Transcripts For CSPAN HHS Secretary Azar Federal Health Off

Following the meeting, health and Human Services secretary zar followed by democrat katie orter. Thank you for being here. We got some of the leaders of the task force that the Vice President is leading as well as senior medical and technical experts from the department. We just concluded what are now regular briefings that we are doing that are open to the full senate, open to the full house of representatives trying to make sure that we are being radically transparent what we know when we know it as well as the uncertainties we face. We acknowledge this is a time for concern by many people and trying to educate people about what we know and dont know in these times. We had a lot of discussions especially about testing. We are happy to provide you with more information and answer your questions as we did the house and the senate, because there has been some confusion around those issues and want to make sure everything is being clear. A major focus in both the senate and house discussions today was around the issue of just the Patient Experience and the provider, the doctor experience and we were able to point them and pointed out to c. D. C. s website and information sheet that says i am an individual, im concerned i might have covid19. What do i do . We want we want to make sure members of the house are armed to talk to thats available right on c. D. C. s website. We also have fact sheets that we gave out which have that are also available on c. D. C. s website, which have q as. Basic background information. And what we talked about is we want to keep getting these interest questions from them because its helpful for us to know where the information gaps are, what people might need to understand better and how we can give best guidance. We also reminded them that the state and local Public Health departments are the leaders in this country on any type of response like this. We get our information from them. Theyre experts. We provide background report. We surge in to help them. We provide a lot of infrastructure. Of course we provide about 50 of the funding for their work. They are a trusted local source of authority in this space. We count on them, members of the house, senate and public should count on our local and state Public Health leaders also. Im going to stop and then well take your questions. But i want to ask dr. Fauci if he can say a couple of words. Then well open it up for questions. Dr. Fauci thank you very much, mr. Secretary. I want to address one issue we e continually get asked about. We get asked, what is the risk to the American Public . You have to divide it into two general areas. When you look at the country as a whole, what is the risk of actually getting infected with the coronavirus . The risk in the United States as a whole is still low. When you look at what were seeing, and were following it literally on a daily basis, this issue of Community Spread, as were seeing right now in the seattle area, which they are addressing by a variety of ways, the risk of getting infected when you have Community Spread in a certain area is a bit higher. Quantitytatively, im not sure. But still, when you look at the country as a whole, the risk of getting infected is low. However, if a person is infected, like in seattle where several people have gotten infected, the risk of getting into trouble widely varies. If youre a young, otherwise healthy, individual, the risk of your requiring any kind of medical intervention is low. And we know that from data from china and from recent data from korea and recent data from italy. And that is about 80 or more of individuals who get infected will do well without needing any medical intervention. However, if you are elderly and have underlying conditions, the common ones that we use with flu, heart disease, chronic lung disease, diabetes, obesity, or being immunosuppressed for reasons like cancer chemotherapy, if you get infected, the risk of those individuals getting into trouble is significantly higher. So it isnt like a uniform risk across the board. Which tells us that the vulnerable among us, those with those conditions, need to be particularly paid attention to protect them, not only from getting infected, but to give them the care they need when they get infected. Ill stop there and we can nswer questions. Mr. Sanders admiral, do you mind talking about secretary azar admiral, do you mind talking about the fatality rate issue . That is something that came up quite often. I think youd all like to know the latest information and assessments weve got. Sure, thank you, mr. Secretary. We are still very early in understanding, all the evidence isnt there so i want to caveat that, but to set some foundation. The typical mortality rate for seasonal flu is about. 1 or. 15 . The best estimates now of the overall mortality rate for covid19 is somewhere between. 1 and 1 . Thats lower than you heard probably in many reports. Why is this . Number one, its because many people dont get sick and dont get tested. So probably for this reflects the overseas experience. So probably for every case, there are at least two or three cases that are not in the denominator. So i just want to scale that, that its certain it certainly could be higher than normal flu. It probably is. But its not likely in the range of two to 3 to 3 . Now, full stop, i want to reemphasize what dr. Fauci said. For young or healthy people, its very unlikely. Still possible, but very unlikely to have severe illness or death. But it is an extremely severe condition in elderly or those with Chronic Health conditions. Ok . So that is a very important population and one reason why administrator virma leaned in very hard yesterday to support all her quality measures and education for all the facilities that she governs that deal with the elderly. To clarify on the mortality rate. When youre saying. 1 to 1 , are you talking about within the u. S. Specifically . So, we believe that is the overall rate that we might expect in the United States between. 1 and stas between. 1 and 1 overall for all groups. But again, thats lower than the w. H. O. Figure why . So, again, were very early here now. Right . Were very early. But the modeling suggests that we have a denominator problem, right . If youre really sick and you have respiratory failure, you go see someone and you get tested. If youre not very ill, as most people are not, they do not get tested. They do not get counted in the denominator. Especially in a crisis situation like in china. So again, we very early in this and i hope people dont the main point of this is, number one, this is likely more severe in its mortality rate than the typical flu season but its certainly within the range. So we dont want peopling to crazy like its 30 mortality like in merz. But main point is, if youre young and healthy, you are likely to have a very mild illness. Theres always a oneoff here or there where a young person could be severely ill or even die. So thats one batch. But we need to make sure that those who are elderly, particularly those in nursing facilities, or those who are chronically ill. If you have chronic pulmonary disease or severe diabetes and hypertension and heart disease, you are at a very highrisk and precautions need to be taken. [talking simultaneously] reporter are you going to meet your timeline of having a million coronavirus tests available by the end of the week . Secretary azar i want to walk you through whats going on in terms of the lab tests. Because i think its really good to have clarity. Ill ask the admiral to make sure and clarify. So there are basically three stages to the availability of lab testing for the novel coronavirus. The first stage is the test that the c. D. C. Developed, that the c. D. C. Is producing and is sending out to Public Health labs. Thats a little over 70 Public Health labs here in the United States. There currently is the capacity to test, at the beginning of the week, each person needs more than one test as part of the testing regiment. By the end of the week we believe well have shipped enough for 75,000 people to be tested. These tests are sent out free, they go to the 70 or more Public Health labs that are part of our network. What that means for those tests is a doctor or a hospital wishing to test somebody for novel coronavirus, they work with these Public Health labs on testing all the time. They would reach out to their Public Health lab and say, i have a suspect case, i would like to get this person tested. And they would work on how to do that. That might involve the patient going to a lab, it might involve the doctor getting instruction on what type of swab to use, how to swab the sample, what type of medium to use, how to transport it, etc. The second step here is i. D. T. Which is the manufacturer that works with c. D. C. Has worked to get its own authorization to develop and market that same c. D. C. Test. They believe by the end of the week they will have sent out, to their hospitals, other labs, around the country, commercial, Public Health, whatever labs, enough tests to test one million specimens which would be the equivalent of being able to test about 400,000 people. From that. They also believe they can scale up their production so that by the end of next week they can be in the range of perhaps four million, is that correct . Four million tests. Specimens which would then come down to a million and a half. Secretary azar so for that that means more traditional things like youre in the hospital, that hospital might very well have that test in their lab. Be able to test you right there. If that hospital buys that test and has it. Or other labs. Commercial labs. The third stage, the third stage is the guidance we put out on saturday morning from the f. D. A. That said, since the obama administration, if youre developing a Clinical Lab Test like this, as c. D. C. Did, you need to go to f. D. A. And get approval. An emergency use authorization to send this test out. C. D. C. Did that. What we said on saturday is if you are a certified clinical lab able to handle highcomplexity tests, these are labs that are regulated bied a minute by the administrator and v. M. S. , you may develop your own test c. M. S. , you may develop your tovente and you dont have to wait for us to approve it before you can start using it in patients, send us your validation data and send us your emergency use authorization after the fact within 15 days of beginning use. Thats your lab corpses, your Large Diagnostic Companies and that will also radically expand availability. It will also make for a much easier experience for doctors and clinicians because theyre very used to working with Lab Companies like this to get tests done. There is a work process flow thats very patientsent rick and easier. I was very candid with both the house and the senate that as this expands, that experience will get better. But right now there is it is a challenge if you are a doctor wanting to get somebody tested, you do need to reach out to your Public Health lab, see if they have a test. Were going to be putting up on c. D. C. s website information about which Public Health labs have the tests. Also by this weekend that Broad Network of hospitals, other labs, will be receiving from i. D. T. Those million tests that we referred to, and they will then work they have to validate in the facility and then once theyre validated theyll be up and running. So that experience will get better over the next week, week and a half, two weeks. But do not be surprised if you hear concerns of doctors saying, i have a patient, i dont know how to get this done, well try out if more guidance out from c. D. C. To help with that experience. Reporter youve been trying to get out Accurate Information to the public on selfquarantine, what the numbers are, the testing. All those things. When you president is countermanneding things by saying the numbers of w. H. O. Are wrong, when he says people who might have this can go to work anyway, is it helpful to get your message out when youre being countermanneded by the president on tv fairly regularly . I dont think im being countermanded reporter the president said last night that people who had the mild disease could essentially go to work. He suggested that. Ive not heard that. I cant comment. Reporter he thinks its wrong, the w. H. O. Is wrong. I do think the admiral just walked you through the difference [talking simultaneously] thats based on international data. Reporter the w. H. O. Has been wrong . Its how one describes it. Our best modeling, again, you have a denominator problem and i want you to understand that. That only the people who are really sick or have symptoms come in and get tested. So based on the models we have right now, we estimate the mortality as. 1 to 1 . It is likely not in the range of 2 it 2 to 3 . Now, remember, if you have a [talking simultaneously] if you have a cruiseship where people are 70 or 80 years old on the cruiseship, the mortality is going to be higher as it is in a Skilled Nursing facility. And let me make it clear that for the best guidelines of what people should do, go to cdc. Gov. Theres a huge banner across the top. What you need to know if youre a patient. What you need to know if youre a provider or a health care. Thats the current guidance. And remember, the guidance will change over time as we learn more and more about the disease and it will also change over time depending on were in a full containment situation or whether were in a Community Mitigation situation like they really are in seattle. Because the rules do change depending on what phase youre in. [talking simultaneously] reporter why did the c. D. C. Decide not to use the World Health Organizations test . Thank you. Theres a process of developing tests when theres a new disease. We followed that procedure. There wasnt a need to follow the w. H. O. Test. We developed a test very rapidly after china produced the sequence. We were in the process of value dating that and thats the test that were going to be using. Reporter why is it that once we realized the first c. D. C. Test had several faulty tests, you didnt go to the w. H. O. Test . And we knew how quickly this was spreading . So the process as weve described, the emergency use authorization, really getting the test out and then using that initial experience to make sure that its working the ways that supposed to, when we found that that wasnt the case, we really looked at what was going on and thats where the new test has come from. The one that were talking about today. Reporter shouldnt we have been prepared given that we had weeks ahead of time, that we knew this was coming . We heard from Health Officials literally for months that this was going to spread here, that there was only a matter of time before an outbreak. Yet still the tests werent working. We Began Development of the tests within hours of the posting of the china sequence. So i dont think there was any delay on our side. Reporter even though in south korea, for example, they are testing 10,000 people a day once they a diagnosis, and it took us a week, i dont even know if we have tested 10,000. As of sunday it was 3600. I think the steps the secretary outlined will ramp up our capacity to test many, many more people than weve been able to test before. I think thats the right step at this time. [talking simultaneously] our testing in the United States has been very consistent, if not even more aggressive than similarly impacted countries. So we are not korea. Korea is in a very active hot zone outbreak. As is northern italy. We have been ramping up our testing and actually where we will stand in the next week to week and a half in terms of availability of testing will place us far ahead, far, far ahead of similarly impacted major countries around the world. So weve actually been progressing with this on par with all of our peer countries. In europe, for instance, similarly impacted. Reporter do you think seattle should be shut down . The former f. D. A. Commissioner said for the good of the country a city like seattle should basically be shut down. Do you have plans for Something Like that . Let me ask the c. D. C. If you might talk about Community Mitigation steps and what were doing with the state of washington and king county and seattle. Right. So when theres widespread virus transmission or community transmission, theres a different approach to controlling that disease that moves away from identifying cases and tracking contacts to moves that are more communitybased. So weve seen that some schools have been closed and thats to reduce transmission among children. There are discussions under way within the local government for how to keep people from congregating who might be affected. So these are not measures that are directed at individuals who are known to be affected or their contacts but more general measures. All of the all of them to reduce the chance that an infectious person will come into contact with a susceptible person. Reporter the Vice President said that coronavirus tests would be designated as an essential Health Benefit but that only applies to private plans. How will you make sure that the vaccine is covered for people on medicare and medicaid . Let me be clear. It is covered in medicaid and medicare and people in those programs can get tests and the individual exchanges, this is a common type of test. Just like you get a swab for strep throat or for the flu test. These are the kind of things that are typically covered. I think private Insurance Companies, it does depend on coverage, but this is something that is commonly covered service. [talking simultaneously] reporter you cannot mandate this be an essential Human Services<\/a> secretary zar followed by democrat katie orter. Thank you for being here. We got some of the leaders of the task force that the Vice President<\/a> is leading as well as senior medical and technical experts from the department. We just concluded what are now regular briefings that we are doing that are open to the full senate, open to the full house of representatives trying to make sure that we are being radically transparent what we know when we know it as well as the uncertainties we face. We acknowledge this is a time for concern by many people and trying to educate people about what we know and dont know in these times. We had a lot of discussions especially about testing. We are happy to provide you with more information and answer your questions as we did the house and the senate, because there has been some confusion around those issues and want to make sure everything is being clear. A major focus in both the senate and house discussions today was around the issue of just the Patient Experience<\/a> and the provider, the doctor experience and we were able to point them and pointed out to c. D. C. s website and information sheet that says i am an individual, im concerned i might have covid19. What do i do . We want we want to make sure members of the house are armed to talk to thats available right on c. D. C. s website. We also have fact sheets that we gave out which have that are also available on c. D. C. s website, which have q as. Basic background information. And what we talked about is we want to keep getting these interest questions from them because its helpful for us to know where the information gaps are, what people might need to understand better and how we can give best guidance. We also reminded them that the state and local Public Health<\/a> departments are the leaders in this country on any type of response like this. We get our information from them. Theyre experts. We provide background report. We surge in to help them. We provide a lot of infrastructure. Of course we provide about 50 of the funding for their work. They are a trusted local source of authority in this space. We count on them, members of the house, senate and public should count on our local and state Public Health<\/a> leaders also. Im going to stop and then well take your questions. But i want to ask dr. Fauci if he can say a couple of words. Then well open it up for questions. Dr. Fauci thank you very much, mr. Secretary. I want to address one issue we e continually get asked about. We get asked, what is the risk to the American Public<\/a> . You have to divide it into two general areas. When you look at the country as a whole, what is the risk of actually getting infected with the coronavirus . The risk in the United States<\/a> as a whole is still low. When you look at what were seeing, and were following it literally on a daily basis, this issue of Community Spread<\/a>, as were seeing right now in the seattle area, which they are addressing by a variety of ways, the risk of getting infected when you have Community Spread<\/a> in a certain area is a bit higher. Quantitytatively, im not sure. But still, when you look at the country as a whole, the risk of getting infected is low. However, if a person is infected, like in seattle where several people have gotten infected, the risk of getting into trouble widely varies. If youre a young, otherwise healthy, individual, the risk of your requiring any kind of medical intervention is low. And we know that from data from china and from recent data from korea and recent data from italy. And that is about 80 or more of individuals who get infected will do well without needing any medical intervention. However, if you are elderly and have underlying conditions, the common ones that we use with flu, heart disease, chronic lung disease, diabetes, obesity, or being immunosuppressed for reasons like cancer chemotherapy, if you get infected, the risk of those individuals getting into trouble is significantly higher. So it isnt like a uniform risk across the board. Which tells us that the vulnerable among us, those with those conditions, need to be particularly paid attention to protect them, not only from getting infected, but to give them the care they need when they get infected. Ill stop there and we can nswer questions. Mr. Sanders admiral, do you mind talking about secretary azar admiral, do you mind talking about the fatality rate issue . That is something that came up quite often. I think youd all like to know the latest information and assessments weve got. Sure, thank you, mr. Secretary. We are still very early in understanding, all the evidence isnt there so i want to caveat that, but to set some foundation. The typical mortality rate for seasonal flu is about. 1 or. 15 . The best estimates now of the overall mortality rate for covid19 is somewhere between. 1 and 1 . Thats lower than you heard probably in many reports. Why is this . Number one, its because many people dont get sick and dont get tested. So probably for this reflects the overseas experience. So probably for every case, there are at least two or three cases that are not in the denominator. So i just want to scale that, that its certain it certainly could be higher than normal flu. It probably is. But its not likely in the range of two to 3 to 3 . Now, full stop, i want to reemphasize what dr. Fauci said. For young or healthy people, its very unlikely. Still possible, but very unlikely to have severe illness or death. But it is an extremely severe condition in elderly or those with Chronic Health<\/a> conditions. Ok . So that is a very important population and one reason why administrator virma leaned in very hard yesterday to support all her quality measures and education for all the facilities that she governs that deal with the elderly. To clarify on the mortality rate. When youre saying. 1 to 1 , are you talking about within the u. S. Specifically . So, we believe that is the overall rate that we might expect in the United States<\/a> between. 1 and stas between. 1 and 1 overall for all groups. But again, thats lower than the w. H. O. Figure why . So, again, were very early here now. Right . Were very early. But the modeling suggests that we have a denominator problem, right . If youre really sick and you have respiratory failure, you go see someone and you get tested. If youre not very ill, as most people are not, they do not get tested. They do not get counted in the denominator. Especially in a crisis situation like in china. So again, we very early in this and i hope people dont the main point of this is, number one, this is likely more severe in its mortality rate than the typical flu season but its certainly within the range. So we dont want peopling to crazy like its 30 mortality like in merz. But main point is, if youre young and healthy, you are likely to have a very mild illness. Theres always a oneoff here or there where a young person could be severely ill or even die. So thats one batch. But we need to make sure that those who are elderly, particularly those in nursing facilities, or those who are chronically ill. If you have chronic pulmonary disease or severe diabetes and hypertension and heart disease, you are at a very highrisk and precautions need to be taken. [talking simultaneously] reporter are you going to meet your timeline of having a million coronavirus tests available by the end of the week . Secretary azar i want to walk you through whats going on in terms of the lab tests. Because i think its really good to have clarity. Ill ask the admiral to make sure and clarify. So there are basically three stages to the availability of lab testing for the novel coronavirus. The first stage is the test that the c. D. C. Developed, that the c. D. C. Is producing and is sending out to Public Health<\/a> labs. Thats a little over 70 Public Health<\/a> labs here in the United States<\/a>. There currently is the capacity to test, at the beginning of the week, each person needs more than one test as part of the testing regiment. By the end of the week we believe well have shipped enough for 75,000 people to be tested. These tests are sent out free, they go to the 70 or more Public Health<\/a> labs that are part of our network. What that means for those tests is a doctor or a hospital wishing to test somebody for novel coronavirus, they work with these Public Health<\/a> labs on testing all the time. They would reach out to their Public Health<\/a> lab and say, i have a suspect case, i would like to get this person tested. And they would work on how to do that. That might involve the patient going to a lab, it might involve the doctor getting instruction on what type of swab to use, how to swab the sample, what type of medium to use, how to transport it, etc. The second step here is i. D. T. Which is the manufacturer that works with c. D. C. Has worked to get its own authorization to develop and market that same c. D. C. Test. They believe by the end of the week they will have sent out, to their hospitals, other labs, around the country, commercial, Public Health<\/a>, whatever labs, enough tests to test one million specimens which would be the equivalent of being able to test about 400,000 people. From that. They also believe they can scale up their production so that by the end of next week they can be in the range of perhaps four million, is that correct . Four million tests. Specimens which would then come down to a million and a half. Secretary azar so for that that means more traditional things like youre in the hospital, that hospital might very well have that test in their lab. Be able to test you right there. If that hospital buys that test and has it. Or other labs. Commercial labs. The third stage, the third stage is the guidance we put out on saturday morning from the f. D. A. That said, since the obama administration, if youre developing a Clinical Lab Test<\/a> like this, as c. D. C. Did, you need to go to f. D. A. And get approval. An emergency use authorization to send this test out. C. D. C. Did that. What we said on saturday is if you are a certified clinical lab able to handle highcomplexity tests, these are labs that are regulated bied a minute by the administrator and v. M. S. , you may develop your own test c. M. S. , you may develop your tovente and you dont have to wait for us to approve it before you can start using it in patients, send us your validation data and send us your emergency use authorization after the fact within 15 days of beginning use. Thats your lab corpses, your Large Diagnostic Companies<\/a> and that will also radically expand availability. It will also make for a much easier experience for doctors and clinicians because theyre very used to working with Lab Companies<\/a> like this to get tests done. There is a work process flow thats very patientsent rick and easier. I was very candid with both the house and the senate that as this expands, that experience will get better. But right now there is it is a challenge if you are a doctor wanting to get somebody tested, you do need to reach out to your Public Health<\/a> lab, see if they have a test. Were going to be putting up on c. D. C. s website information about which Public Health<\/a> labs have the tests. Also by this weekend that Broad Network<\/a> of hospitals, other labs, will be receiving from i. D. T. Those million tests that we referred to, and they will then work they have to validate in the facility and then once theyre validated theyll be up and running. So that experience will get better over the next week, week and a half, two weeks. But do not be surprised if you hear concerns of doctors saying, i have a patient, i dont know how to get this done, well try out if more guidance out from c. D. C. To help with that experience. Reporter youve been trying to get out Accurate Information<\/a> to the public on selfquarantine, what the numbers are, the testing. All those things. When you president is countermanneding things by saying the numbers of w. H. O. Are wrong, when he says people who might have this can go to work anyway, is it helpful to get your message out when youre being countermanneded by the president on tv fairly regularly . I dont think im being countermanded reporter the president said last night that people who had the mild disease could essentially go to work. He suggested that. Ive not heard that. I cant comment. Reporter he thinks its wrong, the w. H. O. Is wrong. I do think the admiral just walked you through the difference [talking simultaneously] thats based on international data. Reporter the w. H. O. Has been wrong . Its how one describes it. Our best modeling, again, you have a denominator problem and i want you to understand that. That only the people who are really sick or have symptoms come in and get tested. So based on the models we have right now, we estimate the mortality as. 1 to 1 . It is likely not in the range of 2 it 2 to 3 . Now, remember, if you have a [talking simultaneously] if you have a cruiseship where people are 70 or 80 years old on the cruiseship, the mortality is going to be higher as it is in a Skilled Nursing<\/a> facility. And let me make it clear that for the best guidelines of what people should do, go to cdc. Gov. Theres a huge banner across the top. What you need to know if youre a patient. What you need to know if youre a provider or a health care. Thats the current guidance. And remember, the guidance will change over time as we learn more and more about the disease and it will also change over time depending on were in a full containment situation or whether were in a Community Mitigation<\/a> situation like they really are in seattle. Because the rules do change depending on what phase youre in. [talking simultaneously] reporter why did the c. D. C. Decide not to use the World Health Organizations<\/a> test . Thank you. Theres a process of developing tests when theres a new disease. We followed that procedure. There wasnt a need to follow the w. H. O. Test. We developed a test very rapidly after china produced the sequence. We were in the process of value dating that and thats the test that were going to be using. Reporter why is it that once we realized the first c. D. C. Test had several faulty tests, you didnt go to the w. H. O. Test . And we knew how quickly this was spreading . So the process as weve described, the emergency use authorization, really getting the test out and then using that initial experience to make sure that its working the ways that supposed to, when we found that that wasnt the case, we really looked at what was going on and thats where the new test has come from. The one that were talking about today. Reporter shouldnt we have been prepared given that we had weeks ahead of time, that we knew this was coming . We heard from Health Officials<\/a> literally for months that this was going to spread here, that there was only a matter of time before an outbreak. Yet still the tests werent working. We Began Development<\/a> of the tests within hours of the posting of the china sequence. So i dont think there was any delay on our side. Reporter even though in south korea, for example, they are testing 10,000 people a day once they a diagnosis, and it took us a week, i dont even know if we have tested 10,000. As of sunday it was 3600. I think the steps the secretary outlined will ramp up our capacity to test many, many more people than weve been able to test before. I think thats the right step at this time. [talking simultaneously] our testing in the United States<\/a> has been very consistent, if not even more aggressive than similarly impacted countries. So we are not korea. Korea is in a very active hot zone outbreak. As is northern italy. We have been ramping up our testing and actually where we will stand in the next week to week and a half in terms of availability of testing will place us far ahead, far, far ahead of similarly impacted major countries around the world. So weve actually been progressing with this on par with all of our peer countries. In europe, for instance, similarly impacted. Reporter do you think seattle should be shut down . The former f. D. A. Commissioner said for the good of the country a city like seattle should basically be shut down. Do you have plans for Something Like<\/a> that . Let me ask the c. D. C. If you might talk about Community Mitigation<\/a> steps and what were doing with the state of washington and king county and seattle. Right. So when theres widespread virus transmission or community transmission, theres a different approach to controlling that disease that moves away from identifying cases and tracking contacts to moves that are more communitybased. So weve seen that some schools have been closed and thats to reduce transmission among children. There are discussions under way within the local government for how to keep people from congregating who might be affected. So these are not measures that are directed at individuals who are known to be affected or their contacts but more general measures. All of the all of them to reduce the chance that an infectious person will come into contact with a susceptible person. Reporter the Vice President<\/a> said that coronavirus tests would be designated as an essential Health Benefit<\/a> but that only applies to private plans. How will you make sure that the vaccine is covered for people on medicare and medicaid . Let me be clear. It is covered in medicaid and medicare and people in those programs can get tests and the individual exchanges, this is a common type of test. Just like you get a swab for strep throat or for the flu test. These are the kind of things that are typically covered. I think private Insurance Companies<\/a>, it does depend on coverage, but this is something that is commonly covered service. [talking simultaneously] reporter you cannot mandate this be an essential Health Benefit<\/a> for private insurers . The essential Health Benefit<\/a>s are defined in law. It does not in that particular section of the law, it doesnt identify laboratory tests. That being said, in the individual exchanges, and the products that are being offered there, this is a covered service. That is provided. Reporter for private insurance, however, 160 million million americans are covered there, they cant be certain that this test will be covered by their insurance . People should check with their insurance company. But like i said, this is a common, you know, type of test. A laboratory test. Most plans would cover this. Just like they would cover a flu test or they would cover strep throat. Its a commonly covered service. Reporter [indiscernible] executive action to mandate this as an essential Health Benefit<\/a> for private Insurance Companies<\/a> . I think at this time in medicaid and medicare and in the individual exchange we know that thats being covered and the Insurance Companies<\/a>, we have not heard. Were going to continue to look at that. If it becomes an issue, thats something we want to make sure people have access to tests. That being said, the test is provided free by the state health department. So people can always get a test, if theres an issue there, that test can be sent to the public labs and that would be covered there. Its a free test. Reporter [indiscernible] cost sharing for costs . Were going to put out information about cost sharing. In the medicaid program, it shouldnt be an issue there. In the Medicare Program<\/a> were going to put out that information of what people should expect. That being said, the test is available free at the Public Health<\/a> departments so thats always an option for people. Reporter are you investigating the kirkland nursing home and if so what are you looking at specifically . We are vectoring the kirkland situation investigating the kirkland situation. C. M. S. Has jurisdiction over the Nursing Homes<\/a> and Health Care Facilities<\/a>. Something we did yesterday was a call to action for all Health Care Facilities<\/a> to double down on their Infection Control<\/a> policies and procedures. Those are things that every Health Care Facility<\/a> should have in place because we deal with the flu season every year. The situation in kirkland is very concerning and thats why we have investigators on the ground to determine what happened there. Reporter the question i was asked whether the question i was asked is whether we learned anything new about these briefings. The answer is yes. One of my main concerns right now is around private insurer coverage of testing. So theres not a mandate that private insurers cover this testing. And i think that there should be","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia902900.us.archive.org\/3\/items\/CSPAN_20200305_185800_HHS_Secretary_Azar__Federal_Health_Officials_on_Coronavirus_Briefing\/CSPAN_20200305_185800_HHS_Secretary_Azar__Federal_Health_Officials_on_Coronavirus_Briefing.thumbs\/CSPAN_20200305_185800_HHS_Secretary_Azar__Federal_Health_Officials_on_Coronavirus_Briefing_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240716T12:35:10+00:00"}