Like to welcome everyone and go through some administrative things. Weve taken the advice of the attending physician that center for Disease Control health and Human Services so we are seated 6 feet apart. There is no room for the public. And the press is operating by poll although this can be watched by streaming or later in an era of fashion. The witnesses were here in person and we welcome them. Some senators are in person in the summer participating by videoconference. I would like to say this about masks. Weve consulted with the attending physician. Since we are 6 feet apart we dont need to wear a mask when we are here although you are free to if you want to. I wear my mask when i am outside of this room according to the recommendation of all four of the witnesses who are here today. Im grateful to the rules committee, sergeant at arms press gallery, the Capitol Police and for all the hard work to keep us online and safe. Senator murray and i will each have an Opening Statement an
New details on a possible Coronavirus Vaccine. Edward. Reporter connell that is what is propelling the markets today. We have positive news out of two vaccine makers. The first one pfizer. The ceo of pfizer says they will have enough Critical Data in october to be able to submit for approval should everything go as expected. He has said this before but this is a little different because it comes as astrazeneca saw a minor setback of trials in their vaccine. The pfizer ceo says he sees americans start being vaccinated before the end of 2020. The u. S. Government secured 100 million doses from pfizer this year with an option to get 500 million more next year. As of today, more than 29,000 people are in a phase three trial for pfizer. The fda hopes to have 30,000 volunteers and pfizer says it will be there next week on the way to 44,000 people. Of those, 24 in the study are minorities. That is something that the fda wants to see. They want to make sure this works among a Diverse Group of
School district . What should be the next steps . This is perhaps an instructive case. This is one of the first School Districts in the country to open to facetoface instruction. I would say it shouldnt be surprising they had a number of positive cases right off the bat. I think thats going to be the case all across the country. Then unfortunately what happened is because they did not really have social distancing measures in place, they did not have universal masking. Cases were very, very high. So i think lessons to be learned here are, if youre a School District looking to have inface, inperson instruction, its so important to make sure that you have social distancing in place, that you have masking. That way when those positive cases come, the number of exposures will be much lower. I think the second big lesson is that really, every school needs to have a plan for online instruction. Because as weve seen in this School District, you may rapidly have a need to convert to online ins
We are following the attending physicians guidance on wearing face coverings at all times while not under recognition and the chair will only recognize those who are following the guidance. Today, the committee on Homeland Security is meeting for part two of our hearing to examine the National Response to the worsening coronavirus pandemic. Two weeks ago, the Committee Heard from state and local officials about how the Trump Administrations failure to respond to the pandemic has harmed their communities and our nation. We invited fema administrator peter gaynor to that hearing but he declined to attend based on white house guidance prohibiting administration witnesses from appearing before congress remotely. Guidance is that intended to undermine congressional oversight of the administration. The committee will move forward with his work today. Thecommittee also invited department of health and Human Services to participate in this hearing. Hhs refused to send a witness even though the
For those who dont comply and has called for noelle bellow reports now one supervisor believes the ordinance will help get his county back on track. I think if we do this and were aggressive more aggressive. In terms following this i think we can get off the watch list and then its up to the governor to lift the restrictions, no mask in San Mateo County could mean youll have to pay up. Supervisor david can up introduced the new mask ordinance tuesday, calling it a common sense solution for spine is a 100. A second finds 200. 3rd vibe is 500 of the ordinance also implements new fines for businesses who dont comply starting at 250 all the way up to 3,000 the reason were doing this is to save lives. No different then when a police officer. Science someone for a seat belt we have seen an increase in regards to people or 14 others not wearing mask the San Mateo County Sheriffs Office says theyll focus on education first. But the mandate gives them another tool to encourage people to follow