Representative clyburn thank you, distinguished democratic and republican colleagues, for your participation in this rather unique forum. Over 80,000 citizens have lost their lives due to covid19. More than in any other country on earth. Many families have lost loved ones, including my own. Our fellow Committee MemberMaxine Waters has recently experienced a loss in her family due to this pandemic. This select committee was not established to cast blame on or cast disparities on foreign or domestic or to search for the viruses origin, but to pursue future success. We have been tasked with the urgent and important work to ensure that our countrys response to this seminal crisis is effective, efficient, and equitable. I agree with Ranking Member scalise that one of the most important components of our response is answering the region that is being discussed at every answering the question that is being discussed at every Kitchen Table in america right now. How do we know when we are ready to safely reopen our country . To answer that question, we should be informed by history , and guided by science. While we all want to reopen as soon as possible, doing so before the proper safeguards are in place would cause more sickness and death. A premature opening would also cause greater harm to the economy. We must reopen responsibly. Therefore, we are beginning our committees work with a briefing from Public Health experts, including two former fda commissioners who served under republican president s, and three other experts whose primary interest is safeguarding the citizens of this great country. But the greatness of this country must be accessible and affordable for all. That is why we need a comprehensive, coordinated, and centralized strategy for faster and safer testing. For faster and freer testing. We also need to deploy proven Public Health measures, like Contact Tracing, tracking, and surveillance to quickly identify sources and locations. Once we have identified new cases, we must provide necessary treatment in a medically appropriate, isolated setting while providing support to patients and their families. These are steps we must take while keeping americans safe and preventing a second wave, which will cost even more lives and livelihoods. Today, i hope to hear what the federal government should be doing to support and coordinate state and local efforts to safely reopen our economies, rural and urban, in an efficient, effective, and equitable manner. I now recognize the Ranking Member, mr. Scalise, for his opening remarks. Representative scalise first of all, i want to express my condolences to maxine for the loss of your sister. I know this has touched so many families, some closer than others, obviously yours, so close to home. Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this briefing on such an important topic, how we safely and smartly reopen our country and help people get back to work. Unfortunately the fact that the , house is still not in session runs counter to the very message that we can safely reopen. This subcommittee, along with the rest of congress, should be back in washington for this briefing. Our job is to show america we have begun a path to safely and smartly resume our lives. A virtual briefing unnecessarily sends the wrong message. Congress should be leading the way. We should not be the last to come back. The subcommittee only has 12 members. There are dozens of rooms around the capital that are open right now that can hold this briefing safely. With 12 members, we can achieve model social distancing. In fact let me show you what is , going on here. We are in a Briefing Room here in the capital, and as you can see, the room is set up with proper social distancing, where you can safely have all 12 members of the committee as well , as the opportunity for the public and press to be here in person. So i wish we would show that we can do what were asking the rest of the country to do. The fact that we can hold this briefing in person means that we should hold this briefing in person. President trump is showing up to work every single day, working for the American People with his team. The senate is here in the capital, in session today. The United States house of representatives should lead by example and we should be here working as well. Put the partisanship aside, and lets Work Together to show america how the rest of this world is responding. Look just around the country. The very first action of the subcommittee was not to help people get back to work. In fact, the very first action was tosubcommittee attack hardworking, bluecollar americans. I know the chairman and all the democrats on the committee sent a letter, literally harassing companies from all over the country that did everything they were told to do. They were told to keep your workers on payroll, that ppp was there to help those companies. Every member of the committee that signed that letter harassing those companies voted for the bill. So why on one hand would you tell people we want this lifeline to help people attached to their companies and keep people employed, and then turn around and target companies in the steel working field, truck drivers, welders . These are the people we are trying to help. In fact, they are right now living in fear because if the companies had to return the money after they followed all the rules that we voted for, they would have to lay off hundreds of workers each. Do we really want to see more americans laid off at a time when we are seeing these unemployment numbers that we are trying to reverse, trying to get people back to work . That is the wrong message to send. So attacking bluecollar workers is not what we should be doing. We should be helping workers in america get back to work. We really should be Holding China accountable for what they did. Unfortunately, that is not and happening. That is not going on with this committee, and that is a real concern, mr. Chairman. But each state and local government is starting to reopen. 36 states have already moved into phase one, proving you can safely reopen and showing a template for the rest of us to follow. My home state of louisiana moves into phase one on friday. I have spoken to so many great establishments that are already planning on how to reopen their business. Lets learn from all of them. Frankly congress could be , leading the way, showing how to do it. We did it a few weeks ago by having a vote on the house door. Not proxy voting remotely, but actually showing up to work. But each state and local government also must continue to look at the things that we are doing to ramp up production, ppe and so much of the other vital equipment. Look at all the progress thats been mate already on making sure we can get more manufacturing in america, take care of our hospital workers on the front line. We have to keep that progress going. This committee can figure out ways to bring that work done in china back to the United States. I wish we would focus on that. Maybe we will as we get through this, but it is certainly something we want to see focused on. The Trump Administration continues to implement the largest relief package in american history. As of today, the ppp has made loans to over 4 Million Companies totaling over 520 billion. That means millions of jobs that are saved, people that are not on the unemployment rolls because of the work that we did. Lets not take that away by trying to target these very companies. We will not live in fear as americans. Lets recover and Work Together to get this country back on track. Ith that, mr. Chairman, yield. Rep. Clyburn thank you. Let me now welcome our panelists. Our first panelist is dr. Ashish jha, the director of the Global Health institute at harvard university. Next, we will hear from former fda commissioner dr. Scott gottlieb. Dr. Gottlieb is currently a resident fellow at the American Enterprise institute. Then we have dr. George benjamin of the american Public Health association. Dr. Benjamin served previously as the secretary of marylands department and mental hygiene. Then we will hear from dr. Mark mcclellan, former fda commissioner and cms administrator. Dr. Mcclellan is also the founding director of the Duke Margolis center for Health Policy at duke university. And finally, we have the director of the center for Health Security at the Johns HopkinsUniversity Bloomberg school of Public Health. I thank our distinct panalists for joining us this afternoon. Each will deliver an Opening Statement of two minutes. I now recognize dr. Jha for his opening remarks. Dr. Jha good afternoon, members of the house select subcommittee. I am honored to join you today. We are at a Pivotal Moment in this crisis. Our initial response to the pandemic has left more than 80,000 americans dead and more than 20 million americans unemployed. As we enter the next phase of this pandemic, we must do better. One key part of doing better is having a robust testing infrastructure. You see, testing is critical. Testing tells us who has the disease and who doesnt. And testing is the cornerstone of controlling every single disease outbreak. It was inadequate testing that precipitated the national shutdown. We must not make the same mistakes again as we open up our nation. The institute that i run has calculated that the u. S. Needs more than 900,000 tests every day to safely open up again. We are doing about a third of that. So how do we do better . While states have a Critical Role, i believe we need federal leadership. There are five key steps that the federal government should be taking. The first, the federal government must have visibility into the entire testing supply chain, and use all of its power to ensure adequate testing supplies. Second, and in a related issue, the federal government must coordinate these supplies because different states have different needs. And only the federal government that states get the material they need when they need it. Third, the federal government should offer guidance on testing strategies, because it is not just about having enough tests, its about ensuring the right people get the tests at the right time. Fourth, the federal government has to ensure adequate incentives for greater investments in more and better tests, so that our private sector will know there is a market for their innovation. And finally, the federal government has to be transparent with the American People about how much testing we need and a roadmap for getting us there. If we act smartly, we can open up safely, allowing americans to get back to work, knowing that they are safe in their workplaces and safe when they get back home to their families. Too Many Americans have already died in this pandemic. We can honor their memories by doing everything in our power to prevent more needless deaths. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Rep. Clyburn thank you, dr. Jha. Now dr. Gottlieb. , dr. Gottlieb thank you. I think we all recognize the extreme hardship this nation is going through right now, not just the extreme death and disease from covid19 but also , the extreme Economic Hardship and the publichealth consequences we have experienced to try and mitigate this pandemic. We all want to start to reopen the economy and get you to the things that we had enjoyed, get back to a sense of normalcy, but we need to recognize the challenges that we face against the backdrop of a spread that is still persistent in thisspread n this country. There are hopeful signs, we see hospitalizations and new cases going down nationally. Even as we increase testing and see positivity rates going down, the doubling time is now extended to 45 days. Reproduction production numbers is about 1. 1 now. We are seeing signs of a slowing epidemic nationally but we are , still reopening against the backdrop of more spread than we anticipated. So how can we do that smartly and prudently and mitigate the risk of extended outbreaks and a new epidemic . First, it starts with a prudent approach to a phased introduction of work and reopening. It turns on heavy dependency on casebased interventions, trying to find people who are infectious, asking them to selfisolate, do the traditional tracking and tracing of Public Health work to track down people who may have been exposed and offer testing. We will not be able to get everyone. This is an infectious pathogen, a lot of people are asymptomatic. Even if we can track down a meaningful percentage of people infected and get them into isolation, it can have an impact on the epidemic. Most of all, it will turn on testing as the panelist mentioned. We have to make sure we get testing out widely and get testing to people who are at the highest risk of the virus. Not everyone is a equal risk of the coronavirus. Many people, because of where they work and live, how they work, are at higher risk than other americans. We need to make sure we get testing to these communities. Testing turns to technology, and that will improve a lot in the coming weeks. We need to make sure the technology we apply fits the purpose. We have rapid diagnostic tools, like the machine that was recently authorized over the weekend. These are good in doctors offices. Rep. Clyburn thank you very much. Dr. Benjamin. Dr. Benjamin thank you for allowing me to be here today. I have been saying, every person in this country understands that their second job is Public Health. They will help us get out of this if we return to work and back to our communities. That is the centerpiece to everything we have to do, tracing, testing, isolation, and quarantine. We know that our state and local Health Departments are working diligently every day to build up that Testing Capacity and also to do adequate Contact Tracing. This will be a task that we need the federal government to assist in in terms of guidance and help. We also know we have to address specifically those communities that are most vulnerable. We already know there are certain parts of the community that are disproportionately affected by this outbreak. Those are people that have Public Safety jobs that have a , higher percentage of chronic diseases, or live in underserved communities. We will have to at the end of this, think about how we build a sustainable longterm Public Health system, and that will require federal engagement. We ought to think about the investments we are putting in today as being longterm. This is absolutely not the last outbreak of this type that we will see. With that, i will turn it over to you, mr. Chairman. Rep. Clyburn thank you. Dr. Mcclellan, you are recognized. Dr. Mcclellan thank you for the opportunity to join you all today. I want to add to the comment you have already heard. We are in the process of reopening. We have to do that as carefully as possible. Testing is not the only thing. It is an integral part of a strategy that continues to require action from all of us and businesses as we move forward to keep that reproduction rate as close to or below one as possible. To give you a sense of where we are in testing, this past week, the tests administered have been around two and 3 million per week. That is significantly short of that sixplus million target that dr. Jhas work reflects, but an increase of where we have been. Based on the administrations expectations on testing this month, we should be on track to 3. 5 million a week by the end of the month and maybe 6 million per week by september. That is a ways off. The kind of numbers that dr. Jha was talking about. Dr. Gottlieb has written about ways to Bring Technology in to accelerate the availability of testing. I agree that can help. I want to highlight a few other ways that we can make the tests go as far as possible because right now they are not , distributed evenly, we are not testing everyone that the cdc recommends for, testing for symptoms, testing for asymptomatic settings, surveillance, but there is more we can do. One thing is to take further steps to create financial incentives for better and more testing. That includes steps like cms has taken recently in steps congress has taken. I think we can do more. Pay more for tests that get better results faster. Pay more for tests connected to interoperability. That is important for enabling rapid responses. To encouragesteps participation by Health Care Organizations and working with that Public Health system. It is very stressed right now. Most states and local governments are collaborating with Health Care Providers including frontline primary care providers. Those organizations are hurting financially under the pandemic. To the extent we can link their payments and support to collaboration with Public Health on implementing Contact Tracing, that will help as well. I think there opportunities for collaboration. Thank you very much. Rep. Clyburn thank you, dr. Mcclellan. , are recognized thank you for inviting me to speak with you today. Covid19 has done great damage to our country both in terms of sickness and lossoflife and terms of terrible economic consequence and job loss. To minimize the risk of covid spread, four condition should be in place. Capacity for hospitals to give all Covid Patients standard of care. Anyone with covid symptoms. Contactsity to isolate and guide them into quar