Transcripts For ALJAZ NEWSHOUR 20240712

That once had the crisis under control and now under pressure. Americas top Infectious Disease expert dr anthony prepares to testify before congress on the countrys coronavirus response. Muslims around the world celebrate. With many under strict coronavirus restrictions. Over the sports including. Was. Returns with social justice high on its teams and officials meal in an anti racism protest. From the bron james later this hour. Welcome to the news hour we begin in hong kong where an ongoing political crisis is deepening the citys leader has invoked emergency laws to postpone septembers a legislative election by a full year terry cited coronavirus as the reason for the delay she also said it will be up to beijing to decide how to fill a vacuum in the citys legislature lets show caused by the delay it comes after beijing impose a Controversial National security law on hong kong a major blow to the citys pro democracy movement. The announcement i have to make today is the most difficult decision ive made in the past 7 months the legislative counsel general election is held every 4 years it is really a tough decision to delay it but we want to ensure fairness we want to ensure Public Safety and health. Lets get more now from give you a good pilot whos been following events for us in hong kong and we expected the announcement from the carrier to display these elections till september just tell us a little bit more about how shes justifying this decision. Thats why they had been building up to this for more than a week now almost warning the hong kong people that this is very likely to happen and along with that they have been talking about the increasing rates of corona virus infections hong kong has seen on a somewhat going through what theyre calling a 3rd wave so shes using that to say that it would be too risky to hold these elections but the opposition says the hunger has been very successful at containing its previous outbreaks and the elections are still a month away and this is likely just seen as cues to not go through that elections where the democratic camp could have had quite an impressive showing or were building up at least to quite a successful election now along with this there are many concerns about how they are the government has gone about this for and for one thing it has the can constitution gives no provisions to delay these elections for more than 2 weeks which means that there are no. There no there will be lots of administrative and legal issues that will go again go along with it delaying these elections so hong kongs government will have to defer to the Standing Committee to the government in beijing and they will have to intervene now and override hong kongs constitution so once again its seen as the Hong Kong Government not taking care of the issues within the territory and it said calling on beijing to now take care of the citys governance so there are many questions around why this decision was taken and what theyre doing to our why theyre justifying it in such a manner and why it seems once again beijing seems to be making the bigger overarching decisions in hong kongs affairs particularly in this instance where this is seen as the only democratic process in hong kong where people will have a chance to influence who will run the city indies alou on the basis of curry lums decision this really isnt going to go down well with opposition groups what are they saying about how theyre going to move forward and react to whats been such a. Thats right weve heard a lot already from opposition groups mainly due to the fact that about 12 of the democracy candidates and some of the very popular ones were disqualified just yesterday from running in these elections and in fact joshua while hong kongs one of hong kongs best known democracy democracy activists was on that list he was disqualified on the grounds that he had conferred or had encouraged foreign interference in hong kongs affairs amongst other things and not supported that National Security law he has reacted quite angrily and quite forcefully to those suggestions and to the disqualification and heres what he had to say beyond any doubt is the most scandalous Election Fraud ever in hong kong history they could this qualify us they could arrest us every was into jail they could even call of the election create a Puppet Parliament elsewhere just gather with beijing loyalists however blunt of this overturned a strong mandate for modest 600000 hong kong has passed the bailiffs the citys 1st ever primaries early this month i will voice is clear allowed to the world by over. Now this is. 6 a democracy campus time and time again said that the Hong Kong Government has been trying to sideline their movements starting from the protests that began last year which gave them traction and increase their popularity they say they were poised to take a large number of seats in these elections a majority of those seats would mean that they would have a greater influence in hong kongs governance which would be of course of concern to beijing but despite the fact that the Hong Kong Government has had the power and the ability to make these decisions almost unilaterally there are still tensions within the government in the latest development for that hong kongs director of Public Prosecutions within the Justice Department has just resigned saying that he has been sidelined in the implementation of the National Security law so the hogans government seems to be facing issues on all sides not just from the democracy camp from all within and this is just adding to hong kongs political turmoil and uncertainty that many people here are facing now so theyll give you the politics thank you. I mean person of the International Committee of the Democratic Party she says the government is acting in the interests of pro beijing Political Parties and whole goal. The government had appointed for medical doctors and professors as experts and yesterday one of the experts said they have not met with the administration for 3 weeks so if they make such an important decision on medical and health were asked how come the medical and Health Experts have not been consulted the Political Parties associated with a jane there people have been saying for quite a number of weeks that they dont think the election should be held because they held frey that it will loose because in november last year we had a District Council election which is a local election and they lost it was a landslide complete landslide by the 10 democrats so theyre afraid it will happen again in september we are inviting beijing to interfere again because we are unable to have to solve the problems that the government has created and so if the extension for one year where is the parliament with the Legislative Council in the coming 13 months will they only meet when they are summoned or would they actually can act as legislated at the top Infectious Disease expert in the us has just begun testifying before a congress subcommittee not on c. Span shes a parents comes after president Donald Trumps administration and this we refuse to let him appear hes expected to tell the panel that hes still unclear as to how long the pandemic will last lets join mike hanna in washington d. C. Hes following events for so what can we expect dr chee to say at the hearing mike. Well there are 3 representatives of appearing before the house subcommittee that is the director of the centers for Disease Control the assistant secretary in the Health Department and of course doctor himself now what they will be doing is explaining what they see as the need for a nationwide campaign to come to pandemic now this subcommittee was initially set up to actually supervise the relief Coronavirus Relief bills that had been passed but it has spread far wide at this particular stage it is now specifically looking for a way to create a National Program to combat the pandemic because at this point there is no National Program in place every single state is lit to its own devices in terms of how to combat it theres been problems of supply chains of testing the tiriel theres been issues in terms of getting back to streets olds now the c. B. C. In particular is likely to come under very intense questioning as to why this is happening and why it happened in the 1st place but the debate as well is going to center on a highly contentious issue and at the moment schools are due to open in a couple of weeks time many schools are deeply concerned about opening prematurely they want to engage in Distance Learning but the trumpet ministration is insistent that not only must schools open on time but they must open for 5 days a week the c. D. C. Initially did not go all the way in on that particular recommendation but now it has said one of the questions thats going to be put to the c. D. C. Director is where they he caved to political pressure to change the guidelines and once again i must just mention why these guidelines are so important a report from the state department in washington d. C. Well actually in. The junior area in foggy bottom there is a report there that a number of state Department Employees have asphalt state department not to open. Thats the Trump Administration wants to do to an 80 percent capacity it says the state department has not met c. D. C. Guidelines for opening and that is 14 days without an increase in infection so certainly you are seeing here that even c. D. C. Guidelines are better established are sometimes over trodden by the crumpet ministration and this is going to be one of the questions that will be explored by this Congressional Committee and of course these 3 very senior medical officials certainly will have the our eyes and the ears of their counterparts you might see across 50 states and the politicians that go with them those that want to open up the United States those that need to close them down how important will it be that one how important will it be that what they say here resonates across the United States it will be very important indeed this is the 1st time youve had these 3 together publicly for a month they last gave evidence to a Senate Committee but the trumpet ministration has dragged its feet in terms of allowing them to go before the House Committee that is now happening as you can see the Committee Proceedings are about to get underway but certainly its very important for the public to hear directly from Health Professionals exactly what the situation is to date the public feed has come from the white house in very daily briefings which have recently been resumed but there has been a great demand for the public to hear directly from the 3 people who are leading the fight against a pandemic exactly what is being done and exactly what should be done in the weeks ahead like thank you or dip into the Committee Hearing and hear what doctors actually has to say. For members appear in person time is visible in the room record in front of you for those who may be remote. We have a timer there should be visible on your screen when you are in the act to speak with them they are mode and you have the time or the end for a member see baby a parent remotely if you other remind us the house rules require that we see you so please have your cameras turned on at all times not just when you are speaking minister or not reckon us should remain needed to minimize background noise and feed that. Will recognize members verbal a minister attend the right to seek recognition very early in regular order members will be recognized in sinjar day. In the order for questions if you are remote and want to be recognized outside of regular order you may identify that in several ways you may use the chat function to send the request you may send an email to the majority staff or you may your mike to seek recognition obviously we do not want people talking over each other so my preference is that members use a chat function or email to facilitate a form of verbal recognition committed staff will ensure that i am made aware of the requests and i will recognize you as members of the committee are likely aware we expect votes to be called in the middle of this hearing. Other respect for members. And because of the Long Duration of each vote doing this Public Health emergency. The chairman of the Committee Just doing some housekeeping there for those members who are attending this meeting a remotely as well as those that may be actually in the hall listening to or will be listening to those 3 senior medical professionals lets go back to my kind of correspondent whos also following events for us mike over the past few days leading up to certainly this Committee Hearing weve been hearing more from the president as well hes not willing to wear a mask hes still promoting hydroxy chloroquine as a potential cure or. The death toll continues to rise across the country. Well indeed all those issues quite correct turn on the issue of. Dr anthony found she has once again publicly repudiated the president in the last 24 hours insisting that every single test that has been conducted indicates that it is not of any use in the fight against the virus however President Trump continues to insist that iraq secure a quint is an answer but many Health Professionals are arguing that a lot of time is wasted. Arguing about a subject that the evidence is in and finished and energy should be directed to actually finding a big effect as ways to combat the pandemic on the issue of mass president did an about turn about 10 days ago in which he started wearing a mask very occasionally and also encouraged its use in confined spaces and yet we saw him just this week in texas meeting constituents meeting fellow members of the former members of his cabinet all of whom were not Wearing Masks so were in very close proximity at one stage he was standing with former Energy Secretary rick perry and was actually had his hand on his on his elbow handing him over some documents so president president is sending out very mixed signals to the public as a whole on the one hand he is saying yes where march in public in confined spaces where you are a threat to all others but in these behavior he does not do so so this is an issue and this is once again why the meeting today the hearing today is so important for the public to hear directly from the Health Professionals rather than get some version filtered through the sometimes exceedingly rhone years information given by President Trump of course president bush you say was in texas law of california and florida are the 3 real hot spots at the moment for corona virus in section the issue of testing and how quickly the public can get their results back along with track and trace the becoming really hot topics are they on the in the medical seals and also politically. Well they have been from the very beginning of this pandemic Health Professionals throughout this entire period have been arguing that the testing protocols are not quickly enough in place that it is taking too long for tests to get back to laboratories that there is no Contract Tracing in place in many areas and less you have Contact Tracing for example you cannot check the spread of the virus you cannot combat it now all of these issues have been discussed repeatedly week after week president trying continues to insist that the u. S. Leads the world in testing this is utterly false at present the u. S. Is testing around 700000 people a day most experts say that in order to deal with this pandemic or take to screen the very minimum that should be tested is well over 2000000 so there you have that issue but also you can test questions today to these 3 professionals about the beginning of the pandemics where you had a vaccine issued by the c. D. C. Well testing kits issued by the c. D. C. That simply did not work you had a delay in supply chain of swabs very many other issues so this is worthless committee is doing now is finding out what happened at the beginning what happened at the middle and what can be done now to rectify those many faults that have plagued get ministrations response lets go back to the Committee Hearing the mike we can listen to mr clement making his opening remarks. Mark is simple to hear from our nations top public Health Experts on what steps we need to take to stop the unnecessary deaths of more americans to improve our response we need to. Correct the fruit use especially those of our own draw on. Regrettably there are 6 months after this rouse claimed its 1st American Life the federal government has still not yet developed and implemented in a National Strategy to protect the American People the administration has failed on testing while they were given warnings including from this committee that millions more tests were needed at least 11 states including my home state of South Carolina are currently conducting less than 30 percent of the tests they needed to control the virus the state cases certain states now face severe test and shortages wait times for results or a week or longer in many places and some states have been forced to ration scarce ches limiting them to only the sickest patients without widely available rapid tested it is nearly impossible to control the spread of the virus and safely open our economy yesterday it was reported that back in april the administration considered implemented in National Strategy to coordinate the distribution of test kits and Contact Trace in infrastructure but it decided not to do so because at the time the virus was primarily spreading in blue states since the earliest days of this crisis the Top Administration has also refused to call on americans to take simple steps to stay safe like wearing a mask and so its a decision instead the president has downplayed the severity of the crisis claiming the virus will disappear. Sideline and Government Experts who disagree and seek to legitimise discredited remember this when the Public Health agencies contradict the proposed white house but little messes for example when the c. D. C. Warned that fully every opening schools present at the highest risk for spreading the coronavirus the white house pressured the agency to change their advice the result of these decisions is that the virus has continued to rage out of control and our nations economic misery has continued and that brings us to today to todays hearing it is clear that the administrations approach of the fair and deferring to the states sidelined in the experts and rushing to reopen has repro along the virus and led to thousands of preventable deaths in fact the United States response stands out as among the worst of any country in the world my question is where should we go from here today im calling for the administration to finally give america a comprehensive National Plan prior ties a science over politics the plan should include buying and distributing enough tests and protective gear for every american who needs them and it should include clear Public Health guidance to every american to help curb the spread of the virus. Im looking forward to hearing from our panel what commonsense steps we can take as a country to control this virus and how the administrations plans to accomplish this go todays witnesses have long distinguished careers in the both republican and democratic president s Public Health its not a partisan issue and i hope that all members of the committee will join me in seeking the best Health Advice for the American People not fight in partisan political battles we do not need to lose another 150000 american lives but if we do not make drastic changes now this tragic outcome is well within the realm of possibility the chair now recognizes the distinguished Ranking Member for his Opening Statement. Thank you mr chairman and thank our witnesses for being here before i open i do want to mention mr chairman sir 1st meeting that weve had since the passing of our dear friend and colleague john lewis i know you personally were friends with him for roughly 60 years and we all feel that loss very fitting tribute yesterday and he was a Dear Colleague but he was also a key important part of the movement that has made america an even greater nation its very fitting that our countrys been paying such great tribute to a dear friend and an icon in the Civil Rights Movement our friend john lewis i thank you again mr chairman 2 for having this here and i want to thank the witnesses and i also want to thank your teams because you represent what is on the front lines of President Trumps plan to combat the coronavirus crisis. For anybody to suggest that theres not a plan in fact when you look at the title of todays hearing urgent need for a plan thats not the title of a hearing thats a political narrative and a false political narrative at that you wouldnt even be here today if there wasnt a plan because you are the people tasked with carrying out the plan in fact if you were sidelined you wouldnt be here either and i know some people want to suggest that but maybe they havent spent time reading different components of the plan these are just a few by the way a few of the documents that your agencies have published to show states how to safely reopen to show schools how to safely reopen to certain show Nursing Homes how to care for their patients which by the way if all governors would have followed those guidelines thousands more seniors in Nursing Homes will be alive today if just 5 governors would have followed your plan that was developed by President Trump and is being carried out by you and your teams effectively every day so again let me thing. Thank you on behalf of the millions of American People who are alive today that wouldnt be alive if you werent carrying out President Trumps effective plan to keep americans safe as we learn about this virus as we work to get a cure for this virus and by the way the cure or operation more speed is part of President Trumps National Plan and i think weve all seen just how close we are to a vaccine which is revolutionary revolutionary in modern time to be this close to a vaccine we wouldnt be here that close to a vaccine without President Trumps leadership and without the work of you and your teams to carry out that plan so again i appreciate the work that you continue to do every day we learn more about a plan like any plan whether its a military plan or a football plan you start the 1st play with a plan and then the plan has to change as things change along the way and were seeing that play out daily. When you look at the work thats been done i think we talk about different parts of the guidance weve weve not always been in agreement on each part of them but weve had a number of hearings where weve talked through how to improve testing in fact one of the 1st hearings we had in this committee on testing was back when america was maybe conducting less than 200000 tests a day today because of the work that you all have been doing and because of the president s plan were at over 800000 tests per day and that number continues to grow nobody stopping nobodys resting on their laurels but when you look at that trajectory again going from a virus that no one even knew about just 6 months ago china lied about during that period where we could have learned a lot more where we could have saved more lives while china was line i wish we would have hearings on that because that is a real fact thats not a political talking point we all know not only did china lie they corrupted the World Health Organization and they were perpetuating that as well made it harder for us i remember being in a meeting at the white house with dr 5 months ago before it was a Global Pandemic and we were talking about the desire to get some of our medical experts in the china to find out what was really going on and they wouldnt let un the Chinese Communist party wouldnt let u. N. When President Trump wanted to send medical experts in the china before it spread into the United States and that caused lives why dont we have any hearing about that clearly we talk about some of the other Different Things that were done to stop the spread of this president. Actually did develop an early plan called 15 days to stop the spread is one of the 1st. Steve. The leading congressman from new york whos a republican also the leading man who will of course make his opening speeches. In this hearing that will have 3 of the most senior medical advisors in the u. S. Giving their evidence to the committee and of course well keep following that here on aljazeera. While the number of krona virus cases globally has surpassed 17000000 and some countries which showed the way in their response to the pandemic are struggling with a resurgence in new infections vietnam which hadnt reported a single covert 19 related death now has its 1st a 70 year old man in the city of denying the city has reported a daily high of 45. 00 new cases after being virus free for a month australia is considering tightening restrictions in its 2nd largest city of melbourne and hundreds more cases were reported on friday despite the 3 week lockdown there india still hasnt managed to get its outbreak under control reporting more than 55000 new infections in the past 24 hours and despite that the governments lifting the nighttime curfew enforced for the past 4 months but a lockdown has been reimposed in parts of Northern England tough to rise in factions there scott hyla has the latest from bangkok about whats going on in vietnam. The nang was the site of this new wave theyre calling it the 3rd wave of vietnamese officials last week and what weve been seeing since then has been really kind of the way vietnam has handled has been looked at as a Success Story in this situation with covidien containing covert 1000 spread because what they have done is they have quickly shut down denying as quickly as they could and they evacuated tens of thousands of vacationers they were really kind of encouraging Domestic Tourism because of the ailing economy there like many countries here in Southeast Asia and around the world so what they did 1st was to evacuate tens of thousands and then they shut down effectively shut down denying that they sent in a special team and a 1000 Additional Health care workers to denying to control the spread of where we see you have seen the beginning of this this new wave it was unfortunate there was the 1st death related to cope with 19 announced but what some good news coming in after and this goes to what i was saying 21000 people in one noise who were in denying have already been tested and tested negative they will still have to quarantine for the next 2 weeks but that is actually a good news at the beginning of some good news because theyve already done some testing very quickly and theyre able to determine that some of those people coming out of denying didnt do it infected and taking it to other parts of vietnam we do know that there have been at least one or 2 cases in knowing theres concern about city the 2nd largest city in vietnam because a lot of people were in denying went back to her right now theyre really focused on Contact Tracing and try to contain any affection possibly came out of the next well its a 2 european broadcasts and lawrence lee is standing by in france and lauren certainly could a virus the top story across the continent but in the u. K. Were looking at lockdowns in the north of the country which will come as some surprise to many who live. Well it certainly did at least one problem with this was that you see the government here using a feeble little bit of notice you know from 2 weeks from today organ have to wear a face mask so everyone gets a bit of time to prepare for it and so on this new policy saying that no one outside your immediate family is allowed into your house affecting a full 4 and a half 1000000 people in this part of england was announced with immediate effects very late last night on twitter and its from everybody in the northwest of england its a complete disarray you can imagine for example supposing your single mum trying to go to work on friday and you are expecting a child one of the come around and look after your young child well thats suddenly against the law and so its plainly initially created all sorts of problems for the people the other issue attached to it is exactly who this new law is aimed at because recent community spikes have all been in cities like luton and leicester with very large muslim communities the the fear being that extended families in poor housing in intergenerational housing so you know grandparents and parents and children all living in the same roof are all part of the virus on to each other and thats exactly the same situation the northwest of england in the towns around manchester and its even the government wont say so out loud because its sensitive it looks very much like its times for the start of eads when the fear of the government was that extended families will gather in someones house and place the pass the virus on to each other and so thats thats an extra control the sea as well so given all these problems and criticism that the government at Boris Johnson the chief scientific advisor gave a News Conference just before lunchtime today trying to spell out exactly why they were so concerned about these little spikes and how they wanted to change peoples behavior is this is a Boris Johnson explain the new policy. Our assessment is that we should now squeeze that brake pedal squeeze that brake pedal in order to keep the virus under control on saturday the 1st of august you remember we had hoped to reopen in england a number of the higher risk settings that had remained closed and today im afraid were perspiring those changes for at least a fortnight i know that the steps that were taking will be a real blow to many people everyone obviously whose wedding plans have been disrupted or who cannot now celebrate eat in the way that they would wish and im really really sorry about that but we simply cannot take the risk but the inconsistences of the problem you can have to send a family around to celebrate you and if any family can still go to a restaurant together that seems very peculiar equally people if in the heat wave this here at the moment all the pubs are going to be open and you can absolutely guarantee theyll be vast numbers of people not socially distancing at all and not following the government rules on keeping a park each other or the gathering outside pubs and bars and so it looks very much as though certain section the community of very much having their freedoms imposed on another part of the community which may not be a bend the rules at all are still being given a free pass lawrence lee in a london Broadcast Center thanks very much for the update. Scores of people have been arrested in zimbabwe as hundreds of military troops and police attempt to thwart planned and government protests opposition parties are calling for demonstrations against food and fuel shortages as well as 700 Percent Inflation the governments ban the protest which president emerson says constitutes an insurrection by the opposition critics accuse him of using the coronavirus pandemic to stifle dissent privileges must survive and here he is a journalist in zimbabwe joins me now from the capital harare good to have you with us on the program how threatened does the president of the government feel from these protests yeah i think you can feel it from how security has been good lloyds to deal with. We have seen in the past 2 days the army the police being deployed into neighborhoods and even today. The police have been under police. Clear. The. Streets are empty so you find that the government yes these. Are serious the end. Is in separation you say that the president has been quoted as saying in one National Newspaper i want to warn the organizers of the sylph a to demonstrations that our Security Services will be vigilant and on high alert to appropriately respond to their shenanigans the deployment of so many troops seems to sort of give the impression the authorities want to intimidate rather than see any sort of protest peacefully even though theyve actually banned them now. I think it is achieved that because. A lot of people today stayed in goes. Your they have its few pockets of political activity that went out to sure their slot cars were returned with different messages but in terms of the generality of citizens who may have probably joined the force and they stayed indoors a lot of people stayed home so. Its exactly those warnings and the different messages that the government has been putting out in the past week there seems the intended purpose because a lot of people then had to stay home and not dead to go out. Thank you very much for your time privilege. In harare. Shes going testimony now lets just listen to what he has to say uncovered on capitol hill is the characterization and testing of therapeutics it is well known now that over the past several weeks there have been 2 therapeutics that have passed randomized placebo controlled trials for individuals late in the course of the zs one of these is rendez severe a trial run by the end i h which showed a statistically significant improvement in the time to survival in individuals who were hospitalized with pulmonary disease that has now been part of the standard of care in individuals with moderate to advanced disease in addition a placebo controlled randomized trial of dec semesters own showed an improvement in the death rate in a highly significant manner in individuals on respirators as well as those requiring oxygen and then finally the development and testing of effective vaccines several months ago we put together what we call a strategic approach to covert 19 research and development and the reason we did this is because there are multiple candidate vaccines that are moving along at a very rapid pace and we wanted to make sure that they learn from each other so we made standardized protocols common data in safety monitoring boards common primary and secondary endpoints and common individual Laboratory Tests there are 3 separate platforms that are being pursued with government help nucleic acid including the m r n a a more danna viral vectors such as add no vectors in v s v and protein subunits. One of these is a is a trial that started last monday the 20 this past monday the 27th the beginning in a phase 3 trial its a trial that will go over several months involving 30000 individuals we hope that as the time we get into the late fall and early winter we will have in fact a vaccine that we can say would be safe and effective one can never guarantee the safety or effectiveness unless you do the trial but we are cautiously optimistic that this will be successful because in the early studies in human the phase one study it clearly showed that individuals who were vaccinated mounted a neutralizing antibody response that was at least comparable and in many respects better than what we see in convalescence serum from individuals who have recovered from covert 19 as i mentioned the phase 3 trial as already started 30000 individuals were already starting to enroll i might also conclude members of the committee to point out that there is a website called Coronavirus Prevention Network dot org where individuals can actually indicate their willingness to participate in the Clinical Trials and to make sure that we have a diverse representation already as of last night they have been over 250000 individuals who have registered their interest in being in these trials and i just want to use my last couple of seconds to urge anyone who is listening who wants to participate to please go to that website and register so that you can be part of the solution of this terrible scourge thank you mr chairman thank you very much not to far to. Hear from dr 000. Both are fine chairman cliburn Ranking Member school east and distinguished members of the committee it is good to see all of you again testing is an essential component of americas Public Health response to cova 1000 testing and mabels clinical Decision Making it heralds impending outbreaks it informs resource allocation and it assists in minimizing economic and social disruption but we cannot test our way out of this or any other pandemic testing does not replace personal responsibility it does not substitute for avoiding crowded indoor spaces or washing hands or wearing a mask a negative test that does not mean that you wont be positive tomorrow a negative test does not substitute for avoiding crowds are wearing a mask or protecting the vulnerable with your actions all of that being said as of this morning the nation has performed over 59001000 test now averaging over 820000 test per day up from 550000 test per day when i appeared before this Committee Just earlier this month since march 12th we have increased our daily testing over 32000 percent half of these tests are done in either point of care technologies with results in 15 minutes or less or at local hospitals for which the turnaround time is generally within 24 hours. Because of Unprecedented Demand large commercial labs that do approximately half of the nations testing have become strained but because of expanded capacity and newly authorized techniques like pooling and novel extraction methods turnaround times are definitely improving this week lab corps announced turnaround times of 2 to 3 days but numbers dont tell the complete story because this is not only about numbers is about getting the right tests at the right time to the right person with timely and actionable results so we will continue to execute in accordance with our National Testing plan this plan was initially outlined in the testing blueprint opening up america again and the addendum to that blueprint it was operationalized in the federal requirements states testing plan our plan was further detailed in the administrations testing strategy report provided to congress on may 23rd. In short we are all one identifying newly emerging outbreaks early to facilitate Swift Community action to diagnosing cope with 1000 rapidly and hospitalized patients to accelerate receipt of those proven treatments 3 protecting the vulnerable both the elderly and high risk racial ethnic and Socio Economic minorities for enabling identification and isolation of those who are in fact just coupled with Contact Tracing 5 advancing state testing plans to achieve Overall National objectives as well as state specific goals and 6 supporting safe reopening of schools and businesses through surveillance testing that does not impinge upon the clinical diagnostic system with the limited time i have remaining i want to highlight 2 of these objectives protecting the elderly has been is and will continue to be a foremost priority for this administration so on july 14th we announced that every single nursing home in the nation would receive a point of care instrument and enough test there for their residents and staff to be tested we are delivering on this promise by the end of this week we will have delivered according to schedule nearly 1000000 point of care test to 1019 of the highest risk Nursing Homes with another 664 Nursing Homes scheduled for next week. My next point is about surveillance testing we should separate a clinical diagnostic system from the Public Health Surveillance System diagnostics are for those who are hospitalized symptomatic with high risk exposures surveillance testing can be for College Students or potentially students in k. Through 12 or workers in environments that are not high risk or other similar situations this type of surveillance can occur in non clia labs Like University Research Labs or veterinary diagnostic labs outside of the f. D. A. Authorization system at low cost and very high throughput we are working closely with states and universities to implement this type of system and many of them like alice you already have we have all of the tools the supplies and the Regulatory Framework to enable a robust Surveillance System throughout the nation in closing we know how to flatten the curve slow the spread and save lives wear a mask practice physical distancing avoid crowded indoor spaces practice good hygiene by washing your hands frequently if you feel sick stay at home and protect the elderly and vulnerable populations of all ages through your actions i look forward to your questions and thank you for the opportunity to provide these remarks so you think your doctor jury will. Read for you. Good morning to your required for of course we were just listening to brett p. Is the assistant secretary of health u. S. Department of health and Human Services obviously telling us that he wants to see the 8 point plan to certainly open up the u. S. Safely and also to protect the facilities elderly people schools universities and also reiterating wearing a mask social distancing avoiding crowds of you feeling ill stay at home and of course protecting the elderly lets just join mike hanna regular cars but it was also listening in before he before the outhaul spoke we were of course we were listening to auntie found who was very optimistic about drugs whose names weve heard of before like there but also about the trials that are ongoing mike quite optimistic that there may be a breakthrough by the end of the year. I think one of the has got to use the word which dr fired she used is cautiously he is cautiously optimistic hes encouraged by some of the trials that are being conducted or one of the vaccine potential vaccines is going into a phase 3 trial this week which is testing some 30000 people as a final stage test in terms of the vaccine before it gets implemented but dr chee making very clear this is going to take a number of months he also did say however that there is a degree of optimism that one of the 3 platforms for vaccine that is presently in research may produce a result he also talked about how all these platforms are working together in order that this is not a competitive race that they are sharing data that they are sharing information and that they are sharing all the information that is coming out of it but i must point out right at the top here that this hearing has already been politicized we had the opening by James Cliburn a democrat tuesday chairing the subcommittee who stated very clearly that what this committee is doing is calling for a National Plan that prioritizes science over politics then you had a response from the Ranking Member republicans even skellies who said no there is a National Plan in place see then theatrically produced folios of papers showing this was the plan that was inspired by the president so already youve got the situation politicized between republican and democrat the republican member at the moment basically parroting what has come out of the white house and just a couple of the republican representatives saying for example that china and was responsible for this particular virus that china refused to allow President Trumps requests to send in scientists at the beginning of the pandemic well this is frankly quite incorrect because what actually. Up and is that the u. S. Contingent that was based at that lab in will hunt china the funding was withdrawn by President Trump a few months ago into last year so theres all sorts of Fact Checking that needs to go on but i must stress the degree to which this has already been politicized and of course like the fact that we have 3 of the most senior might say medical brains speaking to a senior group of politicians is unique in itself in that as you said before it is the 1st time that they have sat together to explain their case not just to politicians but to a very large why despite all of the American Public you really need to hear this you might say from the horses mouth. Yes indeed and for example dr powerchair gave a relatively short Opening Statement in which he outlined the 4 points in which this pandemic must be counted the 1st is to find out the course of the virus to find out what the fight protein is as he puts it because unless you do that you cannot develop an effective vaccine then you talked about the development of diagnostics the characteristic of testings and the therapeutics to treat those whove actually got the virus pointing out there that that drug you mentioned rendez of beer has shown very encouraging signs and patients who are on respirators for example and then you talked about the development of vaccines now this is the 1st time the public has a whole has heard a coherent statement about what is being done at certain levels of government in terms of approaching this virus doctor outline that very clearly indeed well be hearing from the centers for Disease Control director as well the c. D. C. At the beginning of this pandemic was basically sidelined by the trumpet ministration previous pandemics in this country hiv be it swine flu for example bird flu all of these were actually responded to directly by the c. D. C. People remember well the daily briefings did not come out of the white house they came out of the c. D. C. The c. D. C. Was the Point Organization in this pandemic receive you see he has been completely sidelined at one stage the Trump Administration withdrew all data from hospitals from the c. D. C. Incented to Health Department so this is the type of situation that were looking at here and this is what the committee is looking at as well michaela her correspondent in washington d. C. Thanks very much for the update. Now the state of florida is reporting a Record Number of covert 1000 deaths for the 3rd straight day another 253 people have died with nearly 10000 new cases florida his one of the worst hit states but its republican governor refuses to impose widespread lockdowns in other news irans Supreme Leader heard the lashed out at european powers saying that they failed to salvage his 2050 nuclear deal in a televised speech ayatollah ali how many accuse western powers of inflicting a blow on irans economy with their socalled hollow promises the u. S. Pulled out of the deal in 2018 and re impose sanctions on tehran but several European Countries say they are dedicated to saving the agreement its the 3rd day of the hardship in saudi arabia coinciding with the festival theres unprecedented restrictions in mecca because of the coronavirus more than 2000000. 00 muslims from around the world normally make the annual pilgrimage this year pilgrims from abroad are banned but only around a 1000 saudi nationals and Foreign Residents are allowed to make the important journey tens of thousands of muslims have also gathered at the al aqsa mosque islams the 3rd holiest site to celebrate either party force it has more from occupied east jerusalem. Unlike the previous eat it officer which marks the end of ramadan the alexa mosque compound is open for worship and the 10s of thousands who are streaming in here are very grateful for that fact but also aware that they are marking this aide in the shadow of the coronavirus and anik with the situation you know its very we are really affected economically and financially but even though you know we try to leave it to the british the way it should be. So when the truck to. There you know the prayer i would go as low to the sheep you know just for the kids and for the women to feed you know that they are having it or otherwise you know its like did eat for us with the saudi you know when its very difficult financially and in an economic and social level we cant visit each other because if it is stiction us and then no one had to do it we have to be careful and commit to the instructions that last time they closed it and we didnt pray thank god this time its open so we will pray the islamic walk which runs the mosque compound did put in certain restrictions telling people to bring their own premises telling the elderly and children to stay at home and has to be said that wasnt really observed there were lots of elderly and children among the worship as they also told people to socially distance as much as possible to a bay the orders of the guards the sheer numbers made that very difficult they were told 27000. 00 people were inside thats less than half what you would usually expect on. But still a significant number what there was there was a significant compliance with mosque wearing much more than what we saw when the mosque was reopened after those weeks of closure earlier in the years of people doing what they could to try to stay safe in these circumstances of coronavirus while still also displaying their will to come here on this very holy day. And hundreds of muslims also attending aides present. Which is just being conducted by. From museum to a mosque this stuff was built as a cathedral 1500 years ago almost 1000 years later it was turned into a mosque a Little Museum 930 fold that was the news are back with more news on the other side of the break to stay with us. Play. August on aljazeera at the u. S. Republican and Democratic National conventions delegates officially nominate their partys president ial candidates for the 2020 elections in india witness policy young conservationist tackling the deadly human elephant conflict with an unlikely strategy coexistence 10 years after the chilean mining disaster we revisit the victims of a story that captivated the world one on one east and has the violent arena of mixed martial arts in russia and the former u. S. S. R. And the u. N. Special tribunal delivers its verdict on the assassination of former lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri August on aljazeera. Every war makes a devastating impact past earthrise explore some of the efforts to recover what was lost from the syrian scientists safeguarding one of our most valuable resources these are important southpaws away have to make sure they are surviving to the refugees striving to coexist with nature ok so whats going on there simulating what happens when an elephant life after conflict on aljazeera. A korean reporting to the wound oh i did hear one journalist documents life beyond the headlines. But certain stories can change us in the easiest cleaves use to it well you know the history. Germany was a unique journey into. Means to be human the things we keep a witness documentary on aljazeera. Be the hero world needs right now. Washington. Hong kongs leader persones legislative elections further deepening the territories political crisis. So raman your charges are alive my headquarters here in doha also coming up americas top Infectious Disease experts warn of more pressure on the Us Health System and the upcoming winter flu season. Records its 1st for a virus death australia brings in time to restrictions countries that warns of the crisis under control and now under pressure