One Republican U.S. Senator supports parts of the $1.9 trillion package proposed by President Joe Biden and passed by Congress recently.

Senator Charles Grassley tells Raccoon Valley Radio he agreed with the part of that legislation to allocate additional COVID-19 funding to ramp up production and distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines. He says if the federal government didn’t step in, studies show that it would take 5-6 years to roll out a vaccine. Grassley points out their process started during the Trump Administration’s “Warp Speed” initiative. 

“Getting the federal government and these pharmaceutical companies in a partnership, and then getting pharmaceuticals in a partnership with each other – both domestically and internationally – we were able to speed this up, otherwise we wouldn’t have vaccines yet.” 

Grassley advocates for those who qualify to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

“I didn’t get mine right away because I thought since I had the COVID in November – and being partially protected because of that – that I needed to wait. So I waited well into February until I got mine.”

Grassley adds, he didn’t want the federal government dictating how states would operate and handle their own unique COVID-19 situations.