Outbreak a global pandemic. Cdc has now reported that we have almost one thousand confirmed cases. That is up from 100 reported cases a week ago. A 900 increase. Americans are worried. They are scared. It is essential that we are able to hear directly from the Health Officials leading this effort with just the facts. Im going to go to the republican side first, which is where we left off. Before i do that, without objection, the following three letters we sent on march 3rd to hhs and cdc requesting basic information including about testing are entered into the record. We have not gotten any response to those letters. And with that i recognize mr. Higgins. Thank you, madam chair. Dr. Fouci, gentlemen, thank you for returning today. And let me ask dr. Fouci, do you lead the executives task force regarding our nations response to coronavirus . No, i dont, sir. Your status is what on the task force . I dont lead the task force. The task force is led by the Vice President. Youre the lead scientist . We have several scientists. We have myself, dr. Redfield, dr. Burkds, dr. Kadlec, several scientists. All right. Did the scientists ive spoken with in committee see you as the lead man. And i believe most of american does. And we greatly respect you and these gentlemen being here today. However let me clarify for america watching that according to the rules of this committee, members have the opportunity to submit our questions in writing. And given the nature of this challenge and the president s announcements of last night, with all due respect, madam chair, i believe that this hearing should have been canceled or postponed, these gentlemen should be able to go and do their work. Theres a time and battle when you need your frontline men on the front line, not in the rear with the gear. These gentlemen showed us Great Respect to be here today. An oversight role is incredibly important. But you gentlemen have work to do. Ill be submitting my questions if writing. My office will publish those questions and your answers in a press release at a later date. Madam chair, i urge you to tr adjourning this hearing. I yield my time to the Ranking Member. Thank the gentleman for yielding. I chair would yield to the gentleman from tennessee, mr. Green. Thank you. My first question is for mr. Kadlec, i want to talk a little bit about ppe if i could, and a concern about liability and the Liability Protections that might be very important r for, you know, the fact that this is such a catastrophic event and we are pushing to the extreme our stocks on ppe. If you could comment on that and the liability issues . Youre correct. A great demand for personal protective equipment, particularly res prairtsz. We have a limited supply in our stockpile annually, about 350 million are used. Only a small percentage of that is used by the health care industry, about 35 million. We believe the demand could be several hundred million to up to a billion in a sixmonth period. Its a very high demand item. There has been a strategy and cdc has provided guidance on reuse. Weve gone to the manufacturers and how they could surge more. Many of themself are doing that. Domestically even though sources some finished product is from overseas like china. The third thing, what can we do to use masks that havent been used for the medical area . Nonmedical n95s could be used. Its certified through an emergency use, that n95 respirators used in manufacturing, mining and construction could be used in health care settings. Theyre not the same but could be used. The only thing thats keeping a lot of manufacturers from selling those to the Broader Health care workers is because of lack of users of these masks or of users of the products that are defined as a device or covered counter measure. When we happen to be on the staff that did that legislation in 2005 we did not consider a situation like this today. We thought about vaccines. We thought about therapeutics. We never thought about respirators being our first and only line of defense for Health Care Workers. We think thats a important capacity and capability to include language or modify the prep act to include language to include respiratory devices. Thats significant. Thank you very much for that answer. Dr. Redfield, i had a bunch of con stit wents ask me after yesterdays hearing, whats the difference between a Public Health lab and commercial . Everybody in this room kind of understands that. But would you for the record and for the folks watching on tv make the clarification between those in the few seconds i have left . Thank you very much. We have a series of Public Health labs throughout this country whose primary purpose is to do surveillance. To kind of get eyes on whats going on in the community. And cdc has worked cooperatively with them, as you know, about 70 of our funding that we get from you all is in distributed to the state and local territory including their Public Health labz. Theres also clinical medicine. The practice of clinical medicine. The private sector. That actually tries to provide diagnostics so we can dying nose diabetes or anemia, lots of different diseases. Its really the engagement of the private sector to get these tests into clinical medicine, which is a martnership between the private sector. Cdc usually develops the test first, gets it out into the Health Departments, and then the private sector comes in to provide the tools we need to diagnose patients, not the surveillance of the community. Thank you. The gentle lady from florida, miss warrerman schultz, is recognized for fine minutes. Yesterday my colleague mr. Raskin asked you about a nurse in california who was quarantined after treating a patient with coronavirus and showing symptoms herself. She couldnt get tested even though her local Public Health department recommended one. She said the public county officer called me and verified my symptoms and agreed with testing. But the cdc would not initiate. They would be test because if i were wearing the protective equipment i wouldnt have the coronavirus. When you were asked about this yesterday you said, this is a misunderstanding if it did occur. You testified that quote, the test was always available in atlanta where cdc is located. If you sent the sample to us and there was not a time when a Health Department could not get a test they had to send it to atlanta. You claimed they never placed restrictions on who got tested, rather that that was only guidance, and quote, we always left the discretion to do testing to the local Public Health group. The Committee Staff reached out to the nurse. They sent us the following Statement Last night. I ask unanimous consent this statement be entered. Granted. According to National Nurses united in recent weeks our union has been made aware of multiple circumstances and the statement is up on the screen, multiple circumstances in which Health Care Workers have been exposed to covid19 and have not received covid19 tests despite requests. There have been too many cases where exposed Health Care Workers have been refused at the timing for this to be considered misunderstanding. There have been countless cases when its been refused. Dr. Redfield, the National Union that represents nurses just issued a statement publicly contra ticketing your testimony yesterday. I ask, will you admit that there is a serious problem in this country with individuals even Health Care Workers obtaining access to testing for coronavirus . [ muted ]. You have to turn your mic on. Thank you for your question. Ill look into this in depth as i said yesterday. Clearly we need to protect the Health Care Workers on the front lines. In general, these are local decisions on which Health Care Workers need to be tested and exposed. These are people who contacted cdc and at cdc that they say turned them down and said they couldnt be tested. I will look into that in detail and get back to your office as soon as i can. As soon as you can hopefully will be today. There are countless more examples of problems of people getting access to tests including m my home state of florida. We need to have someone in charge of making sure that as many people as possible across this country have access to getting tested as soon as possible. Who is that person . Is it you . Is it the Vice President . Can you give us the name of who can guarantee that anyone but especially Health Care Workers who need to be tested can be . As i tried to explain to congressman green, from the cdc perspective im asking for a name. Who is in charge of making sure that people who need to get tested who are indicated to be tested can get a test . Who . I was trying to say that the responsibility that i have at cdc is make sure all the Public Health labds have it and they can make the judgment an how they can use it. Theyre referencing people advised to be sent to you and turned down. Im going to basically you seem to be saying because you cant name anyone that theres no one in charge that we can make sure people who need to be tested, theres not one person that can ensure these tests can be administered . Yes or no . My colleague is looking at me to answer that. Here we go. Okay. All right. So and i do have another question. If we can get to the meat of the question. Quickly, the system is not really geared to what we need right now. What you are asking for. That is a failing. A failing . It is a failing. Lets admit it. The fact is the way the system was set up is that the Public Health component that dr. That dr. Redfield was talking about was a system where you put it out there in the public, and a physician asks for it, and you go et it. The idea of anybody getting it easily the way people in other countries are doing it, were not set up for that. Do i think we should be . Yes. But were not. Okay. Thats really disturbing and i appreciate the information. Madam chair if i can quickly ask my other question which is the question i wanted to ask yesterday. We have four in my home county four positive port every glood workers who were tested positive. These employees likely contracted it with interactions with infected passengers on ships they were working at the time. Ships that held six so eight ships that likely held upwards of 50,000 passengers. The people on these ships who were potentially exposed should have been notified. They deserve to know they had been exposed to someone with the virus. When i asked our department of heath what deps being table, when i asked the port, the cruise lines, the department of health, the department was not forthcoming, didnt direct the cruise lines to notify the passengers. The public and those passengers, i couldnt get a straight answer. They said they were going by cdc guidelines. Dr. Redfield, what are the guidelines for notifying people potentially exposed to a confirmed case and shouldnt passengers on the ships worked by the port ever glade employees be notified in a timely manner . They still havent been notified . Thank you very much, again, for both your concern and your question. I know you got a chance to speak to admiral redding i think yesterday about that. Yes. And cdc last night spoke with the princess cruise staff about this situation. They agreed to send a notice to all passengers on the ship where the greeters have worked. Were obviously in contact today with the florida Health Department. We would concur that individuals that have been exposed, particularly in a cruise shedding, should be notified. I think the controversy here is its i think the state actually thinks they may have gotten infected in the community. But i think we should err on the side of concern. In the epidemiological study they did they said these employees had not traveled internationally and not had contact in the community with anyone in the coronavirus. Days and days have gone by, thousands of passengers floated around the ocean with people who had coronavirus likely on the ship they were on, and days and days have gone by with no notification, no precautions, and they could be out there spreading coronavirus right now, and stood the cruise line have not been notified and urged to notify their passengers to make sure they can figure out whether theyve been exposed. My only comment was after you brought this to admiral reds attention, we did that have conversation. And the princess its not just princess. This is the the members time is expired by the witness may answer the question. Thank you. I just said that based on that, the company, the cruise ship staff, agreed to send a notice to all passengers that were on a ship in which any of these greeters worked. I want to point out it was not just princess. This is the second largest cruise port in the world, and there is more than just Princess Cruise Lines that these employees worked. We will follow up to see with the state that any ship that had passengers at these individuals could have exposed will be notified. Thank you. From south carolina, mr. Norman, is recognized for the equivalent time. Point of order, do i get seven minutes . Yes, you do. Thank you so much. I just want to thank each and every one of you for coming here. I agree with my congressman higgins that, you know, you all need to be on the front lines. I admire you for coming here. Theres nobody watching across this country that has listened that doesnt recognize youre doing all you can do. There are certain groups that want to find every fault. We are on unchartered waters. You are drinking from a tidal wave. Please know the majority of the country understands why we werent aware, we didnt anticipate this. You all are handling it and we do appreciate it. First question, what i i just met with a company, fortune 500 company, who is looking at testing their employees as they come in the door. And yet their concern was one, frivolous lawsuits, class action suits by trial lawyers, hipaa violations, health you just cant take temperatures of people without getting into all type of issues. What would for any of you, what would you say for them to do . Cdc has published our guidance for businesses and encourage them i heard the first day it got over 500,000 downloads. I would like people to look at that guidance carefully. Secondly, there are complexities as we spoke, about testing. Probably most importantly the number of people could have this and actually have no symptoms. The other reality is when the test turns positive after you are infergted is still a skein tichkt question. I can defer to dr. Fouci. So at this stage, we really would like to see the tests provided to those individuals that feel they were exposed in the clinical setting, as we continue to try to expand that. Those individuals that obviously are presented with flulike symptoms in the hospitals. Obviously we want to see the tests used for broader Public Health sur advantage. I think thats the stage were in. Id like to see if tony wants to add something . No, it is. There are two situations dr. Redfield described, one, the tried and true cdcbased situation, where its based on the doctor patient interaction, where a doctor as a patient who wants to get tested for cause, theyre sick, theyve been exposed, what have you, that worked well. The system right now as it exists, of doing a much broader capability of determining what the pentrance is in society right now is not operational at all for us. And what the cdc is doing now is that theyre taking various cities. They started with six, and then theyre going to expand it. Where theyre not going to wait for somebody to ask to get tested, theyre going to get people who walk into an emergency room or a clinic with an flaunsalike illness, and test them for coronavirus. If you do that on a broader scale throughout the country, youll start to get a feel for what the penetrance is, and thats a different process. Unfortunately our system from the beginning was not set up to do that. And thats the reason why were not able to answer the broader skez of, how many people in the country of infected right now . We hope to get there reasonably soon, but were not there now. What is your opinion on the question i was asked by this employee, do i give do i take the risk of when you walk in that door, no symptoms, you just see what whether its a temperature, whether its asking questions, they are petrified of the outcome if they do that. Theyre also petrified of somebody having the virus when they walk in the door and them being held liable if they infect and this company has 500 employees. They do shifts, working three shifts. Whats your advice . You know, at this point, our strongest advice is that people sick need to stay home. Those companies that are in areas where were having significant cases, if they can, you know, telework, were recommending that. Those companies that are with cases, were asking for social distances. Were not asking for everybody he to come at lunchtime and sit at the same table. Were not advocating, and obviously individuals that just returned from italy or france or germany, wed like them to stay home for 14 days. But were not advocating the use of these tests in a broad way in the absence of a relationship with a physician or Public Health official to make that determination. Second question, weve got probably 80 people in this room. The questions that im getting asked, what are the in this room today, what are the likelihood, i dont know whos got what in this room. Walk me through the likelihood of any one of us in this room getting the virus, assuming somebody here has the symptoms . Again, still, the real risk in general right now, and this is why the president took the action he did last night, within the world now, over 70 of the new cases are linked to europe. And in the United States i think it was now 30 states in our country, 30 of your states or more were linked actually to cases in europe. Europe is the new china. And thats why the president made those statements. Clearly we can only continue to emphasize the basics that weve all said