cdc couldn t help people if they should get tested in isolations. they would get tests andblow back to the administration. again, the cdc makes these decisions. i expect them to make the guidance. go ahead. can you give us an update martha: we re going to duck out for a moment to bring in dr. paul offett from the children s hospital of philadelphia. thanks for being with us today. i guess my first question to you, just jumping off of what we listened to there at the white house is what is fully vaccinated and should the cdc recommend that a booster is what makes you fully vaccinated? so the question is what do we want from this vaccine? if what we want from the vaccine is protection against serious illness, the kind of illness that causes you to seek a doctor s care or go to the
white house isn t ready to embrace, not being able to go to restaurants, industries we have booster as available for every american. they can get boosted now regardless of the guidance. whether you re just approved or approved weeks ago. do you expect that that guidance will change? it s up to the cdc and they make those decisions based on data and science. will we have an update when they ll make a decision on that? i encourage you to ask that question tomorrow. similar line of questioning but this time about the fda. okay. there s been decisions by the fda over the last few months that have happened without consulting the panel of independent experts that we saw for authorizations for the vaccines themselves. we haven t seen that with boosters. a couple of examples on november 19, fda authorized the booster for all adults.
day. he actually directed people to google to find states free testing sites. now $48 billion allocated from the american rescue plan went for covid testing. another $25 billion from the paycheck protection plan went to research develop, validate, purchase, administer and expand covid-19 testing. senior officials saying $3 billion of the money was spent to expand testing sites, not kits, across the country. three years in to the pandemic, republicans are saying there should be no surprise more tests are needed. former surgeon general jerome adams says he believes testing was left off of the cdc guidance because they wanted to save embarrassment. you should get a rapid test if you can. the problem is that the administration has not yet delivered the rapid tests.
right now, the issue number 1? we re working and you ve seen the dear colleague letter that schumer put out a couple days ago. we re working in lock step with leader schumer on that, on getting voting rights down. he put out a timeline for that. we ll work on getting that done. that doesn t change our commitment to build back better. why hasn t the cdc revised the definition of what it means to be fully vaccinated yet given that this president has spoken about boosters for months now? yeah, a great question for the cdc. they speak for themselves given that they make decisions based on data and science. that i have a covid briefing tomorrow. has the president emphasized the importance of boosters for months and, you know, people have to ask the question or a lot of people are asking the question, would revising the guidance cause some sort of logistical or political or economic consequence that the
to do here is protect more people and save more lives, whether you work here or at the cdc or the fda. is the president okay with the fda making these authorizations without calling their panel of experts? again, the fda can speak to their decision making process. the florida surgeon general. what is the reaction to his comments that the u.s. needs to unwind its testing psychology? is that sound medical advice? i would point to our own health and medical experts and our focus on when they re more available and free to the public. is there any reason why the cdc did not include a testing component when it revised its guidance for isolation given that there is such a scarcity of tests? there s been criticism that the