Technical problem from within that was corrected. And it was an issue of embracing the way we have now and should have the private sector who clearly has the capability of making and providing tests at the level that we will need them for any of the things that ive just spoken about. So having said that, right now i totally understand and im not alone. My colleagues understand, that although we say there are x number of tests out there and youre going to hear from admiral giroir about that. The fact is there have been and still are situations that are correctible and will be corrected and some of which have been corrected. I know. I get on the phone a lot with my colleagues. Because believe it or not, some long time ago, i was where they are in the hospitals, in theEmergency Rooms looking at very sick individuals that you need to take care of. And i know what it means when someone tells you, hey, you have what you need and you look around and you say, well, maybe you think i have what i need, but i dont really have what i need. So we have to figure out how do we close that gap. And there are a lot of things that i think weve learned and that we are correcting and going to correct. Mainly, you have a situation where tests are needed and appropriated and either people are found theres no tests or theres no reagents or theres no swabs or a person needed a test and were told that there was a restriction, they couldnt get a test. These are all the things that im telling you, you already know because youve heard them. So right now or theres a delay of five to seven days. What does that mean if you want to get somebody out of circulation. We understand that that existed, but upon careful examination,
what you are going to hear that many of those have been already corrected and other of those will be corrected. Because what i think people dont appreciate, through no fault of their own, there are two issues. Theres supply and demand. And if you have a supply that can meet the demand, but the supply is not connected to the demand, then the supply demand falls apart. What do i mean by that . I mean there is existing capacity that we have that for one reason or other maybe has not been fully communicated as to the availability of that existing capacity and youre going to hear about that now. Theres Production Capacity that gets better and better and better. Thats what were talking about. For what we need now, we believe
that, with better communications, well be able to make that happen. So i know theres going to be a lot of questions about that. I didnt want to go on too long. Let me finish by saying, given what ive just said and i believe what youre going to hear, for what we need in the first phase, if these things are done correctly what i believe they can, we will have and there will be enough tests to allow us to take this country safely through phase one. Thank you. Dr. Redfield. Thank you plrks Vice President. I want to make a few comments here. First i want to talk a little bit about cdc has developed multiple systems to monitor disease outbreaks. I think many of you are familiar how we monitor for food borne illness or antibiotic resistance
in hospitals. Weve also developed a system to monitor for upper respiratory tract disease. If i can get the first slide there. This is an example. When we talk about what we know about this current pandemic, reality is we know a lot. Weve developed monitoring systems. Up on the slide is a system weve developed initially for flu. What it does, you can see theres a multiple different flu seasons and they track them over the course of the year. I want you to look the a. The red line. That happens to be this years respiratory season. You see theres a peak there up over the 50, 52 week. That peak what is when we had a peak of influenza b. This year was a little different because after that, syndrome came down and we had another peak when influenza a was active
through our country. You can see influenza a started to drop, but then you saw a third peak. That peak was ufrp looking at the coronavirus 19. So we have systems all the way down to the county level that we can see where theres respiratory tract illness. So its not just taking a test. Its monitoring these systems that have been developed over decades. We have multiple ones. We have another one. Its monitored in Emergency Rooms looking at syndrome diagnosis. They showed the same thing. Were wellequipped to monitor to see when respiratory tract viral disease will come. It becomes a very good surrogate for when you begin to understand when we need to start looking eat logically whats going on. In week 15, you can see were
really coming down to the baseli baseline in from the overall coronavirus situation right now. The second thing i wanted to say is that cdc continues to enhance the states Public Health capacity to accelerate their ability as tony talked about, its critical as we open america again. To diagnose individuals that present with influenzalike illness or coronaviruslike illness, to diagnose them. Be able to isolette them and to be able to Contact Trace around them and then diagnose the contacts and those that are coronavirus positive, to go back and do their contacts. This is the traditional Public Health approach. When it started in this outbreak in january and february and was quite successful, as i mentioned
before to february 27th, this country only had 14 cases. We did that isolation and that Contact Tracing and it was very successful. But then when the virus more exploded, got beyond the Public Health capacity. Right now, cdc is enhancing that Public Health capacity and if i can get the second slide, i want to show you that this is just showing as we sit here today that cdc has embedded in these Health Departments and all of these states across this country, more than 500 individuals. We also have an additional almost 100 individuals that are working on more than 20 coronavirus outbreaks that are going through all these states. Finally, at the direction of the president , weve been asked to further enhance this deployment in each of the states as the Vice President said so that theres Additional Health personnel to help accelerate the states ability to basically move forward aggressively and we
assist them so they can operational ayes the president s guidelines to open up america again. I just wanted to make those points for you today. Thank you. Dr. Birx. Thank you, mr. Vice president. And thank you dr. Fauci and dr. Redfield for all of that clarity. If we can have the next slide. Im going to go back to what dr. Fauci was talking about to emphasize those points about the two types of tests and im going to talk about a third one. First, we all know about sampling in the front of your nose. To all of the labs out there and to the providers, you dont have to use the nasofair nasofair jeel swab. Thats sampling for the virus itself. It replicates in your nose and throughout some of the respiratory tissues. The second cast is, of course, then your immune response to that infection in your nose. Thats the Antibody Test. So those are the two tests we want to talk about. But i want to come back to something that both dr. Fauci and dr. Redfield said. We covered it yesterday. Testing is a part of the exquisite monitoring that needs to occur in partnership with cdc and state and local governments utilizing the Surveillance Systems that are available, what we just talked about, the flu Surveillance System because we no longer have flu and the syndrome i can respiratory system. You can see its going back to baseline. Well be able to see on the Community Level any deviation from that baseline. In addition, what we talked about yesterday was adding that asymptomatic component because i think youll see as more and more articles come out for surveillance at other and
monitoring that other states have done, higher and higher antibody in multiple individuals who dont remember having a sickness. That will give us an idea. Thats our asymptomatic monitoring in these sentinel monitoring sites. What did we talk about yesterday . We talked about Nursing Homes, Indigenous People and Vulnerable People in the inner city. Really ensuring that something that is so small that cant even be seen on the surveillance monitoring will be able to be seen in the asymptomatic. So those are the two tests that we have. One available now, two that have been approved or three by the fda. I want to just leave you with my last concept on the Antibody Tests. Antibody tests have different specificity and sensitivities. The fda, weve made the fda has been very cautious about theAntibody Test because i know you see reports every day of countries that ordered the Antibody Test and found that they were 50, 60, 70 faulty. So were taking that very seriously. Because you never want to tell someone that they have an antibody and potential immunity when they dont. And so those tests perform better when theres a high prevalence or a high incidence of disease. So we want to work with mayors around the United States as those Antibody Tests become available to really see what it is in First Responders and Health Care Workers in the highest prevalence states so that we can know about the quality and the real life, real field experience of those as says. Things can look very good in the lab and then when you take them into the field, sometimes theyre not as good. Ive learned this lesson repeatedly in working around the globe. The next slide. So this is what we have asked commercial and diagnostic companies to be working on. Because when you talk about multimillions worth of tests, the way we do this in the United States today for strep, for influenza and for malaria, we test for the antigen. We dont know right now, as you shed antigen in the front of your nose. That is a question that scientists and companies are working on right now. Because that becomes a simpler test. Now, the flu test, i think many of you will look it up tonight. You will see that outside of the flu season, because of the specificity of the test, it doesnt work so well. So these are tests were working on today that would be like a screening test. Because if youre positive on it, its a good test. But it may miss that you actually have the flu. So then you would move into
the what we call the knew clee i can acid test. The full science of the United States into the reality of the clinic. So bench to clinic. This is what were working on for the future. Next slide. So as i promised both the senators and the governors, this is the United States current platform capacity. Designated as high and low through putt. What do i mean by that . Weve talked about roche and abbott and others and the gene expert and other machines that may be moderate through put. I want to show you how its through the United States. These are the current testing platforms available today throughout the United States for covid19. As you heard from dr. Fauci, everything has to be working
from the to the transport media to the laboratory to really get those tests run and the results back to the client. The next slide. So then weve looked at all of the Testing Capacity from those platforms and this gives you an idea of what that capacity is. The darkest red, you can see like in texas and new york, those are states that have hots of different platforms, as you saw on the prior slide and the ability, you add up the platforms and the potential for tests of over a million tests per month. So this is what were working with each of those states on unhocking that full potential. Unlocking that full potential. How are we doing that . Were calling on the American Society, microbiologists, they work closely with 300 Lab Directors around the country. We talked with them this morning. The walter reed team who developed the entire hiv Testing Program for the military 35
years ago, called them back into service and theyre calling lab by lab to find out what are the technical difficulties to bring up all the platforms that exist in your lab. Is it swabs, is it transport media, is it extraction . I really want to thank them. Theyve already worked through over 70plus of those laboratories to really understand and the American Society of micro buy olss and the academic societies are working together to ensure that all of this potential can be unlocked. Next slide, please. We talked a little bit yesterday about new orleans. And the president talked about how many tests new orleans has done. During its outbreak, which you can see now is waning. Theyve done throughout the last month, 27 tests per 1,000 new orleans and louisianaians. So 27 in per thousand. Thats a good mark. Thats what italy has done about 20 per thousand. In evaluating an outbreak and really to get control of this outbreak, they did about 27 tests per thousand. Using that as a measure, next slide, we then looked across all the states of the United States of america and looked for states that had 30 or more, ability to do 30 or more tests per thousand this and in each state. You can see across the country, except for oregon and maine and montana i worked overseas way too long. Thank you all. So those are the three states were working on building capacity in. So this is just to give you a perspective of how seriously were taking the testing issue. As weve described, weve measured every single platform
and every single state. We know exactly where they are by geography, by address, by zip code. What their capacity is, what their roadblocks are, not ability to run all their full capacity and were addressing those. Each one of those is different and you have to address each of them one by one, with the governors, with the state and local labs and with all of the hospitals. I have not come across one laboratory or one Laboratory Director or one society that doesnt want to contribute to solving this issue of testing and ensuring that this testing is available for everyone. There is a strong, just as all the americans have social distanced in behind everyone, we dont often talk about the laboratories. Well talk about the nurses and doctors on the front line. Behind all of them are the Laboratory Technicians and Laboratory Directors coming in every day and putting things together to ensure that every
single person that needs to be diagnosed is diagnosed. Hopefully, you can see from these labs, i mean these slides that really there is capacity out there. It is our job working with the states and having the state and the leadership role and the Laboratory Directors in the leadership role to provide support to ensure that all the potential for testing in the United States is brought to bear. I just want to end with, these are new clay i can acid tests. There will never be the ability on that kind of test to do 300 million tests a day or to test everybody before they go to work or to school. But there might be with the antigen test. So thats why theres a role for the acid test and a role for the Antibody Test and a role for the future development of these other key tests to bring the full ability to the United States. So let me finish this. Well be talking to all americans. Theres other tests that other
americans should have. I think this has brought to light the importance of diagnosis and well talk to you further about hepatitis c and t. B. And other things that we can do to assure americans this really raises the awareness about how you do test for different kinds and different parts of your Disease State and what is long lasting immunity and what made the long lasting immunity. What is an antigen test. With that, add miles an hour giroir. Let me amplify one point as the admiral steps forward to include his remarks about our approach and the efforts weve put underway. Governors across the country have been working very closely with us to roll out the level of testing that we have today. All the information we presented to you is going to be reviewed in the days ahead with all of our governors. Our objective is to connect
every one of americas governors and state Health Officials and to all of the labs that are currently able to do coronavirus. But as dr. Birx, dr. Fauci both described, we believe today that we have the capacity in the United States to do a sufficient amount of testing for states to move into phase one at the time and manner that they deem to be appropriate. With that, ill allow the add miles an hour to complete our briefing on testing and we expect the president to return. Thank you, mr. Vice president. Thank you to all my really great colleagues. Can i have that my next slide. So i wanted to start by where we are today. Just to visit where weve come in such a short period of time. As everyone on the stage has said before, our testing right now is well over 3. 78 million
tests that have been completed. And if you are impressed by bar graphs, thats over 1. 2 million tests reported just in the last week. Ambassador birx talked to me earlier and said we only do 2 million molecular tests for hiv, something thats been developed for 35 years. Were doing twice that number of tests in a month for a disease that