Undeterred by an annoying lag between her audio and video, Valerie Arkoosh, was interviewed by Rachel Maddow, on The Rachel Maddow Show, last night. Arkoosh, a Democrat, is the Chair of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners.
Maddow praised Arkoosh for “giving a super detailed, granular snapshot, of how the virus is spreading through long-term care facilities and nursing homes in your county.”
In answer to the host’s question, “Why did you decide to make that part of your daily briefing, and why has that been so much of your own focus,” Arkoosh replied, “I’ve learned through the beginning of this pandemic, that the more information you give people, while still protecting people’s privacy, the easier it is for them to understand why we’re asking them to do a lot of really difficult things; like close their businesses, and keep their kids out of school and stay home. When it comes to our long-term care facilities – they have some of our most vulnerable members of our community; our parents and our grandparents; they are taken care of by incredibly hard working people, and in the case of our county, we see that 61% of the lives that are lost to the Coronavirus are happening in long-term care facilities. And we just want to make sure people understand how serious an issue this is.”
According to her biography on Ballotpedia, “Arkoosh is a medical physician and university professor who serves as the president of the National Physicians Alliance … Arkoosh ran for election to the U.S. House, representing the 13th Congressional District of Pennsylvania. Arkoosh lost the Democratic nomination in the primary on May 20, 2014. She was defeated by Brendan Boyle.” She was first elected as Montgomery County Commisssioner in 2015, and she was re-elected in 2019.