WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today in a hearing in the Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis, Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO-03) discussed the unintended medical consequences America has faced during the pandemic with Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar.

Click HERE to watch. 

Congressman Luetkemeyer: “We actually have about a 50% higher death rate among the [over 70] population for the lack of attention [to other healthcare needs] because of the total focus on COVID… we need to be looking at both sides of this.” 

Secretary Azar: “It’s what you said, there’s got to be balance. We need to protect the vulnerable from coronavirus, but we also have to recognize that mammographies are down 87%... CAT scans down 39%... millions of kids haven’t gotten their pediatric vaccinations because of the shutdown. Emergency rooms have seen dramatic drops in people coming in with strokes and heart attacks – they didn’t stop having them.”