Schuyler cheryl, jason, all the other victims of covid19. But thanks to the heroism of so many frontline healthcare workers, scientists and others were making progress. This progress is possible in large part because of the incredible women a minute hhs, the worlds finest scientists and Public Health experts. I want is a personal thank you to each and every member of the hhs team was contributed to this response and i want to underscore my commitment to the work today. I started my first job at hhs nearly two decades ago, since my first job i recognize and promoted the valley of science and evidence and the Civil Servants who are so dedicated to our mission. That does not mean especially in an unprecedented crisis that there are no debate or disagreements within an agency or an administration. But my highest priority will always be to ensure that our efforts are science and evidence driven and consistent with the rule of law. Institutions like the cdc, the fda and the nih are household names and Gold Standards for good reason and i intend to keep it that way. No institution is infallible but americans deserve to know that the actions and Communications Come out of our agencies, whether fda approvals or cdc, mmwr or nih guidelines are grounded in science and evidence. Of course that standard also applies to authorization or approval of the covid19 vaccine. I will be confident that my family and i should take the vaccine, and you should be confident that you and your family should take it, too, because any vaccine will affect fda standards as judged by fda career scientists. We are as close as we are to distributing a safe and effective vaccine because of the dedication and humanitarian spirit of american scientists, and because of work that began long before the whole world recognize what an unprecedented threat we face. Back in january safford, long before china has even admitted human to human transmission was occurring, nih researchers begin vaccine summit planning madera. On saturday january 11, the morning after the viral sequence was finally shared by chinese researchers, and its scientist begin work on that faxing which entered human trials march 16. On february 3, with just 11 cases in the United States, florida begin obligation lexical funds to go to private parties to support vaccine and therapeutics holocaust. The next and we made a first therapeutic to develop a therapeutic for antibodies which is now in phase three trials. On february 25 nih began a Clinical Trial for when does appear before a positive results at the end of april. On may 3 we could approximate 150,000 donated treatment courses to true to the hardest hit areas of the country and later secured more than 90 of gilliard Global Production through september. Starting this week remdesivir is being distributed on the commercial market because it is no longer a scarce commodity. We built on these early efforts with operation warp speed, and unprecedented mobilization at hhs, the department of defense and industry to final fantasy undertake all of the tasks necessary to deliver lifesaving products to the American People. Today we have four candidates and u. S. Phase three Clinical Trials and industrial scale manufacturing is underway on all expect scenes as to which we have contracted or invested. These are Extraordinary Results made possible by the minute women at hhs, by the support we received from congress, and by the bravery and sacrifices of the American People. Thank you and i look forward to your question stay, mr. Chairman. Thank you very much, mr. Secretary. We will now proceed with questions for the witness. I recognize myself for five minutes. Mr. Secretary, i really have only one question that i want to ask, and you may take the rest of my five minutes to answer if you wish. We have experienced more than 207,000 deaths, and in a very venerable quote the president was saying, talking about the death toll, and im quoting here, it is what it is. End of quote. The president says that he puts america first. However, of the 150 countries for which there is reliable, in this instance, there are reliable data, iraq, 100 we rank 147 out of 150 countries. That seems to me to be pretty close to last. Will you tell us why this administration is coming in closer to last . So, mr. Chairman, first, i would like to just address the question of the 206,000 americans who have perished. We regret any loss of life, to be very clear about that we wish we didnt have this unprecedented coronavirus pandemic but people do die in and in expand our job, our mission, what gets me up every morning of what motivates the 82,000 dedicated people of hhs is a chance every day to help make advances and say some of those lies. So people die, we try to minimize that, we try to mitigate human suffering. It is our mission, the Court Everything we do. And we work to save those lives. If we had not taken some of the aggressive early steps that we took for which we were are criticized as being xenophobic, overly aggressive or alarmists like sitting down travel with china, shutting down the economy, we couldve lost according to dr. Birx and dr. Fauci as maybe as 2 million americans. Any loss of life is traffic adorable and we dont want to see a single loss of life, but our actions have made a difference. Our actions that with operation warp speed to make a difference saving countless millions of lives in the United States and abroad in the future. As with think about International Comparisons that support to think about data youre looking at. The best way to measure a countrys death rate independently because there are various ways of county deaths attributing deaths, whats called excess mortality rate. How many people died in the previous year, how may people wouldve been expected to die this year and what was excess rate . If you look at excess mortality from march to july over 65 age people in the United States those were 37 lower in the United States that in europe. Excess deaths from april to june across all ages in the u. S. With substantial were substantially lower than the excess death rate in spain, the united kingdom, belgium, italy and the netherlands. Today in fact, spain and france have higher case counts per capita than the United States. France i think i figured out as a 126,000 cases per day at the moment when we have 42,000 approximately. We dont want any cases but i will hear people talking about Emmanuel Macron that way. This is a pandemic. Disease spreads. Its a bit on all of us acting with individual responsibility. The three ws and hope we talk about this, washer hanscom watch your distance, where a face coming would you cant watch a distance and avoiding, what settings we cant do those three things because thats the bridge. If we do that thats the bridge to that date in the weeks and months ahead where well have those fta Gold Standard vaccines, have monoclonal antibodies to treat people in earlystage disease, the day that makes me very optimistic for a future, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Secretary. And now i yield to the Ranking Member for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I join you in mourning the loss of every life. I wish that china didnt lie to america and the rest of the world. We couldve done so much more to stop the spread of this disease out of china to save lives, american lives come to save lives in every country as you note, of the countries that have seen in many cases higher death rates. If five governors would have follow the guidelines that the president put out we wouldnt even be on this list. Over 25,000 deaths that shouldve never occurred, we wouldnt be on this list but we still would have had deaths because thats a pandemic and we mourn those but we also want to learn how to properly respond to it. And again weve had hearings from some of the most respected doctors and scientists on this, dr. Fauci again sat where you were and he said, decision after decision after decision President Trump made the right decision. First the decision was after we figured out china was lying, china corrupted the World Health Organization, who by the way everybody had listen to them and they were saying the disease doesnt spread from human to human. We know that was a lie. Maybe we should at hearing on why w. H. O. Was corrupted by china to do that. It cost lyster life. Once we figured it out president had a tough decision to make. Do we ban flights from china . Now, as you pointed out that everybody was in agreement on that. Dr. Fauci noted President Trump made the right decision in banning those flights in china and that decision saved american lives. While some call it xenophobic and wouldnt have done it we wouldve had more deaths. Same thing with your. Dr. Redfield talked about the decision to ban flights from europe. Wasnt an easy decision because as you know some people were saying, well, if we ban flights from europe weve got a lot of americans that go back and forth to your and President Trump was presented the Scientific Data and said we will save american lives if we do. Dr. Fauci noted as dr. Redfield did that decision saved american lives as well. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of american lives saved, wish there were none, wish china didnt lie, but as we stated today, doctor azor, can you share them with you and some of those meetings, were some of those tough decision had been made . If you were was the presence decisionmaking based on the scientific input that he was given the ultimate make those tough decisions that did save american lives . First, if i could just correct, j. D. Not a doctor but thank you very much. Secretary azar, i apologize. Listen, the president whenever you read in the beta, the problems i was with him continue their board, march installments in those early days and every step, took decisive swift action without debate or hesitation. When we first on january 17 started doing Health Screenings of people from wuhan, they had 67 cases i believe in wuhan. This was remarkable action. January 17 we started health screens out of airports for people coming from wuhan, 67 cases. China was still talked about in a human to human transmission, know a systematic transmission, china was was refusing to share viral samples with us or provide any information or allow the cbc or debbie chua tian to come into the country. When we shut down travel with china on january 31 the president didnt hesitate not at all to shut that down in spite of the economic dislocation that would happen with our trade with china. When he brought thousands of americans and others back to the United States we oppose the First Federal quarantine in 50 years and the president didnt hesitate on that. When the diamond princess was docking in tokyo with all the infections on board and japanese were going to allow those people to get out into the outlet of japan and get on commercial flights to come back to america we didnt hesitate to oppose a quartet of his people and bring the back to the United States through a federal quarantine. We wrestled with europe. Some people thought it would cause a global depression shutting down travel with europe and yet the the president decid that they shut down travel with your. A good to see did added you want to ask you about the vaccine because of very concerned about some of the people that are trying to plant seeds of doubt in the vaccine because, first of all, have any corners been cut on a vaccine . Absolutely not. Do you think it would cause even more deaths if people were led to suspicion of a vaccine to suspicious of the vaccine because of politics when, in fact, the vaccine as we know from his Great American companies is going to the Gold Standard process . It would be a terrible disservice to Public Health to try to create Vaccine Hesitancy about a coronavirus. People will die. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I yield back. Thank you very much. The chair now yields to ms. Waters for five minutes. Thank you very much for this hearing, mr. Chairman. Very important. Id like to ask secretary azar, will you describe the increase in the Coronavirus Infections in this country right now . And name the states would increase are taking place. We are facing increased at the moment primarily in the upper midwest and for the west also as a look at montana, wisconsin. I think north dakota, nebraska. Thats where were seeing increases which are overcompensating or equaling out some of the decreases that weve been seeing from the southcom the outbreak in the southwest and southeast. Give us some numbers. Tell us. We will be happy to get you those numbers. Give us the numbers. Will be happy to provide you with those. Those are also available at coronavirus. Gov, all that data is right there. Id like to know, do you think that the president rallies that he is gone to what people are not social distancing 60, that our experts tell us they should be doing or Wearing Masks, does that contribute to the increase . We have consistent advice which is to practice three ws can wash your hands, watcher distance can wear Face Coverings of what settings we cant and that applies to any setting and people so what you are saying is that these rallies with the president is in the people are not Wearing Masks and they are not socially distancing themselves, 60, certainly adds to the increase in the possibility of these infections, is that correct . Our advice is always the same. The three ws weather in any type of activity to engage in those protective activities always into that we get individual have you ever talk to the present about that given any advice . Have you ever interacted with the president about him being a possible role model in this country and being one that could either help us to decrease the deaths and infections by being a role model himself wearing a mask and having social distancing . Have you ever had that conversation with . Im not going to discuss my discussions with the president but the president s guidelines since april have said where Face Coverings can wash your hands, practice social distancing. Mr. Secretary, are you proud of the job you have done . I do like to speak in those terms come to what her success people have died. So you dont like to speak in those terms about what you were doing. You dont to talk about what you are saying to the president who should be a role model to the people of this country. You cant give me any numbers about the increases that have taken place. You didnt even know where this increases are taking place and you come here today and testify with this paltry testimony that youre giving us and you expect us to be happy. We are very unhappy about whats going on and we feel sorry that the president and his wife and others are now experiencing a positive test, et cetera. And how can you as the secretary, with the responsibilities that you have, come here and not be very, very open with us about what is happening in this country, the increases and the deaths and what we need to do and the role modeling that we need to have . How can you come here without being prepared to do that . Im happy to do that if you would actually ask questions that elicit on that point. I would gladly talk to you that what the state of the diseases of the United States and the steps being taken. Talk to me about dpa and tell me why, in fact, money has been diverted from dpa to build ships and military equipment instead of being directed towards ppe. I am the sect of health, not the secretary of defense. With exercise 78 distinct Domestic Defense production act actions there we have been aggressive with the weather on ppe, ventilators, on testing equipment, with regard to vaccines and therapeutics. We had used at any time we have needed it across the entire supply chain. Mr. Chairman, im going to yield back my time, and i want to conclude by saying that the secretary is not here with credible testimony today answering the questions that need to be asked. All that we hear is basically a defense, basic of the president of the United States, and a lack of openness and information about what is happening in this country. The increase in the infections and the deaths, and unwillingness that this secretary to be candid about what we need to do. I yield back the balance of my time. I thank the gentleman before yielding back. The chair now recognizes mr. Luetkemeyer for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Secretary azar, ive got some questions for you here that i think will help respond to ms. Waters sort of outofthebox questions there. Question number one did those initial shutdowns actually work . Did the shutdowns, the initial shutdowns in the actually work to spread stop the spread of the vibes and save lives . They did absolutely of dr. Fauci dr. Birx said they save upwards approximately 2 million lives. Today what percentage of those were getting tested are covid positive . 4. 4 positivity rate. Is that down or up . That is down substantially. So ms. Waters wanted some information so now we have that. What percentage of americans who test positive in depth in the hospital . Of those who test positive those who end up in in the hosl i believe it is approximately, its a very small number. I know among more aged it is about 10 to want to get you is set up or down from what was back in july . Hospitalizations were down substantially. We again answered ms. Waters questions. Of those who get hospitalizations what percentage unfortunately passed away . Of those who go into the hospital, depends on the age group that were