Good morning. This hearing will come to order. , want to thank eyewitnesses first of all for your service to this nation. On behalf of the committee, if you can thank the men and women who worked with you and apron pretty tremendous effort, trying to deal with an overwhelming situation, as a nation, we need to be grateful for your effort. Had thebly have not days off. I really do appreciate that. Toant to ask for consent have my statement entered into the record. Just a couple of facts. Just to lay out how extraordinary and overwhelming this effort has been. Not thatanuary 21, long ago, we had the first case reported of covid and eight days later on january 29, the administration established the task force. At that time, we only had five cases and zero deaths. Two days later, President Trump announced travel restrictions in china. That was not a popular decision, but it probably saved many lives and but as time to flatten what bought us time. Fema began assisting hhs. 12 cases and zero deaths. I would say that is pretty forwardlooking. Fema already recognizes this will be a real problem. About a month later, march 13, President Trump fema was put in charge of the effort. On march 19, the the president pence led response. 11 days later on march 30, fema announced the Stabilization Task force. Cases. 160,000 i point that out because it is easy to set up here. The easiest thing in the world is to be a monday morning quarterback or armchair quarterback. When i looked through the testimony and i see what has been pushed, in light of how overwhelming the situation was, how this is a brandnew virus it was never on earth. No human had ever experienced it. Have to say, well done. You do an extraordinary job. A bill in 2008. Far from perfect. We did the best we could do. 2, fema has spent money from the Disaster Relief fund. Probably closer to 100,000 employees. 100,000 people involved in this effort. Had a hard time force, assembled in a short period of time. We can talk about this later in terms of the data and charts. Make thatu need to information public. Publishing data that was not quite right, i get that. Types,look at the five it is really vital. Look at that and it is anywhere times the normal demand, as a result. It is pretty evenly matched. We had a requirement for double to triple that amount, overnight. I realized, that is not very easy. What we have been able to do, recognizing so much of the ,quipment is sourced overseas they are out grappling this as well. There was a Global Demand for these supplies. With theare able to do operation, pretty innovative, Rapid Response effort. I will just conclude by asking the questions that i think to be asked. The properk about effortof action is local first, supported by the state and federal government. This was so overwhelming that the government had to take a lead. The questions we need to be asking is about the National Stuff pile. Supply chain vulnerabilities when it comes to medical equipment, ppe and pharmaceutical will. This is going to be more targeted on your response, what we need to be doing to respond to a false surge or a future pandemic. We were not ready. We just were not ready. Blame us all, as a government and a nation, we were not ready for this. We need to be ready in the future. Be . Should those items who should hold them . Should it be at local, state, federal level . Commercial distributors . What should those inventory levels be of those items . Who should hold them . How do we take care of inventory . You cannot just buy in the n95 mass and walkway for 10 years. Maybe we use private sector warehouses. We maintain and in the way. If your standard inventory is one Million Masks, maybe we support 2 million inventory level. To whoys gets down should pay. Will always the case, i continue to the size that is at the local level and when the locals cannot handle it, the state steps in. The federal government has to be ready to support. I think you, the men and women who serve in your agencies. I turn it over to senator peters. You for your service to our country this urgent time of need. We have encountered few, if any challenges of the size and scope of the coronavirus pandemic. Mes we have encountered few if any challenges of the size and scope of the coronavirus pandemic. Addressing this pandemic is clearly a monumental task, and the federal governments failure to adequately prepare and quickly respond to this crisis has led to costly and tragic missteps. We have now lost more than 110,000 americans to this pandemic. Loved ones whose lives will never be replaced. As families across the country grieve these unimaginable losses we must make every effort to examine how we reached this heart breaking point and ensure we are better prepared to protect americans from the challenges of the future including a potential second wave. My home state of michigan has been hit especially hard. Among our states minority communities in particular in cities like detroit. This pandemic has highlighted longstanding disparities and inequities in health. When disasters strike minority communities often suffer the most severe impacts but are among the last to receive assistance. This crisis has served as a chilling reminder that we must do more to protect our most vulnerable in underserved communities going forward. A rigorous examination of the federal governments response will help ensure that successes can be replicated and any shortcomings can be addressed. These efforts are critical to containing this deadly virus and to continuing the safe reopening of our economy. In michigan and across the country americans are eager to get back to work, but Many Industries are still struggling to access the personal Protection Equipment that they need to reopen safely. Americans need these items so that they have the confidence that they are safe when visiting a restaurant or a store. I warned in a 2019 report that we face a Grave NationalSecurity Risk because of our overreliance on foreign manufacturers for medical supplies including those manufactured in china. The pandemic only intensified those vulnerabilities. I heard from those manufacturers in michigan who want to do their part to manufacture these critical supplies. Theres no doubt in my mind this hesitation slowed our response efforts, damaged our economy and cost american lives. I greatly machine the hard work so far to obtain and distribute supplies to those in great need. But as our economy continues to reopen we must double our efforts to secure resources to keep workers and customers safe. Effectively addressing this pandemic will also require widespread testing. But months into the most severe Public Health crisis of our lifetime we still have more questions than answers about our National Testing capability. Every state in the country has encountered challenges securing the resources to test people. Even michigan only has the resource tuesday conduct 15,000 tests per day. Without sufficient testing we cannot fully understand the extent of the catastrophe or take the necessary precautions to protect our communities. Moving forward we must adopt and implement a clear, effective and comprehensive National Testing strategy. These are just a few of the issues that i hope to discuss with you today. The loss and the heart break that we have experienced in this crisis are simply immeasurable and we must do everything in our power to prevent a rueturn to or most difficult days. The hearing is long overdue, but im eager to work with you on this vital mission. And senator peters, it is the tradition we swear in all witnesses so if youll stand and raise your right hand. You may be seated. Our first witness is admiral brett gerar. In his capacity he is the Principal Medical advisor. Prior to joining hhs he served as ceo of virus site, llc and executive Vice President of texas a ms center. Im honored to be here to update you on our nations progress. And to provide details during the pandemic response. On march 12th secretary azar requested i lead including oversight and coordination of the fda and cdc with regard to testing. Since then the nation has performed more than 20 million covid19 e. T. S now paced to perform more than 3 million per week. The nations capability will continue to increase so well have the capacity to perform 40 to 50 million tests per month by september. To meet the complex Health Challenges we implemented a phased approach that will allow the nation to meet the specific testing needs at each stage of the pandemic especially now during reopening when the need for testing is the greatest. In early march hhs and fema developed and implemented 41 Community Based drivethru testing sites in locations prioritized by the cdc in collaboration with state and local partners. These sites have tested over 245,000 high risk individuals and served as prototypes and we leveraged trusted pharmacies to further implement Community Based testing. This federal program is now providing testing at 437 locations in 49 states, and 70 of these locations are in communities with moderate to high social vulnerability by the cdc social Vulnerability Index. This has tested over 560,000 individuals. We authorized all license pharmacists to order and administer covid19 testing under the public readiness and Emergency Preparedness or prep act. Over 90 of americans live within 5 miles of a pharmacy. To meet the truly unprecedented demands as the chairman pointed out for reagents and platforms we secured the Global Supply chain through a military air bridge. We worked directly with manufactures to increase production. We collaborated with the private sector and the fda to validate multiple technologies that expanded existing Testing Capacity while minimizing the need for ppe. We secured the government secured and prioritized scarce point of care testing assets to supply state Public Health laboratories, the Health Service and other critical needs. Finally we used title 3 of the defense production act to manufacturing and invest in manufacturing. These and other efforts culminated in the current partnerships to support state reopens and provide any warning of any new outbreaks. Today we are working with states, territories and tribal communities to support their testing plans and goals that are evidence based and adaptable. Before this experience i only knew of fema as the agency that quite literally rescued my familys future after hurricanes and flooding in louisiana. Now i have even more respect for the agency and especially for the people who make it great. Hhs has integrated seamlessly into the fema process working closely with all our federal, state and local partners truly on a daily basis. The National ResponseCoordination Center has provided invaluable and unparalleled infrastructure, communications, process methodology and personnel of which to build an integrated response. The scale of which has been unequal in modern history. I am a member of the unified coordinating group, the ucg led by administrator gainer. It meet daily and ensures all levels of government Work Together in response to covid19. My primary role in the ucg is advise on and operationallize and help prioritize deployment of the u. S. Public Health Service dmicommission corp, the uniform service i lead. In this regard i will close in ri recognizing and expressing my heartfelt gratitude. 4,329 men and women were deployed to spore this response. To our Community Based testing sites and International Airports to fema and our task forces, to nursing facilities and to field hospitals in hard hit communities across our nation. I thank each and every one of these officers and their families, and on their behalf thank all of you in congress for supporting our Training Needs and the establishment of a Ready Reserve to supplement or ranks during inevitable future national emergencies. Thank you for the opportunity to provide these remarks. Thank you, admiral. Our next witness is mr. Pete gainer. He currently serves as the administrator of fema. In his capacity as administrator hes a principal advisor to the president , Homeland Security counsel and secretary of Homeland Security for all matters related to emergency management. He has over a decade of experience in emergency management. Prior to his experience as emergency manager he served 26 years in the United States marine corp. I am the fema administrator. Thank you for this opportunity. On behalf of the men and women of fema i would like to begin today by acknowledging and offering condolences to the loved ones of exactly 110,949 americans who have lost their lives to covid19. One life lost is one life too many and our hearts go out to all those who have been affected by the pandemic. This has been a trying time for our country and fema has been working around the clock to help our nation respond to his unprecedented global pandemic. As the fema administrator its been an hawn door work along side the dedicated men and women of fema. I want to acknowledge our many partners for their commitment to the nation. This response continues to be one locally executed, state managed and federally supported. When President Trump made the unprecedented decision to declare a nationwide emergency on march 13th the entire team has worked tear lassly. For the first time in American History we have a major disaster declaration in every state, territory, the District Of Columbia and one tribe concurrently. Today fema is responding to 104 active disasters. The magnitude of this pandemic has required us to reexamine our past practices, keep the risk to our staff as low as possible while refusing to fail in meeting our mission. Covid 189 has been a Global Crisis with most countries competing where for the exact same medical supplies. Every government across the nation has been competing for the same resources such as ppe. To complicate matters furthermost ppe is made in asia where the virus significantly slowed manufacturing. During Natural Disasters fema typically managed abundant disasters that are limited in Geographic Scope and impact. In response to covid19 fema has had a much different and difficult task in managing the lack of critical medical supplies and equipment. Rather than managing resources we are managing shortages. We have worked tirelessly to find medical supplies and equipment across the globe and rapidly move them to america. We quickly prioritize resources to ensure locations with the highest risk of covid19 and deaths will not be in danger of running out of supplies and lifesaving equipment. Using the hhs Strategic National stockpile early on it quickly became clear the scope and scale of this pandemic went far beyond what the stockpile was prepared for. To address these widespread shortages supply chain Stabilization Task force was swiftly created by fema and federal partners. And in less than ten days we created an air bridge with a goal of providing temporary relief and stabilizing supply chains. This air bridge cut International Shipments from 37 days on a ship to just one day by air. Since march 29th we have completed over 200 flights carrying lifesaving supply tuesday the american public. In addition to expediting supplies into the United States the federal response focuses on stabilizing the lives of americans in many impactful ways. Id like to provide you with a few pacts fat illustrate femas commitment and speed of delivery to the covid19 mission. Since march 13th we have provided 6. 8 billion in obligations to states for covid19 related activities with the first 1 billion obligated in just 11 days. 27 million in commodities including emergency food, 17 million in crisis counseling. Over 1 billion each to the states of new york and california. 1. 4 billion in support of the national guard, title 32. Medical professionals afloat and ashore providing critical medical support to numerous hospitals under stress and supporting the testing blueprint, the procurement and delivery of 13 million swabs and just one month. The procurement of 16,000 new ventilators with the goal of 110,000 ventilators through Mission Assignments through the u. S. Army corps of engineers deployed 31 federal medical stations. And finally conducted nearly 500 engagement with congress, governors, mayors and tribal leaders. While we continue to respond to covid19 we recognize the risk for future outbreaks exist and we want to ensure were all using available resources to address these critical shortfalls. To do so were utilizing the defense production act to ensure our nations future preparedness is not overly reliant on foreign producers. This will allow to pivot. At part of this pivot fema recently released planning guidelines for the 2020 Hurricane Season to help officials prepare for disasters in the context of a pandemic. We will do so with our core values of compassion, fairness, integrity and respect. This historic response and preparations for the future will continue to require a whole of america effort and fema looks forward to coordinate closely with congr