Transcripts For CSPAN3 Federal Health Officials Testify On C

Coronavirus. Well have live coverage here on cspan3 wednesday afternoon at 2 30 p. M. Eastern. It will also be online at cspan. Org and you can also listen live on the free cspan radio app. Today, federal Health Officials answered questions. Good morning. The committee on health, education, labor, and pensions will please come to order. I have one goal today and that is Accurate Information. Accurate information that can help americans understand what they should do about the coronavirus and Accurate Information to help members of congress to decide what else we ought to be doing about the coronavirus. Around the world, the spread of the Novel Coronavirus is alarming. 90,000 cases in 65 countries, 3,000 deaths according to the World Health Organization. But most people in the United States are at low risk. Here is what the New York Times said on its front page two days ago on sunday in describing the situation in our country. Quote, much about the coronavirus remains unclear and it is far from certain that the outbreak will reach severe proportions in the United States or affect many regions at once. With its top notch scientists, modern hospitals, and sprawling Public Health infrastructure, most experts agree the United States is among the countries best prepared to prevent or manage such an epidemic. Thats from the front page of the New York Times two days ago in describing where we are in our country. Today in our country, while there are 90,000 cases around the world, there are about 100 cases in the United States, maybe a few more, and about half of those contracted the disease overseas and have been brought back here to be quarantined and monitored. There have been six deaths in the United States. In addition to the human suffering the virus is causing, its disrupting the global economy. More than 20 of everything we import is from china. Medicines, car parts, cellphones, televisions. China has shut down factories and locked down 16 cities where 760 Million People live. Think about that for a moment. 760 Million People is more than twice as many people as live in the United States. And theyve been lockeddown in china as china tries to grapple with this. In the short term this could disrupt our American Companies ability to buy and transport goods and materials in the long term. The production of these materials could shift and there would be implications on jobs there. 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 were talking about today and who know what theyre doing. And i want to take a moment to emphasize their backgrounds. Dr. Ann schucat spent 30 years at the centers for Disease Control and prevention. She is the Principal Deputy director there. Her work has been with these kind of epidemics through democratic and republican president s and Health Emergencies including the 2001 anthrax attack, the 2003 sars outbreak, 2009 flu pandemic. Dr. Anthony fouauci has held hi position as chief of Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of health since president reagans time. Hes worked for reagan, bush, clinton, bush, and now president trump. He led the response to hiv in the 80s and 90s, the emergence of the west nile virus in 1999, Ebola Outbreaks in africa in 2014. For these professionals, this is not their first rodeo. Congress created the position of assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the department of health and Human Services. Dr. Robert cadlic helped draft the bill and now holds the position that was reauthorized by senator casey and senator burr. Not long ago dr. Cadlic had previous work assisting the fbi and air force in biological threats. Finally, dr. Steven hahn is the newest to the federal government of these respected professionals. Shes had plenty of experience before becoming commissioner of the United States food and drug administration, the fda. Most recently he was chief executive of the university of texas md anderson cancer center, a Large Organization of 21,000 employees. The reason i go through is if were looking for Accurate Information, these four ought to be able to provide it. Now, in addition to getting Accurate Information for the American People, we want it ourselves, to know what else we should be doing to limit the damage of the coronavirus to the American People and the american economy. And before we talk about what else needs to be done, i want to briefly summarize what weve already done. Lets start with congress. Its not the first Public Health threat weve faced. Theres some senators and Staff Members who are here today who were here 20 years ago when the anthrax attack occurred. 2003, sars. Another coronavirus similar to the one were seeing today. 2009, flu pandemic, killed an estimated 151 to 575,000 people worldwide. Then there was the Ebola Outbreak in 2014 and 18. So following the anthrax attack, in the bush administration, congress created project bioshield in 2004 to develop and stockpile new treatments and vaccines. After the sars attack in 2006, also in the bush administration, Congress Passed the pandemic and all hazards preparedness act that guides the fell government in how it prepares for and responds to Public Health emergencies. It gave the department of health and Human Services the authority, for example, to prioritize funding for the development of vaccines and treatments for Infectious Diseases. It improved our Public Health Emergency Fund. The Senate Passed the most recent update of the pandemic law led by senator burr and senator casey. Senator blount and senator murray worked to fund the programs. We all know president s and their budgets, this includes all the president s i know about, sometimes underfund these programs. But last year, congress provided more than 4. 5 billion for Public Health and Preparedness Programs. When a crisis occurs, we often need money quickly. Thats why congress has created two funds, the Public Health Emergency Fund and the Infectious Disease Rapid Response fund. For example, secretary azar has already used 105 million from the Rapid Response fund and using Authority Congress has given him, hes transferring 136 from other programs in his department to respond to the coronavirus. And the Trump Administration has requested an additional 2. 5 billion. Others in congress have made suggestions and were likely to vote on that in the senate this week. In aio. 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 sent the military to west africa during the Ebola Outbreak. President bush sent cdc experts around the world to investigate and respond to the sars epidemic. President trump similarly appointed a task force on january 29, he put the Vice President in charge, he moved ambassador birx from the state department who has had years of experience in dealing with Infectious Disease, to be a Principal Deputy leading that effort. On january 31st, at a time when there were only six cases confirmed in the United States, the administration for the first time in 50 years announced they would quarantine americans who had been exposed to the virus while in china and imposed travel restrictions on foreign nationals who travel to china in the last 14 days. At the same time, the state department warned americans not to travel to china and the cdc recommends americans reconsider cruises in asia. A couple of days ago the state department added italy and south korea to the countries that americans should reconsider traveling in. Under the authority of the immigrati immigration and nationality act, the administration said foreign nationals who traveled to china in the last 14 days cant enter the United States. On saturday the president updated this to include travelers from iran. Dr. Fauci, who is testifying today, has said if we hadnt taken these steps, we would have had many more cases right now. A third example of executive action is developing a test to diagnose the coronavirus. The fda authorized that on february 4th. Its been made available to 46 labs in 38 states and washington, d. C. Two days ago the fda authorized a new test developed in new york. It is working with 65 other private Sector Developers including Academic Medical Centers and commercial labs to increase the availability of these tests. Fourth, dr. Fauci has said that were developing the vaccine for coronavirus more rapidly than weve ever developed any other vaccine. And drug manufacturers met with the president yesterday to see if treatments and vaccines could be made available more rapidly. Finally, scientists at our national laboratories, oak ridge, argon, livermore, are using their super computing and imaging capacity to try to understand this virus better. Of course in addition to the impact on us in our individual lives, there is the impact on the global economy. The trade representative says about 20 what have we import comes from china. As people get sick and cant go to work, that slows down whats sent here and has an impact across the board. 13 of facilities that make active ingredients for drugs are in china, according to the fda. Some people have said that 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. But ive discussed with a number of senators how we can inquire into whether we should explore the dependence 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. Perhaps we need to take another look at that. And its just not medicines that are affected. In tennessee we have eastman chemical. They have nine manufacturing plants. A ceo said that the recent phase i china trade deal caused orders to go up in his company but the coronavirus problems in china have caused them to go down, and that has an effect on jobs in tennessee just as it does on jobs in other places. So todays hearing is an opportunity to listen carefully to four 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 what individuals can do and what else the federal government needs to do to respond. Were going to finish by noon today so that dr. Schucat and dr. Fo schltop of fauci can joi president. Im grateful to all the women and men out there who are working now to keep our country safe and i hope you pass it along to all of your teams as well. Mr. Chairman, this is really a frightening team. At least six people in my home state have already died from the virus. I am told we should expect more. We expect the number of infections to continue to grow and the people across my state and im sure across the nation are really scared. Im hearing from people who are sick, who want to get tested, are not being told where to go. Im hearing that even when people do get tested and its very few so far, the results are taking way longer to get back to them. The administration has had months to prepare for this and it is unacceptable that 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 this administration is actually in 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 now. This is unacceptable. We are now seeing Community Transmission of this virus. Families deserve to know, and fast, when testing will actually be ready to scale up. What they, the families, should be doing. And most importantly, what we are doing. And unfortunately i have to say that while i am profoundly grateful for the work public Health Officials are doing, im very frustrated at the steps the president has taken, from repeatedly contradicting experts advice to downplaying the seriousness of this threat and to appointing a politician to lead the response. So im really glad today, mr. Chairman, that we 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 is, where we going to scale up this testing, especially now that we are beginning to see Community Transmission in the United States. After all, its only after a long, frustrating delay that we are finally able to Start Testing patients for this disease at state labs across this country. And the last few days seemed to confirm what experts have been warning, that this is likely to continue spreading. We now have more than 100 cases of coronavirus that have been tested in this country including repatriated cases. Theres a lot were 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 facts and science drive our response. In particular, the public needs to be able to trust the information theyre hearing from exper experts, and that the federal government is in no way influencing considerations with ideology. And the policies are about how to keep our families safe, not fear or prejudice. Dr. Fauci, i was glad to hear that contrary to reporting, you have not been muzzled by the administration. Its essential that that continue to be the case. We cannot have an Effective Response without Accurate Information and transparency from the administration. And i will continue to be very focused on this. Secondly, weve got to provide adequate resources to meet the needs of our federal, state, and local Health Officials because we know resources that come through programs like cdcs Public Health Emergency Preparedness program are absolutely critical. But also they were never envisioned to be sufficient to respond to a threat like this. So we have a lot more to do. Congress, as you know, is now working on a bipartisan emergency supplemental Funding Agreement that will reimburse costs state officials have incurred. It will guarantee resources are available to outbreak hotspots. It will support development of vaccines and therapeutics to test and treat this virus and keep us prepared to respond to future emergencies. I do want to thank and recognize all the democrats and republicans who came together to work quickly on this package and i urge the senate to pass it very quickly. Im very glad were working on that agreement that goes well beyond what trumps inadequate request for 1. 25 billion in new funding. And i really, again, urge the senate to take this up as soon as the house does, get it passed and get it to our local communities who are dealing with this. Im also very encouraged by this committees strong bipartisan record in responding to Public Health emergencies as well. Just last year this committee strengthened and reauthorized the law underpinning so many of the federal efforts and resources we are seeing employed today. So i especially want to thank you, mr. Chairman, for our work together. Senator casey and burr for their efforts on that. Third, we have got to be sure we arent just responding to the