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, diabetes, kidney disease and we have a situation

where it's sort of a double whammy of a negative capability of them to respond through no fault of their own because of underlying conditions and the conditions in which they find themselves with. >> dr. fauci, would you consider racism itself as being one of the -- that certainly impacts the african-american community more in an extraordinary way than the comorbidity? >> i think the question was would i consider institutional racism as contributing. i don't think this -- >> yes. >> yes. thank you, congressman. well, i mean, obviously the african-american community has suffered from racism for a very, very long period of time. and i cannot imagine that that has not contributed to the conditions that they find themselves in economically and otherwise. so the answer, congressman, is

yes. >> admiral giroir, i applaud your announcement that provides more $100 million -- i mean, $40 million to the morehouse college of medicine for contact tracing and testing. i have introduced a bill which calls for $100 million for testing and contact tracing. could we be seeing a larger amount, $100 million or more for contact tracing and for testing? >> thank you, congressman. for testing and contact tracing we need billions of dollars. that's the amounts of investment we are doing partially through cdc. this specific award is to have morehouse lead a consortium of

organizations like 100 black men, the national association of community health workers, the national counsel of urban indian health, et cetera, to focus on the specific educational, testing and linkage to care needs of underserved moibts and some of those also in the rural population. my personal opinion is $40 million is a start and needs to be more than that to reach the people that we need to reach. >> thank you, bobby. thank you, admiral. next is mr. upton from michigan. >> thanks very much, mr. chairman. really appreciate the testimony that we have heard thus far and interaction that we'll have between all of our -- i guess the first question i have, dr. fauci, good friend, thank you for your service, for sure. in recent weeks, of course you made the statement you thought

we would have as many as 100 million doses of an approved vaccine before the year. i have heard from a number of companies just in recent days after -- pfizer -- folks that have perhaps a billion doses before the end of the next year, calendar year '21. so is that -- move through the phase two process -- work -- maybe even get into some production little bit later by somewhat early august -- not approvals yet but -- where things -- because of the promise of getting it to the marketplace and really saving the world. let's face it. what is your thought as to how early we may see an emergency

use authorization approved for any of these vaccines based on what you know today and under the scenarios that we may see something in the next number of months in terms of an approval? lay out what you think is a distinct possibility of where we might end up being. >> okay. thank you for that. i didn't hear -- i didn't hear everything you said but i think i got enough of it to answer your question. at least the last part. that i think is very important and i welcome the opportunity to address this. the idea about the doses that would be available, you know, a couple hundred million doses in the beginning of the year, some companies saying in a year or two they will have as many as a billion doses. i think that's real. things are being done at risk. people, companies are starting to plan to make doses even before you know the vaccine

works so the risk of the speed is not risk to safety. it is not risk to scientific integrity. it's risk to money. so put that aside. the point that congressman upton made i think is very important. we need to be careful that we don't jump because of our need to get vaccines for those who need it that we do not definitively prove safety and efficacy before decisions of distribution. we have heard a lot about emergency use authorization. an emergency use authorization is important but it has to be done in a situation where you fulfill the criteria for the emergency use authorization. i would be very disappointed if we jumped to a conclusion before we knew that a vaccine was truly safe and truly effective because

i wouldn't want the ambiguity of not knowing whether or not it is truly safe and effective. that's the reason why we're doing several randomized placebo controlled trials with power enough that could give us that answer. i hope that answers your question, fred. >> just one quick -- what would be the earliest that you think under the best scenario that we might be able to see a uea issued by the fda, right? that would actually issue that. >> yes. let me quickly answer and hand it to steve to answer that. we're going into the first phase one, phase three efficacy trial in july. it takes at least a month to get to the second dose because it's a prime boost. you will take another couple of months to accrue or enroll

enough people that if there is viral activity in the community and we have our sights not only in the united states but all over the world, in brazil and in south africa. so if we get an efficacy signal you will have an efficacy signal more quickly the more cases there are. if it turns out there are not a lot of cases it may take longer and the reason why you can't give an accurate prediction of when you get those data. steve, you want to take it from here? >> yeah. thanks, dr. fauci. congressman upton, one thing is we are working with sponsors across the board, those who are developing vaccines and we are providing technical assistance regarding clinical trial design, participants in the trials and the end points that we want to see to make an adjudication of safety and effectiveness.

the acceleration is really around taking financial risk around the development process. the acceleration is not cutting corners with respect to the assessment of safety and effectiveness. the american people can rely upon the fact that fda had many experts in the vaccine area. we will rely upon the science and data when it's available to us to make that adjudication and decision of an eua. i cannot prejudge when that will happen. >> thank you. thank you, fred. next we have the gentle woman from california, ms. eshu. >> thank you, mr. chairman. good morning, everyone. i'd like to start with doctor -- doctor, we have a conversation on the weekend and i expressed to you my dismay, my disappointment about you as cdc

director, the most prestigious institution in the world. infectious diseases and prevention. the united states today is number one, number one in the world in infections and -- this is not anything that anyone can be proud of. the american people are in pain. they're grieving. there's a great deal of sorrow in communities. there's confusion. because for many reasons. and i urged you as head of cdc to speak directly to the american people. i know the agencies are talking to each other. i consider that a whisper because the american people are

not hearing you speak out. they deserve to hear the truth. we have heard dr. fauci time and time again putting out trusted information to the american people. the american people are divided on this issue of the virus. imagine that. so i continue to urge you to speak out. you're a doctor. putt your white jacket on and speak weekly to the american people. they want to know what's coming, what is ahead. my constituents ask me on a consistent basis, what's next? what is our government doing? that's a haunting question. and so, while we're doing the nice back and forth this morning, good questions on the part of members, i really remain dismayed and deeply

disappointed. we need leadership coming out of the cdc. real leadership. it was an outrage that there was a gathering in tulsa. six of the president's advanced people were infected. it is my understanding two secret service agents were. how can the cdc allow this pandemic, this virus to be something political? you have to push back. you're a scientist, a doctor. to dr. hahn, i'm sure you've read the several articles regarding hydroxychloroquine. every study states it doesn't work in any setting. in fact, it has known side effects, cardiac issues being one. so there's a danger in terms of the side effects. as commissioner, you see all the data. are you going to inform the

american people, doctors across the country, about these facts? >> thank you, congresswoman, for that question. indeed, we are. i can refer the committee to several documents that we have put out over the last several weeks regarding hydroxychloroquine. with respect to the issues we issued a safety alert, particularly around the combination of hydroxychloroquine with other drugs that might affect the heart and as you know we have taken recent action regarding -- >> have you specifically, have you specifically spoken directly to the american people so that it isn't this confusion about hydroxychloroquine? >> yes, ma'am. there is a fda voices piece that's authored by me and a piece directly to the american people about the status of hydroxychloroquine -- >> this is paper. i want to know if you have spoken out verbally to the

american people, to doctors across the country. i don't -- people don't hear paper. with all due respect. >> yes, ma'am. i appreciate the question but every opportunity i have had to be in the media i have been asked that question and i have communicated that same information about the current status -- >> a question, dr. hahn. there have been several disturbing articles expressing concerns of political pressure on the fda by the -- can you state unequivocally if any political pressure applied to you and the fda that you will immediately report them to this committee? >> i will certainly state that if i receive political pressure i will report to this committee. i can tell you that i have not felt political pressure or the fda to make any decision in any specific direction. >> thank you. >> it is about a direct

political pressure so thank you for your response and i -- back. >> thank you, ms. eshoo. next is mr. lauter from ohio. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thanks to our witnesses and all the hard work you have been doing for not only the united states but for individuals from around the world. really appreciate it. dr. fauci, if i could start with you. i know that our leader mr. walden brought this up. would you explain how an infected individual develops antibodies and how long the antibodies remain effective in fighting off the virus? and are you seeing different levels of apt bodies in people infected and what that means in terms of immunity? >> thank you very much for that

question, congressman latta. we need to say that we need to assume you're dealing with an antibody test validated by the fda or by the nih. that's important because a lot of confusion out there, there are tests that have not been validated. assume you have a good test. whenever the body is confronted with a virus and recovers, even when they don't recover, the body is stimulated to make antibodies. in general for viruses that we have a lot of experience with, those antibodies serve to protect you against exposure and infection after you're exposed to the same virus. so that's what we call immune logical memory and the proteins block the virus. the one thing we do not know yet with covid-19 is the relationship between the type of antibody because the best

antibody is neutralizing antibody. namely if this is the virus and binds to the cell, the neutralizing antibody blocks the virus from bonding to the cell and there's antibodies that are binding antibodies that don't mean much. you have to get the right antibody. the second thing is what we still don't know is what the relationship between the tighter of the antibody is, the level of the and body and the degree of protection. the third thing we don't know is how long or what the duration of that antibody is going to be. we'll find these things out as we study these individuals over months and year or more but remember we're only a few months into this. so, a, we know they make antibody. it is likely they're protected for some period of time but we don't know how long that's going to be. so the question i always get asked which is a sub text, does

that mean if you're exposed and you have antibody you are protected? likely you are but we don't know how long you are protected. >> thank you. dr. redfield, when a vaccine or treatment is developed, how will it be distributed to americans? >> thank you for the question. it's a critical issue that is currently under discussion within the team to look at what the appropriate priorization for distribution is. i want to comment it may be dependn't on the product. each vaccine product developed may in fact have differential utilization for different populations so there is serious consideration to try to develop those prioritizations and will

be important to develop them dependent on the product they're applied to. >> thank you. dr. hahn and thanks very much for your work and taking my calls especially on friday nights and saturdays. i appreciate it. the fda providing the emergency use authorization for remdesivir, do you expect or envision the fda to issue anymore euas for potential treatments in the fall? >> congressman, for potential therapies? >> right. >> yeah. yes, sir. so we are working very closely with sponsors regarding the development of therapeuticsen colluding with operation warp speed. 131 clinical trials on going right now. i anticipate to receive data regarding a several therapies in the future. plasma being one of them that we discussed. potentially also with some

anti-inflammatory agents as well as monoclonal antibodies and accelerated through the pipeline and prophylaxis. can't prejudge because we have to see the data but i do anticipate to be receiving data. >> thank you. mr. chairman, my time expired and yield back. >> thank you. next we have ms. degette from colorado. >> thank you so much, mr. chairman. i want to thank the panel and welcome all of you. many of you have appeared in front of my subcommittee the oversight and investigation subcommittee a number of times. and just to let you know, the o and i subcommittee is continuing the investigations both about how we responded to this and where we go in the future so you can expect to hear from us. i have some brief questions for each witness and i'd like to start with you, admiral giroir. the chairman talked about the

comments last weekend saying that -- saying that the double -- testing because when you do testing, quote, you are going to find more people. and then again this morning -- the president tweeted cases are going up in the u.s. because we're testing far more than any other country and ever expanding. with smaller testing, we have shown further cases. this is what he says and he said this morning that he doesn't joke about these things so i know the chairman asked dr. fauci and redfield -- they have been instructed to test less. i will ask you since you are now in charge of overseeing the tests, has the president asked you to do fewer tests? >> thank you. again, i want to clarify that neither the president -- >> yes or no will work.

yes or no will work, admiral. has the president -- >> no, the president has -- >> tests. >> neither the president nor anyone in the administration instructed or suggested to do less tested. we want to do more testing. >> okay. >> higher quality. >> i will ask -- so i want to ask you, admiral, do you think that it's a good or a bad idea to do less testing so it will look like we have fewer cases? >> my purpose -- my purpose in leading is to increase the number of testing. the only way to be able to understand who has the disease, who is infected and can pass it and to do appropriate contact tracing is to test appropriately, smartly, as many people as we can. >> thank you so much. dr. fauci, i wanted to ask you, we have seen some data the last few days that while cases are going up in this country deaths

are going down. and i've seen some reporting on -- in the media that in part that's because younger people who tend to not die from covid are the ones being infected. should we see this as a positive sign or should we still be worried? >> i think it's too early to make that kind of link, congresswoman. let me explain. deaths always lag considerably behind cases. you might remember that at the time that new york was in their worst situation where the deaths were going up and yet the cases were starting the go down. the deaths only came down multiple weeks later. so you're seeing more cases now while the deaths are going down. the concern is if those cases then infect people who wind up getting sick and go to the

hospital, it is conceivable to see the deaths going up so i think it's too early to say because the deaths are going down. >> thank you, doctor. i have another question, dr. fauci, for you. we have seen and i think you and i have talked about this. most vaccines take years if not decades to be approved and tobe proven effective. number one, do you believe that we will find a vaccine for the coronavirus? and number two, do you still stand by the prediction you gave us some months ago that we could actually have a vaccine by early 2021? >> i feel cautiously optimistic that we will be successful in getting a vaccine. there's never a guarantee of that. but the early data that we're

seeing regarding the induction of good responses makes me cautiously optimistic knowing there's never a guarantee. i told your committee a few months ago that a vaccine would be available from a year to 18 months. i said that in january. of 2019 -- 2020. a year from january is december. i still think there's a reasonably good chance by the very beginning of 2021 that if we're going to have a vaccine that we will have it by then. >> thank you very much, doctor. mr. chairman, i'll yield back. >> thank the gentle woman. next we have mrs. rogers from washington state. i hope. >> i'm coming! kathy mcmorris-rogers is here.

am i here? >> you are recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank the chair and the ranking member for holding this hearing and appreciate the witnesses for testifying today. covid-19 is the challenge of the century as others have said. it is a health and economic crisis of our lifetime. we mourn the deaths of over 100,000 americans. and we must remember we are not out of the woods yet. i want to especially express gratitude for the health care workers, first responders and essential workers working around the clock to save lives, fight the virus and keep our families safe. as the experts work tirelessly to develop a vaccine and treatment there's no country in the world better equipped to lead for a medical breakthrough than america. we can't trust china to lead and that's why the trump

administration is created programs likes operation warp speed. we're bringing together the very best in the public and private sector to develop counter measures that will fight the virus. we're leveraging the power of artificial intelligence, superer computing and machine learning to enhance the knowledge base of the virus. and washington state we have top researchers as well as bio tech, pharmaceutical innovators at the forefront of the break throughs. i look forward to learning more and appreciate you being here to understand what the administration is continuing to do to lead in the development of these tests and treatments that america needs so that we can usher in a new era of innovation and health care cures. to win the future, keep our families healthy and save lives and to ensure the economy booms again we must get this right. dr. fauci, as you know events

maximize vaccines. would you just explain a little bit further what an adjective is and is there any in the pipeline and how will they play in the administration's pursuit of a covid-19 vaccine? >> thank you for that question. it's a product distinct from the vaccine itself but when given in conjunction with the vaccine it enhances the power of the immune response. so if you have a vaccine that gives a level of response that's here when you get it together you often boost it to a much higher level. we use them in several vaccines. the nih has a major program in the pursuit and development of novel ajavents and part of the

program right now to accelerate the vaccine development capability so it's a good question but it's a very important part of what we do. thank you. >> thank you. thank you for that. dr. hahn, as you know fda's decentralization of test oversight is helpful to expand the availability of test for covid-19 but it is temporary. would you just speak to how this flexibility benefited the general public and how you think it would be helpful in the future for outbreaks or novel viruses? >> thank you very much. appreciate the question. the flexibilities allowed us to work with test developers. this has been throughout the covid pandemic with all of our medical products a balance between the oversight so that we

have tests that are valid, accurate but at the same time allow the ability to have the freedom to develop the tests and developed a partnership that i think is fruitful moving forward. i particularly like it with respect to the flexn't given the states, your state in particular with an excellent public health laboratories and university of washington. and new york state's another example of this. those are the sort of things we are looking at now as we talk about how we want to move forward that we could potentially put in place on a permanent basis. hopefully we'll never be in a position again where we have to develop tests like we have done during this time remarkably and need to talk about how the flexibilities could stimulate development of tests. >> great. well, thank you all. thank you all for your leadership, your commitment during this time. the long hours and i especially appreciate the way that we are

looking forward to make sure that we are prepared in the future, whatever we may face. thank you. good to be with you. >> thank you. now we go to dr. doyle coming to us from pittsburgh. mr. doyle? is -- >> sorry, mr. chairman. i forgot to unmute. >> thank you. >> can you hear me now? >> yes. you are recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman, for holding this hearing and the ranking member also. and for our witnesses for your service on behalf of the american people. this committee has continued to conduct oversight, the trump administration's shortcomings related to distributing personal protection equipment or ppe. when states and hospitals were faced with critical shortages of the ppe, such as masks and

gowns, president trump passed the buck and said that the federal government was quote not a shipping clerk. we saw the result of a failure of leadership. without a national strategy, states have had to fend for themselves and even compete against each other for critical supplies. it's become so desperate out there that one former u.s. disaster official referred to the scramble as quote lord of the flies ppe edition. at a recent hearing before the oversight michigan governor whit her testified the lack of centralized coordination at the federal level was a corp. tigs between the states and federal government to secure limited supplies driving up prices and exacerbating existing shortages. admiral giroir, do we have enough ppe for every front line worker who needs it whether they be health care workers, first responders or thousands of

others whose job puts them at risk? are people still having to reuse n95 masks for examples? if we don't have enough, why hasn't the administration expanded the manufacturing of the supplies? >> thank you for the question. and i will do my best to answer that. admiral palebchek is running the distribution chain but being a member of the unified coordination group at fema for three months i'm pretty familiar with this. i think as the admiral testified before and we know is that there's a shortage of everything when this started. everyone in the world looking for the same supplies and tried to manage that with the multiple times, for example, there were three investments in dpa title 1 for n95.

3m and honeywell to improve production and estimate that the country in the fall if there's a covid outbreak needs 194 million n95s per month. we should have 189 million per month by that time. this was not available when we started in march. the industry was not here. this was all offshored and i'll just say between march 1st and june 19th the government distributed or enabled the commercial distribution through the air bridge of 160 million n95 masks, 638 million surgical and procedural masks, 281 million gowns and over 16 billion pairs of gloves. so this was really an enormous effort. we need to be better prepared. needs to be on shore and working for a 60 to 90-day supply.

we talk to governors in every state. many are doing their own supplies for 60 to 90 days. i'm confident moving as we ramp domestic manufacturing that we're going to be in a much better position than we were three months ago. >> thank you. dr. hahn, since the demand for ppe increased this spring, we have seen many actors with little previous experience in the supply field enter the market. reporting have indicated that some are selling counterfeit or low quality products that don't meet safety requirements or unable to fulfill agreements. what steps is the fda taking to ensure that companies are not circumventing federal oversight and injecting sub standard ppe into the united states market? >> thank you, congressman. this is a really important issue. in the tight of the epidemic and the increased demand we provided regulatory flexibility for companies but insisted that they

provide certification. often foreign fdas if you will certification that the ppe met the requirements that we have in place and the foreign governments had in place and did something else with respect to that and we partnered with cdc, for example, with n95s to test, to verify that in fact that self certification over the validity of the efficacy of the ppe was in place and you correctly identified for a variety of reasons subsequent product shipped into the country did not meet the specifications. we immediately took action to make sure they're off the market and continue to do that and monitor it very close. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> thank you, mr. doyle. next we have mr. guthrie coming to us from kentucky. are you muted?

do you want to unmute? >> i thought i did that. i apologize. hi. i apologize. dr. hahn, i'm interested in the covid-19 counterfeit testing and i have a bill that would bring -- called the therapeutics act to ensure the authority to destroy the counterfeit tests and devices and a question with this. what the people i talk to every day are interested in is what's going on in the future. how will we protect ourselves moving forward? lessons learned from the past and look forward. mr. hahn answered -- excuse me, admiral giroir answered on the ppe kind of moving forward but if i could just go with dr. redfield and dr. fauci and the people i talk to -- in august, are our kids getting back in

school? are nursing homes safe? dr. redfield, we will have flu, covid. what's the testing going to be like? dr. fauci, what do we need to look for? and then i'll open it up to talk about what's it going to look like in august and are kids able to go back to school. i'll start with dr. redfield. >> thank you, congressman. i think first and foremost it is really important that we continue to take the time to accelerate the capacity to diagnose. obviously readily timely test results, yield the capacity for isolation and contact tracing and self quarantine. that's fundamental, working hard to do. as i mentioned in january we had about 6,000 contact tracers in this country. the beginning of june up to around 27,000. we need to continue to increase in my view towards 100,000.

if we get that operationally functional that's going to be critical for what we're doing. secondly, we do have to reinforce in the american public the importance of the social distancing interventions that we have discussed, particularly face coverings, six feet distancing and hand washing. i anticipate that the states will begin to open up higher education and k-12. it is going to be on a jurisdiction to jurisdiction decision and cdc with additional guidance on this topic. in the days ahead. as we continue to try to work and give guidance how to open up these particularly the school systems how to open them up safely. i will end with nursing homes i think we have made an enormous progress in the long-term care facilities.

enhancing infection control. admiral giroir may want to comment on the commitment of nursing homes with protective equipment for a period of time. and we're continuing i think to have aggressive surveillance in the nursing homes in this country where we have recommended all residents get tested so that we can start with the clean baseline of understanding where the epidemic is. i will just end with the fact that although they only make .6% of the population nursing home residents have made up more than 35% of the mortality. >> let me very briefly. >> thank you. dr. fauci. >> about schools, we get asked that all the time. i think the important thing to point out is that as you well know we live in a very big country that is certainly not a unidimensional country. new york area or casper, wyoming, so when you ask about schools, you have to say where are you talking about.

because we have different regions, different states, different cities, towns and counties. so some counties may have such a low level of infection that schools can open in a way that's exactly like normal. others may be in a situation where it isn't really bad where you want to close the school but make some modifications. alterations of scheduling. morning/afternoon. one day or another day. it is up to the local officials to evaluate where you are in the particular region, what the recommendations that we really very carefully put out about the guidance of opening schools so you don't want to make one size fits all for the united states. you want to tailor it to the degree of viral dynamics in the particular location you are talking about. >> so looking forward, we are really only going to know when we get closer to make the

decisions. that's unfortunate and obviously the reality. i'm about out of time, dr. hahn. i'll submit a question for record for pool sampling. thank you very much and i yield back. >> thank you. sounded like there's a monster that was going to envelop you some point there. next is ms. shikowski from illinois. >> thank you. i thank the witnesses. i have to disagree with you, dr. redfield. i think nowhere has the trump administration's lack of leadership been more apparent than in our nation's nursing homes and long-term care facilities where we have lost 50,000 residents and workers to covid-19. so let's review some of the deadly failures. you delayed data collection on cases and deaths in nursing

homes. you have not required -- required states to conduct testing. you are -- you are not giving workers adequate ppe and i agree with congressman doyle on that. to protect themselves. you are allowing facilities to literally kick residents out of -- out on to the street if there's a more profitable covid patient to take their place and since the administration -- responsible for the safety of the nursing home residents declined, chairman pallone's invitation to speak and refer them to dr. redfield. cdc website explains that the mission is to save lives by providing health information that protects our nation.

so why didn't you require nursing homes to report any data on covid-19 cases and deaths until may? four months after you may remember you told me about the first case in illinois, january 30th. and to report the case of human to human transfer. on june 4th, you testified before the house appropriations committee and apologized for cdc's inadequate, i quote, response to covid-19 race and ethnicity data. yet, the same day cns and cdc finally published covid-19 data from nursing homes and failed to include race and ethnicity information. so when, when my office asked

cms about the exclusion we were told to ask the cdc. so will you promise to include race and ethnicity information moving forward so that we can identify the -- and address the racial disparities in nursing home covid-19 cases? >> thank you, congresswoman, for your question. first i want to stress that since the early beginning of the pandemic we have initially encouraged all nursing homes to report the cases through the health departments. and through our national health care safety network as of may -- >> if i could -- if i could just briefly interrupt on the word encourage. that i think is a problem that there's been guidance, there's been encouragement but what about mandating? >> as i said, as of may 8th now

it is a requirement that this be reported in through cdc. as cms has made that required and we are working to make sure that the reporting is comprehensive with racial and ethnic data. as well as a -- i would put forth that we have worked hard to accelerate training and retraining of infection control procedures in these nursing homes to try to mitigate the situation that unfortunately we did experience as you pointed out where the nursing home residents have taken a high burden of this initial outbreak. we will continue to work to get this reporting, this reporting is going to be forward facing. cdc will forward the data cms and forward face it so families make decisions based on the understanding of nursing homes

performing. we have recommended that the nursing homes screen all residents and we have recommended that they screen all workers in their nursing homes on a weekly basis because we do believe this is an important area that we have to do more as a nation to protect infections. >> listening to a remarkable hearing of the energy committee. we'll go back live with additional important news but a remarkable hearing, updates on vaccine, the biggest headline, you cannot believe the president of the united states in the middle of a pandemic. that the words of his own experts in translation if you will. the president over the weekend said he had asked to stop, slow the testing saying he doesn't like to see the higher case numbers. all four administration officials said that never happened. the president has not asked them to slow testing but just this morning the president said he

was not kidding about that. also watch the president's interviews in recent days saying that the coronavirus is fading. it is dying out. it is in the rear-view mirror. the president wants you to believe. this is dr. fauci, the top expert in the united states of america. >> we are 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. the next couple of weeks are critical in the ability to address those surgings that we are seeing in florida, texas, arizona and in other states. they're not the only ones that have a difficulty. mr. chairman, it is a mixed bag. some good and some now we have a problem with. >> >> let's bring in chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta and a doctor.

the president of the united states said fading, dying out. if you are listening, the coronavirus is anything but fading and dying out. dr. fauci saying this is a crucial couple of weeks seeing a surge in cases in many places and starting to see an increase in hospitalizations following it. >> yeah. he also went on to say that we have been quote hit badly how he described it. look. if you are looking to this briefing, this hearing to feel better about things you probably won't feel satisfied. there's concern. as softly spoken as they are and all of these members of the coronavirus task force are quite expert at what they're saying but listening closely there's obviously concern. you can see the numbers on the right side of the screen. the united states versus the rest of the world. 25% of the overall cases, 25% of the deaths. one thing to also point out is that you talk about the testing

a lot and this question about testing. all of the members there said that they had not been directed as you said to slow down testing but it is also worth pointing out we're nowhere near where we should be with testing. the outcome is some 500,000 or so tests performed per day. admiral giroir said by the fall maybe 40 million a month and it is clear we need more looking at the road maps to recovery. they say by this point we should be at 5 million per day testing. that's in order to get good surveillance on this so that was a significant concern but again the idea that things are ticking up, that we are close to where we were at the peak in terms of numbers of cases and things like that, that was a common theme from everyone that was speaking today. >> a challenge, doctor, is who do we trust? who must we trust in the middle

of a pandemic? the president says i told my people to slow down theesting, all the people saying he did no such thing. good that he didn't do it. it's a gold mine of information to understand the challenge and when the president said he did ask that and then wasn't kidding and the republicans in congress have to make sure that they did and then the point of in better or worse shape? dr. fauci said there's a surge in several states but the cdc direct or the a director, the president is mad at, several communities say increased cases. how can he say that? six weeks ago we had 82,000 deaths, 24,000 new cases each day. six weeks later up to 120,000 plus dead. 28,000 new infections each day. how can you say overall case

counts are going down? >> right. it is a really key point. you know, one of the things to emphasize is to think about where we were if we were to rewind the clock when things shut down, when the economy shut down, end of march we were talking about mitigation, flattening the curve. we had 20,000 new infections per day. we have 50% more new infections a day now as then talking about all of these mitigation strategies of the masks, social distancing, stopping travel. and so i want to say, you know, we are really in a worse place now than before. what we did do is flatten the curve and what we did worked and opening up again and people get cavalier we are not in a better place than we were at the time of the draconian measures taken. it is really hard to think about how to contain this now in the setting of things opening up

when what you really need to do is contact trace 30,000 people. we don't have the resources, the capacity to be able to do that in any structured way. >> and ramification came up in the hearing. dr. redfield said it's jurisdiction by jurisdiction and so much of the cunniountry plan to reopen the country. and schools. the president going to arizona, a state reporting more than 50% new cases this week than it has last week. he said this morning as he was leaving he doesn't kid. he said over the weekend i have asked my officials to slow down testing and then scrambling in the administration to say the president was joking. the president said he is not kidding and listen. these are two of the experts this morning saying, no, the president never told us that. >> 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. >> wi're continuing to try to enhance testing. it is a critical underpinning of our response. >> in the middle of a pandemic, two of the nation's top experts need to say, no, the president didn't tell us to do that thing he said that he told us to do. >> reporter: yeah. john, you also cannot hear the officials saying it's a double-edged sword. the argument of the president and the vice president make in recent weeks is the reason of new cases and the experts telling a different story saying they're troubled by the surges where the numbers looked good and now concerned. florida, arizona where the president of course going to be today. texas. the others to talk about and they say we're not going to be slowing down on testing at all but ramping it up. sanjay pointing out the levels

at right now is still not where a lot of health experts say they need to be but this just adds to the confusion that we're seeing that plays out here at the white house over who's speaking with authority on what's going on with the task force because the president made that comment saying he was tongue in cheek, it was in jest. you saw that repeatedly from the white house press secretary yesterday and then as we have seen so many times before the president undercuts his own spokes people, his top aides saying i don't kid. he actually believes that about testing when it comes to coronavirus. john, it makes me think back to the impeachment hearings and the hold on the aid to ukraine and officials saying they hadn't been told to do this to get this but it was clear what the president wanted them to do and the question is, is this one of those situations? >> when the president's staff to tell us to pay no attention to

the president in the middle of a pandemic it is remarkable. thank you for your insights and thank you for joining us today. brianna keilar picks up our coverage after a very quick break. have a good day. listerine® cleans virtually 100%. helping to prevent gum disease and bad breath. never settle for 25%. always go for 100. bring out the bold™ and get way more.ith wso you can bring yours vision to life and save in more ways than one.

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the country is crying out for leadership, leadership that can unite us, leadership that brings us together. that's what the presidency is - the duty to care, to care for all of us, not just those who vote for us, but all of us. i promise you this: i won't traffic in fear and division. i won't fan the flames of hate. i'll seek to heal the racial wounds that have long plagued our country, not use them for political gain. i'll do my job and i will take responsibility, i won't blame others. you know, i've said from the outset of this election, that we're in the battle for the soul of this nation. what we believe and maybe most importantly, who we want to be, it's all at stake. when we stand together, finally as one america, we'll rise stronger than we were before. i'm joe biden and i approve this message.

i'm brianna keilar and welcome viewers here in the u.s. and around the world. we begin with testimony from trump administration officials about the nation's response to the coronavirus pandemic. where they're sounding the alarm in front of lawmakers. they're seeing a quote disturbing surge in parts of the u.s. they do not expect the pandemic to subside any time soon and the upcoming flu season could make this pandemic worse. one of the controversies at the center of this hearing were the president's claims he asked officials to slow down testing. contradicting the aides, the president said he was not kidding saying that at his tulsa rally but these top