Mrs. Maloney the committee will come to order. I thank our witnesses for returning this morning. We appreciate the recognition of our interest and oversight responsibilities. Yesterday, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic. C. D. C. Has reported that we have 1,000 confirmed cases. That is up from 100 reported cases a week ago, a 900 increase. Americans are worried. They are scared. It is essential that we are able to hear directly from the Health Officials leading this effort. Im going to go to the republican side first, which is where we left off. Before i do that, without objection, the following three letters we sent on march 3 to h. H. S. And c. D. C. Requesting basic information including basic testing. We have not gotten response to those letters and with that, i represent mr. Higgins. I dont lead the task force. Its led by the Vice President of the United States. Mr. Higgins but youre the lead scientist . We have myself, dr. Redfield,
Crisis we face from the coronavirus is on a scale of a major war, and we must act accordingly. Nobody knows what the number of fatalities may end up being, or the number of people who may get ill, and we all hope that that number will be as low as possible. But we also have to face the truth, and that is that the number of casualties may actually be even higher than what the armed forces experienced in world war ii. In other words, we have a major, major crisis, and we must act accordingly. Therefore, it is an absolute moral imperative that our response as a government, as a society, as a business community, and as individual citizens meet the enormity of this crisis. As people stay or work from home and are directed to quarantine, it will be easy for us to feel like we are all alone. Im working at home, im not in my office. Or that we must only worry about ourselves and think that everybody else should fend for themselves. But in my view, that would be a tragic and dangerous mistake.
This is about 50 minutes. Okay. Well, welcome, everyone, to our meeting on ai and advance system Quantum Information Sciences, quantum computing, et cetera. Im pleased to have an opportunity to welcome michael crosteus, chief Technology Officer of the United States. I think weve come to the right place to engage this important subject. As you know, the administration has taken a very energetic position in trying to advance the state of the art in both the applications of Artificial Intelligence and the Quantum Information Sciences to our nondefense applications. Parallel efforts of substantial scale in the department of defense through the Defense Advance Research projects agency and other defense entities, because these technologies are, indeed, of universal applications. So i would like to take an opportunity to begin the discussion with michael to perhaps start with the bit of current news where europe has European Union in particular has tabled some of their ideas about how to mana
They have until midnight friday. They need to approve a continuing resolution which is a shortterm spending bill. Government funding was set to run out last october. Lawmakers have approved three temporary spending measures moving the deadline. The impasse is over what should be included. Democrats insisting any compromise include a solution for the 700,000 immigrants. Jana is here and has been monitoring the dealmaking. Reporter after a very vigorous Debate Senate republicans acknowledge they still do not have enough votes. They decided to adjourn until tomorrow. The deadline is closing in. A showdown in the senate. Democrats accused republicans of avoiding budget decisions. It is another kick the can down the road because the republicans both in the senate the house and the white house cannot get their act together. Reporter a blamed democrats for delaying the funding extension. The reason we are here is our friends on the other side say solve this illegal immigration problem right n
Seeing the traffic. Lets start with the bay bridge toll plaza. I can see the traffic is backed up. Even some of these lanes will be slow approaching the toll plaza. There have been no major issues. The other slow traffic spot is the altamont pass. It continues to be slow. If you look at the rest of the east bay, we do not have a lot of slow traffic yet. Traffic is moving well in the east bay including walnut creek, 680, 24 and highway 4, bay point. Its been a long wait but later today, bart roll out the first of its brandnew train cars. Alex savidge is live in walnut creek with more on todays big debut. Not in time for the morning commute, it doesnt sound like. Reporter unfortunately not but maybe if you ride bart on your trip home this afternoon, maybe you will be riding on one of these new cards. This is a milestone day for bart. Its a long time coming. Were a lot of delays trying to get these new train cars up and running. In a few hours, 10 of these new bart cars will begin carryin