Congressman Ed Case (D-Hawaii) joined the COVID-19 Care Conversation today to discuss the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Case said he and the Hawaii Congressional delegation have been fighting to make sure Hawaii businesses get a fair share of the latest round of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funding, released on Monday.

He said local businesses did well in the first round — with roughly 11,000 loans processed for a total of roughly $2 billion in aid — money that should be flowing into Hawaii’s economy right now.

“We have been very, very concerned with the ability of our small businesses and financial institutions to access that funding again equally, for many, many different reasons,” he said.

One of those reasons, the so-called “batching” of PPP applications, in which larger financial institutions were able to submit applications in chunks of 15,000 at a time. Case said he along with Sen. Brian Schatz spoke to the head of the Small Business Administration on Tuesday, and secured assurances that the practice has been suspended.

Case also spoke about why he thinks Hawaii needs to take a prudent approach to lifting the stay-at-home order, explaining that starting too soon could be much more damaging in the long run. He also shared his thoughts on what another round of federal funding could look like.

Case also urged his constituents to reach out to his office with concerns by visiting case.house.gov.

Watch here and submit your questions through our Facebook page.

The COVID-19 Care Conversation, sponsored by Hawai’i Executive Collaborative, airs live every weekday at 10:30 a.m. on the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s Facebook page. Yunji de Nies and Ryan Kalei Tsuji discuss the latest news, resources and community concerns about the coronavirus outbreak in Hawaii.