Transcripts For CSPAN2 Dr. Fauci On Coronavirus Pandemic A

Ebola, sica, and now covid19. He is the winner of the president ial medal of freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States. We are grateful for his lifetime of Public Service and particularly for his candor and expertise during this critical time. Let me ask you for a broad overview of the pandemic, where are we now . We are in a difficult situation. We have a large outbreak, there have been close to 140,000 deaths and several million infections. That is sobering news. We have some bright spots, areas of the country like the new york metropolitan area which has been through a difficult time, probably worse than any other regional area but turned it around and come down but as we see now if you follow the news carefully which is pretty obvious that there are sections of the country, particularly a group of Southern States particularly california, florida, texas and arizona and others that are seeing a resurgence where we are seeing where we had a baseline of 20,000 cases a day has gone up to 30, 40, 50, 60 and even 70 on the last count so we have to do something about that, something we need to address. It is a significant issue. This is something weve got to be able to suppress. We want to ultimately, and as soon as we possibly can and as safely as we possibly can reopen the country, get it back to some stepbystep direction towards normality and the way you do that is by careful process of opening up under certain guidelines weve put out from the White House Task force. Those are the things we want to get back in step. The time has come to take a look at what is going on and intensify the things we do to prevent a resurgence that we are seeing. What does the fall look like . Difficult to predict. One of the things about this virus, in certain areas it has been unpredictable, certain things, it will continue to spread through the population. Is the virus changing . I dont want to get too technical but this is an rna virus and they mutate, thats part of their Natural Evolution in their replication cycle. Have they mutated so much as to change substantially . There has been a recent study that has not necessarily been applied to people that has been shown in a situation where you look at the evolution and mutation, i dont think we can say anything about that from a practical standpoint until we get more data. Bottom line answer, there isnt anything different about this virus that gives us further insight to what happens in the fall. We should put aside thinking of the fall, people talk about the possibility of a second wave in the fall, that is a historic terminology related to another time and another outbreak. We need to concentrate on where we are right now. If you talk about waves we recently still in the first wave. When you are having up to 70,000 new infections in certain areas of the country, that is something you need to focus on right now as opposed to looking ahead to what will happen in september or october. Host we have questions from the audience on video. The first in arizona. Caller good morning. Im the president and ceo of the chamber of commerce and my question is did things open up too earlier was it the way we reopened that result in the current spike in cases . Guest that is a good question and it is a mixed bag. Im not going to name any individual states but if you look at the criteria for the stepwise fashion of socalled reopening we put out guidelines from the Coronavirus Task force that had what is called a gateway, a rake criteria for the lessening of the number of cases over a certain number of days. If you pass that gateway you would go to phase i and if you were there at a certain amount of time in the cases were steady and going down you could go to phase 2 and phase 3. When you look at that, clearly there are some states that skipped over one or more of what you call benchmarks or checkpoints. That could have been one of the issues that led to the surge. The states and cities essentially, officially did it perfectly correctly, but the citizenry, the people themselves did not abide by what those recommendations were and that is what we have seen so dramatically with film clips we have seen on tv of people congregating in bars without masks or in crowded places without masks, be it beaches, boardwalks or whatever and that almost certainly has led at least in part, is a partial explanation to the kinds of resurgence as we have seen. It is a mixed bag, doing a bit too quickly on the part of some and trying to do it correctly but people did not cooperate on the part of other locations. Host we have talked a lot about testing. Getting testing under control. Is it hard for the United States to get effective testing . Guest we got off to a slow start with regard to testing for a number of reasons that have been very much dissected, considerably, so we need not now go back now but things in regard to testing are better than they were before and if you look at the number of tests that have been done in the projection over the next month or two of the number of tests we can be able to do i believe you will start to see and hopefully we will see a change for the better in the availability of the tests, when you get the results back more quickly, in some cases we got them back, all of those things can certainly use a degree of improvement but they are much better now than they were in the past. Host the us chamber represents businesses of every size, every sector, every Community Across the country. One thing we hear a lot from Business Leaders and Community Leaders is which data should we be watching . How do we know what is actionable . Where do we look for information . What would you advise Business Leaders . The cdc forever has been the lead agency in surveillance and response outbreaks and you can get on a daily basis and even some real time information not only about the extent and the location and the dynamics of the outbreak on the country at a whole but you can get it city by city and state by state. I would point you to the cdc website for information that would be valuable to you. Other websites, others have similar information, Johns Hopkins website has one. There are other websites but i recommend for the purposes you are asking that you stick with the cdc. Host the idea of advising people in their communities leads to the next audience question from california. Caller my name is kirk rothberg and my question, what is the best advice i can give to my staff who are fearful . Guest that is a very commonly asked question. You are in california. California is responding now. I have been in contact multiple times with your governor and mayors in california. The thing you do is take a look at the state in which your particular location is. Are you in gateway, phase i or phase ii . And follow the guidelines that are clearly delineated. All you need to do go to coronavirus. Gov and youll see guidelines for opening america. Having looked at them the minimal thing you should do is the kinds of things we have been talking about constantly. Wearing a mask, maintaining 6 feet of distance, avoiding crowds, washing your hands as much as you can with soap and water, with the kinds of substances that are around, those are the fundamental things you need to do. If youre in a bakery, you have to be physically closer, something everyone should do. You should ask it of your customers. Host france just mandated masks in all public places. Is that something we need local and state governments to do here . Guest now. I think it will be as we all know our society from the beginning of the Founding Fathers to a society in which the states have certain prerogatives, powers and responsibilities. I can say as a Public Health official that i would urge the leaders, local, political and other leaders in states and cities and towns to be as forceful as possible in getting your citizenry to wear masks. Masks are important. Physical distancing is the most important. Practically, when you are living your life and trying to open the country, you will come into contact with people and for that reason we know masks are really important and we should be using them everywhere. Guest that leads to a question from this member of michigan. Caller my name is michelle with the Lansing Regional Chamber of commerce in lansing, michigan. Thank you for joining us. My question is around masks and businesses, businesses are in the unfortunate position of being the mask police. They are anxious for the revenue but desperate to stay healthy and open and have to confront patrons who are not Wearing Masks. This has led to uncomfortable and even dangerous encounters was what advice would you have for Business Owners, to address the situation. To drive home the critical importance of wearing the mask . Guest the answer to the second part of your question, probably the answer to the first part. I am totally aware because ive spoken in the same situation, it gets difficult that people dont want to cooperate and you dont want a hostile environment in your business for obvious reasons but on the other hand you want to maintain the highest levels of safety. I will mention it briefly now in every opportunity that i can to get people to appreciate, an individual to protect yourself. Even if youre a young person and have a higher chance of not having a serious outcome. By getting infected, even if you dont get symptoms, even though deep down you want to open up the country and get back to normal, by getting infected, youre propagating the process of the pandemic and slowing down the process of opening up. Even though you think it only involves you in a vacuum it doesnt. If you get infected the chances are youre going to infect someone else and the chances that person will infect someone else in sooner or later probably sooner, youre going to infect someone who is a Vulnerable Person who could get seriously ill. That could be somebodys grandmother, grandfather, father, child on chemotherapy, from leukemia, a woman getting radiation, all of the kinds of people that are at higher risk of serious outcomes. In societal responsibility so it isnt just i dont want to wear a mask but i go into your place to buy a loaf of bread or whatever it is you are going to buy because i dont want anybody telling me what to do. This country from the very birth of the country, this is really different, this is everybody pulling together in a serious situation. If we can get more people to understand that, hopefully we will get more people willing to wear masks. Host speaking of being a good public citizen, a number of Chamber Leaders and Business Leaders play other roles in their community, volunteers, a number of them are being called on by their local School Boards and local government officials to grapple with how and when to open schools, speaking to thought leaders and communities across the country how should they be participating in that conversation and what factors should they be considering . Guest and important point you bring up because this is obviously being discussed intensively as we get into the summer and prepare for the end of summer and early fall particularly when children in lower, intermediate and high school are going back to high school, those going into lower or Elementary Schools as we used to call it. My advice is we need to take a look, go to 40,000 feet and look at the big picture. If you look at things that come out from the American Academy of pediatrics, if you look at the wellknown, downstream, unintended consequences that are Ripple Effect of keeping children out of school, namely the impact on the kids themselves, the impact logistically on the parents because of the fact that it impact their ability to go to work that the default position should always be we need to do the best we possibly can within the framework of safety, the best we possibly can to have our default position to get the children back to school. Having said that, living in a big country that is geographically and demographically diverse, we are not unidimensional. There are parts of the country where the level of virus activity is so low you dont have to modify anything at all, just send the children back to school but clearly if you look at what is going on right now, parts of the country have a significant degree of viral activity that make you want to pause and if we are going to bring the children back to school, make sure paramount safety for the children and safety for the teachers so we may want to modify logistically or otherwise what we do, separate the death by certain amount, Wearing Masks for children within any group in which masks are at least feasible, perhaps rotating the kind of schedule, morning, afternoon, every other day, always thinking we will do whatever we can to get the schools open and children back to school but always remember safety and the health of the children and teachers comes first. If we keep that in mind, we will go a long way to getting the schools open safely. Host our interns have Serious Problems and we have an intern who asks our schools ever going to go back to the way they were . Guest the answer to that is yes. We are going to get over this, we will get over this difficult period. For the last 5 and a half, 6 months and sometimes you get so exasperated and run down by it that you think it will never it will end through Public Health measures and science will come to our rescue hopefully sooner rather than later, we will go as fast as we can with development of therapeutics, development of a vaccine, we have favorable results in early studies of vaccines. One will be going into an advanced phase 3 trial at the end of july and other candidates entering advanced Clinical Trials as we get into midsummer, late summer and early fall. We feel cautiously optimistic that we are on the road, as bleak as it may sound that we are on the road of getting this under control. You can tell youre in turn we will get back to normal and we will ultimately get back to normal with every aspect of our lives. Makes us more serious, washing our hands and this is a normal on the other side and the sooner we can interact appropriately the better. Let me ask about another optimistic notes. You hear how the virus has impacted business but it is also true business has impacted virus, you talk about vaccines and therapeutics and other things but talk about the role of the private sector in fighting this pandemic. Guest the role of the private sector is paramount. The federal government, academia is part of the private sector. Pharmaceutical companies are part of the private sector so every single candidate, therapeutic, diagnostic, and vaccine we are dealing with in trying to develop has a major influence from the private sector. There is no way government alone, federal, state or local government is going to fix this. It is a marriage and a collaboration between government authorities and the private sector. It has always been that way and i believe it always will be that way. The answer to your question is absolutely the private sector plays a major role. Host how these publicprivate partnerships across a lot of societys challenges, speaking of other partnerships we have another question from the audience from another sector, you mentioned academia, a question from enid kramer at john hopkins. Caller good morning, i am Deputy Director of institute of private studies. My question is how can the Business Community achieve Public Health communities in improving the infrastructure needs . Guest you make a good point, that you would do that. I will put in a plug that i hope everybody will appreciate, one of the most important aspects of responding to an outbreak, Healthcare Infrastructure locally and Public Health infrastructure locally. It becomes difficult to adequately respond, including things like identification, isolation, contact tracing. If you do not have adequate local health infrastructure, manpower and capability. Unfortunately in some respects, historically we have been the victims of our own success because we have done so well in obtaining, controlling and even eliminating some of the deep killers and neighbors and diseases that cause a great degree of morbidity over decades and decades that we have declared our success too prematurely and left local Public Health capability dwindled a bit so that is something we need to build up but we need to remember in the future that if we want to respond adequately to an outbreak, we want to make sure local Public Health apparatus is very much intact and vital and ready to respond. Host i have 12 questions, try to limit it to one at a time. You mention the importance of the local infrastructure and the mystic infrastructure, International Structure of the World Health Organization and why it is important the United States has a connection with local health organizations. Can you explain that . Guest if you look at the latin derived meaning of pandemic it is pan meaning all. When you are dealing with an Infectious Disease, this is a global issue by definition. There are very few, ebola may be one of them where you have an Infectious Disease that by the nature of the disease itself is combined geographically. When you have a respiratory illness which most pandemics are, influenza, covid19, respiratory illnesses you are by definition global. In the twentieth century, 21stcentury where we are, where we in fact wind up being able to travel from one part of the globe around the world, you have to look at the United States<\/a>. We are grateful for his lifetime of Public Service<\/a> and particularly for his candor and expertise during this critical time. Let me ask you for a broad overview of the pandemic, where are we now . We are in a difficult situation. We have a large outbreak, there have been close to 140,000 deaths and several million infections. That is sobering news. We have some bright spots, areas of the country like the new york metropolitan area which has been through a difficult time, probably worse than any other regional area but turned it around and come down but as we see now if you follow the news carefully which is pretty obvious that there are sections of the country, particularly a group of Southern States<\/a> particularly california, florida, texas and arizona and others that are seeing a resurgence where we are seeing where we had a baseline of 20,000 cases a day has gone up to 30, 40, 50, 60 and even 70 on the last count so we have to do something about that, something we need to address. It is a significant issue. This is something weve got to be able to suppress. We want to ultimately, and as soon as we possibly can and as safely as we possibly can reopen the country, get it back to some stepbystep direction towards normality and the way you do that is by careful process of opening up under certain guidelines weve put out from the White House Task<\/a> force. Those are the things we want to get back in step. The time has come to take a look at what is going on and intensify the things we do to prevent a resurgence that we are seeing. What does the fall look like . Difficult to predict. One of the things about this virus, in certain areas it has been unpredictable, certain things, it will continue to spread through the population. Is the virus changing . I dont want to get too technical but this is an rna virus and they mutate, thats part of their Natural Evolution<\/a> in their replication cycle. Have they mutated so much as to change substantially . There has been a recent study that has not necessarily been applied to people that has been shown in a situation where you look at the evolution and mutation, i dont think we can say anything about that from a practical standpoint until we get more data. Bottom line answer, there isnt anything different about this virus that gives us further insight to what happens in the fall. We should put aside thinking of the fall, people talk about the possibility of a second wave in the fall, that is a historic terminology related to another time and another outbreak. We need to concentrate on where we are right now. If you talk about waves we recently still in the first wave. When you are having up to 70,000 new infections in certain areas of the country, that is something you need to focus on right now as opposed to looking ahead to what will happen in september or october. Host we have questions from the audience on video. The first in arizona. Caller good morning. Im the president and ceo of the chamber of commerce and my question is did things open up too earlier was it the way we reopened that result in the current spike in cases . Guest that is a good question and it is a mixed bag. Im not going to name any individual states but if you look at the criteria for the stepwise fashion of socalled reopening we put out guidelines from the Coronavirus Task<\/a> force that had what is called a gateway, a rake criteria for the lessening of the number of cases over a certain number of days. If you pass that gateway you would go to phase i and if you were there at a certain amount of time in the cases were steady and going down you could go to phase 2 and phase 3. When you look at that, clearly there are some states that skipped over one or more of what you call benchmarks or checkpoints. That could have been one of the issues that led to the surge. The states and cities essentially, officially did it perfectly correctly, but the citizenry, the people themselves did not abide by what those recommendations were and that is what we have seen so dramatically with film clips we have seen on tv of people congregating in bars without masks or in crowded places without masks, be it beaches, boardwalks or whatever and that almost certainly has led at least in part, is a partial explanation to the kinds of resurgence as we have seen. It is a mixed bag, doing a bit too quickly on the part of some and trying to do it correctly but people did not cooperate on the part of other locations. Host we have talked a lot about testing. Getting testing under control. Is it hard for the United States<\/a> to get effective testing . Guest we got off to a slow start with regard to testing for a number of reasons that have been very much dissected, considerably, so we need not now go back now but things in regard to testing are better than they were before and if you look at the number of tests that have been done in the projection over the next month or two of the number of tests we can be able to do i believe you will start to see and hopefully we will see a change for the better in the availability of the tests, when you get the results back more quickly, in some cases we got them back, all of those things can certainly use a degree of improvement but they are much better now than they were in the past. Host the us chamber represents businesses of every size, every sector, every Community Across<\/a> the country. One thing we hear a lot from Business Leaders<\/a> and Community Leaders<\/a> is which data should we be watching . How do we know what is actionable . Where do we look for information . What would you advise Business Leaders<\/a> . The cdc forever has been the lead agency in surveillance and response outbreaks and you can get on a daily basis and even some real time information not only about the extent and the location and the dynamics of the outbreak on the country at a whole but you can get it city by city and state by state. I would point you to the cdc website for information that would be valuable to you. Other websites, others have similar information, Johns Hopkins<\/a> website has one. There are other websites but i recommend for the purposes you are asking that you stick with the cdc. Host the idea of advising people in their communities leads to the next audience question from california. Caller my name is kirk rothberg and my question, what is the best advice i can give to my staff who are fearful . Guest that is a very commonly asked question. You are in california. California is responding now. I have been in contact multiple times with your governor and mayors in california. The thing you do is take a look at the state in which your particular location is. Are you in gateway, phase i or phase ii . And follow the guidelines that are clearly delineated. All you need to do go to coronavirus. Gov and youll see guidelines for opening america. Having looked at them the minimal thing you should do is the kinds of things we have been talking about constantly. Wearing a mask, maintaining 6 feet of distance, avoiding crowds, washing your hands as much as you can with soap and water, with the kinds of substances that are around, those are the fundamental things you need to do. If youre in a bakery, you have to be physically closer, something everyone should do. You should ask it of your customers. Host france just mandated masks in all public places. Is that something we need local and state governments to do here . Guest now. I think it will be as we all know our society from the beginning of the Founding Fathers<\/a> to a society in which the states have certain prerogatives, powers and responsibilities. I can say as a Public Health<\/a> official that i would urge the leaders, local, political and other leaders in states and cities and towns to be as forceful as possible in getting your citizenry to wear masks. Masks are important. Physical distancing is the most important. Practically, when you are living your life and trying to open the country, you will come into contact with people and for that reason we know masks are really important and we should be using them everywhere. Guest that leads to a question from this member of michigan. Caller my name is michelle with the Lansing Regional Chamber<\/a> of commerce in lansing, michigan. Thank you for joining us. My question is around masks and businesses, businesses are in the unfortunate position of being the mask police. They are anxious for the revenue but desperate to stay healthy and open and have to confront patrons who are not Wearing Masks<\/a>. This has led to uncomfortable and even dangerous encounters was what advice would you have for Business Owner<\/a>s, to address the situation. To drive home the critical importance of wearing the mask . Guest the answer to the second part of your question, probably the answer to the first part. I am totally aware because ive spoken in the same situation, it gets difficult that people dont want to cooperate and you dont want a hostile environment in your business for obvious reasons but on the other hand you want to maintain the highest levels of safety. I will mention it briefly now in every opportunity that i can to get people to appreciate, an individual to protect yourself. Even if youre a young person and have a higher chance of not having a serious outcome. By getting infected, even if you dont get symptoms, even though deep down you want to open up the country and get back to normal, by getting infected, youre propagating the process of the pandemic and slowing down the process of opening up. Even though you think it only involves you in a vacuum it doesnt. If you get infected the chances are youre going to infect someone else and the chances that person will infect someone else in sooner or later probably sooner, youre going to infect someone who is a Vulnerable Person<\/a> who could get seriously ill. That could be somebodys grandmother, grandfather, father, child on chemotherapy, from leukemia, a woman getting radiation, all of the kinds of people that are at higher risk of serious outcomes. In societal responsibility so it isnt just i dont want to wear a mask but i go into your place to buy a loaf of bread or whatever it is you are going to buy because i dont want anybody telling me what to do. This country from the very birth of the country, this is really different, this is everybody pulling together in a serious situation. If we can get more people to understand that, hopefully we will get more people willing to wear masks. Host speaking of being a good public citizen, a number of Chamber Leaders<\/a> and Business Leaders<\/a> play other roles in their community, volunteers, a number of them are being called on by their local School Boards<\/a> and local government officials to grapple with how and when to open schools, speaking to thought leaders and communities across the country how should they be participating in that conversation and what factors should they be considering . Guest and important point you bring up because this is obviously being discussed intensively as we get into the summer and prepare for the end of summer and early fall particularly when children in lower, intermediate and high school are going back to high school, those going into lower or Elementary Schools<\/a> as we used to call it. My advice is we need to take a look, go to 40,000 feet and look at the big picture. If you look at things that come out from the American Academy<\/a> of pediatrics, if you look at the wellknown, downstream, unintended consequences that are Ripple Effect<\/a> of keeping children out of school, namely the impact on the kids themselves, the impact logistically on the parents because of the fact that it impact their ability to go to work that the default position should always be we need to do the best we possibly can within the framework of safety, the best we possibly can to have our default position to get the children back to school. Having said that, living in a big country that is geographically and demographically diverse, we are not unidimensional. There are parts of the country where the level of virus activity is so low you dont have to modify anything at all, just send the children back to school but clearly if you look at what is going on right now, parts of the country have a significant degree of viral activity that make you want to pause and if we are going to bring the children back to school, make sure paramount safety for the children and safety for the teachers so we may want to modify logistically or otherwise what we do, separate the death by certain amount, Wearing Masks<\/a> for children within any group in which masks are at least feasible, perhaps rotating the kind of schedule, morning, afternoon, every other day, always thinking we will do whatever we can to get the schools open and children back to school but always remember safety and the health of the children and teachers comes first. If we keep that in mind, we will go a long way to getting the schools open safely. Host our interns have Serious Problems<\/a> and we have an intern who asks our schools ever going to go back to the way they were . Guest the answer to that is yes. We are going to get over this, we will get over this difficult period. For the last 5 and a half, 6 months and sometimes you get so exasperated and run down by it that you think it will never it will end through Public Health<\/a> measures and science will come to our rescue hopefully sooner rather than later, we will go as fast as we can with development of therapeutics, development of a vaccine, we have favorable results in early studies of vaccines. One will be going into an advanced phase 3 trial at the end of july and other candidates entering advanced Clinical Trials<\/a> as we get into midsummer, late summer and early fall. We feel cautiously optimistic that we are on the road, as bleak as it may sound that we are on the road of getting this under control. You can tell youre in turn we will get back to normal and we will ultimately get back to normal with every aspect of our lives. Makes us more serious, washing our hands and this is a normal on the other side and the sooner we can interact appropriately the better. Let me ask about another optimistic notes. You hear how the virus has impacted business but it is also true business has impacted virus, you talk about vaccines and therapeutics and other things but talk about the role of the private sector in fighting this pandemic. Guest the role of the private sector is paramount. The federal government, academia is part of the private sector. Pharmaceutical companies are part of the private sector so every single candidate, therapeutic, diagnostic, and vaccine we are dealing with in trying to develop has a major influence from the private sector. There is no way government alone, federal, state or local government is going to fix this. It is a marriage and a collaboration between government authorities and the private sector. It has always been that way and i believe it always will be that way. The answer to your question is absolutely the private sector plays a major role. Host how these publicprivate partnerships across a lot of societys challenges, speaking of other partnerships we have another question from the audience from another sector, you mentioned academia, a question from enid kramer at john hopkins. Caller good morning, i am Deputy Director<\/a> of institute of private studies. My question is how can the Business Community<\/a> achieve Public Health<\/a> communities in improving the infrastructure needs . Guest you make a good point, that you would do that. I will put in a plug that i hope everybody will appreciate, one of the most important aspects of responding to an outbreak, Healthcare Infrastructure<\/a> locally and Public Health<\/a> infrastructure locally. It becomes difficult to adequately respond, including things like identification, isolation, contact tracing. If you do not have adequate local health infrastructure, manpower and capability. Unfortunately in some respects, historically we have been the victims of our own success because we have done so well in obtaining, controlling and even eliminating some of the deep killers and neighbors and diseases that cause a great degree of morbidity over decades and decades that we have declared our success too prematurely and left local Public Health<\/a> capability dwindled a bit so that is something we need to build up but we need to remember in the future that if we want to respond adequately to an outbreak, we want to make sure local Public Health<\/a> apparatus is very much intact and vital and ready to respond. Host i have 12 questions, try to limit it to one at a time. You mention the importance of the local infrastructure and the mystic infrastructure, International Structure<\/a> of the World Health Organization<\/a> and why it is important the United States<\/a> has a connection with local health organizations. Can you explain that . Guest if you look at the latin derived meaning of pandemic it is pan meaning all. When you are dealing with an Infectious Disease<\/a>, this is a global issue by definition. There are very few, ebola may be one of them where you have an Infectious Disease<\/a> that by the nature of the disease itself is combined geographically. When you have a respiratory illness which most pandemics are, influenza, covid19, respiratory illnesses you are by definition global. In the twentieth century, 21stcentury where we are, where we in fact wind up being able to travel from one part of the globe around the world, you have to look at the Global Connectivity<\/a> and that is the reason organization, Public Health<\/a> Security Networks<\/a> we have put on are so important. We are all connected and transparent. We need to be connected to exchange information, we need to be connected in our response. If you have Something Like<\/a> a covid19 outbreak a smoldering elsewhere the world we are vulnerable here. We saw absolutely when it emerged in a well defined Geographic Area<\/a> in china and all of a sudden the entire world, more than 220 countries have been involved. That is the answer to your question. It is global by nature so we need global organizations and global cooperation. Host the everything you made me think about was the success we have had in combating other diseases and made me think about how important immunity is at some point. Questions about covid19, i know we dont know the answers, that you can get this virus over and over again and how does that change how we treat this particular disease . Guest we dont know the answer to that question. We can make some extrapolations based on a long backlog but if you get infected and you recover which almost by definition means you made adequate immune response and recovered from the virus, that virus does not substantially change, so it is the same virus, chances are for at least a finite period of time, we dont know now today what the definition of finite means, is a 3 months, 6 months . We dont know you yet. We are learning that but we dont know that yet. You can assume you will be protected for some period of time after you recover. The question we need to know for the purpose of vaccinations is how long does that protection last . It will guide us to get the optimal vaccination. You vaccinate what you hope you get a response that protects them for x amount of months or years. Likely we will be able to do that. If the immunity wanes the way in the unity does wayne with some infections and some vaccinations the response is you do Something Like<\/a> give a booster shot which is not that difficult to do. You need to be aware of the potential finite nature of protection but there are multiple ways that you can overcome that. Host we are all used to getting boosters. That happens, we vaccinate our children and ourselves, you learn how often you need to, becomes part of how you take care of yourself. Another question from virginia. Caller good morning, i am president and ceo, why is covid19 impacting black and brown people disproportionately and how do we better protect ourselves . Thank you. Guest thank you for that extraordinarily relevant question because this is a real problem we are facing. If we look at the data what you said is absolutely correct. If we look at minority populations, particularly africanamerican, latino, native americans, there are two things that go on with them that make them bear disproportionately more serious burden of covid19. That is, even though you dont like to generalize but in this case generation makes you understand better, in general the kinds of jobs in the kind of economic strata in which minority populations particularly africanamerican find themselves in put them in a more vulnerable position to get infected. It is less likely by the jobs many of them have that they are able to protect themselves by being at home, doing work through telework, looking at a computer and being safe at home. Generally they are disproportionately more out there, exposed in situations where they might not be able to protect themselves from getting infected. It is likely not more major cities but they get infected more. They make a reasonable assumption the risk may have are getting infected is more. Than the important issue that is more problematic because it will take a much longer time to fix and that is social determinants of disease, things that go into making someone have higher incidence of diabetes, of hypertension, of obesity, any variety of illnesses. You have those underlying conditions, the chances of your getting a serious, deleterious, negative outcome of getting infected is much greater than if you didnt have those underlying conditions. If you look at the africanamerican and minority population, they have significantly higher incident of those underlying conditions that lead to a poor outcome. If you put those things together, greater incidence of getting infected, greater prevalence of comorbidity which make your outcome worse, it is entirely easy to understand the data you just mentioned, your communities at much greater risk of getting into trouble with covid19. You can address some of the immediately by putting resources for better and easier testing, identification, isolation, in areas where demographic overrepresentation, they have easy accessibility to these things to get them diagnosed into care. We can do that now. What takes longer to fix is the decades and decades of help that we must address because they can be overcome and over time we can diminish the disparity of these underlying conditions in the minority population. Host one of the pieces of work we do at the chambers support job creators and we talked about what we can do to impact the equality of opportunity because we know that employment leads to Better Health<\/a> outcomes. We know that whatever we can do to help people who have been traditionally left out of those circumstances enter and have more opportunity over the long run for their health outcomes. Anything near and dear to our hearts. You talked about health resources. In order to fight this trend. Do we see places doing that well that might serve as a model . Guest if we look at the total response involving fema, the cdc, the ones that are out there on the field, we do research to develop therapeutics and vaccines so we are not specifically out there in the community at that level, like fema and particularly the cdc who have done that historically, they go out into the community and interact with local, state and Health Authorities<\/a> to do what we are seeing right now. Host it is so important, anything we can do to highlight the best practices, anything you are seeing that we can get to state and local chambers, they are advising their governors and mayors in their community to help be part of the transmission of best practices. We have a question from washington dc. If you can roll that question . Caller i am with the First Airlines<\/a> in washington state, i was in alexandria, virginia. I am a working mom, mother of two young boys in the last few months my husband and i because of this virus, what we can do in our communities, i was curious to know what keeps you up at night knowing there is still so much we dont know about this virus. Guest thank you for that question. Things like this happening have kept me up at night before it happened. I will get to what keeps me up at night right now. But i have always said the thing i have always been very concerned with is the emergence of a new virus weve never been exposed to before that has a couple of characteristics, one of which is that it is easily transmissible from persontoperson. 2, that it has a significant degree of morbidity and mortality. We have examples of outbreaks that are new infections that they have one but not the other of those characteristics and the reason ive lost sleep about that was the concern of what happens if those two come together. We had the famous bird flu in 2005 which jumped from a chicken to a human, high degree of mortality, 40 mortality but it didnt transmit from human to human very well. It was kind of a dead end in one human. If you were unlikely to get affected, too bad because you have a high degree of mortality but unlikely to affect anybody else. Then came 2009 swine flu, the first pandemic of the 21st century and what we saw with that was a virus that jumped species from swine flu to human, very capable of spreading from human to human but it was pathogenesis, very minor, didnt kill many people at all. Then along comes covid19 and the sars coronavirus 2 which is the perfect storm. It has both characteristics. It is spectacularly capable of transmitting from human to human and has a significant degree, in some people of morbidity and mortality. What bothers me the most now is the absolute need to get control of what is going on globally. The United States<\/a> of america has been hit very severely by this. We just need to look at the numbers and see the number of infections in the millions in the number of deaths, 140,000 deaths or around that number keeps going up each day, increasing hospitalizations, we need to get better control, we need to open up the country because staying shut has economics, employment, health and other negative consequences that are significant. Weve got to have a delicate balance, carefully and prudently going towards nor now ready normality and opening up. To contain and not allow these surgings in certain Southern States<\/a>. That is the challenge, the thing i get concerned about most. How well we are doing that, can we do better and can we turn this around. I believe we can. This will end but i want to do it sooner rather than later, that causes me relative lack of sleep. Host amen to a quick end. I was having dinner with you all those years ago and this type of outbreak was your first your worst nightmare. These things that used to be once in 100 year pandemic coming quickly together. These pandemics become more frequent occurrences. Guest they likely are for a number of reasons. If we encroach a bit on the human animal interface. If you look at these outbreaks, if you look at the numbers, 70 of the new infections, namely infections we have never experienced before, fundamentally animal reservoir and for one reason or other they jump species. Hivaids did that, able did that, influenza does that and sars coronavirus number 2 has done that so it clearly happens. What we tend to do. We see in china with the wet markets where you bring animals in from the wild who have these viruses and you have such a close human animal interface with no regulation, also when you encroach upon things like the rain forest, when you go out and build, building up of civilizing certain parts of the country and come into contact with species and animals that harbor viruses that can in fact efficiently spread from humans, that is the reason we continue to see new infections. At least 70 . Host lots of questions there. We know the country wants you to get back to fighting this disease. Two quick fiber questions. One is to look into the camera and give people individual advice. We are getting questions about should i get tested even if i have been tested before, should i see my doctor, time for my annual mammogram, should i go, should i go to the dentist . What are you advising individuals watching this about covid19 testing and regular doctor visits . Guest there is no reason just to get tested because he wants to get tested. If there is a reason like you have been exposed, Contact Tracy<\/a> or what have you, one reason to get tested is accumulate data so you are part of the process where we are doing more blanket testing to understand what the level of infection is but you shouldnt wake up in the morning with nothing different from any other day and say i absolutely need to get tested. If you want to get tested there are enough tests around that you can get tested but there may be good reasons you want to get tested and that is something to drive you to get tested. The other thing i think is important is depending upon where you live and the status of the outbreak, for the most part you should try, if it is safe to do, to continue to do the kind of things that look after your general health. You mentioned routine screening, routine doctor visits, routine procedures like mammograms, oral, dental care. The ones we dont want is for people to stay away from things because later on they didnt do, proper screening, would lead to infections or cancers or cardiovascular disease that you could have avoided if you got routine medical care. You want to be careful, do all the things weve spoken about over the last half hour, 45 minutes about protecting yourselves but you want to Pay Attention<\/a> to your normal attention and normal application of things that are important for your health. Host to follow up on that, in fairfax county, virginia, if i want to know what is going on in my community am i looking at percentile of tested hospitalizations, as i make personal decisions. Host if you do more testing you get more positive but if there are more cases that are going up, independent of what you are testing, the percentage of number of tests that you do are going to go up. That is a surefire indication you will see more hospitalizations and number 3 when you have more hospitalization, inevitably you will see more deaths. If people are serious enough to get hospitalized a certain percentage of them will be very sick and a certain percentage are going to die. That is what you are seeing in certain areas. Where you live and where i live in washington dc things are pretty much under control but youve got to be prepared that we might see increases, to prevent them, in some of the states at the beginning of the program like florida, texas, california and arizona where we see significant increases. Host final question, you give individual advice, look into the camera and give Business Owner<\/a> advice. Many Business Owner<\/a>s are trying to Balance Health<\/a> and their livelihood, the risks of reopening and risks of staying closed. What is your final word of advice . Guest it gets presumptuous. From the Business Community<\/a>, the Business Community<\/a> is so essential to everything we do to have a healthy community. You are really important. Youve got to try within the framework of your health and safety and welfare, and open america again in a way that is prudent, careful and follows the guidelines we spent considerable time putting together. The guidelines for opening america again with the gateway, the phase i, phase ii, phase 3, take a look at those guidelines and follows him because the Public Health<\/a> apparatus shouldnt be looked upon as the obstacle in the way of opening. It should be a gateway, a vehicle, and a facilitation opening. If you follow them, it is unlikely, you will have to backtrack because of the surge the way we are seeing in several states right now. If we do it prudently, i believe you can in most instances continue to progress to bringing back and opening up america again. Host thank you for everything you are doing, helping us get through these issues today. Please count on the chamber of commerce, what will be helpful to you and god bless you in your work. Thank you and i appreciate the opportunity to join you and stay healthy. Host if you missed any of the prior episodes, Apple Podcast<\/a> and youtube you heard from the expert yourself, where a mascot wash your hands and stay safe, thank you for joining us today. Former fed chair ben bernini he and janet yellen testify on the federal response to the coronavirus and how the pandemic is amplified inequities in the economy. On cspan2, online, cspan. Org or listen live on the free cspan radio apps. Today a house ways and means subcommittee examines effect on social security, on cspan 3, online, cspan. Org or listen live on the free cspan radio apps. Next week the house and senate returned to legislative business before the august recess. Monday and tuesday the house take the fiscal year 2021 National Defense<\/a> authorization act, the bill establishes policies for Defense Department<\/a> programs. Folks are expected early on monday, the house will consider a bill to create a bust of the author of the 1857 dred scott ruling from the Old Supreme Court<\/a> chamber and to address the issue of confederate statues on display, to resume debate on the nomination of russell vote to be director of office of management and budget. The remainder of the week the Senate Continues<\/a> work on the 740. 5 billion Defense Authorization<\/a> act. Watch live coverage of the house on cspan, live coverage of the senate on cspan2. Watch anytime on cspan. Org or listen on the go with the free cspan radio apps. Cspan has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the Supreme Court<\/a> and Public Policy<\/a> events. You can watch all of cspans Public Affairs<\/a> programming on television, online or listen on our free radio apps and be part of the National Conversation<\/a> through cspans daily Washington Journal Program<\/a> or our social media feed. Cspan created by americas Cable Television<\/a> companies as a Public Service<\/a> and brought to you today by your television provider. Now this mornings Coronavirus Briefing<\/a> with governor brian kemp. He talks about reopening schools in the fall in response to comments by atlantas democratic mayor on his legal suits over Wearing Masks<\/a>. We will show you as much of this briefing as we can into the former fed chairs begin their testimony at 12 30 p. M. Eastern. Yesterday the governor and i met with the Coronavirus Task<\/a> force coordinator and cdc director robert redfield. 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