McConnell calls for 'middle ground' between 'total lockdown and total normalcy' amid coronavirus reopenings

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Sen. McConnell on push to protect businesses from coronavirus lawsuits

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell discusses a potential fourth coronavirus stimulus relief bill on ‘The Daily Briefing.’

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that the country needs to find a “middle ground between total lockdown and total normalcy,” as states begin to reopen their economies amid the coronavirus pandemic.

From the Senate floor on Tuesday, McConnell, R-Ky., said the battle against COVID-19 is ongoing, despite steps by states to lift stay-at-home orders and ease social distancing requirements.

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“The last two months’ stoppage of much of our national life was never going to permanently extinguish the virus. That task will be ongoing,” McConnell said. “The stated purpose of this effort was to prevent a rapid spike that could have completely overwhelmed the medical capacities of many areas.”

“As we cautiously move forward, major precautions will remain in place,” McConnell continued. “Some routines will not go back to normal for a long time."

He added: “But as a nation, we will need to regroup and find a more sustainable middle ground between total lockdown and total normalcy.”

McConnell emphasized the importance of “battling the virus” through “testing, tracing, isolation, treatment, and —hopefully soon—a vaccine,” while noting the importance in beginning to re-open sectors of the economy.

“If Americans want to go back to work and back to school in the fall, we will need to reopen the country,” he said.

McConnell added that Senate Republicans are preparing a package of COVID-related liability reforms to “foster our economic recovery.”

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“This package, which Senator Cornyn and I are spearheading, will extend significant new protections to the people who have been on the front lines of the response and those who will be on the front lines of our re-opening,” he said, noting that the bill will protect health care workers.

“We are not going to let health care heroes emerge from this crisis facing a tidal wave of medical malpractice lawsuits so that trial lawyers can line their pockets,” he said. “We aren’t going to federalize the entirety of medical malpractice law, but we are going to raise the liability threshold for COVID-related malpractice lawsuits. This will give our doctors, nurses and other health care providers a lot more security as they clock in every day and risk themselves to care for strangers.”

The package, McConnell said, will also include legal protections for businesses, nonprofits and government agencies that have continued working throughout the pandemic, and those that will begin the reopening phases.

He added: “To be clear: We are not talking about immunity from lawsuits. There will be accountability for actual gross negligence and intentional misconduct. We aren’t going to provide immunity. But we are going to provide some certainty. If we want American workers to clock back in, we need employers to know that if they follow the guidelines, they will not be left to drown in opportunistic litigation.”

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McConnell’s comments on the Senate floor come as Dr. Anthony Fauci testified before the Senate Health Committee, and warned that reopening the economy before certain “checkpoints” are met could bring “serious” consequences.

"The consequences could be really serious,” Fauci said.

Fauci, during the hearing, was asked about efforts to create a vaccine against COVID-19.

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"NIH is focused on developing safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics, and sensitive, specific, and rapid point-of-care diagnostic tests," Fauci also said in written remarks submitted to the committee. "These efforts will improve our response to the current pandemic and bolster our preparedness for the next, inevitable emerging disease outbreak.”

But Fauci did say, however, that ”there’s no guarantee that a vaccine is going to be effective."

As of Tuesday, the U.S. reported more than 1.3 million positive cases of COVID-19 and more than 80,900 deaths.