Months. One of the key things we are doing as a funding opportunity with investigations as you mention, telemedicine and also treatment pathways and protocols in the idea would be to Fund Investigations to get information out on a short four to six month timeframe so we can replicate that and enhance learnings. We saw one of the key impacts of this with the south in the southwest. What we saw was we went through marchith the height in and early april in new york and new jersey and connecticut. As we were convening Health Care Providers, Health Systems and they were learning from each other, so much of the rest of america was not terribly impacted. When it did hit places like florida, texas and arizona in southern california, we had to work very aggressively to essentially bring those Health Care Providers on the journey that new york, new jersey and connecticut went on a couple months before. Replicateof learn and and disseminate information out is quite vital. There is one other initiative we are harnessing that i am excited about. Our Nursing Homes are homes have struggled with how to protect the vulnerable and how to engage in good Infection Control at their facility. We have the traditional cms approach of surveying, inspecting and sanctioning through fines, but we have started a new approach, which is much more of a quality system by design approach, using the provider relief funds. We just rolled this out at the end of the week. We are finding Nursing Homes to support their testing, their Infection Control, personal protective equipment. We have created an incentive equipment incentive system to keep their infection rates below Community Levels as well as below peer levels of Skilled Nursing facilities and added a component where it is an issue of skill, not will with our Nursing Homes. Can we get Academic Medical Centers and others who are experts in Quality Systems to educate, mentor, bring along our Nursing Homes . Some of whom are really just momandpop operators, on how to do some real basics of Quality Systems. Helping to do quality work. Im hoping we will see a real improvement in nursing home quality as a result. Thank you for bringing those incredible capabilities to bear on this pandemic. So, the federal response to the pandemic has been at best uneven. There are areas where the government has taken a very robust, extremely proactive role, spurring the publicprivate collaboration around development of therapies and very importantly, vaccines. The support from barda has been invaluable to the Pharma Companies that are developing those vaccines. We presume there is going to be ample payoff in terms of effective vaccine. There have been other areas where the response has been mixed. We do not have any Real National covid testing strategy. There has been sporadic leadership on areas like the supply chain. If we were resetting the clock on the pandemic, what do you think should have gone differently in terms of the federal response . Sec. Azar i have to respectfully beg to differ on both of those characterizations. There has been a National Testing strategy. It is coronavirus. Gov. It is right there. We are following that testing strategy and that has what let us to have 92 million test performed. We have capacity for 3 million tests per day. We are doing 820,000 tests per day. We have brought rapid pointofcare antigen and antigen and, rapid pcr testing to pointofcare at speeds that nobody thought were even possible when we began that journey in february. Capacities that nobody thought were possible. We are following a strategy of ensuring that we have a system of diagnosis, for individuals who are symptomatic or suspected of having covid. For asymptomatic individuals for whom a doctor or Public Health individual believe should be tested, get them tested and diagnosed and having Surveillance Systems and having statistical sampling to determine if we are facing outbreaks in different communities. We have been working with universities and colleges and states to set up alternative Surveillance Systems. Schools are doing wastewater surveillance. That is a product of our research where you can at a dormitory test wastewater to determine if you have a positive case and in surge in with testing. We have developed for colleges comprehensive testing strategies and Surveillance Systems. I disagree. We have built from the ground up a completely novel publicprivate testing system of both diagnosis and surveillance that no other country could come close to. In terms of supply chain, we have taken a supply chain that really was totally not engaged in by the federal government before and made that where here at the strategic stockpile, we have built complete visibility into the commercial supply chain. We used to have a half 1 billion a year in supplies of the national stockpile. The mission of that was to have countermeasures for chemical and biological incidents and a small amount of personal protective equipment and other Hospital Capacity in the event of a regional disco location like a hurricane regional dislocation like a hurricane or tornado. This is a completely different mission. We are working with our gpos and distributors, complete visibility of the 1 trillion commercial med surge pharma supply chain in the United States. We know where things are, and we can use our defense production powers to reallocate them within the system. We have crated purchase orders to the making of ventilators. We are bringing pharmaceutical production back to the United States. A more copperheads of approach than we have ever seen before. Those are all Lessons Learned from this pandemic, but they have also been lessons adapted to rightofway right away with historic action that has put us not just in a better position but as we prepare for any future pandemic. Thate you then satisfied we have all the capabilities now in place for what is widely deemed a possibility, which is a second severe wave of covid this fall and winter . Sec. Azar i still do not know why we speak of the second wave. That was a concept that was talked about when there was this thesis that somehow there was seasonality of covid, it would go into a dormancy in the summer weather by transmission vectors or otherwise. We did not see that. We sell continued spread we saw continued spread in the south and southwest. We are seeing cases in other parts of the United States. I do not know that this notion of a second wave remains a valid concept. For spreadto prepare anywhere as well as to ensure we have Health System capacity to deal with it. Certainly to prevent further spread through the three ws of washer hands, watch your distance and wear your face coverings if you cannot want your different or distance and stay out of settings where you are not going to be able to do those things. We are in this period that i call a bridge. We are so better positioned in the context of testing and supply chain then we were five month ago. We are going to be in the next several months in such a better position in terms of vaccines and therapeutics. We are in this bridge. Right now, the key is for all of us to engage in good, personal and collective responsible behaviors of those three ws as we bridge to this better place we are going to get to. Whether we call it the second three, wave 2. 5 or obviously there are lots of concerns about the coincidence outbreaksential flu alongside other viral outbreaks, possibly rs a b and all of that coming to bear at the same time as a resurgence of covid in many areas. Is that it is that particular set of issues i am probing on. Do you think we have the adequate response built to respond in the case all of those things come together . Sec. Azar in terms of influenza, we always take influenza seriously and we have increased our vaccine production. We have close to 200 million doses available this year. We are going to work aggressively to make sure people get their flu vaccines. We are extending the vaccination period, the Campaign Season for flu vaccination. We want to get as many people vaccinated as possible this season. As we look at flu incidents and of course, nothing is a guarantee, but if you look at flu incidents in the southern hemisphere, look at data from australia and i believe it was south africa and chile, and what we have seen has been very anomalous, low influenza like activity in the southern hemisphere. We andve in part because other countries are practicing those three ws of community mitigation, washing our hands and washing and watching our distance and wearing face coverings. We saw if we look back at the data in march, we sell a bottoming out of influenza activity prematurely in the United States when we went to shelter in place methodologies. No guarantees. We prepare for every scenario. We have the full Vaccination Campaign going. The very same mitigation efforts we are doing for covid may have a beneficial effect as we look at it hitting the influenza season. That would indeed be a Silver Lining of all of this. Ceos ofnow, the nine the major vaccine manufacturers engaged in the work of operation warp speed issued a strong statement they would not seek Regulatory Approval for any of their vaccines before phase three trials are completed and safety and efficacy is fully established. They indicated they were going to stand with the science. What to you does it say that these ceos felt it was necessary to make that statement . Sec. Azar we welcome the statement because it exactly what the president and i and the fda have said. We are going to move quickly on vaccines and therapeutics. We want to vaccines and therapeutics as quickly as possible. We are going to use the full publicprivate power of the u. S. Government. We are derisking the financial investments. We can talk more about how we are doing that. We are not cutting corners on fda standards. This is by the book. We have been transparent at fda. We have put out guidance on what the fda is looking for in terms of faxing approval. We have made it clear there will be a process with the fda. I welcome the statement and i think it may help with a lot of those who are spreading these terrible antiPublic Health, antivaccine messages. We have got to ensure Public Confidence in our systems and our processes just like our influenza season. We need to get people vaccinated. If we do get an fda Gold Standard vaccine are vaccines, need to make sure people are willing to take them once they are available. Hard to see is outside of the pandemic at this point, but outside the pandemic, what are your priorities for hhs at this moment . Wewe continue sec. Azar continue to drive and all the things we have been working on before. We are working on Health System transformation. We are still driving towards that transparency of pricing and quality of information and from insurance companies. We have implemented the health and Information Technology interoperability platforms. We continue to work on some of retractable disease states like sickle cell anemia. We remain hopeful we will have a literal cure for sickle cell. It has been a year and a half ago i was in boston childrens and i got to see a young man who was exiting the hospital after 30 days of treatment on one of the experimental treatment with no sickles. Left in his blood we went to bring that promise to people. I went to drive forward on ending the hiv epidemic so we can continue to make progress there. We have this underlying Opioid Crisis still with us. The pandemic and social isolation have certainly harmed the progress made on that. We have to get back to getting people into medication assisted treatment and ensuring people have the tools they need for longterm treatment and recovery for them. That is some of the things we continue on even as we deal with this unprecedented pandemic. The rest of our Mission Remains also. We want to thank you for your service to the nation at this very difficult and challenging time and for moving forward on those important priorities. Thank you on behalf of the Research Community for you cspans washington journal every day. We are taking your calls live on the air on the news of the day and discussing policy issues that impact you. Coming up this morning, we will talk about coronavirus believe legislation relief legislation. And a discussion of president trumps new Supreme Court list with ed whelan. Malcolm, a keynote speaker at this years Democratic Convention joins us to talk about campaign 2020. Watch cspans washington journal live at 7 00 eastern this morning and be sure to join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages, and tweets. President donald trump and former Vice President joe biden are set to debate tuesday, september 29. Pledged to he has end cash bail. It he probably accepted the endorsement of a criminal district attorney. 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