RALEIGH, N.C. – As Republicans move into the second day of their national convention, official business has been completed. Now, they will be addressing their top issues for this election year. One issue that is top-of-mind for many is COVID-19 and healthcare.

“I think people on the front line, healthcare workers on the front lines were rightly very concerned about not only how to mitigate the spread, treat those who are ill, but also preventing the healthcare system as a whole from being overwhelmed,” says Rep. Perrin Jones, a Republican from Pitt County.

For his day job, Jones is an anesthesiologist at Vidant Medical Center in Greenville. He acknowledges there has been a lot of scrutiny about whether there was enough action fast enough on the national level, and questions at the state level about whether resources are being used for the best in the most efficient way.

“I know here in North Carolina there was a real concern that we didn't have all of those pieces that we needed,” he says. “We had protective equipment, but we didn't have enough. We had testing capacity, but we certainly didn't have enough.”

Jones says he is looking forward to how this pandemic will finally subside.

“I've said for quite a while that we need to learn how to manage this disease as opposed to have it manage us,” he says.

On the opening day of the Republican National Convention, President Donald Trump addressed this issue and what he has pushed in his administration.

“You saw yesterday, convalescent plasma, you saw Remdesivir, you'll soon see vaccines pouring out under what they would have been under a more traditional – let's use that term because it is nicer – a more traditional administration where they would have taken years to come up with this stuff,” he told delegates during a stop in Charlotte.

Jones says he knows people want solid answers as to when the pandemic will pass, but he says they just aren't available yet.

“Today is one less day we had to deal with than yesterday, and I will say that we are in a much better position now than we were back in February and March. But how long this will ultimately last, I don't think any of us know that,” Jones says.