of discussions about that. They need to improve that supply chain. So, let’s take advantage of this going down to be better prepared around the corner.