Distinguished democratic and republican colleagues for your participation in this rather unique forum. Over 80,000 citizens have lost. Heir lives due to covid19 more than in any other country on earth. Many families have lost loved ones, including my own. Our fellow Committee MemberMaxine Waters has recently experienced a loss in her family due to this pandemic. This select committee was not established to cast blame on or cast disparities on foreign or domestic or to search for the viruses origin, but to pursue future success. We have been tasked with the urgent and important work to ensure that our countrys response to the seminal crisis is effective, efficient, and equitable. I agree with ranking Members Police that one of the most important components of our response is answering the region that is being discussed at every Kitchen Table in america right now. How do we know when we are ready to safely reopen our country . To answer that question, we should be informed by history and guided by science. While we all want to reopen as soon as possible, doing so before the proper safeguards are in place would cause more sickness and death. Alsomature opening would cause greater harm to the economy. We must reopen responsibly. Therefore, we are beginning our committees work with a briefing from Public Health experts, including two former fda commissioners who served on the republican president s and three other experts whose primary interests is safeguarding the citizens of this great country. But the greatness of this country must be accessible and affordable for all. That is why we need a comprehensive, coordinated, and centralized strategy for faster and for your testing. We also need to deploy proven Public Health measures, like Contact Tracing, tracking, and surveillance to quickly identify sources and locations. Once we have identified new cases, we must provide necessary treatment in a medically appropriate isolated setting while providing support to patients and their families. These are steps we must take while keeping americans safe and preventing a second wave which will cause even more lives and livelihoods. What thehope to hear federal government should be doing to support and coordinate states and local efforts to safely reopen our economies, anal and urban, in efficient, effective, and equitable manner. I now recognize the Ranking Member, mr. Scalise, for his opening remarks. Scalise ative first of all, i want to express my condolences to my scene for the loss of your sister. Chairman, thank you for holding this briefing on such an important topic, how we safely and smartly reopen our country and help people get that to work. The fact that the house is still not in session runs counter to the very message that we can safely reopen. This subcommittee, along with congress, should be back in washington for this briefing. Our job is to show america we have begun a path to resume our lives. A virtual briefing unnecessarily sends the wrong message. Congress should be leading the way. We should not be the last to come back. The subcommittee only has 12 members. There are dozens of rooms around the capital that are open right now that can hold this briefing safely. With 12 members, we can achieve model social distancing. Let me show you what is going on here. We are in a Briefing Room here in the capital, and as you can see, the room is set up with proper social distancing where you can safely have all 12 members of the committee as well as the opportunity for the public and press to be here in person. I wish we would show that we can do what were asking the rest of the country to do. Can hold thiswe briefing in person means that we should hold this briefing in person. Showing up top is work every single day working for the American People. The senate is here in the capital, in session today. The United States house of representatives should lead by example and we should be here working as well. But the partisanship aside and Work Together to show america how the rest of this world is responding. Look around the country. The very first action of the subcommittee was not to help people get back to work. In fact, the first action was to attack hardworking bluecollar americans. I know the chairman and all the democrats on the committee sent a letter, literally harassing companies from all over the country that did everything they were told to do. They were told to keep your workers on payroll. Ppp was there to help those companies. Every member of the committee that signed that letter harassing those companies voted for the bill. Why on one hand would you tell people we want this lifeline to help people attached to their companies and keep people employed, and then turn around and target companies in the steel working field, drunk drivers, welders . These are the people we are trying to help. They are living in fear because if the companies had to return the money after they followed all the rules that we voted for, they would have to lay off hundreds of workers. Do we really want to see more americans laid off at a time when we are seeing these on a limited numbers that we are trying to reserves . That is the wrong message to send. Attacking bluecollar workers is not what we should be doing. We should be helping workers. We should be Holding China accountable for what they did. Unfortunately, that is not happening. That is not going on with this committee, and that is a concern, mr. Chairman. Each state and local government is starting to reopen. 36 states have already moved into phase one, showing a template for the rest of us to follow. My home state of louisiana moves into phase one on friday. I have spoken to so many great establishments that are already planning on how to reopen their business. Congress could be leading the way, showing how to do it. We did it a few weeks ago by having a vote on the house door. Not proxy voting remotely but showing up to work. Each state and local government also must continue to look at the things that we are doing to ramp up production. Ppp and so much of the other vital equipment. Look at all the progress that inmate already on making sure we can get more manufacturing in america, take your of our hospital workers on the front line. We had keep that progress going. This committee can figure out ways to bring about network done in china back to the United States. I wish we would focus on that. It is certainly something we want to see focused on. The Trump Administration continues to implement the largest relief package in american history. As of today, the ppp has made loans to over 4 Million Companies totaling over 520 billion. That means millions of jobs that are saved, people not on the unemployment rolls because of the work that we did. Tos not take that by trying target is very companies. We will not live in fear as americans. Lets recover and Work Together to get this country back on track. With that, mr. Chairman, let me yield. Rep. Clyburn thank you. Let me know welcome our panelists. Thefirst panelist is director of the Global Health institute at harvard university. The we will hear from former fda commissioner dr. Scott gottlieb. Dr. Gottlieb is currently a resident fellow at the American Enterprise institute. Benjaminave dr. George coming the american Public Health association. Previouslyn served as the secretary of marylands department and mental hygiene. Then we will hear from mark mcclellan, former fda commissioner and cms administrator. Dr. Mcclellan is also the founding director of the Duke Margolis center for Health Policy at duke university. The director of the center for Health Security at the Johns HopkinsUniversity Bloomberg school of Public Health. I think our distinct catalyst for joining us this afternoon. Each will deliver an Opening Statement of two minutes. For hiscognize dr. Jha opening remarks. Good afternoon, members of the house select subcommittee. I am honored to join you today. We are at a Pivotal Moment in this crisis. Our initial response to the pandemic has left more than 80,000 americans dead and more than 20 million americans unemployed. As we enter the next phase of this pandemic, we must do better. One key part of doing better is having a robust testing infrastructure. You see, testing is critical. Testing tells us who has the disease and who doesnt. Testing is the cornerstone of controlling every single disease outbreak. Thats an adequate testing precipitated the national shutdown. We must not make the same mistakes again as we open up our nation. The institute that i run has calculated that the u. S. Needs more than 900,000 tests every day to safely open up again. We are doing about a third of that. So how do we do better . While states have a Critical Role, i believe we need federal leadership. There are five key steps that the federal government should be taking. The first, the federal government must have visibility into the entire testing supply chain, and use all of its power to ensure adequate testing supplies. Second, and in a related issue, the federal government must coordinate these supplies because different states have different needs. Can the federal government injure states cut the material they need when they need it. Third, the federal government should offer guidance on testing strategies, because it is not just about having enough tests, its about ensuring the right people get the tests at the right time. Fourth, the federal government has to ensure adequate incentives for greater incentive investments in more and better tests, so that our private sector will know there is a market for their innovation. Finally, the federal government has to be trained. With the American People about how much testing we need and a roadmap for getting us there. If we act smartly, we can open up safely, allowing americans to get back to work, knowing that they are safe in their workplaces and safe when they get back home to their families. Too Many Americans have already died in this pandemic. We can honor their memory is doing everything in our power to prevent more need the stats. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Rep. Clyburn thank you, dr. Jha. Dr. Gottlieb. Dr. Gottlieb thank you. We all recognize the extreme hardship this nation is going through right now, not just the extreme death and disease from extreme but also the Economic Hardship and the consequences we have experienced to try and mitigate this pandemic. We all want to start to reopen the economy and get you to the things that we had enjoyed, get back to a sense of normalcy, but we have to recognize the challenges that we face against the backdrop of a spread that is persistent in this country. There are hopeful signs, we see hospitalizations and new cases going down nationally. Even as we increase testing and see positivity rates going down, the doubling time is not extended to 45 days. Reproduction production numbers is about 1. 1 now. We see signs of a slowing epidemic nationally but we are still reopening against the backdrop of more spread than we anticipated. So how can we do that smartly and prudently and mitigate the risk of extended outbreaks and a new epidemic . First, it starts with a prudent approach to a phased introduction of work and reopening. It turns on heavy dependency on casebased interventions, trying to find people who are infectious, asking them to selfisolate, to the traditional tracking and tracing of Public Health work to track down people who may have been exposed and offer testing. We will not be able to get everyone. This is an infectious pathogen, a lot of people are isnt a medic. Aen if we can track down meaningful percentage of people infected and get them into isolation, it can have an impact on the epidemic. Ont of all, it will turn testing, as the analyst mentioned. We have to make sure we get testing out widely, and testing those that are at highest risk of this virus. Not everyone is an equal risk. Many people because of where they work and live, how they work, are at higher risk than other americans, and meaning to make sure we get testing to these communities. Testing turns to technology, and that will improve a lot in the coming weeks. We need to make sure the technology we apply fits the purpose. We have rapid diagnostic tools, like the machine that was recently authorized over the weekend. These are put in doctors offices. We also have rep. Clyburn thank you very much. Dr. Benjamin. Forbenjamin thank you allowing me to be here today. I have been saying, every person in this country understands that her second job is Public Health. They will help us get out of this if we return to work and back to our communities. That is the centerpiece to everything we have to do, tracing, testing, isolation, and quarantine. State and local Health Departments are working diligently every day to build up that Testing Capacity and also to do adequate Contact Tracing. This will be a task that we need the federal government to assist in in terms of guidance and help. We have to address specifically those communities that are most vulnerable. We already know there are certain parts of the community that are disproportionately affected by this outbreak. Those are people that have public facing jobs, that have a higher percentage of chronic diseases, or live in underserved communities. At the end of this, we have to think about how we build a sustainable longterm Public Health system, and that will require federal engagement. We ought to think about the investments we are putting in today as being longterm. The is absolutely not last outbreak of this type that we will see. With that, i will turn it over to you, mr. Chairman. Rep. Clyburn thank you. Dr. Mcclellan. You are recognized. Dr. Mcclellan thank you for the opportunity to join you all today. I want to add to the comment you have already heard. We are in the process of reopening, we have to do that as deeply as possible. Testing is not the only thing that is an integral part of a strategy that continues to require action from all of us and businesses as we move forward to keep that reproduction rate as close to or below one as possible. To give you a sense of where we are in testing, this past week, between around two and 3 million per week. That is significantly short of that sixplus million target s work reflects, but an increase of where we have been, based on the administrations expectations on testing this month, we should be on track to 3. 5 million a week by the end of the month and maybe 6 million per week by september. That is a ways off the kind of numbers that dr. Jha was talking about. Dr. Gottlieb has talked about ways to Bring Technology into accelerate the availability of testing. I agree that can help. I want to highlight a few other ways that we can make the tesco as far as possible because right now they are not distributed evenly, we are not testing everyone that the cdc recommends for, testing for symptoms, sentimentr a settings, surveillance, but there is more we can do. Incentives for better and more testing. That includes steps congress has taken. I think we could do more, pay more for tests that get better results faster, pay more for tests that are connected to interoperability, so the results can be shared quickly. It is important for enabling rapid responses. Steps to encourage participation by Health Care Organizations and working with that Public Health system that is very stressed right now. Most states and local governments are collaborating with health care providers, including frontline primary care providers as well as academic medical centers. Those organizations are hurting financially under the pandemic. To the extent that we can link their further payments and support to collaboration with Public Health on implementing tracing, that will help as well. I think there are opportunities for collaboration. Thank you very much. Thank you, dr. Mcclellan. Now, you are recognized, dr. Ingles b. Chairman clyburn, Ranking Member school ease, distinguish members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to speak with you today. Covid19 has gone done great damage to our country in terms of sickness, lossoflife, economic consequences. To minimize the risk of covid spread accelerating in a state during reopening, what conditions should be in place . Capacity for hospitals to give all patient standing care . Capacity for anybody with covid symptoms. The capacity to isolate cases, trace the contracts contacts, and guide them into quarantine. Contact tracing has been crucial for countries that have gotten epidemics under comparatively better control. By identifying those at high risk and intervening to stop that chain of transmission if we fail to Contact Trace effectively, we will continue to have new paces new cases appearing in unpredictable ways, numbers, and places, and our epidemic will grow more quickly. To do Contact Tracing well, we need on the order of 100,000 Contact Tracers working across 30 country this year, about workers per hundred population in a state. Eight states have announced plans to exceed that 30 per 100,000 benchmark. Contact tracing will need to be a key part of our strategy until widespread vaccination can happen. Together with widespread diagnostic testing, small commitment to at least six feet physical distancing, cloth mask use in public, and avoiding gatherings. If we do all this Work Together, we can lower our local and national risks and begin to reopen the economy as safely as will be possible, given the great covid challenges that remain ahead of us. Thank you. Members now have three minutes to question the panelists. And may i begin my three minutes by asking about the testing. For mobilet advocate testing, mobile units going through our communities. Right now, we have testing taking place. We have stations that people can come to to be tested. But the fact of the matter is, in rural america, and in some parts of urban america, the mobilization needed is not there. And so i have been a strong advocate for getting mobile units out in these communities. May i have either one of your thoughts about mobile testing . Maybe dr. Benjamin . Dr. Benjamin mr. Chairman, thank you very much. That is an important question, and you are right. My experience in the district of columbia and the state of maryland, and talking to my colleagues around the country, mobile steps have worked quite well. Forave even used them monitoring. They work very well. Thank you very much. We also know that we are experiencing some unusual numbers coming out of rural communities, low income communities, africanamerican communities, and brown communities. You would like to offer some suggestions as to how we should combat that problem that is beginning to cause some significant acts around to many people. Mechairman clyburn, let start off by saying this has been an and or mislead important problem that i think we have paid too little attention to. The disproportionate burden of this disease has fallen on latinos. It is multifactorial. The fact is that we have not spent enough Energy Testing some communities, proactively looking for disease in those communities, and knowing about access to highquality care, and we dont find the disease early, we have people suffer excessively and unnecessarily. Believe this has to be part of our national strategy, to make sure we are testing, identifying cases early, preventing the disease as much as possible, and treating it once we have identified it. Chair clyburn thank you very much. Because i allowed a few of our guests to go a little too long, im going to give up the rest of you,me and i yield to Ranking Member school ease. Thanks again, mr. Chairman. If you look, dr. Gottlieb, we have seen a number of studies that have started to come out that talk about the health tradeoffs. Obviously, covid19, bringing the curve down, making sure hospitals dont get overwhelmed fortunately, that is the case right now in what we are seeing and her hospitals. But if you look at some of the other things we are starting to see concerns about, people are delaying some Preventative Care and treatment things like mammograms, colonoscopies, Cancer Treatment that is not getting done. We are also hearing about vaccinations of children. Johns hopkins just came out with the study that estimates 1. 2 million children could die worldwide before their fifth birthday not from covid19, but because they are not properly getting vaccinated. These are all things we are starting to hear about that dont get put into the discussion as much area dr. Gottlieb, can you talk about that . Are those things you are hearing or seeing as well . Dr. Gottlieb thank you for the question. There is no doubt there are Public Health implications of the shutdown. Y would not have been there would not have been Public Health if the hospitals were overrun, so what we did to help we did what we did to stop the epidemic coming under control. We have seen a reduction in pediatric vaccinations, pneumonia evacuations evacuations in senior citizens. We might see outbreaks in the fall of measles and other conditions because of declining vaccination rates. We have seen a decline in people following up for chemotherapy, chemotherapy chemotherapy visits. There is a 17 reduction in followup. We are seeing public of consequences from the actions we took. There is no doubt about it. Equallyrnative was challenging, because without breaking the epidemic, we would not have had a functional Health Care System and there would not have been any Public Health without a functional Health Care System. Scalise the concern about hospitals is very real. The good news is we are seeing that decline across the board, including states that have started to reopen. Here is a case where we dont need to reinvent the wheel. There are states like georgia that are starting to pave the way. We should all be learning from that, sharing best practices. We are seeing numbers out of georgia that show even with the reopening, with a very robust strategy that is using safety safety is a driving factor but reopening retail establishments they have seen a decrease in deaths and hospitalizations, not a run on hospitals, but a decrease. Are you seeing similar things . As they are reopening, are using concerns . Are you saying that working yourself working itself out well . Are someieb there states where we are not seeing a spike in cases. Florida is an example. In other states reopening, we see an uptick in cases. But we did expect to see that when we reopen, so that not that should not surprise us. We need to keep a close eye not just on new cases, because they are testing more, so we are turning over more cases, but we need to watch hospitalizations very closely, because that is more of an objective measure, albeit a lagging indicator, because time to hospitalization might be five to seven days. Likescalise it sounds they are ok with hospitalizations in georgia. Dr. Gottlieb i have not seen an uptick in georgia. Im not familiar with the last couple of days of data. There are states that are reopening where we are not seeing an uptick. There are some states where we are. It should not surprise us if they do. We have to manage do that. We expected that as people started to interact more, there would be an uptick in cases. That should not surprise us as we start to reopen. Chair clyburn thank you very much, mr. Gottlieb. Thank you, mr. Ranking member. Turn to represent of wallace. Let me join the Ranking Member in wishing you condolences. Reppo wallace while i am sitting here today, my sister is viewing is going on in st. Louis. Many families have been touched. I am hopeful we can all get together, democrats and republicans, and deal with this pandemic. I would like to direct my a. Estion to dr. Jh while lockdowns have been necessary to save lives, they have come at a tremendous cost at a national and individual level. Americans are eager to return to work, but we cannot continue with life as usual until it is safe to do so. You recently published your roadmap for pandemic resilience, with outlines for a course of action for full removal is a of the u. S. Economy. The first step of the harvard roadmap is to implement 5 million tests in the United States per day by early june, increased to 20 million tests per day by late july. House democrats recognize the include thought to money in the cares act to under the the virus authority of the defense production act. Yet this Administration Spent only 20 of that money on ramping up the production of muchneeded medical supplies. The rest of that money was allocated by the administration for experimental aircraft, space unrelated other uses to the coronavirus pandemic. Rapidis a need for expansion of testing. Congress is again taking action to enhance the nations medical supplies in the heroes act, and directed the administration to use the defense production act to spur the production of more tests and testing supplies. So let me just say this. We all know what is needed. We have heard from our experts here today. We have a roadmap. It is not about the fact that we dont know, we dont understand, we dont know that we need more testing and more tracing. What we need is the leadership. Example,eed is, for harvard, when i first was elected to office, we came up to harvard as new members to learn about how congress works, to learn about government. Maybe i am going to ask you and the chairman to think about convening a big Virtual Conference on testing, and bring together the governors to talk about what they need, and this administration, to understand what is needed by all of the governors, and how the coordination is going to take place. It cannot be done with people competing against each other in the states. Ppeannot be done by having commandeered by anything or anybody. Aboutestion is not understanding or knowing what is needed. The question is where and when is the leadership going to come together to do what needs to be done . Chair clyburn thank you very much, Congress Person waters. No time left for the question to be answered. We are going to mr. Jordan. The Ranking Member ask the simple question, what is the objective . You have eight different entities currently looking at oversight of the cares act and the coronavirus crisis, but i would argue this ninth is political. It is a committee designed to go after the president. The first witness said there was inadequate testing that initiated the shutdown. I thought the shutdown was initiated to bend the curvature, so our Health Care System was not overwhelmed . We already got a political statement from the very first witness. Maybe the objective of this Committee Hearing is what the chairman said earlier. It is an opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision. The very first ask this committee took to restructure tongs with to send members try to put steelworkers in pennsylvania and ohio on the unemployment line. You dont have to take my word for it. Conor lamb and tim ryan, democrats, said, what are you doing to this company with steelworkers working there . The second action this committee took was this unfair hearing itself. It did not follow the rules, did not give proper notice, did not give briefing memos, did not give us witnesses, did not ask the republicans who we might like for the witnesses. Why did we set up a partisan committee . Why do we have an unfair process . I dont think the Majority Party likes the fact. They dont like the fact that this president shut off travel from china months ago. He was criticized for doing it, it turned out it was a tremendous decision. They dont like that this president said we are not want to spend the tax dollars of the American People on the World Health Organization, where they lied to us about what china did. I got a colleague who says it best. We dont have to pay people to lie for us. There are people who will do it for free. We want to keep spending the tax dollars of the American People on the steelworkers of pittsburgh, not the World Health Organization. I wonder what the objective is. If it is an unfair hearing to do a Video Conference when we should be meeting in a room with the proper social distancing, asking questions and we are doing it this way. I think it is all partisan. With that, chair clyburn chair clyburn i yield back. Thank you very much, mr. Jordan. To ms. At, i yield maloney. War weloney this is a are not winning. We need to do this in a bipartisan way. We need to Work Together. I thank my colleagues on the democratic and republican side for joining this committee to Work Together for the answers to protect this country and the American People. Heads invite republican of the fda, and lastly, the Oversight Committee had a former appointee from president bush, who headed up the response to the katrina crisis. He told us in clear words that what we need is a clear command center, a National Testing virus,y, to combat this and we needed not only that, but we needed to have a defense production act, because we are in a war. Activate it. Use it. Create as many tests as we need, protective equipment that we need. Order it to be done. Get it done. Every expert is saying we cannot reopen, we cannot go back to work, we cannot be nearnormal until we can test to see who is sick, and everyone should be tested, and this country can do it. We know what the problem is. Just get out there and do it. We need to test, contain, trace, before we get back to work, which we all want. Jha the to dr. White house released a testing blueprint, but rather than put forth a national strategy, the document provides guidance to states to develop their own testing plans. Competingen states against each other for tests and equipment. He emphasized it should be centralized. From your perspective, does the blueprint i am sure you have read provide states the level of federal coordination and support they need to quickly ramp up their testing and reopen our economy . Dr. Jha congress woman, thank you for that question. Let me start by quickly responded to congressman jordans statement that my opening remarks were partisan. They were not. Every expert on the left, right, and center agrees that we had to shut our economy down because the outbreak got too big, because we did not have a testing infrastructure that allowed us to put our arms around the outbreak. Testing was the fundamental failure that forced our country to shut down. Too cumbersome and maloney, your question the National Testing outline that the president laid out has some important elements in it which i support. I do believe ultimately that states have to play a central role in this. States know a lot about where to test, how to test. But they cannot do it by themselves. If we see them competing with each other in the marketplace i believe in competition, but this is not where competition is going to be useful. Supply chains are global. States cannot do it by themselves. Chair clyburn thank you very much, dr. Jha. Recognize mr. Luke meyer. The covert outbreak is a national and International Crisis that is certainly deserving of a dedicated rational response and oversight. As the president said, we are at war with an invisible enemy, and we must Work Together to ensure safe asamericans are possible. Instead of acknowledging that an economic crisis deserves a nonpartisan congressional response, the committee is proceeding eerily similar to vote of the House Majority in 2019. This was constructed with no input from the Ranking Member and minority whip, mr. Scalise. Republicans were not allowed to invite a witness, and we were given notice that some of us who believe we should be in d. C. For a meeting did not have time to get there. That is my comment. My question is, for dr. Gottlieb or dr. Mcclellan, either one who wants to try it think the key to all of this is perspective. Let me briefly say this. On a Conference Call the other day with the hospital association. We have four times as new people whove died this year with fluid pneumonia than covid19. Mortician in my area said he is bearing more people due to suicide than covid19, our largest counties combined. Our caseworker who does Veterans Affairs says she is now the counselor talking veterans of a cliff every day because they no longer have a support network orng to the coffee shop going for a walk. What has happened in new york 8 of the brain surgeries were postponed. There was a study a new years ago that showed for everyone percent increase in unemployment, 37,000 people died due to heart attacks, suicides, homicides, and drug overdoses. Gentlemen, put yourself in my shoes. Your concern for folks in the covid19 situation and i dont minimize that risk at all. It is there. The problem is the risk to society when you have people not getting Cancer Treatments, as you mentioned a while ago, dr. Gottlieb. Brain surgery is not being done. Child abuse is up. As a policymaker, i have to have perspective on this. If you are in my shoes, how would you make that decision . Dr. Mcclellan i have talked to a number of states and governors who are in a similar position. It would be great if we had more Testing Capacity months ago. I dont think that is enough by itself. It is not a whole strategy for containment. It also requires changes in the ways businesses behave, and even the way people behave. All of these are parts of an effective response. So having more testing as you go forward with reopening is really critical. Do i wish we had more capacity in place then . Certainly. But there are other estimates out there, somewhat less than the 6 million per week number we have talked about so far, that could be part of a comprehensive approach. Your time is out. Dr. Johnson mr. Chairman, can i answer that question . Chair clyburn i am sorry. The time is expired. Velasquez rep. Velasquez as someone who was stricken by covid19, i understand the importance of providingd tracing, the resources that we need in thereto make sure that are more people who can survive this virus. Is at thepending heart of the u. S. Economy, especially for the millions of Small Businesses operating in retail, hotels, and leisure. Without adequate testing and to many it could lead americans not feeling safe eating out or going to work, alreadyhardening our struggling Small Businesses. Dr. Jha congress woman, thank you for that question. You are right. The American Economy resides and is built on confidence, and confidence is decided based on whether people feel safe to engage in Economic Activity or not. What we saw was well before governors shut down states, people had already started doing social distancing because they did not feel safe. The most important thing that policymakers can be doing is creating an environment where people feel safe to go out and shop and work and play, and testing is fundamental to that strategy. Rep. Velasquez after benjamin, it is my view that we need a testing system in place that is fast, accurate, one that can be utilized on a large scale. Have ae currently do not Contact Tracing system in place, what steps could we be taking to have an extensive tracking system to prevent the spread of covid19 . We need ton i think build that Contact Tracing system on the backs of the existing governmental Public Health system. That means the investments congress has already made and any new investments we make in that system, we have to put the dollars and and the training in, and with significant federallevel involvement, hopefully the centers for Disease Control and prevention in particular. Gottlieb,a dr. Yesterday, and hhs official testified before the senate and predicted the u. S. Would be able to test 50 Million People per month by september. If this is this a realistic prediction, given our current testing framework . If youtlieb i think factor in new technology that including the market, the use of next generation sequencing, i think we can increase the throughput and get to 10 million tests a week. I think it is possible, but it will take additional products coming onto the market, hitting authorized by the fda. Chair clyburn thank you. I now recognize can she hear us . I can see her. She is not hearing me. Mr. Chairman . Chair clyburn yes, mr. Ranking member . Text her. Rep. Scalise is she a muted . Is she muted . Can you hear me . Chair clyburn we are recognizing you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you so much. I think it is a time that we onuld be working together the coronavirus. I totally agree with that. But i do think it is important for the American People to know the democrats have continually fought to divide us on this issue. Speaker pelosi and House Democrats have thrown wrenches into negotiations over and over, pushing for abortion funding and the Green New Deal while families and Small Businesses have waited desperately for muchneeded help and revenue and bridges to hold them together. It is not hard to see the partisan politics at work today. We are here on a subcommittee that was created with only democrat votes, for a briefing that was announced at the last minute, unilaterally, by democrats, with witnesses selected only by democrats. This is the tone that is being set. This is crazy. The way this has been rolled out, one could be forgiven if you thought we could reboot this process, but look at what the impeachment debacle this country went through, wasting hundreds of hours and multiple millions of dollars of the American Peoples tax money. The American People deserve better than this. If democrats were truly concerned about oversight, they would let the already robust roster of oversight to do their work. In congress alone, there are house and Senate Standing committees, as well as the congressional oversight commission, the Pandemic Response accountability generale, the inspector for pandemic recovery, the department of justice, and the fcc. I dont see what was needed with another committee. What we do need is another is a real effort to hold accountable those responsible for this crisis. Democrats walked away from forming a bipartisan china task force. What did they decide was more important . Bullying American Companies for having the audacity to use the ppp loans in compliance with the law to save thousands of jobs for steelworkers and welders, at a time when an estimated hundred thousand Small Businesses have closed permanently. Democrats on this subcommittee made their First Priority to try to make it impossible for American Companies trying to keep their head above water. Why is that more important than figuring out why chinese doctors and citizens that tried to alert the world about the coronavirus keep disappearing, or why the Chinese Government is slowing down the International Scientific effort to treat the origins of the virus, or why personalusing faulty equipment and testing supplies to the u. S. And all over the world. To accessis trying the very heroes working on a coronavirus vaccine, or how china coopted the World Health Organization. The point remains the same. Why do democrats think it is more important to her as American Companies than to hold them accountable. Chair clyburn your time has expired. All these going to other americans deserve chair clyburn thank you very much. Thank you very much. I now recognize mr. Foster. You, mr. Er thank chairman, Ranking Member, and our panelists today. One of our greatest failings in congress is that we did not exercise adequate oversight over the coronavirus testing in its earliest phases, when it would have done the most good. Instead, we trusted the promises made by the administration about testing, and when these promises were not fulfilled, tens of thousands of americans have died. I am not confident that with our current level of social compliance, case isolation, and testing that we will be able to extinguish this pandemic and get our economy back to normal until we have a vaccine. One of our greatest concerns on this committee must be to make sure that the Vaccine Development and Manufacturing Program is not subject to the same mismanagement, broken promises, and political interference that the Testing Program was. Orquestion for dr. Gottlieb dr. Mcclellan what are the milestones that we in congress should be tracking on the vaccine develop and program, making sure that appropriate plans are being made and executed . In short, that we are not missing this one up, too. Dr. Gottlieb i will briefly comment and then turn it over to dr. Mcclellan. What congas could do that is helpful is focusing on running a parallel process, where we can scale up manufacturing and actually start Manufacturing Commercial scale supplies of vaccines, and try to do things in parallel, so do some of the preclinical work on the animal models that we usually do in a sequential fashion, while we are doing the clinical studies, so we can accelerate this as quickly as possible. We would need what i would call a massively parallel process, where we are doing things simultaneously instead of sequentially, as we would typically do in vaccine develop. Just had a webwe event that included dr. Fauci and public and private leaders we enforcing the same point dr. Gottlieb made. I would emphasize it is not just about the parallel process of getting clinical testing done, Clinical Trial stone. We know we need to note vaccines are safe and effective as quickly as possible, with largescale manufacturing so we are ready to use this vaccines as soon as we have enough evidence. But also, the materials that go with largescale manufacturing, like the vials and the needles. This is a big scale problem that goes along with the research and development. What we are after is not just scientific principles. It is project management, so we do not get hooked on the dumb stuff like needles and syringes and packaging materials. This requires confidence in just the ordinary part of the program as well as the technical part, that frankly we have not seen from this administration. Im going to followup with each of you to see if i can get more meat on that, because we need to know the milestones to track. Thank you. I yield back. Chair clyburn thank you very much, mr. Foster. We now recognize mr. Green, dr. Green. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Chairwoman waters, my condolences for your loss. Im disappointed i only get three minutes. The committee is not off to a good start. The majoritys first action was to attack job creators. Even their own party struck back on that. Lets be more considered and consulted about this first meeting. Select anot allowed to single witness. It creates some doubt the majority is really interested in the truth, or just pushing a narrative. Congress should be passing bills to help the 33 million unemployed americans, not creating more committees. We already have eight mechanisms for oversight. Why do we need another one . Instead of attacking american ppe ses for taking the the pp loans, we should be looking at china, their role in this. From day one, chinas lies and deception have severely hampered the global response. New data suggests that had china notified the world just one week prior, 66 of the lives lost could have been saved. That is 56000 and americans, americansna lied died. Yet the first action of this committee is to attack american businesses . Attack them for actually following the very law that they had just voted to pass . As a physician, we make decisions based on a costbenefit ratio, with the goal of flattening the curve. The costs were not worth the benefit. The president closed travel. We shut down the economy. With flatten the curve and save lives. Now the goal seems to have changed, and it is as if some leaders now want to stop every single transmission. Not one person gets the virus. As a clinician, as an er doctor, as the former ceo of a health 52e company that ran Emergency Departments in 11 states, the cost of stopping all transmission of this virus is impossible. The first witness today, in answering chairman jordins question, said we had to shut the economy down because we had inadequate testing. Im sorry, that is wrong. We shut the economy down to flatten the curve, to not max out our icu bed capacity and ventilator capacity. It was not an absence of testing that caused us to shut down the economy. We shut down the economy to save lives, american lives, because of the icu and the ventilator issue. I want to say this. In tennessee, we are open for business. Georgia is open for business. They opened april 24, and they have seen a decrease in hospitalizations. Even the chairmans state of South Carolina is doing fantastic. Opening up, and they are seeing improvements. The continued cost of a closed 33,800 americans are predicted to die because of cancer because of the delay in diagnosis. Die00 are expected to because of the unemployment rate. You, dr. Burn thank green. Your time is expired. Thank you very much. Thank you, dr. Green. Finally, mr. Raskin. Reppo raskin we have lost 82,000 americans to the coronavirus in less than three months. 21 million americans thrown out of work. Millionn 1. 3 coronavirus, which remains out of control many states in our country. I can understand our colleague sperate efforts to distract from the crisis and talk about almost anything else and plunges into partisan conflicts. But i appreciate, mr. Chairman, the leadership you have shown in keeping us focused on the task at hand. I would like to ask dr. Jha a question. He points out that we have had this Competition Among the states, and we have heard a lot of testimony about how the states have been pitted against each other in this helter skelter competition for resources, and a maze of laws and guidances and rules. No one can figure out what is going on. Your colleagues at harvard have presented a plan to ramp up testing and to reopen the country safely and sustainably, and your plan says America Needs tight coordination of the complex supply chain involved in the logistics to provide the states with the ppe and the ventilators and the testing kits, and eventually the vaccines. You have also called for 900,000 tests a day, when we are doing less than a third of that. How do you propose that we actually get to this centralized system of logistical coordination that America Needs to get out of this nightmare, given where we are today . Dr. Jha congressman, thank you for your question. I do believe very strongly that states have a very Critical Role in that states will have a leadership role in this. The problem is that testing and ppe these are national and International Supply chains. If you have each state buying for the supply, you will by definition have states competing with each other, and competing with foreign countries. And while i think our states are terrific, im not sure i want delaware competing with a foreign country and new york and california to try to get the supplies. I think this is why we have a federal government. I think the federal government can play an effective and Important Role in coordinating and obtaining supplies, getting states that help they need, so that states can focus on the jobs they are really good at, which is identifying their own individual needs, and figuring out how to best implement a safe strategy. I want to followup. The university of maryland recently published a study showing that perhaps a majority, but at least half of covid19 infections, are caused by presymptomatic or asymptomatic transmission. That is a remarkable thing. That means maybe most of infections are taking place from people who do not even know they have got it. What does that mean, about the importance of testing and doing it dramatically, expanding testing in the country to deal with all of the asymptomatic and present the medic infections taking place . Thank you very much, mr. Raskin. I will have to hold for that answer. Perhaps you will get some time from mr. Kim. Homekim this week, my state of new jersey will likely hit 10,000 killed. If new jersey were a country, we would be number seven in the world right now for debts. We have lost more americans than we lost in both iraq and afghanistan in the two decades of that war. I spent my career as a National Security official, working in a rack in afghanistan, working under both republicans and democrats to try to save lives. When i talk to the people in my district, they are scared and they are confused, and when they hear discussions like we are having today about testing and tracing and these next steps, what the preferable understanding that i hear about how does this affect their lives . What is this going to do to affect their daytoday . And when we think about loosening up, what are we going to be listening into . What can people expect . What we know is reopening businesses, schools, we are not went to go back to what we were last year. We are going to be opening up into a new normal that is not like before. When we talk about test and trace and isolate, to what extent are we thinking about other steps of teach or train, or something that helps people understand how to embed the lessons you are telling us into their daily lives . I would like to hear from dr. Ingles be as well i would like to hear from the doctors about what role the federal government or states could play in terms of giving advice to businesses, schools, churches, and others that right now are asking me questions about what happens next, when they start to open up. I will turn it over to the doctors. Agree with the importance of engaging the public. The work ofn Contact Tracing, there needs to be a collaborative effort of people working with public and respecting the guidance that they get in terms of quarantine. Contact tracing, the description should be not just for professionals. The public should get information about what it means, how it is done. Demystify it and show how it will help break the chain of transmission. Your point about businesses getting guidance, i completely agree. I know the cdc has been working for some time on developing specific guidance for businesses, for schools, for churches, for universities. I think they are about to release that. I think what we are hearing from businesses is they want that guidance. They want to be able to tell their employees that they have the guidance of the federal government. They want to be able to tell customers we have everything that has been asked of us, so people will feel confident going back to work or back into the economy. Rep. Kim i appreciate that. I yelled back. Back. Clyburn i yield chair clyburn let me say we set nottime frame and we did want to impose upon our guests, so i am going to allow each one minutes totake two make closing statements, since some of the things said here today, they might want to respond to. A, let i recognized dr. Jh me say thank you to dr. Green for recognizing South Carolinas successes. One of the reasons we are successful, dr. Green, is because this democrat reached out to the republican governor, and we have talked on more than one occasion about setting up mobile testing. The past chair of the board, dr. Johnson we are working together, not politically plastering, but working together in a bipartisan way. Now i dont know what the vote to set up the committee we are patterning this committee after. Million from this committee saving 15 billion. I hope we can have that kind of success with this committee. We must do it in a bipartisan way, which i am all for doing. With that, i yield to dr. Jha. So jha again, thank you much for having the on today. This is a very difficult moment for our country. Moste in the middle of the important and substantial pandemic in a century. I believe that our country has all of the capacity, all of the capability, and all of the innovative energies needed to overcome these challenges. What has been clear to me from the beginning of this pandemic is that it will only happen if we can truly marshall all the forces of this country across the political divide. Clear to me as a publichealth person, as a physician who has spent his life taking care of veterans in the v. A. , and as a Public Health person who has studied these issues, that the fundamental strategy for getting us through this until we have a vaccine requires focusing on testing, on tracing, on isolation, maintaining a certain amount of social distancing. If we do all of that, we can get our economy going again, and we can do it safely so that we prevent deaths and have Economic Activity. To me, that is not a partisan issue. To suggest that we failed on our first attempt to do this because we did not have testing, which let the cases get out of control, is not a partisan idea. It is fundamentally the basics of the biology of this virus. The bottom line is if we let science and evidence guide us, moving forward, i believe we can have a great economy. I believe we can save american lives. I believe we can get through the next 12 to 18 months until we have a vaccine that provides more permanent protection to the American People. Congressman, thank you very much for having me on. All the members of the select committee. I look forward to being helpful if i can in the future. Chair clyburn dr. Gottlieb . To gottlieb i think we need recognize that this is a onceinalifetime pathogen. We need to recognize that what we have done to prevent a worse epidemic has succeeded in many respects, there are a lot of challenges that remain ahead. People rightly want to know when this will be over, when they can get back to normal lives. The reality is that we may need to define new normal, without a defined and to this until we get Better Technology and drugs and vaccines. But we have to find ways to return to the things that we enjoy more safely, with greater vigilance than we did before, and there is a way to do that. There is a way to do the things we enjoy and get back to work and reduce risk. It means focusing on at risk communities. It means getting testing into worksites and trying to take a thoughtful approach to Public Health interventions like tracking and tracing illness in the community and trying to isolate infected individuals so they do not continue to spread infection. It means investing and testing technologies and getting them out into the worksites and the community. And it means focusing on better data about the implications not just of the mitigation, but also being in a better position to do some syndromic surveillance and identify outbreaks in the future more aggressively and more accurately than we have done in the past. There is a lot we can do to improve our overall posture, and i look forward to working with the committee on these things. Thank you very much. Dr. Benjamin. Dr. Benjamin we are all in this together. I have to tell you the virus does not care. I spent most of my clinical time practicing emergency medicine, and one thing i learned is if we really Work Together, we can move this thing forward. We have the opportunity to start today to do this right. That we put the resources in an the organization and, and the leadership, and get it done. Thank you. Dr. R clyburn thank you, benjamin. Dr. Mcclellan . After mcclellan there has been important bipartisan leadership by congress so far with our response. I hope we can build on that with a comprehensive approach that includes but is by no means limited to testing or some specific number of tests, but focuses on getting people back towards their lives with confidence, getting the economy going again, for new steps by business, new Public Health and health care integration, new types of support for innovation in this new reality. This is an unprecedented situation. I think if we especially focus on what will make things better in these low income, vulnerable communities that include surveillance with testing, but includes a lot of other steps support for helping people be able to stay home from work if they have symptoms. Support for getting Health Care Organizations reoriented toward working with telemedicine and reaching people at home if they dont feel confident coming out, or if they are high risk individuals it is a markup offensive approach. Glad to be part of the effort to advance it. Thank you very much. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you all today. I have been amazed at the ability of the American People to practice social distancing at scale to avoid the kinds of crises we have seen in china and italy, and in new york city. The fact that we have been able to avoid those kinds of crises around the country i think is a testament to leadership and to the American Public and the sacrifice people put in, the last six weeks. We have seen other countries succeed in controlling their virus. They have not been able to eradicate it. That is unlikely. But they have been able to tamp it down and begin to resume closer back toward normal. And wont be normal until we have a vaccine, but they are moving in that direction. We have seen states drive their cases down to single digits. That should be a model for the rest of the country and we should try to understand what they have been doing as fast as we can, so we can all move in that direction. This is going to be a marathon, not a sprint. It will be so important for us to Work Together in a bipartisan way, in a whole of government way. The work that congress has been doing in the last six weeks gives me optimism that we can continue on that path, and i think we really need to to succeed against this virus. Thanks so much. Chair clyburn thank you very much, doctor. Before moving to close, let me yield to the Ranking Member for two minutes for any statement he would like to say in closing. Ranking Members Police . Rep. Scalise we have heard a lot today in this briefing. I would just hope that as we move forward, lets make sure the committee focuses on the stated intent of the hearing, helping americans get back to work, helping reopen our economy in a safe way. Betweennot a tradeoff Economic Health and physical health. States are already doing this and showing how you can have physical health and Economic Health at the same time. I know some of our medical panelists testified to the fact that states like georgia are experiencing stabilization in the hospital systems. They are not being overwhelmed. They are seeing things continue to get better and they are safely reopening. You can do both. We have to focus on doing both. But we also have to focus on Holding China accountable. If you look at the the World Health Organization played in this, you have the head of the w. H. O. Literally bowing to the country of china. He gave up misinformation that hurt the ability for us to stop the spread coming from china. The Chinese Government clearly held back our ability to send our medical experts there, when their medical experts wanted that. They reopened the wet markets, for goodness sake, in china. We need to do more to hold china accountable, to bring that supply chain back, to help americans get back to work, not to beat up on americans, but to help them. If you look at some of the things we have seen, right now, if you look at some of the questions that were laid out, americans know what is going on in other states. They are watching. They have seen that states can do this in a safe way. Americans are not people who cower and live in fear. Americans confront challenges. We have had challenges before. We have faced every one head on, and we have come out stronger. Lets use that. America wants a quick comeback story. Lets be part of helping this country come back. Not to take a partisan tone, but to Work Together to get this country back on track and to recover from this pandemic even stronger, so we dont lose those children who arent getting vaccinations, people that are not getting mammograms. We can help everybody get back at safely, rebuild our economy, and strengthen the help of this nation. The health of this nation. I yield back. Chair clyburn let me close by thanking our guests here today. This has been a great panel. We are looking forward to working with you as we try to get our country up to the new normal. Let me say in closing i think mr. Jordan is correct. There are several other panels working to address this pandemic, and many of them are looking at how it started, where it started, and who is responsible. Are here to make sure that whatever resources we apply to almost 2m, already trillion, and proposed another 3 trillion to make sure that that money is spent efficiently, effectively. It is one thing to spend the money. It is another thing to do it efficient, effective. Together in awork bipartisan way. Mr. Ranking member, i said to you when we talked the evening after your members were the distance between you and me are five steps on an issue, i dont mind taking three of them. Rep. Scalise i will take the other two of them. I look forward to it. Thank you. Rn [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] theuch testimony from former highranking federal scientist whose focus was Vaccine Development, and was recently removed from his post at the National Institutes of health. The house energy and commerce committees will hear from mr. Bright on scientific act integrity during the covid19 response. Watch the hearing live thursday at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan, online at cspan. Org, or listen live on the free cspan radio app. Cspan has unfiltered coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic, with white house briefings, updates from governors in congress, and our daily call in program, washington journal, and if you missed any of our e coverage