[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] the meeting has now come back to order. With us in i understand that admiral will have a hard stop at 11 ha 45678 thats 25 minutes from now. We will go into a second round of questioning but we will recognize that you will have to leave and we appreciate that. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Im going to begin the second round. Referring to while, yield myself five minutes. Okay. Thank you. Now, President Trump just tweet out a statement that im going to quote. In reverence to my chart about the comparing the cases. He says that the United States has far more cases than europe and because we do much more testing than any other country in the world. If we had no test organize bad test it would show very few cases. And dr. Fauci, do you agree with president s statement or too you stand by your previous answer that the difference is caused by multiple factors including the fact that some states did not do a good job of reopening . I stand by my previous statement that the increase in cases was done due to a number of factors one of which was that in the attempt to reopen, that in some situations states did not abide strictly by the guidelines that task force and the white house hat had put out and others that did abide by it the people in the state actually were congregating in crowds and not Wearing Masks. I might also just bring something that it thought but and mentioned to you were, mr. Chairman, and we talk but crowds and masks. Its always better outdoors than indoors and being crowds indoors is worse that crowd outdoors bass of the circulation of ware. So we should avoid crowds but wearing a mask is the critical issue. I agree with that and i think that i will good to restaurants to allow me to sit outdoors, and not indoors, so i have been following the science and ive been agreeing with all three of you as to how we ought to conduct out out of conduct ourselves. Let me just say and i field strongly but this the First Amendment to the United States constitution need means a whole lot to me. Im sitting here as a result of a protest. We opened up this meeting today and many of you, dr. Redfield especially, and you, mr. Ranking member, talk but our great friend john lewis with whom i enjoyed a 60 year relationship. We met protesting, trying to get off the back of the bus, trying to instant great school, trying to be able to shop a five and ten cent store and that be arrested for shoplifting. Trying to get down and eat a hamburger ump im glad the government did not limit our protests. And so the First Amendment has constraints, the Supreme Court told us that you cant yell fire in a crowded theater but you can peaceably assembly to bring to redress grievances. You can do that. Dont think any of those people who are marching out here on this plaza thats out in called black lives matter plaza, they were not carrying guns, they were not disturbing anybody. They were peaceful. They were peaceful. And john lewis went across thed minute pettus bridge. They were peaceful. They were met by weapons. And so i dont want us to get confused here. And so im going to close out my five minutes here by asking whether or not this disconnect that seems to be between what the white house is saying publicly and what theyre sending out to the states privately, and as we mentioned earlier in the letter, several of those states seem to be reacting to the Public Statements from the white house and not following the recommendations of the task force that are being sent to them privately. Now, this week, a leaked White House CoronavirusTask Force Report paints a very different picture i have the document here this was send out to the states. And the states in red zone that are refusing to comply as you hear from us. So, im not being partisan here. Were trying to save lives. I started my professional career as a Public School teacher. I have a tower who spent 25 years in a classroom and telling me every day, how concerned teachers are about returning to School Without the safety precautions that so Many School Districts have asked us to do. That is what my concern is. Its not about going back to school. I know the value of going to school. I know what it is. To represent a district where thousands of children are not do not have the internet and cannot receive Online Learning if want them in the classroom. I want them to be educated but i want them safe. And thats what this is about. And im not going to ask for an answer to that. Ive gone over my time but i yield back. I yield to the Ranking Member. Thank the gentleman for yielding and ill start my question i with where the gentleman from South Carolina end and that is with safely reopening schools if want to point out this is a report from the United States department of treasury as of june 30th, based hope to c. A. R. E. S pacific and he 150 billion that we in Congress Working with President Trump sent the states for various covid19 recovery issues, every state still has billions of dollars remaining in those accounts and i would urge any School System, because we dont want any School System to open up without safety precautions. In fact the Maricopa County pediatrics lays out how to reopen schools the centers for Disease Control lays out clearly how to safely reopen schools and that includes masks, sanitizers, any local School System that wanted to claim they dont have the football do that, got straight to your governor. Your for has billions of dollars in their accounts we appropriated, sit thing waiting for you to buy supplies. Its fully eligible weapon dont need to change a Law Enforcement billions of dollars. Eave state state hays now for schmids. I youve run out give us a call it right no theyre miss money in you states accounts to buy supplies to safely reopen but now lets talk about why its so important to safely reopen. And ill ask you, dr. Red field because you have done work on this with see the strict of columbia is district of columnways not going to reopen with inschool learning. Thats right not been a single death of anybody under the age of 19 in the district of columbia in virginia youre seeing Northern Virginia take this same closed minded approach, not a single death in the entire part of the entire state of virginia of a person under the age of 19 from covid19. But now lets talk but the danger, the detriment that this is doing to those children. I want to dig deeper into the studies ive seen on some of the things you talk about. Mental health, a lack of streak and child abuse. Ive seen that maybe 14,000 cases of child abuse are reported in schools eave year. Thats not happening. And for those children that are in those Home Settings where the parents are abusing the children, nobody is getting reported because the children are sitting at home. Theyre not right now in many cases going to be allowed to go into the school writ can be detected and it is detected every year. We dont talk about its lot. Its an unfortunate part of the done are yous society but it happens. Children abused and so many cases detected in the school. Theft not going to happy these schools dont open. Can you talk about those numbers. Have you seen that dat. Congressman, irk just reemphasize what youve said, and its obviously one of the more disturbing consequences of the lack now of that reporting north just at schools which have been so responsible for mandatory reporting child abuse but the other place that sometimes its recognized is obviously in the clinical setting, and as we know pediatric visits have been curtailed in clinical settings. So it is a highly significant situation now, and you can imagine what it must be like to be one of those who are currently abused children that is sort of lost their safety nets. And i apologize. Were running low on time i just urge any local School System making their decisions, go look at the cdc guidelines. Look at all of he data out there. For teachers, for students, how to safely reopen. You can do it. You owe it to those kids, 50,000 kids in district of columbia. Over 50 million children are counting on us to do this right. It can be done. You have to go do it. You owe it to the kids. Dont deknee them. I if you need money theres billions of dollars sitting out there for the supplies to keep the schools safe. Go make it happen. Dr. Fauci i want to talk but operation warp speed and i want to thank you for talk budget over 250,000 people have signed up for clinical tried. What the website again if somebody wants to be part of the trial . Coronavirus treatment prevention. Org. Thank you. Now to ask about i know people dont really know the details and again, of all of the plans out there, these are plan some people, including some people any room disaggrade with President Trumps decision to stop flights from china, for example, as you testified earlier it was the right decision it and saved lives. I guess they were okay if more lives would have been lost but that decision saved livesful part of a plan they might not agree with the plan but the plan saved lives. When one taught about warp speed i do think its real important to note, would because some people are concern there might be some cutting of corners to get to a quicker vaccine. Clearly thats not the case. But what President Trump has done is removed red tape so agency lies the fda can laser focus on putting their efforts behind finding a vaccine. President trumps worked example took toe make sure that christian contractual tiles can be run simultaneously on the most promising candidates. A very targeted plan to quickly find a vaccine that is safe. So if you want to talk but operation warp speed, how safe it and helping us to move fulfilled is red tape being removed by the plan that President Trump has. Yes, it is. And as i mentioned and just reconfirm right now, is that the speed is not at all at the compromising of safety nor of scientific integrity. Getting from the sequence to the vaccine production was record speed, had nothing to do with safety, nothing to do with cutting corners. From the vaccine to the phase one, again, was in record speed, only because red tape was really avoided and a got into phase three the same thing. Have you seen concerns about china trying to steal that information . I understand nih has an investigation going on we have seep cases where china is trying to steal the information. Clearly theyre threat that President Trump is taking on. Whatover how seen. Ive heard theres been trying to be hacking into the websites and the online components of certain of the people who are developing vaccines. Ive just heard that. I have no proof of that. Thank you, mr. Chairman i yield back. I thank the gentleman. The chair now recognize for five minutes mr. Wallace. Thank you very much. Let me first say that i was pleased to hear the very, very warm comments about john lewis this morning. We have been memorializing him in so many different ways but between the press and everybody else, we have been doing him justice for the sacrifices he has made and let me just tell you, theirs virus is not democratic or republican. Im going to send my condolences the family of herman cain who was a president ial candidate, who is a good friend of the president s, who happened to have been at the rally in tulsa june 20th, with no mask on, with a group of people around him with no mask on, and he is dead. He died. Im told that he was in good health, and that he of course contracted the virus as a result of his attendance and without a mansion there. So my condolences to his family because this is not democrat or republican. I want to remind the committee that it spoke earlier about the manipulation of hospitalization data. What the president has done basically ordering hospitals to change how they report hospitalizations rates, and i drafted an amendment to hr, 7617. One of the fiscal year 2021 prosecution pamams that include thursday my amendment prohibits in the fund being used to require hospital laboratories and acute care facilities report covid19 data under requirements impostal service its be Trump Administration, new rule was adopted i look forward to preventing harm that i believe will lead to sendless and avoidable suffering. Let me go further and say im alarmed but a the way the president is handling socalled information about children and their ability to return to school. This is a president who first called the pandemic a hoax. This is a president who said it was going to just disappear. This is a president who said you dont really need masks, didnt believe in them. He has gotten religion in the last few days. A president who disregarded social distancing, a president who recommended chloroquine as a durst and went so far as to say disinfectant could be used. Now this president who expects to us believe him, rather than the medical experts, is saying children almost immune. Is that an expert medical conclusion, dr. Fauci . , chat children are dvr what that mean, what does that mean issue children are almost. Immune from the virus. Well, generally when you say a person is. Pipe theyre protected from getting infected. And children do get infected. And so this is not an expert medical conclusion that we have had documented somewhere . Well, if you talk but a conclusion that children in general are immune, that children could get infected we not that so therefore theyre not immune. I must just say, congresswoman, that when children get infected, that when you look at the deleterious consequences they generally do much, much better because you look at the hospitalizations that children have a much, much lower rate of hospitalizations than adults. In fact the curve guess way up as you get older and older and when you get to the age group of children that generally do not get serious diseases. I understand that and ive been listening and i understand what you just described, but what i was asking really was but the president s latest comment that children are almost immune and so i think i got the answer to that. But let me just say to mrs. Scar lease si that this billions of dollars youre talking but no every state i dont know where they are, but you keep referring to supplies. Its more than about supplies. Its more than about being able to wash your hands. Its about space. And whether or not all of the schools have the space to do the social distancing. Its about whether or not children are going to wear masks and how thats going to be enforced. Its about how you keep children from gathering. It is about how do you feed them. It is about more than the fact that they need some supplies. Would the gentle lady yield . Gees. Clear chris that is all part of what is late out in cdc guidelines and the American Academy of pediatrics guidelines. They lay out the guide line okay reeker claiming my time, reclaiming my time. Let me just say this. That all of the professionals are saying that this is a decision that must be made by parents in the communities with the educators, et cetera, et cetera. You cannot hand down an answer to from the federal government that would absolutely protect these children. One decision by the federal government is not sufficient to force these schools to open. I yield back. I thank the gentle lading for yielding back. Before guy to mr. Jordan, met say toard miller, i understand you need to leave in four minutes. Would there be anything you loo like to enter into the record before leaving . No, i n reason eye leaving is because eave met with off 6,100 of the Commission Corps officers whom i have the or oh lead along with super general adams. We have done over 7,200 deployments of 4,000 individuals and the other 2,000 are hard at work taking care of people at qualified health centers, Indian Health service or the prison. I mean no disrespect for leaving but this is front line for officers on the frontline of the pandemic and i appreciate the opportunity to recognize them and be with my brothers and sisters in uniform. We thank you for your service and we thank you for that. I think you might find me to be the biggest booster in the United States congress for federally qualified Community Health centers. I consider them to be the ultimate safety net in the healthcare and i have been that way since ive been in the congress. Go back over 50 queries with Community Health centers and i believe in them. Thank you so much for bringing them in the process. For that a yield mr. Jordan. Me right to protest is important. I ive engaged in it with fellow citizens peacefully assemble to talk but important public toll si issues mitch guess is everyone as the compliesey, probably everything in the United States congress has done the same thing. But i think all the First Amendment is important. Democrats seem to think its just the right to protest. I think all of you think but the freedoms we have in the First Amendment. Freedom of religion, free only of the press, free tom to petition your government, freedom of speech. All of them are important and what is interesting to me is the very first one the founders mention was your right to practice your faith. Government is putting him odden americans ability to do that. And democrats of just fine with it. In fact democrats mayors and governors have been sued over limiting peoples right to freedom of religion if want consistency. In fact im concern but the whole constitution, democrat mayors and governments limited americans right to