America, the director talked about covid19 trials, the virus impact on minority communities and issues with politicizing the cdc. This is 30 minutes. The cdc had guidance not that long ago about a vaccine with the state healt Health Agency ay said it was on track for government review imager not had talked about phase three trial in september astrazeneca talked about vaccine in october. Against the backdrop and this happened from astrazeneca what is your best estimate with a safe vaccine being available. One thing i learned is a cdc director, im not in the opinion business im in the data and science. When does the data suggest. Based on whats going on with pfizer imager not that it is conceptual and they will have enough data to present it to the fda for evaluation somewhere before the end of october and the end of november. The reason i cannot be more specific is these trials are event driven trials in the really 100 dependent on how much covid occurs in the volunteer population. If its a lot of the individuals and they get covid depending on what group therein and the potential for them to have enough events if the vaccine will be in the october timeframe and if the vaccine is 50 it might be in late november timeframe andem if there is fewr and it might be late November December timeframe. I think we all can say somewhere between the end of october and the end of the year. That is probable that one or more of the vaccines will be presented to the fda for review either for an emergency authorization or potentially for proof. When would be the time range when we would see vaccinations be deployed. Because project warp speed as i said is not taking shortcuts on safety or scientific integrity, as we say here today, those vaccines from a moderna in pfizer and astrazeneca are actually being made for use to be distributed if the fda can determine that there safe. Normally that would happen if you have to wait for the fda to review the data and they would say the vaccine in the Pharmaceutical Company would begin to figure out how to manufacture and have a six month year lag. This vaccine is going to be available in either be a bunch of souvenirs if the vaccine does not show to be safe. But to save the time and its really an important time particularly for those of us that have comorbidity over the age of 65 and the sooner we can have a preventive vaccine for covid, it will translate to save human lives, there was an acceleration to make sure it was not in a ministry to delay just because of the Financial Dynamics vaccine. That is operation warp speed, not that were taken the safety i just had with the astrazeneca on hold not that retained taking a shortcut but were taken a financial one. When you ask when you think the vaccine will be available broadly for the American Public, if everything goes really well that will be sometimee in the first or Second Quarter of 2021. For the high risk prioritize individuals, it is conceptual that a vaccine could be available in the late fall or early winter of this year. Es let me ask you this, what is so important about vaccines is Public Acceptance for people to get vaccinated. We have this Information Campaign long before covid was stirring up antivax concerns. There have been surveys to show has a tc toat get one. The politics of the selection cycle have raised concern about operation warp speed and it could be a rush amongst some c f their and the president has said the vaccine could be available forab election day and some say the cdc is subject to political pressures. With all of these headwinds and thats being polite. A skepticalonvince and divided public that a vaccine when it comes out is safe. This is really important, one of the goals i h had as a cdc director is to move away from Vaccine Hesitancy to a culture internation his vaccination with confidence. When we find that lesson 50 of the American Public takes the anflu vaccine and i tell you in the last decade 360,000 people died of the flu and we actually have a vaccine then how do we begin to get thet american pubc to embrace the vaccine. Dont leave one of the most important contributions of science to modern medicine. And so many people still leave that on the p shelf for themselves, their family, their community. Were trying to build the advocacy but its a long journey. Lets take nonCovid Vaccines. A lot of parents, the reason they are hesitant to vaccinate is they dont want to make a mistake for their children, i had six children and it is going to take time for the Healthcare Professionals to sit down and have a dialogue about this, maybe several times before parents embrace vaccines, a lot of times doctors will ask do you want to get a vaccine and you say no and thats the end of the story im asking the doctors and Nurse Practitioners to reengage in that discussion, some are misinformed and when someone is misinformed you cannoted just sy youre misinformed you dont know what youre talking about. You have to engage them in a dialogue and get them to understand that they can come to their own conclusion that there misinformed. This is a serious issue and im very concerned about whether Covid Vaccine and is not something that should be politicized. Ihave you said to the president of the United States please dont politicized, please dont use it in your speeches or to the other candidates for that matter. If you have to have everybody around vaccine and this cannot be an issue politics. My comments with the president i keep to myself and the president but i will say publicly what i just said this cannot be politicized. By either an individual. Hasnt he done that. Once you instill fear in somebody it is very hard to remove that. I have a challenge right now that imth working on which is called disparity of vaccination, lets just say the flu vaccine for example. Only 28 of 2017 18 took the flu vaccine. I am very glad we got it up in a year up into the high 30s. I still got into the high 30s, the Africanamerican Community went from 41 47 48 . I dont need to reinforce residency. On either side, not picking sides, either side politicized is this and its working against the goal for what im trying to accomplish is to get American Culture to vaccinate, we have some schools in this country where lessfi than 30 are vaccinated against measles. Thats why we saw the measles ago. Eak to years this is really important in the attic concern when the peoples new view that this vaccine is being rushed and it may impact safety, im trying again to tell you that the cdcs point of view, i can tell you from the nih, from the fda point of view that the only thing that will dictate this process is data and science and we would like to have us be able to continue to do that and obviously the pharmaceutical companies have made a recent c commitment that they are in line with the whole concept. We should celebrate when we have a successful safe covid virus vaccine. I did not think we would have one for a couple of years, i thought the rest of myar cdc career was going to be kneedeep in a war against covid and now i can see if we can get a vaccine for two or three that between now and next summer we can get this behind us. Those are important words, behind us to take your science and medicine and i hope thats the word, before we get to next summer we gotta get to the fall and winter. I want to ask you about the fall, winteru nd seasonal flu ad have a collides with covid19. What your assessment of the coming flu season and what that means given the pandemic. I made a couple new cycles back in april and i thought october, November December could be the worst Public Health that the nation has ever had. And the reality, i think it could have been. Im hopeful that its not going to be because with flu and covid were in a bad flu season and theres some Hospital Systems overwhelmed into the northeast. It overwhelms the hospitals there in chicago and detroit in los angeles and down in new orleans. Im going to tell you whats really interesting that we see, flu transmits all yearround, we have to peek in the late fall, winter, thats what we call flu season. Flu is transmitted in this country all yearround. And we have the lowest spring, summer, transmission of flu that weve ever seen. Why is that, lots of flu transmission, masks, social distancing, handwashing, being smart abouts. Crowds. So the same things that we are now doing for covid and our colleagues down south and australia see the mildest flu season theyve ever had. I do believe that the American Public does five things, wear a mask when they cannot social distance. Social distance, vigilant about handwashing. Be smart about crowds, indoors worse than outdoors, outdoor things, do that more than indoor, indoor stay away from crowds. And the last thing i want them to do is get vaccinated against the flu. If we do those five things, theres a good chance what i feel to individuals that have not had a vaccine for flu before is one of the things of flu vaccine does well, it may not prevent infection but it does modify, if you and i get a flu vaccine so if and when we get the flu we dont end up in the hospital with what the 72yearold woman with covid needs and the doctors and nurses are not overwhelmed and were doing our part. Let me tell you a story i was talking to somebody the other day who flew across the country and had to stop in atlanta and walked through the airport in atlanta and told me it was crowded and there were people not Wearing Masks or people wearing their masks over their mouth but not over their noses so not properly and he was very concerned about that. How concerned should we be with covid fatigue or just asserting freedom or whatever you want to call it to make the five things even after all this insistent that you and others have had harder to do as we go into the seasonal flu season. I think you hit a big issue, i was in hartsfield a couple weeks ago and i only observed a few peoplee without masks but there are plenty of places in this country where people still have not fully embraced particular the younger between 18 25 have not embraced the importance of what i just told you. Again we can only continue to try to appeal to people and i always quote the john kennedy quote, dont ask what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country. What im asking the American Public to do, do those five things and will bring theho opportunity. Let me ask you about another aspect which is also very important. We talk about Health Disparity a lot and you mentioned minority population. What is the cdc done to ensure the supply of vaccines when it comes iss sufficient in the vaccines and the promotion of those vaccines to minority communities which is been so hardhit will get the attention that it deserves. The biggest thing that were working veryhi hard on as you kw is to prepare for the distribution of the vaccine. You heard the National Academy atcame out with some of the recommendations and we have the Advisory Committee on amortization practices that will ultimately save all the data and come out and set up where they recommend the vaccine can be used. Initially the vaccine will be in short supply and were in the process of putting that together. The vaccine has to be distributed so weve gone out to the jurisdictions and worked with one major city to work on the micro Distribution Plan and by the end of this month we will put those plans to be developed in all the jurisdictions across the country because ultimately we gotta get prepared for the distribution. What is the distribution, will it recognizing the disparities of the illness prioritize distribution among those communities hardest hit. I think that is going to be obviously one of the key priorities and ultimately the recommendation will come from the Advisory Committee and the amortization practices. I think theres two major issues right now, the group thats at risk for infection, usually occupation in the group for a bad outcome if they do get infected and thats where we see the elderly in the minority population, not that there more atrisk for infection but there at greater risk if they do get infection because morbidities oi a bad outcome. This is why im not excited and i like to fight back about anybody that says things to develop fear in individuals and particularly the minority population and potentially seeking the vaccine. Because then you have a process where you haves a vaccine and yu want to distribute two groups that are at risk for bad outcomes but if there is a selective decision by one group or another not to take the vaccine, we are working hard and t we have programs that were working in partnership with the flu vaccine in the Africanamerican Community in the Hispanic Community to increase uptake. It is still not over 50 in those communities and we made a lot of progress in the last year but we have a long way to go were still under 50 . I think its really important to build confidence in everyone and particularly. Clearly theres going to be a prioritization and that will be a doctor or highrisk individual or are you at someone at high risk for about outcome, those of be the two priorities and depending on how much vaccine is originally available, it will be prioritized along that. It will be till after the first of the year that we have enough vaccines and broader availability for the broader American Public. The first 50 million doses are going to be prioritized for those two populations based on outcome or based on riskut of infection. Let me talk about this for a minute you know the cdc guidelines have been expressed especially recently for very controversial and those who sayc the cdc advocating fury test are actually better, right or wrong what do you say to this. Absolutely not wrong, thats a critical part of our Public Health strategy. What the cdc was saying although a fortune was not reported correctly, we were saying we want to put emphasis on testing individuals i have symptomatic illness or individuals that had significant exposure and they can be asymptomatic or vulnerable population like nursing home could be asymptomatic or Critical Care or Critical Infrastructure or healthcare or First Responders all which could be asymptomatic and lastly we said for individuals who may be asymptomatic but it was prioritized by the doctor or publichealth person. What we were trying to do is get testing to drive action for specific publichealth objective to bring it back and we are seen way too many people on the way to work stop by drive and get tested and only find out about the results five or six or seves days later. That is not actual testing, it was unfortunate that one of the network said we recommended against testing asymptomatic. We did not. The first sentences said you may not need to be tested for asymptomatic and second we wanted you to engage your doctor or publichealth person. Were still trying to get that focused and im glad you brought it up, testing is aug critical part of our Public Health strategy and asymptomatic is a critical part of our Public Health strategy. We just want to do it in a way that is actionable. Let me ask you this followup, it is so important, when the guidance came out however, it was reported it was not just noise in the media which there was but there was also noise in the political atmosphere. Governor andrew cuomo said we are not going to follow the cdc guidance i consider political propaganda. His words. Hardly surprising the public is confused and angry and whatever. What do you need to do and what are you doing at the cdc to inspire confidence to clarify this and make people understand that your independent pushing back against the politics and trying to follow science to keep people healthy. The first thing we did minutes after cnn reported incorrectly we issued the cdc statement on guidance which i said everything i just told you. Unfortunately that did not seem to make the new site where we basically said testing for Public Health objectives, we said Everyone Needs to get in everyone that wants it may notan necessarily need it in the key is to engage the Public Health community. I was just reading governor cuomos words. And i called my good friend Howard Zucker who is a state Health Department and unfortunately you hit another head, a lot of people chosen to try to politicize and i just tell you that cdc is a datadriven science based Service Organization and i am a Clinical Research publichealth person, im not a politician and my friend at the fda is a great oncologist, not a politician. Its disappointing for those of us who decided to serve in that people want to assume our decisionmaking processes some how influenced by objects, i can only tell people that i know for myself and i know from steve on that is not influencedth by politics, not saying im going to change people in one way or the other, their people whom both sides of the political spectrum that want to try to suggest that these organizations are making sense politically and only continue to try to lead 24000 dedicated men or women to this nation and will use our best effort to do the work that we can to put science and data into action and try to improve the publichealth of this nation. I cannot wait when were out of the political season because maybe then we can get back