to be wasted effort. children play a role in both the protection of the disease and the spread of the disease. it's not cookie-cutter followed. >> senator, i must have been misunderstood. when i was talking about differences, i was thinking of the difference between an elementary school, a high school, a college, in terms of -- a trade school. there may be differences in how you integrate a testing strategy. i do think having a testing strategy with different options for people to evaluate based on different principles will be important in terms of guidance. >> dr. fauci, you persuasively argue that the risk of reopening prematurely is great. but i think the frustration, of children in particular, the risk and ratio of a child being at

home, potentially away from enhanced nutrition, without the parent able to work because school-provided day care, without the monitoring that sometimes occurs for instances such as child abuse, but perhaps most importantly, for all children, the opportunity cost of a brain which is forming not having access to the information that would help that brain form optimally. has there been any sort of risk-benefit ratio for the child? yes, they are at risk for kawasaki's, but at particular risk of missing out on the year of education, particularly those from less than rich backgrounds. i'm very concerned about that. what are your concerns on that? >> you make a very good point, senator cassidy. the unintended consequences of trying to do something that broadly is important to the public health, and the risk of having a return or a resurgence of an outbreak, and the other

deleterious consequences of having children out of school. we surely appreciate that. i don't have an easy answer for that, i just don't. we will have to see on a step-by-step basis as we get into the period of time, reopening the schools, exactly where will be in the outbreak. something that's been alluded to throughout some of the questions, we have a very large country and the dynamics of the outbreak are different in different regions of the country. so, i would imagine that situations regarding school will be very different and one reason versus another. so it's not going to be universally homogenous. i don't have a good solution when you close schools, and it triggers a cascade of events. >> mr. chairman, i would close by asking the permission of the chair sue to submit it for the record, an article that just came out in the journal of

pediatric nursing, that children are at risk for covid-19. >> it will be included. thank you, senator cassidy. senator warren? >> thank you, mr. -- thank you, mr. chairman, and think you two are witnesses for being here today i hope everybody is staying safe and healthy. in the past 16 weeks, over 1.3 million americans have been infected with coronavirus. we now know that about 80,000 -- 33 million people out of work. dr. fauci, you have advised six presidents. you have battled -- i would just like to hear your honest -- >> senator, thanks for the question. if you think we have it completely under control, we

don't. if you look at the dynamics of the outbreak, we are seeing hospitalizations and infections in some places, such an new york city, which has plateaued and starting to come down. new orleans. in other parts of the country we are seeing spikes. when you look at the dynamics of new cases, even though some are coming down, the curve looks flat with some slight coming down. so, i think we're going in the right direction. but the right direction does not mean we have, by any means, total control of this outbreak. >> as i understand it, we have about 25,000 new infections a day, and over 2,000 deaths. i think those are the right numbers. some are estimating we could be at 200,000 new patients a day y june. is that right, dr. fauci? >> i don't foresee that is 200,000 new cases by june.

i am hoping and looking at the dynamics of things starting to flatten off and come down, that we will be much, much better than that, senator. >> just so i understand, we are, right now, at 2,000 new infections a day, and 25,000 new infections a day, and 2,000 new deaths a day. that's where we are right now. so let me just ask, we know that it's possible to get this virus under better control. other countries have done it, like south korea. but we are now three months into this pandemic, and basically we've continued to set records for the number of people who are diagnosed and the number of people who died. dr. fauci, you recently said the second wave of coronavirus is "inevitable." but that if america "puts in place all the countermeasures you need to address this, we

should do reasonably well." and the countermeasures you identified were things like continued social distancing, significantly more testing, widespread contact tracing. he also said that if america doesn't do what it takes -- and this is your quote -- would be "in for a bad fall into bad winter." right now we are about 16 weeks away from labor day. that's about the same length of time since the virus was first detected here in the u.s. don't you have enough robust countermeasures in place that we don't have to worry about a bad fall and winter? >> right now the projection, as you've heard from the admiral with regard to testing and other elements that are needed to respond, the projection is but by the time we get the end of the summer and early fall, that we will have that in place. >> we don't have it in place

now. but we are projecting it'll happen. let me just ask, the other side of this. if we don't do better on testing, on contact tracing, and on social distancing, with will from coronavirus necessarily increase? >> of course. if you do not do an adequate response, we will have the deleterious consequence of more infections and more deaths. that's -- you quoted me, senator, quite correctly. everything you said. i will stand by that. because, if we do not respond in an adequate way, when the fall comes, without a doubt there will be infections that will be in the community. and we run the risk of having a resurgence. i would hope that by that point in time, in the fall, that we have more than enough to respond adequately. if we don't, there will be no

problem. >> i hope we can assure the people that the federal government has this under control, but we can't. the virus is not under control in the u.s. we haven't yet taken the measures necessary to prevent the second wave of deaths. we all know that people are going to be affected. see news essential workers, the people were out on the front lines. the president needs to stop pretending that if he just endorses that news it'll go away. it won't. the time is over. president trump must acknowledge that the federal response has been insufficient and that more people are dying as a result. we are running out of time to save lives, and we need to act now. thank you, dr. fauci, for all you're doing. the urgency of the moment is not

there. thank you. >> thank you, senator warren. senator roberts? >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. thanks for all the witnesses. you all are like the fab 4. i guess it was the fab 5 back in the day, but you're shining the light of truth in the darkness, the individual flashlights, for sure. thank you, mr. chairman, that the life or emphasizing we have to be bipartisan in our approach if we are going to get anywhere. that's obviously in the eyes of the boulder. we have a great relationship with governor kelly, who happens to be -- her emergency management system is spot on. this morning i talked to josh

and reading here -- you see this mirror behind may come of that is a stage coach coming into dodge as opposed to getting out of dodge. that city is my hometown. the hot spot in regards to kansas, mainly because of two packing plants. we have 26% of the cattle. at any rate, kansas is going through tough time. we shouldn't be worried about the safety of the food supply chain. nationwide, it's under a great deal of stress. we see that in derry, in poultry, in pork. they are euthanizing pigs. the department of agriculture has stepped up, so the preside president. declaring these packing plants are a national asset.

with progress, and dodge city, when we first started out, had five tests. that's between 4 and 6, five. not 50 million as we hoped to receive, as has been said by one of the witnesses. the reason i am really harping on all of the problems we are having in agriculture, on top of the fact that the relationship with china is such that even the first breakthrough with regard to trade to china seems to be on hold now. this is going on five or six years, where prices have been below the cost of production. in result, or consumers are figuring out that food doesn't come from grocery stores. i'm very worried that the harm to the value chain is very real, not to mention the financial situation that our farmers, ranchers, and growers all face. having said all that, i want to ask.

admiral giroir, he talked about the kinds of tests that are available. the five packing plants we have in kansas, if we could get a rapid test and we could get it as we boldly ask for because of the hot spots that are developing, not only in kansas but also doing great harm for the food chain, that would be absolutely wonderful. would you speak to that, sir? >> yes. thank you, senator. both dr. redfield and i have been very actively involved in getting strategy for the industry, particularly in kans kansas. we are supplying very heavily the public health labs with rapid diagnostics, as well as surging them to areas like that. the one trade-off is the "rapid" point-of-care diagnostics are very slow. each machine could only do four

per hour, and that's very, very slow. it is a mix of testing that you need in these kinds of situations, on sort of the tests that are available at a major lab, a quest lab right there in kansas, as well as a mix of the rapid testing. that's what we are supplying in order to provide a comprehensive, holistic solution. i believe cdc is on the ground as well in kansas, supporting that. >> i appreciate that. if you're only doing 4 an hour, that's not a rapid test. maybe it's a rapid slow test, i'm not sure how you define th that. as we reopen -- and, by the way, governor kelly start of the opening process the first of this month, may 18th, then we go to june. but we do have contingency pla plans. as aptly described by dr. fauci,

i think we'll be all right. but this is going to be a tough go. i have to tell you, in terms of agriculture, we are not in good shape. i appreciate everybody in the job that you are doing. we will stand beside you when you are taking the boos and beside you when you are taking the bows. >> thank you, senator roberts. senator kaine? >> thank you to the chair, community leadership. the time that dr. fauci and dr. hahn were before it was march 3rd, i have a slide that i want to show what's happened in america since then. the chart, which is here, compares the experience of the united states and south korea on three days. january 21st, both nations experience their first case of covid-19. that that time the on employment rates in both countries were essentially identical. on march 3rd, when the witnesses were last here, south korea had experienced 28 covid-19 deaths,

and the u.s. had experienced 9. again, the economies of both nations is measured by the end employment rates were a newly identical. now the story changes. as of yesterday, more than a 1,000 americans have died, and the u.s. economy has experienced job losses not seen since the great depression. meanwhile, the economy of south korea has not changed dramatically at all. the death toll is not 256. south korea is smaller than the united states, 16 of our population, but even if you bulk up the death toll to reflect the difference, the per capita death toll in the u.s. is more than 45 times the rate and south korea. this is causing a new depression while south korea has projected its economy by managing correctly. i could have done this chart with other nations, the u.s. has the seventh highest per capita death rate the world. our death rate is off the charts higher than that of india, australia, new zealand, japan, and mexico. it's nearly three times the death rate in germany, twice as

high as canada's rate. the question is, why? if we want to open up our economy and schools, do have to learn the lessons of nations who have managed this well? here are things that don't expend the difference. our hospitals are as good or better than those in south korea. our health care providers, heroes, are as good or better than those in south korea. our research capacity is as good or better than that of south korea. and we have more resources than south korea. our gdp is 12 times south korea's, and our per capita income is 60% higher. so come to dr. fauci, the death rate in the united states, especially when compared with other nations, is unacceptable, isn't it? >> excuse me, sorry, sir. yes, of course. a death rate that high is something that, in any manner or form, in my mind, is on except it will.

>> dr. fauci, the experience of other nations chose the u.s. death rate is not only unacceptable, but it's unnecessary. isn't that correct? >> i don't know if we can say that, senator. >> but would you say the u.s. has to do better? >> of course. you always have to do better. >> and the experience of south korea shows how a nation manages the health care crisis has a huge impact also on its economic condition. isn't that the case? >> that is the case, sir. i understand where you're going with this, but i have to tell you, is a big difference between south korea and the united states in terms of the outbreak. >> and let me get to that. i want to get two factors that do explain the difference. it's not resources or health providers. first, testing. south korea began aggressive testing measures in the u.s. now in the fifth month of the pandemic we surpassed south korea in per capita

testing. but in march south korea was testing its population at a rate of 40 times the testing in the u.s. admiral giroir, dr. giroir, has set out the standard for us. when we get to september, he says the united states needs 40-50000000 tests a month to be safe. that equates to about 1.3 million-1.7 million per day. yesterday we did 395,000 tests. we got a long way to go. a second factor is contact tracing. south korea embraced a rigorous contact tracing program right from the beginning. the united states still has not engaged in a national contact tracing program. isn't that right? would that be dr. fauci or dr. redfield? >> i think that question would best be directed to the cdc, not the nih. >> when the outbreak started, sir, we had an aggressive

contact tracing program. unfortunately, as the case grows, it went beyond the capacity of mitigation. so, we lost the containment edge clearly -- >> and that was key to the economy, as well. south korea did a testing, and contact tracing, protect, serve, isolate the sick. they didn't have to do shut down, which protected their economy. finally, the last one, health care systems. would you agree with me that it helps keep people safe from serious conditions or death through covid-19 if they have access to health care? >> yes, of course. of course, that's the case. >> and south korea, 97% of the population has health insurance. the united states, before covid-19, millions didn't have it and lacked access to health care. demands of job losses in the past months threatened to take health insurance away from millions more. and president trump is doing all he can to dismantle the

affordable care act, which would take health insurance away from tens of millions more. let's lay in the lessons from those who are doing this right. thank you, mr. chair. i yield back. >> can i make a clarification please, mr. chairman? this is brett giroir. i just want to clarify that i did project that we have the ability to perform 40-50000000 tests in that time frame. if needed, at that time. i'm not making a proclamation. we have to understand where the epidemic is, with the community spread is, before we can estimate the number of tests that are needed. i was simply stating the fact that our combination of testing capabilities will be at that level, even barring new input from the nih. >> thank you very much, senator kaine. >> thank you, mr. chairman. gentlemen, thank you for being here this morning virtually but also for all you have been doing

for these many, many months. doing okay right now, from a number's perspective. quite honestly, we want to keep it that way. because we know we have exceptionally vulnerable populations. we know we have a geography that is challenging. we know we have facilities that are very limited. last hearing, we had an opportunity to hear from dr. collins, and he shared where they are with a red x and spoke to red x up, which is interesting about what we can be doing in rural areas. by focusing on hot spots. as i reminded him, we don't want to be a hot spot in alaska. every effort that we have made to keep the virus out of alaska is lives that are saved. i educated him on the community of cordova, that is getting ready to open its fishery in two days. and was able to share that they

had one worker testing positive, as he was coming in from the lower 48 to come to work. the good news on that is that all the protocols we have put in place seem to be working. the quarantine, the isolation, they're not only for that individual but for others he had come in contact, were secured. i want to recognize the assistance that we have received from the administration. dr. eastman is in the state at this moment, the chief medical officer for the parent of homeland security, going out to rural communities, to really better understand our vulnerability. going to our fishing communities to, again, understand how we can successfully prosecute a fishery when you have to bring in workers from the outside. we thank you for the assistance with regard to additional testing capacity. i've been in contact with our chief medical officer, and the

mayor of cordova, to better understand what we need on the ground. what are the things that i would like to have clarified? and this is probably to you, dr. giroir, because you've been so helpful and kind of shining the light on what we need to be doing in these rural areas. so much of the focus has been on hot spots, and responding to the hot spots. but how do you keep those rural, remote, small communities from becoming hot spots in the first place? are we doing enough? right now the strategy has been that we just walk it off. the travel restrictions that are in place are apparently working, but they are also devastating our economy. whether it's tourism, whether it's our resource industries, or whether it's the potential for

our fisheries. admiral, if you might speak to that aspect of it, and i have a very important question as it relates to contact tracing that i would like to directed to either admiral giroir or dr. redfield. >> thank you, senator. as you know, you have an outstanding state health officer. >> we do. >> i've had the privilege of working with her, and you have a very good protocol in trying to keep alaska safe, by isolation over a period of time, when you come in. as you know, we also work with the state to meet you are very challenging testing requirements, because you can't really send labs out a thousand miles away. we put a real customized mix of point-of-care and also the machines. i think we sent nine or ten new to alaska and about 50,000 tests, which is about four times

and you've done to date collectively in order to provide that support. again, i do think there is a conference of strategy that you do have. again, the mitigation is to the degree that you can, given the circumstances, the face masks, the hand washing, the hygiene. we understand fully the challenges, particularly in the fishing environment and the remote. all of these have to come together. the testing, the tracing, the mitigation, the hygiene factors, to try and keep your community safe. we really understand, culturally, that many of your communities were almost annihilated in the 1918 influenza pandemic. that memory is still very sharp and very hurtful to many of the citizens, so we want to do our best to assure them that we're giving them all the protections we can. >> admiral, let me turn to dr. redfield, because this relates to contact tracing. i think -- and this is a very

key part of how we move forward into getting people back to work, getting people back to school. right now we have about a hundred people who are involved in contact tracing in alaska, and that is clearly not sufficient. there has been talk about a national strategy, but i think we recognize that we have teams in place, whether it's americorps, peace corps, whether it's our public health core. what more do we need to be doing to make sure that once even tested positive, you know then what happens after that? who else needs to be brought in come into this? i'm not convinced we are focusing enough on that aspect of how we moved to reopening. we haven't done the contact tracing. >> thank you very much, senator. i want to reemphasize what you said. i think contact tracing capabilities are critical. it's going to be the difference from succeeding in containing

this outbreak from causing widescale community transmission or not. we are positioned, as you know, to deploy, redeploy, the number of cdc -- over 500 cdc individuals. we have a number, about 650, we are trying to put through. mostly we are trying to work with your health department. the resources we've been able to give, because of congress. these other agencies, with labcorp -- i mean come americorps, the census bureau, to work together and have the state develop their capacity. some states have re-abdicated sewer, national guard, while they begin to do this. i agree with you, it's going to be a significant effort to build the contact tracing capacity that we need in this nation.

it'll be state-by-state, but it's going need to be augmented. in your state, from what you just said, 5-10 fold. we are there to work with the states to help them accomplish. that needs to get in place before september. >> we need to move onto th the t question. >> thank you. >> thank you, senator murkowski. i don't want to put any senator off, but we have eight more senators who have five-minute rounds, and it's 12:30. so i would like to request that the senators and the witnesses 'assistant questions and try to stay within 5 minutes. we appreciate it. senator? >> thank you, mr. chair. thank you and the ranking question dominic senator for having this hearing, and thank you to our witnesses today. please pass our thanks to the hard women and men in your agencies who i know who have been working virtually around-the-clock to try to

improve our response and keep americans safe. mr. chair, i hope you and all the witnesses are healthy and safe today, as is everybody on your team. i want to just start by echoing the comments my colleagues have made about needing leadership from the cdc and our public health experts. >> melissa: this is senator hassan right now. you are watching the first ever senate hearing with witnesses and chairman appearing remotely due to the coronavirus outbreak. we are going to take a quick break and bring you right back in a moment. with va mortgage rates suddenly

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nursing homes that i thought were incredibly helpful, coming from dr. fauci. he was talking about the idea that you need to make sure the staff isn't coming back in and introducing the virus. we have to test the staff. he was talking about separating out patients who have the coronavirus, so it doesn't spread throughout the nursing home. things that sound obvious, but not what we did here in new york. as a result, there is a big scandal going on, about 5200 deaths so far and climbing in nursing homes in the state of new york only because people were sent back to nursing homes who have the coronavirus. talk to us a little bit about the guidelines he set out and what nursing homes around the country should be doing. >> that's right, melissa. this is one of the crucial topics of importance that they really have been mentioning a lot during this hearing right now. they were talking about how even outside of the new york city area, over half the deaths have been a nursing home-related-type

situations. moving forward, what are we going to do to protect those vulnerable populations? that is one thing we have collected all this data on. we now know some things about this novel coronavirus, and those in nursing homes. the elderly and those with chronic conditions are extremely vulnerable to severe outcomes and even death. moving forward, dr. fauci continues to say that we need to have the ability and capability to not only test, but trace individual contacts for new cases, as well as widespread surveillance. when you're talking about nursing homes, that means they need to make sure they have the stockpile of ppe. they are going to have to also increase their nurse to patient ratio. you've seen that the care across the united states at many of these sites are subpar, with many nurses traveling -- it's like a one: 20 ratio. that's not good enough, melissa. it'll be increased ppe, probably some sort of routine testing to make sure that they are not new cases coming into the centers.

it's probably still so hooked on my very severe restrictions on visitors. hopefully count the mic we can figure out a way for families to see their loved ones, but wish to make sure they doing it in a very smart manner. some more conversations during this hearing have been on the possibility of a vaccine. dr. fauci has been very helpful and he is cautiously optimistic that they will be at least a single contender that may be showing effectiveness by late summer, early fall, early winter. whether or not it's going to be available to the public until winter, we don't know. but he does seem to be cautiously optimistic. i will say that i've really been actually impressed by the tone of this hearing. yes, you heard from senators warren and sanders a little bit, trying to bring in some of those partisan politics, but i think the tone has been concern for the overall nation, looking forward. how are we going to see if the open? they are talking about making sure our kids can go back to school, while also taking into consideration that we are starting to see the inflammatory

reactions, some of these kids. at the same time acknowledging how detrimental it is to the economy and also our children's well-being, not being in school. they are really looking at this from multifaceted approach, and i've been quite impressed. >> harris: senator tim scott from south carolina, who is speaking. we are going to go watch him together, everybody. we'll come back out to our analysis. senator scott right now. >> to address the most serious cases when they arise. now, with these tools in hand, we have begun to reopen. to be clear, we continue to scale up testing and to take measures to protect the most vulnerable. the data points are increasingly clear. for older americans and for those with chronic conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure, this virus remains a threat. a dangerous threat. a recent report suggests that in new york roughly 90% of the

fatalities had underlying issues, two-thirds of the fatalities were 70 years or older, 95% over the age of 50. in south carolina, the median age of patients who died from the virus, 76.5. nearly two-thirds of fatalities have been patients older than 71, and nearly 90% were over the age of 60. roughly 98% in south carolina are older than the age of 50. contrast that with those aged 20 and younger, where we have seen no deaths, fewer than 1% of deaths in my state have been under the age of 40. every single death is a tragedy. every single one. and we mourn with our family members who have lost their loved ones. we are taking every measure to protect our older south carolinians as well as those with underlying conditions.

when we set out to flatten the curve by taking aggressive, unprecedented measures, like staying at home orders, and mass small business closures, we didn't set out with the goal of preventing 100% of fatalities. that would be unrealistic. it is impossible. and we didn't set out to keep quarantines in place until we found a safe and effective vaccine. that would take too long. dr. redfield, your agency put out a helpful graphic showing two curves. one which spikes quickly and piques high, reflects without protective measures. the other, the flatter curve, shows with measures in place. and the whole point which the graphic illustrator was to make sure we did not exceed hospital capacity. so, while i respect the need for caution, we are too often presented with a false

dichotomy. either saving our economy, or saving lives. we've seen the goalpost around flatten the curve move, and i think that's unfortunate. at the same time we are doing that, businesses have collapsed. mental and physical health have declined. death and despair escalates, education outcomes nosedive, as we wait in their living rooms, praying for some good news around therapies and around vaccines. we have set out to flatten the curve and i think we've done a pretty good job of that. we need to do better, and we will do better. my question, dr. fauci, is if we start the process of moving towards reopening south carolina, what else would you suggest that we could do to protect our most vulnerable populations? >> thank you, senator scott. you gave a really very eloquent description of what i think

would be a model way you approach this. i mean, you have put things in place that i think would optimize your capability of reopening, and as i was thinking, as you were speaking, i almost want to clone that and make sure other people hear about that and see what you've been doing. the issue of you are a direct question to me about the vulnerable populations is that, as we have said in our guidelines, and it looks like you were ready to progress carefully because you put into place a very good system. that the vulnerable, the elderly and those with underlying conditions, should be those who, at the very last lifting of medications, should be those who are left in a situation where they might be in danger of getting infected. in other words, protect them right up until the very end of the relaxation of your medication. because, as you said very correctly, those are the individuals that are the most

vulnerable to the morbidity and mortality. those individuals, particularly, i might say, sir, those in the minority groups, the african-americans and hispanics, who, for a variety of situations that are social determinants of health, have a greater likelihood of not only getting infected bit of also having the underlying conditions that would make their risk for a high degree of morbidity and mortality higher. it looks as if you're doing things very, very well, and i would encourage you to continue and to follow the guidelines as you get closer to normalizing your state. thank you. >> thank you, dr. fauci. i will close with this. thank you for the many conversations that you and i have had about those vulnerable populations, to include minorities as well as our senior citizens. i will say that, without any question, new look at nursing homes, typically african-americans and hispanics are the certified nursing assistants who provide and care for the elderly populations. your focus on those two very

vulnerable groups is much appreciated. thank you for your expertise. >> thank you, senator scott. senator smith? >> thank you so much, chair alexander and ranking member mary. thanks to all of you for being here today and your service. dr. fauci, i have to say you are in the unenviable position of being the person that so many americans and minnesotan for us to trust to give us the straight scoop and tell us what's really happening. you're about the facts and not about politics, and that's a really good thing. i have to start by asking a question i think a lot of americans want to know, which is how are you doing? how are you holding up? you've put up an unbelievable effort. >> i'm doing fine, senator. thank you very much for asking. this is such an important problem. it transcends all of us individually, and working as a team. i enjoyed very much working with senators and governors, because

it's at the local level we are going to make this thing work. i'm fine, i appreciate your concern. >> a lot of people i thinking about you, and we are grateful for your service, as we are for all of you. we are gathered here to think about what we need to do to reopen our economy, and i think first about what's happening in my home state of minnesota where agriculture is such an important part of how our state works. it's part of our country. pork processes right now are looking at the reality of euthanizing thousands of hogs a day because there is no place to process them, because of what's happening in the processing plants. the people who do the hard work and those processing plants are getting sick. so, here's one story, this is one worker. the "star tribune" wrote about this. she is in asylum-seekers and a mom who works for a contractor that does the cleaning at the processing plant. she works for $14 an hour, seven

hours a day, five days a week, and her job is to sanitize the machines that process the meat into ground meat. she started feeling sick on april 11th, but she kept going to work. on april 21st, when one of her coworkers fainted as she told her supervisor she felt sick, she was told to go home. but that if she didn't show any signs of illness, she should come back. she went to the doctor, and she paid $115 to get a test and found out a few days later that she was covid positive. she is still at home, she is not getting paid, and she doesn't have health insurance. nearly two weeks ago, president trump deployed the defense production act to keep these processing plants open. but the usda gave really limited guidance about what would be safe for those workers. its side, for example, in

response to testing, which has been a big part of what we've talked about today, they said, to quote, "facilities should consider the appropriate role of testing and workplace contact tracing of covid-19-positive workers in a worksite and assessment." so, dr. fauci, as we think about how we move forward, we all want to open up the economy. what guidance would you give us in a situation like this here in minnesota? >> well, i can give you my common sense guidance, although this is not the area of my expertise. it's more in others', but it would seem that if you want to keep things like packing plants open, that you've really got to provide the optimum degree of protection for the workers involved. the ability to allow them to go to work safely, and if and when individuals get infected, to immediately be able to get them out and give them the proper

care. i would think when you're calling upon people to form essential services, you really have almost a moral responsibility to make sure they are well taken care of and well protected. again, that is not an official proclamation. that's just me speaking as a physician and as a human being. >> thank you, dr. fauci. and i think that you speak as a human being but you also speak as the chief epidemiologist of our country, and the person we all trust. this is the point that i want to make and drive home with everybody, which is this is the kind of guidance that we should be getting in following, and these are the tools that we have got to have in our country we are going to reopen our economy as we all want to do. if we move forward with reopening our economy, and yet we still have circumstances like we had in these processing plants and in other places around the state, we are going to be right back where we

started, except even in a worse place, as i think you pointed out, dr. fauci. >> thank you, senator. again, it really does relate to one of the questions that one of your colleagues asked me before. that one of the things i keep emphasizing -- and i will just repeat it again, because it's important -- when you are in the process of opening up and pulling back on mitigation, you really must have in place the capability of responding, when you do have these inevitable upticks in cases. that will absolutely occur. it's how we deal with it and how successful we are inputting the clamps on it that will prevent us from getting the kind of rebound. not only from the standpoint of illness and death, something that's unacceptable. but it will set us back in our progress toward reopening the country. >> thank you very much, senator smith. senator romney?

>> this hearing and the participants in it, admiral giroir, i will take off where senator hassan spoke. i understand the politicians are going to frame data in a way that is most positive politically. of course, i would expect that from admirals. yesterday you celebrated that we had done more tests and more tests per capita, even, than south korea. but you ignored the fact that they accomplished there is at the beginning of the outbreak, while we treaded water during february and march. and, as a result, by march 6th the u.s. had completed just 2,000 tests whereas south korea had conducted more than 140,000 tests. so come partially as a result of that, they have 256 deaths and we have almost 80,000 deaths. i find our testing record nothing to celebrate whatsoever. the fact is they are test numbers are going down, down, down now, because they don't have the kind of outbreak we have. i was going up and up. i think that's an important lesson for us as we think about

the future. on a separate topic, my impression is that, with regards to vaccines, where i'm critical of what we have done testing, we done a pretty darn good job of moving ahead pretty aggressively. and yet the president said the other day that president obama is responsible for our lack of a vaccine. dr. fauci, is president obama or, by extension, president trump, did they do something that made the likelihood of creating a vaccine less likely? are either president trump or obama responsible for the fact that we don't have a vaccine now, or in delaying it in some way? >> no, senator. not at all. certainly president obama nor president trump are responsible for our not having a vaccine. we moved, as you said -- because i described it in my opening statement -- rather rapidly. no one has ever gone from knowing what the virus was to a phase 1 as fast as we've done. so, i don't think that is

something that, once you say anybody is responsible for doing anything wrong on that. i think that's right. that's the correct way to do it. >> thank you pray that was my impression. i was surprised by the comment, but that was my impression. dr. redfield, senator sinema and i wrote a letter to you expressing our dismay at the last of real-time data at the cdc. i'm talking about granular, demographic hospitalization, treatment data. how is it possible in this day and age that the cdc has never established such a real-time system, with accurate data? and what can congress do to rectify that, so we never have to look at something like this again? [silence] >> there we go, sorry. senator, thanks for the question. i think you've hit one of the -- [silence]

the first one i focus on is day-to-day modernization and analytics and predictive data analysis. clearly, congress has moved forward in providing funding for data modernization, and we are in the process of implementing that area the reality is there is an archaic system, a nonintegrated public health system. each public health department has their own systems. this nation needs a modern, highly-capable data analytics system that i could do predictive analysis. i think it's one of the many shortcomings that has been identified, as we went through this outbreak. i couldn't agree with you more, it's time to get that corrected. >> thank you. please help guide us as to what we need to do to make sure that happens. i presume it's not to build it ourselves, but work with companies that have that capacity use that capacity in our favor.

dr. fauci, one last thing which relates to the virus. i know i'm asking you the impossible question, but we are all hoping for a vaccine, obviously. it's the objective of our administration to get it as soon as they can. from what i can tell, they are pulling out all the stops to do exactly that. given our history with vaccine creation for other coronavirus coronaviruses, how likely is it? is it extremely likely we're going to get a vaccine within a year or two? is it just more likely than not? or is it kind of a long shot? >> it's definitely not a long shot, senator romney. i would think that it's more likely than not that we will. because this is a virus that induces an immune response, and people recovery. the overwhelming majority of people recover from this virus. although there is morbidity and mortality in certain operations, the very fact of the body is capable of spontaneously

clearing the virus tells me that at least from a conceptual standpoint we can stimulate the body with a vaccine that would induce a similar response. so, although there is no guarantee, i think it's clearly much more likely than not that somewhere within that time frame we will get a vaccine for this virus. >> thank you. mr. chairman, a yield. >> thank you, senator romney. i want to thank the witnesses for their patients. we have four more senators and would like to give them a chance ask their questions. senator jones? >> thank you very, very much, mr. chairman, and thanks to all our witnesses for your being here virtually and also for your incredible service during this time. i want to follow up quick with an additional statistic that senator romney talked about, with regard to south korea. that is the fact that we are a nation that has about six times the population of south korea, but yet we have about 310 times the number of deaths from this

pandemic. so, i think we have to be very careful in making comparisons around the world, comparing the united states to other countries. dr. redfield, i want to follow up just a little bit with what senator murkowski and i think senator kaine talked a little bit about, contact tracing and where we are going. i understand that you are working with states to try to develop plans for reopening. the testing is important, the contact tracing is important, but using that data as well is also going to be important in terms of the quarantine plans that senator murphy talked about. child care facilities to allow people to put their kids in a facility while they are still going back to work. all of those issues, including maybe even facilities like vacant hotels or motels that may be used for self-isolation. how is this plan being developed in the cdc? are these plans going to be individualized by state? will be, as a member of

congress, have access to these plans? how are states going to pay for these? i say that because my state is already using the money we've already given them as a wish list. they are talking about building a $200 million state house as opposed to developing the test and doing the contact tracing. i want to just drill down a little bit on how those plans are going to develop, what axis we will have of those plans, to be able to see them. >> thank you very much, senator. obviously, as i said before, this is a critical component of us taking this time to get prepared for next fall and winter, and building that conference of contact tracing capacity. we are working individually with the leadership of the state health departments, the local health departments, territorial and tribal, to try and let them get us to understand what they

think their capacity needs are. those discussions have already happened. as admiral giroir said, they spent a variety of federal agencies together testing and contact tracing. cdc is in a position that we reprogrammed are individuals that we have across the country, to begin to help each of these states. with some additional personnel that we are bringing on board, state by state, through our foundation. about $106 billion of the money that congress has appropriated has been put into the state so they can begin to start thinking about how they want to hire for long-term contact tracing capability. then, of course, it was mentioned that we were pull other programs like americorps and peace corps. so each group is going to construct their contract, contact tracing piece to what they think their needs are. i do think it will be similar to

what we heard from the senator from south carolina. these are significant increases. he said he increased 20 fold. they are going to increase again. the point you brought up is also critically important, and we found that as we already struggled through the repatriation of different americans from around the country. where we had to put many of these in quarantine, as you know, at these military bases. because many of the state and local health departments have developed that system. where do they put somebody who needs to be in isolation, who is homeless? how do you develop those systems? so, this has to be part of it, too. is there a certain capacity that is intrinsic? the hotels, as you mentioned? at the point that was made by one of the other senators is so important, about individuals, particularly like, say, the meat packing individual that has to go home and self isolate. maybe they don't have the ability to go home and self isolate, because they live in a multigenerational household with about 12 other people.

there has to be mechanisms brought in that have an effective way to identify cases and do the appropriate public health measure. these have to be comprehensive. it's going to be developed one jurisdiction at a time. i see no reason why these are not transparent documents, as they get completed. it really is a tribute to the congressional support that's been given so far. as i said, $1.6 billion to do this. in addition to the resources that we've gotten. it is fundamental. people underestimate how important it is that we have a highly functional, comprehensive, aggressive contact tracing program so that we don't have to switch to mitigation. >> thank you, dr. redfield. i appreciate it. it sounds to me like we've still got a lot of work to do, so thank you. >> thank you very much,

senator jones. senator? >> thank you, chairman. there's been so much discussion about testing in general. listening to senator romney earlier, and senator kaine mentioned it. everybody has. dr. hahn, if you remember when we first met, i said, "as the fda going to be more entrepreneurial? is fda going to not be as stodgy?" talking then about how we fix the health care system in general. now this has brought it into clear focus. i've got a timeline that i'm going to submit for the record that shows from january 24th through march 5th. i want to emphasize what senator burr asked earlier, had the administration ever put an impediment in front of trying to get to testing. dr. hahn, this will end up in a question in a moment.