GOP senator and doctor describes how his office could come back to work

"If you're willing to maintain social distancing with a skeleton crew at most at work, I think it can be done safely. But you have to be careful," Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, told CNN's David Chalian on an episode of "The Daily DC" podcast.

Cassidy said he's told some of his staff that there will be certain people who will need to come in to work, and that "6 to 8 feet" will need to be maintained between those in the office, which would mean "folks in adjacent cubicles or people whose backs are to each other should not be there at the same time."

"So we're going to have a pattern, a schedule by which people who must come in come in, but are still able to maintain social distancing. It just takes some forethought," he said.

The Senate is set to reconvene on May 4, though the Democratic-controlled House on Tuesday scrapped plans to also return that same day. Cassidy said in his interview that "there is a lot to be gained by face-to-face interaction, even if you're wearing a mask."

"Senators will be able to kind of see each other and have a better sense as a group of what thoughts are," he said.

Asked about his thoughts on having temperature checks conducted on people entering the Capitol complex to detect potentially infected people, Cassidy said he's not opposed to it, but that he's concerned the measure offers "a false sense of security."

"That's not where I draw my security from," he said. "You can have no symptoms whatsoever and still spread" the virus.

The senator also said that office meetings that are typically done in person will need to be conducted virtually.

"In a normal Senate, there's always people coming to visit. A group of 20 might come to visit, a group of 10, a group of three, and you'll sit down with your staff and meet with them. Those meetings will not occur. They will take place by Zoom," Cassidy said, referring to the videoconferencing app.