hello, everybody. i'm john king in washington. thanks for sharing this very busy news day with us. we'll go to capitol hill in a moment with critical testimony from the top doctors. half, half the states reporting

week-to-week coronavirus case increases, and hospitalizations are also spiking in several areas. president trump son his way to arizona. one of the states scrambling to fights a coronavirus surge. he'll visit the u.s.-mexico border and then he'll speak in phoenix at an event that the mayor says violates the coronavirus restrictions against large gatherings. before leaving washington, tough words from the president on the other giant national crisis. the president says he's preparing a new executive order designed to protect statues on federal lands, and he is warning if protesters here in the nation's capital try to set up a so-called autonomous zone, quote, they will be met with serious force. today's coronavirus hearings comes at quite a critical moment. the president uses words like fading and dying off when asked about the pandemic, but the numbers tell us a very, very different story. dr. anthony fauci last testified on capitol hill six weeks ago. that the was may 12. then 82,000 coronavirus deaths. 1.3 total million cases can and nearly 24,000 new cases added

each day. now, despite what the president says, 120,000-plus americans dead. 2.3 million total cases, an average of 28,000. new coronavirus infections added each day. 25 states this week reporting more new coronavirus infections than they did last week. now, each state is different. some are seeing stress on their hospitals, some not, at least not yet, and the coronavirus death rate is down, though the experts do remind us it always lags the case count. the president's response to all of this, actually quite stunning. more testing gives the experts more information, but the president says he isn't kidding, said that just today, he isn't kidding when he wishes there was less testing because the higher case count doesn't look good politically. >> were you just kidding, or do you have a plan to slow down testing? >> i don't kid. let me make it clear. we have got the greatest testing program anywhere in the world. we test. we're going to have more cases. by having more cases it sounds

bad, but actually what it is we're finding people. many of those people aren't sick or very little. here's what i say. testing is a double-edged sword. >> straight to our cnn senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen. momentarily a very big hearing up on capitol hill. what are we expecting? it. >> first, i want to say testing is not a double-edged sword. it's a single-edged sword. it's just good to test but i'll leave that aside for a moment. i just have to explain that. >> amen. >> there's a congressional hearing that -- there's a congressional hearing that's going to be going on today, and we're expecting to hear testimony from four top ranking health officials, including dr. ant nip fauci. let's take a look at what we're expecting to hear. from dr. redfield, the head of the cdc, we're expecting to hear that they are developing a single test to test both for flu, for two strains of flu as well as for coronavirus. that's a very smart idea. it it saves time in the lab.

it saves resources. it could save lives because the symptoms are so similar that people are going to need to be tested for both when they show up with those symptoms come flu system. also, dr. fauci will be talking about vaccines. the national institute of health are working with several partners working to try phase three trials, large-scale trials you do before you put something on the market in july, august and september. they are also looking for therapeutics for drugs as well as vaccines. now it's interesting that dr. fauci used the term or plans to use the term rigorous. rigorous testing before we put these vaccines on the market to make sure that they work and to make sure that they are safe, that we're not hurting anyone. john, i think that language is so important because this vaccine effort is called operation warp speed. operation warp speed does not give you the feeling of rigorous testing, rigorous safety checks. it makes it sound just fast, and so dr. fauci is going to be emphasizing how rigorous these tests will be to make sure that

the vaccine works and that we're not hurting anyone. john? >> very critical testimony coming at a very crucial moment as the case count does explode in many cases, and i will echo you, elizabeth. testing is not a double-edged sword. testing is information. information is vital. elizabeth cohen will be watching this testimony with us. florida is one of the recent states in the coronavirus case surge. the latest numbers just olt and rosa flores joins us live from miami. rosa? >> reporter: malt mayors here in miami-dade requiring masks out in public. that's why i'm wearing one right now. they require masks that cover both your nose and your mouth as well. now, they cite an increase in hospitalizations and an increase in the number of people needing ventilators. they are moving forward with that message. as you and i have talked about that before governor ron desantis have not made that

statement statewide but according to public leaders you must wear a mask. according to governor desantis the latest uptick in cases is due to young people, out in public, not social distancing or wearing masks. he surveyses that that means that there will be fewer people that will need to be hospitalized. the state of florida with the number of hospital beds in the state. right now that stands at 28%. now, that number is difficult to understand unless you know the number of covid 19 patients daily. now, that number is not released by the state of florida. we're getting a sense of what that number is from jackson health. that's one of the largest health agencies here in the state of florida, and they report that in the last 14 days they have seen an 88% increase. one of the icu doctors from one hospital telling cnn that a week

ago they had eight code of 19 patients and now they have 40. they started off with one floor for covid-19 patients, john, and now they are looking for a think. that's why local leaders here in miami are taking these measures into their own hands even though governor ron desantis is not requiring masks out in public statewide, here locally, if you're going to be out and about in a public place the rule you is must wear a mask. john. >> that rule common sense. rosa flores live on the ground for us in miami. it would be helpful in the governor of florida was more transparent about the numbers. texas is another state seeing alarming rises in its numbers, too, and let's look at that and the national context. just the first national trend. rising cases alone doesn't mean you should be overly worried. rising cases is not good in 25 states. 25 states reporting more cases this week than last week. 50% more higher cases in eight states. you see those in deep rate, miami, florida, texas as well,

oklahoma where the president's rally was, arizona where the president is heading today. michigan is back on the map there. 50% plus higher this week than last week. not good. doesn't mean it's out of control, but simply not good. if you want to look at states with the highest new cases. the president uses words like fading and dying off and 13 states just yesterday, just yesterday hit their highest average of new cases. that's not nading or dying off, that's a continuing growing problem in some of these states. 25 states up and 13 states with the highest seven-day average just yesterday. now, let's look at texas. you see here, this tracks the reopening. restaurants at 25% and bars at 25%, bars at 50 and restaurants at 75. as they have reopened, go a week, two, three, here's what we've seen go up. in reese rent days these numbers are quite alarming, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, approaching 5,000 enough cases. the seven-day average moving up in texas. not always a problem when the case count goes up, but look here. this is hospitalizations.

now trending back up in the state of texas. this is a problem, something to keep an eye on. also, as you test more, you hope the positive rate of return in those tests go down. in texas it was down and kind of flat and now it's inching up a little bit if you look at the seven-day moving average of the percentage of the tests in texas coming back positive. now the governor, republican greg abbott, he was very aggressive in the reopening and is watching those numbers now and he's starting to get worried. >> covid-19 is now spreading at an unacceptable rate in texas, and it must be corralled. if we were to experience another doubling of those numbers over the next month, that would mean that we are in an urgent situation where tougher actions will be required to make sure that we do contain the spread of covid-19. >> that's the governor of texas there. the houston health department within that state raising the alarm tweeting that the

condition of the coronavirus in hospitals there is rapidly worsening. hospitalizations in harris county, which includes houston, up 177% from may 31st. that's just three weeks ago. with me now is harris county judge leona hidalgo. when you hear had the governor say if the numbers go up and double over the next month he might have to do more. do you have a month? >> i'm afraid we may not. look, nobody has the absolute truth on this, but i've been looking hat those numbers very, very closely, and what we're seeing is the projections. if the trends continue, you don't assume acceleration, but just assume that they continue. our icus would run out of basic operational capacity and surge capacity, anywhere between the next 11 and 40 days which if you think about how long it takes to flatten the curve, how long it took massachusetts, how long it took us here, how long it takes us where it -- it took us the first time around about three weeks to flatten that curve, so

my concern is we have to take action very, very soon if we want to avoid our hospitals being overwhelmed. >> well, by take action, i want more details of exactly what you think is necessary. i want to show just in harris county the age groups impacted right now. if you look at the graphic it does show greater impact is among those younger, 20 to 29 and 29-35 and you hear from the politicians saying the recent increases are among young people who are going out to bars or going back out into large gatherings, and it's not good, but it's not as bad because they are young and they are healthy. the risk though is who do they come in contact next? what do you think needs to be done to use the governor's words to corral this? >> yeah, john, let me be very clear. you know, when folks say it's young people who are being imback theed and hospitalized, that is true when folks talk about there's a lower death rate

in harris and compared to other communities, that's also true. we still have space in our hospitals. that's true as well, but the concern is whether young or old if you're taking it up a hospital bed, you're taking up a hospital bed. that's a bed that someone with a heart attack, a pregnant woman needing to give birth, that they can't use. these trends of the hospitals, you know, filling up, they are getting full, filled up by these younger people taking into account the lower death rate and it's still an issue. i'm in touch with the governor's team. our teams are in communication looking at these numbers and pushing very hard for, you know, we have to take drastic action. i've shared with our community. we are at the second highest level of threat, of concern. that is orange, and if these things continue and i'm looking at it on a day-to-day basis, we would have to go to red. at that point my recommendation would be for everybody to stay home again. now the concern, is of course, i don't have the authority to enforce that anymore, and so

that's why it's so important for us to communicate with the state about these very, very concerning numbers that we're seeing. >> well, that's a dicy moment indeed. i think we can show people what the houston color code looks like and you're at color orange which is significant and if you go to level red that would be severe. one of the leading experts happens to know your community quite while, dr. peter kotez, a scientist and pediatrician. the latest numbers for harris county, my observations if this persists. houston would become the worst affected city, maybe rival what we're seeing in brazil. masks equal first good step but won't be enough. we would need to proceed to red alert, but you've -- you pose a very fascinating question. the governor has taken away local authority to impose new restrictions. what are you going to do? >> for now it's a matter of making sure that the state is seeing the same numbers we are seeing, and so that dialogue is ongoing currently, and it's

saying, look, we cannot wait another month. we have to start curbing and flattening that hospitalization curve right now because we only have at most a month until we run out, and then saying, okay, what drastic action do we have to take? i'm afraid just as the doctor said that everybody wearing face conversation is not enough and so that's something we're discussing with the experts and the state. the clock is ticking. i think this is something we have to figure out here in a matter of days, an -- and ultimately when push comes to shove i respective of what the state does, i'm responsible for this community and so i will sound the alarm, the red alert, but, of course, it will be a lot more effective if i have that enforcement mechanism and right now i need the state's support in order to have that so i'm pursuing it with everything we've got. >> judge hidalgo, please keep in

touch. >> thank you. >> thank you so much. i want to remind you we're waiting for live testimony from top trump administration officials. you see dr. anthony fauci getting ready to testify about the coronavirus response and about this recent surge in cases. up next, as the president travels to arizona he steps up the rhetoric in some new interviews and yes, of course, some new tweets. it back sandwich emoji.' hit it, charlie! ♪matthew, say's to bring it back. the five-dollar footlong. better choice for matthew. it's back sandwich emoji.♪ five-dollar footlongs are back when you buy two. for a limited time.

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for the same medications as the vet, but up to 30 percent less with fast free shipping. visit petmeds.com today. the president is building a 2020 campaign around symbols. he left washington for arizona this morning. he's visiting one of the symbols, 2,900 miles of border wall that represents a campaign promise. though it should be noted you are paying for it, not mexico. statues and other symbols of

heritage is another symbol. protesters outside the white house last night attempted to tear down a monument to president andrew jackson spray painting killer across the base. jackson as we know is a current here owens, of the current president. he led the systematic and removal of native americans nearly two centuries ago. the president this morning making a vow that that statue will stand, he says, and the protesters will go to jail. >> last night we stopped an attack on a great monument, the monument of andrew jackson in lafayette park. we are looking at long-term jail sentences for these vandals and these hoodlums and these anarchists and agitators and call them whatever you want. some people don't like that language, but that's what they are. they are bad people. they don't love our country, and they are not taking down our monuments. >> here to share their reporting and their insights are our

guests from the "washington post" and laura lopez. some of these protesters are veering into the destruction of property and it poses a choice for all political leaders what do you want to say about it, and what is the tone going to be? >> he could say we're listening. we understand. we're moving on issues like police reform and improving the racial climate. please stop or else. instead he goes straight to the you will go to jail. you will go to jail for a very long time, anarchy, looters, et cetera. >> that's right, john. there's been a common thread through trump's response so far to the unrest that we've seen which has been going on now for about a month, and though some of the protests have veered into violence, there has been a separation from peaceful protesters and those who decided to burn buildings or to exert some form of violence, but

trump -- the through line has been that trump has embraced police power and encouraged violence against even peaceful protesters repeatedly, and so his effort has been to -- to either reject the notion that there is systemic racism which is something that a number of his allies and administration members have repeatedly said and not try to listen or to engage any debate on police reform and also in addition to that encourage more police action. >> and so he clearly believes, and we'll see if he's right, he clearly believes emphasizing law and order will help him politically. we know where his standing is with the african-americans and in the suburbs. we'll see if the president's approach can improve it. the other thing that's been interesting, maybe not surprise, is the math is the math and coronavirus numbers are the numbers. the president's team is up on capitol hill. they are going to face questions about the actual numbers happening across america, and

yet the president has been openly saying, and today he said he was not kidding on the issue of testing. he says testing has improved and almost wishes aloud that it hand. >> just to clear up, there wasn't a direct order, if you will, to it the staff to stop the testing. i just want to think that. >> i think we put ourselves at a disadvantage so instead of doing 25 million tests and did 10 million tests, we would look like we're doing much better because we'd have far fewer cases. >> i think we have become numb to this over the three-plus years of president trump, but that is mind-blowing. we put ourselves at a disadvantage by testing. every public health expert in the world, not just in the united states, will tell you the more testing, the more information, the more information the more knowledge and success in fighting the pulitzer prize. the president means puts him at a disadvantage because the case count is going up again when it's fading and dying and that hurts him politically. >> and that is how the focus and

how he has been looking at that pandemic has always been on him, and what's remarkable is that we heard the comments of the tulsa rally when he said i told my people is to slow down testing and now white house officials said was made in gest but we see from his own mouth from his comments this morning when he departed and in the interview last night with cbs that he wasn't kidding. he may not have issued an actual direct order to stop testing, but he is not kidding by the fact that he seems to be displeased by the increased testing because it -- in his view that's the reason why the numbers are going up, and i want to point to another tweet that he had shortly before we came on air, john, when he said we did a great job fighting the coronavirus. >> apologize, need to go live up to capitol hill. dr. redfield, head of the cdc, delivering comments to the

house. >> several communities are seeing increased cases driven by multiple factors, including increased testing outbreaks and evidence of community transmission. right now the most powerful weapon against this disease are social distancing, face conversation and hand hygiene. these actions will help us contain transmission along with readily available testing, comprehensive timely contact tracing, timely isolation of known cases and self-quarantine to break the chains of transmission. once again, i call on the american people to remain vigilant in our collective obligation to protect those who may be at risk for severe complications of covid-19 due to age or underlying medical conditions. we must also lessen the burden of covid-19 among racial and ethnic groups disproportionately impacted. the cdc continues to improve its data collection of comprehensive data of each case and ethnicity from our state, local and tribal

and territorial partners. reports from surveillance sites have indicated that 1.3 million covid-19 cases found that the most underlying health conditions were cardio vascular, diabetes, obesity and chronic lung disease. hospitalizations were six times higher for these individuals and death 12 times higher for those reporting these conditions compared to those without. the cdc is working to ensure the equity and health outcomes and the social determine nantz are being addressed through the covid-19 response. the cdc continues to provide communities with technical expertise, tools and information to confront the virus. the cdc has created more than 1,500 specialized resource and guidance documents that would have been consulted more than

1.5 billion times on the cdc website. we've deployed over 5,000 personnel in the response. we have more than 40 rapid response teams on the ground now providing local health departments and health officials with expertise and each demonology surveillance and control and laboratory science and community mitigation. we're enormously grateful to the heroes of the response. that's the public health and health care professionals, the first responders and the critical infrastructure workers who have served and sacrificed too much. the cdc and our nation's public health partners are actively working on the front lines of this pandemic to remedy the shortcomings in a public health system that has been underresourced for decades. with your support, cdc has been able to award nearly $12 billion to states, territories, tribes and localities to enhance their response capabilities. when confronted by any disease threats, cdc and public health

departments must make real timed decisions based on realtime data. data is the backbone of any disease threat response. with the resources that congress has provided, data monetization is under way. we also must ensure that our laboratories have resilience, advanced technology personnel, expertise and supplies are being sourced. our public health workforce must grow exponentially to address covid-19 and future public health threats. thousands of contact tracers are on board and being recruited by public health departments across our nation. bottom line, sustained investment in the public health system is an investment in the health and prosperity of our nation. last, the cdc has begun to bear for months ahead when the next's season influenza illness will occur simultaneously potentially with covid-19. increasing the challenges on hospitals, health care,

professionals and the public. this fall before the seasonal circulation of influence increased, i encouraged the american people to be prepared and to embrace flu vaccination with confidence and your communities. this single act will save lives. thank you, and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, ranking member walden. thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to discuss with you today the role of the national institute of health and research addressing covid-19. the approach to the nih is very similar to what we do with other emerging infections. it's a four-pronged approach, first to study the fundamental knowledge of the virus itself as well as the host response to the virus. the second is to help develop diagnostics and essays. the third is to characterize and test therapeutics and the fourth

is to develop safe and effective vaccines. speaking of the first, fundamental knowledge of the virus and what the virus is capable of doing. we've done a number of studies now that have informed how we're approaching therapeutics and vaccines. for example, the precise molecular structure of the spike protein which is that part of the virus which actually gives it its name, coronavirus, because of the spikes that stick out from the virus. that is the way the virus binds to cells in the body. this has been precisely delineated by nih scientists and those that we fund. second, the demonstration of the precise receptor whereby the virus binds to cells in the body, allowing it to enter and cause disease. in addition, we develop animal models. we do natural history studies such as understanding the virus in different demographic groups. second, it's the development of

diagnostics. we need and we will get within a reasonable period of time based on a basic investment in the rad-x program that are diagnostic, point of care, that are simple, precise, sensitive and specific. we hope by the end of the fall and into the early winter we will have these for wide distribution. third, the development and characterization of drugs. you've all heard of the first successful randomized placebo-controlled trial of a drug called remdesivir which was used in hospitalized patients with lung disease. it showed a statistically significant but modest impact on decreasing the time to release from the hospital, namely faster recovery. in addition, this drug is now being used in combination with another drug that blocks the inflammatory response. we're also looking at a variety of others, convalescent plaza, hyperimmune globulin, other

drugs, monoclonal antibodies as well as other immune-based therapies. fourth, the development of safe and effective vaccines. the hallmark of all really defining responses that we have to virus diseases. if you look at the history of viral diseases, it is generally vaccines that put the nail in the coffin of these types. we are now mounting a minimum wage o-- major effort in which we're collaborating with public and private partnerships to get vaccine trials that are developed, that harmonize with each other. in other words, they have multiple trials in which we have common questions that are being asked, common laboratories that are being looked at, common data and safety monitoring board and common primary, secondary and tertiary end points so that the data can be compared from one to another. you have probably heard that one of those vaccines, and there are more than one, there are several that are moving along at various

paces. one of them will enter phase three study in july. this is one that has already shown in preliminary studies some very favorable response in the animal models that were developed. there will be others that will follow one month, two months, three months later. although you can never guarantee at all the safety and efficacy of a vaccine until you actually test it in the field, we kneel cautiously optimistic based on the concerted effort and the fact that we are taking financial risks, not risks to safety, not risks to the integrity of the science, but financial risks to be able to be ahead of the game so that when, and i believe it will be when and not if, we get favorable candidates with good results, we will be able to make them available to the american public as i said to this committee months ago, within a year from when we started which would put

us at the end of this calendar year and the beginning of 2021. i'll stop there, mr. chair, ch and will be happy to answer questions later. >> thanks, dr. fauci, and thanks for all your contributions to fighting this pandemic, and i'll say the game about admiral jerar. >> ranging members waldon and distinguished members of the committee, on march 12th second azar recommended i lead the covid team and though i'm no longer full-time deployed to fema i'm maintaining my role as coordinating testing. to date we've performed 27 million tests, now averaging 500,000 tests per day. even without any major technical advances, i estimate the nation will have the capacity to

perform between 40 million to 50 million tests per month by fall. to address the public health challenges over the past months, we implemented a phased approach to meet the testing needs at each stage of the pandemic, especially now during the reopening when the need for testing is the greatest. in early march hhs and fema developed and implemented 41 community-based drive-through testing sites in locations prioritized by the cdc in collaboration with our state and local partners. these sites have tested nearly 300,000 high-risk individuals and served as prototypes that have been duplicated multi-fold. next we leveraged trusted pharmacies to further implement community testing, especially for minorities and underserved. this federal program is now providing testing at 611 locations in 47 states in the district, 47% of which are in communities with moderate to high social vublgt.

this program has tested over 688,000 individuals. federally qualified health centers serve over 29 million people across the nation. they provide care to one in five of those uninsured. one in five rural americans, one in three living in poverty and 1.3 million homeless. again, to assure we reach these most vulnerable among us, 93% of fqhcs are for covid-19 testing. to further expand access, we authorized all licensed pharmacists to order and add minister covid-19 testing under the public readiness and emergency preparedness or prep act. over 90% of americans live within five miles of a pharmacy, again, assuring widespread availability. on june 4th, using authorities provided to the secretary under cares, hhs released new mandatory laboratory reporting guidance so that we can confirm that all groups are benefiting exbly from covid-19 testing. lab reports must include

demographic information like race, ethnicity, age and gender. and today i am pleased to announce the selection of morehouse school of medicine as the awardee for a new $40 million initiative to fight covid-19 among racial and ethnic minorities as well as rural and other socially vulnerable communities. this cooperative agreement with the office of the assistant secretary of health, office of minority health and morehouse school of medicine will develop a strategic network of national, state, territorial and tribal and urban locations to deliver covid-19 information to communities hardest hit by the pandemic. in the first year of this agreementmorehouse school of medicine will receive $15 million. this massive expansion of testing resulted in unprecedented demand for supplies, reagents and laboratory platforms. to meet this demand, we secured the global supply chain through a military air bridge. we worked directly with

manufacturers to increase domestic production and partnered to create technologies and we prioritized scant point of care tests for indian health services and other other critical needs. we used title iii to further invest in domestic manufacturing. these actions and others have enabled our current efforts with states, territories and tribes to implement evidence-based diagnostic and surveillance plans. i would like to close by recognizing my fellow officers in the united states public health service commission corps, the uniform service that i lead. 4,482 officers have deployed to support the pandemic response, including to the diamond princess cruiseship in japan, to our bases rebaiting americans and to our community-based testing sites, theme, a and task forces directly inside nursing homes and to field hospitals

across our nation exemplifying the care and compassion that all of us feel for those who have suffered during this pandemic. i thank each and every one of these officers and their families, and on their behalf i would like to thank all of you in congress for supporting our training needs and the establishment of a ready reserve corps to supplement our ranks during inevitable future national emergencies. thank you, again, for the opportunity to provide these remarks. >> thank you, admiral, and thank you for mentioning the both military and civilians who are out front in helping us during this crisis. we really appreciate all that they do, and we have make sure that we help them as much as possible. last, but certainly not least, because the fda is just as important is dr. hahn or commissioner hahn. >> chairman, ranking member waldon and distinguished members of the committee, thanks for

inviting me here today. would i like to start by thank you all of the support with the laws that you have passed in becoming law of the land. it's helped in our response. fda has a critical role in the federal response to the covid-19 ban timmic. we remain focused and president trump has requested and we have provided appropriate regulatory capabilities to ensure that the american public have access to critical medical products, safe foods and the confidence that the government issic it aing measures to address important public health issues. fda has used our emergency authorities since the beginning of of this pandemic. we have issued more than 100 emergency use authorizations for diagnostics, personal protective equipment, ventilators and other devices as well as for drug products. since the public health emergency was declared, we issued more than 50 guidance documents to help ensure that continuity of health care and

safe food supply, and we've put into place new initiatives to accelerate the development of needed products. additionally, we have kept the american public up to date on what they need to do to protect themselves and to contain the virus from spreading. we are now preparing for the next phase of addressing this evolving crisis. it is mission critical that the agency continue to be diligent, assuring the safety of the products that we regulate and that we also put in place processes needed to assure the protections that the public will need. there are a number of experiences we have gained over the past few months that will inform our plans. we recognize that we must be bold in our decision-making, and advance effective solutions to achieve challenging public health objectives. therefore, we have begun a comprehensive realtime review and assessment of our actions to date to address covid-19 pandemic. the objective is to identify and address potential organizational and programmatic changes that should be implemented without

delay to advance the ongoing response to covid-19. we need to assure that we leverage what is working well while at the same time review our framework and policies to be positioned to effectively identify and respond to quickly evolving public health situations. a major focus of this effort will be to identify what regulatory policies should be continued and accelerated consistent with executive order 13294 signed by the president. durable policy, organizational and programmatic changes will be consistent with advancing the agency's public health mission and will inform our strategy priorities moving forward. one of the challenges facing fda during the covid-19 pandemic is how to assure the timely review of medical product applications despite an incredible surge in volume and constraints on our ability to insight inspections.

i'm pleased to announce the fda has maintained its same pace on meeting goals for the application of medical products in the last six months that it has maintained in recent years. we're on target to meet the user-fee goals for our drugs this year by reviewing and taking timely action on at least 990% of brand, generic and biosimilar drug applications, even during the pandemic. additionally, this work has continued at a time when the number of applications received in some centers is substantially higher than the pre-covid-19 times. i want to thank the more than 17,000 employees of the fda for their incredible efforts, one that reflects the remarkable dedication and commitment to the public health of all americans. finally also, i would like to discuss what is top of mind for all americans, namely the work they have a day is doing to implement the development of safe vaccines and therapeutics. fda launched a review program called the coronavirus treatment accelerated program or ctap and we continue to work night and day to provide guidance and review proposals from companies,

scientists and researchers who is are developing therapies. let me be clear. the data and science will dictate when we'll have safe and effective treatments and vaccines for covid-19 as dr. fauci just mentioned. toward that end, fda is using every available authority and applying every appropriate regulatory flexibility to facilitate the development in testing. we have not lost sight of our solemn responsibility to the american people to ensure our decisions related to all medical products are based on science and data, and that is a commitment that the american public can have confidence in. again, i assure you that the fda will provide leadership, expertise, guidance and information and whatever else that is needed as we continue to address this unprecedented challenge. thank you, and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you, commissioner hahn. that concludes our openings from the witnesses, so now we'll move to member questions. each member will have five minutes to ask questions of our witnesses, and i'll start by recognizing myself for five

minutes. now, you know that i'm very critical of the president for a being laugh leadership from the start of this pandemic which i think continues, and, of course, it's difficult because you work in theory for the president, and i feel that many of you on many occasions actually wanted to take more leadership and be as dr. hahn mentioned or commissioner hahn, fully cognizant of the data and the science, so it's difficult because i'm going to ask you questions about the president's lack of leadership, and i know it's hard for you to answer those, so we'll see. but i do believe the president is encouraging behaviors that are not consistent with good public health such as encouraging thousands to attend a rally and not mandate the wearing of masks, and i can't imagine that nih or cdc would suggest that this is a best practice in the face of this pandemic, so there's sort of like there's two version of reality here, one is the

president's and one is hopefully yours based on data and science, but i want to hear from the experts. let me start with dr. fauci. you are a trusted voice and have always been candid with us and the american public. give us an unvarnished view of where we are at our fight against covid-19, quickly if you can. >> thank you very much for that question, mr. chairman. it really is a mixed bag. we have a very large country, very heterogenous, major differences, for example, between the new york metropolitan area and casper, wyoming. if you look at how we've been hit, we've been hit badly. i mean, anybody who looks at the numbers, we've had now over 120,000 deaths and we've had 2.5 million infections, so it's a serious situation. in some respects we've done very well. right now, for example, the new york metropolitan area, which has been hit extraordinarily hard, has done very well in bringing the cases down and using the guidelines that we have very carefully put together

in a step-wise fashion to try and carefully reopen their city and their state. however, in other areas of the country we're now seeing a disturbing surge of infections that looks like it's a combination, but one of the things is an increase in community spread, and that's something that i'm really quite concerned about that and you know that this has been something that's been in the press over the past couple of days. where we're going down from 30,000 to 25 to 20, and now we sort of stayed about flat, and now we're going up. a couple of days ago there were 30,000 new infections. that's very troublesome to me. the way you address that, and i've said this over and over again, is you have to have the manpower, the system, the testing to identify, isolate and contact trace in an effective way so that when you see those increases, you can understand where they are coming from, and you can do something about them. right now the next couple of

weeks are going to be critical in our ability to address those surgings that we're seeing in florida, in texas and in arizona and in other states. they are not the only ones that are having a difficulty. bottom line, mr. chairman, it's a mixed bag, some good and some now we have a problem with. >> all right. now, i'm going to have to ask about the president because you talked about testing and how important it is, and i, you know, i know how important it is. at his rally over the weekend the president said and i quote when you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more people, you're going to find more cases, so i said to my people, slow the testing down, please, unquote, and this morning he said he meant this, so dr. fauci, do you agree with that. does it make sense that to safely open our economy we should be limiting the number of tests rather than ensuring that anyone who needs a test can get one and you don't have to mention the president. i did, but tell us about the

testing. >> i as a member of the task force -- >> your microphone is on. >> sorry. i as a member of the task force and my colleagues on the task force to my knowledge, i know for sure but to my knowledge none of us have ever been told to slow down on testing. that just is a fact. in fact, we will be doing more testing as you've heard from admiral giroir, not only testing to specifically identify people in the identify, isolate and contact trace but also much more surveillance if you want to get your arms around and understand exactly what's going on in community spread, so it's the opposite. we're going to be doing more testing it, not less. >> and then let me just ask the same question of dr. redfield. do you agree with the president on this, do you think we should be testing more people? you don't want to talk about the president, just tell us if you think we should be testing more people. >> yes, as dr. fauci said, all of us have been and continue to

be committed to increasing readily timely access to testing. we've made a marked improvement. we still have a ways to go. one and in doing so we're looking at ways that can really substantially enhance testing potentially pooling similamples. if we can pull samples 5 to 1 that's 3 million tests a day so we're continuing the try to enhance testing. it is a critical underpinning of our response. >> thank you, mr. red field. i recognize mr. waldon down for five minutes. >> thank you. let me go straight to the question. i'll ask each of you for a yes or no question. has president trump directed you to slow down testing for covid-19 in the united states? dr. redfield? >> no. >> no, sir.

>> no, congressman. >> thank you. all right. let's go to some other issues here. dr. hahn, you created a website i believe on the fda side dealing with convalescence plasma and antibody rich investigations to help the virus. what's the status of the research of convalescent plasma of fighting covid-19? what do we know right now? >> thank you, congressman walden. really important question. as everyone here knows, plasma is where you take the natural immunity of a person who's recovered from covid-19, the antibodies and add menster to a person who's sick so we have partnered with hhs and the mayo clinic for an expanded access program. we have safety data of over 20,000 patients that shows this is a very safe therapy and preliminary assessment of the

effectiveness is encouraging. we continue to look at the information. if those data hold, we will have a potentially another weapon against covid-19. this will also allow us to have information to feed the development of antibodies and something else called hyper immune globben and can pull the plasma to give it as an injection to people. it is a good news story right now. we have to wait for the final data and show about that shortly and several randomized trials looking at that, as well. >> thank you very much. dr. redfield, cdc developed a new test to detect two strains of influenza and the covid-19 and seeking an emergency use authority. how does the cdc envision its combined test to be used? >> very important as i mentioned as we get to the fall we will have both at the same time and

cdc's developing that test that is right public health system but in parallel the private sector also now has advanced development. maybe dr. hahn wants to comment. to facilitate timely diagnosis of these two co-circulating pathogens. >> do you want to comment? >> we have been working with companies to actually look at that. admiral giroir is at the forefront of this. >> admiral? >> i would agree with my colleagues. we are all concerned about the possibility of co-circulation of influenza a and b and covid-19 with flu season and want to do everything we can to simplify the diagnosis and you can have -- if you have a single test and working with multiple manufacturers. the cdc as usual is usually in the lead and multiple manufacturers who will have this kind of test available. >> excellent. you all have been subject to a

lot of criticism as has the president. often that's leveled after we know facts we didn't know at the time when things started. it is great to have hindsight and 20/20 vision. i want to look forward. what is it you need from congress that you do not have now to have america ready for the fall? what should we be preparing for now for the fall? i don't care who wants to start but i'm down to a minute to answer so -- dr. redfield? >> i think first i want to just express appreciation to congress for the supplemental funding. cdc has been able already to disperse $12 billion to the states to prepare the covid responses and really that's an unprecedented amount of resources. i would only ask to look to how to make it a sustainable investment opposed to sporadic to the challenge we have right

now. >> dr. fauci? what don't you have? >> i just reiterate what dr. redfield said. we are extraordinarily grateful for the unprecedented amount of supp supplementary funding the congress made it possible to do the things to do on an emergency basis but again to mention what dr. redfield said, we have to establish some corporate memory. i've said to this committee literally many times over the many years, that we forget things when we get distant from them. >> yeah. >> we are going through a terrible ordeal right now. we need to have in place the stable type of support for preparedness for outbreaks. we will get through this. this will end hopefully sooner rather than later and need a system to be prepared for future outbreaks. >> thank you. could the other two just answer

that question quickly? admiral? what do you need you don't have? what should we be worrying about? >> i want to express my thanks to the committee and i think sustainability and commitment is important. i was in ebola in 2015 in dallas trying to lead the policy onyxes during that time and you see over five-year period we sort of forgot the lessons we were trying to get implemented including ppe and stockpiles. some of the biggest limitations and everyone is working on this, national data infrastructure we need. when we started out i'm calling up 100 hospitals a day trying to understand who's on ayecu bed, when's not, has a ventilator, how much you got left and we got through this by people working 24/7. the third thing is i'm just going to pound the vaccine infrastructure in this country for confidence to make sure that people have the right information about safety and

efficacy, that we order enough flu vaccine to get everybody vaccinated this winter. a thing to minimize the problems is flu vaccine is one less virus to kill 50,000, 70,000 and potentially be a co-infection with covid. >> dr. hahn? >> thank you. again, thank you for the support. one big point to make here is what we have learned during this pandemic is that we have an access to information issue. we have learned that we need to collect real world evidence in realtime during an emergency just like a doctor would do in an emergency to inform decisions and how to change them moving forward so your support for real world evidence generation would be incredibly helpful. >> so now we move to our members based on seniority. and i think our next few are virtual so just remind you to unmute if you don't do so on

your own. i'll keep reminding you. next we have mr. rush from illinois. >> i want to thank you, mr. chairman, for holding this important hearing. last week the health subcommittee held an informative hearing on the racial and ethnic health disparities highlighted by the coronavirus. while these disparities are very troubling, at even extremely outrageous. a scientific american article published earlier this month found that -- quote if black people dying in the same rate as white americans at least 13,000 mothers, fathers, brothers and sons and loved ones would still be alive. even more shocking is that among those 35 to 44 black men and

women none from the coronavirus and at least 9 times the rate of white americans. dr. fauci, when did it become apparent that institutional racism and discrimination played a part in why certain racial and ethnic communities are suffering more than white communities? >> i think i know what the -- i didn't hear it quite as clear as i want but i think i know what the congressman is referring to. so when you look at the african-american community and the minority community in general as a demographic group, there are two elements that make it much more difficult for them and why they're suffering disproportionately. one is the risk of infection. because of economic and other considerations, the jobs that

the majority of them would find themselves in does not allow them to protect themselves by looking into a computer and doing telework. most of them are essential on outside having to mingle in a society in which the virus is circulating. so right at the get-go they have a greater risk of gettingen fekted and then we know from a lot of experience now that the situation regarding whether or not you have serious consequences, hospitalizations, intubation, complications and death relate very strongly to the prevalence and incidents of underlying comorbid conditions which are clearly disp disproportionately more expressed in the african-american population than the rest of the population and that particularly includes hypertension,