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Schools. Stepping down from her role at the end of this month. Thesu subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic will come to order. I want to welcome everyone here today. Without objection, the chair may declare a recess at any time. Pursuant to rule 70 of the committee on oversight and accountability and at the discretion of chairman comber, mr. Jordan and members of the committee may participate for the purposes of questions. Ii now recognize myself for the purpose of making an Opening Statement. Today the selected subcommittee is holding a hearing to examine the centers for Disease Control r and preventions policies and decisions during the pandemic. The pandemic sent shockwaves to all aspects of american life. School, work and family, sports and faith. This was a novel virus. There was much we didnt know. And we didnt know how to react. Educated guesses were the best we could do in some cases especially early on. But throughout, i maintain hope. What should heavy and could have united the country but did not instead drove division unfortunately. I was hopeful that the pandemic would be a Unifying Force for the country. And for the world. After all, the common danger unites even the bitter of enemies. Unfortunately in many ways, the Public Health leadership didnt always rise to the occasion. Instead of being a call me on aa trusted voice of science and reason, the American People often filled rundown, deceived and left damaged. Director, given how difficult it was to get you here today, with of the hhs often negotiating on your behalf it appears that maybe this administration didnt want you to speak regarding these topics. In case you were unaware, nearly ten weeks ago on april 5th the select subcommittee requested that the cdc make available to testify today. May 202nd the select subcommittee officially invited you to testify. Through the negotiation process the Biden Administration said there was insufficient time for you to prepare. Now this may even astonish you, considering the select subcommittee provided nearly ten weeks notice. Hhs then rejecteded to other das and provided more seemingly logical excuses. Again in case you were unaware, the threat of a subpoena for the administration to finally allow you to attend this hearing. We think that maybe you were willing the whole time, so i want to thank you personally for being here today. It is however curious that the administration tried so hard to hide you from the American People. I suppose some people simply move on. But without the review of processes and decisionmaking, its difficult to plan for the future and there will be a problem again in the future. It is the duty of the select subcommittee to ensure that we address failings so we are not doomed to repeat them. As well, lets affirm the positives. These are our duties and obligations. Throughout the pandemic the cdc publishedus confusing guidance d made divisive and confusing statements and we must talk about these things. Director, you made several of the statements were so cumbersome that even contradicted the official guidance. We have many questions about some of the statements made by several people and directives made. Beginning with on february 3rd, 2020 when you said, quote, there is increasing data to suggest that schools can safely open, reopen, and fatah say three opening t dozen to suggest teachers need to be vaccinated. The next day the then White House Press secretary said, quote, doctor wilensky spoke to her c personal capacity. Thats interesting. You wereak speaking at a White House Press briefing when you made the statement, the official logo was behind you and the transcript is on the white house website. Doesnt sound like personal capacity it seems to me the administration disagreed with what you were saying and we will ask you about that today. March 29, 2021, you also stated, quote, the data from the cdc today suggests vaccinated people do not carry the virus and dont get sick. Three days later the cdc spoke and said you were speaking broadly and some people who are fully vaccinated might indeed catch covid19. So this raises the question of whether the science of which you were saying was not. At the lack of awareness became clear when on july 21, 2021, President Biden made the unequivocal statement if youre vaccinated, youre not going to be hospitalized. Youre not goingng to be in the intensive care unit and you are not going to die. We will ask you about that and are interested in hearing the data at the cdc had supported or if it wasr made for political r other purposes. At times the cdc accepted guidance from Political Organization instead of relying on the real time scientific data. Atat the hearing in april with e American Federation of teachers, president Randi Weingarten we experienced the introductions. Doctor henry a scientist at the cdc described the level of access as uncommon. She testified to having the direct phone number and provided the cdc with line by line edits and received an advanced copy of the full draft guidance and some of the edits were even accepted. This level of access is uncommon. It even suggested adding a closure to automatically shut schools down. Even though the specific and it wasnt accepted, the others that were have some severe consequences. I believe that it is appropriate for them to seek the cdc guidance but not to give you order the cdc medical and scientific advice. Drug use, violence, Mental Health issues and suicide among the nations children have skyrocketed while test scores have severely fallen some will attempt to undermine the select subcommitteessa efforts by sayg hindsight is 20 20 or that we are playing monday morning quarterback but the role is to investigate the pandemic. This requires looking back in order to plan ahead. Requires asking questions to evaluate how the decisions were made and how they were implemented. Once that is done we may put forth a solution based on facts, not suppositions. So i look forward to a strong, respectful and ontopic discussion. Honesty is nonnegotiable. Ne again, i think you for being here today voluntarily and i look forward to your testimony. With that, i will yield to the Ranking Member for any Opening Statement that he would like to make. Thank you mr. Chairman and director for being here today. As the Ranking Member of the select subcommittee, ive often said howis important it is thate focus onth forwardlooking poliy solutions that will leave us better prepared in the event of another deadly novel airborne virus. At the forefront of this work is the nations centers for Disease Control and prevention which under the direction helped guide us out of the darkest days of the pandemic. Her steadfast leadership mobilized the most successful Vaccination Campaign in the nations history leading to more than 600 million shots in arms, prevented 18. 5 million hospitalizations and saved 3. 2 million lives from covid19. Under her leadership, 95 of americas schools that were forced to close doing the Previous Administrations failed pandemicly response safely reopened for in Person Learning within just one year. And because of the tireless efforts, the nations Public Health workforce was fortified and the cdc made critical strides to ensure that the American People received accurate data informed Public Health guidance that we know about any evolving everchanging pandemic and crucial points in time. I say this to not only think doctor wilensky for her service to the nation but also to stress where we were and where we are today because of her leadership. You see, when doctor wilensky began her tenure at the cdc, she inherited a Beleaguered Agency earning the pandemics deadliest two month stretch on record in the United States. In fact, every day, more than 3,000 people in the United States died from covid19. Whats more, doctor wilensky ascended to the role as director not only is the agency in the midst of battling a deadly novel virus but also as it was suffering from the severe side effects and damaged morale that resulted for months of political interference by the former president and his administration. Throughout the early months of the pandemic, the nations scientists were sidelined by white house officials and the president s political allies who meddled in the cdc communications, Public Health guidance and scientific reports. That is inn addition to the downplaying of the coronavirus which hampered the nations Pandemic Response during one of the deadliest periods in americas history. This politicaler interference ad harmful messaging by the former president also manufactured a deep distrust in the nations Public Health institutions. Fundamentally undermining the ability to respond to future threats and that coupled with the ongoing vilification of Public Health experts with a purpose of advancing a partisan narrative, and now we are seeing the really into dangerous consequences. In fact february, 2022 Research Center report found fewer than three in ten adults in the United States now have a great deal of confidence in medical scientists act in the publics interest. As a physician of Public Health experts, this is deeply concerning to me, and it should be to us all. Our ability to prevent harm and save lives in the event of another pandemic is intrinsically tied to a strong relationship between there nations Public Health experts and the American People. So, where do we go from here and howo do we move forward . Now that we are on the other side of the pandemic thanks to director wilensky out of the Biden Administrations leadership and delivering vaccines and safely reopening workplaces and schools in the economy, we have the opportunity to rebuild the trust that has been eroded. We have the chance to right the wrongs of the Previous Administration by identifying and implementing Real Solutions that leave us better prepared in the event of another deadly virus. Solutions like empowering thete cdc to promote comprehensive and timely Data Collection reporting, equipping the cdc with tools and resources necessary to continue rapidly disseminating Accurate Information and guidance to the American Public without political interference and investing in the cdc so that it can continue to support its states and local partners in the face ofrs the future public heah threats. It is now that we should work to re inspire confidence in the nations Public Health officials, not to continue today i hope we can make progress on advancing these objectives because if we do we can and will ensure the nation is better prepared in a future Public Health crisis. That means future harm will be prevented and more lives will bere saved. Thank you and i yield back. Thank you dr. Ruiz, our witness today dr. Rochelle walensky, serves as director cdc and prevention she was chief of division of infectious h decisions, received a doctor of medicine from Johns Hopkins school of medicine and master of Public Health from Harvard School of Public Health. Thank you for being here today. On oversight and. The went will stand and raise her right hand. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth t so help you god, thank you, let the record go that witness answered in the affirmative. Select subcommittee appreciates you being here today, we look forward to your testimony, let me remind the went we have read your witness statement, it will appear in full in the hearing record, limit your oral statement to 5 minuteses and press button on microphone in front of you so it is on and members can hear you, when you begin to speak the light in front of you will turn green. I recognize dr. Walensky to give an Opening Statement. Thank you. It iss an honor to be here with you. I came do cdc in january of 2021 as a practicing doctor, and researcher who was on front lines of the pandemic treating patients with covid19. I leave later this month with a great sent of accomplishment that publish people emergency has ended and with an unwavering respect and admiration for dedicated people across cdc working of day to protect the health of americans. When i started, cdc faced challenges. For example sharing of date was too slow and often relied on fax machines which hindered federal and state and local leaders from having timely access to critical Public Health data. As a nation, we have mourned loss of over 1. 1 million Family Members neighbors, colleagues and friends from covid19. Were still losing people to the disease every day. Were in a different place, end of Public Health emergency marked a transition for country and Public Health. We have the tools we need to protect people in the communities from severe infection, thanks to work of cdc,th our partners in state and local government, private sector and front line healthcare workers, more c than 676 million doses of vaccines have been administered across u. S. Saving millions of lives. These vaccines built a wall of protection which decreased risk of severe disease and death from covid19. When i started at cdc, onethird of School Districts were offering daily in person instruction. With my three boys at home with me, getting schools open was a top priority for me. I like many of you recognized that Critical Role that schools play in supporting social, physical behaviorial, emotional and mental well being of our children, one of first documents released by cdc 23 days after i started was Operational Strategy for k12 schools to phased mitigation on february 12, 2021. This road map to reopen schools and help them remain open was result of countless work hours by cdc staff. Along with feedback from over 50 organization who participation was essential. And it worked. By fall of 2021, nearly every School District in the United States opened offered daily inperson instruction. Throughout my tenure, i used best available and often emerging data to inform realtime policy decisions. Rarely did cdc new scientific findings that were clear and consistent. At cdc we have a strong commitment to acting quickly with transparency when new science gives us better ways to protect Public Health needs of our most vulnerable. When two studies released in march of 2021 showing that we could reduce physical distances in schools from 6 feet to 3 feet, we acted on release newew updated School Guidance 4 weeks after our initial effort. Today we know that so much more about this virus than we did when it first, merged in 2023, we believe that darkest phase of the pandemic areda now part of our history. Despite important accomplishments and improvements to Public Health lab comments and ability to share high quality Public Health data and bolster Public Health infrastructure, cdc still has more work to do im motivatedte to make improvements based on what i have seen, i launched a review cdc moving forward to address Lessons Learned from covid19, increase accountability and im prove how we deliver information to americans. Cdc continues to work, we need partnership with congress to better position for success. In closing rate of Infectious Disease threats should be a warning, as a nation we fail to heedlessons from previous disease outbreaks, were once again faced with opportunity. Collectively we should focus our work on moving the agency and Public Health federal, our response to the next threet will rely how we come together and have product conversations, i commit to further this goal in my last weeks at cdc and beyond, it is too important and too many lives are at stake. I hope you will continue to work with me and cdc to support sustainable Public Health investments and updated authorities that will protect the security of americans, by being better prepared for Tomorrows Health threats. Thank you, i look forward to your questions. Mr. Comer from kentucky. Thank you. Cdc communicated with big tech and social media companiesen to coordinate censorship of posts that expressed skepticism or criticism of covid19 vaccine. Is there a difference betweena medical opinions and misinformation. There are things scientifically proven over and over in literature. Those become facts i think there are ways to interpret it. Reasonable people disagree on medical path forward, correct. Yeah, i would say when thereea is increasing science that leads to facts that more and more people than generally agree. Patients are advised to get a second opinion. On medical advice, cdc records show officials sometimes flag social media posts they deem misinformation, my question did cdc work with private companies to influence censorship aboutss vaccine. That topic is under litigation, i will not speak to that. Meta said that they asked a bunch of things be sensors did cdc work with facebook to censor or otherwise alter any posts. The most important thing that is us out of this pandemic is vaccine it was important that American People how well they work. Im i understand. In terms of communications that is something im not speaking to because of the litigation. You are not answers the question. It is under court litigation. I hear that so much, it is under investigation. Did can the president take a bribe dr. Jackson, that is under investigation, did cdc work withwi facebook to craft internal policies on censures posts. This is under court litigation, i will say, so very important to get correct factual information out to people to understand the overwhelming benefit of the vaccines over the what about twitter. Again. You refuse to answer. No, im saying, it is under court litigation, and i will say that most important thing we are working toward at cdc to get facts out to people. So w they understood in plain language what was important. T im reclaim facebook policy on coronavirus misinformation date the february 8, 2021 said it would purge false claims including notion that vaccine is manmade or covid19 is manmade or manufactured. There cdc censor posts. Ce were all speaking to same thing, they are situates under court litigation. Did the cdc recommend facebook or other company censure posts suggesting that vaccine did not prevent. Most important to cdc, was to get information about how well the vaccines were working and how safe they are. Main of the questions all of the questions you are asking are along the same lines, they are under litigation in the court. One email a cdc official told a twitter employee that cdc is working on a project with census to leverage their infrastructure to identify, and monitor social media for vaccine misinformation they would like theot opportunity to work with Twitter Trust team on regular bases to see what they are seeing. Did the cdc work on a regular basis with twitter andeg other companies to monitor or censure vaccine misinformation. The answer is the same, that is the same line of questioning, we want too get Important Information to people to favor vaccines, they were working. I understand. It turns out that some perspectives that the government censored like lab leak theoriy and questions about the vaccine were correct, but the government censored that. A lab leak. Is possible, i would go further to say the lab leak is probable. Even some in the government have admitted that. The vaccine did not stop spread or infection. Im not saying it was bad but it did not stop the spread or infected. I think if i could just correct that point. That is initially it did. For wuhan strain and alpha strain early data demonstrated for those who worked, if you didnt get infected you were not transmitting it to other people. Had high efficacy early on it did change overtime. My time is expired. That is somethingd. That this committee will continue to investigate. With respect to censorship. Sensors descend opinions and unacceptable. Thatha is Something Else that subcommittee needs to invest trade. We dont need to ever see it happen again, i look forward to trying to present the truth to American People about what role the government plays in censoring the dissenting medical opinions which may will prove to be true. Madame chair i yield back. Thank you, i recognize Ranking Member dr. Ruiz from california. When you took our nation was in darkest days of pandemic, more than 3 thousand people were dying of covid19 each day. And federal government was stumbling in race to gets many shots in arms as coronavirus surged through our communities, our nations healthcare and Public Health workforce had endured months of unparalleled strain and americas faith in the Public Health institution was battered by the administrations mishandling of pandemic, and narratives somehow it was american funded bioweapon made from china and purposely released from a lab to harm the world. But you hit the ground running. You brought fresh energy and renewed commitment to cdc mission of leading with science. To protect the health of the nation, as a result ofat your leadership, speak for themselves, the results within weeks of stepping into you role, cdc issued comprehensive guidance that laid out steps that could safely return kid classrooms. What role did cdc guidance play. It was instrumental so much off what we did in getting guided an out, let me emphasis the most important thing,t we re. Getting our children backtoschool. I hadad three of my own kids at home, i understanded our children back in School Safely. Whole point was on the get schools open and to have them safely remain reopened. We did that through a layered mitigation, at the time vaccines were not available for children. It was essential. A lot of recommendation and policymakers fail or succeed in the field. Due to implementation problems, only prudent for the implementors to be consulted with. During your tenure, you worked closely with your colleagues at vary levels of government. For the most sweeping Vaccination Campaign, federal government facilitating getting over 600 million covid19 shots in arms this protects tens ofof millions of americans from threathe of severe covid19 and death, how did cdc work with government and Community Partners to right the ship on vaccine roll out and turn tied on pandemic, what were top two Lessons Learned. We didnt have a infrastructureha to support vaccine roll out, we dont have a active infrastructure. I would request from congress, we have a vaccine for adults program. We worked across all government, private sector, private partners. Retail Pharmacy Program to reach people where they were. We had to do that we worked with Community Based organizations and faith based this was an all hands on deck approach. Your departure from cdc is at a time of transition for the nationn under Biden Administration leadership we emerged from darkest days of pandemic and tasked with Critical Mission of preventing and preparing for future threatsd to Public Health. This is not time to let up on gas pedal. It our time to recommit to empower and invest in americas Public Health, institutions that work on front lines of emerging threats what are two Actions Congress to take to have greatest impact in ensuring cdc is equipped to get ahead of a potential pandemic. My focus on data, our data highways. We need resources for data highways, and have data authorities to seegh the data coming and act in realtime. That would be one. Second would be expanded work force authority. We have authority of other respond based agencies direct hire authorities overtime authority, danger pay,ti those things. I these are critical things to work toward. Building, andnd let the theories and accusations without evidence that often times made out of context go. So we can work on the important priority things that will save lives. With that, thank you dr. Walensky. Thank you. I yield back. Myself for questions. Dr. Walensky thank you for being here. I feel certain there is much we can learn Going Forward based on many of your experiences and predecessors thatat we come forward with betteror plans in future. Onon march 28. Subcommittee sent you a document, document request regards drafting of cdc february 2021 School Reopening guideddance, particularly whether any outside groups eckerted uncommon influence over the process. On april 26, select subcommittee held a hearing withpr president of American Federation of teachers mrs. Randi weingarten. And two months failing to produce a single document we have to followup on march 28 letter. This investigation is a priority, today all were expecting is honesty, do you commit as director of cdc and speaking for the cdc to fully cooperate with the document requests . I commit, we have been working with you, i come tight working with you to act in good faith to get the documents we can. Appreciate that, we need to see them. Do you commit and speaking for cdc to make employees available for transcribed interviews. G i commit to do your best to gete information and talk to people you request. It is really important to talk to people that were in the trenches and understand whattr was going on good, bad or indifferent. A large part of investigation whether Teachers Unions or other political groups received preferential treatment from cdc or Biden Administration. And if they advocated for measures that would unscientifically keep schools shuttered. That is a concern. Ill ask a series of questions, sometimes it is challengingw to answer yes or no, ill ask if you could do that. Director did American Federation of teacher provideto suggested edits to School Opening guidance including a trigger to automatically close schools that if implemented would have kept more schools closed and kids out of classrooms. Itss was interested in having closure triggers that is my understanding. Yes. Yes, they were not accepted, our goal of the getting schooled open. If you recognize in our guidance weec have layers mitigation strategies to keep our schools open. This was all about keeping the schools open. Not about triggering on close them. Appreciate that. It they suggest closure trigger run contrary to prevailing silence and data at the time. This was something we had layerings mitigation to strategy in the operational guidances to keep the schools open, this was all very locally based, based on local Community Transition and et cetera. But our goal was to not talk about school close oar triggers but keep them open. You appreciate what said about locally, that is one of the real Lessons Learned. In medicine in particular you had county with no cases, and people denied medical care. So that were a lot of things to consider. I appreciate that you didnt accept one of those, in my mind, the science and date was contrary to some of those trigger if you would, to be clear, cdc did not implement the closurere trigger. Of. Cross i correct. This was notok goal of guidance, this is january of 2021, many of the schools were closed. This is what i inherited when i stepped into it the whole point was safe reopening remain reopening of schools. I am with you. I remember january 2021 quite well, and ill have children. Grade schoolchildren. Shift to statement you made february 3, 2021, you stated there is an increasing data to suggest that schools can safely reopen. And safe reopening does not suggest that teachers need be to vaccinated. Vaccinations of teachers is not a prerequisite. Same day, white house stated that you were speaking in our personal w capacity. Just yes or no, were you speaking in your personal capacity . Whenever i have been speaking to congress, media or press conferences during my tenure, i have been speaking in my professional capacity. That wasu. Your possession based on available science and own knowledge and experience. Just to be clear. There were limited aims of vaccine doses at the time. There was a priority on several weeks later for teacher to get vaccinated. I didnt think that teacher vaccination in we have all other 5 layers of mitigation strategies available, c schools could open without teachers vaccination, there were data and literature, people in healthcare were working already . Why do you think the white house contradicted you or change it from proportional to personal. That is something i cant speculate to, you have to ask them. That is fair. On june 21, 2021. President biden stated quote. If you are vaccinated you are not going to be hospitalized. You are not going to be in intensive care unit, you are not going to die, end quote, by this date. There vaccinated americans that were in the hospital. What i can tell you, at the time cdc was releasing increasing datae showing protection of vaccine against severe disease and hospitalization and death. By that date . I you know, maybe ill say this. We still to this day do not have data on people who are coming to the hospital who are vaccinated. That is a data point we have lacked. That is another thing we need to look into. To do better Going Forward. Data system. I will say, believe me, as a physician. I was watching what was going on, we first looked to see how do we treat it, what is going on. What blood work can we do. We were trying to we did pay close attention to trials, of operation warp speed. And it was fascinating to you know, be a part of that in some way. We would meet with dr. Fauci and dr. Collins and et cetera. We knew from trials that people that got vaccinated still got covid. In general. They didnt get at sick and less likely to be hospitalized. Less likely to die. But it was the still happening. I i will ask you, the best of your knowledge. Had any passed away when he made thatt statement . If i might, let me thank you for your work in promotingg vaccinations, many videosid of you with vaccine clinics, thank you for yourlf efforts. It was much whatever my understanding of initial Clinical Trials before i bee came cdc director was 96 protection against systemic disease, in medicine we never say never. Exactly. That is the problem i have with his statement from the leader of the free world to Say Something so definitive, you are not going to be hospitalized, even in trials people are hospitalized. You are not going to the icu, as a definitive statement. That was misinformation. That was divisive. That wase. Dangerous. And put you in a very hard spot. Itot put you in a very hard spot as you are to be leading voice for america and i applaud so many of things that you have done and did do, but this is a problem that is theis point im trying to make, we cannot let this happen. We have to let science be the science. My opinion, we should have been hearing m from the doctorssh who treated Covid Patients, notre politics. Not someone in the lab. One more question. To be honest, we know vaccinations save lives not perfect. Now recognize n Ranking Member of full commit i mr. Raskin from maryland. Thank you. Dr. Walensky you are a graduate of churchill sky. In october of 2022, select subcommittee coronavirus led byus chairman clyburn, every covered a campaign by former President Trump to distort and this disinformation strategy described by trumps political appointees. Who told america that Trump Administration could have prevented thousands of deaths from covid had it acted to address the epidemic. Stated dr. Atlas, was mixing Public Health with politics, advocating idea that case identification is bad for president s reelection, dr. Alexander, said, here is the issue. If thes, communication is just statement that minority groups, are at higher risk than on the face, this is very accurate. However, in this election cycel that is the kind of statement coming from cdc that the media and democrat antagonists will use against the president. We need to tell the nation why the deaths happen, due to decades of democrat neglect. President trump and his allies, spread medical disinformation about quack medical cures. But they lied to American People for their own political benefits. In discusses importance of getting accurate scientific information covid to the people from cdc, dr. Martin director of division of global migration quarantine told subcommittee, there are people no longer withs that you would have benefited from that clear messaging. Dr. Walensky, do you agree that accurate science based on Public Health guidance would haveal saved lives that we lost during the covid19 epidemic. That has been my goal, thank you, first, go bulldogs that mass been my goal to provide most uptodate information what we have. Tell people what we know, or dont know and things may change. Why is that important to get accurate in think out. That is how they make their own risked based decisions they make their own decisions, based on what they hear fromm scientist experts from leader in field. They will protect their health and safety, if government is involved in putting out distorted information or propaganda or disinformation that will underminenf the Public Health. That was among challenges as i came in, and that have been discussed here this morning. Tell us about what that. What kind of challenges in terms of staff moral and public trust did you inherit what you became the cdc director. Look, we have an agency im gift to have an agency that works 24 7 to protect americans. We have people who were repelling out of helicoptersav to drop the test kits. And people working in Ebola Treatment Centers they are now seeing i i have the displ there are job to protect health. When they are undermined, you see risk to their lives, you see people leaving i think an estimate about half of Public Health workers across the country have left the feel because they have been threatened. That does not help Public Health. I want to thank you for your deversion to getting scientific facts to people. If Donald Trumps apologists are wored about plummeting confidence, in government, in Public Health they should look at thelt lies in the manipulation of facts that were engineered by donald trump and his administration in their failed respond to covid19. I would like to ask, to enter to record titled it was compromised. Trump Administration Campaign to control cdc and politicize Public Health during Coronavirus Crisis that was authored in last congress. I yield back. Now recognize dr. Miller meeks from iowa for 5 minutes of questions. Thank you, mr. Chair, dr. Walensky thank you for testifying. Administrations failed the United States public and its s response to the pandemic and that is why were having this hearing and thank you chair wenstrup for conducting it. We held a hearing in april on consequences of School Closures in which Randi Weingarten testified as only witnesses and denied coordination between American Federation for teachersie and support of scientific expertise her union offered, her experts did not condition american journal of pediatricsic finding that children are poor transmitters from coronavirus. Or the fact that schools were open in europe, or that there were schools private schools and public that were open here in the United States my state in iowa ha had reopened schools in august of 2020. And American Federation for teachers is not a scientific body, children are poor transmitters of virus and unless they are at high risk, they are at low risk for hospitalization and death. Cdc to be nations leading science based agency. With Public Health the number one goal. At points throughout pandemicul cdc issued confusing guideds know that guidance, but fault information that damaged peoples lives and lead to loss of trust, i having been a former director of state of Public Health, admire your commitment to your agency and staff, i had the same to my agency and my staff. I also know how difficult the job is that we do, bringing science into the real world andnd making decisions and recommendations for individuals to follow. This response of lockdown andd shut down occurred in form of among one ofof cdc pandemic failures of guidance on School Closures, i understand what you are saying there were certain things that you declined to act upon with triggers but other things were recommendations were seemingly followed, february 12, 2021. Cdcc issued updated guidance that seeming to condone the continued closure of schools. This was despite clear data that shows children, went Elementary Schools were not super spreaders and teachers were no more susceptible to infection or death than those at any other profession, and you said you looked and want to individual most up to ddate dates data that was locally base, did you use real world evidence was that brought to bear on your recommendation, after april hearing, i received a letter from Randi Weingarten lawyer. Suggests that i keep an open mind. And so some humility, they have not been previously described to me, i would like to enter these in testimony, article by which the are submitting to covid19 transmission june of this year. Mr. Chairman, consent to enter the letter. Without objection, what data did cdc review whenhe developing School Reopening guidance, and whether they considered the studyid or data and did you consider datar and information from School Systems thatr were already open, in developing the guidant. And willui you at mid covid transmission in school, elementary was low enough. Thank you so much for that question. As part of our scientific brief, it was not a document to closed schools. Many of the schools were already closed it was guidance to get them open and keep them open. In scientistic reset, we had reviewed publications from u. K. , israel, switzerland, norway, germany, italy and more, there was not a lot of published date from a from sweden. I can tell you late spring swedenct had overwhelmed hospitals and decided to closee schools for people over age of 13. We did look at data from other countries as we did this. The operational guidance and you speak to what happened in iowa. Part was to look at local Community Transmission and say if is low we encourage our kids to get back to the school that was the point. And highlight that American Academy of pediatrics supported our guidance at the time it was released. We have support from Public Health workers and a lot of engagement with our partners. Thank you. From maryland for 5 minutes of question. Thank you veryar much. Thank you and the Ranking Member for calling this hearing. Director walensky thank you. A couple things. Some thoughts and maybe one or two questions. We seem to always think about the pandemic as if it were a great big novel with chapters as we read it we knew what to expect, we did not know what to expect it with. We were operating in realtime, i said it each beginning of each hearing it is so easy to go back and to be a monday morning quarterback, or to claim to be doing the kind of investigatived work that we are sure about the outcomes worth, this was real. The fact that healthcare workers, have left in droves because we have bastardize what they have done, made them feel bad and deem their efforts not worthy. We questioned their tenacity. We keep always makes a reference tog European Countries without the proper research. Transmission rates r in European Countries were not apples to apples compared with the United States important to say that. I know its novel and interesting and quick to say, they did that in germany, france and et cetera. But the fact that in sweden as we heard, the infection rates for teachers were some highest recorded. Often times good to pump the brakes and to recognize that we were all fortunate enough to gette through a very debilitating crisis as a nation, we should be doing is looking to future not at thee past, we have examined that a hundred times to figure out if perhaps next year Something Like this happens again, what to we do and how to we do it. Director walensky im glad you are here, i hope you use this as opportunity to be able to express yourself in a way you may have been constrained. We want to congratulate you on your work. That you have taken pride in and you have lead others in thank you, i want to correct and affirm record when i can. Int your time as director of cdc you got it safe school opens 100 thousand schools. And vaccine to 200 million americans. That is you increased aggregate number of covid tests. Andfu funded medical research, with your own budget internally, and put in place an organizational structure with greater response time, we should be saying congratulations from this Committee None of us had that task, were here now with microscope but when you are in it, it is a tough job. I am particularly interested in your work to address Health Outcome and advance Health Equity. Among affected populations all sorts of things thatst cry out for greater, attention, you established updated office of the Health Equity correct . Thank you. You lead to development cdc new equity data center, thank you. In cdc history, you are counting for social factors that impact on health such as where people live, income erase, age, and access. Thank you for that we learned that during Public Health crises we have to be able to identify as well as care for most vulnerable among us, and collecting and organizing that data will be critical i believe toward thatat identifying vulnerable populations and assuring their abilityio to to and to have resources to thrive. I would ask you if you could just take a a people in your open words and tell us, what you think are some things that we should be looking at as a legislative body, what legislation and legislative ideas would you suggest to the committee the record, that we perhaps could and should look at to begin process of modernizing data reporting system and how it mights improve Health Outcomes for vulnerable populations. Thank you so much v for that. So much of what were doing in cdc moving forward, has been work that we can do internally we need your support, i spokeke our data systems we have with race and ethnicity data, if we cant see data we have or rural urban data, zip code, if we cant see where there is deficiency lack of access and lack of vaccinations we dont know where to taylor our efforts, two things need to happen, one is we have to stop using fax machines to get data to cdc. We need resources for data highways, so and many of those resources are going out j on jurisdiction, 3 thousand, ifow they are flow being can receive data and give it back to county a knows what is happening in county next door, county b. It comes in nonstandardize fashion. We need some data authorities to and put resources where they are needed, other is workforce authority. We have talked about the attrition of Public Healthcare workforce. Trek hire authorities danger pay, we have people in ebola stricken nations working but not receives danger pay, these are authorities that a nimble response base agency should have. Have. Myy time is expired. Thank you. Now miss lesko from arizona. In april 26 hearing from American Federation of Randi Weingarten we learned she has your direct phone number. It is particularly interesting because of some of the nearly verbatim language next to cdc School Guidance. Doctor walensky do you maintain an official government and personal cell phone. I do. I have several questions. Does mrs. Randi weingarten have both. I believe she has both. Have. You ever exchanged textmessages. I have. Where the texts on your official or personal phones. Or both. I would go to check it may be both, i also recognize i have several questions, were textra in fur about official, or, of cdc. I imagine i would have to back and look. Select subcommittee in possession of abouts 5 textmessages b between yourselves and miss Randi Weingarten are there more. I am not privy to all details of one that you have, i will say, that have you excuse me, have you deleted any textmessages to or from her. I am aware of the requirements for retention of the records i am you have deleted go. Any. No. My next question you said cdc goal to do get out most Accurate Information and most timely, recent data. I look the cdc web site. It titled use maskses to slow the spread of covid19. Says masks c is a critical Public Health tool and it is important to remember that any masks mask is better than noo mask. Wear the most protect every that you can and fits well, wearing a high quality mask with vaccination and self testing and physical distances helps protect you and others. Dr. Walensky why you are and your staff not Wearing Masks. We have guide guidanceit on web site that says that is that does not say that on your own masking web site on the cdc. Well there is a link from hospitalization level to say when you should think masks, people here are Wearing Masks that gives guidance. But your own web site, you said you give out most recent information data and own web site has this that says wear a mask in addition to vaccinations. You and your staff are not wearing a mask. I dont understand. Our web site has context in this. There is a link to community hospitalization levels. And they give recommendations on wearing a mask. That is not on the simple page. O public sees. May i suggest that you update our own cdc web site about masks. Thank you and i yield back. Now miss ross from north carolina. Thank you very much. Doctor walensky, i really appreciate you being here today. Throughout hearing includes just recently, we heard and accusations about steward ship at cdc during the pandemic on even since the pandemic officially ended last month. Before i get to my questions, i would like to give you a moment to respond to anything you would like to get ont the record if you would like to take a minute to share anything. Thank you, you know, what i our goal has always been to get more accurate date on to be science based to get kids backtoschool in a safe manor. And promote vaccination, which has been instrumental in getting ut out of this pandemic. Thank you. I am grateful for your effort to take lesson we learned during the pandemic and use them to inprom forward looking policies. That will make our country better prepared for the next pandemic we know is coming. Spearheading the agency. Tost a more stream Line Organization to tackle people threats as they arrive. Cdc has stood epicenter for testing outbreak analyst is to forecast outbreaks and inform policymakers in realtime. We have seen the success of this initiative in combating outbreaks as mpox last year, could you speak for a word about this center and what it iser doing to monitor and respond to emerges threats including novel virus outbreaks with pandemic preliminary. Potential. I am particularly proud of the center for forecasting and outbreak analytics because of work they do and they are growing but they are getting the best of the best. In academia and private sector to do this work. There are three Core Missions they look at predict, inform and innovate. How to get that informationat out. Among successes that weve seen we talks about our models potential spread and severity of decide we saw early publication one of first on omicron. And mpox. Then we looking at locally with Public Health officials this will be a shining star. It is already among great stars we have cdc, with our centers and im looking forward to their continued growth, grateful for the support. Thank you. Thank you. Like to discuss and you touched on this cdc moving forward, focused on creating more agile stream line agencies that can more respond to a future Public Health threat, you launched this initiative first. Why is this important to you to conduct the review and howw did its result inform your plants to modernized the cdc. This is important, april of 2022, we were coming out of a massive on. Mass on. Ive omicron wave and learned a lot. Question was, how do we take lessons immediately learned and apply them to be Public Health agency of future, we learned a lot. We need to move our science faster, our science is getting out 50 faster. We needed on ground guidance and to work with partners to do so, we continue to do that we need to have a responsees based agents. We need to be a respond base as well. We need to communicate well to American People, people were coming to cdc web sites, they knew who we were, he needed Communication Strategies to American People. We have 200 thousand web pages on sey is web site, were stream lining them down. Operation clean slate, to have most important tailored information to American People in Public Health partners. Thank you, i yield. Rec dr. Joyce from pennsylvania. Thank you. Thank you to doctor walensky. As members of select subcommittee we must uncover ther truth behind the covid19 pandemic. And flawed policies implemented by our national Public Health officials millions of lives were lost, families destroyed. Businesses and livelihoods across the country were crushed. While uncertainty of the pandemic ensued. Those who swore oaths to protect looked to their elected officials. Sameth officials charged with guiding public. This virus and related government policy lead to vaccine mandates, lost jobs, supply chain problems. Andle isolation of nations young people. To protect constituents and American Public in future pandemic we are working to understand the truth behind the coronavirus pandemic. We have wait the a long time for answers, on march 29, 2021, you appeared to rachel show, you said our data from cdc today suggests that vaccinated people to not carry the virus. Dont get sick, and that just not in the Clinical Trials that also in real world data. On april 21, a cdc spokesperson had to walk back your words and told New York Times that, im quoting, dr. Walensky spoke probably during the interview, probe that some people who are fully vaccinated could get covid19. Evidence is not clear, whether they could spread viewer to us others, we continues to evaluate. Dr. Walensky. Yes or no. Does supreme courts person from cdc going on record and correcting statement you made undermine and fracture the confident in cdc leadership. Dr. Joyce, i know, you know i was spiking in generality we saw data and over 90 percent that vaccines were effective. Once people had been vaccinated even if they get infected they would not getting sick and not able to transmit to others. But you stated that vaccinated people, to not care the virus. This fractured and undermines confident in your leadership. Cdca nations leading see know base Data Driven Service organization that is to protect Public Health, during the pandemic there was a perception of shift about nature and risks of covid. This is under scored by the messages. Including cdc spokesperson who walked back comments you made on television. It could be said these lead to finding of a survey conducted by few Research Center. Pew Research Center. Saying that false and misleading information about coronavirus has contributed to problems that country has faced dealing with the coronavirus outbreak. Do you feel any accountability, and Public Officials do you feel that rests on the shoulders of leadership. I think i would dispute the frames of the question, there is increasing confident inin cdc. We have polling from the pew Research Center, says more than hatch of american adults, misleading and false information. Is the cdc not capable of accuratelybl reports to the country that generalities in a Public Health situation, during the pandemic. In actually, we can get ta generalities, that is the quote av the show where i say they cant carry the virus, means they cant san transmit it to there ares that true of the alpha variant that i was talked about the time. But your leadership has fractured America Public confident in cdc, we have tried to work together. As a Bipartisan Committee to worked foror to understand how if misinformation and how these comments are made, walked back in a few days. By a spokesperson. This committee wants to understand that further, i think we are coming to a conclusion as we work to shine a light on the problems. I thank you for coming here today of, my time has expired. And i yield back. Now recognize dr. Berra from california. Thank you. Thank you dr. Walensky for your service and work at cdc director. I have privilege of sitting on one of the task forces that subgroup put together a put, building cdc that country needs, comprehensive that included former cdc members nonpartisan Health Experts, i would love to enter that to the record. Without objection. Thank you. Dr. Walensky, one of recommendations out of that report was looking atry organization began, i know you under took the plan, i sense of major findings, and status of that. We among the things we learned there were layers of bureaucracy that were happening went against that were essential Public Health infrastructure related things our office of readiness and response and Laboratory Systems and data systems weree buried in layers of bureaucracy, not went Immediate Office of director line of sight, what was critically important in this reorganization that was completed i believe in end of february. Was to have the layers, really important Public Health infrastructure components. Science, data, Laboratory Readiness report immediately to full line of sight. Great. Another recommendation on communication front and how we translate science to guidance in a way that i watch my wife who also a physician, runs a large system while centers through cdc web site. On daily basis during the pandemic. Usingri that information to provide guidance to her health care professionals, but also how do you translate that science knows that lay members of public of going to the cdc web site, you touched to it a little bit. I think you hit nail on head. As a consumer before cdc. You put c in my google bar it came up with cdc, we were on guidance all of the time, most people had not not heard of cdc, the Health Care Workers needed the to know, the language was for them. Then people were going to cdc guidance. It was never intended for average American Consumer to consume our web page. We now need to recognize that is who our audience it and we need one for Health Care Workers and providers and also the public. So they can say in lay language so they understand. And you touched on this workforce. Building a Public Health system that we deserve. Pandemic really did expose under resource fragments Public Health system. Data was not shared quickly where we were not to doing surveillance we a lot of the deficiencies. One of the areas that i worry about is some rhetoric out of the pandemic. That erodes trust in what shouldat be most troughed Public Health organization cdc. Historically has been. But with other areas that were disparaging young generation of folks who did grow up in midst of the pandemic. This should be a time where they step up to work for us. If you could reiterate what we should think about in congress to help build that workforce. Maybe emphasis thank you for that. This nationa estimated 80 thousand Public Health workers in deficit to perform amount outside of cdc. Toto perform the standardize Public Health duties of the country. We need Public Health workers, to do that, certainly tax exempt, loan repayment so people are encouraged to go in. And to the field, it is an incredible field, during the Pandemic Health departments report 50 of people leaving we need the Public Health workers to be ready for any threat that comes next. Thank you. I have used my time, i will wield back. Thanknk you. Recognized mccormack from georgia. Thank you, director walensky. Good to have youen here. I was talking can dr. Howie today. Thank you for your service duringk the pandemic, i too was on front lines of pandemic from the beginning through december of this last w year. I watchedgh the evolution of disease process with dismay at times we politicized it so much. I would make the case probably biggest mistake in ill ask your opinion, biggest mistake we made, the problem biggest problem, we let this become political. Rather than medical. Rather than a health care question. Whether instead of letting doctors talk to their patients we have politics talking to prompters, you had people who had access to you, to try to give i input. To digr, whatever, rather than doctors. A doctor who treated thousands of patient with great success, not have access, but could not get access, but a e Teacher Union top has access to you, that is ee egregious because it was political. The biggest problem with all ofhe misinformation with all of the fact we have black liberals and white conservatives, mistrusting the disease by not towing doing right things they were politicized so bad no one could figure out the truth. I would say that, i many scientists and state while officers i have given everyone of our state while officers my direct cell phone at some point, they have access to me. They could see what happening. That was a event. I to think that when politics have become involved in what were should be framed as medical people measure, we get misand disinformation i i have theoryial and threating to Public Health workers. That limit what they are able to do. And they have fear in terms of their job. Poor press, this all is politicized and frames a difficult situation to do your best. An interesting thing, i was threatened with my license. I did get censored by people on internet and people in government, telling me i could not express my professional opinion as a doctor and scientist. It goes full circle. It came from politicalization of this. They would not even allow a dialogue, it was just a one side fits all well let the government decide the truth. You mentioned, you said, we done didnt get information on vaccinations and hospitalizations. I imagine we dont have that. We dont have that on a national level, we collect data and cohorts to follow that for vaccine effectiveness studies we get hospitalization data for covid but never been able to get vaccination and covid. That worries me. That seems to skew the data, you nod your head. It speaks to real challenges in our data flow. I spend so much people every time anyone i i filled out a lot of paper work. Yet, we never collected date on one of most important statistics. Vaccinated patience passes and hospitalizations versus the icu and deaths were you asking for that. What i want we were looking at that in vaccine effectiveness in cohorts to report it out. We knew it was important. I want to emphasis that we did not get data, were just to be clear not looking for we did not get data in aggregate on vaccination and hospitalizations all that data you fill out does not translate to Public Health data, our data highways so important if well reporting on what is on outcomes that people are asking for. And data authorities are clear important too present that data. Interesting how much money we spend on that ehr every year, tens of billions of dollars collecting information that you cant get a hold of. Hundreds of billions, we gotten less than 1 billion for our data highways across country, 3,000 Health Departments. You are aware of must admit order some states including new york, were using to since covid positive patients to Nursing Homes . Early on. You have to say more. We first had the pandemic started we didnt know a lot, we knew it was the contagious. They had originally the must admit orders that some states were using too push patients who for positive to Nursing Homes. Not familiar with that. Was it a good idea to send the infected coach Covid Patients back. I cannot speak to that. Did they have singular rooms, there are a lot of parameters that would affect my answer. Might be a better politician than me right now, if. To be a scientist and a doctor, talking about putting infected i know how much time we spent after and we spent separating our patients the hospital. I would say ill make statement for you, is was a bad dog good idea to send infected Covid Patients to most vulnerable populations by direction of state. With that i yield. Mr. Jordan from ohio. Thank you. Why did you and Biden Administration mislead the American People. You have to say more. Vaccinated people do not carry the virus they dont get sick, that Clinical Trials and real world data, do vaccinated people carry the viewer displace in march of 2021, the vast majority were not getting. You done say you said vaccinated people do not carter virus. It was generally accurate. Why not be accurate and till tell the truth, why not say what you say to me. Why not tell the truth, 6 weeks later, you said you cant give it to gone el. El. Else. At the time we have wuhan strain and alpha strain that was generally true. Why not say it was the generally true. I can tell you we generally saw if you were to get infected after being act vaccinated, you could not transmitt it. It is not accurate. It was at the time. Really. All general statements that were made. You said our tax dollars used in lab in china in. That is ago our tax dollars were used it looked like gainoffunction research. Biden administration told us that vaccinated could not get it that is not accurate and that vaccinated could not transmit it, that is what 7 different statements that turned out to not know true. We got from this administration. I would dispute some of what you said,o a brief highlighting all science out there. I dont know the long list you remember areas we provided science, and science review to provide data to American People as we had it. I think happened, you tried to be honest with American People and Biden Administration shoot you down. You said vaccination of teachers something to that affect. Vaccination of teachers is not a rerequisite for reopening schools. At the time, yeah. We had week later or 10 days later an traditional guidance that demonstrates layer mitigation strategy, you could of safely reopen. Speaking of doctor walensky or dr. Walensky head of cdc. I have been in front of congress and media, and press conferences, during my tenure, i have been speaking as cdc director. That is not what white house says. Said dr. Walensky spoke to this in her personal comment, do you remember that statement. I do. Who was right. I was speaking in my lookings like. In february, you said im going to be honest with American People. Vaccination of teachers and not a prerec sift. Prerequisite and Biden Administration hung you out to dry. Then a month later you said, i better not be total honest, i sale vaccinated people not carry virus and they dont get sick. Everyone was like wow. You tried to be honest. They said, no. Then you said ill have to hedge a little bit, give American People misleading statements from head of cdc. I have been spiking at head of cdc. All of the time. Yep. It would have been nice if you were honest and straight forward every statement throughout the virus. I yield back. I stood by my commitment to tell American People what i know what i know it thank you. Mr. Garcia from california. Thank you. Thank you doctor walensky. I appreciate the work of cdc. Particularly in what was and has been single Largest Health crisis that weve had here. In modern era. Costing 1. 3 million plus american lives, 1300 lives within my city of long beach. Where i was mayor during the time. I want to note that just been interesting to hear this hearing and see so many of our House Republican colleagues and majority sul all of a sudden have an interest in what happened and medical expertise considering that they are and have been white washing the Trump Administrations role early on in pandemic and political interference. Remind, President Trump tried to undermine the cdc work, and advance his own reelection campaign, we heard about President Biden from president brought up, it was President Trump as we should remind ourselveses that lead the initial response. And tried to interfere with cdc work. And there nothing that suggests that teachers somehow played out size role in cdc policymaking there is nothing this suggests they got Health Expert to make a dangerous decision. There is a political talking point. We have House Republican had stet back and did nothing when President Trump and his allies interfered in their work to coverup his own incompetence. Americans died because of political inact from former president. In my opinion. I want to clear. Last year report found Trump Administration conducting system campaign. February 26, he and his allies mandate all media requests about covid be first approved by white house. There were periods of time his administration refused to approve critical covid briefings to American People. That shameful. And throughout that year, tens of thousands were dying his staff pressures Health Expert to soften language that might make the president look back. They believe contradicted president s message. And in email from may 8, in, 2020 trump allies installed in department of health and Human Services seeks to edit talking points on a cdc report, saying anyway to help you showcase your work for this great president. That would be appreciated. Trump administration pushed staff to authority in effective treatments. President tagged Health Officials to twitter and accuse them of slowing their work on vaccines until after his reelection. All shameful, interest to republican majority tear. Dr. Walensky did they water down a direct policy. American federation of teachers is one group out of 50 we engage with that were essential partners to get schools open, the foal was the goal of the to get schools open. We talked to everyone. To get our schools open. Thank you. That is what we heard over and over. Thank you for that. We can agree. Given from what we learned, important to have a cdc response guided by medical practices, when asked in interview last congress, fewer americans dying, agency former director responded yes, i do. It should be alarming. It is the note to remind ourselves Trump Administration tried interfere with cdc response. With that, a wrap up. It is insulting that House Republicans sit here trying to score political point around our Pandemic Response. William that i yield back. Rec nice miss green from georgia for 5 minutes of questioning. Thank you. Dr. Walensky, you are coming to end of your tenure as cdc directure that starred in january of 2021, we heard you say covid19 vaccine are stave, but i would like to talk to you today about is the 1. 5 million reports that also reported 35 thousand deaths associated the covid19 vaccine. It has been what Many Americans feel largely ignored issue. That cdc has ignored the reports. They feel like you as cdc director have ignored reports, i would like to talk about that a little bit. Cards were widely required and in democratic run cities all of the country, basically to become a member of society. And in 2021, covid19 reports skyrocketed to number one at 728,829 reports. Second was the shingles vaccine just over 14,000. Thats a massive number. And the numbers kept growing and growing on the report. Id also like to talk to you about how much money of the the american taxpayers were forced to pay pfizer and moderna. Pfizer received 15. 27 billion. Moderna received 9. 99 billion, and boy did they get a return on the american taxpayers investment because pfizer, amazingly, in 2022 got a 23 increase. But in 2021, they doubled their income at a 95 increase in revenue. Thats absolutely impressive thanks to the American People. But it was moderna whose numbers were astounding. Moderna increased their revenue in 2020, had a 1238 increase in revenue. In 2021, they got a 2200 increase in revenue thanks to the american taxpayer where money got funded into these Big Pharmaceutical Companies for these vaccines. Its quite impressive that pfizer worldwide went from 190 billion right there towards the beginning of 2021 and skyrocketed at the end of 2021 to 330 billion worldwide. Thats quite impressive thanks to the american taxpayer and things to the cdc director, she said that vaccines are safe and effective. Id also like to talk to you on behalf of all the pregnant women, not people as you call them. To quote you on august 11, 2021 cdc encourages all pregnant people, its women, by the way, thinking of becoming pregnant and those breastfeeding to get vaccinated and protect against covid19. This has also been ignored the amount of miscarriages and stillbirths that increased drastically due to your advice to get vaccinated, pregnant women again, not people. And then we could go on and on about the tragic stories of myocarditis and other things. But my question for you, doctor walkensky, now that youre going to be leaving the cdc pretty soon, what job are you going to take . Are you going to be on the board of pfizer or moderna . Because you have done one hell of a job making sure theyve made a lot of money. And i yield back. Thank you for the question. First i will comment the cdc is not responsible for the purchase of vaccines, so i cant speak to all of the economics that you spoke to. I do want to talk a minute about the vaccine adverse reportings system. So, that a system is intended for any person who is got in the vaccine if they have an event after the vaccine, whether or not it is related to the vaccine they report. It is intended to have an overreporting. Most of the vaccines that were being given a remember we gave 676 million doses of the vaccine any adverse event, if you were hit by a truck after you got your vaccine, that was reported to the adverse event reporting system. At the cdc we have the responsibility to comb through every single one of them to review the medical charts and see if they are related. It is the case that a i will reclaim my time. You did nothing about that and continued to push vaccines. Thats what the American People care about. We review all the things that come into the adverse reporting system. Id be happy to have my staff educate your staff i dont want my staff educated. You should educate the American People on what youve done with 1. 5 million reports because they feel like youve done nothing and continue to say that its safe and effective. I will close by saying i dont have plans after i stepped down. Thank you. I now recognize the gentlelady from hawaii. Thank you for being here, doctor walkensky and can i say as the mother of two boys in public school, thank you for your personal commitment to make sure our children could go back to School Safely. Our students lost much of the most tragic cases we lost children to covid. In the most heartbreaking cases students lost parents and loved ones. With you at the helm of the cdc, you steered the nation out of some of the most darkest days of the pandemic, a task not made easier by the chaos and mistrust by the Previous Administration. You kept us safe in the face of covid19 and other threats. Under your careful stewardship weve been able to stay on top of covid19. Instead of hailing your success into treading the title of the pandemic, republican colleagues have sold to white wash the growth and confidence of the administration by misrepresenting the work and policies you oversaw the cdc. Id like to take a moment to correct the record on these items. Lets start with masks. Despite the overwhelming body of evidence that shows Wearing Masks effectively prevented covid19, theyve drawn into question common sense guidance issued by the cdc regarding mask wearing in schools and other settings. We know for the fact that it was not safe to send our kids or our teachers back into the classroom without clear mitigation protocols in place, including mask guidelines. Doctor walkensky, could you correct the misrepresentations weve heard today at the hearing regarding cdcs mask recommendations and of the science and data guiding those recommendations . Sure. There obviously were many studies looking at masks. One that i think is most comprehensive is one that looked at a sample of u. S. Counties that have kids back in school and they compared the kids with a mask requirement versus those without mask requirements and demonstrated that those with masks had an 18. 53 per 100,000, sorry, those without masks had 18. 53 per 100,000 more cases of covid than those with masks is a nationally representative sample. Time and again we were seeing that if they were born, then they werent. So masks prevented infections and saved lives. We have similarly heard today reckless misrepresentations from the other side of the aisle about the covid19 vaccine recommendations. The bottom line is that a vaccines work. Booster shots work. At the science and data show that vaccines prime the immune system to recognize the virus if infection occurs. The point is to reduce the risk of infection and prevent a severe illness and death, which the covid19 vaccine did exceptionally well. To discourage Vaccine Confidence in the communities, its gross negligence and endangers peoples lives. As a previously pregnant woman, pregnant women are people too. I want to give you a chance to correct the suggestion from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that the vaccines are ineffective because they dont prevent all infections. They are remarkably effective preventing severe disease and death. And also, actually systematic infection. With omicron we have seen less infection, but remain remarkably effective preventing hospitalizations, icus days, severe disease and death. Thank you. In the remaining time i do want to touch on something we talked about quite a bit, data. If weve learned anything from this pandemic, its that we need to have in place a strong Public Health infrastructure, which with access, the detailed, timely and accurate data as its backbone, state and local Health Departments rely on the Data Available through the cdc to identify highrisk populations and outbreaks on emerging variance in the communities that take action. The data saved lives. We know this. Doctor walkensky, under your leadership cdc made strides to share this Public Health data. However, with of the ending of the Public Health emergency, cdc is no longer able to report on the covid19 case and transmission data because it no longer has the authority to collect it. Cdcs lack of authority to require standard data reporting continues to inhibit in my opinion its ability to make crucial, timely policy recommendations and ensure a coherent national response. If the cdc were able to have this authority to acquire realtime comprehensive data reporting, would we as a country be better positioned to protect Public Health in a crisis situation like covid and save lives . Without question, and i would say not just cdc but with standardized data and standardized data highways, it can come into the cdc fluidly. We can see an outbreak before it blossoms, and in fact the countys nextdoor. The point isnt just the cdc but to inform what is happening locally. So i think theres that is without question. Thank you. As a mother and a citizen, thank you for all of your service. Now recognize doctor jackson from texas for five minutes. Thank you mr. Chairman. Appreciate it. Due to the constant inconsistencies and lack of transparency, the cdc, and at the white house as well, Many Americans have lost trust in Public Health officials. We talked about this at length. As mentioned, regaining trust should be among the priority right now but we have to expose the misinformation and misconception that was used. As an excuse to disrupt and control almost every aspect of our life for quite some time. Doctor walkensky, this is a tweet that you posted in august of 2020, before your tenure as the cdc director in response to a tweet from the previous cdc director. He writes am i hopeful that we will have a vaccine in the coming months . Yes. Do i think this will get us back to pre covid reality, no. They take a long time to get to be blamed often have stumbles and rolled out and dont protect perfectly. Its important but it wont end covid. You reply to spot on, it requires a comprehensive multipronged approach, masks, tests, treatments and vaccines. Those holding out for the vaccine alone will be sorely disappointed. The time to beef up the dimensions we have already. You indicate vaccines alone will not be enough to combat covid. However, as the cdc director in july of 2021, you claimed what i believe to be a divisive slogan the pandemic of the unvaccinated, suggesting unvaccinated are the reason the pandemic persists and to some extent penning the vaccinated against the unvaccinated, which i dont think did any favors, which appears to directly contradict your 2020 tweet. What caused you to reverse your opinion . I wouldnt call it a reversal of opinion. All of our guidance demonstrated we have layered mitigation strategies and all the things i comment on in the tweet. What i meant by the pandemic and of the unvaccinated is the people who were dying were largely the unvaccinated and the whole point was to say if you want to prevent severe disease and death you should get vaccinated. You can do all these other things and theres all this layered mitigation we were providing at the time. So, i would say that tweet and my actions as the cdc director and the comments were internally consistent. Did the white house or anybody else in the administration pressure rose suggest you should make statements that painted the vaccine as the primary solution for the pandemic . No, but it was very clear from the vaccine effectiveness data that it was going to be one of the major things that helped us get out of it. We were seeing that at the cdc and all of our vaccine effectiveness. But you said early on the vaccine was effective but later on it wasnt as effective in people that were unvaccinated were those that were vaccinated were being hospitalized and dying because it was no longer as effective as it was initially. I dont think i said it exactly that way. Over time we saw that it waned and over time we saw less effectiveness with of the omicron variant in a sub variance, but still to this day we see remarkable effectiveness preventing icus days and deaths. I dont disagree with your initial statement. The tweet that was sent out. I disagree with the leaders statement that only the unvaccinated are dying from this. At the time, this is a year into it, this was july of 2021 when you made the statement about the pandemic of the unvaccinated. We knew at that point at that to be true what you stated earlier that the vaccine was not as effective as it was before and even if that applied initially, it no longer employed at that point that far in a so what i would like to know is due to political pressure ever impact the guidance on your public statements about the covid19 . Did you feel like you were making statements on political pressure rather than the science . The statements that i made are defended by the science. Do you believe that any of the statements or sending contradictory statements out there, do you think that contributed to the lack of trust in the Public Health system that we have today . I would dispute the word contradictory. What happened over time as the vaccine effectiveness waned and we got a new sub variant and a variant that behave differently in terms of how the vaccines work. It evolved over time, the science changed over time. We learned over time and had a new variant over time, and with that its my responsibility as the cdc director to update the American People on the newest science. I think that theres a lot of things that went wrong during the pandemic, but i hope that youre going to reflect back on your decisions as well and at the statements you made is the cdc director because i think they drastically altered how the American Public views the Public Health officials. Its safe to say your resignation later this month is going to be an important step returning americas trust to an organization that you did great damage to in my opinion during your tenure and with that i would yield back. I now recognize the gentleman from michigan. Doctor walkensky, thank you for your service and i hope in this committee we can keep from those kind of personal attacks. Thank you for being here today, and for the work that youve done through the dark space of covid19. Weve heard a lot of misleading statements and accusations here today, and i want to set the record straight. Quite frankly im tired of having the same conversations and hearing the same accusations over and over again. So lets clear this up again. There was no special access or collusion between the Teachers Union and the cdc to keep schools closed. And my colleagues on the other side are grossly mischaracterizing the situation. So, lets go over the facts again. It is routine practice and i believe common sense for the cdc or any group to consult impacted groups on guidance that affects them. Doctor walkensky, in short, can you tell us more about why its important for the cdc to engage with stakeholders on guidance that impacts them . Its critically important to get the schools open, and in order to do so we needed to make sure that the data would be implemented on the ground. As we spoke to all the numerous stakeholders, over 50, to make sure the guidance would be implemented on the ground. It would have been irresponsible not to. So, i also understand that when developing guidance to reopen all schools and help all schools stay open, the cdc engaged a wide range of organizations with various expertise. In fact, last week, hhs provided the select committee with a list of the organizations the cdc engaged within its developing of the School Reopening guidance. And it includes organizations like the American Academy of pediatrics, the national nationalgovernors association, e American College health association, the association of Public Health laboratories, Autism Speaks and the national parentteacher association, just to name a few. More than 50, and they are part of the record. Each of these organizations brought their perspective and expertise to conversations on how to get to School Safely and responsibly opened. Each of these organizations provided reasonable feedback to cdc guidance like accommodating immunocompromised teachers, when returning to in Person Learning or suggesting of a new variant were to emerge and cause high Community Transmission, the guidelines would need to be revisited to keep schools open, not close them. These organizations recognize that the cdc shared their goal to safely reopen the schools. So, why dont my colleagues on the other side so carelessly throw around outrageous accusations about collusion between Teacher Unions and cdc, i want to make it clear that the routine practical way the cdc went about developing School Reopening policies was common sense. I want to make sure we are giving the American People the full picture that at times the american death toll from covid19 have just surpassed 100,000 and that the first vaccines had only just been authorized for emergency use a few weeks prior to this guidance and 46 of the schools had reopened for fulltime in Person Learning when you came on board. I want to be clear the cdc guidance help to get kids to say back in the classrooms along with of the American Rescue plan Vaccine Program we were able to get more than 95 of schools reopen for fulltime in Person Learning one year later. Now, lets set the record straight on vaccines. We know vaccines are the safest and most effective Public Health measure that reduces hospitalizations and protect us against severe disease or deaths from covid19. According to a Commonwealth Fund a study published in december, 2022, covid19 vaccines had already prevented deaths and 18. 5 million additional hospitalizations. However, in early 2021, our nation didnt have the infrastructure to swiftly administer vaccines. Director walkensky, can you tell us more about the cdc efforts to support a safe and equitable Vaccine Distribution . Yes, thank you for that. We come as you know, didnt have a vaccine infrastructure for vaccines for adults. Its something we were asking from congress to establish that. So we dont have to recreate one again. But i will say is that we worked tirelessly with our federal Retail Pharmacy partners and federally qualified health care centers, community and faithbased organizations, with our state and local Health Departments. Across the country, with all sorts of partners, so that we could get vaccines. We needed to bring vaccines where they were. We did vaccination sites, small vaccination sites, and allingtons of everett, but we need the infrastructure. That was stood up for covid and it is no longer we will continue what we can for covid with the resources we have, but we do not have a large scale vaccine infrastructure for adults. At this point i also want to talk to my republican friends about this theres probably nobody with more vaccine efficacy in this committee than me. In my flu shot in my 20s [inaudible] i was scared to death to get this covid19 vaccine. I think i even shared it with you at the time. I didnt trust doctors are not here. I went to the university of michigan and talked to the Infectious Disease doctors and they encouraged me that this was the right thing to do. It was a different chemistry. But i remained seriously concerned about americans getting the wrong information from misinformation about the disease and how it spreads, vaccines and even treatments quite frankly. I have a very close i want to legally who the Family Member is because i might not be here invited but it supports President Trump. He took hydro chloroquine and almost died within the hospital and they believe what they hear. So, we need to hear and we know sometimes people are giving information that is the best information they have at the time. But unfortunately, the world is experiencing the Largest Global decline in decades. And the number of children receiving basic immunizations. And we are seeing a resurgence in previously controlled diseases like polio and measles. Doctor walkensky, how is vaccine misinformation affecting Childrens Health . I think you nailed it a spot on. For the first time last year, we saw the first polio case in the country in about ten years. We have seen numerous outbreaks of measles. In my inbox, not infrequently i will get an email saying theres a new measles case that has been detected in the United States. Its critically important. Weve seen a downturn in the number of incoming kindergartners vaccinated for all of the recommended vaccines. And its critically important that we maintain vaccine, full vaccinations for the health and safety of our children. Thank you. Is there anything that you want to add as i close . Thank you for your support. I will say that it is critically important to get covid19 vaccines today, and for the fall, whatever we may see in the fall, but the vaccines have been a Public Health staple that have been critically important for decades. We are actually, i think we have we are blessed we are not seeing these illnesses and our children because we have had vaccines for so many decades. When once we start seeing those resurgence, that is going to be detrimental to our children. Thank you for your service, and i will yield back. Thank you. I would like to yield to Ranking Member reese for a closing statement if you would like one. And hes asked that he could ask one more question. First, i will start with a question because i think that this is very important. Its been said before, and you were brilliantly answering the question, and i want to give you more time to pursue the question of the difference between medical opinion and misinformation, because there is a debate as to when does a persons personal opinion become misinformation, and when does it become disinformation which is the intentional misinformation. So, can you elaborate more on medical opinion versus misinformation . And you are saying with increasing science, the general accurate science it becomes fact and when does it become just a fringe opinion . Thank you for that. Im not an expert on this information. What i can tell you is early on in scientific knowledge and inquiry, we say things emerging in the literature. A groundbreaking work that appears in highlevel journals. Those get corroborated over time. Those are widely accepted eventually as dogma in science, and then there are new questions presented based on that dogma. Certainly weve done a lot of lessons learning and covid19. We had a new virus. But over time, there were widely very well respected experts in Public Health and health care and academia, scientists who really understood as the science was evolving and emerging. That i think we then take as fact. When you have people who are not trained and decided to begin reading the literature, people are expressing opinions who havent read the literature. I think then you have to start to question upon which if they are making the decisions and giving that advice. I think that opinion versus the misinformation plays out here because somebodys opinion can say that masks dont work. However, theres data and scientific fact that masks prevent the transmission of droplets from being transported in the air and infecting others, and you mentioned some scientific fact that the incidence of infections decreased in settings where people actually wear their masks. So, when does it become opinion versus misinformation, and then if people are well versed in the science or they read of the the literature and still proclaim that masks dont work, then does that become disinformation . The other thing to discuss is whether or not vaccines work. So, now the science and Public Health Research Demonstrates overwhelmingly that when you vaccinate a population with covid19, you significantly reduce the transmission, you significantly reduce hospitalizations and thats from the vaccine. We have real Life Experience and that we are at a different place than we were before the vaccines and also have scientific literature. So knowing in the aggregate that vaccines are safe and that they work, also knowing that the system of reporting adverse events, our system of learning about these and who are at risk of these adverse effects and then recommending people not get the vaccine and using other measures is a system that works. But focusing on these adverse effects, and to say when does the statement vaccines are safe and effective is erroneous and dangerous, when is that opinion versus misinformation not based on the aggregate of the Public Health scientific fact and if it is done intentionally, knowing and believing the medical literature, when does it become disinformation intentionally moving it forward . And that i think is our big point that we are trying to state because if science is to help us get to the truth, and even some studies you look at whether it was done correctly, whether the methodology was flawed and then you look at the study that has a breakthrough that leads us to a different path and then we unfold and pursue that path and unfold even more truths that would change the practice in medicine or Public Health. So to capitalize on the confusion, not the confusion but the complexity of science to then say this is confusing and thats why its wrong for thats why it was intentionally misled or intentionally suppressed or intentionally covered up isnt necessarily accurate and so in closing i want to highlight the differences that we witnessed today. First i want to commend you, doctor walkensky. I can yield if you want to say a few words. Hes got to go, so out of courtesy to the chairman, there is a difference today. Im hoping that we can get out of being stuck in the quicksand of partisan narratives. Like my colleague mentioned, we are talking about the same things, whether there was politicization in the guidance, whether there was collusion, suppression, whether there was all these Different Things that quite frankly should not be a priority because they dont lead to the biggest impact that we can make in terms of systematic change and use all that the questions that we had were very focused on solutions on the future systematic changes that put people over politics in order to save lives. I apologize that i have to leave. I mentioned before the dilemma. Theres a lot we learned. We learned from the trials and viruses produce variance. We know that the vaccine help to save hundreds of thousands of lives. I was for the emergency use authorization but we have the responsibility looking forward when we say safe and effective its like any other medicine when you talk to your patient is. You have to say heres what we dont know yet. And down the road, maybe we will see side effects but here is what we know at this time and here is what we have seen. I think thats a responsibility that we have as physicians and medicine in general. 95 efficacy and you took the time and when it came to masks early on when we had a supply chain shortage i said if you only have one mask between the two of you, give it to the person that has covid. They needed more than you to prevent the spread in my opinion. We had things to deal with on infrastructure, supply chain, all of these to make the cdc more effective. But weve got to rely on data and im going to say i want to get more accuracy to the system and accuracy to the doctor that you know. So you can say what is best for me at this time, whether its this or anything else. We will continue to work on that and i expect that we may be engaging with you a little further down the road. With that i will yield back end without objection, all members will have five legislative days within which to submit materials and to submit additional questions for the witnesses which will be forwarded to the witnesses for your response. If theres no further business without objection the select committee stands adjourned

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