Placement u. S. History and government exams. Next, a doctor from the National Institutes of health testifies on the Coronavirus Response at a Senate Health hearing, along with the director of the Biomedical Advanced Research authority. They discuss efforts to improve Testing Capacity and answer questions on Antibody Testing, Vaccine Development, and the effectiveness of privatepublic partnerships in the fight against covid19. [indistinct chatter] now its on. Is it . Okay. The hearing of the health, labor, and Pensions Committee will please come to order. As we begin our hearing, i would like to explain a few of the changes we have made to address the health and safety recommendations made by the attending physician and sergeant at arms after they consulted with the department of health and Human Services and the centers for Disease Control and prevention. If you are watching, seating has been spaced so we are six feet apart. Second, we made it possible for senators and witnesses to participate Via Video Conference if they choose to do so, and several have. Third, to maintain social distancing, we have very limited seating, so we dont have room for members of the public to attend, however this hearing is available to watch live online and a recording will be available on the committees website, www. Health. Senate. Gov. Clearimportant to be the hearing will be shown from gaveltogavel in its entirety, unedited by anyone from the moment that we start until the very end that we stop. Fourth number due to the limited seating, representatives of the press are working as a pool to relay observations to their colleagues, and senators and staff present have been reminded about the safety guidelines put in place by the attending physician. We all wore our masks. Im not going to wear mine during the hearing, since we are six feet apart, but senators may do whatever they choose to do. I would like to thank the rules committee, the sergeant at arms, the press gallery, the architect of the capitol, capitol police, Nonpartisan Committee staff for all of their hard work to help keep all of us safe as we conduct these important hearings. In april, the owners of a Senior Living facility gave a covid19 diagnostics test to 2500 employees and residents at its 26 communities in tennessee and kentucky. According to the owner, there were very few who tested positive of the 2500. Those that tested positive were all without symptoms and they were all put in quarantine. This is what he told the newspaper from tennessee. Because of the fear, we decided the only way to make sure residents didnt have the virus was to test them. There is no substitute for testing everybody. All roads back to work and back to school lead through testing. Our country will soon be doing 2 million diagnostic tests for covid19 a week. An impressive number. But to contain the disease and give americans confidence that it is safe to go back to work and school, we will need tens of millions of tests. Many more than our Current Technologies can produce. Testing is necessary first to identify the small number of us who have the disease or who have been exposed to it so those americans can be quarantined so we dont have to quarantine the whole country. Testing is important, secondly, because it will help americans who are traumatized by the daily reports of the virus. It will help us gain the confidence necessary to go back to work and school. This hearing is about how we will find those new technologies that are needed to rapidly produce tens of millions of tests in one of the most ambitious Scientific Enterprises in recent memory, headed by one of our countrys most distinguished scientists. Looking ahead, i want to mention two important oversight activities for this committee. Number one, next tuesday, our hearing will examine how we are dealing with this pandemic covid19. Our witnesses will be dr. Anthony fauci, director of the National Institute of allergy and Infectious Disease at the National Institutes of health, therobert redfield, assistant secretary for health at the u. S. Department of health and Human Services, and dr. Stephen hahn, commissioner of the food and Drug Administration. The second oversight activity i would like to mention is that during the next few months, our committee will examine what our country needs to do to prepare for the next pandemic which will surely come. I think that congress should put in place the structures and the funding to be ready for that next pandemic during this year, while the Current Crisis is still on our minds. Over the last 20 years, the last three president s and several congresses, including after 9 11, bird flu, katrina, sars, and ebola, have passed several major laws that created a national stockpile. Provided incentives for development manufacturing, diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines, strengthened the centers for Disease Control, and for the last five years have provided record funding for the National Institutes of health. We will talk about the importance of preparing for the next pandemic at our hearing next tuesday as well. As a result of all of that effort, with three president s and several congresses over the last 20 years, the New York Times reported on march 1 on its front page the following, most experts agree that the United States is among the countries best prepared to prevent or manage such an epidemic. But i think we would all agree that we would have liked to have been even better prepared for covid19, and it is everybodys responsibility is to make sure we are even better prepared for the next Infectious Disease. I want to place into the record a remarkable speech by the former Senate Majority leader, bill frist, who saw clearly then the problems we still have to deal with today. Ists essay, ar storm for which we were unprepared, which will i will also include in the record. The end of the crisis will be determined by three things, tests, treatments, and vaccines. There is promising news we are likely to hear more from today from our witnesses that treatments and therapies will be available this summer, and the administrations warp speed pursuit of a vaccine has a goal of 100 million doses by the fall and 300 million doses by january, a target that is much more ambitious than has ever been achieved before. The private sector has demonstrated a capacity to turn out quickly tens of millions of serology tests. These are the tests that determine whether you have had the disease and have the antibodies that might create some immunity, at least for a time, although that is not proven yet. The fda this week is taking aggressive steps to make sure these tests are accurate. After a bumpy start caused mainly by a faulty test developed by cdc, the United States is now conducting over one million diagnostic tests weekly. By mid june, there will be two to two and a available weekly, half million according to dr. Deborah birx, coordinator of the Coronavirus Task force. As of yesterday, according to President Trump and john hopkins university, the United States has conducted over 7 million diagnostic tests. On may 1, the wall street journal described the testing situation this way. The food and Drug Administration has no approved 70 coronavirus tests, four times more than it approved for the h1n1 flu virus in 2009. More tests per capita have been performed in new york city than in singapore, south korea, and australia. Hospitals and labs have performed about 1. 6 million tests in the past week, according to the covid tracking project. Last week Governor Andrew Cuomo said the tests would be available at some 5000 pharmacies across new york state. Abbott labs says they have tests fore million their machines in the field that can return results in five minutes and is manufacturing 50,000 kits a day. U. S. Hospitals have more than 5000 fast testing machines which require no special training. Some 93 of the u. S. Population lives within 10 miles of a test site, according to the wall street journal. As testing has expanded, the journal said, the chokepoint is a shortage of nose swabs and chemical reagents, but the shortages are easing thanks to the resourcefulness of private industry. Polyester allowing swabs, swab manufacturers can prioritize coronavirus tests. That is the end of the wall street journal summary. The task force submits that dates have submitted their goals, and the administration is working to help provide swabs that states are not able to obtain on the commercial market so that states can meet the goals. All of that is very impressive. But not nearly enough. Every prison, everyone in an operating room, and some entire classes, campuses, and factories, team at sports events, to give those tests more than once. We will need millions more tests than we are producing today. The demand will only grow as the country goes back to work and some 100,000 Public Schools and 5000 colleges plan to reopen this august. There are two ways to increase our Testing Capacity. Of course, the first is to squeeze every possible test out of Current Technologies. The second is to focus today on the need for new testing technology. Theughout march and april, chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee had many conversations with experts in the government and across the private sector. We couldnt find anyone who believed the Current Technology could produce the tens of millions of tests necessary to put this virus behind us. So we worked to include in the most recent coronavirus legislation 1. 5 billion for what we called a competitive shark tank. The name was described after the Reality Television show that pits entrepreneurs in a competition to see who can succeed. This shark tank at the National Institutes of health would utilize the capacities of government itself in coordination with the private sector to pull out all the stops and fasttrack new technologies designed to produce tens of millions of tests by august, or at least least millions more tests by august and even millions more than that by the flu season. We allocated another 1 billion to the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to work with the National Institutes of health to accelerate production of those. In talking with scientists across the country, some are gene editing the technology. One of them allows you to use your cell phone to photograph your test swab results, send it to your doctor, several million incorporate wearable technology. Theres a lot of talk about an antigen test. The nih only five days after the funding was signed into law announced the official start of its Shark Tank Program to boost the most promising testing technologies. There were 400 requests for applications in the first 24 hours as of may the fifth and i am sure dr. Collins will update on this. There were 850 expressions of interest and 50 applications have been submitted and reviewed. Many of these earlystage concepts wont work. Or they wont be able to be scaled up quickly enough. But thats ok. Thomas edison said he tried 10,000 times and made 10,000 mistakes before he produced the first incandescent lightbulb. We hope we dont have that many failures, but all we need are two or three successes, or even one from the shark tank. The first place to find these technologies is at the National Institutes of health. Dr. Francis collins leads the nih, who once led the effort to map the human genome, here to talk about the 1. 5 billion Shark Tank Program. The second place, a division of the department of health is working across government to achieve accurate, fast, and easy testing capabilities to build new capacity. The acting director of barta is here to talk especially about bartas role in scaling up whatever new innovative tests dr. Collins finds. They have another 1 billion for to 2. 5pose, bringing billion in total effort for this acceleration of diagnostic tests. 80 years ago, in 1942, president Franklin D Roosevelt invited senator mckellar of tennessee, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations committee, down to the white house for a private talk. Senator mckellar, president roosevelt said, i would like for you to hide 2 billion in the appropriations bill to create a project to win the war. Senator mckellar said mr. President , that should be no problem, i just have one question. Where in tennessee will the project be built . [laughter] well, that was oak ridge, tennessee. That 2 billion funded the nanhattan project that, i record time, produced two Nuclear Devices that won world war ii. That effort assembled perhaps the greatest number of distinguished scientists working on one project in history. The shark tank is at least a mini manhattan project. It doesnt have to be in tennessee, but the tennesseans of the Oak Ridge National laboratory will be helping it succeed with their supercomputers and other assets. 2. 5 billion does not go as far today as in 1942, but it is still a lot of money. It is likely that at this moment more scientists are working to create solutions to covid19 than on any other project in the world. Their success in delivering new technologies to create simple diagnostic tests with quick results and then safe and effective treatments and vaccines is the only way this will end. There is no safe path forward to combat the Novel Coronavirus without adequate testing. Let us hope that out of dr. Collins shark tank will emerge at least one mighty great white shark that will help us combat this disease. Senator murray . Verymurray thank you much, chairman alexander. Good to be here today with you. I also want to thank the Committee Staff who help us to set up this technology to make this hearing possible, and of course, thank you to the witnesses for being here today as well. Our committees last hearing on covid19 was march 3. During that hearing, i expressed my intense frustration at the administrations lack of preparedness, its failure to ramp up testing. The white houses constant contradictions of Public Health expert guidance and more. Now we are more than 60 days later. I wish i could say i have Better Things to say about the administrations response, but i do not. The only difference is that now over 800 people in my home state have died. Nationwide, now more than 73,000 are dead. And tens of millions are unemployed. Meanwhile, the president is still denying the severity of this crisis. He is still insisting that it is not his problem and is increasingly attempting to control and silence those who want the truth to be told. The president is afraid of the truth, because here it is. He failed and continues to fail to protect lives, and our economy, and our way of life. That brings me to our Witnesses Today. I appreciate you being here and i expect you to tell the truth today. I will want to know your honest assessment of where we stand on Testing Capacity and whether we are preparing appropriately to have a safe, effective vaccine as soon as possible. I will want to understand how you are planning to prioritize Public Health over political influence and corporate profits. I will want your commitment that you will protect workers at hhs who will speak out when they see that Public Health is not being put first. You are here instead of dr. Wright, who filed a complaint earlier this week detailing a shocking culture of corruption that prioritized cronyism over Public Health, including at an agency critical to Vaccine Development and distribution. You can expect a question from me on that, and i expect the truth from you. While i appreciate the interests in this Shark Tank Initiative to develop new tests, we have to remember that the fight against this virus is reality, not Reality Television. It has to be led by scientists prioritize Public Health, not profit, not politics. While innovation plays an Important Role in the development of vaccines and treatment, there is no silver bullet. In fact, we have already invested innovated higher athomeut tests, collection tests, and critically there is much more in the pipeline. The problem is not lack of innovation, it is lack of leadership and a plan from this white house. Y