The committee will please come to order. First, straightive matters based on the sergean u attending physician after we consulted the department of health and Human Services and the centers for Disease Control and prevention, individuals in the hearing room are six feet apart. As a result theres no room for the public to attend in person. Relayingni observations to colleagues. The hearing may be watched online. Unedited recording will be available on www. Senate. Gov. Witnesses are participating individual i dont conference in a onetime exception. Some senators, including the chairman, are participating by video conference. Senators, weve been advised, may remove their masks, talk into the microphone in the hearing room six feet apart. Grateful to the rules committee, sergeant of the arms, capital police, Committee Staff all for their hard work to keep us safe. We are hearing last thursday, all roads back to work about back to school run through testing. And what our country has done so far on testing is impressive, but not nearly enough. Over the weekend, senator schumer, the democratic leader, was nice enough to put out a tweet, quoting half of what i said. He left out the other half, the impressive part. Let me say again what i meant by that. When i said impressive, i meant according to Johns Hopkins university study, the United States has tested over 9 million americans for covid19. Thats twice as many as any other country. We dont know what china has done. And its more per capita than most countries, including south korea, which manyni members of r committee are cite d, according to dr. Deborah birx, the United States was double testing in the month of may, 10 million tests conducted. Here is what i mean by impressive here in tennessee where i am today. First, anyone who is sick, First Responder or health care worker, can get tested. Our governor, bill lee, is also testing every prisoner, every resident staff member in a nursing home, has offered weekend drivethrough testing, has done specific outreach for testing to lowincome communities. Any tennesseean can get a test. The governors slogan is when in doubt, get a test. Federal government is helping him make sure that he has enough supplies, in case he has trouble getting them through the labs and the other commercial sources. As a result, our state has tested about 4 of the population. The governor hopes to increase that to 7 . Phase one of going back to work, which i said last week is not nearly enough to provide confidence to 31,000 students and faculty members that we hope will show up at the university of tennessee campus in august when school start. Last week i talk ed to chancellr plowman about that. What would persuade those 31,000 students as well as the 50 million k through 12 students in the country and the other university students, what will persuade them to go back to campus in august . Thats where the new shark tank comes in, dr. Collins calls it red x. We had our hearing about that on thursday. Remarkable scientific exercise. Take a few early stage concepts, swimming around what we call that competitive shark tank, see if dr. Collins and his associates can find a few new technologies to create millions of new tests that will scale up rapidly and make it more likely students will go back to school in august. First diagnostic testuation saliva, that a person provides at homestead of nose swab or blood. First niniantigen tests, like t onescoq used for flu or strep throat, which involves the swabbing of the nose and you can get the result in a few moments. Another test not approved is to put in your mouth a lollipop sponge, take a photo of that. It lights up, youre positive. A university might send that saliva lollipop to a nearby laboratory, which could be a gene sequencing laboratory, which can deal with thousands of those samples overnight. And that same process could occur at a middle school. It could occur at a factory. Of course, anyone testing negative one day can test positive the next. Widespreadco screening at schoo campuses or placesnrco of work encourage to persuade the rest of us to go back to school and back to work. In addition to more testing i expect dr. Fauci to talk to us about additional treatments that will be available to reduce the risk of death and the administrations plan to do something that our country has never done before, which is to before it actually has been proven to work in order to speed up the result in case it does work. Those vaccines and treatments are the ultimate. Before we have them, the more tests we conduct, the better we can identify those sick and exposed and quarantine the sick and exposed instead of trying to quarantine the whole country. In my opinion, this requires millions of new tests, many from new technologies. Some of these will fail. We only need a few successes to get where we want to go. Thats why i said on thursday that what our country has done is impressive but not nearly enough. Squeeze all the tests we can out of current technologies, next try to find new technologiesni help us try to contain the disease and persuade us to go back to work. One other thing. This is a bipartisan hearing to examine how well were preparing to go safely back to work and to school and to determine what else we need to do in the united vsenate. Such an exercise sometimes encourages finger pointing. Before we spend too much time finger pointing, i would like to suggest that almost all of us, the United States and almost every country so far as i can tell, underestimated this virus. Underestimated how contagious it would be, underestimated how it can travel silently in people without symptoms to infect other people. How it can be especially deadly for certain segments of our population, the elderly, those with preexisting conditions, minority population. Let me go back to the march 3rd hearing we had in our committee on coronavirus. Six weeks after the first case was discovered in the United States, a day when only two deaths were recorded in this country, i read at that hearing this paragraph from the New York Times two days earlier on march 1st. They reported this. Much about the coronavirus remains unclear, the times reported and its far from certain, march 3rd march 1, that the outbreak will reach severe proportions in the United States or affect many regions at once. With its topnotch scientists, modern hospitals and sprawlingn Public Healthxd infrastructure most experts agree, United States is among the countries best prepared to prevent or manage such an epidemic. That was the New York Times on march 1. A lot of effort has gone in to trying to make our country well prepared over the last 20 years, four president s, several congresses in response to 9 11, bird flu, katrina, ebola, h1n1, passed nine major laws to try to help get this country ready for what were going through today. These laws stood up the Strategic National stockpile, created an assistant secretary for preparedness. It created incentives for the developments of vaccines and medicines that were using today to strengthen the centers for Disease Control,co created arr of senator blunt and senator murray, weve increased funding to the National Institutes of health. All ofco this was part of a shad goal. Democrats, republicans, several president s and congresses, to try to get ready for what we were going through today. Whether it was known, like anthrax, or counknown, like covid19, but despiteco that effort, even the experts underestimated covid19. This hearing is about how we improve our response toco this virus as well as the next. During the oversight hearing i also intend to focus on, as i just said, the next pandemic, which we know is coming. What can we learn from this one to be ready for the next one . Can we learn from the fasttracking of vaccines and treatments that were about to hear about that will make it even faster the next time . How can we keep hospitals and states from selling off protective equipment when their budget gets tight . How can we make sure congress does our share of the funding responsibility . How do we provide enough hospital beds without canceling elective surgery, hurting other patients and bankrupting hospitals . Whose job should it be to coordinate supply lines so technical equipment and supplies get to where theyre supposed to go when theyre supposed to go . Whats the best way to manage the stockpile . My preacher once said im not worried about what you do on sunday. Its the rest of the week that concerns me. Im afraid during the rest of the week between pandemics, we relax our focus on preparedness. We become preoccupied with other important things. Our collective memory is short. Just three months ago, this country was preoccupied with impeaching a president. Now that seems like ancient roman history. Now while this crisis has our full attention, i believe we should put into law this year whatever improvements need to be made to be well prepared for the next pandemic. If there is to be finger pointing, i hope theyre pointed in that direction. Four distinguished witnesses who are at the heart of the response of the coronavirus. Were grateful for their service to our country. We ask them each to summarize their remarks in five minutes, then well have fiveminute round of questions from each senator. I agreed to end our hearing about 12 30 after we have a full round of questions. Every senator will have a chance to have four or five minutes. Senator murray will have an opportunity to ask the last question or close the hearing and then i will close the hearing. Other hearings to follow this hearing, like last thursdays hearing and senators may submit their questions in writing within the next ten days. Staying at home indefinitely is not a solution to this pandemic. There is not enough money available to help all those hurt by a closed economy. All roads back to work, back to school lead through testing, tracking, isolation, treatment and vaccines. This requires widespread testing. Millions more tests, created those exposed can be quarantined and contain the virus in this way can give the country confidence to go back to work and school. In the near term, those 31,000 ut students and faculty members show up in august, we need widespread testing. Millions more tests, created mostly by new technologies, to identify those who are sick, who have been exposed so they can be quarantined by contain iing the disease in this way, to give approximate the rest of america enough confidence to go back to work and back to school. Senator murry . Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. My thoughts are with you and your team right now, as you try to navigate the same challenge so many in our country are worried about. We all wish your staff member a speedy recovery. I would like to thank not only our witnesses for joining us today, but our Committee Staff in working to set up a safe format for members and witnesess and the public to participate in this hearing remotely. Families across the country are counting on us for the truth about the covid19 pandemic, especially since it is clear they will not get it from President Trump. Truth is essential. So people have the facts, so they can make decisions for themselves and their families and their communities. Lives are at stake. The president isnt telling the truth. We must. And our witnesses must. And were counting on you today. Families need us to take this opportunity to dig into facts about where things did go wrong, so we can finally get them on track, because the Trump Administrations response to this Public Health emergency so far has been a disaster all on its own. Delays, missteps have put us way behind where we need to be on diagnostic tests and allowed inaccurate Antibody Tests to flood the market. Corruption and political interference have impeded efforts and promoted dangerous, unproven treatments and we recently learned that after experts at the centers for Disease Control and prevention spent weeks developing a detailed guide to help our communities understand how to safely reopen, when the time comes, the Trump Administration tossed it in the trash bin for being too prescriptive. But this is far from the first time this administration has silenced experts who were doing their job and putting Public Health first. The fact of the matter is, President Trump has been more focused on fighting against the truth than fighting this virus. And americans have sadly paid the price. Since this Committee Heard from these witnesses on march 3rd, weve seen 900 deaths in my home state of washington, and the numbers continue to climb. Still, President Trump is trying to ignore the facts and ignore the experts who have been very clear we are nowhere close to where we need to be to reopen safely. My hope today is that we can cut through this and have a serious discussion about what is needed to safely open. How close we are as a country to meet those needs and how we actually get there. We need dramatically more testing. It is unacceptable we still dont have a National Strategic plan to make sure testing is free, fast and everywhere. That is why i fought to make sure our last covid19 package included an additional 25 billion testing fund and requirement that the Administration Submit a plan by may 24th. And when i say a plan, i dont mean a pr plan. I mean a plan with specific timelines and numeric goals tore supply and funding needs, one that actually addresses the issues were seeing on capacity, distribution, disparities and building out our Public Health system. And makes clear to states and tribes and employers and the American People what they can expect and what the administration will do to keep americans safe. Testing alone wont be enough to reopen our country. We still need far more personal protective equipment than has been available for our Health Care Workers on the front line. And we will need far more for our workers as we reopen. So we desperately need this administration to step up and get that equipment to states who are doing everything in their power to purchase supplies but simply cannot get nearly enough, because the reality is, unlike states, the federal government has the tools to actually fix the problem if only the administration would use them. And we also need that equipment to actually work and for the fda to act promptly if it does not, not weeks later, when people may have already been exposed. And just as importantly, we cant expect people to go back to work or to restaurants or to confidently send their kids to school if there isnt clear, detailed guidance about how to do that safely. Schools, from Early Childhood through college, need to know how to keep their students, their staff and their educators safe. When should they wear masks . How do you run a School Cafeteria or a school bus . And if they cant reopen classrooms, schools and families need to know were working to ensure every student gets an education. Tools like Online Learning can only get us so far if we dont address the Digital Divide so that every student can access them. And even then, there will be learning loss that could deepen educational disparities among lowincome students, students with disabilities, english language learners and other vulnerable populations if we dont make sure they get equal access to resources and support. And, of course, schools arent the only workplaces weve got to be thinking about. We need to make sure that industries across the country know how to safely reopen and that people know their workplace is safe. Secretary scalia needs to stop dragging his feet and do his job and set forward a rule that makes clear worker safety is not optional. Mr. Chairman, i hope those th committee can hear about those issues from secretary scalia and secretary devos and others in the days ahead. Other congregate care facilities where weve seen the deadly outbreaks. And as the rash of outbreaks at meat packing plants shows, its not just an issue for the health care industry. Its an issue for everyone. Just as we need to plan before we can start to reopen, we also need to plan well before we have a safe and effective vaccine to guarantee that we can quickly produce and distribute it on a global scale and make it free and available for everyone. So, ill be asking about our progress on those issues today. Today, safely reopening our country may be a ways off. And the administrations planning may be way behind. But theres still a lot that Congress Needs to do. There isnt time to spare. Some, including the white house, say weve already provided enough economic relief. My question to them is, what good is a brenlg that only gets you to the middle of the river . We dont need to wait around to see if people need more help. We know they do. We need to work quickly on another aggressive relief package and we need to make sure our priorities in that bill are protecting our workers, our students and our families and addressing this Public Health crisis, not bailing out corporations or protecting big business from accountability. People across the country are doing their part. They are washing their hands and Wearing Masks and social distancing and staying home. They need their government to do its part, too. They need leadership. They need a plan. They need honesty. And they need it now. Before we reopen. So they can rest assured that we are doing things safely and competently with their health and wellbeing as a top priority. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Its an important hearing. Some people may be watching it for the first time. If they are, i hope they no