Country. This is throw to an hour. This is close to an hour. Thank you for joining this update on operation warp speed. Because of president trumps founding and leadership of operation warp speed, even as we face daunting epidemiological trends across the country, we have reasons for optimism. With mondays announcement from the monitoring board for moderna candidate vaccine and showed 95 efficacy, we have two safe vaccines that could be authorized by the food and Drug Administration to be distributed within weeks. Efficacy, we have two safe vaccines that could be authorized by the food and Drug Administration to be distributed within weeks. Operation warp speed has vaccine in a fe number of ways. Operation warp speed has delivered a safe vaccine in a number of ways. And ensure there are no delays in vaccine production. Because of this work, by the end of december, we expect to have 40 million doses of these two Vaccines Available for distribution pending f. D. A. Distribution and going to our most vulnerable americans. We have been laying the groundwork in administration for months. There are four major caps to get the manufactured product to americans safely in order to save lives. Allocation, distribution, administration and ongoing monitoring and data work. We have led the groundwork for these and paid for the vaccines and worked to ensure that the Administration Costs will be covered by private insurers and the federal government through medicare and medicaid for the uninsured american. We procured supplies like needles and personal protective equipment and assembled into kits that we will pair up with Vaccine Supplies as they are distributed. This overall task is a partnership between the federal government including operation warp speed and the cdc and the 64 state, local and Public Health jurisdictions cdc works with on public immunization programs. For allocation, the cdc is highly respected long Standing Advisory Committee on immunization practices will make recommendations to the director about how to prioritize populations for distribution of initially scarce vaccine and will be allocating vaccines to jurisdictions on a proratea opulation basis. We procured ancillary supplies like needles and personal protective equipment and assembled them in kits that will pair up with Vaccine Supplies as distributed. This overall task is a partnership between the federal government including operation warp speed and the c. D. C. And the 64 state, local and territorial Public Health jurisdictions they work with on public immunization programs. For allocation the c. D. C. LongStanding Advisory Committee on immunization practices will make recommendations to the c. D. C. Director about how to prioritize distribution of initially scares vaccine and then be allocating vaccine to jurisdictions on a pro rata population basis. En the federall have a contract one of the worlds leading distributors of pharmaceutical products to ship the product from manufacturing sites to where the jurisdictions decides where it needs to go. We have been working closely where it needs to be shipped and administered and submitted to c. D. C. To review. We have done a great deal of work to support jurisdictions this these efforts. Last week, we reached agreements to allow administration by pharmacy chains to cover more han 60 of the pharmacy. States can have the products shipped to these for administration. They live within five miles so vaccinations is easy access once they are approved to the general public. Using Pharmacy Networks beyond tand alone pharmacists and technicians provide vaccinations nd get a covid19 vaccine as convenient. This complements the agreements with walgreens to offer them in Nursing Homes which presents special challenges. We have seen tremendous uptake of that option already. 99 of Skilled Nursing facilities have signed up and 100 of facilities in 20 states have signed up. Finally, while any vaccine distributed will have gone through months of safety testing, we are working with jurisdictions to ensure they are enrolled in the Information Technology infrastructure that we need to monitor for any potential safety issues. As i said, we have reasons for optimism. Thanks to the incredible Public Servants working on operation warp speed and elsewhere at h. H. S. , and thanks to president trumps unwavering support of operation warp speed we have a Bright Future ahead of us. We have good news on vaccines. We face daunting trends in the virus. Right now is not the time for anyone to let their guard down. We continue to encourage americans to follow the three ws, wash your hands, watch your distance, wear your Face Coverings and avoid settings where you cant do those settings. As we look to thanks giving, i ask you to look at the state and local governments about how gatherings can be made as safe as possible. The safest way to celebrate thanksgiving is at home with the people you live with and through virtual and gathering is a higher risk activity. Please know there is light at the end of the tunnel and because of the sacrifices and the hard work so many have done, we will celebrate with family and friends not so far in the future. I want to hand things over to the doctor to discuss more about the Vaccine Development and production and then to the general to discuss in much more detail the distribution plans as they stand now. We anticipate having regular briefings of this kind for the media to ensure that you have full visibility into our vaccine and therapeutic programs as well as our distribution planning in cooperation with the states. Able to be so far along. How did this affect you. What we have done is to leverage the decades of discovery and research that was done in identifying and optimizing like cassette players. Or make vaccines against different viruses and cassette players to put in them the covid19 information and played that music as well as people ever hoped, both in terms of their performance and in terms of their capacity to manufacture at large scale. And took financial rsks in large Clinical Trials before we know whether these vaccines would be effective or not. The trials are about two, three, four times larminger than what is required. And we were able to accrue cases faster by having more people into the trial. But the other reason we have done that by running larger rials, we are able to document higher confidence in their confidence. Here we are a few months, seven, eight months with two vaccines that have achieved 95 . They will be be filing. And if approved we have already started to stockpile that same dose as the secretary has said to the tune of about 40 million by the end of the month of december and equivalent on the monthly basis Going Forward to start immunizing the u. S. Population that need the vaccine. Now, let me say a few words about the safety of these vaccines. We run larger trials than required and we have a pretty good understanding and description of what i would call the shortterm safety of these vaccines during the period of their clinical assessment. This period is shorter than usual, which what he are doing. We analyze the f. D. A. Over the last four decades. When, in time, these vaccines appear and there are tens and tens of vaccines that have been developed and receive over 90 of those side effects occur within the 40 days after completing the immunization schedule. The f. D. A. Said we have to have of the 60 days on 50 population in the Clinical Trials before we can consider approving these vaccines. We cover the overwhelming majority of potential side effects where we understand the performance of the vaccine from that standpoint already now. Secondly, we are working with the f. D. A. And c. D. C. To set up together a very, very High Performance that are resembles to the day the assessment that we do in Clinical Trials to look at the safety of the trials in the population as the am immunizations rolled out if the vaccines are approved and on a daily basis and as soon as signals will appear. And it is important that we were able to accelerate the vaccine to the extent we have done. S you know we have 150,000 people infected and thousands of people dying every day and waiting two or four more months and the hundreds and thousands of more deaths the harm to the population that no vaccine would even approach in decades or centuries. We we believe the vaccines will ve the effsi and we look forward to the receive views with the receive views and potentially approve these vaccines and [indiscernible] would recommend immunization. And then we look forward to the next two vaccines that will be giving us data in weeks to come, early january for one of them and for the other, it could be this the next few weeks if data f trial is for the u. S. Or later. Thank you very much. And i pass now to the coleader with me. Mr. Secretary and doctor, my coleader, thank you for this opportunity to focus on distribution. So, first, i will say this is a large task, but its a task that we are up for and we shall going to take a whole of america approach and why we will be able to do this and working on this six months. Since the announcement on may 15, we started planning accordingly and it is the foundation of our planning started with the great experts at the c. D. C. And extended to the injured of planners so we have a great collaborative plan on how to execute this together and as the secretary talked bout earlier, we have im plemented several mechanisms to allow other organizations inside of america to unable execution one ot one source or organization will be responsible but its the collective group of us that will make this successful. Distribution of the vaccine will be based on fair and equitable of the population. Population of the state against available vaccine will be distributed to each state. We are excuse me, we have been working, these numbers with the states for a little while and every week that goes by, we are able to create a tighter shot group of the actual numbers and the allocations thabe available to each state as we get going. Distribution will be by jurisdiction, as i talked about i use jurisdiction in states. Sometimes inappropriately. Let me define jurisdiction, 64 of them. 50 states, eighth territories and six metropolitan cities equal the 64. We are doing extensive planning with each of these organizations so we implement their plan. So they will figure out where we want the vaccine to be distributed to and add minimum terd and where the vaccine will be distributed accordingly. We will emphasize following f. D. A. Guidelines, the governors and the states will figure out the plan and we are ready to execute in collaboration with their plan as we have been working on for six months, doing numerous tabletop exercises and rehearsals to move the product to Distribution Centers to Actual Administration sites. We are making sure, as i said, it is a wheel of america approach. Clearly here in health and human services, the c. D. C. , our experts know how to distribute ack convenience as they do every very or the influensa and talented group of people who know all the technical as pebts and requirements to make sure that the vaccine once we have it filled finished, we can distribute in a safe and effective way. The second step is 100 collaboration with the jurisdictions making thur that we are integrated and ready to implement their plan for the way they want to skite immunization down at the sites as they define it and ready to do it because we have been working together for a while. C. D. C. Had jurisdictions filling out the playbook and collaborating and working the plan to make sure that every detail is covered. Second, we are working with commercial industry, the experts in this field, those that know how to produce, store, distribute and administer the vaccine accordingly. They do this every day. This is the United States of america. This is not new to us. So organizations starting with pfizer and moderna, who know how finish and begin distribution of the vaccine, its their core competency and working with a large, very large Distribution Company that knows how to distribute vaccine throughout the entire country and ill talk about that in a minute. As the secretary mentioned, we have collaborated with phrma such as c. V. S. And walgreens and we have laid out plans and coordinated memoranda of agreements to make sure we are executing in the right way in accord answer with the right plans. We are bringing this whole of america approach from government to industry and make sure that afe and secure vaccines. The Time Associated with delivery. We will begin distribution of the vaccine within 24 hours after emergency use authorization is approved. And only after the science has determined and approved it accordingly, then we are poised and ready to begin distribution. Distribution will occur from our finished sites and go to 64 jurisdictions that we are responsible to make sure they get vaccines within 24 hours. So every jurisdiction will have access immediately. Upon the initial push of vaccine which is the quantity of vaccines that are Available Upon the emergency use authorization, then we will begin a weekly delivery of vaccine. As it comes off the shelf and becomes available for distribution, we will distribute it to the 64 jurisdictions. So, initial push and then continuous cadens of vaccine to make sure we rapidly expand availability to the entire country at the same time. We are working with jurisdictions to do several things that we need to make sure that we get done as we get closer to final approval at the e. U. A. By the f. D. A. Three things we are working with the jurisdictions we need to have. First, we must have jurisdictions create good solid expansive provider enrollment. As mr organizations as they want, need to be enrolled so we can expand distribution rapidly to the quantities of vaccine that is available. Only to providers that are enrolled can we distribute to, so they can limit it to a certain amount or expand it so we are covering the entire country as the secretary alluded to. Very key point. We have made significant progress in this area. We are just counting the inches of enrollments that we have to get done as we get closer and closer. Second, we must have the states go through and sign their data use agreements. This is incredibly important for the new vaccine going out to the American People. First, we must be able to see ho got the first dose and what vaccine. Why . We must ensure to do the same for the second dose. The second thing and really important is we want to make sure that we have a good, consistent flow of vaccine out to the American People. So our ability to track the uptake and the Actual Administration shot in the arm is essential to us making sure we deliver a vaccine on a continuous basis. So really important. The third thing that i would the jurisdictions working on, the rehearsals in the execution of their plan. We conduct table top levels. All of government and industry and jurisdictions participate. But then we are expanding it now o actual execution down to the tactical levels. How do we work distribution of vaccine through the c. V. S. , wall green, at the hospital. How does it get received, unloaded, stored and administered is the rehearsals we are working. I continually talk about this. It is a great mechanism to check and doublecheck to make sure everything is in place. What we are doing to make sure that we are ready this level working in details the last several months, two things we must have. One, upon emergency use authorization, all of america must receive a vaccine within 24 hours. This is important. Tear and equitable distribution of the vaccine throughout the country at the same time. It is an equitable distribution and we are driving hard to make sure that happens. The second thing we want to do is make sure that the cadens of deliver is route teen that ates can plan for it and account and develop execution so that the population is well informed and that they know where to get the vaccine and when to get the vaccine and until those two points we are driving home as key essential tasks at our level. So, mr. Secretary, thank you. And i pause. Secretary azar as i get ready for questions. I express my deep appreciation to the doctor and the general. When i created operation warp speed, i called around to people in the industry and everybody said the person that you need leading this is the doctor, the worlds leading vaccine developer with the greatest track record of tg delivering results and has proven that. I met with the chairman of the joint chiefs and immediately said the person you need leading this effort is the general. Nd the American People owe a deep gratitude as well as the hundreds of people on their teams who are delivering the kinds of results that we have seen in the last week. Well turn now to questions. Thank you, operator. We can now open it up for questions. If zachary brennan, you can state your outlet. Reporter i am with politico. Im curious if someone could talk about plans for vaccine waste . Forou are trying to provide for thethe plan remaining doses that might be left over after delivery . Sec. Azar let me ask general perna. Have been working hard with the jurisdictions to make sure that the plan provides details to that end. You mentioned that pfizer comes in a package of 975 doses per tray. Modernity comes in at 100 doses per trade. That is only a constraint because of what we have to do to maintain it at a right temperature for stability. You can break down both vaccines. You can pull out quantities of what you want to execute and normalthem from 28, refrigeration and execute them within five days. That is the key. , the the planning specified execution that we are counting on. These states have been working this. One of the reasons that we asked and brought walgreens and cvs in is