Feb 14

Feb 14 Rep. Matthew Birong on Covid-19

Vermont Representative Matthew Birong (D-Addison) gave some insight as to what the Vermont legislature has been up to, in regards to the Covid-19 pandemic as well as other pandemic related issues.

Financial issues among small businesses as a result of the pandemic continue to be a priority for Vermont lawmakers, and Birong who owns a restaurant, knows all too well what small business owners are going through.

“I'm a small business owner and I work in the hospitality industry, so I kind of wind up being a point of contact for operators and employees throughout the industry across the state,” said Birong, explaining how Covid-19 has impacted small businesses.

“The businesses that are in a precarious spot and it's mostly what we're seeing right now it's mostly in smaller manufacturing, retail, childcare and hospitality,” said Birong.

Without grant money, businesses are finding it increasingly difficult to make accommodations for the pandemic and everything that comes with it.

“A lot of people are still trying to do the right thing and paying people to stay home, stay safe, but it's becoming increasingly financially stressful, because the grant support isn't there anymore,” says Birong.

Another issue for lawmakers to tackle is fighting the Covid-19 virus itself, and how that fight has changed over the course of the pandemic.

The word pandemic itself is also up in the air as lawmakers debate whether Covid-19 has made the transition from pandemic to endemic. Similar conversations are happening at the national and international level, as lawmakers and health experts across the world are rethinking the status of the virus, but it is still too early to say for sure according to CNBC.

“The first year and a half of Covid was like, okay, how do we tamp this out now? It's like, okay, like with omicron being so transmissible, it's, you know, are we hitting an endemic conversation,” says Birong in regards to the status of the virus.

“We're going to be dealing with Covid in a way for at least a couple more years, so it's coming to the realization of a more of a live with it model. But how do you do it in a way that's safe and responsible?”

He described the difficulty of navigating the different tolls that the virus can take on people’s lives, and achieving balance.

“There's the infectious Covid health approach,” Birong says, “but there's also the mental health approach to isolation, economic stress, impacts on education as kids and youth.”