Consulted with the centers for disease. Individuals are at least six feet apart. Theres no room for public to attend in person. Representatives of the press are working as a pool to relay their observations to colleague. The hearing may be watched online. An unedited recording will be available on the website. Witnesses are participating by Video Conference in a onetime exception. Some senators, including the chairman, are participating by Video Conference. Senators, we have been advised may remove masks, talk into the microphone when in the hearing room as they are six feet apart. Im grateful to the roall for t hard work to keep us safe. In our hearing last thursday, i said that all roads back to work and back to school run through testing. What our country has done so far on testing is impressive. Not nearly enough. Over the weekend, senator schumer, the democratic leader, was nice enough to put out a tweet quoting half of what i said. He left out the other half, the impressive part. Let me say what i meant. When i said impressive, i meant according to the Johns Hopkins university study, the United States has tested over 9 million americans for covid19. Thats twice as many as any other country. We dont know what china has done. Its more per capita than most countries, including south korea, which many members of our committee cited as a country that tested well. According to dr. Birx, the United States were double testing the month of may, which should get us up to 10 million tests. Here is what i mean by impressive. Here in tennessee where i am today, first, anyone who is sick, First Responder or health care worker, can get tested. Our governor is testing every prisoner, every resident and staff member in a nursing home. He offered weekend drivethru testing. He has done outreach for testing to lowincome communities. A tennessean can get a free test at the local Public Health department. The governors slogan is, if in doubt, get a test. He set his goals to the government. The federal government is helping him make sure that he has enough supplies in case he has trouble getting them through the labs and the other commercial sources. As a result, our state has tested about 4 of the population. The governor hopes to increase that by 7 in may. Thats one of the best in the country. This impressive level of testing is sufficient, we believe, to begin phase one of going back to work, which as i said last week, its not nearly enough to provide confidence to 31,000 students and faculty members that we hope will show up at the university of tennessee campus in august when school starts. Last week i talked with chancellor plowman about that. We said, what would persuade those 31,000 students as well as the 50 million k through 12 students in the country and the other 5,000 university students, what will persuade them to go back to campus in august . Thats why the new shark tank comes in. Dr. Collins at the National Institutes of health calls it rad x. We had a hearing about that thursday. Its a scientific exercise to take a few early stage concepts that are swimming around in what we call that competitive shark tank and see if dr. Collins and his associates can find a few new technologies to create millions of new tests that will scale up rapidly and make it more likely that students will go back to school in august. For example, the fda authorized last week its first diagnostic test using saliva that a person provides at home instead of a nose swab or blood. It authorized its first antige antigen test. You can get the result in just a few minutes. Another proposal, not yet approved, is to put in your mouth a lollipop sponge, take a photo with your cell phone and send that to your doctor. If it lights up, you are positive. The university might send that to a nearby laboratory which could be a gene sequencing laboratory which can deal with thousands of those samples overnight. That same process could occur at a middle school, could occur at a factory. Anyone testing negative one day can test positive the next. Such widespread screening of entire campuses, schools or places of work will help identify those who are sick, trace down those who are exposed. That should help persuade the rest of us to go back to school and to work. In addition to more testing, i expect dr. Fauci to talk to us about additional treatment that will be available to reduce the risk of death and the administrations plan to do something that our country has never done before, which is to start manufacturing a vaccine before it actually has been proven to work in order to speed up the result in case it does work. Those vaccines, those treatments are the ultimate solution. Until we have them, all roads back to work and school go through testing. The more tests we conduct, the better we can identify those who are sick and exposed and we can quarantine the sick and exposed instead of trying to quarantine the whole country. In my opinion, this requires millions of new tests, many from new technologies. Some of these will fail. But we only need a few successes to get where we want to go. Thats why i said on thursday that what our country had done so far in testing is impressive but not nearly enough. First squeeze all the tests we can out of current technology. Next, try to find new technologies to help us contain the disease and persuade us to go back to work. One other thing, this is a bipartisan hearing to examine how well we are preparing to go safely back to work and to school and to determine what else we need to do in the United States senate. Such an exercise sometimes encourages finger pointing. Before we spend too much time finger pointing, i would like to suggest that almost all of us, the United States and almost every country so far as i can tell, underestimated this virus, how contagious it would be, underestimated how it can travel silently in people without symptoms to infect other people, how it can be especially deadly for certain segments of our population, the elderly, those with preexisting conditions, minority population. Let me go back to the march 3rd hearing that we had in our committee on coronavirus. Six weeks after the first case was discovered in the United States, a day when only two deaths were recorded in this country, i read at that hearing this paragram from the new yoph york times. Much about the coronavirus remains unclear. It is far from certain. This is march 3. March 1. That the outbreak will reach severe proportions in the United States or affect many regions at ones. With modern hospitals and sprawling psprawl ing Public Health infratuck structure, the they agree the United States is among the best prepared to prevent or manage such an the New York Times on march 1 manage such an epidemic. The New York Times on march 1. Nine major laws to get this country ready for what were going through today. These laws stood up to national stockpile, created an assistant secretary for preparedness. Created incentives for the development of vaccines and medicines that were using today. Strengthened the centers for Disease Control. We have significantly increased funding to the National Institutes of health. All this was part of a shared goal. Democrats, republicans, four president s, several congresses, to try to get ready for what were going through today, whether it was known like anthrax or unknown like covid19, but despite that, even the experts underestimated covid19. This hearing is about how we improve our response to this virus as well as the next one. During the oversight hearing, i intend to focus on, as i said, the next pandemic, which we know is coming. What can we learn from this one to be ready for the next one . What can we learn from the fast tracking of vaccines and treatments that were about to hear about that will make it faster the next time . How can we keep hospitals in states from selling off protective equipment when their budget gets tight . How can we make sure congress does our share of the funding responsibility . How do we provide enough extra hospital beds without cancelling elective surgery, hurting other patients and bankrupting hospitals . Whose job should it be to coordinate supply lines so that protective equipment and supplies get where they are supposed to go when they are supposed to go . Whats the best way to manage the stockpile . My preacher said, im not worried about what you do on sunday, its the rest of the week that concerns me. Im afraid that during the rest of the week between pandemics, we relax our focus on preparedness. We become preoccupied with other important things. Our collective memory is short. Three months ago, this country was preoccupied with impeaching a president. Now that seems like ancient roman history. While this crisis has our full attention, i believe we should put into law this year whatever improvements need to be made to be well prepared for the next pandemic. If theres to be finger pointing, i hope they are pointed in that direction. We are fortunate to have four distinguished witnesses at the heart of the response to the coronavirus. Were grateful for their service to our country. Ive asked them to summarize their remarks in five minutes. Then we will have five minute rounds of questions from each senator. I have agreed we will end about 12 30. After we have a full round of questions. Every senator will have a chance to have his or her five minutes. Senator murray will have an opportunity to ask the last question or to close the hearing. I will then close the hearing. There will be other hearings to follow this hearing, like last thursdays hearing. Senators may submit questions in writing within the next ten days. Staying at home indefinitely is not the solution to this pandemic. Theres not enough money available to help all those hurt by a closed economy. All roads back to work and back to school lead through testing, tracking, isolation, treatment and vaccines. This requires widespread testing. Millions more tests created mostly by new technologies to identify those who are sick and who have been exposed so that they can be quarantined and be con ta containing the disease, give the rest of america enough confidence to go back to work and school. For the near term, help make sure those 31,000 ut students and faculty members show up in august, we need widespread testing. Millions more tests created mostly by new technologies to identify those who are sick, who have been exposed so they can be quarantined and by containing the disease in this way, give the rest of america enough confidence to go back to work and back to school. Senator murray . Well, thank you very much, mr. Chairman. My thoughts are with you and your team right now as you try to navigate the same challenge so many in our country are worried about. We all wish your staff member a speedy recovery. As everyone works to take appropriate safety precautions today, i would like to thank not only our witnesses for joining us today but also our Committee Staff for working to set up a safe format for members and witnesses and the public to participate in this hearing remotely. Families across the country are counting on us for the truth about the covid19 pandemic. Especially since it is clear they will not get it from President Trump. Truth is essential. So people have the facts. So they can make decisions for themselves and their families and their communities. Lives are at stake. If the president isnt telling the truth, we must. And our witnesses must. Were counting on you today. Families need us to take this opportunity to dig into the facts about where things did go wrong so we can finally get them on track. Because the Trump Administrations response to this Public Health emergency so far has been a disaster all on its own. Delays, missteps have put us way behind where we need to be on diagnostic tests and allowed inaccurate Antibody Tests to flood the market. Corruption and political interference have impeded efforts to secure desperately needed personal protective equipment and promoted dangerous, unproven treatments. And we recently learned that after experts at the centers for Disease Control and prevention spent weeks developing a detailed guide to help our communities understand how to safely reopen when the time comes, the Trump Administration tossed it in the trash bin for being too prescriptive. This is far from the first time this administration has silenced experts who were doing their job and putting Public Health first. The fact of the matter is, President Trump has been more focused on fighting against the truth than fighting this virus. Americans have sadly paid the price. Since this Committee Last heard from these witnesses on march 3, we have seen over 900 deaths in my home state of washington, over 80,000 deaths nationally and the numbers continue to climb. Still, President Trump is trying to ignore the facts and ignore the experts who have been very clear we are nowhere close to where we need to be to reopen safely. My hope today is that we can cut through this and have a serious discussion about what is needed to safely open, how close we are as a country to meeting those needs and how we actually get there. One thing thats abundantly clear, we need dramatically more testing. It is unaccessible we still dont have a National Strategic plan to make sure testing is free, fast and everywhere. That is why i fought to make sure our last covid19 package included an initial 25 billion testing fund. And a requirement that the Administration Submit a plan by may 24th. When i say a plan, i dont mean a pr plan. I immediatemean a plan with goa supply and funding needs. One that actually addresses the issues were seeing on Testing Capacity and distribution and disparities and building out our Public Health system. And makes clear to states and tribes and employers and the American People what they can expect and what theed aminute Va Administration will do to keep americans safe. Testing alone wont be fluff en. We need more personal protective equipment than has been available for our Health Care Workers on the front lines. We will need more for other workers as we reopen. We desperately need this administration to step up and get that equipment to states who are doing everything in their power to purchase supplies but simply cannot get nearly enough. Because the reality is, unlike states, the federal government has the tools to actually fix the problem if only the administration would use them. We also need that equipment to actually work. For the fda to action promptly if it does not, not weeks later when people may have been exposed. Just as importantly, we cant expect people to go back to work or to work or to restaurants or to confidently send their kids to school if there isnt clear, detailed guidance about how to do that safely. Schools from Early Childhood through college need to know how to keep their students, their staff and their educators safe. When should they wear masks . How do you run a School Cafeteria or a school bus . If they cant reopen classrooms, schools and families need to know we are working to know that every student gets an education. Tools like online earning can only get us so far that dont address the Digital Divide so that every student can access them, and even then there can be learning loss among lowincome students, students with disabilities, english language earners and vulnerable populations if we dont make sure they get equal access to resources and support. School it is arent the only places we are thinking about. We need to make sure they know how to reopen and schools are safe. Secretary scalia needs to stop dragging his feet and do his job and get the department of labor, set a rule that worker safety is not optional. Mr. Chairman, i hope this committee can hear from secretary scalia and secretary devos as well as other experts in the space in the day ahead and this is especially important to protect workers and residents at our Nursing Homes and other congregant care facilities where weve seen some of the most deadly outbreaks, and as the rash of outbreaks in meat packing plants shows this isnt just an issue for the health care industry. It is an issue for everyone, and just as we need to plan before we can start to reopen we also need a plan well before we have a safe and effective vaccine to guarantee that we can quickly produce and distribute it on a global scale and make it free and available for everyone. So ill be asking about our progress on those issues today. Today, safely reopening our country may be a ways off and the administrations planning may be way behind, but theres still a lot that congress doesnt have time to spare. So im including the white house and say we provided enough economic relief. My question to them is what good is a bridge that only gets you to the middle of the river . We dont need to wait around to see if people need more help. We know they do. We need to work quickly on another aggress of relief package and we need to make sure our priorities in that bill are protecting our workers, our students and families in addressing this Public Health crisis and not bailing out corporations and protecting big business from accountability. People across the country are doing their part. Theyre washing their hands and Wearing Masks and social distancing and staying home. They need their government to do its part, too. They need leadership. They need a plan. They need honesty and they need it now before we reopen so they can resta, sured that we are doing things safely and confidently with their health and well believe as a top priority. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Its an important hearing and i know lots of people may be watching if for the first time. If they are, i hope they notice we have 23 members of this committee, one more republican than democrat and we have very strong rules and we are able to respect each other and our witnesses, and i am a ba big pa that goes to senator murray and her staff. Thank you for that. Each witness will have five minutes for their testimony. Thank you for making an exception and agreeing to testify by video because of these unusual circumstances and thank you for what youre doing for our country. Our first witness is dr. Anthony fauci. He is director of the National Institutes of allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of health. Hes held that position since 1984 which meant hes advised six president s and worked on hivaids, influenza, malaria, ebola and other Infectious Diseases. He was involved in treating ebola, nih and also worked on vaccine trials for ebola. Next, well hear from dr. Robert redfield with the center of Disease Control and prevention which has headquarters in atlanta. More than 30 years hes been involved with Clinical Research related to chronic human vierl Infectious Diseases and especially hiv. He was the founding director of the department of retroviral research with the u. S. Militarys hiv research program. He spent 20 years with the u. S. Army medical corps. Third, admiral brett jerwa, admir admiral jerwa is assistant secretary of health at the department of Human Health Services and that puts him with Public Policy recommendcations and hes taken on the responsibility for coordinating testing and focused on the increasing number of tests that we can do with existing technology. His federal Service Includes a variety of activities with our Defense Department and advanced Research Threat reduction and he was part of the Blue Ribbon Panel that reformed the u. S. Health system and finally, we will hear from dr. Stephen haun. Hes commissioner of the food and Drug Administration and before joining fda he was the chief medical executive and the university of texas m. D. Anderson cancer center. He was chair of the department of radiation oncology at the university of pennsylvania. He was a senior investigator at the National Institutes of health. Hes commander of the u. S. Public Health Service commission for 2025. Now well ask each of our witnesses to summarize their remarks in five minutes. Following that, each senator will have five minutes for questions and answers in order of seniority. Dr. Fauci, lets begin with you. Welcome. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Rfrnging member murray and members of the committee. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to discuss with you today the role the National Institutes of health and research addressing covid19. The Strategic Plan that we have is fourfold, one, to improve our fundamental knowledge of the vi virus and the disease it causes. Next, to develop new point of care diagnostics, next to characterize and test therapeutic, and finally, develop safe and effective vaccines. First with regard to diagnostics. As you probably heard, going back to Francis Collins last thursday, the nih has developed the rapid acceleration of Diagnostics Program with an award to that specific program up to a half a billion dollars to support the development of covid19 diagnostics. It is a National Call with technologies that will be evaluated in the shark tank like Selection Process to get to either success or failure rapidly. Moving on to therapeutics, ill talk again about the remdesivir success antiviral in a moment, but let me emphasize that there are a number of broad, spectrum antivierls that are in various stages of testing. In addition, well be looking at convalescent plasma which is plasma from individuals who have recovered from covid19 to be used in passive transfer either in prevention or treatment. In addition, hyperimmune globulin which has been used as a globulin shot it will be used to repurpose drugs as well as immunebased therapies and host modifiers and finally antibodies. Let me take a moment to describe the remdesivir, placebocontrolled, International Trial with more than 1,000 individuals in sites throughout the world. It was in hospitalized patients with lung disease. The end point was primarily time to recover it. The result was statistically significant, but really modest, and we must remember it was only a modest result showing that the drug made a 31 faster time in recovery. We hope to build on this modest success with combinations of drugs and better drugs. Moving on to vaccines, there are at least eight candidate covid19 vaccines in clinical development. The nih has been collaborating with a number of pharmaceutical companies at various stages of development. I will describe one very briefly which is not the only one, but one that we have been involved in heavily developing with a messenger r and a platform. In january of this year i said it would take one year to 18 months if we were successful in developing a vaccine. The nih trial moved very quickly. On january 10th, the sequence was known. On january 11th the Vaccine Research developed a plan. On the 14th of january we officially start the vaccine development. 62 days later, we are now in phase one Clinical Trial with the two doses already fully enrolled. There will be animal safety and the phase one will go into state two, three, and if were success frl, in the late fall and early winty. There are important issues in covid19 development. We have many candidates that hope to have multiple winners. In other words, multiple shots on goal. This will be important because this will be good for global availablity if we have more than one successful candidate. We also, as the chairman mentioned will be producing vaccine at risk which means we will be investigating considerable resources in developing doses even before we know any given candidate and what candidates work. I must warn that theres also the possibility of negative consequences where certain vaccines can actually enhance the negative effect of the infection. The big unknown is efficacy. Will it be present and absence and how durable will it be . Finally, i mentioned the nih has launched a private Public Partnership called accelerating covid19 therapeutic interventions and vaccines. The purpose of that is to prioritize and accelerate clinical evaluation of therapeutic candidates with the nearterm potential. Hopefully our research efforts, together with the other help effort, will get us quickly to an end to this terrible ordeal that we are all going through. Thank you very much. Happy to answer questions later. Thank you, dr. Fauci. Dr. Redfield . Good morning, chairman alexander and Ranking Member murray and members of the committee. Our nation is confronting most serious Public Health crisis in more than a century, yet were not defenseless. We have powerful tools to fight the enemy. We have effective tools to fight interventions such as isolation and Contact Tracing, combined with important Mitigation Strategy include social distancing and hand washing and face covering. These Public Health tools have and will continue to slow the spread of covid19. I had the overview in response of covid19. Cdc has been working 24 7 to combat the pandemic. The cdcs Emergency Operation center is supporting state, tribal, territorial Public Health partners with work capabilities with date and predict ivan littics and epidemiologists are conducting surveillance for covid19 as well as system surveillance. Community mitigation teams are providing guidance on Infection Control and Contact Tracing and our Laboratory Experts are performing serological testing to better find the asymptomatic population. As local leadership make decisions to reopen theyll require varying degrees of federal support. Each location will be different and will face unique circumstances. Cdc has conducted a state by state assessment of Public Health testing, capacity and key Contract Tracing capacity as well as surge plans. Cdc is providing Technical Assistance and funding to the state provided through the supplemental cares act and the protection and healthcare enhancement. We are working with Public Health leaders with Public Health needs with manpower, surveillance, Data Collection and reporting and Contract Tracing and infectious control and outbreak investigation. I want to spend a moment to focus several key elements. First testing. Rapid, extensive and widely available timely testing is essential for reopening america. Cdcs role in testing continues to support diagnosis with surveillance and outbreak. When we work with the Public Health partners to define their particular testing strategy, their jurisdiction and well address the testing components of the response to detail. Contact tracing. Increasing state and territorial Contract Tracing capacity is critical. Its a critical part to start the change of transmission to prevent the occurrence of sustained community transmission. Cdcs role to provide Technical Training and assistance as they hire and build a workforce necessary to be fully prepared to effectively respond to the Public Health challenges posed by the ongoing covid pandemic. This will be an expansive effort. Surveillance, our nations Surveillance Program is built on a combination of systems including existing with influenza and respiratory disease and Surveillance Systems has been with research lab platforms in our case reporting the system. The cdc is optimizing this to have a Surveillance System in response to covid19. Importantly in light of the significant occurrence of ais imtochl attic, becomes an Important Health tool in early case oefrgz. Cdc is working with each Public Health jurisdiction to provide a Surveillance Program, among those that are we need to rebuild our nations Public Health infrastructure. Data and data analytics, Public Health laboratory resilience and our nations Public Health workforce. Now is the time to put it in place for the generations to come, not only for the Public Health system that our nation need, but for the Public Health system that the nation deserves. I want to recognize the dedicated cdc staff that deployed every quarter of this nation to fight covid19 and more than 4,000 employees have deployed here and globally. Science and data continue with Technical Expertise and Public Service amid the backbone of cdcs contributions to the u. S. Response. I extend my serious gratitude to the Health Care Workers and front lines as well as their family and the essential Emergency Personnel as well as the American People to say thank you for adhering to the stay at home guidelines and protecting the most vulnerable. Its important to emphasize that were not out of the woods yet and we are more prepared. We need to stay vigilant with social distancing that remains an imperative and we are a resilient nation and i am confident that well emerge from this pandemic together. Thank you. Thank you, dr. Redfield. Admiral, welcome. I will prid you with the nations progress for testing, on march 12th, secretary a zar requested since then the nation has performed more than 9 million covid19 test, a number far greater than any other country and double the per capita tests performed to date in south korea. To reach this point we implemented a phased approach to meet testing needs during mitigation and now during phase one reopening of america. Beginning march 20th, we pioneered 41 communitybased drivethrough testing sites in locations prioritized by the cdc. These sites have been a profound success testing over 167,000 highrisk individuals and demonstrating a prototype that is being duplicated multifold in nearly every state. Next, the administration leveraged trusted retailers including cvs, walgreens, walmart, kroger and healthmart who are now providing testing at 240 looks in 33 states. 69 of which are in communities with moderate to high social vulnerability. To meet the need for collection supplies like swabs and media tube, we first secured the Global Supply chain through a military air bridge. We worked directly with manufacturers to increase domestic production. We collaborated with the private sector and the fda to validate multiple swab and media types that vastly expanded supplies while minimizing the need for. Pe. Finally, we used title three of the defense production act to further invest in domestic manufacturing to prepare us for reopening. To support the need for surveillance testsing for reopening on april betweenth we issued a new testing framework that prioritized people without symptoms who are prioritized by health departmenters on clinicians for any reason including screening of asymptomatic individual according to the state and local plan. Next, our federal multidisciplinary teams conducted from each state to set statespecific testing objective. Collectively, states and territories had an overall goal for 12. 9 million tests over the next four weeks. The federal government is able to and will support the achievement of this goal. Specifically, the federal government is shipping to states 12. 9 million swabs and over 1. 7 tubes of media in may alone. Last month we also detailed the location and capacity of every lab machine in every state that could potentially run covid19 essays and our team has worked with test suppliers to match agents with these machines. Looking forward, between now and the end of 2020 the federal government will procure over 135 million swabs and 132 million tubes of media and distribute these to states as requested to supplement the now robust commercial supply. We anticipate marked increases in current tests as well as a dramatic expansion of new tanks leak the first antigen test authorized by the fda just last friday. Quidel anticipates to be able 3,000 tests per day in three weeks. Taking authorization, manufacturing and supply chain into consideration, we project that our nation will be capable of performing at least 40 to 50 million tests per month if needed at that time. And if new technologies are authorized like whole genome sequencing approaches or any Novel Solutions uncovered by nihs new diagnostics initiative, that number will be much higher. Finally i want to acknowledge and express my heartfelt gratitude to the officers of the commission core, the Uniformed Service i am honored to lead. On the cruise ship in japan, to our military basis repatriating american to our Community Based testing sites and to fema and our task forces, to nursing facilities including king county washington and to field hospitals in heardhit Community Across our nation. I thank each and every one of these officers and their families and on their behalf i thank the members of this committee for supporting our training neededs and the establishment of a Ready Reserve to supplement our ranks and future national emergencies. Thank you for the opportunity to provide these remarks. Thank you, admiral jerwa and now dr. Stephen haun, our fourth and final witness. Chairman alexander and Ranking Member and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to participate in this hearing today. I first want to start by thanking the American People for their incredible efforts at mitigation and extend my condolences to those who have lost loved ones. From day one of this pandemic, the 18,000 fda employees who are just incredible scientist, doctors and nurses have taken an active role in the all of government response to this pandemic. Fda has worked to facilitate the development of medical countermeasures to diagnose, treat and prevent covid19. We worked closely with laboratory, academia, Product Developers and federal partners and companies that dont even make medical products by making Hand Sanitizer and personal and protective equipment. Everything has been driven by data with the goal of protect the health of the American People. In the Public Health emergency, however, our response has balanced the urgent need to make medical products available with the provision of a level of oversight that helps ensure the safety and effectiveness of those medical products. Id like to take a few minutes to tell you what fda is doing to help the country at this point which america showed was safe to return to work and to school. It starts as testing as others have mentioned. The fda has worked with 500 developers and said they will have the covid19 test. This includes some newer technologies that heretofore have not been used as part of diagnostic test in response to a pandemic. We have issued 92 individual emergency use authorizations for test kit manufacturers and laboratories and weve been informed by more than 250 laboratories they have begun testing under the regulatory flexibilities we outlined in march. We are conducting rolling reviews at ua submissions so that we can quickly authorize tests in which the data support. In a Public Health emergency the accuracy of diagnostic tests is important not only for the individual patient, but for the patient at large and the public at large. The availability of tests that are providing accurate answers and we are also monitoring the marketplace for fraudulent tests and are taking appropriate action to protect the Public Health and we are working to provide more clarity about which tests have been reviewsed and authorized by fda and which have not. Serologic tests will play a role in our recovery unlike diagnostic tests which detect the bodies serological tests are responding to covid19. These tests can help identify individuals who can overcome an infection and develop an immune response. We will continue working with labs, manufacturers and across the government to find the balance between the assurance that an Antibody Test is accurate and timely access to such tests. Of course, the way we will eventually beat this virus is with a vaccine. The fda is working closely with the partners including the nih. Vaccine developers and experts across the globe, we intend to use our regulatory flexibility to help ensure the most Efficient Development of a safe and effective vaccine to prevent covid19. Until a preventative vaccine is approved, however, we need medical products to bridge the gap and the fda has been working for several months to facilitate the development as expeditiously as pabl and weve created an Emergency Program for this acceleration called the Coronavirus Treatment Acceleration Program or ctap. We have reassigned staff to work with urgency to review requests with skientsists and doctors developing therapies and we are using every available authority with reg lulatory for a safe an effective products to treat covid19. A variety of therapeutic areas are being elfvaluated by dr. Fauchy afauci and monoclonal antibodies. We announced the positive results of the trial of remdesivir and issued an eua for hospitalized patients with covid19. Two other promising treatments that i mentioned are the antibodyrich products, convalescent plasma and microimmunoglobulin and i am happy to go into more detail if members of this committee have questions about this, but we are working very aggressively and coasting with stakeholders to facilitating to develop the monoclonal antibodies which if shown to be safe and effective hello, everyone. I want to highlight three critical aspects of President Trumps response to the coronavirus that have exceeded the medias expectations and should inspire confidence in every american across this country. Rest assured the Trump Administration is working tirelessly to defeat the invisible enemy. F,