Transcripts For CSPAN Public Affairs Events 20240712

What i meant by its not working is were dealing with Community Spread as a substantial number of people getting infected do not know theyre infected. Theyre not symptomatic. Theyre asymptomatic individuals. The classic paradigm of identification and Contact Tracing is very difficult to make that work under those circumstances. You superimpose upon that the fact that even with identification, isolation and contact trace, often the dots are not connected. If you get on the phone and talk to people who are in some of these communityus find that a lot of it is done by phone. When its done by phone maybe half the people dont want to talk to one who they think is a government representative. If you live in a community thats mostly brown or black youre in a different situation that maybe 70 of them dont really want to talk to you. You can identify a contact but you dont isolate them because you dont have the facility to isolate them. That is whats not working. So what were going to do, and we are doing, and youre going to be hearing about this, flooding the area of a community to get a feel for whats out there, particularly among the asymptomatics. So in other words, its a paradigm shift because were dealing with young people, people who are going to be asymptomatic, and people who are getting infected in a community setting, not an outbreak setting, where you know who to identify, isolate and contact trace. Thats what i meant. Vice president pence along with dr. Anthony fauci and other members of the White House Coronavirus task force held a briefing on the rise in cases across several states. Watch tonight at 8 00 eastern on span. Cspans washington journal every day. Were taking your calls life on the air on the news of the day. And discussing policy issues that impact you. Coming up saturday morning, Public Opinion pollster and political analyst Scott Rasmussen discusses how the coronavirus pandemic is shaping Public Opinion. Theals policing projects Barry Freedman talks about his role in changing policing in camden, new jersey, and the effectiveness of community policing. Watch cspans washington journal live at 7 00 eastern saturday morning. And be sure to join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, Text Messages and tweets. Earlier today, House Speaker nancy pelosi held her Weekly Briefing at the capital. She capitol, she spoke about the upcoming legislative agenda, Police Reform and the coronavirus. This is 35 minutes. Speaker pelosi good morning. What a historic evening we had with the passage of the George Floyd Justice in policing act, we couldnt be prouder of our Congressional Black Caucus, karen bass the chair of the Judiciary Committee, mr. Nadler, and the fact that it was bipartisan both in rejecting the senate bill, which was their most recent and by passing our legislation which made a tremendous which was their motion to recommit and by passing our bail. Justice also in terms of whats happening on the floor right now, in term os statehood for the district of columbia, long overdue. First Time Congress will pass legislation. For admission of to district of columbia as a state. Washington douglass, frederick douglass, would be the name of the 51st state. And yesterday being the anniversary of the horrible decision gutting the Voting Rights act, title iv. So this morning some of us are gathered in this very place to talk about the fact that we had passed h. R. 4, Voting Rights act that we hope that the senate will pass. Its about democracy, its about fairness. We know that they wish to suppress the vote and Voting Rights for the district and the rest but we will make our mark. We will stand our ground. And what is really important about all of this right now is the health of the American People. Martin luther king said, of all forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman. Because it also often results in physical death. F all the forms of injustice and inequality, health care is he most inhuman. So we gather here late at night last night in the midst of a pandemic, the white house, the administration in the dark of night filed their brief in the Supreme Court to overturn the Affordable Care act. Thankfully, the American People, if you have a preexisting condition you will no long that means for millions of American People if you have a preexisting condition you would no longer have access to care, and it goes on what theyd overturn. Time limits, if you have a preexisting condition, theres no lifetime limit on the amount of coverage you would receive. In the midst of a pandemic. 130 million americans with preexisting conditions will lose a. C. A. s lifesaving protections. 23 million americans will lose their access to quality, afordable health care. The a. C. A. s ban on lifetime limits, young people staying on parents plans, being a woman no longer a preexisting condition, the administration wants to do away with all of that. As bad as that is, they think they can get away with saying, oh we support a benefit for preexisting conditions. When they dont. So when they say that, understand, they are in court to overturn that now. They continue to be and now theyve filed the brief. And all this as the a. C. A. Enrollment has increased by 46 last year, showing an increase in the coronavirus. So many people have lost their jobs and in some cases their insurance benefits. Therefore theyre turning to the Affordable Care act. Again, in the middle of a pandemic the president is saying, we want to slow down the testing. The testing. I just was thinking during the night about all of this, being at school, learning about the Scientific Method, thinking about legislation we passed over time here to say we should have evidencebased legislation. And what does the Scientific Method say . The Scientific Method is a systematic method of research involving the recognition and formulation of a problem. You have to do testing. To recognize the fullness and the formulation of the problem. The collection of data through observation. You have to do testing. To observe the data. And the formulation and testing of how you go forward. This administration and republicans in congress have two things going against the will of the American People. Theyre against science. They do not accept science. And they do not accept governance. Now none of us wants any more government than we need. But theyre against government. So look at all the issues we are faced with. Health care. Our pandemic. And they resist they resist he insistence, the imperative, that the scientists are putting forth that we must test, trace, treat and separate. Wear a mask. Wash our hands. Keep our distance. They resist that. And governance. Dont want to have theyre overturning the Affordable Care act. They dont believe in a public role. Some of their supporters say, hey, government keep your hands off my medicare. What do they think medicare is . What do you think medicare is . Its governance. Antiscience, antigovernance, you deny science or ignore it, and you dont believe in governance, you dont have to do anything. You dont have to do anything about climate. Youre in denial. You dont accept the science. And you dont want to punish polluters or have regulation of pollution in our atmosphere, which is a health issue. If you dont believe in science, you wont take the measures to protect the health of the American People. The list goes on and on. And so we have the legislation that we have passed and part of the cares act called for a g. A. O. Report and this is what it said. The g. A. O. Report said in early february the sole s. B. A. F. D. A. Covid tests were deployed by the c. D. C. To state Public Health laboratories. But they experienced accuracy and reliability issues resulting in significant delays in testing nationwide. In the critical early weeks of the outbreak. It went on to say the absence of complete and consistent covid19 testing data reported through may 31, 2020, a few weeks ago, has made it more difficult to track and know the number of infections, mitigate their effort and inform decisions on opening communities. We have a pandemic. The last couple, two days ago, was at 36,000 cases. A record. Yesterday, 40,000 cases. A further record. And the president is saying slow down on the testing. If we didnt have testing we wouldnt have these cases. So my purpose here this morning is about health care. This is about health. The ignoring of science, the resistance to the science, all of the advice getting from science, the early denial, delay, caused deaths. Caused deaths. And now with a spike that we are seeing, the president is saying, slow down the testing. Others said he was joking. He doesnt say that. And by the way, this is not a laughing matter. Its a matter of life and death. And as i said, many more people are signing up for the Affordable Care act so im so pleased that on monday, we will be putting forth our Patient Protection Affordable Care enhancement act to Lower Health Care costs, negotiate lower prices, expand coverage and push holdout states to adopt medicaid expansion. Combat inequity in health coverage. Combat junk plans. The list goes on. Let me say this. As i said earlier, many people who have lost their jobs have turned to the Affordable Care act because their job, their health care was tied to their job. So hopefully they get their jobs back. But in the meantime they had that access. Thats what the president is trying to overturn in the courts. God willing, the courts will do the right thing. But we just dont know. So we are getting prepared for what comes next in all of this. In all of this. But let me tell you this about the a. C. A. Enhancement. It has why we have some things in it and some things arent that we saved for another day because the president said he would support these things. He said he would support negotiating for lower prices. Thats what he said during the campaign. Thats been for years our one of our priorities we have never been able to get 60 volts in the senate and get it passed into law but the president said during the campaign he was going to negotiate like crazy. Crazy. Thats a good description of his actions throughout. But negotiate like crazy, aparently means not negotiate at all. That is the only way youre going to get the prices, the lower prices. In the bill, bring down the cost of prescription drugs which were promising to the American People and the savings to the federal government from not having to pay those prices will go to expand, bigger expansion of medicare since its inception. Benefits for hearing, for visual and for dental. Its quite remarkable. It has other advantages for seniors in terms of cost of precipitation drugs as well. But were very, very of prescription drugs as well. But were very, very proud of that so its really important as whats the g. A. O. And lacking in terms what the white house is doing on testing, and we comment on the president s i dont know how ould would even describe them, antiscientific comments, we have a better idea. It started march 4 with the first bill we passed on the coronavirus. Testing, testing, testing. In april work epassed the enhance the further p. P. P. Bill and we had a big investment in testing. Testing. Testing. Not really embraced fully by the administration. As you know. In the heroes act, one of the pillars of the heroes act is open up our economy. Testing, testing, testing. Testing, tracing, treatment, separation, wear masks, wash your hands, keep your distance. Testing, tracing, treatment. Big investment for that. And the Health Care Institutions that would implement that. It goes a long way to get back to my first point about justice. And Martin Luther king. Coronavirus has demonstrated very clearly the injustice of how a pandemic hits. Is disparity of deaths that so clear in the community of color. Disparity among groups and the big impact on communs of color. Requires that we do this testing. As mr. Clyburn, our distinguished whip has said, we need mobile units to go out into communities so people will be tested and then traced and the rest. Why should there be more deaths in the communities of color . Because there hasnt been testing and tracing. And treatment. To prevent those deaths from happening. So its really important for the senate to pass the heroes act. For what it does for our heroes who are risking their lives to save lives and now may lose their jobs because of the coronavirus. And the revenue lost to communities. Communities, state and localities that are footing that bill. Thats one part of it. But the second pillar is about testing, tracing, treating. Its evidencebased. It will provide us with the analysis of what the magnitude of the problem is, and the data to say how it is affecting communities of color and everyone in our population and help us defeat this virus. God willing and science granting, we will have hopefully a vaccine at some point, a cure, therapeutics and the rest. But we dont now. We dont now. But we do have the tools to kill the virus. Testing, tracing, treatment, separation. Our , sanitation, and in bill we have the resources to do so. And they respect the role that the states play in all of this. So im hoping that the grim reaper will not be responsible for even more dangerous behavior that causes more deaths in our country because we have ignored science. We havent acted in an evidencebased way. In this p but say that election in november, science, science, science, and science are going to be on the ballot. That is what is at stake here. And its a matter of life and death. With that, im pleased to take any questions. Es, sir. Reporter last time we saw compromise last time we rought states in to compromise [inaudible] is this part of the inherent problem with bringing in d. C. , the challenge of the political balance so they proceed, d. C. Is automatically a Democratic State. Speaker pelosi that shouldnt be how we have enfranchisement in our country. Whats the nature of the vote. Actually, mr. Hoyer said here from the podium yesterday, not here, we were in a different room, but that at the time of that late 1950s, people thought that alaska would be a Democratic State and hawaii would be a republican state. And of course theyre not. Repud of course they are not. While that is interesting, it shouldnt be part of the issue. About two black, too democratic, to whatever. Otherer is there any d of compromise [indiscernible] was votingosi that on the floor of the house. Ideater but that is the there was a balance [indiscernible] Speaker Pelosi forgive me for not valuing your question to the extent you are valuing it. Think what a state is can change over time, but people in the district of columbia pay taxes, fight our wars, risk their lives for our democracy, they have this place, no vote in the house or senate about whether we go to war and how those taxes are exacted and how it is all paid. You dont want to hear about it, but this is in my dna. I am very committed to this. When i was born, my father was a member of congress from chairore and he served as of the district of columbia committee. Whoever chaired that was considered the unofficial mayor of washington because they made all the decisions for the district of columbia. He was a big believer in home rule and over time, you see some evolution in all of this home rule emerge and then a mayor there was a time there wasnt even a mayor in washington, much less a governor of a state. Now we are to this place. We are at a state of compromise. We think it is very long overdue that the residents of the all goodof columbia a vote inshould have house and in the senate. Yes, sir . Reporter you regularly criticize the president s rhetoric. That its ok to say republicans are trying to get away with the murder of george floyd with Police Reform . What wepelosi i think are talking about is how we go forward. You we are talking about something that is an incident that everybody saw the martyrdom. Everybody saw eight minutes and 46 seconds of a knee on the neck. And that may come up with a bill that says or the president comes out with whatever it is saying no choke holds, but maybe some . I absolutely not. We are talking right now, the minute the administration in terms of their denial, their delay on coronavirus caused death. That bill in particular. We canhas an impact and prevent future deaths if we banned chokehold. Im fully committed to that. Reporter [indiscernible] Speaker Pelosi i dont know that that is determined yet. I know he loves his strict and loves his constituents and i whoever ld welcome it may be another week before we know the outcome of another couple of races in new york. We have another powerful chairman, maloney weaker pelosi next week, will see what the results are, but im not going to speculate on what we dont even know has happened. But in those districts, a district like mine, anything can happen. It has nothing to do with who control the house of representatives, and that is where my focus is, not within democratic districts, but who control the house of representatives. Im very proud of how we are proceeding, our chair has been wonderful in mobilization on the ground. Worksing in a way that all over as a country on our for the people agenda, lower healthcare care costs, bigger paychecks for the structure in a greenway, cleaner government, justice in policing, district of columbia becoming a state, part of that, passing the Voting Rights act. Not only are we proud of what we call our frontline, our freshman who are up for reelection, but we are proud of the candidates in the red to blue, where we hope to pick up more seats. Thats where my focus is. Back on the policing bill. Yesterday, good going into the weekend, are there negotiations, talks happening between the chambers . Are scott or mcconnell involved in this . Speaker pelosi you will have to talk to them on this. It would be important for the senate to pass a bill, one that can pass the senate. And in order to do that, they should engage in negotiations with the democrats in the United States senate. Committee, may be the auspice is, i dont know. That is up to them. Mcconnell, the grim reaper, who doesnt want to pass any of our bills cant even pass his own bills. They should get together and formulate legislation that can pass the senate and then we can see how we come together on them. We are very proud of our bill. 134 civil rights organizations voted to support, the moms of some of the young people who were killed by Police Brutality support the bill, we are very proud of it. Now the Business Roundtable has supported it, so the range of support for what we have in our bill is very broad. It is focused, it is disciplined, and it will save lives. Lives ifuld have saved it had been the law already. Reporter democrats report something in the senate odds are democrats would report it in the House Speaker pelosi the bill we put forth was shaped by senator harris, senator kamala and senator cory booker. They were part of putting the bill together. So we will see what they can do in the senate. People will not take no for an answer. Hundreds of thousands of people lining the streets day in and day out, week in, week out, now one month saying enough is enough. As George Floyds brother testified before congress, and im very proud for the Judiciary Committee that before he testified, he said to me, madam speaker, do you think i can tell georges daughters name wont always be room or because you will name the bill for him . I said i would recommend it to the Judiciary Committee and the Congressional Black Caucus who have shaped the bill. But i will only do that if you tell me this legislation is worthy of his name. He said it is. So we are very proud. Not a tipping point, that would be too easy. A precipice the country went over. Just a different place to say thats not who we are, we can do better and the senate can certainly do better. Yes, maam. About whatm curious you want [indiscernible] thank you for that question. We put together as a result of decades of concern on the subject of Police Brutality. Everyone of our First Responders with the same brush. Sure. Overwhelmingly, we do not. But, where there is need to make change, we will make change. I think the press gave republicans too much credit for that senate bill. It did nothing. It took our language and defanged it. And youre like why cant you cooperate . What would you do. We are saying no choke holds. The president is saying maybe sometimes. Should we agree on the number of choke holds . Would that be a good compromise . Thats not the point. Its not even an issue, it is an ethic. We have two differences of opinion. The president is in the Supreme Court where he sent people there purposefully to overturn the Affordable Care act, which is something the American People need, especially in the time of a pandemic. Passed is aion we result of decades of work on this subject. Thats why over 130 civil Rights Groups have come out in support of it. Read their letter. The senate has to do better. It isnt about the whole thing of equivalence, why cant you Work Together its because they dont share our values on this subject. Not yet, but i hope they will. Reporter why not agree to go to conference Speaker Pelosi to go to conference, you have to pass the bill in your house. Do you think i should suggest nor what i or any of my members, 100 of them voted against that bill yesterday. What are you suggesting . Vote for something that is completely contrary to your values so you can go to conference . I Want Congress to work its will. Im always open to the four corners of our negotiations. We always respect each others opinions. But if one person saying choke holds any other person is saying no chokehold, its very hard to compromise. The president is going to have Data Collection but its not going to be shared. What . How will people know for example, tamir rice he died he died at the hands of a Police Officer who had been fired by another department, but the information was not shared by the department that hired him. His misconduct resulted in the so i appreciate your question. As i said when i became speaker, i partisanship, transparency, e pluribus unum, we always have a responsibility to reach across the aisle. But instead of a handshake, you get a slap in the face, then you better go back to the drawing board. That is what they better do. Thats up to the senate. And they come to their conclusion, they cannot pass a bill and you think we should embrace it . No. Thank you for your question. Thats it. Thank you all very much. [inaudible] safety is first and people have families at home that they have to go home to and they dont want to carry somebody elses virus there. When the president of the United States says he doesnt want to wear a mask and understands the ad example i dont know if he understands anything but somebody must over there understand the bad example that is to the country and that we are at a place we dont have to be, this is a president who doesnt want to wear a mask, who hoax, isls the virus a going to go away magically, its going to be a miracle thats going to make it go away. Im a catholic and i believe in miracles and i pray for them, but i think science is an answer to our prayers. Science says wear a mask, test, treat, and the president doesnt support any of that. He has events that are counter to that. Im in a mood because this is a matter of life and death. This administration has failed miserably. Justice. T its about justice in policing. Its about justice in health care and recognizing coronavirus is having a disproportionate impact on communities of color. So when you talk about sports, you have to talk about safety and health, and the families of the people sports figures go home to. They know that very well. Everybody has to make the judgment in terms of testing, tracing, treating, keeping distance, how does that work . Sports. O miss our we miss baseball i dont know if we are going to be missing football, we will see as we go along. Sports are more have more physical contact. Lets hope and pray for a vaccine. Lets hope and pray for a cure. Testing,e and pray for tracing, and treating. But im telling you two days in a row of record numbers of cases. One of those days, the president going to overturn access to quality, Affordable Care. About detect my dismay saying why dont you go and agree with them, find an area of agreement, we always want to. , we havey in our bill negotiation. The president said he wants to negotiate. I guess not, anymore. We just have to defeat the virus so we can open our economy, so we can send our kids to school, but we have to have it based on science and governance. And we have an answer to that and that is the heroes act. The senate is going to have to take at take up some version of the heroes act. I hope its sooner than later. Goodbye. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] the house and senate are back in session next week. Before taking their expected two weeks holiday recess. The house returns monday at 9 a. M. Eastern and will spend the week working on the Health Care Law infrastructure, credit score reporting, and Housing Needs that have arisen due to coronavirus. Follow the house live on cspan. Monday at 3eturns p. M. Eastern to continue debate on the 2021 Defense Authorization bill, which provides for defense programs and policies for the next fiscal year. Senators will hold a vote at 5 30 eastern to formally begin debate. Watch the senate live on cspan2. Next, dr. Anthony fauci and dr. And shoe cat of the cdc address a Virtual Meeting of the u. S. Conference of mayors. They outlined the timeline of the coronavirus and spoke about vaccine development. This is 45 minutes. His considered one of the most trustworthy that a goal figures in the world. His rational accolades, achievements, and honors are wide. While he is not able to join us in person today, hes actually at the Corona Task Force as we speak, i believe, he wanted to share a message with us. Haveauci im pleased to this opportunity to address the conference of mayors on this extremely important topic, namely covid19. Im going to give you an overview briefly and talk about the research response. You all know the history. Itseems like years ago, but was just a few months ago that we had thrust upon us this new china,hat came out of likely, almost certainly, from bat to apecies from a human, leading to an outbreak first recognized in a wet market in wuhan. The chinese recognized the strain and reported it on january 9, loading the sequence on a database for us to look at on the 10th of january. I will get back to that in a moment. Just for clarification, the disease is referred to as covid19. The coronavirus disease 19. That causes it is coronavirus to because of its relationship to the 2002 sars coronavirus we dealt with some time ago. Because ofed rapidly the identification of what was going on in china. And elsewhere. Passengers at United States airports were screened for the new virus. It was expanded to additional ones and we tested a couple of these later. The first case in the United States, then things became very difficult. 29, because of the emerging situation, what was id is what is referred to wastarted off with it supplemented with additional names and now it is a task force of modest size. Veryis a picture of a typical meeting of the Coronavirus Task force. In this case, and the situation room of the west wing. There i am explaining to President Trump in some detail some of the things we are doing. Every task attend force meeting. The task force is run by Vice President pence. So we are in february now, the cdc confirms the first incident of Community Spread of covid19 in the United States. The big difference between the initial case, that was a travel related case, someone who came in from the outside. None of those got infected from a very close partner. Youunity is, for reasons cant figure out, cases pop up in the community and you dont readily identify them. That is when you start have to doing Contact Tracing. So lets fast forward a few months. Where are we today . There have been almost 2 million half aeported, about Million Deaths worldwide. Has been hitates particular hard, in fact harder than any other country, with close to 2,000,005 hundred thousand covid cases. And as of a couple of days ago, more than 120,000 reported deaths. See, they were starting to come down, but as i will show you in a moment, they are at a disturbingly high level. The deaths continue to come down because deaths lag after cases. So when we start to see a decrease in cases in new york city, very soon you start seeing a decrease in deaths. If you look at this slide, the timeframe of comparing the european union, which got hit a little bit before us, look where they are now, after getting there outbreak under control compared to where the United States is. We still have a long way to go. We are not responding as well as we can and should respond and hopefully we will be able to correct that. A little bit more about the disease itself about 40 of cases are people without symptoms. That is extremely important because it becomes very difficult to identify cases when not every person has a symptom. Presentation, about 82 to 90 percent have fever. The more we learn, the more we less percent and 83, theres cough, fatigue, shortness of breath, muscle aches, and an interesting loss of smell and taste that tends to precede the onset of respiratory symptoms. Of the a wide spectrum disease and this has to do with up to 40 of people have no symptoms. The reason this is a propellant thing disease a perplexing disease and ive been studying viral diseases for 40 years, in which the ranges we have people with no symptoms, some of them with a mild illness, they feel a little achy , they stay home for a couple of days, or they may be in bed for a couple of weeks. Or they may require hospitalizations. They may require oxygen, then some may require intimation. Some may actually die. So the confusion in the community where some people say why should i be worried about this, i dont have any symptoms. Are losing out on the realization that they are part of a continuum of a dynamic for which they have a societal responsibility not only to take care of themselves but to not be part of the spread of the virus. Complications associated with this disease . Fromrange widely neurological to cardiac to injury, cardiac, kidney and in children, a multiinflammatory syndrome that can cause disease. The risk of getting severe disease, anybody can get the elderly, caree in longterm facilities and people with underlying conditions. Which is usually the reason they are in the nursing home. But you dont have to be in a nursing home to have a comorbidity to give you a high incidence of a complication. Chronic kidney disease, diabetes, obesity and others. If you look at this chart, the cumulative rates of Laboratory Confirmed hospitalization clearly goes way up the older you get. If you look at the relatively few hospitalizations in children people over 85 years old. Theres also racial and ethnic disparities. Individuals in minority communities, particularly africanamerican, latin, native americans have a much higher a higher rate of complications. What about what we are doing for this . Therapy there are a number of drugs. I will get back to remdesivir in a moment. Plasma,e antivirals, immune based therapies, dampening the immune response. Areral products, they directed against the virus itself. There was a groundbreaking study that showed a single drug, remdesivir, the antiviral, in a very well controlled trial showed a significant modest improvement of a faster time of recovery for those who are infected and in the hospital. A group in the u. K. Was shown to reduce mortality of people on ventilators and we developed are producing a living document online. At nih. Govess that and take a look at what the most recent recommendations for treatment of the diseases. Disease is. What about prevention . What are the Public Health measures to protect you and society . Its based on social and physical distancing. The country down with stayathome orders. We are trying to reopen in different regions of the country at different paces. Also, take a look at schools, public gatherings, to ban them. Currently, wearing a mask, aggressive case identification, Contact Tracing. A recent study came out that showed largescale anticontagion policies, particularly things like wearing a mask, keeping a distance has of tensally to the tune if not hundreds of millions of cases averted by doing that. Talk to you about contagion preventing measures. Handwashing. Avoiding close contact, crowds, and when you are with people greater than six feet distance. Facialntly, wearing a covering or mask. This is critical. Regular cleaning and disinfecting of objects. The study recently showed physical distancing, face masks, and eye protection had a major, major effect on decreasing the risk of infection. It is pretty simple. If you wear a mask, someone sneezes, coughs or breeds, you can protect yourself. If those are wearing a mask, you are protecting each other to a greater degree. Finally, vaccines. We are taking a strategic approach to vaccines. There are multiple candidates you have been reading about and hearing about. Trying to align the Clinical Trials so theres a consistency even though there are different products. Data . S the laboratory endpoints toame ensure the efficacy of a particular vaccine. The same impartial judges looking at the efficacy. These are the different types of vaccines in various stages of linick old trial. Various stages of clinical trial. The first will likely go to an advanced trial in july. Literally a few weeks from now. Other candidates will enter at various stages in the mid to late summer and early fall. Finally, one of the vaccines and probably many more over the next few months will show at least in the initial trials a very promising response in the development of neutralizing antibodies that would predict if a vaccine is being effective. There is no guarantee that is the case. Optimisticiously that we will have a vaccine that would be protective. Its no guarantee, but we feel we have evidence to suggest this would be the case somewhere by the end of this calendar year. Remains to be seen and get further and further into the testing, we are getting a better idea of where we stand with that. So i will close there. Thank you for your attention. Thank you, dr. Fauci. Now, im very pleased to. Ntroduce our next speaker she has a distinguished career in Public Health and at the cdc. She joined as a disease detective and the Epidemic Intelligence Service in 1988 and became the Deputy Director and serves as the acting cdc director twice. She served as director of the cdc center for immunizations. She played a key role in the emergency responses, including serving as the district manager for the coronavirus response, the 2019 vaping use associated industry injury response and the sarsresponse, outbreak in beijing. The rank of rear admiral in the Public Health service commission. Please join me in welcoming her. Thank you so much. I appreciate the chance to speak with you this afternoon. I want to begin with regrets from our director, dr. Redfield. He was looking forward to participating and unfortunately was pulled into something at the white house early last minute. Im pleased to get to talk with you. After dr. To go fauci, who has done a nice overview of what we are learning. This is a new virus and very challenging pandemic and something we are trying to have a rapid learning cycle around. I just want to say you know all politics is local and i want to say all pandemics are local. What each of you is experiencing at anyone time is front and your peers and you need the very best information, the best guidance you can get. The Public Health capacity to make the very best decisions for your community. The cdc has been on this from the very beginning but we want to be a resource to you, your Public Health staff and the city and the state Public Health and governmental leadership as well. But you, as mayors and the council of mayors are playing an Important Role in amplifying the voices of the nations mayors on health and services issues. Have reallyes changed for many of you since january. For more of you since march when the pandemic became clearcut in the u. S. We know you are on the front lines implementing the careful phased process of reopening our nation city by city. For some of you, it might be neighborhood by neighborhood. We know that you are taking a priority in this step to do things in the manner best suited for you locally. What you heard from dr. Faucis where we are. Unfortunately, we are not in a good place right now as a nation. The National Tally of cases is haveing upward, but we some very different patterns and i think you are probably aware of them. Northeastern states and cities were very hard hit in march and april. But they are trending downward. Southern cities and states and western cities and states have been trending upward. It is not a simple situation. Its not the same thing going on in every community, so here are a couple of factors that have contributed. In some cases, its local out rakes. I meet packing plant, a correctional facility, a workplace, a Birthday Party in some places has led to a new ember that becomes a fire that needs to be put out. In other places, theres been a great expansion of testing. That can explain some increased numbers. But in a lot of places, we are seeing an increased positive. That means these increases are real, not just a function of getting out there and finding more cases. Workplaceases, we say is associated, but in a lot of places we are seeing community transmission. Cases aree newer newer in cases for younger people. Under 85not on the population in hospitals early on. We are seeing an increase in cases for people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, increases in certain racial and ethnic groups, lots of increases in hispanic communities. We think these may be individuals who cannot stayathome, who have essential work, maybe doing rectus for everyoneork else. Maybe they have gotten relaxed about the seriousness of the virus. While most younger people have mild or asymptomatic symptoms, but im sure each of you is aware of some of the deaths and very difficult hospitalizations we have seen in otherwise healthy young people. Responding toen the needs of states and cities over the past several months and currently have people in more assisting ins these hotspots where there are increases in cases occurring. These trying to take seriously and learn as much as we can about the best ways to control them and support local and state officials in areas like epidemiology, laboratory activities, Infection Prevention and control and Community Mitigation efforts. Alone, wet two weeks have deployed Rapid Response teams to arizona, arkansas, california, florida, north carolina, texas, and utah. Cases havereas where been increasing and we want to help local officials get to the bottom of what is going on and turn the tide as quickly as possible. On theproviding boots ground, the cdc is working on guidance and taking the best available information to pull haveher and date where we information on schools and institutions of Higher Education and businesses and workplaces. I think we have 1900 guidance is there. We are working hard to translate them into simpler checklists and flowcharts that can be adapted workplacestions and that need help understanding how to safely reopen and care for their neighbors as well of some of their workers. We recognize each community is different and you as the mayors are really in charge and need the best resources so you can adapt to your circumstances. One of the things we have done is pull together evidence based information about who is at risk and we have expanded the list of underlying diseases that increase the chances a personal have a severe outcome. Includese updates pregnancy. We didnt have data about that women are at higher risk of intensive care unit admissions. They dont seem to be at higher risk for hospitalization, but they are at higher risk if they get the infection for needing the intensive care unit ventilation. This is probably just a mechanical thing about latent pregnancy and having pneumonia on top of a pregnancy can be hard. We have also updated the information about age. People were thinking if im under 65, im ok. For each decade, the risk goes up. A can increase the chances of more severe outcome. Much of the strategy is about reducing the spread between one person and another person by limiting Mass Gatherings and ensuring physical distancing, wearing foss wearing face coverings when we go out and trying to protect the Health Care System so it can handle an increase in cases and does not overwhelm it and protect the most vulnerable. People who we do believe have a higher risk of hospitalization. Other communities may have a lot of high risk people in them and the demands on the Health Care System when a lot of people are sick at the same time may be difficult. This is where understanding the guidance and getting the best advice can be important. Who dont feel we are out of the woods at all, we are not in the second wave yet. The increases we are seeing may be the first wave in those areas while the northeast is in recovery mode. Need to be resilient and resolute and stick with it. Funding ofilitated torly 12 lien dollars states, tribes, and territorial entities in some cities. For most cities, your resources would come from the state department. Those billions of dollars will help expand testing, to increase Contact Tracing and help with slowing the spread and the work needed when cases are identified so their contacts can be traced and they can stay at home and away from other people. Theres a lot of work to do between now and the months ahead. We heard about the exciting progress in therapeutic work. We dont have vaccines yet and we are not going to have them for many months at a largescale. Through labion testing, Contact Tracing, isolation, quarantine, physical distancing, including wearing face coverings when we cant have physical distance that will keep our communities safe and keep our communities open. Right now, we think we are at about 30,000 Contact Tracing. You may know what the numbers are for your jurisdiction. But the funds that we have provided were men to help them staff up on that. This cdc is applying additional staff and additional materials to help new hires be able to do that Contact Tracing. Contact tracing is a local issue. It requires trust. Talk to someone who was infected and develop a relationship of trust and get that information and be able to follow up with other contact. Your jurisdiction may have empathic people, possibly people who have lost their jobs who might be able to sign on as contact tracers or support staff to help them sustain the kinds of control measures we need. It is critical we find people take carehe virus and of their health if they need care, provide them with support so they dont spread further, out where they got the virus and keep them separate. We are linking with a lot of partners. Its not just the Health Partners with cdc, there are universities and jurisdictions all around the country. A number of private sector groups, we are trying to build the workforce that can help snuff out the spread of this virus. That 12 million was meant to help with the increase, help with the Contact Tracing, with the isolation, and to get the data to be as strong as possible so we know where the disease is spreading. Unfortunately, the pandemic is not over. The improvements we are seeing in some parts of the country are not being seen in others. Andeed to be resolute focused and continue the hard work we have done. To be smarter than we were in the first couple of months and reopen where we can and gradually so that we dont have can dow of everyone whatever they want. Here is to protect the most vulnerable, to sustain the theth care system, to have investments and capacity that can keep the virus at low levels. But together, with your leadership and Community Groups and neighbors, i think we can defeat this pandemic and hopefully build up systems that ensures health and prosperity for our nation for generations to come. Before closing, i do want to say that tomorrow is national hiv testing day. Pandemic we have had for more than 30 years but we are at a critical stage in the United States. The national hiv testing day is the power of knowing. Orwing your prevention treatment option. 62re are more than 100 thousand people with undiagnosed hiv in the United States. Knownly way to get to their hiv status is to get tested. So obviously, with covid19, this made it more difficult in places where testing is provided. Knowing, the cdc is encouraging people at risk to get tested in ways that can follow social distancing practicing and that can include self testing when testing is not available. When you know your status, you are empowered with the information to keep yourself and others healthy. Once you know your status, you can consider many different preventions or Treatment Options to live long, healthy, productive lives. The cdc stands with all of you to promote this message on hiv testing day and we absolutely stand sidebyside with you in this battle against the pandemic. I appreciate the information the invitation to your meeting. Thank you. Any questions . Thank you for joining us. I wanted to ask a quick question. Im in southeast florida and we had increase numbers and spread and we are being told the deaths are not going up and we have plenty of room in the hospitals. My question would be would you be able to tell me what the timeframe is on the lag indicating for those, for hospitalization, icu hospitalization . Absolutely. Thats an important question. A number of qualifications before i get into the timing. The increased cases we have been seeing a lot of jurisdictions have been younger people. So if the new cases are 20 and not asearolds, they are likely to be hospitalized and die as a 60yearold. That said, they can spread to the 60yearold and that can take offgs exponentially. I think you will remember the wes in arch and april were seeing a doubling every day or two. Phenomenon. Y scary people who have severe episodes of covid19 often will have a week or so where it is not that bad and the second week, theres a pattern where they have respiratory problems after a week or so. There is a two or three week lag at least before fatalities occur. Some who do end up dying from covid and having Long High School as asians. The patterns we saw early in the pandemic may be changed because we have learned this drug dr. Fauci mentioned appears that it can reduce fatalities of people on ventilators. That might mean longer hospitalization. Youer hospitalization, but survive. Care capacity is variable. I was struck that new york city has about the lowest per Population Health Care Capacity in the country because the population is so dense. They have a lot of hospitals and the capability to handle people was not as robust. This varies quite a bit. Tennessee has a system called National Health safety looking at their inpatient beds occupied by Covid Patients and really tracking what is going on. Thein and increase around country in beds occupied because lots of places have opened up elective procedures and some people who are scared to go to the hospital for covid are going for other things. But we are seeing an increase in jurisdictions, especially in the south and west in hospitalizations for covid. Over the nation as a whole, we are not there right now but a couple of laces are getting worried in arizona, they are getting close to capacity. Torida is jurisdiction jurisdiction. Florida is a state where some jurisdictions, there are more people at risk and young people, the virus can be a silent threat to others. Theres a horrible story about a family Birthday Party, in multigenerational Birthday Party just two weeks ago that spread outward to the grandparents and both grandparents are on ventilators in the hospital now. People fearur young nothing but they also love their grandparents. We have to get the message out about thats not just but the people that you love. Sorry about such a long answer. Anyone have anyone thing else to share with the committee . Anything else to share the committee . Thank you so much for the information and thank you for highlighting hiv testing and awareness as well. Theres a lot of lessons there of course in the Current Situation and mayors of the United States were among the first in the history of the hiv epidemic to step forward and take aggressive local action. Because when others didnt see it or didnt want to look, as mayors, we cannot avoid people sick and dying in our own community. Mayors have always been at the vanguard of that issue. That notreatments now only can result in normal lifespan and health, but also can prevent contagion of the treatments can make it difficult or impossible withansmit the virus adequate testing, so folks can get treatment, we can completely defeat the virus. Testing has been a challenge in part because of social stigmas around it and the fear people have, if i get tested, then i will know and i dont want to know. I see that phenomenon with covid as well. It, i dont really want to know. Instructive, our experience of the hiv phase that is still going round, how critical it is that our communication and messages and our own examples we lift up in our communities around the need, value, and safety and how essential testing is for everyone to help the system to help defeat that virus and allow us to celebrate grandmas birthday again. So thank you very much. I think you raise a really important issue. It is what happens when i get a test result is going to be intolerable for me, im not going to want to be tested. The Wraparound Services and individual needs so they can safely isolate and their family can still have food on the table so they can be isolated or separated from other family members. People have gone all the way in many different extremes on this. Some have been able to weather this better. But if you are in a crowded home with a lot of other people, it is hard for you to protect others. If you are the breadwinner and cant go out and do that essential function, you dont want to be out of work for two weeks and have nobody bringing funds in. The government at the National Level and hopefully the local level has been trying to figure out how do we get around these terrible barriers . The more people go about their business spreading the virus, the worse the pandemic is. The better we can make incentives for them to isolate or to stay in selfquarantine, the better it can be. Some of those dollars that went to your state and local authorities were, so they could do the quarantine isolation Wraparound Services some might need. We know many, especially at the lower income levels will delay taking care even when they are sick and that doesnt help families either. So we are in this together. The local level where you know how to brave the social Services Groups together and i think you have seen the incredible volunteers stepping up in the middle of this pandemic and i really want to encourage them. Andcquaintances and Family Friends not involved in the response are just trying to figure out how they can help. I think tapping into that spirit at every local level is. Thank you a pleasure to be with you. Thank you. Again, thank you to all the mayors and those with us today. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you. The Senate Health committee holds a hearing tuesday to get an update on the kona virus response and plans to reopen that u. S. Economy. Witnesses include White House Coronavirus task members dr. Anthony fauci, dr. Stephen hahn, dr. Redfield. Listen live on the free cspan radio app. Florida Governor Ron Desantis held a News Conference after his state reported nine thousand new coronavirus cases. He said he does not believe requiring people to wear masks or enforcing such a role would be productive. He also updated the states efforts to counter the coronavirus at a briefing in fort myers. With