Live now with a discussion with Public Health officials unsafely on safelythe u. S. Reopening the u. S. Good morning and welcome to Washington Post live. Im eugene scott, political reporter of the Washington Post, and id like to welcome our first guest this morning, assistant Health Secretary at hhs and a member of president Trumps Coronavirus Task force. Thank you so much for joining me. Good morning, is great to be here with you, thanks for the invitation. Host and i got the correct, right . You know, im from deep down in the country louisiana and that is pretty darn close. Thats a great first try at that. Host ok, great, great. Admiral, you are the white house testing czar and lead developer of the hhs Public Health policy recommendations, so i was hoping you could give us a bit of an overview on the Current Situation on the ground today. So, the situation on the ground with the pandemic, i think everyone understands that similar to where we were postmemorial day, we have had a significant increase in the number of cases. The hospitalization are starting to go up as well as unfortunately some of the fatalities. However, know how to defeat the pandemic, to control it, to get the vaccine. Socially distancing is incredibly important. Wearing this mask when you cant physically distance is really essential. The American People have done a really good job, we do rank among the top in the world in have got to but we get better as well as using good hand hygiene. And we have to have a program of smart testing. We will be talking a lot about that today. We do have the power to control this. We thought we did it in arizona, florida, texas. Are at a really important point in this pandemic right now where cases are going up, where there is community spread. If there is High Community spread, is going to be hard. Ws arene, those three incredibly important. When you cant visit with distance. Wash your hands. And please, be tested when you are asked to be tested because about 75 of people, at least 50 , with the virus can be mptomatic and the only way you can prevent spreading it is by wearing a mask. Eugene thats good to know. As you noted, we are seeing some changes in terms of infections and even fatalities. On friday, the u. S. Recorded a record single day high of work and 83,000 new cases. Saturday, just 39 cases short of the previous mark. Expanded testing or a fall surge . Guest let me answer that in two different ways. I think we are very comparable to what was going on in july and august. Testing may be identifying some more cases, but what were seeing is a real increase in the numbers. Back in march and april we were probably only detecting one out of every 15 cases. You cant really compare today to back in march and april. But compared to the first thatial day surge, we know the case numbers are up and we contacted late that, but we know that hospitalizations are going up. To put this in perspective, there are several areas of the country where hospitals are becoming full and being stressed. We are still at about 41,000 people in the hospital with coronavirus compared to a high of 76,000 in july. We really have a mixed picture. We really have to reengage the Public Health measures that we know work, or those hospitalizations could go up substantially. One of the things that we know is that a lot more younger people are getting it than older people which is one reason why up andpitals are filling we do have some effective therapy but there is nothing were going to do that is better than preventing infections in the first place and those are the Public Health measures we talk about. Until we get a vaccine. Vaccines are coming. We are very encouraged that there are now four open state of trial. Preliminary data looks good. But it is not going to be here tomorrow. We might get the first vaccines out this year, we are hopeful that they would be useful in screening the elderly, for example, protecting the elderly and the most honorable. Only have a few million vaccines, we market we might get most of the benefits you read that American People will not be fully immunized even if everything goes well at least until middle of 2021. We have to be very vigilant about avoiding crowds, particularly around the holidays. A Family Gathering of 20 or 25 or 30 still means that we have to be careful about our interactions, about our hygiene. Work, we have heard admiral, we have heard that the pandemic is putting a new strain on the old health care system. S the federal plan have federal government have a plaintiff resources to those in need . I would like to just put an end to those kinds of rumors because there is no need to ration care. In a tremendous supply situation now compared to march or april. I am not going to say one hospital on one day does not have a certain type of ppe, but we know that almost every ppe inl has a storage of addition to all that we have in the national stockpile. We have 150,000 ventilators in the national stockpile. Care is of rationing that is close to reality. We have the resources to have care for all needed. It. Eed eugene he froze. Mine ze on guest working with a Public Health service which i represent. We had a little momentary lapse, do you have me now . Eugene i have you now. You can continue, we will see if it keeps going. Guest ok, we had a little connection failure. Hopefully your viewers heard that there is no idea or thought of rationing care. Most states have a 60 day to 90 day stockpile. 150,000 ventilators in the stockpile. We are only about 50 of hospitalization levels that we were in july, so we have a lot of room in the system. We are sending not only physical resources but manpower resources to those areas. There is no concept of rationing care at this point in time. We have plenty of resources and we absolutely have a leeway to absorb the care. As a pediatrician, im always going to emphasize prevention. Her best weapon is to wear a mask, physically distance, and wash our hands. Our goal is to minimize the people in hospital, not see how many we can take care of. Everybody have the power to prevent infections and to save watching her distance, wearing a mask in washing your hands. Eugene speaking of those three ws or at least two of them, wear a mask and watch your distance, there has been another outbreak at the white house as you know. To mike pence has tested positive and mark meadows said that the administration is not going to control of pandemic, a are going to control can get that we vaccines and other mitigations. There is little indication we will have one until at least the middle of next year and you talk about that a bit. Have you reconcile that message that were getting from the white house with what you and the task force are telling americans to do. Guest im not inside chief meadows head but i think he is being misconstrued because he did talk about controlling for mitigation. That is whatthat he meant but instead of trying to figure out what he meant, i just want to be straight with the listeners that we are not going to completely defeat the virus until we get a vaccine, and then vaccine is distributed to the American People and we dont have herd immunity in the appropriate way. There are things we can do right now to control all the spread. All across the deep south, those are the Public Health measures that ive spoken repeatedly about already. You saw the white house last night, there was physical distancing and everyone had to wear a mask. That is good when you want everyone to channel that. In terms of a, i think we need to clarify, i think all of us understand that most americans will not get their vaccines until mid2021. Because we have hundreds of millions of people to vaccinate and depending on the vaccine, many of us will need two doses. But we are very hopeful that we will have millions within the year 2020. They have to be proven safe, but we are hopeful that we will get a read on that later this year and even though there will only be a few million doses available, we could get 50, 70, 80 of the benefits from that in terms of mortality if all of the vaccines were in the elderly. We saw the vaccine being highly effective in having immune response. Even if we could just immunize our Health Care Workers and vulnerable individuals, we might be able to save 80 of the lives. A lot of this is new wants. Yes, 300 million americans probably wont get immunized but we couldar, immunize the most critical ones this year assuming the trials continue positively. We cannot absolutely to be the virus, but we can certainly control the spread and save lives. Everybody can do that. Mask,st need to wear a remind people to wear a mask, physically distance, avoid indoor, crowds bases. Butnot a party pooper having 20 or 30 or 40 people at your house for thanksgiving, that could be a recipe for spread. Im not saying to throw grandma out in the cold, but im saying be very careful about your hygiene, handwashing. Physically distance if you can, particularly those who are very vulnerable. That will save lives. Eugene speaking of the need to be very careful, as you recall, we are closed in bars and restaurants since earlier this year when we saw numbers pretty comparable to what we are beginning to see again. The you believe we need to go back to that and ramp up coronavirus restrictions . Guest so, we saw in arizona and texas and the sun belt and in the deep south that if people are very disciplined, and what i mean by discipline is we have that is 85 , 90 when you cant physically bars and if you limit Indoor Dining to a certain percent, outdoors, fine, and you have testing particularly of those who could be spreading, that is effectively the same as shutting down the economy. However, if we dont do those things, lawmakers are going to get pressed against the wall to have those measures that none of us want. When you do shopping is down, people dont get cancer screenings. Children dont go to school. They dont learn. Issues,ave Emotional Mental Health issues. Substance misuse goes up. Theres increased suicide. There is a whole chain of bad Health Effects that occur in a shutdown in these have to be weighed because they are real. The bottom line is if we have if we dowearing, limit the indoor crowded spaces like bars and like indoor restaurants, we have appropriate testing, we wont have to use those measures. But unless we turn the Current Situation around, at the local weel and at the state level, want it to be the last resort because theres going to be great physical and emotional harm done by that but if it is a last resort, it is the last resort, but we are not there yet. I think we can continue to spread the message about what you can do to process what we have done in many localities before. That is where we want to be. We can flatten the curve, we can savethe spread, we can lives by doing these simple Public Health measures until we can absolutely defeat the virus by widespread vaccination. That really is a plan that we need to try to stick to it possible. A city byng to be on city basis, statebystate basis because every community is different, every community has different risk factors, different social order abilities. Thats why you cant just wave a wand nationally, it really has to be done at the community level. That last part takes me to a question from one of our audience members, charles from minnesota. He wants to know, will we require a National Social distancing and indoor mask mandate . So, i havent been elected to any office, so it is certainly not my decision about which way to go. I can say it has been the policy of the administration thus far to respect the local authorities in this regard. I think theres a good argument to say that if the federal government mandated something, number one, it could never be enforceable, and number two, it might actually create adverse behaviors for different behaviors that we want to do. It has been the policy of the administration to respect what the state and locals want to do. I can tell you from a Public Health point of view, that we need to increase maskwearing. There is no question we need to do that. And we need to avoid indoor, crowded spaces. How that needs to get done is really on a community by community basis. Some communities may choose to mandate that, we support that. Other communities may say we need massive educational campaigns because mandating it would give us the opposite that we want, because some people are like that. Europe, there are protests against mandates and we are getting the opposite behavior. This has been stressful for everyone. Weve been under incredible lastn, we have been since january. I do believe from a Public Health standpoint, Public Health has always been a local measure where people in the Community Work with the community. I can tell you what we need to done,appen, how that gets we support the local communities. Mandate,hat is a whether that is massive education or working with children, whether that is doing something with the elderly, we are telling you what the end results have to be. Get there isto by local mayors and county judges. Eugene another question from an audience member, the tory moser from michigan victoria moser from michigan wants to know. With the topic of registration and disregarding basic pandemic behavior and crosscountry containmentrging, seems utterly impossible. Does compliance to cdc guidelines for the rest of us actually make a difference and how . Thank you so much for asking the question, i really appreciate that because that really gets to the heart of the matter. None of us are 100 omniscient but the data are very clear that people who are not symptomatic can spread the virus and doing something simple like wearing a mask greatly reduces transmission from one person to the next. We have seen this whether you want to look at the micro level like hairdressers who took care of 129 clients, two of them while they were sick with coronavirus. Masksheir clients wore and what you saw was no transmission of the virus. Where theseizona simple measures really do make a difference. Again even and time summer camp where masks were required, the transition was minimal. We see at Day Care Centers across rhode island and many other places that transition is absolutely minimal. So i want to assure the american that we have to keep our guard up, that this is not futile. This is a great weapon against this pandemic. You could save a life, you could save multiple lines. If you infect one person, that person could infect two people. These measures really do work. And avoid crowds when you can. If youre in an area where there is spread, dont have a crowded indoor place. There is nothing magical about a , if you have a house party with the same people, it is going to be the same difference. Make good choices. Outdoors versus indoors, smaller gatherings versus large gatherings. Good ventilation when you can. Always wear a mask when you cant physically distance. I forget your name, but i really am so happy you asked that question because we have got to keep this up. We only have a few more months to go. That few more months can be the difference between 100,000 or more people dying and not having that, we have the power to do it and we have to keep our guard up. Talk a bitant to about a project youre working on that is really interesting. You are helping to coordinate a new Pilot Testing program in four select cities in rhode island, i believe, with guidance from Johns Hopkins and the duke center. We are going to get into the finer details of the phone call in the next segment but i was hoping you would explain how the federal government is involved with providing point of care or rapid test for americans. Guest we announced a few weeks ago that we would provide 150 tests, very easy. We have already shipped over 36 million of these to the vulnerable, about one third to the vulnerable in Nursing Homes. Two thirds of those two states that they can use to reopen their schools and to keep them open and support other critical infrastructure. Technology, at very sophisticated technology. We are very excited about it. The federal government doesnt work in a vacuum and hopefully everyone understand this. By workings works with the private sector or the academic sector, the nonprofit we work together, we talk to each other. They have been very involved in helping School District tried to develop plans to reopen schools. When children are not in school, they have severe and sometimes irreversible deficits in their emotional and intellectual health at very critical times. People dont get their health screenings. Getting kids in school is very important. We partnered with them to provide a number to start with, 120,000 of the tests. That they are going to be using them in multiple schools. There is another major School District that we hope gets announced this week that i cant talk about. We are supplying the test to distribute to the School System and to test different best practices. Were bringing children back to school. Theres a number of possible ways to use these tests. They can be used for Sick Children on the spot, they can be used to test teachers every week, twice a week. Those were working directly with the School District to understand how to best utilize these. We dont have time to wait six months, thats why we are distributing them and testing them at the same time. That is all we are doing with rockefeller and with the School Districts around the country. Very interesting pioneering thoughts, we want to make sure that we can share best practices around the country. All our local School Districts are working together the way it is truly meant to be. We are all on the same results. Thanks so much for sharing that with us, we will keep our eyes open for that. Im afraid thats all the time we have in this segment. Guest i really appreciate the opportunity. We want to reach the American People. Remember, you can do a lot to control this pandemic. Thanks for the great question. Eugene thank you again. And we will be right back with the Johns Hopkins center for health security. At duke director of university. Stick with us. Hello, were talking today about why safely reopen schools is a National Priority to prevent further spread of covid19 and how we got there. And i am thrilled to be joined by the president of the Rockefeller Foundation which is leading these Pilot Testing schools inor k12 four cities and one state across the country that we have the potential to inform decisions right now on widespread testing. It is really great to have you. Guest great to be with you. The decision whether to send our kids back to school has really been one of the most controversial in the debate about reopening the country. Right now, most of the nations schoolchildren have not returned classrooms. We see the strain this is putting on families, employers, and most importantly, the kids. But i think all of us want to know if it is safe to send kids back to school. Parent ofl, im a three kids in elementary school. As theyve done in much of if you said is it safe for everybody today, the answer unfortunately is probably not. The answer is probably not. Schools that are better resourced, private and some public, have the Financial Resources and the Community Support to put in place the practices that work to keep kids, faculty and staff safe is able to be open. We see across the Nation Private schools open. In some states, you see large numbers of Public Schools open and some forms. The reality is, we know to do to keep schools open. Puttinge matter of policy in place and making sure education in this country is not just a privilege for those who can spend 30,000 or 40,000 a year for private education, but for every single american. You and rockefeller have been clear it is a domino effect. Up schools, youre helping with employers and childcare because schools are the heart of the community. That is right. Schools are the heart of the community. Schools are critical for education. Schools are important to get the local economy going because you need those parents to be free to participate in their work, whether virtual, or out and about. The reality is covid19 is going to be with us for many many months still, many maybe longer. We have to figure out how to manage through it. When i say schools can be open, that is a judgment based on real data. We know from looking at 1100 schools in the Brown University database, the prevalence of coronavirus showing up in schools is roughly one case per 1000 kids per every two weeks school is open. If you put in place the practices that brent gerard mentioned, wearing masks, staying distant and having air filtration in place, you should be able to run that classroom in a different way. Run you should be able to the classroom safely for students and teachers when the background transmission rate in schools is that allow. That is something rockefeller has committed to do with public nation, inund the partnership with the department of health and Human Services. Backieve if the data comes as successful as we expect it to, america should commit itself to make sure every child gets a chance to go to school next semester. I want to talk about this recent report you have on widespread k12 reopening. The upside of this report is that testing is key. Is an approach that is priority for rockefeller. When you look at new zealand and germany, they were able to keep their economies and schools open because of strong widespread Rapid Testing. When it comes to schools, we know affordable testing is a challenge. How can you make it easier for schools to do the testing so that they can reopen . You are right. Testing is the only way out if we are going to reopen next semester, beyond ask wearing and social distancing. You are also right that nations that have done this successfully have made broad, ubiquitous, and fast results testing free and accessible to all. America has not been one of those nations. Actionsud some of the that has taken in terms of requiring 100 50 million rapid antigen tests that can be deployed quickly, get results in 15 minutes. If we had enough volume of that, and if we had clean protocols from the centers for Disease Control on how schools can use those tests to screen their population, we could get about the business of opening schools. The Duke Margolis center has published such protocols. The answers very depending on the community you are in and the rate of background transmission. Basic testing to the strategy of social distancing and mass wearing should enable schools to be open for nearly every kid. As a nation, we should make that commitment to our next generation and to ourselves right now. That is going to take bold leadership. Thee are going to hear from report after this. I want to branch out to branch out the idea of data. , and i amdata geek too. You are testing students, then testing teachers, school administrators, that data is a good indicator of what is happening on a localized level. How does how do you scale level . A national how do you get data . Greata is such a indicator of managing the health and safety of people, they dont always want to share it. How do you get data by convincing the public it is public good . There is the question of making data open and acceptable. There is also the practical reality that the only way you beat back a pandemic is by taking people who are contagious out of the chain of contagion. It is a simple concept. 50 60 of we know the spread is largely coming from people with symptoms. Coming from people without symptoms. Youre going to find people without symptoms who could be spreaders and take them out of , youhain of transmission need fast Rapid Testing for everybody. Symptoms or not. So that you are able to find those people who are potential spreaders and ask them to stay quarantined and get a confirmatory diagnostic test. Broad screening testing, surveillance testing, for people who are both symptomatic and those who are not showing symptoms, but want to go to school is something we should put in place across americas k12 education system. To do that takes more than protocol. Fantastic has been because they are the only ones out there and we are going to test those protocols in six School Districts to make sure we have data to demonstrate it works. We also need actual federal reimbursement. Five dollars a taste a test they not sound like a lot, but if you are testing everyone in a School Community on a twice a week basis, those costs add up. When you added up to the costs of installing plexiglass and social distancing, most american schools do not have those resources. Big public funding for this effort is necessary, especially for paying for testing so that schools do not have to bear that burden. That is something we have called for, and is absolutely necessary. Yesterday, rockefeller announced a 1 billion commitment to deliver more equitable and sustainable recovery. Talk to me about the urgency on the equity , whether it is economic, where the focus of the investment is. Im sure you have seen the boat even the bill and Melinda GatesFoundation Points out that 25 years of progress in terms of building up low income vulnerable populations has been lost at just 25 weeks. That is startling. It is startling. We looked carefully at most major shocks and recoveries, be it the Great Depression world war ii, and we see a similar trajectory. When the world recovers slowly, people who are poor and vulnerable pay the highest price. Today, on a global basis, the World Bank Estimates four and 25 Million People will be pushed back under an expanded definition of the poverty line around the world as a result of the economic crisis. In america, covid19 is extraordinarily inequitable. Black americans are more likely to be hospitalized. One and 1000 black americans have died. We said to ourselves at rockefeller that we are a 170 old institution. We have twice been awarded the nobel prize for significant advancements in science and innovation to make the world more just. We said to ourselves, this time matters. We went to the Capital Markets and raise resources and were able to commit 1 billion to supporting a truly equitable recovery. What that will mean is more resources to expand testing, tracing, and develop better tests and approve that she improve the science. Improver tests and science. It will bring power to the one billion people on this planet everyday who live in the dark with no way to pull themselves out of poverty and into the modern economy. These are solvable problems. As ar greatest moments nation, america has set up and made Big Investments in its own infrastructure and marshaled plans to rescue europe after world war ii. We can do this if we do it together. Commitment is an extraordinary effort for us, but small in the big picture. We want to work with others to make sure this recovery is equitable. People toto encourage make a plug, read the investment. I think the piece about electricity and how that translates to available internet access, because if you are tech poor, that is going to be the definition of poverty and what holds people back. We are all looking for a Silver Lining after the pandemic caused so much destruction for the vulnerable. Make a good point we are at this Inflection Point and it is important to seize the moment and move forward. I could go on for hours. Were going to hear from the authors of the report to talk about new testing protocols. Great to have you. Thank you. I am so glad mark and caitlin are speaking next. They have a lot to offer this country. Absolutely. If you are just joining us, i am eugene scott, political reporter at the Washington Post. Joining me now are doctors mark maclennan, founding director of the Duke Margolis center for Health Policy at duke and diversity, and caitlin rivers, s hopkins. Olar at john great to have you both. Thank for having us. I was hoping you could talk to us through the report you coauthored, the first of its kind, a Risk Assessment on testing guides and how that can be adapted to the risks of covid19 and a School Community. Dr. Mcclellan, what is the basic framework . Framework is what you will have just been talking about at this event, the need for a multi pronged strategy to get schools open. It is so important for the develop meant of our children and so important for the Overall Economic recovery. Testing is not the only component of that. It needs to go along with the other steps that have been discussed like face coverings and steps to mitigate the risks of spread in schools, like dividers and ventilation. Alongh that commode with that, there is considerable evidence testing can make a difference. The other thing changing is the availability of tests. We have had significant shortages during the course of pcrsummer, especially the tests that are used for detecting infections in people who are symptomatically, but there has been important recent process progress in making available more widely tests that can be used like the abbott test. The federal government has started purchasing. We expect the supply of those tests to increase to the point where more americans can get the kind of ongoing testing support as one component of staying safe and the important things they need to do just like the nba and sports leagues have done commit like universities are starting to do if they have resources. It is important now to get support out, like through what the Rockefeller Foundation has advocated in terms of National Strategy supported by the federal government to make these kinds of supports for safe reopening available to many more public School Districts, other high risk settings that do not have the resources on their own. The report lays out how to get there, how we are going to Available Evidence on which approach to testing works best in collaboration with these other steps, to enable more progress on School Reopening than we have seen. Regarding School Reopening, dr. Rivers, can you talk to us a little about why preventing transmission in School Populations is so important . We have seen that children are less likely than adults to require hospitalization, but there certainly has been a rise in infections among schoolage children recently. Thankfully, children are at lower risk of severe illness. But, low risk is not zero risk. It is possible for children to develop severe infections. We do not know about the longterm effects in children are. There is reason to be concerned, even though the level of concern may not be as high. It is important to note that schools are not just places children go, they are workplaces for adults. After they return from school, they could go home to families who may be vulnerable to infection. It is important to think of schools as waypoints to prevent transmission to the community at large. We need to be thinking about all of the Vulnerable People in the community and how schools are connected to all of those people. We need to be respectable respectful about how we reopen. Mcclellan, going back to the report, for those who are not familiar with Public Health or reports of this nature, why is this collaborative Risk Assessment so vital for tackling this crisis . It is important that the approaches we take are based on the best evidence and the best science we have. Undere did in this report dr. Rivers leadership in collaboration with some of her colleagues is review the evidence that is available now. It is limited, but it is Getting Better on how to minimize risk in School Settings and how to use testing as a key part of that approach. The Risk Assessment includes several kinds of important considerations. One is howportant prevalent is covered in the neighborhoods where the school staff and students are coming from . That is a big determinant of how likely there is to be an outbreak and how much testing you might want to do. We also look at the importance of these other mitigation measures like distancing in schools, other resources that can go along with testing, reducing the risk of spread, and we want to Pay Attention to the quality of tests. The tests are Getting Better. We can think about doing largescale testing in schools and other atrisk settings that have been challenging to reopen so far. Especially with as much covid in the community as we have in many parts. More important to learn about how exactly the tests are going to work. Our report describes relying on some of these rapid, inexpensive point of care tests, which are not perfect, but when used regularly can help detect outbreaks early. They can be used in conjunction with followup tests and steps to manage people who do test positive to get them out of the confirmf transition, to there are there this is all part of an overall Risk Assessment and strategy for using testing effectively to reopen schools. I would like to bring in an audience question. Dr. Rivers, you can answer this one. This is from jb from washington, d. C. He wants to know why we have not funded vast a center medic alling for all, at least schoolchildren . I agree with the sentiment that fast available testing can be an important strategy of making otherwise highrisk settings safe. The good news is we will start to see more of those products come on the market in coming months. There are a few tests available, but more will be available at higher volumes they will be quite cheap to administer. I think we are moving in that direction and the sooner we can better understand how best to use these tests, when they perform best, when it might be better to use a different test, that goes to the gaps of evidence we are looking to fill in. When we look at the pilot cities that were chosen for your research, they seem diverse. Orleans,s angeles, new and the state of rhode island. Give us ideas about how these places were chosen . Start. Ll said, we did choose to aim for some diversity in setting, how urban these areas are, the types of approaches the schools are taking to reopening and different strategies to support reopening. These are also districts that volunteered, that wanted to get out in front in thinking about how to use some of these rapid tests in conjunction with the other strategies to reopen effectively. Committhese areas schools are taking somewhat within these areas, some schools are taking somewhat different approaches. For many areas, this is a one step at a time approach, not implementing a Citywide Program everywhere right away. They are starting on limited basis and expanding it out. Some areas are testing out the new test compares to ones that have been used more widely, lab tests that are not done nearly as fast or as easily. Other School Districts are focusing on a couple of schools that want to try regular repeat testing on an ongoing basis to see how it goes and use that experience to help other schools learn. As dr. Rivers emphasized, with more tests becoming available, and strong commitments you have heard from the rockefellers, the partnerships with health and Human Services to provide more these tests, we hope that these pilots cannot only report some also provide good examples of how to expand these. The Rockefeller Foundation i think is committed to largescale testing across multiple states, districts, to make rapid progress. Think anyers, do you of these findings applicable to other settings beyond schools like businesses or faith communities . I think they absolutely can. Seere already starting to settings like the nba and other sports leagues that have implemented Rapid Testing are getting good results. The more we learn, the more we can extend those findings to other settings. There are tricky considerations that may require tweaks. Nursing homes are at higher risk settings because the people in Nursing Homes are particularly vulnerable to severe illness. You might want to take that into account when designing a screening program. You might want to choose a more accurate test. Once we start to grow the base of evidence, we can explore those different customizations and make sure we are getting the right tests in the right setting and that we are designing our programs to meet the objectives of reopening and keeping people safe and healthy. Mcclellan, what type of timeline are we looking at . When we are trying to find out how definitive this can be . The pilot tests are going on now. We hope that we will be able to , andde some early insights obviously it takes more time to ,o a careful, Detailed Analysis but with more schools starting to use testing with experience from other settings like universities and sports leagues, many high schools that have already restarted their sports programs are doing regular testing in the settings too. I think you are going to see a steady stream of additional evidence. Is it going to be perfect and definitive right away . Probably not. Are we going to get better based on the growing experience around the country in using testing to support School Reopening . I think so. I point back to the Rockefeller Foundations efforts to share these types of learnings, the largetion, supporting a network of cities and a growing network of states that are all coming together because they need to solve these problems for their own populations. Since we have not worked out details yet, this kind of publicprivate collaboration is a very good way to accelerate progress. The reports coming out of the foundation about these topics, and reports that many of the cities are implementing the , will be making regularly as part of reopening and hopefully getting ahead of the next semester of school. I know different cities and states have different challenges. Therevers, do you think is one particular priority the federal government should focus on regarding safely reopening schools . There are two categories i would emphasize. The first is providing Technical Support. It is a technical topic to think about how to reopen schools in a pandemic. It is something we have never done before. I think the more Technical Support we consider we can provide to schools can identify strategies that will be effective. The second bigger pillar is funding. The interventions we talk about with masks commit testing and distancing, they all require resources. This resources are coming at a time when districts are facing severe budget crises. As the economy is faulting, and families are choosing not to send their children back to school, i think the federal government has an Important Role to play in making sure schools have the money they need. Get children back in the classroom safely. Those are the two big points i see. I would love to hear from both of you on this, do you believe there should be a federal mandate for mask wearing given how much we how Much Research we have showing how effective masks are . Now with so much spread in the country, this is something that would really help with getting more intention more attention. We have seen in states that implement mandates, even local counties, it does have Significant Impact on spread. While cases are surging right now, this would be a good way to remind americans that there are proven steps they can take when they go out and are interacting with others to help reduce the risk of spread. We are out of our we are at a very challenging time with cases surging the highest we have seen, hospitalizations going up, death rates starting to increase. This is a very challenging time as we head into winter. I think it is time for more support for mask use. I agree with dr. Mcclellan. I think we are seeing a serious resurgence. Helpve evidence that masks to protect others. There is evidence they can even protect the wearer. I think we do not Community Engagement and making sure people actually have the resources to implement this which might mean providing masks , making sure people have access to masks, and talking to them about why it is important not just for ourselves, but for others. Both of youate sharing your thoughts with us today. Taking time to educate our viewers under your upcoming project, which we all will be keeping our eyes open for. Thanks for coming. Thank you. That is all the time we have today. Us,ppreciate you joining watching, getting more information from us about this current pandemic and the best ways you can protect yourself and your community. As always you can head to washingtonpostlive. Com. Announcer the president ial candidates are visiting key battleground states. A speech onll give unity today in warm springs, georgia. Live coverage begins at 1 00 eastern. Campaignsmala harris in reno, nevada at 3 00 eastern. After that, Vice President pences rally in greenville, South Carolina at 4 15 eastern. Tonight at 9 00, president trumps rally in omaha, nebraska. Cspan your source for Live Campaign 2020 coverage. Announcer next, a look at diversity in newsrooms, changes in hiring and story coverage. Following a summer of nationwide protests over excessive use of force by police and racial injustice. This was hosted by the National Press club. Welcome. So happy to know that youre with us. Im the executive director of the National Association of journalism institutes and we are really happy to be hosting this event on newsroom protests and it has anything really changed. Thank you to the National Press club members for planning this program in partnership with us and the communicatorscommittee. Its going to be an interesting and informative conversation. First among our wonderful panelists and then we hope youll join in by sharing your questions using the monday. So im going to turn this over to our moderator ina moment , Michael Carter who is usa today managing editor, ethics