Days after announcing she had a breakthrough COVID-19 infection, Sen. Elizabeth Warren told Boston Public Radio she thinks Gov. Charlie Baker and other politicians should impose a mask mandate and vaccine requirements to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
"There is more we can do," Warren said. Her oldest brother died of the disease in April 2020, before widespread testing and vaccines were available.
"Obviously, we need to be aggressive when you see a wave like this," she said, referring to the stark rise in COVID-19 cases across the country and locally. "I think we should be imposing mask mandates, I believe that requiring people to vaccinate so we have safe workplaces just makes a lot of sense."
Boston Public Radio co-host Jim Braude asked if Warren had spoken to Baker directly about his policy that encourages wearing masks, but which stops short of a mandate.
"I have not spoken with him recently, but I have not been silent about this," she said. "You know me, I'm rarely silent about much of anything."
When Warren announced she had COVID-19 on Sunday, she said she was experiencing only mild symptoms and took to Twitter to urge people to get vaccinated. On Thursday, she again she urged people to get vaccined and boosted.
"That's what made this for me a very mild case," she said. "Not only do we not want to spread it to others, to people we love, [and we] don't want to spread it in our communities, but also we don't want to overrun the healthcare system if we get sick."
Warren also discussed President Joe Biden's recent announcement to extend the pause on student loan repayment until May.
She said that while the extension helps, it also proves that Biden has the sole authority to go a step further and enact full loan forgiveness.
"He just demonstrated he has the power," she said. "We talk about the delay in loans, when people are going to have to pay. Keep in mind, interest accumulates on those loans, and he is forgiving it. It's about $5 billion a month — and it's forgiven, not delayed, not paid later on, not we somehow changed the terms."
Warren has also called for Biden to cancel up to $50,000 in loan debt. The president has pledged to forgive up to $10,000.
She cited the burden of two groups of people: people who started college, never graduated, and are trying to manage student loan debt on what you make as a high school graduate; and people of color, who have a harder time paying off debt after they graduate.
"Cancelling $50,000 of student loan debt would help close the Black-white wealth gap for people with student loans, by about 25 points."
Warren also discussed the need to do whatever it takes — including altering the filibuster — in order to get voting rights legislation passed in the Senate.
"I'll take a one-time exception, I'll take a walking filibuster, I'll take anything," she said. "This is the one thing we have got to deliver on, and we need to do it in January."
