Catholic Relief Services (CRS) President and CEO Sean Callahan told members of a recent press conference that the U.S. needs to act soon to help defeat COVID-19 overseas before the pandemic becomes even worse.

"We will suffer more in terms of deaths, and it will also become much more costly," Callahan said.

Also co-chairman of the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign, Callahan is a staunch advocate for the U.S. to engage in the fight against the coronavirus on a global scale. He said that Catholic Relief Services teams "did not go home," instead battling the pandemic on the front lines along with other faith-based organizations. 

Sean Callahan | https://www.crs.org/

CRS has teams of volunteers from nations across the world that include health workers and birth attendants, to name a few. They have been reaching out to areas that have received aid to assist them with making sure those communities get the most out of it, Callahan said. 

"They stayed in the countries to assist those local partners," he explained. "They make sure the resources go to where they should, and they make sure we can leverage those resources to have a maximum impact for the vulnerable."

Along with other humanitarian leaders, Callahan was joined at the press conference by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle including Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware), Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Florida), Rep. Barbara Lee (D-California) and Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah). Others in attendance included retired U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, Dr. Mark Feinberg with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, and UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore. 

The goal of those assembled is to have Congress allocate $12 billion to international coronavirus-response efforts. Several speakers cautioned that COVID-19 will not be overcome in the U.S. until it's stopped overseas, since pandemics don't have borders.