Transcripts For CSPAN2 Federal Health Officials Testify On C

Good morning. The committee on Health Education will come to order. I have one goal today and that is Accurate Information. Accurate information that can help americans understand what they can do and decide what else around the worl world is at f the multiple coronavirus is alarming. 90,000 cases and 65 countries, 3,000 deaths according to the World Health Organization and most people in the United States are at a low risk. Heres what the New York Times said on its front page todays ago on sunday in describing the situation in our country. Quote, much about the coronavirus remains unclear. Its far from certain that the outbreak will reach a severe see proportions in the United States or affect many regions that ones. With its topnotch scientists, modern hospitals and Public Health infrastructure, most experts agree the United States is among the countrys best prepared to prevent or manage such an epidemic. Thats from the front page of the New York Times two days ago describing where we are in our country. Today in our country while there are 90,000 cases around the world there is about 100,000 in the United States may be a few more in about half of those contracted the disease overseas have been brought back here to be quarantined and monitor. Thereve been six deaths in the United States. In addition to the human suffering the virus is causing disrupted the Global Economy according to the trade representative more than 20 of everything we import, not magazines, car parts, factories and walked down 16 cities where 760 Million People live. Think about that for a moment 760 million is more than twice as many as live in the United States and that theyve been locked down in china as china tries to grapple with this. In the short term this could disrupt the ability to buy and transport goods and materials in the longterm production of these materials could shift into direct implications on the jobs crisis. So the first goal of the hearing is to provide the American People with Accurate Information. Todays witnesses are respected professionals who have a lot of experience in what we are talking about today and who know what they are doing. I want to take a moment to emphasize their backgrounds. After Anne Schuchat spent 30 years at the center for Disease Control and prevention. She is the Principal Deputy director. Her work has been with these kind of epidemics through democratic and republican president s an in health emergens including the 2001 anthrax attacks, the 2003 sars outbreak and flin a flu pandemic. Doctor anthony fauci. Doctor fauci felt his position as the chief of Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of health. Since president reagans time. So he worked for president reagan coming h. W. Bush, bush, obama and now trump. He led the response to hiv aids in the 80s and 90s and the west nile virus 99, sars in 2003, outbreaks in africa in 2014 and 2018. For his professionals, this is not their first radio. Third, 14 years ago and led by senator burr of this committee, congress created the position of assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the department of health and Human Services. Doctor Robert Kadlec helped draft the bill in holds the position. That was reauthorized by senator casey and senator burr. Not long ago, doctor kadlec had previously worked assisting the fbi and the United States air force and biological threats and finally, doctor stephen hahn is the newest to the federal government of these respected professionals. Hes had plenty of experience before becoming commissioner of the United States food and Drug Administration. The fda most recently chief executive of the university of texas, the Cancer Center of a Large Organization with 21,000 employees. So the reason i go through that is because if we are looking for Accurate Information, they support ought to be able to provide it. In addition to getting Accurate Information for the American People, they want to know what else we should be doing to limit the damage of the coronavirus to the American People and the american economy. Before we talk about what else needs to be done, i want to briefly summarize what we have already done. Lets start with congress. Its not the first Public Health threat we face. There are some senators and Staff Members who were here 20 years ago when the anthrax attack occurred. 2003, sars. Another coronavirus similar to the one we are seeking today. The 2009 2009 flu pandemic kiln estimated 151 to 575,000 people worldwide. Then there was the ebola outbreak. So following the anthrax attack in the bush administration, congress created project bio shield to develop and stockpile treatments and vaccines in after the sars attack in 2006, also in the bush administration, Congress Passed the pandemic and all hazards prepared this act. That guides the federal government and how it prepares for the response to Public Health emergencies. It gave the department of health and Human Services the authority fofor example they prioritized funding for the development of vaccines and treatments for Infectious Diseases and improve the Public Health Emergency Fund. As i said earlier the senator asked the most recent update of the law led by senator burr and senator casey. Senator blunt and senator murray and thin the work of the Appropriations Committee funded programs. We all know president s and their budgets into this includes all the president s that i know about, sometimes under fund these programs. Last Year Congress provided more than 4. 5 billion for Public Health preparedness programs. When a crisis occurs, we often need of money quickly. Thats why congress has created two funds, Public Health Emergency Fund and the Infectious Disease Rapid Response fund. For example, secretary azar already used some from the Rapid Response fund and using the Authority Congress has given him, hes transferring from other programs in his department to respond to the coronavirus. The trumpet administration has s requested an additional 2. 5 billion. Others in congress have made suggestions and we are likely to vote on it in the senate this week. In addition to what congress has done to get ready for pandemics like this, both democratic and republican president s over the last 20 years have used their executive authority during Public Health emergencies. President obama during the ebola outbreak. President bush said the cdc experts to investigate the epidemic. President trump similarly pointed a task force lynching tg with a 29. Keep the Vice President in charge. He moved ambassador from the state department to the years of experience in dealing with Infectious Diseases to be a Principal Deputy leading that effort. On january 302001, at the time when there were only six cases confirmed to the United States from the administration for the first time would quarantine americans exposed the virus while in china and impose travel restrictions on the foreign nationals to travel in the last 14 days. At the same time the state department warned americans not to travel to china and the cbc demands americans reconsider cruisers in asia. A couple days ago the state department added italy and south korea to the countries that americans should reconsider traveling in. Under the authority of the immigration and nationality act, the administration sent foreign nationalists have traveled to china in the last 14 days cant enter the United States. On saturday the president updated this to include travelers from iran. Doctor fauci said if we hadnt taken these steps, we would have had many more cases right now. A third example of executive action is developing the tested diagnosis of the coronavirus. The fda authorized on february 4 and its been made available to 46 laps and 38 states in the washington, d. C. They are working with 65 other privatesector developers including Academic Medical Centers and commercial labs to increase the availability of tests. For the doctor fauci said we are developing a vaccine for papillomavirus more rapidly than weve ever developed any other vaccine and drug benefit jurors met with the president yesterday to see if treatments and vaccines could be made available more rapidly. Scientists and laboratories are using super computing and imaging to try to understand the virus that are. In addition the impact on us and our individual lives theres the impact on the Global Economy. Trade representatives say about 20 of the imports comes from china as people get sick and cant go to work that slows down what is sent as an impact across the board. 13 of active ingredients for drugs are in china according to the fda. Some people said 80 of the ingredients for drugs are produced in china. We should evaluate that figure carefully. It appears to be based on a 1998 report that may not have a source that i discussed with the number of senators how we can inquire into whether we should explore that depended we now have on other countries not just china for medicine and health supplies. Most businesses in the United States that need supplies have more than one source for what they do and perhaps we need to take another look at that. Its not just medicines that are affected. In tennessee for reminding touring plans ceos said that phase one china deal caused workers to go up in the company but the virus caused them to go down and that has an effect on jobs in tennessee just as it does in other places todays hearing is an opportunity to listen to respected professionals who have decades of experience and are the right people to give the American People and members of congress Accurate Information about the coronavirus both with individuals can do and what else the federal government needs to do to respond. We will finish at noon so that doctor Anne Schuchat and doctor fauci can join the Vice President in briefing senators that the respective launches. Senator murray. Thank you mr. Chairman and to all of the witnesses today. I want to say at the top im grateful to all the women and men out there that are working to keep the country safe and i hope you pass this on to all of your team. Mr. Chairman and this is a frightening time. Six people in my home state have already died from the virus and im told we should expect more. We expect the number of infections continue to grow and people across my state and im sure across the nation are really scared. I am hearing from people who are sick and who want to gets tested are not being told where to go and even when people do get tested the results are taking way longer to get back to them. The administration had months to prepare for this and its unacceptable people in my state and nationwide cant even get an answer as to whether or not they are infected. To put it simply if someone in the white house or the administration is responding to the coronavirus it would be news to anybody in my state and ive been on the phone with all of our local officials for days n now. We are seeing the Community Transmissions of the virus. Families deserve to know when testing will be ready to scale up what they do families should be doing, and most importantly what they are doing. I have to say that while i am profoundly grateful for the work that Public Health officials are doing, im very frustrated at the steps the president has taken from repeatedly contradicting expert advice to downplay the seriousness of this threat and appoint a politician to lead the response so im glad today that they have the opportunity to hear today directly from the experts and get answers to the questions that i am hearing at home. I know people want answers and one of those days when are we going to scale the testing now that we are beginning to see the Community Transition in the United States. Its only after a long frustrating delay that we are finally able to Start Testing patients for this disease as the state labs across the country and the last few days seem to confirm the experts have been warning. There is a lot we are still learning there are a few things that are abundantly clear about how we need to respond. First of all we do need to be listening to the experts and making sure fact and science drive the response. They need to be able to trust the information they are hearing from experts in the federal government and is a political ideology and the policies being put in place are based on evidence about how to keep our families safe. I was heartened to hear your assurances, doctor fauci, but contrary to reporting you havent been muzzled by the administration. Its essential that continue to be the case. We cant have an Effective Response without active information and transparency from the administration and i will continue to be very focused on this. Second, weve got to provide adequate resources to meet the needs of our federal, state and local officials because we know resources that come through the cdc Public Health Emergency Preparedness programs are absolutely critical but also were never envisioned to be sufficient to respond to a threat like this so we have a lot more to do. Congress is working on a bipartisan supplemental agreement that will reimburse our state and local Public Health officials are costs theyve already incurred, combating the coronavirus and Additional Resources to the communities and it will guarantee resources are available. It will support vaccines and therapeutics to treat this virus and to keep us prepared to respond to future emergencies. I want to recognize all the democrats who came together to work quickly on this package and they urge the senate to pass it quickly. Im glad we are working on that agreement that goes to lunch with president trumps request was for 1. 25 in new funding and i again urge the senate to take this up as soon as they get it passed to the local communities dealing with this. I also encouraged by the committees strong bipartisan record in responding to Public Health emergencies as well. Just last year the committee strengthened and reauthorized federal efforts and resources we have seen employed today so i especially want to thank you mr. Chairman for the Work Together senatorworkedtogether d further efforts will not weve got to be sure we are not just responding to the latest developments by staying at of this crisis, by planning ahead because this is not likely going to end anytime soon. They are already seeing some of the challenges that will come next like the strain this will put on the Healthcare System. We are seeing that in Washington State. We need to make sure hospitals have the capacity to address this without overwhelming the ability to provide other care people need. We need to made sure the Health Care Workers caring for coronavirus patients are safe from infections themselves including by making sure we have a sufficient supply of protective equipment. We need to manage the drug and medical device supply especially considering we expect demand for some supplies and are already seeing that to skyrocket. They also need to give adequate attention to the public Health Education in the age where disinformation has been organized and rumors are getting traction as we all know faster than ever we cant let conspiracies panicked whisper discrimination or spread dangerous misinformation or undermine