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United State Congress Representative Tulsi Gabbard, who represents Hawaii Island and all the other neighbor islands plus rural O'ahu, talked with New West Broadcasting's Sherry Bracken on Wednesday, Aug. 19, about the state's response to COVID-19, its lack of doing appropriate contact tracing, concerns over federal monies allocated for tracing and testing,  and the upcoming House bill addressing the issues with the post office. Gabbard said she has serious concerns about the state's response to the coronavirus pandemic, specifically regarding how and if the state is doing effective contact tracing.    A whistleblower, Dr. Jennifer Smith, appeared with Rep. Gabbard last Friday at a press conference.  Dr. Smith said despite the State Department of Health saying it had somewhere between 77 and 105 contact tracing, in reality there were few, and contact tracers were trying to handle 100 to 192 cases of COVID-19.  Rep. Gabbard said Gov. David Ige and Dr. Bruce Anderson, head of the State DOH, must be clear about how many contact tracers they have, and how they are ramping up--though Rep. Gabbard said the ramp-up should have been done in May. The State's Congressional delegation (Gabbard, Rep Ed Case, and State Senators Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz) secured $50 million in funding to be used for contact tracing, testing, and more.  Two days ago, Sen. Brian Schatz indicated his staff was having difficulty getting the state to explain how the funding was being used.  Today, U.S. Congress Representative Anna Eshoo, chair of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Health wrote a letter to Gov. David Ige asking that the state account for the monies allocated to it as part of the Federal CARES Act, funding that must be used for COVID-19 activities by December, 2020.  The letter from Eshoo, in part, as she asked for an accounting of the funds: "As you know, less than two months ago, Hawaii had the lowest number of COVID19 cases per capita of any state in the nation. However, this trend has reversed and now Hawaii has the highest infection rate in the United States. From early June through the end of July, your state's cases more than tripled to 2,111 confirmed infections, and from July 31 through August 14, the state's cases doubled and now stand at 5,042 positive cases. At the same time, your state has implemented a 14-day travel quarantine for travelers visiting the…