Gottheimer Hosts Conference Call to Update Fifth District Mayors on Federal Action, Resources to Combat Pandemic & Safely Reopen North Jersey

Highlights Reopening Steps, Bipartisan SMART Fund, SOS Act, and Continued Coronavirus Response

GLEN ROCK, NJ – This week, U.S. Congressman Josh Gottheimer (NJ-5) hosted a video conference call with Fifth District Mayors on his efforts to help combat the coronavirus in the Fifth District, protecting New Jersey long-term care facilities with strike teams to ass, and discussing local community needs.

“Thank you all for joining me on this call so we can keep our conversation going about how the coronavirus is affecting the Fifth District and our local economies all throughout North Jersey,” said Congressman Josh Gottheimer (NJ-5). “Overall, we are seeing signs that the curve is flattening but we aren’t out of the woods yet. We must continue coming together as a community to fight his virus together.”

Gottheimer highlighted several key pieces of bipartisan legislation he’s recently helped introduce to help the Fifth District through this crisis:

• The State and Municipal Assistance for Recovery and Transition (SMART) Fund — which will provide $500 billion in emergency funding to every state, county and community in the country, while prioritizing assistance to the areas with the greatest need.

• The Sending Outside Support Act of 2020 (SOS Act) — which will create strike teams of clinical and non-clinical staff to provide immediate support to nursing homes, long-term care facilities, and skilled nursing facilities experiencing outbreaks of COVID-19 in North Jersey and across the country.

• The Nursing Home Pandemic Protection Act of 2020 — which will require that nursing homes report communicable diseases, infections, and potential outbreaks to the CDC; that residents and their families be kept informed of infections inside the facilities; that facilities have a crisis plan in place to manage an outbreak; and that facilities maintain a stockpile of PPE.

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