By: Mackenzie Stasko, CBS17

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – Democratic U.S. Representatives David Price and Deborah Ross held a joint virtual town hall on COVID-19 on Thursday.

Price and Ross both represent a large portion of the Triangle. They spent about an hour answering questions from people in their districts. One of the first questions they were asked about was vaccine availability.

“The rollout, the rollout was not outstanding. In fact, it was badly botched,” said Price, who represents North Carolina’s 4th Congressional District. “And now we’re making up for lost time to make sure it’s distributed and gets in peoples’ arms.”

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Ross, who was recently elected to serve the state’s 2nd Congressional District added, “North Carolina has had a few hiccups, but compared to some of the other states and other stories that we’ve heard, North Carolina is learning and has a plan going forward.”

She added, “I’ve been on the phone with Secretary Cohen. We were on a ZOOM call with Dr. Fauci, people are starting to coordinate, people are taking this even more seriously, get more supply and encourage as many people as possible to get this vaccine.”

Ross told CBS 17 part of that plan will focus on rural areas and communities of color. She said that could mean bringing the vaccine directly to them, or, transporting people to mass vaccination sites.

“There are going to be special tactics used to make sure everyone has access,” she said.

They took other questions about student loan forgiveness, stimulus checks, and rental assistance. Ross and Price said relief for most of those issues is tied into a $1.9 trillion relief package.

“There will be a package coming up in the next couple weeks that will extend unemployment benefits, that will provide additional assistance to people who are struggling with housing, with utility payments, with food,” said Ross. “There will be more assistance for small business, particularly the ones that did not benefit from the early PPP program, and there will be assistance for our state and local governments.”

“We need very much to pass this and to find bipartisan consensus so that we can pass it,” Price said of the relief package. “Sometimes easier said than done. But one would hope, we hope that in this area of national crisis, we can find that basis for cooperation.”