Transcripts For CSPAN Select Subcommittee On Coronavirus Crisis Hears From Public Health Experts 20240713

Representative clyburn thank you, distinguished democratic and republican colleagues, for your participation in this rather unique forum. Over 80,000 citizens have lost their lives due to covid19. More than in any other country on earth. Many families have lost loved ones, including my own. Our fellow Committee Member Maxine 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 this seminal crisis is effective, efficient, and equitable. I agree with Ranking Member scalise that one of the most important components of our response is answering the region that is being discussed at every answering the question 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 . We should be informed by history guided by science we want to open but doing so before the proper safeguards are in place would cause more sickness and death. A premature opening would also cause greater harm to the economy. We must reopen responsibly. Therefore, we are beginning our committees work with a briefing including two former fda commissioners who served under republican president s, and three other experts whose primary interest 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 safer testing. For faster and freer 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 cost even more lives and livelihoods. Today, i hope to hear what the federal government should be doing to support and coordinate state and local efforts to safely reopen our economies, rural and urban, in an efficient, effective, and equitable manner. I now recognize the Ranking Member, mr. Scalise, for his opening remarks. Representative scalise first of all, i want to express my condolences to maxine for the loss of your sister. I know this has touched so many families, some closer than others, obviously yours, so close to home. Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this briefing on such an important topic, how we safely and smartly reopen our country and help people get back to work. Unfortunately 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 the rest of congress, should be back in washington for this briefing. Our job is to show america we have begun a path to safely and smartly 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. In fact 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. So i wish we would show that we can do what were asking the rest of the country to do. The fact that we can hold this briefing in person means that we should hold this briefing in person. President trump is showing up to work every single day, working for the American People with his team. 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. Put the partisanship aside, and lets Work Together to show america how the rest of this world is responding. Look just around the country. The very first action of the subcommittee was not to help people get back to work. In fact, the very first action was tosubcommittee 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, that ppp was there to help those companies. Every member of the committee that signed that letter harassing those companies voted for the bill. So 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, truck drivers, welders . These are the people we are trying to help. In fact, they are right now 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 each. Do we really want to see more americans laid off at a time when we are seeing these unemployment numbers that we are trying to reverse, trying to get people back to work . That is the wrong message to send. So attacking bluecollar workers is not what we should be doing. We should be helping workers in america get back to work. We really should be Holding China accountable for what they did. Unfortunately, that is not and happening. That is not going on with this committee, and that is a real concern, mr. Chairman. But each state and local government is starting to reopen. 36 states have already moved into phase one, proving you can safely reopen and 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. Lets learn from all of them. Frankly 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 actually showing up to work. But each state and local government also must continue to look at the things that we are doing to ramp up production, ppe and so much of the other vital equipment. Look at all the progress thats been mate already on making sure we can get more manufacturing in america, take care of our hospital workers on the front line. We have to keep that progress going. This committee can figure out ways to bring that work done in china back to the United States. I wish we would focus on that. Maybe we will as we get through this, but 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 that are not on the unemployment rolls because of the work that we did. Lets not take that away by trying to target these very companies. We will not live in fear as americans. Lets recover and Work Together to get this country back on track. Ith that, mr. Chairman, yield. Rep. Clyburn thank you. Let me now welcome our panelists. Our first panelist is dr. Ashish jha, the director of the Global Health institute at harvard university. Next, we will hear from former fda commissioner dr. Scott gottlieb. Dr. Gottlieb is currently a resident fellow at the American Enterprise institute. Then we have dr. George benjamin of the american Public Health association. Dr. Benjamin served previously as the secretary of marylands department and mental hygiene. Then we will hear from dr. 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. And finally, we have the director of the center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg school of Public Health. I thank our distinct panalists for joining us this afternoon. Each will deliver an Opening Statement of two minutes. I now recognize dr. Jha for his opening remarks. Dr. Jha 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. And testing is the cornerstone of controlling every single disease outbreak. It was inadequate testing that 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. And only the federal government that states get 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 investments in more and better tests, so that our private sector will know there is a market for their innovation. And finally, the federal government has to be transparent 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 memories by doing everything in our power to prevent more needless deaths. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Rep. Clyburn thank you, dr. Jha. Now dr. Gottlieb. , dr. Gottlieb thank you. I think we all recognize the extreme hardship this nation is going through right now, not just the extreme death and disease from covid19 but also , the extreme Economic Hardship and the publichealth 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 need to recognize the challenges that we face against the backdrop of a spread that is still persistent in thisspread n 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 now extended to 45 days. Reproduction production numbers is about 1. 1 now. We are seeing 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, do 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 asymptomatic. Even if we can track down a meaningful percentage of people infected and get them into isolation, it can have an impact on the epidemic. Most of all, it will turn on testing as the panelist mentioned. We have to make sure we get testing out widely and get testing to people who are at the highest risk of the virus. Not everyone is a equal risk of the coronavirus. Many people, because of where they work and live, how they work, are at higher risk than other americans. We need 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 good in doctors offices. Rep. Clyburn thank you very much. Dr. Benjamin. Dr. Benjamin thank you for allowing me to be here today. I have been saying, every person in this country understands that their 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. We know that our 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 also know 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 Safety jobs that have a , higher percentage of chronic diseases, or live in underserved communities. We will have to at the end of this, 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. This is absolutely not the 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 carefully as possible. Testing is not the only thing. It 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, the tests administered have been around two and 3 million per week. That is significantly short of that sixplus million target that dr. Jhas 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 written about ways to Bring Technology in to accelerate the availability of testing. I agree that can help. I want to highlight a few other ways that we can make the tests go 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, testing for asymptomatic settings, surveillance, but there is more we can do. One thing is to take further steps to create financial incentives for better and more testing. That includes steps like cms has taken recently in steps congress has taken. I think we can do more. Pay more for tests that get better results faster. Pay more for tests connected to interoperability. That is important for enabling rapid responses. To encouragesteps participation by Health Care Organizations and working with that Public Health system. It is very stressed right now. Most states and local governments are collaborating with Health Care Providers including frontline primary care providers. Those organizations are hurting financially under the pandemic. To the extent we can link their payments and support to collaboration with Public Health on implementing Contact Tracing, that will help as well. I think there opportunities for collaboration. Thank you very much. Rep. Clyburn thank you, dr. Mcclellan. , are recognized thank you for inviting me to speak with you today. Covid19 has done great damage to our country both in terms of sickness and lossoflife and terms of terrible economic consequence and job loss. To minimize the risk of covid spread, four condition should be in place. Capacity for hospitals to give all Covid Patients standard of care. Anyone with covid symptoms. Contactsity to isolate and guide them into quarantine. Isolation has been crucial for countries who have gotten the pandemic under control. Intervening to stop that chain of transmission. If we fail to Contact Tracing effectively, we will continue to have new cases appearing in completely untreatable ways completely a printable ways. Contact tracy do well, we need contact tracers looking across the country. That is 30 workers per 100,000 population in the state. States have announced plans to hire 66,000 workers. Eight states have announced plans to exceed the 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, strong commitment to six feet physical distancing, cloth mask use in public and avoiding gatherings. We can lower our local and National Risk and begin to reopen the economy as safely as will be possible given the challenges ahead of us. Thank you. Rep. Clyburn three minutes to question the panelists. May i begin my three minutes by asking about the testing. Mobilegreat advocate for testing. Mobile units going through our communities. Right now, we have testing in place. Have stations people can come to to be tested. In fact of the matter is, Rural America and in some parts of urban america, immobilization needed is not there. I have been a strong advocate of getting the mobile units in these communities. Aboutask your thoughts mobile testing . Dr. Benjamin . Dr. Benjamin thank you very much. That is absolutely important question. My experience in the district of columbia and the state of maryland and talking with my leagues around the country mobile test vans have worked quite well. They work very well. Rep. Clyburn thank you very much. We are know that experiencing some unusual numbers coming out of rural communities, lower income communities, africanamerican committees 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 angst among too many people. By sayingstart of this is has been an enormously important problem we have paid too little attention to. The disproportionate burden has fallen on lack fallen on africanamericans and latinos. Testing proactively, looking for disease in those communities and given what we know about access to highquality care, and we do not find the disease early, we have people suffering unnecessarily. I believe this has to be part of our National Strategy to make sure we are testing, identifying those cases early and preventing the disease and then treating it once we have identified it. Rep. Clyburn thank you very much. Allowed our guests to go long, i will give up the rest of my time. I now yield to Ranking Member school lease. Wantsentatives police i focus on desk police dr. Gottlieb, we have seen a number of studies come out of the top about the health tradeoffs. Green the curve down. He sure hospitals do not get overwhelmed. That is the case right now in what we are seeing. If you look at some of the doing things, people are Preventative Care in treatment. Things like mammograms and colonoscopies. We are also hearing about vaccinations of children. Johns hopkins just came out with a study that estimates 1. 2 million children can die worldwide before their fifth birthday not from covid19 because they are not properly getting vaccinated. These are things we are starting to hear about that do not get put into discussion. Can you talk about that . Thegottlieb thank you for question. There is no doubt there are Public Health implications of the shutdown and what we have undertaken. There would not have been Public Health if the hospitals were overrun. We did what we did to prevent the epidemic from running out of control. If you look at the data, we have seen a 90 reduction. A lot of those are pediatric vaccinations or pneumonia vaccinations. Some percentage of those individuals are not going to go back and get vaccinated. We might see outbreaks of measles beacon of because of declining vaccination rates. People missing chemotherapy visit. We are seeing Public Health consequences from the actions we towed. There is no doubt about that. The alternative was equally challenging. Hout publiculd not have been Health Without a functional Health Care System. Rep. Scalise the concern about hospitals is very real. We are starting to see that decline across the board including states that have started to reopen. There are states like georgia that are starting to pave the way and we should all be learning from the and sharing the best practices. We are seeing numbers out of georgia that show even with them reopening with a robust strategy, reopening from all of the retail establishments. They have seen a decrease in deaths and hospitalizations. Not a run on their hospitals but a decrease. Are you seeing similar things . As they are reopening, are you seeing concerns . Are you seeing it is working out well . Dr. Gottlieb we are seeing some states reopening where we do not see a spike in cases. Florida is another example. There are some states who as they reopen, we are seeing an uptick in cases. It should not surprise us that cases might pick up slightly. We need to keep a close eye not just on cases. Turning. Over a lot more cases lost polo turning over a lot of cases. Also hospitalizations. That is an objective measure of whether the epidemic is expanded. Time of hospitalization may be five to seven days. Rep. Scalise it sounds like they are ok on hospitalizations in states like georgia. Seenottlieb i have not and uptake in georgia. There are states that are reopening where we are not seeing an uptick. It should not surprise us if we do. We need to manage through that. We expect that as we reopened and people started to interact more, there would be an increase in cases. That should not surprise us. Rep. Clyburn thank you very much. Hank you mr. Ranking member now we turn to chair grady waters. Let me join the recce member in wishing you crave condolences. Thank you very much. All of the members who have said there condolences while i am sitting here. Going ons viewing is today 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 jha. Tion to dr. While the lockdowns across the nation have been necessary, they have, at a tremendous cost. They have come at a tremendous cost. Americans are eager to return to work. We cannot continue with life as usual as as usual until it is safe to do so. The roadmap outlines the course of action and mobilization of the u. S. Economy by august. The first step is to implement 5 million tests in the United States per day by early june, increasing 20 million tests per day by late ally. House democrats recognize the need to expanding testing in the cares act and fought for 1,000,000,002 respond to the coronavirus. Yet, to say the Administration Spent only 20 of the money of production of medical supplies. The rest of that money was allocated for experimental aircraft, space force and other areas not needed for the coronavirus pandemic. With you need for testing, congress has begun taking action to enhance the nations medical supplies. Directing the nation to use the defense production act to spur the production of more testing supplies. Let me just say this. We all know what is needed. We have heard from our experts today. We have a roadmap. It is not about the fact we do not understand that we need more testing and more tracing. What we need is the leadership. What we need is for example, harvard, when i first was elected to office, we came up to harvard as new members to learn about how congress worked. To learn about government. Maybe i am going to ask you and the chairman to think about convening a big conference, a 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. It cannot be done by having pp commandeered by anything or anybody. The question is not about understanding or knowing what is needed. Whenuestion is where and is the leadership going to come together to do what needs to be done . Rep. Clyburn thank you very much. Time for for the the question to be answered. We are going to yield to mr. Jordan. Representative jordan i want to go back to what the Ranking Member started off with. Looking at the oversight of the cares act in the coronavirus crisis. This is political. It is a committee designed to go after the president. It wasness said inadequate testing that initiated the shutdown. I thought the shutdown was initiated to bend the curves are Health Care System was not overwhelmed. We already got a political statement from the first nice. Thee the objective of Committee Hearing is what the chairman said earlier. The very first action this committee took to restructure andgs was to send a letter try to put steelworkers in pittsburgh in pennsylvania and ohio on the unemployment line. Ryan, two and tim democrats, sent a letter saying, what are you doing to this company . Committee action this took was this unfair hearing itself. Did not give proper notice. Did not give us any witnesses. Did not even ask the republicans who we might like for a witness. Why did we set up a partisan committee . Why do we have an unfair process . I do not think the Majority Party likes the facts that this president shut off travel from china months ago. Was criticized for doing it. It turned out it was a tremendous decision. They do not like that this president said we are not going to send the hardearned tax dollars to the world health organization. Who says weleague do not have to pay people to lie for us. What do democrats say . We have to keep spending our hard earned tax dollars said the world health organization. Send tax dollars of the steelworkers of pittsburgh to the world health organization. This is an unfair hearing we are doing today. We should be meeting in a room with proper social distancing asking questions. I think it is all part is. I yield back. Rep. Clyburn thank you very much, mr. Jordan. I yield to ms. Maloney. Laura against the coronavirus. This is a where we are not winning. In aed to do this bipartisan way. I thank my colleagues on the democratic and republican side for joining this committee to Work Together for the answer to protect this country and the American People. He did invite two republican heads of the fda. Last week, the Oversight Committee had a former appointee from president president bush who headed up the response to the katrina crisis. He told us in clear words that commandneed is a clear center. A National Testing strategy to combat this virus and that we onlyto not only not that but we need to have a defense production act as we are in a war. Activate it. Use eight. Create as much eat as much protective equipment we need. Order it to be done. Every expert is saying we cannot reopen. We cannot go back to work. We cannot be nearnormal until we can test and see who is sick. Everyone should be tested. This country can do it. We know what the problem is. We need to test, contain and trace before we can get back to work, which we all want. Jha. Estion is to dr. The white house released testing blueprint. The data document the document provides guidance to develop their own testing plan. We have seen states competing against each other. It should be centralized. From your perspective, does the blueprint i am sure you have read provides states the level of coordination and support they need to ramp up their testing and reopen our economies . Thank you for that question. Let me start off i responding to congressman jordans my opening remarks were partisan. They were not. Every expert on the left, right and center agrees we had to shut our economy down because the outbreak got too big. The outbreak got too big because we did not have a testing infrastructure that allowed us to put our arm around the outbreak. That was the fundamental failure that forced our economy to shut down. The National Testing outline the president laid out has important elements that i support. I do believe ultimately that states have to play a central role in testing. States know a lot about where to test, how to test, that they cannot do it by themselves. 50 states competing with each other in the marketplace, i believe in competition with this is not where competition is going to be useful. Thank you. Rep. Clyburn thank you very much. Me know recognize thank you, mr. Chairman. The covid outbreak and subsequent economic fallout as an International Crisis that is deserving of a dedicated response. We are at war with an invisible enemy and we must Work Together to ensure as Many Americans as possible are healthy, safe and able to provide for their families. Ofd of a knology acknowledging congressional response. We find ourselves preceding similar to those of the house in 2019. This was constructed with no input from the Ranking Member. Republicans were not allowed to invite a witness. We were given notice that some of us who believe we should be in d. C. For a meeting did not even have time to get there. That is my comment. Gottlieb oris, dr. Keymcclellan, i think the is perspective. Let me briefly say this. Thes on a Conference Call other day. We have four times as many people have died this year from than covid19. A mortician tells me he has varying more people because of suicide. Affairsrker of veterans is a counselor. They no longer have a support network. [indiscernible] surgeries weren postponed. There was a steady a year ago that shows for every 1 of increased unemployment, 30,000 people died for art attacks for heart attacks and overdoses. Put yourself in my shoes. I understand your concern for folks in the covid19 situation. I do not minimize that risk at all. The rest of society has certainly got a Health Problem as well when you have people not getting treatments. Brain surgery is not being done. We have mental health. Child abuse is out. As a policymaker, i have to have perspective. If you were in my shoes, how would you make that decision . Dr. Mcclellan to start at least, i have talked to a number of states and governors who are in similar position. It would be great if we had more Testing Capacity months ago. I do not think that is enough by itself. It is not a strategy for containment. It requires changes in the way businesses and people behave. All of these are parts of an effective response. Having more testing as you go forward with reopening is critical. Do i wish we had more capacity . Certainly. There were other estimates somewhat less than the 6 million per week number we have talked about so far. My question is this. [indiscernible] mr. Chairman, could i answer that question . Rep. Clyburn the time has expired. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding this important forum. As someone who was stricken by covid19, i understand the importance of testing and tracing. Who have been inflated by providing resources we need in order to make sure that there are more people like me who were struggling to survive this virus. , Consumer Spending is at the heart of the u. S. Economy, especially for the millions of Small Businesses operating in retail and leisure. Without adequate testing and tracing, isnt it true that Many Americans may not feel safe eating out, traveling or going ourork, further harming already struggling Small Businesses . Dr. Jha thank you for that question. You are absolutely right. The American Economy is built on confidence. Based one is decided whether people feel safe to engage in economic activity. What we saw is well before governors shut down states, people had already started doing social distancing. Thatost important thing policymakers can be doing is creating an environment where people feel safe to go and shop and work and play. Testing is fundamental to that strategy. Thank you. We benjamin, it is my view need a testing system in place that is fast, accurate and one that can be utilized on a largescale. Since we currently do not have a Contact Tracing system in place, what steps should we be taking to have an effective system to prevent the spread of covid19 . Dr. Benjamin i think we need to build and that Contact Tracing system and testing system on the backs of existing Public Health system. Investments congress has already made in any new investments we make in that system. We have to put the dollars in training in. With some significant government at the federal level involved both at the centers for Disease Control and prevention. Yesterday,lieb, just d for theial testifie senate and put it in the u. S. Up 50be able to step y september. Le b is this realistic . In gottlieb if you Factor Technology and the use of next generation sequencing, we can increase and get the 10 million tests a week. It is going to take additional products coming onto the market and getting authorized by the fda. Rep. Clyburn thank you very much. Can she hear us . I can see her. She is just not hearing me. Chairman . Rep. Clyburn yes . Can she be unneeded . Unmuted . Mr. Chairman . Thank you, mr. Chairman. Rep. Clyburn thank you. Time right now we should be working together. I have in agreement with that. I do think it is important for the American People [indiscernible] Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats have thrown ranches 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. It is not hard to see the partisan politics at work today. We are here on a subcommittee created with only democrats that for a briefing that was announced at the last minute with witnesses selected only by democrats. This is the town that is being set. This is crazy. Ae could be forgiven if it is mistake. Thinking we could reboot this process. The is looking like partisan 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 concerned about oversight, they would let [indiscernible] in congress alone, there are house and Senate Committees as well as the oversight commission. That agency and inspector thing [indiscernible] a real effortd is 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 to have the audacity to use the ppp law to save thousands of jobs. At a timeline and estimated wondered thousand Small Businesses have closed permanently, democrats made their First Priority to make it impossible for companies to keep their head above water. Why is the more important than figuring out why chinese doctors alerttizens that tried to the world about the coronavirus keep disappearing . Iswhy the Chinese Government slowing down the scientific effort to trace the origins of the virus. Faulty china is sending equipment and supplies to the u. S. And all over the world. To hackhina is trying every here are working on a vaccine. The list goes on. Why do democrats think it is more important to [indiscernible] rep. Clyburn your time has expired. Thank you. Your time has expired. Thank you very much. I now recognize mr. Foster. Thank you, mr. Chairman. One of our greatest failings in congress as we did not exercise oversight over the coronavirus testing when it would have done the most good. Instead, we trusted the promises made by the administration about testing. When these promises were not fulfilled, tens of thousands of americans have died. I am not confident with our current level of social compliance that we will in fact 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 the Vaccine Development and Manufacturing Program is not subject to the same mismanagement, broken promises and political interference the Testing Program was. My question for dr. Gottlieb, what are the milestones we and i congress should be tracking on the Vaccine Development program to ensure appropriate plans are being made and executed . That we are not missing this one up . I will comment and turn it over. The Things Congress could be doing is trying to focus on running a parallel process where we can scale up manufacturing and actually start commercial scale supplies and vaccines. Try to do things in parallel. Do some of the preclinical work that we usually do in sequential fashion while we are doing clinical studies so we can accelerate this as quickly as possible. We need a parallel process where we are doing things simultaneously rather than doing them sequentially. I would just add that we just had a web event that included dr. Fauci and public and private leaders reinforcing the same points dr. Gottlieb made. It is not just about the parallel process of getting clinical testing done. As quickly as possible. Largescale manufacturing so we are ready to use those vaccines as soon as we have enough evidence. Also all of the materials they need to go along with largescale men adventuring largescale manufacturing. It goes along with research and development. Collinsauci and dr. Published a very good paper in Science Magazine laying out the scientific principles. What we are after is the project management principles so we do not get hooked on the dumb stuff like the reagent and syringes and packaging materials. This requires competence in the ordinary part of the program as well as botanical part that we had as the technical part that we have not seen from the administration. We need to know the milestones to track. I yelled back. Yelield back. Rep. Clyburn now recognize dr. Green. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I am disappointed i only get three minutes. The committee is now off to a good start. The first action was to attack American Steel manufacturers, job creators. Even their own party struck back on that. Republicans were not consulted about this first meeting. We were not allowed to select a single witness. Theeates some doubt, is majority interested in the truth or just pushing a narrative . Congress should be passing bills to help 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 businesses for taking ppp loans, we should be looking at china. Their role in this. From day one, chinas lies and deception have hampered the global response. New data suggests that had china notified the world one week prior, 66 of the lives lost could have been saved. That is 56,000 dead americans because china lied. Americans died. Yet the first action of this committee is to attack american businesses . I attack them for actually following the very law 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 president closed travel. We shut down the economy. We flat and the. Curve and saved lives the goal seems to have changed. As if some leaders want to stop every single transmission. Not one person gets the virus as a clinician, as an er. As the former ceo of the health emergencyny that ran departments in 11 states, the cost of stopping all transmissions it is impossible. The first witness today said we had to shut the economy down because we had an adequate testing. I am sorry. That is wrong. We shut the economy down to flatten the curve, cannot max out our icu bed capacity and are ventilator capacity. It was not an absence of testing that cause those to shut down the economy. We shut down the economy to save lives. I want to say this. In tennessee, we are open for business. Georgia is open for business. They have seen a decrease in hospitalizations. Even the chairman stated South Carolina is doing fantastic. They are seeing improvements. The continued cost of a closed economy americans are protected are protected to die from cancer because of the delay in diagnosis. Rep. Clyburn dr. Breen. Thank you. Your time has expired. I recognize mr. Raskin. Thank you, mr. Chairman. We have lost 82,000 americans to the coronavirus in less than three months. 21 million americans thrown out of work. More than 1. 3 million infections. The coronavirus remains out of control in many states in our country. Colleaguestand our desperate attempt to distract from the crisis. I appreciate mr. Chairman, the leadership you have shown in keeping us focused on the task at hand. Awould like to ask dr. Jha question. He points out we have had this Competition Among the states. We have heard a lot of testimony about how the states have been pitted against each other in this competition for resources and no one can figure out what is going on. Havecolleagues at harvard advanced a plan to ramp up testing and to reopen the country safely and sustainably. Needslan says america tight coordination of the complex supply chain to provide the state with the ppe and the ventilators and the testing kits and eventually the vaccines. You have called for 900,000 tests a day when we are doing less than a third of the. How do you propose we actually get to this centralized system of logistical coordination that America Needs to get out of this nightmare given where we are today . Thank you for your question. I do believe states have a Critical Role in that states will have a leadership role. The polyp and that states have a leadership role. The problem is that these are National Supply chains. If you have each state vying for supplies, you will have states competing with each other and competing with Foreign Countries. While i think our states are terrific, i am not sure i want delaware competing with Foreign Countries and new york and california to get supplies. I think this is why we have a federal government. The federal government can play an effective role in coordinating shared so that state in coordinating. To that states and focus on identifying their individual needs and figuring out how to best implement a testing strategy. Dr. Lakin fitzpatrick at the university of maryland published around atowing that least half of covid19 infections are caused by presymptomatic or asymptomatic transmission. That is a remarkable thing. Oft means that half or most infections taking place occur from people who do not even know they have got it. What does that mean about the importance of testing and do we need to dramatically expand testing in the country to deal with all of the a symptomatic and present emetic infections taking place . Rep. Clyburn im going to have to hold on that answer. Maybe you will get some time. Chairman. Ou so much, this week, my homestay in new jersey will likely reach 10,000 killed. Number seven in the world right now for death. We have lost more americans than ,e lost in iraq and afghanistan the two decades of that word. I spent my career as a National Security official working in iraq and afghanistan. Working under republicans and democrats. When i talk to people in my district, they are scared. They are confused. When they hear our discussions like what we are having today and testing and tracing, what they have trouble understanding that i hear about is how does this affect their life . What is this going to do to affect their daytoday . We think about opening up, what are we going to be opening up into . What we know with reopening businesses and schools we are not going to go back to what we were last year. We are going to be opening to a new normal. When we are talking about tests and tracing and isolation, to what extent do we need to be thinking about some other step . Something that helps people understand how to embed a lesson you are telling us into their daily lives . About whate to hear steps we should be doing and what role should the federal government or state play in terms of giving advice to businesses and schools and churches and others that are asking me what happens next when they start to open up. I completely agree with the importance of engaging the public. Certainly in the work of Contact Tracing, there needs to be a collaborative effort of people working with Public Health agencies and respecting the guidance they get in terms of quarantine. Contactription of tracing should not be for professionals alone. The public to get information about what Contact Tracing is. Show how it is going to help break the chain of transmission. Your point about businesses getting guidance, i agree. The cdc has been working for some time on providing guidance for schools and churches, for universities. I think they are in the process of releasing that. Businesses want that guidance. They want to tell their own employees they want to tell their own employees there following the guidance of the federal government. So that people will feel comfortable going back into the economy. I appreciate that. Say clyburn let me just that we set the timelines timeframe for this hearing based upon our guests. We did not want to impose upon them. Im going to allow each one of them to take their two minutes to make a closing statement. Recognize dr. Jha, let green. Thank you to dr. One of the reasons we are successful is that this democrat reached out to a republican governor. We have taught on more than one occasion about setting up mobile testing. Board, dr. F the johnson, and we are working together. Not political posturing. Working together in a bipartisan way. I do not know what the vote was we areup the committee patterning this committee after. Million from this committee i hope we can have that success with this committee. Partisan inn a bipartisan way, which i am all for doing. Dr. Jha again, thank you so much for having me on today. This is a very difficult moment for our country. We are in the middle of the most important and substantial pandemic in century. I believe our country has all of the capability and all of the Innovative Energy needed to overcome these challenges. What has been clear to me from the beginning is that wall only happen if we marshall all the will onlyis that happen if we marshall all of the forces. Physicianr to me as a who has taken his life taking care of edison to compare of veterans in the v. A. That the fundamental strategy for getting us through this until we have a vaccine focuses on testing, isolation, maintaining a certain amount of social distancing. If we do that, you can get our economy going again and we can do that safely to that we prevent deaths and have economic activity. That is not a partisan issue. To suggest we failed on a first attempt because we did not have testing 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 having 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 much more permanent protection to the American People. Thank you very much for having me on. All the members of the select committee chaired i look forward select committee. Look forward to being helpful. Rep. Clyburn dr. Gottlieb. Dr. Gottlieb i think we need to recognize this is a once in a lifetime pathogen. What we have done to prevent a Worst Epidemic has succeeded. There a lot of challenges that remain ahead. People want to know when this will be over. The reality is we may need to define a new normal. There is not going to be a defined end this until we get Better Technology and vaccines. Need to find a way to return to work and the things we enjoy more safely with greater vigilance than we did before. There is a way to do the things we enjoy and reduce risk. Ings focusing on at risk it means focusing on at risk communities. Means trying to take a thoughtful approach to Public Health interventions like tracing illness in community and trying to isolate individuals today do not spread the infection. Getting them out into the community. Focusing on collecting better data about the implications not being initigation but a better position to identify outbreaks in the future more accurately. There is a lot we can do to improve our overall posture. I look forward to working with the committee. Rep. Clyburn thank you very much. Dr. Benjamin. Dr. Benjamin thank you very much for having me. We are all in this together. The virus does not care. I spent most of my time practicing emergency medicine. One thing i have learned is if we Work Together, we can move this thing forward. We have the opportunity to start today to do this right. We put the that resources and the organization in and the leadership to get it done. Thank you. Rep. Clyburn dr. Mcclellan. Dr. Mcclellan thank you as well for the opportunity to join you. There has been some important bipartisan leadership with congress so far. I hope we can build on that with a comprehensive approach that is by no means limited to testing or some specific number of tests but that focuses on getting people back to their lives with confidence. Getting the economy going again through new steps by business, Public Health and health care, new types of support for innovation in this very this new reality. This is an unprecedented situation. If we focus on what will make things better in the low income vulnerable communities that include surveillance with testing, but includes a lot of other steps too. Support for helping people be able to stay home from work if they have symptoms. Support for getting folks reoriented and reaching people at home if they do not fill condiment coming out are if that phil confident coming out chaired i am glad to be part of the efforts to advance it. Rep. Clyburn thank you very much. Thank you again for the opportunity to speak with you all today. I have been amazed at the ability of the American People to practice social distancing on scale in order to avoid the crises we have seen in china and italy and in new york city. The fact we have been able to avoid those crises around the country as a testament to leadership and the American Public and the sacrifice people have put in the last six weeks. We have seen other countries succeed in controlling their virus. We have not been able to eradicate it. They have been able to tamper it down and resume actions closer back towards normal. It will not be normal until we have a vaccine. We have also seen some states dropped their cases down to single digits. They should be a model for the rest of the country. We should try to understand what they have been doing as best as we can so we can all move in that direction. This is going to be a marathon and not a sprint. It is going to be important for us to Work Together in a bipartisan way. The work that congress has been doing in the last six weeks gives me optimism we can continue in that path. I think we need to to succeed against this virus. Thank you very much. Rep. Clyburn before we move to close, let me yield to our Ranking Member for two minutes for any statement he would like to say in closing. Rep. Jordan thank you, thankntative scalise you, mr. Chairman. As we move forward, lets make sure this committee focuses on the stated intent of the hearing. That is helping americans get back to work. Helping to reopen our economy in safeway. This is not a tradeoff between Economic Health and physical health. States are already showing how you can have physical health and Economic Health at the same time. Some of our medical panelists testified to the fact that states like georgia are experiencing stabilization in the hospitalist fit in their hospital system. They are seeing things get better as they are reopening. We have to focus on doing both. He also have to focus on Holding China accountable. We also have to focus on Holding China cannibal. Had the head of the who being a mouthpiece for the country, the government of china. He gave out misinformation that to stop ability for us the spread. The Chinese Government held back our ability to send medical experts. They have reopened the wet markets in china. We all need to be doing more to hold china accountable 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, if you look at some of the questions that relate out, americans know what is going on in other states. They are seeing that states can do this in a safe way. Americans are not people who live in fear. We have had challenges before. This is a serious challenge. We faced every one had on. Lets use that spirit. America loves a great comeback story. Its been part of helping this country comeback. To Work Together to get this country back on track and to recover from this pandemic Even Stronger so we do not lose those children who are not getting vaccinations. We can help everybody get back out safely, we put our economy and strengthen the health of this nation. Rep. Clyburn thank you very much, mr. Ranking member. Let me close thinking all of our guests. By thanking all of our gas. Backied to get our country to normal. There are in closing, several other panels working to address this pandemic. Are looking at how it started, where it started and who is responsible. That is not in our portfolio. We are here to make sure that whatever resources we apply to 2 problem, already almost trillion, and he proposed trillion trillion, 3 that that money is spent efficiently, effectively, and equitably. It is one thing to spend the money. Efficient,e effective, and in an equitable manner. That is what this committee is all about, and i hope we can Work Together in a bipartisan way. When we talked the evening after your members were appointed. The distance between me and you want any issue are five steps. I dont mind taking three of them. We will the u. S. House returns friday at 9 a. M. Eastern for legislative business to debate and vote on the coronavirus belief package. The bill provides for over 3 trillion of relief to state and local governments, funding for First Responders and help workers and money for individuals and families. The house is also expected to debate and vote on house rules changes to allow for proxy voting on the house floor during the Public Health emergency period. Friday house isham session should last late into the evening. Watch live coverage on cspan, online at www. Cspan. Org, or listen with the free cspan radio app. With the federal government at work in d. C. And throughout the country, use the congressional directory for Contact Information for members of congress, governors and federal agencies. Order your copy online today at cspan store. Org. Coming up in one hour, the genetics and medicine professor at Harvard Medical School on the Scientific Research into covid19. At 8 40 a. M. , North Carolina congressman mark walker discusses the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. That, from 2020 campaign strategicam