beginning at 5 p.m. eastern right here on c-span. you can also watch online at c-span.org or with our new video app c-span now. >> testified on challenges in the coming year. includes pandemic relief programs, staffing and resources, disaster assistance, and detecting fraud. watch his testimony tonight at 9:45 p.m. eastern on c-span. i'm full coverage on her video app, c-span now.

cap tuesday through monday during the c-span shop sale at c-spanshop.org. >> it is our monday morning focus on the coat -- fight against covid-19 and we are joined by insider health care reporter andrew dunn. good morning andrew dunn, how are you? >> we hear a lot of people write articles talking about the next generation of covid-19 vaccines. when people say that, what are they referring to specifically? andrew: i think that is a great place to start. i think there is some uncertainty around what exactly we are talking about so one word that is the out of rot is coronavirus. the betting on who you ask, they

are using that word differently. depending on who you were talking to, they could be talking about this particular pandemic or other people are looking at multiple coronaviruses as a family of viruses. the to be a vaccine that spans multiple coronavirus families in protection? it is worth thinking about what exact the are we talking about. i think for the most part people are looking for the next generation vaccine designed and tailored for this pandemic with what we are seeing with the variants that we are seeing. can you be a new vaccine that is more effective against the new variants? >> and worldwide. he wrote a piece a couple of weeks ago with the omicron focus in the development of that vaccine. pfizer plans to start human studies.

what does it take for a company like pfizer or moderna to start a research study on a vaccine like this? andrew: this is one of the marvels of modern science -- science. this new technology is around messenger rna and the genetic code that we use to tell them how to build proteins. the you how to wait -- figure out a way to use that. a long way of saying a very quick process to update this vaccine. the one thing to keep in mind here is that was the promise and potential with mrna was a future variance cop, it would be a quick strain change and stay on top of it.

i think we have all seen it with omicron, the u.s. starting right after. it moves really quickly. as far as where they are right now, widens as they are still on track for this 90 day timeline, looking at late march to start rolling out an omicron specific booster for initial vaccine if necessary. moderna has also talked about looking at a similar timeline and talk more similarly about preparing for this fall. thinking if there will be enough surge or wave of outbreaks either later this year, want to start thinking about that, formulating the vaccine to take that on. >> in terms all the work on, with the surge dying out, 90 days down the road, people can

say that i've had it or survive through it, why should i get the booster at that point for omicron? >> what does pfizer say about the efficacy that is focused specifically on omicron? do they think is a be helpful in future variance? andrew: look has strayed so far away from that original coronavirus strain and we saw in january of 2020. this could basically get your level of immunity closer to what is currently situating out there. it is interesting with what is going on in research labs right now, what exactly is the best formulation of the vaccine? with a future variant we like omicron or be more like delta and be more in that line?

omicron came out of left field as far as sheer number of cases and what we saw was a reduced vaccine effectiveness. it is hard to answer the question. i think they hope that an omicron specific vaccine to be closer to the current state of pandemic and help with future variant's. they are trying their best to prepare. >> what are you hearing that researchers are minding is in terms of the immunity levels of people who have had the omicron variant? andrew: this is still emerging research. there is a lot you can base on previous variant -- variants.

that is real. the provides real benefits and we see that with other viruses historically and with sars-cov-2. the question is how durable is that protection? if you get infected with omicron, are you safe for two months, three months, a year? there is no way to know that without following people on a long-term basis. nothing but satisfying answers. unfortunately, it is really hard to say. just another key uncertainty going forward. >> we are talking about the future of covid-19 vaccines.

we saw this headline at the bdc, first generation of covid-19 vaccines was developed in record time they say. now scientists have greater plans for potent immunity. andrew dunn, researchers feel like they have bought some breathing room with the vaccines that are already out there, the level of vaccination currently, who they feel like they now have the time to develop a longer-term or annual vaccine against covid? andrew: they absolutely, and i think this is what is really fascinating, this is happening a lot of universities government-funded research, where we started with the idea of a bridge to something more durable?

something that could be more mutation resistant. some sort of holy grail of a vaccine. most advanced one is that the walter reed army met the -- institute of research. hopefully effective against the entire range of variance. we heard a lot about his vaccine last month but we have not seen phase one study results for this vaccine report out. there's a lot of excitement about what is happening. is another step to go into demand. i'm looking for to seeing some of the data and at the same time, that is being kept as a three dose vaccine, so not necessarily a catchall unless we having you up global immunity. something that is easy to transport in low and medical --

middle income countries. three doses would certainly get a better immunity, but is there way to have a good and a vaccine in a single dose for a global vaccination campaign. >> we will get to your calls and more -- moment. one of the things he touched on was the future of covid-19 vaccines in the next generation of vaccines. you know as a scientist there are fundamental basic issues that once you get the discovery, then you can do the implementation of the discovery? we were very fortunate in that the basic research and clinical research is that have been made, literally for decades, prior to the new revelation that we had a very threatening virus among us,

the reason why we were able to use new platform technology, as well as design the get highly successful vaccines, that same thing is going on right now. this is well known because it is on the front page yet. when you're doing research, it is only until you get the result that people really understand what you have been doing. there is a lot of investment. not only are you improving the vaccines that we have, but a lot of work as i mentioned in my opening statement, about looking at the tools of fundamental and basic applied science to develop the next generation of vaccines, particularly universal coronavirus vaccines or at least universal sars-cov-2 vaccines. so we will not be changing at the next variant. we will have a vaccine to have

the capability to respond to every variation. there's a lot of work going on with that right now, but when you're doing basic research, you can appreciate more than anyone, it is usually not very well recognized by the public. >> dr. fauci talked about changing the latest variant. researchers did not like that over the past year or two. andrew: that is the only way to look at it. particularly when you look at the mr -- mrna vaccines, with there is a potential of a new variant, we could quickly adapt to that and apply a new formulation. the timeline of doing that in 100 days has been rolled over by the end of it. dr. fauci put it very well there in regards to his agency giving

out $36 million grant funding for coronavirus vaccine last september. that is supporting a lot of basic research. a lot of academic labs right now are looking at the next generation covid vaccine. you are absolutely right as far as challenging. are we going to continue with these different variants and play a game of walkable, or will we get ahead of this pandemic and really ended at the end of the day? >> before he go to calls, what are leaving tools in regards to the therapeutics? why aren't we working to fast-track therapeutics? andrew: it's been a fast-moving case these last months. omicron has had some cases that

have been bumped down due to the utility, when you think of some of the antibody cocktail's for people who have thorough cases of covid and high risk of hospitalizations, it was very effective against previous variance, now we are seeing a narrowing of that where there knocked out. those of shown marketed reduction. there are other antibody drugs when you look at psk and biotech , though still retain their effectiveness as an antibody drug. their antiviral tells from pfizer and merck pfizer extremely limited at this point and not having much of a real world effect. when you look at a latter half of this year, though still

should be in much higher quantities and manufacturing and mass manufacturing going. the idea is, if you have covid or post exposure prophylaxis where you've been exposed to somebody with covid, even if you don't test positive, they are authorized for early treatment. the hope is it will be authorized for both. the ideas that could be an early treatment, easy to get pills, easy take eventually. get people out of the hospital and get the pandemic back to an endemic stage. >> good morning. first i want to congratulate mr. dunn. if you don't read insider, you are not keeping up with things. i statement as this. pfizer and moderna work for the mrna research that made all of

this possible. it was conducted with public money and elude -- university laboratory. then pfizer and moderna were both lavishly subsidized in their production and utilizing this technology and then they were given the patents. they quashed the usage. anyone can produce these vaccines early on when they were effective and share them in the third world where most people live in revenue variant have a lot of room to development -- develop. coronaviruses are always fast mutating. the common cold is a coronavirus. china come you talk about social organization, china responded to this with what is called a covid free policy. they have only had four deaths since april 2020. people say you can't trust china statistics, but taiwan, hong

kong, singapore, south korea, australia, and new zealand are using the same policy with several -- similar results. >> these comments about the affection worldwide and his call to make those vaccines more available in other countries. andrew: i think that is one of the most interesting and at times depressing part of the pandemic is the global and equity of the vaccines and it is hard to wrap around most of the times, in my own mind as far as this idea that we are rolling out third or even fourth doses and richer nations while middle income countries are still struggling to get first doses and more recently, supplies have cut up for those lower income countries, the emperor schechter has not.

-- infrastructure has not. a consistent time tabled, officials and the regions can officiate -- the patents and how moderna and pfizer have priority in rich countries, are taking a lot of people to their -- is what we are examining as far as future pandemics. is there a better way to do it? there are no easy solutions at the same time as far as mentioning india's manufacturing capabilities. i just truth for traditional vaccines, but it was not convincing -- convincing that india had the ability to mass-produce mrna vaccinations.

fact it is a different technology, that limited the number of manufacturers around the world who had the capability and expertise to mass-produce these vaccines. >> in morning. the last caller took a little bit of wind out of my sails with questions about the pharmaceutical industry and i had to ask, what other industry is paid out more money and damages over the last 20 years. my wii on a daily basis now, getting wall pfizer commercials. every time joe biden gets in funnel microphone, everything is blamed -- the population is in a mass hypnosis right now where we are worried about a vaccine --

disease with 99.96% survival rate and yet on a daily basis we are bombarded with covid commercials whether it is on c-span or on our local news, whether it is listening to that idiot found she, the man to subsidize this, the man who caused this is the same man called -- selling as a cure. andrew: any thoughts? off that point, i think the challenge of a mutation in the time of pandemic and so much misinformation and false information in general. i think it is really hard to reckon with this idea that the vaccines are safe and effective as far as the number of studies around the world and not just looking at company-sponsored studies.

researchers who actually did the studies and get to the nitty-gritty of it. if you look at real-world evidence from public health officials around the world, the vaccine has made a real difference. the number of people in hospitals who are unvaccinated versus vaccinated. it is not even that. at the same time we can say with divinity, definitively right now the vaccines are effective. there is a part of this where we would like more out of them. that is incredible he high bar for vaccines. a lot of the messages in the first year or on the pill for the vaccine. the fact that we have a vaccine now and you haven't seen a radical transformation back to the world as it was before in

2020, i think that is tough to grapple with, not just for you but, for myself as well. how do you explain this in the effectiveness and what can be done better? >> they have to go through trials, be approved at least for emergency use by the fda, correct? andrew: absolutely. i would say the one perhaps quicker path would be if there is a strange change. if we get these omicron specific shots, and this is something that is being looked at in real time with the fda and vaccine developers, what level of evidence do they want to see feel comfortable if you make a tiny tweak to one of these mrna vaccines to tailor it omicron? do you need to run back and run a massive study or could you

look at what is it corporal or protection or surrogate endpoint. antibody response, immune response of people who get the vaccine, would that be ok and good enough? that is still a tbd right now. how much data is needed right now for those that are authorized already if you want to do a strain update. you are right they have to go through the whole process of stage one to a stage to study, before being considered for authorization. >> i was curious how we never anybody talking about the virus that was coming out of texas that was made open source? i'm standing is i does not use the mrna technology to be

mass-produced in india. one of the other things i've heard is that they did not like the way that the internet and pfizer did it their way. had to do their research and development in a very small amount of money. >> what was the name of antivirus? >> it came out of texas university and it was approved in india and their starting production on that. it doesn't use the mrna technology. andrew: i'm glad you brought that up, because what you are referring there is from baylor college that talk to them both about this pandemic as far as this being a remarkable deal as far as what they have been doing down in texas and dulling their own vaccine. they were working on sars back in 2003 trying to develop a vaccine back then. one of my first topic --

conversations was with maria in 2020. denting to get funding back then . once the pandemic -- it is pretty amazing 20 years later they stuck to it. i think the vaccine is called covax now -- we will see how far that makes it around the world and it is encouraging as far as they have a massive indian manufacturer behind that to mass-produce it and we should have a big impact on low and middle class countries. we don't hear about it much in the u.s. because those trial results came out maybe a month or two ago, so it is a little behind those early efforts from pfizer, modernity, j&j, astrazeneca.

they don't have a big pharma backer to accelerate that timeline or drop a lot of attention around it. that could be one. the impact i think i would have on low and middle income countries is phenomenal. >> where are we in the development of a vaccine for the kids under the age of five? andrew: that is a great question. i think it is still being figured out in clinical trials. getting the doses right. the number of doses and the strength of the doses. the original bitterness shot was 100 micrograms, the fiber -- pfizer shot was 30 milligrams. they're looking at trying a small fraction of that for the under five population. those trials still need to run fully and i think they're looking to get that right dose level in the right number of doses and how far to space those doses apart. two doses were three dose series.

those questions are still being answered and i think the hope is by the second half of this year there will be more answers to those questions. i don't know if it will get all the way to authorization in that timeframe, but this is an area where they want to be even more confident in the safety and effectiveness. we will have to do any tweaking after-the-fact for the sake of public confidence for younger children. >> thank you for taking my call. dr. from baylor said that he announced at vaccine was the world's vaccine. he is hoping that other vaccine manufacturers we to them about establishing infrastructure around the world.

they have gone to the chronicle trials and nothing has come of it. they are trying to do something over there right now. what an earlier caller said about big pharma getting big money from the government, there is very little accountability. tommy, how could the cooperation from the richest country in the world but a stop to this virus? i think it's important for the u.s. to take a lead on this. >> how much money will the pharmaceutical companies make on the covid 19 vaccine?

andrew: short answer is a lot. for moderna and pfizer, these are company changing products and they are the highest revenue product in pharmaceutical industry history. last year, we are talking in the range of 20 to $25 billion of revenue for each company there. just a staggering sum of money. there will be a question of if that will turn into a durable business from booster shots and if this virus stays endemic, if there are annual booster shots, what that looks like. then return his case, they are looking at a fin joey can there be a combination vaccine where you go. can one shot protects against multiple viruses? then you get your -- immunity up every year.

the short answer is tremendous amount of money there. i get why for a lot of people big pharma making record profits is not the easiest thing to sit with and that is a fair point. a lot of the smaller biotech's, i would keep in mind their publicly traded, they have similar motive is -- motivation in some way. smaller biotech's on the public market are also looking. they have beneficiary response abilities to their shareholders. really, not just on a little bit, but drove hundreds of millions of dollars behind it. i big question was credibility in which companies have the capacity and treaties to actually get this vaccine to work and ramp up and not produced 10 million doses, but produce pfizer using for billion

doses this year and moderna exciting to produce two to three billion. it is turned into a serious business for big pharma, for sure. >> in morning. in this long saga about vaccines and the virus, one thing is true. we are deafly hit with a virus. we have the patents somewhere years ago for people who were involved in the story here. we are seeing that the origin of this virus, the university of north carolina. galveston before that. if problems with our testing.

the pcr tests did not work. we had problems with the diagnosing. we fell down the stairs and if you had covid, you died from covid. we had weird covid protocols. if you came in with bacterial pneumonia, they don't treat you for pneumonia, so you die for lack of treatment for but bacterial pneumonia. then we have strange pharmaceutical test results. pres. biden: lisa down. -- please sit down. it is good to see you all. let's have a cabinet meeting. really, thank you. why you are all doing. we have a lot more things to do, as well. back in july, i signed an executive order to promote

competition and build an economy that works for everybody. not just a few. competition results in lower prices for families. competition promotes fair wages for workers and it produces innovation. but we've seen over the last two decades is less competition. that holds the economy back. and many industries,. we see it and big gag, -- big agriculture. big tech, big pharma. the list goes on. rather than competing for customers, there consuming their competitors and rather than doing what they should be doing, they are doing the opposite. all told, between generating higher business and lower wages,

lack of competition. $5,000 a year. the median income family. my executive order is changing that as at her when at this table knows. it includes 72 specific actions. it includes creating a competition consult -- counsel. comprised of cabinet members and heads of several independent agencies. coordinated to monitor our progress all the way across the federal government. in six months, since eyes issued the order, we have met every deadline that my order called for so far. here are three examples. the right to repair. sounds kind of silly calling it there, but it is called the right to repair.

too many areas, if you do on a product, sorry, if you own a product, from a smartphone to a tractor, you do not have the freedom to choose how or where to repair that item that you purchase. it is broken. what do i do about it? if it's broke, you had to go to the dealer and pay the dealer's cost. if he tried to get it fixed or fix it yourself, some manufacturers would void the warranty when they sold the products to you. denying the right to compare that repair, raises the price for consumers. my experience in my executive order announced that this a right to repair. the federal trade committee --

federal trade commission unanimously announced they would ramp up enforcement against repair restrictions. thousand allowed by major companies by voluntarily announcing to agree their policies will change on repairs. voluntarily they said we will do it. for example, apple and microsoft are changing the policies so that folks will be able to repair their phones and laptops themselves. although i am not sure i know how to do that. when i have any problem with my phone, i call my daughter. it will make it easier for millions of americans to repair their electronics. instead of repairing -- paying an arm and a leg to repair it or throw the device out. hearing aids. 48 million people suffer from hearing loss in america. to get a hearing aid, full set to see a specialist and get a

prescription. then they pay thousands of dollars for a pair of hearing aids. the big part is that one in five people who could benefit from a hearing aid actually use one. i competition executive order changes that. the food and drug ministration proposed a new rule that make it possible for hearing aids to be sold over-the-counter without a prescription. we expect this will lower costs for hearing aids from thousands of dollars to hundreds of dollars. saving people hundreds and hundreds of dollars. people can pick them up at a local pharmacy, saving time and money. helping tens of millions of people with hearing loss who do not have hearing aids now. third area, mergers. into many industries, big companies can use their power to squeeze out smaller competitors.

raise prices. reduce the choice for customers and exploit their workers. i have set it before, capitalism is about competition. competent without competent -- without competition it is not capitalism. it is expectation. it includes challenging or blocking mergers that are bad for the economy. the department of justice just took action to block a merger that would've resulted into brokerages owning the insurance industry. the line, this isn't just about quick wins. it's about reversing decades of concentration that hurt workers, consumers, and small businesses. it isn't happening at one time. it has been over a. of time now.

in the coming weeks and months, america will expect to see more protections for farmers and ranchers. more options and better prices for consumers. more clarity in the actual price you pay for high-speed internet services and airline tickets. we are also going to keep pushing on other priorities for my executive order. addressing the noncompete clauses that affect one in five workers. one in five workers have to sign a noncompete clause. it stunned me that that is how this came about. this competitive counsel. when i realized how many people out there with no special insight to having access to patents or anything else had to sign a noncompete clause. people making hourly wages. all designed to keep prices down -- keep wages down and prices

up. one in five workers gave the power to the company over their careers. the bottom line is our economy should not be about people working for capitalism, it should be about capitalism working for the people. for everyone. i would turn us over to brian's we can the meeting started. thank each and everyone of you on as counsel. we decided to do this counsel, some of you thought it was a good idea. i'd be surprised if some of you did and go, whoa i did not know how much this was rejecting. how restrict some of this was. you'll make a distance in order -- difference in ordinary people's lives. brian, the floor is yours.

pres. biden: this is really important item. a very good meeting. we will talk about it later. and you. -- thank you. [indiscernible] >> the inspector general

testified on challenges in the coming year. including pandemic relief programs, staffing and relief programs, and detecting fraud. watches testimony tonight at 945 p.m. eastern on c-span. online at c-span.org. or find full coverage on a video app, c-span now. >> delaware governor john carney talked about efforts about the coronavirus pandemic. [applause]